We’re deep in crunch right now which unfortunately hasn’t left a lot of time for blogging. However, for those interested in how things work under the hood, I thought I’d make a quick post on some of the work we’re doing updating the flanking mechanics for Rome.Flanking plays a critical role in tactical combat in Hegemony. Along with logistics, it’s a great equalizer between heavy and light units and also emphasizes the importance of the terrain and battlefield formations.
In Gold, we calculated flanking by comparing attack angles between units. While this worked most of the time, it could run into trouble when units became overly engaged. In Rome, the new system calculates a bounding polygon created by the attackers and then checks the percentage of the enemy that falls within it. Once roughly 3/4 of a brigade is enclosed by attackers then we consider that brigade flanked and they start losing morale.
In the screenshot above, the legions aren’t flanked yet, but you can see how the polygon is extending around the Gaul at the bottom of the screen and will eventually enclose the Romans. In the shot below, you can see two Roman skirmishing units successfully flanking a larger brigade of Gallic Spearmen. As in Gold, the buff above a unit indicates when they are receiving a flanking penalty.
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