Slitherine

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and the game series so please forgive me if these have been covered here before. So far I've enjoyed the first game I've purchased for almost a decade. Brings me memories of playing Defender of the Crown during Christmast time in my youth. Here's issues that have risen up after playing for a few nights.

1. What does the difficulty level setting effect exactly?

If if does alter the combat odds in player's or computer's favor.. What is the level when identical units have fifty-fifty change in head-to-head matchup? This is a pet peeve of mine. If the odds aren't "fare" it takes the fun out of tactical ponderings when and what units to commit against which enemy unit for me.


2. There is a "charge/tramble" attacks for the initial clash when units begin their melee and then "normal" hacking away after that, right?

The units seem the get bogged down from the initial clash and pace of casualties inflicted slows a bit. Now if you order an unit locked in a melee to move again into the square their enemy is there seem to be a new charge and increase of casulties for a short period. Is this correct?

Now that I have had high tramble cavalry for few games this seems to support the case. While the feature might not be a problem with other units I don't know if it works well with such cavalry. Shouldn't the cavalry units need to charge straight line for few squares or something to get the benefit..

If my observation is correct best way to eliminate an unit with high tramble cav is a clickfest of repeated orders. Of course my observation can be just a lucky streak of casualties occuring just after issueing new commands in the bogged down melee in my last few battles.


3. Archery questions.
Does state of the unit under fire effect the results?
Moving units get hit more easily?
How about firing at a unit locked down in a melee? Less hits?
Is there a change of lateral damage to nearby units? This is esp regards melee ie. are your own units in that melee in danger.
Does shooting from side or behind matter? Yes, those units with large shields are tough nuts to crack, but if fired from behind would help...
Any others?


4. To get the benefit from a difficult terrain does your unit need to be on it or the enemy. For example do you defend with a infantry unit against a cavalry unit so that you're on the rocks and so that you're behind and the enemy is on them.

Same question for the squares classed as defendable.

5. Please could you consider allowing the player change the order your units are presented in the wheel in army camp or on the unit bar during the battle? It would make things a lot easier to keep track of overall picture of my troops personally for me if I could group all my cavalry, all my infantry and all my archers. I know some scenarios cut the last units out, but maybe there is a way to program this without ruining those scenarios.

Thank you,

_Augustus_

Oh and one more request...

6. Keyboard shortcuts. I wish these were configurable by the user.

Are the current shortcuts even listed anywhere? At least not the "manual". I found some shortcuts just by experimenting. 1-3-D-A square + Tab is pretty handy as it's now but configurable would be better.

I think one important shortcut is missing. Shortcut to change the selected unit to the next or previous. This would be greatly helpfull when you want to change many units' between running and walking. You could hit next unit key, tab key for walk/run, next unit key, tab key and so on. Currenlty one needs to select the new unit by mouse each time.

If you're not going to make shortcuts configurable which keys to select to for "next unit" and "previous unit" is bit problematic since keys near Tab are already taken and one would want to able to toggle/run easily with a single hand's fingers to avoid moving that hand too much or using the mouse hand.

Sincrely,

_Augustus_

Thanks for the feedback.

1) Normal is the equal setting. The setting effects the AI chance to hit in combat.

2) Trample occur when cavalry hit infantry. Notice the horseshoes. Only occurs at first contact. Fatigued cavalry cannot trample. The battlefield is representative, not to scale so a very small distance on the battlefield woudl be enough for speed and a good trample attack.

3) The target units armour and shield effects its chance of being hit. Units in forest get reduced damage as do units in hand to hand. The only collateral damage is with artillery. We decided to take it out for archers as it required too much micro management to prevenet them hitting your own men.

4) The terrain effect is for the unit in the terrain. Infantry in a forest have a higher chance of evading trample. Cavalry in a forest have a lower chance of trample.

5) The biggest issue with this type of thing is the UI to make it happen.

6) We dont have plans at this stage to add more keyboard controls or let you customize them as again it is a lot of UI work. If enough people want it we can look again.

Thank you for the quick reply.

iainmcneil wrote: 2) Trample occur when cavalry hit infantry. Notice the horseshoes. Only occurs at first contact. Fatigued cavalry cannot trample. The battlefield is representative, not to scale so a very small distance on the battlefield woudl be enough for speed and a good trample attack.

Yes, representive battlefield makes sense. I had lost my usual miniature wargamer's hat there after marvelling individual looking soldiers moving about and wasn't thinking grand and epic enough

I hadn't noticed horseshoes from the skulls. So horseshoes tell when the trample happens?

Because the scenario editor hangs up everytime I run it I couldn't make a testing scenario for this. But I did what testing I could with my campaign saves. My previous statement of "Clickfest to Victory" looks like to hold true. The cavalry unit is locked down in a combat i.e. it has charged and inflicted the horseshoe casualties. Everytime I pause the game, select the cav unit and order it to move into the opposing unit it's already in melee with I get a new cloud of half a dozen horseshoes.. Repeat a few times in some seconds interval and you'll have an instant routed enemy.

The Clickfest to Victory works equally well for other units, too. Get an enemy unit locked down with two of your units so it's flanked. Pause, select one of your units, order to move into the enemy it's already in melee with and the enemy suffers a flank attack morale drop. Repeat a few times in some seconds interval and you'll have an instant routed enemy.

Of course I can decide not to do either of above when I play because Clickfest to Victory is simply boring, but... maybe preventing its possibility is something worth you looking into?

I haven't played any multiplayer games so I don't have a clue how the order bar works. I guess it works well because it's there Limiting how often one can pause the game for new orders certainly would limit the outlined problem. Any chance of introducing the order bar option (like the autohealing or not) option for single player games, too? It might also present a nice challenge for persons like me who have a tendency to micro manage his troops maybe too much.

3) The target units armour and shield effects its chance of being hit. Units in forest get reduced damage as do units in hand to hand. The only collateral damage is with artillery. We decided to take it out for archers as it required too much micro management to prevenet them hitting your own men.

Sounds like the right decision

4) The terrain effect is for the unit in the terrain. Infantry in a forest have a higher chance of evading trample. Cavalry in a forest have a lower chance of trample.

I looked inside the beast so to speak a little. Found the terrain.txt file in the game's folder. Are those values related to this? For example:

[Forest]
INFANTRY 100
DISMOUNTED 100
ARCHERS 100
MOUNTED 20
TRAIN 100
MISSILEFACTOR 50

[Defensible]
INFANTRY 120
DISMOUNTED 120
ARCHERS 120
MOUNTED 30
TRAIN 100
MISSILEFACTOR 100

In open it was 100 for all. Mounted fight crap if it's in a defensible square?

Let's see if I got this right. You want to be in the open square behind the defisible square with your infantry when fighting the cavalry? But when fighting an infantry unit you want your infantry on square with stakes(definsible) for example and him in the open square before the stakes?

5) The biggest issue with this type of thing is the UI to make it happen.

This was about the order in which your units are in army management wheel or unit bar. While exploring the insides of the beast I looked in to the saved game files too. Should I be safe if I renumber the units' all "SQUADxx" (where the xx is the number of the unit) with new numbers 0 through 15 to get the units into order I want?


Your mention of the representative battlefield reminded me. Even at x0.50 speed even the infantry units move like small fast nervous critters about the battlefield. Your mileage may vary?

I'd prefer to be able to set it even lower to get a more epic feel for the battles. You know general watching his battle plan in action from a hill. An infantry unit don't jump acroos a field in a two seconds but it takes time. I know some prefer fast moving games.

Can I set the speed even lower by editing some file in the game's folder? Yes, you probably don't guarantee a lower value won't screw up the game. But I would like to give it a go if I'd know what file to edit.. Any hints?

Thanks for your answers again,

_Augustus_

I'll check on the terrain - I cant remember exactly how it works to be honest!

On the speed we can sow it down further but it might start to look jerky.

iainmcneil wrote:I'll check on the terrain - I cant remember exactly how it works to be honest!

Any news on this?

On the speed we can sow it down further but it might start to look jerky.

Sounds good. Would the possible jerkyness affect when you're zoomed up close on the battle or a wider view mostly you think? Personally I spent more time in a wider shot for the "general on a hill" view so close-up jerkiness wouldn't be a problem. Hmm actually I spent zoomed in but camera located some distance away if possbile because the out zoomed view is so limited areawise.

A quote from myself:

Should I be safe if I renumber the units' all "SQUADxx" (where the xx is the number of the unit) with new numbers 0 through 15 to get the units into order I want?

For anyone else interested in this I did some testing. I swapped numbers of two units and it worked ok. I then did a whole lot of reorganzing and I got a freeze and errors. I didn't botherred to doublecheck if I botched up the renumbering when I did the whole lot. But maybe it should work...

iA

Should I take the silence as a sign no info on how the terrain works shall come? I have no problem if you don't won't to share how it works. Just say so. Although that would be a shame IMO. But implying you'll return to an issue and never do does tick my nerve a bit..

It's not easy to work out - I need to go back to the source code which means we need a programmer with some spare time. It would be useful to document though so we will do it when we get the chance.

Fair enough, Ian. I hope you'll find the procrastinating programmer soon

iA

Terrain melee calcs take the worst case (that is, the worst value based on the tile you are on, and the tile the enemy is on). It then uses the per-type factors to affect the chance to hit for the attacking unit.

Missile and trample chances affect the chance of a hit/trample depending upon where the attacked unit is based.

All the values are percentages.

Hope that helps!

Cheers

Pip

Thank you for the info guys. So I take it's better to on the stakes than behind them.

BTW did you find time to try whether slowing the game beyond .50 worked at all at any viewing distance?

No we probably wont get a chance to do this in the near future