advantage night battles?

[Upxl]

described in the manual:


If you want to gain the full benefits of a night attack you'll have to lead your men onto the battlefield.

What are these full benefits it's talking about?

I read somewhere in this forum it's about the enemy can't reinforce because of the night skill.
Useful fighting against hordes and such.

But what are the other advantages???

I once did a night battle against a couple off peasants.
And the little bastards stood their ground pretty good.
I slaughter almost their entire detachment before they chose to flee.

So it can’t be that the enemy is less heroic.
Any ideas anyone?

[Antagonist]

Well, the most important thing to remember in Night Battles is the Night Fighter trait. I think generals get this when they reach their 4th or 5th Command star. They can also receive it if they are attacked at night and win. There's also Noctophilia (likes the dark) and Noctophobia (afraid of the dark) traits which give a Command bonus/penalty when fighting at night, and are affected (I assume) by winning or losing night battles.

First of all, your general needs the Night Fighter trait to order night attacks at all. Then there's reinforcements: Usually when a battle commences, any other armies or allied armies within the immediate radius of the battlefield will come to the aid of whichever faction they're allied with. But when fighting at night, unless a nearby army is commanded by a general with the Night Fighting ability, they will not be able to reinforce their allies. This is very useful if you encounter a large number of enemy stacks in close proximity: normally whichever one you attacked would be reinforced by all the others, but with a night attack you can deal with them one by one.

I vaguely recall hearing something about a morale penalty to units at night if the commander doesn't have Night Fighting, but I'm not sure about that.

I'm currently playing a Celtic campaign and I'm using night attacks extensively. Subjectively it seems to me that the enemies are indeed quicker to rout in night battles, but I can't confirm that.

Antagonist

[Dutch_guy]

well you should be doing it for the fact that the general who has the night fighter trait gets a star bonus when fighting in the night.
Don't really know , if it has any other benefits , as in causing the enemy to rout faster...or such things

Giving you an edge over the enemy troops, plus giving you own morale bonuses.

:balloon2:

[The Darkhorn]

I've never seen a night battle, but I play MTW/VI. Is it something unique to RTW?

But speaking of weather, here's an interesting fact. The Mongols campaign in the Winter, not Summer. :charge: It would be intersting if when you are attacked by the Mongols, you got a Winter landscape...sometimes even snow. This has never happened although I've fought three battles in Europe that had snow, but then again I've played 11 campaigns to get those three.

[The Darkhorn]

I've never seen a night battle, but I play MTW/VI. Is it something unique to RTW?

But speaking of weather, here's an interesting fact. The Mongols campaign in the Winter, not Summer. :charge: It would be intersting if when you are attacked by the Mongols, you got a Winter landscape...sometimes even snow. This has never happened although I've fought three battles in Europe that had snow, but then again I've played 11 campaigns to get those three.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Night battles is a RTW feature. I haven't had one yet, though. (But it has been barely two months that I've been playing it. ~;))
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[PseRamesses]

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Night battles is a RTW feature. I haven't had one yet, though. (But it has been barely two months that I've been playing it. ~;))
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A BI feat m8! And your generals will not get the night battle trait until their 5th command star. It seems IMO that one gets a morale boost, or the enemy gets it lowered, since they seem to break off into a rout quicker. If you want to try out a night battle go to the historical battles maneu and select the one with king Arthur vs the Saxons - quite cool!

[Rodion Romanovich]

Actually, preventing enemies from reinforcing to me seems to be the main usage of night battles. Using it against hordes is very useful, I killed two stacks of vandals this way, one at the time, then retreated to a fort, and sent some reinforcements and mercenaries to the fort. Next turn, I sallied and dealt with the rest. However, it didn't feel good to destroy a huge horde that way, so I think I'm going to give myself a house rules to not use night battles for that. Plus nightbattles = lag and pain in the eyes if used too much...

[littlelostboy]

Night battle is a feature for Barbarian Invasion. I have yet to try out night battles though, I really wonder whether the moral penatly will be a greater depending on the traits of the units and general.

[Darius]

I remember someone here posting a fix for fire arrows in order to decrease the lag they were so effective at causing when used en masse. Seeing as at night the torches are carried by a great number of BOTH armies forces, the lag can actually be much more intense. Would it be possible to fix the lag effect without making the torches look like smoking incense candles?