MTW or \"night of the living dead\"?

[candidgamera]

Under old STW routing or killing the enemy's general meant no more reinforcements I thought.

Just had a battle today where Alomahds couldn't have cared less how many were routed or if general long gone.

Saw AI do something smart today too: brought on a peasant unit in different entry area then when I went after it, sure it ran, but then more zombies arrived in primary area, and had important, and now thoroughly exhausted forces out of position - doh!

Other strange thing was a unit of Naptha throwers ran away toward my rear not theirs - seems like a little cheating on part of ai.

I also seem to remember it used to be if ai has at least one unit still on map he can still bring people on.

What's the rule now on ai reinforcements, ending the battle, anyone know?

Looking at the Brady guide, sure seems the Moors have a basic advantage in morale - they just can keep coming.

Next time will play with the clock - probably part of the problem - this battle went for several hours - involving about 4000 of him and 1400 of me.

[chunkynut]

This does annoy me but I can see the (looking for word that is like wisdom but not) behind this.

Many battles have been won by the 'late' arrival of troops. You know the situation, army outnumbered, army morale low, general dies, army routes, fresh units with charismatic leader comes in, day is saved, leader gets the girl etc etc etc

But if there were an option to turn this off I would, many pointless hours of mine have been wasted routing reinforcements of an already routing army.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Quite a challenge isn't it Candid?
Especially when your outnumbered by more than 3-1. I try to not let my cav go racing willy nilly after routing units, especially routing units that run to the sides of the map away from where the enemy reinforcements generally come from. I think it's better to keep my army reasonably together so they can support each other, the reformed enemy routers can be easily routed again. If terrain permits, I'll try to march my army after the main body of routing enemy, keeping just enough pressure on them with my cav to keep herding them along, till I get to the next available hill closer to the enemy side of the map. Set up and rest my units as well as I can, withdraw spent missile units for fresh troops, if I have any. This seems to work pretty well, but beware the Golden Horde and those damn Mongol horse archers. Most factions reenforcements are generally weaker troops, peasants mostly, but the Golden Horde seems to get stronger with wave after wave of Heavy cav and horse archers. Battles like that do tend to last for hours, but I prefer that to that damn timer. When I attack, I don't want some stinking stopwatch to force me to rush up a steep hill on a frontal assault,with the accompanying high casualties, instead of manuevering to a flanking position. Or lose because some routing enemy unit reforms and hides in the woods on the far side of the map after I destroyed and routed the rest of the enemy, and I can't get there in time to boot them off the map. If I hold 99% of the map, and outnumber the rest of the enemy by a large margin then I should win that battle.

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Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell so that they look forward to making the trip.

[candidgamera]

HT:

Thought I could do what used to work in Shogun with the Hojo's. Part of the problem in this case was getting to their reinforcement point, over a river and up on a hill. They were coming on out of woods down hill. Just didn't think by attrition I could stand them off at the bridge. Still haven't got the hang of keeping my casualties down using FMAA/FS as the back bone of my army. Did find the chevron/fish trap pattern works pretty good, and let the attacker get a little ways off of the bridge before hitting him - which ever way he goes off bridge he gets hit in flank or rear. Going to have to break my iron man - don't feel like starting over.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I like to set back from a bridge as the defender too. Set up the classic L or U shaped ambush, and try not to chase across the bridge until I know they can't jam me up on the bridge and pepper me with arrows. When I attack a bridge I like to set up my archers and arbalests on each flank of the bridge. Then take a spear or billman unit and march them onto the bridge and stop them,
1/2 or 3/4, of the way across,just enough to induce the AI to come to me. The AI always sends units to attack them. I shoot the hell out of any attackers, and with my unit on hold formation, they last quite a while. I'll move another unit up to relieve the original unit when it starts to get whittled down. I try not to let them leave the confined space of the bridge so they don't get flanked. Eventually the AI units at the bridge break and then I follow up with my cav and sword/axe units, cav to rush across and crush any missile units, sword/axe men to protect the cav from spear units. Any remaining missile units with a couple of spear units I bring across last. I wouldn't try the bridge however if the enemy had catapults set up there, they would break you. I would try another bridge if available or retreat.
Sounds like your bridge battle was a pretty tough nut to crack getting to the enemy reinforcement point. Fighting uphill in the woods kind of takes your cav out of the battle,not good when you are outnumbered to begin with. Depending on the make up of your force you might be better off just holding back from your side of the bridge and not chasing them at all when they rout. They'll reform and attack again, but I think they're easier to break once they've routed the first time. The main thing is to keep the enemy archers from decimating your melee and cav units. I think you got the best strategy by holding back, letting them cross and get strung out, then counter-attacking and pinning them against the river. When your out of ammo for your archers/crossbows, that's about all you can do.

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Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell so that they look forward to making the trip.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

Outnumbered 2-to-1 as the English, I lost Aragon to the Almohad last night because of enemy reinforcements coming at the worst possible time. I was stationed on a wooded hill & had let my cavalry forward after his men routed. Suddenly a stream of cavalry poured off the mountainside across the field & raced for my cavalry. I pulled them back, but they caught up with my general, the Count of Toulouse who was my best one & the only remainder of his royal knights unit after a previous battle. As the rest of the Almohad surrounded him, I felt I had no choice but to surge forward with my troops to rescue him. It worked & I sent most of the Almohad running back into the hills. The kept enough skirmishing units on the field to prevent me from reforming my forces. As my disorganized army closed in on some spear-throwing infantry or other, the third wave of reinforcements fell. About eight units including four units of Almohad Urban Militia flooded down the mountainside on what was now roughly my right flank & routed my exhausted army immediately. All that is, except the Count of Toulouse who died a heroes death covering the retreat singlehanded.

The Almohad seemed to have kept some good units in reserve. Fortunately though, I had managed to kill more than two for every loss on my side; the king's brother, Sir Edward Plantagenat, was able to retake the province the next year.

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Others enslave by victory,
Their subjects, as their foes, oppress;
Anna conquers but to free,
And governs but to bless. -- Edmund Smith (Anna stands for England)

[This message has been edited by Mori Gabriel Syme (edited 10-07-2002).]

[Niccolomachiavelli]

if you get the main army to route off the map and then set up a defensive line *really* close to the edge of the map they should be coming in from, they tend to march onto the field and retreat again. i was pissed at spain for being aggressive so i wasnt in the mood to let them field and organize their reinforcements.

[hrvojej]

Can anybody confirm that after the original general has been slain, the new one will take over? Also, what are the criteria upon which he is assigned? Do the reinforcement waves each have their own general affecting them with his V&Vs?

[candidgamera]

HT:
Kind of what I do too with some variation. The chevron I came up with in this last, to be more clear is: the bridge is the line in an arrow and the units forming the chevron in defense form the arrow point. Which ever way the attacker goes off the bridge he gets it in flank or rear. The tricky part seems to be how/when to recycle units out of the line.

I did a little of the on the bridge stuff, but am thinking the chevron at your end of the bridge cuts losses down, takes you out of his arrow fire, and maybe you aren't paying the confined space penalty and he is.

Am more inclined also to just let him batter the bridge position. AI doesn't seem to go over both bridges at once so far as I've seen in two bridge battles.

Looking at Brady guide, if correct, the Alomahd Urban Militia armour is I think 5 and their morale 4 - try to handle these guys first. M. Foot has great morale, pretty good armor too. This seems to be big inherent advantage against my German FS and FMAA's with their morale.

MGS:
Yeah, its that third wave. Interesting what you describe is kind of what happened at Hasting in a general way - Harold's army lost concentration.

N:
What I try to do too, seems like depending on map, there's a sort of twilight zone though, where you can see them, but not be able to do anything about them - better morale is just enough (per above) to keep them in good order long enough for a mass to get on and then its another battle - kind of a cascade effect maybe.

Think some of this was true in STW too - but the morale effect wasn't quite as pronounced - if they have any valor at all then they're adding basic morale as well.

The multi-entry point reinforcements make it nasty this way, per above, especially - guess this is descended from what came along with WE/MI.

[insolent1]

Anytime I am outnumbered more then 2-1 I stay where I am & only use my cav for going after missile units I leave the HtH units to come back & see if they can make it to my line under the fire of 4 arbalests. I also found a really great use for the arqbusiers. When the army is reinforcing put your guns in 1 long row & take off skirmish. With my 4 arbalests & the guns they never make it to my line to engage the exception been RK's & GB's

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by hrvojej:
Can anybody confirm that after the original general has been slain, the new one will take over? Also, what are the criteria upon which he is assigned? Do the reinforcement waves each have their own general affecting them with his V&Vs?[/QUOTE]

I'd assume no new general, but that's based on not seeing a new square flag - maybe that's a false assumption.

[hrvojej]

Quote Originally posted by candidgamera:
I'd assume no new general, but that's based on not seeing a new square flag - maybe that's a false assumption.

[/QUOTE]

But have you notcied that after a battle in which you've killed the original general, when you click on the enemy stack, a new guy, now in command, has a bad vice most likely resulting from the battle you've just fought?

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by hrvojej:
But have you notcied that after a battle in which you've killed the original general, when you click on the enemy stack, a new guy, now in command, has a bad vice most likely resulting from the battle you've just fought?[/QUOTE]

have to check this out.

Insolent: so four arbs seems to be enough to generate volume of fire to make up for slow rate then? I've been trying to go 2 Genoese Sailors/archers 1 cross bow & 1 arb. Guess will try more arbs.

[This message has been edited by candidgamera (edited 10-07-2002).]