What I hate about VH/VH...

[Shahed]

... is that nobody routs. Everyone fights to the death.

[Noir]

Indeed its somewhat strange and contradictory, especially since its supposed to be with all realism settings "on". In all probability morale is too high - the same has been happening in all previous games when morale was too high (jedi) generals and the like.

It would be much better to fix morale as so as keeping up your army by making good match ups, tactically guarding against maneuvers and supporting low morale/melee units such as shooters from charges and entering the fray.
Then armies would have a "morale line" as a whole that one would have to be kept up in order to fight without routing. In fact this has been achieved in older TW games.

ManyThanks

Noir

[Stuperman]

I hate the cheats the AI gets

my expierence: a 2 territory faction (pontus) should not be able to field 3 fullstacks.

I can usually get units to route, when they fight to the death have all your guys run away from them, they should start routing after that.

[rvg]

Indeed its somewhat strange and contradictory, especially since its supposed to be with all realism settings "on". In all probability morale is too high - the same has been happening in all previous games when morale was too high (jedi) generals and the like.

It would be much better to fix morale as so as keeping up your army by making good match ups, tactically guarding against maneuvers and supporting low morale/melee units such as shooters from charges and entering the fray.
Then armies would have a "morale line" as a whole that one would have to be kept up in order to fight without routing. In fact this has been achieved in older TW games.

ManyThanks

Noir

Yep. That's why I play on VH/Medium. I don't mind if the AI cheats economically, but I'd like to have a feeling that I'm fighting against routable humans instead of cyborgs.

[Doug-Thompson]

I quit playing VH in RTW, after wiping out a whole Sassinid army that could have easily escaped. They just kept marching forward and taking the losses. By the time they finally routed, there was nothing left to rout.

[Noir]

The campaign game used to be more challenging, however its response dropped vertically eversince the move to the "3D" map was made. I dont know weather they will keep the same system in the future, however it looks like it has a long way to go as it is now.

Campaign cheats for the AI mean that he goes for relentless attacks and the game gets too militarily oriented (something like playing wre in BI all the time) - that's the thing i dislike about it.

The AI goes into debt most of the time as the game is generally designed not relative to how it can handle things but around what would be fun for the player to do. Scripts that pump money in indebted AI factions is probably the best solution as well as changing the tech-trees to follow AI routines rather than expect the AI to adapt IMO.

Many Thanks

Noir

[HoreTore]

What the... Now I get to ask Factionheirs question: are we playing the same game? I usually capture about twice as many people as I kill, and when I lose, it usually happens quickly, and due to a mass rout.

In fact, the only times I kill more than I capture, are sieges... And not even then if I'm attacking.

EDIT: also, if this bothers you, use dread instead. I had a dude with max dread sitting in zagreb, when the germans besieged it. My army was about 1/3 of the enemies size, and composed of some militia and balkan mercs. I figured I'd go down fighting, and when the enemy got to my walls, I charged my general out and hoped to pin down the enemy, allowing my towers and few archers to kill a lot of them. However, just as I got through the walls, the ENTIRE enemy army routed instantly.

[Doug-Thompson]

What the... Now I get to ask Factionheirs question: are we playing the same game? I usually capture about twice as many people as I kill, and when I lose, it usually happens quickly, and due to a mass rout.

In fact, the only times I kill more than I capture, are sieges... And not even then if I'm attacking.

I use HA armies a lot. That might account for it.

[econ21]

General question for everyone: do your men fight to the death on VH?

My impression is that mine do not. The militia skedaddle quite easily, if I don't have an uber general.

I've queried this several times, and Lusted has argued that VH affects morale across the board, but it just does not feel like it.

I don't have good evidence on my men routing, but yes, the AI does fight to the death. Here's an example from yesterday - I basically shot an army to death and they (Saracen militia) just stood there.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When the finally broke:


And the stats:

[FactionHeir]

Err missiles without fire almost never make a unit rout without the nearby presence of one of your units unless they take major casualties at once.

As I posted elsewhere, your own morale stays constant. The AI's morale is much lower on easy as as high as yours on VH.

[edit]
Fighting to the death is the same as broken, but only occurs if the unit feels surrounded by at least 3 sides.

[Lusted]

Yeah missiles by themselves will very rarely rout a unit unless the missile units are using fire ammo or are gunpowder units, this is true on any difficulty setting. If you moved some units close to them they would route pretty quickly, i have watched numerous times in battle enemy units rally, and then rout when i move cav near or as soon as they come into melee contact.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Missiles rarely rout a unit.

Yes, I know. That's the problem. It's even more rare on VH. I do the same things — surround the enemy and so forth. They would rout, or at least stop marching deeper into the deathtrap, on a lowever setting.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Lusted
Yeah missiles by themselves will very rarely rout a unit unless the missile units are using fire ammo or are gunpowder units, this is true on any difficulty setting. If you moved some units close to them they would route pretty quickly, i have watched numerous times in battle enemy units rally, and then rout when i move cav near or as soon as they come into melee contact.

Hmm, no morale penalty for being shot or at least insignificant relative to the base morale settings then - which correlates well with econ21's screenshot.

Outnumbering/threatening penalties seem indeed to work. Probably the base morale of the player/AI in VH/VH is so high that morale loss due to casualties in the unit does not affect at all.

This tips the match-up flankings balance decisively for flankings, so this means that as long as one has even one or two more units extra he will win. It would be better to bring the match-up flanking balance a bit away from 100% flankings being the decisive factor ie fixing morale levels appropriate for every type of unit (spears, swords, light cav, heavy cav etc, shooters).

Many Thanks

Noir

[Husar]

I play on Medium/Medium all the time since I noticed that on Hard campaign my agents seem to have lower chances of success and on Hard battle my battering rams never seem to reach a gate while enemy rams always do.
The game just seems to be more balanced on Medium.

[Lusted]

Outnumbering/threatening penalties seem indeed to work. Probably the base morale of the player/AI in VH/VH is so high that morale loss due to casualties in the unit does not affect at all.

Oh it does, i've rained missiles on units taking out loads of the soldiers in it, and the moment i engage they rout. So the casualties have affected the morale, just the arrows by themselves are not enough.

[Fußball]

I am debating on playing M/H instead of M/VH. On very hard troops tend to tire slightly too quickly. I also do not think I can agree with units never routing. Units tend to route very quickly once their ranks are depleted on VH. Unless the unit has good morale, then it either fights until the last man or only routes if they are depleted and/or mass route is happening.

Tschüß!
Erich

[WesW]

Lusted's results pretty much mirror my own. In fact, I was thinking about starting a thread about how the AI routs too easily on VH, especially if you keep them under any sort of fire, though my experiences so far have mostly been against militias and other low-level units.
If more experienced units always seem to fight to the death, then perhaps what we need is morale moderation.

[darth_napo]

I always play the campaign on Hard, and yes I agree that the AI somehow cheating in campaign map, somehow they can build faster than me -the result was that while my troops still consist of sergeant spearmen, the AI already got dismounted feudal knights *sigh*

however after my experience in RTW, I was skeptical in very hard battle difficulty because in RTW, VH meant that even a bunch of peasants could slaughter the elites , after that unpleasant experience I always play on medium battle difficulty. But after I tried M2TW battle in VH I'm impressed, the AI no longer cheating, they're a bit tougher but still rout as easily as mine, and the effects of morale and stamina as well as generals' existence are better than in medium.

[FactionHeir]

AI doesn't build faster. Their cities just grow faster, so they can build higher level settlements earlier.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I fight all my battles at VH. My enemies always route, regardless of my armies are led by high dread/high chivalry generals. Yesterday I had a small but heroic battle outside Cairo fighting an Egyptian stack. I had weaker units (spear militia against Saracen militia) but I could flank the Egyptians with Sudanese tribesmen. The first Saracen unit that was flanked routed so I attacked the next with the Sudanese until that unit broke. Finally I destroyed the Egyptian army by causing them to route.

The only annoying thing about routing units in 1.02 is that it is used by the AI as a kind of relocating feature. Enemy units sometimes route behind my line and start attacking from the rear. After chasing them away they start over again. The computer doesn't know when it is defeated.

[sapi]

It seems that I, too, must mirror FH's question of what game exactly we are playing

In my experience, not only do the AI have vastly underdeveloped units (if not infrastructure), their armies will also rout in seconds if pressure is applied in the right places. If you pelt the enemy army with arrows as they advance, switch to fire arrows for one last shot and charge your infantry at them, they barely ever survive longer than twenty seconds in combat...

I'd also like confirmation on the claim that VH is biased towards the AI in terms of morale penalties and the like: I've got a 90% recollection that one of the devs posted that both sides got such stats increased in equal numbers.

[Ironside]

Personally, I've found that pure arrow fire is about as effective to make units rout as it was in MTW1.

Admittably that was on expert, but the enemy won't usually rout from an archer duel with less than 90% casualities, and often fights to the death there to.

For the HA players here (I haven't tried faction with major HA use yet), does the units still not rout, even when the flanks are threatened (aka you surround the units with HA)?

[Noir]

Originally posted by Ironside
Admittably that was on expert, but the enemy won't usually rout from an archer duel with less than 90% casualities, and often fights to the death there to.

I have played less M2 than i should have in order to properly comment on this, but for MTW, yes the same thing happens due to campaign factors most of the time (valour, morale and upgrade bonuses from general command and buildings), that lead to fights to the death.

If you play without them (or at the opening stages of an early say campaign) you'll find that missiles - particularly lowly ones - do route eventually (well) before 90% casualties.

Not that MTW vanilla was optimised in that respect.

Sometimes its also hard to tell wether that's from the unit being cut down in size only - it might well be from threatening outnumbering penalties. There are many other situational factors too while battling.

Its difficult really to judge unless you conduct tests on LAN or the net.

Many Thanks

Noir