One Flank or Two?

[Willowran]

Of late, my armies have been built of almost equal infantry and cavalry (no skirmishers/archers/arty).

i tend to stick all of my inf in a single line, spread long and thin, then stick all of my cav in a short/deep line on a single flank, a bit away from my original line. the theory is the battle will shift. my line is long, and i wrap around the enemy formation, then i crush their one flank with my cav and fold over their entire army. i've found concentrating all of my cav on a single flank to be more effective than spreading my horse to try to take both. since i have more on one flank, that side's flanking forces are outmatched/decimated. the opposites flankingforces kill my weakest units only, and are useless-ified. i do lose my non-supported flank more often than i would like, but i still tend to win battles with a great casualty/kill ratio. the shift in battle direction ruins their lines, gets the enemies far more clustered than they should be, allowing for more routing at a concentrated cavalry strike.

Would this be a more reccomendable course of action than going for both flanks? thoughts, ideas, debates...

[Larkin]

Depends on the volume of men you're fighting. You don't want to allow your center to be overwhelmed. Nor do you want to send cavalry into each flank/rear and not have enough to break them. So smashing them all into one flank can cause a domino rout effect, but until that cavalry hits you'll lose a lot of men in your center and in the unprotected flank, if they outnumber you. If not, you'll bowl them over.

My biggest concern with the strategy is that when facing heavy infantry of equal caliber to your own, you may be able to crush one side of their army but the others will overcome you since your ranks are only one unit deep. It'll become a 50/50 slug fest.

[Willowran]

My biggest concern with the strategy is that when facing heavy infantry of equal caliber to your own, you may be able to crush one side of their army but the others will overcome you since your ranks are only one unit deep. It'll become a 50/50 slug fest.

that would be if it were not for the moral. i tend to play with weaker factions (spain, numida for example). my infantry tend to be WEAKER then theirs. i crush one side of their army with concentrated cav charge, they crush my other. their infantry will either chase my routing infantry (thus presenting me their backsides), or turn to face what infantry i have left. this clusters them. a concentrated charge into them with clustered cavalry will usually route them all, nearly instantly (obviously their general is long dead by this time, i swarm it with all of my cav and take him out early). i win most of my fights because the enemy is afraid, compared to actual combat.

i realise one rank of infantry in a line is possibly a mistake. i go for as long a line as i can. i've found that infantry, once they have hit the enemy, create their own almost "loose formation", spreading out backwards, only the front row actually killing anything. by making a long, thin line i have more of my units killing more of their units, and mine will automatically wrap around theirs, allowing for demoralisation as they're automatically flanked--if only to a minor degree. this makes it easier for the domino route affect when the cav hits.

i try to minimize infantry losses by placing the heaviest units in the centre. neither flank has to do much fighting. one falls, the other crushes.

[VikingOfSixth]

I have found this strategy successful only when I have the proper types of unit to hold the center. There is also the risk of of enemy cavalry flanking your unprotected side. If the enemy AI has an equal number of cavalry units they will often be deployed evenly across his battle lines. More than often his general or heavy cavalry units will charge any infantry in your center while the rest of his horse try to envelope both flanks. If all of your cavalry cards are on one flank they might have to fight through the enemy horse on that side before being able to circle around and collapse the enemy line - precious time that could cost you a battle. All in all your strategy might work if the enemy cavalry is scarce or rubbish and if you have spearmen supporting your line.

[DarthShizNit]

lol are you playing as carthage ? But this is what i do most of the time. I simply put spear men on the other flank that doesn't have calvary. I also smash my calvary in before the infantry meet, makes a total mess of the AI's battle line. I never spread my lines super thing though. In fact as Carthage i tend to employ the classic 3 lines of battle. This strategy also works great with the greek factions, as a limited number of phalanxes can easily pin down the whole enemy army while your pretty good calvary do their dirty work. Also, elephants on your horseless flank will stop their horses from being a problem.

[Willowran]

i dislike having more than one line. 9 times out of 10, the reinforcing line just spreads the ranks deeper as more and more units try to walk through other untis to reach the actual fighting. I try to avoid using phalanxs--the ai really doesnt know how to fight them