Serious Complaint (about militia garissons)

from Elemental Forums

So it was just brought to my attention that your militia will only fight once. Ever. If your city gets attacked by multiple armies, your militia will only fight in the first battle, and then are never seen again. Meaning, if you have an awesomely defended castle, and an enemy decides to attack it with two weak armies, you'll easily crush the first one, and probably take no casualties, but then for some reason, the militia simply don't appear, so the enemy just take the city with their next weak army.

I really hope this is a glitch, and not a purposefully implemented mechanic, because I find it a bit retarded that surviving militia members just leave and take a nap for the rest of the game after their first fight.

This wasn't a problem before the latest patch, and please fix it, because its pretty crippling, and completely unrealistic.

Thanks

27,971 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Haha, yeah, it's pretty dumb. I never understood it myself. I justified it by thinking that the two battles are happening at the same time, so all your defenders rushed to stop the first attack and were caught in the rear by the second group.

No, but seriously, why does this happen.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

That would make sense, except that any of your garrisoned units will fight in any other battles...
Maybe the undisciplined militias get too drunk after their first victory and pass out for the rest of the battles.
Except that they don't return ever, implying that they probably got so drunk that they all died of alcohol poisoning.

Yeah, seriously, something needs to be done about this... I refuse to play this game until this is fixed, because it's pretty crippling. Especially since the AI spams smaller, weaker armies, so there's really no way to defend your territory...

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds like a bug, for sure.  I haven't encountered an AI army strong enough to actually attack one of my cities (my Stack of Doom wipes them out before they reach my gates), so I've never seen this.  It'd be interesting to try it against the AI cities and see if their militia has the same problem.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

So it was just brought to my attention that your militia will only fight once. Ever. If your city gets attacked by multiple armies, your militia will only fight in the first battle, and then are never seen again. Meaning, if you have an awesomely defended castle, and an enemy decides to attack it with two weak armies, you'll easily crush the first one, and probably take no casualties, but then for some reason, the militia simply don't appear, so the enemy just take the city with their next weak army.

I really hope this is a glitch, and not a purposefully implemented mechanic, because I find it a bit retarded that surviving militia members just leave and take a nap for the rest of the game after their first fight.

This wasn't a problem before the latest patch, and please fix it, because its pretty crippling, and completely unrealistic.

Thanks
End of quote

yep.

It's been brought up as a 'bug' ? 'design flaw'? 'oops'? already...and has been around since beta FE.

Imo, each turn these militia units should be reset. Their health and existance tracked over the coarse of the turn.

Example: You have 3 milita. You are attacked. You lose 1 milita and the second is at half health when you defeat the assailant. You are attacked again in the same turn. You have 1 militia at full health and 1 miltia at half health. You defeat the assailant. Next turn you are attacked again. You have 3 militia.

Likewise, the AI cities should not receive full militia defense every attack you perform, even when those attacks are within the same turn. It should follow the same logic and propsal as outlined above so that the mechanic is consistant for both player and AI alike.

As it currently is, it really gives the player the impression that the AI is cheating.

 

is Parrotmath up to the challenge??? O:)   (he could merge this fix in with his armor-militia mod)

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Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I would hope they fight to defend the city on future turns, and if I am to interpret the same turn battles as simultaneous, why can't I pick which militia to dispatch? Maybe if I see your 2 armies, I want to put 1 militia man in the first battle and the other 2 in the second.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, Firefly, good suggestions. Giving the militia a fixed healing rate (probably the same as normal troops) would work pretty well. As it stood before, I remember in base fallen enchantress, having  a defense force of militia against several armies, and with each battle, they came back at full strength, so either it was changed with Legendary Heroes, or a bug showed up then. But if you say its been around beta enchantress, then I guess it doesn't always happen? Maybe? I'll play again and see if it happens again.

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 3
Sounds like a bug, for sure. I haven't encountered an AI army strong enough to actually attack one of my cities (my Stack of Doom wipes them out before they reach my gates), so I've never seen this. It'd be interesting to try it against the AI cities and see if their militia has the same problem.
End of sweatyboatman's quote

Yeah, that would certainly solve the problem, and I think in most cases, it has for me, but I got attacked early this game  (due to not focusing as much on military). I was going to rely on my city defense... but that obviously didn't work out too well, as my militia decided to get permanently stoned and ignore the rest of the battles, leaving my meager, battered, garrisoning force to try and do all the work...

Well I hope attention is brought to this, because I don't really want to play this game when any AI can exploit this and wreck my cities no problem.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

until it's fixed, station some cheap, trained militia and spear units in your cities to help.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, unfortunately, four fairly sizeable stacks of ironeers did those in by battle 2... lol
Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I had a thought based on one the conversations in this thread.

 

Quoting animageous, reply 1

Haha, yeah, it's pretty dumb. I never understood it myself. I justified it by thinking that the two battles are happening at the same time, so all your defenders rushed to stop the first attack and were caught in the rear by the second group.

No, but seriously, why does this happen.
End of animageous's quote

 

If this is the intended effect (assigning defenders to various parts of the city), then the defending player should be allowed to choose which defenders will be defending against any one attacking stack.  This way, players can try to counter the strategy of people trying to bleed off defenders with small stacks, by assigning a minimal number/no militia versus these attacks.

 

As I look at it, though, now that city stacks are limited overall, all defenders should be allowed to participate in any attacks versus that city, militia or otherwise.  An attacking player can show up with multiple stacks, so this is an effective counter in the interest of game balance.  Plus, damage carries over from fight to fight (at least I've seen it do this), so by the time you are defending against that third or fourth stack, you may have a bunch of damaged defenders at that point.