Fighting in battle is a death sentence
- Thread starter durbal
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When you're tribal you can easily make your character a demigod on the battlefield, and usually don't have to worry about underage heirs should he die, I don't see why I would need any more incentive to put him in charge of armies as it is.
Yeah, the interface for this has always been wonky. I believe that if you replace a general, the original general remains in the unit (liable to death). You need to Resign the general to make sure he's no longer assigned to the unit. I wish they would fix this.
What's even the point of subunit commanders? They might as well just cut them out completely.
Well, they can die (maybe you want someone dead but not lead). They might get positive events too though I'm not sure.
subunit for rulers incrase morale of troops... I mean just becase king isnt military genius doesnt mean he cant fight with his army for morale
but... not sure about others
I accept every duel and lead every army as my immortal ruler for over two hundred years now and he was never wounded and never lost a duel. You just need to have decent combat skill before and equipment. AI rulers on the other hand..
Well, as the example of OP shows this might not be the best idea anymore and if ruler is good at combat, there's no reason why he shouldn't be leading the flank.
Yeah, seems like this is the only sane use for this feature.
They replace the commander of their flank if that commander is killed in battle. Or at least that's what I've read somewhere (on the Wiki, maybe).
As for the original thesis of the thread, I agree that commanders are killed too often. I think being captured should be much more common than being killed. From my limited knowledge of how war went back then, it seems like ransom payments were a big deal, and capturing enemy nobles was often a higher priority than killing them.
When dueling a commander and given the choice to show mercy or kill him, I'm surprised that capturing him isn't the result of letting him live. Might help cut down on the deaths.
Or boost our battlefield sacrifices count. Either or.
Does this mean that having the berserker trait is actually not a bad thing anymore?
Because it used to activate some pretty bad tactics and also cause you to be more likely to die, unless I'm remembering things wrong.
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Oh, gosh, I had a berserker with a 140+ personal combat skill who would just tear through combatants like wet toilet paper. Win every duel (even against 70+ personal combat scores), randomly cut out a couple hundred foot soldiers every so often... He eventually died of natural causes.
Lunatic and Possessed are fine. I had another character who was a Satanist and, well, more a grotesque mockery of humanity than anything, but still had high martial and personal combat scores, and just dominated the battlefield as a result. One time, I had an unlucky roll and was just about to lose a hand... but because of my high combat score, I was able to fend off the attack and get away with a swollen wrist, instead.
Take a look:
He's past his prime in this shot, with a 30 Martial and 90 PCS at his peak. But he was leading armies until the very end of his life. He eventually died of cancer.
Really? My Saxon game was a complete disaster, all my 6 Rulers were in the warrior lodge and all died in battle or duels, the combination of getting sick one day before a battle or getting maimed and constant duels and wars killed them all, my last character died with 18 and my heir was murdered.
I'm the sort that doesn't like needless RNG and still consider this interaction fine. There is agency *and* times where leading/not leading in combat makes sense.
If your ruler is immune via lodge or expendable it can be useful to send him into the fray. If he isn't, sometimes the risk is too great compared to the utility (nothing wrong with scrounging up 3-6 martial 16+ commanders w/o bad traits and slapping them on your armies as an alternative).
I often train rulers in stewardship or intrigue if their childhood traits lean those ways, and these guys don't usually see battle unless I want them dead and can afford having a bad general on the front in that war. The extra demesne and income or especially plot power can come in handy, sometimes more than the marginal combat value added from ruler compared to simply using a good commander in his place.
If your ruler is immune via lodge or expendable it can be useful to send him into the fray. If he isn't, sometimes the risk is too great compared to the utility (nothing wrong with scrounging up 3-6 martial 16+ commanders w/o bad traits and slapping them on your armies as an alternative).
I often train rulers in stewardship or intrigue if their childhood traits lean those ways, and these guys don't usually see battle unless I want them dead and can afford having a bad general on the front in that war. The extra demesne and income or especially plot power can come in handy, sometimes more than the marginal combat value added from ruler compared to simply using a good commander in his place.
I think it still fires beserker charge, so I don't like it for guys who will actually be commanding flanks.
But it does increase your personal fighting ability, so it's more of a trade off now.
Wow, RNG must hate you. My first game in Holy Fury was as a Germanic pagan. I had 300 years worth of rulers join the lodge and duel everything under the sun (including someone elses Glitterhoof at one point, I think). I only lost four rulers to battlefield events. Two lost duels and were killed, the others got made incapable and died shortly after.
Some of my rulers would get wounded and die later from infections, but I don't consider them battlefield losses so much as "I forgot to appoint a good physician" casualties, so that's my fault. And almost every ruler was at least scarred, with many being outright disfigured. Which is fine, given our faith and culture. (When your wife is also in the warrior lodge and a shieldmaiden, having no face left from fighting and killing hundreds of Catholics spices up the marriage apparently...)
In fact, now that I think about it, actual battlefield deaths are not the biggest threat to my dynasty. PTSD is. The new PTSD events that cause emotional problems for characters that have been involved in battles are a real pain to deal with. I have a ton of dynasty members getting depressed, becoming lecherous drunks, or becoming wroth lunatics that make beserkers look tame.
Personally I love it since battles where really dangerous in the middle ages and alot of rulers died in battle. The ruler was also kind of expected to lead his army even if he weren´t trained to be a mighty warrior. Finally the huge reward for being a successful warrior now makes the martial education worth getting for your primary heir (and yourself ofc) which is something I like.
The issue with the AI wasting it's ruler by fighting when it should not is a different matter and it needs to be adressed ASAP by the Dev's.
The issue with the AI wasting it's ruler by fighting when it should not is a different matter and it needs to be adressed ASAP by the Dev's.
Excellent idea. During the middle ages it was actually considered a criminal act to kill a 'higborn' noble in battle and it was expected that even a mortal enemy would get the chance to buy his freedom.
For all the people saying that rulers frequently died in battle during this time period: sources please? Yeah, combat was bloody and up close but rulers were usually mounted and protected. In the game they die like any other commander and it doesn't seem to have any basis on the type of battle or anything. You'll see stuff like a 24 martial, strong commander of a 2000-man flank die while killing some raiders. That stuff needs to be fixed because that's what's killing the AI and it makes no sense for rulers or commanders to be dying so randomly. I swear more than half the time they get the 'fell on own weapon' event.
Berserkers can absolutely die in battle. In fact it's much, much more likely to happen.
When it comes to getting wounded, maimed or killed, Berserkers use their own special set of battle events from oldgods_various_events instead of the ones from battle_events that everyone else uses. That's why when you look in battle_events, the first thing you see is that those events don't fire for berserkers.
Doesn't mean you're safe!