Tactical bonus Thingie

[Princeps]

Aside: The hill thing doesn't actually make any real difference for archers anyway. Good military archery practice was to loose the arrows at a high angle, not straight forwards. Having your friends in the rank in front wasn't a real issue. If the enemy was close enough to justify firing straight forwards, it was time to break out the swords anyway.

First of all archers did carry a sword, but they were much less armoured than their infantry companions. So good general rahter uses men trained for close combat than wasting good bowmen. Yes, hills does make a huge difirence in
when it comes to the effiency archers, when general can put their flanks in to diffirent altidutes they could all fire at the same time. And that it ingreases their firepower.

 

[rhialto]

First of all archers did carry a sword,

That is exactly what I said.

but they were much less armoured than their infantry companions. So good general rahter (sic) uses men trained for close combat than wasting good bowmen. Yes, hills does make a huge difirence in
when it comes to the effiency archers, when general can put their flanks in to diffirent altidutes they could all fire at the same time. And that it ingreases their firepower.

As an experienced archer, I beg to differ. At the kind of ranges where archers should be used, standing on a slope makes no practical difference to how many men can loose arrows at the same time. This is because you don't loose them directly at the enemy. You'd typically fire them at a high angle ('arching' them), not straight toward the enemy.

The one aspect where hills can conceivably make a difference is when the archers are firing at a target that is at a lower altitude than them. However, short of climbing trees or standing at the top of a castle wall, natural slopes are rarely of a sufficiently steep gradient to make much practical difference to arrow ranges.

 

[Spatula]

You can't denay that you would rather be on higher than lower ground!

Funnily enough, I was never denying it. Half of your post is about why the high ground is good for defense, which is something I was a) agreeing with and b) not even discussing with you about, so I will skip those bits.

Its not about being able to see your enemies forces! Its about higher position gives your troops a sence of advatage.

By your logic this means that anyone attacking from a higher ground will be more confident and, since morale is a big feature of fighting, have a tactical bonus. So actually you are agreeing with me.

Cavalry can charge much more faster downhill, Imagen a 100 horses running downhill you can't denay thats not scary! for the attacker whos on lower altidute.

Now here you are agreeing with me again! That was exactly my point.

So, to recap, all you have done is tell me things about defense that a)I knew and b)I wasn't even arguing with, and furthermore you have agreed with two of my points on why attacking from higher ground (which is after all what a hill/mountain should represent) should give you a tactical bonus!

Who's now?

There are good arguments against having a tactical bonus from higher ground. Why don't you actually present them?

Side note:

On the 10-80 mile scale of civ tiles, no one can seriously claim that your cavalry is literally charging from the hills into the plains - it's just too far!

And a city of pop 1 (100,000 people) covering that distance range is realistic? Please don't play the realism card, there are some things it doesn't apply to (like this one), and there are better arguments against my proposal than that.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Actually a city of population 1 has 10,000 people, not 100,000.

Carry on.

 

[rhialto]

On the 10-80 mile scale of civ tiles, no one can seriously claim that your cavalry is literally charging from the hills into the plains - it's just too far!

And a city of pop 1 (100,000 people) covering that distance range is realistic? Please don't play the realism card, there are some things it doesn't apply to (like this one), and there are better arguments against my proposal than that.

My point was that for all practical purposes, civ combat happens within a single tile only, and the terrain the attacker has just left should not be taken into consideration, as no fighting is actually taking place there. The only terrain that should be taken into consideration is the terrain where the fighting takes place; that is to say, where the defender is.

 

[Spatula]

My point was that for all practical purposes, civ combat happens within a single tile only, and the terrain the attacker has just left should not be taken into consideration, as no fighting is actually taking place there. The only terrain that should be taken into consideration is the terrain where the fighting takes place; that is to say, where the defender is.

Well why didn't you say so?

 

[Captain]

I feel that one could somehow be shown a units statistic next to it before marching into combat against another one in regards to the probability of it's survival. An icon desplaying this percent chance would be desplayed next to a unit once when the unit to attack has been selected and again for confomation of attack? (Perhaps a ranking system? Ex. 80% chance of triumph).

 

[sir_schwick]

The advantage of archers standing on a slope is that the rear ranks can see what they are shooting at. It may be indirect fire, but having LOS helps increase accuracy.

 

[rhialto]

Sorry, but los for the rear ranks in military formation archery doesn't make that much difference. First, you can usually get the angle of arch correct by imitating the front ranks. Second, it is not a bunch of individual archers aiming at a bunch of individual targets. It is a formation of archers aiming at a formation of enemy soldiers. As such, your archers aren't trying to hit an individual man. they are trying to hit a group of men, the proverbial broad side of a barn. Even I could do that much with a friend standing in front of me.

Finally, archery formations were typically 2 soldiers deep. At this depth, it is a trivially easy maneouver for the rear rank to sidestep half a man to give efective los.