-snip-
10) looting system has been changed. no more randomness. at the end of a battle, the winner receives all of the goods of the loser. the items that were used receive a penalty of -2 to it's loom level and are distributed 25% to the loser, 50% to the winner.
11) retreating is actually surrendering, all rules of #10 come into effect
I say this is a good change and makes winning/losing a battle much more fair. It now makes it irrelevant how long the battle lasted (except how much equipment is left to get the percentage off) or which side won (defender and attacker doesn't matter).
But, there are certain situations where retreating shouldn't be a "I give up". There should be an option to do a tactical retreat where you just move a bit back to regroup or something. Maybe if it's a siege and you run out of ladders and the c-site/materials has bugged out.
This is why I think we should have an additional "retreat" option, something I've been thinking of for a while. Some sort of tactical retreat where you must sort of reorganize a tactical retreat. It should be kind of difficult to do, but with organization and good playing, it should be a valid tactic to safely leave the battlefield.
This is what the options could be:Flee: what we currently have now, where your flags just goes down and you lose the battle after your last guys on the battlefield dies. Pretty much giving up. You are losing, you know it, and there's really no longer a need to continue fighting.
Retreat: All your flags goes down like it normally would. In addition, a big flag, like the Master of the Fields flag or the Siege Flag spawns at or near the retreating army's spawn. The retreating army then have to get this flag up. This will be difficult since they don't have any respawns, while the other side still do. As with the normal MotF and siege flag, it doesn't move up or down if there's anyone from both sides inside the are of influence, so as long as the non-retreating army (the ones that can still respawn) have someone close (aka overrunning their retreat) the retreaters wont be able to get the flag up and slowly lose all their players (since they don't respawn). It will be hard to do a tactical retreat (depending on the map of course), but for an army that has the fighting advantage but no way to win (e.g. a sieging army with good equipment that ran out of ladders), should have little trouble doing a tactical retreat.
If they succeed, they manage to safely retreat and get to keep all or most of their equipment and troops. Maybe a small penalty to represent desertion due to low moral (because of the loss) or something.
If they
don't manage to get the flag down and all their guys dies, then it should be a normal or harsher loss. They failed at organizing a retreat and the army routs worse than it normally would.
The speed of how the flag goes up would have to be carefully adjusted of course. It shouldn't be too easy to do this tactical retreat. This obviously needs tweaking, but there still should be a way to fall back without getting a full loss. What do you think about it?
EDIT:
A bit down, I posted this:
Just thought of something.
This could be aboozed by defenders I think. They could do a tactical retreat in almost the beginning and then escape an attacker, making taking over a fief very hard since the flag is in the defender spawn..
EDIT: As I was writing here, I also thought it could be aboozed by the attacking side too. Let's say a big army comes and you send out a small, but well equipped army to delay them (so reinforcements can be sent). You could then attack them and lock them down for 2h hours, retreat in the beginning, then reattack again. Do this until you fail a retreat. This could delay an attack for days.Not sure how to quite fix these issues, but what about these suggestions:
"Retreat Time":- If you successfully retreat, you get a small speed bonus on the map, but can't attack in 24 hours. Can still be attacked by others.
- If you are attacked in the 24 hour "Retreat Time", you can't do another tactical retreat.
- Possibly: Quick March is be disabled.
Defending in the Field.- After a successful retreat, you lose your goods, but not necessarily your equipment. Makes it so you have to choose between retreat and keep your troops, or fight and die to weaken the guys who takes the goods.
- The time used to get the flag up takes slightly longer than it normally would.
Defending a Fief:- A tactical retreat from a fief should be that you abandon your fief and run away, leaving it to the enemy. You're pretty much just taking your soldiers and legging it. Not a sally out, but a "try to break out" action.
- When defending a fief, the flag spawns somewhere else than the defender spawn. Most probably it should be at one of the ends of the map (defenders should know where, so they can plan for it).
- If you retreat from a village defense, you only take with you the troops and part of the equipment (50% of the equipment, or 1 weapon and 1 of each body armour for each troop, whatever is balanced).
- You lose the fief. The population, the gold and the remaining/most of the equipment is abandoned in the village for the attackers.
Attacking a fief:- Successfully retreating let's you keep all your troops, equipment, gold and goods.
- Shortest time to get the flag up. It's a siege and you got camps around it. You are prepared to attack in waves, so falling back to the camps should be a natural and planned thing.
- Retreating here does NOT give "Retreat Time". You are still supposed to be laying siege, keeping the town/castle/village in check. Retreating in a siege is more a "reorganize for another attack" and not a "reorganize and run away".
Attacking on the field:- After you retreat, you gain "Retreat Time" but without the speed buff. Unless there's a significant movement difference from horses or army size, the defenders should be able to reattack you if they want to. Hit and run Cavalry armies could still be sent out to hit invaders, do some damage, then retreat back again. Same with light/skirmisher armies. Would still stop them from chain-delaying an invader, because of the "Retreat Time" disabling doing a second retreat.*
- You lose nothing, except a small amount of your goods. No equipment or troop loss, by default.
While Raiding:Retreating is disabled while raiding. Raids should be all out attacks for attackers and a surprise attack for the defenders. The Surrender option should still be available ofc.
*While they could have 2 armies doing hit and run tactics on an invader, that would take lots of organizing, micromanaging, logistics and resources. Being able to do that should not be penalized, but applauded.
