"Fighting to the death" status?

[Omisan]

I've been playing M2 for 3 weeks now and I saw this for the first time this morning. A general's guard unit which charged a large enemy formation became unresponsive, not because it was fleeing, but because it had a "fight to the death" status (with a little deathhead icon).

What is this exactly? Do they get some sort of bonus?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Omisan,
The Fighting to the Death status only occurs if a unit has lost all it's morale, is surrounded and has nowhere to escape to. In this case the solders desperately fight their foes to create a free path to escape through and get away from the fray of the battle. Once the way is clear it will run for it's life like an average fleeing unit. However, if no way is clear, then the cowardly unit will be forced to fight down to the last man. Hope this helps you, cheers!

[TevashSzat]

Yep, but this can be really bothersome sometimes since your trying to capture a wall and you caused the defenders to rout when they suddenly starts fighting to the death and kills half of your assaulting force by holding them up for reinforcements

[vonsch]

Sun Tzu says always leave them a way out...

This is why.

But if you are trying to get rid of your enemy's leader (another Sun Tzu dictum, I think, but certainly a Machiavelli one), it is lovely to see him turning red.

[Whacker]

My experience is that I've seen far too much of this, the "Fighting to the Death", even when I leave a (at least I think it's pretty clear and obvious) way out for the broken units. Don't see anything wrong with this concept at all, just think it needs some tweaking.

[JCoyote]

What I think is wrong is that so many units are practically in fight to the death mentality anyway. When I'm seeing 75 man units not routing until there's only 4 left, and they aren't being led by an uber general, something's off. Personally I think the thusly enhanced lethality of the new battles is a bit unrealistic, and reducing the game to more of a "choose the right units and slug it out" as opposed to older maneuvering your enemies into routing.

[FactionHeir]

Fighting to the death units (more so for infantry than cavalry) also fight at lower strength than units that are not broken.

[sapi]

I've also noticed (and fyi this is just personal experience) that units that are fighting to the death tend to be far less effective than you'd think - I've had units break and do so with dozens of men left and not inflict more than one or two casualties...

[Foz]

I've also noticed (and fyi this is just personal experience) that units that are fighting to the death tend to be far less effective than you'd think - I've had units break and do so with dozens of men left and not inflict more than one or two casualties...

Perhaps reflective of the mentality one has when trapped and forced to fight a hopeless fight trying to escape? Animals fight harder when cornered, but perhaps humans fight weaker because they see how hopeless and futile their situation has become.

[sapi]

Yeh - That's likely the case

I wasn't saying it was a bad idea, just commenting that fighting to the death does very little except on walls.

[StoneCold]

Shoudn't that be a case for surrendering instead of fighting to the death? I mean you are surrounded, broken as a figthing unit, I thought the men in it will more likely to surrender than to fight to the death?

[sapi]

If you want to look on fighting to the death in a RP sense, consider that the men in the unit are waiting for rescue from their comrades on the battlefield and still retain faith that their side will win (hence will not surrender)

[JCoyote]

Shoudn't that be a case for surrendering instead of fighting to the death? I mean you are surrounded, broken as a figthing unit, I thought the men in it will more likely to surrender than to fight to the death?

I agree. For the vast majority of units this situation should lead to a total unit surrender. Fighting to the death should only happen to super high morale soldiers; ie, the psychos and zealots. More reasonable units should be throwing down their arms and begging for their lives... which would fun if they animated it. Most would then be captured by enemy moves... though a few would still die (people are pretty worked up and accidents happen). In fact, I think a good consequence of uber morale units should be taking very few prisoners... routers and surrendered units should still be mostly killed by the highest... their just kinda crazy with bloodlust.

[sapi]

If it were to go that way, I'd say you'd want a sliding scale that peaked in the middle

ie:

low morale unit -> accepts surrenders

middle morale unit, fanatics -> never accepts surrenders

high morale unit, professional soldiers -> accepts surrenders

[JCoyote]

That really seems more relative to discipline. Discipline should be what keeps them from killing surrendered, not higher morale.

[sapi]

That's what I was trying to say, yes - but fanatical troops should be a special case; no matter how disciplined if they're fighting people of another religion they shouldn't take prisoners

[pike master]

yuh but you are forgetting that lowly peasants were oftentimes mentally disturbed from being thrashed around so much that when they felt that death was inevitable they went berserk.

a berserk peasant with a pitchfork

[Whacker]

a berserk peasant with a pitchfork

Should still be about as deadly to an armored knight as that one Ewok in Return of the Jedi who's sitting on top of the AT/ST banging away with his stick.

[Foz]

Should still be about as deadly to an armored knight as that one Ewok in Return of the Jedi who's sitting on top of the AT/ST banging away with his stick.

Luckily the Ewoks in larger numbers are tactical geniuses, and easily capable of complex battlefield tricks and traps. Maybe Peasants are similar, which explains why full units handily dispatch seemingly better troops - CA just chose not to animate the log traps, hang gliders, and primitive catapults that peasants are using in combat.

[IrishArmenian]

When in a hopeless siege battle, I love to see my units fight to the death on the walls.

[Whacker]

Luckily the Ewoks in larger numbers are tactical geniuses, and easily capable of complex battlefield tricks and traps. Maybe Peasants are similar, which explains why full units handily dispatch seemingly better troops - CA just chose not to animate the log traps, hang gliders, and primitive catapults that peasants are using in combat.

So you're suggesting that I should simply envision the enemy peasants blasting away at my poor DFK's on their speederbikes, hence my unusually high casualty counts when fighting them? Given how many they're usually able to kill, I guess that makes sense...

[pike master]

a sharp pitchfork aint somethin i would scoff at if i was at the business end of it no matter how much armor i had. and my horse would not have near as much protection. i figure a pitchfork could own a horse pretty good with a good jab.

the trident is a well respected weapon of war but the pitchfork which has many similiarities is not, i suppose.

[Lorenzo_H]

Sun Tzu says always leave them a way out...

This is why.

But if you are trying to get rid of your enemy's leader (another Sun Tzu dictum, I think, but certainly a Machiavelli one), it is lovely to see him turning red.

Hey I am a big fan of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu as well!

[Specky the Mad]

i think a good system would be something similar to sapi's, but rather than your pro soldiers surrendering it should be almost all mercs surrender when completely surrounded and with no hope of rescue as what do they care if you win.

But you would imagine that your pro soldiers would rather fight to the death rather than be taken prisoner or what is the point of paying them so much, or stuff like that can be tied in with whether the general himself would do that such as if he has the brave trait etc., as it could be seen that he is a man worth dieing for. Creating a more dynamic game when the player has to choose whether to take the risk with their generals life to keep the support of their men or have a army that is ready to jump ship when things ain't looking so good

[Daykeras]

What happened to the crazy "Heroic" status that I saw in RTW? Can I somehow manipulate unit stats to create this as a more common occurance? I was thinking back to the naked fanatics going "heroic" where 40 of them would destroy 400 legionaires. I'd love to be able to move that to spartans, and in the context of M2TW some of the more agressive or famous units.

So does it still exist, anyone see it? Anyone have an idea of how we can impliment it on other units? It might solve a few people's views on "Fighting to the death"

[pike master]

id like ta see some of dem dar forlorn hope to go berserk like the berserkers in rome. 8)