Winning First?

[Quickening]

Well, the thing is, if you want a chivalrous general, he'll either have to start the battle with battlechivalry, or you'll have to make sure that his first battle gives him battlechivalry. The reason is, that once he gets fair fighter, he is immune to 90% of the dread triggers, and can concentrate on being chivalrous. The easiest way to do this IMO, is to simply attack a stack of a different religion.

Well taking Prince Rufus to the Middle East before taking York might hamper Englands' conquest somewhat.

[HoreTore]

Well, england isn't made to be chivalrous, really. Though you can easily launch a crusade at the Moors as soon as you can get a diplomat to rome....

But it's not a very viable option, so if you want to be chivalrous playing as one of these factions, you'll either have to:

1. Let the enemy attack you with slightly higher odds(0.8 or less odds in your favour). Easiest way of doing, is to make a small stack of good troops, well suited to the enemy, stick them in their lands somewhere you have a defensive advantage, and wait for them to attack.
2. Attack them with odds less than 1:2. You can easily do this against a numerically superior opponent if they lack cavalry, as you can easily run your own cavalry around and smack them from behind.

If you do this in the first battle the general takes part in, he will be chivalrous. It's not hard at all to avoid dread traits, if you know what you're doing...

[Quickening]

Well, england isn't made to be chivalrous, really. Though you can easily launch a crusade at the Moors as soon as you can get a diplomat to rome....

But it's not a very viable option, so if you want to be chivalrous playing as one of these factions, you'll either have to:

1. Let the enemy attack you with slightly higher odds(0.8 or less odds in your favour). Easiest way of doing, is to make a small stack of good troops, well suited to the enemy, stick them in their lands somewhere you have a defensive advantage, and wait for them to attack.
2. Attack them with odds less than 1:2. You can easily do this against a numerically superior opponent if they lack cavalry, as you can easily run your own cavalry around and smack them from behind.

If you do this in the first battle the general takes part in, he will be chivalrous. It's not hard at all to avoid dread traits, if you know what you're doing...

Those are still ridiculous measures to take just to be honourable. I can understand things like not firing arrows at your own men but must I risk losing the battle just to be a nice guy? Doesn't make sense to me personally.

[HoreTore]

If you have a good army yourself, and the enemy has a crap, but large army, you shouldn't have any problem winning the battle, especially if you have a good position. After that first battle, you can go your merry way and not worry about dread.

BTW, I believe chivalry is supposed to be the hard way, while dread is the easy way.

[Quickening]

If you have a good army yourself, and the enemy has a crap, but large army, you shouldn't have any problem winning the battle, especially if you have a good position. After that first battle, you can go your merry way and not worry about dread.

Okay. And once you have a point of Chivalry you are immune to evil effects thereafter?

[RickooClan]

yea, it seems a bit odd to me as well. Also, once a general get his first score of battle chivalry than he can do whatever dread thing on the battle without penalty is making no sense at all!!

other than attack the other religious another way to get the first chivalry point it to get 8 num killed with your general [and that why i am asking if capture prisoner take into account]

Now you will have a 50/50 chance to be chivalry or dread.

[HoreTore]

Okay. And once you have a point of Chivalry you are immune to evil effects thereafter?

Not exactly. You can't gain any battledread points if you have a point of battlechivalry, however, you can lose battlechivalry if you rout or don't fight with your general and withdraws.

Note that it only protects against battledread, you can still get evil traits like strategydread if you recruit an assassin, for example.

[Quickening]

Thanks for the information HoreTore. Right, so this is the situation.

When an English campaign opens you have Prince Rufus with the following troops:

Two regiments of peasant archers.
Two regiments of spear militia.

To the North of Prince Rufus is York which is garrisoned by:

Two units of peasant archers
Two unit of peasants
One unit of spear milita


It seems pretty damn random whether or not I get "Winning First" in this battle (which Ive played like, a zillion trillion times). So how should I conduct this battle to ensure that I do not get "Winning First"? Bearing in mind that it is near impossible to do anything other that annihilating the rebels to the last man.

[HoreTore]

Well, it's been some time since I played the english, but if you send him alone to attack york, it should be possible to get odds of 0.8 when the garrison sally, and you shouldn't have any problem routing and killing them. It's a bit tricky to rout them, although it certainly is possible if you charge and destroy the spear milita, then turn back and charge into the heart of the enemy, which should trigger a mass rout.

But I fully believe that england in this game is not made to be chivalrous.... It's so much easier to be evil with them.

[Quickening]

So Ive got to attack York with my general alone and waste turns waiting for the rebels to come to me? Like I said, ridiculous.

Anyway it's always easier to be evil. But one of the great aspects of this game is that you can supposedly rule your kingdom as you like. I DON'T WANNA BE EVIL!!!!!!!!

[HoreTore]

Well, you only "waste" one turn... Although it's probably possible to assault right away too.

[RickooClan]

Bearing in mind that it is near impossible to do anything other that annihilating the rebels to the last man.

yea, the total annihilating or the picking on weak thing makes no sense at all in siege battle, therefore i mod them both not counting in any siege battle at all.

and i have read there is a bug in 1.2 which the AI dont take city defensive in battle odd. Which means even you pick your general vs the AI general with a citadal, the battle odd is still 1:1......

[Eng]

Sucrafice Men = Get this trait

winning first says in the description that this generl will do every thing to win a battle.... or something like that

[Furious Mental]

Chivalry is a load of garbage anyway. I like the "winning first" trait, since that's how medieval military leaders were, like military leaders in, to my knowledge, every epoch in human history. This is probably why it is so difficult- only a complete dunce of a general would have any scruples about how to win a battle or campaign.

[_Tristan_]

BTW, I believe chivalry is supposed to be the hard way, while dread is the easy way.

I think you're playing MEDIEVAL TOTAL STAR WARS....

[tex_-]

why everbody wants to get high chivalry? Is dread so bad or chivalry so great? Shouldn't both have good sides and bad sides? Or chivalry is so superior(that doesn't make sense imo)

[HoreTore]

Neither of them are really superior. But they are different.

Governor bonus:
Both gives a PO bonus of 5%, however, chivalry gives a 0.5% boost to population growth too. This can be a bad thing, and it can be a good thing. Generally speaking, it's good for small towns and castles in your own lands, while it's bad for big cities far from your capital. This is very easy to see when you complete a crusade to the levant. When you first get there, the populations is small and nice to control. However, it grows so incredibly fast due to the governor, that in just a few turns, it's impossible to control.

Battle bonus:
Chivalry gives a morale bonus to your own troops, while dread gives a morale penalty to the enemy. This is why your troops are very likely to run away when they are facing the mongols.

BTW, I like Dread

Sucrafice Men = Get this trait

winning first says in the description that this generl will do every thing to win a battle.... or something like that

Not true at all. You can sacrifice all the troops you want, you wont get a the trait anyway. The description doesn't have anything to say in how you get the traits, take a look in the trigger file to see how to get them.

[Afro Thunder]

One of the problems with having a high-chivalry governor is that it also adds to the population growth for some reason, and that means big cities tend to get really huge really fast with a high-chivalry governor. Now how does that make sense, realistically?

[TevashSzat]

Squalor and public order problems in general are alot easier to deal with in M2TW and having a nice ruler means that he will care about the people and fight disease as well as make sure they have something to eat causing large population bursts

[HoreTore]

I've always thought the chivalrous governors held yearly orgies...

[Quickening]

Okay I started a new English campaign to put all this to the test and as of turn twenty-three Ive only got "Winning First" once and I can understand why in that instance.

Basically, to be ultra-ultra-chivalrous, I have been laying siege and waiting until the defenders sally forth to attack me. I don't mind this since I find assaults to be quite tedious. Also, waiting for the enemy to sally has not set me back in the game as much as I thought it would have. In fact, my current game is the best Ive ever had with England.
When the defenders sally I have been raining fire arrows on them, engaging them with my infantry and flanking with my cavalry. Basically doing everything possible to break them and end the battle quickly so as to spare as many of their lives as I can.
This has been working a charm and I have some super-chivalrous generals. And the more I think about this, the more sense it makes. I mean if someone is truly Chivalrous then surely they value the life of all men and therefore would go to great pains to make sure that as many are spared as possible.

So all is well although I still think the "winning first" triggers are odd to say the least.

[Ferret]

Does anyone know a answer on this question? Sometimes my general get battle dread even he didnt killed much but capture a lot of prisoners.

For example, my general unit killed 30 men and capture 150+ ppl. I dont believe my general have killed more than 8 in those 30 killed. However, if capturing prisoner called into num killed than it will be a totally different story.

As i remember while the game calculate the experience gained in battle, they count 2 capture prisoner as 1 killed ?? Would that apply in counting VnV too??

prisoners count towards the percentage killed in the coloured bar but not towards the total number killed displayed in the post battle reveiw

[RickooClan]

This raises a couple questions though :
- Does taking prisonners count towards PercentageEnemyKilled and GeneralNumKills ?

I think i can answer this question now after some testing on the winning first trait.


PercentageEnemyKilled = the total number of enemy men lost during the battle

Which means it include the men you killed, captured, and those lost to their own friendly fire or whatever reason....

It is very misleading as it say PercentageEnemyKilled but not PercentageEnemyLost.

[Fußball]

Personally, I prefer chivalrous generals to dreaded generals. I usually will guide a "character" through actions I think he might do himself. Example: Fritz Fritziwitz has trait fair fighter or fair in rule = I will have him be chivalrous. Though I have had a character by the name of Dietrich von Sachsen who despite being noble in rule ended up getting the winning first trait (damn it) and later on cruel and cunning. So I seen it as he is noble in rule yet on the battlefield he is cruel and cunning.

I do agree much so with Quickening, the winning first trait is a pain in the arse. It is especially tough to avoid in the early game when you are engaging the enemy with a roughly 1:1 ratio of troops. IMO I believe the triggers for winning first should be fixed. A few ideas on how it could better be triggered: 2,5-3:1 ratio in your favor, overuse of missile weapons with little or no melee engagement of the enemy, ( which if I am not mistaken does gain you winning first? ) or using underhanded units such as battlefield assassins.

Tschüß!
Erich

[alpaca]

The interesting thing about these:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3_Dread_fighting
    WhenToTest PostBattle

    Condition GeneralNumKillsInBattle > 8
          and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

    Affects BattleDread  1  Chance  50 
    Affects Bloodthirsty  1  Chance  10 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3_Chivalry_fighting
    WhenToTest PostBattle

    Condition GeneralNumKillsInBattle > 8
          and not Trait BattleDread > 0

    Affects BattleChivalry  1  Chance  50

Is that because of their order you have a 50% chance to get battle dread but only a 25% chance of getting battle chivalry (50% of the 50% that you don't get battle dread above) which could be intended but rather more probably shows CA coders have no idea about statistics
You could change the first trigger to 33% so you have a third chance of getting either of these and a third chance of getting nothing

That said I hate how they did these traits because it's basically dependant on luck which one you get and there's no turning back...

[sapi]

It's the 'no idea about statistics' part - the spy % chance of opening the gate is equally stuffed

[Fußball]

I will likely mod M2TW once a good trait/ancillary mod is released for v1.2. The stats triggering for some of the most foolish and mundane reasons almost ruins the fun in playing the campaign anymore. I almost had more fun in v1.1 despite all the short comings and lack of trait triggers. At least then my generals did not trigger winning first by breathing or something as equally cruel and cunning.

Tschüß!
Erich

[gardibolt]

Basically, to be ultra-ultra-chivalrous, I have been laying siege and waiting until the defenders sally forth to attack me. I don't mind this since I find assaults to be quite tedious. Also, waiting for the enemy to sally has not set me back in the game as much as I thought it would have. In fact, my current game is the best Ive ever had with England.

The main problem with this is other than rebels, infidels and the excommunicated, it's hard to manage a full-length siege without the pope riding you. I hate it when he tells me to bugger off six turns into a seven-turn siege.

[andrewt]

I like chivalrous generals. I'm playing the Turks right now and I don't use governors for the extra income anymore. My experience is they get more bad than good traits, especially while sitting in cities, so I don't bother. I use my generals mainly for leading my armies and as a powerful unit in battle. But, in this campaign, I've started putting my chivalrous generals on the cities/castles that need a population boost. It helps them tech up much faster.