Formation and Advanced Combat Tactics

[AdamBlue]

Out of sheer curious thought, do groups of people all with shields get a significant combat boost, as in forming a defensive shield wall? I've been looking into ancient combat tactics, weaponry, and armors, and I'm seeing familiar patterns, tricks that soldiers used.
For example- The employment of corpses as a tool for war. Often, when wooden bows were employed in combat, they were poisoned. Not by a regular sort of poison, but by a biological weapon; The arrows were stabbed into a rotten, bloated corpse, meant to not immediately kill someone or incapacitate them, but make them deathly ill and lower morale of those around them by exposing them to wounds and rot. In addition, corpses were used to poison foes water, food, or around where they slept to make them ill.
In addition, when people speak of 'gigantic weaponry not being feasible', and try to default oversized weapon to half-giants, the spear known as the Sarissa tended to be TWENTY FEET LONG (Or 6.2 METERS)
There was literally nothing short of a god damn ELEPHANT that could break the front of a properly made shield-wall (Or, perhaps, in our case, perhaps a bahamet or mekilliot could)
There are all sorts of neat tactics that could be employed already, really. The only issue is that it would probably be incredibly easy to simply just flank if coded to protect from a specific direction. You just walk east, south, west, north.
Nonetheless, do any of you guys know of any super radical ancient war tactics that could see greater use in game?

[Chettaman]

(I think I might inspired by age of empires)

The deadly square formation. Soldiers move in a box shape with the center empty.
A mek comes charging in, right through the front of the fodder-guard and suddenly it's surrounded. - there are some other tactical advantages to this kind of formation, but they elude me at the moment.

"the wedge" formation - Soldiers "formate" a triangle and they charge the enemy line in order to break it open for other mostly mounted units to attack from the "path" cleared and further break the enemy line while at the same time devastating the opponent's army from inside out.

Ha! I found a website so I don't need to explain anything more.
... right. So it had the longest URL I've ever seen. Just look up roman formations.

Modern combat is somewhat different, so I shant bring any of that up. ... well, I guess... bows 'n crossbows would be about the same as rifles just less automatic.

[wizturbo]

Nonetheless, do any of you guys know of any super radical ancient war tactics that could see greater use in game?

Depends on what qualifies for "used" in game.  Could you incorporate it into the virtual world?  Yeah, totally.  I did it like 6 months ago actually. 

Actually making it reflected in code though?  That's a huge undertaking, and frankly, isn't something that actually happens enough in-game to make it worth the time.  Most combat occurs in small groups, any large group tactics and stuff is much easier to reflect virtually.  Staff can write up some echos, or roll some dice on their end to determine the outcome, rather than spend countless hours trying to code weird little nuances into the combat code.

[Patuk]

Nonetheless, do any of you guys know of any super radical ancient war tactics that could see greater use in game?

No, because large-scale battles suck and I'd rather the playerbase avoid them like the plague.

[Dar]

Hrmh. I wonder if it could be a skill to add a little bit of diversity to warriors.

Skill: Tactics.

As the skill raises, the warrior becomes capable of creating formations out of those people who follow him.
The formation breaks if any of the formed people leaves the room, unhitches, or dies.
Different formations could give different bonuses.
Shield Use bonus.
Piercing bonus.
Resistance to Bash/charge/trample
Resistance to Ranged.
Bonus to Ranged.
Bonus to Charge.

Shouldnt be all that super difficult to code. Afterall, it just gives certain people an effect that gives a bonus to their skills.

If you want to get super technical and make it difficult to code. You could make it so different formations require different number of people and check what kind of weapons they have. So if you're in formation, but all they've got is dual wielded slashers. Then no piercing bonus, no shield use bonus.

[Inks]

Nonetheless, do any of you guys know of any super radical ancient war tactics that could see greater use in game?

No, because large-scale battles suck and I'd rather the playerbase avoid them like the plague.

[Lizzie]

Problem with war tactics, is it kind of necessitates an active war with active battles on a somewhat massive scale. So that means staff intervention for the battles, to propagate the appropriate echoes. It means RPTs and HRPTs. The implementation of a whole system of combat, just on the off-chance we have another major battle-related HRPT in the next decade, and just happen to be able to coordinate its use, with everyone involved being online, able, and ready to act it out effectively, all bug-tested so that the game doesn't crash in the middle of it...

I'm thinking - nah. There's really no other reason to have big-deal fantastical war tactics. I mean most people who get involved in combat in Armageddon, do so against NPC creatures like gortoks and scrab, not against other people. Those are generally reserved for one-on-one or a few-on-a-few, rarely on multitudes against multitudes. And when that happens, much of it is virtual with echoes.

[Clavis]

honestly small unit tactics can be used. not just simply large scale ones.

can utilize skirmisher tactics, instead of just charging in amongst whatever you looking to fight. send a pair of soldiers ahead to scout, then lure aggro thing closer to the others. Who can then feather it, or come in from opposite directions. Use arrows/thrown (though seriously thrown weapons suck do to range limitations) from afar to weaken what your hunting/whatever then rush in to finish it off.

don't really need staff intervention just think outside the box, and the goblin/swarm tactics that are often employed.

[Armaddict]

As my Tor, I implemented roles of the unit, tactical use of rescue and guard, and standard operating procedures for events in battle, based on the two most common scenarios that you'd need them:  The Lone Archer scenario, and the Group Combat Scenario.

There are plenty of tactics to be had as is, but people don't really brainstorm that hard for things, nor do they put the weight on reaction time that this game actually requires.  Practicing tactics is just as important as theory crafting them...and finding people willing to practice them is hard to do.

[Reiloth]

I just don't think the game is capable of large scale combat RPTs. Heaven knows we've all tried our hand at it over the years. Small scale combat (like 3v3) can be mind boggling, but intense, and fun. But like..Massive combat, formations, etc. So hard to do in a non-graphical game I think.

Having small 'quadrants' set aside for large scale combat, so that it's 3v3 at most, and I guess randomly assigned? Might be fun.

[BadSkeelz]

I think we should all just join a Mount&Blade or Chivalry Server and fight out the results of our mass-combat RPTs.

[Reiloth]

I think we should all just join a Mount&Blade or Chivalry Server and fight out the results of our mass-combat RPTs.

+1

[Barsook]

I think we should all just join a Mount&Blade or Chivalry Server and fight out the results of our mass-combat RPTs.

+1

[Tuannon]

People don't brainstorm hard because the same sorts of people play the same sorts of characters and people mysteriously know the same stuff and the same tactics down four generations of totally unrelated characters.

It completely invalidated the need for innovation, because by their natures characters know all sorts of useful tricks they just happen to pull out in pinch situations. I have noticed that this also extends to gear and so on as well. It's just how the game goes.

While it's really cool to see people RPing out great tactical debates and stuff, there is largely no need for it aside from buildup RP for city state vs city state conflict or what have you.

And Tor doesn't exist for the playerbase, so theory crafting in the izdari room is out of the picture too.

[Riev]

I honestly assume that any tactical planning has already been done, and our PCs are part of scouting or skirmish groups. While we are SUPPOSED to be playing "everyday Amos" and the only reason they are special is we are guiding their actions and decisions... lets face it. We're the special everyday Amos'. So when there IS a war, or a conflict, I just assume that my group was assigned to fight in this particular section because we're flanking. And we're fighting those guys because they saw the flank.

But as stated, this doesn't happen often. We skirmish MAYBE if there's some sort of conflict going on, but Unit NPCs are made for a reason. Let them hash it out, players sneak around the back in the confusion or try and snake a direct attack on a commander. Thats who we are. We aren't the Fifth Sabers, a mixed unit of humans and half giants, just running and engaging another unit somewhere.