[Zen]

Thufir said:
1) In the above screen shots, C'tis had about 120 Tomb worms, and ~60 tomb guards positioned near the back, and I believe on "hold and attack" orders. His force was large enough that it covered nearly the full width of the field, minus 4 grid squares on either side.

Can anyone tell me why my 25 devils, with orders to attack the rearmost enemy attacked the tomb worms instead? I guess I would've expected cavalry to have a hard time to get around such a wide front line, but I thought fliers would be able to pull that off guaranteed.

There is a random element to the 'always attack rearmost' behavior of the command "Attack Rearmost". There is some variable that says: Attack Rearmost, Rearmost unit. Chance of attack = X. If failed, chance of attack second most rearmost squad = X. If failed, chance of attack third most rearmost squad = X.

The more squads that are there the more chance of not actually attacking a rearmost squad. I can't give you the X, but I do know from my personal tests and the way I set up squads it seems to be 20% that an actual attack rearmost will go to the very rear, and there seems (based on a few factors) that commanders are lowest on the priority of targeting when using "Rearmost" so there is no easy way to pick out commanders for flying quickstrikes.

Is successfully reaching the rear something that is dependent on relative sizes of attacking force and a front line force? Or is there a completely random element? Or might it have something to do with the positioning of the C'tis commanders that prevented my Devils from reaching the rear?

From the above screenshots, my guess is you had your Devils all in one squad, had them to attack rearmost and they happened to get caught up in a flanking Tomb Wyrm squad that was second or third to the most rear.

2) On the other side of the coin (mostly while playing Pythium, and trying to keep my mages safe from Abysia's devils), I had considerably less success than C'tis had in this battle. I am particularly interested in defending mages against flying enemy troops (devils being the obvious, but not only example),

My guess here, is that you probably didn't have a large number of squads, but one large squad with lots of troops (maybe a flanking squad or two, so you should have the same chance as C'tis based on "Attack Rearmost" orders). You have to also note that it is only the "Attack Rearmost" that has this issue. Attack Cavalry, Attack Largest Monster, Attack Archers, will choose the nearest unit of that type to fire/attack on. So if in your Pythium examples you had archers near your Mages or #mounted/Size4+ near your mages that would enable the opponent to target them a little easier with their flying squads.

3) I'm also interested in flanking attacks, which to date I've had limited success with. So far in my MP experience (which admittedly is limited to 5 games ), I've yet to see another player utilizing knights or cavalry, and every time I've tried to it's been cost-ineffective. The problem I generally have is that the cavalry always gets hung up on attacking the center, and never makes it to a vulnerable rear area or to a group of archers. In which case, I'd guess you would be better off mixing your cavalry in with your heavy infantry in order to have a larger unit, and get the improved morale bonus.

Depending on the opponents setup (if he has a screen of melee troops set to hold and attack) in front of his archers or mages, it can pose a problem to 'flank'. When I want to flank, or encircle an Enemy without trying to get my fast moving units too tangled up into the center formations, I keep my units as far out to the flanks as possible with Attack Rearmost or Attack Archer orders. Most of this time this will allow them to engage either the rearmost squads or their screening troops. Or it also allows the fast moving units to close on the sides of a big formation (though I wish they would go behind the formation and go for an attack from behind) while your front troops fan out in front. This is why Javelins are particularly useful because of the spread of a squad and the limited usefulness based on the game's design of a 'forward line'.

Is anyone out there (in MP play) taking advantage of flanking attacks, either with cavalry/knight type units, or other types of fast units? Is there a key to making this type of unit cost effective?

There isn't really a way to make the knight/cavalry cost effective, because of their extrordinary resource cost. Unless you require the Lance, or the Strategic movement, you are better off going to a more efficent infantry variety. This is why Tien Ch'i mounted units (a significant part of their armies) has so many problems based on this fundamental weakness in the game engines simulation of combat.