Tactical battles

[Tepee]

I don't like Total War games, because of the too much emphasis on battle: I don't want to be a general, I want to govern a state to prosperity. War is a tool for achieving this for me. TW games are almost dumb in the strategic screen.

I like Paradox games, where you manage a state, and use a military as a tool. Generals do the battles for you, etc. It is good, but it lacks some *close connection* to your realm and it's people sometimes.


And there is this game. You manage a realm, and *sometimes*, if you want to get a closer look, a little micromanage you *can* do it with the tactical battles. See your hard-earned troops, see how marshal skills and traditions improved them, and try out how your on-paper composition works in reality.
As Devs said before: its the "spice" of the game.

However, it is a pretty important spice. It is what gives the game meaning, because Paradox will always be better on the strategic screen, and Total War will always be better on the tactical screen.

KoH1 had a multiplayer for the tactical side only,
now KoH2 has a multiplayer on the strategic side only.
Is it good? Yes, as I said, I always loved the realm-building more.
But multiplayer is what gives a game life, so I think the Devs should include the "spice" in multiplayer too.
What's the point of having the best army in the game, if I have to hand it over to the AI to kick the butt of my friend?

However, I'm aware of the technical issues of it, more than 2 players for this is nearly impossible ofc. This is why I suggest this:

2 player only extended multiplayer

- If P1 initiates a battle against P2 and someone wants to play it manually, then the other player has a prompt to accept it.
Game pauses for everyone, tactical screen, battle. No CPU melting, no simulation of the world while the battle happens

- Before battle starts, popup that asks you if you want to call reinforcement. Lists the armies within range, and says how many seconds untill that army arrives.
If you do a battle against your friend, do it all-in, right?

- *Maybe* an option to do an AI battle against you.
P1 attacks AI, clicks to want to fight manually, P2 gets a prompt to manage the AI in the battle.
If P2 declines, no tactical screen.
If P2 accepts, they manage the AI army in the battle, and has the option to call another AI army as reinforcement if available.


Other than this, I would like to see some general improvements to the tactical battle:

- More viable assault. Currently, assault almost never happens, because you have to bring down siege defences first. Make it so that assault is available from the start, but you'll regret it greatly if you are not prepared. Which leads to:

- Improved/more interesting defences. Like in KoH1, huge defesive towers, ballistas, cannons even. I have cannons built but not on the tactical screen? Sadness.

- Improved settlement sieges, especially Castle sieges.
If I lift the siege of a castle settlement, a normal battle happens (with some additional troops present). There should be extended tactical options for castle sieges, and even a unique battle against other settlements, depending on the buildings present, and if it has garrison levies that can defend it.
But a castle must be a castle!
(With cannons!)

- Extended naval warefare.
Ok, I know this is the hardest to implement, but still, we need it!
No need for military ships, just two transport ship attached to each other as a "map".
Ofc, dismounted cavalry is necessary for this, so it surely requires some additional coding.

(edited to add this:)
- Unlock to option to manage a battle when you have an AI participant on your side. Like why am I unable to manually lift the siege of my ally?
(Just noticed recently that you are blocked from manual battles if 1 of the 2 army slots on your side is an AI.)
This is just silly, and discourages players to have AI allies.

- Anything other you like!
We can make it to a wishlist, continue at the comments!
Also feel free to agree/disagree with my opinion. :)


I just want to say to the Developers that I thank you for keeping this game alive with updates, and listening to the community.
The improvements to the strategic side of the game are really nice!
But I think the game also needs some polish on the battle view, because the harmony of these is what made KoH (1 *and* 2) the great game it is.
Maybe I'm not right, but this is my opinion.

Thank you all who read this! :)

[ShadowFox]

I did like 2 tactical battles in my 2K+ hours in this game. I don't think they really add much in my opinion. I fight most of my battles in bannerlord because I get to fight as my character and like you said in total war that was kind of a big selling point for a turn based game to have real time battles and stellaris is fully real time with battles on the screen whereas this is a real time grand stratagy game with the option of doing micromanage tactical battles where it pauses the world map. I get what you're saying but I don't think multiplayer needs them I would rather the devs focus be on making the single player game even bigger and better. (If a dev see's this there are a fair few of us that would devour a DLC/expansion if you wanted to make one ^_-)

[Tepee]

Originally posted by PrinceShadowFox:

I did like 2 tactical battles in my 2K+ hours in this game. I don't think they really add much in my opinion.

Have you played KoH1?
Because in that game, it was huge.
Camp ambushes, sieging impenetrable castles, defending some backwater castle with the few archers that you could muster, river-crossing battles, etc.

Ofc, everyone, including me spends 90+% of their time on the strategic screen, and it is alright.
But the occasional tactical battle is what makes me awake, what makes me concentrare more on the world map after that.

Not to mention that a well-earned victory sometimes can bolster your confidance.
And a showdown against your friend here and there could be a lot of fun. :)

[Xanth™]

Originally posted by PrinceShadowFox:

I did like 2 tactical battles in my 2K+ hours in this game. I don't think they really add much in my opinion.

KoH is, at least for me, that neat little game that mixes genres, so it has both a campaign map and battles. And I play the battles quite frequently, since autoresolve tends to be kinda silly with infantry winning against cavalry or archers & spears beating infantry & cavalry army. In both instances I easily win in manual combat. And nothing is worse than losing your army because of a bad dice roll, retreating also kills your units off way to often.
That there are no battles in multiplayer (not even just a skirmish mode to just fight a battle like in KoH1) is kinda sad. You have a part of the game thats just not available there, together with the fact that this isn't even mentioned on the games store page. So you have people finding out that there aren't any battles in mp after they bought the game. And some of my friends then would just argue: Why play this game if paradox does the grand campaign better than this?
All that makes it kinda hard to convince any of my friends to get the game and play multiplayer.

I think battles in multiplayer is perfectly viable for up to 4 players. Do the battles like in Total War where everyone gets into the battle and people can choose if they want to share their army or if they want to play as the AI or if they just want to watch. So every player is involved into the battle. And since battle frequency in this game can be quite high there could be something done like in AoW where every player has a limited amount of battles available to them. That way you could play battles but you have to think when you're doing it and if that is worth it.
At least having the option to play the occasional mp battle would be nice and I understand that for a fast game with randoms you may want it disabled. But currently you're just completely locked out of them.

[ShadowFox]

Originally posted by Tepee:

Originally posted by PrinceShadowFox:

I did like 2 tactical battles in my 2K+ hours in this game. I don't think they really add much in my opinion.

Have you played KoH1?
Because in that game, it was huge.
Camp ambushes, sieging impenetrable castles, defending some backwater castle with the few archers that you could muster, river-crossing battles, etc.

Ofc, everyone, including me spends 90+% of their time on the strategic screen, and it is alright.
But the occasional tactical battle is what makes me awake, what makes me concentrare more on the world map after that.

Not to mention that a well-earned victory sometimes can bolster your confidance.
And a showdown against your friend here and there could be a lot of fun. :)

I haven't actually, is it worth going back and playing the first game or has it aged poorly?

[TangSuijin]

Originally posted by PrinceShadowFox:

Originally posted by Tepee:

Have you played KoH1?
Because in that game, it was huge.
Camp ambushes, sieging impenetrable castles, defending some backwater castle with the few archers that you could muster, river-crossing battles, etc.

Ofc, everyone, including me spends 90+% of their time on the strategic screen, and it is alright.
But the occasional tactical battle is what makes me awake, what makes me concentrare more on the world map after that.

Not to mention that a well-earned victory sometimes can bolster your confidance.
And a showdown against your friend here and there could be a lot of fun. :)

I haven't actually, is it worth going back and playing the first game or has it aged poorly?

without mods that change the gameplay? no.
as much as I love koh, it is a dry game after you play koh2. battle isn't as annoying though with the time limit and all. but everything else is always the same, predictable, and each resource is in the same spot.

[Tepee]

Originally posted by TangSuijin:

without mods that change the gameplay? no.
as much as I love koh, it is a dry game after you play koh2. battle isn't as annoying though with the time limit and all. but everything else is always the same, predictable, and each resource is in the same spot.

No, resources are not always on the same spot, just the fishing ones (sames as coastal settlements i KoH2.)
You can end up with a map that has no cathedrals or universities (but usually there are 3-4 good spots for each at least.)

Besides this, the strategic gameplay in KoH1 was too simple for 2024 eyes, but in the release year it was one of the best 4x experience imo.

And the tactical battles was just better. Heck, even the AI was better in those, and you could not cheese a knight snipe that easily, the AI only charges with Knight Cavalry if it has no other troops left.
In KoH2 spear+archer defensive line is impenetrable, because they run back-and-forth until the archers slice them down.
In KoH1 if they started the charge, they was commited to it, and caused serious casulties if you were not utterly overpowered.

So I warmly encourage everyone to try out KoH1 (with the HD mod, nothing else needed, but you need that 1080p res), at least to understand what am I missing in the KoH2 tactical battles.

I've done many legendary sieges and siege defences in KoH1, and as I said, I'm not a Total War fan. Although I played lots of AoE2 and Starcraft in my childhood, so I like not too complicated, but interesting unit management. KoH1 is basically Stronghold (/Crusader) level I think.

Not to mention that the isometric graphics of the game ages pretty well imo.
A few years ago, when KoH2 was announced, I searched for my old KoH CD, installed a HD mod, and conquered the world with Wales just to ease my anxiety of waiting for KoH2. :)

[TangSuijin]

Originally posted by Tepee:

Originally posted by TangSuijin:

without mods that change the gameplay? no.
as much as I love koh, it is a dry game after you play koh2. battle isn't as annoying though with the time limit and all. but everything else is always the same, predictable, and each resource is in the same spot.

No, resources are not always on the same spot, just the fishing ones (sames as coastal settlements i KoH2.)
You can end up with a map that has no cathedrals or universities (but usually there are 3-4 good spots for each at least.)

Besides this, the strategic gameplay in KoH1 was too simple for 2024 eyes, but in the release year it was one of the best 4x experience imo.

And the tactical battles was just better. Heck, even the AI was better in those, and you could not cheese a knight snipe that easily, the AI only charges with Knight Cavalry if it has no other troops left.
In KoH2 spear+archer defensive line is impenetrable, because they run back-and-forth until the archers slice them down.
In KoH1 if they started the charge, they was commited to it, and caused serious casulties if you were not utterly overpowered.

So I warmly encourage everyone to try out KoH1 (with the HD mod, nothing else needed, but you need that 1080p res), at least to understand what am I missing in the KoH2 tactical battles.

I've done many legendary sieges and siege defences in KoH1, and as I said, I'm not a Total War fan. Although I played lots of AoE2 and Starcraft in my childhood, so I like not too complicated, but interesting unit management. KoH1 is basically Stronghold (/Crusader) level I think.

Not to mention that the isometric graphics of the game ages pretty well imo.
A few years ago, when KoH2 was announced, I searched for my old KoH CD, installed a HD mod, and conquered the world with Wales just to ease my anxiety of waiting for KoH2. :)

forgot which city was in france, but it was always the one with 3 resources needed for a cathedral. 99% of the time. and it was the only one to have it.

you say you couldn't cheese combat, but you could. the marshal skill for fortification would cut down the enemy strength and you just finish it off. yea, tactical was better than koh2. but that's the only thing it has better.

[Tepee]

Originally posted by TangSuijin:

you say you couldn't cheese combat, but you could. the marshal skill for fortification would cut down the enemy strength and you just finish it off. yea, tactical was better than koh2. but that's the only thing it has better.

I said *in the battle* it was actually harder to cheese than in KoH2.
Fortification lure is a strategic map tactic.

And I agree, as I said before, I like 4x games much more than RTS combat games, that's why I like KoH2 much more than KoH1.
But I think the second title should be better in every way than the first, thats why I ask for more improvements in the battles.

[BLR | Adarviroh]

I can't find info how does squad attack and defence work.
For examle Light Spearman has huge defence of 70, but perform pretty bad against peasants or kight swordsmen.
Also he is good when attacking cavalry himselfwith his tiny attack of 10
Light Cavalry has 20-30 attack and whoopish 200+ defence, but it doesn't seem that they are so uber when being attacked.
How does standing on hill or under trees help with def?

After Civilization 3,6 it is hard to understand.

Also what a point of tighten/widen rows (z,x,c on keyboard)?

[Tepee]

Originally posted by BLR | Adarviroh:

I can't find info how does squad attack and defence work.
For examle Light Spearman has huge defence of 70, but perform pretty bad against peasants or kight swordsmen.
Also he is good when attacking cavalry himselfwith his tiny attack of 10
Light Cavalry has 20-30 attack and whoopish 200+ defence, but it doesn't seem that they are so uber when being attacked.
How does standing on hill or under trees help with def?

After Civilization 3,6 it is hard to understand.

Also what a point of tighten/widen rows (z,x,c on keyboard)?

I assume, it is mostly based on KoH1, with the difference of defence stat is highly inflated.
Anything I write here is a speculation, but here is everything I know:

- Attack stat is a % chance that one hit from the unit kills another unit.
So 10 atk against a 0 def squad is 10% chance that a single solder kills a single unit in 1 hit/arrow.

- In KoH1 Def was a % decrease in in that, and it was multiplicative, so 10 Atk vs 10 Def means 10% × (100-10)% = 9% kill rate.
In KoH2 I assum it is the same, however "tiered", which means that like for the first 10% 1 Def = 1%, but for the second 10% it's 2 Def = 1%, and so on. (Diminishing returns.)

- If a unit has a special attack, it has a different stat for it in the stat tooltip.
Spearmen, camels, some archers has a stat called "attack against cavalry". Notice that spears have a significant bonus there.

- For uphill, forest, etc, you can see an icon on your selected unit, which has a tooltip for the potential offensive and defensive bonuses. Idk if there is one for uphill, but being in forest is -Atk, -Def if I recall correctly.

Hope it helps.