If I want to capture cities en route...

[Wiking]

...what sort of orders do I have to give? Let's say I send a unit 5 provinces away, but I want them to capture/assault any provinces/cities on the way. Right now my units don't really bother with anything en route (unless it's another enemy unit).

[Narwhal]

Theorically, the "red / red" set of posture / ROE (Assault / Attack at all cost).

"Attack" will be enough to capture provinces, but not cities.

In practice, there are some reported issues, and your force may not assault everything on the way.

[Wiking]

Theorically, the "red / red" set of posture / ROE (Assault / Attack at all cost).

"Attack" will be enough to capture provinces, but not cities.

In practice, there are some reported issues, and your force may not assault everything on the way.

Yeah, I put Caesar on red/red but he didn't bother stopping on the way. That's why I thought I'd double check.

[Person of Interest]

I don't think it is possible to Assault multiple cities along a movement path. Your Assault order is only functional for your destination region so there is no way to assault multiple cities. I guess it would be to easy and a bit unrealistic to be able to assault multiple cities since this would allow a blitzkrieg type of advance. Of course sometimes that would make sense historically but many times an assault would realistically consume so much time and result in disorganizing an army that it should greatly slow down the progress of an army. I guess it would be asking a lot of the engine to calculate the difference between a quick/easy assault that wouldn't slow an army down much and one that would really consume several days to prepare for, the time that pillaging would consume, and the time it would take to get the soldiers back under control and organized for a continuation for a further move and advance only to repeat the whole process.

[Wiking]

I don't think it is possible to Assault multiple cities along a movement path. Your Assault order is only functional for your destination region so there is no way to assault multiple cities. I guess it would be to easy and a bit unrealistic to be able to assault multiple cities since this would allow a blitzkrieg type of advance. Of course sometimes that would make sense historically but many times an assault would realistically consume so much time and result in disorganizing an army that it should greatly slow down the progress of an army. I guess it would be asking a lot of the engine to calculate the difference between a quick/easy assault that wouldn't slow an army down much and one that would really consume several days to prepare for, the time that pillaging would consume, and the time it would take to get the soldiers back under control and organized for a continuation for a further move and advance only to repeat the whole process.

Makes sense. My thought was "well Caesar has 5 legions, and the town en route has a cohort of urban militia, surely the latter would have historically either given up instantly, or their resistance would have been crushed without any effort." But all things considered, either scenario would have taken time historically, and from a gameplay perspective it would enable armies to zoom all over the map (even more than they already do).

[Stelteck]

Taking a city even lightly defended take time.

Remember that soldiers have a lot of things to do inside the newly conquered city : All the plunderings, Rapes, and others traditional activies.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

Yeah, I considered this a bug when I first found it. But it may be better to keep it as is. If you want multiple cities, you have to risk splitting your forces.

[rezaf]

I actually think the current system is a bit unwieldy, especially with the 30 day turns.
It only really matters with an assaulter anyway, since everyone else WILL have to besiege almost every city - only a few tiny ones can be captured "on the go", if undefended.
But the assaulters are usually the "uber-generals", like Caesar or Sulla. Especially in the Sulla scenario, where time is a bit more of a premium as in the Caesar one (AND you hardly have any useful generals other than the protagonist), it's VERY annoying that you often have to bunny-hop from city to city, usually wasting 95% of your turn in the process.
With Caesar, I had it happen a couple of times that it worked to send him along a path and he assaulted one city, and afterwards moved on to the next. Same goes for enemy armies.
But with Sulla, this never worked - I always got the "your path is blocked by enemy positions" message.
I see no reason, history or gameplay related, why it shouldn't be possible to give orders like: Move to province x, defeat whomever you find there, and then move to province y and do the same.
Facing a loss should of course "break the chain".
Heck, I think it'd be much better if you could give more complicated orders in general. You can't even to stuff like to arrange for two armies to arrive at the same time in this game.
A "pursue" order would have been nice also - with a percentage chance. Hunting down the elusive AI (which somehow seems to have WAY higher chances at avoiding combar and retreating) is often a very annoying process.
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rezaf

[Cfant]

If you drag and drop your army on the enemy army, it seems to pursuit the enemy army. At least when doing that, I found my army on locations I never sent them So I guess, that's the way to "pursue".

[caranorn]

Heck, I think it'd be much better if you could give more complicated orders in general. You can't even to stuff like to arrange for two armies to arrive at the same time in this game.
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rezaf

I'm pretty sure we had that discussion on the forums a while back. Fact is, before modern communications it was impossible to coordinate movements to such a degree. A nice example given at the time is the coordinated attack planned by general Burgoyne in 1777 against Albany NY. Burgoyne's army was to attack from Canada via Tconderoga to Albany while Howe would come up the Hudson river from New York City and a third force would arrive from upstate New York. Well, that was the plan. Reality was that Howe never marched (or rather he decided on a different plan without being able to notify Burgoyne and his subordinate Clinton could only send a small force in support of Burgoyne which was again plagued by the inability of the forces to coordinate their actions), St Leger's main force was forced to retreat before it could join Burgoyne and Burgoyne himself was finally forced to surrender at Saratoga having waited too long for Howe/Clinton and St Leger to arrive. A number of similar actions prior to the 19th century could be listed to show that coordinating attacks to such a degree was impossible before the improvement of communications...

[JacquesDeLalaing]

Yes, you can drag and drop your army on an enemy stack. However, I hardly ever do that because:

1) What happens if the target stack splits up?
2) I'd need to figure out if my stack starts to move/pursue as soon as it notices that its target stack starts moving (i.e.: starts to enter another region), or if my stack only starts moving once the target stack has already entered a different region, which would mean that I'd be unable to catch the stack (assuming the same movement speed and the same terrain in all regions).

So I usually prefer to anticipate the enemys' path of retreat and move my stack along this path volontarily if I'm certain about my victory, without giving any further "intercept" orders.

[rezaf]

@Cfant: Cool, thanks for letting me know, I must've skipped that in the manual.

@caranorn: Sure, you are right, but I was actually not thinking about coordinating attacks from wholly different directions. Instead, I was referring to two armies attacking from the same province at the same time. As in, just start moving at the same time.
Possibly this actually IS possible to a degree by actually ordering the stacks to merge, I'm not so sure now, but if you don't want to do that, there's just no way.

@JaquesDeLalaing: Man, that's nice if it works, but it hardly did for me. I mean, intercepting a lone unit is usually possible, but I hunted Pompey's last general all across Anatolia (with three seperate forces) for two years trying to do that before I managed to corner him. Or before he let himself be cornered, since for whatever reason he decided not to move at all in that turn.
Whenever I had catched up with him and his three legions before, I'd get the "successfully retreated before battle" message.
Why does this stuff never work for me? My generals never "successfully retreat", instead they fight for far too long and then let themselves be slaughtered on the run.
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rezaf

[JacquesDeLalaing]

@caranorn: Sure, you are right, but I was actually not thinking about coordinating attacks from wholly different directions. Instead, I was referring to two armies attacking from the same province at the same time. As in, just start moving at the same time.
Possibly this actually IS possible to a degree by actually ordering the stacks to merge, I'm not so sure now, but if you don't want to do that, there's just no way.
rezaf

I haven't checked if it is in AJE as well (it's missing in the manual), but in other AGEOD games, you usually get a "synchronized movement"-special order exactly for this purpose. It allows stacks that belong to the same army and who are stationed in the very same region to move synchronically (that is: with the speed of the slowest stack) so that they arrive in the target region (and engage enemies) on the same day. If it is missing, then I guess it's because it doesn't really fit to antique warfare (having several corps/columns? Splitting up the army and advance on parallell routes?).

[caranorn]

I haven't checked if it is in AJE as well (it's missing in the manual), but in other AGEOD games, you usually get a "synchronized movement"-special order exactly for this purpose. It allows stacks that belong to the same army and who are stationed in the very same region to move synchronically (that is: with the speed of the slowest stack) so that they arrive in the target region (and engage enemies) on the same day. If it is missing, then I guess it's because it doesn't really fit to antique warfare (having several corps/columns? Splitting up the army and advance on parallell routes?).

Indeed not in AJE...

[hannibal_barca]

I haven't checked if it is in AJE as well (it's missing in the manual), but in other AGEOD games, you usually get a "synchronized movement"-special order exactly for this purpose. It allows stacks that belong to the same army and who are stationed in the very same region to move synchronically (that is: with the speed of the slowest stack) so that they arrive in the target region (and engage enemies) on the same day. If it is missing, then I guess it's because it doesn't really fit to antique warfare (having several corps/columns? Splitting up the army and advance on parallell routes?).

That is only available with the AGEOD games that have the corps/army system. WIA2, AJE, do not have it. But what always pisses me off is that to activate a pursuit order the enemy stack cannot be in the same region/province as your stack which you want to use to pursue. It ends up being absurd really when I have my stack and the enemy stack in the same province at the beginning of the turn and cannot pursuit but can only attack it and then try to guess which way it will retreat. They need to 'fix' that.

I honestly don't think communications in the age of enlightenment, ROP, were that much more advanced that in Antiquity so as to justify ROP having the corps system but not AJE.

[Soulstrider]

Weird I have the exact opossite problem and that is no matter the posture e I do (passive/defensive) my armies will stop in every city they pass, which is annoying when I want to blitz to Rome

[rezaf]

@hannibal: Heh, I love the corps system, so I'm always dismayed when an AGEOD game doesn't make use of it.
I have very limited knowledge about ancient warfare though - it's very possible there's just no historical precedence of an army commander and it's legions acting as independently as the corps system would allow.

@Soulstrider: I found it's usually safer to avoid cities, as - unlike the AI - there's a VERY high possibility for you to be stopped in your tracks by ANY enemy presence. Caesar sometimes manages to move on after wiping out a token force, but for most other commanders it means the rest of their move is wasted. Which is why, when I am in a hurry, I found myself going through the wilderness when I want to be sure the commander makes it where I want him to make it to.
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rezaf

[Hobbes]

@Soulstrider: I found it's usually safer to avoid cities, as - unlike the AI - there's a VERY high possibility for you to be stopped in your tracks by ANY enemy presence. Caesar sometimes manages to move on after wiping out a token force, but for most other commanders it means the rest of their move is wasted. Which is why, when I am in a hurry, I found myself going through the wilderness when I want to be sure the commander makes it where I want him to make it to.
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rezaf

I agree. It seems daft that mighty legions can be stopped when heading to an important objective by any small militia unit guarding a small town.
Because of this players are forced to use alternative paths to reach an objective which they would not have had to use historically.

[JacquesDeLalaing]

That is only available with the AGEOD games that have the corps/army system. WIA2, AJE, do not have it. But what always pisses me off is that to activate a pursuit order the enemy stack cannot be in the same region/province as your stack which you want to use to pursue. It ends up being absurd really when I have my stack and the enemy stack in the same province at the beginning of the turn and cannot pursuit but can only attack it and then try to guess which way it will retreat. They need to 'fix' that.

I honestly don't think communications in the age of enlightenment, ROP, were that much more advanced that in Antiquity so as to justify ROP having the corps system but not AJE.

To some extent I understand your complaint. However, I think we also need to remember that the pursuit is already implemented and represented in the battle itself (pursuit casualties). I'm not sure if forcing a beaten enemy to a second battle (which he will probably try to dodge/evade anyway) should be so easy. But ancient warfare is not my best discipline.

@Soulstrider: I found it's usually safer to avoid cities, as - unlike the AI - there's a VERY high possibility for you to be stopped in your tracks by ANY enemy presence. Caesar sometimes manages to move on after wiping out a token force, but for most other commanders it means the rest of their move is wasted. Which is why, when I am in a hurry, I found myself going through the wilderness when I want to be sure the commander makes it where I want him to make it to.

Hm. Are you being blocked by "zone of control" (english manual p. 29, especially point 7.5.4.) or by some bug/unintended behaviour? If you're blocked because of zone of control, which is likely because you're refering to cities, then you could try to send some detachmnets ahead in order to gain military control so that your main force can march through more easily. The problem is, of course, that these detachments can get lost very easily, and you'd need to give them an aggressive stance (otherwise you can't enter enemy-controlled regions and your troops will generate less military control). And you'd need to rely on a good evasion value in order to make your small detachments ignore the enemy zone of control as well, or else you'd need to take detours and evade regions with cities with your "scouts". Oh my...somehow I don't think that this will work. I haven't tried it out myself extensively, so be warned. In RoP, I had masses of hussars and cossacks for this task. In AJE, I think your means are much more limited.

I've taken a look at Caesars starting army. It has an evasion value of 8. If you compare that with the patrol-value (150) in a region that has 4 elements of militia stationed in a fortress (level 1) you will see that you'd need to have a military control of at least 19% (150:8=18,75) in the region where you'd like Caesars army to move. Now we would have to calculate how many days in advance you need to position your scouts there in order to reach that level of military control and pave the way for the main army. Also here the 30 day turns take away flexibility, I'm afraid - a "wait for x days"-order would help.

PS: It also depends on the question if military control (and thereby also the zone-of-control) is altered on a daily basis, "live" during the turn so to speak (which I believe is true), or on a turn-basis. Are movements delayed or aborted if you get blocked by zone of control? The latter case would lead to rather ugly results in combination with 30 day-turns.
PS: Zone of control at work: http://www.si-games.com/forums/showpost.php?p=603080&postcount=1 (take a look at the third and fourth ingame-picture; Keiths force is blocked at the fortress Torgau)

[Soulstrider]

Hm. Are you being blocked by "zone of control" (english manual p. 29, especially point 7.5.4.) or by some bug/unintended behaviour? If you're blocked because of zone of control, which is likely because you're refering to cities, then you could try to send some detachmnets ahead in order to gain military control so that your main force can march through more easily. The problem is, of course, that these detachments can get lost very easily, and you'd need to give them an aggressive stance (otherwise you can't enter enemy-controlled regions and your troops will generate less military control). And you'd need to rely on a good evasion value in order to make your small detachments ignore the enemy zone of control as well, or else you'd need to take detours and evade regions with cities with your "scouts". Oh my...somehow I don't think that this will work. I haven't tried it out myself extensively, so be warned. In RoP, I had masses of hussars and cossacks for this task. In AJE, I think your means are much more limited.

I'll have to check it out to see if it's zone of control, what happens is pretty much my army stops to lay siege in every town between me and my objective, pretty annoying because some times it takes several turns to reach something that supposedly 1-2 would be enough but then it might be WAD.

[JacquesDeLalaing]

I've just tried it out in the Ceasar versus Pompeius scenario, playing as Caesar, turn 1, so everyone can re-create the situation (different weather conditions lead affect this test though! I had no snow at all). I split off one unit of equites from Ceasars army and moved it to Populonia (region south of Pisa), which took ten days, evading the mountains, aggressive stance. Moreover, I ordered Caesars main force (aggressive stance as well, not assault) to move to Populonia via Pisa, where enemy troops occupy a level 1 fortress. This would take the force 12 days. I wanted to see if Caesar would be stopped by Pisa.

The result: Caesars' army was blocked in Pisa and couldn't move on. Why? Because the equites had arrived in Populonia on the same day that Caesars force had arrived in the region of Pisa and had tried to move on to Populonia. The equites had only one day to affect military control in Populonia - which was not sufficient to enable Caesars force to move on.

However, if you send ahead both units of equites, Caesar can move to Populonia via Pisa without any problems. Cities can be bypassed if you keep the zone of control-rules in mind. Obviously two units/ten elements of cavalry managed to create enough military control in Populonia to let Caesar "ignore" the zone of control generated in Pisa.

And setting Caesar to assault instead of the ordinary aggressive stance makes no difference. He does not stay in Volaterrae/Pisa to lay siege to the city. He moves on.

What still needs to be tested: Does Ceasars force check whether it can move on only once, so that you have to have everything prepared and ready for it to move on at that time? Or does it check if it can move on every day? This would make quite a big difference...and by the looks of it, Caesar only checked once. He arrived in Pisa on day 10, and there were still 20 (!) days left during which the equites generated military control in Populonia. So, if a zone-of-control-check was made every day, I guess Ceasar should have moved on, even if there was only 1 unit of equites in Populonia.

Everyone confused now?

Rule of thumb:
If you want to pass-by enemy cities during a turn (without being blocked by them for the rest of your turn, that is), you need to have a decent amount of military control in the region adjacent to the region with the city concerned (the next region on your route, so to speak). Military control is generated on a daily basis by having troops in the region in a non-passive-stance (aggressive stances give additional boni; plus the more troops you have, the faster you will gain control). However, if you want to coordinate this manoeuvre in a single turn, you have to watch out because you need to have enough military control in the moment that your main force enters the region with the city. Because this is the only time the force will check if it can move on or not (zone-of-control check) - in which latter case it will stay in the region with the city for the rest of the turn. So the success of this manoeuvre can indeed be a matter of days, which means that fast troops like cavalry are essential.

In some situations, it might even be reasonable to consider a forced march with your "scouts", as you can't give a wait-order to your main force and letting it move around (in order to buy time for the scouts to gain enough military control) will strain your forces' cohesion. You might also check the police values of your units. A higher police value lets units gain military control faster (some cavalry units have a police value of 3, while most infantry units and some other cavalry units only have 2).

[Soulstrider]

Well I must add I am actually not playing as Caesar but as Sulla during Marius VS Sulla :P

[rezaf]

It was me that mentioned Caesar, and I actually swapped commands between Caesar and another commander which had three or four legions under his control in turn 2 or something*. Despite that, I found him being able to assault enemy positions and then move on afterwards frequently. I'm not sure I ever actively tried to move him past cities in defensive stance, as I had dropped that habit earlier playing the Sulla scenario, in which this never really worked.
It happened a few times accidentally (he failed to assault cities along the way despite being in offensive stance), but that's about it.
To facilitate avoidance, my suggestion to just take detours through the wilderness stands - I think trying to wrestle for military control in the city first is a high risk low reward option in comparison.

I'm a little bothered by the fact that you cannot safely bypass cities along your route, but more bothered by the fact that this is basically guaranteed for the AI (at least a 80% chance). Forces I explicitly set to retreat stance are frequently cornered and destroyed by the AI, whilst even huge AI forces seem to have little trouble dancing around my offensive stance legions at will - I read "x has successfully retreated from combat" all the friggin time, and WHEN I can corner a force, it's far too often that even a leaderless auxilary will somehow manage to stave off my main army and silentry retreat to a neighboring province, forcing me to try and catch him yet again. I lost at least 30 turns to this stuff in the Caesar scenario.

*Fun fact/bug: When facing the decision to try and move Caesar to Alexandria with his personal legion, after failing the 30% check, the game actually moved Caesars entire army (then six legions) PLUS his personal legion to Alexandria. It was a nice shortcut to capturing Egypt that way...
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rezaf

[JacquesDeLalaing]

Capturing cities on the fly
From my experience so far you cannot assault defended cities "on the fly". As the manual says, the assault stance only triggers an assault in your final destination However, contrary to what the manual says, even a red-red-stance won't do the trick. I've just tested it with Caesar (trying to capture Pisa on the fly), and it didn't work. Caesars forced passed by Pisa and went to Populonia without assaulting Pisa. So this might indeed be a bug.

Even with this posture (red/red), you still need to consider that forts of level 2+ can't be stormed without first conducting a siege and achieveing breaches, or without having a leader with siege ability. What happens if an army in red/red happens to pass through a region with a level 2 fort? Will it cancel its movement?

Passing by defended enemy cities
Another scenario I can imagine to happen: You get blocked on your way by a defended city (because of zone control), which will cancel your movement for the rest of the turn, so that the region will count as your final destination and the assault will be triggered against your will. This can be circumvented by the rule of thumb in my previous post #21 (you need military control in the region adjacent to the citys' region, not in the citys' region!). Only undefended cities can be taken by passing-by.

I can't say anything regarding the AI. In RoP, the AI could be stopped by zone of control just as the player. For "retreating before the battle has even begun" take a look at "Retreats, Routs, Pursuits" in my signature.

[rezaf]

Oh, of course, what I described only works with an Assault leader like Caesar or Sulla - but especially Caesar CAN do it.
An ordinary leader will just bring up the message that the assault has been called off because there was no breach and that's it.

In my experience, it can work to have a leader with assault order (but not attack at all costs, which I rarely use) move past one city along his path and then besiege another which actually was his target, but this is very unreliable.
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rezaf

[JacquesDeLalaing]

In my experience, it can work to have a leader with assault order (but not attack at all costs, which I rarely use) move past one city along his path and then besiege another which actually was his target, but this is very unreliable.

I strongly suppose that this is related to the zone of control mechanism that I've described above - which is not a bug. If you prepare everything correctly, you should be able to pass by even multiple cities in a single turn on a regular basis.However, due to the lack of fast-moving light infantry and cavalry, this might be very tough. I also understand that a lot of this aspect lies "hidden" in the turn, and that it can be hard to interpret what has happened during the turn (on a day-by-day-basis). Of course one could also argue whether the current mechanics are appropriate.

The only "bug" that I've encountered in my little tests is that leaders on red/red don't try to assault cities/forts on the fly. Here the manual contradicts the ingame-experience. It has been pointed out and debated in this thread as well: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?26452-Why-do-my-armies-refuse-to-execute-(assault)-orders.

[rezaf]

Oh, I didn't mean to say it was downright buggy. It's ... odd, sure, but probably WAD. The flow of information is sub-optimal, but this holds true for huge chunks of the AGE engine, so it's nothing to be surprised about.
Like you wrote, it'd be possible to argue about the validity of the current mechanics, but that was not my point.
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rezaf