Questions regarding gameplay

Hello everyone, ive been trying the mod in some Sandbox Battles. I play letting some of my brigades act autonomously and others i TC.

Some of the stuff i noticed is that opposing regiments will meet in the middle of the battlefield and just stare at each other or sit there in skirmish formation while receiving shots from the enemy line. This just happened to me, 2 of my regiments were in skirmish formation (its commander was using defensive stance) against 1 enemy line formation and 1 enmeyt skirmish formation; both of my regiments just sat there while one received flanking fire from enemy line.

Another issue i have is that my artillety takes a long time to fire or doesnt at all but i believe this is working as intended.

Could anyone shed some light in this? Thanks!

Welcome.  I tend to play similarly.  I will let the AI manage as long as they're doing alright, but in a pinch or a very important situation I'll TC them.

My guess at a unit sitting in skirmish formation taking flanking fire that they're actually broken and trying to regroup.  When a unit is broken they will disperse into a skirmish-like formation, retreat, and attempt to regroup.  If they're allowed some time they will eventually reform into line or column. Is it possible this is the behavior you saw?

As for batteries, those can be quite tricky.  Their training quality will determine how quickly they fire, but it will also determine how much they'll tolerate being close to the enemy.  If they're slow to fire it'll either be because they aren't ready yet, are poorly trained and slow, or because they have no good line of sight.  The game scales the sprites up a bit from the 'real' scale they are.  So in the game's logic, all the units are a lot smaller than their sprites are.  This has a psychological effect where you think your guns should be able to see the enemy, but the reality is the aim point of the gun is a lot lower than you'd think so they might not be able to see over a crest, and their targets are also smaller so can hide more easily than it seems they would be able to in a hallow or valley.  I've been told the 'true eye level' of a soldier's sprite would be around his knee or shins, so the game is measuring the line of sight from much lower than it seems.

Thanks for the reply.

Ill take that into account when it comes to artillery.

Regarding the infantry formations, i dont believe they were broken as they only just reached the enemy and stood there, were not fired upon nor did they fire bar the enemy line that did so later.

Artillery can confuse me sometimes and I've been playing the mod since day 1. Sometimes they will get down to business and do huge damage and other days they just don't seem to ever "settle down" and get into a rhythm. I don't TC my battery commanders and give them All Out Attack orders. I find this works well. Try to place them on a slight rise with a good field of view but not too steep a hill or looking down too steep a slope. Make sure their line if view is not blocked by any friends within 300 yards or so. Sometimes the battery commander will decide a target off to a flank is better and shift his battery. If I don't agree with him I then TC him to keep him in place and engaging the target I prefer to hit.

The slopes of the ground and the dips and rises can play havoc with gunners line of sight which is why I suggest placing the battery on a rise if you can. Remember that the "flag" sprite where the unit takes its line of sight from is the limber, so make sure your limbers are on or just forwards of any crest and not slightly behind it. Likewise if you want to take advantage of cover like a stone wall, place the limber on it, not the gun. You'll get the terrain type notation show up.

I had a case recently of a horse battery of mine that was only about 250 yards from an enemy square and not a single gun would shoot. Maybe they were just too close.

Yeah i read a post about it, today i played and just left the guns where they spawned and they racked a lot of kills but stopped firing once the lines collided.

Another thing, could it be that french AI isnt "as good" as the allied AI? Because in every sandbox battle ive played as French all of my allied division eventually get routetd leaving my division basically alone bar some artillery. Is it that the changes made by the mod make it more difficult for the AI to use french assault column successfully?

The same AI code is used for all armies.

Hmm, then im not sure what could be perhaps im doing somthing wrong but it happens with divisions i dont control.

Strange that i played 2 corps vs corps sandobx matches and in both cases the french ai retreated relatively fast.

The fully AI controlled divisions are acting under the stats of their AI generals who may be lacking. The stats of the commanders has a fairly big effect and the range of responses is quite wide. A player commanded division, even if the player does nothing, switches those stats off, for the most part, except for rallying benefits, etc.

Thanks for the reply. I noticed that i was using "Probe" or "Attack" stance and kept losing lots of men. After re reading the manual. i started using Hold an Defend stance and now its all much more organic and actually manage to push back.

It was so satisfying to flank an enemy battery and its defending unit. Loving the mod!

You should join us in some MP games. What is your time zone?

- 3:00 GMT is my timezone. What time and days do you play?

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