Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).

Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.

[Kagus]

Retreat is honestly more of an offensive option than a defensive one. As in, it exists to allow for morale-based victories, which were honestly more common than the slaughtered-to-a-man victories if we're gonna talk historically.

Retreating might have had some defensive/economic advantage if the bulk of the army actually managed to stay somewhat in the same place, but that is absolutely not the case. When someone barrels into an army that has 5 potential provinces to run into, they will run, in equal number, into each and every one of those five provinces. Sure, technically they're still alive, but that division at that time will effectively put them out of the game. Worse, you won't be able to use them in a fight, but you're still paying their wages, the feckin' deserters...

The time it would take to just reassemble everyone would be crippling unless they're just getting picked up coincidentally by some larger plan. And since it could potentially take upwards of a year to get everyone into the same bulk again, but only one month for the enemy army to make another conquest... Yeah. No. Retreat doesn't really help you.

[Frumple]

*waggles hand* A number of nations have some defensive stuff they can do with retreating, for what it's worth. Return effects and first turn (semi-)permanent spells (curse/disease/affliction induction/decay, etc.), junk like that. Fighting for a turn or two and then dipping can be leveraged pretty interestingly if you've got the right tools. Particularly if you don't really care about whatever chaff troops you might be bringing along... thug squads, disposable mages, SC (lights) moving in packs, that sort of thing, where the important parts of the retreating force don't need a commander to move around. Ideally you use wageless chaff in that case, heh.

Though do remember, if your split army did enough damage those "deserters" + the PD where they land can slow down, stop, or even just redirect that 1 month advance when the PD alone couldn't, well...

... completely incidentally, can someone remind me how/if that suicide bomb spell works with communions? 'Cause thinking on that I just noticed there's a lot of stuff with cheap 1(S/B), and pheonix pyre is only 2F >_>

[Grek]

Rather poorly. It does transfer, but it doesn't work if your fatigue is greater than 100, and without Fire magic of their own, the communion slaves get a lot of fatigue from the spell itself. Expect no more than one explosion per mage, at best.

[Gigalith]

I remember reading a Blood magic guide that suggested (for Sabbaths) Rejuvinate+Summon Hellpower+Call Horror+Phoniex Pyre. The Call Horror is really optional, due to the Hellpower.

EDIT: If an army is scattered by a big rout, can't one usually hire indie commanders in the various provinces? Seems it would be more convenient.

[Frumple]

You can, but it's kinda' expensive, especially if it happens particularly often. If you're actually thinking about rapid collecting routed critters, you'd probably be better off with a small group of cheap fliers (call of the winds, etc.) or somethin' (mounted mound kings, whatev') on standby. Same amount of time involved, but no need to spend the gold on indie commanders you don't need to do other indie commandery stuff. Bonus points if they're stealthy, which a few nations do have access to, one way or another.

[Cruxador]

Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).

Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.

What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.

When someone barrels into an army that has 5 potential provinces to run into, they will run, in equal number, into each and every one of those five provinces.

Small note of mechanical clarification, the province is random. That means that for arbitrarily large numbers of units, the amount will become equal, but for practical numbers there will generally be some inequality.

[Neonivek]

Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).

Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.

What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.

That is because armies retreated waaaay before they took serious casualties... AND the number of actual casualties in any engagement tended to be small on either side. As well the majority of casualties occurred upon retreat rather than direct engagement.

It is why it was not unheard of for armies to win victories over superior ones simply by not retreating.

[Cruxador]

Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).

Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.

What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.

That is because armies retreated waaaay before they took serious casualties... AND the number of actual casualties in any engagement tended to be small on either side. As well the majority of casualties occurred upon retreat rather than direct engagement.

It is why it was not unheard of for armies to win victories over superior ones simply by not retreating.

This happens in Dominions too. Not with elite troops, but your typical militia will break when they've taken less than 20% damages usually. And it's not at all rare that human chaff will leave before the job is done. If you're playing a nation where your main troops are typical humans, you're likely to be looking for ways to avoid rout, if you don't hold a substantial advantage in other ways.

[chaoticag]

It's also worth mentioning dominions is less true to history and more true to myth. The Dominions Random Number system makes no real sense even if we presume that 30 foot tall fire breathing dragons do exist, it's still possible, no matter how unlikely, to kill that dragon in one hit.

Among other things though, the only real example I can think of in which morale played a historical role was during Hannibal Barka's Italy campaign, where he fought alongside his weaker troops to bolster them and have them hold the center while the more elite troops were on the flanks and meant to encircle them. In this case the morale of his worst troops was boosted in order to leverage an advantage he can take, which is about similar to what a dominion player wants to pull off.

So ultimately, why would you want morale as a key component to your army?
1. Stops routing, this is usually the most relevant reason
2. Overcomes fear and awe, prolly not together.
3. Lets your units attack after they've been repelled.
4. Resist seduction attempts.

All in all, it's not bad to have, but it does little on it's own without something to go alongside.

[Il Palazzo]

the only real example I can think of in which morale played a historical role

Was there a single one where it hadn't?

[ThtblovesDF]

Well if anyone is bored, make a "real moral" mod, where everyone has like 6 moral, is affected only by things withhin 3 titles and there are up to 5 levels of retreat, from panic, rout, desperation etc-etc.

And every kill/retreating enemy in line of sight gives a moral boost.

________

On that note;

Natural Variation mod - everything is still as it is, just that any static stat can vary up to 2-3 points, i.e. you get 10 human militia, but one has 8 strenght and 14 hp, the other has 12 strenght, 14 hp and 2 less battle movement, etc - so it evens out of the units total stats.

[Il Palazzo]

And every kill/retreating enemy in line of sight gives a moral boost

'Hey mister - you're a good person and what you did today was righhh...'

[Shadowlord]

Well if anyone is bored, make a "real moral" mod, where everyone has like 6 moral, is affected only by things withhin 3 titles and there are up to 5 levels of retreat, from panic, rout, desperation etc-etc.

And every kill/retreating enemy in line of sight gives a moral boost.

Those are not things that you can do in a Dominions 4 mod (adding units with low morale is one thing, changing the game rules and adding new rules is impossible).

[E. Albright]

Small note of mechanical clarification, the province is random. That means that for arbitrarily large numbers of units, the amount will become equal, but for practical numbers there will generally be some inequality.

If we're being nitpicky and mechanical, it's also worth noting that if you were patrolling outside a fort/breaking a siege, there's a 50% chance you'll retreat straight back into the fort before any scattering occurs, and if there's no other friendly province, you all go back into the fort.