So I started doing the whole military side of things for the first time in a long while (gulp two years?) and I started to wonder how combat might be made much more interesting. It's been a problem for a while now that the main goal has been to try and bring the biggest units to the fore and just charge at eachother with infantry and calvary meeting at different places along the line and archers just shooting at anything that moves.
What if we fiddled with the code a bit so that if there is already a melee and units are coming up to join the fray they can gain a flanking bonus on a unit that is already engaged in combat? ie. Unit A and B are fighting in the very middle. Unit C is friends with B and was one line behind, if they pass the unit A is not too wide (already in the code as I recall) they gain a flanking bonus that is reported in the attack report. After unit A retreats or if unit C is engaged by another friend of unit A then it loses its flanking bonus against A.
This could I imagine really open up combat and make it more inherently unpredictable and as a result fun =). It'd also make archers more useful b/c commanders would be more inclined to keep units staggered and give them something to shoot at.
Wouldn't just make victories even more one-sided? Or, perhaps, give even more incentive to big-blob with infantry? Having a large infantry advantage, which already makes victory more likely, would gain you a lot of flanking bonuses, and cause a very lopsided victory.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the idea.
I like this idea but think it could do with a bit of tweaking...
Have Marshals designate what troops would flank which way or if you are defending setting up troops to defend certain flanks. This could be set up for marshals with more experience as well.
Quote from: Indirik on July 02, 2012, 05:08:52 PM
Wouldn't just make victories even more one-sided? Or, perhaps, give even more incentive to big-blob with infantry? Having a large infantry advantage, which already makes victory more likely, would gain you a lot of flanking bonuses, and cause a very lopsided victory.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the idea.
One sided in so far as the other did lots more damage than the other do to better tactics yes. I don't follow how it'd increase big blob infantry. Archers would be more useful as they'd do more damage throughout the battle, as would Calvary. Charge bonus with a flanking bonus would be truly fearsome.
ideally:
1. Cavalry assault left flank, bypassing infantry blob in center
2. Cavalry clear out archers in rear of formation
3. Cavalry turn and attack infantry from the rear, probably gaining an additional bonus for doing so.
Of course, the enemy might set their forces to attack on the right side, or the left.
Maybe make the flanks "smaller", so that you can only send units of under 40 men to the side? The large 100-man units will be forced to fight it out in the center.
Quote from: Forbes Family on July 02, 2012, 05:36:35 PM
I like this idea but think it could do with a bit of tweaking...
Have Marshals designate what troops would flank which way or if you are defending setting up troops to defend certain flanks. This could be set up for marshals with more experience as well.
You're trying to make BM's 1-D combat two dimensional, and that in all likelihood won't ever happen.
Quote from: egamma on July 02, 2012, 08:27:29 PM
ideally:
1. Cavalry assault left flank, bypassing infantry blob in center
2. Cavalry clear out archers in rear of formation
3. Cavalry turn and attack infantry from the rear, probably gaining an additional bonus for doing so.
Of course, the enemy might set their forces to attack on the right side, or the left.
Maybe make the flanks "smaller", so that you can only send units of under 40 men to the side? The large 100-man units will be forced to fight it out in the center.
Cav can already breakthrough the front lines and do just that. The code already mimics this. And again my idea isn't to make combat 2-D. It's a thought on how to simulate flanking in 1-D environment.
I'd like it if it were directional flanking based on what region you're coming from.
Let's say the defenders are being attacked by a region on their left, and a region on their right at the same time. The region on the right is closer, in terms of miles, so that attacking army is facing the defenders head on.
The region on the left arrives after the first turn, and gains a 25% bonus to defending units ALREADY ENGAGED with the other army.
The defenders scouted appropriately, and decided to have a reserve of infantry in the back, wall setting archers in the middle. These infantry engage the flankers, negating their bonus.
The defending archers are set to skirmish, allowing them to attack either army depending on eligibility; which unit is closest to them, in range, and not engaged in melee- to avoid friendly fire...
An idea at least, but probably an idea from he'll in coding perspective.
Why not just make things 2-D instead of trying to improve 1-D? Fighting on a 2-D plane will give so much more possibilities to different tactics.
Quote from: Zakilevo on July 02, 2012, 09:38:59 PM
Why not just make things 2-D instead of trying to improve 1-D? Fighting on a 2-D plane will give so much more possibilities to different tactics.
We've discussed it in the past. The combat upgrade a couple years ago that got units fighting other individual units was a compromise and a step in that direction.
One of the major problems (though far from the only one) was display. How do you display units on a 2D battlefield, in HTML, without it looking like crap or taking up 200% of the screen in at least one direction?
The other big problem with true 2D is avoiding the obvious exploits of ignoring everything but one of the three fronts. Pack all your troops into, say, the left flank and charge. What about sieges? We ran into a lot of questions and no really good answers.
...hit empty air? they charge off into the distance off the battlefield in search of the baggage train XD
would be funny if both sides go off screen.
Quote from: Indirik on July 02, 2012, 09:49:56 PM
The other big problem with true 2D is avoiding the obvious exploits of ignoring everything but one of the three fronts. Pack all your troops into, say, the left flank and charge. What about sieges? We ran into a lot of questions and no really good answers.
To be more accurate, the only good answer we could come up with was "much better AI", which is both hard to code and taxing on the server.
Quote from: Anaris on July 02, 2012, 09:54:51 PM
To be more accurate, the only good answer we could come up with was "much better AI", which is both hard to code and taxing on the server.
Oh well. Improving AI sounds too much to ask for. Then what about instead of adding flanking we add an ambush feature? Only allow it to be used as a defensive tactic - meaning you can only use it in your own regions.
Once players press the ambush button, their units will become invisible from scouts and region status pages. Also, depending on the region type, the chance of being discovered should change as well. On rural+badland regions, scouts can detect them 40-50% of the time - failed attempts leading to the loss of scouts - maybe not all the time but it can lead to scouts returning with the same information as the region status page. In mountain+forest regions, make the chance of detection much slimmer, something like between 10-25%.
Once ambushing units enter the battle, make the ambushing units hit 1.5-2 times harder and make enemies suffer from significant morale loss while giving them 10-20% withdrawal rate. Or instead of hitting harder, give the ambushing force higher chance to wound nobles?
But if they are detected before being ambushed, make them fight like a normal battle - without the ambushing group knowing they are detected.
To balance things out, maybe limiting how many units can hide at once wouldn't be too bad.
The way CK2 does it is fairly cool. An army is comprised of three flanks, and you can designate what troops go into what flank. The flanks fight separate battles, but when a flank wins, it joins the central fight with a major combat bonus. Could anything be taken from that?
Quote from: Slapsticks on July 02, 2012, 11:03:35 PM
The way CK2 does it is fairly cool. An army is comprised of three flanks, and you can designate what troops go into what flank. The flanks fight separate battles, but when a flank wins, it joins the central fight with a major combat bonus. Could anything be taken from that?
It could be a unit setting though what is complicated with this is formations with this, in my mind.
I've been thinking about having a semi-2D battlefield, with 3 fixed lines: center and left and right flanks.
The way to avoid the "everything in left flank" abuse is obvious: Players can pick a line, but whatever line has the most men in it automatically becomes the center. So if some army puts everything into the left flank, the left flank becomes the center, any stray units that were put into center or right flank would become right flank, and left flank would be automatically empty.
The real difficulty with this is not the setup, but the movement between the flanks. The closest I've come to a solution there is to only ever allow movement into the center, never out of it.
Quote from: Tom on July 03, 2012, 06:36:12 AM
I've been thinking about having a semi-2D battlefield, with 3 fixed lines: center and left and right flanks.
The way to avoid the "everything in left flank" abuse is obvious: Players can pick a line, but whatever line has the most men in it automatically becomes the center. So if some army puts everything into the left flank, the left flank becomes the center, any stray units that were put into center or right flank would become right flank, and left flank would be automatically empty.
That does seem quite straightforward.
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The real difficulty with this is not the setup, but the movement between the flanks. The closest I've come to a solution there is to only ever allow movement into the center, never out of it.
Agreed. My suggestion...
If you win on a flank, your troops move to the center with a flanking bonus, in whatever their formation was, after X rounds have passed. Once the center concludes, the battle is over and winners are declared based on that alone. Thus, if you lose on both flanks, but win on the center before the flanking troops "arrive" at the center, you still win. But, if the center holds on just long enough for both flanking forces to arrive, you may well be hosed by the now flanking troops hitting you.
I like this idea Tom.
I also agree with Bedwyr's suggestions.
However, if I may offer one addendum to perhaps even things up: If the center wins, the battle is over. However, the winning center gets one free round of hits on the two enemy flanks as a sort of "retreat" bonus for winning the center flank. This way there is still some strategy for trying to overload the center and push for a quick win there.
However, this retreat bonus shouldn't be too large, but it should be there so that there is also a benefit to "routing" the enemy army as a whole like there is now.
Why not make your enemy's suffer morale loss when you destroy their sides?
Quote from: Bedwyr on July 04, 2012, 03:22:26 AM
If you win on a flank, your troops move to the center with a flanking bonus, in whatever their formation was, after X rounds have passed. Once the center concludes, the battle is over and winners are declared based on that alone. Thus, if you lose on both flanks, but win on the center before the flanking troops "arrive" at the center, you still win. But, if the center holds on just long enough for both flanking forces to arrive, you may well be hosed by the now flanking troops hitting you.
+1
Goodbye blobs ;D
Wouldn't this be incentive to blob in the center, hoping to win there fast enough to end the battle fast enough to avoid the flanking? Toss just enough on the flanks to let the main force win the center?
It is an interesting idead. Not sure if it wouldn't give realms with a large number of nobles a huge advantage.
Quote from: Indirik on July 04, 2012, 05:37:06 AM
Wouldn't this be incentive to blob in the center, hoping to win there fast enough to end the battle fast enough to avoid the flanking? Toss just enough on the flanks to let the main force win the center?
It is an interesting idead. Not sure if it wouldn't give realms with a large number of nobles a huge advantage.
How much is enough? 2 nobles? 3 nobles?
What if the opponent splits evenly 30%, 40%, 30%, while you do 10%, 80%, 10%, but the enemy center with 40%, are all in box formation to hold you off and soak up damage. Meanwhile you hardly damage them when the 30%'s destroy your flanks in one blow due to a high cavalry make-up?
It does seem to give realms with a large number of nobles an advantage but they already have one. Whoever has more nobles already is more likely to win. I don't think the advantage is any more than now. In fact, I think this places more of a focus on smart strategy.
100% in the center will not win battles anymore.
well, aren't there crowding penalties? I like this idea, brings to mind massive cavalry flanks that could rout superior forces. Also, mixed infantry charging in from the flank might even prove useful!
I think if someone blobbed centre, and the other side had a well distributed force with cavalry flanks, a cavalry charge + flank bonus (facing no one means you win?) would absolutely decimate the centre line. blobbing solved.
How would archers behave in a flank scenario? Arrow charge?
Also, I think that winning the centre means you would steel yourselves against a flanking. Or perhaps the entire battle collapses back into 1-D?
I like this idea a lot, but I'm not sure I see how it would be "Bye bye blobs". You'd still be encouraged to put the largest force you can muster together into a single region.
Quote from: Velax on July 04, 2012, 06:18:43 AM
I like this idea a lot, but I'm not sure I see how it would be "Bye bye blobs". You'd still be encouraged to put the largest force you can muster together into a single region.
Yes, but the larger force isn't guaranteed a win, if the other side has a smart strategy.
Quote from: Velax on July 04, 2012, 06:18:43 AM
I like this idea a lot, but I'm not sure I see how it would be "Bye bye blobs". You'd still be encouraged to put the largest force you can muster together into a single region.
Not necessarily. I think some people may have overlooked one of the aspects of this...Battle ends when the center finishes, yes? So if you put a minimal holding force in the center, just enough for it to stay the center, and put large flanking forces...You could crush the flanks, lose the battle in the center, and keep the majority of your force intact after bloodying the enemy. Maybe you lose a bunch of crap troops who had high equipment damage, and your cav rakes their flanks. You'd want a small force to avoid losing a bunch of troops in your throwaway center field.
Quote from: BarticaBoat on July 04, 2012, 05:59:32 AM
How would archers behave in a flank scenario? Arrow charge?
I imagine they would just get a bonus to rate of fire (arrow storm, perhaps?), i.e. you get more hits. I had a half-formed idea that essentially your flanking bonus gives a morale/cohesion boost, which would disproportionately help demoralized and untrained troops, which would add another element to the strategy.
Quote from: Indirik on July 04, 2012, 05:37:06 AM
Wouldn't this be incentive to blob in the center, hoping to win there fast enough to end the battle fast enough to avoid the flanking? Toss just enough on the flanks to let the main force win the center?
That's one possibility, but it's a risk, as it would leave a large part of the enemy's forces intact if it works, and if it doesn't you get hit with a huge chunk of the enemy troops having a nice bonus.
Quote from: Bedwyr on July 04, 2012, 06:47:33 AM
Not necessarily. I think some people may have overlooked one of the aspects of this...Battle ends when the center finishes, yes? So if you put a minimal holding force in the center, just enough for it to stay the center, and put large flanking forces...You could crush the flanks, lose the battle in the center, and keep the majority of your force intact after bloodying the enemy. Maybe you lose a bunch of crap troops who had high equipment damage, and your cav rakes their flanks. You'd want a small force to avoid losing a bunch of troops in your throwaway center field.
There'll be a ton of tactics people would come up with, I'm sure, but stuff like this still seems more risky than simply putting all your troops in one big blob.
You put your cavalry, etc on the flanks and a weak holding force in the centre, as you said. But what happens if blob guy puts all his forces on that flank too? Your forces get crushed. What happens if you miscalculate and your centre loses faster than you think? You take rout damage (if that's implemented) and did nothing to hurt them. And I don't know how much your throwaway nobles will appreciate having been thrown away.
I guess this would at least give small forces a chance of victory over large ones, where currently they have none. But still seems safer to simply blob your troops.
um.. when they do the "join the centre" bit...
what position do they start from?! behind enemy? position where they chopped up the enemy in the other flanks? default start position?
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tom said chunkiest of the 3 lanes will be the centre
The problem, as I said, is movement. If the flanks can get around the frontlines, where to they charge? The infantry to break up the shieldwall? Or do they carry on to hit the archers in the background? It all depends on many, many factors.
Quote from: Velax on July 04, 2012, 07:12:02 AM
You put your cavalry, etc on the flanks and a weak holding force in the centre, as you said. But what happens if blob guy puts all his forces on that flank too? Your forces get crushed. What happens if you miscalculate and your centre loses faster than you think? You take rout damage (if that's implemented) and did nothing to hurt them. And I don't know how much your throwaway nobles will appreciate having been thrown away.
See Tom's earlier point about the field you put the most troops in becoming your new center for the first point. As for the second, sure, you could miscalculate, but you're going to have at least a third of your force in the center, and if you are doing something like this, you're going to pick troops with max armour in box formation to hold out as long as possible. Five bucks says my center holds out longer than whatever crap you put on the flanks, even with the extra waiting rounds, and then you're getting hit with most of my troops with a sizable bonus.
Yes, the numbers on the bonus and waiting rounds would have to be tweaked, but for anything with a real chance to finally introduce serious tactics, chance, and kill blobs at the same time, I imagine the coders would be delighted to do that tweaking if the system were implemented.
Quote from: Tom on July 04, 2012, 07:24:14 AM
The problem, as I said, is movement. If the flanks can get around the frontlines, where to they charge? The infantry to break up the shieldwall? Or do they carry on to hit the archers in the background? It all depends on many, many factors.
Why make it complicated? Have them show up in normal starting position with a "flanking bonus" to morale and cohesion or what have you that makes them significantly more effective fighters.
before considering what the bonus is, probably would be better to nail down the logistics.
When the 'join the center' time comes, why not have the troops on the left or right flank 'move' be to go from the flank to the center and arrive in the same column as they were before. Cavalry charges get two moves so they could move to the center and then charge into the next row.
Sure the cavalry might appear behind the enemy infantry but have them follow the same procedure they would in any other battle where cavalry breaks through the front lines.
Quote from: Bedwyr on July 04, 2012, 07:25:49 AM
Why make it complicated? Have them show up in normal starting position with a "flanking bonus" to morale and cohesion or what have you that makes them significantly more effective fighters.
Why? Because one of the main historical purposes of flanking units was to hit the enemy archers/artillery.
Quote from: Velax on July 04, 2012, 07:12:02 AM
You put your cavalry, etc on the flanks and a weak holding force in the centre, as you said. But what happens if blob guy puts all his forces on that flank too? Your forces get crushed. What happens if you miscalculate and your centre loses faster than you think? You take rout damage (if that's implemented) and did nothing to hurt them. And I don't know how much your throwaway nobles will appreciate having been thrown away.
Their largest force is automatically center so their main force being in your flanks isn't possible.
This is a good and productive discussion, but the realistic time frame for changes to combat will have to be after a big cleanup and conversion of the existing combat code.
Quote from: Penchant on July 04, 2012, 04:12:23 PM
Their largest force is automatically center so their main force being in your flanks isn't possible.
Both you and Bedwyr missed my point. If you're banking on your non-blobbing strategy to win by making sure the majority of your forces are on the flank, that will fail if the blobber also deploys most of his force on the flank. Whether or not that flank now becomes the centre, your smaller non-blobbed force will still get crushed by his larger blobbed.
Quote from: Foundation on July 04, 2012, 04:19:37 PM
This is a good and productive discussion, but the realistic time frame for changes to combat will have to be after a big cleanup and conversion of the existing combat code.
Or a total rewrite... Yeah, I know...
Quote from: Tom on July 04, 2012, 09:33:35 AM
Why? Because one of the main historical purposes of flanking units was to hit the enemy archers/artillery.
Flanking cavalry maybe, but there was an equally valid and deadly purpose in collapsing the flank of the enemy's battle line. Infantrymen get very skittish when they are attacked from the sides, or even worse, from behind. Units being flanked often broke and ran, setting off a chain reaction down the entire line. Then the cavalry rode them down while they fled.
When we usually talk about "blobbing" of forces, we normally mean putting your entire army in one region. While having multiple flanks in a battle will add to strategy inside a battle, and thus make individual battles more interesting, it won't solve what we usually refer to as "blobbing". It will actually reinforce that strategy, because you will need to make sure you have enough forces in the region to man all three mini-fronts against your enemy.
What would be really interesting is to find a way for the game to automatically assign forces to each mini-front (left/center/right) based on where they come from. If all the forces come from the same region, then they all fight on the same front. Not sure how that would work for defenders, though...
Defender's advantage is the ability to choose?
Quote from: Velax on July 04, 2012, 04:45:31 PM
Both you and Bedwyr missed my point. If you're banking on your non-blobbing strategy to win by making sure the majority of your forces are on the flank, that will fail if the blobber also deploys most of his force on the flank. Whether or not that flank now becomes the centre, your smaller non-blobbed force will still get crushed by his larger blobbed.
One of us is misunderstanding what Tom proposed. I, of course, think it's you, but I'm willing to admit that it may well be me. My understanding is this:
You put 90% of your troops on the left flank, and 10% in the center. I put 30% 40% and 30% on the left, center, and right. My 40% ends up fighting your 90% (newly designated into the center), and my left flank ends up fighting your 10%, while my right flank automatically starts moving toward the center. I'll take the odds that my 40% will stand up long enough for my right flank to show up with a bonus, and further that they'll keep you occupied long enough for my left flank to trounce your 10% and join the fray as well.
Quote from: Indirik on July 04, 2012, 05:36:37 PM
When we usually talk about "blobbing" of forces, we normally mean putting your entire army in one region. While having multiple flanks in a battle will add to strategy inside a battle, and thus make individual battles more interesting, it won't solve what we usually refer to as "blobbing". It will actually reinforce that strategy, because you will need to make sure you have enough forces in the region to man all three mini-fronts against your enemy.
I disagree. I even outlined a scenario where I thought a smaller army would work better than a larger army, where you bank on fighting hard on the flanks rather than the center and thus want to minimize the troops you lose in the center. You could "lose" every battle and still do disproportionate damage.
Quote from: Tom on July 04, 2012, 09:33:35 AM
Why? Because one of the main historical purposes of flanking units was to hit the enemy archers/artillery.
Alright, slightly modified version of my plan, flanking forces show up in formation after X rounds, but start on the enemy's side of the field.
Quote from: Bedwyr on July 04, 2012, 08:01:05 PMYou put 90% of your troops on the left flank, and 10% in the center. I put 30% 40% and 30% on the left, center, and right. My 40% ends up fighting your 90% (newly designated into the center), and my left flank ends up fighting your 10%, while my right flank automatically starts moving toward the center. I'll take the odds that my 40% will stand up long enough for my right flank to show up with a bonus, and further that they'll keep you occupied long enough for my left flank to trounce your 10% and join the fray as well.
Given Tom's idea of the largest force being your center, that's not possible. The smallest your center could be is 34%, and then only if both sides are 33% each.
Of course, any kind of tricky maneuver is a crap shoot, since you won't be able to tell how your enemy is going to line up. It is entirely possible that your enemy will also try something tricky, like putting 50% middle, 10% left, and 40% right, or something. The both of your left flanks get wiped, and both rights get a flanking bonus when they smash the middle. Or each front meets equivalent troops, etc.
QuoteI disagree. I even outlined a scenario where I thought a smaller army would work better than a larger army, where you bank on fighting hard on the flanks rather than the center and thus want to minimize the troops you lose in the center. You could "lose" every battle and still do disproportionate damage.
You're depending on a couple things:
1) That you will be able to control things down to the level of which noble lines up where, or that you will have extremely fine levels of control. I view this as ending up something like Marshal formations, where you would pick from a list of predefined formations like "Strong left", Cavalry Sweep Right" or something. At most, defining percentages of troop styles that take a particular flank.
2) Risky trick formation. You can't count on that.
Quote from: Indirik on July 04, 2012, 08:21:40 PM
Given Tom's idea of the largest force being your center, that's not possible. The smallest your center could be is 34%, and then only if both sides are 33% each.
Which is why I pointed out his 90% would end up being designated the new center, and the rest of the battle went from there.
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Of course, any kind of tricky maneuver is a crap shoot, since you won't be able to tell how your enemy is going to line up. It is entirely possible that your enemy will also try something tricky, like putting 50% middle, 10% left, and 40% right, or something. The both of your left flanks get wiped, and both rights get a flanking bonus when they smash the middle. Or each front meets equivalent troops, etc.
Sure. My point was that purely dumping everything (or almost everything) into the center would not remain the be all and end all of military strategy, and in five minutes I could design something that would beat it nine times out of ten with something even close to force parity.
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You're depending on a couple things:
1) That you will be able to control things down to the level of which noble lines up where, or that you will have extremely fine levels of control. I view this as ending up something like Marshal formations, where you would pick from a list of predefined formations like "Strong left", Cavalry Sweep Right" or something. At most, defining percentages of troop styles that take a particular flank.
I'm not depending on anything. I was pointing out that if this were implemented, "put everything in the center" was not going to work as a long term, only-do-this strategy. I'm fully aware that our level of control will be far less than this.
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2) Risky trick formation. You can't count on that.
It's not a "trick" formation. That's like saying Archers Opening is a trick formation. Both are formations that only work if you actually plan around them, but so long as you can do that, then they are both viable formations.
Your smaller force still depends on the larger army piling up in the center. If the enemy marshal is smart and distributes his army properly, he wins. Without some luck in lineups, the larger force wins. (assuming equivalent quality troops.)
Quote from: Indirik on July 04, 2012, 08:45:10 PM
Your smaller force still depends on the larger army piling up in the center. If the enemy marshal is smart and distributes his army properly, he wins. Without some luck in lineups, the larger force wins. (assuming equivalent quality troops.)
Emphasis on "if the enemy marshal is smart and distributes his army properly". That
should be true. If your opponent is as smart as you are, and positions his troops as well as you do, and has more of them than you do, he should win. If he is not smart, and does not distribute his army properly, then even if he has more troops than you he should have a chance of losing.
But if he goes "bah, I have large army, I no need tak-tiks" and puts everything in the center, then you should be able to eviscerate him with smarter distributions and smaller armies. And that goes for any distribution. If you only ever pick the most balanced option available, then someone else can and should take advantage of that.
True. A smart commander *should* be able to beat an incompetent one, given that the force advantage isn't too ridiculous. But I don't see this as avoiding what we normally refer to as big-blob tactics, where the entire enemy force sticks together in one region, moving en masse. Still, the inability to see how the other force is lining up, and not being able to react, will make lining up a bit of a crap shoot.
One thing that bugs me, though, is the difficulties of scaling this for smaller realms. I'm thinking battles of 10v10 nobles, or so, perhaps less. Should there be some limit below which the battle devolves into the current method? If there is no marshal present, how do the forces line up? Would this system provide us a way to utilize the general in some way?
more armies = more effective?
Quote from: Bedwyr on July 04, 2012, 08:31:54 PM
Sure. My point was that purely dumping everything (or almost everything) into the center would not remain the be all and end all of military strategy, and in five minutes I could design something that would beat it nine times out of ten with something even close to force parity.
Dumping all your forces in the centre isn't blobbing, though. Dumping all your forces in one region is. The blobber will always have the advantage in any particular battle. Sure, the smaller army might get lucky in the setting up of the flanks and pull off an upset, but the larger army will still have the advantage, which will encourage blobbing.
Right, Velax. That was the point I was trying to make. When this discussion started, blobbing was suddenly redefined to mean something diffferent that what it has meant for quite a while.
Ok well, I've been thinking about how a flanking bonus should affect combat strength because you'd think that better tactics from a smaller force should prevail in some way. So i went and parsed the last big battle between Westmoor and Sirion (5 turns 16k vs 22.5k). Some very interesting trends if you do that. *Note - I count a retreat as a full loss of effective CS, hence the trends)
Unsurprisingly the guy with the smaller cs and in this case loser, had exponential losses and the winner after the first round had linear losses that went down with each turn (between 22 and 8% for the winner and 20 to 77% for the loser not including the first round where it was 10% for both).
Incredibly curious to me was the relation between the ratio of CS between the two armies to their losses. For the winner the losses followed a fourth order polynomial (R square of 1, ridiculous I know) The loser followed a exponential decay (R square .9999) though I would love more data points out beyond twice the size to 8 times.
Anyways, I'm still pondering things, but grossly it looks like adding a L R C orientation has certain critical points where things become incredibly non-linear (somewhat unsurprising) I'm incredibly tempted to run some boot-strap simulations of various army dispositions. If I do I'll post the results, but right now it looks to me like the flanks don't change the combat qualitatively because it is so mechanistic. A flank can utterly crumble in a turn if it is outnumbered by roughly 2. It'll suffer 40% losses right around 1.5 Cs ratio and probably collapse the next turn.
In other words for otherwise even armies if you put your values at 50/50/>0 and the other guy is evenly distributed your center line will come in and do ~25% more damage to the center. Your flank will do ~30-35% and will ultimately come out around 70% original strength and will get the bonus to the middle. In fact your middle only needs to hold for at most 3 turns before the flank will join.
So if we do a envelope simulation, where the first flank hits at 50% bonus strength, it'll look something like this (Note I'm assuming that >0 means a single unit or two to tie up the flank for a turn and a side collapses at 60% damage from original, really this should be a full retreat at 90% of CS). Also note this assumes major combat occurs on the first turn in the melee when all units are engaged. In reality this should combined push all combat back by two turns compared to real BM battles. The overall analysis holds I just didn't feel like running it to completion, and if you really want you can try it out yourself. At 60% losses whoever is ahead will get a retreat either the next turn from the enemy or the one following depending on lines units are on, parse your battles and you'll see I'm right =).
Turn 0 : 50/50/>0 33/34/33
Turn 1 : 42/41/0 24/25/33
Turn 2: 37/18.3(~retreated)/0 11.5(~retreated)/49.3/0
Turn 3: 0/47/0 0/36/0
All eggs in one basket could be a definitely bad idea. You lose quickly or you can win spectacularly if your center manages to hold somehow. In all likelyhood the former middle's would've both retreated by the hypothetical turn 3's. This makes the values closer to 32 and 20.5.
A 20/60/20 vs 50/50/>0 works out using the above fun-ness to be roughly an even worse proposition. The flank collapses even more quickly (it takes upwards of 60% damage in the first turn of all out combat), it could in theory try to delay combat there for two turns with dug in troops and take out the middle by turn 2. However, this is extremely unlikely as staggered archers would keep the enemy in for at least another turn and their numerical superiority is small enough that it would take them at least 3 or 4 turns to really win by which point they'd get flanked as they won't reach the real acceleration until turn 3. The flank would come in even more strongly than before and it's effectively game over at that point.
In summary: Because of the exponential damage taken by a flank with significantly less troops if you can hold the middle long enough not to lose (something that would be rather trivial) the best bet is to just mass all your troops on one flank and use only delaying tactics on the other flank. Overall, this would actually make larger armies even more powerful against a smaller foe as the exponential growth in damage taken would only be amplified.
How can we arrange it so that a brilliant commander might be able to pull a victory from defeat?
Well they already can in exactly the same fashion that we already see weaker armies win. The other guy has his retreat settings set lower than you do which quickly rights an imbalance. Calvary can be used effectively against unprepared infantry formations.
Digging in may actually be incredibly useful again as when a flank falls is incredibly important. The sudden influx of troops to the middle plays absolute havoc on the other side. If you look at turn 2 you can see that the eventual loser actually was ahead at one point. If that kept up for another turn they would've done incredibly well.
Quote from: loren on July 05, 2012, 06:21:07 AM
Well they already can in exactly the same fashion that we already see weaker armies win. The other guy has his retreat settings set lower than you do which quickly rights an imbalance. Calvary can be used effectively against unprepared infantry formations.
Digging in may actually be incredibly useful again as when a flank falls is incredibly important. The sudden influx of troops to the middle plays absolute havoc on the other side. If you look at turn 2 you can see that the eventual loser actually was ahead at one point. If that kept up for another turn they would've done incredibly well.
Don't underestimate sentry+dig in. You can over come up to 3k CS ;)
Quote from: Indirik on July 05, 2012, 02:03:28 AM
Right, Velax. That was the point I was trying to make. When this discussion started, blobbing was suddenly redefined to mean something diffferent that what it has meant for quite a while.
Except that I already came up with one scenario where you would want a smaller army to take lesser losses in the center via a strategy of focusing on both flanks. I'm sure other people who are better at BM tactics than I am could come up with others. But, of course, no matter what we do to the combat system, more CS is better. There's nothing you could do to the combat system (that I can think of) that would change that, aside from your earlier suggestion about actual flanking by approaching from different regions, but I can't see how that would end up working in practice.
Concentrated combat power is one of the keystones of warfare. I don't see "blobbing" as an issue in the sense of "it works better if I have all my troops fight together" because
that's how fighting works. Unless something shapes the battlefield to reduce the fighting area and you have some other force multiplier (strong defensive position, etc), then there's no way to change that.
But, if you really want to give smaller forces a chance, why not have various terrain types reduce the maximum width of a battlefield? If you have fortifications, or are dug in, and the enemy can't actually flank you, then you have a nice force multiplier. Alternatively, you could have reducing the maximum width of the fighting field be one of the effects of digging in or those hypothetical engineer paraphernalia.
The solution to blobbing is not to be found in the combat code. The combat code correctly calculates that 10 men will always defeat 2 men, period.
To solve blobbing, we must find ways to threaten more than one region at once. Basically, it's a problem of strategy, not game mechanics. As soon as some general comes up with a way to spread out his forces into raiding parties without them being crushed by the blob one by one, blobbing will end.
The only game-mechanics I can think of that would help there is an automated orderly retreat, provided you have enough hours left in your time-pool. That way, people would not have to log in to flee, only keep enough hours spare.
Quote from: Zakilevo on July 05, 2012, 06:22:44 AM
Don't underestimate sentry+dig in. You can over come up to 3k CS ;)
Its important to understand what both of those do, and what they modify.
Sentries provides a bonus to CS. You could calculate what the precise bonus is if you were patient enough. I'm actually uncertain what it is. Digging in reduces hits taken, not hits given. This would only affect apparent CS for the calculation when determining how many losses they take, not how much damage they inflict. In effect sentries gives a flat multiplicative modifier of CS, digging in simply delays a retreat.
In the context of what we're talking about with changing the combat code, only the effects of digging in on lengthening combat sequences is new. I'm actually very curious about using to flanks setup with units in They Shall Not Pass and piling everything else into the middle. This could in theory drag combat out to five turns (3 turns in my analysis' parlance) on the flank and the middle would just absolutely crush the other side. It would probably eat up 20% of total CS, and might be the only way a smaller army can defeat a larger one. Obviously however, the commander of a larger army could just send 70 15 15 and the smaller guy still wouldn't be able to beat him at 50/50/0 or even with 10/80/10. In other words the more disciplined army with greater leadership skill in game would win.
Quote from: Tom on July 05, 2012, 08:34:38 AM
The only game-mechanics I can think of that would help there is an automated orderly retreat, provided you have enough hours left in your time-pool. That way, people would not have to log in to flee, only keep enough hours spare.
Something along those lines could/would be spot in so many situations and no mistake, for both defenders and attackers/raiders alike.
NB I'll actually be posting a piece in my General Tactics thread that deals with retreat/feigned flight when I get to it.
Quote from: Tom on July 05, 2012, 08:34:38 AM
The solution to blobbing is not to be found in the combat code. The combat code correctly calculates that 10 men will always defeat 2 men, period.
To solve blobbing, we must find ways to threaten more than one region at once. Basically, it's a problem of strategy, not game mechanics. As soon as some general comes up with a way to spread out his forces into raiding parties without them being crushed by the blob one by one, blobbing will end.
The only game-mechanics I can think of that would help there is an automated orderly retreat, provided you have enough hours left in your time-pool. That way, people would not have to log in to flee, only keep enough hours spare.
Interesting idea. I like it, on the following condition: That cavalry can and will catch non-cavalry units and force a battle instead of letting them get away; that and that cavalry will almost always escape non-cavalry (assuming there's a chance that retreats can fail). This was a primary benefit to having lighter cavalry forces available in the first place: They could be used to hunt raiders/stragglers/retreating armies and also be used very effectively as raiding forces themselves.
Yeah, and that is where it gets tricky. You'd have to calculate region types in (cavalry isn't all that good in dense forests or mountains) as well as some region border properties we don't even have in the database yet (bridges, mostly).
Quote from: Tom on July 06, 2012, 07:15:28 PM
Yeah, and that is where it gets tricky. You'd have to calculate region types in (cavalry isn't all that good in dense forests or mountains) as well as some region border properties we don't even have in the database yet (bridges, mostly).
But ohhhhh, how I would love to have those....
Quote from: Tom on July 06, 2012, 07:15:28 PM
Yeah, and that is where it gets tricky. You'd have to calculate region types in (cavalry isn't all that good in dense forests or mountains) as well as some region border properties we don't even have in the database yet (bridges, mostly).
Excellent point, and I very much like where it is going. You could do some really cool stuff with this.
Implementing terrain bonuses/penalties to combat is also an interesting and related idea, one I will spin off into its own thread.
Quote from: Geronus on July 06, 2012, 07:52:00 PM
Excellent point, and I very much like where it is going. You could do some really cool stuff with this.
Implementing terrain bonuses/penalties to combat is also an interesting and related idea, one I will spin off into its own thread.
Pretty sure this idea came up multiple times but was rejected due to not having enough impact.
As always, I think we should do the simplest stuff coding wise first, then add in the details. Makes it easier on the devs. I don't know coding, so someone who does, could you tell me what would be simplest to code in out of the ideas mentioned by tom?
Quote from: Geronus on July 06, 2012, 07:52:00 PM
Implementing terrain bonuses/penalties to combat is also an interesting and related idea, one I will spin off into its own thread.
I actually didn't mean that. What I meant is that the running away / retreat part would depend on terrain types. On a plain, the cavalry can catch you if you have an hour or two of headstart. In the mountains? Not so much.
Quote from: Tom on July 06, 2012, 09:48:01 PM
I actually didn't mean that. What I meant is that the running away / retreat part would depend on terrain types. On a plain, the cavalry can catch you if you have an hour or two of headstart. In the mountains? Not so much.
Yes, I know, but it was a natural progression. That's partly why I said I'd spin it off. I like your idea just the way it is though, don't get me wrong. Terrain bonuses/penalties would be a different feature.