I miss field battles

Orontes · February 28

I miss field battles. I grow tired of all the minor settlement mini-sieges, with their mid-battle appearing towers.

I hate chaos rifts too.

I think I will go back to Warhammer II until the Immortal Empires Map comes out, and/or mods can address the minor settlement siege fest rubbish.

ArneSo · February 28

I have plenty of them in WH3.

foreverthesceptic · February 28

I agree, there are way too many minor settlement siege battles. It's becoming a chore getting through all of them.

I'm genuinely bored of this game now and we are not even in March yet

@ArneSo you are clearly still playing WH2 and not WH3

Rikis · February 28

Did people really field battle minor settlements in game 2? Really? You took the time to fight 4 spearmen and a crossbowmen instead of auto resolving?

By mid game they were all walled anyways. I didn't see that many more field battles in game 2 compared to 3.

busbee247 · February 28

Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily

sandercohen · February 28

epic_162578572945FgdWSzp said:
Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily

Or, you know, an enemy army occupies the settlements, which can still make for a challenging fight, where now everything is a blob grindfest in maps that the AI clearly wasn't designed for.

Also in TWW2 even on T3 AI didn't always construct walls, this was only an 'issue' with Bretonnia who got walls automatically with a T3 settlement.

GloatingSwine · February 28

You guys were getting field battles before?

The reason you don't get field battles is because the AI is, and has been for ages, pathologically afraid to leave its settlements in the face of any sort of competent military force.

If you want more field battles, the way armies interact with friendly settlements needs to change. Armies should encamp outside of settlements not in them and attacking them should provoke a field battle where the defender gets some support from the city. Reinforced by the garrison and has some positive modifiers based on buildings in it, maybe support from the walls if the settlement has them. (Troy has battlemaps for fights directly outside of walled cities, so they know this is a thing).

Tennisgolfboll · February 28

GloatingSwine said:
You guys were getting field battles before?

The reason you don't get field battles is because the AI is, and has been for ages, pathologically afraid to leave its settlements in the face of any sort of competent military force.

If you want more field battles, the way armies interact with friendly settlements needs to change. Armies should encamp outside of settlements not in them and attacking them should provoke a field battle where the defender gets some support from the city. Reinforced by the garrison and has some positive modifiers based on buildings in it, maybe support from the walls if the settlement has them. (Troy has battlemaps for fights directly outside of walled cities, so they know this is a thing).

The wh2 ai comes at you and gladly fights in field battles. Often in fact. It is great fun but a population mechanic vs the player might be nice to add.

Kotovsky · February 28

The same here.
Capture the flag style of the game must be dropped as a bad idea.

Kapika96 · February 28

Looked at the stats for my recent Kislev campaign. 44% of battles were field battles (a little higher if you add in ambushes too). They're still there. Maybe the issue is your play style?

GettoGecko · February 28

Kapika96 said:
Looked at the stats for my recent Kislev campaign. 44% of battles were field battles (a little higher if you add in ambushes too). They're still there. Maybe the issue is your play style?

But you should take that with a grain of salt.
My current OK campaigns says 29 land battles, 20 minor settlements and 9 sieges so 50:50 at first glance, but I after a land battle there is at least 1 mop up battle and if there are multiple armies involved even more. So you need to half the amount of battles in the statistic to have a more accurate picture. Also all of the Chaos Realm battles are landbattles but they actually don't contribute to what you do on the campaign map so they also have to be substracted.

Same statistical discrepancy applies to AR, the game says I have used it 36 so I actually have used it more than I fought manual battles but the the parts where I used it where mop ups, last lords armies suiciding into settlements or 2nd and 3rd armies where I don't care about losing half of the army. So statisitically AR is still working as intended when in thruth its utterly useless on higher difficulties and the main reason I already burned out of playing TWW3 because there are just tons of meaningless battles without the feeling of achieving anything but getting bored.

ArneSo · February 28

sandercohen said:

epic_162578572945FgdWSzp said:
Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily
Or, you know, an enemy army occupies the settlements, which can still make for a challenging fight, where now everything is a blob grindfest in maps that the AI clearly wasn't designed for.

Also in TWW2 even on T3 AI didn't always construct walls, this was only an 'issue' with Bretonnia who got walls automatically with a T3 settlement.

It is easy to lure them out and set ambushes, especially with supply lines being removed.

Debauchee · February 28

Turns out, Warhammer II with it's brain-dead sieges and total lack of minor settlements has bestowed terminal suckage on unsuspecting playerbase. I know it all too well, since I am also very rusty at sieges after years-long lack of practise. Here are some advices on how to remedy this and git gud:

The game has functioning diplomacy, so you don't have have to fight on 5 fronts and cap every settlement around you.
You immediately inflict attrition damage on garrison. They will either sally out or take 10% army losses for something like 100 extra supply points, which is a bad trade.
Target enemy armies in settlements' Zone of Control, instead of attacking the town itself: the garrison will come as reinforcement. and can be easily wiped out.
Lure hostile armies from settlements by adopting ambush stance.

Let's not forget, that the new sieges are also empowering for the player, since you also end up on the defending side quiet often.
Having said that, new sieges can be quiet frustrating in combination with brutal autoresolve: even routed leftovers somehow gooble up nearly half of your model count. Maybe it's legendary difficulty malus, but still kinda bizzare.

steam_164509919181MUJbunR · February 28

I agree.

An easy solution without needing unlikely redesign would be to give us the option to set a % then when a minor battle is launched it rolls the dice based on what ever % you choose. 100% would be its always a minor settlement battle and 0% would be never. Then everyone can just choose the rate they want to play them. Everyone would be happy. Its not too hard to implement and would make a lot of people happy while not changing anything for those that are happy with the game as it is. I personally would play with 30%.

GettoGecko · February 28

ArneSo said:

sandercohen said:

epic_162578572945FgdWSzp said:
Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily
Or, you know, an enemy army occupies the settlements, which can still make for a challenging fight, where now everything is a blob grindfest in maps that the AI clearly wasn't designed for.

Also in TWW2 even on T3 AI didn't always construct walls, this was only an 'issue' with Bretonnia who got walls automatically with a T3 settlement.
It is easy to lure them out and set ambushes, especially with supply lines being removed.

Sure but that will cost you a turn so its less efficent. Attacking and getting the cities directly is still the better way to do it on higher difficulty. The problem is that these new battles aren't challenging and even though the could be fun if you would encounter them in lower doses they are unfun when its the main thing you do.

Sure, playing inefficent to maintain diversity is an option for those who play to enjoy the scenery but for those who play strategy games because they like to figure out ways to optimise stuff its a detriment to the enjoyment of the game.

ArneSo · February 28

GettoGecko said:

ArneSo said:

sandercohen said:

epic_162578572945FgdWSzp said:
Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily
Or, you know, an enemy army occupies the settlements, which can still make for a challenging fight, where now everything is a blob grindfest in maps that the AI clearly wasn't designed for.

Also in TWW2 even on T3 AI didn't always construct walls, this was only an 'issue' with Bretonnia who got walls automatically with a T3 settlement.
It is easy to lure them out and set ambushes, especially with supply lines being removed.
Sure but that will cost you a turn so its less efficent. Attacking and getting the cities directly is still the better way to do it on higher difficulty. The problem is that these new battles aren't challenging and even though the could be fun if you would encounter them in lower doses they are unfun when its the main thing you do.

Sure, playing inefficent to maintain diversity is an option for those who play to enjoy the scenery but for those who play strategy games because they like to figure out ways to optimise stuff its a detriment to the enjoyment of the game.

You simply can't steamroll anymore and expansion takes time and planning. That is a good thing.

Wood_Sprite · February 28

I got plenty of field battles too in my Kislev campaign.

Nyxilis · February 28

I fight plenty of field battles, for one when you get besieged you can just force a battle. And I do that a lot to have a healthy army to battle with.

Or just encircle myself so they come out to.meet me, or their rescue army shows and attacks me.

Ambushes work great, and when they have a double stack plus a garrison it's needed.

With Kislev I had interception armies placed about where I met the armies coming into siege. I had a lot of field battles from that.

I would not call sieges my majority of fights, but definitely a step up from the prior point.

Also depends a lil on the armies faced, notice Khorne and ogres try to hint me down a lot.

GloatingSwine · February 28

Tennisgolfboll said:

GloatingSwine said:
You guys were getting field battles before?

The reason you don't get field battles is because the AI is, and has been for ages, pathologically afraid to leave its settlements in the face of any sort of competent military force.

If you want more field battles, the way armies interact with friendly settlements needs to change. Armies should encamp outside of settlements not in them and attacking them should provoke a field battle where the defender gets some support from the city. Reinforced by the garrison and has some positive modifiers based on buildings in it, maybe support from the walls if the settlement has them. (Troy has battlemaps for fights directly outside of walled cities, so they know this is a thing).
The wh2 ai comes at you and gladly fights in field battles. Often in fact. It is great fun but a population mechanic vs the player might be nice to add.

I did not have this experience. I would say that in most of my Warhammer 2 campaigns about 2/3 of all battles were sieges or settlement battles. You will get more things that play tactically as field battles because the AI will turtle its army in an unwalled settlement for the tiny advantage the extra troops give it and they are field battles where the defender is wiped out. But it's very rare especially once you get rolling that the AI will think it can actually take you in a fight without you tricking it by building armies that intentionally suck at autoresolve because it's super conservative about how much force it needs to win on the field.

And from the only perspective the AI can know about, autoresolve power, it's doing the right thing. It's putting itself into the best positions to win in the only kind of combat it can predict.

The only real "problem" right now with minor settlements isn't actually a problem with minor settlements but the hilariously stacked autoresolve outcomes that mean you have to fight even a puny ogre camp established last turn with three units of gnoblars in because otherwise autoresolve decides they're all mega-gnoblars who are cable of killing three men each.

GettoGecko · February 28

ArneSo said:

GettoGecko said:

ArneSo said:

sandercohen said:

epic_162578572945FgdWSzp said:
Yeah as other people have said, by turn 40 all settlements were tier 3. At that point it either has walls and is a siege or it doesn't and the crappiest 20 stack in the game autoresolves it easily
Or, you know, an enemy army occupies the settlements, which can still make for a challenging fight, where now everything is a blob grindfest in maps that the AI clearly wasn't designed for.

Also in TWW2 even on T3 AI didn't always construct walls, this was only an 'issue' with Bretonnia who got walls automatically with a T3 settlement.
It is easy to lure them out and set ambushes, especially with supply lines being removed.
Sure but that will cost you a turn so its less efficent. Attacking and getting the cities directly is still the better way to do it on higher difficulty. The problem is that these new battles aren't challenging and even though the could be fun if you would encounter them in lower doses they are unfun when its the main thing you do.

Sure, playing inefficent to maintain diversity is an option for those who play to enjoy the scenery but for those who play strategy games because they like to figure out ways to optimise stuff its a detriment to the enjoyment of the game.
You simply can't steamroll anymore and expansion takes time and planning. That is a good thing.

Thats not true, you still can steamroll like you can in TWW2. I just did that with my demon prince campaign when I decided to ignore the narrative campaign. The only difference is that steam rolling doesn't allow you to use AR more, you are forced to actually play all the meaningless stomps but by playing them you even take less cassualties which makes you keep rolling faster in terms of round count while spending more real time. Because the minor settlement battles with their towers you don't even have to thing about defending because the AI can't handle a player playing the defense, all you need are heroes to counter rifts.

Arsenic · February 28

Kapika96 said:
Looked at the stats for my recent Kislev campaign. 44% of battles were field battles (a little higher if you add in ambushes too). They're still there. Maybe the issue is your play style?

So the majority were in fact, not field battles..?

Debauchee · February 28

@GettoGecko Turns out, it's all about the brutal AR, not the minor settlement battles.

KronusX · February 28

Debauchee said:
Turns out, Warhammer II with it's brain-dead sieges and total lack of minor settlements has bestowed terminal suckage on unsuspecting playerbase. I know it all too well, since I am also very rusty at sieges after years-long lack of practise. Here are some advices on how to remedy this and git gud:
The game has functioning diplomacy, so you don't have have to fight on 5 fronts and cap every settlement around you.
You immediately inflict attrition damage on garrison. They will either sally out or take 10% army losses for something like 100 extra supply points, which is a bad trade.
Target enemy armies in settlements' Zone of Control, instead of attacking the town itself: the garrison will come as reinforcement. and can be easily wiped out.
Lure hostile armies from settlements by adopting ambush stance.
Let's not forget, that the new sieges are also empowering for the player, since you also end up on the defending side quiet often.
Having said that, new sieges can be quiet frustrating in combination with brutal autoresolve: even routed leftovers somehow gooble up nearly half of your model count. Maybe it's legendary difficulty malus, but still kinda bizzare.

''Warhammer II with it's brain-dead sieges and total lack of minor settlements has bestowed terminal suckage on unsuspecting playerbase'' Um, Warhammer III sieges are even more braindead and encourage cheesing even more. For instance if I were to play HE, why would I go old fashion with tier 5 units when I can just do a Dragon Princes stack with 1-2 dragons to kite units around while I rush main point.

Marder · February 28

Orontes said:
I miss field battles. I grow tired of all the minor settlement mini-sieges, with their mid-battle appearing towers.

I hate chaos rifts too.

I think I will go back to Warhammer II until the Immortal Empires Map comes out, and/or mods can address the minor settlement siege fest rubbish.

when you get attacked and sieged by the enemy chose your settlement and attack the enemy first and you got a field battle. Problem is fixed. Wait and you have a settlement battle.

Its all up to you.

SnakeMajor · February 28

I have enugh of each type, don't get it why people complain.
What triggers me is fact that when I move into ambush ai decide to go somewhere else, every damn time as Deamons of Chaos ambushing enemy lords is a b#[email protected]
About siege, I hate 2 points of control - I just hate it. Minior battles are great, on big maps it's just crap.

Lotor12 · February 28

foreverthesceptic said:
I agree, there are way too many minor settlement siege battles. It's becoming a chore getting through all of them.

This is big problem especially in Rome 2, the settlement models on the campaign map are very big and very close to eachother, generaly 1 turn, so majority of battles are in settlements

Warhammer 1 "fixed' it simple by removing minor settlement battles, and Warhammer 3 broght it back with annoying "Tower Defense" as bonus

Laindesh · February 28

I miss field battles.
I hate constructables
I do like the minor sieges

Cochus1 · February 28

GloatingSwine said:
You guys were getting field battles before?

The reason you don't get field battles is because the AI is, and has been for ages, pathologically afraid to leave its settlements in the face of any sort of competent military force.

If you want more field battles, the way armies interact with friendly settlements needs to change. Armies should encamp outside of settlements not in them and attacking them should provoke a field battle where the defender gets some support from the city. Reinforced by the garrison and has some positive modifiers based on buildings in it, maybe support from the walls if the settlement has them. (Troy has battlemaps for fights directly outside of walled cities, so they know this is a thing).

So you basically want the IA bring dumber that it is ATM?? No plz...

I honestly am getting lots of field battles. If I would change something it would be making the auto resolve less punitive against the player when he is much stronger than the AI, so we are not forced to play minor settlement battles when outpowering the garrison but we don't want to get high casualties because auto resolve

aMint1 · February 28

I agree that there's too many minor settlement battles. It's a tedious grind churning through a million minor-settlement battles. This is not to mention that defensive ones are stupidly easy.

Genuinely surprised how many people are satisfied with them but I guess it's a matter of personal preference.

I'm looking forward to mods that alter it.

GettoGecko · February 28

Debauchee said:
@GettoGecko Turns out, it's all about the brutal AR, not the minor settlement battles.

Well lots of issues are based on it, thats true.
But I wouldn't call it "brutal" its just stupid. Who every thought that just increasing the casualty multiplier by 1 per difficulty should be force to finish a legendary campaign and than answer if it was actually challenging or fun or it the constant fight of meaningless battles ruins the game.

Bayes · February 28

GettoGecko said:

Debauchee said:
@GettoGecko Turns out, it's all about the brutal AR, not the minor settlement battles.
Well lots of issues are based on it, thats true.
But I wouldn't call it "brutal" its just stupid. Who every thought that just increasing the casualty multiplier by 1 per difficulty should be force to finish a legendary campaign and than answer if it was actually challenging or fun or it the constant fight of meaningless battles ruins the game.

It is good to see you are as annoyed as I am by this. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking.

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