FKoC - Unit stats discussion

[leonn]

Post by AD:

Rather than spread discussion over multiple threads it makes more sense to centralise it here.

This is a basic list of the regiments and how I believe they behaved on the battlefield.

Hopton's - Experienced
Essex's - Well trained
King's lifeguard - High morale/well trained
Stamford's - Low morale. Unlucky buggers having that man commanding them.
Manchester's - His regiment was busted up at Edgehill, but went onto be one of the most succesful.
Rupert's - Impetious with good morale (as he was).
Brooke's - Nothing very amazing about this man or regiment.
Northampton's - Again nothing very amazing about them
Fairfax's - Well trained
Robarte's - Average
Rawdon's - Average
Newcastle's - Excellent morale (based on their stand at marston moor).
Trayned bands - Well armoured (wearing buff coats)
New model army - Good morale, well trained


Sorry Leonn I needed to Hijack your post as for some reason mine was pushed to the bottom - AD:

Leonns orignal post:

just as a matter of interest,would it be possible to have the entire block fire a single volly?it was a tactic used by musket,a full volly from all ranks,then club up and charge.it was used at point blank range.

[eusKai]

If you disable fire by rank you throw game balance out of the window, musketeers become a lot more effective and battles become very short affairs. Also because firing synchronization is completely bugged without fire by ranks, the action of musketeers looks really wrong.

Cheers

That´s what i feared, gunners shooting like archers will be just too strong.

I´ll pplay with the EDU and see if i can find some useful changes, maybe addding more delay between atcks...

Thanks for the quick replies guys!!

PD: It´s about time CA fixed these bugs, the game was not released yesterday...

[JaM]

vanilla M2TW is full of bugs. Some of them were fixed in Kingdoms. AI reforming issues could be fixed in battle files. Removing fire_by_rank and modifying formation numbers you might get more effective firing solution - Right now it is not a problem to ignore muskets completly - in custom battle i used my musketeers as a melee inf, i never fired one round just charged the enemy and i won easilly - fire_by_rank is just too slow.

If you watch that Naseby document, you can see that musketeers fired at once in ranks and then they just charged (Swedish model) not bothering with reloading. With fire_by_rank you will get 5-6 rounds and enemy is so close so he will charge you.

I know you like fire by rank because it looks better, but it just dont work. Musketeers are easilly anihilated by quick firing cavalry.
I did a lot of tests with gunpowder in M2TW (SS6.1), several hours of testing delays (which dont work btw...) accuracy,range,damage and different formations. from my perspective using fire by rank is worst thing that could be used.

Main advantage of musketeers was firepower - musket was the most dangerous weapon at that date - some historians tell that longbows were better, but that is not true - Yes, they were able to shoot much faster, but their terminal effectivity was much much worse - musket bullet cause huge tissue trauma and blod loss - any hit is dangerous and practically means that enemy is not able to continue fighting, With arrow situlation is different - arrow will stay in wound preventing blood loss, penetrating tissue damage is very low and if arrow dont hit critical organ, enemy will be able to fight back - to reliably incapacitate enemy you need one musket hit or 5-6 arrow hits...

Another big difference was that muskets of 16-17century used different bullets tahn those used in 18century - they used bullets with small windage so they were harder to load in but were much more accurate than bullets used in Napoeonic Era - Standard matchlock musket would be more accurate than Brown Bess Musket,but reload time would be 3-4x slower so where Brown Bess could fire 3-4 rounds per minute with effective range against single enemy 50m / enemy formation 100m, late Matchlock would be able to fire 1 round per minute and be effective against single enemy up to 100m / enemy formation 150m ...

Because of Swedes influence accuracy became less important because of massive salvo fire Swedish tactical system prefered one salvo and instant charge into damaged enemy ranks - but that is not what is currently in game - with Swedes system from 60 musketeers there was a 60 bullets flying at once against enemy - in current system you will get 5-6 bullets at max...

[AlphaDelta]

Jam,

Unit stats are in the hands of god (Point Blank) now.

Cheers

[JaM]

Formation define distance between soldier ranks and files, with that radius value you can have more men per rank - for example if you compare musketeers with default radius 0.4 and three rank formation with another unit with radius 0.2 and thre ranks, second unit will have much less frontal area - unit will be much more compact wit the same formation.

In SS6.1 i'm using formation 0, 1.5, 0, 2, 3 square, but that would make soldiers standing next to each other. If you try 1.0 1.5, 1.0, 1.5, 3 square - there will be more space between soldiers so second rank troops will not colide with first rank troops during reforming process. Anyway fire_by_rank has one big realism problem - In Real Historical formation more ranks you had, more continuous fire was - it tooka bout 10 seconds for next rank to prepare and fire - more ranks there were, more time musketeers had to reload their weapons. In Game fire_by_rank formation more ranks you have - slower is the fire,because soldeirs had to move longer distance until they get to the rear rank and first rank will only fire when they are there... That makes 2-3.rank formation the best as it allows fast rank switching.

[JaM]

wow, PB you got promoted?

[Point Blank]

AD,

Well I think that your expertise in the setting, and how you want the units to work in the field, are the big factors here.

The stats are already very very good, I think that modifying some missile accuracies based on the shooter quality would be a worthwhile addition, and (perhaps) the attack values of firearms, but not much else.

Its very nice because its so self-contained and the units only need to be balanced against each other, rather than 500 other units and 500 years of varying technologies.

JaM: I am more than happy with 'Artifex', AD is the diety around these here parts

[Point Blank]

Am getting some nice results with fire_by_rank using 1m unit spacing, 0.3 radius and 'reload_extended' anim replaced by 'reload' anim, it speeds up the revolving ranks. Units also seem more likely to fire, rather than sometimes just standing there.

AD - yes the AI seems to be 'clumping'.

[AlphaDelta]

Right now my main concern is the issue of pikes killing more in battle than muskets. It should be the other way round.

I do agree with Jam that muskets aren't behaving correctly. They need their killing power increased, and if possible the speed of the revolving ranks. However I really want to keep the slow pace of battle, I would really hate to see a musket driven blood bath where battles are over in the blink of an eye.

I also agree with Jam when he says cavalry (Parliamentarian cavalry especially, with their large ammo stocks) are inflicting too much damage upon musketeers in a straight up shooting match. They're firing carbines and pistols from horseback so accuracy should be definitely be less than decent.

I don't want to lose fire by ranks as it's important to the feel of battle. I'd much rather see the accuracy and impact of a volley increased.

Cheers

[AlphaDelta]

That sounds superb PB. It's a great start and hopefully will satisfy my desire to keep fire by rank whilst making them more lethal.

AD - yes the AI seems to be 'clumping'.

I found the fix for this.

formation 1.2, 1.2, 1.6, 1.6

With this loose is the same as tight.

Cheers

[Point Blank]

AD,

I am finding muskets working well with some updated accuracy and attack values, also have replaced 'reload_extended' anim with 'reload, and that is causing the ranks to revolve faster and shoot in situations where previously they might not have. Also slightly tightened musket formation and set radius to 0.3, which also helps revolving rank behaviour.

Yes the cavalry don't have to worry about revolving ranks so will cut the accuracy back.

[AlphaDelta]

Sounds good!

[eusKai]

Tried those changes on a single unit and it seems it shoots much better after some volleys than before, great work AD & PB !!!

Question: Will these changes be in future patches?

[JaM]

PB, you can try even 0.2 radius if you keep formation distances - collisions would be almost non-existant - bigger is the space between soldiers and smaller is the soldier (not visually,just like an object which is determined by radius) the better is the result.


I'm glad it works, i tested it before, but it was hard to use it in SS6.1 because formation was still vulnerable to archer bombardment fire where they refused to move or react. Its true that if we only have gunpowder ranged weapons, that varable is out of window... just if we could make those soldiers fire at once (order from officer) and not fire at will...

BTW,PB i tested a slightly diferent approach to gunpowder range - I gave musket/Arquebuse their effective ranges (150 for Arquebuse, 200 for light Musket/Caliver, 250 heavy musket) and changed the distance at which unit will open fire from 0.8 to 0.4. Together with the same accuracy values close fire is absolutly same as it was before but there is a possibility of long range fire from Musktes with crapy results (but it is sometimes worth it if you need to harass some long range archers or light cavalry pouring lots of arrows at you...) AI still tends to use its effective range (sometimes even AI use one or two units as skirmishers and fire from longer range...) and move gunmen to that distance before starting to fire effectivly.
I think it is worth a try, i will tell you my results later.


AD, one question about strategical map movement: how did you made that characters have less movement points in winter and more in summer?

[Point Blank]

Have attached some updated files to try, backup your files and extract to the FKOC data directory.

Changes:
-Updated armor values that are in line with projectile attack values
-some armors are assumed to be strengthened +2 by improved metallurgy or thicker armor
-bodyguards have a further +2 armor to simulate advanced metallurgy or high quality armor
-slight change in pike attack and defense values
-slight change in some mounted melee attack and defense values
-slight changes to some attack delays
-militia changed to low discipline
-sword charge attack raised by 1
-firearm attack values raised based on energy delivered by typical weapons of that type. When hit by a firearm, the target will usually go down rather than just shrug it off (depending on armor of course)
-cavalry relatively more vulnerable to missile fire
-armor piercing attribute removed. Combined with increased attack values this increases the effect of firearms versus unarmored targets and reduces it versus armored ones
-all firearm accuracies now depend on shooter quality, to simulate training and ability to function under battlefield stress
-mounted shooters suffer significant accuracy penalties
-projectile impact masses updated
-projectile velocities updated

Updated animations to follow at some point that increase speed of rank rotation for foot gunners.

BACK UP YOUR FILES FIRST.

[JaM]

PB, i knew it it will be worth waiting for it! good job as always...

[JaM]

one thing that is possibly causing musketeer pasivity - bullets have no oblique shot capability, so if musketeers dont have clear line of fire, they will revolve ranks but not fire. I was quite surprised when i saw this - but when i moved them to the front ever that little height, they started firing at enemy...


Another thing - i think 80 men per cavalry unit is too much, especially when max number for infantry pikemen is 150. i think 50-60men would be still enough plus it will slightly lower the overhelming power cavalry has now.

[AlphaDelta]

PB,

EXCELLENT! All these changes sound good and I'm going to try it out now.

-armor piercing attribute removed. Combined with increased attack values this increases the effect of firearms versus unarmored targets and reduces it versus armored ones

In my opinion this one is not right. No armour in this period could resist a 12 bullet to the pound musket ball, unless at the extreme range of the musket. Muskets should be almost as effective against armoured targets as un-armoured ones. At close range a cuirassier's armour could resist a pistol bullet at best.

However I've noticed that in game cavalry go down a lot faster now so I think my concern is unfounded..

Another thing - i think 80 men per cavalry unit is too much, especially when max number for infantry pikemen is 150. i think 50-60men would be still enough plus it will slightly lower the overhelming power cavalry has now.

No, no lets not start messing with this kind of thing please.

A troop of cavalry in the ECW was between 60-80 men. The Eastern association and subsequently the New model army aimed for troops of 100. A company of infantry was 100-150. Cavalry was a HUGE part of the war and armies could be formed of upto and even more than 40% cavalry, I'm not going to see cavalry reduced in numbers whatsoever.

AD, one question about strategical map movement: how did you made that characters have less movement points in winter and more in summer?

There's a winter/summer script written by GED that simulates winter on 3 of the 12 turns and reduces movement points during winter via traits.

Cheers

[AlphaDelta]

After some testing;

Great results so far. Accuracy seems a lot better simulated now, at long range muskets are killing at slow rate, but once you bring units close together the front ranks really take a beating.

The balance between cavalry and musketeers is a lot better now. Carbine armed cavalry can still cause a problem which is great.

Pikes need to be slowed down though, they are killing too fast. I would suggest lowering their attack value and increasing their defense skill.

One thing that should probably be done is to increase the number of musketeers to be the same as pikemen.

Cheers

[JaM]

lowering their attack wont help, we just need to rise their delay,so they swing them much slowly. Current animation dealys are 25 for Pike and musket clubing - in RR standard Pikemen have delay 90... another possibility would be to lower melee hit rate in battle config from 1.75 to 1

Increasing numbers of musketeers is good idea and realistic - composition in 17.century was 2/3 musketeers 1/3 pikemen


btw, if anybody is interested in realistic battle formation, use this file: