KS Napoleon Mod II 1.20

The KS Napoleon mod has been updated to version 1.20.  The download link is in the first post of this thread: Setup For SOWWL Napoleon Games

Changes:
1. Infantry will form squares much sooner.  When the enemy cavalry comes within 500 yd. the battalions will begin to form into squares if they are facing the threat.  If the infantry is engaged with an enemy unit and does not form square, the window of opportunity shuts when the cavalry gets to within 140-180 yd.  In other words, they are sitting ducks.  This change reflects historic behavior.  Infantry would form squares as soon as enemy cavalry came into view.  If they waited too long or let the cavalry get too close, they stood a good chance of being cut down.

2. Infantry brigades will now fight using a double line formation rather than a single line.  The first line has the battalions in the usual line formation.  The second line is in column of divisions.  This change makes the battlefield somewhat less chaotic with fewer battalions struggling to close with the enemy.

3. To balance the infantry forming squares sooner, the artillery AI has been modified to make cavalry that comes within 650 yd. a very high priority target.  This is the sweet spot for most guns, so all kind of love will be coming cavalry's way. Batteries will shift from other targets to deal with this threat.  I haven't tried this with Russian batteries.  I wonder how long the nags will hang around?

4. I tried to make the AI somewhat more reactive in Hunt Then Down mode.  I think Mike will notice an improvement.

"the artillery AI has been modified to make cavalry that comes within 650 yd. a very high priority target"









But, otherwise, great stuff, Kevin

Are we testing today?

Thanks Kevin

I will try it out

Yes, many thanks for your continued efforts, Kevin.

Martin (J)

Played a game vs the Russians tonight... we lost. The artillery is quite different now.

Curiously I had the cavalry division and got the highest score by far, so I don't know what to say about the new cavalry targetting rules. It sounds like Kevin's infantry were closer to the guns than my cavalry though...

Replay.

That was a bad beat down.  Two Russian batteries well supported by cavalry destroyed our division.  If we are going to try to take a position like that by frontal assault, we'll need a lot more men to soak up the canister rounds.

Maybe we'll have to be more Napoleonic and set up our guns to work over the enemy before we attack.

Not sure about the Napoleonic wars but in today's modern Military Triad it is preferred to have a 3 to 1 advantage when attacking.

We had guns too.

GUNS!!! I Love guns and I am up there somewhere giving a serial killer look every time one goes off.



Can't believe I types that out loud.

I have been playing a sandbox campaign recently and several battles in the last 2 days have revealed that artillery is now murderous. I timed some late-period Prussian 6pdrs firing and they were shooting about every 20 to 25 seconds. With the heightened accuracy they slaughtered every unit that came near them. It looks to me like the AI cannot cope with this change especially as it likes to lead its columns of approach with its artillery batteries. These are shot to ribbons very quickly.

This was with 1813 Prussian gunners who are not that good (rated exp 4 or 5 with other stats to match). I imagine French gunners rated 6 exp will be supermen firing guided missiles.

Perhaps the artillery has been made too powerful?

Just my two cents.

The Ai artillery seems to be better able to select a viable target than before, many times I used to be frustrated when it would just sit there and do nothing. However, the kill rate/amount does seem to be high.

Also I have noticed skirmishers that continually snap back and forth from square and skirmish formation when Calvary is threatening.

The rate of fire and accuracy of the guns has not changed since it was set in the Nappy mod for SOWGB. What has changed is the targeting.

The stock game would select the nearest target to each gun, whatever that was and fire at it if it was in the LOS. The Nappy II mod changed that by having the guns prioritize targets regardless of distance and shoot at those if they were in the LOS. This current version builds on that by rejecting any target that is not in LOS and selects another target that is.

The difference is that now all the guns will fire at targets. Previously many guns would not fire because the selected target was not in the LOS. They would cycle endlessly with the load animation.

The other change is that the guns will change the target they shoot at as one enemy unit becomes a greater threat than another. So if a gun was happily blazing away at a square, 500 yd. away and suddenly a battalion in column of division starts moving forward, the guns will see the advancing target as a greater threat and change to it. This assessment of danger is ongoing throughout the gun's range.

Lastly, if a battery has no targets in front of it and suddenly the enemy appears on its flank, the battery commander will order the entire battery to redeploy and face the new threat. The player may want to leave alone a battery that is bothering no one.

Monday's game had the artillery responsible for 40-45% of the total casualties on the field. That is in keeping with historic estimates of battlefield casualties which is ~50%. The SP testing I've done has also had casualty rates in this range, (30-55%). We need to play a couple more games before we can make any real determination as to whether the guns need to be dialed back.

The difference is that now all the guns will fire at targets. Previously many guns would not fire because the selected target was not in the LOS. They would cycle endlessly with the load animation.

This is probably what I was seeing. The battle I mentioned had 3 batteries - 2 of 5 guns and 1 of 8 and all 18 guns were firing as fast as they could which alone is a very unusual sight. I also had good ground so all 3 were probably in the sweet spot we all crave to find. The 3 batteries were not all shooting at the same targets but they slaughtered 2 French 6-gun batteries that tried to deploy in front of them.

Maybe the problem is the AI's weird masochistic desire to unlimber its guns so far forwards. Some of them that tried to get forward were in canister range which is a pretty stupid thing. Can we get the AI to deploy its batteries further back?

The AI gunners are well trained and disciplined. They will not generally waste their time on enemy artillery. However, if the guns get within a certain range, they are seen as a real danger and are given special attention. That's probably what happened in your case. Mike found that out Monday the hard way.

The part of the code that moves units to their designated spots is not available for modding unfortunately. Awhile ago I modded the battery commander's code so that if he came within a certain distance of the enemy while moving, he'd stop. However, this requires the commander to be up with his guns, which I have found rarely happens for some reason.

Battalions and guns have no logic to make them stop and assess the threat they face when moving towards the enemy. They require the commanders to tell them when to stop short of their goal. They know the enemy is in front of them, but they know nothing of self preservation.

I pointed the problem out to Norb many years ago. He replied that he did not see anything wrong with this.

That is why I TC my Battery Cmdrs when moving into position, I had them get away from one time to many and that seems to solve the problem of the BC riding into the volley's of the enemy.

The destruction of my batteries in the last game occurred right when I was in the canister range and it was a disaster one battery was a bit forward and got decimated the one just behind it did not. The enemy did have a slight height advantage too, after the decimation of one battery they went onto the other batteries. There was only a handful of INF there against a lot of their CAV, I suppose that my battery's were considered the biggest threat at that time as Kevin moved up they refocused on him.

Will be interested to see how today's battle goes.

Kevin, in my SP game yesterday the AI army marched right across the map by road and its officers and battery commanders arrived several minutes before the troops. The AI battery commanders stupidly kept riding forwards sending hordes of couriers back to their guns presumably to tell them to get here now. The guns were well behind their commanders so that wasn't the problem.

Surely AI officers can self-preserve?

If those battery commanders had a stance of No Orders then they will try to move to their destination regardless of the enemy.  I don't think I can fix that, it part of the inaccessible code.  If they have some other stance, then they should stop well away from the danger.  It's certainly possible I missed some piece of code that needs changing.

Are you sure the battery commanders arrived before the guns and not just all the brigade and division commanders?  How far away from your lines did they stop?

From time to time I play a Sandbox game and I always notice the artillery doing the dumbest things from all the enemy units. Like you said, Martin, they ride forwards, way too close to my own forces and then stop short of my infantry. That makes those guns really easy to get shot up by muskets.

Maybe it's the type of the battle for the Sandbox Campaign battles that's wrong and causing the AI to act wierdly?

I don't know what stance they had - this was an AI opponent. I would expect the AI to issue stances though? The officers were definitely artillery commanders as in my 1813 OOB these have the animated flags while infantry and cavalry commanders have the small semi-transparent non-animated icon.

Here's the replay:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h9yy8fdaugahjoe/ArtillerySuicide.rar?dl=0

The closest the guns got was extreme canister range of my 6pdrs and their officers were probably 100 yards closer than that.