Questions on missile troops?

[MasterChief81]

I have never played the TT but I love the PC version of this game system. I think it does an awesome job of walking the line between playablity and historical accuracy/realism. Two questions keep bugging me though:

1) How can javlin troops have unlimited javlins even when far from their baggage camp?

2) Why is it that missile troops can move and shoot but they can't shoot and move?

[MasterChief81]

Did I post this in the wrong area?

[Blathergut]

Am sure you are in the right spot. I guess no dev's have answered (yet).

[Blathergut]

I can try (most likely catapulted down for incorrect answer).

Re: Javelins

In truth, it didn't seem to be a problem in the battles. Not that they had any sort of ammo resupply. More likely you picked up what had been chucked at you. Or a rock. Skirmishers were as much about getting in the way and being a bother as causing great amounts of casualties (probably very few really)(LF in Roman battles anyway).

As far as shooting...it may be more a design effect than logical structure to the movement and shooting rules. Trying for effect or to avoid certain things.

Anyone else ideas?

[TheGrayMouser]

I think Balthergut capped off the ammo supply ?

As for the move shoot ?
Hmm... Units that move and THEN shoot lose a POA, wheras shoooting and losing the move allows full effect for the shot.

I guess you could think of it as a "time on target effect" The unit is spending its whole turn firing away as opposed to moving and only having a brief moment to use its weapons... really just a mechanic of a turn based game structure imho.

[deadtorius]

Moving and shooting follows the TT rules. On the TT you can move your archers and then shoot but since shooting comes after the movement (TT has phases that the PC does not have) on the TT you don't get a shoot then move option.
Another way of looking at it could be that archers don't like to get closer to their target than they have to, try to get them to charge some time and see how many refuse. Being an archer means raining death from a distance which is where most shooting troops would rather stay, most of them get slaughtered in melee.

[rbodleyscott]

Hmm... Units that move and THEN shoot lose a POA, wheras shoooting and losing the move allows full effect for the shot.

Does this still apply? I think it was removed when they removed the autoturn to shoot. I certainly have not noticed it when looking at pre-shot POAs.

There is a -1 for not facing the enemy, which affects LH who are not facing the enemy and LF who have to turn to face the enemy when they shoot.

[batesmotel]

Hmm... Units that move and THEN shoot lose a POA, wheras shoooting and losing the move allows full effect for the shot.

Does this still apply? I think it was removed when they removed the autoturn to shoot. I certainly have not noticed it when looking at pre-shot POAs.

There is a -1 for not facing the enemy, which affects LH who are not facing the enemy and LF who have to turn to face the enemy when they shoot.

I believe that the -1 was dropped along with auto-facing when shooting. I think it is mentioned inthe relase notes if you go back far enough.

Chris

[TheGrayMouser]

Really?, I have been wasting a lot of effort to make sure units dont move in order to get better results....grrrr Well if ther is no advantage, then I have to ask the question that the thread originater asked: why cant units shoot and then move???

[batesmotel]

Really?, I have been wasting a lot of effort to make sure units dont move in order to get better results....grrrr Well if ther is no advantage, then I have to ask the question that the thread originater asked: why cant units shoot and then move???

I think it is primarily because the current turn structure in the game is that a unit performs voluntary movement and then engages in shooting or combat. If this was changed for missile fire, one problem it would introduce is that it would make it too easy for non skirmishers to act like skirmishers only better ones by shooting and then moving away on one turn and on the next turn moving and then turning around to shoot again so that troops chasing them who were as slow or slower would essentially never catch them. The changes to give a -1 for shooting and moving and then the ellimination of auto-facing were made specifically to eliminate this problem.

Chris

[TheGrayMouser]

Hmm I thought the issue was the auto refacing of medium missle troops, which meant they could run away from the enemy, and then fire and be facing the enemy again.

As it stands, Light Foot can move, and shoot at a 360 degree arc, howver they lose the poa if the target isnt in their front arc at end of move (the unit does auto reface though)

Light horse is the same except they never auto reface after firing

Regular Horse/ medium foot can only fire in their frontal arc..

I guess I should pay more attnetion to the UI combat displays, as i have been holding back on my missle troops waiting for the enemy to come within range to get illusionary "better shots"

[CaptainHuge]

Getting back to the running out of ammo point. I don't ever remember reading about any regular battle where skirmishers had a real problem of running out of ammunition. I would imagine that, based on the fact that they didn't all throw their javelins at once, that when some ran out, others would still have theirs, or maybe they sent a squad back to bring up more ammunition from stashes behind their lines or they picked up stuff thrown at them etc.

I can't see it making the game better if they changed the rules so that your javelin-armed light infantry ran out of ammunition and had to fight with knives or rocks or whatever.

I like how it plays now.

Although there have been a lot of complaints about the power of missile fire from skirmishers in the game, there are certain things I like about it. It forces players to move their troops into battle instead of just sitting there and it can actually add tactical variety. For example, it forces some armies to attack, even unfavorably, if the enemy is punishing them with skirmishers and you can't counter them. Totally historical? I don't know, but it adds fun to the game, at least against the AI.

My opinion.

[kujalar]

Getting back to the running out of ammo point. I don't ever remember reading about any regular battle where skirmishers had a real problem of running out of ammunition. I would imagine that, based on the fact that they didn't all throw their javelins at once, that when some ran out, others would still have theirs, or maybe they sent a squad back to bring up more ammunition from stashes behind their lines or they picked up stuff thrown at them etc.

I can't see it making the game better if they changed the rules so that your javelin-armed light infantry ran out of ammunition and had to fight with knives or rocks or whatever.

I like how it plays now.

Although there have been a lot of complaints about the power of missile fire from skirmishers in the game, there are certain things I like about it. It forces players to move their troops into battle instead of just sitting there and it can actually add tactical variety. For example, it forces some armies to attack, even unfavorably, if the enemy is punishing them with skirmishers and you can't counter them. Totally historical? I don't know, but it adds fun to the game, at least against the AI.

My opinion.

I like to think that casualties are not the same as killed. Simple mathematical model could be for every 1 killed, there is 2 severely wounded and 4 slightly wounded. If you like to think that casualties are killed + severely wounded you can make an approximation.
For ~50% casualties , there are approximately 17% killed, 33% severely wounded and rest of the gang at least slightly injured

With modern warfare they said that 1 severely wounded binds 4 men more where 1 killed binds none more.

I think it is historical that missile troops can force their opponent to attack. I just read a book written by Xenophon, which told of coming back from the Battle of Cunaxa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon

Those Greeks had problems with skirmishers, they needed to form their own skirmisher forces to deal with hostile skirmishers during their long march back home. Before they had em their only way to deal with skirmishers was to charge enemy skirmishers, so they run away and none was captured, but the march column could continue. Well, you can propably find the book from your local library and read more

[MasterChief81]

Interesting view points.

I hadn't thought about it but with a little research I couldn't find any mention of skirmishers running out of ammo. I did find an account of the battle of Agincourt stating the amount of trouble the British went to to ensure they had bushels of arrows on hand. Still, from most accounts I have read javlin armed troops usualy carried 2 to 8 javlins. I do agree the game is playable and fun as is.

The shoot and move is another issue but I agree that it is probably a game mechanics thing and it does add another layer of strategy to the tactics of the battle!

Thanks to everyone for the reply!

[deeter]

One thing I wish for is a sort of auto facing when a LF unit that is eligable to face would do so. As of now, you have to manually face the unit to get full fire value. In the heat of the moment, I often forget to right click to see if the unit can face so it fires at reduced damage.

Deeter

[kujalar]

At Hastings the archers did run out of ammo.

[Blathergut]

I think it depends partly on time period. In ancient battles, the skirmishers seemed to not run out. Read accounts of Caesars battles. There's one where after the battle with some of Pompey's troops, a centurion counts how many enemy javelins were chucked at him...unreal amount.

Get into medieval times with heavy-duty longbow forces, supply would need to be managed somehow for sure.