Rear unit suggestion

[Skanvak]

In a battle I had my front unit behind a fortification holding it. It never had moral test but eventually get slaugther toward rout level.

What bother me is that there was unit bhind them that where fresh. They should have serve as reserve for the fortification line.But in the current system, the front unit will just be slaugther to rout level without losing moral level before (thanks to rear support and the fortifictation, may add a leader). But the rear unit will likely lose a moral level for the routing and another for being passed through by a routing unit.

In such case, I think that the rear unit should serve as reserve and replace the loss of the front unit if, this unit has not routed after the combat. Ie the reinforcing should be after all consequences of combat has been resolved. That will make holding narrow pass and fortification easier which is realist from my point of view.

The other solution, would be to allow swap of unit even in front line.

What do you think of this issue?

[deadtorius]

Unfortunately separate units can't work together unless they are fighting the same enemy then its still 2 separate combats. You could leave a rout lane between rear units, and the rear unit might not lose a cohesion level for seeing friends rout, depends on the die roll. All units are independent and you can't reinforce from different units, each one stands and dies on its own. I think this accurately reflects ancient warfare as the members of a specific unit would see that as their home and not necessarily want to reinforce friends. Kind of like the modern Soviet armies of the past where different brigades and divisions were not trained to work with other units other than their own.

[Skanvak]

I don't think so when it came to fortification or narrow pass.

[deadtorius]

Problem is that surviving ancient accounts or battles are often vague regarding how units fought, usually jumping to the end slaughter with few details of the actions. Modern historians often make educated guesses about such things to try and fill in the gaps, which other historians disagree about and it goes on and on.
If you are defending a pass depending on how wide said pass is your not likely able to get a lot of your army in there to start with so send in your best and hope for the best there.
Defending the walls of a fortified city or permanent fort might be different as you would have a mobile reserve that would be sent into a section where things were going bad for you. Even Ceaser's battle (the name of which has escaped my ancient brain) where he encircled the Gaul city then built a second wall around that to defend against the Gauls who were coming to relieve Vercingetorix fought knowing that the guys behind them were fighting to keep the Gauls from attacking their rear, the units did not move to reinforce each other, other than the designated reserve that was kept for a true emergency. The knowledge that you were saving your brother legionaries by not allowing the Gauls across your section of wall was enough to keep them in place regardless of casualties.

[TheGrayMouser]

The problem is men are not machines.. Lets say you have a unit 8 men deep... men are not going to keep walking fwrd into a meat grinder to replace casualties in the front, It just didnt /doesnt work that way, a unit generally would break before casualties were that sigificant, the slaughter took place as they were attempting to flee.

[Skanvak]

How can one forget the battle of Alesia. This is a major point in our history.

I understand what you said. But at the same time you speak of a mobile reserve that where their to reinforce point that was going badly., In my example, my unit never failed a moral check and the rear unit was there to support and reinforce it.

A BG in FOG in several hundred men, so eventually you have men from the rear going to the front to replace the loss. So what happen in a BG that represent already several stand of the TT, should happen between similar unit (I was speaking of two unit of same nationality and quality).


At the present, you cannot even swap the unit when not engage in melee (for example after the attacker has routed and flee, leaving your unit at 45%). The unit is not engaged, but due to the movement system cannot swap position with the full strength unit behind it. With the actual system, the persian will win thermopiles the first day.

[deadtorius]

You can't send in stands from a different BG on the TT either. Each BG is a separate independent unit that does not interact with others so no sending boys from one unit to help fill the holes in another friendly unit. Rear support is a boost to the boys up front and fighting's confidence that there is someone back there watching their backs. I don't think they expect the rear guys to suddenly show up amongst their ranks. If the front guys break the rear guys are going to be holding back the pursuers, thats as good as it gets for the front unit. Even a mobile reserve in a siege situation will only show up when the defenders have been overwhelmed, not as a mobile reinforcing unit. Once the enemy is in then you send in the reserves to hopefully plug the gap.

[Skanvak]

I take your point on the TT rules.

But what of reinforcing or swapping unit between 2 wave of ennemy?

[deadtorius]

Once your engaged you're not getting away from the enemy unless you run for your life, IE break and rout. It was a tactical problem of the era where you look into the eyes of your enemy. Now no one really knows for sure but it is possible that these battles might have been two lines charging in, then falling back catch the breath and back in again, but who knows as the historical records don't go into much detail about how armies would fight back then, even medieval records don't record any kind of system for giving engaged troops a breather.
Long story short you can't reinforce your line, best bet is to leave a rout lane for your broken troops so they don't crash through friends to the rear, and hope the die rolls for seeing friends break roll in your favour.

[Morbio]

The only type of reference I've heard that fits this sort of reinforcing style (and I'm not sure if it is fact or fiction) is some of the early Roman tactics whereby the Principe (or was it Hastati?) attacked first, then on command would break off and retreat through the Hastati (or Principe) who in turn would finally, again on command, would retreat through the Triari... although I understand that often the Romans had won before the Triari were needed.

[Skanvak]

Thank for the documented answer. I will have to do research.

Thought I want to stress that this topic as 2 aspect.

1/ reinforcing during fight. That is with ennemy unit engaging you in melee

and

2/ swapping position of 2 battle group when no ennemy unit are engaging you in game term (ie no adjacent ennemy unit) (to replace a worn out battle group with a fresh one when you have no maneuver room).

[deeter]

The designers say swithing lines is below the scale of FoG and is handled abstractly.

Deeter

[SRW1962]

The designers say swithing lines is below the scale of FoG and is handled abstractly.

Deeter

Which is another way of saying its not even considered

[IainMcNeil]

No its not. We orginally allowed Romans to swap BG's but it didnt seem right at the scale we were dealing with and so dropped it.

A huge amount of thought has gone in to the rules, about 4 years of development by a dedicated team and countless ideas have been trialed and discarded.

[SRW1962]

No its not. We orginally allowed Romans to swap BG's but it didnt seem right at the scale we were dealing with and so dropped it.

A huge amount of thought has gone in to the rules, about 4 years of development by a dedicated team and countless ideas have been trialed and discarded.

Well, in exactly what abstract way do the Romans exchange units that makes them even slightly different to any other impact foot of similar quality? Because it is easily argued that either all those similar troops can exchange ranks like the Romans did or none of them are doing so, in an abstract way of course

In the TT rules there is a provision for making Hastati armoured or even having larger formations of Hastati/Princepes that DOES adequately allow the abstraction of the exchanging ranks to be taken into account. Maybe allowing Hastati to be armoured is an abstract way of giving the Romans the bolstering factor in melee of being able to exchange ranks and it is so simple to do too, just allow the same latitude in the PC lists as you do in the TT lists. Bear in mind that the figures used in creating the Hastati graphic are actually armoured anyway.

[kujalar]

To model fatigue there should be fatigue rating and possibly a stamina (low, average,superb,unbreakable) also. Disciplined Romans could have superb stamina.

If there would be fatigue, the casualties could be modeled different. Initially less 'killed' and more 'fatigue' results. When unit breaks the amount of 'fatigue' would have a direct effect to the amount of killed increased! (fatigued are slower runners).

Fatigue could be recovered slowly if unit would not move.

Well, this would change the system a lot and is just an idea. I do not think this idea is used

[deeter]

In some ways, loss of cohesion could be viewed as increasing fatigue at least for melee.

Deeter

[batesmotel]

No its not. We orginally allowed Romans to swap BG's but it didnt seem right at the scale we were dealing with and so dropped it.

A huge amount of thought has gone in to the rules, about 4 years of development by a dedicated team and countless ideas have been trialed and discarded.

I believe these comments apply to the TT rules, not directly to the PC version, just to be clear. As far as I know, FoG PC never included rules to allow Romans to swap BGs.

Chris

[TheGrayMouser]

I tend to view the % loss as an overall indicator of a units staying power with men killed , wounded, mental and physical fatigue, loss of equipment(dulled swords , broken spears, riven shields no more pila etc) all rolled into one.

As other posters have mentioned, no one truly knows the exact mechanic of how the legions fought as they left no explicit manuals....

To be honest i have a hard time beliveing it was standard practice to send in a staggered line of hastati, who then withdraw, principes go in etc... Withdrawing from melee combat always run the risk of that line turning into a rout, also , what would prevent the enemy from simply keeping the pressure on the retreating ist wave?

I tend to think the maniples deployed in their staggered checkerboard formation for maneuver and flexibility, also such a deployment gave them a deep array, which they really needed vs opponents that had cavalry superiorty.

[kujalar]

I do not know how the Romans did it but I have seen military police practise like this.

I think they were first in 2 lines with riot shields. Each man had about 1 meter wide space and the lines were so that the 2nd line was about 1 meter behind the first. like this

o_o_o_o_o_o 1st line
_o_o_o_o_o_o 2nd line

and there was enough empty space to go through the line.

Then they formed a solid line, every man in one line and riot shields touching each other. (2nd line stepped in) and no space between the shields.

oooooooooooo 1st and 2nd line together, about 0,5 meter / man.

Then the 1st or 2nd line stepped back

o_o_o_o_o_o 1st line
_o_o_o_o_o_o 2nd line

If the army is disciplined, it could propably change men from the first line to the back by maneuvering like this, Maybe in small sections 10 men or so with each swap even if enemy is giving some pressure.