-33% penalty for being in open terrain a bit silly?

[DalekDavros]

Anyone else think this? I can't get over why you would get a PENALTY for being in a big green field, for example.....isn't that were most battles were fought across history!?

Most of the time they did, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea. Every time the enemy refused to play along, the enemy won. Fighting in the open was a stupid strategy, which is why modern military no longer uses it.

 

[DNK]

Agincourt was only won because the French knights decided it was a great idea to forget about common sense. The French divided up their forces into waves, thereby losing their numerical advantage, and they charged head-first towards the English.. only for their heavy war horses to get bogged down and stuck in the thick mud. When the knights dismounted they got stuck/slowed down too. Meanwhile the English longbowmen rained down death from above from the relative safety of the trees and dry-er edges of their end of the field. The French could have returned fire with their mercenaries, but they told them to stand aside so the knights could get all the glory.

Ironically, the French had also supplied the English with the yew wood for their long bows.

Where do you learn these things?

 

[jjkrause84]

Most of the time they did, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea. Every time the enemy refused to play along, the enemy won. Fighting in the open was a stupid strategy, which is why modern military no longer uses it.

A) It wasn't a strategy it was a 'tactic'....the two are very different

B) If you look back at history and the best you can do is "they were stupid" then chances are you're not really understanding the situation at the time

C) Mass volley fire was used because it was effective....phalanxes fought in the open as it was easy to maintain their formation (and formation was EVERYTHINg for a phalanx)....weapons, culture and war aims have changed throughout time which has had an impact on how and why wars are fought

 

[Brawndo]

I think that mounted units should get a +33% modifier in open terrain, but melee and ranged units should be unaffected. It's more realistic, because cavalry were best used in open terrain

 

[Brawndo]

In an open field you're pretty much holding up a sign saying "Flank and surround me!"

In real life, it could be less than -33% combat penalty if you were to look at death ratios.

When Britain invaded France with Henry the V(I think) we were outnumbered 5-1, yet we won because we held their troops in open ground and hammered them with our longbows.

Agincourt was only won because the French knights decided it was a great idea to forget about common sense. The French divided up their forces into waves, thereby losing their numerical advantage, and they charged head-first towards the English.. only for their heavy war horses to get bogged down and stuck in the thick mud. When the knights dismounted they got stuck/slowed down too. Meanwhile the English longbowmen rained down death from above from the relative safety of the trees and dry-er edges of their end of the field. The French could have returned fire with their mercenaries, but they told them to stand aside so the knights could get all the glory.

Ironically, the French had also supplied the English with the yew wood for their long bows.

The English really didn't kill many French with their longbows. Armor by this point in medieval history was thick enough to stop a bodkin arrow at all but close range. The effectiveness of English arrow volleys was mainly that it killed or maimed the French war horses (which were not fully armored), forcing many of the knights to walk and slowed them down even further in the muddy terrain.

By the time the exhausted French got to the English lines, the much more rested and more nimble English archers and men-at-arms destroyed them in hand-to-hand combat.


From Wikipedia:

The plate armour of the French men-at-arms allowed them to close the 300 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot". However they had to lower their visors and bend their heads to avoid being shot in the face (the eye and airholes in their helmets were among the weakest points in the armour), which restricted both their breathing and their vision, and then they had to walk a few hundred yards through thick mud, wearing armour weighing 50–60 pounds.

The French men-at-arms reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen continuing to shoot until they ran out of arrows and then dropping their bows and joining the mêlée, implying that the French were able to walk through a hail of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. But the physical pounding even from non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, and the crush of their numbers meant they could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line.

When the English archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, attacked the now disordered and fatigued French, the French could not cope with their unarmoured assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud). The exhausted French men-at-arms are described as having been knocked to the ground and then unable to get back up

 

[hewhoknowsall]

woah..does the combat penalty happen when a unit from the woods attacks a unit on the plains? Do both suffer the penalty or does only the defending unit suffer the penalty?

If the former, then what's the point? Both get decreased equally.

If the latter, then that doesn't make sense. Given the scale of the maps and the fact that when attacking a unit you're trying to move onto its tile (hence why you move onto the tile of the unit that gets destroyed), both would be fighting on the plain, unless if swordsmen are throwing their swords at the unit on the plains.

 

[MadRat]

I agree the open terrains need to be neutrals. Somebody explain to me how 1 longswordsman attacked by another gets a -33% despite being the same unit - same terrain? I can readily understand BONUS to some unit attacking into a plains like armor/cavalry/air (which they do get) but it gets stupid when equal units fight.

Image a hoplite phalanx vs a hoplite phalanx - assuming no promotions on either end - it should be a draw.

Rat

 

[MadRat]

woah..does the combat penalty happen when a unit from the woods attacks a unit on the plains? Do both suffer the penalty or does only the defending unit suffer the penalty?

No just the defender it seems.

There is no such thing as a neutral terrain atm only rough (def bonus) or open (plains) - 33%.

Rat

 

[Venger]

It needs to be neutral. Fact is, defenders in any terrain usually always have an advantage unless outnumbered. There is no reason to think a defending unit cannot flank an attacker, so unless there are additional units, it should be no modifier. Sure, certain types of units are better in open ground, and some better in concealment, but that's a unit type issue, not a terrain.

 

[Carver]

It should be neutral, the difference in modifiers is too drastic.

 

[_hero_]

From a realism standpoint I think it's silly, but from a gameplay standpoint I'm beginning to think that it actually works. It makes terrain and positioning even more critical.

I was actually thinking the opposite. By definition open terrain implies a lack of cover. Any army through most of history stupid enough to try to defend itself with no cover should and did have a disadvantage. You're exposed to enemy fire and this is especially significant now that basic archers have bombardment.

That said, to make it most realistic it should be "-33% combat penalty when in open terrain and being attacked from rough terrain."

 

[MadRat]

That said, to make it most realistic it should be "-33% combat penalty when in open terrain and being attacked from rough terrain."

No id change it to ranged units/cavalry only. I don't think attacking infantry will have ranged advantage over defending infantry.

Rat

 

[JWideman]

I find that this penalty makes a lot of sense. On open ground, it is much easier to attack then defend. This is reflected in the mounted units especially.

 

[DaveGold]

By definition open terrain implies a lack of cover. Any army through most of history stupid enough to try to defend itself with no cover should and did have a disadvantage.

We're talking about vast stretches of land here, probably with some smaller rivers, some towns, some small hills. I suspect this defence penalty for plains is all to do with the abstract combat system and nothing to do with reality.

 

[_hero_]

We're talking about vast stretches of land here, probably with some smaller rivers, some towns, some small hills. I suspect this defence penalty for plains is all to do with the abstract combat system and nothing to do with reality.

I've taken a tile in this game to represent something different with regards to troops and cities/the map. If a tile represents a vast area of land for troops than 1UPT doesn't make sense in a literal sense. Clearly it's an abstraction.

 

[Ayt]

I didn't even realize this existed. I'm glad I opened the thread.

I agree that open terrain should be neutral with mounted units getting some sort of bonus.

 

[SilverKnight]

But at the end of the Hundred Years' War, the English lost to the French because it took 2 turns for a reinforcement unit to go into water cross the Channel.

I'm sorry but it looks like none of you realized that this discussion, whatever it may have been about originally, is over. The best point was already made.

Also to me it seems to emphasize a combat style of "The best defense is a good offense." I know I'm going to take more damage sitting than if I launch an attack, so that factors into my tactics.

SilverKnight

 

[sohvan]

Cavalry units don't get defensive bonuses, but they also don't get defensive penalties as far as I can see.

I feel like the -33% defensive penalty is bad for game balance though, and it especially hurts the AI. The AI is very bad at manouvering it's armies and using terrain to it's advantage, so it is often at a disadvantage in open terrain. It can also be lured into the open by using workers for example. Siege and archery units slaughter attacking units in the open so badly, that the AI might as well not bother attacking at all. A smart human player will also almost always get the first strike, or at least keep it's vulnerable units in rough when attacking. The AI usually needs a 6:1 army compared to a human defender to actually be able to win when attacking.

Since the AI is bad at using terrain, and it is hard to fix the AI itself, maybe it's an option to change the game mechanic to make it's decisions into less bad ones, so open terrain will just have a 0% modifier. You could keep the defensive penalty for some terrain types like marsh for example.

 

[Drake L. Dragon]

Now -- this really depends on your interpretation of history. Yes, most of Europe's battles were fought on open fields, but remember. Both sides were fighting on open fields. However, in the French and Indian War, the British showed that they were heavily inadequate in the American terrain, filled much with forest. When the American Revolution and the War of 1812 came along, however, the Americans showed that they could use the forest terrain to their advantage in order to defeat the much larger, more powerful British Army in those open fields. Of course, the tides were turned in the Vietnam War, when the Vietcong ravaged the American Army in the forests.

However, if an army doesn't really know how to use guerrila tactics, and such army just coincidentally was fighting out of a forested terrain against an open terrain, I do rather agree that a -33% penalty wouldn't be fair automatically. Rather -- I would have it so that there should be more bonuses for units that wanted to concentrate on using guerrila tactics, and those bonuses would only apply in forested areas.

One bonus that would be nice would be for a unit with such bonus to be invisible in forested areas.

 

[DNK]

<feels like every era should have "conventional" units and guerrilla units. Conventional units receiving -bonuses for attacking/defending forests/jungles, +bonuses for defending hills, -bonus for attacking hills; guerrilla getting the reverse, plus -bonuses for plains, should have significantly weaker power ratings and costs, and should get good withdrawal odds even if unmounted, perhaps also strong cultural modifiers that make it so they are only really useful within one's borders.

I tried modding that into C4, but it was a headache balancing it all.