Mutual attacks - where do they fight?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I haven't really gotten any kind of official response one way or another. If they actually RESPONDED, that would more or less confirm that this is definitely the case.

They _have_ responded, and confirmed that it works exactly as described in the manual.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Tris:
The main army would be unable to break camp and march significant distances, as they would be forced to deploy for battle against the hit and fade attacks, unless you had countered those attacks with a light force of your own.

Why would behaviour as ahistorical as this be good for gameplay?

[Tris]

I'm unaware of any historical precedent for a conflict in which commanders felt they were able to have one main force, without patrols and pickets, and got away with it.

As for gameplay, I don't know if this would improve it. I believe it would make strategic movement and planning of campaigns more involved, and nations with strong LI but weak HI would feel very different to those in the reverse scenario.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Tris:
I'm unaware of any historical precedent for a conflict in which commanders felt they were able to have one main force, without patrols and pickets, and got away with it.

That isn't what you are suggesting. What the initial person suggested was that heavy infantry with a move of 1 should be made _useless_. This is hardly conducive to good gameplay, and it's hardly historical for harrassing attacks to wipe out a force with both superior numbers and better equipment. It's also not particularly good for a faster and completely inferior force to indefinitely pin down a slower and overwhelmingly superior force. Being able to harrass your opponent doesn't matter at all if you can't defeat them on the field.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
They _have_ responded, and confirmed that it works exactly as described in the manual.

So it's been officially denied, then? That more or less proves it, then.

[Tris]

That isn't what you are suggesting.

Yes it is!

I would see this in game as the big army being unable to form into march column without little bits being hit by hit and run attacks, supply columns being hit by raiders, so the main army must spend most of its time foraging, rather than marching, and must provide patrols to guard each foraging party, or have them go missing...

The net result of which is that it is difficult to move a strategically slow army when under constant attack from reasonably large and strategically fast armies.

[PvK]

Er, but you can already do that by throwing small attacks - if it turns out that your attacks get resolved first, then the battle will take place at the enemy location, and the enemy won't move. Numbers are probably what tips the odds, so if you draft a mob of cheap militia or something and have it attack the enemy main force with Fire and Flee or something, and enough commanders to keep gathering the rabble and re-attacking, you have a good chance of delaying or temporarily stopping a superior enemy force.

Seems like the current mechanic allows this tactic, yet doesn't make it automatic, and favors the larger force. Sounds about right.

PvK