Crazy Rout AI

[Examinondas]

Just to add one more opinion: I wouldn't not like to see the routed-moving-through-friends feature removed.

However, I believe that a broken unit should not be able to move through an infinite number of friendly units. After passing through one or two friendly units, the remaining cohesion of the broken unit should be completely lost, and the broken unit should be removed from the battle.

As far as I understand rbodleyscott's comment above, this is also what happens in the TT.

[76mm]

i dont think a units quality rating should effect how they rout, panicking men are going to behave the same regardless if they were peasants or elites prior to routing.

I probably wasn't clear--the quality shouldn't effect how a unit routs, but whether the non-routed unit would allow a routing unit to penetrate it.

If units cant burst thru there own ranks it seems that a fight between 2 main battle lines will basically turn into a less dynamic match of ist line moves up, routes, disappears, bring up the next etc etc

Exactly. IMO, it is rather too dynamic now.

Look at scenarios that feature large undrilled and numerous heavy foot vs a smaller but better quality army ie Indistavio... The Romans really count on routing the german heavy foot in the front ranks and having them disorder the troops behind them in order to win. ie the chain routing disordering effect
I think this is a reasonable historical interpretation, ie a mass of ill disciplined , yet firece and eager troops will eventually disolve into disorder and panic if the front ranks give way.

Two comments:
1) I don't see the fact that that certain scenarios might have to be redesigned as that big of an issue; and
2) in most of these scenarios, you would still have a mass of troops without gaps, especially as other routing units plug what few gaps there would be. You would still get chain-reaction cohesion losses.

If lights , including cavalry can interpenetrate heavy battle group on purpose, why can fleeing men>?

For the same reason the enemy can't--the heavies don't want them to...

[TheGrayMouser]

hey 76mm

Just some comments
I guess it comes down to how much control players want over the "uncontrolable", from the persective of what a Commander could control or what even individual local unit could control
This of course includes anarchy charges, evading and now when they allow units to rout thru them

I do agree that often time units could and did close ranks to prevent their comrades from trampling thu them.... How effective were they in not disordering their own ranks to accomlish this? That is not something to easily be answered but panic and large scale human behavior is impossible to predict.

My comments on the canned scenareos was really just to illustrate that the deployment of forces tends to be a little differnt and likly more historical than how players deploy in the dag battles, specifically because you CAn deploy in very effective formations wo regards to how troops in real life would be deployed


Most armies would deploy very linearly, heavies in middle, mediums on flanks and cavalry on the wings. game wise this would likly be an army deployed 30 hexes wide and maybe only 1-2 hexes deep.... However in the dag battles more often players deploy small battle groups with medims and light in between with cavalry massed behind them in resevres ready to slide thru the gaps ... Such formations are really effective as such an army really has no flanks that can be exploited, even with an army that is deployed linearly, any flank attack is easily countered by one of the small battle groups simply rushing off. This more resembes 17th century armies or even Napoleonics imho than ancients
Uh where was i going with this.....?
Oh , i was leading into your comment about battle being too dynamic as they are now, I think you mean how units in a main battle line can slide around, gang up on other units etc march back and forth ? I think the above paragraph was to illustrate that this occures due to the deep formations, and ahistorical yet highly effective formations we can use in the dag battles as opposed to the canned ones.
Cheers!

[Toby42]

I think that it's pretty close the way it is. I've never fought in the kind of battles being represented here, but if I did I would run towards the closet friendly face!!!

[76mm]

I guess it comes down to how much control players want over the "uncontrollable", from the persective of what a Commander could control or what even individual local unit could control

I don't really see this as a "control" issue. I wouldn't want to control where or how routing units rout. I just don't understand how a steady unit can block, fight, and lose to enemy units and not lose cohesion, and yet every time when a bunch of routed troops hits you, you are guaranteed a cohesion loss. I think there should be some kind of check to see if the routing unit penetrates the steady unit or not. Also, I don't think that the cohesion loss is necessarily due to physical penetration--even if there are gaps, etc. between units within the BG which would allow routing units to pass, the moral effect alone might, or might not, be enough to disrupt the non-routing troops. While this morale effect would certainly be powerful, I don't see why it should be any more automatic than the combat results or any of the other billion things in this game which depend on luck.

[TheGrayMouser]

I guess it comes down to how much control players want over the "uncontrollable", from the persective of what a Commander could control or what even individual local unit could control

I don't really see this as a "control" issue. I wouldn't want to control where or how routing units rout. I just don't understand how a steady unit can block, fight, and lose to enemy units and not lose cohesion, and yet every time when a bunch of routed troops hits you, you are guaranteed a cohesion loss. I think there should be some kind of check to see if the routing unit penetrates the steady unit or not. Also, I don't think that the cohesion loss is necessarily due to physical penetration--even if there are gaps, etc. between units within the BG which would allow routing units to pass, the moral effect alone might, or might not, be enough to disrupt the non-routing troops. While this morale effect would certainly be powerful, I don't see why it should be any more automatic than the combat results or any of the other billion things in this game which depend on luck.

My bad on the control issue I think I was commenting on the ability of lights to interpenatrate friendlies due to gaps, and thus panicking men should be able to due so , but in a much more destabilizing manner...regardless of what that unit actually "wants" Didnt mean to imply you want as a player to say to a routing unit : "yes, come thru and disorder me or no get slaughtered like the cowards you are"

I suppose a random chance of bursting thru wouldnt be a bad thing, however wouldnt that compound the luck factor even further? ie ist you get the bad luck that the AI choses the path of the router thru your unit, , then the possible bad dice roll to see if you are disordered.... i roll bad enough already to have to roll even more!

[batesmotel]

I guess it comes down to how much control players want over the "uncontrollable", from the persective of what a Commander could control or what even individual local unit could control

I don't really see this as a "control" issue. I wouldn't want to control where or how routing units rout. I just don't understand how a steady unit can block, fight, and lose to enemy units and not lose cohesion, and yet every time when a bunch of routed troops hits you, you are guaranteed a cohesion loss. I think there should be some kind of check to see if the routing unit penetrates the steady unit or not. Also, I don't think that the cohesion loss is necessarily due to physical penetration--even if there are gaps, etc. between units within the BG which would allow routing units to pass, the moral effect alone might, or might not, be enough to disrupt the non-routing troops. While this morale effect would certainly be powerful, I don't see why it should be any more automatic than the combat results or any of the other billion things in this game which depend on luck.

The automatic lost of cohesion when routed through by a BG which cannot legally interpenetrate the BG is consistent with the TT rules and I think it should remain so. The problem on the PC is that the circumstances when this type of interpenetration by routers should occur seems to be determined in such an unintuitive manner that it seems to be mostly random. If the logic for determining rout paths can be made to function in a reasonably predictable and explainable manner, even if it does include some random element, I think that most of the objections would be answered.

On the TT, a BG routing from combat must rout directly away from all the BGs fighting it, averaging the angle if the opposing BGs are facing in different directions, e.g. if a BG is fighting two BGs which are facing at right angles to each other, it must rout away at the 45 degree angle bisecting the between the fronts of the two enemy BGs. The BG is then allowed a minor deviation to avoid friends it cannot interpenetrate that are in its path. This logic cannot be directly implemented using the hex grid in FoG PC but it seems like it should be possible to implement something similarly simple and understandable.

Chris

[76mm]

I suppose a random chance of bursting thru wouldnt be a bad thing, however wouldnt that compound the luck factor even further? ie ist you get the bad luck that the AI choses the path of the router thru your unit, , then the possible bad dice roll to see if you are disordered.... i roll bad enough already to have to roll even more!

I don't see it like that--I see it as a re-allocation of luck to make it more "realistic". In other words, right now, whether or not your non-routing unit is penetrated by a routing unit is totally determined by luck (ie, the rout path chosen by the computer). If the computer puts your unit in the routing unit's path, you're disrupted, full stop.

If you make the change I suggest, however, first, you could reduce the chance of routing units penetrating yours by leaving gaps between units and putting higher-quality units where they are more likely to encounter routing units. While you could take these measures to reduce the risk of being stampeded, it would come with a cost (e.g., a less dense line with better units to the rear). Decisions, decisions...

Morever, you could also have bad luck (computer routs unit to my steady BG) offset by good luck (my BG does not suffer a cohesion loss when the cowards hit them). I think it would make things more exciting and more interesting...

[TheGrayMouser]

These are some valid points. I do like to leave gaps in my lines to hopefully funnel routers, although I feel guilty about when doing it w phalanx armies as I know they couldnt and didnt do this historically

[deeter]

Then of course, there's Zama where Hannibal put his best troops in the third line with orders to level spears at the routing masses from the first two lines. As I recall, that's just what they did and the routers were compelled to go around.

Deeter

[TheGrayMouser]

Then of course, there's Zama where Hannibal put his best troops in the third line with orders to level spears at the routing masses from the first two lines. As I recall, that's just what they did and the routers were compelled to go around.

Deeter

That is true but the key is that hannibal deployed in 3 lines... How much yardage between lines? Since there is no real scale in the game ( I doudt the design is supposed to be that each hex is only 25 yards ,ie 5 hex range for archers where ancient archery had maybe 125 max efective range)
But you can extroploate that if a heavy unit is 1500 men then maybe 100-200 yards would be reasonable, if so I think each battle line would need to be 3-4 hexes apart to prevent routing units from busting thru their friends. Except in the canned scenarios, nobody deplys their troops that way in game but has then stacked up nice and tight

[deeter]

True, but in the game it doesn't matter how far apart the lines are. No one can deflect a routing unit, or even predict it's course for that matter.

Deeter

[Morbio]

I sure agree that no one can predict its course

[TheGrayMouser]

I sure agree that no one can predict its course

I cant believe an experienced player as yourself didnt see that coming (per your sceenshot) and deploy your forces accordingly