Dividing units, realistic?

[nosse]

Hi,
I have played a few games of PW and initially I had a really hard time winning scenarios. But when I started to divide my units into smaller groups I increased the number of men available to fight and eliminated problems with over stacking. I also go a lot more possibility to maneuver, I normally divide the normal roman histati units so basically we go from 140 men per hex to 70. So still we have enough men to take some casualties and still fill up the ranks to fight.

Is it realistic to divide your units or should it be kept to a minimum.

[Al Amos]

You're splitting the maniple into its two centuries, so that's okay. Some people think you shouldn't since you may not use the two centuries together.

The Ai does it all the time, although I'm not a big fan of when it chooses to do so. hehehe... I'll cover that in a blog post sometime in the future.

I'm making some scenarios for Gallic Wars using the century as the basic unit, and will make some PW scenarios doing the same.

You are correct noticing two smaller units have more melee power than one big one. When the Ai does that with a phalanx unit, it bothers me, but breaking a maniple into to centuries is okay with me.

[Gris]

Hi Nosse,

I look at it in terms of increasing your frontage. Splitting a maniple into two centuries just doubles your frontage. Same amount of men, different formation. I normally keep them side by side in adjoining hexes or in the same hex. You took your 10 man front 4 ranks deep and made a 20 man front 2 ranks deep.

I think where you might run into trouble with some players, (not talking history here, but that will probably be the view point used for argument) is where you start running the centuries around as individual units. Or for certain types as Al stated, Phalanxes.

I think if you split units and keep them together in the spirit of making a larger frontage I myself would not have a problem with it. Making your frontage larger than your opponent's frontage and gaining access to his flanks is a viable tactic.

History aside, here are some points from a game play point of view to consider. I mentioned above, more units and more frontage which hopefully allows you to out flank your opponent. But what is the trade off or cons to consider.

From the manual page 26, Contact with the Enemy

Any unit with less than 50 infantry, 25 cavalry or 3 Elephants/Chariots has insufficient strength to pin down an enemy unit in combat. This means small units do not stop an enemy unit from receiving its normal allocation of action points

If you are defending this could be a major drawback to splitting units. With a unit of 70 men, you will not be able to pin the attacker for very long. One or two units routing can open a large whole in your line.

The next one I am not a 100% on, since I don't know the actual formula (and Al if you could, correct me if I am wrong)

If you split your units, I have assumed the new initial strength is the size of the new unit, 140 men split into 2, 70 strength. (Or is it the actual strength of the unit when fatigue is calculated or the original strength before the split?)

Fatigue:
• +1 for each casualty suffered.
In the case of casualties suffered:-
• If the initial strength of a unit is 20 or less then this factor is multiplied by 5.
• If the initial strength of a unit is 21-30 then this factor is multiplied by 4.
• If the initial strength of a unit is 31-40 then this factor is multiplied by 3.
• If the initial strength of a unit is 41-50 then this factor is multiplied by 2.
• If the initial strength of a cavalry unit is >50 then this factor is multiplied by 2.

Depending on the size of the units, under 50, you can rack up fatigue really quick, with negative combat and morale modifiers. In the end, your overall army morale, which could be a game over. Splitting units of a 100 men or less could be cause your army morale to drop faster if I understand it correctly.

Barring the last point (fatigue) until clarified, the pinning of units on defense should be considered.

Hope this help, great question!

[Al Amos]

Wartwo,

You're spot on as far as I understand.

It's a trade off, as it was historically, thin your ranks to widen your front and you may out flank him, or he may break through.

This game is great.

al

[Titus]

When a unit is split, the newly formed units are assigned a new initial strength. Hence, reducing their strength makes them more susceptable to the fatigue rule explained above by wartwo.
The game is designed to optimise combat effectiveness around 100 strong for HI, MI and around 40 for LI. However, if your LI are long range missile troops better to divide again to a strength of 20. MC / HC are best around 50 - 60 strong. Large cavalry units tend to be wasteful, the unit routing long before you reach half strength.

I hope this gives a few ideas to players

[nosse]

Thanks for the information. Good wealth of information available here.