Likes easy battles trait - what do you think?

[Chester]

I think all generals waged war thinking the odds were on their sides. Unless of course they were the ones under attack. But if you're taking charge in an attack, I doubt easy battles would reflect poorly on you. Victory is a victory I say!

Perhaps relpace the the "easy battles" trait with a "pyrrhic victor" trait if the general can't control casualties.

[Hildico]

If the "Likes easy battles" trait (perhaps if this thread keeps running we'll have to start calling it LEB to save time) is just a commentary, maybe it's name could be changed to something a bit more complimentary to the general in question. Maybe "Prefers the odds in his favour."

How many different levels of battle difficulty are there? Fighting slightly easy battles should maybe lead to some positive traits reflecting superior strategy and/or organisation whilst ridiculously easy odds should lead to negative traits. After all, if you arrive at the battlefield outnumbering your openent 2:1 you've outmanouvered him at a strategic level; if the odds are 200:1 you're paying too much for your army!

Perhaps relpace the the "easy battles" trait with a "pyrrhic victor" trait if the general can't control casualties.

A pyrrhic victory trait seems so obvious I'd imagine it's already in the mod (although I haven't seen it yet), going to be in the mod, or has been looked at and rejected for some reason as unimplementable. I would expect it be something along the lines of "Pyrrhic Victor: When this man fights, many die - and not just the enemy. So far he's been successful, but what price victory? +x command, -x morale." I know I'd be wary of following a man into battle, no matter how many times he'd won, if I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance I wouldn't be around for the victory parade!

[Conqueror]

I've got two problems with the traits. First one is that the Seleukids seem to like attacking my Baktrian field armies despite themselves being severely outnumbered. Just recently I had a fight with 3:1 favour in my hands, and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I actually ended up reloading back to the previous turn and change my army movement so that the battle wouldn't happen, thus preventing my general from getting a bad trait for it. When I'm the attacker, I can control things by leaving some of my units behind as reserves and attacking with only those ones that I need, fixing myself difficult (or at least even) odds. But when it's the AI attacking me, I can't do that; I'm forced to use all the units I have. I suggest that the chance for developing bad traits from fighting an easy battle be reduced in the case that battle was forced on you.

The second problem is with the outcome of the battles. I've seen too many battles where the enemy just turns tail and retreats off the map before the battle even begins. As they are not actually routing, I dare not send my cavalry after them (they would turn and fight back and overwhelm my cavalry, especially with so many spearmen) so I let them escape without a single casualty. But this results in what RTW deems a "close victory" which again has a bad effect on an EB general (if he was clearly victorious he probably won't be anymore after that "battle").

[Malrubius]

Neither of those events will have a negative effect on a general. In vanilla, losing battles would cause you to lose stars. But very few outcomes of battles will cause a permanent loss of command stars in EB. Fighting an easy battle just means you aren't likely to learn (earn command stars) from that battle. You could fight a battle next turn that is difficult, and even though you might still have the LEB trait, you could still earn command stars from that difficult battle. The LEB trait is just my attempt to show what behavior is more likely and less likely to earn stars.

It will probably be removed altogether in the next patch, since it's so confusing. I may replace it with some type of measurement of total battles fought, and/or a won/loss average.

[jebes]

Win/loss average or individual stats? That would be awesome. Hooray for Malrubius.

[Conqueror]

Now I just had a general drop from Even odds fighter to Likes easy battles after he won a 1:1 odds battle What's worse is that this particular general has never fought a single battle with favourable odds during his entire career. It was 224 BC and he was defender, the AI army was led by a captain.

EDIT: Here's screenshots showing the battle odds and the armies involved.

[King of the dutch]

I have troubl in general getting commandstars. Today i fought a battle against the iberiamn factionleader. He was good: maybe 8 or 9 stars. My general had 3. His forces amounted to 2871 and mine to about 2200. So i fight and win. (he was attacking me this time) And then... i get nothing! except for the LEB. and evenoddsfighter. i thought it was a bit weird. I'd rather do away wwith it and earn CS a little bit easier.

kotd

I will try to remeber to keep track of battles and traits and stuff

[zarkis]

If the "Likes easy battles" trait (perhaps if this thread keeps running we'll have to start calling it LEB to save time) is just a commentary, maybe it's name could be changed to something a bit more complimentary to the general in question. Maybe "Prefers the odds in his favour."

That's a good idea. I personally like the new system. Getting command stars should be more difficult, it makes for a more challenging gameplay and that's the overall goal of any mod, right? Why change the system again if the overall goal is the same? Maybe you could add a rare genetic trait like "born tactician", which helps some generals to become really outstanding (to please the crowd... )

[Malrubius]

Now I just had a general drop from Even odds fighter to Likes easy battles after he won a 1:1 odds battle What's worse is that this particular general has never fought a single battle with favourable odds during his entire career. It was 224 BC and he was defender, the AI army was led by a captain.

Don't worry, the patch removes it. You'll never see "Likes easy battles" again.

I'm trying to figure out another 'score-keeping' system that would be both accurate and reveal some useful information (as well as possible within the game engine), but I'm coming up short.

A won/loss ratio is impossible to calculate. I could list a general total of wins and losses, but there are other traits that do the same thing almost. (Victor, Famous Victor, Conquering Hero, etc., go up a bit with every victory). I might do something to list whether your general has won 2 battles in a row, 3, 4, and even 5. I don't have anything that will be in the next patch though.

I have troubl in general getting commandstars. Today i fought a battle against the iberiamn factionleader. He was good: maybe 8 or 9 stars. My general had 3. His forces amounted to 2871 and mine to about 2200. So i fight and win. (he was attacking me this time) And then... i get nothing! except for the LEB. and evenoddsfighter. i thought it was a bit weird. I'd rather do away wwith it and earn CS a little bit easier.

You can't have both "Likes Easy Battles" and "Even Odds Fighter" on the same general. They're different levels of the same trait.

The amount of command stars the enemy has has no direct effect on your general (it's impossible to determine within the game engine). What's important is what the odds were (on the scroll before the battle) and what your general's natural ability is. Some generals are going to have a very hard time getting command stars (especially Langorous ones!).

In vanilla, the game made it harder for the computer to get command stars, and easier for the player. We've reversed that to put things back in the AI's favor to give more challenge to the player.

[Mindblank]

I also have a problem with this trait, and I would like to argue that it is wrong to penalize a general because he is using all the resources available to give him victory. Remember, "we are not here to be fair, but to win". As it is now, I find myself splitting a marching army into smaller groups to handle small stacks on my way, just to avoid getting the trait. I will then re-merge my small stacks and move on. How realistic is this?

My general increased his own risks of losing, and suffered easily avoidable casulaties, in the name of what? Just so that he can prove his tactical genius? I don't think there are many examples of this in history. An army that fights against odds usually does it because it has no other option, and it is usually on the receiving end. The way EB is conceived, the player will choose low-odd offensive fights, which seems ahistorical.

And in my opinion, the argument that "a general who always fights with the odds on his side is not likely to learn anything" doesn't hold. You always learn from experience - it is just a matter of degree. A general who wins a hard battle should certainly learn a little more from that particular battle, and a little less from an easy one. But the learning from one battle should not adversely affect the learning from the other.

Just my thoughts.

[Malrubius]

I also have a problem with this trait, and I would like to argue that it is wrong to penalize a general because he is using all the resources available to give him victory. Remember, "we are not here to be fair, but to win". As it is now, I find myself splitting a marching army into smaller groups to handle small stacks on my way, just to avoid getting the trait. I will then re-merge my small stacks and move on. How realistic is this?

My general increased his own risks of losing, and suffered easily avoidable casulaties, in the name of what? Just so that he can prove his tactical genius? I don't think there are many examples of this in history. An army that fights against odds usually does it because it has no other option, and it is usually on the receiving end. The way EB is conceived, the player will choose low-odd offensive fights, which seems ahistorical.

And in my opinion, the argument that "a general who always fights with the odds on his side is not likely to learn anything" doesn't hold. You always learn from experience - it is just a matter of degree. A general who wins a hard battle should certainly learn a little more from that particular battle, and a little less from an easy one. But the learning from one battle should not adversely affect the learning from the other.

Just my thoughts.

Don't worry, the patch removes it. You'll never see "Likes easy battles" again.

There's no penalty from this trait. I repeat, none. It was just a way to 'keep score', and obviously badly done. Each battle is treated separately for determining actual development of command stars. Ignore it. It doesn't do anything.

[King of the dutch]

@Malrubius
Well i'm sorry about before. I obviously said some wrong things because i didn't know what i was talking about.

Still, does anyone have some tips aquiring commandstars? I'm still not getting any

grtz kotd