Empire Realism - Feedback and General Discussion

[Dandelion]

Feedback for the newest Beta You linked to me:

- the limit for the amount of units that can be build seems ok to me. At least for France - can't say anything about the other nations ^^

- The Poland / Prussia / Austria situation seems to evolve a bit slower than usual - 1707 and Prussia only managed to take West-Prussia yet. All three are nicely at war with each other..

- The Spain / UP war seems also to be a really slow one.. UP did one attack against Flandres in 1703, didn't manage to take it and didn't do much after that.. Spain hasn't even repaired the damaged town in Flandres in 1707. Seems they need all their money elsewhere..

- Maratha did already conquer Goa, but does very slow progress against the Mughals. Only one province was taking 'til 1707

- The Pirates send small forces to all trade theaters. From the damaged ships I've seen there must have been some naval battles between them and Britain / Spain / Portugal / UP (who hold spots in the trade theaters..)

- the French / Austrian Succession War has started, but Austria doesn't seem too eager to force it's way to France. They are at war with my ally Wurttemberg, but no fighting has occurred there in the three years this war already goes on.

- the fight for North America has begun (three turns after the 13 colonies were absorbed by Britain..) but with the help of two cavalry units I sent into my colonies and many freshly built troops from the colonies themselves I managed to destroy a large british force. The financial situation for Britain seems tough, with me blockading their harbours and the need to build many new troops and ships..

- Battle AI (on normal..) does it's best to go for the flanks of my army, most of the time..

I now also had a naval battle vs. Britain. Three 70 gun + four 50 gun ships on my side against two 70s and five 50s on the British side.. After some heavy exchange of broadsides and boarding attempts a real nasty fight occurred. All but three of the ships did at one time rout, but most managed to regain enough morale to continue fighting. Two ships were destroyed during the battle - on caught fire and exploded, the other sunk due to excessive hull damage.. I did win - with some luck - because my boarding actions were successfull. The french navy now rules the sea ^^
Many (!) guns were destroyed. The 70s were reduced to about 50 working guns, the 50s to 30 to 40.. Hull damage was around 30% on most ships. For me the battle felt "right".. Heavy fighting at close range.

Concerning the AI and economics: seems the AI is eager to stack it's tradeships to the max in one trade theater.. that's nice, because it keeps the ships from being taken by pirates, but afaik the trade value for ships declines when too many ships are stacked on one trade spot. Any chance to get some limit to how many tradeships can be stacked?

[DaVinci]

You are making a good figure as beta-test-reporter.

Comment

- the French / Austrian Succession War has started, but Austria doesn't seem too eager to force it's way to France. They are at war with my ally Wurttemberg, but no fighting has occurred there in the three years this war already goes on.

Historically, at 1701, it is the "Spanish-Succession-War" *. We just try to bring order into the startpos file and balance, to mirror that conflict as much as possible for the startsituation and the campaign-flow, while hardcoded AI settings (behaviour, mechanics) always reduce that. But it'll be better than before at least, the historical reflection of the conflicts from on 1700 for the then next years.

* extract, what i wrote internally about it

France allies: Savoy, Westfalen, Bayern, Spain

Austria allies: Prussia (had to send troops, because of kingship-permission by the austrian emperor for prussian kingship), Württemberg, and of course UP and GB plus then also Portugal (allied with GB and UP ... UP was in reality directly under Wilhelm of Oranien, king of GB).

Genoa, Italy States and Venice - neutral ... while i would add military access for Austria, esp. on Venice ... the austrian Marshall Eugen of Savoyen attacked initially Milano etc. (the AI comicably always send this stack with the general Eugen of Savoyen to Venice border, but this stack does nothing all the time, we must try to change that passive behaviour).

Here is once more the link to wiki-Spanish-Successor-War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession ... the german article is better, more detailled, though.

Edit, short summary of the first war-years: Austria was in principle the initial actor in this war, which broke out into open violence in 1701. Austria sends troops to the river Rhein and Netherlands area, takes Köln and other german towns which sided France, formerly Eugen of Savoyen (austrian main general) attacks northern Italy ... GB general Churchill ("Marlborough") is very active on all fronts on the side of Austria with english-netherland troops. Else, many naval wars between english-netherland fleets and french-spanish fleets ... the english win mainly. On the iberian peninsula is then also war, english-netherland troops land on Portugal and together with them go into spanish lands ... during this war on the peninsula, Gibraltar will be taken, and later Barcelona, but nothing else special, mainland Spain stays spanish. In NA, the said conflicts evolve between GB and France, as for the lack of troops, mainly fought between Hurons (France) and Iroqouis (GB), known as "Queen Anne's War" (at this time, King Wilhelm died, and heir Anne is Queen).

Deeper researchment of Queen Anne's War: The latter point is wrong (about Hurons and Iroqouis ... i used the tribes of the game to mirror the naming "French and Native-American War", which is a synonym for that conflict), but Iroqouis remain neutral, France "engaged" some other natives of the area in the north (than Hurons), while english colonies rather didn't engage significant amounts of natives (except some for southeast-coast/inland actions, in the Florida...South-Carolina sphere), but often tried to activate militia troops, with limited success though. All in all, very limited amounts of regular troops fought here in this conflict (as there were just not a lot, to say the least). However, at the end of Queen Anne's War: After the british managed it to take Acadia, and then with final piece, Acadia and New Foundland was british, no other significant region outcomes in the Americas (other than that the Hudson Bay was secured by the British, and the outcome started the decline of France in North-America, ie. because the northen seaways were then controlled by GB).

Some of those backgrounds (are) will be considered in the update-work.

[Dandelion]

Well, I guess I still have to name it the French-Austrian Succession war (in my campaign), 'cause it started when Louis XIV died and Austria wouldn't accept his female heir on the french throne and so declared war on France.. Charles II of Spain is still alive and as healthy - at least bodily, if not so much mental - as ever ^^

I (as France..) had been fast to form trade and/or military alliances with Württemberg, Westfahlen, Venice, the Italian State and Bavaria. So, when Louis died and Austria started the war, it got a bit.. interesting.
Württemberg and Westfahlen sided with France. Italien State and Venice dodged out of the alliance and remained neutral. Prussia already was at war with Austria. And it seems UP and Britain weren't invited to the war by Austria..
And yes, Eugen of Savoyen sits right at the venetian / austrian border (venetian territory..) and seems to wait for orders or whatever. I guess as soon as the situation in Savoy is under control - no rebellion, but some unrest among the population.. - I'll pay him a visit with some troops.. ^^

And I'm quite sure that this time - in my campaign - there will be no decline of french domination in North America.

And about being a good beta-test reporter.. I'm no history buff.. I can't code or do anything else to make E:TW a better game.. so I just take the little I know from the campaigns I've already played (Vanilla and ER) and try to compare it to what goes on in the newest version I've got.. It helps, if I know what has been changed exactly, so I can have a closer look at it. One reason for me playing this campaign as France was, that there was an enhanced chance for Naval Battles - something I hadn't seen much of in my previous campaigns..

And the Battle AI.. well, I've played some really, really old battle sims. Ages ago.. like on a C64 or Amiga. Stuff like "Battle of Antietam", "Shiloh", "Gettysburg" and "Battles of Napoleon" by SSI. Graphics weren't a thing to consider then (as can be seen here http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/ba...ShotId,214106/ ) but the AI seemed quite impressive.. Sometimes it seems to me, that game creators get a bit too fancy about the graphics, but miss giving the AI some more intelligence to be competitive ^^
Or little things, like - in Battles of Napoleon - keeping supply lines open, so Your men are supplied with ammo and gunpowder ^^
I know, I could play on a harder level... but then the AI is cheating, because it doesn't "play" better, only it's units get tougher..

With E:TW ER the AI seems to get a bit better. At least, that's how it looks like for me

[Filmor]

Ok so this is how is going my actual Austria campaign on latest Beta.

First of all I would like to remind a few bugs noticed: mines problem(second-third tier is probably switched), events descriptions has "holes" like "******" and similliar, some unit cards(ships especially) are not accurate. Generally these are known, little problems so nothing important here.

My campaign started with fast war against Poland which resulted in taking Gdansk and Galicia. After that my proposal of peace was accepted which saved me a lot of trouble as Ottomans and Hannover turned against me, which was not very pleasant along with Russia and polish protectorates. I am generally trying not to recruit units which will be obsolete after few research(which are now much harder to obtain btw) so I was struggling with my 5 sakers, as many line infantry as I could recruit and my super weapon-cuirassiers. Austria has this nice present from the beginning and I must say that-they saved my butt many times. Their mere presence on battlefield was something that helped much-thanks to them defeating and routing 14 line infantry units with only 3 mine, one cannon and cuirassiers was something possible. Changes in cavalry stats and unit size are definitly good. Now taking a good, close-range shot could ruin your day. But on the other hand if you manage to get close without any shots fired and which is just great-with infantry on the move, not prepared-it is a death roll. Unfortunately I have only one of these and it will be long before I will have next.

For now I am struggling to get my first cavalry research and finally start to recruit some dragoons. As for 1707 Ottomans are pushed back on the other side of mediterran sea, Hannover destroyed, Poland in war with Prussia and me again, Russia still not attacked but I am gathering soldiers and trying to defend. What is worth some attention is Poland's autoresolve balance. Polish units are massacred even with great number superiority. I know that their infantry is not good but hey-4 batallions of prussian line defeating without any problems 12 of polish? A little too much. I was defending Gdansk against many polsih armies with only town garrison of 4 batallions. 3 turns in a row I routed 6 batallion large armies but on the fourth about 10 or 11 came and I thought it will be impossible so I clicked autoresolve to save time...and I won. This is much too easy as if someone would be autoresolving only, Poland is too easy to defeat.

As Austria I haven't had any navy. Small mistake cancelled my trade ship construction, which I was hoping to place somewhere, but the revolution which I started about 5th turn cancelled it-I did't know that it is working like that. After that I decided to make a 50-gun SoL. Once it was built I captured some Barbary States Dhow and sailed further west to finally catch some trade point. But unlucky some turns before Spain declared war on me and now was blocking Gibraltar with 2 60-gun SoL and one frigate. Little too much for me but no risk no fun - I tried to pass and was intercepted. Well-this was the hardest and most exciting navy battle to this time for me. I had ideal wind conditions-placed my dhow behind and SoL broadside to approaching enemy. Fortunate for me, enemy shpis were coming in quite big distances between each other which resulted in frigate(which came first) surrended before actual battle begun. After firing 5-6 salvos on the front of first enclosing enemy it didn't do much to it. Only these at close range were doing any damage if any. In the battle my ship was routing about three times and coming back to fight again but I managed to surrender both enemy SoLs thanks to manouvering and fast dhow leaved behind for boarding routed ships. What is the most important lesson from this battle-never expose your's astern. It just breaks morale instantly.

As for 1707 Maratha has less than half of India, GB and France are not at war even after integrating colonies, Cheeroke were destroyed by Spain last turn. Spain and UP had a little war with each other which resulted in UP destroyed by Spain's french allies(which are strong btw-10 grenadiers in a stack-I hope they won't get mad on me). The rest of the world is rather focused around my country.

Generally changes which were made are for good. Smaller size of cavalry greatly shows its vulnarability for line infantry salvos. The only drawback is that now cavalry is not good at routing enemy, because ETW system sucks totally in that matter(I hate that I must click on the routing unit constantly). Nice ships overhaul, Raaze is my dream I would follow now. Hard to say something about BAI-it is ok-cavalry tries to attack flanks, infantry walks into my line and cannons.

[JaM]

Thanks for feedback. Lots of things you mention will be corrected in next version actually. And for cavalry, i have decided to bring Dragoons back (they will be base cavalry unit now), so they will be available without research, while research will give specialist cavalry units. I will look into Polish units being too weak in autoresolve, i have removed some AI autoresolve advantages which might be responsible for this.


regarding those descriptions, i spent a lot of time fixing these """", anyway it looks like there is a some bug in game which adds more "" every time you launch a game, which is weird.. therefore i have removed all "" from descriptions instead (at least those i found) btw, what did you meant by incorrect ship icons? can you be more specific?


and some small teaser, currently i'm working on startpos overhaul, so it will represent political situation of 1700 much more accurately with all alliances and wars.. Also several new units will be added to game (Saxon Line Infantry, Allied Native Warband, etc...) I also plan to include new versions of some submods, which greatly improve volley fire (adopted animation from NTW into ETW) and also melee kill animations which will be slightly faster, which will increase effectivity of cavalry dramatically especially when chasing routed enemy.. ( i would have testing beta ready tomorrow, so i will send you a link)

[Dandelion]

Ok, one thing that bugs me off a bit, though I'm not sure if there's a way You can change it: Tied Battles leading to an enormous loss of troops / ships (usually on the AI's side ^^)

Example:
I was blockading a british harbour with only a meagre sloop. A dutch fleet came to rescue their british allies and attacked. As I had no option to retreat, I decided to test my luck and see what would happen, if I managed to beat the time limit (... 60 minutes - used 'cause sometimes the time limit is the only way to end a battle without committing suicide).

So when the battle started - three SOL, two frigates against my sloop - I put her into the wind and made sure my opponent had to sail directly into the wind too, if he wanted to catch her. I slowly, oh so slowly got more distance between her and the enemy. And I managed - on fast forward - to run down the 60 minutes without a shot being fired.

Result of the "Battle": Victory for my sloop. Opponent had to retreat. Opponent lost four ships.

Would be kinda tough to keep myself from doing something like this again (especially 'cause I've seen the AI attempting the same, just not with as much success, because it's ships already were routing when they did it ^^) so I'd wish there'd be a way to rate an result like this as a draw with neither side retreating.. or at least as a victory in which the losing side doesn't lose any ships and just has to retreat..

----------------

In my campaign UP finally has decided to take Flandres, allowing me to attempt to take it without having to start a war with my ally Spain. Württemberg has successfully invaded Austria and taken Vienna, though now they seem to have trouble quelling the rebellion. French troops are on the march to help them, though.
Maratha still only holds four regions. In 1712, that is.
The war between Prussia, Austria and Poland still goes on.. but no regions have been conquered (apart from Prussia holding West-Prussia for several years already..)

I still have no problems getting around with four armies (stacks..): two (12 units each) made of regional troops from North America (+ two cavalry units shipped over from Europe) which slowly work their way through British and Iroquese territory. Another stack has landed in Flandres, while the last now goes to Austria, after it took Savoy. I'm still only using Sakers and those two heavy calibers for guns and early heavy cavalry. And the number of these units I am able to produce seem to be quite enough for me.

[JaM]

i will try to do something about the autoresolve, it looks like I managed to do exact opposite with my new values than i orriginally planned which means, some of the autoresolve values in campaign_variables works opposite way than we all thought it does.. I will try to figure this out once at home. Right now i'm suspecting few things, especially the value which sets how much damage ship needs to take to sink... Originally it was set to 0.875 so I have increased it to 0.999 to make ships not sink that much, anyway, now when i'm thinking about it, this probably has opposite effect instead, and results in all ships with 99% hull integrity to sink... maybe it should be set to 0.05 instead...

[DaVinci]

i will try to do something about the autoresolve, it looks like I managed to do exact opposite with my new values than i orriginally planned which means, some of the autoresolve values in campaign_variables works opposite way than we all thought it does.. I will try to figure this out once at home. Right now i'm suspecting few things, especially the value which sets how much damage ship needs to take to sink... Originally it was set to 0.875 so I have increased it to 0.999 to make ships not sink that much, anyway, now when i'm thinking about it, this probably has opposite effect instead, and results in all ships with 99% hull integrity to sink... maybe it should be set to 0.05 instead...

Dandelion's part here

Example:
I was blockading a british harbour with only a meagre sloop. A dutch fleet came to rescue their british allies and attacked. As I had no option to retreat, I decided to test my luck and see what would happen, if I managed to beat the time limit (... 60 minutes - used 'cause sometimes the time limit is the only way to end a battle without committing suicide).

So when the battle started - three SOL, two frigates against my sloop - I put her into the wind and made sure my opponent had to sail directly into the wind too, if he wanted to catch her. I slowly, oh so slowly got more distance between her and the enemy. And I managed - on fast forward - to run down the 60 minutes without a shot being fired.

Result of the "Battle": Victory for my sloop. Opponent had to retreat. Opponent lost four ships.

Would be kinda tough to keep myself from doing something like this again (especially 'cause I've seen the AI attempting the same, just not with as much success, because it's ships already were routing when they did it ^^) so I'd wish there'd be a way to rate an result like this as a draw with neither side retreating.. or at least as a victory in which the losing side doesn't lose any ships and just has to retreat..

does not apply for autoresolve-calculation-settings, just in case you related that to his report-part.
Dandelion's example rather applies as game-mechanic-exploitation by human player of the battle-limit-choice (which i for example never apply, always play in "no battletime limit").

[JaM]

yes, i know, but those enemy ships should not lose ships from defeat.. i'm currently testing these values but so far with no luck..

[Dandelion]

Dandelion's example rather applies as game-mechanic-exploitation by human player of the battle-limit-choice (which i for example never apply, always play in "no battletime limit").

For me it's rather an example of exploiting bad coding by the vanilla game's designers ^^
Usually I do things like these only once, just to see what happens. Next time I'll get in a similiar situation I just use auto resolve

[JaM]

I have spent several hours testing autoresolve in both ER and NER yesterday. For several hours i was quite frustrated from results, anyway later i found what actually matters in autoresolve.. The only way how to reduce amount of casualties taken automatically, is by completly removing minimal casualties for win and lose, while giving AI bonuses so they can recuperate some losses automatically taken.. This way i managed to set the autoresolve producing interesting results - Every time you autoresolve a battle, AI takes limited amount of casualties even if they lose, as they are considered to perform delaying action against attacker (withdrawing from fight).

WIth naval aspect this is slightly more complicated. AI doesnt repair their ships, so to prevent it from using lots of damaged ships, i had to decide to automatically sink such ships, so AI wont be punished for having combat ineffective ship consuming the upkeep...

It also looks like Autoresolve takes into account number of hitpoints every ship has (which are not linked anyhow with real armor of ships, but there is some formula that counts the damage after battle and reduces the HP accordingly), i will rework hitpoints for every ship, making heavier Ships of the Line more durable in autoresolved battles.

There is one little catch with new autoresolve - because there are no AI benefits for Medium Difficulty, Hard/Hard will now become officially recommended difficulty setting for this mod. You dont need to worry about any bonuses AI gets on Hard, as those were set to 0, so AI wont have any unfair bonuses in Autoresolved battles besides automatic casualty reductions

[DaVinci]

For me it's rather an example of exploiting bad coding by the vanilla game's designers ^^
Usually I do things like these only once, just to see what happens. Next time I'll get in a similiar situation I just use auto resolve

AI autoresolve and battletime-limit outcome-calculations, AI bonusses, certain player features, diplomacy ... those were and are always the main basic weakpoints of CA's vanilla design.

[Filmor]

After further playing I would like to share my view on limits implemented in beta.

First the navy limits which main purpose was to prevent from catching trade posts. In my campaign I have built one ship-50 guns SoL. Now in 1713 I have about 10 SoLs and 15 trade ships of different kind-placed one for a trade post. This includes 7 Dhows which theoretical limit is 4. As it can be seen these limits are pretty much useless-when you can always build your's fleet on enemy ships it is no use in making limits for navy units unless it has some special purpose, like for example preventing AI from spamming some kind of ships-then it is of course ok.

Keeping with naval topic after few more battles I think that morale loss after taking hit from behind is way too big. Honestly-every SoL I routed and captured was by shooting in their backs-sometimes that haven't even inflicted any damage, but the ship routed no matter what. I would rather decrease that morale damage to minimum and consider firing in the back only as a great way to inflict casualities(as for close range it is pretty deadly). For smaller ships it is not that important as they take enough damage to cripple their's morale in "normal" way.

Limits on units on land are for me also worth to have a closer look. As I don't have anything to line infantry limits(I am playing Austria so I have it set on 100 and that for sure is enough)cavalry and cannons are troublesome. 12 dragoons is definitly not enough. I currently have 6 army stacks and fight on many fronts. To kill enemy army of medium size about 4 cavalry units are necessary. As I am currently having 6 armies this would require to spend off my limits on dragoons, cuirassiers and uhlans as well-practically I would have to train more or less but about all cavalry available. And of course don't make any more armies. I am in the middle of my campaign so I surely plan to make more units-but it seems like it won't be possible to support them with cavalry. Other thing that would be a little odd is that I will surely use reiter units to the end of my campaign even if they are obsolete to this time. What I would like to propose is to totally delete any limits for simple units-I mean dragoons for cavalry and lightest cannons(about these I am currently only using sackers so I don't know for now if further limits are ok). Also it would be great if you could implement in tech tree a point when older units become obsolete(reiters,sackers,culverins,earlier cannons and ships) to prevent using them for the rest of campaign-something like pikeman in vanilla. For now the only problem is that you have to use older barracks/port to recruit them and replenishment is not restricted at all.

I haven't played the newest beta for now, I will do it soon.

Cheers

[JaM]

- Trade ship limits are mainly for AI to not spam those in large numbers. Yes, you can capture enemy ships, but there is nothing i can do about it, as game was made this way from beginning.. (only thing i can do is to reduce the probability ship is captured which i will consider in the future)

- I might reduce the raking morale penalty a bit while increase morale penalties for taking casualties and damage.

- Unit limits are still work in progress, anyway they have to be set, due to simplified recruitment system AI uses - it always prefer to recruit units with some limit set, instead of those unlimited (thats the reason of 100 unit limit on Line infantry)

[Dandelion]

New Beta - New Grand Campaign - this time as the Dutch..

I must say say I'm in a contrary position to about EVERYTHING what Filmor stated above..
- Ship limit is great. The only way to keep the player from assembling too many ships - if You want that to be so - is to make them expensive to keep.
- in my experience ships don't run immediately after one broadside from the back. Had a battle of two of my 50 Guns vs two french 50 Guns yesterday, in which I was able to take one of the french ships, by reducing it's crew to below 30% in a very close firefight with both of my ships firing at it and always one of them was able to fire from astern. Nonetheless it took quite a long time to get that ship to surrender. The second french ship stood firm for nearly as long, but at long last I managed to at least get it routed.
So, I think the morale hit for being fired from astern seems quite appropriate..

- Unit Limit for land units.. well.. six armies... that seems to be the difference between Filmor's approach and mine - I never use more than four. And for four armies there's cannons and cavalry aplenty. Might be, that my approach takes a bit longer, 'cause I can not destroy every opposing army after the first battle.. but I've got 99 years, so why hurry?

-------------

Something that happened yesterday with the newest Beta:

Trade spot in Madagascar. I hold it with 3 captured (and damaged..) Xebecs (down to about 75% of their normal guns) and two trade ships (not the armed Indiamen, the other ones that usually immediately rout when they get into combat ^^).

A french fleet approaches. Seems to be the one, that two or three turns earlier had driven the Pirates off the Madagascar theater, cause the ships are damaged. Four ships. One 85 gun, three sloops (or Brigantines?) with usually 24 guns, but reduced to damage to around 20. Nothing I would want to fight, so I do what every Dutch Trader would have done in that situation - I run.. or at least, I try to. Too bad my ships don't (auto) retreat far enough, and the french get close enough for battle a second time. 'cause I wouldn't want to see a massacre like that - and because it already was way past the time when I was due for bed...) I use autoresolve to get the AI's move done... uhm.. Victory????? Huh??? Three worn out Xebecs and two non-fighting Traders win against a 85er with three escorts? And two of the attackers are sunk.

Can't say what happened during that automatic battle.. But that result should not be true. Never ever...

[JaM]

Trade ships are not Trade ships anymore... instead they are now Armed Indiaman, and they carry 38 guns each, so in normal circumstances, they are comparable to normal 4-rate ship. If enemy ships were badly damaged, that could have some negative effect on autoresolve - Every ship that has its hull damaged over 80% will sink, so maybe in your autoresolved battle exactly this happened..
Right now i don't remember if the version i sent you had new HP values for ships (you can check - 4 rate 50 gun ship should have 4800HP in info screen, while British 70gunner is 6200HP, while second rate ship should have around 8800HP and 1rate 10000HP)

I have decided to completely remove any trade ship from game, because trading is done via trade lines anyway (and you can raid them and gain some money from it). All "trading" ships are now East India Company ships instead. I also plan to link them with some proper research in nearest future together with some redesign of trade ports:

- there will be two low tier trade ports available (currently there is just one), where second tier will give more trade good capacity to be exported, while third and fourth tier will be directly linked with Trade Companies. Researching Trade Companies will give you access to upper tier trade ports and also East Indiaman ships. Dhows wont be trade capable anymore, and will be linked with Letter of Marque research for all eastern factions.

[Filmor]

New Beta - New Grand Campaign - this time as the Dutch..

I must say say I'm in a contrary position to about EVERYTHING what Filmor stated above..
- Ship limit is great. The only way to keep the player from assembling too many ships - if You want that to be so - is to make them expensive to keep.
- in my experience ships don't run immediately after one broadside from the back. Had a battle of two of my 50 Guns vs two french 50 Guns yesterday, in which I was able to take one of the french ships, by reducing it's crew to below 30% in a very close firefight with both of my ships firing at it and always one of them was able to fire from astern. Nonetheless it took quite a long time to get that ship to surrender. The second french ship stood firm for nearly as long, but at long last I managed to at least get it routed.
So, I think the morale hit for being fired from astern seems quite appropriate..

- Unit Limit for land units.. well.. six armies... that seems to be the difference between Filmor's approach and mine - I never use more than four. And for four armies there's cannons and cavalry aplenty. Might be, that my approach takes a bit longer, 'cause I can not destroy every opposing army after the first battle.. but I've got 99 years, so why hurry?

I have made a test: custom battle 50 gun SoL vs 50 gun SoL, as soon as battle started I turned around and exposed my astern. Enemy ship placed himself on about half maximum range and fired 3 salvos on fully operational ship-that caused rout. First two salvos haven't done nothing-third destroyed 3 guns. I think that 3 guns are not enough to cause rout.

About ship limit I only said that it doesen't work as a real limit for number of ships you can posses-in other ways, if it forces AI to act in predefined way-it is ok.

Six armies is not too many. In my current play I am commanding Austria Empire-conquered Poland, Russia, Sweden, and nearly all Ottomans, having almost every trade spot and waging war against all main factions except Prussia-my ally. Six armies was minimum for me at some point but this doesen't really matters. As my Empire is about half world big, and I can of course afford it, I don't see a problem why I can't recruit more cavalry for police purposes at least. Not to mention that fighting with line infantry and nothing else is a bit boring.

Strange effects of that autoresolve... From what I see, Jam increased ship's HP which is good. Unlucky that AI can't be forced to repair it's ships:/.

I am not sure if I understand this new trading model-I will try it as soon as I will finish my current campaign.

Cheers

[JaM]

New Trading model is not fully implemented yet, only ships are already modified.. I will change the port and research side soon.

Regarding cavalry numbers, there will be some increases in limits (like 20 units for Dragoons,etc), anyway i have to keep it in scale a bit - current squadrons are slightly bigger than standard squadron would be in reality (real squadron would have about 1.5-2x less men) - problem is theoretical numbers and real numbers in the field differed for cavalry quite a lot, and i guess its better to have single unit with 80 horsemen and limit 20 units, than 2 units with 40 and limit 40 units, anyway this might change in the future..


I agree about the ship raking damage, i have already adjusted it a bit in my current files (will be part of next beta), where being attacked from astern will provide just -4 to morale (it was -8 originally), but i will increase morale penalties for recent damage and casualty taken - so any extremely devastating (well timed) salvo might produce enough of shock to force enemy to surrender.
I will also adjust ship minimum Hull strength, so ships will not sink after battle if they are badly damaged - things like this happened very often, most of the ships lost in 18.century were because of bad weather and not enemy guns, while damaged ships are much easier to sink in storms (single turn in game represents 3 months, which means those ships would have to face few storms in 3 months period anyway), but practically whole purpose of this is to sink heavily damaged ships that AI would never repair, while make sure human player cannot capture these to repair/sell them too easily.


And regarding unit types, Austria is quite rich for different unit types, you can recruit normal line infantry, german fusiliers, hungarian grenadiers, german grenadiers and of course grenzers. With cavalry you have dragoons and Chevauxlegers (light dragoons), Hungarian Hussars, Uhlans, Cuirassiers and Heavy Cavalry.. which is quite a lot of cavalry units available..

[Filmor]

That is ok, I am not complaining strongly on that limits. Just 12 dragoons seems for me too less. If we would follow your's x4 system that would give 3840 cavalryman which is not that small amount but as for big empire-not very big. Empire campaign finishes with the start of XIX century where cavalry in some armies accounted for fifth part of soldiers and armies 300 000 men large were not uncommon(there were much bigger in fact)-that would make more cavalry units quite reasonable. I think that 20 units limit will do the job along the other types which I hope to recruit soon.

Are you planning to implement the "retirement" of older units which I mentioned about?

[JaM]

Only thing possible, which is already implemented for few units, is to remove them from recruitment tree with higher building tiers.. This approach is used with Early Heavy Cavalry/French Gendarmes, or for example with Artillery tiers. Anyway its not possible to automatically "disband" old unit anyhow..