Mike Davies wrote:
So, controversially I quite like the rule. I like the increased level of uncertainty the rule brings and it feeds my penchant for making things difficult. We can't accurately recreate the challenges that commanders of the period faced, just not possible as we gave a god view of the battles we play, so anything that messes with our well laid plans oddly cheers me up.
+1 to the above.
I am very much in favour of this rule. Although it may not fit SOME situations, in the big picture, it introduces an element of "fear and hesitation" when approaching the enemy, mirroring reality. This makes the game less linear, and no commander should be guaranteed that troops will execute his well-planned aggressive maneuver. Battalions were composed of human beings, each with their own will to survive, and personal agendas further complicated by the necessity to work together as a team, essentially functioning as one body, all while enduring tremendous stress.
Even smaller shortcomings of the rule can be debated:
1.
The argument that units I can't see threaten me - can be explained by the surprising effect. Breaking it down step by step in sequence:
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In the game reality: your units will approach the hex and then become disordered without seeing the enemy. The impact: there is a disordered friendly, and with the player immediately knowing there is an enemy force behind that ridge.
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In historical reality: the units would approach the ridge, be surprised by a sudden and unexpected enemy appearance, become disordered, and likely pull back a bit in hesitation to aboid being fired. The impact is exactly the same as above: you get a disordered friendly unit, you know there is an enemy behind the ridge, and you probably do not have much intelligence on them. The info about what exactly happened may not reach army level HQ at all. So it does not matter what exactly happened - bottom line your unit got stumbled over somthing and its now disordred. Some chaos of war element. It's pretty realistic to me.
2.
A four-battalion brigade is advancing across open ground toward one battery. The current rule affects every battalion equally argument - it is extremely likely that AI defensive fire will open fire on multiple battalions. Also, the considerations of the men in the battalion, not being targeted, should not be dismissed. Seeing their comrades being torn apart by cannonballs is likely to trigger some risk assessment, causing hesitation, slowing down, morale failure, and ultimately a disordered formation. It's completely natural for people to feel panicked or scared when they encounter a shark, even if the shark isn't actually attacking them.
Overall, to me, the Threat Rule works as it should in the overwhelming majority of situations where the enemy is clearly visible, and the threat is real. I don't see enough statistical grounds to turn it off just because presumably it doesn't cover 100% of the situations. The 80/20 rule is good enough wtith the other 20 are also not black and white but rather grey.
What’s certainly not realistic to me, is when you get skirmish companies wandering around in front of a major cavalry force running around from cover to cover like on a parade ground. With Threat or ON, you would think three times before doing this.
Furthermore, I woold say WDS could be considering to enhance melee calculations with threat value.
Currently, the whole crowd within the attacking stack is being treated as if every single soldier within the stack ends up using his weapon driving enemy losses. So we end up with the logic that the larger the stack, the better. And we end up with a problem of entire brigades going into melee to maximize the odds (not realistic) and to maximise defenders losses.
In fact, there should be capping to infantry vs infantry melee losses regardless of how many soldiers are in the attacking hex as
only the first row of troops had a consistent opportunity to use thier weapons. At least it should not be a linear correlation between the number of troops in the stack and the losses they cause.
As of now the engine treats melee using two formulas:
1. one for the purpose of casualties and
2. another one for win/loss outcome (the logic is unknown to the public but generally you need 2 to 1 advantage to win a melee).
Threat value should be
one of the key drivers for win/loss consideration. And the threat value may come from all other enemy hexes, not just from the hex of the attacking stack. Seeing large enemy force approaching you should be impacting flee-or-fight assessment. Even though rationally thinking it is clear that enemy soldiers of the third row and further to the back, will not be using their weapons on you. So, in such environment it then makes sense to concentrate your cavalry, like commanders did historically and to maximise threat value. As of know there is no value in replicating massive cavalry charges of thousands of cavalrymen. Entire Cavalry corps can be stopped for good by a couple of 100men squares. The tiny squares have no fear or corncern of the massive cavalry body in front of them. They just care whats happening within the melee they fight, regadless of the wider context.
It's like entering into a one-on-one street fight outside of the pub and suddenly realizing that your opponent's mates are emerging from the pub to join in. Naturally, you would extrapolate the situation beyond the one-on-one fight and take into account the broader context. Situational awareness is key, gentlemen! The threat value is up
and its time to pull back
Brainstorming on this - the melee calculation, blended with threat value could looks like (again using two formulas like as it):
1. casualties’ calculation can be adjusted via capping/non-linear correlation.
2. While the second win/loss formula could be adjusted via threat value from both sides, with the threat value coming from all enemy hexes, to replicate the situational awareness.
So to me, threat value is a huge step into more realistic simulation and there is a huge potential to leverage on this further.
NWC
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Tricky little guys always like to mess around with my Allied moves. Maybe Cossack mice!
