Fighting at forests

**antisocialmunky** · 05-20-2011, 05:32

What about chariot + auto calc?

**eo9o** · 06-10-2011, 18:08

To fight in forrests was dificult yesterday and now a days too! Take a look on Vietinã war to remember that...
My advice is:
Put your infantry in loose formation and attack them like animals! try to flank them with your cavalary or round the enemy lines and attack them behind.
Use this formation to enter in a forrest:
10 heavy infantry, prefer swordman units to spearman;
5 light infantry or spearmans;
4 heavy cavalary;
1 General.

In a jungle, fight like animal, defensive formations or organized attack don't work like in open fields.

**Kromulan** · 06-12-2011, 08:59

This is one of my pet peaves with this game... No ancient commander fought in forest... They used the forests to define the battlefield.
Did Boadicea's army march through the forest to flank the Romans? No! The Romans used the forest to cover their flanks and force the Britons to attack their narrow front. Forests should be impassible on the tactical map, like they were to armies historically.
Anything other than ambush in a forest is totally ahistorical and I do not participate in this BS.
I march to my Greek enemy and attack him. He sets up his phalanxes in a.... forest??? Reload, march 1 depleted skirmisher to contact, auto-win, move on...
This is the reason I don't play Celts or Germans in this game anymore.

**eo9o** · 06-14-2011, 18:39

Originally Posted by Kromulan

This is one of my pet peaves with this game... No ancient commander fought in forest... They used the forests to define the battlefield.
Did Boadicea's army march through the forest to flank the Romans? No! The Romans used the forest to cover their flanks and force the Britons to attack their narrow front. Forests should be impassible on the tactical map, like they were to armies historically.
Anything other than ambush in a forest is totally ahistorical and I do not participate in this BS.
I march to my Greek enemy and attack him. He sets up his phalanxes in a.... forest??? Reload, march 1 depleted skirmisher to contact, auto-win, move on...
This is the reason I don't play Celts or Germans in this game anymore.

I not agree... Ambush using florests as camouflage was used at past end still in use today. The buttle's tatics need to be change to fight in florests it's the unic thing to take care.
To your self improvement, take a look in this link, You will see real battle reports form the anchient age in forests:
http://www.kalkriese-varusschlacht.de/index/getlang/en
http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm

But, usualy generals avert to battle in forests.

**Ca Putt** · 06-15-2011, 01:02

generally large armies "met" for a battle and thus choose terrain that favors their troops(or is to the likeing of their troops). So restricting movement would be the wrong way to go as armies DID move through forests, eventho they preffered roads. A "solution" would be to restict all non-ambush fights to open plains on the battlemap which I think is totally impossible :D

btw, yes those hellenic battles in a ~~hilly~~ mountainous and forested spots are really annoying no ~~Greek~~ general in his right mindwould fight in such wooded canyons as you see them in EB western greece. When two armies(of similar tradition) meet they set up camps and fight on a field where they can deploy all their men without the fear of loosing some in the woods or due to cliff-hangin. Sometimes a army assaulted the enemy camp without first defeating the Army (meggido).

**moonburn** · 06-15-2011, 01:43

considering the way that thureporoi are depicted and the fact that we know that there was constant increase in the amount of skirmishers in most armed forces in the poleis of greece i think the greeks of eb timeframe would disagree they started using all the advantages they could and that includes forcing the enemies to go uphill or deprive them of their static formations

remember greeks of the golden age fighted against hoplites or light armed troops while the greeks of the golden age had to deal with keltoi romanoi skytioi dacians illyrians punics and most importantly the other hellenes wich used the sarissas so fighting in "broken" terrain favoured them since their current enemies unlike the golden age wich where persians and other greeks would fare worse and depending on how the batle ended they had more room to manouver politically wich was their way

by this time war was no longer over "honor" it started to be over ownership if you lost you could loose your city and not just your military navy limited to 12 warships you could loose your freedom and become a slave and not just the loss of a trade route

**Ca Putt** · 06-15-2011, 11:38

skirmishes are fought at random REAL battles were still fought on open plains, not because of an obscure honor code but for the simple reasons I already stated: space to deploy and use one's troops, overviewing your own troops, safety reasons, tradition...
the majority of magor battles were fought between two camps whose armies met on a great plain when one was in the area. Skirmishes however took place everywhere and always, the developement of thureophoroi only shows that skirmishes were Important and that flanking was a good Idea. It did happen(probably quite often) that skirmishers, cavalry or shock infantry or other dudes who were assigned their roles hidd in the battle defineing forest that BORDERED the battlefield and as part of a sly plan sprung out to attack the outflanked foe from behind.

And when it says the Greeks used broken terrian than that probably means they occupied passes/choakepoints, like at thermopylai, not wooded hills with a slope of 60°.

in a nutshell: Skirmishes + Forest = all the time; Real battles + Forest = seldom; Army Movement + Forest = plan B.

**Titus Marcellus Scato** · 06-16-2011, 15:07

Originally Posted by Kromulan

This is one of my pet peaves with this game... No ancient commander fought in forest... They used the forests to define the battlefield.
Did Boadicea's army march through the forest to flank the Romans? No! The Romans used the forest to cover their flanks and force the Britons to attack their narrow front. Forests should be impassible on the tactical map, like they were to armies historically.
Anything other than ambush in a forest is totally ahistorical and I do not participate in this BS.
I march to my Greek enemy and attack him. He sets up his phalanxes in a.... forest??? Reload, march 1 depleted skirmisher to contact, auto-win, move on...
This is the reason I don't play Celts or Germans in this game anymore.

If you attack an AI army, and it sets up in a forest where you don't want to fight, then get the AI to come out to you.

Set up your general with a couple of other units as a 'sacrificial decoy' force in a wide clearing, or outside the forest. Then hide all your other units deep in the forest, on the edge of the map, allowing a wide unit-free route between your general and the enemy. This should draw the enemy army out to attack your general. Once you have drawn the enemy army out into the open, and ideally pinned them down in hand to hand combat so they can't redeploy, your hidden units run out to take the enemy on the flanks and rear. The trick is, your decoy force must be weak enough to entice the enemy out to attack, but strong enough to engage them just long enough for your hidden flanking units to come to the rescue. In the worst case scenario, your decoy units might take very heavy losses, but that doesn't matter as long as you win the overall battle.