"Attack Rearmost"

[tinkthank]

Has anyone besides myself felt that giving the order "attack rear" (or: hold and attack: rear) often (but not always) results in the commander (or troops, but mainly I am thinking of the commander after having lost a SC or two) not holding and attacking the enemy at the back (usually, at least vs the AI: casters and commanders, which is what I want him to attack) but rather the back of the first squadron of enemy attackers. Is this intentional? What is especially bizarre IMHO: After losing an assassin or two to a simple skeleton-summoning mage and his bodyguards, I explicitly told my assassin to "attack rear", but even when the way is open to the mage (I put the assassin on the side), he will always beeline for the skeletons, who are in front of the mage, instead of going for the rear. Is this also intentional?

[Starfighter08]

I only use "attack rearmost enemy" with cavalry type troops. And usually one wing attacks the side/back of the first row of enemies and the other wing tries to attack archers commanders.

[Chazar]

Yes, I noticed that myself and thought that this may be so intentionally, since battles would quickly become boring if every one homes in on the commanders only...

Nevertheless, I've made good experiences with the "attack archers" command, at least against the AI. But I got the feeling that mages are also regarded as "archers"...

[Pocus]

its a feature, not a bug, albeit a too heavily weighted one : depending of the relative masses of the enemy front line, and his rear, you can fail to target the rearmost enemy.

Usually, it fails all the time with grounded forces, as the enemy front act as a magnet for your flanking force. I tried and tested many time that, and I think it should be tweaked a bit.

[Wauthan]

Attack Rearmost could perhaps be called Attack Flank instead. It's still a good order to issue to your the units on your own flanks. If given the order to attack closest they tend to create a big slugfest in the middle of the battlefield were the units the back of the force block any retreats from the units in front of them. It makes for massive casualities.

With attack rearmost the units will spread out and with a little luck they will surround the enemy in the classic horseshoe formation. If put on hold and attack rearmost a very fast group of units can run right past the melee and indeed reach the rearmost enemies, but you would need to clear their path of any enemies. Attack Rearmost seems to work as expected only if the units can actually see the rearmost enemies, otherwise they attack whatever units they encounter first on their way to the back of the battlefield.

Attack Archers seems to work pretty well if one wants to reach the commanders. Many players and the AI tend to put archers either around or very near their mages in order to use them as bodyguards or maximise the benefits of spells.

[ March 09, 2004, 11:35: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[PDF]

I concur to the fact that the order works as "Attack Flanks" unless the enemy has a so smallish front force that the unit don't reach it before it dies.
Anyway I've never tried to use Assassins in field battle with this order, surely they only manage to get killed this way...