Flanking or combat

[dutchfire]

Title says it all: Do you prefer flanking or combat on your mounted units? I'm never quite sure. Flanking increases their survivability a lot. Units with combat are more likely to die, but at least they do some damage...

 

[cseanny]

Why not use both? In fights that combat ll have less than 50% win rate use flank ll instead which is 45% with Cuirs or 50% with HA (I believe).

 

[Windsor]

I probably use 80% combat and 20% flanking.

Longer wars and great medics giving the units time to heal and attack again favors flanking more, but overall combat goes very well together with the high base strength of mounted units.

 

[Seraiel]

I wonder that this discussion comes up every year.

Combat is the better promotion, because the chance to inflict dmg is higher. Flanking is only something for few Sentry units or GGs.

Flanking II also has the disadvantage, that Horse-units are immune to Firststrikes anyhow, and additionally, fights where the units withdraw give only 1 XP / 1 GG-point.

 

[pob]

Flanking II also has the disadvantage, that Horse-units are immune to Firststrikes

Chariots/immortals, keshiks, cataprachts and cavalry/cossacks aren't naturally immune to first strikes, so flanking may be more useful for those, but I usually go for combat.

 

[Izuul]

I almost always use Combat

 

[Fippy]

Flanking is terrible ~~
There's no situation where you should promote that, unless you should stop that war anyways and wait for help in form of new techs or so.

Mounted units are supposed to die, for quick gains. If you are scared losing them, they are the wrong guys for this situation
If you cannot afford losses, you need more. Surviving units with flanking will be at almost no health, and useless for some time..there are many more reasons than just combat doing more damage, like flanking does nothing on defense.

 

[sinimusta]

One situation for flanking comes to mind: if you want to flank enemy siege. Then it might be worth it to increase odds of surviving and thus doing damage to the real target, siege units.

 

[MegaLurker]

I think flanking has it's place as a suicide unit in HA rushes. Where chances are very low like against a city spearman (or even just an archer in a hill city with 40%+ cultural defense) I find flanking better overall for the first attack than combat I.

I think you'll find if you test it over, say, 100 attacks that you get a lot more withdrawn units that dealt damage than ones that left the defender unscathed. And any combat I/shock units won't get to attack the spearman until all other defenders are weakened anyway.

 

[Gumbolt]

Always combat now. Attack or die trying.

 

[elohssa]

50% total withdrawal chance is just far too low to go up the flanking line and combat does more. Subs + attack-subs are the only units that flanking works well with (80% withdrawal chance!).

 

[bhavv]

I've just been playing lots of Cyrus war games and find combat to be much more useful than flanking

I like to have one flanking unit with visibility in the stack though.

 

[duckstab]

I think flanking has it's place as a suicide unit in HA rushes. Where chances are very low like against a city spearman (or even just an archer in a hill city with 40%+ cultural defense) I find flanking better overall for the first attack than combat I.

I think the point of flankers in HA/Keshik rushes is to have a decent chance to survive, not to commit suicide. You want them to withdraw so they can be reused for later attacks. When doing such a rush, I go with about 30% flanking and 70% combat. One per major stack will also get sentry, which is available up the flanking line.

Under other circumstances, I go with 100% combat, except that one per major stack will probably take medic I as their 2nd promotion.

 

[MegaLurker]

I think the point of flankers in HA/Keshik rushes is to have a decent chance to survive, not to commit suicide.

This holds true up to emperor and maybe in ideal situations above that, otherwise you should be expecting to lose a good half the HAs you produce to low percentage attacks. Even archers will give you losing odds if they're fortified in a hill city, or got walls up, or are already at 60% cultural defense because of a religion being founded there, etc. Even with flanking II you could still call it a "suicide" attack in the sense that you care more about damaging the defender than keeping your unit, survival is just a possible bonus.

At that point combat I increases your odds of winning by very little (maybe 5% or less when your odds are below 30%?), whereas flanking increases your odds of surviving by the full 10%. The argument against this is that you increase your odds of doing no (or very little) damage but I've never actually seen this demonstrated conclusively. I think statistically you do better against <30% odds with the extra withdrawal chance than with the extra attack strength. I could be wrong, but I tend to do my first attack on the strongest defender with flanking rather than combat. The occasional unlucky roll that deals no damage to the defender happens either way. If you're playing safe you should be assuming 3HAs per spearman/fortified hill archer, and that's exactly why.

 

[Fippy]

It's not only combat, shock or pinch really make mounted units stronger (much more than C1) depending on AI units. Diff. level also plays a big role i guess, on Deity you usually cannot afford worrying about saving some units cos AIs can reinforce their cities quickly.
You worry about reaching your goals, not about losing 3 horsies less.
So i guess my opinion is influenced by playing only Deity, there could be some flanking use on other levels

 

[MegaLurker]

The problem with shock promotions during an HA rush is that it's more of a defensive promo until melee city defenders outnumber archers. If you're attacking too many metal units in cities it's because you couldn't control the target's access to metal; you rushed the wrong target with the wrong unit in the first place. You cannot produce enough HAs no matter how good your start to overrun a Deity AI that can whip spears in every city, at that point whether you promote combat I or flanking I for your lowest-odds attackers is going to make no difference.

I also play mostly on Deity, with the occasional Immortal game to relieve the frustration. A successful HA rush on Deity comes down to having enough units, period. How you promote them won't matter when you're a unit or two short. On the other hand having an extra HA or two survive the first 2-3 city captures can be a significant bonus. They'll be healed in time to make sure you're not a unit or two short on city number 5

 

[Fippy]

Hmm
I think we all know, metal can happen at any point for deity AIs (cos you cannot see Iron early). But are you not further supporting my point?
You may not overrun them, but you can take some (for you) important cities, let's say if you got boxed in. And in this case, defense also matters and hurt flanking survivors are not very useful for several turns.
While units that went for more strenght, and win, give you great XP and GG points. Generals are very important in tough mounted wars.

But anyways, i think the main point here can be that flanking is not very good.
Peoples who are unsure are getting better advice if somebody tells them to ignore that option. I have seen many saves here with 50% flanking Cuirs i.e. here, and that's always wrong and there can be no other opinion.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, Shock is not just about attacking cities. Metal isn't always that easy to cut if the logistics are not there, or as My said, you can't see iron. I like to draw out spears from cities. Mounted attacks are more than just about slamming horsies into cities.

 

[Seraiel]

One can see Iron / Copper even before one has the techs for it. Just press Ctrl + Y and look at the tile-yields, pillage what is above normal.

 

[lymond]

One can see Iron / Copper even before one has the techs for it. Just press Ctrl + Y and look at the tile-yields, pillage what is above normal.

true..but AIs often settle on iron too. I don't know how many times that bit me.