HistWar
HistWar (English zone) => General discussions => Discussion démarrée par: Mr. Doran le 23 mars 2019, 13:48:31 pm
-
I've noticed my corp commanders seem to be very fond of letting their guns be sabered despite having ample cavalry at their disposal. The most egregious example of this being when an entire corp is only composed of cavalry and artillery with the artillery occupying the front line; when enemy cavalry approaches none of the reserve line is ordered to prevent the taking of the guns. Is there any way to encourage or force the protection of friendly artillery?
-
I've noticed my corp commanders seem to be very fond of letting their guns be sabered despite having ample cavalry at their disposal. The most egregious example of this being when an entire corp is only composed of cavalry and artillery with the artillery occupying the front line; when enemy cavalry approaches none of the reserve line is ordered to prevent the taking of the guns. Is there any way to encourage or force the protection of friendly artillery?
We had an extensive discussion upon that problem already. You may chk the forum about it.
Often the BTYs have enough time to redeploy backwards if there is no support at hand, but the Algo seemed to lack of a "sense" for selfprotection.
For now, I recommend to wait for the completely overworked engine. Until then, you could try to increase the initiative level (0-2, I think; so set 2) of the units or formations, which are supposed to should protect the BTYs and also do more micromanagement.
There is a default level of initiative according the units/commanders traits. By adjusting the initiative, it is possible to vary the default or battle impacted parametres.
I would say, that it is absolutely enjoyable, also without Div and Bde command structure, if certain problems (collisions etc) get resolved. I would also like to see that feature and even more the bataillons as the smallest unit in all OOBs, like "Scourge of War - Waterloo" has.
At least you could create smaller formations in Div size by assigning regiments to other corps. Hopefully there comes the day, that HW receives an upgrade for inferior leaders on the field instead of on the paper only.
-
I was going to start reworking some of the OOBS to be divisional but got discouraged when reading through the manual that each side can only have 11 corp commanders which is obviously no where enough for every division in large OOBs. If the 11 commander restriction is no longer present then I would be more than happy to break up everything to divisional size.
What are your recommended realism settings for having a good time with the condition of being able to and having to micro-manage?
-
I was going to start reworking some of the OOBS to be divisional but got discouraged when reading through the manual that each side can only have 11 corp commanders which is obviously no where enough for every division in large OOBs. If the 11 commander restriction is no longer present then I would be more than happy to break up everything to divisional size.
What are your recommended realism settings for having a good time with the condition of being able to and having to micro-manage?
I mean micromanaging certain regiments is always a choice as long as you havent set 1st person view only for the CiC, but bird view instead. I think the order delay is off when mm regiments. If possible you might exclude those units from AI command and switch them to manual control only as long as you have certain plans for them.
I havent installed HW for a long time until the new version is finished, so I am not really into it.
For the time I use to play Scourge of War - Waterloo mainly on Mutliplayer. This SIM provides all the features you are looking for:
- Huge battles till Army level
- Div and Bde Commanders to issueing orders to
- Every single bataillon is present and accessible
- A very decent AI
- Realism and immersion the way we play it
- We use a great house Mod which improves the UI and gameplay features a lot
Still, HW has its own strenghs, which it can do better than other napolenic warfare SIMs, especially in terms of realism. I am sure, many grognards will return, if and when the reworks succeed.
Until then, you are also welcome to join our SoW MP group. Just give me a PM in case.
-
I used to play KS mod a fair amount. The problem for me with SOW engine is with good modding you can replicate the behavior of infantry very well but the cavalry and artillery aspect have always been painfully lacking with no fault on to those who mod; the engine just is not suited for it. I am not even sure if area bombardments in HW:N can hit multiple units but it seems to have a much better handling of ballistic properties than the SOW engine can ever hope to replicate.
Seeing battalions stacked up right on top of each other with only the lead battalion taking artillery hits eats at my soul. Sometimes the damage gets distributed a bit better but that is by total chance and not design. The fact that a unit is completely immune from artillery fire the moment it becomes hidden in the FOW even if it just centimeters bellow some ground also ate at me. The cav on cav interactions on KS at least were not bad but still lacking; resulting mass casualties of at least one of the regiments involved not being completely uncommon. The only thing that always makes me think back about playing KS again is how well SOW generally handles HITS.
-
I used to play KS mod a fair amount. The problem for me with SOW engine is with good modding you can replicate the behavior of infantry very well but the cavalry and artillery aspect have always been painfully lacking with no fault on to those who mod; the engine just is not suited for it. I am not even sure if area bombardments in HW:N can hit multiple units but it seems to have a much better handling of ballistic properties than the SOW engine can ever hope to replicate.
Seeing battalions stacked up right on top of each other with only the lead battalion taking artillery hits eats at my soul. Sometimes the damage gets distributed a bit better but that is by total chance and not design. The fact that a unit is completely immune from artillery fire the moment it becomes hidden in the FOW even if it just centimeters bellow some ground also ate at me. The cav on cav interactions on KS at least were not bad but still lacking; resulting mass casualties of at least one of the regiments involved not being completely uncommon. The only thing that always makes me think back about playing KS again is how well SOW generally handles HITS.
I see your points. We have to consider, that no SIM is perfect yet. I remember there were serious problems with balistics in HW, especially with batteries behind mountain tops and perhaps wooden areas. I dont remember, if this has been fixed completely.
I wasnt talking about the KS-MOD. People from our group, who were/are also involved in the development of SoW made our house-MOD.
We play HITS, order delay, bare map and full FOW.
If you are interested you could try out our MOD by yourself.
-
If not KS I assume it must be asid's group then. I met him once, he told me about the mod and his community he plays with. I was scaling down the vanilla Waterloo map at the time so it could be played comfortably in KS and in HITS by a small amount of people. Shortly after I completed the thing, with scaled OOB completed as well, the last circuit in me fried for SOW and I could not take the mechanical short comings of the engine any longer. Asid is a pleasant fellow and I suspect we will probably meet on some Napoleonic battlefield some day but it will not be one that SOW has to offer.
I took your advice and tried playing with additional corp commanders added to act as ad-hoc "divisions" along with a lot micromanagement on a divisional level and I can say I had much more fun than trying to let the Grand-Tactical-AI do it for me. The battles seem to flow more logically when the AI is given some level of human aide that is capable of complementing what the AI can do well.
And hello, Lancier!
-
Hi,
Thank you Sandman for your precise answer.
- the visibilty for the new engine is really improved. So I hope the behaviour of Artillery will be very nice.
- the levels Division/Brigade will be implemented in the next release.
- support artillery :
a) at level of initiative 2, units can support another unit without explicite order
b) the order 'support an unit' is the explcite order for protecting an unit
That said, it is a bit confuse for me to share the question between SOW and HW :smile:
Yer some weeks before the new release...
Best Regards
JMM
-
Hi,
...
b) the order 'support an unit' is the explcite order for protecting an unit
...
JMM
Hello JMM.
At this point I´d need some clarification.
As I understood your explanation in the past, the "support an unit" command is good for, that the adressed unit just stays in reserve unil the front unit breaks or falls back to rally, in order to take over the reference unit´s place in the line.
But the recent comment above means, that an adressed unit would actively protect a threatened battery?!
You might also give support regarding the following issue:
5. Is there a configuration file for HW:N that can be edited; if so where is it located? I want to play in a window but the 1920x1080 window ends up not being a 1920x1080 window and would like to input a custom resolution if possible.
Regards
-
Hello JMM.
At this point I´d need some clarification.
As I understood your explanation in the past, the "support an unit" command is good for, that the adressed unit just stays in reserve unil the front unit breaks or falls back to rally, in order to take over the reference unit´s place in the line.
But the recent comment above means, that an adressed unit would actively protect a threatened battery?!
The order "support an unit" allows to really protect the supported unit...
The AI tries to evaluate the threat on the supported unit. For example, if an ENY moves against an ART unit but it isn't in the "cone of fire", the unit in support can charge the ENY...
It is possible to make a string of support: A supports B supporting C.. an so on... There isn't any theorical limit for the lenght of the string.
I hope it is clear.
The process is different in a corp... AI sends an unit from the reserve (2 snd line) for replacind an unit placed in the first line.
It is possible to give a personal size : Take a look at the file...
HistWar root \ Langage \ initDiag.txt
1280 #Largeur
1024 #Hauteur
Retour sur l'ordre de soutien...
De manière générale, l'IA assure une veille permanente pour assurer un minimum de soutien entre les unités. Toutefois, ces actions de soutien sont controlées par le paramètre "initiative". Et le processus peut être totalement inhibé si toutes les initiatives sont à 1 (niveau le plus faible)
L'ordre de soutien est un ordre explicite qui permet de placer une, ou plusieurs unités, en protection d'une unité donnée.
L'unité en soutien évalue la menace sur l'unité supportée et peut charger si cela semble nécessaire.
Par exemple, un adversaire qui n'est pas placé dans le cône de tir d'une unité d'artillerie soutenue devrait être chargé.
Pour info, je dois établir une liste la plus complète possible de tests élémentaires afin de valider toutes ces actions élémentaires.
J'espère pouvoir lancer une nouvelle séquence de beta test dans un mois... voila, c'est dit.
JMM
-
The order "support an unit" allows to really protect the supported unit...
The AI tries to evaluate the threat on the supported unit. For example, if an ENY moves against an ART unit but it isn't in the "cone of fire", the unit in support can charge the ENY...
It is possible to make a string of support: A supports B supporting C.. an so on... There isn't any theorical limit for the lenght of the string.
I hope it is clear.
...
JMM
Perhaps I didnt find it sufficiantly effective and doubted the described function or misunderstood something?!
With string, do you mean:
Battery B is supported by cavalry C, which itself gets supported by infantry Reg I1, while infantry Reg I1 gets supported by infantry Reg I2, and so on?
BTW can a certain unit (battery for exemple) can be supported by more than 1 unit? For now, I would assume that a new support order deletes the previous one?!
-
I'll be back on the code in order to check the behaviour... but the implementation is done...
String... If A supports B, B supports C and so on... If C is threaten, B charges the ENY unit... and if B is threaten, A enter in action...
However, one unit has only one support, no more.
Maybe I have to change the code for a new rule...
C threaten, B attacks the ENY, releasing his support for C in order A can be the new support for C.
At the end of B action, this one becomes a support for A...
A -> B -> C (-> means Support)
B charges : A -> C, B
B -> A -> C
Clear?
That said, sometimes I have to analyse some code wtitten several years ago... sometimes more ten years...
JMM
PS : I have to write a list of tests for the next beta test team in order to verify all basic behaviours.
-
Hi,
Thank you Sandman for your precise answer.
- the visibilty for the new engine is really improved. So I hope the behaviour of Artillery will be very nice.
- the levels Division/Brigade will be implemented in the next release.
- support artillery :
a) at level of initiative 2, units can support another unit without explicite order
b) the order 'support an unit' is the explcite order for protecting an unit
That said, it is a bit confuse for me to share the question between SOW and HW :smile:
Yer some weeks before the new release...
Best Regards
JMM
When you say next release does that mean the GUI patch for Division/Brigade levels to be implemented?
-
Hello,
Indeed, I guess it is one of the most difficult task for JMM is to adjust the level of initiative/aggressity of cavalry units to reach realistic behaviours. Until now the ENY cavalry was a bit too prone to "eat" batteries while the defendind units seemed a bit passive (which could be sometimes normal in case of heavy cav/light Cav : a good reason to limit the number of heavy cav units in the oobs). And also, when deploying a corps forward it seemed to me that the batteries limbered too early and were marching in front without cover.
I have a question: does the supporting units also do their jobs to protect arty while a corps is mooving or marching?
Thx
-
Good evening,
Can't artillerymen be allowed to take refuge in an infantry square if it is nearby: addition of a control button.
Sincerely.
-
It does not seem like it for regular guns. Guns that are deployed near squares or happen to be overlapping by coincidence seem to have a higher survival rate than they otherwise would if they had not been overlapping; but as I said that just seems down to chance. The only guns that are integrated fully into a square are regimental batteries from what I am aware.
It would be nice to have this feature although I do not know on how many accounts it is historical. It must have happened at some point on at least some occasions I imagine. Wellington is cited as saying that he expected his gunners to follow this behavior but instead they often took flight instead.
-
This attitude was common among gunners,
Like placing regimental guns in the corners of infantry squares.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cette attitude était courante chez les artilleurs,
Comme de placer les canons régimentaires dans les angles des carrés d'infanterie.
-
I think we need some additional doctrinal options regarding AI cavalry behavior and protection of artillery. Even with direct support liaised to guns cavalry still can run off and leave their positional guns to die. I feel the AI in general does not hold the same value a player may to it's positional artillery. This can be mitigated by the constant detachment of artillery of all types but I feel it leads to less artillery being deployed due to it's vulnerability and the lack of AI willingness at times to defend it. The most frustrating case of this being when a cavalry corps has significant amounts of horse artillery at it's disposal and simultaneously fails to utilize it and lets it taken.
-
BTW, the AI in SoW Waterloo does a pretty good job protecting the batteries. Also self-protection by redeployment when threatened is a common practice of the game AI. ;)
-
I've played ~500 hours of SOW; given mainly on KS but never the less. Even with what HW:N is lacking I could not be paid to touch SOW again. You can just as easily TC and cheese cavalry into enemy guns with ease even at regimental scale cavalry; with squadron scale cavalry it makes it trivially easy. And it's not like its a problem only relegated to the regular RTS camera. It is more than easy enough to do in HITS. It is so easy to do that Kevin from KS eventually changed it so you could not give direct orders to cavalry units that are TC'd to prevent such abusive behavior. He has programmed some fairly realistic forced AI behavior regarding cavalry but even that is not enough to stop a determined player from TC taking your guns.
-
Hi,
Several functions in the AI are in charge to protect the ART units.
Probably these functions must be tested a lot and must be imprved for a right behaviour.
This behaviour is in the list for checking during the beta test campaign.
JMM
-
I've played ~500 hours of SOW; given mainly on KS but never the less. Even with what HW:N is lacking I could not be paid to touch SOW again. You can just as easily TC and cheese cavalry into enemy guns with ease even at regimental scale cavalry; with squadron scale cavalry it makes it trivially easy. And it's not like its a problem only relegated to the regular RTS camera. It is more than easy enough to do in HITS. It is so easy to do that Kevin from KS eventually changed it so you could not give direct orders to cavalry units that are TC'd to prevent such abusive behavior. He has programmed some fairly realistic forced AI behavior regarding cavalry but even that is not enough to stop a determined player from TC taking your guns.
First of all, from my side there isnt any effort to make you play SoW, even if I got paid for, since you stated you made a certain decision for yourself. The fact that you didnt consider to try the mod and the setup we´re playing, doesnt change anything about it.
Secondly I did SoW for 634 h, much of the time on MP. But thats not the point. Some people gain more insight in 100 h than others in 1000 h.
After all, I disagree with what you alleged. Of course its basically possible that you loose all of your cannons. But thats simply not the case in nearly all of the MP games I had, no matter if larger numbers of Cav squadrons came around or whatever.
The common command for MP is the division. The division mostly has 1-2 batteries. Assuming the human player keeps up overview, does anticipate enemy movement and is skilled enough to use the AI stances properly, he mostly will be able to keep at least a good amount of the cannons.
Furthermore, as I stated in my previous post, if managing the AI-stances correctly, the AI in SoW does a much better job in terms of self protection than the one of the most recent version of HW could. Anyway, thats not relevant, if the human player cares for deployment, redeployment and emergency withdrawing according the principles I mentioned above. At divisional level the subordinated AI is more like a second level reassurance anyway.
Even at corps level, if some divisional AI acts independently, the batteries have a reasonable higher life expectancy than in this version of HW, where complete batteries often get extinguished within one single Cav raid. Most of us know, that it is absolutely normal, that cannons and gunners get lost, destroyed or killed in the chaos of napoleonic battles. And in SoW, apart from AI self protective redeployment, even if Cav squadrons infiltrate the lines, assuming the tactical basics are practiced decently, normally at least parts of the batteries can be remained.
-
Survival rates of artillery under AI hands I think are at least partially responsible ironically in part by the vanilla SOW AI algorithms for cavalry are not as quite as savagely blood thirsty for artillery and not always the most observant or brightest. Where in HW:N they seem hell-bent most of the time at taking artillery whenever there is an opportunity to. The biggest advantage in terms of compassion to survivability that SOW has is that the battery re-limbering operation takes far less time than it does in HW. My complaint stems from not the battery's lack of self-preservation instinct but the fact you cannot grantee mutual support between cavalry. When it does happen it works pretty well. When it doesn't happen you ask yourself why you are being punished. But by the same token, trying to get the AI cavalry algorithms to defend anything in SOW is a total night-mare. KS had some success over the vanilla algorithms but nothing I ever trusted the AI in pulling off on a consistent basis.
As far as TC cheese is concerned we obviously disagree. There are more exploitable behaviors than just trying to TC take someones artillery. The AI's propensity to charge the less than ideal target can be heavily exploited. Charging speed by default is lower than running speed. Once the AI has locked onto a target it tends to stick to it without changing it's target to deal with threats. If it is a cavalry engagement, the unit of cavalry being charged can be given a regular move order at running speed away from its attacker while a second unit is ordered to charge the attacker. With the attacking unit usually responding extremely poorly to the new threat now cutting it to pieces. The same principle works on infantry vs infantry engagements but given it is harder to pull off. Completely massacring battalions of infantry that happen to be on the receiving end of the described is another story though.
-
The addition of two behaviors I think would go a long way in the general survivability :
1. Being able to force the AI to keep it's artillery in the reserve line and by the same virtue allowing it to deploy it at it's discretion. An on/off button button for corp commanders for example. A lot of artillery would not be lost as easily as it can be if AI simply did not chose to deploy it in the forward line in highly inappropriate situations.
2. A doctrinal option that forces the corp command AI to limber its artillery if it has no attached support of cavalry if their is a presence of enemy cavalry.
-
I mentioned already that we always use courier-system. There is no direct immediate control of units.
For exemple, if a direct command is given that includes increased speed or charging, then for the time being, is little chance to change anything as the human player.
So the question is, if we are actually talking about the same basics.
-
We are talking about the same basis as in HITS. If you good at positioning your avatar as close to the front where it needs to be to pull off this type of exploitation the order delay is possible to work with. I am not saying its a 100% surefire can-do-without-fail-operation but is is more than possible to do playing in HITS. It is unfortunately possible for this type of situation to arise even without any human interference just by coincidence of positioning and what the AI Algorithms prioritize and do not prioritize.
-
Well, still the couriers cannot catchup running or hardly in case of charging units (similar regarding subcommanders).
I rarely lost all or a significant number of my cannons to micromanaging pros (coders of mod and game engine among them).
That kind of micromanaging you are talking about, in my experience is far away from 100 % working and often makes you loose attention for development within the big picture.
I dont know the details about the KS mod and didnt use it, but I have been told that it differs in significant manners from our mod.
-
Back to HW : From my recollections, of several hundred MP games, the main problem with artillery batteries being taken by enemy Cavalry was [in my opinion] very simple -
The battery was often deployed too far ahead of the main line, too far away from any support to help out in time.
-
I agree with Gunner, especially when deploying in defense mode, some batteries are send too far in front.
However it seemed that this situation occured in the reality, especially for horse artillery that were deployed attached with a long rope to horses to be removed and limbered quickly in case of excessive threat.
Coming back to the game. One have to bear in mind mind that what is shown in 3D might not correspond exactly to the reality of the simulation. I guess that JMM will confirm that it is not possible to represent all the complexity of a napoleonic battlefield. Normaly it was not a whole regiment that was charging but waves of squadrons and most of the time one regiment was not enough to take a large batterie. It seemed that the batteries were often protected by detached cavalry squadrons or infantry compagnies. According to some readings from soldiers of this time, this duty was feared since they were deployed in line next to the guns or right behind while these latter were often under counterbatteries fire. May be JMM could represent some infantry or cav figures next to the guns in 3D WHEN and only WHEN there is a CAV or INF regiment unit nearby. I any case I was always annoyed to watch these poor lonely gunners in the 3D view.
To me it seems that in the game the vulnerability of the batteries should be adjusted with respect to several factors
1) the density, quality and initiative levels of friendly units nearby
2) the moral of nearby units
3) the number of ENY charges
4) the attacking angle of ENY units (more vulnerabity and moral loss if the batterie is threaten from the side or from behind)
Again it is a all a matter adjustements: in the current version the batteries are far too vulnerables to cavalry raids, even within a corps, but it is important not to go too far on the other extreme. Not easy, but I trust JMM to find the solution.
-
To me it seems that in the game the vulnerability of the batteries should be adjusted with respect to several factors
1) the density, quality and initiative levels of friendly units nearby
2) the moral of nearby units
3) the number of ENY charges
4) the attacking angle of ENY units (more vulnerabity and moral loss if the batterie is threaten from the side or from behind)
Again it is a all a matter adjustements: in the current version the batteries are far too vulnerables to cavalry raids, even within a corps, but it is important not to go too far on the other extreme. Not easy, but I trust JMM to find the solution.
I didn't work on this part since several years... I think I have broken the engine with the last adjustments.
All points listed are in the engine... Probbaly there is a big bug :-(
Before sending the beta test, I have to take a look at this part.
Soon the next step :-)
JMM
-
Back to HW : From my recollections, of several hundred MP games, the main problem with artillery batteries being taken by enemy Cavalry was [in my opinion] very simple -
The battery was often deployed too far ahead of the main line, too far away from any support to help out in time.
Right after that, we have to talk about the 2nd issue: lack of self protection by redepolyment in time.
There are many situations when a commander of an isolated battery realizes soon enough, that remaining the position leads to an irresponsible risk or even to a safe death. In HW unfortunatly batteries often appear to act like kinda passive lemmings.
Not sure, but I think JMM had improved that behaviour in previous patches, but still imo there was a lot more to do to see a more reasonable effect.
-
First of all, from my side there isnt any effort to make you play SoW, even if I got paid for, since you stated you made a certain decision for yourself. The fact that you didnt consider to try the mod and the setup we´re playing, doesnt change anything about it.
Secondly I did SoW for 634 h, much of the time on MP. But thats not the point. Some people gain more insight in 100 h than others in 1000 h.
After all, I disagree with what you alleged. Of course its basically possible that you loose all of your cannons. But thats simply not the case in nearly all of the MP games I had, no matter if larger numbers of Cav squadrons came around or whatever.
The common command for MP is the division. The division mostly has 1-2 batteries. Assuming the human player keeps up overview, does anticipate enemy movement and is skilled enough to use the AI stances properly, he mostly will be able to keep at least a good amount of the cannons.
Furthermore, as I stated in my previous post, if managing the AI-stances correctly, the AI in SoW does a much better job in terms of self protection than the one of the most recent version of HW could. Anyway, thats not relevant, if the human player cares for deployment, redeployment and emergency withdrawing according the principles I mentioned above. At divisional level the subordinated AI is more like a second level reassurance anyway.
Even at corps level, if some divisional AI acts independently, the batteries have a reasonable higher life expectancy than in this version of HW, where complete batteries often get extinguished within one single Cav raid. Most of us know, that it is absolutely normal, that cannons and gunners get lost, destroyed or killed in the chaos of napoleonic battles. And in SoW, apart from AI self protective redeployment, even if Cav squadrons infiltrate the lines, assuming the tactical basics are practiced decently, normally at least parts of the batteries can be remained.
I have to agree with Sandman on this point. The behavior that Mr.Doran describes in SOW can easily be overcome by Darkrob's "Fortress", which is to say guns between squares placed a little to the rear with skirmishers in front of the guns, if the frontline of the skirmishers is in line with the center of the squares it makes the guns and skirmishers impervious to rogue cavalry. Also if you add a cavalry squadron in the proximity of each square it will force any attacking infantry into square also, anything coming near gets blasted by canister and skirmisher fire. The formation takes a lot of practice to perfect but is very effective in SOW Waterloo
-
My point is that you should not have to go through to such an extreme extent to protect yourself from rouge cavalry to begin with.
-
A problem I continuously encounter is that issuing cavalry to support artillery does not guarantee support or protection to artillery. If there was more of a guarantee the amount of guns that would be lost due to no support would go down.
Simultaneously, I think we need the ability to issue a defensive or more passive stance to cavalry corps. The only way to try to get this behavior to pass is by incorporating infantry or artillery into a cavalry corps. Cavalry corps are also not very fond of using their artillery even when given massive amounts of it. I have routinely tested giving a cavalry corp 30+ guns to see if the AI would prefer to use it to wither the enemy away with cannonades but this is quite the rarity. Most of the time they ignore the artillery they have at their disposal and resort to other tactics that tend to get themselves routed rather quickly.
On another note, when issuing a corp commander the bombard order instead of the corp deploying its artillery forward to bombard the enemy it is halted along with all other units in the corp never to be brought forward. This is not a matter of order delay either as they will sit there indefinitely even with order delay off.
When issuing infantry corps, or any corp for that manner, we should be able to specify if we want that corp to bombard the enemy first and for what duration we want the bombardment to last. The AI in general is just not fond of using its artillery for preparatory bombardments.
-
A general AI behavioral change that could go a long way I think would be for the AI to more routinely retreat its artillery and simultaneously for artillery to be more willing to retreat. Horse artillery in particular I find is almost impossible to get it to disengage even when it is detached and the AI is turned off.
Here is a situation I routinely see develop:
(https://i.gyazo.com/61ed53e6e84333e1da0bf855256c5a15.jpg)
A cavalry corp with many horse guns is sent to halt the advance of an enemy infantry corp. The AI cavalry corp commander deploys its pieces forward but the cavalry over time begins to waiver. While many of the horse regiments are in rout the guns still remain static in their forward firing positions highly vulnerable to attack and with no support. I can try to issue a new line of diversion far away from the current area being contested in order to allow the corp to regroup but the problem of course is that the artillery, most of the time, refuses to move at all. By time it decides to fallback, if it at all, the cavalry has already moved far away to the new line of diversion that was issued. There is something incredibly ironic about being able to get cavalry to disengage more easily than artillery.
Solution wise, I think we need:
A) For artillery as a whole (especially horse artillery) to be much more willing to leave its position and fall back without the urge to continually fire or set-up and fire
B) For our AI commanders to issue artillery to retreat if the active amount of non-routing units falls bellow a certain percentage threshold to support and protect its guns.
-
Its one of several issues I would confirm and made me stop playing HW until certain improvements have been done, cos its one of those things which often impact the battle outcome very much.
Even if a CiC conducted a very successful battle plan, several shortcomings of the engine/gameplay often ruin the whole performance.
At least detaching and setting direct control for single units (better subformations) should ultimatively resolve the issue. Direct control means the complete absence of AI interference, but in fact thats not what we get.
There is an alternative napoleonic battle Sim I use to play, which gives me direct control if ordered. As dicussed before, there I am able to actively prevent situations of isolated lemming batteries.
-
Another visual example of how far the cavalry can have moved away to a new ordered position while the artillery is still firing. The guns deployed forward never end up attempting to retreat; cavalry were moving towards the new line for over 20 minutes by this point.
(https://i.gyazo.com/a01e5ffffac5cfeec100ce611c0076c3.jpg)
-
There were some fantastic feats of bravery by those of the horse artillery during the Napoleonic Wars. But I think this might be a bit too brave...
Circumstances are a cavalry corp attached to the rear in support to an infantry corp. I notice that this type of behavior happens quite often. Foot artillery generally behaves relatively rationally but the occurrence rate of unnecessary redeployment needs to be made less. When they redeploy it is often just barely a distance away from their original position; the time it takes to unlimber and limber adds up often ending in a fatality for the battery.
(https://i.gyazo.com/4c70c9debea14c81c121c3a7aee8a796.jpg)
(https://i.gyazo.com/349886bc8d11aa2133f4b85976236c02.jpg)
-
I've noticed another rather undesirable behavior. You issue a bombard order to a battery and they go to that area, unlimber, and then begin to fire if there are targets. What is bad, is they have a tendency to re-limber if there is not a target immediately available even with the AI is turned off.
-
My point is that you should not have to go through to such an extreme extent to protect yourself from rouge cavalry to begin with.
Due to various questionable submissions regarding the functionality of Scourge of War - Waterloo, it is my intention to come back to this discussion again.
From my experience, it is still a good means, but not necessary to try to build a complex artificial formation to avoid cavalry raids on artillery batteries. The self-protection of the AI battery commanders has been well implemented. In estimated at least 60% of the cases, the artillery withdraws in time, unless the aggressor is intercepted by cavalry anyway.
In about 20 to 30% of cases, more or less high losses occur. A complete extinction is the exception and is anyway only in a variety of squadrons into consideration.
I think that's about realistic.
As far as high losses in batteries by cavalry raids should be the rule, so I have to assume faulty settings.
If the AI or even a human player in multiplayer battles selects the setting "hold to the last" or a very aggressive stance, then the artillery in question will experience excessive passivity or, in the latter case, excessive risk-taking. The same applies, if a human player keeps the battery under direct control. It seems very well, that the AI of divisional or reserve arty, set their batteries to "hold to the last" stance. This should always be checked and adjusted accordingly.
Recommended for effective self-protection on the part of the AI is a medium stance such as "defend" or "probe". To make sure the cannons being secured in case of closing Cav, it is also possible to give order to move them manually or order an emergency withdrawal, if the certain battery is part of the own OOB.
-
Hello,
Short information...
I am working on the internal engine and I hope to fix several issues.
Among them, I am redifining the artillery behaviour. No really easy to get good rules, maybe anticipated the reaction of the support units...
That said, it is not my priority this day... yet some bugs around the battalions position... very old codes and a bit difficult to work on them.... slow process but it will run:-)
I'll be back on this thread.. and too on the thread about the CinC view...
JMM
-
Hello,
Short information...
I am working on the internal engine and I hope to fix several issues.
Among them, I am redifining the artillery behaviour. No really easy to get good rules, maybe anticipated the reaction of the support units...
...
There are still situations of isolated batteries, especially when chaos of battle divided the formations. IMO its a matter of an independent risk management of batteries. In general also a decent AI reposition check for better locations according a dynamic front would be an important feature.
I'll be back on this thread.. and too on the thread about the CinC view...
JMM
Mr. Doran made an important point here: All for humans playable commanders should have some sort of zoom-in view in the 3D-mode, best a simulated spyglass.