Somebody please justify flanking for me!

[ungy]

Count me in the no flanking column.
I generally don't have large mounted armies tho.
Early on if you rush with chariots you will have a few must win battles. If you take flanking one you reduce the damage you do to the top defender to get what--an extra 10% chance to have a unit survive? Not worth it IMHO.
I've never been a big fan of HA--the tech is a costly detour and by the time you get it in trade the AI are normally at or almost at feudalism. Generally not the best time to war anyway.
As for the large SOD, that'll have useless on offense spear/pike that'll defend well against your mounted. Generally the AI plays so poorly--they'll spend a few turns bombarding the culture which allows you to get your entire army there. Then it's a mass suicide.
Even cav it's not totally clear. Only really makes sense if you're attacking a rifle or MG that you're unlikely to win. I would rarely use a cav for that--better a suicide cannon.
So most games I would never use the promo.

 

[Polobo]

I'm still stuck on the Flanking ability. It appears to be a way to do damage to weaker units in a stack, since the AI appears to get to defend with its best unit against that particular type of attack. But whether that damage actually happens is not as certain as, say, collateral damage from a siege unit. But since siege units are generally immune to collateral damage (I'm sure there are exceptions to that), flanking seems to be the only way to get to those units without having to whittle down the better defenders. Is that more or less the case?

Yes, the flanking ability allows you to take out enemy siege units without killing off stack defenders. The general idea is without siege that SoD advancing on your city will end up attacking with full cultural and/or fortification defenses reducing the likelihood of that stack succeeding at taking your city.

 

[CivCorpse]

The best use of flanking is not to damage the top defender. But to use mounted units to damage siege in the open field. All the mounted unit needs to do is survive. The amount of direct damage it inflicts does not affect the amount of flanking damage to siege units. I keep a stack of flanking units for homeland defense. They can quickly move to the point of attack and kill off the siege units or damage then heavily. The Ai tends to wait until the units are healed before attacking. This buys time to move slower CG troops to the threatened city.

 

[vicawoo]

Get a flanking 2 mounted unit and a combat 2 (or combat shock) mounted. Compare the odds to win for the combat 2 against the odds to win + odds of withdrawal on the mounted. Send in whichever has better total odds (assuming you have enough units).

 

[Polobo]

Get a flanking 2 mounted unit and a combat 2 (or combat shock) mounted. Compare the odds to win for the combat 2 against the odds to win + odds of withdrawal on the mounted. Send in whichever has better total odds (assuming you have enough units).

As the attacker I'll often (with mounted or otherwise) want to send in the unit with lesser odds in order to damage the defender enough that the unit with better odds will increase their odds to the point where they are favored to win. Replacement units with basic XP (5 with barracks+stables) then replace those flanking II units while the cleanup crew accumulate the experience.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Clear something up for me. I have read it several time in this thread but I the idea is still foggy. I am new to Civ4, and do not have warlords. Given those things answer me some questions.

Some mounted units have the ability Flanking. This ability means that if they attack and live, they damage all units in the stack (like collateral damage?) If this is true, which units have flanking to begin with?

The Flanking Promotion adds 10% withdraw chance. I get this.

The flanking II promotion ads another 20% chance making the total chance 30%? It also gives first strike immunity? But both of those promotions are totally different than the flanking some mounted units already have?

 

[CivCorpse]

Clear something up for me. I have read it several time in this thread but I the idea is still foggy. I am new to Civ4, and do not have warlords. Given those things answer me some questions.

Some mounted units have the ability Flanking. This ability means that if they attack and live, they damage all units in the stack (like collateral damage?) If this is true, which units have flanking to begin with?

The Flanking Promotion adds 10% withdraw chance. I get this.

The flanking II promotion ads another 20% chance making the total chance 30%? It also gives first strike immunity? But both of those promotions are totally different than the flanking some mounted units already have?

The collateral damage is only to siege units. Check your civopedia for what units a mounted unit damages. Also the retreat ability is not counted as a flanking promotion so it does not carry over when a unit is promoted

 

[vicawoo]

Clear something up for me. I have read it several time in this thread but I the idea is still foggy. I am new to Civ4, and do not have warlords. Given those things answer me some questions.

Some mounted units have the ability Flanking. This ability means that if they attack and live, they damage all units in the stack (like collateral damage?) If this is true, which units have flanking to begin with?

The Flanking Promotion adds 10% withdraw chance. I get this.

The flanking II promotion ads another 20% chance making the total chance 30%? It also gives first strike immunity? But both of those promotions are totally different than the flanking some mounted units already have?

Flanking damage applies only to the beyond the sword expansion and only against siege units.

The flanking promotions are additive units' inherent flanking ability. The avoiding first strikes is a side benefit to the promotion only. Thematically, some mounted with flanking also are immune to first strikes, but some aren't (chariots).

 

[Polobo]

Flanking damage applies only to the beyond the sword expansion and only against siege units.

The flanking promotions are additive units' inherent flanking ability. The avoiding first strikes is a side benefit to the promotion only. Thematically, some mounted with flanking also are immune to first strikes, but some aren't (chariots).

That side benefit can be quite important, especially against machine guns which, since they are siege are more likely to be promoted down the drill line and thus have numerous first strikes that could kill your siege and combat promoted units before they deal any/significant damage. By ignoring first strikes you are more likely to hit (and more often) a first strike(s) compared to the combat promoted mounted units.

 

[PutCashIn]

Hehe, this ones easy...

Flanking is good for when you attack resklessly, because you missjudged the seige suicide phase, a top city defender with only a 10% victory chance, but a 40% retreat chance...and you retreat, having heavily damaged the defender, allowing the rest of your stack a 50%+ average chance against the remaining defenders.

Also good for early horse archer rushes, helping to keep your vital initial wave alive untill new production reaches the front line....Die Qin!

 

[popejubal]

Flanking II gives immunity to first strike. If you're building lots of mounted units and your Protective opponent seems to be in love with Drill IV, then Flanking II would be a great answer to his plans.

I see a decent number of people advocating Drill III and Drill IV on Protective leader's gunpowder units, so perhaps this carries through to Multiplayer.