Empire Realism | Feedback + General Discussion (until incl. 3.7, defunct thread)

[El Chupanibre]

Hi, new to the mod and having fun so far! I'm fine with getting rid of rank fire, but just curious about how historical this drill is. Did they do it as depicted in Empire? Is the way you have it in ER more accurate to history? Either way I think ER's combat is far superior, and I'm glad to hear about a morale increase across the board. One thing I'll criticize you on is both units routing from melee combat. One thing I see a lot is after a melee, the victor also routs because they become so disordered from combat. Units also tend to charge into combat very slowly.

Anyway, on to my main point about Spain: This was discussed a lot in vanilla Empire too about Carlos II. He died in NOVEMBER of 1700, the same turn the game begins. I and a lot of players thought it was unfair that Spain be saddled with such a terrible king for possibly half the campaign or whenever he finally dies, when historically he should be dead by turn 2! One solution is to have Spain start with his successor Philip V, or set Carlos' age to like 99 so he dies very fast.

[JaM]

I'm afraid no drill available in ETW is anyhow realistic. Therefore i had to use drill that causes less problems to game play. both fire by rank and platoon fire will only start with all weapons loaded. Volley fire doesn't have that limitation.

About Spanish king, that is very good idea, i will try to do something about it.

[mAIOR]

Btw, Portugal was an absolute monarchy since you're looking at those files.



Cheers...

[El Chupanibre]

Ok so I've been playing a campaign as Prussia and right now the mod's only major flaw is this melee bug: units charge into melee super slow-mo so they get an extra face-full of musket from the enemy that usually breaks them and causes a lot of casualties at that range. I think it should be fixed. Other than that the combat is great. Also I think it would be better if it were released as mod packs rather than patch packs. It's just easier when you have multiple mods and the mod manager.

Another thing: I've been reading a bit about combat from this century, and the vanilla ETW "fire-by-rank" drill is misrepresented I think. Rather than fire 1 rank at a time, the first rank knelt down to fire, the second rank fired over their heads, and the third frank fire over the shoulders of the 2nd all at once. Is there a way to do this in ETW? I know light infantry has animations firing from down on one knee, i wonder if it's possible to have the first rank do that with regular infantry? just an idea.

[kentuckybandit]

Love this mod. What happened to the early era uniforms from v1? Not a big deal though.

[marcello]

I was thinking, would it be possible to include at least one or two republican french infantry units from the 1790's, to be recruited after the revolution breaks out ?

[El Chupanibre]

Why was the United States removed from custom battles??

[JaM]

i dont think so, i will check. Anyway, i spent some time playing East India Company and Commander: Conquest of Americas games, and got few new ideas i could implement into ER.. I will also include fixes for all reported bugs and tweaks. So, ER 3.1 is coming soon

[El Chupanibre]

Oh I took a look at the files and figured it out. Turns out what you tried to do was remove the US from early custom battles, but what that does is make them unavailable period :\
So a faction has to be available for both early and late periods in custom battles to be playable.

The only other thing I'd suggest asides my previous recommendations is using some of Spanky's militia skins for your provincial and town garrisons. It gets a little confusing during battle since they look just like line infantry.

Lastly, does anyone play this online? I'd love to try it against a human. I'm just loving this style, it feels very wargamey

--edit: this "delayed fire animation" mod is also worth looking at. I used it with ER and I like it.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=407899

[JaM]

i will check that animations, thing is what actually is needed is reduced loading instead of delayed firing. In current animation, soldiers ram the ball just too much, normally 3-5 rams were enough, but if you count, you will see that they ram about 20-25 times with default reload speeds... anyway, i will check it, maybe with this modification i could reduce reload speed of weapons even more, which could eliminate the long reload process... who knows, but definitly worth testing, thanks.

[Telarius]

Great mod +rep

[JaM]

After some time spent playing RTW mods and other games i think i'm ready for another ER update, mostly to solve few outstanding issues, but also adding experience system used in NER, and also do more about melee balance, especially better differentiate melee specialist units and bayonet armed units.

Theory is simple - you didnt need that much force to cause lethal damage by thrusting attack. But, musket with Bayonet was held in both hands, while using much more power any one handed thrusting weapon could deliver, therefore bayonet will get highest melee damage of all weapons in the game, while damage will increase as the bayonets progress. Anyway, due to the way how bayonet was used, it provided very limited options in defense. Practically, while musket with bayonet gave infantrymen more standoff from enemy, it also was easier to parry with swords, so actual defense stat will be much lower. on contrary, melee specialists, like eastern swordsmen, or natives with tomahawks will get higher melee defense, while their weapons will be reflecting the amount of damage possible with the weapons - scimitars and sabres producing slashing damage will be nowhere as effective as thrusting bayonets, anyway will have high melee defense that might overcome the attack deficit in melee - this means bayonet armed infantry will be very dangerous in charge, and initial contact, anyway once it is caught in prolonged melee it will loose its advantages and might get badly hurt by specialist melee units. Musket armed infantry will keep the high rate of fire, so the best defense will be to shoot the enemy at range, anyway it would be better to withdraw, than to receive enemy charge. (melee will generate high morale loss to defender)

[JaM]

Next update is coming soon, i will probably release it together with new NER. Both mods will now share same gameplay principles - overall idea is to make morale even more decisive, while increasing differences between unit classes. THis will be quite a difference in ER, as there is more different unit types than in NER, anyway same unit types will share the same parameters.

Shortly, new version will bring infantry units more vulnerable in melee, cavalry that breaks less, experience/training will be main difference between normal and elite units, and unit movement and cohesion/fatigue will get overhauled. As in NER, walking will no longer tire infantry, while running will not tire any light cavalry. (this is valid only for flat terrain, if you make them run up hill they will get tired/lose cohesion)

New update will also bring some further unit class improvements which will make all unit classes beneficial on the battlefield - skirmishers will be able to outpace any infantry unit, allowing them to harass infantry more effectively. Cavalry walking speed will be increased, and walking speed will be the same for all cavalry types, difference will be now in running and charge speed. Light cavalry will be very fast, capable to run down broken enemy, just dont expect them to fight head on with infantry or heavy cavalry. (but they will easily escape if needed...)

I will post several updates to give more details on new features.

[JaM]

Because of experience system being imported from NER, from now on, all units will get certain starting experience based on unit type. Only Militia units will start with 0 Exp, Regular forces will have 1 or 2 Exp based on quality of certain units (faction training etc...), veteran and specialist troops will start at 2-3 Exp, and Elite units will have 3-5 Exp points.

This system will be implemented for all factions, taking the unit quality into consideration - one nice side effect will be strength of Pirate infantry... they will get very experienced men (2-3exp) so they will be more of a danger in early game, much harder to eradicate, especially if they manage to recruit their melee infantry units - with new stats system, all pure melee units will have increased melee defense, so they will be very hard to beat in close combat. Therefore if you will want to capture Pirate heavens, be prepared to meet with Exp 3 Buccaneers running at you with their sabres...

edit:

i have also finally manage to fix the naval casualties to realistic amount.. before, ships would loose more guns than men, now guns are slightly more resilient than the crew.

[El Chupanibre]

Is there any historical evidence on the effectiveness of Europeans' bayonet drill? I figured that the average soldier would be pretty low skill with a bayonet compared to a trained melee soldier. The biggest debate in every military until WWI re bayonets was 'reach' and its real and mythological properties. For the 18th century I'd say line troops would use bayonets defensively and not with much skill in hand to hand and would be outclassed by someone with a lighter axe or sword. I also think elite units like Grenadiers should use axes or swords, making them better assault troops. Elite troops like that were usually equipped with a short sword or saber.

I'm not sure about marching not tiring troops. If fatigue is now cohesion, it makes more sense to me to increase the recovery rate, and increase the terrain penalties. That way units may have to stop and reorganize after crossing rough terrain or else be routed if suddenly attacked.

The only real suggestion I want to press is to please use some different models for the militia and town garrison units. Spanky has some nice militia textures in rough looking poorly dyed uniforms.

Finally I wonder if some of the firing drills can be brought back into the realism mods? (both ER and NR) I did a little reading on the Napoleonic wars and it makes sense that some Prussian units would still use rank fire, and some British and French would use platoon fire. Now I'm done.

[JaM]

Its not drill that was so effective. Its the type of weapon that was so effective - thrusting weapons are very energy efficient - you can cause highly lethal wounds with little strength needed. With slashing weapons you need much more strength to deal lethal damage, while due to weapon length, you make yourself vulnerable to attacks from longer weapons.. Yes, Grenadiers and other specialists carried swords and sabres, but those were actually never used in combat, and most of the time were used as somewhat larger knives or axes to cut wood etc.. Sabre for them was just the item of status, it was not considered more effective than bayonet - if it was, every infantrymen would have it and used it... so swords and sabres have no place on western battlefield, and those few examples where bayonet lost to swords like in battles against Scots, it wast sword what gave Scots advantage, but small bucklers that allowed them to parry longer muskets with bayonets...


Regarding marching - it doesnt mean your men wont tire down, no map is completely flat, there is always slope penalty which will apply, it will be just less of an issue - if AI marches across the map, its units wont be completly exhausted when they reach your positions, which means they will actually fight, and not run after first salvo.

For Fire Drills, i'm afraid they wont be ever used in ER, due to the engine errors that cause drills to not react properly - for example fire by rank wont allow unit to start firing until all men are in formation and have all muskets reloaded.. so if you have stranded men somewhere, entire unit wont fire... Same with reloading - until your unit is completely reloaded, it wont fire, no matter if that last reloading men is in the third rank... current volley drill doesnt have those weaknesses, which makes it less of a hindrance to players and mostly to AI, who is much more impacted by those flaws in fire drills - human can micromanage the unit to get it fire, but AI will never manage the same, which would make it less effective... volley drill gives both human player and AI same chances.

Regarding textures, because i'm working on this alone, i decided to only improve gameplay, leaving graphical part alone until i find somebody who would be willing to help in that matter.. anyway, i'm not telling it will be never done, just right now i rather work on things i'm good at, than trying to learn how to create/add new textures

[El Chupanibre]

Oh it's not that hard at all, just putting the graphics in your pack files and changing a line in the units spreadsheet to use the new graphics. I could do it for you if you want. All you need to do is ask Spanky for permission to use his graphics.

[JaM]

can you post a link with his work?

[El Chupanibre]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=265032

[JaM]

thanks, will check it out.