Battle speed

[Quietus]

Three main problems of the RTW battlefield IMO:

1) High unit speed (unrealistic acceleration included).
2) High kill-rate (including unbalanced units).
3) Small useable map area ( there's no room to maneuver, march, hide or even rally - if even possible).

[AquaLurker]

Have anyone notice the "1 player offline, 6 player online" under multiplayer features in the link? I hope they are not saying max 6 player online again...I love 4v4s and if possible 5v5 6v6 7v7 8v8!!!

[Sardo]

This was posted at the .com forums by CA staff:

Hi Guys,

Just to clarify, M2 battles haven’t been sped up or turned into an arcade game. The pace of combat on the battlemaps is comparable to previous TW games.
I think that may have been some miss-wording on the PR’s Behalf.
We do have a lot more animation though, which simply beefs up the realism aspect of combat in the battlemaps. Single units now track and acquire targets on the battlefield before engaging and have a range of moves to be used depending on the situation. Finishing moves refers to the way in which a single unit decides to kill their opposition. I wouldn’t relate it to an arcade fighting game at all.
We actually employed some historical actors to help out with the fight sequencing to allow our animators to deliver more realistic looking battlefields. They left behind some cool practice weapons as well which is really useful for ‘motivating’ the artists ;)

In short, death to PR people.

[doc_bean]

In short, death to PR people.

But does 'comparable to previous total war games' mean comparable to Rome or medieval though ?

I give in, you should all enjoy the longer battles, I'll admit, I like them as well, but in Rome there were just so many friggin' battles that it really got boring quick. I just hope the AI is improved so that battles actually matter, and you are not bombarded with 1/4 full stacks every turn...

And anyways, there's still the speed up .

I found battles in MTW to be more diverse and generally more interesting than in Rome. You had a wider range of units (per faction) at your disposal who were often good at specific things. Cavalry wasn't quite as dominant as in Rome either, you could flank one unit but then you would be engaged for a while so you couldn't provide backup for the rest of your army. In Rome you can just outflank and kill one unit at a time. Bigger armies also make outflanking harder. Also cavalry was (imho) relatively expensive and since you could get serious losses even if you flanked, you weren't so eager to just charge in before you had the enemy units pinned down.

Honestly I hope they find some middle ground, MTW battles tended to be better, but I don't want to fight 3+ huge battles (taking up to or over an hour each) a turn again, since I usually play games in 1 hour doses.

[x-dANGEr]

Can't their just be a drop-down menu in options where you decide what battle speed you want in SP? And in MP, the host decides it and problem solved :P

[Kraxis]

Can't their just be a drop-down menu in options where you decide what battle speed you want in SP? And in MP, the host decides it and problem solved :P

I think that would be a most acceptable solution to us all. We can't assume everybody want the solid and lengthy combat of MTW.

But I really want the uncertainty to come back, the slow development of who is getting the upper hand. The battle that lasts across the entire map. The rallying of desperate forces to last just one more charge. The furious engagement of outnumbered forces on a hill when you have all the troops engaged and the enemy is flanking you. The last one is in Rome too seldom given that you often rout your enemy to the front and then deal with the flankers. In MTW you sit a bite your nails as they edge closer and your troops are still engaged with an enemy unit with 90% if it's strength.

[Rodion Romanovich]

The battle that lasts across the entire map.

Or better still - if they expand the map so you still have room for a lot of manouvering and flanking and similar while still allowing for really big battle lines. In RTW it was a little sad that on huge unit settings you could sometimes create a line of phalanxes that covered pretty much the entire width of the map... I really always wanted to play huge but never did because it removed all possibilities for manouvering...

Anyway it's slower battle speed and better AI for me, I don't like the speed of the RTW engagements, it removes both the tactical game, the historical realism, and the epic feeling of battles. Too often in RTW I just collected 5-6 cavalry units and move them around, isolating one enemy unit at the time and charging it. Repeating that for a while, the enemy army is eliminated, no matter how strong it was from the start of the battle (except if it was a horse archer army). That was the cause of the fourth downside of RTW battles - that I suffered too few casualties to have any worries on the campaign map and long term strategy. More losses in the battles equals more interesting campaign map game. But it mustn't be more losses while keeping the RTW battle speed, because then defeat usually means total annihilation of the army. It's more interesting in EB when often 60% of defeated armies (both my own and those of the enemy) get away. Makes it a tougher decision to know whether to push on or not.

[Orda Khan]

I think it is safe to say that the majority of .ORG members want the pace slowed down. The manoeuvre aspect of the game should rate highly in the tactical battles and this is not the case at present. I want the deployment zones radically re thought, especially for MP. One large zone for all allied armies?
I want greater distance between opposing zones to allow you to manoeuvre and initiate counter moves. A large scale battle deserves the time for it to be thought out and executed. If this takes an hour or two, great. There is the choice to save before a battle if time is an issue, allowing you to come back when you have the time to play it through. Hopefully, after so much discussion on this subject, we will see some improvement

......Orda

[Ludens]

While I agree with Orda's recommendations, I also think that large map would be an annoyance when fighting small skirmishes. Perhaps map size should be dependent on army size? Or for small battles the opposing armies start closer together?

[Ludens]

Just to clarify, M2 battles haven’t been sped up or turned into an arcade game. The pace of combat on the battlemaps is comparable to previous TW games.
I think that may have been some miss-wording on the PR’s Behalf.
We do have a lot more animation though, which simply beefs up the realism aspect of combat in the battlemaps. Single units now track and acquire targets on the battlefield before engaging and have a range of moves to be used depending on the situation. Finishing moves refers to the way in which a single unit decides to kill their opposition. I wouldn’t relate it to an arcade fighting game at all.
We actually employed some historical actors to help out with the fight sequencing to allow our animators to deliver more realistic looking battlefields. They left behind some cool practice weapons as well which is really useful for ‘motivating’ the artists ;)

But I really want the uncertainty to come back, the slow development of who is getting the upper hand. The battle that lasts across the entire map. The rallying of desperate forces to last just one more charge. The furious engagement of outnumbered forces on a hill when you have all the troops engaged and the enemy is flanking you. The last one is in Rome too seldom given that you often rout your enemy to the front and then deal with the flankers. In MTW you sit a bite your nails as they edge closer and your troops are still engaged with an enemy unit with 90% if it's strength.

Amen to that. R:TW may have been intented to go as fast as M:TW, it never worked for me that way. Off course, fast is a relative term.

[King Yngvar]

I think BI was a step in the right direction with less provinces, a shorter campaign

Nooo... there were too few provinces in BI, I had my victory by 410 AD the first game I played, it's just too quick.

[x-dANGEr]

I take it for granted that most of you who say battles in R: TW are short have never played MP.. How long would it take 40 men to kill 40 men with swords in these days.. 2 minutes? It's just the same in game. I don't know why you have the idea that men need 10 seconds to move their swords. I myself don't remember a more-than-hour battle in M: TW in SP. And maybe one of the factors that you think M: TW had 'epic' battles, is because you could reinforce your army with more than just 2-3 packs.. But with semi-unlimited number of stacks. Everyone has his opinon and I appericiate that. But I still blame the A.I., not that engine for being fast.

[Doug-Thompson]

On a related note, I wish CA would make it so that if you put decent garrison troops in a city, it would suppress rebels in that province. It seems like 90 percent of the battles I fight are rat-killing anti-bandit battles. That's what's time consuming, even if you auto-resolve. You have to move troops out and move troops back, etc.

I'd like to see putting a castle in a province help suppress bandits, too.

[GFX707]

I agree with the above idea....the brigands in RTW were too annoying to deal with, especially if you played one of the Steppe factions.

[Servius]

Bring back the speed bar, definitely.

That, and I want the damn Alt+click option back, which would turn the selected unit at where ever you just clicked. That was so cool and easy. I never understood why both features were removed in RTW. They were so handy.

It should take a while for 200 men to kill each other. 100-man spear units should not be decimated in under a minute, that's just silly. I really think the base speed should be slow, and if a player wants faster action, just use the speed bar. It's simple to do, and it allows each person to choose the pace they're comfortable with.

And no more hard-coded crap.

And...a shrubbery! One that's nice. And not too expensive.