My Battle Impressions and Feedback

Hey guys,

Below were my first impressions after playing a few battles. I sent this to Mylae a while back:


**Battle Notes**


Music-- Only one track so far for battles. Beautiful, but need more


Italian Rosters (Milan, Venice, Papal States, Florence, Sfzoresque Lordship, Este/Ferrare, Genoa, Rimini, Mantua, Lucca, Malaspina, Saluzza, Siena,Ragusa


1) Ronconieri--they equip swords before charging for melee. Charge is delayed. Don't actually fight with bill polearms.
2) Ronconieri Provissionati- same as above
3) Lanzelonge-same as above
4) Pichieri Provissionati- same as above
5) Miliziani- same as above
6) Targonieri Provissionati- same as above
7) Palvesari- same as above
8) Italian Foot Bodyguard --units too far spaced apart. I don't think the unit card matches unit battlefield model, which is the same as the General's Foot Bodyguard
9) Balestrieri- Crossbow string glitch
10)Balestrieri Provissionati- - Crossbow string glitch
11)Arcieri- bow string glitch
12)Archubugieri Provissionati- no problem?
13)Scoppetieri Provissionati- no problem?
16)Giavellotieri- no shield textures, shield is blank
17)General's Foot Bodyguard- units spaced apart to far, but their charge is perfect!
18)General's bodyguard--shield missing texture, shield is blank
19)Generals Retinue & Generals Foot Retinue- missing texture on unit--they are Silver Surfers


Observations (I'm sure you guys know a bunch of these already):
*Charges for all units should be tweaked. With pole-arm infantry, they always stop, switch to sword, then charge. They never charge and melee with the pole-arm, always the sword. Only the General's Foot Bodyguard have a smooth charge. I think this is because they don't switch weapons.
*After charging in, both cavalry and infantry seem to stay where they are and tend to not advance once melee starts. This leads to a lot of units hanging out in the back of the line, not engaging or heading into battle. This makes battle lines awkward with the front units only fighting. This is also bad for cavalry melee. Battle lines end up having gaps & spaces in it. This makes battles feel still and stagnant.
*Many unit cards are missing
*Crossbowmen and archers units appearance bugged-- they have strings stretching through the unit model.
*When ordered to fast march, units often separate and get big gaps between them leading to divided, separated units. Unit formations should be tweaked so they stick together better. They get separated quickly.
*Cavalry should pick up speed faster after being ordered to march or fast march--increase speed up. There may be no speed difference between lighter & heavier cav.

Hope this helps!

**New observations 9-29-2018**-overall, pretty big delay in action once orders are given--problematic w/cavalry movement and charges
- Mass routes happen a lot, I'm not sure if this is intended
-pikes have weapon switching issue and the 'spear wall' command is unreliable.
-Bill-men units spacing is pretty loose

The biggest issue to the flow of combat seems to be the rather big delay that happens after commanding a unit to attack and/or move. You click for an action to happen, and units respond very slowly and often not in unison. This creates pretty large gaps in unit formation and especially affects cavalry movement. Charges are rarely effective unless you have a large amount of ground to cover before reaching the enemy. As mentioned above also, the infantry units switching to swords when engaged essentially makes them all swordsmen.

Mylae has given me feedback on this, but I just wanted to get this on the forum since Mylae suggested it. I have no doubt that you guys are aware of much of this already. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, we are aware of those (big) issues: they pretty much all depends on having units with both first and secondary weapon: expecially for pikemen this seems to cause a broken mechanics. Unfortunately, this is due, I think, to hardcoded limits of mtw2...so, at the present stage, we have to choose between an unrealistic one weapon units, or a broken two weapon units.

I was searching for a fix by editing the animations, but i wasn't able to succeed: www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?783105-Repacking-animation-wi...

Ok, understood.

Sometimes I forget about the limitation of the Med2 engine, I've grown quite used to Rome 2 mechanics.

Given the alternative, one weapon seems like the way to go.

Concerning unit stats, are you guys happy with them or is it something that hasn't been looked at very closely?

I can't really test the campaign due to crashes, but I'd be happy to look at battles more if you have anything in mind that eeds to be looked at.

Also, arquebusiers seem to have a pretty long range and are pretty accurate at range. In a river crossing battle, I managed to trigger a MASSIVE route of enemy troops with 2 arquebusier units.

Yes, if se don't find a valid fix to units with two weapon, we'll go with one weapon units (btw, ad long ad phalanx are involved, I can assure you that Rome 2 is pretty bugged as well...)

Anyway, thanks for the feedback you are providing, it will ne useful.

good. i will like to set up points as a to-do list.

1- in the next version i hope to upload in next week i will revert to 1-weapon for pikemen, spearmen and 2-handed weapons.
they will retain however the same models, no need to cancel the secondary weapon in the meshes.
2- as above
3- as above
4- as above
5- as above
6- as above
7- as above
8- will correct the spacing.
9- fixed
10- fixed
11- gotta check.
12- ok
13- ok
14 ?
15 ?
16 - I know, I will redo the unit with different shields, too
17 - same as 8, is porvisionally the same unit. I will differentiate it lightly.
18 - I know, Will ask Francesco to reconsider the presence of shields and possibly I will sibstitute it with a new one
19 - will check the edu

gotta check out about arquebusiers range and letality too, this is useful info.

also, it will be a good thing to list issue with numbers - it will be much easier to track the ones to fix.

Ok, will do!

I did make additional observations at the bottom of my first post, in case you missed those.

I plan on doing some more testing with ranged units this evening and will probably end up posting more pics on the TWC thread.

Couldn't edit my original post, so I consolidated some of the notes I made above to numbered entries:

20) Music-- Only one track so far for battles. Beautiful, but need more!! 
21) After charging in, both cavalry and infantry seem to stay where they are and tend to not advance once melee starts. This leads to a lot of units hanging out in the back of the line, not engaging or heading into battle. This makes battle lines awkward with the front units only fighting. This is also bad for cavalry melee. Battle lines end up having gaps & spaces in it. This makes battles feel still and stagnant.
22) Units should pick up speed faster after being ordered to march or fast march--increase speed up. The biggest issue to the flow of combat seems to be the rather big delay that happens after commanding a unit to attack and/or move. You click for an action to happen, and units respond very slowly and often not in unison. This creates pretty large gaps in unit formation and especially affects cavalry movement. Charges are rarely effective unless you have a large amount of ground to cover before reaching the enemy.
23) Mass routes happen a lot. I’m going to test this some more in open battles.
24) Bill-men units spacing is pretty loose

Hey guys,

Just an update, I've been playing around with the current build Mylae posted last week, and I'll post some feedback this week. Overall, the changes to the battle system have significantly improved the battles!! The pace and flow the battles is far better.

Thanks.
Unfortunately, Mylae had to remove the secondary weapon for pikemen, since I wasn't able to fix it.

Anyway, the proper battle balancing has yet to be done and your feedback will be useful.