On Real Time Battles

[Al_Wombat]

This thread is about what players and devs think about the Real Time Battles and what suggestions they might make. Many would agree that it's still work in progress but the devs decided to release now since so many people have been waiting for so long. Is the game fully ready yet? Maybe not, but then again, which game is at day one? 

Haven't yet played myself but I'd still like to mention the issues being talked about on twitch streams or reviews.

• AI seems to be sending Generals on solitary death rides into the enemy lines. This unit being essential makes this bug even nastier. See German magazine Gamestar's youtube channel. 
• Balance:
  • Archers may be OP in general
  • Heavy Cavalry may be underpowered in close combat against archers. 
• Terrain: According to Gamestar has virtually no effect on the battles. 

This is what other people said. From the gameplay I've watched I personally would have hoped for archers to behave more historically accurate.

(Archers didn't used to send volley after volley of precious arrows into the skies, but rather waited until they could actually see who and where they were shooting at, exactly. Arrows are VERY hard to make and weren't thrown around like it's been going on in strategy games all the time of course, endless ammunition.)

Maybe the devs could nerf the archers like that: Let them have less "rounds" which would still be very effective, the damage depending on the distance significantly, as well as on training and experience, of course..  This might open up a range of wagers and strategies: The closer to the enemy I have my archers loose the more damage they will make, felling them, while maybe saving arrows, too. But if if goes wrong the whole unit can get hammered by a shield charge and flee the battlefield in panic. 

 

Opinions, quotes, and ideas, please!

[RTSfanatic]

On 12/8/2022 at 3:33 AM, Al_Wombat said:

This thread is about what players and devs think about the Real Time Battles and what suggestions they might make. Many would agree that it's still work in progress but the devs decided to release now since so many people have been waiting for so long. Is the game fully ready yet? Maybe not, but then again, which game is at day one? 

Haven't yet played myself but I'd still like to mention the issues being talked about on twitch streams or reviews.

• AI seems to be sending Generals on solitary death rides into the enemy lines. This unit being essential makes this bug even nastier. See German magazine Gamestar's youtube channel. 
• Balance:
  • Archers may be OP in general
  • Heavy Cavalry may be underpowered in close combat against archers. 
• Terrain: According to Gamestar has virtually no effect on the battles. 

This is what other people said. From the gameplay I've watched I personally would have hoped for archers to behave more historically accurate.

(Archers didn't used to send volley after volley of precious arrows into the skies, but rather waited until they could actually see who and where they were shooting at, exactly. Arrows are VERY hard to make and weren't thrown around like it's been going on in strategy games all the time of course, endless ammunition.)

Maybe the devs could nerf the archers like that: Let them have less "rounds" which would still be very effective, the damage depending on the distance significantly, as well as on training and experience, of course..  This might open up a range of wagers and strategies: The closer to the enemy I have my archers loose the more damage they will make, felling them, while maybe saving arrows, too. But if if goes wrong the whole unit can get hammered by a shield charge and flee the battlefield in panic. 

 

Opinions, quotes, and ideas, please!

Sadly by todays standard games don't release fully ready. But that doesn't mean they should follow this trend. I'm sure that they could have waited releasing this game if that meant the RTS battles would be better.

The RTS battles honestly need a full overhaul. It feels like it was made in the early 2000's.

Archers are indeed way to strong currently and the AI seems to know this. In my playthrough I'm currently fighting army's made up of 80% archers. Maybe this is because it is England that I'm fighting but still that is a ridiculous amount and in no way realistic

[Al_Wombat]

20 hours ago, RTSfanatic said:

Archers are indeed way to strong currently and the AI seems to know this. In my playthrough I'm currently fighting army's made up of 80% archers. Maybe this is because it is England that I'm fighting but still that is a ridiculous amount and in no way realistic

I agree with what you said about game publishing and RTS battle mode, but Archers did indeed compose the main force of armies, at least in England. 

Henry V is believed to have fielded 1k Men-At-Arms along 5k archers at Agincourt.

According the the books on medieval history and warfare I‘m currently reading, it was normal for armies to have 3-4 Archers for every ManAtArms. Up to the point where “Archers” became synonymous with “Infantry”.

That being said, the archers had to be used wisely. 
 

Also, this was a development that was spurred by Agincourt, 1415, ie in the very late middle ages, BECAUSE of that battle, and also BECAUSE of the English Longbow which is very different in power than other bows. 

[Lighthope]

5 hours ago, Al_Wombat said:

the English Longbow which is very different in power than other bows. 

The English Longbow was massively OP in battle.  Enemies would say the sky would be darkened by the amount of arrows English longbowmen would fire.

They were a very feared weapon.

[Valek]

Archers were so OP that the Catholic church issued a ban on them. The effectiveness for sheer slaughter of missile weapons, as per those times standard, made the Church want to take the moral high ground. At some point bows/cross bows were probably the equivalent to what biological or nuclear weapons are today. Also in another note, longbow archers skeletons are very easy to identify due to the fact that they're deformed and one side of the upper skeleton looks way more developed and bigger than the other. Just some fun facts! I've enjoyed medieval RTS so much, that I even picked up archery as a hobby, and boy, has archery been a fulfilling activity for me.

So, maybe the game depiction of archers is not so bad. But it's a common complain for medieval RTS games, and it usually goes like this: Swordsmen composed the core of medieval armies, but they aren't viable in game, hence producing archers becomes the meta. I think this game depicts somewhat precisely how archers were used in battle.  A somewhat accurate unit that when amassed in large numbers can be useful to decimate stationary pack of enemies grouped together in an area, but that is very weak when enemies are too closed. There was a bug fix for some archer units that were doing double damage, not sure if that's the problem you saw.

To me the Battle View as it is right now is something sad to behold, as I can see the great potential that it has, but controlling, planning the battles is so difficult.