Crown of Glory: Europe in the Age of Napoleon, the player controls one of the crowned potentates of Europe in the Napoleonic Era, wielding authority over his nation's military strategy, economic development, diplomatic relations, and social organization. It is a very thorough simulation of the entire Napoleonic Era - spanning from 1799 to 1820, from the dockyards in Lisbon to the frozen wastes of Holy Mother Russia.
Again, a frontal charge, should have a good chance with good line troops to repel a cav charge, but a regular line unit that is hit in the rear by a lancer or heavy cav unit and does not form square should 90% of the times be dead. Period
You do not find this to be the case, I do, but then again I shoot up things before I charge them.
But then again, maybe I am wrong and have read all the wrong things, and played all the wrong miniature games that have tried to reflect this area for many many years.
I have had this debate for many years with miniature players, who all think that any cavalry charge in Napoleons time was a startly success no mater kind of cavalry or who they were charging. I have pointed out that the histories of battles show cavalry charges against troops that have been recently been under fire of some sort are more successfull. When you read about charges against units that have not been under fire they are less successful.
I do think this is reflected in the game well. Maybe I have not played enough detail battles to see that no matter how badly damaged infantry is it resists all cavalry charges.
ORIGINAL: ericbabe
How about this as a proposed tweak:
Cavalry + HvCavalry charges vs formed infantry in open terrain get increased flanking damage... 3x current rate? 5x? With the 50% total strength cap remaining in effect... Also give them a higher chance to break the formation of the unit they charge in this situation.
Also: Coordinating AI use of cavalry with its other units is one the list of AI tweaks I'm planning to make. And there may be a bug in the code that tells the AI not to charge formed infantry in rough terrain / fortresses as I noticed that AI cavalry sometimes hurls itself at the fortresses for no good reason.
Eric
As stated in another thread, be very careful about changing the dynamics so as to make infantry vestly inferior to cavalry or we might lose the wonderful use of combined arms that this game currently encourages.
I agree with that if a Ordered Unit receives a Cavalry Charge from even Heavy Cav from the Front or Front Flanking Hexes they should have devistating results for both sides possible, possible the key word, as sometimes the cav would do very well, sometimes the infantry would do well.
My problem is that currently no matter what you do with your cavalry you have no apperant chance of hurting a infantry unit, even militia, unless they are disordered. This is taking the argument to far the other way.
A infantry unit that is ordered, but charged into the rear or rear flanking hexes should be much more likley to lose the combat to the cavalry. This is the part I think is importand, if a army does not protect its flanks with cav, it will be itself vunerable to cavalry attack. In the current game i have no problem in sending a single infantry division in the middle of 5 or 6 enemy cav divisions. I dont care if they charge me in the rear, the front, all at once, my unit will survive all the time. Heck, I actuly hope my infantry unit does not form square, as it will decimate their cav every time.
In history a Inf Division caught by even 1 cav division alone would be hard pressed to survive, never the less being faced with 4 or more of them.
Cav sould not be made overpowered, but manuver to protect your flank from cav with cav should be importand. This can be achived by making cav against inf charges in the rear or rear flanking hexes more deadly. I would go to the point where if you can charge a inf unit into the abosolute rear hex with a cav unit, it should be alsmost a given that the inf will lose and take heavy loses.
So again, Frontal charges, no problem, let inf be strong, makes sense for them to have a pretty good devense setup up.
Rear and rear flanking charges, you screwed up, and even your best inf will take a beating. Protect your flanks and rear.
<< Let wars be only in our mind and imagination, for nobody should face this horror areal >>
Both sides have good points, and I tend to fall on the side of historical performance, which means Cav breaking good order infantry is a tough prospect.
I think the worst problem is that infantry forming good order squares is much too easily done. It needs to be a function of morale, training (isn't there an upgrade?), and most importantly, the amount of time the charging Cav have spent charging in view of the unit. The biggest advantage of flank and rear attacks was not being seen in time to prepare, especially in the midst of a smoky battlefield.
I have never seen a good order inf unit (and I play Turkey!) not form a good order square in front of a Cav charge in my battles against the AI. That seems highly illogical. If the unit tries to form square and fails, it must be disordered and take the charge as such--and maybe it does. I've just never seen it, and playing against the AI, one sees a LOT of cavalry charges against good-order infantry.
"Measure civilization by the ability of citizens to mock government with impunity" -- Unknown
Cavalry + HvCavalry charges vs formed infantry in open terrain get increased flanking damage... 3x current rate? 5x? With the 50% total strength cap remaining in effect... Also give them a higher chance to break the formation of the unit they charge in this situation.
Also: Coordinating AI use of cavalry with its other units is one the list of AI tweaks I'm planning to make. And there may be a bug in the code that tells the AI not to charge formed infantry in rough terrain / fortresses as I noticed that AI cavalry sometimes hurls itself at the fortresses for no good reason.
Eric
Whatever you choose to do, this should be playtested over a broad period of time so that we can see what kind of results commonly occur.
Sometimes a problem isn't so much with the game mechanics, but rather how players approach the problem to begin with.
Once thing is for sure, any historial combat simulation will have always people with different interpetation of such history. It will be hard to please all every time with any one set of rules.
Maybe some basic options that can be checked or unchecked, pending on your interpetation of history should be added.
For instance, have an option that gives Flank and Rear charge bonus to the attacker.
Have an option that forces disorder checks for making square.
Have an option that allows usage of militia and cossacks out of home areas
Have an option that sets replenish rate factors on divisions.
This would in some sense be a bit more work overall, but it would solve the problem of diverent people interpeting what is realistic.
Just a thought.
<< Let wars be only in our mind and imagination, for nobody should face this horror areal >>
When the Cavalry charge infantry the infantry can try to form square. If they make it, the Cavalry will lose, if they fail (become disordered) the cavalry will deal out significant casualties.
The game seems to be doing that well.
The likelihood of foming square will depend more (in my opinion) on visibility than flank/rear (some officer is looking back, even if every private isn't). The place you can catch infantry is in bad weather or where the terrain (popping suddenly into view) don't give them time to change to square.
Coding that (visibility) may be tricky. You could have a weather modifier (rain and snow make it easier for infantry to fail formation change and become disordered). I am not sure about the "pop into sight" thing. Can the game tell which enemy units were not visible at the start of that movement phase?
Or the infantry can stand in formation and just shoot at the cavalry. To my recollection this is rare (the infantry officers will rarely have the confidence in their troops to leave them in line). The places where it does happen are:
a) Good quality units (Militia would never try it. Maybe 5.00 or higher? 4.99 always try to form square (and may not make it)
b) lots of other infantry/guns/cavalry on either side of you so you feel safe. Again, can the program currently tell if there are friendly units to your flanks? If not, I would just go with "high morale only"
c) In towns/fieldworks/etc (obviously).
Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.
We also have to be careful how much benefit is applied to 'flank' or 'rear'. This is an IGO-UGO combat system, so Cavalry with a large amount of MPs can simply fly around a unit and hit it in the flank/rear much easier than in reality. There is no 'op fire' or any form of reaction to the enemy simply driving around in a huge circle around your units and hitting them from the rear.
So, while flank/rear need to be modeled, I'd add a further need for the target unit to be 'engaged' with whatever definition could be applied in the current mechanics (fired at last turn or maybe having another enemy unit in their front arc within 2 hexes or whatever).
Cav has a zone of controll that other cav cannot, or can only with high movement cost cross. Ussuly I place a cav screen to my flanks that stops their cav, unless they really want to take a wide birth. Now of course, if you had a army with not cav supporting it, then it would be a sinch for the enemy cav to pick your rear, as it should.
But yes, gamebalance does have to be considered.
<< Let wars be only in our mind and imagination, for nobody should face this horror areal >>
We also have to be careful how much benefit is applied to 'flank' or 'rear'. This is an IGO-UGO combat system, so Cavalry with a large amount of MPs can simply fly around a unit and hit it in the flank/rear much easier than in reality. There is no 'op fire' or any form of reaction to the enemy simply driving around in a huge circle around your units and hitting them from the rear.
When the Cavalry charge infantry the infantry can try to form square. If they make it, the Cavalry will lose, if they fail (become disordered) the cavalry will deal out significant casualties.
The game seems to be doing that well.
Beezle, perhaps you're not reading what I've been saying: when infantry do NOT form square, the cavalry are getting decimated when the charge drives home. That's the root of my complaint. The cavalry charge, the infantry do not square, the cavalry takes thousands of losses and is disordered, the infantry takes a few hundred losses and remains in good order, calmly eating their croissants.
greetings, i do not have problem with casualties given on melees between cav vs inf, but maybe a nice rule to implement is that every unit participating in a melee is then disordered. charge otucome, in my oppinion will be determined by morale differential, formations by the attacker and the defender and numerical odds or superiority, this is my thinking, however cannot say what difficult can be all this implemented, and don't know the game engine and all modifiers that applied at this moment and how this can affect my proposal.
with best regards,
alaric.
There is no plan of battle that survives the contact with the enemy.
I played a game this afternoon to look at the cavalry vs infantry values. I had ten cavalry charges vs formed infantry in which the infantry did not square. In only two of the charges did the cavalry take more damage than the infantry. I was careful not to charge with fatigued cavalry and not to charge infantry in rough terrain... but other parameters varied: I tried head-on charges, charges against guard infantry, charges with irregular cavalry, etc.
I played a game this afternoon to look at the cavalry vs infantry values. I had ten cavalry charges vs formed infantry in which the infantry did not square. In only two of the charges did the cavalry take more damage than the infantry. I was careful not to charge with fatigued cavalry and not to charge infantry in rough terrain... but other parameters varied: I tried head-on charges, charges against guard infantry, charges with irregular cavalry, etc.
Thats more or less been my experience too. I just havent seen too many lopsided battles in favor of the Infantry unless I'm using crappy quality Cav. It does happen occasionally, but not so often that it ever raised and eyebrow. I'm keeping a closer eye on it now, but so far, nothing out of the ordinary that I've witnessed (usually playing Spain or Britain, with an occasional side trip to Austria).
It is possible to get consistent terrible results charging with fatigued cavalry.
One of the possible tweaks on my list of possible tweaks is to allow light cavalry and cossack cavalry to force march without having to enter detailed combat fatigued.
Perhaps add another state of 'exhausted' and relax the penalties for 'fatigued' a tad? Right now there appears to be a HUGE gulf in capability between Fatigued in non-Fatigued units.
Also, are all reinforcements supposed to be entering battles fatigued? I seem to think that this is always the case.
Perhaps add another state of 'exhausted' and relax the penalties for 'fatigued' a tad? Right now there appears to be a HUGE gulf in capability between Fatigued in non-Fatigued units.
Also, are all reinforcements supposed to be entering battles fatigued? I seem to think that this is always the case.
Fatigued is a very severe penalty in charging, but less so in fire combat. It also affects movement rate.
An 'exhausted' status is a good idea. We'd then have the spectrum: fresh, normal, exhausted, fatigued. Would give more playability to the cavalry I suspect.
All reinforcements enter fatigued. Lt cavalry/cossacks (and irregular?) should perhaps be able to enter not fatigued.
On a related topic, I think damage may be too high during night turns. My design rubrics were that night combat should mainly be about resting and perhaps maneuvering, with fighting only in extreme circumstances. Based on the game I played this afternoon I'm considering slashing damage during night combat another 50% at least, and/or weighing attacks heavily in favor of the defender. The chance of restoring fatigue (and restoring freshness) is much higher at night and is supposed to reward players who spend the night resting instead of maneuvering/fighting. Any opinions?
Sounds good on the changes. I'd probably make 'fatigued' the lesser impaired state and make 'exhausted' what fatigued currently is. I believe the term 'exhausted' is stronger than 'fatigued', but then I'm no grammarian. [:D]
