Rout feigning

[Irving]

It would be awesome to be able to feign a rout, so that you could lead the enemy into an ambush. I would have liked that in STW but hey.. can't have everything.

t'would also be a powerful tool in multiplayer. if you used prperly, but my fear is that it would be over used.

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Chaos is born from order.
Cowardice is born from bravery.
Weakness is born from strength.
-Sun Tzu

[Jaguara]

Well, the key is to make the feint balanced. For example, it takes time to reform the line, and until that time, the unit should still suffer from penalties of a unit who is not in a contiguous formation.

And if he pursues a single feinting unit into the middle of standing units...then he deserves what he gets...

[theforce]

Very good idea. I remember a post like this but wouldn't it a bit unrealistic for Shogun. I mean you have 16 units played at the same time and the number won't go up a lot in the medievel game. Sending just a handful of men will make the attacker to think twice before chasing. Also sending only half units would make it too obvious and it require forests to hide rest your men. Anyway the enemy could just send some cav to chase and if he sees yer men get em back. Also deviding your army is not a good idea for this only if you have more men. Having eg 6 units routing while other 10 try to make an ambush, well the enemy will be expecting that and the routing units would make a negative bonus.
I was almost defeated by a rout like that. In a low koku game around 2k in the eralt days he send many ys only to be blocked by my higher honor units(his gen was a lso with him), l chased and then some fresh ys come down from a huge hill l blocked and almost win, it took ages to resolve that battle and l thought l was gonna loose there. A good idea though but requires good timing to work.

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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
http://lod.nipogames.com/default.html

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

In the Toyatomi campaign i'm stuck on one scenario. The one with the castle. Once when I was trying to conquer this scenario i routed my whole army cuz they were running, then managed to rally them and beat most of the AI! (the time ran out!) So this is already possible but not common.

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"

[NinjaKilla]

This is an interesting discussion in a historical context. Its something that I have had to think about when studying the Battle of Hastings. Some documents and modern historians have suggested that the Normans feigned a retreat in order to lure the Saxons off the hill at Hastings. I don't know what you guys think about this, but in the heat of battle this sort of manouvre would have been extremely complex. In fact I think that communications and training would not have been adequate enough to carry it out. At Hastings, I think that the initial Norman charges - on horse back, on a hill, into a shield wall of probably the best foot troops in Europe at the time - actually resulted in a genuine rout. It was the death of the English commander (and King) on the battlefield that lead to a break down in the command structure and the failure of individual commanders to stop their men from pursuing what was only a partial retreat...

Flippin' 'eck, I'm going on! My point though it that I doubt that military technology had advanced adequatly enough by the time of the Crusades for this sort of manouvre to be carried out. Out of interest, does anyone know of any other examples of this sort of thing?

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Clan Kenchikuka (http://pub14.ezboard.com/fclankenchikukakenchikukacouncilchamber)

[Cheetah]

early magyars used this trick quite frequently http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

True NinjaKiller the saxons were a dopey lot of muppets! But still i agree the strategy and communication links needed would have been too complex for even William the Conker!

"Ok lads just charge up that hill and those muppets will run away!...Ok?"

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"

[MagyarKhans Cham]

yup Cheetah, Late Magyars as well http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[longjohn2]

The main reason that there is a rout command in Shogun, is so that you can do feigned routs. If you're able to successfullu rally the unit again, it was a feigned rout. If not, it began as a feigned rout, and turned into a real one, as often happened.
Either way, it's unlikely the general would comminicate his plan to every grunt in the army, so other units can't tell if the rout is real or not.
It's a tactic to use with care, but certainly you can do it.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

hi John

that is way to risky and not workable for the topnotch players. Like my Khan feigned flight must be achieved by pure micromanaging. The only risk u can face then is the autorout bug. And if u dont want me to appear in your sleep u better solve that for tw2 http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[theforce]

If the unit is not very badly damaged it will rally if there is no other unit chasing it.

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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
http://lod.nipogames.com/default.html