[Feedback & Discussion] Napoleon Empire Realism

[Mjarr]

Late to the party re: squares, but pike squares do have the advantage it can be formed even in tight spot where you'd assume it would scale by the mod's logic at the expense of being bit worse at shooting and arguably negating a little bit of the magic forcefield. Only disadvantage is you can bruteforce them more easily with cavalry if it's just a sole square (depending a bit on the cavalry of course) and sometimes artillery is perhaps too effective, but I think it's a worthy tradeoffs over the fact you are less constrained by space and pike square takes longer to form for shooting to be effective even if the force field is still there.

[Marcus Vitruvius]

Managed to get quite a bit of random battles in and I'd argue that this version of NER is most definitely the best in terms of combat. The morale system works wonderfully. In one scenario, my very weak left flank was assailed by multiple battalions of Prussian infantry and looming cavalry behind them. It seemed like annihilation was near until I fired my battery of cannon at essentially point blank range into the face of one of the battalions. This triggered an incredible chain rout that I capitalized on with my Russian cossacks. Unfortunately, I got a little too cocky and let my cossacks run wild in the midst of the retreating Prussians. They recovered, reformed, and annihilated my cavalry! In previous versions of NER I was so used to using heavy cavalry (I completely ignored recruiting light cavalry) as a cudgel to simply beat the AI into decimation. NER has perfected their role now and when used in conjunction with light cavalry and infantry they can be a formidable force.

In another battle, the sheer presence of several French heavy cavalry squadrons on my unprotected right flank caused an entire battalion of unmolested infantry to rout (unrelated but - pike squares work wonderfully!!). I was also delighted to see elite units have a well established role now too. They are still powerful units. In one instance, I successfully propelled a French attack and was moving to advance when the French returned with grenadiers as their vanguard. The grenadiers inflicted heavy damage, nearly caving in my center, before they were overwhelmed when I haphazardly threw in my reserves and exhausted light cavalry. While fighting against the Prussians in the first battle I mentioned, I threw three Russian infantry battalions against some Prussian Foot Guards who I had separated and cornered. They put up a good fight but some heavy close range volleys and a decisive charge routed them, showcasing that as elite as they may be, they are not invincible.

Playing NER 5 is an absolute dream. Thanks for the continued great work on this mod JaM. I can't wait to try out the campaign (when these graphic card prices go down!!).

[Mjarr]

Decided to reinstall NTW, try the latest NER out and while it has so far been only in custom battles, here's some general observations:

-Counterbattery fire is situationally useful but it is no longer instant snipe. It creates interesting argument against potentially silencing (or at least temporarily routing the crew) guns instead of using them against something that's more valuable (most of the time), so instead of easy cheesing of AI even inadvertently AI artillery is now a decent threat past the first few minutes.
-Artillery in general is very strong but it's no longer miracle tactical nuke it could be sometimes in the past, so it's more over-time effect for large amount of artillery. Besides making counterbattery sniping less effective, it also trickier to neutralise AI cavalry before it even enters combat.
-AI seems to use cavalry in surprisingly reasonable manner. I don't know what black magic you did but I've yet to see any other mod even do anything comparable, that it keeps cavalry behind and eventually it creeps closer or kinda inbetween gaps or several areas. I even had cavalry outflanking my open flank at one point simply because AI refused to really do much with its cavalry until much later. (Unless this is more of a custom battle thing but hey, it's something.)
-The skirmisher changes (lack of bayonets) means AI can actually skirmish fairly effectively.
-Squares seems to be pretty well balanced. Formed square no longer needs to be micromanaged to open fire (most of the time) but they can also resists cavalry pretty well on their own, so it feels more like a game of morale than simply bruteforcing something. I've had infantry hold a square against cuirassiers just barely, and othertimes with no trouble, so bruteforcing is a logical option yet it only works with fresh cavalry and is still a potential gamble that does not result in an instant 90% destruction of cavalry either (unless there's enemy cavalry around) if it fails.
-Cavalry honestly surprised me. It feels brittle, but very useful force multiplier yet it doesn't instantly self-destruct right away something looks funny at it, and it may even stay idle bit under fire without immediate risk of casualties (artillery aside). Even failed charges vs infantry rarely results in instant destruction of cavalry.
-Cohesion changes sometimes creates bit silly situations or double routs in quite peculiar circumstances, but then again there's not much to be done about that without changing it, and the current one seems to work pretty well for the AI as well so it's not really an issue, more of a pronounced quirk at this stage.

Out of four custom battles I played, I nearly lost one, had one fairly lopsided (AI + poor terrain doesn't mix but that's hardly the mod's fault) and two somewhat "even" that I had to accept some casualties because there was less easily abusable shortcomings. I definitely need to start a proper campaign and see how it goes. Combat flows really well in a manner I haven't really seen since I tried TGW mod, is logically challenging as well and the AI actually can fight back a bit in terms of mechanics.

[JaM]

thanks, glad you are enjoying it

[Mjarr]

French grand campaign so far H\H:

-AI seems a bit passive on the map. I suppose it could be just on purpose so it tries to defend its regions more, but for whatever reason when I made a notable mistake and had entire border undefended, the Prussians simply sat idle with two stacks sitting nearby, it was bit anticlimactic between forming up another stack in haste just to slow them down only I could take my time and spend almost entire years' worth of turns just putting two stacks in good order while reinforcing few other stacks elsewhere.
-Autoresolve is pretty neat. You can autoresolve remnants of a stack or just couple of random infantry or cavalry units staggering around without extreme and silly 90% losses, while any halfway decent stack you're better off fighting manually no matter what.
-Prussian horse cavalry seems to be bit bugged, as custom battle has 24\24 crew but every single time I've seen AI stack with horse cavalry, it's 18 max headcount and only 3x barrels, and it seems to cause some weird AI issues. Every single time the Prussians have attacked and they have horse artillery, the end result is they spend 80% of the battle shuffling around trying to form up but the AI simply can't make up its mind, as it's constantly trying to shuffle horse artillery positions, deploy, redeploy and then do the same with other units. I have yet to see similar behaviour with any other stack type, even if it might take a while before AI tries to attack properly as it forms up.
-AI formation(s) are honestly pretty neat. It at least keeps some secondary line and doesn't commit cavalry in instant suicide charges, and especially in larger battles it sometimes creates interesting situations because you can't just nuke cavarly from afar before it even gets to do anything and non-horse batteries are honestly difficult to root out (which is a good thing) by counterbattery fire, if you just extend your flank you might find your centre under sudden pressure or that your flank is contested, and lack of reserves eventually may become an issue. Of course, in (N)ER having reserves was useful but right now it honestly feels essential because AI simply is mostly immune to the most common form of unintentional cheese. This is probably the first time I've ever even used artillery reserve when I was outnumbered in terms of infantry due lack of suitable artillery positions + no point inflicting friendly fire with arty. They eventually opened fire when I had to retreat few battered units before it turned into a rout.
-Campaign economy vs upkeep is pretty neat too, though it tends to snowball quite easily that you're sitting on more income than you can reasonably spend. I suppose there's not a whole lot to be done about it, but it feels weird that early on you have to reconsider expenses and such, and one year in it's almost the opposite, or your per turn income is so high even if you spend it all you're not going to run into too many problems.
-Morale boost traits could do minor adjustments. I have no trouble like say, hero of the army or so granting +3, but when you have several +3, then +2, then another +2, then even more so, it once again stacks up to quite a bit ridiculous situations. I would suggest toning down some of the followers to only +1 or reconsidering some traits as there is nothing wrong with traits like that, it's just it can potentially become bit ridiculous and Napoleon especially starts with such major morale boosts (and can even stack them up across the campaign) that xp2+ line infantry is borderline unbreakable already without extreme losses.
-AI Prussia seems to have a thing for hussars and horse battery. While relatively high prevalence of hussars in terms of cavalry is mostly amusing, considering the Prussian horse battery seems to be glitchy on the campaign map, I think it could do with some tinkering.
-Squares are just something to behold. I've also seen the least likely unit (~33% losses or worse xp2 line inf) hold out against two cuirassiers and they were wavering for over half a minute real-time, and I've had my own grenadiers (though somewhat disorganised) grenadiers routed by hussars as the square wasn't completely formed yet and they couldn't exactly fire back properly either. The cuirassiers broke in the end with relatively minimal losses while I retired the line inf for remainder of the battle and plugged the gap, and hussars were promptly counterattacked by infantry nearby which in turn resulted into amusing situation that line infantry broke through cavalry and AI fusiliers. I think it's just since cavalry (maybe light cavalry aside) doesn't instantly self-destruct in failed attacks unless they get counterattacked by something, there's more flow to it that you might see several contests vs squares or even line by same cavalry units once they got back and reformed. As much as squares are notoriously difficult to get right in NTW due hardcoded , this is probably the closest case I've seen it genuinely feel like game of morale and support with pros and cons.

[Mjarr]

Random update with further observations:
-AI seems to do pretty reasonable stacks later in the game. Prussia is the sole exception as they seem to have 50-50 fetish for hussars and horse artillery stacks with maybe tiny bit of infantry, and then occasionally reasonable stack. Every other faction however makes it so that you tend to have at least some kind of fight in your hand whenever they appear.
-Naval autoresolve seems bit weird. While I've mostly done them manually, I autoresolved one time with 8x ships of the line vs 1x ships of the line, and the autoresolve was defeat with 5x ships lost on my end. Another time I did something similar (10x ships of the line vs 2x frigates) I lost three ships while the AI lost one frigate. In both cases the manual battle revision was simply get a ship close, fire one broadside and the hostile ship surrendered and I got myself some new ships to be crewed at docks. It feels weird considering how land autoresolve is pretty well done.
-AI suicide cavalry does seem to pop up more often if AI has extreme cavalry superiority or reinforcing stacks are involved, but it's still nowhere near as bad as it could be before so that's a huge plus, since I doubt it can be even fixed properly. Otherwise it's surprisingly "good" at using its cavalry from time to time.
-Now that I'm later in the campaign, I do have to retract earlier observation about economy. Given all the raids, repairs to various buildings, need for new stacks and sometimes just replacing losses and fortifying some areas, it definitely gets little bit trickier to the point I've had to loot settlements (for the first time ever in NTW) to speed up progress from long-term plan to getting it done ASAP.

Overall, I'd give it a shared spot with The Great War for best SP experience in NTW so far.

[Gustav Mahler]

This mod circulates in my NTW data folder regularly and it is in my opinion one of the best mods for NTW. It looks finished and with nothing to add except more factions to play. I have only one problem with the mod - unit upkeep is too low. I would prefer more high costs of troops like in Empire Realism mod, i.e misery of poverty. Is that possible and planned to implement? Why is unit upkeep so low anyway?

[JaM]

upkeep is lower because of time scale of the game(24turns per year, where ER is 4turs per year) and because i wanted for player and AI to have a lot more units than in vanilla..

[Gustav Mahler]

upkeep is lower because of time scale of the game(24turns per year, where ER is 4turs per year) and because i wanted for player and AI to have a lot more units than in vanilla..

Thanks for reply. The effect in game is that even when heavily defeated, enemy, if he has at least few regions remaining, can build up his armies and maintain them. That can be pretty annoying and similar to vanilla spam. That is why the Empire Realism is one of my favorites.

Also are you thinking of implementing area of recruitment system where French cannot recruit French units in for instance Vienna. That detail also breaks the immersion. I played as Russia (Kutuzov's army) and took Marseilles, then I fortified it and started to build Russian armies there. It was pretty unrealistic.

[JaM]

Personally, i'd like to implement "military districts" area of recruitment, where each province would give you certain number of units, so if you lose any province, your recruitment pool would shrink.. but that requires quite a lot of work...

[Gustav Mahler]

Personally, i'd like to implement "military districts" area of recruitment, where each province would give you certain number of units, so if you lose any province, your recruitment pool would shrink.. but that requires quite a lot of work...

That is even better! I would like that to be implemented. It will give great depth to your already magnificent mod.

[Destin Faroda]

Dynamic unit caps in Napoleon? Now that would be great. Didn't know this was possible. I thought Fall of the Samurai was the first Warscape game to introduce the unit ability "unit_cap".

[Danius]

Custom battles crashes my game?

[JaM]

im usually testing the combat mechanics in custom battles, and it doesnt crash.. can you give me more details? what setup did you use, what units, etc

[Danius]

im usually testing the combat mechanics in custom battles, and it doesnt crash.. can you give me more details? what setup did you use, what units, etc

It doesnt matter, it wont play them.

It starts me off as Austria and i cant change it, if i try to switch with CPU it crashes, if i leave to main menu it crashes.

[JaM]

are you sure you installed the mod properly? no other mods in data folder and nothing in scripting file?

[Danius]

are you sure you installed the mod properly? no other mods in data folder and nothing in scripting file?

Yes and it seems to work just fine in other game modes, allthough battles are easy.

[eric_wolf]

One of the best MOD for NTW. I wish I found it earlier

[Danius]

The AI is incompetent. I dont think ive lost a single battle and routing a much superior force is easy.

[JaM]

not sure what point you want to make, but AI is hardcoded.. it cannot be changed. So If you wanna complain about it, i'd suggest you visit official Creative Assembly forum and try there...