still at loss in understanding this...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I just had again the example of a group of principes who refused to fire their javelin during 3 rounds( 50% of the troops engaged, and 50% just a tile behind doing nothing), and then all the sudden they fired javelins upon javelins until they had none left.

Happens sometimes, but there's always a reason for this (at least, when it happened to me I always found one eventually, by looking at the VCR carefully).

Typical example:

..........................................
....P..............................F......
..............................S...........
..........................................

P = your principes
S = slow enemy squad
F = fast enemy squad

Now assume P is ordered to 'fire at closest'. P will lock on S, and will do its best to move within shooting range of S, engaging any enemy that comes in the path in hand-to-hand combat.

Result:

..........................................
..............PF..........................
......................S...................
..........................................

F, being faster, outpaced S and engaged P before P could come within shooting range to fire its javelins at S.

Now, assume for some reason, S routs - a routing enemy isn't considered as a valid target anymore if there are other non-routing enemy units on the field. As soon as it happens, P will select a new non-routing target (eg, F), and since its orders were 'fire' orders, it will be able to use its javelins again, since F is within shooting range.

That's just an example - there are many variants on this theme. Eg, if you give 'fire at archers' and there's an non-archer enemy unit in the way.

[ January 24, 2004, 15:01: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]