Loose formation too effective in melee?

**RomoR** · 11-17-2006, 06:20

Well try some loose ones, formations that is, and I'm talking about melee fights.

Ok now this seems a very noob thing to do or a horse-shoe sucking loon late night test but I think you will find an interesting end to it, please read a little longer.

Remember RTW? now I never tried this out in rome, but I know that whenever I left my men in loose formation in RTW they got massacred, try putting your melee troops in loose and fight a battle and see the result?.

1-1 fights always seem to benefit the loose formation. your men will flank take on the flanks and kill the general very fast.
Fine you say but battles are not fought with 1 unit per army.
True but if by Fate or Fortune I get an one-on-one encounter in the middle of a battle I'm changing to loose formation, trust me it works. Double if its a general enemy unit.

Charges: Now I have tried some Spear infantry tests earlier and charges seem to do more harm to tight formations than to loose formations. I must do some more tests but all seem to conclude that its better for my spearmen (not pike) to stay in loose formation against a charge than in a tight one.

I even tried some 5-5 fight and had good results, I can say that they most definitely weren't bad.

I played the historical battle of agincourt 4 times. 2 times on normal tight formation for melee units. and 2 with all loose formation melee units. left archer on tight for missile power than changed to loose when in melee.
Now I used the same tactics all 4 times I played. Won all for times.
Nearly same results in the end.

Ok so playing in loose did'nt give me any advantage you say.
Yeah but its loose formation!!!

I should get wiped in 4 min playing that battle in loose formation!!
What general would tell his men too stay in loose formation during a battle!

It seems we don't get much an penalty for being in loose formation which seems odd to me.

Please try this out too and make out your own conclusions.

**IRONxMortlock** · 11-17-2006, 07:01

Rather attention grabbing title that's for sure! :D

I just received the game (express post, fresh from Australia!) yesterday evening so I haven't had too much of a chance to mess around with things yet. I have been having some trouble getting my units to fight properely though so I will definitely give this a try.

**darkragnar** · 11-17-2006, 07:08

what about the effect of moral on your "loose" units ?
Is the Loss of moral a sutiable substitue for the space/terran advantage?

**46852** · 11-17-2006, 11:37

Someone made tests with loose/tight formations, not sure if it was on .com boards or TWC. The results were alarming, loose formations sustained way less casualties, and held off infantry and cavalry charges better, and in the end won almost all 1vs1. Wish I could link the test but forgot where it was :(

This is definitely another battle AI oversight.

**Kobal2fr** · 11-17-2006, 16:21

Loose formation has *always* taken less casualties overall, and I suppose it would have inflicted more if it had had the chance in earlier games (since it's always wider, it always flanks a tight unit).

What caused loose formation to be a suicidal move was that you lost rank bonuses (which are perhaps less pronounced or non-existent, what with formation disaggregating on impact) and most importantly morale took a plunge, each single casualty would have a big impact on unit morale... but they've upped overall morale, haven't they ? Guess that's what happens when you change a parameter of the equation without taking its dependencies into account ;) (from what I hear, that's also the kind of thing that happened in Medieval from Shogun, in which the maps got bigger, but fatigue remained the same, and in which a new unit had valor 0 instead of 2)

But I'm sure they'll manage to tweak things up overtime when they understand what's going on.

**IRONxMortlock** · 11-17-2006, 17:09

Well I've no idea on the actual mechanics of the game but I just tried a battle with all my non-cav units set to loose formation and they performed better than I've ever seen them perform before; i.e. they actually did what I asked them to do and didn't let one or two guys fight the battle while the other 50 watched.

After this very unscientific test I'll be trying more loose formations in the future.

**Kralizec** · 11-17-2006, 17:12

Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Loose formation has *always* taken less casualties overall, and I suppose it would have inflicted more if it had had the chance in earlier games (since it's always wider, it always flanks a tight unit).

What caused loose formation to be a suicidal move was that you lost rank bonuses (which are perhaps less pronounced or non-existent, what with formation disaggregating on impact) and most importantly morale took a plunge, each single casualty would have a big impact on unit morale... but they've upped overall morale, haven't they ? Guess that's what happens when you change a parameter of the equation without taking its dependencies into account ;) (from what I hear, that's also the kind of thing that happened in Medieval from Shogun, in which the maps got bigger, but fatigue remained the same, and in which a new unit had valor 0 instead of 2)

But I'm sure they'll manage to tweak things up overtime when they understand what's going on.

Loose formation was very effective against phalanx units, because it allowed your unit to wrap around the flanks more easily. Otherwise I have never noticed a bonus in melee. In fact putting your unit on guard mode usually works best, because it keeps your unit as tight as possible.
(this applies to RTW)