Slitherine

I've recently encountered a few examples of poor unit usage by the battle engine. Here's a fictitious example of the type of issue.

I attack a poorly defended region. The terrain is hill and I know the defenders can only muster 2 or 3 units to defend. I have other battles to fight so I don't want to send a full army, but I'll send enough to comfortably do the job, let's say 5 Infantry and 5 skirmishers.

The frontage is 8 (I may have this wrong, but the important bit is that it is more than my infantry) and the enemy have 3 units.

Any sensible commander would deploy with 5 infantry with 5 skirmishers against the 3 enemy. This gives overwhelming fire power and flank attacks too. But no, the system deploys with a main line of 8 (5 infantry and 3 skirmishers) and only 2 skirmishers to provide missile and support. Now, in all probability I will still win the battle, but the odds of me taking some damage to my units increases significantly the skirmish attack is much reduced meaning a stronger opponent for the melee phase and the melee phase has no support for 1 of the melee. It also means that 3 of my line don't actually do anything in the battle.

Can something be done to improve this?

Either we need a deployment that should be 'the length of the enemy line' + 2, or flanking attacks should be allowed for the extra line units.

Another bad example recently I saw was cavalry being deployed in the main line, when there were infantry available for the main line and there were no cavalry left for flank attacks! This was compounded by the fact that the enemy had no cavalry so that the cavalry missed the opportunity to have free attacks (probable kills) on the flanks.

There is a bonus of having more units in the frontline like in your example.. namely flanking! Flanking is one of the most devastating effects during combat. So if you would have send along say 4 light cav they would have deployed on the wings, the skirmishers in the second line and you would have annihilated the enemy, first with ranged attack, then normal attacks, then flanking.

But in general i agree with your point the "need" to fill the entire line seems odd sometimes... OTOH, it also applies to your enemy and it deprives him of ranged skirmishers too!

Culthrasa wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:00 pm There is a bonus of having more units in the frontline like in your example.. namely flanking! Flanking is one of the most devastating effects during combat. So if you would have send along say 4 light cav they would have deployed on the wings, the skirmishers in the second line and you would have annihilated the enemy, first with ranged attack, then normal attacks, then flanking.

But in general i agree with your point the "need" to fill the entire line seems odd sometimes... OTOH, it also applies to your enemy and it deprives him of ranged skirmishers too!

Yes, but then I'd have to send even more units to defeat a small army. An additional 2 cavalry, making 12 in total, would have given me 2 additional flank attacks... which probably would not have even come into effect as the main unit, or the flanking melee would probably have already beaten the main units and the enemy has no support units to attack.... and I still may have taken damage on my main units.

The point of my gripe is that I send an army that is significantly bigger than the enemy and it takes damage it doesn't need to take. The solution shouldn't be to send even more, especially for small countries that need to make the most of what limited resources they already have.