Unit cohesion needs a big fix, sooner rather than later

[Callahan9119]

i am very tired of this problem.

example, an enemy unit disengages from one of my units, after this occurs 8 out of ten times 1 of the enemy units men is still around my unit. this one soldier prevents 2/3 of my unit from charging or moving forward in any degree of order, a few men will go forward when commanded in no particular formation while the rest mill about the one enemy soldier who wont die or go away, they just stand there! most of the time not one of them will try to kill the offending enemy soldier

this is a glaring and ever present flaw and takes away the immersion one has while playing the game, i dont wanna have to try and ignore something so terribly frustrating that happens to a greater or lesser degree in every battle

i get especially angry when this happens to my 2 handers, who rely on the charge to have an impact in the battle

and fix the dang guns



Rant mode: Off

[rvg]

and fix the dang guns

And the Pikemen!

[Callahan9119]

word

[Husar]

Especially the pikemen, they're about the only ones causing problems for me, I think for me only the men who run against the lone guy stop their charge(and often kill him in the process) and the rest tend to keep on charging.
I'm not saying you're lying or wrong, I'm just curious why they stop for you and not for me? Maybe sometimes they behave weird in a charge, but usally charges seem fine to me.

Pikes however just run into the enemies with their pikes up and then draw swords, which is of course wrong.

[Alsn]

Husar, hes not talking about *in* a charge, that one unit keeps his units "in combat" so they cant actually start at all.

There are also some glaring bugs with charging a unit which is anywhere near any kind of obstacle which requires pathing(notably cities).

However as i mainly use cavalry for charging i dont find the bug the OP posts about all that annoying(i just run off for a bit quick and reform and the charge pretty much always starts correctly.

The worst bug for me is chasing down routers, especially when the routing units arent tightly packed in a small group as my chasing units all start moonwalking towards empty spaces that are supposed to be the "center" of the enemy unit, example follows:

X=routers, O=my chasing unit, usually cavalry, arrows=direction of running, ---- = empty space because the forum cannot format spaces :P.

^^^^---------------------
XXXX----------------------
XXXX-----^^^^----------
XXXX-----OOOO-----------
----------OOOO-----------
----------OOOO-----------
--------------------^^----
--------------------XX----
------------------------^--
------------------------X--


To redeem that situation i have to manually run my cav over to the three X's that are "away from the herd" and make them literally stand on top of them and then order them to pursue, oftentimes they will divert back to the center but hopefully capture at least one allowing me to repeat the process.


In general how the game treats everything in complete "units" messes up alot of things but i think its done that way because of ease of programming but seeing 2-3 men out of a 60 man unit fight 100 yards away and the rest literally crawling towards them(as opposed to, uhm, running?) to help out because they think theyre already engaged is just sad.

[Callahan9119]

they will EVENTUALLY move, but sometimes 30 out 0f 40 men will stand around, especially if you halt them to charge a new enemy, like i said it happens to a greater or lesser degree, but when i need my last unit of vangrian guard to form up and move now or else i'm the one about to get routed it sticks in my memory

maybe you dont notice it as much but if your paying attention and use mostly infantry based armies like me it happens alot, i rely on those shock infantry, english knights, vangrians etc

[Alsn]

Yea i know what you mean which is why i mostly switched over to archer heavy and cavalry heavy armies with mostly some heavily armoured infantry to tie up annoying enemies while i pepper/flank them to death.

It also "works" in the other direction when you want to move away your own unit to form up and recharge a straggler gets stuck in the enemy units prohibiting the remaining 59 from doing anything productive until it dies off or decides that maybe he should get in line.

[WhiskeyGhost]

i hate it when defending a settlement, and a routing enemy unit regains it morale to rally enough, but that 1 guy trapped on my wall for some reason, with my guys standing 2 feet from him, opens my gates up and lets everyone rush in......

thats just plain sucky

[Callahan9119]

i would love to use archer heavy armies, but they seem to only work in sieges or sometimes if your attacking, and enemy army attacking always just charges...resulting in a big sigh from me when i am missle heavy <although if your HA heavy its not so bad>

this bug is my biggest complaint, followed by pikes, i can goad enemies into my pikes without having to move them, you just have to be careful, but i find them to much of a bother, and they should go back to the old rtw phalanx usage, or something similar...take away secondary weapons

guns with the weird reloading odd fire delays and generaly being useless besides a run to the flanks and fire a fear inspiring salvo

regarding this unit cohesion problem i had a situation today where my camel gunners had one of their men trapped by infantry, but didnt die, so the rest of my camels started to break up and moonwalk resulting in about ten of them dying because they appeared to run as if in quicksand....due to this 1 camel being stuck in the enemy lines

[Tyrac]

How about this.

90% of the ppl that play do not even realize this is a problem..... until they read these forums.


In fact I bet 90% of the ppl that bought this game did not see ANY of these "game killing bugs" unless they were uber geeks like us that post and read these forums as compulsively as we do.

sooo ummm just do not buy the next Total war game or expansion....

But you WILL.....you, like me, wil buy ALL OF THEM!!!!!


So either you are a SUCKER.......


Ooooooor the game is actually worth what we all pay.


So take your pick

Sucker?
or
not?

[WhiskeyGhost]

How about this.

90% of the ppl that play do not even realize this is a problem..... until they read these forums.


In fact I bet 90% of the ppl that bought this game did not see ANY of these "game killing bugs" unless they were uber geeks like us that post and read these forums as compulsively as we do.

sooo ummm just do not buy the next Total war game or expansion....

But you WILL.....you, like me, wil buy ALL OF THEM!!!!!


So either you are a SUCKER.......


Ooooooor the game is actually worth what we all pay.


So take your pick

Sucker?
or
not?

No, i think the real issue is that we thought we were being served steak, but got a hamburger instead. Sure, a hamburger is good enough, but the point was that everyone who reads these kind of forums usually are the ones who observe that, yes, my steak is NOT a steak at all, but something less.

In other words, people who would bother to come into the forums aren't the only ones who notice these things, we are just the ones that tell the waiter we would like what we ordered, not what he brought us

[Callahan9119]

i dont know tyrac if thats a diatribe against me or not, but its something in the game i notice, alot.

like i said.. if you look back i said many wont notice it, but it confounds me greatly to see this happen "to a greater or lesser degree" as i said; and when its to the greater degree its the most obnoxious sight to see. as i said in the previous post, it happened to me in a totally different way with camel gunners and not infantry

either the way i play, normally using shock melee to charge, break, reform and attack new portions of the enemy line draws my attention to the fact this happens, or just the simple fact that it DOES happen to all units in all forms of combat.. and noticing the goings on of all individual units in combat my attention is drawn to it...to this i dont know, but i can like you assume most dont ever notice this.

most who are drawn to the chiv cav armies, or their equivalents dont notice this as much.

but i assume most of the people who play the game dont give a fiddlers fart about the pike problems, the guns problem or any of the other problems that other people complain about, maybe i'm just jaded...but this stuff bothers me

[locked_thread]

edit

[Callahan9119]

just mod them out of the game homey, even my dumb arse can do that

they are really nothing but dummies who mill about my lands, just dont send your new general out alone to join an army and they dont cause much a bother

[Whacker]

I think many do notice and throw the game onto the shelf where it gathers dust. They don't post in these forums because they've moved on.

Or maybe they got bored fighting their HUNDREDTH battle against brigands, and quit the game before they had a chance to field guns/pikemen....

Meh, I've gone back to RTW for a bit, but this is largely true about shelving the game. I like the unit cohesion and game mechanics far better than what are in M2TW.

Also sabutai, I've been saying this since the game came out. Nice to know others are still carrying the battleflag. Carry on, my good man.

[trickydicky]

i am very tired of this problem.

example, an enemy unit disengages from one of my units, after this occurs 8 out of ten times 1 of the enemy units men is still around my unit. this one soldier prevents 2/3 of my unit from charging or moving forward in any degree of order, a few men will go forward when commanded in no particular formation while the rest mill about the one enemy soldier who wont die or go away, they just stand there! most of the time not one of them will try to kill the offending enemy soldier

this is a glaring and ever present flaw and takes away the immersion one has while playing the game, i dont wanna have to try and ignore something so terribly frustrating that happens to a greater or lesser degree in every battle

i get especially angry when this happens to my 2 handers, who rely on the charge to have an impact in the battle

and fix the dang guns



Rant mode: Off

Couldn't have said it better mate.

[Didz]

i dont know tyrac if thats a diatribe against me or not, but its something in the game i notice, alot.

Well I've noticed it a lot too, but perhaps thats because I prefer to play with Huge Units. On the few occassions I've played on my sons PC its not been so obvious, but he always plays with the smaller unit setting because he has an aversion to any risk of lag.

Certainly, Horse Archers are almost unmanageable in 80 man units simply because they don't skirmish properly, probably for the same reason you describe.

but i assume most of the people who play the game dont give a fiddlers fart about the pike problems, the guns problem or any of the other problems that other people complain about, maybe i'm just jaded...but this stuff bothers me

To be honest it doesn't bother me very much. If it came to choice between total control and obedience and the occassional personal frustration of a cavalry unit not charging, or a horse archer unit not retreating, or being unable to deploy an spear unit in a street I would take the frustration option.

I actually like the way units dither about and don't respond instantly to my commands and I have enjoyed watching the occasional rogue soldier who refuses to retreat or charges forward alone as it brings the battles to life a bit more to have the occasional idiot or hero emerge from the ranks.

Having said that I agree that there is some tweaking required but personally I don't consider it game breaking, and for me some of it is actually game enhancing.

[Callahan9119]

but your missing the point that this "heroic" soldier left behind causes 80% of the unit he is caught in to moonwalk, animate back and forth or not move at all

its a big flaw that manifests itself in various forms, the guy stuck outside the gatehouse, the lone horse archer thats caught causing the moonwalking of his unit and the infantry who cannot move in any degree of formation because one guy is caught in the back of his formation running in place...most of the time not even using a fighting animation, just running in place

[Didz]

Nope! I'm not missing the point, indeed I accept the point entirely. All I'm saying is that I would rather tolerate these minor issues than have a game which gave me total control and obedience from my troops.

I did agree that there was a need for some tweaking, but as I said I don't consider it a major issue.

[Bob the Insane]

Hmmm... I understand the point and basically agree but I have to say I still prefer the way it works in M2TW 1.2 than the massed blob of death effect in RTW... It is this change that is at the core of this type of issue I believe...

I da agree with Didz, in that an element of realism (nasty word, I know) that is added by troops that act slight human (i.e. prone to miscommunication, apathy and mistakes)...

I recall Close Combat where if you did not keep an eye on your men they could go wandering off, panic and freeze up or go all heroic/beserk and charge of after the enemy... Great fun...