a Lord played MTW2

[Lord Adherbal]

then the modding support AND the combat engine had better been excellent cos I'm not gonna bother modding with buggy tools and a flawed engine again.

[Lord Adherbal]

All combat is based on individual soldiers fighting. If they turn towards the threat there wont be any special flank/rear modifier for the attacker. That has been the case in all total war games.

hm I always had the feeling most units started "losing (badly)" once they became surrounded, while they would be "winning (easily)" when attacking in one direction only.

How can a man still fight at 100% effeciency when he's "wavering" by the knowledge that the enemy is all around him. Not to mension how important of the support from deeper ranks was in infantry combat.

[CBR]

A unit hit in the flank or rear would have much higher loss rate. Some soldiers didnt have time to turn before getting hit and then the next rank of soldiers could be hit that then had to run because they by default are facing forward.

I have seen units that fought for some time, even when totally surrounded, simply because they didnt take that many losses at first and all the men who had an opponent had turned to face them them.

In RTW that just happens more often as soldiers dont have to have an opponent attacking them before turning towards him.

How can a man still fight at 100% effeciency when he's "wavering" by the knowledge that the enemy is all around him. Not to mension how important of the support from deeper ranks was in infantry combat.

A square/column formation should be able to fight properly even though its surrounded and that is pretty historical too. Of course there is always a danger that parts of the unit would fall back a bit if combat goes badly, and the unit overall would be too compressed.

But historically a unit surprised by an enemy coming in from the rear would most likely rout even before impact. Even if the rear ranks managed to turn around they would overall not be of the same fighting quality as the front ranks of the unit.

AFAIK pike units went into a dense formation (half the normal width per man) when facing cavalry and used 4 ranks of pikes, so that would mean a formation of 8 ranks were needed to face cavalry with maximum/optimal number of pikes.


CBR

[Lord Adherbal]

A square/column formation should be able to fight properly even though its surrounded and that is pretty historical too. Of course there is always a danger that parts of the unit would fall back a bit if combat goes badly, and the unit overall would be too compressed.

that only counts when they have spears, pikes or bajonets and when it faces cavalry. Squares repelled cavalry because horses would refuse to walk into the hedge of sharp points, and the horsemen would not be able to reach the enemy with their swords.

The only accounts of squares being broken by cavalry is when they either broke before contact, or when the muskets were disabled by rainy weather and enemy lancers would ride up to the square and stab their way through the line of infantry - whose bajonets could not outreach the lance.


Remember how the romans were slaughtered at Cannae. If they didn't "receive a combat penalty" from the panic that spread then how would so few carthaginian soldiers with worse equipment ever be able to slaughter so much romans.

Aslong as a strong unit can attack the enemy head on they can push forward and grind through the enemy. But when they are suddenly attacked in the back, the rear ranks can nolonger give support to that forward movement. Any attempt to move forward in a certain direction will open up the formation allowing individual men to become surrounded and killed easily. Add to that the fear from the knowledge that there is no way to retreat to anymore, soldiers will be much less focused on attacking but only about staying alife.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

well CA is still working on it right?

[Lord Adherbal]

well CA is still working on it right?

they are still working on parts of the game, yes. But the believe that they would fix the problems of the RTW demo is what led many to buy RTW and be disappointed. I rather complain now, giving CA more time to decide whether these problems need to be fixed or not. But considering they didn't fix it after the RTW demo, patches and BI expansion I don't have much hope they're gonna fix it now.

[Puzz3D]

Well it's interesting because in an interview he gave more than a week ago Bob Smith said the game was finished and they were just tweaking it. Player 753 who just played the demo said the game seemed to be about 70% completed and that it crashed a lot because parts were unfinished. There may not be a whole lot of time to spend on AI programming once the unfinished pieces are really finished.

If you want to be a paying beta tester then buy the game when it first comes out, give feedback and hope CA can fix the major issues in the first patch.

[Midnight]

Is it really so hard to have decent-length combat, important factors like the power of a charge to the rear, compressed combat penalties, etc, in the game and simply an option to turn them off for the "less hardcore" players? Perhaps make the regular game up to MTW's standard, and dumb down the Arcade Mode to RTW's level?

I loved Medieval, and was disappointed with Rome. I'd also rather make some noises now, before the demo or full game is ready, when there's hopefully still some time to make some changes.

[CBR]

that only counts when they have spears, pikes or bajonets and when it faces cavalry. Squares repelled cavalry because horses would refuse to walk into the hedge of sharp points, and the horsemen would not be able to reach the enemy with their swords..

What does what weapon they used have to do with it? The point is that such a formation does not have a real flank or rear. It is formed up with enough depth and width to be able to deal with attacks from any direction.

The only accounts of squares being broken by cavalry is when they either broke before contact, or when the muskets were disabled by rainy weather and enemy lancers would ride up to the square and stab their way through the line of infantry - whose bajonets could not outreach the lance.

Thats Napoleonic times, and I wont even go into details on that as that would be OT. There are examples of cavalry piercing pike formations only to reform and come back for another attack. That also has nothing to do with what Im saying. Read above.

Remember how the romans were slaughtered at Cannae. If they didn't "receive a combat penalty" from the panic that spread then how would so few carthaginian soldiers with worse equipment ever be able to slaughter so much romans.

We know the pursuing and disordered infantry, that had broken through the center, got hit in both flanks by the African infantry. Apart from the obvious losses taken from such an attack it would most likely have caused a big movement of men retreating towards the center. Men from second and third line might still have been moving forward and it would have caused a compressed mass of confused and desperate men.

As RTW doesnt have any penalties for overlapping units, it is difficult to recreate with this combat engine. It also has a simplistic morale/combat system that doesnt make losing units fall back but either fight or flight.

Aslong as a strong unit can attack the enemy head on they can push forward and grind through the enemy. But when they are suddenly attacked in the back, the rear ranks can nolonger give support to that forward movement. Any attempt to move forward in a certain direction will open up the formation allowing individual men to become surrounded and killed easily.

Yes that is certainly true but units can certainly stand firm and fight hard without attacking much. Hastings is one example.

Add to that the fear from the knowledge that there is no way to retreat to anymore, soldiers will be much less focused on attacking but only about staying alife

Sun Tzu says something like: "To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape". RTW now has units fighting to the death if they are completely surrounded. Leave a way out and it becomes easier to kill them.


CBR