Really like combat right now, not sure about -8 for a ranged unit though. My archers were almost always massacred by anyone who was able to reach them. 

Horton_Hears_A_Jew wrote:

Overall thought combat was a nice improvement in this build. I would say the one major thing that I hope is addressed is line of sight. There are many times when I deploy or move a ranged unit I think I have line of sight on a particular enemy unit when it turns out I do not. It would be really helpful to have some sort of UI tool for ranged units that tells you what tiles it can hit in its current position as well as a preview for tiles it can hit if it moves to a particular tile.

This already exists.If you hover your mouse on different hexes where you want to move your ranged units, you will see which units they will be able to fire upon with a red outline on the enemy units. Granted though, the line of sight seems a bit unintuitive at times.

In regards to the coastal and ocean features, one thing that comes to mind are tides and currents, especially between two land lasses. I am reminded of an Admiral Yi Sun-Sin whom used the currents, and eddies of a strait (Myeongnyang Strait), to take on 333 japanese ships, with 13. Where he proceeded to destroy 31 japanese ships without losing a single ship. Notably, and unlike the betas so far, japan actually had to get their ships to land for their war to succeed at all since they were not on the same land mass, and he often destroyed their ships when they did make it to land to cripple the supply lines and prevent them from returning to their ships.

if you want to add naval battle terrain features, perhaps looking at the undisputed greatest naval commander in history, might be a good place to start.~

In other notes regarding combat, I noticed a different issue when I was playing too. When I did a battle myself, I could only really get battle results that reflected the combat strength of the units anyways, no real crushing victories or pulling one out of the hat. However, if I used the AI auto resolve, I almost always won even if I was overpowered. I don't think it's an AI balancing issue so much as something I am doing wrong when I do the fight manually. I would like to be able to see the AI battles after the fact, and see what bonuses and penalties applied to different rounds, so that I can learn from those battles. So not feedback about the AI so much as a request to be able to review those battles after the fact.

This one is one half UI, one half combat. Forests, especially once you get guns that require line of sight to use, absolutely need to be visible easily. There were many times where forests blocked my line of sight and I couldn't see the forest at all. I had to mouse over the tile to see it. This is double important when combined with a district, because as far as I could tell, districts override forests visually, but not mechanically. There is no way to tell if a district is built on a forest unless you mouse over it.

After a war in the correct circumstances, your armies can get trapped between cities and/or terrain leaving you unable to move at the conclusion of a war. Armies exiting neutral territory need to be able to move through cities.

Also what is targetable vs non-targetable with ranged attacks is still wildly inconsistent. Sometimes I can shoot through hills, sometimes I can't. Other times I'm in a position where I can shoot them but they can't shoot me or vice versa (with units that need direct line of sight). It's still unclear what is ever blocking attacks.

The AI feels like its spamming only emblematic units.

For me the problem occurred when huns attacked my undefended capital and they only had 5 of those horse archers.

I would just sit back and click end turn since they couldn't really get in.

In one case I only had one well positioned archer behind walls who decimated like 10 of the huns horse units. But it took a long time and felt like a chore.

I feel like arhcers need an intermediary upgrade before crossbowmen. Unless massed, they are laughably weak against Classical units. Since the Classical era is when most EU armies start forming, it would be nice to have a ranged option that can do more than tickle them. My archers can only keep up because I am stacking every bonus under the sun to reach a comparable strength to the units the AI fields in the late early game and into the midgame.

I'm of the opinion that retreat location should be up to the player. This could be done by making required movement action, maybe limiting the possible tiles the unit can move to.

I've just had my first major battle, and I'm hoping that I'm just misunderstanding some things. Is there a Zone of Control inside the manual combat feature?

I had a small chokepoint defended with a couple of units, and a unit of archers behind. Two AI units in the first turn, defeated 1 of my defenders, then the remainder of the army walked right past and around the back of my archers. In order to play on the defensive, and really take advantage of terrain I think you also need to be able to swap units post-deployment, as long as both of those units have movement available. Again, this helps you to secure a chokepoint, even if the retreating unit takes a little extra damage.

Does anyone have a good video or written guide on tips for combat, it seems the thing that is most different to 'the other strategy game', and actually harkens me back to III or IV era combat.

Netvyper wrote:

In order to play on the defensive, and really take advantage of terrain I think you also need to be able to swap units post-deployment, as long as both of those units have movement available.

+1 to this

IMHO I think there is a need to review the balance when using automated fight : 5 legions vs 1 cossack... I lost even with a estimated ration of 90% success (and I have done kind of fight like 5 times... always lost).

Is it just me or this map really does not have 2 saltpetre and 2 oil to rub together? Most of the new industrial era infrastructures are gated behind these 2 resources and for the love of me I can't find those without conquest.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Armies now do not lose their movement points if the enemy retreats to prevent frustrations of multiple armies getting tied up by a fight that did not actually happen.

My armies are still losing 2 movement points. The enemy has 2 separate units. I attack one, lose 2 movement as it retreats 3-4 away. I attack the other, it also retreats away. I have 0 movement. Then the two units come back because they get their movement back and pin me again.

If you win a war with units still in enemy lands and sign a peace agreement your units seem to become stuck in the hostile territory unable to move. Then they eventually die due to the trespass unit condition. The AI will obviously not give open borders straight away to allow you to retrieve the units.  

Seems broken that my units are trapped and they aren't simply kicked out of the lands.  

So after doing a lot of combat over a couple playthroughs, I think something to add here is that the damage in combat is too random.

A number you will frequently see for estimated damage is 5-25 - in other words your attack could do 5% of a target's max health, or 25% of their max health, which is an enormous difference. Sometimes you'll kill a unit in 4 shots, sometimes it'll take 8 or 9. 

Additionally, attacker advantage is already significant in earlier eras, but it is even worse in gunpowder. While there is already the issue of perpetually camping on reinforcement points, first strike means that you can take one or more units out of the fight on the very first turn. In the early eras it isn't quite as bad because at least melee units can retaliate against melee attacks, and archers do plink damage but are really more of a support role. In gunpowder, oh boy you can wipe an entire army out on the first turn and the defender can't do anything about it. 

In its current state, you will never, ever see a field battle in multiplayer unless an army is caught retreating. At least with the AI you can abuse their quirks and take the fight sometimes.

grantkeiller wrote:

If you win a war with units still in enemy lands and sign a peace agreement your units seem to become stuck in the hostile territory unable to move. Then they eventually die due to the trespass unit condition. The AI will obviously not give open borders straight away to allow you to retrieve the units.  

Seems broken that my units are trapped and they aren't simply kicked out of the lands.  

You can move them. But you have to tell them to move to a tile outside of the other players Territory into neutral or friendly territory. It should probably be clearer on the tooltip to let you know you can do this though.