Flank Angle Mod

[stockwellpete]

right, I think that this would pair well with the cav zoc/ap mod

Yes definitely. Eventually some of these mods can be used together once we have studied particular issues in isolation.

[stockwellpete]

here's that:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4zg6jzb7vbso ... xxFTa?dl=0

OK, so this version of the mod has flank attacks retained for cavalry, but removed completely for infantry.

[Schweetness101]

here's that:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4zg6jzb7vbso ... xxFTa?dl=0

OK, so this version of the mod has flank attacks retained for cavalry, but removed completely for infantry.

yes, do you want a version with no flank attacks for anyone?

[stockwellpete]

yes, do you want a version with no flank attacks for anyone?

Yes please. Just to see what it is like. Perhaps if you can edit your very first post in this thread and put all the various mods you have done on this particular issue there with a brief explanation what they do. It will be easier then for people to join in with the testing process.

Another variation is cavalry retaining flank attack automatic cohesion drop capability when fighting other cavalry units (to speed up melee resolution there), but not having it against infantry units. And then there is another sub-division with them retaining it against other cavalry units, losing it against infantry units but getting maybe 100POA on impact. There are quite a few different options to look at over time. There is no rush at all with this. I am up for systematically working through your mods in MP whenever you like. Just set up a game that you like with a password and off we go. Very interesting to me all this.

[Schweetness101]

yes, do you want a version with no flank attacks for anyone?

Yes please. Just to see what it is like. Perhaps if you can edit your very first post in this thread and put all the various mods you have done on this particular issue there with a brief explanation what they do. It will be easier then for people to join in with the testing process.

Another variation is cavalry retaining flank attack automatic cohesion drop capability when fighting other cavalry units (to speed up melee resolution there), but not having it against infantry units. And then there is another sub-division with them retaining it against other cavalry units, losing it against infantry units but getting maybe 100POA on impact. There are quite a few different options to look at over time. There is no rush at all with this. I am up for systematically working through your mods in MP whenever you like. Just set up a game that you like with a password and off we go. Very interesting to me all this.

ok uploaded a few more versions.

I'd say I kind of like the version where cav retain flanks (against both inf and other cav), but infantry don't because it gives cav a little bit of a special flanking status where they can get auto-drop flanks in even from the shallower 90 degree angle, like there is something especially dangerous about letting cav get on your flanks, which seemed right to me, but there are of course other considerations.

After some testing as well with snugglebunnies who is very skeptical of the usefulness of this mod I have some feedback that I think we should discuss:

-in vanilla you can get flanks in on units angled at 45 degrees mid line, which seems to me and I think you to be incorrect and to motivate some weirdness, but which snugglebunnies would like to keep because with it "you have to be careful about maneuvering your whole line into place, and it slows down the advance of unmaneuverable units, which feels right, because they have to halt more to 'dress' their line. It also encourages getting skirmisher superiority so you dont risk chasing skirmishers at an awkward angle with non lights." [this was from discord chat so I added punctuation]. Which I think are some good points
-also that it makes warband armies even worse because they have even less chance of getting into a flanking position
-also with no flank disadvantage, not even the +50, you can get some weird scenarios where the ideal move is to run up diagonally away from an enemy up a hill, exposing your flank, which now will not be a disadvantage, and gaining a height advantage, in a way that seems like it is motivating the wrong behavior

I would I think still advocate for retaining the +50 from flanks, maybe for against both occupied and unoccupied enemies, or maybe occupied only, or maybe like a +50 vs unoccupied and a +100 with no auto drop against occupied. So then you've actually got three distinct tiers if you will, frontal attack, flank and rear that all actually do something different

just some things to chew over I guess

happy testing

[stockwellpete]

I'd say I kind of like the version where cav retain flanks (against both inf and other cav), but infantry don't because it gives cav a little bit of a special flanking status where they can get auto-drop flanks in even from the shallower 90 degree angle, like there is something especially dangerous about letting cav get on your flanks, which seemed right to me, but there are of course other considerations.

Well, I think this is one possible answer to the question posed by this thread. It certainly makes cavalry more powerful in the game and obviously it would necessitate a general points increase for all cavalry units.

After some testing as well with snugglebunnies who is very skeptical of the usefulness of this mod I have some feedback that I think we should discuss:

with the flanks in place like normal you can get the 45 degree angles units flanks in mid line of course, which snugglebunnies would like to keep because with it "you have to be careful about maneuvering your whole line into place, and it slows down the advance of unmaneuverable units, which feels right, because they have to halt more to 'dress' their line. It also encourages getting skirmisher superiority so you dont risk chasing skirmishers at an awkward angle with non lights." [this was from discord chat so I added punctuation]

I am having trouble understanding this. Which mod were you using?

I have put a challenge up for you using v1.2 where flank attacks are removed completely. Anglo-Danish v Welsh, paired game, password is either Schweetness or Schweetness 101 (forgotten already ). I think it will be helpful to play a few games with flank attacks completely stripped out, just to see very starkly the difference. Because we are so used to flank attacks we need to re-programme ourselves a bit, I think.

[stockwellpete]

-also with no flank disadvantage, not even the +50, you can get some weird scenarios where the ideal move is to run up diagonally away from an enemy up a hill, exposing your flank, which now will not be a disadvantage, and gaining a height advantage, in a way that seems like it is motivating the wrong behavior

I would I think still advocate for retaining the +50 from flanks, maybe for against both occupied and unoccupied enemies, or maybe occupied only, or maybe like a +50 vs unoccupied and a +100 with no auto drop against occupied. So then you've actually got three distinct tiers if you will, frontal attack, flank and rear that all actually do something different

Yes, I can see the point you are making here. So you take out automatic cohesion drops completely, but you keep the relevant +POA's that would increase the chances of cohesion drops through impact combat. Then, on the next turn, you would just have 1v1 or 2v1 melees in the way we have them now. I think this is another possible answer to the question asked by this thread and it is one that I may end up supporting.

[Schweetness101]

I'd say I kind of like the version where cav retain flanks (against both inf and other cav), but infantry don't because it gives cav a little bit of a special flanking status where they can get auto-drop flanks in even from the shallower 90 degree angle, like there is something especially dangerous about letting cav get on your flanks, which seemed right to me, but there are of course other considerations.

Well, I think this is one possible answer to the question posed by this thread. It certainly makes cavalry more powerful in the game and obviously it would necessitate a general points increase for all cavalry units.

After some testing as well with snugglebunnies who is very skeptical of the usefulness of this mod I have some feedback that I think we should discuss:

with the flanks in place like normal you can get the 45 degree angles units flanks in mid line of course, which snugglebunnies would like to keep because with it "you have to be careful about maneuvering your whole line into place, and it slows down the advance of unmaneuverable units, which feels right, because they have to halt more to 'dress' their line. It also encourages getting skirmisher superiority so you dont risk chasing skirmishers at an awkward angle with non lights." [this was from discord chat so I added punctuation]

I am having trouble understanding this. Which mod were you using?

I have put a challenge up for you using v1.2 where flank attacks are removed completely. Anglo-Danish v Welsh, paired game, password is either Schweetness or Schweetness 101 (forgotten already ). I think it will be helpful to play a few games with flank attacks completely stripped out, just to see very starkly the difference. Because we are so used to flank attacks we need to re-programme ourselves a bit, I think.

took the game

[Schweetness101]

-also with no flank disadvantage, not even the +50, you can get some weird scenarios where the ideal move is to run up diagonally away from an enemy up a hill, exposing your flank, which now will not be a disadvantage, and gaining a height advantage, in a way that seems like it is motivating the wrong behavior

I would I think still advocate for retaining the +50 from flanks, maybe for against both occupied and unoccupied enemies, or maybe occupied only, or maybe like a +50 vs unoccupied and a +100 with no auto drop against occupied. So then you've actually got three distinct tiers if you will, frontal attack, flank and rear that all actually do something different

Yes, I can see the point you are making here. So you take out automatic cohesion drops completely, but you keep the relevant +POA's that would increase the chances of cohesion drops through impact combat. Then, on the next turn, you would just have 1v1 or 2v1 melees in the way we have them now. I think this is another possible answer to the question asked by this thread and it is one that I may end up supporting.

Yes, I think there should be some motivation to keep your line well dressed as it were and not just willy nilly open up flanks from 45 degree angling, but it shouldn't be as drastic as it is now. A +50 to +100 on the flanks still should motivate keeping the line cohesive and mitigate weird behavior that might come from trying to game the lack of flanks

[Schweetness101]

Hey Pete, thought I'd throw an Idea out here for you as schweetness obviously has the skill and interest to mod changes and experiment. I'm not sure if this would accomplish what you a looking for BUT

**keep flank and rear hits as they are exactly now EXCEPT:
If the active unit is ADJACENT to the flank of an enemy that is already in close combat and it can legally "engage" by charging according to the current rules ( facing, not ZOC etc) then it can do so but there is NO IMPACT and thus no cohesion drops etc, instead the combat is resolved immeditely by melee capabities with whatever in games rules apply to a unit being meleed by multiple units from multiple direction. Again this would only be for flanks...

This would somewhat be similar to the TT rules where on can join melee in some situations without impact. It would IMHO give a battle line the feeling it was a continuous line where a push back is more of a "bend" or "bow" of the line versus geometric discontinuation of a battle line ( which is then open to flank attacks by fortuitiosly placed rear rank unit at a-historic angles)

looking back through I see I missed this post. I don't quite understand though. Can you explain to me in greater detail what you mean exactly? Perhaps take a screenshot and draw what you are talking about?

would this mean no impacts except rear attacks for an already occupied unit?

[Schweetness101]

I'd say I kind of like the version where cav retain flanks (against both inf and other cav), but infantry don't because it gives cav a little bit of a special flanking status where they can get auto-drop flanks in even from the shallower 90 degree angle, like there is something especially dangerous about letting cav get on your flanks, which seemed right to me, but there are of course other considerations.

Well, I think this is one possible answer to the question posed by this thread. It certainly makes cavalry more powerful in the game and obviously it would necessitate a general points increase for all cavalry units.

After some testing as well with snugglebunnies who is very skeptical of the usefulness of this mod I have some feedback that I think we should discuss:

with the flanks in place like normal you can get the 45 degree angles units flanks in mid line of course, which snugglebunnies would like to keep because with it "you have to be careful about maneuvering your whole line into place, and it slows down the advance of unmaneuverable units, which feels right, because they have to halt more to 'dress' their line. It also encourages getting skirmisher superiority so you dont risk chasing skirmishers at an awkward angle with non lights." [this was from discord chat so I added punctuation]

I am having trouble understanding this. Which mod were you using?

that was with the just no flank attacks at all. Being afraid of autodropping from 90 degree flank attacks, the vanilla values highly incentivize keeping your line exactly straight with no units facing at an angle in an otherwise straight line, and because non maneuverable units can't move two lines forward and one to the side and turn to face forward, in order to move up and to the side as a line and stay stright everything takes them longer, but if they didn't have to worry about flanks then they could just keep moving at an angle. At least that was my understanding of what snugglebunnies said.

partly that's why i think we should retain some punishment for 90 degree infantry vs infantry flanks, just much less extreme than the current values

[Schweetness101]

should elephant flanks (imposing and receiving) be changed just like the infantry flanks are changed? or like the cavalry? elephant vs elephant should now still be like infantry vs infantry? or the old vanilla like cav vs cav with the full flank? and light infantry vs light infantry flanks?

[Schweetness101]

so here's a mod that combines the cav mod and the flank angle mod:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iloqrhs8j2ak ... q6U_a?dl=0

the cav mod section is the 33% higher casualties and -1 CT modifier to non light cav vs non light cav, and the ZoC/AP changes (not the vs medium foot changes)

the flank angle section does ('vs' meaning 'flanks'):
cav vs cav; inf vs cav; ele vs ele; ele vs cav: same as vanilla
cav vs inf or inf vs inf or ele vs inf: 90 degree flank attacks are +50 vs unoccupied and +100 with no autodrop vs occupied, the rear attacks are same as vanilla (+50 and +200 and autodrop respectively)

that should be a good place to begin testing them together from. Gotta start somewhere anyway.

[stockwellpete]

should elephant flanks (imposing and receiving) be changed just like the infantry flanks are changed? or like the cavalry? elephant vs elephant should now still be like infantry vs infantry? or the old vanilla like cav vs cav with the full flank? and light infantry vs light infantry flanks?

Good question. I am not sure of the answer. Are elephants more like cavalry? They do have four legs. Light infantry treat as infantry.

[stockwellpete]

so here's a mod that combines the cav mod and the flank angle mod:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iloqrhs8j2ak ... q6U_a?dl=0

the cav mod section is the 33% higher casualties and -1 CT modifier to non light cav vs non light cav, and the ZoC/AP changes (not the vs medium foot changes)

the flank angle section does ('vs' meaning 'flanks'):
cav vs cav; inf vs cav; ele vs ele; ele vs cav: same as vanilla
cav vs inf or inf vs inf or ele vs inf: 90 degree flank attacks are +50 vs unoccupied and +100 with no autodrop vs occupied, the rear attacks are same as vanilla (+50 and +200 and autodrop respectively)

that should be a good place to begin testing them together from. Gotta start somewhere anyway.

Yes, I like this.

[Schweetness101]

Update: here's a cav mod and flank angle mod combined v1.1 (also added to op):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8dg48wpb8q4c ... hvCVa?dl=0
it adds:
1) set the number of turns being pursued while routing before you disperse to 2, from 4 (plus the initial routing turn, so really to 3 from 5)
2) altered continue pursuit chances for mounted (not to initial pursuit, but for follow up pursuit turns after first turn of pursuit)
stop chances for cavalry now base 60 (up from base 50) *where stop chance is percent chance to stop this turn
raised to 70 against other mounted if both same type of mounted
if pursuer is light and fleer is non light then stop chance is only 50 (vanilla)
if pursuer is non-light and fleer is light then stop chance is all the way up at 90

those are tentative values like everything else, but from testing a bit they seem to do a nice job of letting cavalry return to the fight to get something done in terms of flanking or coming back to finish the cav fight on the wings. They can still run off a bit, they are just not nearly as likely anymore to spend almost the whole game pursuing

there is not a simple way to just cap the max number of pursuit turns, but the above should get a similar result to what's been discussed (I think either here or in the cav mod thread).

if these changes aren't enough then I can either alter these values some more or start looking at changing pursuit to charge max angles, or at the taking into account ZoCs while pursuing

Giving a unit enough ap to turn around after pursuing I have been convinced by RBS is probably a bad idea in that it would also give it enough AP to instead move forward with perhaps unintended results

I am also interested in decreasing or even eliminating chance to rally from broken, if anyone is interested in that.

[stockwellpete]

I am also interested in decreasing or even eliminating chance to rally from broken, if anyone is interested in that.

If we tie this in with command radii of commanders, sub-generals only commanding their own contingent, and units not being able to rally outside of the command radius then that will reduce the chances of rallying from broken considerably. I agree it happens far too much in the game at the moment and it is one of the reasons that everything ends up all over the place in too many battles for my liking. I think there should still be some chance to rally from broken though.

[Schweetness101]

I am also interested in decreasing or even eliminating chance to rally from broken, if anyone is interested in that.

If we tie this in with command radii of commanders, sub-generals only commanding their own contingent, and units not being able to rally outside of the command radius then that will reduce the chances of rallying from broken considerably. I agree it happens far too much in the game at the moment and it is one of the reasons that everything ends up all over the place in too many battles for my liking. I think there should still be some chance to rally from broken though.

I agree it might be too much, but it is often most efficient to make a radical change and then tune it down, than to make a bunch of incremental changes. One thing I will ask though, and I am genuinely curious, is:

what is the usefulness of broken units rallying? Both in combat and to the simulation. On the one hand, a disrupted or even fragmented unit that has not run off is still typically within a few moves of the battle line, and if they rally, they can return to the fight with decent to full strength. But a broken unit that has spent 3+ turns running away, and then spends 1-4 turns waiting to rally, and then a turn turning around, and then multiple turns to get back to the fight...I mean this unit is basically out of the battle already almost always. And, for whole army morale purposes, ie for the 60% threshold purposes, imagining it is a real battle, what is the difference really between a unit that broke and stayed broken and ran all the way off the map, and a unit that broke and ran to the edge of the map, 5 turns away from everyone else, is still fragmented, and has basically no chance of effectively returning? As far as the rest of his army is concerned he's just gone and run off it would seem, and of no use to everyone, and thus just as harmful the armies morale as the full broken unit that left the map.

[stockwellpete]

what is the usefulness of broken units rallying? Both in combat and to the simulation. On the one hand, a disrupted or even fragmented unit that has not run off is still typically within a few moves of the battle line, and if they rally, they can return to the fight with decent to full strength. But a broken unit that has spent 3+ turns running away, and then spends 1-4 turns waiting to rally, and then a turn turning around, and then multiple turns to get back to the fight...I mean this unit is basically out of the battle already almost always. And, for whole army morale purposes, ie for the 60% threshold purposes, imagining it is a real battle, what is the difference really between a unit that broke and stayed broken and ran all the way off the map, and a unit that broke and ran to the edge of the map, 5 turns away from everyone else, is still fragmented, and has basically no chance of effectively returning? As far as the rest of his army is concerned he's just gone and run off it would seem, and of no use to everyone, and thus just as harmful the armies morale as the full broken unit that left the map.

Yes, agreed. Of course, most battles had a pursuit phase but pursuit phases very, very rarely altered the outcome of a battle, so do we need to represent it in the game at all?

[Schweetness101]

what is the usefulness of broken units rallying? Both in combat and to the simulation. On the one hand, a disrupted or even fragmented unit that has not run off is still typically within a few moves of the battle line, and if they rally, they can return to the fight with decent to full strength. But a broken unit that has spent 3+ turns running away, and then spends 1-4 turns waiting to rally, and then a turn turning around, and then multiple turns to get back to the fight...I mean this unit is basically out of the battle already almost always. And, for whole army morale purposes, ie for the 60% threshold purposes, imagining it is a real battle, what is the difference really between a unit that broke and stayed broken and ran all the way off the map, and a unit that broke and ran to the edge of the map, 5 turns away from everyone else, is still fragmented, and has basically no chance of effectively returning? As far as the rest of his army is concerned he's just gone and run off it would seem, and of no use to everyone, and thus just as harmful the armies morale as the full broken unit that left the map.

Yes, agreed. Of course, most battles had a pursuit phase but pursuit phases very, very rarely altered the outcome of a battle, so do we need to represent it in the game at all?

Probably not, the real relevance would be if there was a camp, baggage train, vulnerable town, or cohort of women and children and workers and whatever behind the battle line, or just a bunch of gold and equipment to loot, but that is not represented in the standard open battle map mp game, so the result of the lengthy pursuit phase is you just lose units for no benefit (unless you get lucky and your pursuing units are interrupted/blocked in their uncontrolled pursuit, which would normally seem like a bad thing, but is actually incidentally good because it gets them back to the battle faster).