Combat is ruining the game for me

[jcmeerman]

I play on standard trailblazing, am at year 40 and the raids are making me quit the game.

Reason 1: Notification miscounted
The notification says: 9 raiders are ...
So I dispatch my soldiers to deal with them. Final result: 25 civilians death. 2 buildings destroyed. Market place looted. What? Turned out there was a second raid group of 19 raiders , but no additional warning. The original warning did got updated, but who looks at that warning once the raid has been identified?
Reason 2: Stupid villagers
Most villagers run away, some charge the bandits. So you need to micromanage that. Upon selecting my villagers and ordering them to attack the bandits, the villagers make a nice queue and wait politely till they can attack the bandits. One at a time! Result: mass casualty.
Reason 3: Villagers are still stupid
Once a villagers health is low, the villager should try to disengage from combat. Not wait around till the Grim Reaper comes nocking.
Reason 4: Raid size way too large
I do not know how the raid size is calculated, but their size is typically about 10-20% of my villagers count. That is a big raid. There is no way my economy can afford enough soldiers to defend against that.
Reason 5: Weak walls
I have walls all around my settlement. Double lines even. They break way too quickly, giving my soldiers not even enough time to walk to the breach, let alone defend it.
Reason 6: Dead men tell no tales, but also do not give up their equipment
When a villager or soldier dies, their inventory is lost. That is all the weapons and armor. It is way too costly to keep replacing that.
Reason 7: Frequency of raids. On normal (which I assume is standard trailblazing) the raid frequency is high. On average 1 raid every 18 months.

I like the game. Else I would not have made it to year 40. The game design, graphics and vibe way outshine the small bugs. But the combat is horrible. And yes, my wall and barrack setup could well have been better. But even then, the points above remain.

[kcpknight]

How many soldiers do you have that can't deal with 19 bandits? I have 2 towers with 2 guards in each one and they can handle 19 bandits with no walls, I may loose a few things but not much. I am always looking at the warning because it tells me the number of raiders, how many raiders/villagers have died, which will tell me how many are left. If they are attacking in more than one location it can also help you find them by clicking on the magnifying glass in the notification. I would suggest you rethink how you are laying out your town's defenses.

[jcmeerman]

I have 12 soldiers. But because the message only said 9 raiders, they were all dispatched to deal with those 9 raiders. The message did not mention the other 19 raiders. So by the time I realised there was a second raid, a lot of my villagers had already died (actually, the death message was the first sign that something was amiss).

The message was incomplete at first. And I am not constantly going to click warning messages or check my entire city to see if there are any hidden bandits.

[Blind]

Ya this game very much early access still, maybe forever.

[info]

Put Town Center, Trading Post, Vault and a couple of warehouses to store expensive stuff in a heavily fortified walled area. I use 3 double walls with an open path circling its way in.

The path has to be open, ie, no gates to get them to follow it rather than just bust down walls.

Put TC in one corner and Barracks in the other 3 and they will mow down 200+ raids with no damage. Raiders wont (at least didnt in my last playthough) destroy anything as long as there is an unobstructed path to the most valuable stuff. They will just keep slogging forward trying to get to it.

There was an exception with Ransom Raiders as they are much tougher to kill with arrows so I would send the three barracks of soldiers out to meet them before denying their ransom request so they could dispatch them hand to hand melee style. In that need to stagger the troops because they will try and make a break for the goodie boxes and fighting on the run just doesnt work well.

[OutsideTheNormalMoralConstraints]

Can't you just use pacifist mode?

[MajesticIX]

Just got raided by 66 raiders (ransom). 1 upgraded tower and a full squadron of soldiers from the barracks and I was able to dispatch them. Lost 5 civilians, no loot. The soldiers had a combo of swords, crude weapons, crossbows and arrows. No armor, half shields. Normal difficulty. Seems pretty doable. Send your town center into alert, you should be able handle 19 with little trouble. Reload and try again--I believe it scales with population size. They definitely don't come every 18 months, they always arrive in spring and definitely years apart...probably something like 5-8 years apart.

[Asheira]

The village is being raided
A party of 16 raiders is attacking!
45 raiders have been killed!

This is why the game needs a minimap.

[jcmeerman]

To respond to the comments aboveL
Why the focus on the 19 raiders? The point of that comment was that the game misinformed me. Asheira got that point: "You are raided by 16 raiders and killed 45 of them." By not informing me of a second raid, my soldiers were not dispatched to handle the 16 bandits. And my villagers where not micromanaged. So they were slaughterd, because the civilians are stupid.

The suggestion to make a stronghold of your town center and the valuable stuff doesn't always work. The raiders will just proceed to kill my villagers and destroy my civilian buildings.

Having an open acces to the money also doesn't guarentee success. The bandits still attacked my walls and then proceeded to destroy my gardens and monuments. And only then made their way to the vault.

And yes, I can play on pacifist mode. But that is like having a survival game without thirst or hunger. And the problem is not that I do not want raids. The problem is that the combat is too poorly implemented.

And yes, some raids are easy. Just had a raid of 45 bandits with no casualties and only 2 wall sections destroyed. But it did require me to keep 25 soldiers on standby. And that is tanking my income.

[Drinjanin]

Originally posted by jcmeerman:

To respond to the comments aboveL
Why the focus on the 19 raiders? The point of that comment was that the game misinformed me. Asheira got that point: "You are raided by 16 raiders and killed 45 of them." By not informing me of a second raid, my soldiers were not dispatched to handle the 16 bandits. And my villagers where not micromanaged. So they were slaughterd, because the civilians are stupid.

The suggestion to make a stronghold of your town center and the valuable stuff doesn't always work. The raiders will just proceed to kill my villagers and destroy my civilian buildings.

Having an open acces to the money also doesn't guarentee success. The bandits still attacked my walls and then proceeded to destroy my gardens and monuments. And only then made their way to the vault.

And yes, I can play on pacifist mode. But that is like having a survival game without thirst or hunger. And the problem is not that I do not want raids. The problem is that the combat is too poorly implemented.

And yes, some raids are easy. Just had a raid of 45 bandits with no casualties and only 2 wall sections destroyed. But it did require me to keep 25 soldiers on standby. And that is tanking my income.

I understand your frustration, when dealing with people who do not read, or do not understand the complaint. Asheira got it right as well. Ignore the other guys, and hopefully one of the developers will see this thread and do something about it.

[Zornhieb]

Double Raids and all the other points are the main bugs the developers should care about.

[russmiller4445]

Yeah, all the above. Just can't make enough gold to get things going. Really, 2000 gold for tier 3 TC when I can't afford to maintain cost of buildings. I can't seem to get enough resources to sell, people are in need of clothing & shoes constantly. When I'm being attack, I group summons the villages to defend. Unfortunately, children get caught in my dragnet of villagers, so they get killed. Just a few of my early game complaints.

[VorTeX`]

in my opinion the economy needs to be placed right up there with combat. yes you can mine gold , make money of the trading post , but fielding an army is almost impossible as it is unsustainable long term , making soldiers/buildings cheaper or buffing the income of markets would be a simple fix IMO. but i do have to agree with every point the OP made. especially about the stupidity of the villagers. Before they add anything else to this game i would like to see them polish everything already in the game , specifically the lag you start seeing around 200 pop.

[ladicken]

If Pacifist mode isn't your thing, then try using the Pioneer setting on raids and animals to tame it down some.

[jcmeerman]

Originally posted by ladicken:

If Pacifist mode isn't your thing, then try using the Pioneer setting on raids and animals to tame it down some.

That is fixing the symptoms, not the problem. It is like having a higway with potholes and instead of fixing the potholes, you reduce the speed. Yes, it works. But is really the best solution?

[Vrighty]

About the warning check: I understand it is annoying you dont get all information in 1 go. But thats the tactic the enemy uses? send a small army on 1 side to get attention and make the big assault on another spot... So, quite realistic to me.
It can be tedious to defend your villagers. Some are being heroic and are attacking face first 10++ raiders solo. During an attack i always pause the game. Keep spam clicking the magnifying glass to find all raiders locations. Pull back ALL villagers. I check if i have to send soldiers to a spot. If not i keep ALL soldiers in the castle!! Because sending soldiers out makes to much more fragile and you might lose them.

And yes, they cost money. (I play now on hard mode and it is quite hard to manage) but it seems realistic to me. You should sacrifice production and growth (speed) to deal with raiders.

Reading this post and all answers make me realize there are more possible tactics to deal with this: finding balance between: Food, Items, Defence, Exploration.... it is the game and aswell the puzzle you gotta solve.