DEFENSIVE STANCE IS USELESS

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Yeah so it sucks but it’s true, I never use it or any of the stances unless i’m trying to not kill enemy units and doing some nefarious backstabbing, etc.

The option for units start in aggressive stance should pretty much always be on, I can see new people using defensive starting stance and thier units are always getting whacked by onagers or other ranged units… because…

Defensive stance causes units to stand there and take ranged damage and do nothing about it.

THIS is a problem, defensive means dont chase, stay around your area plz, but if they are attacking you GO ■■■■ THEM UP! Otherwise those units are not defending, they are volunteering to be target practice.

ONE FIX FOR THIS: KEEP EVERYTHING THE SAME BUT… DEFENSIVE UNITS ATTACKED BY RANGED UNITS BECOME AGGRESIVE, I WOULD, WOULDNT ANYONE? ORDERS OR NOT IF THEY SHOOTING ME WITH ARROWS THEY GONA DIE

DEFENSIVE UNITS ATTACKED BY RANGED UNITS BECOME AGGRESIVE <----THIS IS WHAT THE OPTION IN THE MENU SHOULD BE

If you want your units to stand there regardless of taking flaming arrows to the face, that’s what stand ground is for.

Lets try to get this fixed, of all the complaints and bitching on the forums about petty crap, this is something quintessential to the original game and would be a great way of honoring it, because as it is now, the entire stance system is useless

What do you guys think?

1 Like
2

The whole point of defensive stance is to have your units stand around and guard and don’t move too far away. If I want some spearmen near my woodline on a very open map where I am prone to be raided, I don’t want them chasing scouts across the map. I want them to stand around and guard. Most units are default aggressive stance.

If I want some pikes/halbs in front of my onagers, I may want them in defensive stance sometimes, so they don’t foolishly run at the enemy, and leave my onagers unprotected from cavalry.

From wiki.

Defensive: units attack any unit in their range, and will follow for a certain number of tiles before returning to their original position. Units on defensive stance will retreat a few tiles if a ranged unit outside their LOS attacks them.

That’s fine. It’s guard duty.

9 Likes
3

Perfectly fine no need for changes.

7 Likes
4

This is why you should use patrol with defensive stance. It’s not useless—super helpful when you have a slower army. Just learn how to use it.

5

Yes those units would still stay in position where u want them in front of ur onager because the guy that got an arrow in the face is the only one to run after the asshole who shot him. Makes sense to me. The thing you mentioned about them retreating a couple of tiles doesn’t seem to work very well.