State of the battles, and going forward

Razielts#9401

I start off by saying that regardless of what reasons brought the CA staff to delay any new releases to Q2 this year, i believe this time must be used to balance and fix the AI.
I have something to say on the three categories of feedback & suggestions but i'll start here.

Ai needs to be brought back to Wh2 standards ASAP, before any DLC and other additions to the game. This is because units behave very erratically, are unresponsive, or stop responding altogether most of the time.
I've noticed either mine or enemy cav units have models scattered all over the map;

Sometimes models get stuck in units, then the rest of the flying / cav unit is stuck, and regardless of any orders it'll go back to fighting that unit, since its models are stuck and cant get out;

Ranged units, but mostly hybrid ranged units, when given a locked group attack order, will move too close to enemy units before firing, if they even fire, ( despite the enemy already being in range ) so to use ranged units at all, they must be completely stopped to be able to fire;

Another instance of weird ranged unit behavior, is in Wh3, most of the time, enemies are in the cone of range ( either on the right or left side ), but the units dont fire like in wh2, and i have to give them a direct order to fire, resulting in the whole unit turning to face the enemy before firing, wasting precious time before even a single shot has been fired.

I certainly notice that the enemy AI has been improved to make battles more engaging, and the groundwork has been laid for the future, so hopefully until Q2, there are constant updates to fix the examples i've talked about and many more AI quirckyness, so that the battles can be more fluid and feel better to play on.

Regarding Sieges, and minor settlement battles, i certainly think that CA staff have been hit by an artillery barrage of requests, cuz the whole matter of dividing the ratio of field vs settlement battles is divicive ( honestly i'm very satisfied with this decision ) but after the AI and other major issues have been fixed, i hope that a future rework to both is in the works, cuz i feel that both battle types, must play and feel like the siege of minas tirith from LOTR, and other similar battles.

Here are a few examples i feel must be put into consideration, to improve the whole experience in the future:

- Siege and settlement battles seem to focus too much on the new resource / buildable system and less on the bigger picture of tactics, this is why there have been many requests to stop building during battles;

- This segways into the fact that when buildables were first introduced, i was envisioning the defender building a maze to force the enemy to traverse specific diretions for the defender to fall back to and defend / or trap / or flank from, so this should be the way, instead of building during battle;

- The previous point boils down to the attacker gaining ground over time, and the defender falling back to other defensive points too, to make full use of the battle maps, so that the battles are more dynamic and interesting to fight on. Even if they become slower, they will in turn become more epic;

- To Go hand in hand with the previous example, garrisons must be much bigger, due to the fact that current garrisons arent enough to defend due to the size of the map;

- Maps need to be wider, so that units can traverse them better. They are much too tight, and force too many bottleneck fights, not giving any leeway for flanks, or fast movers to act on;

- When defending a settlement, that has an army inside the city, it must be already in it. If the army is outside the city before the battle starts, then it should reinforce normally. A second army that has been encamped near a city for at least one turn, should reinforce for half the time, since it doesnt need as much time to go in logically. This should also apply to attackers;

-Siege attrition should only apply after 3 turns of siege for example ( just like in wh2 ) , and siege equipment should be much faster to build based on the size and fatigue of an army, so that more siege equipment is used to attack from many sides;

- Besides battering rams, only Artillery, Monstrous infantry, SEMs ( Single entity monsters ) , siege attackers, and unmounted special lords should be able to deal damage to gates, nothing else.

These are a few improvements that i feel are desperately needed to make these battles more engaging.

ottakanawa#9312

Well put. The current state of the AI is completely unacceptable.

The_real_FAUST#6885

The game is severely lacking polish, battles are a big area.