Mongols spread out as a bunch of single units. It lead to a very confusing combat. No idea which units to expect in the combat or not.

It wasn't just that like ... the mongols spread out and just ... like there's an area for reinforcements but not a unit cap so it's ... it shouldn't be, but it is confusing. And like how many different sides units come from.

Actually had a war vs Huns being Mongol myself. While I used 2 stacks of 4 units, they rarely used 2 units in one stack. I suppose that's a tactic? Once they initated a battle with 1 unit to gain the upper hand of first move (I generously agree to fight vs 1 unit with 8 of mine) and during that single move AI summoned to the battle like 5 more hunnic horse archers.

There was another problem of that massive spread out. Chasing down of those 1-unit army is a pain. And sometimes trait RETREAT wasn't working properly. They were able to retreat twice in a row.

I recall huge problems with always retreating AI in endless space 1. I hope they will fix it like thay did it in ES2

Isn't it kinda the point, that reinforcements are supposed to be a surprise unless you scout out the enemy and thus gain valuable knowledge of their composition?

Surprise is one thing. Confusion ... doubt about a mechanic is another.

AWM wrote:

Actually had a war vs Huns being Mongol myself. While I used 2 stacks of 4 units, they rarely used 2 units in one stack. I suppose that's a tactic? Once they initated a battle with 1 unit to gain the upper hand of first move (I generously agree to fight vs 1 unit with 8 of mine) and during that single move AI summoned to the battle like 5 more hunnic horse archers.

I do think it was a mistake to allow reinforcements to act on the first turn of combat just like any other unit. It really devalues the army size bonuses if you could spread out your troops and it's actually more tactically viable to do so anyway.

Right. Yes. Good point!

Laliloluhla wrote:

AWM wrote:

Actually had a war vs Huns being Mongol myself. While I used 2 stacks of 4 units, they rarely used 2 units in one stack. I suppose that's a tactic? Once they initated a battle with 1 unit to gain the upper hand of first move (I generously agree to fight vs 1 unit with 8 of mine) and during that single move AI summoned to the battle like 5 more hunnic horse archers.

I do think it was a mistake to allow reinforcements to act on the first turn of combat just like any other unit. It really devalues the army size bonuses if you could spread out your troops and it's actually more tactically viable to do so anyway.

Yes, that seems like a big oversight.  It really nerfs Rome and would seem to encourage carpet of doom behaviour.

Reinforcements are a double edged sword.
The attacker can completely disable any reinforcements and pick your units off one at a time.
So it's balanced in my book. After all you decide when to attack.

It's also a matter of strategy on the map.
I like it they way it is right now, it brings depth.

I must be missing the research. I never noticed there was a tech required for reinforcements. (In Endless Legend they were either default from the beginning or by the time I had two troops I always had it.) That would explain why I keep failing to have reinforcements.

PS: What technology allows reinforcements? I'm not seeing anything obvious listing that as a perk in my tech tree.

Raederle wrote:

PS: What technology allows reinforcements? I'm not seeing anything obvious listing that as a perk in my tech tree.

It's under Organized Warfare.

Raederle wrote:

PS: What technology allows reinforcements? I'm not seeing anything obvious listing that as a perk in my tech tree.

The technology after masonry with the two dudes doing military training. There should be an X of swords symbol on that technology card, that when hovered over, reveals a tooltip that says that allows reinforcements to be a thing.

Found it. Organized Warfare required for reinforcements.

Yeah I've noticed that for three games in a row I forgo calendar which is pretty essential to early economy (especially on the Egyptians, haha) to research down the military tree to that tech. 

So it looks like the reinforcement confusion happened because of the following. During an initial engagement with the Mongols you can end up almost surrounded. But I think on closer examination of my own uses of reinforcement it does seem like you're only supposed to be have one tile of reinforcement. Maybe there is a bit of a bug with the carpet of units but I think it was just that I couldn't really be sure amongst such a carpet of initial opponents where the reinforcements were coming from. 

I'm not sure it does but I think there is a slight bias toward the enemy AI retreating during auto resolve when the enemy ai has fewer units overall.