Different way to nerf militias

[Zakky]

How about drastically reducing the recruit production speed while a region has too many militias?

5k CS is probably a good line I think. Anything above that should probably be considered a bit excessive but that is just me.

[Chenier]

I'm all for nerfing militia. I'd rather them only nerfed vs non-rogues, though.

[feyeleanor]

I'm against Nerfing militias. In rurals they're only a threat to small raiding parties whilst big cities with strong defences should be tough nuts to crack by direct assault.

I'd much prefer a siege mechanic instead to blockade food imports to a specific city and starve both the population and the garrison as part of an overhaul of the Trader class.

[Zakky]

Militias haven't been nerfed at all. With our declining player base, militias are getting stronger than ever. There just aren't enough people you can bring to siege a city. Just look at the Northern Alliance on EC. At most they can bring 35k CS. If you haven't noticed, there is no cap or downside for recruiting militias.

They are way too good right now. Cities are already getting way too difficult to crack. When was the last time you've managed to starve a city?

For that to happen, it needs a complete overhaul of food system which won't happen for years or maybe never.

[feyeleanor]

Militias haven't been nerfed at all. With our declining player base, militias are getting stronger than ever. There just aren't enough people you can bring to siege a city. Just look at the Northern Alliance on EC. At most they can bring 35k CS. If you haven't noticed, there is no cap or downside for recruiting militias.

I'm pretty sure the Northern Alliance could field a much larger army than that if they tried.

They are way too good right now. Cities are already getting way too difficult to crack. When was the last time you've managed to starve a city?

For that to happen, it needs a complete overhaul of food system which won't happen for years or maybe never.

The "new" food system made it much more difficult to starve cities anyway, and since then I've only seen that done when a realm could be completely starved of food. Sieges aren't something BM does well but where I think mechanics could be improved without necessitating a huge rewrite of what's already there.

As to peasant militias, instead of demanding they be nerfed you could get a skilled diplomat or priest involved. Whilst it's time-consuming they have the necessary skills to generate hate or love. Or do you think all those angry peasants currently playing hunt-the-knight in Aureus are just there by happenstance?

[Zakky]

Looks like you don't fully understand why militias are big problems in general.

I am not talking about just peasant militias. Despite them having their own set of issues, normal militias people are putting to defend are causing too many issues.

1) Militias are as strong as player controlled units
--Their only disadvantage is the fact they can't move. Why should they, units without any commander, be as strong as player controlled units?

2) Even when you can't pay them, they don't desert like player controlled units. A small portion of them will leave but not significant enough to deter even small regions without any capability of paying militias to recruit a lot of them.
--If a region can't pay for militias, they should burn the region to the ground and take all the gold and leave. Mind you, these militias are paid soldiers. In BM you are not commanding retinues or soldiers from your holdings. You are literally buying mercenaries off the market. That is why they will beat you up and take all your gold when you fail to pay them. You are bound by a contract to pay them in time. They don't wait for you to pay them later because they have no loyalty. Why should militias be any different? If your region cannot pay anymore, they should ransack your region and take what they can and leave not guard the region forever.

3)Cities being able to support way too many militias
--This is what is causing big issues. Cities were hard to siege before but at least you could starve one years ago. But even then it was still hard to take a city because you still had to deal with militias. Just getting enough siege engines alone take months. To siege a city with lv5 walls, you need at least 50 SEs and even then you will often see siege engines being too crowded. These days, with archers being stronger than the days when you could starve cities, it is nigh impossible to siege a city that is rich enough to put men on the walls constantly. One realm alone can't siege a city that has over 1.5k gold income. You need to bring more realms in just for one city. This encourages realms to gang up on one realm just to take a city. I am pretty sure the game is trying to discourage people from ganging up which it has failed to do so for the entirety of its lifespan. Not saying it is purely the game's fault however since people like to gang up and I don't think mechanics can discourage it. But at least it shouldn't encourage it.

4) With the addition of new market system (--which Anaris is working on to finish but since it is a major change it will take years) and food distribution change (which allows you to run your city at 50% food consumption 24/7 without any major downside), you will never be able to starve a city out. This forces you to the only other option on the table which is siege.

5) Skilled diplomats
They are very hard to come by. Have you checked how many non-warrior class there are in the game at the moment? Not many. There just aren't enough people anymore. You don't even have enough to fight off your enemies. For most small realms, they will hardly have one. Also, skill diplomats only affect relations not actual militias people put in their regions.

[feyeleanor]

1) Heroes and captains both boost the performance of player-controlled units so I don't think the comparison is accurate, and there's a lot more variability in militia performance in successive battles if they've retreated or are scattered than with player controlled units.
2) Militias for the most part are immobile so have a more settled existence than player-controlled troops. They always have a place to live, first preference for any food and presumably local attachments.
3) Most cities are not Oligarch and will not resist a sustained siege by a single realm committed to their capture. Having spent my entire BM career on the receiving end of gangup wars whilst practicing the black arts of defensive warfare I've never seen any evidence that the gangups occur because the victim has unconquerable cities.
4) Sieges could be handled with a new unit stance besieging which if all defenders are in normal or defensive would establish a siege and put the onus on the defender to attack (as with a TO) and lose the advantage of walls. During the siege food couldn't be moved into or out of the region. Enable the Black Market for traders and this could allow them to smuggle a proportion of food offers into the city at a sizeble profit siphoned direct from the region's tax office.
5) There are still a few Priests and they make great Diplomats due to both having Oratory as a primary skill. I'd like to see more of them and think priests shouldn't count against a player's noble character count.

[Chenier]

I'm against Nerfing militias. In rurals they're only a threat to small raiding parties whilst big cities with strong defences should be tough nuts to crack by direct assault.

I'd much prefer a siege mechanic instead to blockade food imports to a specific city and starve both the population and the garrison as part of an overhaul of the Trader class.

The best threat to small raiding parties is small (counter)-raiding parties. Militia are there to prevent tiny forces from overtaking vital regions like cities, not to replace a mobile army.

Militia just blocks all actions. There's no fun in two realms spending 20k in militia, and then 5k in mobile forces that are so tiny all they can do is stare at each other all day.

Militia was never meant to be an army stopping force in regions without fortifications, and even then.

[Zakky]

1) Heroes and captains both boost the performance of player-controlled units so I don't think the comparison is accurate, and there's a lot more variability in militia performance in successive battles if they've retreated or are scattered than with player controlled units.

--Heroes and captains don't provide enough to impact the performance of units that much. So my point still stands. If heroes and captains made significant impacts, it would have been a different story but they don't. They are very minor.

2) Militias for the most part are immobile so have a more settled existence than player-controlled troops. They always have a place to live, first preference for any food and presumably local attachments.

--I am talking about their roleplay potential. They were either recruited by the lord from nearby regions which I guess in this case makes sense with your idea of them having preference to food and local attachments but in most cases people drop their own units to increase them quickly. This of course is not necessary for capitals but then again capitals are where all recruits gather so they would hardly have any attachment.

3) Most cities are not Oligarch and will not resist a sustained siege by a single realm committed to their capture. Having spent my entire BM career on the receiving end of gangup wars whilst practicing the black arts of defensive warfare I've never seen any evidence that the gangups occur because the victim has unconquerable cities.

Since you like to bring your BM career as an example here, I spent over 6 years on leading armies of various sizes. Unlike you, I spent my time both fighting off gangups and besieging cities both small and large. What changed everything was the archer bug fix. They hit harder than the days when Fontan fell with you. Or the days when I besieged Oligarch against Fane. With enough infantry to keep men off of archers, your militias are a lot more cost efficient than before. They are different from melee militia days of old because archers can damage your men long before you can even get near the walls. Either the walls need to be limited to lv3 at most for cities or militias need to be nerfed in one way or another. It is way too easy to defend fortified regions due to various changes over the years. While defenders got stronger, attackers did not. Actually there are less attackers now so even easier to defend.

4) Sieges could be handled with a new unit stance besieging which if all defenders are in normal or defensive would establish a siege and put the onus on the defender to attack (as with a TO) and lose the advantage of walls. During the siege food couldn't be moved into or out of the region. Enable the Black Market for traders and this could allow them to smuggle a proportion of food offers into the city at a sizeble profit siphoned direct from the region's tax office.

I am trying to provide an easier solution until these new features god knows when come. All the things you've mentioned need to be coded from scratch. Also some of them are planned already. Why do we need to unit status even.

[qutoe]5) There are still a few Priests and they make great Diplomats due to both having Oratory as a primary skill. I'd like to see more of them and think priests shouldn't count against a player's noble character count.[/quote]

I don't think this one belongs here. Nothing to do with militia.

[Zakky]

Militia just blocks all actions. There's no fun in two realms spending 20k in militia, and then 5k in mobile forces that are so tiny all they can do is stare at each other all day.

Exactly. If you can only muster 5k CS then you should die. Not survive on the back of 20k CS militia units you've recruited with gold.

I can see people being able to temporarily increase their militia CS quickly but it should come with a heavy price tag since at that point you are not going to really recruit that many militias. You should be recruiting mercenaries and they cost a lot of gold.

[feyeleanor]

Since you like to bring your BM career as an example here, I spent over 6 years on leading armies of various sizes. Unlike you, I spent my time both fighting off gangups and besieging cities both small and large. What changed everything was the archer bug fix. They hit harder than the days when Fontan fell with you. Or the days when I besieged Oligarch against Fane. With enough infantry to keep men off of archers, your militias are a lot more cost efficient than before. They are different from melee militia days of old because archers can damage your men long before you can even get near the walls. Either the walls need to be limited to lv3 at most for cities or militias need to be nerfed in one way or another. It is way too easy to defend fortified regions due to various changes over the years. While defenders got stronger, attackers did not. Actually there are less attackers now so even easier to defend.

I've spent most of the past three years focused on siege defence and ranged tactics. With preparation and good planning it's possible to make it very hard for attackers to take a city but unless you're manning your walls with Range 5 SF 100/100/100 an attacker with better ranged forces will wear down your garrison and take your walls. They don't even need more men than you if their range is longer and the weather favourable.

I put this to the test with the siege of Alowca. A defending garrison of Range 4 SF behind lvl 5 walls was decimated by an attacking force of Range 5 SF. It took several days of stalemate battles before the garrison were defeated, but they were defeated. Whilst several realms were involved in the assault, only two of them brought the SF and the number of those was smaller than the number of SF defenders.

I am trying to provide an easier solution until these new features god knows when come. All the things you've mentioned need to be coded from scratch. Also some of them are planned already. Why do we need to unit status even.

Because unit status would be a simple and discrete hook to use. It's already used for evasive to avoid battles. I can't comment on the amount of coding involved to add sieges this way to the existing codebase, though the feature set required would be small. I'd be willing to implement the feature if the Devs think it's a good idea.

[Zakky]

I don't know what was the size of this siege of Alowca but from the name I am guessing it is on colonies which is too small of a sample size. Plus it is just a single siege with unknown number of different unit types. So you will need to give me more details for that one. Sounds like this Alowca was poorly prepared and got overwhelmed by gang up attacks from your story though.

The most effective siege tactic at the moment is to put your archers in skirmish and set them in the front with 1 infantry in each row with the rear having all other unit types except cavalry. Cavalry need to be set in the back to prevent them from charging into the walls.

Or if your archers outnumber enemy archers 2 to 1 and they only have a couple to few infantry units, you only send ranged units and set them in middle or back to take out infantry units.

As for out ranging your enemies that is not feasible in most cases. Almost no one runs pure R5 units and it is a dumb idea to only have an army full of SFs. Plus if your enemies have R5, it doesn't work. So give me an example of a siege that is more equal.

As for your suggestion regarding the new siege status, it looks like we just need some additional codes to the TO mechanic since TO already prevents some stuff.

[Chenier]

Weren't archers nerfed recently?

That said, I'm seeing archers being used a hell of a lot more than back in the days. I mean, those battles on EC are extremely archer heavy, barely any infantry when we consider everything. In Westgard we just annihilated a force of 20k rogues with 7k of archers (with a few ranged SF), we didn't even get a single hit on us either. Not a single melee unit in the army (there were 3 at the start of that campaign, though).

Seems like I've been noticing this trend elsewhere too. Westgard's kind of a special case because we only fight monsters, but elsewhere... doesn't feel right to see this. On EC seems like infantry's only role is to have 1 on each line so as to have the enemy waste a million arrows on a few men every round.

[Zakky]

I think monsters need to use skirmish by default and maybe cavalries should take less damage from archer fires by at least 50%.

Archers were nerfed not by a lot from all the hits I see. They were nerfed a bit. Maybe by 20% or so? They are definitely hitting a bit less than before but they still do quite a bit.

I think the biggest problem with archers is their range. Maybe lowering range of all ranged unit types by 1 would be nice.

[Chenier]

I think monsters need to use skirmish by default and maybe cavalries should take less damage from archer fires by at least 50%.

Archers were nerfed not by a lot from all the hits I see. They were nerfed a bit. Maybe by 20% or so? They are definitely hitting a bit less than before but they still do quite a bit.

I think the biggest problem with archers is their range. Maybe lowering range of all ranged unit types by 1 would be nice.

A quick non-fix would be reducing the displayed CS of monsters by 33%-50%. I don't know how other armies are faring, but we are constantly winning against monster armies that double our CS, or more, with little or no losses.

I mean, beside that, let's not get too quick to implement major game-changing modifications. Are archers really broken? 'cause if you nerf archers or buff monsters Westgard dies in a week. XD