Not enough field battles?

[PaulTa]

Recently, there has been a virtual flood of people who feel that there are indeed not enough field battles. While I'm sure that nearly everyone would like to find a solution to this problem, one has not been forthcoming.

In MTW, one would enter an enemy's territory and engage any army in said territory unless the enemy decided to flee to the castle. While this sort of battlemap may have been simplistic to the point of being compared to "risk", it was entirely effective in guaranteeing plenty of field battles.

With the introduction of a new campaign map in Rome, armies could wander around within an enemy's territory for the entire game without ever engaging each other. While this did add an element of realism to the campaign map, it also meant that many battles had moved to the walls, so to speak. Since too much of one thing becomes annoying over time, the constant sieges were becoming a bit boring for most players.

Is there a way to encorporate the best of both worlds though? Could a player have a more realistic campaign map with the same ratio of siege/field battles that people hark back to from MTW? Hopefully, yes, but it will require another slight diversion from reality.

Now let's imagine that you are the English, marching a newly recruited army towards the province of Paris. Your troops near the border in good order, but once they cross the border into french territory the French are given two options- They either "Engage your forces at the border" or "Ignore advance and Manuever".

The immediate engagement at the borders option would allow the player to engage in many more field battles. The computer could consider the size and quality of both armies, and if the odds are good then engage in the border fight. The computer could even be coded to accept a certain ratio of these battles if they meet the above conditions, a ratio that might also be programmed to change occasionally. This would make the system seem more random, so that the players can't expect a battle on the border every time.

Now what if the French army isn't equipped well enough to survive the battle, or have any hope of winning? Well the computer/player would opt to manuever instead, which would give more time to build troops and set up ambushes, things that would give the computer/player an advantage in the coming battle.

A new system such as this would also mean that Military Access would be twice as valuable, since one would be given the option to defend as soon as one's borders were breached. It would also inadvertantly give the player reason to maintain overall diplomatic integrity, so that military access would be easier to achieve.

Any thoughts, revisions, or suggestions are entirely welcome, and I would also appreciate conversation on the topic. If the idea is good enough and can withstand scrutiny, I suggest that we send the idea to CA for possible future implimentation.

[PaulTa]

To keep the attacker from feeling cornered with his limited options, it might also help to add that one can only directly engage in a border battle if the defender has LOS in the area where the enemy army is invading. This would also add importance to Watchtowers and spies.

[pat the magnificent]

i fight plenty of field battles. probably about a 1 to 1 ratio of field to siege battles.

[TevashSzat]

Yea, i dont find that there isn't enough field battles and fight plenty on them. Just try to advance towards Constantinople from the west and you will see that you have to fight at least 3 or 4 relatively large Byzantium armies.

[Garnier]

I fight mostly field battles by using the following houserules:

I always autoresolve assault defences, and always wait about 3-4 turns or more when I am besieging a settlement so the enemies have a chance to attack me and drive me away before I take it. I fight sieges on rare occasions.

[Alcorr]

I agree with the thread starter. My field battle vs. siege battle ratio is something like 3:5 maybe 1:2.

I liked the AI ideas he gave too, agree 100%

[dopp]

Is everyone using vanilla M2TW though? Most popular mods increase campaign map movement speed.

[dismal]

First, I agree that the constant siege battles is a problem.

Maybe the suggested fix would have some merit.

I see the issue as one of incentives. All of the economic benefit from a province comes from holding the city. The ability to replenish troops comes from holding the city. Cities are excellent defensive turf (for me.) Ergo, when attacking, I head straight for the city. When defending, I wait inside the city.

The AI compounds the problem in two ways:

- The campaign map AI It does not garrison cities well enough
- The battle map AI does not do well defending cities

If I feared taking cities more, I might try to maneuver the AI into a field battle.

Though, of course, if the AI were good it should still want to hunker down in its city with its strong garrison. So, this alone would probably get us mostly siege battles but they'd be better, more costly siege battles.

To get more field battles I think ultimately requires some sort of incentive to get defenders out of cities. I think this simply requires a greater cost to having troops wandering about your province. This perhaps could come in the form of increasing unrest, or loss of cash as the enemy pillages your country side.

Frankly, I think fixing the AI is about 90% of the issue. Since I spend most of the game on offense, more costly siege battles is probably enough to get me to fight in the field. Even as it is, I sometimes resort to the tool of starvation (which results in a field battle of sorts) when I have a siege that looks like it might be particularly costly.

[diotavelli]

Realism is the issue here, for me. Medieval warfare involved far more sieges than field battles - and probably far more skirmishes than sieges.

Most people aren't interested in fighting dozens of tiny battles with one or two units on either side - which, as I recall, is why CA changed the AI so it no longer sends such armies out into the field. In this case, realism lost out to playability.

I think the responses already given indicate that it's possible to get more field battles if you want to. If I feel like being realistic in a campaign - or if I feel I've got great siege troops, I head for the walls more often than not. If I fancy a load of pitch battles I march around until I find the enemy stack and pitch into it. The option is there and it seems daft to me to complain that the enemy doesn't initiate enough pitched battles when you have the chance to do so yourself.

In terms of encouraging the AI to fight more field battles, I'd be concerned by this. Now that the AI tends to gather decent stacks of troops, it's important that it conserves these, rather than charging headlong into engagement at the first opportunity. The human player normally wins these battles ceteris parabus, so it would be a worry if the AI constantly sought battle, lost stacks in short order and left factions subsequently unable to defend themselves.

[LordKhaine]

People fight for money and land, and sieges provide both more than field battles. And I'm sure the AI has realised this too.

That being said, I still find a lot more field battles than sieges.

[David]

I think the engine of TW games lends itself better for field battles. The best battles I had in both MTW I and II were battles, in fact I rarely fought an assault in MTWI.

I do have some suggestions to solve this problem, though I doubt they can be implanted. First off: movement. Armies should be unable to leave one's own lands without either a declaration of military acces or a declaration of war. If an army enters an enemy province, it is unable to initiate a siege right away; but has to wait one turn. Furthermore, on enemy soil an army will have its movement decreased as compared to defenders.This should allow for a more dynamic defense.

Second: castles/cities. To remove the problem of the AI garrisoning its cities totally wrong: remove the garrison. For happiness purposes one could use the units within the province borders (perhaps with an upper limit). Recruited units simply "spawn" next to the castle. Through this players will only have field armies. In the case of a siege, a mechanism such as the old MTW could apply: friendly units within the province/a certain radius move to the castle/city to defend it. The bigger the castle, the more units can enter it in case of a siege.