Realism

[Legolas]

HI, I am new the KOH forums, because I just recently discovered this game on accident. But I am not new to Medieval style games, they are among my favorite. Anyway, I was just wondering how realistic the battles will be. What I mean is, how will a unit react when an arrow or sword is put into his head/chest/whatever? For example, in a game called "Age Of Empires II" most units can receive several arrows and still fight off the enemy. Obviously you can not do that in real life.

In my opinion, 1 properly placed arrow or stab/slash from a sword will either kill you instantly, or wound you so badly that you will not be able to continue fighting. Will this game be more like Age Of Empires(multiple hits = death = unrealistic) or more like real life(1, 2, 3, ? hits = death = realistic)?

The reason I am asking is because I think unrealistic games are a joke. Sure they can be fun at times, but it gets old quick. And realism adds depth and value to the game, at least I think so.
I believe if you create a game based on real life, then all aspects of the game should be realistic, especially the battles.

[greywulf]

I've wondered the same myself. The biggest problem I see is ambushes in particular.

Say you have 20 archers hiding in the woods and the try to slow down an enemy army of 1000 men. If all 1 arrow does is slightly hurt a soldier then there is absolutely no use to ambushes. Those 20 will be dead in seconds and the enemy may lose 5 guys at most.

If those 20 can kill 3 men each though in a short amount of time and run away, then yes, ambushes are useful.

I think ambushes are the most interesting feature to be tried in KoH, and the realism of an archer (and all units in general) will either make this a good game or not. Otherwise this game just turns into a joke like Warcraft 3.

[Jorghan]

From what I have learned, your soldiers do not have hitpoints. They either die, or they don't. So if two swordsmen are fighting against each other, they will stand there and hack at each other, until one of them suddenly falls down, dead. But in reality you will not control individual soldier, only whole units.

[Bora]

i think thats a question 4 frank and frujin ;)
but in the pics where you see armys, you see a kind of energy bar (i think its one)
so I THINK that a group of swordsman will lose man by when they get hit (mans falling with the energy bar) and when the bar is empty the whole group is dead. but actually we know nothing about that.

[Rnett]

Yeah, that looks like a health bar of some sort, I guess we'll "wait and see":D

[Henrik]

Originally posted by greywulf
I've wondered the same myself. The biggest problem I see is ambushes in particular.

Say you have 20 archers hiding in the woods and the try to slow down an enemy army of 1000 men. If all 1 arrow does is slightly hurt a soldier then there is absolutely no use to ambushes. Those 20 will be dead in seconds and the enemy may lose 5 guys at most.

If those 20 can kill 3 men each though in a short amount of time and run away, then yes, ambushes are useful.

I think ambushes are the most interesting feature to be tried in KoH, and the realism of an archer (and all units in general) will either make this a good game or not. Otherwise this game just turns into a joke like Warcraft 3.

I could show post a link to a thread which deals with this issue, but i wont because it is to another gamesite :rolleyes: ;)

At that site they had a problem with the archers powerfullness - i.e when they first started to balance the game, the archers was so powerful that they could slaughter a whole colum af infantry charging at them :eek: - i belive archers are best suited for attacking slow moving objects - so maybe the kill ratio for one archer should be like 2 or 1½ ( the half mean that one unit maybe need to shots )

just my $0.02 !

[Elewyn]

Originally posted by Bora
i think thats a question 4 frank and frujin ;)
but in the pics where you see armys, you see a kind of energy bar (i think its one)
so I THINK that a group of swordsman will lose man by when they get hit (mans falling with the energy bar) and when the bar is empty the whole group is dead. but actually we know nothing about that. No!! We know about those bars that it's not "energy" but unit MORALE .
I guess, but only guess, that one hit-dead. I asked about duels, and Frank answered me similar to this:
No duels. There are 2 posibility of fight
1. one hit=dead. So then duels would be very short-useless
2. multiple hits=dead. Then battles will be neverending

I think this is simple explanation. I'm gonna find it and show you...
...here it is:But I also wonder how it could work? I mean we have here an Isometric strategy game. It can be done only way

a) Realistic battles, one hit, one dead: Means duels starts, one hit and one guy dead. "The End"...bang ? Disappointing?

b) Non realistic battles, they hit 20 times each other, one falls from horse and the other wins? Boring?

However there is a possibility that one Knight meets another Knight when no army attached. But in KoH Knights have their guards to protect them. So no Unit2Unit combat.

[Jorghan]

You are wrong Bora, we do know. For everyone who doesn't know, that bar is just as Elewyn says, morale, nothing else. There is no such thing as unit hit points.

[hulkster225]

realism could be an interesting concept. I've never played an RTS where your men die almost realistically

[Haegemon]

Originally posted by Elewyn
No!! We know about those bars that it's not "energy" but unit MORALE .
I guess, but only guess, that one hit-dead. I asked about duels, and Frank answered me similar to this:
No duels. There are 2 posibility of fight
1. one hit=dead. So then duels would be very short-useless
2. multiple hits=dead. Then battles will be neverending


The theme of duels was discussed but I think, this could have been a positve effect in people (restore moral of villagers,soldiers, Knights), but only like a party no deaths, decorative issue (the player don't fights but can select if the event is celebrated like selects if a castel it's updated. That's not micromanagement, only a feature avaliable after something like upgrade a city).
You can see the event that gives more life to the cities. :cheers:

[Elewyn]

Originally posted by Haegemon
The theme of duels was discussed but I think, this could have been a positve effect in people (restore moral of villagers,soldiers, Knights), but only like a party no deaths, decorative issue (the player don't fights but can select if the event is celebrated like selects if a castel it's updated. That's not micromanagement, only a feature avaliable after something like upgrade a city).
You can see the event that gives more life to the cities. :cheers:
I mentioned it because of topic of hits and dead. Not because of duels. I only recieved answer to this topic to different question, I'm not trying to resurrect that topic, which is already dead. Would be nice, but won't be. Frank refused it long ago, I don't think he will change his statement. In fact, if YES for duels, there should be another fight system only for duels to work on, which would take time, which can be spent on more important things.

[Haegemon]

Originally posted by Elewyn
Frank refused it long ago, I don't think he will change his statement. In fact, if YES for duels, there should be another fight system only for duels to work on, which would take time, which can be spent on more important things.


Really don't if only it's decorative, like the peasants working. This no involves fight systems because no real battle (don't mind who wins).
Example:
_Requeriment->Conquer all a country.
_Prize->Celebration to recover morale in the region.

It's a sprite effect, like workers "working", or farmers "farming". You conquers a country and automatically a celebration starts in the capital city, or you select it happens. No more.

This could be done in a week or less, cos you start from things you got drawn (tents, knights by foot and by horse fighting, civillians, etc). You have to put it in the same draws and arrange a little to make a sprite. To program it's more dificult, or not, cos "EVENT"="EVENT", then if you do "X", this happens.

[King Yngvar]

But if archers should kill in one shot, they should also have some sort of accuracy, a possibility to miss. Just don't want the archers overpowered. Infantry should not be made useless...

[Henrik]

Originally posted by King Yngvar
But if archers should kill in one shot, they should also have some sort of accuracy, a possibility to miss. Just don't want the archers overpowered. Infantry should not be made useless...

I think that you could adjust and make it right by lowering the archers rate of fire ( another game also had this issue - but it should be okay ;) )

[King Yngvar]

Or you could simply have accuracy like in Medieval...

[Nike]

Don't you forget the armor? If an archer hits a knight/swordsman/... with a strong armor, I doubt that he'll be able to kill him with a single arrow!

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Nike
Don't you forget the armor? If an archer hits a knight/swordsman/... with a strong armor, I doubt that he'll be able to kill him with a single arrow!

I think that you should reconsider that one........ archers did infact have armor piercing arrows back in those day - at least in the later medieval period - but later or earlier medieval perid or not I wouldn't like to be the one who was standing in full armour while recieving an arrow from a longbow ! ! ! - coz i think that one really would HURT a lot ;)

[Jorghan]

I'm taking for granted that you have an accuracy value, otherwise the one who deals the first blow will always win. And I'm also taking for granted that armous will play a role in wether damage is dealt. But all this probably happen in the background, so there won't be any numbers to see.

[Vytis]

I wonder if terrain will have effect on combat (woods, plains,hills, etc.)

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Vytis
I wonder if terrain will have effect on combat (woods, plains,hills, etc.)

I can't remember wheter or not archers will have an advantage when fireing from a hill, but according to Franks answer in this thread (http://forum.sunflowers.de/showthread.php?s=&postid=1440&highlight=archers+AND+hill#post1440) the archers do have an advantage when fireing from a tower.