Commanding formationsIn the last section, we have seen that out-flanking the main battle line has a good chance of producing victory. Doing it with a maneuver is hard - but there is a much easier way: Make your own line much longer than that of the opponent. So while the two lines meet and engage, you will have units at both flanks that can slip behind the enemy unopposed.Of course that's easier to do when you have more soldiers than the opponent, because otherwise you have to reduce the depth of your phalanx, which makes it more vulnerable to attempts to break through it. But the general tactical situation is fairly common - the enemy can field a longer main battle line, and so your own phalanx is vulnerable. The standard answer is to screen the flanks with additional troops - you might not find the resources to field more heavy infantry like in your main line, but you can likely find light infantry (or slingers,...) to form wings protecting your center. How does that work? After all, the light infantry can't simply engage the enemy heavy infantry, it will be crushed. Well, but the enemy heavy infantry can't simply walk by either - even a better unit attacked from the rear is at a disadvantage. So the light infantry has to be dealt with - unfortunately, being lightly armoured, these units are usually more nimble and can use that to their advantage - so catching and fully engaging them in combat isn't easy. Which all is to say, light units screening the wings can't deal with heavy units outright, but they can stall them and make themselves a nuisance - which prevents the heavier enemy units from doing what they would like to do - destroying the outnumbered center.
FormationsNow, the light infantry on the wings doesn't nesessarily have to do the same things as the heavy center. So for interactive mode, we can group units into formations and give orders to the whole formation.That's done by first declaring a formation in the config file and later assigning a unit to it:
The formation declaration may also contain orders that are then applied to all members of the formation after units have received orders, so that is a convenient way to save space in the config file. In interactive mode, a formation can be commanded by formation <name> <order> (<parameter1>) (<parameter2>) (but note not all orders are reasonable for a whole formation, for instance advance_to will create a jam by letting all units converge on the same point). So formation greek_center advance will command all of the main battle line forward (and if you find formation a lot to type, you can just use f instead.
Using the wingsNow run the file example03.cfg in interactive mode. You'll see this lineup of Greek units (bottom) vs. a numerically superior Persian force:
There's a lot of Persians, a relatively small Greek phalanx line (in capital G1 to G1) screened by four units of light infantry (g1 to g4). The Greek phalanx is better than the Persian infantry, so we can hope to win in the center, but the flanks are vastly understrength, the light infantry is no real match for the Persians. Indeed, if you switch to automatic mode and run 10.000 iterations, Persia wins like 98% of the encounters. We can switch back to manual mode and follow a battle by doing repeatedly go 1 with automatic battlefield display to watch how events evolve. You might get to see something like this:
The Greek left wing quickly collapses under the superior Persian forces...
... and the still relatively fresh Persian troops wreck havock in the Greek rear area and engage the main battle line from the flank while the phalanx is still fighting. Well, it's a bit unfair because the Persian units just stay no matter what the Greek center inflicts on them. So add
to the config - this will make heavily mauled Persian units give up faster and free the Greek center - but still, over 70% victories for Persia. Since this goes well for Persia, they have no immediate incentive to change strategy. But what could Greece do? Well, if the fighting in the center were decided a bit faster, it wouldn't be so bad if the Persians defeated the wings, at least the Phalanx would be ready for them. So let's edit the config file and command the Greek center to assault (there's several ways to do that in the config file, one is much faster than the other...). Also, the initial assault has the best chance to shatter them when it is delivered with some speed, so also command them to rush (or even run) so that the shock tends to shatter the Persian line even more. Just assaulting the line reduces the Persian victory chance to about 63% (note that the better unit can expect to successfully assault the weaker one, just not vice versa...), combining the assault with a running charge pretty much annihilates the Persian center and makes it a slight advantage for Greece with a mere 46% victory chance for Persia. Now, if just the wings could hold out a little longer so that the Greek center could come to their rescue once the Persian center is gone... Command the light infantry via
to not engage in a real fight but do delaying tactics instead and... Greece wins the encounter 60% of the time - all by controlling the timescale of events through the best choice of battle tactics. Note that the victory is dependent on simulating battle morale and the rather devastating impact of the Greek charge in the center - if that is not simulated, the numbers carry a lot more and Greece can hope for a mere 5% winning chance. Continue with The Battle of Leuctra. Back to main index Back to science Back to historical battle simulation Created by Thorsten Renk 2022 - see the disclaimer, privacy statement and contact information. |
