Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome - Dev Diary 3: Combat Rebalance

[unmerged(75409)]

Doesn't this happen in the archer's phase? Then, it is quite realisticaly acceptable imo, since you have the following: imagine those doomstacks having many many archer companies that would insta-hit all or almost all of the defenders, while themselves would be under the cover of a tortoise type formation made by the rest of thousand of soldiers. The thing is that those 500-1000 don't really get in melee combat, where they would indeed be able to kill opponents at a close to 1:1 ratio.

That's ridiculous, you don't kill people with long distance archer fire. Maybe in the Total War games but certainly not in reality!!!

Also, a small force confronted with a much larger one would definitely not line up for a regular battle. The larger force would have to catch them first and then force them to fight. And the fight would certainly not involve the 30,000 man army maneuvering to fight a 3,000 man force. They would split off maybe 10,000 and have them battle the smaller force. So it is not unreasonable that the larger force suffers casualties. The game in no way reflects this.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

[...]
Lastly, we realized that the most important tactical consideration for players, and something they can influence, is the choice of commander and the effect he has on the battle. In patch 1.06, we added a new type of trait called "Leadership Traits", and now we're adding even more of them:

• Flat Terrain Expert
• Rough Terrain Expert
• Mountain Expert
• Desert Expert
• Holy Warrior
• Unyielding

The choice of flank leader for the right role is now an important tactical choice with a real effect on the outcome of the battle.

[...]

I am totally not happy with this. Are they SERIOUSLY thinking that players will like micromanagement every time before a battle?

Army in forest -> swap forest expert leaders
Army in desert -> swap desert expert leaders
and so on.

Where is the TACTICS in that!!! It's just pointless micromanagement. Where is the GAME in this??

 

[Wallain]

*hopes for an October release*

 

[Lord Finnish]

Is anything going to be done to limit reinforcements during a war, to make large battles decisive and important?

P.S. I have to agree with Leviathan07 that I am startled by the degree of micromanagement required, especially as you can't "save" certain leaders to lead certain armies because you need to re-assemble your army for each war.

 

[Dawkins]

I am totally not happy with this. Are they SERIOUSLY thinking that players will like micromanagement every time before a battle?

Army in forest -> swap forest expert leaders
Army in desert -> swap desert expert leaders
and so on.

Where is the TACTICS in that!!! It's just pointless micromanagement. Where is the GAME in this??

Agreed

 

[Sovetskysoyuz]

That's ridiculous, you don't kill people with long distance archer fire. Maybe in the Total War games but certainly not in reality!!!

Many Frenchmen at Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers would disagree with this.

Also, a small force confronted with a much larger one would definitely not line up for a regular battle. The larger force would have to catch them first and then force them to fight. And the fight would certainly not involve the 30,000 man army maneuvering to fight a 3,000 man force. They would split off maybe 10,000 and have them battle the smaller force. So it is not unreasonable that the larger force suffers casualties. The game in no way reflects this.

Tell that to the Persians at Thermopylae. Sometimes strategic considerations override tactical.

 

[Sovetskysoyuz]

Is anything going to be done to limit reinforcements during a war, to make large battles decisive and important?

Yes, it's been mentioned that levies won't replenish once raised, or something to that effect.

 

[riknap]

Is anything going to be done to limit reinforcements during a war, to make large battles decisive and important?

P.S. I have to agree with Leviathan07 that I am startled by the degree of micromanagement required, especially as you can't "save" certain leaders to lead certain armies because you need to re-assemble your army for each war.

to be fair, they've balanced it somewhat by making levies rallied via direct vassals directly, so there's a lot less merging and stuff.
Still, it'll be troublesome for realms with minimal crown authority (ie. can't appoint leaders). But to be fair, if you're having to continuously swap different leaders for different scenarios, then that means you have a lot of vassals/courtiers with martial traits, which means you potentially have a large power base, which means you won't really need to swap leaders too often.

Many Frenchmen at Agincourt, Crecy, and Poitiers would disagree with this.

Tell that to the Persians at Thermopylae. Sometimes strategic considerations override tactical.

regarding Agincourt, it was technically the men-at-arms who delivered the fatal blows to the majority. in terms of RPGish statistics, the english archers basically dealt "fatigue damage" since arrows don't penetrate plate easily, though the force of the blow is still there. And there's the muddy terrain, which dealt "-50% heavy infantry attack and defence"

And regarding thermopylae, it was terrain again that shaped the battlefield. If this were the Heart of Iron series, the combat width could be tied with terrain easily, but since this isn't it's abstracted away in terms of martial stats and traits and tactics.
Maybe we could represent it with terrain-tied tactics instead?

 

[Crepuscularity]

Where is the TACTICS in that!!! It's just pointless micromanagement. Where is the GAME in this??

Seconded.

 

[hannibal_barca]

At the moment, the three flanks system which in theory seemed like it would be the answer all to allowing allowing more tactics in a Paradox grand strategy game, seems to be nothing more than a farce. Even with all the modifiers and traits that are currently available and will be available with the new expansion/dlc.

 

[unmerged(547259)]

That's ridiculous, you don't kill people with long distance archer fire. Maybe in the Total War games but certainly not in reality!!!

Now, now... one problem with the TW series is (or was, since i haven't played it in a long time) that even some skin-painted barbarians, with no armor whatsoever would need to take 3-4 arrows before dying. While indeed plated armored soldiers wouldn't perish to arrows - unless it slipped through bindings, or hit the eye, which still happened - as i can see the first part of the game, it is almost all about light infantry. Thus i assume some lightly armored, fast paced melee fighters, which would still receive serious damage from several waves of arrows. Bringing this back to the subject, I agree that perhaps the fight (500 vs 10000) would still result in some loses for the bigger army, but the casualty value should raise from 5 to max 100, certainly not 400-500 as some would suggest.

Of course, this implies that there actually is a skirmish, although the most realistical solution would be an automatic total route, with 100-200 loses due to cavalary pursuit.

 

[brxbrx]

Is anything going to be done to limit reinforcements during a war, to make large battles decisive and important?

P.S. I have to agree with Leviathan07 that I am startled by the degree of micromanagement required, especially as you can't "save" certain leaders to lead certain armies because you need to re-assemble your army for each war.

Yeah, they mentioned that in this diary or another. Once an army's gone, it stays gone until the war ends

 

[Lord Finnish]

Yes, it's been mentioned that levies won't replenish once raised, or something to that effect.

Yeah, they mentioned that in this diary or another. Once an army's gone, it stays gone until the war ends

Very good. That is virtually the only thing I want for now, everything else is extra

 

[Wezqu]

Yeah, they mentioned that in this diary or another. Once an army's gone, it stays gone until the war ends

Not really. They mentioned that the levies won't reinforce when they are raised. You most likely still can reinforce levies during wars if you just dispand them. You don't neceserly need all your levies up anyway.

 

[Tiax]

I am totally not happy with this. Are they SERIOUSLY thinking that players will like micromanagement every time before a battle?

Army in forest -> swap forest expert leaders
Army in desert -> swap desert expert leaders
and so on.

Where is the TACTICS in that!!! It's just pointless micromanagement. Where is the GAME in this??

Absolutely agree.

It seems like the new hassle for battle is:

1. Hover mouse over target province to determine terrain type.
2. For each army involved:
a. Select army
b. Click little arrow button that secretly means "change flank leaders" (because that's clearly what an arrow indicates)
c. Click each flank leader, to open the terrible Select a Leader AI.
d. Scroll through the randomly generated characters who you have no influence over, and see if any of them happen to have the appropriate attribute
e. Since there's no way to sort or filter on attributes (but you can totally sort on your leader's age, stewardship skill and first name!), try to remember who you saw with the desired attribute.
f. Compare the other combat modifiers of each candidate leader, and evaluate what effect they'll have on the opaque, convoluted combat system.


How can this possibly be considered fun?

 

[Voy]

Absolutely agree.

It seems like the new hassle for battle is:

1. Hover mouse over target province to determine terrain type.
2. For each army involved:
a. Select army
b. Click little arrow button that secretly means "change flank leaders" (because that's clearly what an arrow indicates)
c. Click each flank leader, to open the terrible Select a Leader AI.
d. Scroll through the randomly generated characters who you have no influence over, and see if any of them happen to have the appropriate attribute
e. Since there's no way to sort or filter on attributes (but you can totally sort on your leader's age, stewardship skill and first name!), try to remember who you saw with the desired attribute.
f. Compare the other combat modifiers of each candidate leader, and evaluate what effect they'll have on the opaque, convoluted combat system.


How can this possibly be considered fun?

Would you rather go back to "the army with most units wins battle"?

I think it will matter very little if you battle desert with a forest commander, less than a trivial matter.

 

[brxbrx]

Would you rather go back to "the army with most units wins battle"?

I think it will matter very little if you battle desert with a forest commander, less than a trivial matter.

He's just hoping that the devs will devise a more intuitive system. Being able to save army schemes might help.

 

[Tiax]

Would you rather go back to "the army with most units wins battle"?

I think it will matter very little if you battle desert with a forest commander, less than a trivial matter.

It can't both be the case that commanders don't matter and that battles will not be decided by size. If this change outweighs size difference in armies, most non-trivial battles will require that you go through the terrible UI to find and select appropriate commanders in order to win them. If this change "matters very little" in terms of outcome, what's the point in having it in the first place?

 

[Fawr]

Absolutely agree.

It seems like the new hassle for battle is:

1. Hover mouse over target province to determine terrain type.
2. For each army involved:
a. Select army
b. Click little arrow button that secretly means "change flank leaders" (because that's clearly what an arrow indicates)
c. Click each flank leader, to open the terrible Select a Leader AI.
d. Scroll through the randomly generated characters who you have no influence over, and see if any of them happen to have the appropriate attribute
e. Since there's no way to sort or filter on attributes (but you can totally sort on your leader's age, stewardship skill and first name!), try to remember who you saw with the desired attribute.
f. Compare the other combat modifiers of each candidate leader, and evaluate what effect they'll have on the opaque, convoluted combat system.


How can this possibly be considered fun?

Its all a cunning plan to make me stop using the political map mode?

 

[Crepuscularity]

Would you rather go back to "the army with most units wins battle"?

I think it will matter very little if you battle desert with a forest commander, less than a trivial matter.

Frankly, yes.
No, actually, frankly, that's a strawman. Removing this specific changed will not bring us back to "the army with most units wins battle".
I would rather they devise a better way for strategy and tactics to matter. Leader traits were a good start, but terrain-specific leader traits most definitely are not.
A better change would be strategic leader traits(e.g. for siege, for speed, for attrition, for squeezing into fewer boats, for pillaging) and leader traits for non-Soldier characters.
Or, if they really want to burden us with ridiculous micro-management? They should give us the ability to select the tactics used by the flank lead by the main character(or even every flank in an army where the main character is present, and a lord over the other two flank leaders).