Official KaM Remake Ideas topic

[Ben]

so um.....my idea...?

[Shadaoe]

Stop spamming you trollish moderator !

[ChrisEggII]

Okay, okay I get it. Don't kill me! anyway thank you Lewin for this. But still I thought my drivers are good enough. In my computer (this is my sis') this works perfectly and it was made in 2003.
I just noticed I wrote this in wrong topic...

[The Dark Lord]

Aside from the discussion whether an operating system is an application or not, I obviously meant you should close the applications that are not vital for your computer's functioning.
And @Shad, actually Ben was the only one being ontopic here.

[ChrisEggII]

And when I talked about disable Windows I was sarcastic. I always close every program before running KaM. This is obvious.
Maybe was I too rough? Sorry for this.

[WhiteWolf]

Maybe an idea for the makers of campaigns etc.

The function to disable certain units for a player ?

i.e. You play a mission in which you resemble a kingdom known for his horses, Rohan if you will. The one who made that mission could disable the option for the player to build militia/axe fighters etc. So that this "horsemaster" can only build mounted units.

Another example, you resemble a kingdom that is known for their archers, Elfish if you will. Here you can only build archers and axeman.

Another example, you resemble a rich and powerfull kingdom so you can only build iron units.

The function shouldn't be used in multiplayer maps cause of the inbalacement, but i can see why some mission/campaign builders would use this option to add more story to the missions..

[Bence791]

You can make a script to disallow it, by killing the banned units right after training and give the weapons and recruit back actually.

[WhiteWolf]

Ah, didn't know that was possible with scripts too.. and i thought it would be simple to copy the function of the disabling buildings and turn it into disabling units

[cmowla]

I apologize if I am repeating what someone has already posted, but I'm not going to read over 1700 posts.

First of all, I was going to mention ships, but someone has suggested that already.

[1] Shortcut keys, buttons, and clicks.
Shortcut Keys
Make shortcut keys for turn troop right/left and group up/form up.

Have a break up all shortcut key (into single leaders). The reason is quite obvious. Have them break into single leaders in a formation they were in before the shortcut key is touched.

For the editor, make the delete key delete a unit and/or make the - 1 unit button delete a single guy if there is only one guy in the group at the time of the clicking.

For the game, have the delete key kill a unit. Many times I created too many laborers, and they were eating from my town like recruits do from the barracks. I'd usually send them to go construct a road in the enemy's town so that he would die. So the delete key should be enabled for practical reasons like this or when, for example, a fisherman has no more fish to catch, why keep him? In addition, it's a faster way to destroy unwanted or useless buildings (like old coal mines). Perhaps we could have the option to "cash in" any unused town unit in the school house to become a serf or recruit instead of killing them (which I just proposed)?

ctrl+z undo the last action. Many times I accidentally split up a troop, fed a troop, etc., when I didn't want to. Add this standard shortcut key to undo just the last action done. For memory purposes, it probably isn't practical to undo an action that was done more than 15 seconds or so before hand. I guess this shortcut key is really only needed for troops AND perhaps if you accidentally place a road X and your laborer has already started digging.

Clicks
Enable the right-click on the group up/form up buttons so that they will either group up or form up to the extreme formations. For example, a single right click on the "form up" button should make even a 5x5 group of bowmen into a single line of 25 bowmen. Similar to how the arrows in the barracks and school houses work.

Buttons
In the location where the storm attack button is for militia, axe fighters, sword fighters, and barbarians, put a "attack ground" button for ranged units. Since the original game, your ranged units could accidentally kill your own soldiers, and so an "attack ground" button would be useful to kill enemy serfs without alarming the AI...this can make a great tactic against the campaigns.

Take out the storm attack button if you don't make them run faster. The purpose of the storm attack is to better your militia, axe fighters, sword fighters and barbarians chances of a storm of arrows fired from ranged units. They run so slow that they get killed most of the time as fast as they would if they were walking. In addition, since the original KaM game, the group commanded to storm attack become disoriented: they run in different directions, some units decide to stop running, and others sometimes don't run at all. This makes storm attack more counterproductive, and I think if it is not going to be developed/corrected, it should be taken out to perhaps allow a vacancy for a new and actually useful button.

Attack button for ranged units:
If you select a bowmen group and left click on the the attack fist button (since the original KaM game) and then click on an enemy troop, it acts as a "move to this troop" instead of "fire at this troop". Either fix this or take this button out. If you fix it, then it can keep beginners, at least, from having to guess how far a bowman must be from his target before he is in range.

[2] Make watch towers more effective.
I cannot stress this enough. I appreciate the fact that in the remake, the recruits throw the stones at a slower rate to perhaps attempt to make their hurls a little more effective. However, at least 40% of the time, a stone hurled at a soldier doesn't kill them, regardless if they are cavalry or not.

[3]Add a turn off option for "your troops are being attacked" vocal notification.
The pointers on the map are plenty enough, especially if you have already heard that your troops on another part of the map (which you are currently not viewing) are being attacked. We're not deaf, hopefully.

[4]Be able to link up same type troops in map editor (including bowmen with cross bowmen, etc.)
It is a natural limitation if you cannot have different troops of the same type not linkable in the editor.

[5]BIG ONE: Only allow ranged units to fire in the direction their facing +/- 45 degrees.
If a bowmen is firing at an enemy troop that makes his way greater than 90 degrees out of the bowman's straight line of sight, the bowmen turns and "follows" the troop until he kills him or he goes out of distance range for the bowman. The problem I have is, after that bowman stops firing at the original troop, he does not return to his assigned facing position. In addition, by allowing the bowman to turn 90 degrees to fire at a troop 90 degrees from his line of sight is, I'm sorry to say, illogical and dangerous. Many a times was I forced to rely on saves because of "stupid bowmen" firing at enemy cavalry troops to their left or right so that the enemy troops would come kill them.

Lastly, the most important benefit of this is for us to have some control over at which angle and at which troop our ranged units are supposed to fire at at a given point in time. Very important, especially for mass fighting.

[6]Crossbowmen and pikemen are useless
I have seen discussion on how crossbowmen reload more slowly than bowmen, but this has always been the case as far as I can remember (that is, in the original game). However, even though the crossbowmen fired more slowly in the original game, if 12 crossbowmen fired at a halted sword fighter, he automatically died. Now, the crossbowmen have to be in a non-traditional formation (not a rectangle or box), etc. in order to accomplish this.

If pikemen die from one strike from the back by a knight or sword fighter, what's the point of them even being in the game? What's the point of having to give them an iron armor? It's a waste. How are they a threat to knights and scouts? Yeah, I think for one-to-one combat, the pikeman has about a 30% advantage over the knight, but if two knights fight a single pikeman, the pikeman almost always dies without killing one of the knights.

[7]Drag and select multiple groups (troops) at the same time.
Either have a drag and select or at least a "hold down ctrl and click on multi-select troops.

[8]Be able to create barbarians
They are in missions 8, 9 and 20 of the Shattered Kingdom campaign, so why not be able to create them?

I didn't like TPR's way of allowing you to create barbarians (I think it was called the town hall building?). My suggestion is to make the blacksmith have the option to create their big axes. Let them cost two iron and 1 coal, and maybe 1-2 wood (make it pricy but still possible to make). Add the barbarian to the right of the sword fighter in the barracks list, since they have the highest attack for that unit type.

Also, I think it's illogical to have "warriors" have the same armor as leather armor when it looks like they are wearing iron armor. Perhaps make warriors have iron armor...to be the costliest troop to make, but most deadliest.

[9]Remove the automatic linkage around the barracks.
Many times, I'm guarding my town, and I want to create a new and separate bowmen group, for example. If I have a group of bowmen near the barracks, they obviously merge. This is problematic. I think the benefits of not having this automatic linkage outweighs whatever advantages the original KaM programmers thought it might.

[10]Automatically sort troops by hunger bar
Obviously if you have hungrier troops than others in the same group, it's best to not have to feed all of them if only some are hungry. I realize that in the remake, the troops who are very full do not get fed, but if they are not 100% full, this can be more of an inconvenience than a benefit. Having the troops automatically sorted by hunger levels will allow the human player to break up the group to feed only the soldiers who need feeding. In addition, this allows the "back end" portion of a group to be disturbed by serfs rather than every hungry troop being in random parts of the group formation.

[11]Perhaps an additional button can be added to all troops' charts regarding SPACING
Say you have hungry bowmen who are currently in combat. If you are able to feed them, then, if they are spaced out one space each, the serfs can walk through the groups without disturbing the formation. I realize of course that if the bowmen are at a 45 degree angle, then they are somewhat spaced apart...this never made sense to me except that the original programmers wanted you to be able to see all troops in the group.

In addition, spacing out bowmen, for example, can be a real advantage for effectiveness in battle: arrows can naturally come in more than one direction at an enemy troop, which obviously makes the troop more vulnerable to projectiles.


Just my 11 cents.

[Krom]

[1] Shortcut keys, buttons, and clicks.
Shortcut Keys
Make shortcut keys for turn troop right/left and group up/form up.
Have a break up all shortcut key (into single leaders). The reason is quite obvious. Have them break into single leaders in a formation they were in before the shortcut key is touched.

It would be nice if someone could design a layout of ALL KaM Remake key shortcuts including ones you propose.

For the editor, make the delete key delete a unit and/or make the - 1 unit button delete a single guy if there is only one guy in the group at the time of the clicking.

It is better to just add "delete this group" button, to avoid unintended mis-click deletes.

For the game, have the delete key kill a unit. Many times I created too many laborers, and they were eating from my town like recruits do from the barracks. I'd usually send them to go construct a road in the enemy's town so that he would die. So the delete key should be enabled for practical reasons like this or when, for example, a fisherman has no more fish to catch, why keep him? In addition, it's a faster way to destroy unwanted or useless buildings (like old coal mines). Perhaps we could have the option to "cash in" any unused town unit in the school house to become a serf or recruit instead of killing them (which I just proposed)?

We will probably allow to send units back to school. Gold will not be refunded.

ctrl+z undo the last action. Many times I accidentally split up a troop, fed a troop, etc., when I didn't want to. Add this standard shortcut key to undo just the last action done. For memory purposes, it probably isn't practical to undo an action that was done more than 15 seconds or so before hand. I guess this shortcut key is really only needed for troops AND perhaps if you accidentally place a road X and your laborer has already started digging.

It is not so easy from games perspective since many actions cause a cascade of events which are hard to reverse. We might make the "feed" button to toggle between order food and cancel order.

Clicks
Enable the right-click on the group up/form up buttons so that they will either group up or form up to the extreme formations. For example, a single right click on the "form up" button should make even a 5x5 group of bowmen into a single line of 25 bowmen. Similar to how the arrows in the barracks and school houses work.

Seems unnecessary

Buttons
In the location where the storm attack button is for militia, axe fighters, sword fighters, and barbarians, put a "attack ground" button for ranged units. Since the original game, your ranged units could accidentally kill your own soldiers, and so an "attack ground" button would be useful to kill enemy serfs without alarming the AI...this can make a great tactic against the campaigns.

Accepted, however this will still make the AI to retaliate.

Take out the storm attack button if you don't make them run faster. The purpose of the storm attack is to better your militia, axe fighters, sword fighters and barbarians chances of a storm of arrows fired from ranged units. They run so slow that they get killed most of the time as fast as they would if they were walking. In addition, since the original KaM game, the group commanded to storm attack become disoriented: they run in different directions, some units decide to stop running, and others sometimes don't run at all. This makes storm attack more counterproductive, and I think if it is not going to be developed/corrected, it should be taken out to perhaps allow a vacancy for a new and actually useful button.

Storm attack is useful and will remain.

Attack button for ranged units:
If you select a bowmen group and left click on the the attack fist button (since the original KaM game) and then click on an enemy troop, it acts as a "move to this troop" instead of "fire at this troop". Either fix this or take this button out. If you fix it, then it can keep beginners, at least, from having to guess how far a bowman must be from his target before he is in range.

IIRC this was fixed in latest r5503, archers will shoot enemy instead of walking to him.

[2] Make watch towers more effective.
I cannot stress this enough. I appreciate the fact that in the remake, the recruits throw the stones at a slower rate to perhaps attempt to make their hurls a little more effective. However, at least 40% of the time, a stone hurled at a soldier doesn't kill them, regardless if they are cavalry or not.

Towers are much more accurate than 40%. Could you provide some test results plz?

[3]Add a turn off option for "your troops are being attacked" vocal notification.
The pointers on the map are plenty enough, especially if you have already heard that your troops on another part of the map (which you are currently not viewing) are being attacked. We're not deaf, hopefully.

you can delete the corresponding WAV file in data\sfx folder. Some times vocal really saves the day if you missed the minimap event

[4]Be able to link up same type troops in map editor (including bowmen with cross bowmen, etc.)
It is a natural limitation if you cannot have different troops of the same type not linkable in the editor.

Doubt we could do that, because that relies on scripts a lot, there's command ADD_GROUP type and we would not like to overcomplicate it. You can use dynamic scripts to link the groups if you really need to.

[5]BIG ONE: Only allow ranged units to fire in the direction their facing +/- 45 degrees.
If a bowmen is firing at an enemy troop that makes his way greater than 90 degrees out of the bowman's straight line of sight, the bowmen turns and "follows" the troop until he kills him or he goes out of distance range for the bowman. The problem I have is, after that bowman stops firing at the original troop, he does not return to his assigned facing position. In addition, by allowing the bowman to turn 90 degrees to fire at a troop 90 degrees from his line of sight is, I'm sorry to say, illogical and dangerous. Many a times was I forced to rely on saves because of "stupid bowmen" firing at enemy cavalry troops to their left or right so that the enemy troops would come kill them.

Lastly, the most important benefit of this is for us to have some control over at which angle and at which troop our ranged units are supposed to fire at at a given point in time. Very important, especially for mass fighting.

They do fir in one direction, but they also track their target automatically, which is a good thing to avoid being flanked. It your case you was just being tricked by AI distracting maneuver, which is a good thing in fact. You could press "halt" to make archers face forward again and shoot at the enemy.

[6]Crossbowmen and pikemen are useless
I have seen discussion on how crossbowmen reload more slowly than bowmen, but this has always been the case as far as I can remember (that is, in the original game). However, even though the crossbowmen fired more slowly in the original game, if 12 crossbowmen fired at a halted sword fighter, he automatically died. Now, the crossbowmen have to be in a non-traditional formation (not a rectangle or box), etc. in order to accomplish this.

If pikemen die from one strike from the back by a knight or sword fighter, what's the point of them even being in the game? What's the point of having to give them an iron armor? It's a waste. How are they a threat to knights and scouts? Yeah, I think for one-to-one combat, the pikeman has about a 30% advantage over the knight, but if two knights fight a single pikeman, the pikeman almost always dies without killing one of the knights.

We need more solid data, number of tests.

[7]Drag and select multiple groups (troops) at the same time.
Either have a drag and select or at least a "hold down ctrl and click on multi-select troops.

warriors are already in groups for easier control. Having groups of groups ... sounds unnecessary. (been discussed before)

[8]Be able to create barbarians
They are in missions 8, 9 and 20 of the Shattered Kingdom campaign, so why not be able to create them?

I didn't like TPR's way of allowing you to create barbarians (I think it was called the town hall building?). My suggestion is to make the blacksmith have the option to create their big axes. Let them cost two iron and 1 coal, and maybe 1-2 wood (make it pricy but still possible to make). Add the barbarian to the right of the sword fighter in the barracks list, since they have the highest attack for that unit type.

Also, I think it's illogical to have "warriors" have the same armor as leather armor when it looks like they are wearing iron armor. Perhaps make warriors have iron armor...to be the costliest troop to make, but most deadliest.

Barbs were a special bonus elite troops in TSK, powerful allies, they were not hireable by intent. We would like to keep it that way.

[9]Remove the automatic linkage around the barracks.
Many times, I'm guarding my town, and I want to create a new and separate bowmen group, for example. If I have a group of bowmen near the barracks, they obviously merge. This is problematic. I think the benefits of not having this automatic linkage outweighs whatever advantages the original KaM programmers thought it might.

Automatic linking should happen only when new troops come out of the Barracks. Ay existing groups should not be affected. If that happens - that is a bug, please provide exact scenario of how it happens. So we could fix it.

[10]Automatically sort troops by hunger bar
Obviously if you have hungrier troops than others in the same group, it's best to not have to feed all of them if only some are hungry. I realize that in the remake, the troops who are very full do not get fed, but if they are not 100% full, this can be more of an inconvenience than a benefit. Having the troops automatically sorted by hunger levels will allow the human player to break up the group to feed only the soldiers who need feeding. In addition, this allows the "back end" portion of a group to be disturbed by serfs rather than every hungry troop being in random parts of the group formation.

How do you propose to handle this from UI perspective?

[11]Perhaps an additional button can be added to all troops' charts regarding SPACING
Say you have hungry bowmen who are currently in combat. If you are able to feed them, then, if they are spaced out one space each, the serfs can walk through the groups without disturbing the formation. I realize of course that if the bowmen are at a 45 degree angle, then they are somewhat spaced apart...this never made sense to me except that the original programmers wanted you to be able to see all troops in the group.

In addition, spacing out bowmen, for example, can be a real advantage for effectiveness in battle: arrows can naturally come in more than one direction at an enemy troop, which obviously makes the troop more vulnerable to projectiles.

We considered troop formations button and we might actually implement it some day

Just my 11 cents.

Good to read from you. I hope you can elaborate on highlighted items

[Krom]

@cmowla: On a side note, please split your suggestions into separate topics next time, this would be much easier to handle;)

[cmowla]

[1] Shortcut keys, buttons, and clicks.
Shortcut Keys
Make shortcut keys for turn troop right/left and group up/form up.
Have a break up all shortcut key (into single leaders). The reason is quite obvious. Have them break into single leaders in a formation they were in before the shortcut key is touched.

It would be nice if someone could design a layout of ALL KaM Remake key shortcuts including ones you propose.

I could perhaps design one if you wanted to see just what I could do. If you do, I would appreciate it if you could link me to posts which include all of the previously discussed shortcuts. Also, can we use the alternate key? I made custom keys for different functions in MathType equation editor and macros in Microsoft Word which have the alternate key. Using the alternate key multiplies the number of shortcut keys you can have.

For the editor, make the delete key delete a unit and/or make the - 1 unit button delete a single guy if there is only one guy in the group at the time of the clicking.

It is better to just add "delete this group" button, to avoid unintended mis-click deletes.

I thought about this too, it just seems like a lot of work to go to a specific submenu to select the X to delete a specific unit, tree, building, etc., if you want to do things efficiently. I do understand that the editor is very easy to use in comparison to the tools created before the remake, but I just thought I should mention it.

For the game, have the delete key kill a unit. Many times I created too many laborers, and they were eating from my town like recruits do from the barracks. I'd usually send them to go construct a road in the enemy's town so that he would die. So the delete key should be enabled for practical reasons like this or when, for example, a fisherman has no more fish to catch, why keep him? In addition, it's a faster way to destroy unwanted or useless buildings (like old coal mines). Perhaps we could have the option to "cash in" any unused town unit in the school house to become a serf or recruit instead of killing them (which I just proposed)?

We will probably allow to send units back to school. Gold will not be refunded.

Oh, of course. That's what I meant. I guess I shouldn't have used the term "cash", but yeah, that's what I meant. In fact, perhaps you should charge a gold to retrain since the unit is going back to school for another purpose.

ctrl+z undo the last action. Many times I accidentally split up a troop, fed a troop, etc., when I didn't want to. Add this standard shortcut key to undo just the last action done. For memory purposes, it probably isn't practical to undo an action that was done more than 15 seconds or so before hand. I guess this shortcut key is really only needed for troops AND perhaps if you accidentally place a road X and your laborer has already started digging.

It is not so easy from games perspective since many actions cause a cascade of events which are hard to reverse. We might make the "feed" button to toggle between order food and cancel order.

That sounds great. I guess the only problem is accidental breaking up a group, but if you handle the feed troop, that's obviously a more common issue. Excellent thinking.

Clicks
Enable the right-click on the group up/form up buttons so that they will either group up or form up to the extreme formations. For example, a single right click on the "form up" button should make even a 5x5 group of bowmen into a single line of 25 bowmen. Similar to how the arrows in the barracks and school houses work.

Seems unnecessary

Well, in times when you're not in a major war (like Skypper's zombie script), it's probably not necessary. In addition, it just seems to be consistent with the theme you guys added for the schoolhouse and barracks. That's why I mentioned it. However, no pressure.

Buttons
In the location where the storm attack button is for militia, axe fighters, sword fighters, and barbarians, put a "attack ground" button for ranged units. Since the original game, your ranged units could accidentally kill your own soldiers, and so an "attack ground" button would be useful to kill enemy serfs without alarming the AI...this can make a great tactic against the campaigns.

Accepted, however this will still make the AI to retaliate.

Well, I have won several missions of the campaigns (in the original remake release, not r5503), and if I put my bowmen a specific part of the AI town, the soldiers wouldn't attack me. To be more efficient at killing serfs, I could attack the ground in front of the store house or barracks, for example. However, if you all have another button in mind to add for ranged units, then you can pass this up.

Take out the storm attack button if you don't make them run faster. The purpose of the storm attack is to better your militia, axe fighters, sword fighters and barbarians chances of a storm of arrows fired from ranged units. They run so slow that they get killed most of the time as fast as they would if they were walking. In addition, since the original KaM game, the group commanded to storm attack become disoriented: they run in different directions, some units decide to stop running, and others sometimes don't run at all. This makes storm attack more counterproductive, and I think if it is not going to be developed/corrected, it should be taken out to perhaps allow a vacancy for a new and actually useful button.

Storm attack is useful and will remain.

Really? I'm curious, did you all make any changes to this function since the original game? Troops still seem to not stay together when they run in r5503. I realized after I mentioned this that in the campaigns, the enemy troops use storm attack from time to time, so taking it out would possibly mess up those scripts. I was mainly suggesting that the storm attack should be more controlled. The troops should stay together when they run, not separate so they are vulnerable to enemy attack when what storm attack means is for them to become more aggressive and dangerous.

Attack button for ranged units:
If you select a bowmen group and left click on the the attack fist button (since the original KaM game) and then click on an enemy troop, it acts as a "move to this troop" instead of "fire at this troop". Either fix this or take this button out. If you fix it, then it can keep beginners, at least, from having to guess how far a bowman must be from his target before he is in range.

IIRC this was fixed in latest r5503, archers will shoot enemy instead of walking to him.

Oh, you're right. I recently upgraded to r5503. I just tested this, and the bowmen don't do that anymore. However, the bowman I tested it on fired at a different unit than what I clicked. Did you all program it so that he fires at the closest unit in the same group as the one I click my bowmen to attack?

[2] Make watch towers more effective.
I cannot stress this enough. I appreciate the fact that in the remake, the recruits throw the stones at a slower rate to perhaps attempt to make their hurls a little more effective. However, at least 40% of the time, a stone hurled at a soldier doesn't kill them, regardless if they are cavalry or not.

Towers are much more accurate than 40%. Could you provide some test results plz?

You misunderstood me. I was implying that they are only accurate 60% of the time. I find that controlled tests don't give what happens in real game play that much justice. Maybe I have just had bad luck, but if you all didn't change anything from the watchtowers from the original remake release, then I'm guessing a good estimate is 60%. Sure they are a little more accurate if you have your troops walk straight at them, but any odd movement, and you can actually "shake off" the watch tower 40% of the time.

[3]Add a turn off option for "your troops are being attacked" vocal notification.
The pointers on the map are plenty enough, especially if you have already heard that your troops on another part of the map (which you are currently not viewing) are being attacked. We're not deaf, hopefully.

you can delete the corresponding WAV file in data\sfx folder. Some times vocal really saves the day if you missed the minimap event

I was aware of this, but I was mentioning it for those who don't know this.

[4]Be able to link up same type troops in map editor (including bowmen with cross bowmen, etc.)
It is a natural limitation if you cannot have different troops of the same type not linkable in the editor.

Doubt we could do that, because that relies on scripts a lot, there's command ADD_GROUP type and we would not like to overcomplicate it. You can use dynamic scripts to link the groups if you really need to.

Okay, that's understandable.

[5]BIG ONE: Only allow ranged units to fire in the direction their facing +/- 45 degrees.
If a bowmen is firing at an enemy troop that makes his way greater than 90 degrees out of the bowman's straight line of sight, the bowmen turns and "follows" the troop until he kills him or he goes out of distance range for the bowman. The problem I have is, after that bowman stops firing at the original troop, he does not return to his assigned facing position. In addition, by allowing the bowman to turn 90 degrees to fire at a troop 90 degrees from his line of sight is, I'm sorry to say, illogical and dangerous. Many a times was I forced to rely on saves because of "stupid bowmen" firing at enemy cavalry troops to their left or right so that the enemy troops would come kill them.

Lastly, the most important benefit of this is for us to have some control over at which angle and at which troop our ranged units are supposed to fire at at a given point in time. Very important, especially for mass fighting.

They do fir in one direction, but they also track their target automatically, which is a good thing to avoid being flanked. It your case you was just being tricked by AI distracting maneuver, which is a good thing in fact. You could press "halt" to make archers face forward again and shoot at the enemy.

I understand why you all programmed them this way, but if an enemy troop tries to attack them from behind, for example, you could simply rotate the bowmen group. If it's a knight attacking your bowmen group, you're most likely going to lose a few bowmen anyway if you have the group unguarded. I think sacrificing your ability to control exactly (well, in a closed pocket) of where the bowmen will attack is much worse than losing a few bowmen from time to time by a few outliers. Bowmen are only as useful as you allow them to be, and right now, they are not being used for the infantry and cavalry they are defending as much as they are for defending themselves and starting unwanted trouble. If a person doesn't have cavalry and infantry defending the ranged units, then that person doesn't play well, IMO. Absolute survival against very large armies relies almost entirely on the behavior of ranged units. Something to think about, especially if Skypper continues to make interesting scripts like his zombie apocalypse.

[6]Crossbowmen and pikemen are useless
I have seen discussion on how crossbowmen reload more slowly than bowmen, but this has always been the case as far as I can remember (that is, in the original game). However, even though the crossbowmen fired more slowly in the original game, if 12 crossbowmen fired at a halted sword fighter, he automatically died. Now, the crossbowmen have to be in a non-traditional formation (not a rectangle or box), etc. in order to accomplish this.

If pikemen die from one strike from the back by a knight or sword fighter, what's the point of them even being in the game? What's the point of having to give them an iron armor? It's a waste. How are they a threat to knights and scouts? Yeah, I think for one-to-one combat, the pikeman has about a 30% advantage over the knight, but if two knights fight a single pikeman, the pikeman almost always dies without killing one of the knights.

We need more solid data, number of tests.

Take for example my 0 loss "To the Capital": viewtopic.php?p=29311#p29311
around the 13 minute mark (replay). I honestly did not have to use saves to not lose my four knights at the top of the rock. My ranged units were not positioned in the ideal position to save my knight's lives, yet I managed to kill all of the pikemen without one loss. Something's wrong there. I used to fear pikemen, but now they are no more threatening to knights than swordfighters (again, if it isn't just one on one combat) because knights have the tendency to race to the back of their opponent and strike. Sword fighters do die from this, but not as easily as pikemen.

[7]Drag and select multiple groups (troops) at the same time.
Either have a drag and select or at least a "hold down ctrl and click on multi-select troops.

warriors are already in groups for easier control. Having groups of groups ... sounds unnecessary. (been discussed before)

Take for example if you divide a group into single leaders, but then you decide to move all single leaders up one space. Then it becomes annoying moving one at a time.

[8]Be able to create barbarians
They are in missions 8, 9 and 20 of the Shattered Kingdom campaign, so why not be able to create them?

I didn't like TPR's way of allowing you to create barbarians (I think it was called the town hall building?). My suggestion is to make the blacksmith have the option to create their big axes. Let them cost two iron and 1 coal, and maybe 1-2 wood (make it pricy but still possible to make). Add the barbarian to the right of the sword fighter in the barracks list, since they have the highest attack for that unit type.

Also, I think it's illogical to have "warriors" have the same armor as leather armor when it looks like they are wearing iron armor. Perhaps make warriors have iron armor...to be the costliest troop to make, but most deadliest.

Barbs were a special bonus elite troops in TSK, powerful allies, they were not hireable by intent. We would like to keep it that way.

Understandable. Maybe perhaps if you all for some reason decide to allow people to make barbarians, you limit the number of which one can make in a single game?

[9]Remove the automatic linkage around the barracks.
Many times, I'm guarding my town, and I want to create a new and separate bowmen group, for example. If I have a group of bowmen near the barracks, they obviously merge. This is problematic. I think the benefits of not having this automatic linkage outweighs whatever advantages the original KaM programmers thought it might.

Automatic linking should happen only when new troops come out of the Barracks. Ay existing groups should not be affected. If that happens - that is a bug, please provide exact scenario of how it happens. So we could fix it.

I have attached my new 21858 point SP zombie apocalypse "start/setup" save file. I have a 40 unit group of bowmen right above my barracks. Just create a bowman, and you will see he merges with that group (and I created that 40 unit group long before, and it happened again and again, even 30 minutes later).

[10]Automatically sort troops by hunger bar
Obviously if you have hungrier troops than others in the same group, it's best to not have to feed all of them if only some are hungry. I realize that in the remake, the troops who are very full do not get fed, but if they are not 100% full, this can be more of an inconvenience than a benefit. Having the troops automatically sorted by hunger levels will allow the human player to break up the group to feed only the soldiers who need feeding. In addition, this allows the "back end" portion of a group to be disturbed by serfs rather than every hungry troop being in random parts of the group formation.

How do you propose to handle this from UI perspective?

I'm not sure if you mean the user-interface as it the human player, or the interface for the client subroutine (I'm not sure which language you all programmed this in), but if you mean for the human player, if you all assigned numbers in relation to how hungry/full a troop is, then sort ascending or descending so that the leader and the units in front next to the leader are the fullest.

[11]Perhaps an additional button can be added to all troops' charts regarding SPACING
Say you have hungry bowmen who are currently in combat. If you are able to feed them, then, if they are spaced out one space each, the serfs can walk through the groups without disturbing the formation. I realize of course that if the bowmen are at a 45 degree angle, then they are somewhat spaced apart...this never made sense to me except that the original programmers wanted you to be able to see all troops in the group.

In addition, spacing out bowmen, for example, can be a real advantage for effectiveness in battle: arrows can naturally come in more than one direction at an enemy troop, which obviously makes the troop more vulnerable to projectiles.

We considered troop formations button and we might actually implement it some day

Cool.

Just my 11 cents.

Good to read from you. I hope you can elaborate on highlighted items

I apologize about making you multiquote me in a single post, I just didn't want to make 11 posts in a row.


Lastly,

Do you think the replay bug is caused from deleting messages? I thought it was saves, but it can't be. Maybe perhaps quitting the game (as it quitting KaM and then resuming at a later time)? I love the replay option you all put in, it's just a shame that some of my games cannot be viewed by others by a bug which is in several of my replays.

[Krom]

@cmwola: This is really hard to handle, I mean the 5-pages wall of quotes and text.

1. There's a separate shortcuts topic somewhere in this section. Anyway you can start a new one by listing the functions and keys and ask ppl to add their ideas, then when you have it - you can make a keyboard binding layout.

2. Tests are no different from the game (if you rig them properly). I'm sure towers are more than 60% accurate. maybe you can make a MapEd map with 80 towers against mighty 400 army and see how many get to the other side.

5. Anyhow, in both situations/ways you need to look after your troops, either by asking them to rotate or by forbidding. Sounds like the same.

7. Don't split into a single leaders then That is not an encouraged tactic.

9. Sounds like the way it was intended - new warriors autolinks to nearest group within 8? tiles. Otherwise troops would exit Barracks unlinked at all. Maybe we can reduce that distance to 4-5 tiles?

10. Of course I mean Human Interface. How to fit these functions into existing layout

[cmowla]

2. Tests are no different from the game (if you rig them properly). I'm sure towers are more than 60% accurate. maybe you can make a MapEd map with 80 towers against mighty 400 army and see how many get to the other side.

I don't think that's a good test because it would actually make the watchtowers look worse because two towers can be hurling at the same unit.

I just did a test scenario of 10 towers vs. 10 knights, each separately, and I have attached it to this post.

The results (which you can see yourself in the replay) are that:
2 towers killed with the first stone
3 towers killed with the second stone
1 tower killed with the third stone
1 tower killed with the fourth stone
2 towers killed with the fifth stone
1 tower didn't kill at all after hurling 5 stones

So I was being generous saying that they have 60% accuracy because only 2/10 towers killed on the first try, which is what I consider to be 20% accurate, while 2 or more stones all count as not accurate. Even further, half of the towers which missed on the first stone also missed on the second.

This is what I mean by accuracy. Perhaps I would need to do this test a number of times and then document all results to give a more general picture of the accuracy, but this happened to be my first try (without using saves, as we both know they should be), and what's bad, as I've said, half of the towers missed on both the first and second stones. Heck, one missed on all 5...for that one (the first knight in the replay) the AI bounce back and forth their knights like that sometimes, so I can't say I was being unfair with the movement of my knight...I kept him in range the entire time.

5. Anyhow, in both situations/ways you need to look after your troops, either by asking them to rotate or by forbidding. Sounds like the same.

You're correct. I wasn't debating about that. I was saying that by the bowmen being more "flexible" to fire even 180 degrees from the direction they are assigned to face, there is no way to guarantee that they will fire within, say, a 90 degree pocket (range from -45 degrees to +45 degrees from assigned forward facing position), even with proper positioning and even splitting them up into single leaders. As of right now, they are capable of firing in all 360 degrees, should an enemy troop cause them to turn 180 (by not dying from the arrows and moving in a arc behind the bowmen). This is problematic because you can't guarantee that bowmen will be concerned with the safety of the cavalry and/or infantry they (the bowmen) are supposed to be protecting from a large enemy army.

7. Don't split into a single leaders then That is not an encouraged tactic.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but to me, you basically just told me that a good exception I found which justifies the idea to select multiple groups at once should not be done in the first place (even though such a tactic is very effective at killing large armies without losing your troops to a strike from the back). I can understand if you don't want to add this feature because it's not practical for most players, but this tactic is very powerful defensively.

9. Sounds like the way it was intended - new warriors autolinks to nearest group within 8? tiles. Otherwise troops would exit Barracks unlinked at all. Maybe we can reduce that distance to 4-5 tiles?

4 sounds much more reasonable...the only disadvantage I can see to lowering it to 4 from 8 is that people who are undecided exactly how many troops they want to create at a given point in time might delay just a little too long to have to manually link up their troops.

That is, for example, a person has enough weapons, armor, horses, and recruits to make 11 knights, but he or she does a right click to create 10, but then decides to create the 11th knight when the closest of the 10 knights just created is 5+ tiles away (because the player sent them off to some destination once he or she created those 10 knights).

But they can just simply think before they click to begin with to prevent this from happening. Planning ahead of time is the main key to becoming good at KaM anyway.

[cmowla]

I just thought about a possibly new idea for a new type of tower: a "BallistaTower". I don't plan for these to replace watchtowers, but just as a second available option as a bonus for those who manage to build a strong economy.

IIRC from TPR, there were two siege weapons, the catapult and the ballista. The ballista had an attack of 6 bows, and like the catapult, costs a lot of iron and wood to create (as well as a lot of time). I remember reading somewhere that you all took out the ballista from the remake, for example, because it made the game too simple because one shot from a ballista would kill one or more units instantly. Well, watchtowers are meant to kill units instantly, so this is my idea:

Basic Description

Appearance
A ballista tower looks similar to a watchtower, except that it has no roof, it has a larger diameter, and it costs at least 5 wood and 5 stone to build. Perhaps it should be more of an oval type shape than a circular shape for reasons you will soon see.

Town Unit Required from SchoolHouse:
Carpenter

Material Imports from Serfs
5 wood and 5 iron at a time, all of which it can use to create a single ballista (from TPR).

Product Export and Service
Ballista created in the ballista tower cannot be released from the ballista tower. If the ballista tower gets destroyed, so do all of the ballistas inside of it. The ballista tower can create up to 5 ballistas, each of which is stored automatically in the bottom portion of the tower, let's call it the "garage". The ballista tower can have up to two ballistas at the top of the tower providing military service. Once a ballista is created within the ballista tower (using 5 iron and 5 wood + a lot of time, just as in TPR), the player gets to choose if he or she wants to move the ballista from the garage to the top of the tower (you can just choose to store all ballistas in the garage, if you want). Once this decision is made, it can't be undone. When a ballista is moved to the top of the tower from the garage, a new ballista can be created (so you can have a total of 7 ballistas in your ballista tower, up to 2 stationed at the top providing service and 5 in the garage).

Orders:
Just as with the siege workshop to create siege units, you just place your order to create x amount of ballistas in your tower. In addition, you have a second button which will move one created ballista to the top of the tower (which of course cannot be undone, so there won't be a button to move a ballista from the top of the tower back to the garage).

Combat Specs

Range
The range of the ballistas (1-2 at a time in the tower) in the ballista tower is the range of ranged units minus one tile. Like any ranged unit, the ballista tower should be powerless if the enemy is at close range.

The Life of the Ballistas/the Design of the Damage (fire) Done to a Ballista Tower
Well, if you design a new building, then you have to design the fire distribution visual effects it has when it gets more and more damaged. I propose that the fire should begin in locations other than the top for maybe the first 20% of the tower's health, and then at the 21% mark perhaps, have a fire start burning at the top of the tower. At that point, the "invisible shield" over the ballistas is destroyed, and then enemy ranged units recognize ballistas as being ranged units for which they can kill with a single shot. You can have your laborers repair the building to be only 20% or less damaged to restore the invisible shield.

Just like watchtowers, you cannot choose which units you want the ballistas in the ballista tower to fire at (so despite that you have siege units in a tower, you can't left click on the tower and then right click on a particular enemy unit or building to fire at).

Pros

• I'm not saying that a ballista tower must allow 2 ballistas in the top of it, so it can have one if you guys think that's more reasonable. However, in either case:
• Has more hitpoints than the watchtower
• Has longer range than the watchtower (1 tile range less than ranged units).
• Has potentially unlimited projectiles, each of which are as deadly as the ballista missles from TPR.
• Can be used as a wall of defense, even if they do not have ballistas in the top of their towers.
• Ballistas never leave their posts and never get hungry.
  The carpenter assigned to the tower only needs to be present when ballista need to be built. So, for example, if the carpenter gets hungry and leaves the tower, then no ballista can be created, but the ballistas in the top of the tower can still fire at the enemy.

Cons

• Expensive to build.
• Powerless at close range (so if a knight, for example, gets right next to the tower, the tower can't attack him).
• Once they have become damaged more than 20%, their ballista at the top of the tower become killable with ranged units (who have a 1 tile range advantage)
• Even if you have the resources to build ballistas in the ballista tower, it takes time to "load" them, as they have to create their own siege weapons (which require a lot of material and time to make) to be able to fire at all.