Return of pursuing madness

[Cunningcairn]

A while ago, maybe even a year ago, there was a problem with HF in particular charging and pursuing LF/LH. The HF would pursue up to double their normal allowed move distance and then do an about turn in front of an opposing enemy HF line to face the direction of the fleeing LF/LH exposing their rear to the enemy HF. It was agreed that this behaviour was not realistic and I believe a fix was put in place. Anyway it no longer occurred in any of my games until today. Was a fix actually introduced? Has something recently changed? Or was it just one of those one in a million events that just clumped appearing to be more like a 6 in 10 event?

[SnuggleBunnies]

Do you have a screenshot? It's hard to evaluate without a visual reference.

[TimDee58]

I get this with other units too, altho the worst culprits are Cavalry in my experience, every unit I use seem to have the temprament of the Scots Greys

[rbodleyscott]

A while ago, maybe even a year ago, there was a problem with HF in particular charging and pursuing LF/LH. The HF would pursue up to double their normal allowed move distance and then do an about turn in front of an opposing enemy HF line to face the direction of the fleeing LF/LH exposing their rear to the enemy HF. It was agreed that this behaviour was not realistic and I believe a fix was put in place. Anyway it no longer occurred in any of my games until today. Was a fix actually introduced? Has something recently changed? Or was it just one of those one in a million events that just clumped appearing to be more like a 6 in 10 event?

See v1.4.7 patch notes: "Chargers will no longer turn to face evaders that are not in an adjacent square at the end of the move."

This was intended to make the event you describe less common, and has succeeded in doing so, but it does not, and was not intended to, prevent it completely.

With regard to the distance moved by the heavy infantry, there is a random chance of moving an extra square each time the unit pursues. If it makes a pursuit charge against a second enemy unit, this extra distance will sometimes be added again, leading to a long move. The FOG2 paradigm is emphatically not a "time-slice" model, it is an episodic "action-counteraction" model, so this is working as intended. Without such rules some of the events that are recorded in historical battles, where major events occurred rapidly on one part of the battlefield while the rest was relatively inactive cannot occur. Real battles were not clockwork automatons with everyone moving synchronously. As units were not moving at full speed thoughout the battle, there was time in the interstices for some units to move further than average in the excitement of the moment while other troops are inactive or moving at their normal sustainable pace.

[Cunningcairn]

A while ago, maybe even a year ago, there was a problem with HF in particular charging and pursuing LF/LH. The HF would pursue up to double their normal allowed move distance and then do an about turn in front of an opposing enemy HF line to face the direction of the fleeing LF/LH exposing their rear to the enemy HF. It was agreed that this behaviour was not realistic and I believe a fix was put in place. Anyway it no longer occurred in any of my games until today. Was a fix actually introduced? Has something recently changed? Or was it just one of those one in a million events that just clumped appearing to be more like a 6 in 10 event?

See v1.4.7 patch notes: "Chargers will no longer turn to face evaders that are not in an adjacent square at the end of the move."

This was intended to make the event you describe less common, and has succeeded in doing so, but it does not, and was not intended to, prevent it completely.

With regard to the distance moved by the heavy infantry, there is a random chance of moving an extra square each time the unit pursues. If it makes a pursuit charge against a second enemy unit, this extra distance will sometimes be added again, leading to a long move. The FOG2 paradigm is emphatically not a "time-slice" model, it is an episodic "action-counteraction" model, so this is working as intended. Without such rules some of the events that are recorded in historical battles, where major events occurred rapidly on one part of the battlefield while the rest was relatively inactive cannot occur. Real battles were not clockwork automatons with everyone moving synchronously. As units were not moving at full speed thoughout the battle, there was time in the interstices for some units to move further than average in the excitement of the moment while other troops are inactive or moving at their normal sustainable pace.

Thanks for the explanation. As I said it is the first time it has occurred in a long time so what you say explains it. The light unit was in an adjacent square as were the enemy HF when the pursuit ended. Why though is this just not completely prevented? I understand your point re the "time-slice" vs episodic "action-counter-action" model. However irrespective of the time model the pursuing HF unit would not turn to face a light unit when it can clearly see the enemy heavy infantry directly to its front. They were there before and after the HF chased the light troops and were a clear and present danger.

[Cunningcairn]

I get this with other units too, altho the worst culprits are Cavalry in my experience, every unit I use seem to have the temprament of the Scots Greys

LOL yes I have Scots Greys as well. The longer cavalry move in comparison to HF makes it look worse. In saying that I can understand cavalry getting into more trouble when pursuing as they are travelling faster and it is more difficult to keep formation and order with horses than it would be for Veteran Roman Legionaries, the troop type in question in this post, making a premeditated charge at some LF.

[rbodleyscott]

I get this with other units too, altho the worst culprits are Cavalry in my experience, every unit I use seem to have the temprament of the Scots Greys

LOL yes I have Scots Greys as well. The longer cavalry move in comparison to HF makes it look worse. In saying that I can understand cavalry getting into more trouble when pursuing as they are travelling faster and it is more difficult to keep formation and order with horses than it would be for Veteran Roman Legionaries, the troop type in question in this post, making a premeditated charge at some LF.

Even disciplined troops could get carried away on occasion. Roman legionaries were recorded on many occasions as charging without or indeed against orders. We don't have "charges against orders" in FOG2 as such, because though realistic they were unpopular with a substantial section of FOG1 players, but we do allow them to get carried away with the excitement of the moment. In this case they got carried away focusing on catching the enemy light foot (which they did almost catch) and not paying attention to the wider situation.

If you want complete predictability, play chess. Constant lobbying to make this game more predictable will not meet with success, because it is against the design principles, as has previously been discussed in several other threads.

[SnuggleBunnies]

If you want to avoid taking the risk of hurling your heavies into a dangerous situation, chase off the enemy skirmishers with your own lights. Otherwise, don't advance unless you're ready to push the whole line forwards to cover for this kind of thing.

[Athos1660]

Constant lobbying to make this game more predictable will not meet with success, because it is against the design principles

This is an excellent thing!

[cromlechi]

Personally I would vote for the return of the impetuous charge or whatever it was called. It really added to the excitement seeing Gauls breaking rank against well disciplined Romans. I think this must have been quite accurate historically as well.

[Cunningcairn]

Personally I would vote for the return of the impetuous charge or whatever it was called. It really added to the excitement seeing Gauls breaking rank against well disciplined Romans. I think this must have been quite accurate historically as well.

Yup I agree with that. It is a far more realistic way of modelling unpredictability than by allowing well trained infantry to do an about turn in front of enemy heavy foot.

[pompeytheflatulent]

I do wish for a hard cap so that a pursuing unit may turn a maximum of 45 degrees for every square of space traveled. That should cut down on these crazy u-turns that happen during pursuit. The way it works now I've seen units pursuing skirmishers make two 45 degree turns while standing in the same square and charge a new unit that was 90 degrees off of their direction of travel.

[SnuggleBunnies]

It's not historically inaccurate for troops pursuing their tormentors to go out of control and do something unwise. You don't want it to happen? Don't charge with that unit. The risk factor of unpredictable Bad Things happenings exists to force you to move more cohesively.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Troops acting rashly shouldn't suddenly gain the ability to pull off maneuvers that even the best trained troops would find almost impossible - turning 90 degrees in place and immediately launching an attack.

[melm]

It looks suddenly in game. However, it may not be sudden in IRL battle as the game is “an episodic "action-counteraction" model”

[TheGrayMouser]

People also forget how often you can take advantage of pursuits to get a unit out of a perilous situation by gaining xtra movement and ignoring zoc’s or by gaining an xtra move to charge an enemy that would have been just outside reach. You gotta weigh the risks and take the good results with the bad.

[Athos1660]

Couldn't such a nice feature as 'Charges against orders' be implemented at least as an option players could choose or not ? Or is it too time-consuming to code for an option ? Are optional rules (opponents would jointly accept) conceivable in MP ?

My regular question : I guess it is hard to mod such feature.

[rbodleyscott]

Couldn't such a nice feature as 'Charges against orders' be implemented at least as an option players could choose or not ? Or is it too time-consuming to code for an option ? Are optional rules (opponents would jointly accept) conceivable in MP ?

Development time is a finite resource. We are not keen on spending development time on optional rules, while there are other priorities.

My regular question : I guess it is hard to mod such feature.

Probably, but it would be done by scripting. If we could do it, so could a modder.

[Ludendorf]

People also forget how often you can take advantage of pursuits to get a unit out of a perilous situation by gaining xtra movement and ignoring zoc’s or by gaining an xtra move to charge an enemy that would have been just outside reach. You gotta weigh the risks and take the good results with the bad.

I just wanted to add that I have seen some amazing cavalry charges pulled off using this. You can sometimes get a cavalry unit halfway across the map to where it needs to go by chaining pursuits together, and this has the added benefit of throwing enemy skirmish lines into chaos.

There are a few approaches to dealing with annoying skirmishers.

-If your own skirmishers are outnumbered, you can throw them out in a loose line, get them to engage enemy skirmishers in melee, and then follow up to flatten the half of the enemy's skirmish line that is engaged with the heavies.
-As mentioned by others, you can plan your advance so that your line moves smoothly up after pursuers; this is one more reason not to adopt a purely defensive, terrain-dependent position.
-If you DO decide to rely on terrain, deploying a little behind it and moving up at the last second can give you room to chase off harassing skirmishers and straighten out the line for impact afterwards.
-Always check for terrain and other units that may force your pursuers into another pursuit or to awkwardly change angles. Particularly dangerous is when your troops chase skirmishers up to the enemy's defensive line, and the skirmishers turn 90 degrees and run along it. Your pursuers then stop short of charging the enemy line and turn their flanks. Any unit in this position can be written off; just shorten the line or bring up reserves. Trying to rescue the morons will just lead to disruptions, a hole in the line and a potential chain rout.
-If you have skirmisher superiority, don't hesitate to use these tricks to break up the enemy's advance. It's particularly dangerous just before impact, as units that pursue three tiles may be beyond the reach of the rest of the enemy army. Of course, this can easily be done to you.
-Adopting a mixed formation of infantry and cavalry can help when swamped with skirmishers and horse archers alike. The cavalry can catch the skirmishers and the infantry can roll up to support the cavalry.
-The best solution to problems inflicted by local or general skirmish inferiority is to not be in that position in the first place. Improve your skirmish play and/or bring more skirmishers.

[kbo1915]

I'm ok with the "pursuing madness" even though I'm regularly caught out with it. The pursuit issue that I find frustrating is when a cav unit is pursuing another unit that after 2-3 turns stops routing for 3-4 turns, leaving the pursuing unit very exposed and vulnerable, frozen in place. My feeling is that if a broken unit stop routing they should disperse just like if they're initially blocked from routing, or at least let the pursuing unit take some kind of action.