I’m glad the discussion is civil, informative, and enjoyable.
5 Likes
Chapter one. Must of missed this?
You’re lucky we’re too far for them to hear us," Darin interjects. "Now shush. Let the marshal take his seat.
Velinor jerks his head back at the throne. "You can pass. Just wanted to give it a second, make it seem like I’s clearing you.”
Unsure of more but figured send this one.
1 Like
No, Velinor is hardcoded to have common sense and elects to avoid suicide regardless.
11 Likes
Good ass story but I’m wondering what happen to the tactical/weapon/leadership stat checks?? My mc doesn’t feel like a badass anymore, I don’t want to play as some open mouth NPC scrambling around like a chicken with their head missing. Pleaaaase bring back stats.
3 Likes
We’ve barely just got chapter 2, I’m sure those stat checks will appear eventually.
6 Likes
God forbid, the characters has common sense. Stares at Disney.
7 Likes
If what Zera says about the Mongol archers is indeed 100% true, then you’ll definitely have to nerf the cavalry archers considerably.
The fact that they have deadly accuracy, more range than foot archers, among other things in the game feels too exaggerated to believe and with what Zera said, my logic makes sense.
As for how to nerf them? Well I dont know. @zera how should cavalry archers in the game be nerfed while still being annoying through their harassment tactics?
Also one last thing, in the game, we get the option to punish, release without punishment or reward soldiers who cut extremities of cavalry archers to become trophies and a knight that tortures 3 cavalry archers to death, but when you pick any of those 3 options, we don’t get a dialogue with those people based on what we choose and I wish we were able to see what happens right after choosing any of the 3 options.
5 Likes
Leadership on Usurper/Regent definitely needs some moments to shine (because instead of Elya holding together the coalition, it’s the Marshal). Ever since I saw the Ciril interaction with Leadership Marshal and Weak Elya, I saw Leadership as the perfect talent for a Usurper.
Weapons, maybe, for Usurper in Chapter 1, or during the fights in Chapter 2 (I’ll need a minute of play and code reading to figure out where exactly).
Tactics being caught flat-footed at this exact moment makes sense. But they should be able to very quickly figure out what Zera, Cascat, and Donatter have been discussing, especially about the weaknesses of horse archers.
Also, now that we’ve witnessed a foreign army, invited by the traitorous Duke, salting the fields and burning the villages, the propaganda that the royalist don’t do that will be even more effective (assuming, of course, we did not harm the villages in the march to Krorid).
12 Likes
If they are kept to just keep shooting from horses then the simplest way would be to reduce the level of casualties they inflict (on account of limited accuracy) and perhaps bump up the effect they have on reducing army loyalty (on account of frustration that comes from without having any real way to counter them) which would also make maintaining the loyalty more of a challenge?
At the moment MC already does figure it out quickly regardless of their specialization – when you talk with Obren about his book reading you can ask about fighting those guys, and he answers there wasn’t anything in there that you didn’t figure out already.
Mechanically, maybe MC without tactic specialization could suffer a little bigger losses for a while, idk.
6 Likes
God, playing through this as mainly a tactician seems so hilarious to me, especially if you went for his supply lines in the previous book.
It looks like he’s just blatantly copying the Marshal without a hint of shame or self reflection.
Except, you know, with Mercenaries instead of rangers.
18 Likes
Rade watching Tactics Marshal use guerilla warfare tactics on his army:
22 Likes
Perhaps army traits in the game can influence the damage caused by nomadic archers, which might also revive the morale mechanics in the final battle of the first installment. I considered citing some sources but decided they were too long.
7 Likes
Hey Rade needs some always there W’s against the Marshal 
6 Likes
He should enjoy them while they last.
6 Likes
to make the horse archers more “balanced/realistic” or whatever term ya’ll wanna use.
-
limit the causalities they inflict on our forces whenever they’re in formation facing the horse archers, but still have em cause higher casualties against our forces whenever they catch them out of formation(with most of the casualties being wounded, not killed to reflect how armor, shields, training, and a formation, drastically limits the lethality of non-black powder ranged weapons). As they’re still Calvary, and in order to be a horse archer, one is required to be a very competent equestrian/rider, a very competent bowmen/shooter, and a very competent fighter in general. As unlike a foot archer, to be a “good” horse archer, it requires a significant portion of your life, and constant practice towards/dedicated to it(one of the reasons why the horse archers of settled peoples, were never as effective as the horse archers of nomadic peoples)
-
have a smaller, more “professional”(one that has higher numbers of retinue, veterans and/or rangers) be both quicker to react and form up into formations to both the introduction of the horse archers, and their raids/attacks in general, endure less morale “damage”, have their actions against the horse archers be more successful(causing more casualties/causing the horse archers to legitimately flee the field instead of a false retreat), and prevent them from rising to the bait(which I mean by they won’t be baited to charge out of formation or to flee by the mental/physical/emotional exhaustion and fear that the combination of being continusly charged by Calvary, being continusly peppered with arrows, and the noise of both riders and horses will cause) due to their training/discipline and experience.
-
)With a larger army that consists mostly of militia(“levies”) suffering higher casualties(mostly wounded as every soldier in a medieval army would be armored, especially militia as they would often be given the “basics”(a textile base layer, a chain/scale shirt, a “chest” of plate(munition grade)/scale/brigantine, a metal helmet, and a variety of weapons) by their city, village, lord, or whom/what ever. With anything else, them being encouraged to buy, steal, trade, or loot themselves) even in formation, them reacting to the horse archers introduction and raids/attacks and forming into formations slower, and with less overall cohesion. Alongside, them potentially taking the previously mentioned “bait” and getting so freaked out/panicked/frustrated, they charge out of formation towards the horse archers(or just run away) and are themselves, counter charged by the horse archers and suffer heavy casualties(including deaths) from being cut down and trampled by warhorses and their fellow militia in an attempt to protect/flee themselves. Until, your retinue, rangers, heavy/light Calvary(or you) either rally the militia, or force the horse archers to retreat
4.) if you have a high amount of light Calvary, they could be used to quickly alert the army of a raid or attack, or be used to harass the archers, and/or to screen your forces in order to buy them time to form up into their formations. If you have high amounts of heavy Calvary, they be dismounted and used as outer perimeter and caravan guards, and take comparatively little casualties due to them being in suits of full/near full plate(meaning they’re effectively impervious to arrows/bolts outside of insanely lucky shots), or to counter charge and annihilate a group of horse archers that have developed a sorta “tunnel vision” towards our infantry, or even with a smaller/more “elite” army, have your forces engage in combined arms warfare, by your infantry/archers/light cavalry baiting and distracting the horse archers so they don’t notice or see the heavy Calvary get into position, or their charge until it’s far too late.
This comment is already too long, but there’s many, many opportunities in the above paragraphs where a MC’s and army’s specialization can affect or add onto the tactics within.
Irregardless, I wish y’all much love
10 Likes
They do, in fact:
#use your veterans to preserve the softer infantry.
*set c2_SoldierPlacement 1
*set RetinueDead + 1
*if (skill_Regimentation = 1)
*set RetinueDead - 0.2
*if (skill_Regimentation = 2)
*set RetinueDead - 0.5
*if (skill_HighVeteranPresence > 0)
*set RetinueDead - 0.1
Your retinue with Regimentation II and Veteran presence can reduce taken casualties by up to 60% of initial value. With Regimentation I you save some 20-30%.
Signaling can also reduce your casualties if you choose to charge out:
*if (c2_Charge)
*if (skill_EnhancedCommunications > 0)
*set InfantryDead + 0.2
*set HCavDead + 0.10
*set RetinueDead + 0.15
*set ArcherDead + 0.05
*else
*set InfantryDead + 0.40
*set HCavDead + 0.2
*set RetinueDead + 0.35
*set ArcherDead + 0.10
14 Likes
Historically the greatest counter to cav archers was the usage of heavy cavalry and the introduction of heavier plate armor. As has been pointed out by others, bows used from horseback don’t have the same draw strength as those from foot. But horse-drawn bows were still more than capable of slipping through rings in mail armor, which was predominantly the type of armor used (especially by levied infantry) until the Late MedievalAge/Renaissance.
Heavy cavalry were able to shrug off a lot of the shots from horse archers while closing distance to them. When heavy cavalry hit cav archers, it was always devastating with massive losses on the horse archer side. A good example of this is the Second Battle of Lechfeld when Otto the Great destroyed a Magyar army composed mainly of cav archers. The Magyar losses were so severe they could no longer conduct large campaigns into the west and they had to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle.
4 Likes
One of the problems with the first game is that you spend so much of it making Rade look stupid if you’re competent, to the point where he never gets any direct victories against you if you play your cards right, which is not what you want from the primary antagonist of the story. This one, he’s almost certainly going to have his shit together more than he did last time out, with all that prep time, he’s going to get his wins, whether that’s because you screw up because plot or because your allies are dumb or whatever
13 Likes
I don’t mind the losses, but don’t make me an incompetent mc while your doing it. It felt a lot of times where the mc could’ve handled the situation way better than they did. #bring back stat checks.
5 Likes
Ig it depends on whether you view the medium as games, or books. (Personally, it’s books)
but the current format of “stats” and personality in the series, is both fine and engaging enough for me. (especially as it’s just the first two chapters)
4 Likes