Desert combat penalty?

[dismal]

Playing my first campaign H/H as Spanish, I have noticed some unexpectedly heavy losses versus the Moors in trying to complete my conquest of North Africa. In one battle, I lost 2 general's units in a street fight versus a single unit of Arab cavalry. Oh well, chalk that up to experience.

But, last night in Tripoli, I suffered a devastating loss of Dismounted Feudal and Chivalric Knights in a wall battle versus Sudanese Javelinmen, and of all things, Peasants. I was not impressed with the defending units, so I simpy sent my dismounties over the wall with ladders.

I suppose it stands to reason that heavily armored units would suffer in the heat, but Chivalric knights losing to peasants?

Anyone else experienced unexpected losses of this magnitude in the desert? I'm starting to think there is a huge desert penalty on some units.

I have had decent luck in North Africa in general, so perhaps it was the walls, the ladders and the heat combined.

[Daveybaby]

There always was a desert penalty for heavily armoured units in MTW1, havent been doing much desert fighting in 2 yet, but good to see that the penalty is still there.

[Lord Condormanius]

The desert penalty existed in RTW as well.

[Quickening]

According to the manual, not only troops in heavy armour, but also troops from cold regions of the world will suffer in extremely hot conditions! Great stuff!

[Kraxis]

But, last night in Tripoli, I suffered a devastating loss of Dismounted Feudal and Chivalric Knights in a wall battle versus Sudanese Javelinmen, and of all things, Peasants. I was not impressed with the defending units, so I simpy sent my dismounties over the wall with ladders.

For some reason DFKs have never been great at taking walls in my game. I had a unit suffer 2:1 losses against a Spear Militia unit on walls once (DFKs attacked via siege tower and were all in place on the walls). And my own walldefenders have easily repelled DFKs attacking from ladders.

So perhaps it has less to do with the desert than the ladders and walls themselves.

[Slaists]

Well, the towers shoot at the DFK's while they are on the walls manned by the enemy. That could explain extra losses. At least in MTWI, towers used to be armed with longbows. Not sure what is the case in MTWII.

[Kraxis]

Such losses are to be expected. But not to the point that Spear Militia can overpower foot knights.

I had before the instance, noticed that I had easily killed DFKs on walls previously, so I took great care to watch what happened. And the knights were indeed getting their rear handed to them by the militia. They were being cut down like wheat at the harvest, and they were surprisingly lethargic about it. The individuals who were attacked responded, but the others didn't press to get closer or do anything. In fact it looked like my DFKs were fighting to the death, as we remember it from RTW.

[Kobal2fr]

For some reason any defender unit seem to have massive bonuses when defending their walls. I believe it's intended to simulate the fact that they'll drop stuff on ladder climbers, and the removed hot oil as well, but it does lead to weird stuff when your unit has reached the top of the wall safely a way away, clashes into the defenders and still gets wiped out...

I've learnt not to try and take the walls, I now usually either blast them down, or use a few units as decoy/cannon fodder while my "real" assault crews climb up undefended sections of the wall, reform back on the ground and either go for the city square, or form up defensively on the ground, take the gates and wait for the defenders to come down and fight fair.

[Kraxis]

I have begun to do much the same... And there the DFKs do pretty well I might add.

[Doug-Thompson]

For some reason any defender unit seem to have massive bonuses when defending their walls. I believe it's intended to simulate the fact that they'll drop stuff on ladder climbers, and the removed hot oil as well ...

And, I'd argue, that the attackers are arriving one man at a time on top of a ladder.

[Kraxis]

And, I'd argue, that the attackers are arriving one man at a time on top of a ladder.

Yes, but it also happens when you have the entire unit on the walls, or most of it. A siegetower with a strong melee unit is not certain to capture the wall from some militia unit as it is.

[dismal]

For some reason DFKs have never been great at taking walls in my game. I had a unit suffer 2:1 losses against a Spear Militia unit on walls once (DFKs attacked via siege tower and were all in place on the walls). And my own walldefenders have easily repelled DFKs attacking from ladders.

So perhaps it has less to do with the desert than the ladders and walls themselves.

I suspect it may have been the combination of a wall defender's bonus and a desert penalty.

Reading some of the other threads, it may be that peasants are over-powered in some way too. Seems like Chivalric Knights should beat them anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

I have done a fair number of ladder assaults but never experienced this sort of complete debacle before. Usually, though, I rely on having more units going up the walls than the defender has on them. This attack was more of a one-for-one deal. Not a single one of my dismounted knights won its match-up.

[Kobal2fr]

Doug : agreed, that is definitely a factor but like Kraxis says, it can't account for everything I've witnessed in sieges. I'll try to illustrate what I mean in flamboyant ascii art :


__L_____L______________________ST
EAAAEEAAAEE SSSSSSSSSS
EEAEEEEAEEE SSSSSSSSSS
EEEEEEEEEE SSSSSSSSSS

L = Ladder
ST = Siege Tower
E = enemy unit
A = friendly unit 1, climbing ladders
S = friendly unit 2, having climbed without opposition from the ST

That A should get gutted wholesale is expected, but right now (that is to say, pre-hoped-for-patch ) the S unit will also take horrendous losses, no matter whether E's are Polish peasants or SEAL Green Berets.

[Kraxis]

Doug : agreed, that is definitely a factor but like Kraxis says, it can't account for everything I've witnessed in sieges. I'll try to illustrate what I mean in flamboyant ascii art :


__L_____L______________________ST
EAAAEEAAAEE SSSSSSSSSS
EEAEEEEAEEE SSSSSSSSSS
EEEEEEEEEE SSSSSSSSSS

L = Ladder
ST = Siege Tower
E = enemy unit
A = friendly unit 1, climbing ladders
S = friendly unit 2, having climbed without opposition from the ST

That A should get gutted wholesale is expected, but right now (that is to say, pre-hoped-for-patch ) the S unit will also take horrendous losses, no matter whether E's are Polish peasants or SEAL Green Berets.

[Doug-Thompson]

I see. Yes, that is a problem.

[Quillan]

Try destroying the towers with artillery first and see if they fare the same. From my experience with assaults, I lose FAR more men to the towers than I ever do to the defenders on the wall. Anyplace I assault that is defended will have towers firing on my units from both directions, and they fire fast enough that even a heavily armored unit is losing about a man every second or two just due to tower fire.

[Zenicetus]

For some reason DFKs have never been great at taking walls in my game. I had a unit suffer 2:1 losses against a Spear Militia unit on walls once (DFKs attacked via siege tower and were all in place on the walls). And my own walldefenders have easily repelled DFKs attacking from ladders.

So perhaps it has less to do with the desert than the ladders and walls themselves.

That would be my guess. I take heavy losses with just about anything I send up a ladder or siege tower, against ridiculously weak defenders. I think a big part of this is the casualties you take from missile fire from the defending wall towers, and the fact that you can't shut them down now (as with RTW), except by completely clearing the enemy from both the walls and the ground near the towers.

I've basically given up on climbing walls now, using either a gate zerg, multiple wall breaches with artillery, or spies to open gates. That wall tower fire is just too deadly, considering how long it takes to finish clearing all the defenders from both the top and the bottom of a wall.

I hope modders can figure out how to tone down the rate or accuracy of wall tower fire, because I'd like at least the option of using ladders and siege towers, once in a while.

[Whacker]

Flamboyant things about polish green berets

Outstanding art.

Hypothetically, I do however disagree on some certain points made, using your fine art as the example. A should not be gutted wholesale depending on what it is they're facing. DFK should utterly slaughter peasants and the lower level militia coming onto walls from siege towers or ladders. Likewise, S should suffer almost no losses at all, if anything I'd think they'd have a flanking type bonus seeing how A has already engaged the unfriendly types as illustrated.

However, my experience has been in line with yours. I posted results from a custom battle I had earlier. 1 late general (mounted), 4 DCK's, and 4 trebuchets vs a single unit of polish peasants in an un-walled city. After the treb's shot ALL ammo, cows and flaming happiness, at the peasants (they hid behind the town hall and took no losses) I strolled in with my kuh-nigits and charged. DCK's went in first. The damn peasants managed to kill *25* knights before the last man fell. This is playing on huge unit sizes, fwiw. Given the fun they'd just endured and the fact that they're going up against KNIGHTS, the killing machines of their day, they should have been slaughtered with maybe, MAYBE a dead knight or two on my side. That just doesn't feel right to me.

[Martok]

For some reason any defender unit seem to have massive bonuses when defending their walls. I believe it's intended to simulate the fact that they'll drop stuff on ladder climbers, and the removed hot oil as well, but it does lead to weird stuff when your unit has reached the top of the wall safely a way away, clashes into the defenders and still gets wiped out...

On a somewhat related topic: In the short time I was able to play Medieval 2 this weekend, I quickly came to suspect that units receive a signifcant morale boost when defending cities. It doesn't matter if they're on the walls or not--either way, they seem to take a ridiculous number of casualties before their morale sinks low enough that they finally route towards the center of town.

This was on E/E, by the way, so it's highly unlikely this was a bonus just for the AI. I didn't get a chance to see if my troops received the same morale bonus, however, since I wasn't besieged in the couple hours that I played. I'm glad that units don't route as insanely quickly as they did in Rome, but I'm wondering if perhaps the morale bonus for defending cities is just a wee bit too high.

[Decker]

I fought a siege battle in which the Scots where attacking me at Iverness(they never took it at that point) with just about a full stack army. I had my only unit of peasent archers and peasant spear militia up on the wall. They were assaulted by 2 top quality Scottish units(one had a big axe and the other regular spearmen or at least a unit armed with spears and sizeable shields) using ladders. They were both handely defeated with very heavy causalties on both of their units, while my archers bore the brunt of their attack and were practically whipped out. I did end up losing the battle due to sheer wheight of numbers tho....
In another castle siege at Bordeaux, I assialed a wall defended by 2 archer units with 2 towers on each side with 2 militia spearmen and and some other units(forgot who) in quick succession using ladders after my ram was set ablaze. Each unit was defeated with ease, while engaging about 5-8 of the archers at a time while the rest kept shooting at my other units heading to the ladders. I did notice tho that at times I had numerical superiority over the engaged archers,but my guys never seemed to press but only watched until it was their turn to die. I do think the towers(including one located to the rear) were firing into the attacking troops as some died without being stabed or they could've triped on a dead body and fell on a sword I dunno?

I will agree with the fact that the weak units on the walls do get some kind of bonus but it can't be much since I have also taken walls with much stronger infantry defending them so it could also depend on what is happening at the gate or on another wall. It's all speculation for me at the moment.

[Ulstan]

The 'desert penalty' should be that heavily armored troops get fatigued quicker than do non armored troops. That's it. Anything else is ahistorical and will probably be bad for gameplay.

But this sounds more like a siege issue than a desert issue, TBH.

[Kobal2fr]

On a somewhat related topic: In the short time I was able to play Medieval 2 this weekend, I quickly came to suspect that units receive a signifcant morale boost when defending cities. It doesn't matter if they're on the walls or not--either way, they seem to take a ridiculous number of casualties before their morale sinks low enough that they finally route towards the center of town.

Understandable, as they're fighting to the death. Where would they flee to ? It's kill, or be killed and THEN having your corpse mollested. Insert insightful philosophical comment regarding cornered furry mammals, possibly involving their cubs too.

Hypothetically, I do however disagree on some certain points made, using your fine art as the example. A should not be gutted wholesale depending on what it is they're facing.

Meh. That's really up to debate. I'm partial to the idea that while game mechanics won't allow every trick in the history book against them, ladders always were a deathwish in siege warfare. Easy to push back, easy to destroy, easy to hit whoever's climbing, and if he miraculously survives, he won't look like a Nobel Prize winner when he's up there alone in the mob... And that's true wether he's Muhammad "I'm Hard" Bruce Lee-Musashi in panzer armour or stark-nekkid Kobal2, whimp amongst whimps. To quote Pratchett from memory : "They intend to throw as many men up there as possible and hope some will survive to take the fortress. That's the basis of all military thinking."

I must confess I don't remember wether the towers were active or burnt in my ASCII-inspiring battle though. I'll have to send many a brave pixellated Spaniard to his flaming death to test this. (by the way, not to be overly bloodthirty or anything, don't you miss the "fighters tumbling off the walls to their death" thing from Rome ? )

[Zenicetus]

(by the way, not to be overly bloodthirty or anything, don't you miss the "fighters tumbling off the walls to their death" thing from Rome ? )

Yeah, I've zoomed in a few times looking for just that effect, and was disappointed to see it's not there anymore. Fooey.

[Maizel]

Actually, pretty much any unit trying to scale the walls, especially by ladders, get beaten by pretty much any units. And i think that makes sense.

I can imagine it'd be pretty hard trying to get on top of a wall before getting your head hewn off when you stick your head over the breastguards.

[Aenlic]

There's another thread around here discussing the problem with peasants, too. That contributed to the problem. Something is drastically wrong with peasants. They are uber for some reason. They don't route easily, as they should. They seem capable of destroying what are supposed to be much better units; such as militia units - even halberd units. Peasants are simply deadly. And if you find yourself facing them, you're going to have to be extremely careful, fighting them as if they were old style MTW1 Varangian guards, for instance.

Hopefully, it's a bug that will be fixed. If it isn't a bug, then we're screwed.

[Whacker]

Meh. That's really up to debate. I'm partial to the idea that while game mechanics won't allow every trick in the history book against them, ladders always were a deathwish in siege warfare. Easy to push back, easy to destroy, easy to hit whoever's climbing, and if he miraculously survives, he won't look like a Nobel Prize winner when he's up there alone in the mob... And that's true wether he's Muhammad "I'm Hard" Bruce Lee-Musashi in panzer armour or stark-nekkid Kobal2, whimp amongst whimps. To quote Pratchett from memory : "They intend to throw as many men up there as possible and hope some will survive to take the fortress. That's the basis of all military thinking."

I will concede your point about ladder assaults being deathwish attacks... However, I still have a problem a bunch of scrawny whimps flailing around dull garden implements cheerfully mulching a bunch of born and bred killers wearing serious armor and wielding razor sharp pain-sticks, not to mention killing even one or two of them.

I must confess I don't remember wether the towers were active or burnt in my ASCII-inspiring battle though. I'll have to send many a brave pixellated Spaniard to his flaming death to test this. (by the way, not to be overly bloodthirty or anything, don't you miss the "fighters tumbling off the walls to their death" thing from Rome ? )

God, I thought I was the only one!!! I don't care if the die-hard rabid "IT'S GOTTA BE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE OR IT SUCKS!!!!111" crowd doesn't like it, I loved the men (and naked cannibal whores I guess) that went flying from the charges, elephants, and nuclear-tipped onager shots, and the dropping-from-the-walls-dead-gurgle-splat joy! The jumping horses were a bit over the top but they were also great fun to watch!

[Kobal2fr]

OK, first test done : 55 FDK siege-towering 60 Desert archers on the walls or Cordoba, between no less than two (2) huge tower/barbican thingies. "Fair" fight : the archers didn't surround my tower because the buggers were too busy shooting another bunch of knights, so we were in the E/S configuration.

End result : 30 swordsmen left when the 28 remaining archers finally buckled and ran to the nearest tower. Meaning right through the knights . Revenge ensued.

Under close scrutiny, most of the knights were actually killed by arrows in t'back from sniggering murderhole snipers (interestingly enough, the Muslim Archers got quite a few arrows in *their* backs from the second tower. Less than my knights, but still). But that may be because they knew they were being watched and didn't want to look like sissies.

Now to do the same with the towers in shambles and see what happens.

[KARTLOS]

all units seeem to be able to defend a wall very successfully. eg i have had speaermen see off about 6 units of huscarls coming out of a seige tower