My line infantry 1 v 1 tests

[Sherab]

EDIT: For some conclusions see second post!

Hello there.


I keep testing some features for my own seek. I did something similar with PikeStance submod for IS. What I do is going 1 v 1 line infantry - same nationality om both sides, grassy flatland I map, to reduce terrain inpact.


I'm little concerned about reloading speed. I know reasoning behind this, but still, it feels little to fast. I try to keep cohesion by closing in before opening fire, but BAI is able to shoot me out enough to cause me route just after my first salvo. Maybe it would be to easy to defeat BAI if I would be able to approach them with minimal looses, I know that. This would be easy to abuse. However it seems that at least in such 1 v 1 situation, holding fire till close enough is not valid solution. Yes, I know that 1 v 1 situation is rather unrealistic, but what would you be your comments (questions as much to JaM, as to whole community)?


I have also feeling that accuracy grows quite rapidly when closing distance, however do not drops such significantly with cohesion lost. I don't know how exactly fatigue system works in Empire. I know the tables, and it look like this would be rather solid penalties, than penalties over time. Is it is like that? I mean, in given conditions (constant) fatigue will drop only to the value dictated by this conditions, but won't change over time untill we do not add another penalising condition? If would be so, then any advantage we could count on is reducing distance and open our own fire between first, and second salvo of our enemy. Because their first salvo is most devastating, but due to distance, quite innacurate (however, I would say quite accurare still). Second one is probably much less devastating, but we are closer to them then. Later on we only reduce distance, so we making their salvos only more precise. So any benefit is only between first and second enemies salvo. But due to speed of reloading it seems rather hard to reduce distance enough to make any difference and even give our volley in this time.


This would be different if cohesion, or just accuracy would drop over time while repeated firing. So, how this works? What would you do in such 1 v 1 situation to gain upper hand over enemy?

[Sherab]

SOME CONCLUSIONS


Ok, after few more tests I came with a conclusions. At least at 1 v 1 situations:


1. forget about cohesion - invest in morale instead,
2. forget about closing distance,
3. stretch your line maximally,
4. be sure to fire your first volley before enemy do.


Explanations:


1. Cohesion is important, don't take me wrong. But you should be concerned rather about not loosing it too much than about keeping it as high as possible. After that first volley you will loose it nontheless. Morale seems to be more important I think. Cohesion has influance on morale, but it is only one factor. In actual battle I would rather focus on busting morale by any possible way - so keeping line continuous (battalions arm to arm, without holes between them), flanks secured, general nearby, and so on. Keep in mind that we speek about line infantry here. Cavalry for example, by nature will be acting in separation from main forces - skirmishing, flanking and so on. Cavalry also base strongly on it shock effect. So in their case cohesion will by far more important.


2. Yoy see, you are more accurate at close distance, but so is enemy. And they do not stop fire while you are "calmly" get close to them. And you can not shoot while walking. Being under fire reduces morale, so as taking casualties. In other words you put yourself in disadvantage by closing your distance under fire. Keeping cohesion this way won't help you much. Yes - your first volley will be more devastating, than was a first volley of the enemy - but even if less accurate, they had opportunity to to shoot multiple volleys as you were approaching them, causing casualties to you. This mean, that in actual battle try to close distance only when enemy unit you are approaching is occupied by something else - repelling cavalry charge, shooting other unit - whatever.


3. ER4 removed firing drills. Instead, theres only first rank fire always. They shoot two bullets at once to simulate two ranks firing. But this dosn't change a fact, that any soldier that is not placed in first rank is a waste of men-, and fire-power. Stretching your line maximally give you more firepower available per unit. This was a true also for vanilla game before you've discovered firing drills. Since they are not working in ER, this is valid for whole gameplay. In actual battle this will be situation dependent - stretched units are harder to maneuver, and more prone to brake by enemies charge. But if possible, when face to face fire battle is going to start, you should try to deploy them in thin lines before it happens. Btw. thin lines are good defence against frontal artillery round fire - you will still get under artillery fire penalty, but you loose less men (two-three per round). Conversely, columns are very prone to artillery fire. Situation change when enemies artillery fire form flanks - if they hit, they may cause heavy looses to thin line formation.
Add. It seems that cohesion (and maybe morale too) is per soldier applied to some degree, because in my tests my stretched unit was loosing cohesion more (more man firing at the same time) than enemy. But as stated in point 1., it is of secondary problem.


4. I would say this is not vital in that way, that you can not win fire-fight otherwise if you deployed stretched line. But it certainly helps. It means that your enemy get penalties to morale due to being under fire a little sooner than you, and of course there is a chance they will take some casualties. Due to morale lost, they first volley will be also a little less effective. In actual battle (campaign) this is easier if you are defender, becasue enemies have to march on you, and usualy after they enter in fire range they have to reorganise they formation - this gives you a lot of time to open fire. Opposite is true on offence. You can try to stop just before they max fire range counting on that they will try to shorten the distance. I don't know however how much enemy is eager to do so in campaign battles (in custom battles BAI seems to be on offence always).

[JaM]

Thanks for this, Gave me some ideas for improvements... ER is long due NER treatment, some combat related things might change in near future.

[phoen!x]

oh yes, I tesed it yesterday again. In the campaign I get always suiceide attacked from the opponent even on hard difficulty.
Enemy comes shoots a bit starts melee and runs away - the whole army, every time.

[JaM]

there are some changes for cohesion in NER that will be in next ER too. accuracy of fire will be a lot higher at "Fresh", but will go drastically down at lower cohesion levels (-75%; -90% to -100%) so at disordered, all unit accuracy is gone and fire is completely random.. Firs salvos with good cohesion will be the most accurate (50% bonus to accuracy).

Weapon model will be also reworked, with weapons giving very limited accuracy bonuses (practically, only skirmisher weapons or rifles will give any) and bigger dispersion values. This will also make the first salvo fired at short distance the most effective, so in defense, it will be beneficial to open fire at very short range instead of blasting away at max distance. Very important change will be also for small arms range - every weapon will have same range, therefore units will be able to respond with fire against any enemy unit, yet skirmisher musket or rifles will have a lot smaller dispersion ,therefore will be more accurate. Historically, even units equipped with muskets could fire at long range to engage enemy that is firing at them, even if their fire would not be effective.. It also means skirmishers will be better used for flanking than direct attacks, as while smaller target, volume of fire from line units might still hit them back..

Huge change is planned for artillery - all accuracy bonuses with artillery will be gone. all ranges will be defaulted to 400, so there wont be range advantage between arty units. Only advantage will be dispersion,and projectile speed, which will give heavier arty an advantage thanks to more flat trajectories to target. All arty will be restricted to max 10 degree elevation, except for howitzers, which will be allowed 20 degree and mortars with 60 degrees. Biggest change will be in arty rate of fire, which will be a lot slower, as it will represent sustained rate of fire instead of max rate of fire. So arty units firing solid shot will fire slower, their accuracy will be lower and will greatly depend on crew experience and gun technology (latest guns will have smaller dispersion) Canister will be fired at half the reload time for solid shot, but range will be decreased to 90 for light and 120 for heavy canister.

Overall, artillery will be still good to have, but a lot less dominating than it was before. It will be area weapon instead of precision weapon it was before. concentrated fire from multiple batteries will work best.

[phoen!x]

sounds good. But you should also give AI players some bonuses. Epecially when difficulty "hard" is selected. IMO

It is not only that AI attacks the way I described. And also that they do not approach in a solod line. They come in waves which can easlily be torn away one by one.

When I attack the AI is completely unorganised. One unit looks to the right one to the left two in my direction. And the others are walking around behind the line. Especially they are not standing in one fireing line - The AI player.

And they are seperated: most units are close to me and one unit or two are hidden somewhere far away.

ah, and I also need to mention the suicide cav charge in the beginning. AI always wastes all cav with a frontal charge. But line infantry acted well this time.

[JaM]

AI battle behavior is impossible to mod, as its hardcoded.. cavalry frontal charges happens always if you target their cavalry with artillery for example.. if you switch targets to something else, AI will stop the charge and so on.. All i can do, is to adjust some distances, so AI will do these things a lot later.. but its impossible to change them or remove them.

[phoen!x]

well ok. And how is it with campaign map configuration ?
You should pile up the unit stacks to heaven on very hard difficulty. Also to balance out AI battle map behaviour.

And you can still give AI bonuses in battle. Also remember that AI is not capable of using an officer properly.

[phoen!x]

And if you make it to make AI stronger you could also add captains to support morale of infantry or cavalery (Captains infantry and Captains cavalery). Small command groups. Flags, drums, officers a few guards.
AI does not use them, right. But when IA has massive bonuses then, it does not matter. This would make the whole game a lot more interesting. And would fit for your mod very well.

[JaM]

i've made some adjustments to morale and cohesion in 4.91 version that will be uploaded later this week. Mostly, i have slightly decreased cohesion effect on morale (-1/-2/-3 instead of -2/-4/-6) as decreased cohesion already has impact on accuracy and melee. At the same time, i have changed "fatigue" penalty for walking from 1 to -5, therefore units that are marching normal speed will keep cohesion intact. (marching in good order) Instead, running is now +5 (previously +4) therefore it will decrease cohesion a bit faster. Again, this is to make assaults vs defending enemy a bit easier, as you will not lose cohesion just by walking, therefore your first salvo will be at full accuracy once you get into position.

[phoen!x]

sounds good.
I guess the big AI unit spam will appear later in the game.

[JaM]

4.92 version brought some important changes to combat design. First, i wanted to address the fact, that previously, there was no point in getting closer to enemy, and best thing player could do was to start firing first. This is no longer the case. Musket accuracy was reworked drastically, for the first time i'm actually using negative values, so muskets even remove accuracy bonus given by unit training.. Of course, with very experienced units it still plays some role, but its no longer that overwhelming. All salvo muskets have -20 to their previous accuracy, therefore typical Line infantry unit starting the game with 20-25 accuracy due to training, has effective accuracy 0 to 5 points.. Maximum exp bonus unit can get is 25 points, therefore even at exp 9, Line infantry would get just 20-25 accuracy (which is still quite a big improvement, considering mod-scale 1:4, which means 50% hit accuracy for such unit is 80-100m)

To compensate for decreased accuracy, dispersion values were decreased, and are now fully in mod-scale (1:4). Where most muskets had previously dispersion around 8-10, in 4.92 they have 4-5. This flattens the fly-path of bullets a bit, which means musket fire at shorter range is a lot more accurate, while at max range, accuracy is gone, and dispersion is still big enough to have most bullets just overshoot.. Skirmisher weapons have similar dispersion values (typically 1 point lower), but keep some weapon accuracy, therefore their fire is more likely to score hits at long range (but its still decreased from previous versions).

Cohesion morale penalties got reverted back and increased a bit to -6/-8/-12. Instead, casualty rate morale penalties were slightly reduced. This means having unit completely disordered means its very easy to break.. which means, keeping your line firing for the whole battle will make their position easier to overwhelm by steady units. Cohesion penalties to accuracy are still in place, where only units with good order fire at full potential. Disordered units get -100% to their accuracy therefore are practically wasting ammo.

Movement speed of units was adjusted as well. As before, walking improves cohesion, therefore you can get to enemy in good order and deliver devastating salvo from short distance. Charging speed is increased, so tactics where you deliver single salvo and follow with bayonet will be quite effective now.

I think the best tactics in attack is to have your forces divided into firing group and assault group. Firing group will engage enemy at long range to disorder him, while assault group approaches, delivers short range salvo and charge with bayonets. Light infantry/Skirmishers are perfect for firing duty as they present small profile therefore dont take that many casualties.. Grenadiers are best in assault duties for obvious reasons.

In defense, best thing you can do is to use two lines, and move reserves forward every time your front unit routes. Deploying in checkerboard formation is useful, as it allows you to open fire while not hitting own routed men trying to run back.. But overall, single thin line is very easy to break now so keep reserves.

(same changes will be applied to NER mod next week)