Title: Set Battle-Width by Region Type
Summary: Limit number of soldiers per side in the front line (by region type)
Details: Code would need to be added to prevent more troops from entering a line once it was occupied by X-(number of men in your unit). Rules for who got to enter in cramped situations might need to be developed, but could presumably work the same way assaulting fortifications does when determining who enters the siege engines in what order.
Benefits: Create greater tactical and strategic complexity in the game by providing real and significant differences to how battles have to be fought in different region types.
Possible Exploits: The same exploits that come with any additional complexity. I imagine there are going to be any number of ways for clever saboteurs to spike battles with inappropriate troop mixes, for instance, but I think they will be self-limiting, as their troops will get quickly slaughtered and the battlefield would have the same width the whole way. This will also increase the importance of niche recruitment centers, and thus increase the effectiveness of that kind of sabotage.
Exploits of the new battle code will be harder, as drawing a line between innovative tactics and gaming the system may prove difficult, but I think a suitable period of tweaking will mostly ameliorate this.
Have you considered what this could do to initial troop deployments?
Quote from: Tom on March 06, 2013, 02:12:21 PM
Have you considered what this could do to initial troop deployments?
Units that can't find room would need to be pushed back a row I imagine?
The first line would need to be resolved first. You start with all units with the front settings and assigne them randomly to the first line until it's full, then the 2nd line, etc. until you've deployed all the units. Then the do the same with the units with middle setting starting with the 2nd line, etc.
Marshals would need to be careful. Have too much infantry in front in a narrow pass and your archers will end up so far behind that they won't even be able to shoot past the frontline.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 06, 2013, 02:24:16 PM
Units that can't find room would need to be pushed back a row I imagine?
The first line would need to be resolved first. You start with all units with the front settings and assigne them randomly to the first line until it's full, then the 2nd line, etc. until you've deployed all the units. Then the do the same with the units with middle setting starting with the 2nd line, etc.
Marshals would need to be careful. Have too much infantry in front in a narrow pass and your archers will end up so far behind that they won't even be able to shoot past the frontline.
What happens when the troops don't fit anywhere? The recent battles on At have sides with 3k troops each, so what would happen if that battle took place in a mountain with this applied?
The extras would fall off the edge of the world, into oblivion?
Quote from: Penchant on March 06, 2013, 06:48:22 PM
What happens when the troops don't fit anywhere? The recent battles on At have sides with 3k troops each, so what would happen if that battle took place in a mountain with this applied?
How many lines deep is a battle-field? Is there any reason not to make it 65536 lines deep and avoid the problem?
Quote from: vonGenf on March 06, 2013, 07:16:24 PM
How many lines deep is a battle-field? Is there any reason not to make it 65536 lines deep and avoid the problem?
I believe it's 11 lines deep (5 on each side with a single center line).
And yes, widening it arbitrarily would require some significant changing of the combat code, I believe.
However, in this case, the answer is pretty simple: You just stick all the leftover units into the farthest back row of their side (1 row behind Rearguard), and they can only advance into the next row as space becomes free. Not even the best SF or Daimons can shoot more than 5 rows, so unless the opponents are pushing into your lines, none of the units in that line will be able to engage in any way.
Quote from: Anaris on March 06, 2013, 07:21:53 PM
However, in this case, the answer is pretty simple: You just stick all the leftover units into the farthest back row of their side (1 row behind Rearguard), and they can only advance into the next row as space becomes free. Not even the best SF or Daimons can shoot more than 5 rows, so unless the opponents are pushing into your lines, none of the units in that line will be able to engage in any way.
Oh yeah, that works too!
Quote from: vonGenf on March 06, 2013, 02:24:16 PM
Units that can't find room would need to be pushed back a row I imagine?
The first line would need to be resolved first. You start with all units with the front settings and assign them randomly to the first line until it's full,
Instead of randomly, I would assign the largest unit, then the next, until it's almost full--and when the next group won't fit, keep trying until you find a group that fits. That way you fill the line as full as you can, the way you would if you were really trying to stop the enemy from entering the pass. Reinforcements would probably consist of one or two units at a time, again trying to optimize the space.
The attacking enemy would do the same thing--as many men as possible would move forward each time.
Example (defender only), with line width of 100:
L1: 45, 35, 15 (total of 95)
L2: 30, 25, 21 (total of 76)
If the first line took >24 casualties, then the 30 man unit moves up. If <16 casualties, then nobody moves up. You can figure out the values for the other two units, it'll be between 24 and 16.
I LOVE this idea.
Now you are starting to see where the trouble and complexity of the battle system are...
Now what about a 100-max-width battle where one 90 infantry and one 50 cavalry unit are set to deploy in row 1, and one 20 archers and one 60 infantry unit are deployed in row 2? How do you set this up AND WHY?
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 08:49:44 AM
Now what about a 100-max-width battle where one 90 infantry and one 50 cavalry unit are set to deploy in row 1, and one 20 archers and one 60 infantry unit are deployed in row 2? How do you set this up?
From egamma's idea:
Step 1: You can't put both front-row units on the first row. You pick the biggest: the 90-men infantry. The cavalry is pushed back.
Step 2: The cavalry has priority as it was to front. There's no room left for the 60-men infantry, it gets pushed back. The archers sit on the second line.
The line of battle is:
1: 90-I
2: 50-C 20-A
3: 60-I
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 08:49:44 AM
AND WHY?
Because no matter how much you want to tell your units to get in front, the front is not wide enough, so all they can do is make sure that they are in front of the people who got told to be in the middle.
The player of the cavalry will complain that his unit had more CS and wanted to charge and should've been in front, not the stupid peasants.
One hour later, there will be a feature request to make deploy order a configurable feature, or let the marshal decide, or whatever.
Wanna bet? :-)
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 04:49:26 PM
The player of the cavalry will complain that his unit had more CS and wanted to charge and should've been in front, not the stupid peasants.
One hour later, there will be a feature request to make deploy order a configurable feature, or let the marshal decide, or whatever.
Wanna bet? :-)
And if we refused to make any changes that were likely to cause some minority of the playerbase to whine, we'd never get anything done.
I
really don't think that's reason enough to spike this, Tom.
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 04:49:26 PM
The player of the cavalry will complain that his unit had more CS and wanted to charge and should've been in front, not the stupid peasants.
One hour later, there will be a feature request to make deploy order a configurable feature, or let the marshal decide, or whatever.
Wanna bet? :-)
Oh, no, you'd win! I already have a canned response for you:
Rejected. The infantry should have been set to the middle line.
This will require new formations. Terrain-dependent formations. The Marshals can decide who goes up front.
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 04:49:26 PM
The player of the cavalry will complain that his unit had more CS and wanted to charge and should've been in front, not the stupid peasants.
One hour later, there will be a feature request to make deploy order a configurable feature, or let the marshal decide, or whatever.
Wanna bet? :-)
Quote from: Indirik on March 07, 2013, 04:59:15 PM
This will require new formations. Terrain-dependent formations. The Marshals can decide who goes up front.
9 minutes, 49 seconds. ::)
A review and revamp of the marshal formations should be included as part of this feature request. This is a very significant change. Even if the code turns out to be easy to do for it, that doesn't mean we don't have to evaluate and deal with the impact on other systems.
Quote from: Indirik on March 07, 2013, 05:12:20 PM
A review and revamp of the marshal formations should be included as part of this feature request. This is a very significant change. Even if the code turns out to be easy to do for it, that doesn't mean we don't have to evaluate and deal with the impact on other systems.
New formations can conceivably be added. I don't think unit-by-unit control is required at all.
Yes, a large army going through a mountain region could end up in some very unexpected formation that completely ruins their chances. That's kind of the point, really. I
want this to happen.
Fighting in rurals would remain as it is.
Quote from: Indirik on March 07, 2013, 05:12:20 PM
A review and revamp of the marshal formations should be included as part of this feature request. This is a very significant change. Even if the code turns out to be easy to do for it, that doesn't mean we don't have to evaluate and deal with the impact on other systems.
We need new Marshal formations anyway. Half the existing ones (most notably, IIRC, You Shall Not Pass) were obsoleted with the changes to the combat system a year or two ago.
Quote from: Indirik on March 07, 2013, 05:12:20 PM
A review and revamp of the marshal formations should be included as part of this feature request. This is a very significant change. Even if the code turns out to be easy to do for it, that doesn't mean we don't have to evaluate and deal with the impact on other systems.
Scout reports need to change as well to inform the size of the rows on the regions. Taking into consideration mountain size, or wall size on a city.
I think egamma's solution for who gets to be in what line will work nicely coupled with Tim's "stick everyone else in the last line". New Marshal formation are desperately needed in any case, so I don't see that as a particular problem. And if every region type has a fixed battle-width, I don't think scout reports will need to be changed at all.
I didn't intend to spike this. But the more you think about the consequences, the more you realize just how much this changes. Next is archery and formation (unit, not marshal). A skirmish formation takes a lot more space than a box formation, and a line formation would take up more width then a wedge formation. Do we want to take that into account as well? If not, why not, because it appears to be the most obvious thing that players can influence in order to affect deployment width.
I'm not saying that we need per-unit control at the marshal level. But marshal formations control where units line up based on unit type. When the marshal formation says cav in front, then cav goes in front no matter what, even if it leaves holes.
The unit formations is a good point. That can be handled with a modifier for formation. Call wedge the base at 1x, line at 1.25x, skirmish at 1.5x, and box at .8x. (Just for agument's sake, adjust as needed.)
Simplest solution (relatively) is to just let Marshals be able to choose formations that place units in lines based upon unit type.
Don't give marshals control of formation, continue to keep that with troop leaders. Formation should also most definitely affect number of units in battle wide. Skirmish though should be like x2. Skirmish really was supposed to be a spread out formation, so you wouldn't get destroyed by arrows. This is especially important if this change is made because well placed archers will decimate in long drawn-out battles.
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2013, 06:50:20 PM
I didn't intend to spike this. But the more you think about the consequences, the more you realize just how much this changes. Next is archery and formation (unit, not marshal). A skirmish formation takes a lot more space than a box formation, and a line formation would take up more width then a wedge formation. Do we want to take that into account as well? If not, why not, because it appears to be the most obvious thing that players can influence in order to affect deployment width.
Tom, I agree that it would make sense for that to matter. And I would love for it to do so. But I think the important thing is to have something basic done now, then work on expanding it later to make it more awesome. I have seen way, way,
way too many features never get done because of all the additions people thought of.
As for the number of things I've thought of, I assure you I could fill pages with the elaborations I would love to see. But I'm trying really, really hard to keep this simple.
Quote from: Bedwyr on March 07, 2013, 11:43:54 PM
Tom, I agree that it would make sense for that to matter. And I would love for it to do so. But I think the important thing is to have something basic done now, then work on expanding it later to make it more awesome. I have seen way, way, way too many features never get done because of all the additions people thought of.
As for the number of things I've thought of, I assure you I could fill pages with the elaborations I would love to see. But I'm trying really, really hard to keep this simple.
Unit formation should just be something it checks and multiplies accordingly so its just a few more lines of code I believe. Personally, unless some other things are done with this to fix the situation, I kinda hate it as the only way to organize your army properly for a battle is through a ton of micromanaging.
Not only would you need to send TL's each their own line settings but also it requires knowing the exact count of troops, not an estimation though marshal might get that. Basically it !@#$s up so much in a way that is not tactics, just !@#$ing stuff up if you don't carefully micromanage all of your initial troops into their proper position and just have the rest getting put to the rear. While formations actually shouldn't be screwed up too much when only one army as the set up should stay the same pretty much, ie an archer opening still has archers in front, but if its not a formation you will have a lot of situations getting screwed up when they shouldn't be unless their is a lot of micromanagement, IMO. I am not trying to be rude or discourage the feature, it just seems like it needs some changes to add fun most the time.
Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 07, 2013, 10:51:26 PM
Don't give marshals control of formation, continue to keep that with troop leaders.
Uh... some advanced marshal orders already change formations of units. So there's no "continue" here.
Quote from: Tom on March 08, 2013, 12:16:49 AM
Uh... some advanced marshal orders already change formations of units. So there's no "continue" here.
I know. But what I mean, is don't just give full control to marshals with complete freedom. They shouldn't be able to just choose where each unit goes and what it does. The game becomes a 10 person game at that point.
Sure, let high leadership matter to give more options, but any old marshal shouldn't be able to control an entire battle.
The current marshal formations already move everyone around. So you mean to say give no more fine-grained control than there already exists?
That would be my choice.
But some new formations and/or updates would be nice. An update of "mixed lines" would probably be good.
Quote from: Penchant on March 07, 2013, 11:58:46 PM
Unit formation should just be something it checks and multiplies accordingly so its just a few more lines of code I believe. Personally, unless some other things are done with this to fix the situation, I kinda hate it as the only way to organize your army properly for a battle is through a ton of micromanaging.
Not only would you need to send TL's each their own line settings but also it requires knowing the exact count of troops, not an estimation though marshal might get that. Basically it !@#$s up so much in a way that is not tactics, just !@#$ing stuff up if you don't carefully micromanage all of your initial troops into their proper position and just have the rest getting put to the rear. While formations actually shouldn't be screwed up too much when only one army as the set up should stay the same pretty much, ie an archer opening still has archers in front, but if its not a formation you will have a lot of situations getting screwed up when they shouldn't be unless their is a lot of micromanagement, IMO. I am not trying to be rude or discourage the feature, it just seems like it needs some changes to add fun most the time.
As I see it, the micromanagement should be handled before battles begin. If you bring a huge hoard into the mountains, you have already failed. Most of your men will be useless and your formations will be messed up. If I bring a small, high quality army into the mountains, then formations will become predictable and all troops will be properly utilized. The main idea would be to plan ahead. Way ahead. You take your realms singly blob army and split off a Mountaineers Army (tiny, high quality), a Roughlands Unit (small, mid quality) Main Army (lots and lots of soldiers). Use each army as appropriate of have them attack together if needed.
It seems that "elite" unit types will be buffed even more than they were already, since you'd be able to compact more force into a smaller area. Presumably there should be some buff to "conscript" unit types in rurals? Or some circumstances under which filling out lines is more beneficial? Because otherwise there'd be even less reason not to just exclusively higher 60+/60+ unit types, which is what most people do now anyways.
I think a proper ordering of changes is in order.
First, I think we can put in the "unit distance" change, where wedge uses the least space and skirmish the most. Can't the existing combat code perhaps benefit from that?
Then, we can put in the line width limitations per region, both with my "fill" method and the last line being unlimited.
After those go in, we can review the complaints constructive feedback received and create/adjust formations accordingly.
Quote from: Unwin on March 08, 2013, 05:58:48 AM
As I see it, the micromanagement should be handled before battles begin. If you bring a huge hoard into the mountains, you have already failed. Most of your men will be useless and your formations will be messed up. If I bring a small, high quality army into the mountains, then formations will become predictable and all troops will be properly utilized. The main idea would be to plan ahead. Way ahead. You take your realms singly blob army and split off a Mountaineers Army (tiny, high quality), a Roughlands Unit (small, mid quality) Main Army (lots and lots of soldiers). Use each army as appropriate of have them attack together if needed.
This was what I envisioned, yes. You can bring a massive army into a mountain battle, but it won't help.
Quote from: Norrel on March 08, 2013, 01:51:50 PM
It seems that "elite" unit types will be buffed even more than they were already, since you'd be able to compact more force into a smaller area. Presumably there should be some buff to "conscript" unit types in rurals? Or some circumstances under which filling out lines is more beneficial? Because otherwise there'd be even less reason not to just exclusively higher 60+/60+ unit types, which is what most people do now anyways.
Please see my related thread on overcrowding. The idea is that if you take your elite troops into an open field, the rabble who vastly outnumber them for the same recruitment cost will be able to cut them down easily.
Yes. Don't forget our soldiers are humans not daimons. They can easily be outnumbered. There is a reason why a well trained army sometimes lost to an angry horde of peasants.
Quote from: Bedwyr on March 08, 2013, 09:19:00 PM
This was what I envisioned, yes. You can bring a massive army into a mountain battle, but it won't help.
This is a bit of an exaggeration. The massive part will help if the battle turns into one of attrition. If the elite army is, say, 900 soldiers, and can kill the enemy at a 4-1 advantage, then the enemy can overwhelm and destroy them by bringing 3,600 soldiers. :) So yes, it does help to bring the massive army, so long as it is massive enough.
But if you assume a more reasonable 2-1 kill ratio, then just doubling the enemy's army size will still allow you to win, if you can kill them fast enough. On a battle-line 300 wide, assume 1/3rd dead (100 men) per turn gives you a 9-round battle. To stretch it out to a 20-turn draw, you'd have to average losing less than 45 men a turn. That includes deaths from archers, too. Seems a bit extreme.
I wonder how that would work out, cost-wise... How *much* better troops do you have to have to get a 2-1 kill ratio? If I recruit 50-50-50, can your 80-80-80 troops do it? How about 90-90-90? Or if I drop to 40-40-40? What's the cost differential? Don't forget to include repairs, training, and weekly pay, too.
Has anyone looked at any of the big battles lately, to see just how many troops we really get into a single line? It would be useless to restrict a battle-line to 600 troops wide if all but the hugest battles never really get up that high.
Until you take into consideration that the poorly trained unit you recruited isn't some angry peasant mob, but a bunch of scared farm boys who will piss themselves the first time they hear/see heavy cavalry charging them in formation. Many, many battles have been won by much smaller groups of elite soldiers breaking poorly trained ones long before the fighting begins.
Here is something you might find interesting, Rob.
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Lapallanch_Family/Zakilevo/Epic_Battle_of_Oberndorf (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Lapallanch_Family/Zakilevo/Epic_Battle_of_Oberndorf)
I haven't finished working on it but just from the first turn, you can see that attackers had a huge line.
They actually had over 3100 men in the front line...
Another benefit of this now that I think of it is that it gives archers the advantage they should have on mountains. (An archer heavy army could hold of a very large army.) Though that makes me think of an issue also, what if archers fill up an entire line and don't need to move forward? That would block reinforcements even if there is plenty of space ahead of them.
That's one of the reasons that marshal formations need to be changed and updated.