Combat system

[Dobromir]

I doubt many players out there have studied the combat army as much as I have.  I have sent some info previously to Delvin and I feel alot of things need to happened to make battles alot funner

1.  Ablolish the current marshal settings
2.  Replace preset marshal settings allowing marshals to set up all different unit type in Front/Middle/Back/Rear.  Troop Leaders maintain the right to set to Defensive/Normal/Aggressive/Evasive as they wish along with Line/Wedge/Box
3.  Fix the defensive setting

Im going to Expand on this.  Defensive setting only works when you are in fortifications or dug in.  This way they will mount the perrimetre of the wall/camp and stay put.  Otherwise in Defensive battles they will move forward as if they were on aggressive.  This bug simply causes infantry on both normal and aggressive to be useless thus making infantry on perma defence.  You may argue otherwise but you gain nothing from setting on aggressive instead of aggressive (only scenario this is an advantage is if you have fortifications on 90% damage thus you set on aggressive so the fight doesnt occur on them killing the fortifications)

On Offensive battles defensive settings = aggressive and normal settings there is no difference between them.  My suggestion here would be to cause defensive units to have a 50% chance to stay put and 50% chance to move forward when attacking.  While defending this should always be 100%.

This would also fix alot of fustrations with the current system and pretty much negate the massive clusters that just hit each other and it would also make it alot more important that individuals have to check/set their settings properly.  I believe these changes would result in a much improved combat and funner combat system.

4.  Fix special forces.  They suck atm cost per unit and cs/damage output.

[Foundation]

If you wish to talk about the 4th point regarding SF, please refer to:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,397.0.html

[De-Legro]

My suggestion here would be to cause defensive units to have a 50% chance to stay put and 50% chance to move forward when attacking. 

I'm not a huge fan. I agree that the current defensive behaviour is weird, but a 50% to stay or go would just mean that individual troop leaders need to be sure to change their line settings constantly. Oh next turn we are going to attack everyone remember to change their settings so we don't get a split infantry line. Quick the attack is over everyone to defence. I simply can't encourage anything that becomes just one more thing the more casual players must constantly check.

2.  Replace preset marshal settings allowing marshals to set up all different unit type in Front/Middle/Back/Rear.  Troop Leaders maintain the right to set to Defensive/Normal/Aggressive/Evasive as they wish along with Line/Wedge/Box

Been suggested before. I'm not sure where the Devs stand on it. There has been some discussion about it here
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,158.0.html

I doubt many players out there have studied the combat army as much as I have.  I have sent some info previously to Delvin and I feel alot of things need to happened to make battles alot funner

You would probably be surprised how many players spend LARGE amounts of time trying to maximise their combat knowledge. I've got my own battle parser that tries to extrapolate metrics for army performance based on things like army composition, average unit size etc. The Devs have admitted that combat needs a tweak, but I believe it is simply a huge job and they have other project to wind up first.

[Dobromir]

I'm not a huge fan. I agree that the current defensive behaviour is weird, but a 50% to stay or go would just mean that individual troop leaders need to be sure to change their line settings constantly. Oh next turn we are going to attack everyone remember to change their settings so we don't get a split infantry line. Quick the attack is over everyone to defence. I simply can't encourage anything that becomes just one more thing the more casual players must constantly check.

 
I dont see what the problem is here.  Right now the system is basically you march with your marshal and you are controlled completely by it too.  You should be set to defensive as long as you are defending.  Im one of the foremost people that get blamed for micro-managing the army so I see that involving troop leaders to check their settings when they move to attack is a good thing.  Think of it this way, if you dont marshal your troop properly will they act properly in a battle.  Im not saying it has to be 50% but if you engage on offensive battle on defensive settings I suggest there be some kind of confusion that makes your troop less effective.  You can always make a marshal's leadership affect this.

With regards to your knowledge and inputting battles I dont see how simply running the battle in a parser would work you dont have all the information needed I've gathered Weapon/armor of troops leaders when i've done mine OOC of course.

[De-Legro]

 
I dont see what the problem is here.  Right now the system is basically you march with your marshal and you are controlled completely by it too.  You should be set to defensive as long as you are defending.  Im one of the foremost people that get blamed for micro-managing the army so I see that involving troop leaders to check their settings when they move to attack is a good thing.  Think of it this way, if you dont marshal your troop properly will they act properly in a battle.  Im not saying it has to be 50% but if you engage on offensive battle on defensive settings I suggest there be some kind of confusion that makes your troop less effective.  You can always make a marshal's leadership affect this.

With regards to your knowledge and inputting battles I dont see how simply running the battle in a parser would work you dont have all the information needed I've gathered Weapon/armor of troops leaders when i've done mine OOC of course.

You can approximate weapon/armour based on the number of hits/kill ratio. Since we now target individual units, any unit that lasts a few rounds can be approximated reasonably well for this.

[Dobromir]

You can approximate weapon/armour based on the number of hits/kill ratio. Since we now target individual units, any unit that lasts a few rounds can be approximated reasonably well for this.

I dont see how you can approximate like that.  Armor is very relevant to how much hits you take before taking casualties and weapons help deal more hits.  Assuming things instead of getting the actual numbers is where you go wrong

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Even the CS is more of an approximation than a strict indicator of combat effectiveness. There seems to exist enough variation that even knowing the exact numbers for all enemy units will not allow much more accurate estimates as to the outcomes of a battle than we have from current methods (Scouting).

[De-Legro]

Even the CS is more of an approximation than a strict indicator of combat effectiveness. There seems to exist enough variation that even knowing the exact numbers for all enemy units will not allow much more accurate estimates as to the outcomes of a battle than we have from current methods (Scouting).

Pretty correct. Given unit size and CS, and knowledge of my own units stats and perhaps 1 or 2 more players allows good enough approximations given the random factors Tom seems to purposely throw into the mix anyway.

But too the main part, you want to hand over more control to the marshal in one breath, by getting rid of the preconfigured formations and allowed them to set detailed line settings for each unit type, but then insist troop leaders need to be pressing more buttons? You can already achieve the first by setting marshal settings to nothing and dictating unit settings to the troop leaders. Should you also suffer a penalty if your unit is set to aggressive and you are on the defense? Why I'm against this is we must remember many troops leaders don't have massive amounts of time to dedicate to this game, so making more busy work for them to worry about when they log in takes away time they could be using to interact with other players via messages and RP.

Secondly lets examine what the defensive setting really is. It is in a category called Your men are instructed to act, the other options are evasive, normal, aggressive and murderous. Now to me this isn't saying whether the unit is "defending" or "attacking" but affects the way they do either action. I can defend the wall in a aggressive or murderous fashion. Like wise I can advance upon the enemy in a defensive or cautious manner, shields locked, measured step.

The whole advance or not advance question is to me not related to this setting at all, it dictates whether my men fight with reckless abandon in the melee, like some barbaric horde, spread out swinging their weapons wildly with little regard for there own defense, or whether they take the measured approach with think of when we imagine a roman legion advancing in perfect formation.