Terrain type training

[Tom]

I still think we are fixing the wrong problem here.

Blobbing is a serious issue, and the automated retreat would do a lot more for that.

[Indirik]

I'm all for some form of automated retreat. But it needs some planning, and some limitations. One of the ways a smaller force can harry a larger force is to pick off stragglers. If the stragglers keep auto-retreating, that will go away.

[Geronus]

In the grand scheme of things, I like your idea Tom, and I am in no way advocating that we replace it with this one. We should look at both on their own merits.

That said, I think factoring Terrain into combat in another way would also add to the game. Part of the blob problem is that, as Anaris pointed out, there are really *no* force multipliers when it comes to combat. This greatly encourages the blobbing mentality. Without force multipliers, the determining factor of victory 95% of the time is who is able to bring the biggest army to the field and deploy it in a cohesive (i.e. blob-like) manner. This is why virtually everyone fights in blobs. It is next to impossible for a smaller force to prevail over a larger one assuming the size difference is non-trivial.

If on the other hand region type can lead to bonuses or penalties for specific unit types, it adds an entirely new element of strategy to the mix. No longer will an army with a significant heavy cavalry component instantly prevail over an all-infantry army of equal size. The infantry army can take up positions in a mountain or forest region (for example) and suddenly it's not so clear cut. It adds so many great elements to the strategy, and enables smaller forces positioned to take advantage of terrain bonuses to potentially prevail over larger ones. These are my thoughts anyway.

[Tom]

I'm all for some form of automated retreat. But it needs some planning, and some limitations. One of the ways a smaller force can harry a larger force is to pick off stragglers. If the stragglers keep auto-retreating, that will go away.

The idea is more to eliminate the late move surprise. So the idea is this:

   
• Under "orders" you can specify a region to retreat to, and some other condition (approaching enemy size? number? CS?) under which it is triggered.
• If you move out of the region, the retreat orders get cleaned out

That way, there is not problem of continued retreats, but we get rid of the "attack one hour before the turn" issues at the same time.

One thing I'm thinking about is making this an army feature, i.e. the marshal sets it, and it applies to the whole army. Not sure though how that works for armies distributed over multiple regions and all that. But it would be a good thing to automatically keep an army together.

[Tom]

If on the other hand region type can lead to bonuses or penalties for specific unit types, it adds an entirely new element of strategy to the mix.

Yes, but that doesn't require us to make training units even more complicated. All we need to do is add CS multipliers dependent on region type and unit type. Someone draw up a table and then it's like 20 lines of code.

[Anaris]

Yes, but that doesn't require us to make training units even more complicated. All we need to do is add CS multipliers dependent on region type and unit type. Someone draw up a table and then it's like 20 lines of code.

But if it's purely dependent on region type and unit type, that loses 90% of the strategic aspect of it.

I really don't think that allowing people to train like this would frustrate people overly, or make them less interested in the game.

[Zakilevo]

Again, do take into consideration averaging effects across armies. You will never actually have a 50% army facing off against a 300% army. The most that will realistically happen is maybe 75% vs. 150%.

This can be solved by setting minimum and maximum cap. Just make things cap out at 150% and 50 or 75%.

[Indirik]

I considered the idea of setting a retreat-to region, but I wasn't sure if that might be too obscure. It needs to be obvious to people that it js available. Would it be possible to have it so that this can be set when you set movement? I.e. set travel from A to B, and preset a retreat back to A?

Also, there should probably be some limitation on where you can retreat to. Perhaps the region from where you came? And it wouldn't make sense to be able to retreat to the region from which the attack comes.

[Foundation]

Personally I'm all for fewer multipliers.  Perhaps an auto-retreat checkbox much like delay arrival?

[Tom]

Well, that's two different options we're discussing here.

One is "retreat if you spot more enemies than you like at the destination", settable during movement, retreat only to the region you came from.

The other is when you've already been in the region for a while and are expecting an attack.

[Longmane]

I've been pondering (I'm trying to kick the habit   :D ) over this auto-retreat idea, and would like put forward a suggestion if I might.

How about instead of having a mechanism in place that only allows a unit to retreat, we could instead have two, with the second being a withdraw option available for marshals (and vice-marshals when applicable) and which they can use either to attempt avoid battle, ie after perhaps receiving a scout report showing the enemy heading mob handed towards the region their busily raiding, or else simply after accomplishing the goal they were there for.

I know it would require either a marshal or vice-marshal to be in the region, but heck if a realm can't at least arrange that then surly it's their fault when they suffer the consequences.

I also think it would enable things be handled, and dealt with, as totally different situations, penalty wise ect, as while a retreat would be troops in a near panic stricken headlong rush, and with perhaps no option give them orders until next turn, a withdrawal could be seen as a rather orderly, if somewhat overly hasty, legging it.