Napoleonic Mod - is cavalry now too powerful?

Given the simply huge numbers of casualties cavalry inflict on infantry who are not in square - and given that the AI doesn't form square so an infantry player has to be right near a battalion to 'save' it from cavalry attack, are our cavalry now too strong?

Steve's command in the Alagon battle was doing well facing an infantry assault but once Mitra's cavalry charged in, the Spanish were cut to ribbons within a few minutes. The French lost a lot of men at Adajo as well, though that was through different reasons.

I think the problem is that too many infantry units are hit when not in square and they are easy kills. Perhaps we should make them a bit more resistant, the logic behind this being that on aggregate some of the infantry could be said to have forned square and so caused overall more loss to the cavalry.

Until armies collapsed and routed and cavalry were let loose in pursuit, horsemen were not great infantry killers. Their role was to trap the infantry, forcing them into square for the other two arms to defeat. The times when cavalry did surprise infantry out of square and destroy them (e.g. Albuera) are I think so few as to be noteable.

On the other hand Eylau showed just what cavalry was capable of when charging infantry caught in line. It sounds as if the infantry at the north and center bridges suffered the same fate as the Russians. The only difference was that the Spanish did not have any cavalry with which to blunt some of those of the French. I'd say it was a lesson learned by the Spanish; when cavalry is about, form square. In their defense, they were using a non-optimal toolbar which did create problems at the northern bridge. That needs to be fixed.

The infantry in the game already have a significant advantage. As soon as they receive the order to form a square, the game immediately interprets it as fully formed. There is no delay, and no possibility of them failing to form one. So conscripts are just as adept as guard troops. Commanders just need to be on their toes.

I don't believe they need to be weakened. Square can be formed instantly once the button is presed, i believe Palmer said he was hitting the wrong side of the button and putting them in skirmish instead. That can be a fatal mistake right there. But I certainly felt cavalry struggled to charge infantry when being shot at bc the couriers will get killed and the charge order will not go through. I need to see the video of how close Leffe got in his charges, otherwise you have to hold their hand through each charge making it very piecemeal. The bigger question to be raised is should or can we make it so squares can't advance (maybe bring their speed to the lowest if it doesn't effect rotation), they can receive a melee but never heard of them charging in square. Like Kevin said the toolbar must have been an issue in the center and north for the Spanish. Because I was only effective against arty and other cav as far as I saw.

Another thing to consider is after a cav squadron has less than half energy they are basically only good for scouting, they really need full morale and close to full energy to be at fighting strength whereas infantry can duke it out till they're completely fatigued.

We'll have to ask Davide what his trick is because his cavalry ran amok in the centre and his avatar was nowhere near them, they seemed to be dashing around charging everything.

I agree with Uncle Billy and Baldwin.  The following quote is from historian Mark Adkin in the ‘Waterloo Companion’:

“If caught in line by cavalry, a battalion was certain to be badly cut up, if not destroyed.  It had happened to the 2/69 at Quatre-Bras when they lost their King’s Colour.  At Waterloo the 5th Line Battalion of the KGL suffered the same fate at the hands of French cuirassiers after La Haie Sainte fell.”

An even more extreme example was the Union Cavalry Brigade attack on d’Erlon’s Corps early in the battle.  A mere 9 squadrons rode over 20 French battalions in line, forced them to retreat in disorder, and took at least 2,000 prisoners and an eagle, and put much of the corps out of action for some considerable time.

As Billy suggests, I suspect infantry commanders will become more adept at forming squares as time goes on.  A few weeks ago, there were concerns expressed over how difficult the cavalry was to control effectively!  We are all still coming to terms with Napoleonic tactics, and the rapid turns of fortune.  No-one should be too hard on themselves.

In particular, I don’t think the Spanish players should feel too bad about getting beat.  It’s really no surprise that in these early campaign battles the French are winning.  It’s all very historical, as they usually have better troops, more cavalry and more guns.  

In all seriousness, I would like to pay tribute to the Spanish team for their willingness to go through this process so uncomplainingly.  I am sure that Digby will be looking for ways to reward them.  Within historical constraints, of course  

Martin (J)

Martin wrote:In particular, I don’t think the Spanish players should feel too bad about getting beat. It’s really no surprise that in these early campaign battles the French are winning. It’s all very historical, as they usually have better troops, more cavalry and more guns.

Pah! I fear no French man. Let him come to me and I will gut him like a fat Lampiños.

Well, I don't know exactly but I set my general brigade stance to all out assault (also if the AI is disable because human) and I press the charge button before start to move.

Hm, yes Davide, I guess that would do it.

I need to go look up "Lampiños" now.

But joking aside, I'm fully aware that if caught out of square infantry could be chopped to pieces very fast, I even quoted an example in my own post. It happened, I don't dispute it. My concern is that at battalion level every unit had its own human commander - the colonel - and he and his men would be almost instinctively trained to form a square when cavalry came within a certain distance. The only time they didn't was if they were surprised, or there was a screw up (the 5th KGL were ordered forwards to reinforce La Haye Sainte by that prodigy of military strategy the Prince of Orange no less. The colonel actually queried the order and asked to be allowed to advance in square and the good prince, knowing better (and being a class A dickhead) over-ruled him and repeated the order to go down the slope to the farmhouse in line).

The issue in our game is our colonels have never even heard of squares and so won't form them.

If we give players whole divisions to command which we are frequently now doing with 2 to 3 brigades each of 4 to 6 battalions each then it stands to reason that in our games we are going to get far more infantry chopped up by cavalry than history says happened because our infantry players are being asked to accept bigger commands and our cavalry players get smaller commands and being the attacker also have the advantage of when to charge, meaning the infantry player must conduct his own battle and watch every enemy cavalry squadron hovering nearby.

If we had an AI that could form square well or badly (depending on a command ability variable) I wouldn't be making this point, but we don't, and so because our battles are going to produce far more infantrymen with grass stains on their faces and big hoof prints on their backs we ought to think about the amount of slaughter cavalry do when they do strike, as we've no other variables to play with other than going back to the very early days of HITS and commanding 1 infantry brigade each.

Kevin - what news about making squares almost immobile?

Mr. Digby wrote:If we give players whole divisions to command which we are frequently now doing with 2 to 3 brigades each of 4 to 6 battalions each then it stands to reason that in our games we are going to get far more infantry chopped up by cavalry than history says happened because our infantry players are being asked to accept bigger commands and our cavalry players get smaller commands and being the attacker also have the advantage of when to charge, meaning the infantry player must conduct his own battle and watch every enemy cavalry squadron hovering nearby.

You may have put your finger on the problem.  I don’t think we should be making cavalry commands un-historically small.  Let the cavalry commanders struggle with bigger commands as well.  I dare say if we had gone the other way and given each infantry commander a small brigade, and each cavalry commander a large division, things would have been just as unbalanced in the other direction.  I recall that some of our cavalry commanders were complaining about just that a few months back.

These large commands certainly impose strains on the players.  The particular problems seem to me to be somewhat different for infantry and cavalry, but essentially both arise because no-one can be everywhere and have every contingency covered.  Far from being a problem, I think this makes the games more interesting.  But we should certainly aim for an even playing field.

Martin (J)

Kevin - what news about making squares almost immobile?

Currently, squares can move at 3mph. Perhaps the guard squares at Waterloo were able to move that fast, but I doubt the average battalion would be able to do so. I am going to change it to 1mph. Let's see how that works. That will allow them to turn and perhaps get out of each others way, but advancing on the enemy won't be an issue. They'll be shot to pieces before they get there.

Good, lets try that.

As a division commander, the only way to play courier by brigade in a realistic manner is to let the brigade commanders do all the work, give them movement and stance orders and then watch them perform or not.

As we play now, Division commanders give more orders than they should, and I’m fine with that because playing the other way is boring and most all of us prefer a little micromanaging in order to get a little more out of our pixel-troopers.

My opinion is that we should play courier by corps or army, and that division commanders and brigade commanders should use couriers to move their troops which are more than a 100 yards away.  But they (division or brigade commanders) are allowed to give form square orders (actually all formation orders) and retreat orders at will and from any distance.

I trust everyone who plays in the campaign to do their best to abide by whatever rules we are given (except for Kevin and his formed-square infantry assaults).

It’s very frustrating to watch without recourse while a regiment/battalion gets chewed up in melee or doesn’t form a square when cavalry is clearly bearing down upon it.

It won't be happening again. And it didn't do the Spanish much good, their army is still a shambles, magick charging squares or not.

And on your other comments, the game's far from perfect as we all know, but for the job it does do, it does it pretty well. I personally just close my eyes to the long strings of couriers galloping across the battlefield, each of them carrrying a piece of paper with 1 sentence of a 5 sentence order in their hands. We know its wrong but it still works... kind of.

We just have to make sure that we tell those who can make a difference in the second version of the engine to change what needs to be changed.

I was just kidding about Kevin's formed-square assault.

But there is a real problem trying to command troops in close proximity to the enemy.

As well as trying to get regiments to form square when cavalry is close.

If the regimental commanders had any sense, it wouldn't be a problem.

But they don't.

Its not often I have had to form square due to all my testing being done vs the AI but when I have had to do it vs players I've been successful. If your general is so close to a units flag the order is instantaneous ("shouting" I presume) with no courier being generated (and instantly dying, which is another pet peeve of mine). Messengers riding up behind regiments in combat didn't all get shot by stray bullets, I wish there was a slightly bigger radius from an enemy unit that couriers could survive in, or that having a friendly flag closer to him than an enemy flag would protect a courier... easyish to code I'd have thought.

The worst thing of all is having your general be okay within the auto-kill zone for messengers, so every single order you send to anyone, and the courier takes one pace from your side and immediately dies. You end up with your general atop a huge pile of corpses. Its silly. Needs fixing!

I can confirm after a test game today that cavalry don't lose 15 men per enemy gun captured if they don't have any artillery in their division. The gun is just deleted off the map and the cavalry lose 0 casualties. I presume the same applies to infantry brigades with no divisional artillery.

This is perhaps one way we can finally end the silly recrewing of captured guns and opposing gun duels at point blank range in the same battery - have all our artillery in separate divisions.

I've got 2 concerns, one is that there is no way for the original owner to mount a counterattack to try and retake his guns (though we could just say that at the end of the battle whoever holds the ground where the battery was, gets the guns) and the other is that we'd probably need a player on each side assigned to command the artillery, and then it would most likely only operate in one part of the battlefield.