Marching and movement of armies and navies

[Ichon]

With less battles as a stated goal of CA and the new ability of naval fleets to attack cities directly it seems movement points of armies might better be used. Since most of TW is abstracted compared to Paradox as far as game mechanics why not use army movements to show different things.

Land armies;

In controlled territory armies can move maximum distances depending on roads and generals traits, agents present. However Romans and eventually other factions could build forts at end of movement using small amount of movement points, 10% Moving off road even in controlled territories costs more so for rapid army movement Good systems of roads are paramount.

Problem with past TW games are that roads often made your land more vulnerable to invasion as enemies also benefit from them.

To address this and logistics and ambushes- simply have movement that starts in enemy territory have much lower amount unless general initiates forced march. So when starting in enemy territory armies have to forage more which naturally slows them, slower movement eventually rases upkeep cost as it takes longer to get everywhere. The foraging however slightly expands ZoC as foraging parties are out looking around.

If forced march order is given ZoC shrinks and complete ambush is more likely with army suffering morale and stamina penalties if surprised but gains some movement though still slower than native armies. If moving with foragers out and surprised there are not morale or stamina penalties, just poor postion at battle start like current ambushes.

Navies;

ZoC is much larger if fleet does not use its move, it does not make sense especially with fleets now being more important that enemy fleet can move freely and so easily attack or blockade even though friendly fleet is relatively close. There could be a similar mechanic for surprise and storms and smaller ZoC if movement is made to maximum.

To easily tell when movement type changes simply change shape of cursor, color of projected path and autostop to confirm moving further at increased risk and smaller ZoC.

[Pesticide]

i loved how julius ceasar captured rome without a fight because he outmaneuvred his enemies whos armies where mere days away, i dont see how they can do this in rome 2 but army movement and maneuvers should be able to help win battles in some way or form.

Like make decisions like 'forced march', where you get a morale penalty or something but double movement.

This will require multiple enemie stacks and counter attacks, not this silly shogun 2 style, every country only has one stack suicide runs ...

a campaign needs to be planned, in detail to take account of the position of multiple enemie stacks to where your stacks are and the AI needs to goddamn wel counter attack with all he has got ffs

[Argon Viper]

I like this system. The mechanics are well thought out and would be fun to see implemented. No commentary on my part needed except "well done".

[goofeen]

Should the "retreat" feature be changed as well? I don't know how much of this has been discussed before, but essentially, when you click "retreat" when an enemy army attacks, you're given no control of where you're retreating to. A way to evolve this would be to have a morale penalty for retreating, and even possibly suffering casualties from the retreat. So, for example, when you attack an enemy army and they retreat, you're then given the option to pursue. The enemy army would get to choose it's route of retreat, and would take casualties, which I guess would largely be determined by how much cavalry the pursuing army has. I'm not entirely sure how a "zone of control" mechanic would be factored in to a retreating army, but General's traits on both sides could certainly determine the amount of casualties inflicted.

[Ichon]

Should the "retreat" feature be changed as well? I don't know how much of this has been discussed before, but essentially, when you click "retreat" when an enemy army attacks, you're given no control of where you're retreating to. A way to evolve this would be to have a morale penalty for retreating, and even possibly suffering casualties from the retreat. So, for example, when you attack an enemy army and they retreat, you're then given the option to pursue. The enemy army would get to choose it's route of retreat, and would take casualties, which I guess would largely be determined by how much cavalry the pursuing army has. I'm not entirely sure how a "zone of control" mechanic would be factored in to a retreating army, but General's traits on both sides could certainly determine the amount of casualties inflicted.

Doing something about retreats has been discussed- everything from retreat always aiming for friendly territory to setting up a designated direction before battle goes into deployment phase to allowing retreat only once entered battle but entering 2nd army ZoC would count as complete ambush and a 2nd battle at huge disadvantage would commence though if avoiding 2nd army ZoC retreat with relatively few casualties might be possible.

Basically right now the retreat is on active players turn observing enemy army and moving away or retreating out of ZoC. Once battle is engaged there is no retreat.

Perhaps ZoC should have 2 layers- wide outer layer where army moving into has option to retreat or not while army at center of ZoC also has option, second smaller inner layer where only the army at center has option to retreat- since a wider ZoC would otherwise mean armies are often retreating for no reason as enemy army barely entered their ZoC on way to somewhere else but if approaching the inner area of ZoC then battle is surely sought.

Actually that might work well in another area I think needs help- armies within the smaller ZoC would enter battlefield at the same time while armies in the wider ZoC would enter battle as reinforcements with time depending on distance away. Navies even better would work similarly. Just 2 different color ZoC fields around armies/navies to distinguish and projected ZoC areas when you click on any point of the available movement path. Forced march/row would narrow wider ZoC and make disappear the smaller one so then even army right next to another could be fought separately before reinforcements arrive as in chaos of rapid march/row elements get strung out and separated according to their pace and unable to support while careful coordinated but slower movement is rewarded. Should make taking risks not always worth it.

Shogun 2 was terrible with how armies entered battle all as reinforcements and sometimes right next to each other and only 1 army at a time could start on battlefield. Did that change in FotS? I did not get any Shogun 2 addons.

[Ngazi]

I don't see how you can stop someone from using your roads. If you had railroads you still had to destroy them to prevent invaders from using them. It's not like they had mines.

Your lands should not be vulnerable because watchtowers cost almost nothing.

[Ichon]

I don't see how you can stop someone from using your roads. If you had railroads you still had to destroy them to prevent invaders from using them. It's not like they had mines.

Your lands should not be vulnerable because watchtowers cost almost nothing.

You aren't stopping them from using the roads, just that invaders don't move as fast as native armies is the real difference since invaders have to forage or protect line of supply. So invaders moving down a road still have more movement than moving without any road but less movement than native army defending its own lands on the same road.

The invaders just move a bit slower when starting within other factions controlled territory- so they might still move quite far if positioned on start of turn within their own borders but next turn if they did not capture region they will be moving slower. Invaders can elect to do 'forced march' to get almost the speed of natives but then their ZoC is smaller and they are more likely to be completely ambushed.