Skirmish battles

[mark0701]

The new unit post (which looks rather nice) has got me thinking, what are the chances CA will have addressed the annoying thing were you'd attack with a couple of units of horse archers, inflict a couple of hundred kills then withdraw after your arrows run out only to be told you'd been defeated!

IMHO this is a very good tactic for wearing down large armies (especially those without light horsemen to run you down), but in MTW and RTW it had the downside of improving the command rating of the enemy generals by awarding them the victory.

[Ewan]

Just a quick note, The side that loses on a battlefield, everyman killed in battlre remains dead.But if your the victor you get some of you loses . Im guessin you could argue that some of your men lying on the battlefield are just wounded or knocked out cold so are still able to be regain But if your the loser then your men still lying on the battlefield would be killed by the victors troops.

I think the way it is ( the army that retreats is the loser ) is a fine system at the moment, since if your only using horse archers you wont get any negatice character traits. Also if you had a draw, both armies would not regain there fallen troops, even though the army u attacked with your horse archers, would still be there able to regain the troops.

Edit: made a edit and adjust some of my stuff

[mark0701]

Just a quick note, The side that loses on a battlefield, everyman killed in battlre remains dead but if your the victor you get some of you loses ( im guessin you could argue that some of your men are just wounded or knocked out cold so are still able to be regain, but if that happened to any of your men, the victors would be able to be regained.

Also allowing this feature to be in the game might add imbalance, you might find the enermy uses this tactice against you or you could beat a huge army with just a couple of troops

Agree with the first point (though surely calling it a draw would stop this?)

Not sure what you are getting at with your second point?

At best you'll get two battles before the enemy get to where they are heading. Anyway, if the AI/player maintains balanced armies it doesn't become an overpowered tactic.

As for beating whole armies with a couple of units, have you ever fought a bridge battle in RTW? You can easily take on 15-20 times your numbers with the right troops and still come out on top. Now that is a balance issue (especially as the AI doesn't take advantage of it)

[Tritio]

Interesting. I do not know whether they have addressed this issue (or whether they even regard it as an 'issue' at all), and my guess is that it is too small and unimportant a thing in relation to the big picture of things to get much attention, but allow me to suggest an alternative.

How about, instead of having an outright win/lose (or degrees thereof) evaluation of battles, have additional factors in that evaluation. Such as

- Gains posession of the field (the current win/lose model)
- Causes most casualties*
- Suffers worse losses*
- Captures most prisoners

* These can be further broken down into the various arms of the army, i.e. infantry, cavalry, and artillery

In any case, I believe that the current win/lose evaluation notification should be replaced with a possesion of the field notification (e.g. "We have gained (failed to gain) possesion of the field!"), because victory should not be judged by who stays on the field and who leaves (routs). There were all kinds of other types of battles which did not rely on this kind of hardheaded approach.

The two examples I can think of off my head now: the Mongols relied on hit and run tactics, and Pyrrhus gain possesion of the field only at great cost.

[mark0701]

True it is probably too small a thing to be addressed on its own.

I like your suggested overhaul of the win/lose/draw conditions.

It comes down to them only recognising mass head on battles, when in many cases you wouldn't want to fight like that. Your system would add some much needed depth to the battlefield as well as deal with the dead/wounded point.

Maybe we'll see it in RTW2...

[Ewan]

Nice idear tritio but i would rather see CA addin features that will incourage large battles and not just to have wee cheap skirmishs

[mark0701]

Nice idear tritio but i would rather see CA addin features that will incourage large battles and not just to have wee cheap skirmishs

See i prefer the "wee" (I take you are from North of the border?) cheap skrimishs as you have full control of your forces.

Horse Archers are built for hit and run tactics.

Guess in your world you only need three types of units, then you just click and charge :wink:

[Ewan]

Hehe, yes i am "from north of the border" . Also you canc still use horse archers on a large battle and infact involves alot more skill ( try to use them to harass the enermy and send some of theer units to break formation ) while on a battle when ur only usin horse archers or chariots, u just tell them to attack and with there auto keep a safe distance on, theres nothin the enermy can do about it ( the A.I will never be as gd to think ahead and try and get ur units)

[mark0701]

Auto Skirmish!?! Not on your life. That is the path to death for your units. The real trick is using more than one unit of horse archers so you open up the flanks or backs of the units where the arrows can do some real harm. Auto Skirmish will just see you peppering a wall of shields and your units run themselves into trouble!

I take your point about using them in a battle situation. Hopefully the bigger maps of MTW2 will mean a proper Skirmish, before the two main forces engage. At the moment, the maps are just too small for this to be done properly.