Macro vs. Micro battle management

[DensterNY]

Would you prefer having a macro-management of battles over what we have now which is micromanagement?

As it stands we have to position exactly each of our units, direct them exactly where to move and instruct them on whom and how to attack. However, in actual war there is of course never that level of management because of the fog of war, overall confusion and also the difficulties in trying to communicate in the chaos of a fight. Don't get me wrong I still love the Total War series, with one of the best battle engines ever devised.

I was thinking though perhaps in the future you could play more of the role of an actual general and set the overall strategy for your troops and then adjust tactics depending upon the course of a battle. In the moments prior to engagement you would have a meeting with all of your officers where you'd evaluate your opposition, your own camp make-up and from there develop an overall strategy and assign different roles for your units.

When the battle begins you'd watch as your units do their best to carry our their assignments and you get to adjust what they're doing with general instructions rather than direct control. (i.e.. tell your infantry reinforcements to flank left around breaking enemy line) Plus, to keep things a little realistic have a small chance of miscommunication and also delay instructions to units depending upon their distance to your general.

[DVX BELLORVM]

It is a good idea, I'd like to see it happen. It would certanly add to the realism. But I think it would be a bit of a hard core to a casual gamer, because it would require more planing and strategic thinking than now when you directly control each unit. And since the most part of the game consumers are just casual gamers, it probably wouldn't sell.

I remember a certain game back from late 80s, called Waterloo, which had a similar concept. It was a turn based game, each turn was 15 minutes game time. There was only one battle to play, battle of Waterloo (obviously). Before the battle you could issue orders to your generals, or keep the historic ones. And during the battle you would give orders (by typing!) to corps generals , and they would relay them to brigade generals. The whole process took time, and some orders never reached destination. You could actually see the horsemen carrying orders

This is how it looked:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[PrestigeX]

I think i prefer the Micro Management..

I can see what you're saying about 'the fog of war',
... however, it can be possible for individual units to really distinguish themselves in a micro-management battle set up... Like if you had a unit of , Almughavars or something.. you'd definantly want them on micro management..
Also, most of the time it is a form of Macro management with many players because we group units togther, so instead of controlling , all the units in the battle..
you are sending general orders to the Spear group, or Heavy Cav group, or Assault infantry group, etc ...

[TheLastPrivate]

A lot of the order and command was done by flags and horns and predestined signals and such which allowed direct orders somewhat possible. Of course the confusion level was immense and most of the time generals would stick to their original plans and the better plan that counters theo ther would often win because impovision on battlefield was not something readily done.
But still I like to be able to give direct orders to my men..

[DensterNY]

Well, I got the idea from an English show that I caught once called Time Commanders. In it a team is elected to play out a historic fight against the computer AI and the team is divided into ranks which also determine how much of the battlefield they can see. For instance, the general gets to see the entire battlefield, next in rank sees his division area, next are the captains who can only see restricted from their unit location.

The general outlines the overall strategy and then everyone else does their best to carry out orders. As battle progresses the general who has full view sends out orders to his first rank officers (with say a 10 second time delay) who interprets them and then sends out orders to the captains (with another 10 second delay). This simulates people running messages during a real battle.

As you can imagine those 20 seconds are crucial and at times what the general sees and responds to has changed by the time the field captains have received orders. This can result in total confusion or a captain having to use their own judgement instead based upon what they see from their position. The whole process is quite amazing and it shows you how chaotic trying to carry out a battle can be.

I was thinking about this yesterday in my Britannia campaign, as I deftly defeated a Welsh force twice the number of my English army because I was able to move my units around with surgical precision. It was fun and gratifying but I achieved this victory because I was able to micromanage every step of the way.

[hrvojej]

Slitherine software makes this sort of games you are talking about. As for me, I dislike this sort of 'fire and forget' combat.

[TevashSzat]

IMO, macro battle management will not work given the level of the ai in M2TW.

Think about this: You perfectly manipulate the campaign map to get a large advantage, you position your army perfectly on the battle map, and suddenly the micro ai messes up and all of your archers get killed in the first charge or your general unit is committed too early and dies. How frustrating would that be?

True, you can give orders, but they delay and the ai will make it quite frustrating to do anything

[Si GeeNa]

There's a way of increasing FoW in the current Totalwar engine.

1. Switch off the Radar screen.

2. Play with General's Camera only.

DVX, there's actually 3 battles, Austerlitz, Borodino and Waterloo. I had the game but due to my youth (10-12), I was too impatient to understand the game.

[hrvojej]

IMO, macro battle management will not work given the level of the ai in M2TW.

Think about this: You perfectly manipulate the campaign map to get a large advantage, you position your army perfectly on the battle map, and suddenly the micro ai messes up and all of your archers get killed in the first charge or your general unit is committed too early and dies. How frustrating would that be?

True, you can give orders, but they delay and the ai will make it quite frustrating to do anything

This is what's bothering me the most about EU3. You spend so much time working on making your empire great, but when you get to the battle and everything is at stake, you can only watch two sprites going "piff-paff" at each other. I still play EU3, but after that much work I prefer the hands-on control, thank you.

[Jason X]

an English show that I caught once called Time Commanders.

they used the rome tw engine for the battles in that show!