No skirmish on Desert Cavalry?

[Scooter]

I find this really freakin annoying; desert cavalry no longer have skirmish mode, which means it takes ridiculous amounts of micro to try and keep them away from the Jerusalem uberknights.
Seriously, what was the point of this? Every other javelin cav in the game can skirmish. What's the point of just deliberately upping the non-fun micro requirements, or making me pause the game every 3 seconds?

[Guru]

Yup. What I find strange is that not even irish skirmishers can skirmish. Instead of using pause I'd recommend playing such battles in slow motion. Hold down shift key and use the speed adjuster to set the game speed at 0.4, for example. I guess you could mod desert cavalry to be able to skirmish too.

- Guru

[Galapagos]

I find this really freakin annoying; desert cavalry no longer have skirmish mode, which means it takes ridiculous amounts of micro to try and keep them away from the Jerusalem uberknights.
Seriously, what was the point of this? Every other javelin cav in the game can skirmish. What's the point of just deliberately upping the non-fun micro requirements, or making me pause the game every 3 seconds?

I really find this thing annoying And please tell me if you succeed to mod this.









Galapagos

[FactionHeir]

Quite interesting though that the "rebalance" seems to be messing up more than its fixing.

As for how to fix it, its not obvious in the unit file, but my guess would be that the unit is not tagged as a missile unit but light infantry/light cavalry instead.

[Jason X]

is this just in the kingdoms campaigns or retrofit as well?
do jinetes have the same problem now?

[Rhyfelwyr]

In export_descr_unit, do some units not have a trait along the lines of skirmish_mode_enabled, which affects whether or not they start in skirmish mode?

[Benandorf]

Apparently they took off the ability to Skirmish in skirmishers. So in other words, unless you want to use an obscene amount of micro, they are now completely useless units.

I suppose it leaves more space for other things, but it sucks that an entire unit type has been rendered obsolete.

[Bob the Insane]

is this just in the kingdoms campaigns or retrofit as well?
do jinetes have the same problem now?

Using Retrofit I have not had this issue with HA's or archers... Not sure about the rest, will look tonight...

[Jason X]

a thousand thanks, oh he whose hat is pointy

[Doug-Thompson]

I find this really freakin annoying; desert cavalry no longer have skirmish mode, which means it takes ridiculous amounts of micro to try and keep them away from the Jerusalem uberknights.
Seriously, what was the point of this? Every other javelin cav in the game can skirmish. What's the point of just deliberately upping the non-fun micro requirements, or making me pause the game every 3 seconds?

Good grief.

Even Boyar Sons and Polish Nobles can skirmish. This is ridiculous.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

You can add the attribute can_withdraw in the EDU

the line of code should be like this:

attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, bla bla

[ixidor]

lol... I always thought that one of the best things of medieval II was is skirmish mode, which allows to using skirmishers without going crazy with micromanagement. If this continues i will just stop using them. Thank god i didn't buy kingdoms...

[napoleon526]

Glad I wasn't the only one to notice this. Hopefully it will be fixed in a patch.

It's too bad though, since Desert Cavalry could be pretty useful. I always kept a couple of them in a stack of horse archers. I liked to send them around to tht rear of the enemy army and target the general's bodyguard, hopefully hitting the general himself. I tried the same thing in Kingdoms and wondered why they kept getting slaughtered until I finally caught on.

[Doug-Thompson]

I suppose Desert Cavalry still have very weak melee stats and are very vulnerable without skirmish. This is just goofy.

[zaher]

The question is : Was that a special decision of developer or just mistake/bug? If it was a decision, i am sure, it was made with consulting professors and academics of military history. If it is mistake/bug - will be fixed with patch i guess.

[Czar Alexsandr]

I'm sure the Moors and Arabs from the crusading time period knew well enough that it was a good idea to use their agility to escape the Franks heavily armoured tin can men. ^_^;

I use Desert Cavalry all the time as the Moors and Egyptians, they're a very useful unit but now I'm wondering what I'll do when I get Kingdoms. Maybe I'll need to use them as flankers or pre battle skirmishers. (shrug.)

[Doug-Thompson]

I'll know what I'll do: Put "can_withdraw" into the attributes.

Spanish Jinettes can't skirmish in the Americas campaign, either.

[FactionHeir]

can_withdraw does not have anything to do with skirmishing. Every unit has can_withdraw, meaning it may be withdrawed from the field of battle (i.e. manual rout)

[Monsieur Alphonse]

can_withdraw does not have anything to do with skirmishing. Every unit has can_withdraw, meaning it may be withdrawed from the field of battle (i.e. manual rout)

You are right. My mistake. I have noticed that some missile units have the cannot_skirmish attribute. May be you have to remove that to enable skirmish. May be every missile unit has automatic the skirmish attribute enabled.

[Shahed]

There's got to be an easy way to mod this. Maybe just delete that attribute ? Can't try it myself as I don't have the game yet.

[FactionHeir]

As I said, its most likely the case that the cavalry/infantry in the new unit file are flagged as light cavalry/infantry rather than missile, i.e. being a missile type unit grants automatic skirmish.

[Shahed]

I see. So then we need to flag them as missile. Do you know how to ?

[Mr Frost]

I see. So then we need to flag them as missile. Do you know how to ?

Just checked Sinan . You merely need to delete the attribute cannot_skirmish

So open export_descr_unit in americas and change this

attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, cantabrian_circle, cannot_skirmish

to this

attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, hardy, can_withdraw, cantabrian_circle

It was obviously a deliberate "feature" , but all I can see it doing is dumbing down battles in a really dumb way






Edit : I do however see a use for that attribute with missile capable units who shouldn't skirmish {EB Celtic heavy infantry or Apache Braves for example} without having to use the prec weapon attribute which would allow you to target specific enemy units without having you unit try to charge after the first volley . It is still completely idiotic for units which should skirmish like Jinets {given the vast quantity of period eyewitness accounts of how they fought still extanct in libraries today } and Desert Cavalry .

[Shahed]

Great job Mr. Frost ! Thanks for the test.
So that brings back to where we should have been. ;)

[Doug-Thompson]

... It is still completely idiotic for units which should skirmish like Jinets {given the vast quantity of period eyewitness accounts of how they fought still extanct in libraries today } and Desert Cavalry .

Yes, and when Irish Horse Boys still have skirmish ability too. It's pretty ludicrous when Spanish dragoons with muskets can do this and desert cavalry can't.

[Jason X]

jinetes i might understand as a balance issue (they were simply too cool for school in vanilla), but desert cav must be a mistake, right?

lusted, any comments?

[IvarrWolfsong]

jinetes i might understand as a balance issue (they were simply too cool for school in vanilla), but desert cav must be a mistake, right?

lusted, any comments?

Let 'em skirmish, but IMO ALL Javelin cavalry should have "effective against armor" removed. It is ridiculous.

[Doug-Thompson]

Let 'em skirmish, but IMO ALL Javelin cavalry should have "effective against armor" removed. It is ridiculous.

What would they be good for? They'd be a short-ranged archer unit with little ammo.

I feel an O.T. discussion coming on. Sorry to start it.

[Guru]

Let 'em skirmish, but IMO ALL Javelin cavalry should have "effective against armor" removed. It is ridiculous.

Why do you think it's ridiculous to have armour piercing javelins? Can you give any reasons? How about javelin armed infantry? I find it pretty logical that these relatively heavy ranged weapons with lots of kinetic energy are able to pierce armour. Well, I admit I haven't studied much physics... If the head of the javelin is designed pretty much like the bodkin arrow, why wouldn't it have similar qualities as the bodkin arrow has? In the terms of gameplay I think it's fair that javelin units have the "effective against armour" trait.

I don't think this is too bad off topic yet... It concerns desert cavalry, doesn't it? Doesn't have much to do with skirmishing, I'm afraid, but you can't have all.

- Guru

[IvarrWolfsong]

Javelins did not have armor piercing abilities.

Take for example the battle of Najera in which the large body Spanish Jinettes were rendered useless because of the heavy armor of the time.

Take a look at the Catalans and their style of warfare against the Greco Frankish latin Kingdom's heavy cavalry... they fought in loose formation and used their javelins against the unarmored horses.

Javelins pretty much became obsolete as soldiers began to wear heavier armor. They were a good weapon against lightly armored foes though. Unfortunately, in M2TW armies tend not to be very realistic and often contain huge quantities of elite armored units*.

In game terms, I don't know what to say... variety-wise they are fun to have in the game. I can't say what would make em special without AP. They would be like norse swordsmen

* I started messing around with more realistic armies in custom battle... its has been a nice change. The Scots really whoop some but there too =P.