Ballads of the surprising and unexpected

[nyczar]

So I was blown away by a unit placement an opponent of mine made recently. I watched his turn twice I was so surprised. Its a pike on pike battle and my opponent place two of his veteran pike units at the base of a marsh in the position #1 shown. Never would I have expected expensive pike units to be placed in a marsh. Some skirmishers, of course, maybe even a cheap irregular foot. The move forced me to adapt my entire game plans and we will see how it unfolds. Perhaps some of you will want to share the most surprising or unexpected maneuvers you have done or observed.

Pike Surprise marsh2.jpg (56.76 KiB) Viewed 2169 times

[SimonLancaster]

Keep us posted. Those infantry units then moved out of the marsh? Your pic is a bit unclear. Looks like a good battle. Enjoy.

[nyczar]

yeah, sorry about that, too late now to try to fix it; my pic editing skills and resizing not the best. yes, they moved out of the marsh.

[Nosy_Rat]

It surely would've been more surprising if they stayed there. Nobobdy expects the marsh pikes ambush!

[pompeytheflatulent]

The most surprising thing in that screenshot is finding out there are maniacs out there who play this game with the unsightly grid lines turned on. *shudders*

[stockwellpete]

The most surprising thing in that screenshot is finding out there are maniacs out there who play this game with the unsightly grid lines turned on. *shudders*

To be fair, I do that when I've had a few.

[nyczar]

Oh that was to help with the screenshot, to no avail.

[Ludendorf]

To be fair, I do that when I've had a few.

Drunk Field of Glory is the best Field of Glory. Now you too can play an alcoholic general like so many before you in real life!

[Schweetness101]

To be fair, I do that when I've had a few.

Drunk Field of Glory is the best Field of Glory. Now you too can play an alcoholic general like so many before you in real life!

covid is turning this into a serious issue for me lol.

I'd add that there's no field of glory modding like drunk field of glory modding.

[kvnrthr]

Perhaps he meant to hide them? I remember when I played multiplayer I once put a bunch of heavy infantry in the forest, then could go out and surprise my opponent. It often doesn't help too much (you can count how many points you see after all), but has worked against some people, and I did win one game this way as I somehow maneuvered my opponent into a bad position due to this sneakiness.

[SimonLancaster]

Are units hidden or obscured from view in a marsh?

[nyczar]

all infantry is hidden, not cav.

[Ludendorf]

It isn't that unusual to put a strong unit in rough terrain only to bring it forward out of hiding at the right moment. I was always fond of the war elephant in the forest myself. That one never gets old. XD

Bonus points if it was a single patch of forest.

[Nosy_Rat]

It isn't that unusual to put a strong unit in rough terrain only to bring it forward out of hiding at the right moment. I was always fond of the war elephant in the forest myself. That one never gets old. XD

Bonus points if it was a single patch of forest.

I don't think elephants would be hidden in forest though. Definitely not in single tile.

[Ludendorf]

I don't think elephants would be hidden in forest though. Definitely not in single tile.

That's probably true. You have to hide them deeper into the forest, which causes problems because the forest reduces the elephant's movement range and makes it hard to actually spring the ambush. Also, the elephant is in big trouble if it gets trapped in the forest by just about anything but cavalry, which happened to me once. You're usually better off using hidden lancers or medium cavalry if you don't have lancers. I guess I just like the idea of springing an ambush with the least stealthy unit on the battlefield.

[nyczar]

Its the commitment to do 2-3 turn marches and then spring an ambush that I find most impressive because it takes patience and vision to pull that off well. Most static ambushes are predicable especially if the mistake of including a general in the ambush force is made. But mobile ambushes where the opponent sees all opposing generals and turns pass before the ambush is ready I find are the most effective because they may lulled the enemy into complacency thinking a forest/blind spot is erroneously clear.

My best example of doing this was keeping 3-4 cav units hidden behind a woods/hill, marching a weak medium force towards a group of heavies, turning around before contact and marching back to my hidden cav force, turning again to engage the pursuing heavies with my meds, and then charging the cav to hit the flanks of the heavies once they were held in place by me "fleeing" mediums. About 6-8 turns had past before the ambush was launched. A good win where I used my opponents aggressive tendencies against him.

[Ludendorf]

Another way to tell if an ambush is on the way is to consult the casualties screen or count the points value of the forces arrayed against you. If there are more troops on the field than you can see or it doesn't add up to 1200 points for a medium map, your opponent is hiding a few aces up their sleeve. This is one of the ways an elephant ambush can actually be dangerous. The 20 men in an elephant unit don't show up, unless your opponent painstakingly counts up the number of soldiers on the field, or knows how to point count.