Slitherine

I have played the The Sengoku Jidai Shadow of the Shogun release for 30 battles or so, now and have some questions/issues with flank marches.

1) why are flank marches in some battles mandatory?
2) why can't flank marches be a decision by the player for all battles? Also which flank to enter based on the terrain.
3) all the battles I have played with mandatory flank marches always have 1 or 2 of the units never coming on board. Is that designed that way? If so why?
4) I realize the flank marching units come on in a random turn. However, I have had 1 time where 2 of the 3 units came on in turn 7 and in such a bad location they couldn't get to the battle until only a few turns were left in the game. Hope this is not common.

AL Rivers

ALRivers wrote:I have played the The Sengoku Jidai Shadow of the Shogun release for 30 battles or so, now and have some questions/issues with flank marches.

1) why are flank marches in some battles mandatory?

If the autodeploy routine cannot find any suitable terrain on which to deploy a unit within 2 squares of its intended position, it sends it on a flank march instead (unless the scenario is a reinforcement scenario, in which case it adds it to the reinforcements). This usually happens in mountainous terrain where one side's deployment area is mostly mountain. This can be rationalised as part of the army being forced by the poor quality of the roads/paths in the terrain to arrive on the battlefield by a different route.

2) why can't flank marches be a decision by the player for all battles? Also which flank to enter based on the terrain.

Mainly because of the above. An algorithm selects the flank with the most suitable terrain.

3) all the battles I have played with mandatory flank marches always have 1 or 2 of the units never coming on board. Is that designed that way? If so why?

Historically, troop sent on outflanking manoeuvres sometimes got lost or delayed and failed to arrive before the battle was decided. Therefore, when a flank march "arrives" each unit in it tests to see if it is straggling. If it straggles, the unit is left off the battlefield, but may arrive later using the normal "return to battlefield" mechanism.

4) I realize the flank marching units come on in a random turn. However, I have had 1 time where 2 of the 3 units came on in turn 7 and in such a bad location they couldn't get to the battle until only a few turns were left in the game. Hope this is not common.

Turn 7 is about normal. The position of arrival may sometimes be poor. Once again, this represents the historically chancy business of attempting to coordinate detached forces in an era when communications were rudimentary.