Hey, HA work so I'm happy

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm one easily pleased guy.

Bought the game. Waited 45 minutes for it to install. Put one unit of Malmeluk horse archers against one unit of Scottish rabble. Watched the massacre, then went back to work.

Seriously, skirmishing seems to work as well for HA as it does in R:TW. Once again, a dense formation of HA suffered no "friendly fire" penalty. Everybody gets to shoot too.

-- HA still need human intervention to maneuver away from borders and corners. No surprise there.

-- Having prisoners again is nice. I didn't lose a man because, in part, the two remaining routers surrendered instead of fighting for their survival. I'm going to melee charge as soon as the rout begin next time and get myself a bigger bag.

[Brighdaasa]

I agree on the HA skirmishing working, it's great to be able to let the HA's pepper the enemy while you concentrate on your other troops.

But regular archers skirmishing needs a lot of work: if you don't babysit them, they react way too late to a charge, failing to get back in time. Especially horse charges. Maybe it's because they insist on finishing their shooting animations, they won't even move if you tell them to.

[Doug-Thompson]

... regular archers skirmishing needs a lot of work: if you don't babysit them, they react way too late to a charge, failing to get back in time. Especially horse charges. Maybe it's because they insist on finishing their shooting animations, they won't even move if you tell them to.

I'm very disappointed to hear that. I was hoping foot archers would be able to skirmish much better than in R:TW.

[Mechstra]

Yes, about one of the only complaints I have about the game is how archers won't fall back in good order - they insist on finishing the current round of shooting animations first.

[Doug-Thompson]

Yes, about one of the only complaints I have about the game is how archers won't fall back in good order - they insist on finishing the current round of shooting animations first.

Hopefully, if the archers are on skirmish and HA are on skirmish, at least the foot archers will be a decent counter-unit to HA.

Vanilla archers in R:TW were not effective counters. They moved too much. HA fire on the move and massacred them.

[Roy1991]

Anyone else noticed this sort of bug?:
Missile cavalry often rides till like 5 meter in front of the enemy when ordered to attack them. This causes a lot of casualties due to friendly fire, because they'll then be right in the line of fire of the missile cavalry that did stop as soon as the enemy was in range.

[Doug-Thompson]

Anyone else noticed this sort of bug?:
Missile cavalry often rides till like 5 meter in front of the enemy when ordered to attack them. This causes a lot of casualties due to friendly fire, because they'll then be right in the line of fire of the missile cavalry that did stop as soon as the enemy was in range.

That was a problem in R:TW, too, assuming I understood the post correctly.

No friendly fire casualties from arrows within your own unit, however deep.

FF casualties from other units if you weren't careful.

[Brighdaasa]

on the other hand

battle_config.xml
A new file which exposes some new stuff – specifically the range at which skirmishers start to retreat from enemy units, how long you need to take the plaza for in siege battles and a new ratio of attackers to defenders in the plaza that’ll count the plaza as captured. As well as this the file controls how the game controls movement up ladders and towers and along corridors.

config_ai_battle.xml
This includes the ‘grand tactical analyser’ which is how the game tracks the distinct phases of each battle and when it will look to split or merge its formations and attempt to flank. It also includes the range at which melee units will look to engage (by infantry, missile, cavalry in both the open and in settlements, the time it will factor in to brace when consider adopting a bracing formation and a retreat analyser for the cavalry for them to know when they will retreat and charge again and how far back they will go. There’s also a heck of a lot of conditionals for how the AI responds in settlement and river crossing battles. Far too many for me to dig into now, but plenty to keep the community busy.

looks we can mod the skirmish range ourselves once the patch and unpak tool come out, as well as other unit behaviour

[Roy1991]

That was a problem in R:TW, too, assuming I understood the post correctly.

No friendly fire casualties from arrows within your own unit, however deep.

FF casualties from other units if you weren't careful.

Hm, I probably said it wrong :)

Instead of stopping and firing as soon as the enemy is in range, missile cav sometimes doesn't stop until they're about 5 meter away from the enemy.
Because they're then right in the line of fire of the missile cav that did correctly stop as soon as the enemy was in range, they'll suffer a lot of casualties from FF, and the enemy infantry usually is able to engage them in melee.


Probably still isn't clear, lol.
I'll post a screenshot if I encounter it again tomorrow.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Foot Archers

I had to click the "run" button and leave it on, but 61 desert archers just killed 73 of 76 HRE sergeant spearmen by skirmishing alone.

However, the two opposing units were alone on open terrain with a few trees. There were no pathfinding problems. I did have to intervene once, also, when the archers were getting backed into a corner.

I don't know if desert archers are faster than normal foot archers, but would bet they are.

I also put the archers in a square, just like I like to do with horse archers.

Makes me wonder if you can put foot archers in densely packed squares behind a spear-line that's set and in guard mode without suffering from friendly fire ...

[Orda Khan]

Hello Doug,
Nice to see a happy horse archer
I do not yet have the game but I have tried out a few battles. Is it my imagination or do archers (mounted or on foot) have a greater range now? Maybe it's just me, I have not played for so long I was very rusty. Until the patch fixes the AI a bit more, I would advise against killing the enemy missile units or the rest of their army go into shock and do nothing....but die hopelessly. This is fine for heroic victories but does little to provide a satisfying challenge.

Instead of stopping and firing as soon as the enemy is in range, missile cav sometimes doesn't stop until they're about 5 meter away from the enemy.
Because they're then right in the line of fire of the missile cav that did correctly stop as soon as the enemy was in range, they'll suffer a lot of casualties from FF, and the enemy infantry usually is able to engage them in melee.

I think I understand this point....and it was something I encountered in RTW, especially when HA were in CC mode. You order them to attack and away they go. Just when you are thinking "Hang on guys, are you going to stop?" they finally go into the CC animation but now are closer than you wanted. So, a few tips when using HA...
Switch off FAW.
Send HA to locations, preferably flanks and out of range (but not too far out of range)
Use single click to target a unit (this should see them fire as soon as they are in range)
Use them in tandem (threaten with one unit or group, attack with another)
Use direct frontal attacks at key points (enemy units are vulnerable as they march. When they stop, pull back)

When you clearly have ranged supremacy, you can afford to attack directly, I won my finest ever MP victory this way in a MTW 3v3. We were Italy, Mongols, Turks. Our opponents were Danes and two Spanish. My Spanish opponent had four pavise arbalests, each time he marched forward I sent in two rows, Mongol HA and Steppe Heavies. As his charge of cav broke through his lines my units would retreat. With four Golden Horde Warriors and three heavy cav waiting, he could pursue only so far. As he pulled back I repeated the tactic and employed two units of steppe cav out wide on each flank. Next time I melted away from his charge, my steppe cav hit his arbs; he now had no missile protection and was forced to attack. A combination of my infantry and two heavy cav engaged him while on my left I sent one HC and some steppe heavies to rear the Danish who was beginning to route the Italians. With two enemies routed my Turkish ally was defeated, though my infantry held the other Spanish army long enough for me to regroup my cav and win the day.

Back to M2TW, I noticed that battlefield upgrades are still there. This is not good news

.........Orda

[Doug-Thompson]

And welcome to you, Orda Khan. I don't think you're imagining about the range. I'd like to see something definite, but my Spanish army in my initial campaign came under fire sooner than I expected, and my archer units, which were downhill on a very steep grade, were able to fire from farther away than I expected.

I'd also like to see a reputable test on javelin range. I ordered some javelinmen to attack knights in a custom skirmish, and the range looked longer than I'm used to. I'm probably just starting rumors, though.

As for not killing missile troops, I've also noticed the "OMG, our missile troops are dead. Let's huddle under our shields" tendency. However, I would point out that the old AI's tendency to hopelessly chase your HA, dispersing themselves into units that could be overrun one at a time by melee cav wasn't all that challenging either.

As for being a happy horse archer, I'm very impressed by the wide variety of HA units and related melee cav.

======

Excellent advice on the "don't get too close issue." As for the battle story, I always enjoy stories where masses of crossbowmen are wiped out. I do love a happy ending.

[Orda Khan]

I do love a happy ending.

.......Orda

[Quillan]

Doug, I've been using mounted archers extensively in my Byzantine campaign, and while I noticed it a while back, the significance didn't dawn on me until yesterday: YOU DON'T HAVE TO TURN SKIRMISH OFF WHEN YOU TELL THEM TO CHARGE! Back in RTW, if you told your toxic hippos to charge a unit and forgot to switch off skirmish, they'd run in, maybe fight a bit, run back out, all in a very haphazard manner. I think one of the patches changed it to where if you alt-clicked to charge in melee, skirmish would switch off automatically. It doesn't now. I tell to charge, they charge in and fight well. I pull them out of combat, and they go right back to regular skirmish behavior.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quillan

My apologies. I just now saw your post.

That's a great common-sense improvement CA's made, then. That will take a lot of micro out these units. I'll note in in my new HA thread. Much thanks.