Flanking

[kirroyale]

The AI seems to think that flanking is a matter of trying to sneak a unit or two round the end of your line. Usually some cavalry, usually just trying to mount a raid to take my arty out of the game. So you put some cavalry in reserve ready to head them off, or some other solution, and job done. What I want to see is the AI actually attempting to flank in the proper way, fixing my army in place by threatening along the whole front, but making its attack at one end, in force, with combined arms, with a view to winning on that wing and then rolling up the rest of the line. This is how I deal with a full stack enemy army to avoid massive casualties, ideally applying one cav unit, 1-2 line infantry plus some grenadiers or lights plus a battery of horse arty to the job. Does anyone ever see the AI doing this rather than just rushing the whole line, and is it something that the AI can be scripted to do?

[RazAlgul]

Well in Darth 0,9 I had several Native battles, where the native Cavalry flanked me from the woodland and crushed usually one of my arty before I managed to head them off with a line inf unit......but beyond that no....so far in 1.0 I haven't seen any Cavalry flanking...since they usually run the to the other end of the battlefield due to heavy Arty barrage ( I tend to use 2-4 Howitzers with every army I have)

[Maidel]

Ive seen some pretty decent flanking - not necessarily traditional flanking, but effective none the less. They often overload one attack on one flank and I have to deal with roughly 1/2 the enemy army assulting about 1/3 of my army, while 1/4 of their army tie down my centre (usually with lots of feinting cavalry charges) and the other 1/4 tie down the other flank. Its been quite hard to counter - sure, I win in the center and the other flank, but if im too slow they rip up one entire flank and start working their way down my army.

[Angroth]

Ive seen some pretty decent flanking - not necessarily traditional flanking, but effective none the less. They often overload one attack on one flank and I have to deal with roughly 1/2 the enemy army assulting about 1/3 of my army, while 1/4 of their army tie down my centre (usually with lots of feinting cavalry charges) and the other 1/4 tie down the other flank. Its been quite hard to counter - sure, I win in the center and the other flank, but if im too slow they rip up one entire flank and start working their way down my army.

this is exactly what i just experienced in my last battle. i was severely outnumbered ca. 3:1 and undermanned as well, as i had a tough battle a turn before. it was no problem for the ai to meet me 1:1 on the center while using the other two thirds to wrap them around my left flank with their lines while my right flank was attacked by 2 cavalry regiments which i barely managed to counter with my own depleted cavalry. i won the battle because my infantry consisted only of battle hardened veterans and i had some cavalry in reserve on my left flank as well which i withheld until their right flank was completely stuck with me. pretty intense and desperate, but all the more rewarding to send them all fleeing. oh, part of my plan was to snipe their general with my artillery to dent their morale straight from the beginning ... and what can i say? i was lucky to knock him down with my first barrage
so long story short: AI flanking works very well on many occasions, if not always successful

[RazAlgul]

Yup...makes the battles more fun...