Disiplined Retreating

[Stormer]

well i been reading alot on the roman army and how it all worked and was organised but i rember about how the Romans made disiplined retrated we all know about the hasti, triari, & i cant rember the last but it spoke of if the lines we broken they would run to the last line of defense the Hasti i think they were and join their ranks and if it got so bad they formed circles.

so i was thinking what about organised retreat not they STW or MTW way of your genral dies and they run round like headless chikens, of corse when they are in a really really bad way they make their headless chiken runs to the ends of the maps. but it would be nice to see some disiplin plus it would make the game more accrate.

Stormer

[DthB4Dishonor]

Actually this is one of the biggest improvements CA has made from STW to MTW. In STW all players armies will rout in direction of where there army initially came out through or were deployed at.

So it was pretty stupid for scared routing units to run straight to a fresh full enemy army because it happens to be between them and there depolyment zone. This was pretty suicidal.

Now the battle requires more discipline and concentration. Enemy units can rout in every direction and you have to decide keep pursuing and stop them from rallying or pull this unit back into the main fray to help allies.

Now what I would like and what you kind of lead towards is a pullback move. So that a unit can pullback slowly without exposing there rear to enemy army. That would be a great added feature.

RTKPaul

[ELITEofGAZOZ]

Quote[/b] ]Now what I would like and what you kind of lead towards is a pullback move. So that a unit can pullback slowly without exposing there rear to enemy army. That would be a great added feature.

THIS IS A MUST

[Shahed]

KOOL

[Stormer]

yea and maybe joning ranks up.

[Obex]

Quote[/b] (ELITEofGAZOZ @ May 01 2003,11:10)]Now what I would like and what you kind of lead towards is a pullback move. So that a unit can pullback slowly without exposing there rear to enemy army. That would be a great added feature.
I agree. I was just thinking of starting a thread on this topic actually.

I hate during bridge battles when my men are doing a smashing job defending and in the process slowly creep onto the bridge and to about the 1/2 way point. hold position doesnt seem to help (maybe because i issued an attack order?) suddenly, their archers can really get into the picture, and the death toll starts to equilize. my options are to press on, or sacrifice a unit to cover the retreat of my main force. a nice fighting withdrawal would be perfect here.

[Stormer]

yea i agree...

[Hakonarson]

I'm going to disagree http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Retreating in the face of the enemy is possibly THE hardest manouvre to carry out, and easily converted into a rout. It was rarely done successfully - right up until modern times - eg the retreat of Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991 began in ana orderly fashion but was soon turned to a rout.

You CAN do it in MTW already if conditions are right -the enemy is also tired, and you pay attention and keep control of your troops, and IMO that's how it should be - a difficult exercise that you can justly be proud of having achieved.

To make it a "button" that you push that gives you the best of all worlds would be an injustice IMO.

[rory_20_uk]

Yeah, I agree that it is stupid that the entire unit has to turn their backs to the opposition to reform, even if the desired effect is merely to walk slightly backward. Although I can see that this would be difficult to do in practice, as at the moment the central man is the one that all othe march in relation to it would mean that if one desires to pull units back without them getting slaughtered, this would be more possible.

[DthB4Dishonor]

Hail Harkonason,

I am not necessarily speaking about dissengaging a unit and having it pullback. I do realize this as being potentially very hazardous for a unit. What I am speaking about is plain movement while unengaged.

I.E. I am shooting out vs enemy but he gets his arbs in range of my order foot. My order foot units turn around and expose there unarmoured rear and take on more casualties than by everyone in that unit stepping back 5-10 feet.

IMHO a disciplined army unit should be able to perform this manuever without getting such penalties as lossing there armour defense and get higher missile casualties. Also there is a morale penalty if you turn your rear to enemy units, on top of that it is a longer moving cycle.

RTKPaul

[Hakonarson]

Ah....I see.

Rearward movement while facing forwards isn't something I've ever heard of as actually existing.

AFAIK it is not part of any standard military drill today - perhaps by specialised drill teams - butif that's the case it should tell you the sort of level of training required to do it competently without actually being under fire.

And even the best trained ancients almost certainly were NOT as well drilled as any decent modern soldier is in basic training these days.

If you read the manuals you'll find that complicated drills include turning to face flanks and rear - but the standards always move to the new front of the unit. Doubling and halving ranks were apparently always by forward movement.

Trying to shuffle backwards without seeing where you're going, with men behind you in close order strikes me as somethign that'd be very difficul;t to control.

And why would you only go 5-10 feet anyway? Archery ranges in the game may be absolute, but the concept that you can be shot at "here", but not 10 feet further away doesn't exist in "real life" - and archer can always try to pull his bow a bit further - or one of the stronger archers or better made crossbows or lighter projectiles will shoot a bit further than the others.

So I'd still disagree that it should be in the game - both because I don't think anythign like it ever happened, and because it caters for a slightly unrealistic game mechanic of a cut-off range for shooting.

[Aelwyn]

Something similar existed in STW though. Your unit could walk sideways, not turning and exposing themselves, as long as the place they were moving wasn't very far. If they could move sideways, they should be able to move backwards. It would make sense that the men wouldn't stay together as closely as they are just standing, but it should still be possible. Someone might trip and fall, but thats just something that happens anyways.

[Hakonarson]

Moving sideways is practiced in modern drill - IIRC I used to sidestep up to 5 paces as a set move.

I would have a look in my copy of Vegetius tonigth to see if he mentions side & rear movement, but I'm shifting house & my books are packed away for a couple or 3 weeks (yaaay I hear everyone cry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif), but there's probably an online copy of Vegetius in English somewhere if someone wants to look it up......

[ELITEofGAZOZ]

@Hokanorson:

Your points could solved easily:

- A unit which is retreating but still facing enemy gets a temporarily moral bonus, so it could turn into a route.....

- A unit just retreats while still facing enemy only if the new position is just ca. 10 yards away and the player used alt + left mouse klick.

Sometimes u have ur Spearunit too near behind ur own pavises and they are in shoot range, so u want to step back few yards, no reason to turn the whole unit around: In MTW the unit, which has to move back just 1 yard, turns around and turns back the whole unit, thats simply bullshit.

[Stormer]

Remeber its only a game not a full down to every little scale historical game.

[Hakonarson]

I just reckon there's no reason to introduce fantasy where it's not neded - there's no reason to have a morale hit if retreating - you get that if you turn yuor unit around anyway.

There is a mechanism there to do it - turn the unit and march it to where you want it - any losses you take are your fault for putting the unit in the wrong place - just like any other mistake you make - why should this be different?

Do you want a button to move your archers 200 yards to the side if they're getting charged by cavalry too??

[Catiline]

I'm inclined to agree with Hakarnason on htis one. Fighting retreats are operational manoeuvers not tactical ones. Ancient armies used deep formations in part to prevent any creep back, they were designed to go forward and win hte battle. Edging out of missile range simply wasn't feasible, the units weren't designed to behave in that way, especially when you have a unit like the phalanx that relies on its integrity.

Realistically the ranged units simply move forward anyway. The bridge battles you're talking about are the most contrived feature of hte TW games, and i suspect we'll see a different approch to them with hte changes to the campaign and battle maps. Bridge battles are the only time the feature you want would be significantly useful, and frankly if your units are in missile range you shouldn't have let them get there, if they've managed to get there themselves in the course of fighting, that's one of the more realistic features.