Hanakoganei said:
Oh the use of fodder, especially conscripts from conquered regions, was definitely a tactic that a lot of medieval armies used. Certainly the Romans did it. But it also felt like the commanders held their soldiers in low regard until they prove themselves somehow. That's probably why they sometimes leave their elite units near the back, often actually just there to protect the commander or for last-minute reinforcements, while other armies like the Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Japanese, etc., would almost always lead with their elite units except when performing a specific strategy (usually a feint).
I guess you could theorise that it was a form of whittling down the natives of the lands they conquered; if they've died for the Romans they won't be around to fight back against the Romans if a rebellion starts up.
Hanakoganei said:
I think what makes the game much harder to command when the battle size gets too big is the fact that we don't actually have any other officers in our army. etc.
I agree, and actually thought, when I first saw it, that the PBOD 'Change Commander' option would tell a Companion to lead part of the army (using the AI) while I controlled the rest!
Hanakoganei said:
As it is, the game treats you as being just one small army (I guess in Native battle sizes like 100 this would be natural), and you answer to the marshal, who answers to the king, while the king is the real "commander" and you're just a captain.
A pretty rebellious captain, given that players rarely tend to stick by whatever silly tactic the Marshal is trying to employ
eastpaw said:
So, when's the Floris community getting one of these?
eastpaw said:
I tend to play like DaElf, I think. I'm definitely going to try the commander-on-hill route next character though.
I'll probably try it, too.. *adds it to the list of planned characters, gulps*
eastpaw said:
Hmm... assuming say 100 knights riding against maybe 1,000 archers with a 500-man upper limit, I'm thinking shiny pincushions. If on the other hand the steamroller-archer ratio were kept more reasonable, and if you could divide your cav into several separate formations targeting different parts of the enemy army (which is what you're suggesting), then why shouldn't the Living Steamroller work? Admittedly, casualties would be pretty bad if the archers focussed their fire though. Also, your LS tactics might have to be tweaked to accommodate (or take advantage of) multiple heavy cav groups.
Hmm... I wonder where diminishing returns on archer numbers kick in?
Yes, 100 knights would surely die in that situation, even with a lower upper-limit; it takes time to kill that many archers and the archers do manage to hurt the knights, or at least their horses slowly. Over a long battle, that would mean a lot of de-horsed cavalry, probably de-horsed in the midst of the enemy, and thus surrounded and dying pretty quickly.
I'd say you can have a 3:1 ratio against you before you start to take more than a few casualties, and the graph starts getting exponential the further away from that ratio you go. If you had multiple bands of them (optimised, I'd say 30 in each wedge), though, you could wreak absolute havoc, and the focused fire would be less of an issue, since, given the nature of the stampede, the enemy is completely incapacitated whilst a wedge is hitting. With that in mind, you could stagger each wedge to hit a different bit of the enemy at a different time, thus never letting the enemy have ALL their troops available to fire at once. Don't forget the Cavalry Archers, either; they're great at distracting the enemy from the wall(s) of pain approaching.
eastpaw said:
IIRC, the Mongols crushed two separate and significantly larger armies of European knights in a matter of two days. A quick glance at Wikipedia suggests the battles of Legnica and Mohi.
That said, the Mongols were mounted skirmishers. Would guerilla footmen fare as well?
Just read about the battles you suggested. Very interesting! I'm not sure that footmen would be as able to capitalise, though; the cavalry archers capitalised on their mobility to surround the pursuing army, whereas it would take footmen considerably longer. The use of smoke bombs was interesting, though, especially since, to my eyes at least, it would typically be a good tactic to use against the more organised army (in this case, the Mongols) in order to scupper their organisational and tactical advantage. In a Steamroller vs. footmen battle, especially with multiple wedge-charges, it could be used to completely disorientate the enemy, with the sounds of hooves pounding on the ground from all around them!
eastpaw said:
Worse in real life, methinks, because real people and horses get fatigued, and physical damage is painful and draining.
Very true.
Hanakoganei said:
I'd accept the odds of a coup d'etat as long as it can let me command a thousand troops more effectively for the battle that's right at hand. Unlikely my men would revolt against me anyway, since I take care of them. I remember their birthdays and always send them cards on all the holidays! D:
It would be interesting, though, to have an event which can fire when you have low morale where a part of your army will suddenly rebel and attack the rest of your army!
Hanakoganei said:
Except in the case of the arrogant English heavy horsemen, cavalry was often used as a flanker or routing force. That's why in chess, the "horse" moves in an L pattern and can move over other units. They can cut the front line off from its reinforcement, or attack the archers and prevent them from inflicting damage.
It sounds like I'm an arrogant English heavy horseman, then
Although, given the disorganisation that the Cavalry Archers cause, I guess the Cavalry charge ends up as a sort of flanking manoeuvre, since the enemy's troops are in disarray and normally facing a different direction!
Hanakoganei said:
That said, I believe my highly mobile infantry units can handle large cavalry sizes because it's unlikely (especially for the AI) to flank us. However, it also means that I'll certainly take quite a few casualties as we move into position to cut their horsemen off from their reinforcement infantry, and also simultaneously close in with the archers to render them useless.
What if your enemy was purely horsemen, though, meaning that you couldn't separate them from any infantry? Would the existence of multiple cavalry charges make it much easier to flank you? Given the mobility of Cavalry units, they could, potentially, surround you on the battlefield and, with some careful coordination, charge through your ranks from all directions without getting caught up in each others' way.
Hanakoganei said:
About my submod I was working on, it seems the Khergits have somehow been reduced to an unbelievably untactical force lol. etc.
Interesting. I find that the Khergits in Floris sometimes just sit around and do nothing under the Formations AI. Could there be some problem where the AI doesn't know what to do when most of the forces are mounted?
Ghgl said:
Also could the Sun be modded/coded into a advantage/disadvantage feature? I personally find that every time I spawn, I faced directly against the sun. Granted it's not that much of a big deal but
walking up hill and suddenly having a full flare in your face would blind the front lines long enough for enemies to sweep through them and do some serious damage. Shooting uphill when the enemy has the sun at their back is pretty much impossible in real life too.
This would be interesting, perhaps determined by which army has the higher Tactics level, or perhaps which force is the most mobile, or a mixture of those 2 and some other things?
Ghgl said:
Btw, isn't there a pre-battle phase where you could go into the map and position your army/divisions exactly where you wanted them to be? I can't seem to enter that phase.
It would help loads when facing fast enemies or when we spawn relatively close to each other and I still need to manually command my guys into positions other then forward10/back10x2.
That would be a brilliant feature, both for field battles and sieges!
Ghgl said:
Lastly, I find that Mounted archers are a must have now in my army, they inflict minimal damage at their best, but holy cr*p do they mess up the enemies formation.(and I would like to think their morale too, either they are stuck in formation waiting for commands to march, or they disintegrate into a horde of raging targets.)
Yes, Cavalry Archers seem excellent at ruining whatever the enemy had planned on using as a formation/strategy. That said, I do find that they manage to kill quite a few troops themselves; the Black Widows have excellent proficiency, so perhaps they get a lot of headshots on the already-confused enemy. It makes them a great addition to an army, IMO, and perhaps they could even wipe out armies on their own! (Anyone tried this?)
