Slitherine

SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:17 pm

Nosy_Rat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:53 pm Seriously, you are getting rude at this point. Swuul is correct, look at your own video, please.

I believe this is correct. The secondary zoc is the tile to the diagonal front. This route would pass it by.

that is not the picture I was referring to, but the original one I linked to that nosy rat posted where he put arrows through the secondary ZoC(edit: here: https://i.imgur.com/k6ulWcX.png), see the video posted (it may still be processing) for context of an entire battle where cavalry cannot get past equal (actually somewhat less points) of spears + massed archers because of ZoC.

Well I think you are making assumptions here:

1) The cavalry has not gone wide enough around and is now frontally facing the infantry on the flank
2) That cavalry is all expensive
3) That the infantry clash in the center has already begun

None of those are necessarily going to be true in a given battle. I'm not saying your concerns are necessarily invalid, just that your example is specific, and doesn't cover all situations. I will pay close attention in my 36 league matches and see how the flank dynamics play out.

SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:23 pm Well I think you are making assumptions here:

1) The cavalry has not gone wide enough around and is now frontally facing the infantry on the flank
2) That cavalry is all expensive
3) That the infantry clash in the center has already begun

None of those are necessarily going to be true in a given battle. I'm not saying your concerns are necessarily invalid, just that your example is specific, and doesn't cover all situations. I will pay close attention in my 36 league matches and see how the flank dynamics play out.

no example can cover all situations, but almost no matter how you swing it, infantry, especially spear infantry, can, point for point, ZoC trap more expensive and a greater number/quality of cav.

1) see the video I just posted. The original video was to just get across the idea, because it was like people didn't even understand how secondary ZoC works, the second video shows it in the context of a battle with ideal, totally open plain conditions for the cavalry to get around, and they cannot, especially not in time to flank the main force
2) Not all cavalry is expensive, but it is as a rule more expensive than non light infantry of otherwise comparable quality. The cheaper the cav, the cheaper the non light infantry that can hold them off, and the more vulnerable they are to being shot in the process. I showed average inf vs average cav, and even armoured cav so they would have some chance against being shotup, but still had no chance of getting around. The only way this dynamic changes is if you have something like cataphracts against cheap mediums so that they can actually win the fight straight up 1v1, but then you have a huge points disparity and it would not be 1v1 matchups.
3) if anything the example in the second posted video is too generous with how much time the cavalry would have.

Sure, I can agree, if you casually have 14 units just hanging out in reserve, and opponent moves the cavalry in way that it can be ZoC'ed en masse, and doesn't attempt to threaten main battle line or fight any of ZoCing units, then my super-tactic fails. Shame, I liked it

Nosy_Rat wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:58 pm Sure, I can agree, if you casually have 14 units just hanging out in reserve, and opponent moves the cavalry in way that it can be ZoC'ed en masse, and doesn't attempt to threaten main battle line or fight any of ZoCing units, then my super-tactic fails. Shame, I liked it

the point was to compare approximately equal points (actually favoring the cav a bit) of flanker and flank defense forces. The cavalry flank is also just 'casually' 12 units of lancers? would you prefer it was 6 lancers vs 7 flank defense units? or what? The cavalry intentionally moved around to avoid getting ZoCed. It could not threaten the main battle line because it couldn't get around, you are putting the cart before the horse there.

You tell me the unit composition of flankers and flank defenders of approximately equal value and I'll test it for you.

Or, you could give more points to the flankers, and then the flank defending army will have more points for its main line and resolve that even faster, either way similar result.

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:19 pm that is not the picture I was referring to, but the original one I linked to that nosy rat posted where he put arrows through the secondary ZoC(edit: here: https://i.imgur.com/k6ulWcX.png)

That would be true if the arrows crossed the ZOC, but they don't. To borrow your own words, you do not appear to know how ZoC works. First fallback is diagonal as you can see, and thus the ensuing cavalry movement to the rear goes outside of the spearmen zoc (both primary and secondary). The Spearmen are locked into place by the cavalry to their front, so the spearmen can not turn 45 degrees to bring the square at their side into zoc (which would prevent the flankin cavalry getting behind the line).

This is btw one of my favourite moves, as it seems to surprise some players. In the current Digital league recent matches I succeeded to swing around the opponent line with this move, with Veteran Samnite medium foot and with mounted huscarls.

Swuul wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:56 am

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:19 pm that is not the picture I was referring to, but the original one I linked to that nosy rat posted where he put arrows through the secondary ZoC(edit: here: https://i.imgur.com/k6ulWcX.png)

That would be true if the arrows crossed the ZOC, but they don't. To borrow your own words, you do not appear to know how ZoC works. First fallback is diagonal as you can see, and thus the ensuing cavalry movement to the rear goes outside of the spearmen zoc (both primary and secondary). The Spearmen are locked into place by the cavalry to their front, so the spearmen can not turn 45 degrees to bring the square at their side into zoc (which would prevent the flankin cavalry getting behind the line).

This is btw one of my favourite moves, as it seems to surprise some players. In the current Digital league recent matches I succeeded to swing around the opponent line with this move, with Veteran Samnite medium foot and with mounted huscarls.

the red arrow is in the tile next to the spearmen...dunno what else even to say. Maybe he meant not to put it in the tile next to the spearmen? but he did. There's no point in going back and forth on that point repeatedly. For the cav, if they back up and try to go around, the spearmen can follow and continue to zoc them. You would need to outnumber and greatly outpoint the infantry to get around.

the point of this argument is that a considerably lower points worth of infantry can hold off a greater points worth of cavalry with secondary ZoC for so long that most/all of the cav cannot get around at all, and certainly not in time to flank the main line, and so mostly competitive games don't see people making huge, historical style cavalry flanks in games with a main infantry line, but instead small, individual mid-line flanks, hence the motivation for the imposed loss of secondary zoc and ap from a cavalry charge this turn, in order to enable larger cav flanks. That's the idea, one small part of the mod.

as far as I can tell neither you nor nosy_rat have even tried the mod, and don't intend to. You seem to just like being pedantic about one theoretical point, which I have shown you pictures and video to help you understand, but you still don't understand, so what's the point in belaboring that one aspect over and over that has already been discussed?

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:33 am the red arrow is in the tile next to the spearmen...dunno what else even to say. Maybe he meant not to put it in the tile next to the spearmen? but he did. There's no point in going back and forth. If you back up and try to go around, the spearmen can follow you and continue to zoc you.

No, the spearmen can not follow because they are ZoC locked by the other cavalry in their face. On the right flank (seen from the spearmen perspective) the locking cavalry is already in place, on left flank the locking cavalry moves forwards to lock the spearmen in place. The only thing the spearmen can do in that situation is to either charge the locking cavalry, or fall-back, or stay in place. No matter which of these three options the spearmen chooses, the flanking cavalries will not be in ZoC, and they are free to move behind the lines.

In case you actually truly have a problem to understand ZoC's (I seriously really doubt that, but your constant comments of the contrary seem to baffle me), the primary ZoC is directly in front of a unit, and secondary ZoC's are diagonally to front. There is no ZoC to the side of a unit. A unit in another units primary ZoC is locked in place, and can not pivot away from it (if there are several ZoC's on a unit, it can pivot to face any of these). Thus when the cavalry in the example uses Fallback diagonally, that cavalry is no longer in the ZoC, and the spearmen can not follow as it is ZoC locked by another cavalry. And as you can see from the diagram (follow the red arrows), the flanking cavalry then moves one square directly forwards (thus still outside of ZoC, because there is an empty square between the spearman and cavalry), then diagonally to be on the side of the spearman (where there is no ZoC at all), and then behind it to freely engage the archers.

EDIT: I promised I will not comment on the mod, as my comments were not welcome.

Swuul wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:54 am

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:33 am the red arrow is in the tile next to the spearmen...dunno what else even to say. Maybe he meant not to put it in the tile next to the spearmen? but he did. There's no point in going back and forth. If you back up and try to go around, the spearmen can follow you and continue to zoc you.

No, the spearmen can not follow because they are ZoC locked by the other cavalry in their face. On the right flank (seen from the spearmen perspective) the locking cavalry is already in place, on left flank the locking cavalry moves forwards to lock the spearmen in place. The only thing the spearmen can do in that situation is to either charge the locking cavalry, or fall-back, or stay in place. No matter which of these three options the spearmen chooses, the flanking cavalries will not be in ZoC, and they are free to move behind the lines.

In case you actually truly have a problem to understand ZoC's (I seriously really doubt that, but your constant comments of the contrary seem to baffle me), the primary ZoC is directly in front of a unit, and secondary ZoC's are diagonally to front. There is no ZoC to the side of a unit. A unit in another units primary ZoC is locked in place, and can not pivot away from it (if there are several ZoC's on a unit, it can pivot to face any of these). Thus when the cavalry in the example uses Fallback diagonally, that cavalry is no longer in the ZoC, and the spearmen can not follow as it is ZoC locked by another cavalry. And as you can see from the diagram (follow the red arrows), the flanking cavalry then moves one square directly forwards (thus still outside of ZoC, because there is an empty square between the spearman and cavalry), then diagonally to be on the side of the spearman (where there is no ZoC at all), and then behind it to freely engage the archers.

I literally made a mod that significantly changes aspects of the ZoC system. I don't just understand it in game, but how it is coded as well. I understand what you are saying about the ZoC, and as I have repeatedly said, it only works if you very significantly outpoint the flank defenders with your flanking force. An equal or even somewhat lesser points worth of spearmen will outnumber and easily ZoC lock and block off a cavalry flank. Watch the second video? Actually try the mod?

I doubt you will though. You appear to be hopeless on this issue. There's no point in going on with this with you. There is a whole video showing what I am talking about. But you won't even bother trying to watch it or understand. It is clear that you just want to have a pedantic argument, and not actually try out the mod or engage with what I am saying. There's no point in writing it all out again a 3rd, 4th, 5th time etc...if you need help understanding what I am saying, then just scroll up and read my previous posts.

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:03 amYou appear to be hopeless on this issue.

Let's make a deal, shall we? You admit you did not understand the diagram and how cavalry (or medium foot, though I guess that was not the point of diagram; in essence it shows the power of mobile units) can relatively easily get past a line, and I will admit I am a hopeless pedant who has absolutely no understanding at all why you want to change the ZoC rules.

I'd still like try out the Anarchy rules though. I think they sound like a marvelous idea.

@Schweetness101 @stockwellpete : Time to bring a positive change in this pathetic situation and stop these continuing quarrels. And you are the only ones who can do it.

1) Release the Anarchy Charge Standalone and make it a collaborative development, integrating the ideas of the community, even if you don’t like them.

2) Simultaneously, carry on developing your Alternative Gameplay Mod, but do it internally with your followers, implementing 100% of your ideas and release it when you think it is completed.

This way, you’ll make the community a gift of two mods and players will decide whether or not they want to use them.

Incidentally, some of these ideas might be implemented in the Vanilla game. But mods are above all gifts to your community, nothing else.

Swuul wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:18 am

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:03 amYou appear to be hopeless on this issue.

Let's make a deal, shall we? You admit you did not understand the diagram and how cavalry (or medium foot, though I guess that was not the point of diagram; in essence it shows the power of mobile units) can relatively easily get past a line, and I will admit I am a hopeless pedant who has absolutely no understanding at all why you want to change the ZoC rules.

I'd still like try out the Anarchy rules though. I think they sound like a marvelous idea.

Have you played any games with Schweetness' mods?

@Cunningcairn : this is not the time to pour fuel on the fire. Each to his own.

Athos1660 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:38 am @Schweetness101 @stockwellpete : Time to bring a positive change in this pathetic situation and stop these continuing quarrels. And you are the only ones who can do it.

1) Release the Anarchy Charge Standalone...

I dunno, maybe later

Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 am

Swuul wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:18 am

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:03 amYou appear to be hopeless on this issue.

Let's make a deal, shall we? You admit you did not understand the diagram and how cavalry (or medium foot, though I guess that was not the point of diagram; in essence it shows the power of mobile units) can relatively easily get past a line, and I will admit I am a hopeless pedant who has absolutely no understanding at all why you want to change the ZoC rules.

I'd still like try out the Anarchy rules though. I think they sound like a marvelous idea.

Have you played any games with Schweetness' mods?

no, he hasn't, and he isn't going to. he's just a troll.

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:29 pm

Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 am Have you played any games with Schweetness' mods?

no, he hasn't, and he isn't going to. he's just a troll.

Moderator:

This is a public forum. If you want to discuss your mod secretly, with only true believers allowed to participate, do it elsewhere.

Meanwhile, hurling personal insults in this forum is a sacking offence, so be careful.

Never mind all this kerfuffle, I have been playtesting again. This is the last one of the series . . .

Play Test 6 Greek 680-461 BC (Me) v Achaemenid Persians 545-481 BC (AI), Deity level, large armies, large map

I lined my Greeks up in a narrow formation headed by a line of skirmishers, then armoured hoplites with citizen hoplites in the third line. I headed straight for the left flank of the Persian army and used the skirmishers as a screen for the Persian missile fire. The AI started moving across with both infantry and cavalry and I used part of the second line and the citizen hoplites to hold them off while I destroyed his left flank in about 4 turns. It was touch and go in the centre but eventually I was able to transfer sufficient troops across from my right to turn the battle decisively in my favour. Greeks won 40-14.

A little bit of anarchy . . .

Greek
1+2) hoplites anarchy charged sparabara
3) disrupted cavalry refused to charge skirmisher
4) cavalry charged enemy cavalry with sub-general

Achaemenid Persian
1) disrupted Sparabara refused to charge hoplite

rbodleyscott wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:55 pm

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:29 pm

Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 am Have you played any games with Schweetness' mods?

no, he hasn't, and he isn't going to. he's just a troll.

Moderator:

This is a public forum. If you want to discuss your mod secretly, with only true believers allowed to participate, do it elsewhere.

Meanwhile, hurling personal insults in this forum is a sacking offence, so be careful.

they started with the rudeness, as pointed out. Troll means someone who disagrees for its own sake, typically online, so it's actually just an accurate description and not an insult per se. There's no "true believers" and heretics here. Plenty of honest disagreement has been taken into consideration and incorporated into the mod. It's all experimental. Swuul though is being intellectually dishonest as a kind of game that some people think is fun. He admits to not even having tried the mod. He's clearly just here to get a rise out of people.

but it is correct that there now appears to be more to lose than to gain by discussing this publicly.

So I think most of the flank vs rear attack stuff has been talked over already, but I would like to drop in and add my two cents as to why I think flank attacks would be as dangerous as, if not more than, rear charges. A couple of caveats - one, this is purely from a historical/realistic perspective, not gameplay as I haven’t actually played the mod (yet!); two, I’m more familiar with the details of 18th/19th century warfare than ancient, particularly I am a Civil War reenactor, which is the practical experience I’m drawing from. I’m making some extrapolations, but I think they’re reasonable ones.

So to start with, let’s consider an ACW regiment defending a position which finds a threat to either its flank or rear. If the threat is on its rear, there’s a fairly simple solution which allows the regiment to deliver fire - about face the rear rank. Now, I’m not saying that’s a good position as our hypothetical regiment is badly outgunned, not to mention the morale effects of being “trapped” between enemy units, but it’s fairly quick sand allows the regiment to deliver half its firepower to either opponent. I believe there is a historical precedent for that sort of thing - Frederick the Great’s guard battalion found themselves in a similar situation at Kolin if the painting is to be believed.

Looking at a flank threat, say on the right for purposes of argument, there is no way for the regiment to effectively fire on its attacker, and it's much more difficult to maneuver to do so. A company needs to wheel to face the threat, either a forward wheel on the company’s right flank or a rearward wheel on the company’s left. Having done wheels before, it’s hard to avoid bending or buckling the line. Rear wheels are harder. Doing either under fire would be even more difficult, I imagine. The forward wheel leaves the company detached from the regiment and with its own flank exposed to the original attacker. Now, ideally this situation would be dealt with by the regiment’s parent brigade holding a regiment in reserve to fend off a flank attack, but in game terms I feel that would be more akin to the player bringing up another unit, so I’m leaving out that possibility here.

Furthermore, from a morale perspective, it’s true that a unit with an enemy to its rear would feel more trapped, that way out may actually make things worse for the defender. It’s been too long since I’ve read Sun Tzu to remember the exact quotes, but one piece of his advice was to leave an escape route when you encircle an enemy, as a panicked enemy who sees an escape will take it, while one who does not will fight to the death. The unit under flank attack may start to disintegrate as men to the other flank look to flee before they themselves become trapped.

Now, extrapolating this back. The hypothetical hoplite formation that’s been discussed, 1000 wide and 8 deep, is attacked in the rear. It seems to me the back 2-4 ranks could about face and fight just as effectively as the front ranks, at least until the formation started to get ground down. Would they be trained to do that? I don’t know. But in the end it’s one that doesn’t require a lot of complex maneuvers and should be theoretically possible. When attacked from the flank, it’s true it’s only 8 men who can fight back, which seems to me to be the problem. The flanking unit will spill around to the rear a bit as well, meaning the front-most and rear-most men of the file under attack will be under attack from two different directions. The flank under attack will start collapsing quickly, and as I mentioned, the rest of the unit may start looking to be elsewhere before they too start becoming surrounded. Or, if a sub unit of the flanked unit wheels to face its flanker, it too will likely have attackers extending past the flanks (assuming it is able to make that move in time and with its organization intact).

Now, I know that fighting with muskets and bayonets is different from spears and swords and shields, but I feel the basic ideas are similar enough to hold some water. I’m not trying to convince you to change the charge rules in your mod, Just tossing in my perspective on why I think flank attacks are quite deadly, and that the current representation works for me.

All that said, I do very much like the command and control effects in particular, and will likely give this mod a try when I have the chance! (Although that’ll probably be longer than I like, as the office re-opened this week and the DL has started up in full force.)

rbodleyscott wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:55 pm

Schweetness101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:29 pm

Cunningcairn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 am Have you played any games with Schweetness' mods?

no, he hasn't, and he isn't going to. he's just a troll.

Moderator:

This is a public forum. If you want to discuss your mod secretly, with only true believers allowed to participate, do it elsewhere.

Meanwhile, hurling personal insults in this forum is a sacking offence, so be careful.

Errr there are people posting on this thread that have said exactly the same as Schweetness and worse and have had not received any warning from the moderator. Schweetness and Pete are doing something positive to improve the game without reward. There are a handful of players that are opposing this and noticeably a high percentage of them don't even play MP let alone the digital league. Schweetness and Pete are not the ones being rude. In my world the vast majority of players I have played are unhappy with the frequency of game changing random events. I know this because of their statements when it happens to them when we play.