Hi Crate team,
Following up on recent military campaigns, I’ve compiled a list of feedback, control friction points, and bugs regarding combat management, company flags, and unit behavior.
1. Combat Control & Responsiveness Issues
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The “Denkpause” (Delay on Attack): When issuing a right-click move command to the ground near enemies, units often hesitate for 1–3 seconds before actually engaging. They take a pause before attacking, regardless of whether aggressive stance is enabled. Units should react and snap to adjacent targets much more fluidly.
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Pathing Through Enemies without Engaging: If you click a ground destination and enemy combatants are in the way or approaching, units will often completely ignore them, riding/walking right through them to reach the target point without triggering an attack on impact (again, even with aggressive stance active). Direct attack-move or collision engagement needs to trigger immediately when moving through active threats.
2. Formation Controls QoL
- Streamlining Formations: Currently, adjusting formations requires holding down the
CTRL key. It would feel much more intuitive and dynamic if players could simply drag with the right mouse button held down to rotate the formation, and use the mouse wheel to expand or shrink spacing. This removes unnecessary keyboard dependency.
3. Battle Flag UI & Functionality Feedback
- Redundant Dialog / Purpose: The Battle Flag dialog box feels a bit rudimentary and placeholder-like. Honestly, do we even need this menu for day-to-day operations unless the barracks are destroyed or unbuilt? Most actions could be streamlined directly into the main UI or building menus. If kept, it needs visual icons and better styling.
- Misplaced Global Button: The option “Alle Flaggen löschen” (Delete All Flags) inside an individual company’s battle flag menu affects all companies globally. This button should not be buried inside a single company’s localized menu or, if kept there, must be visually separated to clearly warn the player that it impacts every single military company on the map.
- Redundant “Dissolve Company” Option: Unless the barracks are destroyed and you need to salvage a company, managing company dissolution should live primarily inside the Barracks/Stables building interface since companies are structurally bound to them.
4. UI & Selection Bugs
- Selection Bug (Shift + Number): Using
Shift + Number shortcuts to select or group does not highlight the corresponding combat flag on the terrain, whereas clicking directly on the flag highlights it properly.
5. Unclear use case for “Mark Combat Area”
What exact mechanical difference does “Mark Combat Area” provide compared to simply manually moving units to a spot with a right-click?
- Do troops act more aggressively within this marked zone?
- Is it purely a static rally/patrol point?
Since players can already manually control soldiers and hold positions on any given terrain, the distinction between standard movement and marking a combat area feels redundant or unclear in the current UI.
6. Critical Game-Breaking Bug: Immortal/Frozen Armies
- The Bug: During a recent playthrough, I encountered a severe bug where entire armies were lying dead/flattened on the ground visually, but I could still select and move them. However, they completely stopped fighting, acted as impassable physical roadblocks, and disrupted lane pathing.
- The Aftermath: A game restart was required to fix it, after which roughly half of my army had permanently vanished, though normal combat functionality resumed. *(Note: Save file available upon request / referenced in recent sessions).
I saved in the middle of the battle. But it’s working again. So complicated to reproduce.
7. Shift-Click Movement Waypoints on Terrain
It would be an incredible tactical upgrade if players could use Shift + Right-Click to set multiple sequential movement waypoints on the ground. This would allow units to execute complex maneuvers—such as flank routes, patrol loops, or staged retreats—naturally without requiring constant manual re-direction for every turn.
8. Re-balancing Large Gate Durability
Currently, building a Large Gate feels like a tactical disadvantage rather than an upgrade. Because it spans a much wider gap in your wall line, a destroyed Large Gate leaves a massive breach for enemy forces to flood through. Unless Large Gates receive a significant HP/durability buff or damage-mitigation advantage over standard gates to compensate for this vulnerability, using them remains mechanically counter-productive.
9. Drag-and-Drop / Custom Sorting for Company Flags
During large-scale sieges, managing multiple companies gets chaotic along the bottom status bar. Please allow players to drag and drop or automatically sort company flags on the bottom HUD. Being able to group them logically (e.g., infantry on the left, archers in the middle, cavalry on the right) would make tactical selection and micro-management much cleaner.
10. Unit Health Status Indicators in Company Flag Tooltips
In large battles, individual health bars get visually cluttered, overlap, or fail to render cleanly on the terrain. Currently, hovering over a company flag only shows overall numbers (e.g., “24 Units / 8 Infantry / 16 Archers”).
- Proposal: Display mini unit health status bars directly inside the Company Flag hover tooltip (similar to the list layout inside the Fort/Barracks interface).
- Benefit: This would allow players to instantly spot critically wounded units and pull them back to safety without having to search through a chaotic battle scene manually.
Here a picture which was generated by gemini to get the idea behind this:
10. Friendly Unit Highlight Outlines (Toggleable Option)
Currently, enemy raiders and hostiles are clearly highlighted with thick red selection outlines, making them easy to track even from a high camera zoom. However, friendly soldiers only display faint star indicators overhead, which are very subtle and almost invisible when zoomed out.
- The Problem: In large-scale open-field battles or dense terrain (trees, stone walls), friendly units easily blend into the landscape, making it difficult to assess your formation boundaries at a glance.
- Proposed Solution: Introduce a toggleable UI setting in the graphics/gameplay options to enable selection outlines for friendly units .
- Option A: A standard high-visibility green outline.
- Option B (Ideal): Outlines that match the color of their respective Company Flag (e.g. blue outline for Blue Company, purple for Purple Company, etc.).
Adding this toggle would hugely improve tactical visibility during chaotic defensive battles without forcing it on players who prefer a clean, realistic aesthetic!
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11. Right-Clicking a Company Flag to Focus Camera on Its Barracks
Currently, navigating from an active Company Flag in the field back to its parent Barracks takes extra searching across the map.
- Suggestion: Right-clicking a Company Flag (in the bottom interface bar or on the battlefield) should immediately jump the camera to the corresponding Barracks building—even if the Barracks is currently being rebuilt, repaired, or moved. Since most unit recruitment and management happens in the Barracks, this would make army navigation much faster.
12. Swapping Companies Between Barracks of the Same Type
When re-organizing army compositions (e.g., balancing archers vs. pikemen across multiple Barracks), managing individual units is cumbersome.
- Suggestion: Allow players to directly swap/reassign entire Companies between Barracks of the same type . Assigning a company to another Barracks would automatically swap its slot with the existing company from that target building.
13. Auto-Replenish Checkbox for Natural Deaths (Old Age)
In long-running late-game settlements, military units frequently die of old age, causing total troop counts to drop (e.g., unexpectedly dropping from 24/24 down to 23/24).
- Suggestion: Add a toggleable “Auto-Replenish on Natural Death” checkbox in the Barracks menu.
- How it should work: If a soldier dies of old age/disease, the Barracks automatically hires a replacement villager. However, if a soldier dies in active combat, manual replenishment should still be required so players remain aware of war casualties.
14. Combat Stance & “Hold Position” Movement Fixes (Plus Gate Locking)
Currently, retreat micro during two-front battles feels overly rigid:
- The Issue with “Hold Position”: If you command a wounded company to retreat behind a wall and click “Hold Position” , the units stop moving immediately on the spot rather than moving to the destination first and then holding ground.
- Stance Aggro Issues: Both Attack Stance and Defensive Stance cause units to automatically turn back and engage hostiles unless they are far out of aggro range or behind a wall.
- Suggestions:
- Fix the input order so that queuing a move order followed by “Hold Position” allows units to reach the targeted destination before locking their position.
- Consider adding an explicit “Lock / Close Gates” interaction to guarantee raiders cannot slip through during active retreats or the own company cannot got outside.
Adding this to your list for #15 (you format your posts much more nicely😂).
Suggestion/request is to allow the yellow ‘destination markers’ to persist until each unit reaches their marker or the unit is sent elsewhere.
Setting up formations is difficult to do when I can’t see where units have already been sent, or if I have even sent units to a location yet (I’m getting old - I don’t always remember😅).
I’d like to submit four additional tactical and quality-of-life suggestions for military management, starting from item 16:
16. Player Unit Stats Panel & Modifiers Breakdown
Currently, while inspecting enemy units allows players to see their exact combat stats (health, armor, damage), player-controlled military units lack a clear overview window.
- Suggestion: Add a dedicated stats panel for player companies showing base values as well as active modifiers (such as positive or negative buffs from current Town Happiness, equipment, or rations). This would finally give players a transparent way to understand their army’s true combat effectiveness.
17. Prevent Box-Selecting garrisoned Barracks during hectic battles
During chaotic multi-front battles, box-selecting units on the field often accidentally includes nearby Barracks if they fall inside the drag area.
- The Issue: If you click the ground to reposition your dragged army while the Barracks (and its active garrisoned firing units) got caught in the selection box, the units will march right out of the safety of the building—often spelling absolute disaster.
- Suggestion: Exclude active Barracks from field-drag selection boxes, or require companies to be deployed exclusively via their bottom toolbar buttons or company flags.
18. Add units to existing Hotkeys via Shift + Number (and display Hotkeys on flags)
Currently, hotkeys can be assigned using Ctrl + Number , but there is no way to append units to an existing hotkey group.
- Suggestion:
- Implement standard RTS hotkey behavior: allow players to add units to an existing group using
Shift + Number (making it easy to group all heavy infantry across different locations without needing them right next to each other).
- Display the assigned hotkey number visually directly above or on the Company Flag at the bottom bar.
19. Passive Barracks Training & Yard Animations
Right now, military units only gain experience through active combat encounters.
- Suggestion: Allow companies to passively gain a small, slow amount of experience while stationed inside their Barracks by training in the yard. This would make the settlement feel much more alive and dynamic, showing soldiers practicing drills in the courtyard while waiting for the next raid.
20. Road Pathfinding Bias & Exploitation (Raiders & Own Units)
The movement speed bonus of roads appears to weight the pathfinding algorithm so heavily that it can be easily manipulated—and leads to dangerous friendly behavior:
- Raider AI Exploitation: If roads are built leading directly toward Barracks/defenses, incoming raider waves heavily prioritize pathing along these roads. Instead of spreading out, they funnel themselves into narrow street corridors, creating artificial chokepoints.
- Suicidal Friendly Pathfinding: When ordering units (e.g., Cavalry) to retreat or reposition, they often prioritize taking a paved road even if that road runs directly through an incoming raider army, resulting in avoidable casualties.
- Suggested Fix: Reduce the pathfinding weight/preference for roads during active combat movement, or force units to prioritize safety/shortest direct vector when under threat.
21. Unit Stacking, Body-Blocking, and Heavy Cavalry Disruptions
The collision detection between raiders and player units creates frustrating combat locks:
- Raider Stacking / Trapping: Raider models pack together so tightly that they act as impassable solid walls. Wounded player units trying to disengage get permanently body-blocked inside dense raider clusters.
- Lack of Cavalry Charge / Trample: Heavy Mounted Cavalry currently gets stopped dead in its tracks by dense infantry lines rather than punching through them.
- Suggested Fix:
- Spread out raider collision boundaries slightly so units don’t stack into hyper-dense lumps.
- Give Mounted Units a charge/knockback mechanic (or mass threshold) allowing them to push through infantry or knock down light raiders when moving at full momentum.
Thanks for continuing to refine the tactical combat system!
