"keep distance" order

[possum]

the troops who have been given that order would NOT move into close combat with enemy troops.

especially the khergit archers tend to ride into the middle of the enemy troops instead of riding around them and pierce them with arrows. if they survive that i-am-dumb charge, they try to stay at a distance to the enemy but the fist charge kills a lot of them.

"keep distance" + "charge" would order your troops to attack the enemy with ranged weapons and the troops would try to avoid the direct contact.

melee troops would also run from the enemy. this would give the player more tactical options.

 

[Askorti]

Yes. Yes. Yes. It'd be good to foot archers good, because they should be faster than melee units.

 

[Caba`drin]

I'm toying with a skirmish command at the moment...thought this might be a good place to get a bit of feedback.
If troops were given this order, should there be any attempt to keep unit cohesion, or just try to have each individual agent maintain a certain distance from their enemies? So, as archers approach the battle line, then get close enough for firing and need to back away as the enemy advances, should they try to stick together as they retreat in a uniform direction, or scatter while each of them independently keeps their distance.

Option 1) If they should keep unit cohesion, the easiest way would be coding a "Fall back 10 paces" order to trigger if the enemy gets too close to a set number of their group.
Option 2) If it should be more individual, it would be checking each soldier independently for their distance to the enemy. If close, find a point in the opposite direction from the enemy and move that one soldier there. Repeat for each soldier. May have folks crossing each others paths, etc, but would be more dynamic in that if behind enemy lines, they would scatter further behind enemy lines in a variety of directions.

 

[looy]

Snip

Have them move idependantly. Then, for example, if your archers are attacked in the flank the ones already fairly safe on the opposite flank won't retreat for no reason.

 

[Michael of Finland]

That would make keeping your cavalry for example swadian man at arms alive much easier!

 

[Caba`drin]

So, I've a preliminary version of this code out, using an individually-based decision-making. It's module system code, ready to be stuck into any mod and compiled, but not a simple .txt tweak. It can be found here...Order: Skirmish mode.