Flying units attacking rear ?

[liga]

I have looked in old thread and find something usefull ... but still I have some dubt:

How is the best way to have high probabilty that flying units really attacj the enemies rear ?

It seems that my flyer are better in doing that if:

1) they start just in the middle of the field and not in the rear and

2) if I give them teh order attack instead of hold-and-attck (that I was us ti prefer becouse often some squads in the rear move up and left the leaders alone)

... si that true or are only strange coincidence ?

thks
Liga

[Gandalf Parker]

The "rear opponents" seem to mean they will attack the rear ones they SEE. If they start way at the back of the battle they dont see all the way to the other side of the battle. Thats how Im guessing.

I like to split mine. Have half attack rear and half attack archers. Sometimes when they fly looking for archers they get more in the back than the other ones do.

[Argitoth]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
The "rear opponents" seem to mean they will attack the rear ones they SEE. If they start way at the back of the battle they dont see all the way to the other side of the battle. Thats how Im guessing.

I disagree.

I think the greatest chance to get a unit to attack the rear is to place the unit in the right spot of the battle field.

For example, if you place your ice devil in the back-most and middle position, it will attack whatever units are in the middle of the battlefield.

I believe flying works exactly like running except that there is no movement graphics, so just like running, if you run into the enemy before you get to the desired target, you will attack those units

r = rearmost unit
i = ice devil
A = army

r
r-----------A--------i
r

The ice devil will attack the army in the above graph

r-----------------------i
r-----------A
r

The ice devil will attack rearmost because the army is not in the way.

This is my hypothesis (educated guess).

[Psitticine]

The mechanics are that, essentially, the unit must pass a check to bypass each unit and keep moving further back. The more units within range of their passage, the less likely it is that they'll reach the rear row.

[Nephelim]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
The mechanics are that, essentially, the unit must pass a check to bypass each unit and keep moving further back. The more units within range of their passage, the less likely it is that they'll reach the rear row.

What's the logic behind a flying unit needing to do so?

Would they mistakenly believe that -this- unit is the Last unit? I assume that units can see the entire battlefield, especially when airborne.

Is it a game-mechanics thing, so that a bunch of flying units aren't immediately a mage-killer?

[liga]

So, it'is not a problem of how much far are my flayers in the battlefield but what they meet mefore reaching the end ...

so teh best way is to split my flayres in small Groups trying to cover as much battlefield as possible and also, as Gandalf suggest, give some of them the attack archer orders ... I'll try!

thks
Liga

[PvK]

Well, my theory is that it's fine to put them in the back corner, or back middle, and that Hold and Attack is best, or Guard Commander with the commander on Hold Hold ... Hold Attack Rear, and that it's best to have as many such units as possible, and it's best to have as many Groups of such units as possible.

In watching these things, it seems to me that if one of your own Groups has targetted an enemy group, it seems more likely that an Attack Rear group will bypass those and go for an unengaged group. So the more Groups on attack rear, the more likely to get to the actual rear. But the numbers in each group seem to help too. If you have a ton of units on attack rear, then some tend to get to the actual rear, especially if they are flying.

PvK

[tinkthank]

It depends on how the enemy army is grouped, I think. I *think* it may be a question of "rearmost" in terms of squads.
If they are all lumped together, the troops *will* go to the rearmost.

I made a little post here with an anecdote which may illustrate what I mean:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...&f=74&t=002246

[velk]

Originally posted by Argitoth:

The ice devil will attack rearmost because the army is not in the way.

This is my hypothesis (educated guess).

This seemed reasonable, and straightforward enough to test, so I set up the following.

Test 1 : A black knight at the rear middle of field with orders to hold. An ulm bodyguard in the center of the field, directly in front of him, also with orders to hold.

On the opponent side a van in the front center ( in line with bodyguard and commander ) also with orders to hold, and behind him at the rear a valkyrie with orders to attack rear.

Results : About 50% of the time the valkyrie would attack the knight, and about 50% of the time his bodyguard.

Test 2 : I moved both the valkyrie and knight to the bottom of the screen, and the bodyguard and the van to the top of the screen.

Results : About 50% of the time the valkyrie would attack the knight, and about 50% of the time his bodyguard.

Overall I am kind of puzzled. My best guess is that there is some kind of fudge factor applied to prevent you from ambushing commanders easily.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by velk:
Overall I am kind of puzzled. My best guess is that there is some kind of fudge factor applied to prevent you from ambushing commanders easily.

That's exactly what happens, as stated by the devs quite some time ago.