101 réponses à ce sujet

[NKKKK]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

If EA can say no to same sex, then they at least should give us horses.

Modifié par NKKKK, 23 juin 2010 - 05:46 .

[Gaxhung]

@metatheurgist

Good point, first time doing that DLC I was expecting a hornet's nest at Ostagar, but it was kinda abandoned. I mean don't the DS want to hold on to that position, it *is* strategic isn't it? I suppose everyone was too busy stabbing each other in the back to have done that. If the DS could go underground, then why not just pop up in the middle of Denerim or where ever they want? Why pass by Ostagar even. Loghain can't quit the field at Denerim surely.



And how did Loghain know that the King would ask his men to be the ambush force instead of the main attack or want to have such a tactic? hmm suddenly I feel an urge for tictacs ... strange.

[LPPrince]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

And according to you, we're never getting horses. Which is sadface material.

But I understand. Its hard having to remake the game for the use of horses.

Hopefully, featuring them without actually using them will be fine and dandy for later installments.

[SirEmilCrane]

Cavalry and pikes are mentioned in a conversation between Wynne and Alistair. They just weren't included in-game for whatever reason.



However the battle was still winnable, the retreat certainly didn't need to be sounded just yet. Had Cailan held his position then Loghain executed a flank or even better, an encirclement then it would have been Cannae all over agian.

[Ulicus]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

Out of interest -- given that plenty of the characters do talk about riding on horseback in the lead up to the battle -- could we just assume that they were, even though on screen they clearly aren't?  I mean, their character models are only representations....

You could have got Cailan's VO to make coconut noises, too.

[Costin_Razvan]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

Two questions, off-topic but I am merely curios.

Would the terrain at Ostagar even be suitable for horses? And does Cailan's charge without any formation have a logic behind it, or is it just all done for the epic feeling of a cinematic?

[Lotion Soronarr]

Wotannanow wrote...
Agincourt is an exellent example of how footsoldiers made mince-meat of superior numbers of enemy cavalry. The English victory is credited to the longbow, but in reality the French weren't killed by the arrows. They wore steel armour that the iron tipped English arrows had no chance to pierce. But a hail of arrows hitting any rider will knock him out of his saddle -- it's a plain effect of mass and momentum. Add to this that there were many thousands of French troops pressing forward, the ground was muddy from rain making it impossible for a fallen knight to get back up. The French killed most of their own by trampling them to death.

VERY sticky mud I might add. French tactics adn stupidity were to blame, not emglish ingenuity or their arrows. And the arrows won't knock you off your horse.

[Lotion Soronarr]

OneDoesNotSimplySlipAndSlideInto-Mordor wrote...

3. And Cailans charge quite obviously broke his battle plan due to any self respecting good general knows never to give up a defensive position without good reason that Cailan did not have.

You're assuming the charge wasn't part of Loghains plan.

[Costin_Razvan]

"Laughs" Oh certainly, Loghain is that idiotic to plan a charge straight into an army that outnumbers him 4 to 1 or something like that.

Please...and even IF Loghain had planned the charge, the fact Cailan was so stupid to follow it to the letter doesn't paint him in a better light.

The fact of the matter is that you cannot blame Ostagar squarely on Loghain. Cailan was the man in charge, whether he allowed Loghain to make the plans all by himself ( which I find laughable given what we hear from Loghain's and Cailan's guards )  and if those plans were idiotic is largely unimportant. As Commander in Chief Cailan gets the blame for the failure of the battle, as every decision regarding the battle was his to make in the end, not anyone else's.

 VERY sticky mud I might add. French tactics adn stupidity were to blame, not emglish ingenuity or their arrows. And the arrows won't knock you off your horse.

If they hit the horses, then what do you REALLY think will happen huh?

Modifié par Costin_Razvan, 23 juin 2010 - 01:05 .

[OneDoesNotSimplySlipAndSlideInto-Mordor]

Exactly what we have learnt of Loghain it would have been a serious change of character for him to plan a charge from a defensive position.



I agree that Loghain should not have abandoned Cailan to his death, however he was idiotic enough to charge a larger force and through his own mistake paid the price in blood

[MistySun]

Hadn't they heard of Ballista's? I have seen enough Ballista's in the game to wonder why they never used them at Ostagar.  Us i mean.

[Costin_Razvan]

They do use them, there is one or two on the bridge.

[OneDoesNotSimplySlipAndSlideInto-Mordor]

There is 3 of them on the Bridge however they do get destroyed while u cross it

[Xandurpein]

Wotannanow wrote...

Agincourt is an exellent example of how footsoldiers made mince-meat of superior numbers of enemy cavalry. The English victory is credited to the longbow, but in reality the French weren't killed by the arrows. They wore steel armour that the iron tipped English arrows had no chance to pierce. But a hail of arrows hitting any rider will knock him out of his saddle -- it's a plain effect of mass and momentum. Add to this that there were many thousands of French troops pressing forward, the ground was muddy from rain making it impossible for a fallen knight to get back up. The French killed most of their own by trampling them to death.

Sorry, but the main french attack at Agincourt was made on foot, not mounted. The reason the french knights made the main attack on foot was because it's a lot easier to kill a horse with arrows than a knight. The english arrows weren't as lethal as some would have you think against foot knights, but at Agincourt the rain of arrows forced the french knights to fight with closed vizors, which in turn gave them poor vision which hampered them in the melee against the english men at arms.

That said, the reason pikes aren't used in the game is no doubt due to the fact that it's extremely hard to do it justice in animations. Pike formations depends on a mass of pikes together, carefully coordinated. You would need different battle animations for the enemies facing them too.

Besides, only a few  troops such as high class professional mercenaries and some elite citizen soldiers such as the Swiss ever aquired the drill and coordination to use the pike formations properly. There is no evidence of pike formations used in England, which Ferelden is supposed to be modelled on, unitl much later than the middle ages, apart from some imported burgundian mercenaries.

All in all there are number of very odd detials about the whole battle scene from Ostagar, such as the fact that Cailan orders the royal army to leave their fortifications and counter charge, which seems ridiculous. Or the fact that there appears to be a huge, largely intact, stone wall behind the royal army that seems eminently defensible. Why didn't they just station the army in the gaps in the wall?

[bzombo]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

why not just make horses not exist on thedas? solves the problem all the way around.

[TheMadCat]

Xandurpein wrote...


That said, the reason pikes aren't used in the game is no doubt due to the fact that it's extremely hard to do it justice in animations. Pike formations depends on a mass of pikes together, carefully coordinated. You would need different battle animations for the enemies facing them too.

Not really, it would have been no more difficult to do then any of the other cut scenes and animations in the game. The reason it wouldn't have been employed if even thought of is because it wasn't as dramatic. That's the entire point of that scene, to be as dramatic as possible. Having everyone stay put and huddled tightly together doesn't have quite the same dramatic effect as a king shouting for the charge and his troops crashing into the enemy.

Besides, only a few  troops such as high class professional mercenaries and some elite citizen soldiers such as the Swiss ever aquired the drill and coordination to use the pike formations properly. There is no evidence of pike formations used in England, which Ferelden is supposed to be modelled on, unitl much later than the middle ages, apart from some imported burgundian mercenaries.

Eh? Being modeled on something doesn't mean it must represent every little detail. Just because the general cultural aspect is based on England doesn't mean they can't employee military tactics of oh say, Hungary. That's the beauty of fantasy, one thing can be influenced by many and nothing be wrong with it.

All in all there are number of very odd detials about the whole battle scene from Ostagar, such as the fact that Cailan orders the royal army to leave their fortifications and counter charge, which seems ridiculous. Or the fact that there appears to be a huge, largely intact, stone wall behind the royal army that seems eminently defensible. Why didn't they just station the army in the gaps in the wall?

That's what you get when you cross an over-dramatic scene and an attempt to portray a character as an evil bastard I suppose.

[OneDoesNotSimplySlipAndSlideInto-Mordor]

Even though Awakening hs proven that some darkspawn are intelligent it would have been much easier for Cailan to keep his defensive position and fight the darkspawn who lacked co-ordination!!



Scouting the Korcari wilds was also in my eyes a tactical failure, scouting those areas allowed a proportion of the army to die when atleast 3 or 4 highly trained rouges could do the job.



Xanderpuin is very true about the Pikemen, the English usually had Halberds or spears and not pikes, this is due to the fact they were men at arms and lacked the proper training and equipment as any self respecting lord would not train his commoners to work as an elite fighting unit.

[WhyIsThisNecessary]

The horse thing was pretty much just me being an ass (lol), but the pike thing was supposed to be a serious point. The absence of pike or spear at Ostagar (or, indeed, anywhere) was a bit odd, as was the "carefully select a defensible location, then charge the enemy across open ground" tactic. Who do they think they are? Spartans?



The iffy tactics can are probably a product of Cailin being an imbecile, but the army composition is hard to explain away.

Besides, only a few troops such as high class professional mercenaries and some elite citizen soldiers such as the Swiss ever aquired the drill and coordination to use the pike formations properly.

Learning to use a sword properly isn't exactly a trivial task either, you know. Anyway, it was the spear that was mostly used by peasent troops.

[Arttis]

Calin died pretty quickly after the signal was sent.I doubt loghain could have saved him.Even if he followed through with the plan.He wasn't that close to him after all.

[Xandurpein]

WhyIsThisNecessary wrote...

The horse thing was pretty much just me being an ass (lol), but the pike thing was supposed to be a serious point. The absence of pike or spear at Ostagar (or, indeed, anywhere) was a bit odd, as was the "carefully select a defensible location, then charge the enemy across open ground" tactic. Who do they think they are? Spartans?

The iffy tactics can are probably a product of Cailin being an imbecile, but the army composition is hard to explain away.

They did not think they where Spartans. The Spartans, and the other greek citizen states invented the spear and pike using formations. They where the same type of elite citizen infantry as the Swiss was during the rennaissance. If anything they attacked like barbarians.

WhyIsThisNecessary wrote...

Besides, only a few troops such as high class professional mercenaries and some elite citizen soldiers such as the Swiss ever aquired the drill and coordination to use the pike formations properly.

Learning to use a sword properly isn't exactly a trivial task either, you know. Anyway, it was the spear that was mostly used by peasent troops.

Trust me on this one. I have studied ancient and medieval warfare quite extensively. I'm not just making this up. There is a vast difference between training a unit of swordsmen and a unit a unit of pikemen.

A swordsman depends primarily on his individual skill. A clash of swrodsmen often devolve into a series of individual one-on-one combats. A pikeman depends on fighting as a cohesive unit. Everyone in the unit must be drilled to move as one. The second the pikemen start fighting on their own, like swrodsmen, they are lost. It takes a lot more drill as a group for pikemen to work. No feudal troops had that kind of training except the knights.

There are consequently no example of pike using feudal troops. The only pikemen used during the rennaicance where the swiss, which had no feudal lords, but free citizens who had a duty to train for war, like the ancient Greeks, and elite mercenariy groups, like the german landsknechts.

Peasants often used cheap spears for war, but they lacked the training to fight as a unit, so they didn't stand a chance against feudal cavalry. Drill and the ability to fight professionally as a unit is vital for any pike formation, otherwise it's just a peasant rabble.

Modifié par Xandurpein, 23 juin 2010 - 07:57 .

[Costin_Razvan]

All true and well Xander, but we do hear mention of Pikemen in the game, so one can only assume that Fereldan does have it's own Pikemen.

Either way....I still think pikes would have been ineffective against Ogres ( who would have simply crushed them on their weight ), but a shieldwall would have been an obvious and smart choice at Ostagar.

I do not think the timeline of Dragon Age is set in the Feudal Era though. we hear of the qunari with cannons, and cannons where only invented and used as a tool for warfare in the late Middle Ages

Modifié par Costin_Razvan, 23 juin 2010 - 08:29 .

[Snugglepus]

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

Every time you post on the forums it seems like your game budged is 25 cents or something

[Lintanis]

Snugglepus wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Loghain's forces were originally supposed to be on horseback... but sadly making horse models and riding animations is neither as cheap nor as easy as making smart comments on a forum.

Every time you post on the forums it seems like your game budged is 25 cents or something

They even looked down the back of their sofa's