Howitzers

[carburo]

What's the use of howitzers in the game? Do they provide more "points" in sieges than regular artillery?

[Mynok]

All I know for sure is that they can fire over things in detailed battle. Not very useful if that's the only advantage (and it is as far as I can tell).

[Hard Sarge]

Well, if you can make a soild line of INF of say 4 or 5 Divs, you can put 4 or 5 Hows behind them and fire as the enemy comes at you, with Arty or Hv Arty, you need to make holes in your line, or put the Arty in front of your Inf line

but in the long run, Arty or Hv Arty is the better weapon

you know, you can line up Arty behind each other and each can still fire over the one in front of it ???

HARD_Sarge

[carburo]

The problem with howitzers is that, in my experience, they cause half the damage a regular arty make. The capability of firing over your inf is not compensation enough. For making any sense, they should have other advantage.
How many people build howitzers anyway?
I usually don't see the point in having a lot of "options" when actually there is only one reasonable decision. It's the same with cavalry. What's the point of building regular cavalry, or light?

[carnifex]

Howitzers lost their appeal to me when I learned the best way to deploy troops is to leave one hex between each infantry unit and not make a solid line. This way you have clear avenues of fire for your regular, more effective artillery, and also the the more important bonus of being able to deploy fresh troops and charging cavalry through the holes.

I would build howitzers if they had some insane bonus during sieges or something.

[Reg Pither]

ORIGINAL: carburo

I usually don't see the point in having a lot of "options" when actually there is only one reasonable decision. It's the same with cavalry. What's the point of building regular cavalry, or light?

I agree in general with the first statement, but I build all types of cavalry. Cavalry is faster and cheaper than Heavy Cavalry, and Light Cavalry is faster still. Very useful for mopping up a routing enemy. Light Cavalry can also be useful on the first turn of a Detailed Battle in which the enemy is not immediately visible, using it in its traditional scouting role.

Never built a Howitzer.

[carburo]

Reg Pither,
We all have different styles, so I understand you see there are enough differences to justify the three cav types. IMO, different speeds are not enough reason for having all three of them. I too use light cav for scouting, but I don’t see a big enough difference between regulars and heavies.
As for chasing routing units, most of the time I only get one charge -two at most- from my cavs, of any type, before they get disordered for the rest of the battle, so as long as heavies can manage to charge the closer routing enemy, I don’t see the superior speed of light cav as of real importance. I can’t chase two routing enemy units one after another, where speed would be important, because my cav become disordered after charging the first one. As I said in another thread, if lights were easier to reform, and heavies slower but more capable of disrupting formed units with a charge, I would see a reason for having all three types. BTW, I would also like to see cav more vulnerable to inf fire.
But al least we agree on the howitzers issue. It seems to be a useless unit, there just for added flavor.

[Jordan]

Light cav was most useful on an operational level - scouting, screening. COG has strategic and a tactical levels, where the forces are usually fairly close to one another.

In quick combat, does light cav help in the pursuit (more so than regular and heavy cav) or the screening thereof?

[Reg Pither]

ORIGINAL: carburo

Reg Pither,
We all have different styles, so I understand you see there are enough differences to justify the three cav types. IMO, different speeds are not enough reason for having all three of them. I too use light cav for scouting, but I don’t see a big enough difference between regulars and heavies.
As for chasing routing units, most of the time I only get one charge -two at most- from my cavs, of any type, before they get disordered for the rest of the battle, so as long as heavies can manage to charge the closer routing enemy, I don’t see the superior speed of light cav as of real importance. I can’t chase two routing enemy units one after another, where speed would be important, because my cav become disordered after charging the first one. As I said in another thread, if lights were easier to reform, and heavies slower but more capable of disrupting formed units with a charge, I would see a reason for having all three types. BTW, I would also like to see cav more vulnerable to inf fire.
But al least we agree on the howitzers issue. It seems to be a useless unit, there just for added flavor.

I must admit that I use many types of unit for Napoleonic 'flavour' more than anything else. I like building mostly regular and light cavalry for the Line Corps, saving the Heavies for my Guard Corps or a separate Cavalry reserve. I think your suggested differences between Light and Heavy reform rates and abilities would be good to see in the game.

Maybe as I've only played France I'm having better luck than you with Cavalry, but I almost always get two consecutive charges out of my units, and they almost always reform in time for them to charge again later in the battle. And once the rout starts, they don't even need to reform, as I mostly use them for surrounding and capturing enemy divisions, so being disordered doesn't matter as much as the speed at which they can block a line of retreat.

[carburo]

I too build almost every type of unit for the “flavor”, but would like a better reason. Can’t imaging Napo saying: “Hussars are worthless in battle, but let’s have a couple of regiments because of the drinking and the fancy uniforms”.
It can be a matter of different strategies though. I stopped using the surrounding thing out of frustration, after several enemy units teletransported after being completely surrounded. After that I realized PWOs are a nuisance, so I don’t see the advantage in capturing units unless it’s artillery. My current strategy is charging the routing units and causing them as much casualties as possible.

[Reg Pither]

ORIGINAL: carburo

After that I realized PWOs are a nuisance, so I don’t see the advantage in capturing units unless it’s artillery. My current strategy is charging the routing units and causing them as much casualties as possible.

But that still (usually) leaves a division that can potentially be replenished and come back to fight you. I'd rather completely remove one enemy unit from the locality than simply reduce a few. Not that I don't try to do that first, of course... [;)]

[carburo]

Totally agree with you, but I hate guarding POWs so much... I'd rather fight the same divisions again than have the random cossack free 300 000 POWs behind my lines. I end up with thousands of POWs anyway, but I do all I can to prevent it.
POWs are like latent units they don't have to pay upkeep for. After they surrender to you, they get them back to be used againt others, or against you next year. I don't like it when I finally beat the Austrians and they get all their soldiers back for free. POWs should go back as population factors, not as military units.

[YohanTM2]

Starve 'em [:D]

[Grand_Armee]

I always starve the POW's...or send em to a free minor so they won't by used against me in the current conflagration. That's #2 of the game killer for me.

[Mike Solli]

You guys are terrible.[:D]

Reminds me of when SPI was playtesting Campaign for North Africa. At the beginning of the campaign, the Commonwealth player would capture thousands of Italians. The game required a player to feed all POWs before his own troops. One visionary CW player stuck all of the POWs in a wadi. He waited for a thunderstorm and *poof* all of the POWs drown. That resulted in wadis to be placed on hexsides as opposed to being in a hex.

[carburo]

I know, I shouldn’t be so soft-hearted. All I can say in my defense is that I usually play as France, and most of my provinces have high forage limits, so they are not particularly efficient at starving prisoners. Also, when I try to starve them what I mostly do is deplete the units, but I rarely manage to get them disbanded. At the end of the war the AI gets the units back, and it seems really good at replenishing them. I think I’ll start using the Vatican as prison, if I remember well, it can only support 20k guys. And they will make it faster to heaven from there.
This was originally about howitzers. I assume nobody really knows what they are good for.

[carnifex]

Well duh, for shooting POW's of course

You want to starve the buggers with the utmost efficiency? Embark them! NO LEMONS FOR YOU !!!

[ahauschild]

This shows kinda the abstract nature of the divisional level game. There where never ever divisions of Howitzers in any army of that period. A few Artillery batteries of howitzer in a army where the most. So in order to reflect a higher percentage of howitzers in a artillery division, they should fire direct at maybe 75% as most of the guns would still be regular cannons. and have the added capability to fire at 25% damage over obstacles. Possibly increase siege casulties to the besieged by a certain percentage, as they where pretty good in lobbing shells over the fortifications.

As for the current howitzers, the only ones I ussualy have is the ones that I capture from the enemy. My favorite artillery is horse artillery, as it is very mobile, and still does damn good damage. Also you dont need infantry at all in your armies, if you only keep horse artillery and cav, preverably light, you should be able to beat any army, even 4 times your size with less then 5000 probl less then 1000 casulties most times. Infantry only slows you down and has no practicaly purpose when compated to cav on the battlefield currently,( if you have artillery)

[Ralegh]

I agree that howitzers suck. I would never build one, and I even try to put the ones I start the game with or capture into cities as super defenders.

A bonus for howitzers in seiges is a really good idea that I have not heard before.

Eric?

[MartNick]

Nearly all artillery formations had Howitzer elements anyway. So having seperate Howitzer formations is not realistic. I think they should only get a bonus in siege situations as already mentioned.