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This phase is where LOTR 1 is somewhat lacking. Once you start to pull ahead, there isn't anything really stopping you. But you still have to keep sending out armies and fight the battles until you reach the point that you can afford to auto-resolve. Meanwhile managing all the counties becomes an increasingly arduous task. Personally I don't mind the county management, and it's the dealing with still having to take down the remaining three enemies that is tiresome. I feel the best games are those where one of the other enemies has grown fairly strong as well, so you aren't dealing with multiple annoyances, and it's still kind of a challenge of equals. But I think the game is designed so that it's kind of hard for that to happen, so that outcome is rare.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:08
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Kangra posted:This phase is where LOTR 1 is somewhat lacking. Once you start to pull ahead, there isn't anything really stopping you. But you still have to keep sending out armies and fight the battles until you reach the point that you can afford to auto-resolve. This is really most strategy games, turn-based or otherwise. There's a turning point where your victory is mathematically assured, barring some sort of insanely wild random event chain or a titanic fuckup on your part, and its just drudging cleanup afterwards.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:31
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I think that's true, but I also think some games do a better job of minimizing it than others. As many of you know and we will hopefully see in the future, Lords 2 managed to shorten this part of the process.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:10
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Yeah, I definitely remember my few victories LotR2 didn't drag on as much as this
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Jul 5, 2023 23:58
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Gort posted:I'm not sure if there are any historical strategy games that really model losses to disease and desertion in a detailed way. Usually your troop number stays static unless the game throws a random disaster at you, you move them into hazardous terrain, or you make some mistake like not giving them any supplies. I recall a point someone made about King Tigers in WW2 wargames (which often have a problem of portraying the Wehrmacht as Elite Soldiers) which was something along the lines of 'If you wanted a historically accurate wargame model, they'd be even stronger than they're usually portrayed, but also you'd have an 80% chance that they would either have no fuel, a mechanical fault or wouldn't even show up.'
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Jul 6, 2023 00:01
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They would indeed on average have a mechanical fault unfixable in the field before they'd finish burning a full tank of gas, also they would have terrible coordination problems and reaction times, things that generally aren't modeled or are a heinous tax on the player. The fearsomeness would be far more dependent on fine positioning and use, and such, and often counter intuitive, finicky, finicky, best abstracted away, like all the rest.
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Jul 6, 2023 00:09
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This makes me wonder where the American Mark 14 Torpedo would fit in all of this 
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Jul 6, 2023 10:11
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A 90% failure rate that slowly goes down with time, a button to go to BuOrd and physically threaten people, a chance to circle back around and kill the launcher, with the same failure rate than on enemies. It would make for a very peculiar type of game, of course, but grognards are a very peculiar type of people.
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Jul 6, 2023 10:39
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Strategic Sage posted:This makes me wonder where the American Mark 14 Torpedo would fit in all of this War in the Pacific models that. American torpedoes basically just bounce off 90% of the time in the early war, with the penalty getting lower as time goes by. It is pretty heartbreaking to see a one-in-a-million shot by a US submarine on a big Japanese carrier like Shokaku just "clunk" off the hull. It does mean things like Dutch submarines that actually have working torpedoes are worth their weight in gold in the early game.
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Jul 6, 2023 14:44
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Pushing Eastward: Summer 1283 - Summer 1284 I don't quite get the point of this blurb.  Plague hits Staffordshire, because you know the people there haven't suffered enough. I suppose the silver lining here is it couldn't kill very many people; there weren't very many people left to kill.  Clearing our west flank once and for all, we commence the attack on Dyfed. It's pretty even in pure numbers, but our merc swordsmen will ensure victory. We did lose a little over a hundred here though, mostly peasants.  We haven't cared about Dyfed much so far, and we'll go right back to not caring about them for the most part since they're far from all future fighting. But hey; have your moment and all that.  No? I would expect the talk to be of continuing the expansion snowball and crushing all enemies before us. And then peace after that, sure. Peace when the enemies lie in pieces? 40 Head of Cattle are purchased for Dyfed and some more shipped in.  Haven't checked in on this in a while. More workers continue to be added. We're now getting almost two sets of weapons per year built. Soon we'll need to concern ourselves with upping iron production elsewhere; probably in Wiltshire. I decide to equalize the numbers of workers there who are in mining and armoring; that will mean there's a modest surplus of iron coming out beyond what they use.  Uhh, thanks? The Steward apparently has a different definition of half than I do. By my count we control 14 of 32 counties, two short of half. But I'll take it anyway.  What? How??  Outlaws in Cheshire. They will pay for this outrage of stealing supplies that we can easily replace and would probably not even notice were missing. Yes, they are sick, desperate, and downtrodden, but honestly; is that any excuse for stealing from the oppressors who are filthy stinking rich by comparison? I think not!!  Conquering Hampshire had waited for the arrival of our crossbowmen mercs, and still a little over 50 swordsmen with them as well, from the west. In Autumn it was time, and our count climbed to 15 counties in the Kingdom. Most of them we simply don't individually care about anymore.  There's a drought here, and in both of the Bishop's counties as well, and very little food. What food there is the army will be consuming. Health is pretty much the only positive indicator.  Ok? We purchase some cattle here in Wiltshire, then send 35 Head and hundreds of Grain on to Hampshire.  The revolt countdown has begun in Staffordshire, but food has arrived as well. There should be plenty of time to stabilize, but like we've experienced in Somerset it's a long climb to being a useful contributor. Since the population fell so much, I bump the rations up to Double which can still all be handled by dairy. Free - other than the labor to maintain the herd - is a pretty good price. Remember those outlaws? Well, I temporarily raise 100 Swordsmen and go smash them, then disband the army immediately. So long as we have some weapons in storage, there's no need to fear them popping up wherever. The magic of weapon teleportation is in our grasp.  This purchase in Dyfed along with 100 sacks of Grain prevents further deterioration while awaiting incoming supply carts; food is gone there. As are most of our crowns now. The treasury fluctuates wildly these days.  Wintertime Yorkshire, the final frontier as it were. This is the home county for the Countess. We don't have enough peasants yet to overrun it, but enough to take out some of the sheep in the fields. This is almost certainly going to be where the war ends, some years down the road.  None of them are specialized yet, but we're starting to get significant amounts of food flowing from the Baron's former holdings in the southwest. This will be very useful to having pushing east to be used when we take over the ravaged counties of the Bishop and the Earl.  A handful of years into reclamation, Somerset has become a relatively typical low-population county. 300+ people live here now, still a couple fields to reclaim, a small amount of grain being planted to ensure there are no significant problems, modest but growing herd of cattle. Hampshire is not so happy, dropping down to No Rations so the very little grain left - I was surprised there was any - can be used to plant. Supply carts will arrive in the Spring though, so it'll be fine then.  I think that duty will be best served by removing you.  Cute that she thinks she can still succeed in aggression at this point.  Sneaky move. She sent an army marching across the vast Yorkshire countryside to hit Lancashire. That would have taken several seasons. Due to the forest it should take them two more to reach the town. They are too far away from any of our other counties to send help, so we'll have to take Lancashire's limited population to fight them off. There remains one more task yet to do for Summer 1284, but we will return for that in the next update. We're ready to take the fight to the Bishop, which means our first taste of siege warfare.
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Jul 7, 2023 17:36
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The AI being intentionally sneaking or the pathfinding glitching out? 
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Jul 7, 2023 19:16
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PurpleXVI posted:The AI being intentionally sneaking or the pathfinding glitching out? Why not both? I'm guessing there are parts of the map that hoofing it across country would be the fastest way between those two points, just from the way the roads meander.
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Jul 7, 2023 19:19
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They sometimes go cross-country even when there's a faster route via road. I think this is just to add some unpredictability. In this case though, it's the only county of mine they could attack and potentially keep, because it's the only one that shares a border. I think that was a big part of the motivation, because the other nobles have castles but I don't and that's basically an invitation from the AI's point of view.
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Jul 7, 2023 20:53
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The Bad Joke of Siege Warfare: Summer 1284 - Autumn 1284 Sussex, starting county for the Baron.  Moving onto the castle gives us the usual confirmation pop-up.  The figure inside moves his shield and spear in a series of gestures, apparently instructing everyone to cloes up the entrance.  A portcullis lowers into position, and then a second one.  Finally, the drawbridge is raised. Even for castles without a moat. Just smile, nod, and stop asking stupid questions.  We'll see this every season while the siege continues. We have two options. The first is to just blockade the castle and basically starve it out; they'll eventually either surrender or sally forth, which results in a standard field battle. The right arrow in the lower left is where we go if we want to attack.  This is where we actually plan the siege. There's a whole bunch of stuff here, but first we'll observe that on the left-side panel, partway down it says Mode. We are currently in the Labor or 'Planning' mode. That's the left icon with the figures. The right icon, blue circle with a black figure inside it, is where the Attack is done. Let's look at that first.  Like the castle design screen, that brings up a schematic of the castle surrounded by green fields. The terrain is always the same, and note that the left-side panel remained unchanged. We switch between the modes in 'toggle' fashion. At the top-left, we have four of those blue circles. These are units of Fighters. There are other kinds of units that are possible, but we haven't yet built any siege equipment, so these are what we have for now.  We can place our fighters anywhere outside the castle walls, as shown. We can also give them attack orders, but we'll come back to that. Just having fighters attack the walls on their own ends badly, as it should. Any successful assault needs to be prepared first. Back then to our Labor view. On the left, under Siege Duties, we have sliders. Every siege default to dividing your army into four equal groups; foragers, builders, the already-mentioned fighters, and free. Free men do nothing. Foragers gather food, builders build siege equipment. Pretty straight-forward. Tip: Foraging here has jack diddly squat to do with the county's food situation. There could be no food at all for the common folk or field armies, but your ability to gather it for your army in siege in mode will still be unlimited. This is the first of many objections I have to how sieges work in Lords of the Realm. As we'll see, it has all the appearance of a 'tacked-on' feature. The first thing I do is to put enough labor into foraging so that our food supply doesn't decline. This is just to be safe and it still leaves enough men for other purposes. I could micromanage it to keep just enough on hand if I really really wanted to.  That is now done, and everyone else is shifted into builders. We can see the changes under supplies - unless health is bad there's no reason to change the Rations. The options they can build are listed on the right under Machines. In order from top to bottom, they are: - Ladders - Siege Towers - Catapults - Trebuchets - Battering Rams Tip: The only one that matters is the Trebuchet. It is a machine of invincible might, a tool of unstoppable conquest. A combination of time and trebuchets will take down any castle, anytime, anywhere, without the loss of a single soldier unless the enemy comes out to fight.  Each trebuchet requires 60 man-seasons to build. Again, resources for building them are infinite regardless of the state of the county. I think it would have been good if you had to bring resources along for feeding the army/construction and this slowed movement speed, or resupply in counties that had timber etc.; this would have given those resources another use. But as it is, handwavium is employed. We can build five trebuchets, and they will be available to us next season. Note also Inside the castle. To my knowledge, 'spies guess' is always 100% accurate. If not, it's awfully darned close. They have a sizable garrison which is in good health now, but has no food. I think they eat the county's food supply when not under siege, but they can't do that now. So health would be expected to decline here fairly rapidly.  Since we reassigned all of our fighters, now we have no units to attack with until next season. We'll get to how that works when the time comes, and exit for now.  After processing the turn, and a couple of inconsequential battles, the next season begins with the siege resuming. They will be visited in order if there is more than one ongoing. The main purpose the castles serve in gameplay is just to delay an attack until another army can show up to break the siege. We've weakened the Baron enough though that it's just a matter of time until we take them; no such relief will be forthcoming.  Next, any attack orders given in the previous season will be carried out. There are none in this case.  Our report on the action is totally underwhelming.  When our place in the turn order is reached, the siege updates and we are taken back through the same process as before.  The garrison's health is down from Good to Mixed. We also have five new icons for our trebuchets on the left side.  It takes some doing to get them placed down in the right place; what we want is for the trebuchets to be near the edge of their range. That will allow them to damage the castle while not being able to be fired at in return. Looking at the button cluster in the lower left, the bottom two just take us back to the siege summary or exit. The next row up, the icon on the right with figures in front of a castle changes from placing units to attacking with them. The one on the left, a top-down view of units around a castle, allows to show 'attack lines' permanently on the display. We'll see how that works in a bit.  With the attack control on, we can see the trebuchet is highlighted and the cursor turned to a weapon, just like how in field battles the cursor displays this way when giving attack orders to our soldiers. If we hover over something we can fire at, there will be a red line from the trebuchet to the target. There isn't one here as the castle is out of range.  Move a little closer ... and now it works. We can choose any point on the castle itself to fire at.  After all five trebuchets are placed and targeted, it looks like this. Notice the trebuchets are now colored purple to indicate they've been given a valid attack order. Now we just need to wait until the next season rolls around and see how they do.  In Lancashire, it's time to expel the Countess. An army of 50 peasants is up first, to see how strong the invaders are and whittle them down to size.  210 of them at first. After five bouts of auto-resolve, we've sacrificed 50 peasants to bring that down to 85.  We can only conscript an additional 150 thanks to this rule.  They are all Axemen with high morale. This was a serious and intelligent attack move on the part of the Countess. 100 Swordsmen and 50 Archers on our side, the swordsmen holding them off while the archers help thin their numbers. We lose 32, and then disband the army. As a result of all this, happiness in Lancashire is down to 6, and we lost 82 people from a population that was only 395 to start with. But we'll recover, and the attack is thwarted. We're starting to raid the Countess more effectively now, so I doubt she'll be able to pull this kind of a surprise again. Buckinghamshire is the next county to fall, to our mercenary Knights with peasant support, and we have other armies on their way to make additional conquests.  Another army is raised in Powys. It will need a number of seasons to reach the current fronts, but with another new group of good swordsmen mercs available and some more soldiers equipped with our own weapons, this should be a very effective force.  The siege resumes. Any attack is termed an attempt to storm the castle, even though we're just firing from as far away as possible. Each trebuchet fires in turn, and the attempts are spread over whatever season it is. The reason for 'attempt fails. No losses' is that this shot is actually at the tower containing the drawbridge. Those can never be damaged. The view of the castle on the bottom confirms this.  The next shot is better and more typical. Limited success, no losses - that doesn't mean no losses to the defenders, just that we as attackers lost nothing. The castle view updates to show a crack in that section of the wall, and some rubble.  After all trebuchets have fired, we get a summary. 27 defenders killed. I think the intended mechanic here is that you would target a section or two of the wall with concentrated fire, then send fighters in. What actually happens though is that any successful attack will kill a handful of defenders. No matter how few of them are left, that will always happen. At no point will they say 'hmm, how about we just stay away from that section of the wall unless they actually send men to attack it'. So you just keep firing until all the defenders are dead, and are never in any danger.  Matters are clearly getting worse for the defenders in the castle, but it will take a long time to eliminate all of them at this rate. Not to worry, we now have five new trebuchets to position, and we do so - this time on the north side. Next season's bombardment will likely produce twice the destruction. Tip: There is a hard limit of 16 trebuchets that you can deploy in a single siege. You could just build catapults or something after that, but I don't think it's worth the trouble. Just keep firing away and wait. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 11:33
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Do the Castles not have Siege weapons of their own in this game? Putting them on towers to increase their range was kind of a no-brainer decision in real life to avoid exactly what you're doing here.
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Jul 10, 2023 12:46
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Counter-siege weapons, in this economy? You ask too much!
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Jul 10, 2023 13:20
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berryjon posted:Do the Castles not have Siege weapons of their own in this game? Putting them on towers to increase their range was kind of a no-brainer decision in real life to avoid exactly what you're doing here. They do not. If it's a no-brainer, then siege defenders in LOTR have achieved the impressive metaphysical feat of having less than no brainpower. Here's an exhaustive list of the options they have: - Ask For Quarter - Attempt escape; try to leave the castle, which will be lost, but the army can fight on the main map - Sally forth; fight your way out - Hold fast; this is just basically defending, but the way the attacks are resolved, it is as if anything beyond the range of an archer is untouchable. Siege towers and ladders will definitely get damaged, as will battering rams, but trebuchets get to stand out in the field and say 'nah nah nah nah nah, you can't hit me' for years on end if need be.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:06
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I assume the reason trebuchets are the best option is because they can attack from a range where nothing can hit them, while normal catapults have a chance of getting fired back on and the other siege weapons involve your dudes actually in range of the walls?
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Jul 10, 2023 19:58
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It does kind of look like they already had the game developed well underway and someone reminded them that sieges were a huge part of medieval combat
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Jul 10, 2023 23:38
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PurpleXVI posted:I assume the reason trebuchets are the best option is because they can attack from a range where nothing can hit them, while normal catapults have a chance of getting fired back on and the other siege weapons involve your dudes actually in range of the walls? That's my understanding but I haven't actually experimented with the other options.
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Jul 11, 2023 02:45
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So is a trebuchet an actual better siege weapon than a catapult IRL, and if so, is there a specific reason why or is it just kinda due to "physics"?
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Jul 11, 2023 04:05
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Randalor posted:So is a trebuchet an actual better siege weapon than a catapult IRL, and if so, is there a specific reason why or is it just kinda due to "physics"? Physics, Trebuchet can throw a bigger object for a longer distance
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Jul 11, 2023 04:27
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Oh boy I love Lords of the Realm I like how baby booms immediately add to the population so you can hand them pitchforks and send the babies off to battle Also here's my favorite battle tactic - enemy groups immediately run away if their group morale hits 0, but if they're currently fighting they'll fight to the death So monitor the morale at all times in battle, and have all of your groups pre selected so that the moment the morale hits 0 on any enemy group you can tell your groups to attack a a spot away from the 0 morale group to get them to stop fighting and not waste a bunch of lives fighting men who will otherwise just run away
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Jul 11, 2023 07:22
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Randalor posted:So is a trebuchet an actual better siege weapon than a catapult IRL, and if so, is there a specific reason why or is it just kinda due to "physics"? Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this stuff. If anyone happens to be one, feel free to jump in and correct me. So there's terminology to know first. Trebuchets are a type of catapult, and what's typically used to depict a "catapult" in games like this and Civilisation is another (much more ancient) kind of catapult known as an onager. Since every siege weapon of the period was handmade, there's a ton of variation between examples. Onagers derive their power from ropes that are twisted up over time and then suddenly released. However, there are fairly solid limits to how much energy such an arrangement can store - ropes can only be so strong and can only get so twisted, presumably. Counterweight trebuchets (which are the kind pictured here - there was another kind called traction trebuchets which were people-powered and much lighter) derive their power from a counterweight at the end of a lever, where the bit of lever with the counterweight on it is short, but the bit of lever with the ammunition (IE: A big rock) on it is long. This lever arrangement means that when the counterweight drops relatively slowly, the ammunition rises quickly. The counterweight is generally about a hundred times the weight of the ammunition, so the big rock gets a lot of energy. This arrangement can store a lot more energy than that of an onager, as the limits lie in the size of counterweight and how sturdy a frame and arm you can construct, which are a lot less limiting than "how strong and twisty can we make this rope". TL;DR: Physics Gort fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 14:42
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Oh neat. So, I'm guessing the reason why onagers would be used over a trebuche despite their limitations would be that it's quicker to build on-site, considering you only need wood and rope, and not a heavy stone as a counterweight?
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Jul 11, 2023 14:56
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Randalor posted:Oh neat. So, I'm guessing the reason why onagers would be used over a trebuche despite their limitations would be that it's quicker to build on-site, considering you only need wood and rope, and not a heavy stone as a counterweight? If you're willing to compromise on your range and power, you could probably cut down and tie together a bunch of logs as a counterweight. Wood's still pretty heavy. But, yeah, heavy things require more work on site or carting along more stuff from home which you might not have the goons or logistics for.
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Jul 11, 2023 15:02
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Randalor posted:Oh neat. So, I'm guessing the reason why onagers would be used over a trebuche despite their limitations would be that it's quicker to build on-site, considering you only need wood and rope, and not a heavy stone as a counterweight? From my limited reading on the matter, onagers didn't really coexist with trebuchets like this. It seems like when trebuchets showed up they pretty much replaced earlier machines. If you wanted something light with no counterweight, you built the traction trebuchet, which looks like this:  There are writings from Chinese generals lauding how easy to move around and deploy traction trebuchets were compared to the counterweight trebuchets - they liked that they could build traction trebuchets, disassemble them, give them to four dudes to carry to the enemy city, then quickly set them up and get shooting. Trouble is, the power and range of traction trebuchets were kind of pitiful, so if you wanted to knock down a wall rather than people, you were going to have to go to all the bother of constructing counterweight trebuchets. Obviously data is scarce and because every siege engine was a hand-made, unique machine, it's hard to say "traction trebuchets were this good and counterweight trebuchets were this good", but reconstructions have stuff like counterweight trebuchets having twice the range with a stone fifty times heavier than what the traction trebuchets could do. Compared to something like an onager, a counterweight trebuchet would have double the range and four times the projectile weight, though obviously there were different sizes of counterweight trebuchet and again, every machine was unique. Gort fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 16:04
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Gort posted:From my limited reading on the matter, onagers didn't really coexist with trebuchets like this. It seems like when trebuchets showed up they pretty much replaced earlier machines. I guess that's fair, and it's not like time is really that pressing for the sieging side. "Oh no, if we build these trebuchets slightly slower, there may not be as many survivors for us to kill!"
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Jul 11, 2023 16:28
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I think it's also just a situation where games inevitably simplify these things as was kind of mentioned earlier. Whenever I learn more about history, almost regardless of the subject, it always ends up in some form of 'huh. that's actually more nuanced than I thought it was'. Because reality is messy and rarely simple, but it make sense for games to reduce it down, and so ... here we are.
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Jul 11, 2023 16:35
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Let the Siege Times Roll!: Winter 1284 - Winter 1285 Continuing to beat a path eastwards towards the Earl, we move on from Buckinghamshire to Bedfordshire. As usual, casualties are minimal.  Even though we're consistently grabbing new counties, there are quite a few left to acquire. A key turning point here though; the major strategy for much of the war, sending out hordes of 10-man peasant bands, has been discontinued. We have five more substantive field armies of varying sizes and enough peasant bands to keep all opposing nobles suppressed. We can split off peasants from those larger forces if need be. The time for subtlety has ended. I also thought about specializing more of our growing counties into grain and industry at this point - we currently have two of each and the rest are general-purpose. I soon realized something though: I can't be bothered and I really don't care. We've got nearly two thousand crowns a season, coming into the treasury above and beyond what the army needs for pay, and that's increasing all the time. Managing all the various needs of the counties is tedious enough, and I think we have more than enough soldiers out there already to finish the war. I just want to make sure we have enough food where we need it and to heck with the rest of it. I think this is the point at which I really started just getting micromanagement fatigue and enough already and where is my Waaaaaambulance, I want to move on to the sequel.  Because Somerset, roughly 400 population now, hasn't had enough bad things happen yet.  It was at this point that I hit a hard limit on the number of supply carts in transit at any given time. These are the kinds of features that you only find if you play thoroughly. There was no crash, but also no notification or error message. This cart simply wasn't created and the grain stayed in the county's storage ...  ... as we can see here. When I figured out what was happening, I decided to simply stop the supply carts in some cases. Counties far from the front will simply sell their excess, to be bought closer to where it needs to be and reduce the number of transfers I need to do. We'll lose some crowns in the process of course, but apparently Lords of the Realm doesn't support the constant stream of supplies that I'd prefer to do.  I also decided that it was time to begin selling off all of our sheep. The price listed here for Wool is 11 Crowns; it's been 11-12 at most for a while now. Given how much income we have, it's just not worth the hassle of dealing with sheep any more. Having said that, they were useful for a while when we needed the cash. I agree with those earlier in the thread who don't think they are as good as Cattle or Grain, but they do still have a useful purpose. One that has now expired in my estimation. Naturally we are also continuing to buy up grain and cattle in absurdly large quantities where needed to keep new counties supplied well enough for fast, productive turnaround.  Annual maps seem appropriate to me as we head towards the finish. This is what it looks like at the start of 1285. 19 counties down, 13 to go. OOC Note: It's a bit of a spoiler, but as we grind our way towards the end I'll mention that the war is won in 1288. We're getting close to wrapping this up.  We ring in the new year by beginning a siege at the second of the Baron's two holdings; this is Castle Morgraig. In all such cases, when the sieging army arrives in county, our peasant bands stop ravaging the countryside and join the effort. No point in further sabotaging a county we are about to conquer.  Each noble has a preference for what kind of castle to build; both the Bishop's are the same. There are much fewer men here, but they have a good stockpile of food so they won't begin getting sick and starving right away. Our army isn't quite as large in this case, so it will only build four trebuchets per season. Still more than enough.  Clicking on a castle, either before or after beginning a siege, brings up this display of it's condition, design, and capacity in garrison and food. Both of the Bishop's castles look like this.  The Earl has opted for a smaller type, but with similar supplies and protected by a moat.  The castles of the Countess are simply just not as good as the ones the other two built. Overall, moving armies about takes up much less of my time than it has for most of the war. The lion's share of the activity for each season is taken up in formulaic county management; if you want to know what I'm doing read most of the other updates. I don't think it's worth reporting on specifically and redundantly.  In desperation, the Bishop raises an army of 50 Spearmen to break the siege of Castle Morgraig in Middlesex. Have to give him props for not giving up, but we have over 400 soldiers here and this will not suffice. We also continue to have sporadic battles against the Countess, but no sizable armies anymore.  Even with a near-max group of trebuchets blasted it from three sides, Castle Senlac takes a licking and keeps on ticking. They can't sustain this kind of pounding for much longer though. By the time summer arrives, they have Terrible Morale, Diseased Health, still no food of course, and there are only 25 remaining. It's not a pretty picture inside the battered structure.  The 'siege snowball' for lack of a better term, picked up speed in the summer as we started in on the first of the Earl's castles. Cambridgeshire is the target in this case.  This one will probably take a while, as it's a smaller army doing the sieging. Worth mentioning explicitly that peasants are just as good as any other soldier type for this kind of work, other than perhaps dissauding the defenders to come out and fight, I don't know if that's a thing. It's all about the raw manpower. A few more peasant bands joined to increase our numbers to just over 250.  This was an amusing non-battle, more like gruesome target practice, in Sussex. 50 more spearmen were sent out by the Baron, but with the majority dead and less than 20 left as they neared our lines, the rest surrendered. Other than our crossbowmen ripping holes in them, the battle was never actually joined.  We've now officially made a hole in the wall of Castle Senlac with the continued pounding.  Another breach followed shortly afterwards, and then this message. This happens when you target something that a previous attack destroyed.  As a third wall section is destroyed, this misleading message ends the siege after nearly a year and a half. Misleading because the garrison can't surrender; they're all dead.  A fairly lengthy animation follows, showing a number of small figures 'storming' the castle, fires burning, and the like. Meanwhile two dozen of the garrison at Castle Morgraig are eliminated as that siege starts to ramp up.  We also set up our first bombardment of the Earl. Trebuchets of course could care less about the moat, simply firing across/over it.  The two other armies make their way to their next targets as well. In the Autumn, we take Warwickshire, pretty close to the center of the Realm. As all of our armies have some amount of properly equipped soldiers, masses of peasants pose a minimal threat as long as our numbers don't drop too low.  We even get a burning animation on the flaming ruin of Senlac on the Kingdom Map. If we want to spend the labor and the materials, we can repair it. Otherwhise it will crumble into a useless ruin. We'll let the natural process take it's course, and this army can move northward.  The Winter brings another conquest in Leicestershire. We lost 62 more men, almost all peasants, but the number of independent or hostile counties shrinks again.  There were only six men remaining, and they chose not to delay the inevitable further. The Bishop has continued to raise small armies to attack hopelessly, but now he can't even do that; Middlesex was his last county.   As of 1286, we have nine counties left to capture. I'm hoping to make the next update the finale. There's not a whole lot worth reporting on other than 'after that, this army moved here and conquered this county' and similar. But I hope this has been thorough enough to lay a foundation for comparisons to the next game in the series. The one that really matters :P.
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Jul 12, 2023 14:13
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Considering they're just as good at everything else at sieging(or at building and operating siege equipment, anyway), and sieging seems to rely more on volume of trebuchets than anything, it feels like against anything but a castle with a ton of high-quality troops inside, peasantballs are ideal for sieging.
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Jul 12, 2023 20:09
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Enough Already!: Spring 1286 - Summer 1288 Kent is the strongest independent county, and we've sent our largest field army to deal with it. Sandwiched between the two former Bishop holdings on the southeast coast, it takes a bit to get to and we are definitely expecting to take some losses here.  Relatively speaking, we don't have many swordsmen left here. We aren't in any hurry to advance at the start of the battle, just opening fire with the crossbowmen and relying on the melee troops to just hold off their numbers long enough to whittle them down.  It goes reasonably well, but we can't stop all of them and the right side caves in, allowing a few of the peasants to reach our crossbowmen.  We lose about a third, almost all of them peasants as usual, but most of this army remains intact and Kent joins the kingdom. Lots of new taxpayers.  In the north, our most recently formed army, the one from Powys with about 300 swordsmen and 100 archers, reaches it's first target and Derbyshire falls. We lose two men in exhange for over 300. A couple more small armies belonging to the Countess are also relieved of the burden of their short, pointless lives.  To keep these recent conquests supported as well as possible, we spend the rest of the balance in the treasury. Fat Barry we haven't seen before, as we're now pushing into new parts of the Realm.  Now almost a year in and gradually escalating, the siege of Castle Glamis is our only on-going one. They have not yet had enough.  Final words from the Bishop. I think the Church will do just fine without him, personally. Probably an improvement.  In the summer, we begin preparations against the Earl's final stronghold. There are only 60 men here, with plenty of food but Very Bad morale. I expect to make short work of them.  An amusing battle against the Countess here, which is not important as it simply pits 50 men for her against the remnants of a cleanup force for us, nearly spent. But a pathfinding situation that I chuckled at. The armies march towards each other ...  ... and past each other, as they are pathing to where we used to be and vice versa, and I didn't change directions in time. We literally aimed two armies at each other ... and missed. It was only when they got to where we used to be, realized we weren't there anymore, and turned around that we were actually able to successfully fight. There were less than a hundred soldiers on the field combined, but still.  Northamptonshire kicked off the Autumn, and with it the eastward march is nearly completed.  Nottinghamshire is the county just west of the forests bordering the lands of the Countess, and completes said march. They did not even bother putting up a fight; well-advised of them. At this point I decided there simply wasn't enough time left to care about micro-managing all the counties anymore. We're rolling over the remaining resistance with ease, so other than some targeted buying of food supplies in areas of need I simply ignored that and kept the armies and seiges moving.  The siege of Camelot is just ramping up, while Glamis surrendered in the winter. Most of our armies are now moving in the direction of the Countess, or at least the remaining neutrals between here and there.  Take it all in, Earl. You won't be around to see much more of it.  1287. Five counties remain; after the Earl's last stand in Castle Camelot, we need to take the free lands of Suffolk and Norfolk north of there, then the two fortifications controlled by the Countess. The net is closing quickly.  Good riddance to bad rubbish. Camelot surrenders before another shot can be fired.  As usual the Steward can't count - or he's only counting the lands of the Countess, even though we need to take all of them - but still, the end is very close. Brings to mind all the 'You Had One Job' memes; kind of important for the Steward to get this stuff right, it's his reason for existing.  Summer is the time for the final marches. Here we begin the siege of Lincolnshire, while to the northwest a cross-country approach into Yorkshire has been made. A whole 16 men defend Castle Brealte. The 'aggressive negotiations' will be short.  These smaller castles don't look like much on the seige map.  More blood was spilled in Suffolk in the fall. A little over 400 of them showed up to resist their 'liberation'. Our swordsmen made short work of them as usual.  Norfolk, in the winter. The last independent county. We combined most of a couple different armies to be sure.  And the last siege, in the same season. I wonder what the few men inside are thinking, knowing they are the last holdouts yet still going through the motions of resisting? The Countess continues to throw small armies at us in the usual act of desperation, and we continue to crush them. Very small sieges could be bothered by this, but we have hundreds of men in both locations.  This announcement comes following the surrender of Brealte right at the end of the year.  The first round of bombardment in the Spring of 1288 is decisive. We had four trebuchets lined up, one of which didn't even get into action.  Autumn, and we get the official last word from the Countess. Perhaps her right was not as divine as she claims. As the winter arrives, it is time for a coronation. My coronation. Final estimated casualty numbers: Bishop: 922 to 337 Earl: 2019 to 849 Knight: 1449 to 239 Baron: 2062 to 333 Countess: 1434 to 495 Neutral: 4752 to 1017 Total: 12,638 to 3,270 About a 4:1 ratio. Not counting of course the countless civilians who were starved, slaughtered, and/or displaced.  Coronation Cinematic (0:18)   I wonder how much the loyal subjects were paid to put these ridiculous smiles on their faces.  They quickly kneel, trumpeters step forward from the wings, and doors at the far end of the hall open. A figure approaches.  That's menacing positivity if ever I've seen it. But sure, give me the glorified gilded horseshoe. I mean, crown. The scene fades to black and we go back to start new conquest/load saved conquest etc. beginning screen. Technically I never actually got the crown, but I think we are meant to assume that happened shortly after the fade-out. I.e. riding off into the sunset, living happily ever after, pick your trope. Ladies and gentlemen of the Realm, that is all for Lords of the Realm 1.
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Jul 14, 2023 13:11
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Now comes the hard part - ruling! Or just the next game instead. 
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Jul 14, 2023 13:45
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Hooray!!!
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Jul 14, 2023 14:00
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I haven't had the time to post much in this thread but I just wanted you to know, I'm absolutely loving this LP so far. Great job! Also, I enjoy the production values on these games. I remember LotR 1's CD version, in particular, winning acclaim for getting a cast of voice actors from the BBC. It really stands out in LotR 2 and the way that the narrator was able to take lines like "Saving game, please wait" and "All your people are fed by dairy" and somehow make them continue to live rent-free in the minds of a generation almost 30 years later. I wonder how much of that was Impressions' idea and how much came at the urging of their publishers, whose own experiments with voice acting quickly sold them on the value of shelling out for professional work.
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Jul 14, 2023 14:02
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So at the end of the game, were your counties full of joyful, pleasantly full peasants who churned out babies like they were a major export, while the counties of your enemies were desolate wastelands barely fit for human habitation, or was it still medieval Great Britain, and you just happened to be the bigger rear end in a top hat with the bigger army?
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Jul 14, 2023 15:00
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...All of a sudden I'm wondering if those harassing troops are the computer poorly attempting to abuse the Auto-Resolve exploit itself. Like, if it was another CPU opponent I'm sure throwing enough armies at them would eventually weaken the siege enough to break out, since I'm pretty sure that any CPU-vs-CPU battles use the same rules as just auto-resolving (i.e. "one peasant can wipe out a hundred knights if sufficiently outnumbered"); it's just too bad for them that you're a player, and thus able to actually take to the field and get more reasonable results.
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Jul 14, 2023 15:01
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Congratulations! I look forward to seeing what the next LotR games have in the way of advancements.
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Jul 14, 2023 20:12
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JohnKiltrane posted:I'm absolutely loving this LP so far. Great job! Thanks! Agree on the production values, and that's going to create a challenge for the next game. I want to demonstrate the atmosphere/experience as I think that's one of the areas Lords2 really stands out, but: - Both the GOG and Steam versions have only the low-res version of the videos. - I was toying with doing a proper Youtube video playthrough for Lords 2. There's a fan-made 'patch' I found that says it contains the hi-res videos, but what it actually does on my system is makes all videos except the intro just plain not play. People have had different experiences with it, but it doesn't work on my system. - I can't find any way to keep it from recording off-center, and I can just move it ... but that introduces large white horizontal lines in the videos. Even if I don't scale it at all and am just adjusting the position only. I'm sure there's a way to fix this for people with enough technical knowledge. I'm also sure that after spending hours not fixing it, I don't care enough to try any longer to slam my face through the wall and continue troubleshooting it. What's going to end up happening is that, while there is a high-res of the intro video from another YT channel I can link to and that's the most important one, the other video clips in the game are just going to look a little strange and not be the best quality. I'll still do some gameplay vids as battles, a lot of the audio like what you mention here and so on is very much worth showing IMO. But it will mostly stick with just being in the screenshot format. Randalor posted:were your counties full of joyful, pleasantly full peasants who churned out babies like they were a major export, while the counties of your enemies were desolate wastelands barely fit for human habitation, or was it still medieval Great Britain, and you just happened to be the bigger rear end in a top hat with the bigger army? A variety. I hadn't had time to turn some of the later conquests around, and I also wasn't trying to right at the end. The earlier counties I took were quite happy and profitable, and given enough time they could all be made like that, if I had the will to do it. I did not have the will. CptWedgie posted:I'm wondering if those harassing troops are the computer poorly attempting to abuse the Auto-Resolve exploit itself. I doubt it. They were low on population thanks to my war crimes, so there's only so many people they can raise. In my experience the AI will build larger armies whenever it can.
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Jul 15, 2023 16:05
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 Lords of the Realm II: A Sequel Introduces Itself Lords of the Realm 2 Intro (3:06) Credit to YouTuber Udo Krawallo; this is not my video. Worth noting that he put the Sierra and Impressions logos at the start of this, but those actually don't play until after the intro in the actual game. The last minute also has some art mixed in with credits, and is worth watching. Nostalgia bias warning, but I think the music and presentation of the intro video is fairly epic and well done.   There's a bell/chime as each of these appears for emphasis. Simple setting, the same one down to the year as the first game.  Dramatic background vocals accompany a view of a dark, foggy landscape, with a castle on a hill in the distance.  This appears to be an evening scene outside a stone structure. The nearest horse, the white one, tosses his head and neighs.  'Woah' says the man attending them, grabbing the bridle and attempting to calm the animal.  The sound of footsteps, then the wooden doors in the background are pushed open from the inside. A figure emerges. "drat fools! They all want to be King" "My Lord?" the man standing with the horses replies. We have a high-ranking noble (the player character) and a trusted servant/squire of his in this scene.  As he walks, the noble continues speaking. "They'd have the country in ruins before choosing a successor"  "I have more right to rule than most", emphasizing 'more right' as he motions with his fist.  As the noble reaches the horses, his servant releases it and they both mount their steeds. "There will be dark days ahead" declares the servant.  As they settle in to the saddles, the noble states his intentions. "If it's to be war, then so be it. Come .... we have work to do"  There is the sound of hooves on the cobblestones as the pair ride out of the courtyard. The time for talk is over. The player noble is presented here as a decisive, but not unreasonable, man of action. Probably better for him to win the throne than at least most of the other contenders.  They ride out of the castle, taking what seems to be an excessive amount of time to cross the drawbridge.  The music shifts to a driving beat, and the scene to a daylight ride, the camera moving forward across the fields towards another elevated castle. Presumably this is the player's home. Either they've been riding for hours and the sun has risen, or it's just an artistic choice to make things seem more hopeful after the dark and foreboding meeting of nobles we just left.  After several seconds of this, we have a close-up of a man chopping down a tree with an axe.  As it is felled, we see soldiers supervising the work.  Now we're in a quarry, and a man drives spikes into the stone.  One worker hauls a cart of stone blocks away, while another grunts with the strain of lifting his into another cart.  The ride towards the castle continues, bringing us closer and closer to our destination.  A blacksmith pounds on a sword of some kind ...  ... then quenches it in a bucket of water  The finished product is later placed on a rack along with many others.  We see a farmer harvesting wheat ...  ... and his tool morphs into a sword as he raises it above his head for another swing, symbolizing the fact that economic production is now being turned into grist to drive the war machine.  We can see the castle more clearly now as the journey ends.  Marching soldiers reinforce the point that the preparations are over, and 'ouch time' is upon us.   Following a command from the man on the horse, archers loose their arrows.   Death cries are heard from those unfortunate enough to be caught in this volley.  Our good friend the trebuchet prepares to fire ...  ... and then does so.  Watching the projectile approach from their position guarding the wall. One soldier exclaims 'Look out!' and both men dodge to the sides.  A momentary shaking accompanies the excessively fiery impact.   Siege ladders are employed, but are apparently not entirely stable.  Have a nice trip, see you next fall!  A maceman and swordsman are locked in single combat on the wall.  The maceman gets the better of this - perhaps a hint from the developers? - as he swings his mace around to not only grievously injure the swordsman from the side, but send him screaming and falling off the wall. Sign me up to not die that way, please.  A battering ram is thumped against the castle gate several times ...  ... until it gives way.  Just in case you thought you were playing Tiddlywinks: World Championship Deluxe Edition, we get the name of the game here. Company logos follow, with 'Sierra ... proudly presents ... an Impressions production'  This is followed by credits interspersed with various drawings, all of which make an appearance in the game cinematics at some point I think.  Stocks. A lovely sign of the times.    And with that, we are into the actual game.
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Jul 17, 2023 13:23
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