Slitherine

Hello everyone, I was asking me the following question : can artillery shoot over a hill ? The manual doesn't say anything about it, and I know skirmishers can't, but since artillery can shoot over units I was wondering...

You have to have line of sight to a target to shoot at it. There is a button on the right side of the screen you can click on, that will show you what is the line of sight. No, you can't shoot over a hill unless you can see over it - sometimes you think you don't have a line of sight but you do!

Generally, artillery are not worth the points, don't bother with it unless you have some specific reason for using it.

You have to have line of sight to a target to shoot at it. There is a button on the right side of the screen you can click on, that will show you what is the line of sight. No, you can't shoot over a hill unless you can see over it - sometimes you think you don't have a line of sight but you do! I have shot over a hill on occasion.

Generally, artillery are not worth the points, don't bother with it unless you have some specific reason for using it.

Am not understanding how fall backs are working.
Last turn unit 1 charged unit 2 in the rear, which held and turned around.
This turn I moved up unit 3 to block the fall back hex with a primary ZOC. 2 won the battle against 1 and the pic shows that 2 fell back as shown by the red arrow. I was expecting that they would be locked in combat but clearly not.
What am I missing here, maybe am confused between fall backs and push backs...

tyronec wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 10:25 am Am not understanding how fall backs are working.
Last turn unit 1 charged unit 2 in the rear, which held and turned around.
This turn I moved up unit 3 to block the fall back hex with a primary ZOC. 2 won the battle against 1 and the pic shows that 2 fell back as shown by the red arrow. I was expecting that they would be locked in combat but clearly not.
What am I missing here, maybe am confused between fall backs and push backs...
pushback.jpg

I don't think that you can block a unit from falling back to a tile that is only your unit's primary ZOC. It needs your unit to be actually located in that tile, I believe.

I am really not understanding this, because in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=623&t=104279 RBS writes that you cannot fall back into an enemy ZOC.

tyronec wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:42 pm I am really not understanding this, because in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=623&t=104279 RBS writes that you cannot fall back into an enemy ZOC.

Interesting. Maybe not exactly the same rules in Ancients and Medieval then, or only applicable for certain units, such as Knights? Don't know. Let's see what RBS says about it.

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:55 pm

tyronec wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:42 pm I am really not understanding this, because in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=623&t=104279 RBS writes that you cannot fall back into an enemy ZOC.

Interesting. Maybe not exactly the same rules in Ancients and Medieval then, or only applicable for certain units, such as Knights? Don't know. Let's see what RBS says about it.

Looking again at the code, and doing some tests, it appears that my previous answer was incorrect.

It looks as if, in fact, break off may only be prevented if the starting square is ZOCd by another unit, and the break-off direction is more that 45 degrees from directly away from that enemy's front.

I don't want to be more explicit (e.g. in the manual) because the use of ZOCs to prevent breakoffs is a bit gamey, so I don't want to make it easier for people to do.

Another question on evades.
The slingers were on the square marked with the X (where the hoplites are in the pic).
I thought they wouldn't be able to evade away because Roman unit A is facing straight ahead and Roman unit B is at an angle. In normal movement I think they would not have been able to get through.
But when charged they went straight through the line of legions.
Do evade moves ignore the facing direction of the unit they are evading through, or is there something else going on here ?

tyronec wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 7:35 pm Another question on evades.
The slingers were on the square marked with the X (where the hoplites are in the pic).
I thought they wouldn't be able to evade away because Roman unit A is facing straight ahead and Roman unit B is at an angle. In normal movement I think they would not have been able to get through.
But when charged they went straight through the line of legions.
Do evade moves ignore the facing direction of the unit they are evading through, or is there something else going on here ?
Evade2.jpg

I asked the same type of question HERE.

OK thanks, that clarifies it.
Though I think I have had an occasion where a unit failed to evade on the double diagonal where the facing was right (presumably because of a lack of APs) but also didn't evade straight with the unit to evade through facing the wrong way, and instead just turned a and got slaughtered. But I may be remembering this incorrectly.

tyronec wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 10:54 pm OK thanks, that clarifies it.
Though I think I have had an occasion where a unit failed to evade on the double diagonal where the facing was right (presumably because of a lack of APs) but also didn't evade straight with the unit to evade through facing the wrong way, and instead just turned a and got slaughtered. But I may be remembering this incorrectly.

Probably correctly remembered, because I believe that has happened to me as well. Evasion is quite stochastic, which is fine by me since it adds some nerve and uncertainty.

Yes, I concur - evades and pursuits add an element of excitement to the game.
And where did you learn your English, I had to look that up to know what it meant (and not for the first time from one of your posts).

tyronec wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 7:28 am Yes, I concur - evades and pursuits add an element of excitement to the game.
And where did you learn your English, I had to look that up to know what it meant (and not for the first time from one of your posts).

Ha ha! Which of the terms? So you're saying my English is bad?

'Stochastic' was the term this time; no I don't think your English is bad, just more cultured than I am used to and the incentive to add the occasional word to my vocabulary is no bad thing. So much for the education I got from the same school as Oscar Wilde.

Can someone explain this? So, I set up a trap against AI shown in this screenshot. I hope its pretty clear what I meant here. See the follow up screenshot with the question 2. I think it can be a bug.

Non-light troops do not turn to face light troops if that would expose their flank/rear to a charge by non-light troops next turn. This is not in the manual because it was added in a patch - see the cumulative PatchNotes.rtf document in the main build. This was done because it was felt that light horse were having more effect in the game by setting up such situations than we felt was historically justified. Especially as it was usually necessary to block their natural fallback to make them stay in contact. In short, it was felt to be gamesmanship, and so the fix was put in to stop it from working.

So the unit in the green box did not turn because it would be charged in the flank by legions next turn. The one in the red box did turn, because there was no immediate flank threat. (The code doesn't take into account the fact that it is likely to be charged in flank by pursuing cavalry soon enough, when the Fragmented unit breaks, because it only takes into account enemy units that are currently free to charge. The logic being that the unit does not know its friends are about to break.)

Ok, I searched around, but I couldn't find the answer anywhere. It's a pretty simple question too.

Does your pursuing unit stop on the target change and recalculates turn action cost. or the whole pursuit considered to be a single move (therefore no turn action cost applied at all)? I ask because I have seen quite a few instances where it would be beneficial to change the target of pursuit or to crush into the engaged infantry flank. My cav continued the pursuit of original target instead even when it had free 45 degree turn left and 6 AP for diagonal move.

Since most units retreat straight back or 1 square diagonally and then back you generally should have free 45 degree turn left. Also, it isn't the case of 25% -4 AP roll, cause usually my cav continues pursuit of the original target for 1 or 2 more squares.

Turns in pursuits don't cost anything anyway. The unit decides (i.e. a script decides) whether the unit fancies its chances enough to charge another unit. It can't do so if it doesn't have enough AP left to enter their square. (Although of course, like other charges, it does not actually enter it).

If your unit had enough AP left to charge, perhaps it did not like its chances. Or perhaps in some of the cases it did not in fact have enough AP left to charge.

If you find a case when it obviously should have charged (e.g. the flank of an engaged unit), but didn't despite still having enough AP to do so, please post a screenshot.

Altho it's an example from Medieval, mechanics should be the same. We operate under the assumption that all enemy units would run if charged (which is true). Knights is unmaneuvrable unit, so can you clarify those things (when I refer to the square 5 , then it is the square where arrow 5 starts):

1) It wouldn't matter if we block the square where arrow 2 starts in order to alter knight charge path, because turning action doesn't cost anything during Pursuit if we get 25% +4 AP, right? If we roll +0 AP or -4 AP then knight will face forward and stay in the square where arrow 3 starts? But in the same scenario with altered path (by blocking square 2) knight will end up in square 3 facing diagonally or we will face our evading target if they run straight back?

2) If we get +4 AP after initial charge that costs 10 AP. 12 - 10 + 4 = 6 AP is enough to perform arrow 3 move. What if we get +0 AP? We will be stuck or does that mean we won't spend any AP on the arrow 3 move, therefore we will perform it and still have 12 - 10 = 2 AP left?

3) We move into the square 4 with 0 AP left. Same question about +0 AP roll - does it make us stuck or progress further? +4 AP won't allow us to perform arrow 6 move, but we can do arrow 4 move still, right?

4) When we are in the 5th square position, then it the last square that we can move into in case of +4 AP? 0 + 4 - 4 = 0 AP and no one else to charge. If enemy cav will retreat one square diagonally and not straight back, then will we face them diagonally or continue facing forward?

5) Can we charge 90 degree angle units (since turning costs nothing) like in this example from the 5th square position into the 7th square (if we assume that this unit is not broken)? Can we change targets to broken units in any circumstances?