Nosy_Rat wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2020 9:25 pm
Disclaimer: I haven't really played the mod yet, but I watched some of SnuggleBunnies' videos if that counts
So there's some feedback:
...
thanks for the feedback!
I think you may be right about refusals to charge, and that combat disadvantage is really the only thing that needs to be taken into account. Rules 1 and 2 are from FOG1, and I kind of like them and understand the idea, like that light troops aren't really confident about charging non lights in general, but that could be sort of covered by combat disadvantage as well. Would you keep the exception for flank attacks? IE the lowest quality non-light cav should never refuse to charge say engaged praetorian guard in the rear if it would get them an auto drop?
yes, assigning lights to general on deployment does have the somewhat annoying consequence that you potentially lose a turn or two of group move. Without assigning them to a general though they may end up never being able to rally or get the extra CC, unless they are near the CinC specifically, because of new command rules, which I think would be the greater of two evils.
I like the double drop idea tied to relative POA/combat advantage and not unit strength. Perhaps if combat advantage is within +-25 then don't double drop (+25/-25 combat advantage is the threshold for what the game considers significant advantage/disadvantage), something like that.
the logic behind the 1) A and B cav charging ZoC and AP loss stuff is to prevent non light infantry from ZoC trapping cavalry, so that's why it's only for cavalry charges. Basically, it lets non light cav charge a non light infantry that is ZoC trapping it, fall back 2 squares, and then afterwards the inf cannot advance far enough to zoc trap the cav anymore, and then cav can get away to the side (not get around typically, but at least away). The secondary ZoC loss stuff similarly helps to prevent a single non light infantry from zoc blocking multiple cav. If one cav charges it then the other can get around through the infantry's secondary ZoC, even if that first cav falls back. I should actually make a little video showing what this does exactly so that it's not so confusing to read. Probably, a repelled warband wouldn't cause less confusion, but this rule is sort of a more gamey rule to help prevent the ZoC trapping of non light cav by non light infantry, just because currently in game getting flank attacks all the way around the enemy line is so difficult because 2-3 cheap spears can ZoC block off the entire flank. It is a weird and experimental type of thing, but we've found we like the effect so far. It has some unintended consequences like using non light cav charges to just slow non light infantry movement in general, but that's not necessarily a terrible effect, and if you wanted to use it that way it would require that you sacrifice non-light cav charging unoccupied non light infantry to get it, which will mean losing a lot of non light cav, so it doesn't seem to be a situation that would be abused to advantage. Needs testing though (it probably is not getting much testing currently because people don't know what it is).
2 and 3 are about speeding up non light cav engagements so that the cav vs cav fight on the flanks resolves fast enough for them to get around before the main infantry combat is already over, which currently doesn't typically happen. For other unit types, if anything we might slow down non light vs non light infantry combat for example, to try and address the issue from both ends as it were. I found that to be a good effect with the pikes in the pike mod. Ultimately, the idea being that cavalry flanks are large, multi unit maneuvers resulting from winning on one flank and turning towards the middle, instead of one offs from single units slipping behind the enemy mid line from a pursuit or single angled flank opened mid line.
4 and 5, long pursuits definitely are historic, and pursuits are still happening in the mod, we just felt for gameplay and tactics purposes that they typically go on too long in Vanilla. It's more of a rebalance to them. Sometimes historically cavalry would just pursue all the way away like you said, but typically historically they seem to come back at least in time to get a flank in on the main line if they can, that being the purpose of sending them around in the first place, whereas in Vanilla they almost always pursue for so long that the battle is over before they come back. This one is also in keeping with the idea of keeping the battles a bit tidier and less spread out, and enabling large coordinated multi unit flanks (as opposed to now where victorious cav as a rule, and not as the exception, run off for so long that they are not useful after their first victory).
I think you may have mixed up the pursuit continuing chances, because the way it is written (both here and in the code) is kind of a confusing double negative. Those are chances to
stop pursuing each turn (and this is while pursuing routers, not evaders). That is, a cav unit has a base 60 chance to stop pursuing a router on any given turn, but a somewhat lower chance to stop than that (50) if the opponent is slower than them (they are light and the opponent is not), because they can catch them and inflict damage, and a much higher chance to stop pursuing if their opponent is faster than them (ie cataphracts aren't going to chase light cav turn after turn when they can see quite clearly that they won't catch them).
For 6 it definitely needs more testing, but I haven't found on the whole it changes things too wildly or encourages single units advancing, especially not more than one tile where your rear would also be exposed. You do still get a -100 POA on being flanked while engaged. Which part of the video were you referring to?
thanks again! would you like to try an mp game?
