Ad,
LOL...is that your ever so subtle way of telling me how i CAN get my archers to fight melee??
I will try and report back.
cheers,
DW
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I also thought of giving my archers melee mastery, but it seemed a bit gamey. Only when the terrain seriously hindered the armoured infantry would the archers be able to use their melee weapons against them, as their foes were likely to be more skilled in melee combat than them.
If the ground conditions had not been bad at Agincourt, the longbowmen using clubs and the like against the fatiqued infantry would be butchered.
Perhaps the archers should not be able to get a mastery in melee general skills, and be limited in their choice of other melee skills.
The game would still need more skills for archers in any case.
If the ground conditions had not been bad at Agincourt, the longbowmen using clubs and the like against the fatiqued infantry would be butchered.
Perhaps the archers should not be able to get a mastery in melee general skills, and be limited in their choice of other melee skills.
The game would still need more skills for archers in any case.
Archers will never beat infantry if only because they can't carry shields. And their armour doesn't reach the levels of infantry & knights either. So no matter how good they are at wielding their weapons they'll never beat infantry and cavalry of the same level. But, like your Agincourt example, they can be used to break fatigued or damaged squads if you train and equip them properly.
Archers upgraded with all missile skills are pretty deadly as it is - especially with unlimited ammo - so I'm not sure more skills is a good idea unless it also means making the existing skills' effects less significant.
Archers upgraded with all missile skills are pretty deadly as it is - especially with unlimited ammo - so I'm not sure more skills is a good idea unless it also means making the existing skills' effects less significant.
The main problem is that French archers can upgrade their weapons, whilst the longbowmen seem to stuck with the longbow they get when you recruit them. The longbow is not a bad weapon by any means, but at least a slight increase in armour piercing effectiveness would come a long way to make them more useful in later battles, without having to switch them over to firearms.
Although I have not used crossbow wielding infantry yet, not having played with the French, the crossbow is by default more effective against armour than a longbow due to the increased velocity of the shot and the flatter trajectory upon impact.
I don't know what the ranged attack ratings for the crossbow, steel arbalest and the handcannon are, but my main problem with the current archery skills is simply that there are too few of them, only 3, and now all I can do is either invest in firearms mastery for when I also get handcannons or in defence/combat skills.
A slight bonus against armoured targets and perhaps a single point ranged damage bonus would be mostly deadly to unarmoured infantry, as the heavier infantry has pretty impressive ranged armour ratings by default and infantry with a large shield is largely immune to damage from longbows (although the steel arbalests and especially the handcannon can still wreck an infantry unit it seems).
What skill upgrades can the French get for their archers and what skills are available for firearms?
Although I have not used crossbow wielding infantry yet, not having played with the French, the crossbow is by default more effective against armour than a longbow due to the increased velocity of the shot and the flatter trajectory upon impact.
I don't know what the ranged attack ratings for the crossbow, steel arbalest and the handcannon are, but my main problem with the current archery skills is simply that there are too few of them, only 3, and now all I can do is either invest in firearms mastery for when I also get handcannons or in defence/combat skills.
A slight bonus against armoured targets and perhaps a single point ranged damage bonus would be mostly deadly to unarmoured infantry, as the heavier infantry has pretty impressive ranged armour ratings by default and infantry with a large shield is largely immune to damage from longbows (although the steel arbalests and especially the handcannon can still wreck an infantry unit it seems).
What skill upgrades can the French get for their archers and what skills are available for firearms?
A French dismounted knights in mail and plate unit with I believe a simple hand axe almost single handedly shook up and nearly routed all 7 of my infantry units. Even though they all have swords, that's pretty ridiculous.
I had to rotate the shaken units and even let my archers do some melee fighting in order to kill the French knights.
That means that 4 French knights on each side had no difficulty with taking on 32 men.
Perhaps the effectiveness of the cutting sword needs to be adjusted, as the dismounted knights are almost invulnerable to it even though my units have lots of skills boosting their stats. Perhaps a more effective sword could be added, as I've been running around with the cutting sword for a pretty long while now.
I had to rotate the shaken units and even let my archers do some melee fighting in order to kill the French knights.
That means that 4 French knights on each side had no difficulty with taking on 32 men.
Perhaps the effectiveness of the cutting sword needs to be adjusted, as the dismounted knights are almost invulnerable to it even though my units have lots of skills boosting their stats. Perhaps a more effective sword could be added, as I've been running around with the cutting sword for a pretty long while now.
Even on normal, yes. I don't even want to know what the Medieval Terminators will do to my units on hard.
The mission I'm currently playing is equally frustrating: I get something like 10 spots to place my units on the map. According to the mission description, I'm trying to break through French lines during a siege. The besieged force (my units?) is not near a castle, or any defendable area.
The French have hoards of units, which are very difficult to stop with the starting units, because they are shaken and possibly fatiqued by the time the last French units arrive.
Moreover, the French either disappear instantly on the side of the map when routed, which is good for me, or have room to fall all the way back across the narrow map, which will mean they will become shaken about halfway through and will come back for more.
My units on the other hand start "balls to the wall" next to the edge of the map and have about 3 squares before they disappear.
I'll keep trying, but some missions are truly frustrating because they impose limitations out of my control on my force. When I have a core of 16 units, I expect that I'm able to use them in the "story" missions. I don't mind not using all my core units in the side missions, but I do expect to be able to use them in the regular missions.
I'll keep trying, of course, but some missions are simply very frustrating.
The mission I'm currently playing is equally frustrating: I get something like 10 spots to place my units on the map. According to the mission description, I'm trying to break through French lines during a siege. The besieged force (my units?) is not near a castle, or any defendable area.
The French have hoards of units, which are very difficult to stop with the starting units, because they are shaken and possibly fatiqued by the time the last French units arrive.
Moreover, the French either disappear instantly on the side of the map when routed, which is good for me, or have room to fall all the way back across the narrow map, which will mean they will become shaken about halfway through and will come back for more.
My units on the other hand start "balls to the wall" next to the edge of the map and have about 3 squares before they disappear.
I'll keep trying, but some missions are truly frustrating because they impose limitations out of my control on my force. When I have a core of 16 units, I expect that I'm able to use them in the "story" missions. I don't mind not using all my core units in the side missions, but I do expect to be able to use them in the regular missions.
I'll keep trying, of course, but some missions are simply very frustrating.
what a conincidence...Comra, i'm on exactly the same map...i just finished it after turning the difficulty to easy,,,and then JUST barely kept three units on the battlefield to be able to exit and meet the conditions.
Other than that teh only thing i would add is this...if we are going to be limited in some missions as to the number of units we can take with us...we should be able to choose which ones to take.
cheers,
DW
Other than that teh only thing i would add is this...if we are going to be limited in some missions as to the number of units we can take with us...we should be able to choose which ones to take.
cheers,
DW
You do know that right clicking on any of the unit icons on the bottom part of the interface removes the unit from the map so you can place a new unit there, right? If there's a free square and you right click on a blacked out unit icon, it will appear. All units except the general can theoretically be turned off, so you can switch as many units from the initial setup as you like. You can also drag them around the deployment squares to change their location.
Did you also get the "New shield: Steel Arbalest" message after the mission in the snow where you need to kill the wagon (and the rest of the French, sadly)?, without being able to select the actual weapon and did you also get a "New Weapon:" message earlier which didn't mention the weapon? The only new shield I could find was an actual shield: the cavalry shield.
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Do routed unit take some sort of penalty after a battle, or do they just disappear from the map, to reappear in your unit management screen after the battle and that's it?
I've fought the last two battles with one routed unit I believe, with two true morale boosting cards, there was very little I could do about the routing unit in each battle.
Did you also get the "New shield: Steel Arbalest" message after the mission in the snow where you need to kill the wagon (and the rest of the French, sadly)?, without being able to select the actual weapon and did you also get a "New Weapon:" message earlier which didn't mention the weapon? The only new shield I could find was an actual shield: the cavalry shield.
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Do routed unit take some sort of penalty after a battle, or do they just disappear from the map, to reappear in your unit management screen after the battle and that's it?
I've fought the last two battles with one routed unit I believe, with two true morale boosting cards, there was very little I could do about the routing unit in each battle.
Com,
No i didn't know that about the units...now i do
I did get that shield after that battle (Which was a lot of fun btw...) but don't think it's an upgrade over the pointed shield so i haven''t changed it out. But no weird new equipment msg. I agree about the swordsmen they can hack away for little to no effect on knights.
Lastly, when the heck do we get Lances???
Guns first become available after the mission that you were discussing (3 units escape the narrow map)
cheers,
DW
No i didn't know that about the units...now i do
I did get that shield after that battle (Which was a lot of fun btw...) but don't think it's an upgrade over the pointed shield so i haven''t changed it out. But no weird new equipment msg. I agree about the swordsmen they can hack away for little to no effect on knights.
Lastly, when the heck do we get Lances???
Guns first become available after the mission that you were discussing (3 units escape the narrow map)
cheers,
DW
You should have gotten lances after Poitiers, fairly early on. I've been using lances for my cavalry for a while now.
The cavalry shield isn't a better shield than the pointed shield against non-cavalry units, but it is good vs cavalry and that's what matters to me as my swordsmen take a while to hack through infantry and a cavalry charge of my own can often swing the tide in my favour.
Cavalry isn't all that good when slugging it out with infantry, it's mostly there for attacking, withdrawing, resting, and attacking again, not standing toe to toe with the enemy infantry. As such, a good shield vs infantry isn't required. The French steel arbalests seem to be able to do good damage against my mail and plate in any case, so I probably won't notice the small ranged armour decrease. Of course, the cavalry shield also doesn't have an attack penalty.
The cavalry shield isn't a better shield than the pointed shield against non-cavalry units, but it is good vs cavalry and that's what matters to me as my swordsmen take a while to hack through infantry and a cavalry charge of my own can often swing the tide in my favour.
Cavalry isn't all that good when slugging it out with infantry, it's mostly there for attacking, withdrawing, resting, and attacking again, not standing toe to toe with the enemy infantry. As such, a good shield vs infantry isn't required. The French steel arbalests seem to be able to do good damage against my mail and plate in any case, so I probably won't notice the small ranged armour decrease. Of course, the cavalry shield also doesn't have an attack penalty.
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IainMcNeil
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Guys we've played these scenarios many times so it's hard for us to judge if they are too hard. We thought we had the difficulty right but if not we can always tweak it.
Are you making good use of your battle cards? Are using cavalry to charge in to infantry without spears, especially in the flanks? Have you tried disengaging to hit them again and again? Are you troops rested - fatigued units are really poor in combat. If possible rotate units to give some a rest. Also resting gives a chance for their morale to recover. Shaken units get big combat penalties.
Can you tell us which mission it is exactly so we can check it out here and see if there is something odd with the stats of the dismounted knights.
Bows & guns are treted as shields as they are held in the left hand instead of a shield. Maybe we should change the message so its says "New Shield or Missile Weapon"?
Are you making good use of your battle cards? Are using cavalry to charge in to infantry without spears, especially in the flanks? Have you tried disengaging to hit them again and again? Are you troops rested - fatigued units are really poor in combat. If possible rotate units to give some a rest. Also resting gives a chance for their morale to recover. Shaken units get big combat penalties.
Can you tell us which mission it is exactly so we can check it out here and see if there is something odd with the stats of the dismounted knights.
Bows & guns are treted as shields as they are held in the left hand instead of a shield. Maybe we should change the message so its says "New Shield or Missile Weapon"?
The scenarios are probably about the right difficulty, the main problem with the scenario I was talking about is that the map is narrow, so you can't move around, so you can barely use cavalry (the French have none in any case). I'm not at home currently so I can't check the scenario name.
All in all, most of the scenarios feel as if they have the right difficulty for the part of the game they appear in. Just because we say something is too hard doesn't have to mean that it's actually too hard. A complaining army can also be a happy army, as we're still playing and loving it.
Perhaps I should switch my infantry back to pointed shields, it might help. My archers rout the French archers almost instantly in most maps, so the large shields primary bonus, namely vs ranged attacks, isn't really needed.
The dismounted knights are strong in every mission. However, it should be noted that I'm only using swords and my current sword, the cutting sword, became available after mission 2 or the like, so it isn't really high tech. Perhaps I would be plowing through those knights with different weapons, it's difficult to tell.
I know bows and guns are treated as shields, my point was that the Steel Arbalest didn't actually appear even though the victory screen stated I would be able to buy it and it seems I got the cavalry shield instead. Likewise, one of the earlier missions only showed "New weapon:".
I'll try to remember the name of the missions from now on.
All in all, most of the scenarios feel as if they have the right difficulty for the part of the game they appear in. Just because we say something is too hard doesn't have to mean that it's actually too hard. A complaining army can also be a happy army, as we're still playing and loving it.
Perhaps I should switch my infantry back to pointed shields, it might help. My archers rout the French archers almost instantly in most maps, so the large shields primary bonus, namely vs ranged attacks, isn't really needed.
The dismounted knights are strong in every mission. However, it should be noted that I'm only using swords and my current sword, the cutting sword, became available after mission 2 or the like, so it isn't really high tech. Perhaps I would be plowing through those knights with different weapons, it's difficult to tell.
I know bows and guns are treated as shields, my point was that the Steel Arbalest didn't actually appear even though the victory screen stated I would be able to buy it and it seems I got the cavalry shield instead. Likewise, one of the earlier missions only showed "New weapon:".
I'll try to remember the name of the missions from now on.
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IainMcNeil
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:19 am
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IainMcNeil
- Site Admin
- Posts: 13558
- Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:19 am
That's really weird, unless weapons are somehow randomized. Most side missions give cards, not weapons, and the lance is so important that it probably isn't unlocked with a combination between a side mission and a story mission.
You didn't get the lance after Poitiers? Perhaps the "New weapon:" thing got you.
What weapons can you equip for your cavalry direwolf?
You didn't get the lance after Poitiers? Perhaps the "New weapon:" thing got you.
What weapons can you equip for your cavalry direwolf?
Last edited by comradep on Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.