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

[JaM]

full version will just overwrite the same files, so it practically doesnt matter.

[leonn]

would it be possible to link me to the 30-40 unit mod please? i did try searching but i cant seem to find it.
so again to be absolutly clear,i unzip the mod and patch to the location you have designated,then any submods i wish?

or do i unzip the mod to a location,say a folder and then copy\paste it to the designated place?
im sure this is all very simple for such as yourself,but i earn a living throwing drunks out of nightclubs so this sort of thing is quite hard for me!

anyway,thanks for your patience.cheers

[leonn]

shamelessly bumping my own question as im desperate not to screw up my etw by putting things in the wrong place! cheers

[JaM]

I will let you know once i'm back home (still in the office)

[El Chupanibre]

One thing I'm curious about, may be worth looking into, is the effects of fatigue on artillery. Does it affect their reload times, aim, etc? And maybe seeing how increasing the fatigue of operating the gun can compensate for them having unlimited ammo.

[JaM]

Only thing that can affect artillery is accuracy and movement rates. Sadly, rate of fire is not coded.. it would be great if it was, but its not the case. Right now artillery only get reduced accuracy with higher fatigue/disorder.


leonn: unpack the file separately, then just copy/paste everything into Data folder. if anything asks to be overwritten, put yes.

[leonn]

cheers mate!

[leonn]

thing about artillerymen was that they were all big strong lads and very fit so fatigue didnt affect them as much as you might think.
they were specialists right from the start of the period in question,and were used to the strenuous work involved in crewing a gun.
i have re-enacted 17th-19thc artillery and i know first hand how hard the gunners trade was! cheers

[JaM]

Plus, in ER, you have 3 different tiers of artillery units. First tier is available at the game start. They represent late 17.century guns, which were often operated by civilians and less trained crews. These men are easier to rout, and sometimes might abandon guns if in danger. After you develop appropriate tech, you will be able recruit more modern guns. Second Tier guns are mobile on battlefield, and are crewed by trained artillerymen. They have much better morale, which means they wont run away that easy. Also their guns are much more accurate than previous tier. Last major tier represents late 18.century guns. These crews were trained to operate always the same gun (previous early crews practically got different gun type each battle),which means they could achieve much better accuracy with it (over time). And of course, these men got much better training than previous tier.(as well as more professional officers). Late tier guns also switched for lighter guns, which increased their rate of fire significantly, while their accuracy was also improved thanks to many new developments in manufacturing technology (Maritz), and improvements like wooden sabots and improved carriages and caissons.

[leonn]

with reference to 17thc guns,crews would abandon them in an instant if threatened with death! the guns were difficult to move and would only be captured once the battle was over.
also some 17thc pieces were very large and once placed did not move for the duration of action.

later of course once infantry started useing square formation and artillery got lighter,when threatened by cavalry guncrews would quickly remove one wheel and head at high speed to the nearest square.
the gun could not then be easily nicked and the only danger was the enemy would spike the gun rendering it useless. (shame we cant have that ingame!)
i have always thought the rate of fire for early guns in various mods ive tried was way too fast,ive crewed a demiculverin in 17thc re-enactments and the rate of fire at the start of a battle is around 1 round every 3-4 minutes,as the battle go's on and with constant firing the barrel gets hotter and the firing rate go's down.you dont want to be shoving black powder down a hot barrel so you have to cool it with your wet mop more or even stop firing for a time. but then i suppose it all depends how historically accurate you want to be! cheers

[JaM]

True. Current rates are more theoretical, practically just to offset the limitless ammo situation. its one of the variables that defines difference between light and heavy artillery, where light guns (6pdr) can fire about 1.5-2x faster than heavy 12pdr. Late 17.century guns, and early 18.century guns are slower than that. (about 20% slower with guns of same caliber each generation, so sakers which are 8pdrs have rate of fire comparable to early 18.century heavy 12 pdrs)

If you check the crew stats, 17.century gun crews often have morale 0 or even -1, which means they get routed instantly if in danger.early 18.century gun crews have morale around 3-4 (Line infantry base morale is 4-6) and late 18.century gun crews 5-7.

[leonn]

i agree about the unlimited ammo thing,that is just silly. shame we cant have a supply train ingame to represent some sort of ammo replenishment mechanism.

in 17thc battles as guns were so expensive commanders who had any sense would detail an infantry unit to stay with the guns to protect them.
the gun commander at the very least was usually a professional soldier,often a paid mercenary who would train his crews locally and keep them if they proved to be competent.
his services were usually very expensive so generals would invest men to protect them.

i also think the damage guns do to troops seems a bit off.we did live firing tests over various ranges with all types of rounds on human sized targets (basically string up pigs from the butchers!).
grapeshot and its derivatives are not well represented in games with regard to the damage it does! round/solid shot is quite accurately represented,especially against hard targets but even here its a bit light on damage when a round hits a unit square on. cheers

[JaM]

Canisters and Grapes are always hard to portray, because its just not possible use real world data - for example you can use exact number of bullets for canister, but dispersion pattern wont be anywhere close to reality no matter what you do, so it always have to be adjusted for effect. Anyway, in ER, you have 2 types of anti-personel munition available. Early light canister and later heavy canisters. Light canisters are small musket bullets in a bag, with shorter range (about 1.5x longer than musket range), while heavy canister is contained of fewer but heavier bullets with increased lethality and range (about 2-2.5x of musket range). Both light and heavy canisters are available at the same time (heavy canister uses shrapnel shot button)

Another very important difference is, that light canister is considered to be defensive ammo, which means it is being fired in emergencies with increased rate of fire, which is about 50-75% shorter than normal rate of fire for solid shot. Switching to light canister is good idea if enemy attacks your battery.

Heavy canister is attack round, therefore its being loaded at normal rate, which means its ROF is same as with solid shot. THis allows player to use late arty aggressively, move it close to enemy and destroy them with heavy canisters.

Solid shots are good universal type of ammo, but its full potential is in oblique shots - if you manage to outmaneuver enemy, so your arty can fire into their sides, solid shot will cause much higher casualties per shot than any other ammo...

Personally, i always use artillery indirectly, always aiming them into area where i expect enemy to approach my positions. I also never place artillery in the middle of my formation,but always at flanks. This way, i can order my batteries to fire against enemies at different flanks, which guaranties oblique shots (left arty firing against enemy attacking right flank, while right arty instead of firing directly is firing against enemies at left flank)

[leonn]

yes,we tested all of these different types including chainshot and exploding shell.
i presum we are up against the games engine again as to how accurate we can be? cheers

[leonn]

again a shameless bump.
im looking for the location of the multiplier to change it.
i cannot find users/(your computer name)/appdata/roaming/the creative assembly/empire/scripts thing!
im on w7 if that helps. cheers

edit; i found theuser/(your computer name) bit but theres nothing in there about appdata.
or will that only appear after i install the mod?
im just trying to find everything before i go ahead and install because if i bork it up and i have to dl stuff from steam,it'll take a week because of my poor internet! cheers

[JaM]

try installing Total Commander - by default windows explorer doesn't show system folders or files

[leonn]

total commander? whats that?

[JaM]

its a file manager that allows you to manage your data more efficiently

here is their webpage: http://www.ghisler.com/ its shareware/freeware

[El Chupanibre]

Have you considered bringing back the old vanilla "volley fire" drill for line units? Where only the front rank can fire (and the 2nd rank if they have LOS). NTW currently uses it, and its what units use before FBR is researched.

My reasoning gameplay wise is to use the idea of frontage and volume of fire that commanders of the period had to consider. Stretch the line out thin to cover more ground, more men can fire, and its harder to flank, but is vulnerable to a cavalry charge. Or deeper formations of 3 or 4 ranks, less men can fire their muskets, and are easier to flank, but they are much more resistant to melee and cav charges.

Just food for thought, might be worth experimenting with.

[Legionary Titus Pullo]

fighting against indi9ans in the americas, i am finding it rather hard to kill them, even when they are right in front of a massed volley of musketry, or recieving cannister fire, it can take several volleys to kill 1 little indian, any advice available.