questions raised by demo tutorial3

[nix]

Questions arising from tutorial3 (using the default options for the demo)

Question on the arrangement of units within a corps prior to attack:

When  a corps is given the ‘deploy on line’ order it first arranges its units before moving off and marching to the line defined by the player. What determines the arrangement of the units that the AI imposes (which may rearrange the placement of units I choose ‘by hand’)?
Do the best offensive units get placed in the first line and best defensive units get placed in the second line? Can I impose an arrangement (by right click and drag individual units) or does the AI always reshuffle them?

Question on some puzzling behaviour seen in attack:

If the French corps is slow to deploy in the south of the map the Russians manage to set up a defensive line there. The French attack under the ‘deploy on line’ order, (where the line is defined well beyond the Russian defensive line), proved disastrous when attacking in two lines of columns. The AI uses a frontal assault where individual regiments attack in succession rather than together so they get shot up. The failure of a frontal assault of this kind is probably historically accurate but some behaviour of French units during the attack is puzzling. ..

After destroying the russian supporting artillery with a cavalry charge the french assault on the russian infantry defensive line began but:

The corps artillery didn’t deploy to bombard the Russian line it just moved around waiting for the path to the deployment line to be cleared. Giving a direct order to the unit (thereby detaching it from the corps) kicked them into action but they then had to be reattached to the corps at the end of the attack to join in the corps advance to the deployment line.

The infantry came on in columns. A regiment of 4 battalions deployed them one behind the other, each battalion 5 ranks deep 15 files wide. They advance toward the enemy line, but at a certain distance from it the first battalion stops to give a volley while the subsequent battalions continue to move up. Each stops on top of the first (also to give fire?) so the four battalions appear to concertina into one in front of the enemy. After giving fire this compressed group of 4 overlapping battalions moved into hand to hand contact with the enemy line. However although the units were in contact in 3d view they did not melee but rather continued volleying until the French broke and fled..

Other attacking columns did not make contact or get close enough to deliver a volley
before they were observed to be walking backwards, still in formation, away from the enemy (towards whom they remained facing). The information panel for the regiment did not say they were routing or escaping but that they were marching towards the enemy! What are they doing? Tactical retreat? There was still plenty of time until the end of the day as the action took place at about 1pm.

A cavalry unit which managed to get behind the Russian line but was in column of march formation, remained in this formation as it wandered back along and then through the lines of the Russians passing through the gaps between battalions without attempting to attack, even though the Russians were firing at them and they could have hit the lines from behind! (the Russian infantry line did not respond to the close cavalry presence by forming square either)

these behaviours appear to be bugs that need sorting out, Is this the case or am i missing something?

[Uxbridge]

Many people have reported these problems with the demo. We don't know for sure whether they will be reproduced in the full game. I am hoping that JMM will produce a list of bugs that he intends to fix with the main release, or perhaps with a later patch.

[Hook]

Questions arising from tutorial3

I've got  few answers, let me see if I can help.

does the AI always reshuffle them

I really don't know.  I've had some good luck by arranging my corps with infantry in the center, cavalry to the flanks, and artillery behind.  They probably get rearranged anyway, but I just let the corps commander do it the way he wants.  He's going to anyway, and somehow it usually works out.

the Russians manage to set up a defensive line

I had enough problems with enemy defensive lines in the tutorials that I avoided attacking them altogether when playing the Montebello battle until I could get a corps to attack them from the flank.

After a while I realized I was having some success doing frontal attacks (usually by accident) and it was never as bad as in that tutorial.  And the enemy has certainly had plenty of success doing frontal attacks on my defensive lines.  I'm not sure what was different about the one in the tutorial.

artillery didn’t deploy to bombard the Russian line

Some of that has been tweaked, and is still being tweaked.

After giving fire this compressed group of 4 overlapping battalions moved into hand to hand contact with the enemy line. However although the units were in contact in 3d view they did not melee but rather continued volleying until the French broke and fled..

I never saw that one, but there have been a lot of improvements in the 3D view matching what the game engine is doing.

Other attacking columns did not make contact or get close enough to deliver a volley before they were observed to be walking backwards, still in formation, away from the enemy (towards whom they remained facing).

You'll see this fairly often.  The corps commander has issued a command to retreat, which you can see on his information panel.  Usually the corps will go back several hundred to a thousand yards, then advance again.  Once I saw an entire corps retreat totally off the map this way, marching backwards from the center of the map to the map edge.  This is good when it's an enemy unit doing it, and you can always give another order to stop your own corps commanders doing it, or give orders to individual regiments to advance.  As long as your corps isn't going to retreat off the map, it's probably doing what you'd want.  If individual units are close to your map edge, you might want to give them orders to advance to keep them from disappearing.  Once they've left, even if the corps advances again, they don't come back.

A cavalry unit which managed to get behind the Russian line... the Russians were firing at them and they could have hit the lines from behind! (the Russian infantry line did not respond to the close cavalry presence by forming square either)

The cavalry is following doctrine.  It won't attack unless it thinks it can win.  The infantry probably knows the cavalry isn't strong enough to be a threat so doesn't form square.  Most of the time the infantry will form square.  And I've seen cavalry charge infantry that wasn't in square and get repulsed, usually without a melee.  

This is actually good because it means your own attacks can't be totally stopped by having to form square to defend against a small handful of wounded guys on sickly horses.  The cavalry has to be a credible threat.  I guess this is a pretty good feature, but it means I can't use my favorite tactic of stopping an entire infantry division with two squadrons of cossacks.

Hope this helps.

Hook

[Gunner24]

Thanks for those answer's, this one :

but there have been a lot of improvements in the 3D view matching what the game engine is doing.

is of great interest to me, I'm sure this is a most important improvement/correction for those that want to follow events by switching (often) from the 2d and 3d views.  It's been so frustrating with those views NOT matching up, some times the 2d map shows units many 100s of yards apart, when on the 3d view they are right next to each other exchanging musket fire !.  I look forward to checking out the improvements.

The cavalry is following doctrine.  It won't attack unless it thinks it can win.  The infantry probably knows the cavalry isn't strong enough to be a threat so doesn't form square.  Most of the time the infantry will form square.  And I've seen cavalry charge infantry that wasn't in square and get repulsed, usually without a melee.

I had the Russian Guard Cossacks get behind the enemy line and they fought on for a long time, taking out several formations, but some of the time they did appear to be hanging around doing nothing much, maybe resting as they were a long way from friendly troops and had been fighting for a long period of time....in the end they went almost all the way to the back of the map before being turned back by artillery that was covering the French retreat - very interesting.  A tough unit !.

[Hook]

Those Guard Cossacks really are tough!  And I love those red uniforms.  I like to follow them around in a replay, just watching what they do.  They stay in the battle until they're down to 135 men from what I've seen.  They are what a lot of people think all cavalry should be.

Hook

[bidermann]

A good post NIX, I have had all the problems you have had .The demo has been a poor advert for the full game, which  I have now deleted . I have pre ordered the full game but dont hold much hope of the game working well.  Its a shame that this game is going this way that it will take hundreds of people playing the game (as beta tester) and a few years to fix the huge bugs in the game .

This game has been one mans dream  but is turning into a nightmare .

[EDIT DoE] NOT POSITIVE

http://www.histwar.com/forum/index.php/topic,3136.msg45009.html#new

[bidermann]

Its a shame you blocked out what was said, If you only show positive remakes then you start to have a rose tinted glass view of the game and life . But thats up to you,(shrugs shoulders).

[JMM]

Maybe there is yet some problems with this game...
That said, do you think it's not an abuse to said : "This game has been one mans dream  but is turning into a nightmare"

Its a shame that this game is going this way that it will take hundreds of people playing the game (as beta tester) and a few years to fix the huge bugs in the game
Are you sure? Maybe this affirmation is wrong too! Maybe.. Sure..

JMM

[nix]

Thanks for the detailed reply Hook. It is both encouraging and helpful. At least I now see what is going on with some of those puzzling behaviours and can micromanage around them! The more I play with the Demo the more impressed i become with the overall architecture of the program. It does take a while to master the best way to control the action by flipping between the 3d and 2d displays and by using the appropriate 'fliters' on the F8 and F9 buttons (as an old total war player one is too easily tempted to stay in 3d mode to control everything from there and that clearly is a mistake here). In fact once a corps has been launched into the fray by the AI I have found that using the 2d map to issue individual attack orders to the engaged regiments enables my units to 'gang up' on the local oposition and less of the 'odd' behaviour is then observed . Once the local engagement is settled a corps rallying order brings all the detached units back into the overall AI plan and off they go again...

Re the backward marching corps, following your note I looked back at the video and see that the individual units indicate they are 'marching toward the enemy' on their UI info but the corps commander of those units' UI info indicates a 'retreat order' (which i had not noticed). This is confusing and could perhaps be adressed by having the individual unit info indicate 'under a corps retreat order' or something similar.

There is a lot of information provided by the unit statistics panel on the UI and in the dispatches etc which needs to be read fast in the heat of the action. I found the F-key ability to change font from italic to serif very helpful though I do find that the font script is a bit small for my eyes sometimes. I wonder if the final program will be able to include the option of increasing the size by a similar key stroke?


I also really like the video playback feature which enables you to see the battle you have fought but from any viewpoint you now wish to choose.

I am also impressed that the whole demo program was an order of magnitude smaller in memory needs than the latest total war offerings meaning fast download and my (slightly older) computer can run it well without crashes freezes or frame drops (apart from the edge of the map problem others have reported- i just keep away from them pesky waggons now!)

By the way the game is certainly not a nightmare...part of the problem is the complexity of control which requires a few passes through the 3 tutorials before one gets a facility with using the various views and maps etc to control the action, but once that is achieved the game gets better and better. While it doesnt have the graphic photorealism of Empire total war  it has more realism concerning the command of a large scale napoleonic battle and there is a charm to the 3d graphics...

[Gunner24]

The more I play with the Demo the more impressed i become with the overall architecture of the program

Very true, anyone who only gives the demo and hour or two is not going to understand what it's all about, once the bugs are fixed and the 2d / 3d views are better linked together it will be every bit as good as those who knew what to expect had hoped for.

[Hook]

Re the backward marching corps, following your note I looked back at the video and see that the individual units indicate they are 'marching toward the enemy' on their UI info but the corps commander of those units' UI info indicates a 'retreat order' (which i had not noticed). This is confusing and could perhaps be addressed by having the individual unit info indicate 'under a corps retreat order' or something similar.

Agreed.  Sometimes the info for a regiment doesn't seem to match what it's doing.  I have problems keeping up with it. 

You can get some control over the font by changing your screen resolution.  The higher the resolution, the smaller the font from what I've seen.  If the font is made too big, text will overflow the areas allotted for it.  We already see that sometimes. 

I have problems reading the default font sometimes, but for me the alternate serif font is much worse.  I'm not sure how to fix this one.

Hook

[Hook]

If you only show positive remakes

The problem isn't people saying things that aren't positive.  I'll say things about the game that aren't positive occasionally.  The problem is when it gets to be abusive (and thanks to JMM for the right word). 

Your input is valued, just try to keep it in the realm of constructive criticism.  Give us something we can fix.  Thanks.

Hook

[Duke of Earl]

The problem isn't people saying things that aren't positive.  I'll say things about the game that aren't positive occasionally.  The problem is when it gets to be abusive (and thanks to JMM for the right word). 

Your input is valued, just try to keep it in the realm of constructive criticism.  Give us something we can fix.  Thanks.

Hook

Bonjour Messieurs,

Agreed .... 

Cordialement, DoE

*fires up another game*

[nix]

Re the font size:  I was running the program at the highest resolution (1630x1050) on my machine and dropping this to 1152x864 improved the readability of the text while not noticeably affecting the overall appearence of the graphics. Thanks for the tip.

[nix]

RE the F7 statistics on the tutorial battle the CHE 'figure of merit' statistic sometimes seems to give very odd results. For example in one battle I played the CHE losses reported were 12% for FR( initial value 71326 final value 62667), 23% for  coalition (init :36518 ,  fin: 28076) while the actual losses were Fr 6% (init:56784, fin:53116) and the coalition 90%! (init:29244, fin:2787). the reported potential new forces which could be mustered were 54552 for Fr and 15766 for coalition so this would appear to be a much more decisive victory than the CHE statistic suggests...

i dont know if this has any implications for the way the game plays. Does it?