Advance and retreat mechanics

Steiner95

Hi,

I don't know whether this is the right place to post but anyway. I was thinking; why has there never really been an advance or (ordered) retreat (pullback) option for each unit or unit group? Currently, units can only advance by attacking, or take a defensive stance by bracing. However, the problem is that is takes away a lot of the strategic mechanics as used by historical commanders. I've faced this in Rome TW, as well as Medieval 2 and TK mostly.

Just to give you an example: Hannibal at Cannae pulled back his center in order to lure the Romans in and ultimately surrounded and utterly destroyed the Romans because of this. In current TW games, units can only hold their position because they are braced. When trying to go for an ordered retreat, you actually have to pull your units out, which always costs a huge amount casualties.

So what may be a potential solution? How about this; at the start of the battle, units are set on 'Advance'. Advance is just similar to how a unit currently behaves; it attacks the unit it is ordered to attack, and does pursue the unit it just defeated.
However, in addition to the 'Advance' option, units can also be put into 'Holding' or 'Pullback'.
Holding: a unit takes a defensive stance, really meant to hold a position (e.g. shieldwall, boxing etc).
Pullback: the unit is not as statical as when the 'Holding' option is selected, but when fighting an enemy, the unit is stepwise pulling back (backwards).

Again, it is possible to select this option for instance only for grouped units, and/or only for infantry units, thus encouraging the option to group your units.

I think this would make the game way more tactical and I would really like to hear what your opinion is and hope to give TW some inspiration for this mechanic.

bli-nk#6314

I would be in favour of that if Pullback had -20% melee attack while holding was the basic stats and advance was +15% melee attack and -15% melee defense.

Steiner95

@Ichon Thanks for your reply! Why is that? Do you think it would otherwise be OP? But for the main point of my discussion; do you think such a mechanic would work, make it more strategic, and be fitting for TW battles?

bli-nk#6314

It is too easy to manipulate the AI plus from everything I've seen recorded about retreats, an organized fighting retreat in close melee reqires just about the most discipline of anything. -20% might not be enough but was the minimum starting point.

For TW it maybe should also make a unit more vulnerable to a charge- not necessarily a straight leadership debuff but losing any charge defense and having a penalty to charge mass in addition to the melee defense penalty.

Conducting maneures right in the enemies face should have some type of cost. Otherwise the best option is always to face forward into the oncoming enemy and only start maneuvering after contact is made which seems ridiculous.