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Lexander's Tactics: Teamwork, A Combat Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Now that I am all feeling sick and am at home this morning trying to both work and not much feeling like it, I can continue my long posts over various things. Those who have played with and against me are no doubt wondering how I can even begin to profess to claim knowledge when my teams are constantly feeling the smack down. All I can say is, you learn a lot when you lose.

The one completely obvious fact from the various disasters that I have observed is that teamwork is the key to victory in any and all 4v4 games. It's all fine a dandy to have great tactics, great ideas, and great skill, but you can never have more than 20 companies while your enemies can have as many as 80. All the finesse in the world won't stop 80 companies, even if your companies are the best 20 you could create (now, some really great player will no doubt prove this statement wrong, but your chances aren't very good).

In my previous post on non-combat teamwork, I delved into the theory that teams could, in some respects, treat everything they have as a group commodity, and even exchange large amounts of it amongst themselves. As has been pointed out by my friends, this is not completely practical. In reality, it isn't (for various reasons that might be worthy of another post), but you can move closer to that maximum each game.

However, teamwork in combat is considerably easier for everybody involved, if simply because the concept of getting together and beating up on somebody else stirs the hearts of bullies, toughs, and all round nice guys everywhere. There are few pleasures greater in Kohan than defeating that big ugly enemy city and all of us want to pitch in for the big win. Sometimes, however, we have a little trouble getting to that point.

In my experience, team combat has the following basic themes:

1. Forming large armies
2. Flanking/encircling enemy units
3. Raiding weak points
4. Defending threatened areas
5. Breaking a defense

FORMING LARGE ARMIES

Kohan is won by taking the cities of the enemy. There are many steps required to get to that point, but the loss of cities is the final road to defeat. However, the defender in Kohan has a number of advantages that must be overcome (city militia, outposts, closer to supply, and often a better position). This generally means you must attack with superior numbers or must attack where the enemy is unable to defend. The latter will be discussed later, but the former involves bringing superior numbers and/or firepower to the point of contact. This is where teamwork really starts to show it's importance. The reality is that unless one side or the other has gotten a strong economic head start (another aspect of teamwork), both sides should be able to field roughly the same firepower. Even if one side is ahead, I have seen many situations where good defense takes advantage of the militia, any outposts, and the superior sight radius of cities and neutralizes the superior numbers of the enemy, and it can be tough to retreat out units caught in flanks and far from home. Attack all but requires a heavy concentration of firepower at the point of attack (chosen by the attacker if at all possible) and that means you need to get several players together and form the attack as a whole. The enemy will be trying to do the same thing against you, and the faster and smoother you can coordinate, the more likely this goal will be met. Mass your firepower at the point of attack, and crush the enemy.

FLANKING / ENCIRCLING ENEMY UNITS

One real advantage of team play is that it essentially brings several brains to the table instead of one. This is extremely helpful when trying to setup complex flanking movements. Flanking is perhaps one of the most basic moves in the game, and works even against clumping because the goal is not just to hit the support units but to cut off the options of the flanked force. In Kohan, units that make it home alive are fine in a few minutes. Units that are destroyed are expensive to replace and often not available where needed fast enough. What I am talking about here is the ability of teams to execute large encirclements that are often difficult to execute alone. The better players can do it, but some of us need a bit of help, and a team of players can often do some beautiful things in this respect.

Remember, the problem facing the attacker is that he is usually some distance from home and losing units can be a real problem. Most support units are vulnerable to flanking, and players will sometimes panic if they are flanked at the right time. Hit him from the flank, or just plain cut off his retreat. Sometimes this only takes a single unit that suddenly appears in the battle at the last moment of defense but which plays a key part in destroying routers.

RAIDING WEAK POINTS

Life is tough in Kohan. You need to attack, and in attacking you leave yourself vulnerable. Often the only real defense you have is your ability to attack yourself. All good defenses, IMHO, are based upon the principle of counterattack. Additionally, you might not have a lot of troops, they might be way away from the battle, but you need to contribute. Often a raid is in order. I am starting to believe it is in the best interests of any team to have one player who has quite a few mobile units just to take advantage of raiding (and to stop the raiding himself). Raiding is all about taking advantage of the fact that the defender can't protect every point in most games. A small number of units can do enormous damage and more importantly tie down a lot of units by attacking the enemy in the rear, or hitting him from the side. Raiding, however, is PART of a team strategy. What you are doing is working with your teammates to create a weak spot in the opponent. Your teammates attack (or defend if it gets to that point) and force the enemy to commit more and more troops to the critical spot. Then you raid. In point of fact, if they know you have raiding forces you might not even succeed, but they will have to devote forces to stopping it. This tactic, used heavily in real war, tends to force an opponent to consider his supply lines and slows down an attack. You are turning a small force into something far bigger than it is, and in doing so making life easier for your teammates.

DEFENDING THREATENED AREAS

Losing cities in Kohan is the beginning of the end. You can usually recover, but the more you lose, the more problems you have. Defense in Kohan is all about coordination. You can't defend everything, at most you can funnel the battle into the point you can defend (outposts are great for this). What I am talking about here is not throwing your forces into the big battle. That is covered above and below. What I am talking about is coordinating to assist the ally who is being attacked from the side, or being raided. It is critical for a team to help a player in trouble. This must be done as quickly as possible. For example, at the beginning of the game it is probably best for the players at the front to receive immediate assistance from those in the back. Throw him a footmen company, some shadelings, some engineers (and build him some outposts), but get troops up to him as fast as you can. That will go a long way to stopping those rushes and will allow him the freedom to expand (and the players at the front need to move forward as hard and as fast as they can, defense is all about keeping him away from your cities and moving forward is the best way). Later in the game, keep some dragoons in reserve and send them wherever somebody is threatened. On this topic, it is best if all teams have some mobility. Sometimes you can actually stop the big enemy attack at first, but if you can slow it down at all you might be able to stop it before the bleeding gets too serious. Mobility is important for quickly blunting raids/attacks while the slower stuff gets to the point of contact. You can use Grenadiers for local defense and for attack, but you can't expect them to help out an ally in trouble. Stabilize the front, buy yourself time while the big attack breaks the enemy. As a side note, armies have to travel to the front, gold doesn't. Give money to the player in trouble.

BREAKING A DEFENSE

The final point of teamwork is to break the enemy. In truth, the best possible defense is to be surrounding your enemy taking his cities. That kind of defense works like a charm. In every game of Kohan I have played, the winning side advanced and defeated the capacity of the other side to defend themselves. This is where teamwork pays off. There are many ways to attack an enemy (diversion, flank, encircle, raid) but all of them are designed to break the ability of the enemy to defend. A very, very important thing to understand is often the margin of victory is one or two companies. Yes, you are building, yes, your army will be available in just a minute BUT SO WILL THE ENEMY'S. Your companies are needed now, and they are often the margin of victory. Don't hesitate, don't start thinking of yourself, think about the team and think about how badly your forces are needed in that big battle. Those extra companies you are building will be great for defense and may just be needed to help blunt a counterattack when things go wrong. But the right two companies at the right moment can decide the winner of the game.

Once again, there is nothing new here. The point of this is that any player who joins a team game should see himself as contributing in some way to the five things above. If you are going econ, some of your money needs to be going to your allies so they achieve these goals. If you can, armies are really good too, particularly when they are short on companies. Trade cities, give gold, build troops, but think about how you are achieving the things above. Don't think of just yourself, because if you do when they get to you your 20 companies won't be enough.