1800 Land combat overview

**Sirlion** · January 23, 2016, 02:03 PM

Land combat in 1800 takes advantage of the morale and fatigue systems and puts them together at the same time, giving a more realistic representation of the Napoleonic tactics. By putting troops under stress and tiredness, fatigue may be considered as a form of cohesion loss too. Reloading times are slower, solid volleys possible and in certain cases even recommended to inflict immediate panic to your opponents. Units have been balanced so that they take full advantage of their stats while fresh, and are almost useless when very tired and in dangerous positions. In this mod, you dont necessarily have to shoot infinite volleys or rely on powerful charges that may endanger your troops too: the main characteristic is the use of fear. Charging in with the right conditions may allow you to face multiple targets at once and rout them without shedding a single drop of blood.
Every unit has its own attributes and strong points, as much as Shogun 2 , I wanted to recreate a situation where the rock-paper-scissors mechanic would work properly. This, combined with an intelligent use of demoralizing factors such as skirmisher shootings and preliminary artillery bombardment may secure a decisive push forward. But be aware that no unit has a great advantage over the others: if not part of a bigger action, units may panic and get dispersed, taking nearby allies with them, caught in the general chaos.
New changes in the gameplay and further questions may be addressed here.

**Dracula** · August 13, 2016, 09:26 AM

I don't understand the phylosophy of such a BAI. It may be more realistic than other, but it's a game. And in it you want to see people fighting as much as possible. While, seeing an almost entire in numbers unit move like a wave up and down routing and recovering, and then finally at 1/2 numbers leaves the battlefield - caused by some incidentall fire - What in fact do you have to watch in such a battle ?!

**Sirlion** · August 15, 2016, 08:12 AM

I dont understand the question. If you dont like the system however you are free to modify it and \ or use another BAI.

**Dracula** · August 16, 2016, 01:10 PM

The Question is what do you need to see - people running up and down - or fighting, falling, shooting and beeing shot ? As much as possible. Being able to rout someone is tactically realistic but not great in a game.

**Sirlion** · August 16, 2016, 01:33 PM

It all depends on what you want from a game like this. I personally want a bit more strategy rather than fancy soldiers shooting at each other for 3 minutes. I like to plan where to move and do it slowly so I can plan another move while doing the current one. Standard Empire \ Napoleon are brainless fun with fancy plumes. I dont want that. The mods I created for the BAI are inspired by the Scourge of War series, my own personal research, and a genuine wish to feel the real battlefield of the era. If in a day of fighting two batallions couldnt see a goat running at 10 feet away from them because of panic, tiredness, smoke, weather and all sorts of things, it should be that way as much as possible. Also, a battle of this time is governed by many factors, one of them is luck. Luck had a big impact, because communications were poor and any number of casual factors could turn the battle in favor of the adversary at any given time. That is what I want to portray. Strategy and Luck, the biggest factors in this conflict.
I understand that you dont want to see batallions going around reforming, and you maybe just want to look at fancy plumes, but then I suggest looking elsewhere, OR changing the variables yourself if you want.

**Dracula** · August 16, 2016, 03:02 PM

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...omy-ALL-AI-Mod

**Sirlion** · August 16, 2016, 11:29 PM

18th century isnt napoleonic times you know. And why are you making new mods, I thought you had stated that you wouldn't be making mods anymore because Empire is not patched? Oh well, what can I say, good luck with that.

**Dracula** · August 17, 2016, 02:28 AM

This is the last one published since it was conceived before. My threat still stands as I have things what to publish and hasn't come out yet in all the spectrum of TW games. Besides I update all of them from time to time, even if it is something little, and that won't come out before the patch.

I didn't want to sound as a big critic of your mod, in fact I am not. On the contrary, I have welcomed the idea of Napoleonic Era game on the global scope of Empire TW. I was mostly responding to a tendency which alas the Darthmod first pioneered, if not the very original game. There of units of 300 when there remain around 190 men in a unit they usually rout under different circumstances. Then they return 2-3 times being shot all the way - while withdrawing and while coming back. And since AI is not that smart to line up and fire quickly -equally so when being fired at - it becomes a drama of destruction caused by the bad AI. I cannot see how you can implement strategy and even luck in such a situation. It is so distant from reality that there cannot be more distant. Soldiers coming in range would immediately respond in reality, or loose their lives ....And with the tempo that soldiers fall in vanilla and most mods .... a battle should have lasted 1 week - transfered from game time to real time. Add to that the enermous ammount of time to reach to the enemy who withdraws to a "better" position /and he should have chosen it at first/ , add the rearrangement after that - or the time it takes ships to sail to a place on an even square with no difference - you can not have more than one such game battle per day, with 80% of the time lost in frustration.

But since I see you haven't downloaded the mod, good luck with adding strategy into the vanilla mess.

**Sirlion** · August 17, 2016, 06:10 AM

In fact I will not download it. The mere idea of having 300 soldiers fight till they remain in 30, with range 55 which 99% of the time gives the "melee bug" and makes the men run to each other to kill themselves with bayonets is pure madness to me. A fun madness mind you, I'm not criticizing your work either. I do not pretend to invent strategy in a game that clearly wasnt conceived with that in mind. But you dont seem to understand that there is a compromise called "willing suspension of disbelief" that needs to be applied in such occasions. One has to have the will to roleplay a bit. Otherwise we are just discussing stats and that will lead us nowhere. To each his own, friend. I dont need to compete with you. I have my "fans" and you have yours. Everyone wins.

**Dracula** · August 17, 2016, 03:27 PM

in fact 200 soldiers untill 30, seems time is not wasted. And NO, the cinematic range of 55 does not cause a melee bug since the AI goes to melee in same ammount at any range.

So it's fantasy you speak about how games should be viewed. I don't agree, there should be a certain standard, going too far away from it should be something horrible. Restoring the standard is what I do. Cause I doubt anyone played vanilla. You speak of competing when I see quite many mods as compilations of many others. Since you so see your mod as a singular, that is good for you. But the idea of that AI is quite outdated, I have to point it out.

**Sirlion** · August 18, 2016, 03:07 AM

As you would know if you tried this mod with my own parameters, you would notice that there is almost no melee bug because I know what I'm talking about. I spent countless hours perfecting my own view of the battlefield starting from vanilla. As you would see from the very first version of Realism Core, I did not take anybody else's compilation of stats. Therefore you can see for yourself that my mod IS singular. But I agree that the idea is old. As a matter of fact, any idea, including yours, is old. I cannot see why this would be relevant. Many others have tried our approach before. And again, there are those that prefer cinematic slaughter, and those that prefer a more realistic approach. Different flavor, same fun. Let's end this pointless debate now.

**Dracula** · August 18, 2016, 09:04 AM

There are indeed cases when the melee bug is not happening. The AI withdraws to a better position sometimes, allthough I don't see how it is better. Than it chooses another and another ... which is also a bug. Hope if you engaged them from a far in such a situation you didn't count it as an improvement and realism that you added.

**Sirlion** · August 18, 2016, 01:15 PM

I suppose you could ask CA to fix thier buggy game, which is the cause of all this. But you already did. In fact, you wont be making new mods until they do.

**Dracula** · August 19, 2016, 07:14 AM

No I am constantly doing something. But they won't come out of the closet. And, if they move their asses and fix the bug which is the main disappointment of the game, you shall benefit too from my treat.