Total War Attila Mechanics - Infantry Formation Depth and Width vs Infantry
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- Опубліковано 9 бер 2015
- With two equal units on the charge, does width or depth win the day?
Formation depth and width vs cavalry: • Total War Attila Mecha...
Formation depth and width vs skirmishers: • Total War Attila Mecha... - Ігри
![The Battle of Caesaraugusta [Total War: Attila battle replay]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TAJSU6QT5ss/mqdefault.jpg)
They should have made it so the deeper formation could break the middle of the spaghetti line. You would think that men 5 ranks deep would be able to push through the two men in front of them
+Munk The Mongol you would think that, but that is only if they have an excellent charge and attack, and the larger dense block quickly charges and kills the centre of the spread out spaghetti line.
You can break spaghetti lines, with shock cavalry (or elite high charge infantry).
It's really disheartening to see these results. So counter intuitive...
"Captain! The enemy is charging us!"
"Tell everyone to spread out! Leave as much of a gap between you and your comrades as possible!"
"Yes Si.... Wait, WHAT?! You can't be serious?"
"What's wrong Lieutenant?"
"If we do that our men will loose cohesion and be easy prey for the tighter formation of our foe!"
"It's alright, we will cover more ground and can attack his flanks."
"But that will put locally at least 4 of their guys against each of our guys!"
"Yes, and? What, are you telling me these boys can't win a 4v1 duel? Have faith my friend, the Great Spaghetti Bowl has blessed us!"
Oh well, here's hoping the next iterations don't suffer from the blessings of the pasta gods.
actually yes, its not counter intuitive at all. And we ve seen it on a bigger scale through out history, one flank holds and the other goes for the flanking manuever, the reason we dont see it at a unit level, is because if a unit randomly decides to do a flanking manuever with 100 men, they will get obliterated. It's perfectly fine, and you can break spaghetti lines with heavy troops that has charge bonus anyway.
its totally counter any logic to attack in spread formation sorry :D its just weird way this game works. there was no falnking attempt, they just clashed and the one with counterinuitive palcement won.@@divineoverhand5307
Noodle formation wins...facepalm :/ Wow.
HeirofCarthage Has this been addresssed yet?
+sedghammer Nope, they might have fixed it Warhammer because they seem to have done away with the matched duel thing.
Fantastic as usual Maximus!
Spaghetti formation is uber because of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Yes but this is when it's 1 unit vs 1 unit. If you're using spaghetti lines, your overall formation with other units is not going to be very maneuverable. BECAUSE they're 1 on 1, the flanking is made possible. When you're using multiple units, I don't think it wouldn't be this simple...
I wonder if a simple passive melee defence/attack bonus that scaled relatively to the unit's depth and width and related to unit weapon type would be a good idea.
Maximus, i've had some results in which Units (low charge, high durability) would win against a high charge Unit when they engage in a column formation to deny them a head on charge. It does not grant miracles but it helps in a tight fight.
I always find it glaring that a couple of men will keep charging off into nothing when units clash. I think you could counter this with a sort of unit "magnetism", where the individual men of a unit will naturally be attracted to the main body of their target, or other units. They seem fine once lines contact, but it needs to be implemented in the charge targeting/pathfinding mechanics. I like shiny new and fun features, but I really wish they'd just sit down and polish their main game-play mechanics!
For crossbow infantry:wide long line formation like line infantries from ETW
For other units:column formation
Can confirm in warhammer it's also like this. Swordsmen 1v1 swordsmen come out even in normal and narrow width but you will destroy them with a noodle formation
thx, the vid i was realy looking forward to has been done! But what really made me look strange was that loose formation performed best....is it time for a "ca pls"?
So with a deeper line, troops will wrap around and if extensively enough, those men would opened to javelins and skirmish fire. Which would be more effective if the missiles were coming from an angle to exploited the troops wrapping around with their shields on the inside towards the deep formatted unit.
Perhaps you should test this with a high charge/low armor unit like a Dane Axe- wielding unit. Then, wrapping around would negate the charge, the center would be crushed, and then the two sides would be completely outnumbered and would have been ineffective. Not sure if that coincides with the mechanics, but that seems like a possibility, because that's how you negated the shock cavalry charges- with diamond.
All well and good, but I feel in a battle rather than a 1v1 it leaves the enemy with too easy a job to burst through the thin lines when there are other units side by side covering the flanks more effectively.
can you do a video on reinforcing units? what i mean by that is i find that when 3 enemies are fighting my 1, it seems more effective to be in a tight formation.
We really need a fix for unit flags in melee. It's very frustrating spam clicking on blobs. Friendly unit flags always on top ftw
CA should name all the alternate formations (spearwall, shieldwall, diamond, testudo, etc.) after pasta. Just a thought.
how do you get the unit info box in the bottom left?
Does optimal formation width/depth vary with melee range (e.g. range 2 maces)? If so, how?
Can you use column formation to push through the side of the noodle?
Well your video is great, but I've learned that spreading my men before a battle takes ages...
But what if the lines are really deep anf set really close together in a long line???
Are there any hotkeys to change formation and depth and width on the fly? Thanks!!!
In real life the thinner the line the easier your army falls apart, they break through the middle and split your force apart into two and push your army apart and lose that strength in numbers
I would seriously like to know the answer to this for TW:WH, especially due to the non-blobbing unit combat and non 1v1 fighting.
so the opposite of what should works, works... omg..
they should make it that if a centre of a unit is broken the unit breaks, or at least loses a lot of guys
So this whole time I've been making my formations several men deep for a strong punch in my lines I've actually been fucking myself over? I thought that if I had thin lines I'd end up having my front line dissolved and masses of mini-fights breaking out...turns out that by opting for less frontage I've actually managed to make my men easier to kill.
Does this apply to an entire frontline of infantry or would multiple units close together prevent the flanking from occurring? And what about infantry with missile units?
Chris Vaughan Thanks Chris. I used to think I knew Total War, but if this channel has taught me anything it's that I know nothing.
The only trade-off is of course cavalry charges. A cavalry charge into an unbraced spaghetti line will decimate the unit, even a spear unit.
If your unit gets flanked on both ends , duh your unit will die
That's not the point. The point isn't that flanking works (duh), but that rank depth doesn't influence combat superiority. It's unrealistic because without a heavy set line the front men would get literally steamrolled. But in RTW 2 there is no steamroll effect. Units don't get broken in half. THey just stand there and sword play while RNG numbers fire off, and the basis of those numbers is heavily influenced by angled attacks and there is zero emphasis on crushing through one or two guys to split the rank entirely in half.
How close does this work in Rome total war 2?
Random tangent to this, but does formation thickness also affect the damage infantry take and do to each other on the charge? I'm wonder what the best way to deal with a unit that has vastly higher charge stats(like flaxmen vs protectores).
Also do these spaghetti line rules hold true for cav on cav fights?
Thanks, these videos are really helpfull!
The less men in a unit make contact, the less kills are made on the charge, so Spaghetti vs Spaghetti causes alot of deaths on both sides usually, while thick formations quite alot less
+scm7372 I've found spaghetti cav can be good, because flanking is king, overwhelming is emperor, and holding them with a spaghetti while another cav gives them a proper concentrated charge is godly.
How would you take into account unit formations like shield wall and the like? Units in formation become very compact and high density. Does this outweigh the fact that they will have a much more narrow frontage?
***** Good question.
***** Definitely needs to be tested.
***** Any enemy models attacking a unit from behind convey a decisive penalty to that unit.
Shield wall for example would be a superior formation to simply charging in for the certainty that no flanking will occur, when it is supported enough from the flanks, to prevent more nimble troops from wrapping around at all? formations that are less dense seem to go a bit wobbly after the charges land, leading to flanking bonuses and if anything faster man loss on either side.
So an army whit it's strength in other unit types beside it's melee infantry would do well to make sure it's battle line remains solid, to give time for other unit types to do the flanking after cav engagements and such are decided.
Made all this up on the spot, without much multiplayer experience, so feel free to poke at the flaws of such trail of thought. ^^
This is an inaccurate test since when your deploying deep formations you tend to deploy them as a cohesive side by side anvil or trapezoid block, which means thinner lines in the center get overwhelmed. While the thin line may flank it will lose the fight at the center and then the center of the deep formation and means it will just get stomped if any other units flank it, since a thin line has no back that can turn and fight.
The necessity to fight in spaghetti lines destroys immersion for me. Oh well, CA design at its best. By the way, is there any difference for this if you have a heavier infantry unit attacking a lighter one? Does denser formation (for the attacker) still is disadvantaged?
Hannibal Barca's spaghetti lines in the battle of cannae massacred the Romans narrow depth formation. So your saying?
Garensterz And Romans promptly abandoned their inferior ways and marched off to conquer the known world in thin spaghetti lines. Just saying.
Garensterz So defend the utility of what should be poor tactics by citing poor tactics using the opposite extreme. Smart.
+Ernest Hannibal's "spaghetti lines" only worked because of the unique formation they were in, the stupidity of the Romans, and the fact that he had planned the entire encounter out. If Hannibal had sent in normal spaghetti lines without his inward formation he would've been slaughtered by the Romans.
In short, the spaghetti lines he used were abnormal and used only to bait the Romans into a trap.
Loose formation wins in melee, but sucks in skirmish? Good job CA. Good job.
It is very unfortunate that there isn't enough depth (pun intended) to infantry combat but spaghetti/noodle lines. The thin lines is the mechanism that makes cavalry YOLO charge and completely smash infatry, except pikes of course.
Doesn't feel as realistic, oh well :/
They should just give a "formation broken" morale malus to units that get their formation messed up in an engagement, as well as give a stamina bonus to units that are in a formation at least 3 ranks deep. That way it would be more dangerous to field noodles and spaghettis.
+Knoloaify This is a late reply but give this man(/woman) a job at CA.
Another great video, thanks. I hate the fact that the game mechanics force us to use such thin formations. They should not even let you spread your infantry formations that thin. Your videos really show us how many things in the combat mechanics just make no sense, who seriously tests this shit. Cav winning fights charging straight into good spear walls. Loose formations loosing in skirmisher fights but winning in infantry fights.
Greag
This mechanic is pretty much true from Empire Total war onwards :(
I prefer the Rome 1 and Medieval 2 mechanic. Apparently it was removed as it lagged out machines in big clusters :*(.
how was it in the medieval 2 ? I played medieval for a long time, tho i hated the battles, controls felt so slow and retarded after briefly checking warhammer2 and 3kingdoms. Im only familiar with the old titles and one or two new ones, but people keep saying that they have great battles and new games battle mechanics sucks and what not, but attila definitely has much better battle mechanics than medieval two
@@divineoverhand5307 The battles in all the new ones except for Wahammer have 1v1 soldier interactions. That means formation/rankings are less relevant. If you have 5 soldiers surrounding 1, they take turns hitting the 1 rather than overwhelming him.
This might seem minor, but it changes everything. Now the deepness of ranks don't matter. Since all soldiers fight 1v1, having your units in thinner ranks to surround another unit means less. Also having deeper ranks to make the unit more tanky is irrelevant.
Units can stand in ranks of 2 and Cav get caught by it because partly because of the changes of how units interact. Since its 1v1 fights, the soldiers lock on to each other making it harder to disengage and break lines to outflank.
Units used to lose moral for being in bad situations and taking losses and stuff. The newer ones, its now proximity kinda. If you surround and enemy unit, they take an automatic moral penalty. This is to compensate for the 1v1 mechanics since strong units would be undefeatable. They can fight all day even surrounded. So this new mechanic was added to compensate.
In saying all that, these mechanics are fine for Empire and Napoleon total war. The ones with melee combat however suck in comparison and have become "rock paper scissors" rather than a tactical sim.
Oh and I just remembered, spagettilines became a tactic because of this change. Since there was no incentive to have deep ranks anymore, people would have as long as a single ling as possible to take up as much space of the map as possible. You could even have your units fight in lose formation vs and thin formation because the formation had no impact since it was 1v1.
What was creative assembly solution? Put a melee penalty mechanic for loose formation.... So the 1v1 mechanic completely removed the simulation aspect of it. It no longer felt real. No spagettiline or loose formation can defeat men holding the line close together.
@@Blackwindzero Yeah i just downloaded the rome 2 and played a few historical battles. Jeeesus what the fuck is this, at first i thought maybe units are not respecting the formation and forming blobs because i picked a barbarian faction, i changed it to romans and holy shit nothing changes. I remember how orderly and preserving of formation the attacks and charges were in the first rome, i ll download and check how it is in attila.
There is a mass system in rome 2 tho, i disagree with your cav takes. If your cav has enough mass, they would def send enemy flying if they are 2-3ranks deep, and heavier infantry spends more time to back up so you can circle charge easier.
But im shocked with infantry combat, it was beyond trash. Only unit that felt like the formation of it mattered was pikemen
@@divineoverhand5307 Yeah, they might have worked around or fixed Cav. It was pretty bad back in the day.
The games are alot more polished now but sadly the 1v1 is too influencial on the whole system. It ends up being more effective to flank with range than with infantry.
Pike was also broken at first, but they fixed it some how and it was OP for awhile. I suspect they turned off 1v1 for pike vs unit and soldiers only attacked singular when they dropped their pike.
SPAGETTI!
loose formation wins? This is so unrealistic
wtf.. so this is the reason why my nice and deep spear collumns are getting totally wrecked by some light raider cavalry :D fuck the logic :D
Why is your UI so much smaller than mine?
Test if deep pikes make a change...
Has been tested, deep pikes are better against infantry, but spaghetti pikes are better against cav quite often
Gferd176 what is spaghetti pikes?
jamreal18 Pikes in spaghetti line (thin line formation)
Gferd176 spaghetti pikes shall be weak... pikes must be effective in deep formation...
jamreal18 It can be cost effective against cavalry, since there are more pikes for the cavalry to hit, since cavalry formations are usually wider than thick infantry formations
that is quite bullshit. less unit cohesion in loose formation should perform less since there is not enough pressurein the enemy centre
so...lose formation is win? lol
One test isn't really conclusive for anything, there is a lot of RNG in melee attack/defense/armor values, especially when the two units are identical.