Improving Combat Round...Something

[egamma]

Isn't it sorta of weird that if there is a bit battle with 500 vs 500 infantry clashing in the middle, that somehow a nobles unit knows when then have run low on men and decide to retreat. You think there would be a lot of chaos going on, and to have it so all nobles groups are separated would be a very fractured battle front. Wouldn't it be more realistic that all units of the same type in the same row merge together to be one fighting force? Then when the collective force runs low on people fighting they all retreat. This probable would have worked better with old system where noble's units didn't match up except I like the improvement that a whole line of unit doesn't stay put because of one enemy unit. So wouldn't it make the most sense that all units deal hits, and then individual units receive hits based off the average hits proportional to the unit size with a bit of randomness in there. Then when all the units in the row reach a point where not many men left they all flee. This would also get rid of the one unit holding people back as all enemy troops would leave right away.

Also because of the round based combat, there can be situations where you have 50 men and would retreat if you have 10 or less men. At the end of a round though you have 11 men left, and so the next round your whole unit gets crushed. A system that I think could fix this would be that you retreat mid casualties. Though allow for how badly you are getting crushed to influence how well you can retreat. So for example(don't take the numbers to heart, they are just to portray the idea) you have 11 men but you take enough hits so that you go down to 5 men, but instead you retreat when you are down to 7 men. Now lets say you get enough hits so that you go down to 1 man left instead you retreat when you are down 5 men. Now the error in this is that the unit still dealt the full amount of hits, but ran mid fight. Well the unit that received the hits could get an adjusted version based off how of many units ran.

We have some posts in the background forum about this. Short answer: units were often so tightly compacted that you could throw an apple in the middle of the unit and the apple wouldn't hit the ground. When you're that close to men that you train with daily, you know when they're dead.

[MaleMaldives]

We have some posts in the background forum about this. Short answer: units were often so tightly compacted that you could throw an apple in the middle of the unit and the apple wouldn't hit the ground. When you're that close to men that you train with daily, you know when they're dead.

Even so why would you retreat when you are still fighting for your realm and are surrounded by people on your side? Similarly, why would you risk getting killed running away when you still have teamates on your side? And I would imagine it would be difficult to monitor the health of your your whole unit when there is the enemy right there trying to kill you. This mostly applies for big battles where a small unit retreats very early.

[De-Legro]

Even so why would you retreat when you are still fighting for your realm and are surrounded by people on your side? Similarly, why would you risk getting killed running away when you still have teamates on your side? And I would imagine it would be difficult to monitor the health of your your whole unit when there is the enemy right there trying to kill you. This mostly applies for big battles where a small unit retreats very early.

It was quite common throughout history, and even in modern warfare for units or parts of units to retreat while the battle continues. Why? Because in armies the men bond very closely with their immediate unit in many cases, and once you've seen a few of your friends dead on the ground it can be very hard not to panic and run. Once the rest of your unit sees you running, it decreases their morale and if others turn and run it can cascade. This cascade of morale failure can spread throughout the army, or might be localized, it will depend on a lot of factors like a leaders ability to rally those who's courage is failing them.

Fleeing a battle is rarely a logical reasons response. Take it from someone that has served in the military, battle is a highly emotional things and the response soldiers is often based on that emotion. A lot of modern training is based around preparing soldiers for this and basically short circuiting their responses to facilitate the desired outcome.

Now in terms of units leaving under orders due to low numbers of men left, it depends on how you view battles. In my mind they are similar to what we would associate with Greek or Roman tactics, with the army split into individual units that often have a good few meters distance between them. Once a unit gets down to a certain size, they are less effective in the melee, and yes it can get to the stage where their continued presence would hinder the other surrounding units. If we had a concept of reserve units this is were they would come in, replacing a unit that has become a burden to the others.

[MaleMaldives]

It was quite common throughout history, and even in modern warfare for units or parts of units to retreat while the battle continues. Why? Because in armies the men bond very closely with their immediate unit in many cases, and once you've seen a few of your friends dead on the ground it can be very hard not to panic and run. Once the rest of your unit sees you running, it decreases their morale and if others turn and run it can cascade. This cascade of morale failure can spread throughout the army, or might be localized, it will depend on a lot of factors like a leaders ability to rally those who's courage is failing them.

I would think you could also reason that if you see a friend or two get killed you might get really pissed off and want to get instant revenge with the enemy right there infront of you. And I agree that people fleeing would cause others to flee. Now I wonder if in the code that if some units retreated in a previous round then in the next round they are more likely to. But the cascading thing would support everyone to start to flee at once sorta. I could understand that random individuals would flee from a fight. I just find it weird that there could be four guys on the front line and be like crap our other 16 guys we travel with are dead/wounded, and even though we are surrounded by over 200 other men from our country fighting alongside us we should risk getting killed and run.

Now in terms of units leaving under orders due to low numbers of men left, it depends on how you view battles. In my mind they are similar to what we would associate with Greek or Roman tactics, with the army split into individual units that often have a good few meters distance between them. Once a unit gets down to a certain size, they are less effective in the melee, and yes it can get to the stage where their continued presence would hinder the other surrounding units. If we had a concept of reserve units this is were they would come in, replacing a unit that has become a burden to the others.

I agree again that any sort of fraction of the noble units would make it valid for noble units to flee. The BM battles appear that it is just a giant mosh pit with attackers and defenders merging their armies together. Now with the new unit matching system maybe they are trying to make it so units are split up, but trying to visualize that in a medival setting looks goofy.


Also I had second thought that should improve fluidity to the turn based fighting.

[De-Legro]

I would think you could also reason that if you see a friend or two get killed you might get really pissed off and want to get instant revenge with the enemy right there infront of you. And I agree that people fleeing would cause others to flee. Now I wonder if in the code that if some units retreated in a previous round then in the next round they are more likely to. But the cascading thing would support everyone to start to flee at once sorta. I could understand that random individuals would flee from a fight. I just find it weird that there could be four guys on the front line and be like crap our other 16 guys we travel with are dead/wounded, and even though we are surrounded by over 200 other men from our country fighting alongside us we should risk getting killed and run.

Fight or Flight reflex. If Timmy and Jimmy are killed, you may indeed be pushed to avenge them. When it is Timmy, Jimmy and 20 others of your 30 man unit, chances are things will start to seem hopeless and fear will take control. Hollywood heroics not withstanding, this is the norm though of course there will always be exceptions. The French Foreign Legion is an excellent example of a training regime an Esprit De Corps that has resulted in several notable last stands.

I agree again that any sort of fraction of the noble units would make it valid for noble units to flee. The BM battles appear that it is just a giant mosh pit with attackers and defenders merging their armies together. Now with the new unit matching system maybe they are trying to make it so units are split up, but trying to visualize that in a medival setting looks goofy.

That is just how close combat works. Lines meet, formations push against each other and oft time merge before reforming and rejoining the attack. Individual units may try to hold a coherent formation, depending on their training and equipment, like pikemen blocks, and unit may try to position itself relative to its neighbors, but all along the line break through etc will occur. Given the limitations of turn based combat and the visualisation provided you need to imagine a lot of this, but notice that you men always fight as a single group, sticking together within the crush of the fight, and when it comes time to advance again, they do so as complete unit.

Also I had second thought that should improve fluidity to the turn based fighting.

Few problems I see here, first is this

 "(1) Note that this is the value where your men will be ordered to retreat. They might still retreat on their own due to fear, panic, low morale and other factors. These factors are totally independent of the value you enter here. The only effect this value has is that if your unit suffers more than this amount of casualties, a retreat will be ordered."

So I would think in general unless you set very low causality levels, that in the example you gave there would be a good chance the unit will have retreated due to morale or something anyway.

The second issue has to do with the order of combat in the game. All hits are allocated before causalities. That means that if a unit decides that it is time to retreat after 1 more man dies, all the other hits against that unit are virtually wasted. A possible exploit of this would be to have a few large cheap units set to retreat at low casualties. Since large units tend to attract a greater percentage of the hits, for at least 1 turn you could render a good portion of your enemies hits ineffective as they are allocated against units that retreat.

[MaleMaldives]

That is just how close combat works. Lines meet, formations push against each other and oft time merge before reforming and rejoining the attack. Individual units may try to hold a coherent formation, depending on their training and equipment, like pikemen blocks, and unit may try to position itself relative to its neighbors, but all along the line break through etc will occur. Given the limitations of turn based combat and the visualisation provided you need to imagine a lot of this, but notice that you men always fight as a single group, sticking together within the crush of the fight, and when it comes time to advance again, they do so as complete unit.

Yes I completly agree, and do visualize it this way. When I imagine it this way with things such as lines breaking and such and people getting seperated and such. They go in together get mixed up a little in the fighting, and if reform to advance. In middle during the chaotic fighting I think it would be impossible for a some people to know when most of their unit has died, and while they would actually care as long as they are still fighting with people of the same country. Unless he notices that everyone in total on his side is dying. If after a skirmish and they keep marching a guy realizes he is the last one why can't he just tag along with his fellow country men. I am getting the impression from others that they visualize it where each noble unit does some fancy unique formation alongside other noble units doing the same. I see it more like nobles donate their men to a collective pool sorta where the men will try to stay togther, but they are marching in a line with all other noble's units.

"(1) Note that this is the value where your men will be ordered to retreat. They might still retreat on their own due to fear, panic, low morale and other factors. These factors are totally independent of the value you enter here. The only effect this value has is that if your unit suffers more than this amount of casualties, a retreat will be ordered."

So I would think in general unless you set very low causality levels, that in the example you gave there would be a good chance the unit will have retreated due to morale or something anyway.

Well it could still work because it would just trigger when ever retreat happens  where if you had 1 more man then where you would retreat with all those other factors. A bit more complicated I guess.

The second issue has to do with the order of combat in the game. All hits are allocated before causalities. That means that if a unit decides that it is time to retreat after 1 more man dies, all the other hits against that unit are virtually wasted. A possible exploit of this would be to have a few large cheap units set to retreat at low casualties. Since large units tend to attract a greater percentage of the hits, for at least 1 turn you could render a good portion of your enemies hits ineffective as they are allocated against units that retreat.

Hmm yeah that is a good issue.  I was thinking that would be like when they are the last people in the group. So to fix that I guess all hits that got removed would have to be moved to someone else which again would be more complicated.

The first thing I feel like I am arguing a losing battle, but don't mind. The second thing really annoys me though. Cuz there is also the factor that when you get way more hits your units get killed instead of wounded. It is so annoying to see because of the timing in the rounds and the rate I get causualties that my unit will then get blasted on at the end and have all dead and zero wounded troops.

[Anaris]

Also because of the round based combat, there can be situations where you have 50 men and would retreat if you have 10 or less men. At the end of a round though you have 11 men left, and so the next round your whole unit gets crushed. A system that I think could fix this would be that you retreat mid casualties.

So you're supposed to retreat after the eleventh man gets killed, but before that same sword swing can kill the guy next to him?

Or between when one arrow hits, and when the arrow next to it hits?

It doesn't work that way.  The battlefield has way too much chaos, too many things happening at once, to be able to carefully say, "OK, retreat now" between one casualty and the next with precision.

[MaleMaldives]

So you're supposed to retreat after the eleventh man gets killed, but before that same sword swing can kill the guy next to him?

Or between when one arrow hits, and when the arrow next to it hits?

It doesn't work that way.  The battlefield has way too much chaos, too many things happening at once, to be able to carefully say, "OK, retreat now" between one casualty and the next with precision.

Well yeah I am not implying that they know what the number count to retreat is. But I am guess in the coding of the game they take all the factors into account and comes with a somewhat number to know when to retreat based off of going below this point. I am just talking about how because of rounds you could be near this point and not retreat and thus get destroyed the next round.

[Foundation]

The point is that every "round" is a distinct way of separating combat.  Ideally we would have random intervals where each unit checks "should I retreat now?", but that is not practical as it would introduce too much chaos.  Thus, at the end of every "round" each unit would check whether they should retreat, and if they are below their retreat percentage then they will do so.  As many have mentioned before me, it would not make sense for them to be able to check instantaneously.

[MaleMaldives]

The point is that every "round" is a distinct way of separating combat.  Ideally we would have random intervals where each unit checks "should I retreat now?", but that is not practical as it would introduce too much chaos.  Thus, at the end of every "round" each unit would check whether they should retreat, and if they are below their retreat percentage then they will do so.  As many have mentioned before me, it would not make sense for them to be able to check instantaneously.

Which is why I am trying to propose an adjusted hit system at the end of a round based off of how much they got hit down past an area where they normally would have retreated. De-Legro posted a good reason why it would not work as a unit might waste hits. Which the way I could think to fix that is then those hits get passed on to another unit which I think would get messy.

[Foundation]

Which is why I am trying to propose an adjusted hit system at the end of a round based off of how much they got hit down past an area where they normally would have retreated. De-Legro posted a good reason why it would not work as a unit might waste hits. Which the way I could think to fix that is then those hits get passed on to another unit which I think would get messy.

I'm saying that such an adjusted hit system would not work as they don't know they've been hit past the retreat percentage until the end of the round.

[egamma]

You're trying to turn a messy, medieval combat scenario into a combat scenario featuring laser-guided bombs and precision strikes. The combat engine is trying to make things more realistic, not more efficient.