Topic: Aftermath of battles

[Strategy]

I debated a bit on whether to place this in the history forum, but it ended up here instead, as I guess this may lead to a game design discussion eventually.

As you may know if you've read all the posts on the forum closely, the Imperium battle game is intended to have a pre-battle phase, allowing you some control over how, when and where a battle is joined (or taking it away from you ).

Prompted by discussion elsewhere, I've recently thought a bit on whether there should also be an "after-battle" phase - and what, in fact, controls the aftermath of battles. What makes the difference between a phyrric victory and Pharsalus?

I already have some ideas on this, but I'd be interested in hearing your views.

Pre-conceived notions should be left at the door please. I'm primarily interested in what the historical evidence indicates as trends, not impressions based on single battles.

[Philj]

I'd have said this is where the availability of fresh cavalry (or chariots) comes.  Out of period but:
fresh cavalry - the use of Murat who missed the battles at Jena-Auerstadt;
nowhere to go - Cannae
in hostile unfamiliar territory - Varus
In contrast some conditions can mitigate losses:
the existence of mercenaries/troops with own agenda and able to negotiate a favourable outcome - Gabiene
nightfall - Salamis, Severus (governor of Lower Germany vs Arminius and Cherusci)
nature of ground - Flaminius vs Philip Aous

[Strategy]

Hmm - but did ancient commander's maintain a cavalry reserve for pursuit? From my reading, this seems not to have been the case; rather in fact, it was important to maintain a cavalry reserve in case the enemy should suddenly decide not to rout (Onasander, IIRC). Would be interested if anyone knows of some cases where a reserve were used for pursuit.

Skirmishers of course seem to have been often used for pursuit. Being rather inglorious, we do not read much about them in most battles.

We know that troops often routed back to their camps; however, equally often we read that the enemy simply stormed the camp following the battle. Why didn't this always happen?

[Latro]

Hi, just found out about this game and would like to add my 2 cents.

Storming a fortified camp:
I guess that fatigue plays a large part.
The heavy infantry will be largely useless after running around in full kit all day, with the added stress of a combat situation.
Getting them up and moving again as a cohesive fighting force would be quite difficult, I think.
New orders would have to be issued to all commanders, who must then get their men in position and prepare to attack a fortified position.
So if the storming is a not a natural follow up of the fleeing troops it will take a bit of planning and rest before it can be undertaken.
But then not all camps used to be fortified, an unfortified camp filled with treasure would give any soldier wings to storm it, no matter how fatigued.

With regards to overall pursuit;
There would not necessarily need to be a special pursuit unit of (reserve) cavalry. After a good and proper victory the victor would have days to comb the countryside for any lingering enemy soldiers.
If the enemy could withdraw in good order, with enough cavalry and/or light troops to protect the retreat, casualties over the resulting days would be far less than in a complete rout. Where we have the cavalry well on it's way home and small groups of heavy infantry hiding out in the country.

The level of victory attained over the enemy might therefore be taken into consideration when calculating the number of casualties resulting from pursuit.
Maybe you could askif:
The enemy cavalry routed off the field?
Does the army make it to camp or did they scatter in all directions?  
Is the camp fortified?
How far away are  friendly walled cities?
How much cavalry/ Lt inf. does the victor have?

[Strategy]

Some good points (I would tend to think so, since I agree with most of them   ).

I've been wondering whether it would make sense to have a "post-battle" game, just as there is a "pre-battle" game. However, I'm not convinced there are enough decisions to make after the battle (e.g., due to fatigue of the troops).

Thanks for the comments, and keep them coming.

[Philj]

As well as fatigue, I'm not sure if there is enough control after a battle - particularly if there is a camp lying there for the taking.  I get the impression with seiges that it would take an inordinate amount of control to stop troops sacking a city.  If the main profit of a soldier on campaign was how much booty he could take home, your main pursuit troops (the lights) are more likely to drift toward stealing a man's potable treasure than chasing him and miss out.

[Gwydion]

Regarding the aftermath of ancient battles, one of the most common misconceptions regards the role of cavalry. I'm not denying that a cavalryman has an easier time riding down routed troops, but victorious infantrymen could have a heyday as well.
There are numerous examples of defeated forces being comprehensively smashed by predominantly infantry armies: all Republican Roman great victories, late hellenistic battles (when cavalry to infantry ratio reached an all-time low),...
The key there is when the cohesion and leadership (derivating from the former) of an army is broken: at this time, the victors can smash them piecemeal, or corral them and force a surrender (a fairly typical hellenistic outcome for a defeated phalanx).
An important effect of winning is usually to seize the enemy camp, including supplies, money (for paying the troops) or even bounty amassed (see the Argyraspids at Gabiene). With predominantly mercenary (or mercenary-minded, as in any civil war) armies, this in effect was much more efficient than pursuing and killing every single enemy, as this often led to your enemy's forces joining yours, and himself (if he survived) being left with little or no forces, and nothing with which to pay or raise new troops.
Gwydion

[Strategy]

I don't disagree with you (about the misconceptions) - I also don't find much evidence to suggest that the cavalry was the big difference. I wonder, however, whether one could not argue that "comprehensively smashing", among other factors didn't depend on having a light infantry reserve?

E.g., after the battle of Ilipa, Scipio Africanus pursues the remains of the Carthaginian army with his cavalry and light troops.

Anyway. I'm beginning to lean toward a five-stage end of battle sequence.

1. If loser has fortified camp, the army "retreats" to the camp. Otherwise, 5(a).
2. The victor gets the choice to storm the enemy camp immediately (simple yes/no); if the player selects no, he retires to his camp and the battle ends - 5(b) , otherwise the victor immedately attempts an assault.
3. If the victor attempts an assault, the army attempts to carry the enemy fortifications immediately. Relative cohesion and fatigue of units is most important here. If the assault fails, go to 5(b).
4. The loser's baggage is captured. Any mercenary units (provided the victor also use mercenaries) or units of the same nationality as the victor in the loosing army will take a loyalty check to determine whether they surrender and change sides - all other units rout.
5.
(a) The loosing army flees from the area. All non-routed cavalry and light infantry in the victorious army will have a chance to kill enemy troops. How effective they are at this depends on their state of fatigue + discipline (low discipline troops prefer to plunder the camp). Routed units suffer additionally from straggling and desertion.
(b) The loser withdraws from the area in good order. Any units routed in the battle suffer losses from straggling and desertion as he retreats.

This is likely to have several effects.
- Disciplined armies with strong light infantry + cavalry components (e.g., Roman and Carthaginians) are going to be rather effective at wiping out enemy armies when they win.
- Civil war battles will tend to see armies changing sides when they loose.

Comments?

[Gwydion]

I largely agree. I have one important concern however: this sequence hinges on the defeated army camp.
I believe this is an essentially Roman concept. Hellenistic armies were known to build marching camps, but nothing like the temporary fortresses the legionaries built every evening.
From what I read of hellenistic battles, camps were not places which you could defend effectively.
I would rather place the crux on the degree of disorder and the quality of (remaining) leadership in the losing army. If the troops hold together, they usually can withdraw relatively unscathed (not an easy feat, usually requires an elite core and/or exceptional leaders); if not, they rout and are massacred and/or dispersed.
Regarding the role of cavalry and light inf, I think the immediate aftermath can see all troops in order (including heavy inf) taking part in the slaughter, while light troops (cav and LI) would pursue, that means scouring the countryside and harassing the retreating columns.
The idea of keeping forces in reserve for the pursuit seems strange: I never read anything like this in this period. Reserves were rare in these times, usually meant to be used for an opportunity strike (heavy cavalry, see Gaugameles or Paraitakene) or to bolster a faltering part of the line (heavy or medium infantry, see Granicos or many Roman battles). When we read of re-deploying troops from one sector to another, it was usually taking troops from a quiet sector to shift them to another.
As of the role of the legionary camp, I would treat it as giving a bonus to a defeated Roman army to keep cohesion, but it would be of no use in a catastrophic situation: see Cannae, where the Romans were slaughtered in the open field.
MGR

[Strategy]

Well, light infantry/skirmishers seem almost by default to have been kept in reserve during the main battle itself - at least in the sense that we only rarely hear of them being used during the battles themselves (unless there is rough ground to be seized or elephants to be driven off).

Cannae is one of the few battles where the skirmishers are known to be active during the battle itself; but other than that, I don't know of any good examples. So in that sense, I think one could argue that ancient armies kept a reserve (since skirmishers often constituted 1/5 to 1/3 of the army).

I don't think the army camp concept should worry you though; the differences between the various armies is easily handled by assigning different "defensive" values to the army encampments used by different nations. And all (well almost all) armies did have camps - even if it was just a simple wagon-lager like the Celts and Germans tended to have.

Cannae - well, that battle will be one heck of a challenge to model.   I'm not currently happy with the battle system mechanisms, but once I completed debugging the current version, I'll let you guys (those who are interested, anyway) play around with it a bit for some feedback, and I'll see which direction to develop it in.

[Gwydion]

I don't quite agree on this use of light troops. There are many instances of these being used in battle. The most common is in a "pre-battle" of skirmishers, allowing the main (heavy) forces to deploy (hopefully with a degree of concealment), drive off enemy elephants and, possibly, create some disorder in the enemy line to prepare the charge of your own side.

Light troops were also used for covering wings (when you had nothing better; this was usually a liability, except maybe on high ground) or for outlanking maneuvers (seizing the enemy camp (Gabiene) or turning an enemy strong position through mountain defiles). Light cavalry could be reasonably effective in a refused wing (as long as you didn't expect them to bear the brunt of an enemy effort for too long), especially as they often managed to draw enemy heavy cavalry into a headlong pursuit when they had to "break".

Again, I never read much evidence (and certainly no systematic one) of reserves of light troops being kept, unless you consider those bodies of irregular suppletives which were useless in battle (and thus not engaged), but were prone to go on a pillaging frenzy once the battle was won...

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least one large battle where light troops (Arabs, ...) were included in a battle line: Raphia. I consider such non-skirmisher light or medium infantry were used as extensions of the phalanx line, linking the rigid (but not static, certainly not) phalanx to the cavalry wings.

MGR

[Strategy]

I'd agree on the screening of deployment part and the driving away of enemy elephants, but I've yet to find any good examples to indicate that light infantry skirmishers were much used to create disorder in the enemy battleline in set piece battles. The only good examples I can think off are battles in which the attacked side stayed in a fixed defensive position - Telamon and Mt Magaba (Manlius vs Galatians, 188 BCE).

The most common use that I've see is for the skirmishers to screen the deployment and then be withdrawn almost simultaneously. Alternatively, the skirmishing lines would fight for a time in front of the two armies and then be withdrawn - usually to dissappear from the rest of the battle account. Since I would assume that they were not just allowed to take the rest of the day off, this implies some form of reserve role - at least to me. The Velites in the Roman legion (according to Livy) were usually withdrawn back to link up with the Triarii, which would imply - I think - that they were expected to try and support the triarii in the event that the army had to withdraw.

I have no problem with light cavalry having too many other uses for them to be kept as a reserve during a battle (I think the game system should reflect that already); my interest is more with the uses (or lack of them) of skirmishers infantry once the initial clash is over.

Regarding Raphia, I would tend to classify the Arabs as non-skirmish infantry; warband-style troops rather than skirmishers. So they don't quite qualify for the discussion, IMO.

[Gwydion]

All right, if we limit this discussion to the role of skirmishers, then this is how we modelled them:

- they are useful in all non-pitched battles (harassment, sieges, ...)

- they help screen battle deployment and play a key role in deciding whether elephants will be effective

- when they comprehensively dominate their counterparts, they have a chance to disrupt slightly enemy cohesion (through their missiles; more effective against lightly equipped troops such as Celts or Asians, not much against a phalanx)

- they contribute (as any other infantry) to pursuit

And that's it! You may consider that, during the battle, they provided some sort of cover on the flanks, but that's debatable (not much about them in the sources)

Note that Roman Velites are a special brand of skirmishers, as they wore nearly full legionary equipment, and were thus capable of engaging in regular combat (but not prioritarily).

All in all, I think that's actually quite close from what you envision, without bringing in that annoying "reserve" bit.  

[Philj]

I agree that teh two of you are very close.  Unfortunately I don't know if we have a technical turn for tropops that hang around.  I guess teh implication of "reserve" is that it can be used.  Light troops appear to just "be" rather than be useful.  

On a slightly tangental line, I'm getting a feeling that there is this continuum of non-battleline people around the scene - the designated light troops, servants who may have some role etc, and then other camp followers.  Stuck in my head is a description of female gauls/celts helping out with teh slaughter.

[Strategy]

Gwydion
I don't think I've been saying anything about purposefully maintaining a reserve for pursuit. But if you pull them back (as was historically done), then you're essentially creating a reserve of some sort for the pursuit - i.e., they contribute more to the pursuit, since they are rested, whereas most of your other infantry and cavalry would be tired from fighting.

Unless you send them out to the flanks, or let them run back to the camp, or whatever the skirmishers did once the men get down to fighting.

No need to use the R-word.  

Representing skirmishers properly in the game without them increasing the length of battles significantly is something of a problem though. Am currently experimenting with several different models.

[Apollonius of Tyre]

Hmmmm.

What goodies could you expect to find in a defeated enemy's baggage train?

Food certainly, arms and armour, maybe money if the defeat were so comprehensive that the leadership ran off without it, and perhaps....

the prize of prizes... the family and household of your opponent!

[Gwydion]

What goods?

I'm more familiar with the High Hellenistic Period, but I presume it wasn't much different with any civil war: long-standing veterans tended to amass a considerable wealth through wages, looting, prizes... As they usually had no opportunity to go home or send these treasures home (one reason why there was such an important number of camp followers, including wives/companions, children, servants,...), they brought this along.

Hence, after a comprehensive victory, the victor usually captured a lifetime of earnings and the families of defeated troopers... a good way to turn them around!

Taking your enemy's treasure or family (but rulers' families were usually safely back home) was a good thing, but taking away its veteran troops was the real prize!