The Elder Scrolls VI

Yeah, my experiences on this kind of thing all come from Total War games. I'm no military strategist, but I like to think I understand the basics. And the basics tell me that a good heavy cavalry charge ideally never meets anything that can stand up to them.

All warfare boils down to is picking on the little guy. From a major scale, where you attack an enemy's weakest ally to either force him to abandon any war plans to save said ally, or they don't abandon said plans and make sure no one wants to ally with them; to a minor scale, where you identify the weakest part of an army's line and send your biggest, fastest, baddest dudes right through that weak spot to make them head for the hills.

Disguise your second baddest dudes as your weakest dudes to lure their baddest dudes into a fight somewhere you can control, then send your actual baddest dudes in to fight their weakest dudes. Your baddest dudes come out unharmed, they lose their weakest dudes, some of their baddest dudes. Their baddest dudes lose the support of everyone beneath them.

Real life isn't an RPG where you can be a lvl 20 fighter disguised as a peasant and still fight efficiently. If you arm a veteran with a pitchfork and padded armor, he's not going to survive against a cavalry charge, no matter how skilled he might be.

He might if he's got a 15 foot pike hidden at his feet that he picks up right before the heavy horse can ride him down

Allow me to doubt the feasability of a move done in a historically inaccurate movie. Just the thought of three or four ranks of men all picking 15-feet pikes from the ground and placing them in position to catch the charge in perfect synchronicity, all without stabbing each others, seconds before the charge hits, is mind-boggling.

How would they stab each other? They're 15 feet away from the pointy end XD

Not when they pick it up.

Are you imagining them picking it up by the pointy end?

I was also joking. No one goes to Braveheart for historical reference. Just an example of misdirection on the battlefield.

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Jan 16th 2019 at 3:47:55 AM

I think that you're picturing them being one rank thin, which is an absolutely terrible idea in warfare. It doesn't matter how pointy your stick is if it's just you holding a stick and no one behind to hold more pointy sticks. You might maybe kill one knight, but the horse would crush you, and the line you're holding would break instantly. To counter charge a cavalry, you need to be four or five ranks deep, so that several pikes are pointed outwards. The idea is that the charge doesn't go through because the horses slow down and the charge is blunted because hey, horses don't actually want to run into pointy sticks either. And if they do go through one person, there are four other right behind them able to pull the rider off his horse so he can't just ride away and charge again.

I'm not imagining them one rank thin. But four people still aren't fifteen feet long unless they're like, splayed out on the ground. The spearheads from the last rank were still in front of the first rank. Also, these weren't bladed spears. Literally just long, thick, sharp wood poles. It also wasn't a particularly massive cavalry charge. It was knights, not regular soldiers on horses. I also vaguely remember some sort of bottlenecking involved. Like, they had to cross a bridge or something.

The trouble with the tactic of feigning weakness in order to lure your enemy into a trap is that a savvy enemy can very easily turn that feigned weakness into an all-too-real weakness. Like, maybe you could make it seem like you have fewer soldiers at one part of the line to trick your enemy into charging that part, only for hidden troops to spring an ambush on them once committed, but there's also the possibility that they can break through the line because you stationed fewer soldiers there in order to trick them into trying to break through the line.

Like, maybe you could take a bunch of knights and have them wear baggy sacks over their armor to hide the shine of plate, but in practical terms there isn't much that can be done in that regard at the tactical level.

Now on a more strategic level, you could maybe trick your enemy into thinking one of your better commanders is stationed in one place rather than another. Things like swapping banners and livery to mislead spies and scouts.

Edited by danime91 on Jan 16th 2019 at 2:49:27 AM

I'm a bit worried about development now actually. Given that until this game is released, the most recent large-scale release will have been Fallout 76. Bethesda will likely be eager to please, as quickly as possible. I really hope this doesn't negatively influence the quality of ES 6.

The question is what would that mean? Either they rush a release (Unlikely) or they dumb down to make something accessible?

How could they be eager to please? They know expectations will be high for ES 6. if anything that'd be their saving grace. Starfield is the risky proposition.

Elder Scrolls 5 lost a good portion of its faction quests, much of which is still even coded in, just dummied out. The Thieves guild quests were supposed to be more advanced, and there was supposed to be an option to wipe them out, same as the Dark Brotherhood. I'm just hoping ES 6 is made with a cool head. No rushing to ship by a certain date etc.

Civil war was also supposed to be bigger, but it ended up being too complex for the coding.

> No rushing to ship by a certain date etc.

Always happens in game developed,never known a game not be a victim of this

Hey, guys, remember Elder Scrolls VI? No? Well, don't feel bad. Bethesda apparently forgot about it too. E3 comes around, E3 goes away, Bethesda doesn't even drop a mention. This is going to take a while to be seen again, isn't it?

Apparently the game's still in the incredibly early stages of development, so they just might not have had anything worthwhile to show off for E3. We've only got a brief teaser trailer with some setting shots, so it's not a surprise.

Still, though, considering Bethesda's greatest hits as of late, I'm...scared for the game's future. If Blades was called a "true Elder Scrolls experience," then...yikes. Granted, that was a mobile game and thus limited by the platform, but...the business model was uniquely atrocious.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Jun 10th 2019 at 5:44:46 AM

I think by "true elder scrolls experience" what they meant was "entirely made from recycled skyrim assets"

Eh, they already said that Elder Scrolls VI wouldn't make a significant appearance at E3 2019 so it was inevitable. Still disappointing, for sure

I just find it silly that they released that teaser last year at all. Why release a teaser for something, then never follow it up with anything for a few years? Might as well not have done anything.

As for the "True Elder Scrolls Experience"... well, the less said the better.

This is why I've lost a lot of the faith I used to have in Bethesda.

It's telling that I've gone from "I cannot wait for VI to come out, it's gonna be awesome!" to "I hope they don't fuck this up too."

Edited by M84 on Jun 10th 2019 at 11:48:03 PM

As far as I'm concerned, Todd Howard has succeeded in turning a pre-order into a 'wait and see' game.

Wait and see at best for me, might hold off and wait for the GOTY edition to go on sale...