Quatre Bras(ish) Nap HITS Mini-event: 16 May 19:30 British Time

Khryses wrote:

But dear god they move fast!

Well they are horses It always upset me when the cav walked at the same rate as inf and i thought it should be changed. This should make calvary even more enjoyable now and enhance the tempo of the game. Like you said you won't have all day to form square it will be more dire timing. Where do I get my hands on this cav mod??

It was a curious game but from my POV not terribly satisfying. I started out by deploying my troops on the 'ridge' (if you can call it that) NW of the objective at the same time as Ike's right hand brigade was also deploying. His troops were facing SE towards Justin and Martin's troops and so I was pleased to get my gun battery unlimbered, inside canister range right behind the enemy flank. The right-most French regiment was happily deploying facing away from me as my guns came up.

My two infantry brigades though seemed to take an age to get up. With the generals riding faster they leave their men behind on a long march and then at the most inconvenient moment seem to have a need to gallop back to find them. This happened with BOTH my brigade commanders right as I issued orders to them to adjust their deployments to face and then roll up the enemy flank.

While not even being shot at my battery guns decided to limber up and move further away from the enemy infantry battalion which by now had turned to face them, though it was out of musket range. Why they do this I don't know but several minutes of perfect canistering opportunity was lost.

My brigades finally came up and deployed to strike and easily crumple up the French right wing. We pushed it back a good quarter mile routing more than one battalion but it folded back against its guns which faced east to then make my ridge a very warm place to be. I couldn't push more because the enemy artillery fire just got worse and I couldn't get at the enemy guns because his infantry was too strong. Ike - you might have deployed there out of sheer necessity but it was a brilliant defence and I couldn't crack it.

Faced with this gunfire I just could not quite get my infantry to maintain the momentum and then Khryses broke the cardinal rule and began typing in text chat about calling the game while I hadn't yet lost any units at all. That gave me the info I should not have had that his flank was crumbling and about 20 minutes later that I found French forces that had defeated Martin and Justin now turning to attack me from the south-east.

Stefan put in a superbly timed charge with his cavalry that captured my battery in my rear and when the guns turned on me I knew the game was up and tried my best to get away with what I had left, escaping away to the north-east.

Problems

- infantry generals really need to walk at the same speed as infantry. Having them go faster has created an unfortunate effect.
- the cavalry charge is possibly now too quick.
- what is up with guns that don't like deploying in canister range? Is this an ACW thing affecting the artillery? My guns were alone and the infantry was a way behind but coming up so this could be an unsupported calculatuion that affects artillery?
- just because your command is collapsing please don't call for the game to end and announce your force status over open text!
- guns attached to divisions are hard to control. I can see the wisdom of having a corps artillery command looked after by a player.

I grant I probably shouldn't have asked if you were ready to concede over text, but fortunately it was only on team chat

Don't worry, I won't do it again

Mr. Digby: My deployment on that particular spot was born of desperation - a much stronger force than mere necessity! - but I thank you for your good words about my defense of that ridge.

I agree entirely on the point of infantry generals moving entirely too fast. If the speed of generals is controlled by the same setting which controls the cavalry speeds, please adjust that walking speed down from 4.2 to perhaps 4.1 or even 4.05 to keep the infantry AI commanders from running away from their troops. If there is a separate setting for the infantry brigade commanders, the same reduction would be appropriate in my view.

I was fortunate not to have been on the receiving end of a cavalry charge in either of our most recent battles, so I cannot express an informed opinion on whether the cavalry charges are too fast. From the comments by the cavalry commanders in this battle, the light cavalry speed in battle is excitingly fast, but just right in their opinions ... or perhaps I read too much into their expressions of enjoyment? It may be that more experience with the faster speed settings will enable us - infantry commanders - to hone our judgment about when to form square in face of cavalry; that was always a difficult choice in the real battles.

The problem with guns which have no "nearby" infantry support - in quotation marks because I don't know how close "nearby" means in this context - if it is a feature and not a bug, I would point out that ACW commanders who were West Point graduates were trained in Napoleonic tactics and it seems to me from my readings in the Napoleonic era that artillery commanders were extremely reluctant to stand and fire at enemy foot or horse without having some friendly soldiers "nearby" (quotes for the same reason as before) even in the circumstances we experienced in this last battle. Perhaps I ought to say, especially in this context: artillery well in advance of their own foot, enemy infantry - even being taken in the flank/rear by the artillery - closer than friendly foot or horse, more enemy foot coming up towards the guns ... I think I might have been tempted to withdraw the guns a bit myself via TC, depending upon my judgment of how close the enemy foot were and how fast the other enemy battalions were moving up. So, I cannot say that I agree entirely with this issue.

I agree about the third bit, but have to say that I did not see Khryses' chat messages. Even if they were visible to me - being on the other team, you see, I might not get to see them - I didn't have any time to look up into the upper left-hand part of the screen, unless that "spotted units" window became quite large. It was rather hot where I was at the time and I was quite busy trying to fix the mess I had gotten myself into - with Mr. Digby's enthusiastic assistance. Having said that, I can understand Mr. Digby's point, because even if the chat isn't displayed to opponents - and I have no idea at all whether it is or not - it would be potentially disheartening to one's team mates I would think. Send a courier the next time? Maybe not.

I agree that artillery attached to a division can be hard to control. However - you could read the "but" there, couldn't you? - one battery is not too difficult to control, when we take into consideration how valuable that one battery can be to the division commander. Case in point, our battle here. Without that attached battery, my division would have - quite frankly - disappeared under a wave of white-coated Austrian infantry. Moreover, having batteries assigned to divisions was historically accurate, even for the French, particularly in the Peninsular War. So, while I agree in the abstract, I disagree in the specific application to our battles, as I like to have a battery or two as a division commander, except to say that if corps commanders want to mass the guns at corps level, I see nothing wrong with that, either. The tactical doctrine was in transition in this era of war, I believe, so either would be acceptable from the "oooh, they didn't do that then" perspective.

Overall, the battles I find myself in using SOW are entirely satisfying to me as a gamer, because the game program is one of the best simulations of this level of war in this era. I don't always do as well as I ought to do as a commander in any given battle nor does the outcome always please me - I like to win as much as the next fellow (maybe even moreso ) - but satisfaction to me means that the battle went as it ought to have - in a broad overall way - given the available forces, the tactical situation as it eventuated, and the actions of the commanders in the battle. And that to me is what satisfies. And I mean no criticism of your opinion or feelings, Mr. Digby. I suspect that this is rather like the disagreements between those who prefer beer to wine and those who prefer wine to beer. In the words of an American cartoonist whose name escapes me at the moment, "To each his dag-nabbed, blue-eyed own."

It probably makes sense to test Kevin's cavalry mod for a bit longer. I liked it, but one battle is not much to base a theory on.

As far as forming squares go, my understanding is that the game regards them as formed as soon as the 'form square' button is pressed. Very much the reverse of the historical situation. I understand this is not something we can mod either. As folks become more used to the Napoleonic version, there may therefore be a danger that squares become too effective. It's perhaps another case for further testing, so we can then judge the overall effect.

I'm with Ike on liking divisions containing more than one arm. A couple of brigades and a battery is a nice mix for me.

Martin (J)

Welcome to division command! The issues that have been raised are not unusual when commanding at division level. Brigade commanders have a mind of their own and will fight their men as they see fit. To micro-manage a brigade, the division commander will need to TC his brigade commander. The speed at which the brigade commander arrives at the battle line is not important. He will order his men in as he sees fit regardless of where the division commander wants them to face or what formation to assume. It is actually to the players benefit that the brigadier gets to the fight before his men. He will assess the situation and plan his deployment accordingly. If he arrives with his men as they go into action, he has a much harder time getting his command untangled. All that marching and counter-marching that we all complain about decreases substantially when the AI can bring his troops forward as the situation demands.

Commanding the artillery is not difficult if you use the courier system rather than point and click. It does take a little practice, but once you get the hang of it they are really easy to order about. If they are sent out without support towards the enemy, (friendly unit within 100 yd), they have some probability of withdrawing to a safer distance. That is a hardcoded feature and was put in so that the guns would not just stay in place while enemy infantry swarmed around them.

Cavalry moves fast. A galloping horse moves at 25-30 mph. In the game light cavalry is set to 18mph. Far too often, an infantry commander will wait until the last second, when the charge is going in, to form a square. Historically, squares were formed at the first sight of cavalry presence. Now the player has a good reason to do that too.

As players get more practice at higher levels of command, much of this will become second nature. The desire to micro-manage individual regiments will fade and the commander can concentrate on larger issues such as coordinating with his fellow division commanders, when to throw in the reserves, bringing up artillery support, etc. It's a brave new world.

The recent version I got of the mod it appears the generals are back to the default and keep pace with their troops which is definitely a plus. I think the speed is just right on the cav both walking and running.

Also I would say squares in SOW will never be super effective because they haven't programmed in multiple direction firing, so the square I believe can only shoot in one direction which is where it was facing before it changed formation. So it can still be flanked by infantry fire if it is not facing the opponent directly with the flag bearing side, it may even still be considered to be flanked by cav in square as well (would have to ask Norb on that one). Melee doesn't light up the flanking indicator so it's hard to say for sure.

Also I don't think the cav runs into the bayonets until the counter charge from the inf squares is received. So it'll never be quite as instantly brutal as it was in real life, but at least it's a deterrent and prevents the regiments flanks/rear from being hit, at least we hope it's working that way. I think the bunching up of inf in a square must help in a melee fight rather than being spread out in a line. Or maybe its just a programming formula to calculate losses and it doesn't look at formation. So I wouldn't worry about squares being overpowered, if anything we could use some programming help to boost them a bit. But since cav doesn't dominate inf too much it's not a huge deal at this point.

I would like the brigade commanders to stay with their brigades. They have never ridden out miles ahead before in countless battles I've played in and so I can only assume they did so yesterday beause of the speed change - they were walking all the time until they both suddenly realised they were miles away from their men and galloped back to find them - just at the moment I issued them both new deployment orders. Its not an issue of divisional command which I've done many a time, its an issue of the new speed change.

Can we specify infantry pace for:

ArmyGenl
CorpsGenl
InfDivGenl
InfBrigGenl
FootArtOfficer

and cavalry move speeds for:

CavCorpsGenl
CavDivGenl
CavBrigGenl
HorseArtOfficer

?

Can we specify infantry pace for:

ArmyGenl 4.5 18
CorpsGenl " "
InfDivGenl " "
InfBrigGenl 4.3 "
FootArtOfficer " "

and cavalry move speeds for:

CavCorpsGenl 4.5 18
CavDivGenl " "
CavBrigGenl 4.3 "
HorseArtOfficer " "

If your brigade commander was a long distance ahead of his troops, then he probably galloped part of the way or the regiments were caught in a traffic jam somewhere along the march.

We just need a general who commands things that move at infantry pace to also move at infantry pace.

BTW do columns of division march slower than road columns?

Mr. Digby wrote:We just need a general who commands things that move at infantry pace to also move at infantry pace.

BTW do columns of division march slower than road columns?

Columns of Division actually march slower than Inf lines, which is an error in the drills csv files.

Gunship24 is aware of this but I don't think he has corrected it yet. Their movement rate modifier(column K) is -0.2 (with column and road column being 0.2 and line 0 and line fight 1). My guess is that the minus

Not difficult to change, though.

I would also be in favour of increasing the skirmish formation modifier a bit more (presently 0.3) to represent their increased agility/mobility. This, along with reducing their deployment spread and slight increase in firing range might make them more useful, without making them too uber.

This, of course opens up a whole debate but my own experiments with such modifications are promising IMO and might work, particularly for smaller MP Brigade Command games.

Mike

Grog wrote:

Mr. Digby wrote:We just need a general who commands things that move at infantry pace to also move at infantry pace.

BTW do columns of division march slower than road columns?

Columns of Division actually march slower than Inf lines, which is an error in the drills csv files.

Gunship24 is aware of this but I don't think he has corrected it yet. Their movement rate modifier(column K) is -0.2 (with column and road column being 0.2 and line 0 and line fight 1). My guess is that the minus

Not difficult to change, though.

I would also be in favour of increasing the skirmish formation modifier a bit more (presently 0.3) to represent their increased agility/mobility. This, along with reducing their deployment spread and slight increase in firing range might make them more useful, without making them too uber.

This, of course opens up a whole debate but my own experiments with such modifications are promising IMO and might work, particularly for smaller MP Brigade Command games.

Mike

Wow, well this needs fixing and seems simple to do. Kevin? Can we correct the drills.csv on this? I always march off roads on Garniers big open maps in columns of division so that explains that!

Fixed. Skirmish lines have also been shortened and made to look less uniform.

Uncle Billy wrote:Fixed. Skirmish lines have also been shortened and made to look less uniform.

Is this something we should download from someplace, or it's fixed and I don't need to worry about it any more?

You sound like a cavalry commander.

Mr. Digby wrote:You sound like a cavalry commander.

Born and raised - though I haven't had a chance to try my new up-gunned cavalry skills in multiplayer yet

Is this something we should download from someplace, or it's fixed and I don't need to worry about it any more?

Apart from Digby's not so opaque insult, (I'll be happy to act as your second ), this raises a good point. The files that are being modded, currently drill and unitglobal are in the Road To Wagram mod. MP requires that only one copy of those files be used by the host. In other words, we can't add them to JustCouriers. We have to replace the ones in the Road To Wagram mod and/or it's patch if people haven't manually combined the two. Any ideas?

Uncle Billy wrote:Any ideas?

Not very often... But wait! Here comes one! Can we make a NapModHITS patch? Or should we just circulate the changes among our joint KS/GCM group and make the edited version the one we all use?

Digby wrote:

Can we make a NapModHITS patch? Or should we just circulate the changes among our joint KS/GCM group and make the edited version the one we all use?

There will no doubt be a number of changes so I was thinking that the easiest way may be to put all the nappy logistics files into JustCouriers. It will need a new name. Then players would rename or delete logistics folder in Road To Wagram and turn off its patch if they have it. That way whenever a new version of one of the csv files comes out, people can just replace a mod folder and not have to overwrite several csv files that could be in one of two places.

JustCouriers comes back to being HITS&Couriers again really. We just need to not load the NapModCSV files Mod.