A simple solution to eliminating the melee bug (may not be to everyones liking)

[squatlover]

This is more of a suggestion rather than a tutorial because of the simplicity:

Some background: no matter which mod I played, I was always plagued by the melee bug. Once the AI enemy gets into shooting range, its units play hopskotch with each other, turn around each other, all while under fire, eventually charging you.

Actually, this is just because of lack of space for the AI. It appears to need about 60-70 yards room to shuffle about before it gets its formation correct. I doubled the ranges for all musket projectiles (160 for flintlock, 200 for light infantry, 250 for rifles), and voila, and I have played through a campaign, and not once have I encountered the melee bug.

The enemy does a little shuffle at the edge of your shooting range, and forms lines perfectly, so you encounter musket duels at 60-120 yards. There is the occasional 150 yard musket duel, but by adjusting attackpower_extreme_range_multplier (not a typo) and attackpower_long_range_multiplier to 0.2, and 0.4 respectively, musket power at 140 yards causes very few casulties.

I even tried attacking the AI on two sides on 2-3 occasions, and the AI formed a reasonable musket based defence against each attack.

So if you want to try this, use PFM, open projectiles, and adjust the flintlock, carbine, light infantry, rifle, matchlock rows under the range heading, and double them. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the effects.

[Hawkeye74]

I usually have the units at 608 and cav 228 respectively, and yes I do believe you may be correct with the disco-chicken dancing analysis. Will we shoot, no let dance, no shoot, no dance, ahh charge.

Just yesterday I played second fiddle to Hungary against Romania, both sides having 8000+ on the field and, my force of 1500. By the time I got my troops on the field both Hungary and Romania had indulged in the largest brawl I`ve ever seen. Very little shoot, except cannon from each side firing into the maelstrom.

I`ve unistalled, I tired the zulu mod but it out the boot.pack and silly me didn`t backup. Once I have everything installed mods and all I`m going to see how this fair. I`ll let you know.

Big thanks.

[Dee Jay]

Thanks for this, so longer ranges fixes this?

[uanime5]

I once had a problem similar to this in M2TW. It was caused by CA setting a skirmish distance that was greater than the distance the unit could shoot from; so any unit in skirmish mod would start to move into range, move back to the skirmish range, then try to move into range and repeat this endlessly. I was able to fix this by decreasing the skirmish range and increasing the missile range.

A similar problem may exist in NTW where units have to engage in melee at a distance that's very close to their maximum range. This would explain why increasing their range makes them less likely to engage in melee. Decreasing the distance at which the AI engages in melee would also fix the melee bug.

[Hawkeye74]

I`ve increased the ranges, and it seems to work. Every single battle I`ve run so far in custom and camp, I`ve seen several enemy units lining up and volleying my lines, with attacks (if the AI is attacking, or numerically superior) combined. Maybe it`s placebo but it feels different.

My only issue is, since I`m new to navigating the PFM, could you please tell me where the attackpower_extreme_range_multplier and attackpower_long_range_multiplier are located.

So far looks good.

[Condottiere SOG]

its because the range of a musket...was far more than 50-70 yards and could be used effectively at double the range...using realistic range cures the melee bug...half_chance_hit modifiers regulate weapon efficacy. Much as was first stated...except my ranges are far more realistic and accurate. Battlefields look as like period paintings.