Expansion Feature Wsihlist

**Colovion** · 02-08-2005, 20:48

Individual Moral Status

I know this is something that would be really hard to impliment. Essentially it would be made so that each soldier has a moral of their very own, ikmpacted by their experience/kills and other influences such as the General etc.. If one unit gets impaled by a pike right next to him, that has an impact; more on green troops and less on seasoned veterans. This would be a great idea because when one side of a unit gets crushed, usually the entire unit puts down their swords and stops fighting; with this feature it would make it possible for small pockets of soldiers to hold out longer and make that "heroic last stand" or something. I've had it where there was a unit of 120 men charging at me and my cavalry and hastati charge at that unit, kill about 20 of the enemy and suddenly the other hundred don't want to fight anymore and get ground up like so many coffee beans. It would be awesome to have a battle going on and see a couple guys running away slowly off the back of the army, get your General to come around and blow his horn and get those men back into the battle. At the moment it's as if the average man in the unit wants to run then the rest of them dont' get a say - they're just all going to die because once they start running away they're gone.

**Chelifer** · 02-08-2005, 23:58

"Auto-pilot battles" (not auto-resolve ones)

Could be fun to watch AI vs AI

**SwordsMaster** · 02-09-2005, 00:05

I wish units gained morale with distance travelled. Firstly, crossing 5000miles on foot, is a tough test, and you get hardier want it or not. Secondly such a long trip makes for stronger bonds between soldiers so they fight more united and protect each other more. Or something.

And it is really easy to implement IMHO.

**sassbarman** · 02-09-2005, 01:36

I would like to see archers handled differently. As it stands now they are just way to powerful. Watching archers simply annhilate advancing heavy infantry with sheilds at such ridiculous rates suspends my belief that I'm watching a real battle, to the point where it almost ruins the expierence.

I suggest that instead of archers simply killing or missing units, they should do what in real life they actually did, which was to break up enemy formations lower moral and yes kill some enemy troops. I think it would be much more realistic and intersting to have advancing units hunker down behind their shields in fear, resisting orders to advance when arrow fire became too intense, rather than just wholesale slaughter. Of coarse better quality troops would advance more steadily and be less inclined to ignore orders.

Just some thoughts on how archers are handled presently, I think ca could make some major improvements in this very important aspect of the game. What do you guys think?

**Byzantine Prince** · 02-09-2005, 02:09

Wow dude you joined in 2001 and you only have like 81 posts?!?! That's amazing.

Anyways though you're right archers are a little too powerful. Just get RTR though. It makes them a lot weaker somehow. It's weird since their attack is almost the same.

**_Aetius_** · 02-09-2005, 02:16

Individual Moral Status

I know this is something that would be really hard to impliment. Essentially it would be made so that each soldier has a moral of their very own, ikmpacted by their experience/kills and other influences such as the General etc.. If one unit gets impaled by a pike right next to him, that has an impact; more on green troops and less on seasoned veterans. This would be a great idea because when one side of a unit gets crushed, usually the entire unit puts down their swords and stops fighting; with this feature it would make it possible for small pockets of soldiers to hold out longer and make that "heroic last stand" or something. I've had it where there was a unit of 120 men charging at me and my cavalry and hastati charge at that unit, kill about 20 of the enemy and suddenly the other hundred don't want to fight anymore and get ground up like so many coffee beans. It would be awesome to have a battle going on and see a couple guys running away slowly off the back of the army, get your General to come around and blow his horn and get those men back into the battle. At the moment it's as if the average man in the unit wants to run then the rest of them dont' get a say - they're just all going to die because once they start running away they're gone.

I think this is the kind of thing that we will see in the next generation of RTW style games, i just cant it happening soon, but it would drastically improve the realism of battle, however wouldnt it be over complicated for an already over complicated game? the main problem i think is that this would make it impossible to know the effectiveness of a unit, you can tell which unit of for example hoplites is experienced and more likely to stand in battle by the chevrons etc and that is all the 80 men in that unit who have say 3 bronze chevrons, if we had individual experience/morale etc, itd be impossible to determine the effectiveness of a unit as a whole. Therefore making it very hard to know if you can rely on them or if theyll do anygood.

Though i suppose that in itself is part of realistic warfare

**The Storyteller** · 02-09-2005, 02:42

I think upgrading existing pre Marian troops to their post Marian counterparts is a little too much. In reality, there was a lot of opposition to the Marian reforms. The Marian reforms came about because of a huge lack of manpower - the able bodied, propertied men are precisely the ones you want to have at home, plowing the fields and attending to their businesses. So Marius recruited from among the Head Count, the underprivileged and jobless, people from the lowest rank of society. Because of that, the Senate wanted nothing to do with these troops, and there were still many armies using the older style of troops for many years after. I think the game as it stands now portrays it more accurately - as soldiers in the old style armies serve out their time or are killed, the new style armies gradually replace them.

I believe the last great old style army assembled was for a battle at Arausio. The Romans lost miserably because of a lot of wrangling between the commander appointed by the Senate, and the guy who thought he ought to be commander... after that, there just weren't enough able bodied, propertied men left in Rome OR Italy to do much. (The Senate had to call on Marius, whom they loathed, to again assemble a Head Count army to avenge that defeat and stop the Germans invading Rome...)

I like the levy idea! That would mean that the Barbarian factions would have far mroe of a role playing feel to them, because you would have to train up your leaders and really watch their V&Vs...

I would like to see a more variable AI (when they get the basics sorted out). When I face an army lead by a "good defender", it should behave differently from one led by a "good attacker" (or a "social drinker", for that matter).

**Colovion** · 02-09-2005, 04:15

Originally Posted by _Aetius_

I think this is the kind of thing that we will see in the next generation of RTW style games, i just cant it happening soon, but it would drastically improve the realism of battle, however wouldnt it be over complicated for an already over complicated game? the main problem i think is that this would make it impossible to know the effectiveness of a unit, you can tell which unit of for example hoplites is experienced and more likely to stand in battle by the chevrons etc and that is all the 80 men in that unit who have say 3 bronze chevrons, if we had individual experience/morale etc, itd be impossible to determine the effectiveness of a unit as a whole. Therefore making it very hard to know if you can rely on them or if theyll do anygood.

Though i suppose that in itself is part of realistic warfare

I am pretty sure that the current way XP goes up for a unit depends on the average XP value for each soldier within the unit. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works. If they already have XP values for each man, why not just add a Moral feature for each unit? Doesn't really seem that difficult to me.

**fret** · 02-09-2005, 19:32

Originally Posted by Chelifer

"Auto-pilot battles" (not auto-resolve ones)

Could be fun to watch AI vs AI

Excellent idea!! Probably very easy to implement as well.

You can do this already to a certain extent. Take two armies into a battle, have one of them AI controlled, and just sit back and watch the action.

**Mikeus Caesar** · 02-09-2005, 19:38

Take two armies into a battle, have one of them AI controlled, and just sit back and watch the action.

That works, but it's not perfect. I find that without a bit of guidance, most armies that are yours which you leave to fight for themselves end up routing within a minute or so. Btw, can we get this stickied please? It could be a rather interesting opposite to the Bugs sticky.