Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Some of the highly empowered commanders have too many spell options and many(or most) of the time they dont choose the best spell for the ocation. A good way to counter this would be to give us some more flexibility in the way we "program" the caster. With some more focus the could have deepeter strategy.

It would be great if we could choose a magic Specialty when choosing Battle Orders. Say for example you want your caster to cast Evocation Spells Only or Enchantment Spells Only.
Another variation could be to make a focus by the gem type. Something like Fire Spells, Dead Spells, Astral Spells, or such.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

I'd like a "skirmish" order for units, where if archers with ammo were closed on sufficiently by an enemy (say, 8 squares) they would move backwards instead of firing. It would be up to the player to make sure his archers were fast enough to evade the incoming melee troops, mind. I mostly think this would be nice to make horse archers a little more effective for their cost.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

I would like a stand ground order, where your archers wouldn't move forward to shoot at enemy, but wait until they got in range and your melee units would stand in front of archers and guard them, not run forward after two turns.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

A skirmish option would be very useful, especially for all those javelin carrying unarmored troops. The current "fire and flee" is practically useless as you have to gather the fleeing ones from all adjacent provinces after the battle. It would be much more useful if they would fire and then stay back (behind your other troops). As those two orders already exist, it would just be a matter of putting them together.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

It would be nice if there was something related to morale that could model squad cohesiveness. I know in a rout, units are just turning and fleeing, thus the -4 defense bonus, but I think a high morale squad (or potentially a low one with good rolls) should stay under the command of its commander.

It would model fear effects nicely since a lot of units exposed to fear would lower the morale of the squad.

Jazzepi

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Yes, it would be nice if a unit that does a controlled retreat from a battle didn't scatter. However, with a bit of preparation you can leave commanders in all provinces the army can flee to, or just have enough commanders in battle so that random chance distributes them to all necessary provinces. In theory you should be able to pick them all up again and send them in for more hit-and-run attacks, although they might get very piecemeal and it will become steadily harder if they scatter over more provinces.

I'm not sure if I've got the mechanics right on this but...

I think the movement order is semi-randomised. If you had 5 armies with fire and flee attacking an army trying to move into your territory, you should have a good chance of engaging that army in the province it is coming from as at least one of your armies hopefully should move before the target army. Therefore it won't go anywhere. If he can't kill your archers fast enough, potentially you can stop the enemy army and do plenty of damage to it for a few turns.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Movement order doesn't work as you suggest. But you still have a chance of stopping him with your approach.
Assuming one of your 5 armies is coming from the province he's attacking, there is a decent chance they will fight in his starting province. Your other armies will have no effect on his movement, but if the fight does take place in his starting province they will join in.

Movement between friendly provinces takes place first. Then all movement into hostile territory takes place simultaneously. When armies would pass each other (A->B and B->A) there is a chance they will fight in either province or a smaller chance they will miss each and swap provinces. These chances appear to be based on the size of the armies.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Fire and hold would be nice for archers, especially for Sauromatia so you don't poison your troops, instead of hold and attack and let all your archers get slaughtered.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Both Fire & Hold (e.g. Sauromatian androphag archers) and Hold & Fire (javelinists) would be useful. The Stand Ground order would be problematic, because if two armies faced each other with those orders, presumably nothing would happen until the turn 50 autorout.

Re: Set Battle Orders : More Options
 

Any orders which make units hold position extensively or move backwards instead of forwards just dont have a place in Dominions combat. While they seem reasonable to you and I, in the real world, they break the model of dom combat which is that it always progresses forward without ceasing. And I believe it does so with good reason - as Edi points about above, if you give orders which hold back or wait excessively you end up just having armies sit around and see how long they can stare at each other. This is a battle! The armies need to get in there and fight and resolve it.

To get this thread back to what the OP was about tho: I think Atredi's suggestion is a great one. Others have suggested spell lists, and selecting spells which the AI should never cast, but these are too much MM. Having a really rough tool like this tho could give the player more flexibility without much Micro.