Is this a bug?

[Redpossum]

Noone has a problem with you not liking the game. We do, however, have every right to say why we think your justification is wrong, and that is what we are doing. It is in fact a dirty trick to use against light infantry, but there are several far dirtier tricks I can think of that have nothing to do with cavalry in particular.

Say, old friend, would you care to share these "far dirtier tricks" with us?

Enquiring minds want to know!

[sum1won]

Well, these dirty tricks are sort of like gunlines in warhammer, kind of thing. In other words, the worst ones dont involve on-battlefield tactics so much as they involve army selections. Ive only played this sort of player once (2 hours before efthimos, in fact), and it bugged the hell out of me.

Pretty much, it involves taking an army like 5 elephants, and just sitting in the open until your opponent gets fed up with waiting, so he finally attacks you. Pretty much anything that deliberately creates a stalemate siuation at the begining of the game, and then wandering off to read a book. If a person selects an army like this, and tries to make it work dynamically, more power to them. But one person Ive played just sat there. So after my second attempt at a foray, I went and read a book.

The other dirty trick involves redesiging ones army after a glimpse at the enmies army-in other words, deployment, and then back to army camp. Or worse "Ready to fight", then back to army camp. If the other player presses ready to fight at this point, their game freezes.

Im still trying to see if an arrowline has any hope of success in Legion Arena, but it doesnt appear to, thankfully. An all cavalry army appears to be equally bad so far.

[efthimios]

Thanks for the nice words.

In my defense, I did give him a break when we played, because he was new. At one point, his leader was charging at me alone, while his troops were stopped. I pointed this out to Efthimios, and repeated my warning until he called his leader back. It seemed the honorable thing to do. Not that I'll be pointing out mistakes like that if he makes them this time next week

I want to clarify (to you) something. The leader move was intentional. It's not that I didn't move him back till I saw your message (which I admit I only saw once), I didn't move him earlier because that is what I wanted you to believe I was playing like. Sure, the battle ended horribly for me anyway, but I just wanted to clarify that move.

While I am new on MP on this game, I have some experience on MP, TB and Real TIme. I am currently (well, not right now) playing Zero Hour online, and if you know the game you will know that it is no walk in the park, online. I am not saying I am great at it, but not bad either.

I did not complain that I lost most of the battles. In fact my first post in this forum after the first batch of battles online showed that. I expected to lose horribly for several battles. What I did not expect was such a bug (as I see it though it is not) to exist in the first place.
Of course there are temporary solutions to the problem. Playing online would show you that most people play with the same basic strategy. Always have 1-2 cavalry units, 1-2 heavy, and the rest light infantry or skirmishers. Then even from the beginning, use the above mentioned feature to out smart the UNIT, and kill it. No, my dear online co gamers. I do not believe that building a similar army to use the same tactic is the fun thing to do. Then it will end up being a who is going to use the feature better battle instead of proper tactics.

[fatetriarrii]

What could be done to stop stalemates (and get trid of the exploit if wanted) is to have an official "attacker" and "defender."

Then there could be a timer, like in the campaigns, and the defender wins at the end of it. And maybe the defender would get 100 or so denari less. or 100 experience. Maybe there could be a casualty limit for one of the too, whatever makes it balanced, but the point is that there would be a time limit.

Would that be hard to do, Slithrine?

[pipfromslitherine]

Multiplayer tactics are very hard to predict. Also trying to solve them at our end can often simply move the issue around. You can be sure we will keep an eye on how you guys are dealing with this - the chances are that one of you will develop a counter-tactic, and that is always the most organic solution...

Cheers

Pip

[Redpossum]

That approach has my enthusiastic endorsement, Pip.

I see what you mean by "move the problem around", too.

I don't know about a counter-tactic.

There really isn't one, other than taking equal amounts of HC and hammering his HC head-on, or else taking lots of LC and using it to pin his HC for your infantry to kill.

But neither of those are really a satisfactory counter, IMO.

Cavalry strikes me as risky.

They can pay off big, but they can also be rather delicate. If you make a bad decision, you can lose them very fast.

See, as Sum1 said above, troop choice is a big part of this MP game.

I made a bad choice in buying my troops in a game against Sum1 two nights ago. I was trying something new and it emphatically did not work. And having made that error, there was nothing I could do on the tactical map to save myself.

It's a complex issue

[zedeyejoe]

Battle of Hastings, perfect example of this tactic in use. Bet Harold did not like it either.

[sum1won]

I did a similar thing against Ehre- and I got defeated. I was agle to poll one win out, but it was amazingly tough.

I suppose that for ladder games, one should just be prepared for the most solid army one can make. However, outside ladder games I have no problem with bringing in odd armies, with perhaps not very good army designs. Ive done it a time or two- the list I bring in against begginers was only semi competitiive.

[honvedseg]

Would it pay to take a single heavy unit into the woods to "protect" your lights? If a cav unit approaches, you move the heavy up to the front, and woe to the cav commander who lures THEM out into the open. In any other situation, the lights would shield the heavy. Sending in the cav takes an order, retreating them takes another, and sending them or another unit to attack the lured-out unit makes that 3 orders. Stopping takes one, which unfortunately only works if they've got enough woods in front of them to stop in, or enough time to turn around and move deeper.

The big gripe I can see from situations in the SP game is that a unit can't just back up a few steps, they need to wheel the whole formation about and then move, then wheel it back again. Even if you stop a unit, it just waits a few seconds, then makes the mandatory charge anyway, or it charges a different enemy unit. I especially hate it when a unit of skirmishers or archers (with ammo yet) charges through one of my units in melee to get to the enemy. What's really needed is a firm "hold ground and die in place" order, not a "stop what you were doing and start over".

[miki]

What's really needed is a firm "hold ground and die in place" order, not a "stop what you were doing and start over".

Doesn't do the Square formation that for you? I have not tried it, but I think I have read that units in square formation can't move. Then, keep the unit in square and safer from cavalry tricks and change formation to anything else only if other units attack

OTOH, playing Steel panthers pbem for years have learned one important thing to me: previous agreement between players about what to buy and not to buy, which type of game play, and which 'gamey' tactics are allowed. No battle system is perfect, but the game will suit your preferences when you find other people who likes to play as you

Just my 2 cents.

[sum1won]

Im thinking the previous agreement might not be a bad idea.

Just agree who attacks and who defends the first one, reverse it for the second, and so on.

[Redpossum]

Im thinking the previous agreement might not be a bad idea.

Just agree who attacks and who defends the first one, reverse it for the second, and so on.

But since a match always consists of an odd number of games, it doesn't even out, does it?

[sum1won]

Well... Uh. Id say we could flip a coin for the last one. There could also be no rule for the last battle, just the first two.