Some thoughts on battle dynamics (guerilla warfare)

[Doug-Thompson]

Ah, the weekend. Now I have time to read again.

Frankly, I just do this and eat any bad traits penalty. I had to do it a lot more as the Parthians in RTW than I've ever had to do in MTW2, however. It's a aggravation, and it is true that an "enlightened ruler" would use a fluid strategy.

However such a strategy historically aroused resentment, criticism and second-guessing. There is a price to be paid.

[Czar Alexsandr]

It's dis-honourable to use guerilla warfare? Hmmm. That's too bad.

Well when you're outnumbered I don't see why it'd be bad. I do agree that retreating shouldn't always inncur a penalty. I mean, isn't it better to get your men out when you think losses will be too high? And yet still you get traits that damage your standing with the troops. Personally I'd prefer a patient general than a rash proud general that will risk high losses for anything other than a clear victory. Victory should be decisive and if you don't have quite the punch to do that than re-grouping or entering guerilla warfare shouldn't be penalized. Sorry, lol. I'm a turtler. I get upset every time I losse one of my pixelated soldiers.

[pike master]

he who laughs and runs away, will live to fight another day.

[bobajob]

Its hard to try and represent things like this in a way thats both fun and playable and also not a complete exploit for a human player v ai.

I would like to see things like this implemented abstractly by some sort of attrition effect. I would like to see a cost or loss of men for moving large stacks round thru enemy territory or seiging.

Perhaps also in some sort of battle positioning. You can see a attempt to do this with ambushes and night battles but you could go further - the better general could restrict deployment options or remove them, perhaps split armies up on the tac map or delay units arrival or maybe even flip the attack defence roles.

[Whacker]

he who laughs and runs away, will live to fight another day.

Exactly.

I am also a turtler too Alexandr, and I tend to use mainly cav in M2. It'd be great to be able to use these types of tactics with archers and not get penalized for it. I can understand not being rewarded for doing guerilla warfare, esp. in the "pre-battles" where you inflict damage then retreat. But being penalized for it, and the bad traits that go with it? That I don't like or want, and is enough to make me consider using general-less stacks to be able to do it. I guess my point is if they aren't going to reward us for effective use, don't penalize us. That I could at least deal with.

[Zpartan]

Agreed when used with horse archers, because given any size of field and no battle map borders they can outrun other cav and infantry. But with archers it should still count as a loss still, I would think maybe I'm wrong cav would eventually catch them seeing as there is no borders for battlemaps in "real" life. No hiding in the corner shooting till the enemy gets close than retreating off the map.

[Foz]

Agreed when used with horse archers, because given any size of field and no battle map borders they can outrun other cav and infantry. But with archers it should still count as a loss still, I would think maybe I'm wrong cav would eventually catch them seeing as there is no borders for battlemaps in "real" life. No hiding in the corner shooting till the enemy gets close than retreating off the map.

While this idea makes some sense from a realism standpoint, it does not from a game balance standpoint. The maneuverability of HAs gives them a pretty good advantage in battle already. Giving them the ability to slip in and out of battles at will with no repercussions at all, while more realistic, probably ends up being an advantage that they simply should not have in order to be reasonable in comparison with other troops.

As for withdrawal from the battlefield... from a balance standpoint I would actually prefer to see it gone entirely from the game. A tactical withdrawal so far is something the AI will never execute, and so no matter how you slice it it ends up that this gives the player an unnecessary advantage. If reading the forums is any indication, then I'd suggest that measures against such lopsided gameplay must be implemented where possible, as many players cannot help but take any advantage they can to win (not judging that, just stating simple fact - it's hard to resist). So while some can actively avoid taking advantage of such lopsided facets of the game, it seems a sizable portion will use them, and in doing so make the game less challenging, which usually means too easy, and less fun. So while we may not like having less options at our disposal, I would say that in many cases the limits imposed on us actually force us to have more fun playing the game.

If the AI gets to the point where it can regularly wreck you with a stack of HAs using a tactical withdrawal strategy, then I'd be all for letting that play out in the game. Until then, though, it seems in the best interest of good gameplay to at least not make it any easier to use this tactic.

[Zenicetus]

I can understand not being rewarded for doing guerilla warfare, esp. in the "pre-battles" where you inflict damage then retreat. But being penalized for it, and the bad traits that go with it? That I don't like or want, and is enough to make me consider using general-less stacks to be able to do it. I guess my point is if they aren't going to reward us for effective use, don't penalize us. That I could at least deal with.

You're penalized to discourage this tactic, because otherwise it would be a massive player exploit. Good strategy game designs are symmetrical; the player isn't allowed to do something the AI can't do. There is also an instant ammo refresh at the start of every battle, which further unbalances the tactic. In real armies, it takes at least some time to regroup and restock supplies. If you could attack and withdraw several times in a turn (given enough movement points) without any penalty, the instant ammo reload would tilt the table drastically in favor of ranged units.

Maye we'll see balanced guerrilla tactics modeled in a future TW title. I certainly wouldn't mind it because it's realistic and historical, for many factions. Although I'm not sure how many players would actually like it, if used by the AI. Imagine how tough the Mongols and other horse archer factions would be, if they could hit and run. It might bring more challenge to the game, or it might be incredibly frustrating. A majority of people probably play these games for fun, rather than pure historical simulation.

[Whacker]

Good strategy game designs are symmetrical; the player isn't allowed to do something the AI can't do.

Well then color M2TW a bad strategy game, because there are a number of things the AI can do a player can't! (heavy sarcasm) The lack of crusade desertion sticks out in my mind.

There is also an instant ammo refresh at the start of every battle, which further unbalances the tactic. In real armies, it takes at least some time to regroup and restock supplies. If you could attack and withdraw several times in a turn (given enough movement points) without any penalty, the instant ammo reload would tilt the table drastically in favor of ranged units.

Well, taking this into account I'd agree, but as you stated the TW game is an approximation. If you play a modded 2 turns per year game, then in theory any actions and movements you do each turn represent 6 months of game time. Therefore, it's possible to assume that a good stretch of time passes between each battle, even if you attack back to back. Hence the replenishment doesn't seem like such an issue then.

While it seems a number of folks don't like this "because the AI can't do it", I don't agree that it doesn't mean the player shouldn't be able to do it and at least break even or not be penalized. There are a lot of sneaky conniving things the human mind can do that the TW AI will never do and isn't programmed to do or handle, this is a prime example.

[Foz]

Well then color M2TW a bad strategy game, because there are a number of things the AI can do a player can't! (heavy sarcasm) The lack of crusade desertion sticks out in my mind.

As many people have pointed out, you will never realistically make the AI play the game as well as a human can. Since the human already has the advantage then, the point is to remove human exploits to keep the field as close to level as possible. No such restriction exists toward the AI though: it is certainly allowed to do a few things humans cannot, otherwise how can we expect it to put up a reasonable fight if we already know it cannot match us tactically? I cite Starcraft as a prime example of this: the computer cheated like crazy, but it wasn't a bad thing - in fact, it's one of the things that made the game so great. The near-omniscient AI would attack weak spots, expand into empty areas, and generally do very intelligent things, b/c it knew the state of the whole map without scouting it. Yet the players didn't complain: we celebrated the level of competition the game achieved. And so it is with all strategy games: The AI won't have an edge in tactics, so the prudent thing to do is give it some edge in other areas to make it better able to combat a human opponent, and thus play better than its tactics alone would actually allow.

This is plain wrong. Lots of things were heavily frowned upon during medieval times and yet still prevalent in warfare. The use of archers in large numbers, especially as used by the English in the Hundred Years War, was considered thoroughly unchivalric but it worked.

Granted, war has and always will still be war, and invariably brings a measure of vile deeds with it. That said, you cannot compare the use of archers to the practice of retreating from the field of battle - in morale effect alone they are entirely different animals, not to mention other facets. Concerning the tactics of Du Guesclin, what you've described (I know nadda about him, I'm no historian) may be considered guerilla warfare, but for the most part seems to depart from the actions at hand: those being joining a battle, only to then retreat. Smartly choosing where and when to fight are simply not the same as joining battle and then retreating, and the former can be entirely accomplished with patience and possibly the use of the pre-battle withdrawal, which should be quite effective at avoiding those battles you feel put you in a strategically inferior position.

The ideals of chivalry were important to the self-image of the knightly classes in this period but that should not be confused with the fact that successful generals were practical fighters. Almost all the great 'chivalric' generals have a few notable unchivalric episodes to their name.

It would be more accurate to say that the fact of the matter is that no successful general during medieval times would have considered putting chivalry above success on the battlefield and their tactics at times reflected that. A reputation for chivalry was all well and good but a reputation for winning was what got you land, power, influence and wealth.

Agreed. I did manage to misrepresent the situation substantially (please pardon my sometimes overly-optimistic impression of humanity). It's too easy to forget that war's ultimate purpose is to serve itself, and winning at all costs is the primary expression of that. Everything else is merely a secondary concern.

Concerning Land, power, influence, and wealth: Hmm... none of those are in the game, at least not relating to generals really. Perhaps the occasional trait mentioning influence or money, but not as achievable commodities in the sense you meant. So, the benefits of winning using these tactics are, then, things mostly inconsequential to the game, and such benefits really could not be represented in the game's current state: they simply don't affect gameplay.

By the way, why are we focusing on chivalry so much? As far as I'm aware, loss of chivalry is not among the penalties for using such tactics as have been described here. These things, however, are:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Bad Attacker
Bad Defender
Bad Commander
Bad Risky Attacker
Bad Risky Defender
Bad Infantry General
Bad Cavalry General
Bad Siege Attacker
Bad Engineer
Bad Siege Defender
Bad Ambusher
Noctophobia
Various Hates n' Fears
Discontent General

Nearly all of those directly affect the general's command star rating, not his chivalry or other attributes. So then shouldn't the discussion revolve around those command stars and what they mean?

Taken conceptually, I suppose you'd have to say they represent the leadership power and the tactical prowess of the man, in the capacity of being a general. Looked at that way, it doesn't make much sense to penalize that stat when the general uses guerilla tactics.

Taken in game terms, the only thing anyone knows for sure is that the command stat affects the morale of your troops. From that perspective, it does make sense in a lot of cases for that stat to be negatively impacted by the "underhanded" tactics the general is employing. It's not unrealistic to suggest that the troops could be demoralized by the ill reputation their general is acquiring. Similarly the men may not agree with the general's methods, giving them less confidence in his leadership. Likewise it would not be as easy for the men to understand and rally behind such tactics: there had to be a certain amount of glory and magic associated with a straight-up field battle, and the typical lesser minds comprising the bulk of the army would probably have real difficulty understanding why battles should be fought any other way.

I'm not in any way trying to say that's a ringing endorsement for the current game behavior... just saying it's not obvious at all that the current game behavior represents anything that couldn't or wouldn't actually happen during a successful guerilla campaign, and the matter probably deserves some more thought/discussion.

You're penalized to discourage this tactic, because otherwise it would be a massive player exploit. Good strategy game designs are symmetrical; the player isn't allowed to do something the AI can't do. There is also an instant ammo refresh at the start of every battle, which further unbalances the tactic. In real armies, it takes at least some time to regroup and restock supplies. If you could attack and withdraw several times in a turn (given enough movement points) without any penalty, the instant ammo reload would tilt the table drastically in favor of ranged units.

Speaking of reality, I call into play the limitations of the square battlefield. How realistic is it to suggest that you can escape a battle just by stepping over a red line? My point isn't that it shouldn't be that way: it's that we need to consider this situation inside the confines of the game. In reality, if you get close enough to shoot arrows at some guys, there's no "orderly withdrawal" for you. You run like crazy, or those guys are going to catch you. That army could chase you for miles and miles, further forcing your retreat. However, in a turn-based game there is no real way to portray this. Since there's no way for units to chase the retreating units off the battlefield and indefinitely across whatever terrain, then there should at least be some measure in place preventing that little red line from being completely unfair. Frankly the method in place doesn't seem nearly enough. I'd really prefer some mandatory attrition to the retreating army: I doubt many armies in history could execute a full retreat without losing at least some of their number to enemy units giving chase (should they choose to do so). After all everyone knows that some charging knights would catch fleeing foot archers in a matter of seconds if that red line wasn't holding them back.

In conclusion... sorry for the length of the post, I know it's Looooong... and for the scatter-brained nature of it. I guess I had a lot to say on a bunch of different topics...