How to Encourage the Cooperation of Artillery and Cavalry?

[Mr. Doran]

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?

[sandman]

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.

[Mr. Doran]

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?

[sandman]

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.

[Mr. Doran]

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.

[sandman]

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.

[Mr. Doran]

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!

[JMM]

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 
Yer some weeks before the new release...

Best Regards

JMM

[sandman]

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

[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?!

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

[sandman]

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?!

[JMM]

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.

[Mr. Doran]

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 
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?

[Soldat Louis]

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

[EXELMANS]

Good evening,

Can't artillerymen be allowed to take refuge in an infantry square if it is nearby: addition of a control button.

Sincerely.