Chasing Fleeing Units

[Whismerhill]

As Kristoffer pointed out,
historicaly
it was difficult to send orders to the troops (much more difficult than now)
and there was often a lack of discipline
you could not say to one soldier : "attack this ennemy rather than the one you're after because it's better for the entire outcome of the battle"

& the soldier will not really have a global overview of the battle so it will chase ennemies, cause of : "blood rush", one ennemy less is still one ennemy less you will not face anymore in the next battle ...
these are typical things in the mind of a rather simple man enrolled in an army to participate into battles they not always understand

feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that's what illwinter wanted, in my opinion.

[Pocus]

On the other hand refined tactics were sometime used, even by common soldiers, to maximize the gain of their army. Its an error to think that men at arms always act as an undisciplined mob when the opposition rout. An example amongst others, at the battle of Cannae, after the successful double envelopement by the Carthaginians, the Roman began to rout en masse. The Carthaginians soldiers came after the retreaters, and systematically crippled them by slashing at their hamstring muscle or simply their legs (thus crippling men rapidly). It is only after that all (except 3000 men taken as prisonners) the Roman army was routed (48.000 dead in the end), that the Carthaginians performed their sinister job of butchering all the wounded romans. It talks about purposeful tactics which were sometime used.

[PvK]

I'm willing to accept this behaviour as part of the necessary abstraction, also for the reason I mentioned (routed troops who aren't pursued might decide to rejoin the fight).

The friendly fire is the only part I really don't like.

I'd also like to see an end to units moving into poison gas, infernos, etc. for no reason.

PvK

[Pocus]

good points, units which are intelligent enough to pursue easy preys (routed) should perhaps have the brain no to step into the poisonous gazes left by some units.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually having cheap units attack in order to draw certain units into the clutches of others IS a historical tactic. Instead of thinking of it as a weakness, think of it as a tactic. Slingers with fire-and-flee, werewolves told to attack hvy cavalry, leaving your heavily armed troops (and therefor easily fatigued troops) standing with hold-and-attack.

As to the intelligence factor it might be worth noting that there seems like there might be a difference between units feeling the joy of routing the enemy and eagerly giving chase vs what the leaders do. Isnt it the leaders that tend to have just a touch more intelligence in what they do? A way you might try in order to avoid stupid chases is to set the commander to attack someone, and have the units set to guard commander. That seems to provide alittle more control.

By the way, some of these explanations on stupid behavior take on a new light if you use pageDown to get to unit level then push the view right up to them. From an aerial view of a pretender it looks plainly obvious but from troop level the obviousness looks like hindsite only.

[ January 04, 2004, 14:50: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]