Does anyone deliberately keep units understrength?

I have found myself deliberately keeping heavy cavalry units understrength.
When the units is only 15-20 people strong, it maneuvers much more easily.
It wheels, it forms up for a charge, it slips between enemy units much better.

I use cavalry for taking out siege engines, disrupting missile units, charging
engaged units in the back, chasing routers and tying up enemy cavalry.
Except for the last one, 15 men do about as well as 40. The added
maneuverability is so great that it makes you feel as if you are controlling
a different class of units alltogether, the smaller unit size seem to protect
against archers, and of course, with fewer men, units level much faster.

Of course, there are times where higher numbers are desirable. So I just keep
a few full strength units, and after battle I merge units in a manner than
allows me to end up with a few 15-20 men squads.

This got me to wonder. How do people who play with higher unit sizes deal
with their 60-80 rider units? Those must be Hell to control, form and maneuver.

I don't do it for tactical reasons... but for strategic ones... if I have a unit of about 1-4 guys I will send them off to man a Fort as the minimum watch garrison- CHEAP and they have as good an ability to spot and slow down an invading army for 1 turn as a larger group.

Not me.

Lower strength = that much closer to routing.

There are morale penalties for being below full unit size, I believe. Plus, flanks are more exposed to wrapping.

I like the understrength cavalry units too, but mostly because I get the same devestating charge for half the upkeep.

Sometimes I like to have one little crappy understrength unit to throw on the bridge to slow the enemy down so I can shoot them with my arrows more.

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Originally Posted by dismal

Lower strength = that much closer to routing. There are morale penalties for being below full unit size, I believe. Plus, flanks are more exposed to wrapping.

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This is true, but it only applies when your cavalry is actually staying into a fight.
I think I did say that in that case, numbers matter. But I usually do not leave
heavy cavalry engaged with the enemy. Charge, decimate, disrupt, and pull
out as soon as the enemy unit organizes itself.

In my French campaign I must have about 50 units of hospitaliers numbering
between 12 and 20. I mostly build them at 1-3 silver chevrons, and they
usually come out at armour 19-20. They do not lose many men at once unless
you let the enemy regroup, and I think that in the last twenty turns I have had
them routing only once, when two understrength units and a newbie general
were caught by a 800 men strong stack led by a dread general. And even then,
they ran only after killing more than 100 enemies.

I find it ironic that with the French, with are supposed to have the best
heavy cavalry in the game, 80% of my knights are vanilla hospitaliers.

@ dismal, the morale penalty seems to apply only relative to strength at the beginning of the battle.

Thus, say 70% casualties is necessary to get a particular unit to rout (completely random made up statistic). Then a 20 man unit takes 14 casualties and routs while everyone in 10 2 man units will fight to the death. This means strictly better, no? There is of course the drawback of unit slots being taken up for understrength units.

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Originally Posted by katank

@ dismal, the morale penalty seems to apply only relative to strength at the beginning of the battle.

Thus, say 70% casualties is necessary to get a particular unit to rout (completely random made up statistic). Then a 20 man unit takes 14 casualties and routs while everyone in 10 2 man units will fight to the death. This means strictly better, no? There is of course the drawback of unit slots being taken up for understrength units.

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What you describe sounds like "taking casualties".

There is also one for "being outnumbered", I think.

There is a penalty for being outnumbered. But it seems that it does not
apply, or at least does not apply so strongly, when you are doing stuff like
charging, fighiting and winning, or even running/galloping. Note that I am
not sure about this, but it seems to me that at some of the moral penalties
aftect units only while they're standing still and counting enemies.

A Russian general once said "We're here to beat them, not to count them".
Dovator? Souvorov?

Outnumbered is a simple effect of you assuming you'd have fewer men due to understrength units. There is no inherent penalty to them say "gee, we are missing 40% of our guys compared to nominal strength".

Thus, 2 20 men units is not at any disadvantage compared to 1 40 men unit.

Now if you are arguing it'd be better to have 2 40 men units, then it's a no-brainer. All I'm arguing is that understrength by itself has no effect.

Historically, in long campaigns, units were often at little more than 1/2 their nominal strength in many cases.

Ermmm... I'll jump in here. With respect, I think you're both wrong.

As far as I can tell there is no penalty for being outnumbered, except in city sieges where you get the "dismayed at number of foes" item in the moral bit. Haven't ever seen that actually have much effect to be honest, but it was there. I'm not sure if this made it in from RTW but it was definitely in RTW.

In regards to units, depleted units most certainly do suffer morale penalties. Watch units that approach your line when under fire from archers without using flaming arrows. Try it 1 vs. 1 as well with an archer unit like longbows vs a normal infantry unit, like a mid-level spear unit. You'll notice that if you let them engage you without getting a shot off at them, you'll most likely lose and their morale will be fine as they engage you. Try it again, this time start shooting when they're halfway between your unit and your unit's max fire distance. The moral should drop to "steady" from "eagar" when they take enough casualties, by then they should be in range and engaging you in melee. Now try it again, this time turn on fire at will and let them have it as soon as they get in range. You'll notice the morale drop as the casualties increase and they get closer to your lines. On medium using this setup most of the time I can kill upwards of 1/2 to sometimes 2/3s depending on terrain before they reach my formation, and then almost always they'll invariably break right before making contact or very soon thereafter. I can also verify that in my random campaign battles, depleted strength units tend to suffer morale drops much quicker when the melee engagement begins, and will break and route much much faster than a full strength unit.

At the original question, I go to great pains to keep all my units at full strength.

There is no argument that an unit that loses 50% of its men suffers a morale
penalty. The question is whether an unit that starts with 50% of its men has
a moral penalty. This is not particularly hard to test. I will do so tonight.

I am also sure that there is a penalty for being 'locally outnumbered'. I.e. an
unit which is eager will drop to steady once an enemy approaches, and to
shaken if the enemy keeps bringing more troops closer.

I dug up these morale penatlies for MTW, back when such things were known. No guarantee they are the same for M2TW:

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Negative

Loose or disordered formation: -2
Outnumbered 2 to 1: up to -4 (range = about 75 meters)
Outnumbered 10 to 1: up to -12 (range = about 75 meters)
Outclassed in quality and speed: modifies the outnumbered penalty.
One flank threatened: -2 (range = about 60 meters)
Two flanks threatened: -6 (range = about 60 meters
Charged in flank: -4
Infantry charged by cavalry in flank or while disordered: -6
Charged in flank by unit hidden in forest: -8
General's death (for first few seconds): -8 to all his units except highly disciplined units
General's death (after first few seconds): -2 to all his units except highly disciplined units
Routing Friends: up to -12 for seeing 2 equal or higher level friendly units routing. #Elite and disciplined units consider lesser types as 1/2 a unit for this calculation.
10% of unit is dead: -2
50% of unit is dead: -8
80% of unit is dead: -12
Taking casualties from enemy missle fire: -2 for a duration less than the reload of the firing unit (additional -4 for gunpowder weapons)
Unit is very tired: -2
Unit is exhausted: -6
Unit is totally exhausted: -8
Losing: Up to -8 (up to -14 if losing to cavalry)
Skirmishing without ammo: -6
Skirmisher pursued for a long distance by equal speed unit: -6

Positive

Two flanks protected: +4
No retreat possible (usually castle sieges): +8
No enemies around: +4
Two enemies routing: up to +8
Uphill Position: +2
Winning: up to +6
Unordered charge: +4 (such as when impetuous knights charge automatically)
Outnumber Enemy 3 to 1: +4
General's unit: +2
Within 50 meters of general: +1 morale per command star
Beyond 50 meters from general: +1 morale per 2 command stars

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Obviously, if a unit is below strength it is somewhat easier to be outnumbered.

The other effect that seems to apply is that one must make a choice between width and depth. If, for example, a full strength unit could have 4 rows of 10 men (4x10), a half size unit must choose to be either 4x5 or 2x10 (or something in between, obviously). A 4x5 unit would be much more susceptible to having its flanks wrapped and have it's killing speed reduced as only half as many men are engaged at the fore. A 2x10 unit would suffer percent casualties significantly faster as a far higher percentage of its units would be directly involved in combat as opposed to standing idly behind.

Anyway, wouldn't there be something wrong if a half size unit was less susceptible to routing?

The question is more smaller units or less big units having same number of total men. That will result in smaller units being less likely to rout. That is all. If you are comparing same number of units but one side smaller, then of course the smaller units routs sooner and loses.

One thing that's interesting is that smaller cav units may in fact perform better in being more maneuverable and still be quite devastating in a charge to the rear. Infantry units are best deployed in massive blob formation where numbers mean more than practically anything.

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Originally Posted by katank

The question is more smaller units or less big units having same number of total men. That will result in smaller units being less likely to rout. That is all. If you are comparing same number of units but one side smaller, then of course the smaller units routs sooner and loses.

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Well, yes, I suppose two 4x5 units standing toe-to-toe with one 4x10 unit ought to be roughly equal. Take that 2nd unit and run it around the back, and the two might beat the one.

Generally, though, I'm not sure the choice one is making when one elects to deliberately keep a unit undersize. Certainly not if one is constrained by slots not money.

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One thing that's interesting is that smaller cav units may in fact perform better in being more maneuverable and still be quite devastating in a charge to the rear. Infantry units are best deployed in massive blob formation where numbers mean more than practically anything.

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I can imagine some situations where the half unit might get from A to B faster, which in itself is better, but not really any where it would be better once there. Two half units, I guess, offer the additional advantage of being able to be in two places.

Upon reflection, if my only choice was to merge two 20's into a 40, I might consider keeping the two 20's. But if I had the chance and money to retrain them both I wouldn't deliberately keep them small.

Why don't we see all those morale states of the units ? What happened to ëncouraged by the general" etc...

I'd be surprised if the morale was anywhere as complex as MTW system. Now it feels much simpler. Hope I'm worng though.

Anyone want to share the true word of the Prophets on this matter ?