Flanking

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Elewyn
But please, think about your suggestions and wtight only the constructive ones.

Well, yes ofcause Elewyn just like we always do :angel:

Btw, welcome on the other side ( more than 1.000 posts ) ;)

[Angryminer]

I'm still of the opinion that you don't fight better because you come from a direction your enemy originally didn't intent to move to.
A horseman can't sneak up on a soldier so the argument of first strike is worthless here.
On the other hand a soldier who turns around breaks formation, and the formation is (in my opinion) a mayor factor when it comes to morale. A tight formation gives a morale boost, so a lost formation (one after another the soldiers turn around and break formation) should give the flanked squad a big penalty on morale.
On the other hand a veteran-squad of soldiers should be able to reorganize in seconds and thus suffer near-to-no morale penalty.

The real big advantage of flanking should be an advantage in position. When I'm able to position my soldiers on a hill and manage to charge the side of an enemy-formation my forces can fight down the hill (usually a big advantage) and (depending on the formation of the enemy) have to face less soldiers at a time, so they suffer less losses and maintain their morale.

Btw: In my opinion the squad's morale should be based on the single soldier's morale. That makes morale easier to implement and more realistic.

Angryminer

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Angryminer
I'm still of the opinion that you don't fight better because you come from a direction your enemy originally didn't intent to move to.
A horseman can't sneak up on a soldier so the argument of first strike is worthless here.

Angryminer

Remember the movie Braveheart - ofcause you do :) - then i'll bet you also remember what the Scottish cavalery did to the english archers - a "textbook" flanking IMHO

[Siena]

Originally posted by Angryminer
I'm still of the opinion that you don't fight better because you come from a direction your enemy originally didn't intent to move to.
A horseman can't sneak up on a soldier so the argument of first strike is worthless here.
On the other hand a soldier who turns around breaks formation, and the formation is (in my opinion) a mayor factor when it comes to morale. A tight formation gives a morale boost, so a lost formation (one after another the soldiers turn around and break formation) should give the flanked squad a big penalty on morale.
On the other hand a veteran-squad of soldiers should be able to reorganize in seconds and thus suffer near-to-no morale penalty.

Angryminer

well, there are many examples of flanking winning a battle - in history - so we can safely assume that it does in fact work.
I think it is not a matter of sneaking up to the single soldier - it is a matter of attacking group of people - people which are concentrating to fighting something in front of them - attacking them also from different side.
So the attacked squad gets effectively trapped between two fronts - they cannot effectively move to any side they want - and nobody wants to be surrounded in the plain view by enemy.
Of course - the morale of the surrounded squad is very important - as well as morale of surrounding squad. For some reason the most disciplined units were always chosen to perform flanking maneuver.

[Angryminer]

Remember the movie Braveheart - ofcause you do :) - then i'll bet you also remember what the Scottish cavalery did to the english archers - a "textbook" flankingwell, there are many examples of flanking winning a battle - in history - so we can safely assume that it does in fact work. Exactly what I said. Please note the following:

Flanking doesn't win battles because the flanked soldier loses his skills in (i.e.) swordmanship but because he is faced with an unintended situation which hits his morale and leads to a defeat of the flanked squad this way.
Please note that I don't say "Flanking is useless" but "Flanking doesn't improve fighting-skills, it hits the morale".
Of course a flanked squad should be inferior to the attacker, but not because the flanking squad fights better. The flanked squad simply becomes disordered, maybe runs away or can't face the enemy with all possible men simultaniously.

The whole intention of my posts is to argue against ideas like this:i think that if u flank then u will get like a couple of extra hits on the enemy befor they turn around and hit uPlease read my post above with this in mind, and I hope it will be clearer now. Sorry for the misunderstandings.

Angryminer

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Angryminer
Exactly what I said. Please note the following:

Flanking doesn't win battles because the flanked soldier loses his skills in (i.e.) swordmanship but because he is faced with an unintended situation which hits his morale and leads to a defeat of the flanked squad this way.
Please note that I don't say "Flanking is useless" but "Flanking doesn't improve fighting-skills, it hits the morale".
Of course a flanked squad should be inferior to the attacker, but not because the flanking squad fights better. The flanked squad simply becomes disordered, maybe runs away or can't face the enemy with all possible men simultaniously.

Angryminer

Well, i wasn't really my point ! - i sorta replied to your claim that:

Originally posted by Angryminer
I'm still of the opinion that you don't fight better because you come from a direction your enemy originally didn't intent to move to.
A horseman can't sneak up on a soldier so the argument of first strike is worthless here.


I'm quite sure that's it's possible for a cavalery to "sneak-up" on an enemy and then when they're close enough launch an attack against the enemy flank - that's why i used the Braveheart example, coz that's exactly what i think happend that fateful day ( for the English )

[greywulf]

sneak?... don't forget the day/night cycle.

[Angryminer]

I used the word "to sneak" in it's literal sense: Move silent, try to keep out of your victim's sight until you are in hand-to-hand-range and then stab him with a dagger. Like you would expect an assassin to do.

You seem to think of "to sneak" more in the military sense - to move a whole squad behind enemy lines and then attack them from behind.

I really can't think of sneaking horses. Especially not if their riders are armored with chainmail/the like. So it was quite realistic that the archers ran away in the movie instead of being assassinated by charging cavalry :cool: .
Hehe, step-by-step we seem to get rid of all misunderstandings... ;)

Angryminer

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Angryminer
I used the word "to sneak" in it's literal sense: Move silent, try to keep out of your victim's sight until you are in hand-to-hand-range and then stab him with a dagger. Like you would expect an assassin to do.

You seem to think of "to sneak" more in the military sense - to move a whole squad behind enemy lines and then attack them from behind.


ooohhhh well okay ! - you're right that's exactly what i meant :) - no wonder why we sorta managed to "sneak" past eachother without noticing oneanother :D


I really can't think of sneaking horses. Especially not if their riders are armored with chainmail/the like. So it was quite realistic that the archers ran away in the movie instead of being assassinated by charging cavalry :cool: .
Hehe, step-by-step we seem to get rid of all misunderstandings... ;)

Angryminer

Please do remember that men on horses are able to cover quite a distance in a relativly short time, compared to people on foot, meaning that they would go around the enemy in a large arch and then close the gap between them and the archers - we're talking maybe 300 meters - then they would make the final distance in full gallop and when the archers finally hear them it would be too late - i think that you forget to take into consideration that a battlefield in midieval times would most likely have been a very noisy place - ie. people tend to scream juuust a little, when someone tear their guts out ;)

[Haegemon]

You are talking about hidding from enemy, and this involve landscape interaction. :scratch:

[Bora]

Originally posted by Haegemon
You are talking about hidding from enemy, and this involve landscape interaction. :scratch:

yes, why not? speaks nothing against it :)

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Haegemon
You are talking about hidding from enemy, and this involve landscape interaction. :scratch:

I'm sorry to dissapoint you Haegemon, but i was just using this example to prove my point to Angryminer: that a midieval cavalery was indeed able to attack archers on their flank unless ofcaurse the army had made steps to prevent this - like forexample the battle at Argincourt in 1415. where there were a row of trees on both side of the battlefield which prevented such a possibility.

[Angryminer]

So you do agree with me that a flanking horseman doesn't get a bonus like "first strike" on the archer, because the archer will notice the horseman before he is in hand-to-hand-distance.
[ But never-the-less, the archers are totally lost because their won't be any reinforcements able to help them in such a short time. ]

A first-strike-bonus would require the horseman to stand 50cm behind the archer without being noticed by him. And I do believe that charging cavalry is much to noisy for that.

But I do agree with you that a flanked squad should suffer some malus to take the effect of surprising into account.
To explain this I want to come back to those Braveheart-cavalrymen. In that scene the archers ran away in terror when they saw themselves helpless against the cavalry. To include this in KoH's battle-engine I suggest that the morale of the flanked squad (here: those poor archers) should be lowered by a percentage-value depending on their experience-level.
[ Veteran-soldiers should notice the horsemen more quickly, turn around more quickly and re-arrange their formation more quickly. Or run if they are archers vs horsemen... ]

My talk about formation-influences-morale was just an additive:
Of course a soldier will be more likely to flee when he feels helpless on the battlefield. And this is surely encouraged by a loose formation. On the other hand soldiers who are standing shoulder-by-soldier should be able to stand a low morale longer.
Next point:
To fight an enemy-soldier a swordsman has to break his formation (you can't fight without moving at least a little bit, can you?).
If a squad is flanked, a part of them will already be in combat (if the flanked squad is attacked from both sides, then even more), and the others lose track of the enemies ("where? who?") for a moment. So the whole squad will be in disorder. And so they will be very likely to flee.
I suggest to take this into account by making the morale of a squad antiproportional to the quality of the formation.
(This means: Much disorder in a squad-> very likely to flee. Very high losses by arrow-fire -> some disorder -> likely to flee. Fighting -> a bit disorder -> not very likely to flee. )
[ Please note that I do not exclude other factors from the squad's morale. The quality of the formation should just be one of them. ]
This also strenghtens the arrow-formation of cavalry-men we saw on screenshots:
The arrow breaks the enemy-lines -> formation broken -> disorder -> very likely to flee.
I think this is very close to reality.

Please ask questions if anything is unclear.

Angryminer

[Haegemon]

Originally posted by Henrik
I'm sorry to dissapoint you Haegemon, but i was just using this example to prove my point to Angryminer: that a midieval cavalery was indeed able to attack archers on their flank unless ofcaurse the army had made steps to prevent this - like forexample the battle at Argincourt in 1415. where there were a row of trees on both side of the battlefield which prevented such a possibility.


You don't dissapoint me, I like it. But devs said something about no interaction with enviroment.

[dearmad]

Uh oh... no environment at all? I think there will be obstacles (like buildings and such) and trees should act as that- if trees don't count for anything (or water on the battle field map) that will be a really poor choice...:mad:

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Angryminer
So you do agree with me that a flanking horseman doesn't get a bonus like "first strike" on the archer, because the archer will notice the horseman before he is in hand-to-hand-distance.
[ But never-the-less, the archers are totally lost because their won't be any reinforcements able to help them in such a short time. ]

A first-strike-bonus would require the horseman to stand 50cm behind the archer without being noticed by him. And I do believe that charging cavalry is much to noisy for that.

But I do agree with you that a flanked squad should suffer some malus to take the effect of surprising into account.
To explain this I want to come back to those Braveheart-cavalrymen. In that scene the archers ran away in terror when they saw themselves helpless against the cavalry. To include this in KoH's battle-engine I suggest that the morale of the flanked squad (here: those poor archers) should be lowered by a percentage-value depending on their experience-level.
[ Veteran-soldiers should notice the horsemen more quickly, turn around more quickly and re-arrange their formation more quickly. Or run if they are archers vs horsemen... ]



Hi Angryminer - I defently agree with that veteran unit should be able to spot danger like a charging cavalery a lot sooner than inexperienced ( rookie ) units and therefore will be much less likely to flee the battlefield in panic and disorder - this will also "force" the player to want to take better care of the units. I also agree with you that veteran units should be more quickly to change their formation ie. veteran units would most likely be more diciplined.

I think it would be nice if the devs would comment on this discussion coz i think it's very interesting.

[Hagen]

honestly i did not read the whole thread, but refering to rado907 i have to admit, that flanking would cause two things to the defender:
- it lowers moral
- he has to split his troops, so its fightingpower is lowered

regarding the cavalry-topic:
cavalry (esp. heavy one) is always dangerous (remember what they said in "braveheart" about it?? ;) )

but there is one thing i was wondering since a very long time...
where the hell do all these millions of men came from?? can't rember to ever learned about that many people lived at that time. :angry:
and there is always more "fighting personel" than "normal" people.

enough for now :rolleyes:

[Hagen]

uhhhh... and i wanted to say, that i totally agree with dearmad and henrik!!! :D

[Haegemon]

Originally posted by dearmad
Uh oh... no environment at all? I think there will be obstacles (like buildings and such) and trees should act as that- if trees don't count for anything (or water on the battle field map) that will be a really poor choice...:mad:

I mean elevations, rocks, wet ground, etc. I supose that buildings, rivers, and trees will count.

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Haegemon
I mean elevations, rocks, wet ground, etc. I supose that buildings, rivers, and trees will count.

We do know that there will be hills in Koh and archers standing on these will get a range bonus when firing their arrows, but it would be nice if Koh also featured wetlands and swamps which would slow the charging cavalery down - maybe Koh will feature things which the devs haven't told us about yet ;) - otherwise they will probably have some new features for us if/when they make KoH2 - i don't mind waiting for that :rolleyes: