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

[jjkrause84]

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!? At least in Europe it's certainly true.

I dunno....I don't think the game really needs ti and it makes the attack a little bit over-powered in my opinion

 

[hewhoknowsall]

They should simply make it a neutral *1 modifier when being on an open field.

 

[r_rolo1]

It makes sense ... when you are in a nice plain you can be easily surrounded and/or outmanouvered, especially when you are in marching order and not in battle order.

And most battles in Europe happened in open, flat terrain just because you need two sides to make a battle and almost no one was stupid/crazy enough to fight a entrenched enemy on high ground before the advent of modern artilery ...

 

[jjkrause84]

Who says they're in marching order? Doesn't the same apply in hills or forest? Heck, DOUBLY so in forest where you can easily be surrounded and routed...especially if you're in marching order along a narrow road.

There seems to be the assumption that if you're in the woods you're ready and on the defensive (just cause there's trees about)...hence the defensive bonus. If you're in a sunny plain you're off picking dandelions or taking a nap (and thus totally unprepared...yielding the combat minus).

Plains, etc. should be neutral.


Also, I would argue that most battles took place in plains because it was only place you could put 10's of thousands of guys all together and within sight/command of the man in charge.

 

[r_rolo1]

I never said they were in marching order . Please read things right.

Your last sentence is clearly off the hook. You can put armies of tens of thousands in battle order in very constricted terrains with some ease ( Issus, lake Tresimonde, Cannae, Pidna, just for starters ). But until the XIX century people simply considered that battles in harsh terrains were simply too costly and when one of the sides was in one, the other simply tried to manouver / starve the other to a plain ( this with some exceptions, OFC ).

 

[Zelig]

It's a balance issue, so that units with no defensive bonus still benefit from being in rough terrain.

 

[Arkangelus]

I did wonder if someone was going to bring this up, it seems like one of the biggest changes/issues that I've come across so far. It's interesting and worthy of discussion, but I dont honestly know whether its a good or bad thing. On the one hand, manouvering around to ensure that you always end your turn in cover is fairly strategic, but the penalty for being caught slightly short - 3 flat tiles in a row isn't exactly unheard of - is extremely steep.

 

[mattavich]

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.

 

[Becephalus]

It makes sense, stop picking apart the game. There are 100 other things more important than the combat modifiers right now.

 

[AriochIV]

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.

 

[Babri]

Giving cavalry a bonus in open terrain would be much interesting (& realistic) than giving -33% terrain modifier for defender in my opinion.

 

[Gath]

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.

No, its because they were effectively fighting in a marsh. The field was so muddy they couldn't get across it.

 

[jjkrause84]

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.

Henry the V was successful because of his siege train....period.

Agincourt was nice but battles are all but irrelevant in the 100 Years War. Raids and sieges were where it was at. Battles were a way of making raids and sieges possible (i.e .Harfleur).

 

[Ogrelord]

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.

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.

 

[jjkrause84]

I never said they were in marching order . Please read things right.

Your last sentence is clearly off the hook. You can put armies of tens of thousands in battle order in very constricted terrains with some ease ( Issus, lake Tresimonde, Cannae, Pidna, just for starters ). But until the XIX century people simply considered that battles in harsh terrains were simply too costly and when one of the sides was in one, the other simply tried to manouver / starve the other to a plain ( this with some exceptions, OFC ).

Oh, no...I know ou didn't say they were in marching order but, for the purposes of civ, we have to assume that units are ALWAYS ready to defend themselves. That's all.

I don't remember Cannae being in particularly restricted terrain (a double envelopment would have been hard if it was, no?)....and Lake Trasimene (as it is in English) is sort of a fluke as only ONE of the two armies was in battle order.....

In the end it is a question of scale. How big is a 'big field' [my words]? I think we're probably misunderstanding each other on that level and we almost certanly agree in reality (at the very least about some things).

Still, your point is taken.

No, you're right there are MANY examples of fighting in constricted terrain (Thermopylae to add another ancient example to yoru respectable canon).

 

[DaveGold]

The difficulty is not the open penalty or the rough bonus. It's the fact that you're either in rough with +25% or in open with -33%, there's nothing in between. This could mean you're twice as strong in one hex than it's neighbour and the 25%/33% misleads you into thinking it's a modest difference.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I like to think that in woods you get a bonus because you're the one doing the ambushing, while the enemy that is trying to attack you has to march into the woods in a vulnerable position.

 

[Maniacal]

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.

 

[jjkrause84]

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.

This was assuming the French "decided" anything.

Leading a Medieval army was not the same as commanding a modern force with a clear chain of command.

 

[Ogrelord]

MUD, the new terrain tile. stops all movement.