Friend's Thoughts on Diablo3

A post by a friend of mine who bought D3 at the release and has compared how it goes with D2. He's pretty analytical and is a lecturer at a Russell Group university, so I'd take his word for it.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4209822134?page=4#70

"I've managed to dodge most of the server problems and got a DH up to inferno, but have a review related question for all Diablo fans: Why did people keep playing Diablo 2 for over a decade? IMHO there were 5 reasons. 0/ Gameplay 1/ Skill system encouraged you to restart with new chars to see what would happen if you put the stat points somewhere else, and yes it was possible to build a strong toon that way. 2/ Item drop was frequent and it was fun trying to combine unique stuff with the skill choices. 3/ Enough good things were found that sooner or later you'd try another toon type with all the gear you found. 4/ Runes and runewords. What we have left (asided from better graphics) is gameplay. But as for the rest, the game works the same as [World of ] Warcraft. Will people want to play Diablo 3 for another decade? Oh! I forgot to mention inferno... y I did. Kinda sick of being spiked out of nowhere." I hope Blizz will fix it with the expansion(s) somehow.

#70 2 hours ago Login to rate

Facebook sneaks spam in my feed

Soo, I was commenting on some referenda at the uni and my post, as well as those of my friends, were categorized under some totally unrelated performer. Noticing that this "bug" bordered suspiciously close on "spam" I took these screenshots and I'm uploading them here, on a Google-run website, for security from unfriendly admins.

Part 5: Information/Intelligence

Information in war is never perfect. In even the simplest wargames we don't know everything about the enemy. In chess we can see his every move, yet we don't know his plans. In battles in the Total War series we can see his units but usually not their stats. In most RTS's we can't see enemy bases or units unless some of our soldiers are near them. In even more realistic games, like the Project Revolution mod for Battlefield 2, commanders can't accurately tell what the players themselves are doing.

1 Obtaining Ingelligence

Getting information, aka intelligence, is done several ways in real life. We can try to intercept enemy communications and spy directly on them. We can hire spies to collect data for us. On the operational or tactical level, we can do reconnaissance. We can send special troops like AWACS planes or light cavalry to approach the enemy and tell us what they see. Or, we can do reconnaissance by force, which is probing the enemy with some troops without committing our forces to a full combat. The enemy's response gives us some information on what he's planning to do.

We could try to guess how the enemy acts. One way is learning their doctrine. For instance, in the High and Late Middle Ages the Byzantines knew that Western armies preferred direct confrontation and generally had poor supplying and did their best to find food from the surrounding area. The Byzantines exploited that and when fighting Western Europeans avoided the enemy army for some time until the soldiers began to starve. Only then, when the Franks' dps and hp were lowered did the Byzantines risk their own troops' hp and dps. Another way is to try to understand the enemy general's methods and personality. Even Sun Tzu advocated that. If we do, we can send our spearmen to where he usually sends his cavalry, or exploit his weaknesses and taunt/provoke him if he is impatient or easily angered.

2 Using Intelligence

Predicting the enemy plans

As I already mentioned, if we know the habits of the enemy general, we can be better prepared for his most likely ways of attacking, the most likely routes of cavalry or positions of archers.

Controlling the enemy's actions

We can also manipulate the enemy. As a universal rule of wargaming, players attack weaker or equal enemy armies and try to flee from bigger armies. Therefore, if they know our army to be stronger, they will pull back, hoping to fight another day (minute?) when the odds are more favorable. If they see that we have less hp/dps, they will attack and use the opportunity to destroy our troops before we can muster more. So, if we are stronger, we can hide half our army and let the enemy approach in fighting range. Then, we get out of the cover and our whole army will drain a lot of the enemy's hp, while the smaller enemy army will not drain as much. Then the opponent will pull away, but only after being deceived into coming to our force.

Similarly, we can pretend to be stronger than the enemy and make him avoid confrontation. In the Battle of the Falernian Territory during the Second Punic War, Hannibal was campaigning in Italy when at one point he found his army trapped in a river valley by the Romans. Unwilling to risk a direct confrontation with the Roman general Fabius, Hannibal could do little other than stay there and be surrounded. When the night fell, however, he ordered his men to tie torches to the horns of the two thousand oxen of the army and direct them at the Romans. The Romans, not sure whether Hannibal had hidden troops or surprising reinforcements or some supernatural power, moved away and Hannibal escaped.

A more extreme example is that of Zhuge Liang, a Chinese general from the Late Antiquity. At one point he was residing in a town with few soldiers, away from his army, when he heard news that an enemy general, Sima Qian, was very close with his army. Capture seemed inevitable. Throughout Ancient China, Zhuge Liang had a reputation of laying traps and using cunning. He decided to bluff and ordered the town gates to be opened and he himself stood on the wall above them, chanting religious chants and looking innocent. Seeing this, Sima Qian naturally suspected a trap of some sort and withdrew.

Just as people make a fight or flight decision based on the size of the eny army, they also decide how much troops to send in specific parts of the battlefield based on how strong the enemy is there. Thus, the same logic works on the tactical, as well as the operational level. However, it is restricted by the game mechanics and how much we can hide.

Part 4: Combinations of Factors of Combat Power

In real life and most games, we will see combinations of the described determinants of combat power. In some areas we will have more troops with higher morale against elite enemy units on a high ground. In others, we will need to send to mass spearmen to fight other enemy infantry. In such cases one side will have the advantage of greater numbers and terrain while the other side will have higher quality troops with increased morale. This makes it very ambiguous to determine who will win.

In wargames we may sometimes predict who wins by doing lots of calculations. If the game mechanics considers morale or dps to be numbers, which it should, when we can crunch the numbers and decide whether to attack or not.

Whenever we have no time to do maths, or we don't know the numbers, we only have experience to help us decide.

Part 3: Qualitative Advantage 2

3 Maneuvering (and importance of terrain)

Terrain in real life can be very beneficial for the performance of the army. In games it may be, depending on the game mechanics. This chapter is how it is IRL.

Terrain and speed

Terrain can affect speed, and with it how flexible we are in concentrating troops (and combat power) wherever we need. Consider this map. In the first case, we have chosen to meet the enemy on the clearance of land in the northeast, but the wetland/marsh will be right behind our lines. This means that the left flank will be much harder to send reinforcements to, because the terrain leading to it will slow troops down.

In the second case, our position is even worse, because both the right and the left flanks are hard to get to, mostly. In addition, the troops in the river/marsh/wetland will have their speed reduced, making our army vulnerable when having to maneuver. That is, move spearmen/archers around if it's a medieval game, or move infantry/cavalry out of enemy cannons' range if it's a Napoleonic setting.

The last case is the best one, because the road is just behind us, and in the real world troops move fastest on roads. Additionally, the marsh is just in front of us and that will slow the enemy troops down as they approach. This means that our ranged units will deal damage for longer before the enemy troops start draining the hp of our frontmost soldiers.

We should generally avoid terrain that may slow our troops if we expect to fight in it. If we get caught in it, we cannot move around to mass superior combat power against the enemy. The troops won't be able to move and attack the enemy together, or to direct our scissors against his paper and avoid his rock. The Old Fritz made this mistake due to bad planning during the Battle of Prague in 1757. Although the Prussians improved their situation, at one point the infantry was stuck in wet ground in range of the Austrians' cannons, with the cannons out of range of infantry muskets. This precedes a massive loss of hit points while the enemy is safe and such situations should be avoided.


Having the high ground lets our units be faster when moving down towards the enemy and slows down the enemy units who move up the slope towards our troops. This means that we can aim our 'rocks' at the enemy 'scissors' slightly faster than they can send their 'paper' against our attacking 'rocks.' The enemy units that respond to our incoming units will also be much more tired than our attacking units. In the meantime, attacking down a slope is very easy, plus the cavalry can perform charges with greater momentum, hence dps, than usual.


Using terrain to increase dps/hp

Damage per second and hit points can also be increased by the terrain, but it depends on the game mechanics. Melee attacks are easier if we are standing on a higher ground. The helical staircases in medieval castles were made as a 1 on 1 combat area where the defender would be above the attacker. For the record, those staircases go clockwise so that the defender can swing with his right arm more easily, while holding the shield in a helpful position. Shooting arrows or some artillery is easier if the enemy is further down the hillside than we are.

Taking cover is the most obvious way to increase our troops' relative hp or reduce the enemy's relative dps. We can do it on a big scale, like the Duke of Wellington or Hannibal, placing our troops on the back side of a hill, hidden from enemy sight or long-range weapons. On a smaller scale, our troops can move behind solid objects and fire from behind.

In the end, whether our troops can make use of cover or high ground depends on whether we position them in the right time. That depends on out-calculating and out-maneuvering the enemy.

4 Morale

In games, soldiers are automatons but in real life they are people. Like an automaton, an individual
has a certain physical strength and quickness and agility and can lift x kilograms or walk/run y meters. Unlike automatons, real troops can be optimistic and enthusiastic or discouraged or frightened. When the troops are enthusiastic like that, victory seems very possible and everybody wants to be fighting the enemy, they have high morale. When they aren't, when fighting seems futile and everybody expects the enemy to beat them sooner or later, they have low morale.

This psychological factor of combat power is important for the troops' hp and dps. When the people in a company of grenadiers or spearmen or whatever are enthusiastic and optimistic, they fight better, withstand more damage and rout harder. They reload faster, aim better and hit harder in close combat. When they are frightened or pessimistic about whether they can win, it doesn't take much enemy presence to break discipline and send them running away. They are also more clumsy when operating their weapons and weaker in hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, it depends on the technology to some extent. If the troops have shields and spears, the morale plays a big role in how hard they hit and how well they defend. If the troops have assault rifles, on the other hand, they will deal the same damage in all cases, because the rifle has the same firepower regardless of who's using it and how he feels, ignoring the worse aim or slower reloading caused by low morale.

Real field manuals don't try to weight the importance of the psychological factor, because human feelings are incommensurable. Napoleon Bonaparte once said that the ratio of the physical to the psychological is 1:3 and that's as far as the MCDP1 Warfighting field manual decides to go. Whether you want to conceptualize morale is up to you. Wargames, however, may emulate morale and when they do it's calculable. This means that it can be used in plans.

Decreasing morale

Things that decrease morale are losses of friendly troops and greater enemy numbers/quality. I've seen people argue that things that make life uncomfortable like tiredness, hunger, extreme heat/cold and so on demoralize troops. Such things do, but not directly. All of these factors we can use them in our plans to weaken the enemy both in dps and hp.

- Loss of hp

When something appears that makes our troops lose hp, their morale drops. Most often it is enemy fires, artillery shelling or other troops shooting at ours. It should be noted that it is the ratio of losses rather than the absolute losses that demoralizes men, according to Christopher Duffy. The Soviets noticed in WW2 that units who had endured 60-70% losses over several days still maintained some cohesion as opposed to units who lose 40% of their men in, say, 1 hour.

Therefore, if we want to demoralize an enemy company, we should try to aim everything at it and blast it as powerfully as possible. To make sure that we aren't opening any gaps

We don't need to drain a company's hp directly to reduce its morale. If the men see that the company next to it is being decimated by enemy cavalry or cannons, they will be frightened and lose morale. Similarly, if a company at the front has been routed and runs back, the beaten soldiers will run past companies in our second and third lines, giving the organized troops a ghastly image of the fighting – and the morale will be decreased.

This is exploitable. Consider the Napoleonic setting example.

In this example we have broken one company and the soldiers ran close to our next target company, making it demoralized. 'Goading' the enemy in the right direction can aim retreating troops towards fresh ones and decrease enemy morale, preparing the units for our attack. This can be done as a part of a larger battle, if the general can plan the maneuvers and fires of the troops well.

- Greater enemy numbers

When the troops face a larger enemy force, or one that is better trained/equipped/etc., they expect to lose. Unless they have had a good day or are well-trained and have high morale to begin with, the men are likely to run even before they start exchanging fires with the enemy and drain each other's hp.


- Physical comfort

If the troops have not had enough rest or food/water or if they are fighting in uncomfortable conditions, they will lose morale faster even if they have high morale at the start of the fighting. If the troops are tired and see a fresh enemy battalion advance towards them, they will realize they are facing an enemy with more hp and dps and will be discouraged (as in the section just above). The troops can be tired but enthusiastic, if, for example, they have pursued the beaten enemy for a few hours. If they face a fresh enemy force, then, once the combat ensues they will realize how much weaker they are and will be intimidated by the enemy numbers easily.

Physical comfort was a chief factor in the Ottoman defeat in the battle of Ankara in 1402. The sultan, Bayezid the Lightning had led his army against the positions of Tamerlane near modern-day Ankara. Tamerlane, however, managed to divert a stream used as a water source away from the Ottomans during the battle. This was one of the things that weakened Bayezid's troops and Bayezid lost and became the only sultan ever captured in person.

Sometimes, factors work together. Attacking against an enemy who has the high ground makes our troops endure slightly more damage and grow more tired advancing up the hill, so it reduces morale.

- Morale loss positive feedback

Assume our unit normally has the same stats as the enemy's and the two fight. If our unit starts off a little discouraged, while the enemy's is normal morale, our discouragement will mean that our men will fire slower/hit with less force: less dps. Therefore, we will drain less enemy hp per second than the enemy. Losing hp leads to loss of morale, however. Therefore, the enemy will lose morale slower than our troops do. The enemy will have more morale throughout the battle than we do. This will translate in our men shooting/fighting with less deadliness, which means that we will drain enemy hp even slower. Thus, other things being equal, low morale will lead to even lower morale later on (in a sort of another exponential growth curve).

Increasing morale

Things that increase morale are generally the opposite. Seeing the enemy crushed and driven before us (yes, Conan!), being better armed/reinforced and knowing it and being comfortable and well-fed in the sunny morning after a good night's sleep. These things increase our combat power and generals should plan to use them.

As in the above example with routing enemy units one after another, if we use the same companies for the whole job, our men will bolster very high morale once this is over. If this is a part of a biger battle, then our men will have their dps and hp increased due to the high spirits and we could use them for something else, like an attack on a stronger enemy position. That is, assuming they are not too tired.

The Crescent and the Star and Crescent as Symbols

Translation of
http://thearbitertribunal.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post.html :)

Most people today would answer the question 'What do a star and crescent symbolize?' with 'Islam.' This is incorrect.

It is easy to guess why the average Westerner would think that. After all, there is a crescent with a star in the flags of most muslim countries. The Middle East has a 'Red Crescent' organization because the Red Cross is considered too christian (1). In Battlefield2 the MEC flag (Middle-Eastern Coalition, guess which Abrahamic religion they follow) has a crescent.

And still, the star and crescent are not a symbol of Islam. To begin with, many of the muslims themselves refuse to accept it as a symbol (2), (3). The reason for that is that Islam traditionally has no symbols, since they fall under 'idolatry' along with depicting people, animals or plants. There are speculations that the five rays of the star, which is the standard star on the flags, symbolize the five prayers per day in Islam. However, this kind of star is not really a standard for flags, nor has it been for Ottoman flags, nor does symbolize the five-prayer rule (ibid.). Therefore Islam is not directly connected with this symbol.

As a matter of fact, it is the Ottomans who are responsible for the spread of this symbol. The cause of its spread across the Muslim world are exactly the Ottoman conquests and the cultural exchange (3). It is coincidental that star and crescent happened to appear on the Empire's flag. It is in the Ottoman Empire that it starts to appear in banners and flags in the army, navy and also mosques (4). The reason westerners consider it a symbol of Islam are the centuries of war between Europe and the Ottomans (2). As for its adoption in the Ottoman Empire, there is a legend, according to which the founder of the empire, Uthman, dreamed of a crescent that spread from one end of the world to the other (ibid.). Regardless, the crescent was present in the insignia of the sultan Orhan's infantry (1324-1360) (4), as well as the Mamelukes during the Mongol invasion a century before that (5). The affiliating of the crescent with Islam in the eyes of Westerners happens only after 1453 (2), but I personally think that Bulgarians and Serbs that fought against the Ottomans have seen it over the enemy battalions. This conclusion is based on the fact that Orhan lived while there was still Serbia, Second Bulgarian Kingdom, and even Byzantium, with which he warred, expanding his rule. Regardless, the less detailed sources say that the Ottoman Turks adopt the star and crescent only after they conquer Constantinople...

...which is really interesting, because then, in addition to booty, they stumble upon a lot of red flags with crescents and start to consider the symbol as a good omen (6)*. The crescent with a star was a symbol of Byzantion a millennium before Mohammed became a Prophet.

The connection between this symbol and Constantine's city date from the antiquity. Bew-zanti-ON, as it is properly pronounced in Ancient Greek, saves itself from an army of Philip of Macedon (Alexander's father) in 339 BCE when it is detected at night due to the bright crescent (6). It has been a sign of the Near-eastern goddess Astarte/Ishtar, as well as the Carthaginian goddess Tanit and the Ancient Greek goddess Artemis (4), (2) and from then the crescent had spread throughout the Hellenistic world, including Byzantion. It is supposed that the city adopts the symbol in honor of Artemis/Diana (ibid.). When the Romans conquer it, the symbol remains. Other sources claim that the crescent becomes a symbol only after the Romans win a great victory over the Goths at the beginning of the lunar month. What is certain is that by the time of Constantine I the crescent was a symbol and it is Constantine who adds the star. When Byzantium is renamed Constantinople and becomes a second, christian Rome, Constantine adds the star in honor of the Virgin Mary (8). From 330 to 1453, the flag of the city is white star and crescent on a red background, much like the flag of the Turkish Republic.

The earliest usages of star and crescent at all date from thousands of years ago when people in Central Asia and Siberia use it in their worship of heavenly bodies (7). It's been used by the Chinese Zhou dynasty, Ancient Greeks, Persians and Mongols (8). The crescent has been as symbol of the Sassanid Empire and has been seen on rulers' crowns as well as minted coins (ibid.). All in all, it is incorrect to consider the star and crescent a symbol of Islam. At the very least, early Islam had no symbols whatsoever, not even on flags. That of the Umayyad Caliphate was white, the Abbasid Caliphate's was black and the Fatimid Caliphate's was green. Their hosts' banners were monochrome :) (3). Furthermore, they used a star and crescent in Western Europe even before the fall of Constantinople – this was Richard I Lionheart's emblem (6)**. In modern days it's used in the New Orleans police (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOPD_badge.png) since 1855; the city's nickname is 'Crescent City' according to the article.



*although this source doesn't look particularly trustworthy
**here Rafael Narbaez, the author of (6), must have gotten it right, because here (http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/parker/Jpglosse.htm) I can see its on the coat of arms of Richard I as well as Henry III

Sources:
(1) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_the_red_crescent_symbol_stand_for
(2) http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544398
(3) http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/symbols.htm
(4) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142628/crescent
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wadi_al-Khazandar
(6) http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/crescent1.htm
(7) http://islam.about.com/od/history/a/crescent_moon.htm
(8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_and_crescent

Part 3: Qualitative Advantage 1

Part 3 is about winning when we have units of different dps, hp, speed or special abilities. In part one we assumed that all ships or space marines were identical. Wherever game we are in, however, we have different units with different stats. Artillery has much more dps than cavalry, but much less hit points. Grenadier units have both more hp and dps than normal line infantrymen. And so, for whatever setting the game takes place in. Also, some units move much faster than others. This part first explains how to use every unit's strengths in a sort of rock-scissors-paper approach to battling. After that, it talks about ways of increasing our troops dps or hp (and decreasing the enemy hp or dps) other than fighting. That's effects of exhaustion, morale, terrain, magic, etc..

This part mentions speed but initiative will be explained in a part of its own.

1 Speed for superiority in numbers

To be fast, we need to have better technology. From horses to trains, it works. A notable example is the Byzantine emperor Bazil II the Bulgarslayer's rescue of Aleppo from the Caliphate. In 995, while campaigning against medieval Bulgaria in the Balkans, he received news that the Saracens had attacked the empire's lands in what is today Syria. In order to get there on time, he equipped his entire army (40 000 men) with mules and managed to cross Anatolia in the staggering 16 days (and drove back the Fatimids' army, winning a 10 years peace). 

Also, we need to plan our soldiers' movements well. For instance, we should avoid stopping for things like foraging, instead trying to march wherever supplies are readily available. For instance,  on the Western Front in early WW2, the Germans used available gas stations to refuel tanks quickly. On the operational level, greater speed can also be used to cut off the enemy from his lines of communications but games generally don't simulate that so I won't elaborate.

Once we are faster, speed is there to help us concentrate troops more efficiently. If our units are identical to the enemy's but twice as fast, we can more easily focus our groups on one or two of his, staying away from the others.

Consider our four cavalry squadrons vs the enemy's infantry. Our cavalry attacks the leading eny company.

It takes time for the ones behind it to catch up and by the time they arrive we have destroyed it and moved our cavalry aside.

Next, the enemy moves west-southwest and we send 3 of our squadrons to attack the leading company while the fourth engages the remaining infantry at the back.

Our fourth squadron is broken but the enemy now has one less company.

Even if he tries to defend somewhere, if our usage of faster units is precise enough, we can still pick off his companies one by one, while staying out of others' range.


2 Maneuvering (terrain not considered)

'Tanking' and 'Artillery'

In RPG's, a tank is a player with lots of defense and hp but little damage. Warriors, paladins or whatever. Artillery, on the other hand are the fragile mages with massive damage but little hit points. When the group fights monsters, the tanks stay up front while the mages do the killing from behind. RTS's are much like that, from simpler ones like the C&C series to more engaging ones like the Total War series. Some have multiple weak, expendable guys, like the common orcs in BFME 2, others have hard-to kill costly guys, like mountain giants or knights in WarCraft3 TFT.

As a universal rule, extant across franchises, when the army is fighting, we always want to put the 'meat shield' troops in front and the archers/cannons/spellcasters behind, so that the latter destroy the enemy as much as they can while the meat shield units take the pounding. Even if our high-dps troops also have high dps, like heroes in BFME 2, we still want to bring some expendable troops to check enemy maneuvers or cover a possible retreat or just add to the army's dps.


Rock-Scissors-Paper

In strategy games, some units deal more dps to one kind of troops than another. Usually, spearmen deal increased damage to cavalry and cavalry deal increased damage to archers. Artillery, from catapults to cannons tends to be devastating to everything, while heavily armored troops, whether cataphracts or dismounted knights, are resistant to arrows. The game I know where this was most obvious is BFME 2, where archers->swordsmen->spearmen->cavalry->archers. What each unit is effective against depends on the game mechanics.

When directing the battle, then, we should always try to calculate our units' movement in such a way that our units are killing what they kill best, staying safe of what kills them. We should aim our cavalry at the enemy archers and avoid enemy spears at all costs. Our archers should be shooting at parts of the enemy army where his troops are close to each other and, if possible, we should not let enemy cavalry engage them, because of the rock-paper-scissors problem.

It is easy to do it if our units are faster. If we mount our archers on horses they will have no problem staying away from knights. An extreme example are the Mongols. When they first reached Europe, Western knights were eager to fight them hand-to-hand, as was normal. The Mongols, however, would keep their distance, firing arrows upon their pursuers until the pursuers were weakened, spread out, or shot down. Then, the Mongols would turn back and charge, having 'reduced the knights' dps and hp' to less than their own.

Flanks, Oblique Order and Crossing the T

In reality an infantry company or a cavalry squadron or whatever can deal the most damage frontally and is most armored in front. Units of modern line infantry are wider than they are deep to maximize the shot of the muskets. In such formations, only the left- or right-most soldiers can turn and shoot to the side.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080929222924/uncyclopedia/images/b/b0/French_line_infantry.jpg

This means that if we position our troops to attack the narrow side of the enemy formation, we will have local superiority of numbers. This is the key benefit of attacking the enemy flanks, as well as the enemy weapons being usually aimed forwards and not the direction we are coming from.

   
28 friendly vs 51 eny space marines, illustrating the advantage in numbers in the contact point, even though the enemy has a larger army

Historically, it was cavalry that had the speed and maneuverability to do flank attacks like this.

This same principle is valid on the scale of armies, too. The Old Fritz used it to great success during his campaigns and it is called 'Oblique order.' Frederick would position his army perpendicular to the enemy's, enabling him to mass combat power to one side of the enemy force while those battalions in the enemy centre and other flank had to maneuver and waste time turning and going to the Prussians.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Battle_leuthen_shift.gif/626px-Battle_leuthen_shift.gif

Oblique order, in general, is the massing of combat power on one wing of the army, using our center and other wing as a distraction or to try to keep the enemy center/other flank busy.

http://schillerinstitute.org/strategic/2011/battle_leuthen/h1-Battle_of_Leuctra.jpg


It was also used in naval battles during the age of sail, under the name 'Crossing the T.' The ships of the 17th and 18th century had cannons on the side, but little or none dps capability on the front or back. Hence, if we positioned our ship to move in front of the enemy ship, we would bombard the enemy from one side while they have no cannons to return fire with.

http://guides.gamepressure.com/empiretotalwar/guide.asp?ID=7089


In general, this principle is useful for any enemy formation that is elongated. If we use faster units or calculate our movement well, it ensures we have numerical superiority – and with it greater combat power – in the area of contact with the enemy, which brings us closer to victory.


S=vt

Sun Tzu advised to attack the enemy's weak sides with our strong sides. This is probably what he meant. How to make sure our spears are always in the way of enemy cavalry or our cavalry always ? S=vt calculations of the troops' maneuvering if possible; if not – hasty guesses. In general, the more we calculate, the better we can position our troops and predict the enemy's movements. The more able will our archers and spearmen be to both fire on the enemy and quickly face enemy cavalry with spears. The less we calculate, the more we are relying on chance, which is like trying to perform suicide. In fact, calculating movements is so important in warfare I am bewildered why strategy games do support good ways to measure distances and unit speeds, forcing gamers to rely on judgment and the naked eye.

Sometimes, of course, we may have to fight enemy spearmen with our cavalry. To win such fights we need great superiority in numbers. Similarly, if we have a lot of units we can overcome the enemy's qualitative advantage. A group of knights can only beat so many units of archers before taking too much damage. Such cases are usually a better trade for the defender. More about combinations of factors in further parts.

Part 2: Contact and Fighting in Battles

When we play RTS's or some other strategy game with armies, we send our army to fight the enemy. While it does, however, not every single infantryman is shooting or hitting the enemy soldiers. Usually only a few of our regiments or troops will be fighting a few of the enemy regiments or troops. In the meantime, the spearmen on the flanks or the fusiliers in reserve just stand there, waiting to be sent to the fight.

Hence, the draining of hp only happens in the points where units from the two armies fight. Also, points of contact may be where only one side is damaging the other. For example, if hidden riflemen are firing on an enemy column.

By definition, these points are where the draining takes place. Therefore, in order to drain the enemy's hp faster, we need only worry about draining it faster in the contact points. This has great implications now, when I will talk about units of different hp and/or dps.

It dictates the economy of power. In a medieval-ish setting, if we have a limited amount of magic that makes soldiers' swords flaming, when the enemy comes our way we want to only enchant the infantry that are fighting. In a Napoleonic setting, if some part of the enemy's army is close to ours and engaging us, we want to aim the cannons at the enemy companies that are exchanging shots with ours. That's because the faster we kill the troops that are killing our troops, the more infantrymen we will have left. Bringing us to part 1 and the mutual draining.

We could ask, why not aim the cannons at the main mass of the enemy army instead? Well, it depends on the game mechanics. If the enemy are too far, cannon shot gets inaccurate and miss, which is a waste of dps. If the enemy is among trees, the artillery is less damaging. On the other hand, if the enemy is sending more companies to reinforce the fighting ones, we may want to fire at them if we can hurt or delay them enough. This would isolate the first enemy company, allowing us to overrun them. Napoleon massed his artillery in such a way to create gaps in the enemy line. We may even want to fire at some part of the enemy army ourselves, creating new points of fighting.  Whether we should or not is decided by crunching all the numbers – speed, hp, dps, etc. –  and since in reality we can't, it is decided by experience.

But the point (no pun intended) is, there are one or few areas where troops from both sides are hitting each other during battles. It resonates with what the updated 3-0 field manual states. One of the principles of war, whatever those are, is mass – to 'concentrate the effects of combat power at the decisive place and time' (4-39). In wargaming, this means directing our army's combat power, its cannons, magics, cavalry or air units, at these areas where the fighting is. We may save some, but expend enough to reach higher dps than the enemy. Thusly, on the larger scale of the battle, we are slowly winning.

Part 1: Superiority in Numbers

Part 1 is about how to use numerical superiority.

To begin with, wargaming is not real war. It is a simplification, which represents real things like firepower or freshness of the troops through numbers. War is the duel of two 'individuals' on a grand scale, according to Clausewitz. When two armies of soldiers fight in wargaming, every individual troop has a certain amount of 'health' or 'hit' points and 'damage' points. When a soldier fights another soldier, both periodically inflict damage to each other depending on their 'damage' points. This is subtracted from each soldier's hit points (abbreviated HP) and they inflict damage until one is dead. In real life it's more complicated and wargames usually have things like magic or morale to spice things up. In the artificial environment of wargames, however, the most basic way of looking at a fight is two troops draining each other's HP as fast as their DPS (damage per second) allows them. These simplifications are the set of axioms on which the manual is built.


For that reason two armies fighting is similar to two soldiers hitting each other. Each reduces the enemy's hit points periodically until one is dead. Only the group sizes vary. These are two space marines (from StarCraft). Each has 40 hit points and deals 5 points of damage per second. In the most basic conditions, they will both destroy each other in 8 seconds.

And so, firstly and most basically, hitting first, before the enemy, gives an advantage.


1 More important is numerical superiority. Numerical superiority works by allowing us to drain the enemy hp faster than he drains ours. Consider a fight between warships in the sea. Each has 10 hp and deals 1 dps. We have 30 and the enemy (abbr. ENY) has 25. Initially, we will be hitting with 30 dps and they will be hitting us with 25 dps. As the following wrong table describes,

We will win


We win but it's actually wrong. This table assumed that all troops live to the very end, taking equal damage. This means that the enemy has retained his full firepower of 25 dps for the whole fight. BUT, in reality both we and the enemy will have our different ships take damage randomly, some dying before the others. This means that we will lose some of our dps capability and by the end of the combat we will drain enemy hit points SLOWER than we did when we started. Consider the same fight. Only now each time the ships hit each other they mangle the hulls, disable cannons and wreak havoc among the crew. This reduces the fire capability. Also, some of our ships take critical damage and sink, while others are lucky and stay afloat while their comrades blow up beside them. RTS's universally have this chaotic damaging and this means that the whole dps of the army is reduced throughout the fight.

What people may not realize is that if the enemy is less numerous, his dps is reduced faster than  ours. Because the enemy troops will more frequently die before ours die, the enemy will lose his firepower faster than we do. The situation will look somewhat like this

The formula is available dps minus the dps lost after each enemy bombardment (due to our ships being shot at, hulls destroyed, cannons disabled, etc.). The calculations are at the end. As you can see, we wipe out the enemy's firepower faster, and although we lose some dps in the fighting, the enemy loses it even faster. Which, by the way, is exponential decay.

The yellow area is our advantage without considering the enemy's loss of firepower due to our bombardment. The green area is our advantage when this is taken into account. These calculation clearly show how numerical superiority works in a simple RTS environment of identical units (that has no morale, etc.). If it's getting narrow it's a bad sign – we are out-gunned and may lose.

When things become more complicated, with varying units and movements, the lines will vary greatly, but Part 2 explains this.


2 Focusing fire

Focusing fire is ordering nearby troops to simultaneously fire at enemies one by one.

In most RTS's units deal their full damage regardless of whether they are at full health, 50% or just 1 hp. So, as long as our units are alive, we will keep our dps and damage all over our troops is not much of a worry.

Two armies have both a hundred troops, totaling 1000hp and 200 dps. Ours focuses fire and the other hits at random.

After the first exchange of thoughts, our troops will have only 80% hp left but will be still alive, amounting to 800hp and 200 dps. The enemy will have lost 20 men, leaving him with 800 hp in 80 unscathed men who only maintain 160 dps.

After the next salvo, we will have 640hp and ~180-190 dps left (some troops are less lucky than others) but the enemy will have 600hp, 60 men and only 120 dps.

Thus, focusing fire is the way to reduce the enemy dps as fast as possible.

Depending on the game mechanics or, in real life, on the technology, hitting as many enemies as possible may be a better option. But it's all about the mechanics. The chief factor is how much firing capability is lost from enemy fires. Clausewitz points out the effect of fires during the Napoleonic wars:

'1000 men fire twice as many shots as 500, but more shots will take effect on the 1000 than on the 500 because it is assumed that they stand in closer order than the other. If we were to suppose the number of hits to be double, then the losses on each side would be equal. From the 500 there would be for example 200 disabled, and out of the body of 1000 likewise the same; now if the 500 had kept another body of equal number quite out of fire, then both sides would have 800 effective men; but of these, on the one side there would be 500 men quite fresh, fully supplied with ammunition, and in their full vigour; on the other side only 800 all alike shaken in their order, in want of sufficient ammunition and weakened in physical force.' (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm#2HCH0022)

In most games, soldiers are not programmed to get tired or shocked from being fired upon, so this is nothing to worry about, as long as they are alive and capable of dealing damage.


3 Achieving numerical superiority through maneuver

Maneuvering is the movement of troops during the battle. If we plan the movements of our units well we can mass superior firepower at some enemy units while avoiding encounter with others. It is like focusing fire on a bigger scale, so that our battalions kill more enemy battalions than he kills. For example, here comes the enemy, at random, in urban terrain.

Here, both sides are of equal strength. The Red enemy will march in our general direction, without regard for a whole lot, by 3 nearby paths. We will send our troops in the two planned areas, where we will have numerical superiority.

The enemy expects us to also march more or less in his way, so he finds his middle group alone, while we are fighting the rest of his army with our full force.

Now his central group, which we kept away from before, is outnumbered by our force and will be destroyed.

I haven't seen this done a lot, probably because it requires too much planning and 'S=vt' calculations and it's easier to just keep the army in one place.

4 The out-calculation nature of wargaming

In this example, nothing prevents the enemy from doing the same. In fact, he may choose to split his force into more than 3 groups and move around in various ways, out-maneuvering us. If he tries to, we should then predict where he may be going – all likely directions – and calculate the direction of our troops in response. In reality, neither person knows all the calculations of the enemy. People attack as soon as it seems advantageous, not knowing how much has the enemy foreseen. As a result, whoever has pre-planned the most movements wins. In its very basic form, wargaming is about out-calculating the enemy.

I imagine real war is a lot like this, too. Napoleon, at least, would plan campaigns and movements in great detail, making himself prepared for anything and assuring his battalions, when on the battlefield, will be supported by other battalions and so on. It worked well enough.

5 Achieving numerical superiority through surprise

When a player moves his army around the map and sees an enemy army coming his way, he moves away if the army is stronger. He attacks if the army is weaker and the odds are favorable. Some games have ways to make troops invisible (WarCraft3, BFME2, etc.) and we can thus hide half our army. If we then parade the visible half in front of other players, they will usually pursue and can be led to the hidden troops. There, the enemy suddenly faces superior numbers and we have a sudden advantage in numbers. People seldom use this, even if the game allows it, but it deserves a mention.

6 Strategy of the central position

Strategy of the central position is a method used by Napoleon that allowed him to defeat even numerically superior enemies. Applicable when the enemy is split in parts that we can defeat, it consists of sending small units to delay enemy groups while we deal with one. If the enemy was coming in two columns of 10 000 each, Napoleon would slow down one with a detachment of 3-4000 and engage the other with 16-17000. The first column was delayed by the French and so Napoleon would destroy the second one before marching to help his heavily outnumbered detachment. Thus, he maintained an economy of force (Dupuy 1984:163). Napoleon used something similar on a large scale during his last 100 days. When France was about to be invaded from all sides and Napoleon simply didn't have enough armies to win everywhere, he dispatched smaller units to Spain and on the Eastern border while the main big army set to Brussels to defeat Wellington first, followed by the Prussians further away and so on.

http://napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/img/map_France_1815.gif


A variation of this was used by the Wehrmacht by the end of WW2. When the Red Army was approaching Warsaw, the Polish resistance rose against the Germans in August 1944. The Poles were driven back and eventually divided in several separate areas in the city centre. The divided Polish groups were all pinned down and the Germans overrode them one by one during September. Like Napoleon, the Germans maintained an economy of force by only trying to overrun (and succeeding) the Poles one island at a time. Similarly, we want to try to divide the enemy force in manageable groups, as much as the game mechanics allow it, and overpower each group one by one.

http://www.warsawuprising.com/images/map3b.jpg



CALCULATIONS

Time    Friendly dps             ENY dps
1    30 – 2.5* = 27.5        25 – 3 = 22
2    27.5 – 2.2 = 25.3        22 – 2.8 = 19.2
3    25.3 – 1.9 = 23.4        19.2 – 2.5 = 16.7
4    23.4 – 1.7 = 21.7        16.7 – 2.3 = 14.4
5    21.7 – 1.4 = 20.3         14.4 – 2.2 = 12.2
6    20.3 – 1.2 = 19.1        12.2 – 2 = 10.2
7    19.1 – 1 = 18.1        10.2 – 1.9 = 9.3
8    18.1 – 0.9 = 17.2        9.3 – 1.8 = 7.5
9    17.2 – 0.8 = 16.4        7.5 – 1.7 = 5.8
10    16.4 – 0.6 = 15.8        5.8 – 1.6 = 4.2
11    15.8 – 0.4 = 15.4        4.2 – 1.6 = 2.6
12    15.4 – 0.3 = 15.1        2.6 – 1.5 = 1.1
13    15.1 – 0.1 = 15        1.1 – 1.5 = -0.4


* this number is the average amount of dps we lose after our fleet is shot by the enemy. 25 enemy dps is applied to our ships. Each ship has 10 hp, so when our fleet takes 25 points of damage, we lose an average of 2.5 ships for the purpose of simplification.