I like this idea, although I also like a variation of it where there is a fixed max anarchy distance for all units, cav or infantry, heavy or light, say 2 tiles. Kind of makes sense by the 'whites of their eyes' explanation in that cavalry cannot really see further than infantry, and it is likely the sight of your enemy is what would drive you to anarchy charge, not the fact that you can run faster than the infantry. It would also make it more consistent and easier to control and predict, and would let the player stave off anarchy charges for their shock cav by just keeping them back enough squares to not trigger anarchy, but not so many that they cannot order a charge. For infantry anarchy charges, being that their charge distance is shorter, are perhaps less likely to get messy than cav even with anarchy.stockwellpete wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 8:42 pm At the moment our thoughts about anarchy are based on the charge range of a unit. Cavalry can move 4 squares generally, infantry 2 squares and so they may anarchy from those distances. But what if it was half that distance? 2 squares for all cavalry types and 1 square for infantry (we would need to think about diagonals, maybe 1 square for everything). So anarchy would only happen when you could see the "whites of their eyes". Would that help or are their insurmountable problems with it? It would stop the about face and moon at your enemy malarkey at least.
On that note, I just played a very early anarchy mod prototype against the AI, carthage 235 w/ spanish allies vs the same. The mod basically just gives shock troops a 50% chance to charge enemies within charge range at the start of their turn (before you get to move), so it's a very simple implementation just to get started. I actually found I quite liked the effect against the AI. Pulling two armies with lots of shock troops up to one another (warbands, scutarrii and offensive spear foot) means that you get to control them normally all the way up to within 2 squares for the infantry (no shock cav cuz carthage) but after that for half your units each turn the ai is going to charge for you. This didn't mess with my plans really, because they were just charging from the position I was probably going to charge them from anyway, but you see a lot fewer weird gamey moves with trying to angle units just right, playing grid games to open up mid line flanks or whatever (of course it was a singleplayer game and the AI doesn't do that stuff, but the point is I didn't have the opportunity to even if I'd wanted), and you instead get a more regular line, which is interesting because you might have thought it would result in a more chaotic line, but a lot of the weirdness with irregular line shapes in MP with player controlled armies is from using fine control right in the face of the enemy to make micro ZoC traps or flank threats or whatever, which you can't reliably do with anarchy charges.
just one anecdotal battle with a very early and kind of glitchy prototype, but interesting nonetheless
