Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

Short of using battle spells, is there any way to get my melee troops to target enemy commanders. I have tried putting cavalry on both my flanks with orders to "attack enemy rear" but they always end up flanking enemy combat squads rather than going for enemy commanders in the rear.

Clearly, this would be a nice attack option to be added with a patch.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

The option to attack commanders and mages existed in Dom 1, but was removed in Dom2 as unbalancing. It is very difficult if not impossible to get troops to attack commanders in Dom3, which is what makes some tactics like skelly-spam so powerful.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

There are assassins and assassination spells though.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

If you have your flankers "hold and attack rearmost" it can help.

For more control Ive used a cavalry commander and had all the cavalry "guard" him. The commanders orders I could set for hold, hold, attack rearward. That way I could choose how many "hold" to use.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

In Dom2 you could capture a group of independent heroes. Some of them had "attack commander" command which you could copy to your own troops. I dont know if its still in the game though. I know that the heroes are.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

This still works! I used Charm on one of Bogus's Friends (The Dark Knight) and he was scripted to "ATTACK ENEMY COMMANDERS!".

Safe to say, he was a VERY nice addition to my army.

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

Getting "Attack Rearmost" to work is a tricky business on a good day. I believe the way it works is that the attacking squad makes a morale check for every enemy squad that it passes on its way to the enemy rear. And if it fails the check it will just attack whoever is closest. So if you want to hit the enmey rear you need some pretty brave troops.

I seem to recall flyers being particularly good at this order? Dunno if they have to make the same check? Anyway, you can also do a little sleight-of-hand with your orders. If you want your men to attack the rear and they just wont, you could try setting them to Attack Archers, who are also frequently in the rear. Troops are much more likely to follow that order than Attack Rear

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

This is clearly exploit that need to be fixed..

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

See, I'm not sure about the morale check thing. Using Demon Knights, with Morale 30, they almost never charge past the front lines. If they don't with the highest morale possible, I'm not sure what would?

Re: Attacking Enemy Commanders ????
 

To actually get troops like cavalry to attack the rear and slaughter commanders, I've most commonly found it useful to deploy a solid infantry screen across the entire front as close to the enemy as possible set to attack closest except the infantry groups on each flank, which are set to attack rear. The cavalry is then positioned on the flank about halfway from the centre to the front with the order to hold and attack rear. [And you do have your few astral mages placed in the cavalry starting position casting body ethereal, right? At least for important battles]

When it works, this means that your centremost infantry locks down the enemy's infantry core for a few rounds while your flanking infantry envelops them, thus giving a free path for your cavalry - when your cavalry then charges, even if it wants to deviate from the rear, it has to move past the enveloping infantry to get at the enemy, which means that nine times out of ten it does end up in the rear with the lance attack ready to slaughter commanders, bodyguards, or the occasional unfortunate archer contingent. When it doesn't work, you'll often still end up losing less cavalry in general since your infantry eats that first round of damage and your cavalry gets to charge somebody already engaged.

This tactic depends on having numerical superiority in infantry (though inferior infantry quality is fine, so long as they can survive for a few rounds) or an enemy who isn't prepared for it - it is easily defended against by somebody who holds back substantial infantry groups screening archers/leaders on the rear-flank with hold-and-attack as they'll move to intercept the cavalry.

...Of course, if your enemy does start to hold back significant forces from the front lines because he's wary of you locking down his forces in melee and sending in the cavalry it just might be worth a consideration to try another setup with the cavalry as an iron fist punching straight through the centre of his weakened front lines with your infantry playing backup rather than the other way around. (Easy way to get badly mauled if he depends on crossbows, though)