Automatic pursuit is not accurate

[RJMI]

I am new to this forum but have been playing war games for a good portion of my life. In my opinion there is one thing that prevents this very good game from being an excellent game and that is automatic pursuit and thus without the option of commanding the unit not to pursue when victorious. This is not accurate. Many times in battle units were commanded not to pursue enemies for several reasons, such as:

1) To hold the line of formation. By breaking formation by pursuit, it weakens the line.

2) By pursuing, it can become isolated behind enemy lines where it would be susceptible to flank or rear attacks and with no help from other units.

3) To prevent a unit from pursuing a weak unit when it could be better used to attack stronger units or help its own units. What is worse is that it will pursue a weak unit all over the field and even off the board. All a weak unit has to do is entice a strong unit to attack, beat, and pursue it and thus take it out of the major field of battle.

Hence units should have an option, a status, where it is told to pursue or not to pursue when victorious. And once a unit is pursuing, it should be given the option of breaking off the pursuit. The changes of status from purse to no pursue or vice versa could be made to change only if in command range (except for skirmishers and scouts); is so, then Calvary units should have their own sub-commanders (they do not have to be generals) and thus they must be in the range of their sub commanders to change from purse or no purse or vice versa.

I would like to thank the authors and producers of this very good game for all the hard work you put into it and for not giving up on it. I believe it is not far from being a perfect game, a classic.

There are some other points I will bring up in other letters.

The only war that really matters if your win or not is for the salvation of your immortal soul. Visit my website at JohnTheBaptist.us to learn about your only hope of salvation.

RIMI
Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi

[julianbarker]

Only mounted troops, warbands and raw troops pursue in FOG2 which seems completely reasonable to me. Cavalry and undisciplined troops have been extremely difficult to control when victorious from the dawn of time right down to the last century.

[lapdog666]

I am new to this forum but have been playing war games for a good portion of my life. In my opinion there is one thing that prevents this very good game from being an excellent game and that is automatic pursuit and thus without the option of commanding the unit not to pursue when victorious. This is not accurate. Many times in battle units were commanded not to pursue enemies for several reasons, such as:

1) To hold the line of formation. By breaking formation by pursuit, it weakens the line.

2) By pursuing, it can become isolated behind enemy lines where it would be susceptible to flank or rear attacks and with no help from other units.

3) To prevent a unit from pursuing a weak unit when it could be better used to attack stronger units or help its own units. What is worse is that it will pursue a weak unit all over the field and even off the board. All a weak unit has to do is entice a strong unit to attack, beat, and pursue it and thus take it out of the major field of battle.

Hence units should have an option, a status, where it is told to pursue or not to pursue when victorious. And once a unit is pursuing, it should be given the option of breaking off the pursuit. The changes of status from purse to no pursue or vice versa could be made to change only if in command range (except for skirmishers and scouts); is so, then Calvary units should have their own sub-commanders (they do not have to be generals) and thus they must be in the range of their sub commanders to change from purse or no purse or vice versa.

I would like to thank the authors and producers of this very good game for all the hard work you put into it and for not giving up on it. I believe it is not far from being a perfect game, a classic.

There are some other points I will bring up in other letters.

The only war that really matters if your win or not is for the salvation of your immortal soul. Visit my website at JohnTheBaptist.us to learn about your only hope of salvation.

RIMI
Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi

how do you justify catholic claim that pope is the vicar of Christ on earth . its unbiblical and heresy

[stockwellpete]

how do you justify catholic claim that pope is the vicar of Christ on earth . its unbiblical and heresy

This forum is not meant for religious discussion. You have been asked to stop this twice before so please desist.

[lapdog666]

how do you justify catholic claim that pope is the vicar of Christ on earth . its unbiblical and heresy

This forum is not meant for religious discussion. You have been asked to stop this twice before so please desist.

sorry that was my alter ego , he sometimes comes out and starts doing nasty things. i am suffering from schizophrenia , not the worst kind but still

[stockwellpete]

The only war that really matters if your win or not is for the salvation of your immortal soul. Visit my website at JohnTheBaptist.us to learn about your only hope of salvation.

RIMI
Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi

This last sentence is inappropriate for a wargaming forum. Please stop.

[RJMI]

I will abide by the rule and not mention religion. Matrix games allowed me to post this at the end of all my messages. I thought you did also.

[stockwellpete]

I will abide by the rule and not mention religion. Matrix games allowed me to post this at the end of all my messages. I thought you did also.

OK, I'll check for you. It will probably be tomorrow before there is an answer.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I would prefer there be no talk of religion/politics here but it's not up to me. Returning to your OP:

If anything, the game already gives you far too much control of troops to be realistic. Non raw non warband infantry do not pursue, though there are plenty of examples of such troops pursuing uncontrollably in real life. Some other realistic situations not in the game:

The appearance of a single squadron of enemy cavalry behind the army giving rise to rumors of an entire fresh enemy force, with the result that the army collapses in flight.

The treachery of a commander in the army leading an entire wing to switch sides against their "leader."

Troops launching local attacks without orders, or even with strict orders to the contrary.

Troops refusing to launch attacks despite orders.

etc. The game already gives an unrealistically large amount of control for the sake of more forgiving gameplay. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, mind you - I just think that the compromises made are enough. Commanders would have loved to have been able to always rein in pursuing troops when it was convenient for them, but that was simply not the case.

[Ludendorf]

That would actually be a nice game type. Give the side affected a lot more points (double or something), but there's a catch; part of the army will defect a few turns into the battle. The side suffering the defection has to plan around mitigating this sudden defection, and the side gaining from it has to capitalise on it to improve its still materially weaker position.

[Delbruck]

I don't have a problem with the pursuit rules, although the direction of the pursuit can get a little ridiculous. In re-fighting Hydaspes the AI stacked up the Indian foot. When some of the 1st line routed, the only open space was toward the Macedonians. So the routers and pursuerers end up doing a 360° turn in the opposite direction of the original charge. Logically, the routers should have burst through their second line and the pursuers should have followed into it (the Indian 2nd line).

[jomni]

That would actually be a nice game type. Give the side affected a lot more points (double or something), but there's a catch; part of the army will defect a few turns into the battle. The side suffering the defection has to plan around mitigating this sudden defection, and the side gaining from it has to capitalise on it to improve its still materially weaker position.

Looks like something out of Sengoku Jidai (battle of Sekigahara). Is this common in the Field of Glory setting?
An interesting twist is to both start with equal points, then the player has the option to spend points on bribing the enemy instead of buying troops.

[rbodleyscott]

As has been said before, this forum is not the place for religious or political proselytisation or discussion. Any further repetition will result in the topic being locked.

Lapdog, your trolling on such subjects is likely to end with banning.

[IainMcNeil]

Just to reinforce what Richard has says. Any discussion of religion or religious views is banned. It always turns nasty so any religious themed comments will in future be removed along with the entire post they are part of. This means your post RIMJI would also be deleted going forwards. If you want to discuss religion there are plenty of places to do that but this is not one.

Thanks for your understanding.

[Yogi the Great]

I believe on Matrix that "info" is in the signature line so it goes on every post. That should not be allowed either but may be harder to catch if not looking for it.

[RJMI]

I should not have put my religious comment in the main text of my message. I should have put it in the signature line, as I do on Matrix forums. I did not know that Siltherine allowed signature lines. It is not my intention to invoke a religious or political debate. I agree that secular war game forums are not the place for that.

I do not agree that FOG2 gives us too much control of the units. Should the computer make all the decisions and do all the moves.

All troops do automatically pursue, even elite and superior infantry not just raw and warband infantry.

It is unrealistic to believe that no troops obeyed their commanders, especially elite, superior, regularly trained troops. If none of them obeyed their commanders, then commanders would be useless and such an army would be not army but an armed mob. However, it is true that raw and below average troops would be more inclined to not obey their commanders, but even most of them obeyed their commanders for fear of being severely punished if the survived the battle. Hence there could be put into the game a small percentage chance that raw and below average troops will not obey their commanders, just as they are more apt to panic in battle. Hence when ordered not to pursue, there could be a small percentage that they will disobey and pursue.

Calvary troops are no different when it comes to obeying commanders than other troops. They, too, must obey their commanders. And unless they are very inexperienced, they would not endlessly pursue a weak troop away from the main field of battle when they could be used to attack stronger troops or support their own troops in the main field of battle.

As it is now, the computer’s control of these units is unrealistic and ruins any well laid war plan from ever being carried out and violates the historical fact of how these battles were actually fought. Are we to believe that well trained Roman troops regularly disobeyed their commanders and thus in a suicidal manner pursued enemy troops deep into or behind enemy lines in order to open themselves up to rear or flank attacks and also weaken their line and thus weaken the position of the troops that remained in formation!

Lines were most often broken when a troop on the line was defeated and retreated from battle and thus leaving a gap in the line that could either be filled by an enemy troop of left empty. An enemy troop that fills the gap would be careful not to go to deep into the gap unless troops were behind him to fill all the gaps or to isolate itself from its own troops and open itself to rear and flank attacks.

There are circumstances when a troop may want to pursue behind an enemy line, such as, to rear attack the troop he is pursuing if it is a very valuable troop or disrupt the enemy’s rear while waiting for quick help from friendly troops.

In my opinion, unrealistic pursuit as it is now in FOG2 ruins what would otherwise be an excellent game. It is the reason I stopped playing FOG1 and Pike and Shot.

I know you care about the game as you put much hard work into it. The worse thing about many war games is that the authors stop improving the game and some quit altogether. I am sure sometimes not by their own fault or maybe because the game as so many flaws it is better to create a whole new game.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I will post a longer reply later, but to reiterate: non warband, non raw infantry DO NOT PURSUE. EVER.

[76mm]

I should not have put my religious comment in the main text of my message. I should have put it in the signature line, as I do on Matrix forums. I did not know that Siltherine allowed signature lines. It is not my intention to invoke a religious or political debate. I agree that secular war game forums are not the place for that.

If wargame forums are not the place for religious topics--as they are not--then there is no justification to include such messages in your signature either, and indeed, I don't see any difference between including it in the main body and including it in your signature...either way, please take your message elsewhere.

I also strongly disagree with your assertion that some kind of pursuit is unhistorical. You can argue about how pursuit works, or some of the details, but the bottom line is that ancient history is full of examples of battles lost and won precisely because commanders could not control their troops in all circumstances.

[Kabill]

I'm wondering whether the OP is conflating units pursuing routing troops, and units following up on pushbacks, as the latter is not limited to raw units/horse (and is actually more likely with high-quality troops as they're more likely to win a combat)?

[RJMI]

I have seen signatures in this and other forums that have religious, philosophical, or ideological messages or symbols. I see this an expression of a belief that is important to someone not as an invitation to discuss or debate their message. I have seen signature messages that support communism, atheism, democracies, monarchies, and symbols of the Catholic crusades or the Holy Byzantine Empire started by the Holy Emperor St. Constantine. Someone may even want to place their belief in Hinduism or Buddhism in the signature line. But that does not offend me. It only tells me what they believe. I do not feel that I have to confront or debate them over it. If these things are allowed in signature but not something about Christianity, then I would say that this is unfair and prejudiced against Christianity. If I would be banned for expressing my belief in the signature line, then so should all others whose messages are religious, philosophical, or ideological. The only things that should be banned are if some immoral or pornographic images or messages are contained in them.

Again, my signature line is not an invitation to discuss or debate religion in this forum. If someone wants to, then you can privately mail me.

I hope for the sake of this important topic you would allow this message to remain posted.