I got into a conversation yesterday that about blew my mind. I started with a simple premise, which is that the value of a formation depends on the assumptions that you've made about the field that formation is fighting in. That a formation is only good or bad based on the context it's used in. Then I spent about 3 hours defending that statement from a person who said "I agree with you" and then talked for 20 minutes about how I was wrong. So rather than run circles in my own head trying to parse their logic, let me just lay this out instead for everyone else's benefit. Perhaps you'll benefit from that discussion more than they did.
Strategy
The lead in to the whole conversation was a course on small unit tactics taught by the venerable Sir Kyrian Hawksword. Everything he said I pretty much agreed with though I often phrase the same concepts differently. But the main sticking point in the conversation I got into afterwards was a fundamental concept of what is strategy? From my own perspective, and especially if you've read my post on Doing Math, then you know it's about finding ways to respond appropriately to your situation. If you have a local advantage because you have better numbers, more experience or advantageous gear then you aggressively push your advantage. If you have a disadvantage then you find ways to mitigate it by doing things like giving up ground as slowly as possible or trying to take actions that make your situation better. That might mean legging a fast opponent, it might mean sacrificing a person to take out a polearm, there are all sorts of examples. There isn't really a "right" strategy because it all hinges on context. While being inactive and waiting for your opponent to come to you is generally not something I'd advise because it's usually better to be proactive, if your context is that you're defending a point that's walled in then that's exactly what you SHOULD do. So even thoughts about strategy that apply pretty generally are not absolute.
Decision Making
Over the course of the fight you do have to make some decisions which means that whether or not you're choosing to you're actively exercising SOME strategy. Even the decision to sit in one place and wait to do something is a strategy that has some benefits and some drawbacks. In web development we call decisions that you've made design decisions. It means that knowing that you can't optimize for every conceivable case with one design layout so you choose what audience or what case you've designed your experience for to make it the best possible experience for that audience/case. Fighting works the same way. No serious strategy is universally applicable which means you're choosing to optimize for some specific case. When you're able to cause that case to happen then your strategy (usually) works and when you can't cause that case to happen then you've placed yourself at disadvantage.
As two sides of one example, say you have 2 shields and a spear working together. That group can make one of two primary design decisions if they're in the center of the line. They can either, be aggressive, having the shields and the spear make coordinated attacks against front line targets to try and clear them quickly OR the shields can be largely defensive while the spear attempts to work over the people it out ranges. Being aggressive is a high risk, high reward strategy. If you're successful you'll punch through the enemy line quickly because of the aggression. However if you're unsuccessful then you'll collapse your OWN line because once your shields fall that polearm becomes easy pickings. The defensive option is good because it is LOW risk. While you may not clear people very fast, the shields are in little danger from anyone except other polearms, and the fact that they're focused on defense gives the spear they're protecting a high degree of cover to operate as well. There are other considerations like the skill level of your fighters, high risk high reward scenarios tend to be better executed with more experienced fighters since they tend to have a better chance of pulling it off. Meanwhile low risk tactics tend to be good for newer fighters because reducing their risk while operating makes it less likely that they get exterminated.
Design Decisions
The relevant point here is that you can't take BOTH stances. You have to EITHER choose to be taking an aggressive stance or a defensive stance. If you're saying that you're doing both, and especially within the context of training people in a unit, and training for both then you've effectively undone the process of making a choice. I am of the opinion that one generally useful bit of advice about tactics is to be proactive. If you make people respond to you rather then having to respond to them you tend to find yourself in a better spot. So it's my opinion that making a design decisions, ANY design decision, is better than not making a design decision in much the same way that making any strategical move is better than sitting and waiting for someone to act on you instead. Even if it's the wrong design decision or the wrong strategy I think it favors you to make a conscious choice.
So when I got into this conversation yesterday that was the thing I kept running into.
ME: "You've just told me you prefer [a low risk strategy] to better leverage your fighters, what happens in a scenario where they are subjected to aggressive flanking?"
ME: "You've just told me you prefer [a low risk strategy] to better leverage your fighters, what happens in a scenario where they are subjected to aggressive flanking?"
THEM: "Well when they're subjected to aggressive flanking they instead employ [a high risk strategy] with the same group of people. I've found that we tend to keep our more experienced fighters on the flank."
This is the same as saying you're attempting to optimize for both a high risk and low risk scenario. It's saying that you're optimizing for both low skilled and highly skilled fighters. Now it's worth noting we were talking about a 3 man team composed of 2 shields and a polearm. It's also worth noting that the aggressive flanking I was talking about tends to happen at the edges of the field. There's also nothing wrong with having your group of people operate differently based on context, or having different people in different areas of the field. But if that's the case you have to differentiate how one group is different from the other group and you have to say how your strategy on the outside is different from your strategy in the center of the line. To say that you operate the same strategy but then have both close ranks and loose ranks, both high and low end fighters, both aggressive independent shields and shields focused on the defense of their polearm is ridiculous.
I could say, for instance, that in the middle of the line my unit mates are going to stack our slow moving, larger fighters, with our less mobile polearms. In this configuration it's more likely that the people with the largest shields and polearms with the longest reach will be clustered in one defensible area that doesn't require them to move around too much to be effective. I could then say that I'd move my fleet of foot fighters, boards, florentines, etc to the outside edges to be aggressive. This makes two clear design decisions. In the middle I'm optimizing for safety and I'm trying to cover the weakness of a lack of mobility by leveraging the strengths of high defense and good reach. On the outside edges I'm making a different design decision to be very aggressive by placing people who are going to move fast and push hard. My bet in the middle falls apart if the line blows open and those people have to suddenly fight at awkward angles. My bet on the outside edges falls apart if the enemy team is very dense there and full of support weapons. But no plan survives a battle so you've got to adapt on the fly.
In my scenario if I find out that the edges are going to be tough I'm going to keep my configuration the same BUT I'm going to have my outside edge change to playing defense instead of offense. By having highly skilled fighters distract or harass a denser group of enemies and support weapons I'm going to be trading numbers so that they commit a large number of resources to a fighting force that refuses to engage them. This SHOULD create an advantage somewhere else on the field. Conversely if the middle of the enemy line is full of soft, fleet of foot targets I'm going to change my teams strategy to absorb a few people from my flanks and then push EXTREMELY aggressively through the center in an effort to take advantage of the numbers disparity set up by one flank babysitting a larger force.
This is the same as saying you're attempting to optimize for both a high risk and low risk scenario. It's saying that you're optimizing for both low skilled and highly skilled fighters. Now it's worth noting we were talking about a 3 man team composed of 2 shields and a polearm. It's also worth noting that the aggressive flanking I was talking about tends to happen at the edges of the field. There's also nothing wrong with having your group of people operate differently based on context, or having different people in different areas of the field. But if that's the case you have to differentiate how one group is different from the other group and you have to say how your strategy on the outside is different from your strategy in the center of the line. To say that you operate the same strategy but then have both close ranks and loose ranks, both high and low end fighters, both aggressive independent shields and shields focused on the defense of their polearm is ridiculous.
I could say, for instance, that in the middle of the line my unit mates are going to stack our slow moving, larger fighters, with our less mobile polearms. In this configuration it's more likely that the people with the largest shields and polearms with the longest reach will be clustered in one defensible area that doesn't require them to move around too much to be effective. I could then say that I'd move my fleet of foot fighters, boards, florentines, etc to the outside edges to be aggressive. This makes two clear design decisions. In the middle I'm optimizing for safety and I'm trying to cover the weakness of a lack of mobility by leveraging the strengths of high defense and good reach. On the outside edges I'm making a different design decision to be very aggressive by placing people who are going to move fast and push hard. My bet in the middle falls apart if the line blows open and those people have to suddenly fight at awkward angles. My bet on the outside edges falls apart if the enemy team is very dense there and full of support weapons. But no plan survives a battle so you've got to adapt on the fly.
In my scenario if I find out that the edges are going to be tough I'm going to keep my configuration the same BUT I'm going to have my outside edge change to playing defense instead of offense. By having highly skilled fighters distract or harass a denser group of enemies and support weapons I'm going to be trading numbers so that they commit a large number of resources to a fighting force that refuses to engage them. This SHOULD create an advantage somewhere else on the field. Conversely if the middle of the enemy line is full of soft, fleet of foot targets I'm going to change my teams strategy to absorb a few people from my flanks and then push EXTREMELY aggressively through the center in an effort to take advantage of the numbers disparity set up by one flank babysitting a larger force.
Closing Remarks
A lot of theory crafting around strategy is based on a certain set of assumption (which I feel like Doing Math outlined pretty well...) because you have to start somewhere. There are a few foundational principles here. The first is that you have finite resources, that is to say you don't have unlimited veterancy, unlimited gear, or unlimited bodies (if so then the conversation REALLY changes). Based on having finite resources it means if you spend resources in one area you by necessity take them away from all other parts of the field. (IE, your one super vet can't simultaneously run the right and left flank). As a result spending your resources wisely means finding ways to create advantages out of things that look like disadvantages. Sure, that fight over there is a 2 v 8 but that group of two is a super experienced melee fighter and a very good spear (say myself and shamus the mystical, or peter the quick and batman). Sure... that group is outnumbered but, they're probably going to murder those 8 randos. Making these decisions then is more about knowing how to manipulate things in your favor so that even with a starting set of similar resources you get more out of your troops then your opponent does out of their troops. As an example, even if the numbers for 2 forces are the same if one has reach and the other doesn't that's an advantage you can employ. If one team has polearms but is slow moving then you can counter by moving quickly, (subject to having the space to move at all).
So the next time you hear someone say they've got the ultimate/best/universal tactic and they aren't joking, you can rest assured they're full of it. Strategy is about making contextual decisions and adapting on the fly. If someone thinks they can win using the same strategy every time then what that tells you is that they aren't actually very good at strategy :-P.
So the next time you hear someone say they've got the ultimate/best/universal tactic and they aren't joking, you can rest assured they're full of it. Strategy is about making contextual decisions and adapting on the fly. If someone thinks they can win using the same strategy every time then what that tells you is that they aren't actually very good at strategy :-P.
So, what I'm hearing is that the best ultimate universal tactic is defeating in detail through understanding what the favorable matchups are and using appropriate force economy. Which is wrong, but I kinda want to tweak your buttons on this one anyways ;)
ReplyDeleteLet's get another essay on where the above fails.