Friendly Fire--Addendum

[Red Harvest]

The worst is with Horsearchers. They fire on the move automaticly, which normally is awesome. But when chassing routing units they end up shooting my own men so often, they end up killing more or my men than my enemy did. It says they killed ten men, but I end up losing more along the lines of 30 or 40.

Yep, the Numidian cav (javelins) are really bad about this. Some of this stuff should be automated...but the army command and control is lacking. C&C is geared for individual unit control, not army control. Combine this with the 16x play speed, and you end up being an unintended spectator, rather than active participant.

[Soulflame]

Maybe they included so much friendly fire to amplify the eye-candy and chaos.. I mean.. look at those arrows hail! The chaos.. the destruction! Even when killing routing units, you shouldn't have to be bored.. your own men kill themselves! More eye candy!
Of course, it always comes at a price. But seriously, do you want to see great stuff and rebuild those few losses, or be bored and have people do what you say?


Personally, the only ranged attack I used so far is with o(w)nagers. Rest is pure melee (not even horse skirmishers). Of course the o(w)nagers miss sometimes and kill a quarter of a cohort, but that happens... at least the o(w)nager can't kill itself

[Steppe Merc]

Hmm... that wouldn't work so well with my Parthians or Scythians.

[econ21]

Yes, friendly fire is a bother - after each battle, I check my losses against the enemies kills and count it as a good result if friendly fire losses are less than enemy kills. I now try to lead with archers/velites, rather than have them at the rear (as in MTW and STW). I suspect this is more historical - I was surprised in MTW that the crossbows and arbalests could shoot overhead with impunity.

With archers, their range is pretty good so you can sometimes use them profitably without being charged. And to be honest, if the AI does rush you that is pretty realistic too - better than just standing there to die on the city plaza. In MTW, I found archers almost alone could win battles for me - in RTW, they are more lethal but nonetheless account for a smaller proportion of casualties (as the AI closers more often and faster).

With velites, skirmishing is a problem but can nonetheless be used to provoke the enemy. I've noticed the AI try to charge my velites - they run behind my lines, the enemy looks at the wall of hastati and stops, often retreats. They then suffer from the hastati's fire at will pila and the velites come back after them. Javelins seem pretty powerful when they do get off.

I'm still in too minds about the units' charge speed - yes, it is fast and so emphasises initial deployment. But maybe this is realistic? The game abstracts from command and control, so maybe this is a way of bringing back in those considerations. To expect your units to immediately ceasefire seems rather realistic (consider "friendly fire" losses in the Gulf Wars, when command and control was far better than on an ancient battlefield).

[PFJ_bejazuz]

I merrily toddled off & blockaded somewhere at the Senate's request.

Got myself a scorpion unit for my trub.

Couple of turns later, my 5 star gen is mopping enemy gen up routers & who picked up the wildly inaccurate shaft thrown from the scrapyard challenge lads?

Cue close up cinematic of a heroic death.

Shame you can't save replays of campaign scraps.

But i actually like the lag in order issue & response. They didn't have mobys & 10-20 secs isn't an unreasonable response from a unit in the heat of battle. The scorpion was doing well chucking wood into hvy cav initially & once they'd split it was fair enough that they should take a pop at the nearest enemy. I'd charged them from the other side from the scorp with my gen's cav but that beautiful shoal movement on engagement found my main man with his back to six foot of fast moving pointy stick.

Missiles don't recognise uniforms - battles are dangerous places - you gotta laugh at adversity

[Red Harvest]

Well the lag might be OK, if the lag time wasn't longer than the melee itself. However, since we can't effectively use group commands, the battles take a few seconds, and routing is rapid; this lag doesn't fit at all. It really doesn't fit since we much issue a combination of individual orders anyway.

We took friendly fire in MTW...but it could be managed. Now we can't manage it. It is less immersive now than before.