[HJ]

I guess one of the points not mentioned yet is that "fire and hold" orders would be great for reducing friendly fire issues when your crossbowmen massacre units that pursue routers. If they would stop firing after two volleys, that would not happen any more. Also, after two volleys armies are pretty much engaged in melee already, and you usually don't want them to keep on firing into the fray (if you do, then you could just order them to "fire"). And yet, they would remain on the battlefield and serve as a Last-ditch defense of commanders if melee units fail to rout the enemy. Therefore, although the new Version of "hold and attack" will help combo units, such as Tien Chi cavalry, it saddens me that the problem of friendly fire still remains. This has been mentioned quite frequently as one of the things that can ruin the enjoyment of the game, and I hope that in future we'll have more options in order to avoid it.

edit: Btw, if orders could be geared towards number of volleys instead number of turns for missile units, that would be great. Otherwise, even with fixed "fire and flee", crossbows would only fire one volley and then retreat.

[ February 11, 2004, 20:46: Message edited by: HJ ]