Sanurai Warlords X

[Tomisama]

This was a fascinating battle to me. As I was eating breakfast this morning I decided to review the replay again. This time I took some pictures of the radar. I wasn’t too careful about specific points, and what I ended up with really does not do justice to all of the complexities involved. But here it is.

I (green)made a major error in the beginning not seeing Alex’s (yellow) hidden cav. I should have known better, as the opportunity was too ripe. But after taking it, was still satisfied with the result, as I had temporarily distracted Alex from the push on Yuuki (white). This may have had the result of disjointing any coordination with R’as (red), which cost them the battle in the long run. Who knows



One thing (of many) that is really not really apparent above, is Yuuki’s cavalry (the group of white lines to the right), which seemed to draw our opponents deeper to the south than they should have gone. And then melted away into the woods

Great fun guys

[L'Impresario]

Actually I hadn't even seen Yuuki's cav there heh
But the further south he was (or could be drawn) the better, as that would increase the gap between you and him, although I had no plan of attacking Yuuki during the game, it just didn't occur to me heh

If you backup, you're in a depression where Tomi can shoot you, his YS protect his left (although they do eventually go too far afield and that should have cost us the battle), and our center looks weak. I'd say a center attack is correct, but with both you and R'as hitting the center at the same time. I'm not sure doubling me would work because tomi's monks will sweep across, but it might since his YS would be completely out of play.

First of all I took some extra losses with my cav in order to increase the certainty of trapping the entirety of Tomi's cav, thinking that not only would this provide a severe mobility disadvantage to him, but might as well prompt him to attack soon thereafter. And I really thought for a time that he'd attack, so I was willing to leave my guns get attacked if that meant inflicting some damage to more expensive units. But he stopped there, and I was surprised, because he increased the gap between him and his ally.
Then it seems I thought that cutting them in half would be a good idea, but if one thinks about it for a sec or two, it isn't.

Mistake#1 was that even though a bad decision was taken, that didn't mean that bad execution should follow. And bad execution it was indeed, once you settle for a course of action you must take care of "externalities", so we could have fared much better with a concerted attack and one that involved all inf and most cav. No use of that superior mobility was made.


Mistake#2 was the plan as a whole. Attacking the center meant attacking a line of guns and Yuuki's cav behind them. So in effect we were attacking "ground" and not the enemy, presenting our flanks in the process.
As I had superior cav forces, my army units should diverge and make the opponent follow a similar path and then converge to a single point, using speed and maneuvre. If we were to attack Yuuki, Tomi would be forced to move his men across the field, but I don't think they'd arrive faster than YC or HC, or even my own inf, being relatively closer to the woods. A Cav or two could then be used to harass Tomi's units on the way to aid Yuuki and I 'd preferibly move all cav units behind the enemy line, striking at any exposed targets or engaging Yuuki's cav away from the main fight.
By withdrawing I 'd offer my cav greater room to move and flank, while making it easier for R'as to help me, and any extra infantry/ gun fatigue at that moment favoured me.

Lots of choices there, but I managed only a bad attempt at attacking guns frontally while getting flanked and having some important units idle, and that caused a chain rout even before the mainstay of the enemy armies could approach me.