Company Man's Guide to ETW Foot - Now with Videos!

[coman]

Where do the 4 units (two Companies, by your system) of Grenadiers fit into this?

You're way ahead of me in the OCD organization department. I recommend the structure to players to help reinforce the concept of a structured, cohesive unit. It helps prevent scattering out and instills a sense of automatic discipline in the deployment of units. As an added benefit, people like you and me like that... Less like others that just throw their units around.

As to the structure of grenadiers, for the vanilla size that would be two companies of Grenadiers. So if you wanted to form a BN for the grenadiers it would work just as you have it. Alternatively you could call the grenadiers 1/1st Grenadier/4th, 2/1st Grenadier/4th just to demarcate the unit and size as one.

Or do I simply replace two of the 3rd Companies of a Battalion with two units of Grenadiers?

That is generally how I use them when they are available. 2 Line Infantry Companies and 2 Grenadier companies = 1 Battalion for purposes of how I fight. Since the game without a mod never models the later period use of Grenadier Battalions, it's fine to do this. I believe Quixote has full strength non-explosive tossing Grenadiers.

Also, is there a better, more realistic way to name the units than what I'm doing?

I suppose you could follow a modern nomenclature, I'm not quite sure what the historical period would have been for this. But there are alphanumeric shorthand for each unit. <1-X> Platoon, <A-Z> Company, <1-X> Battalion in this case. I think that's too much work and eventually you'll probably stop naming the units, as I have.

For a line unit, I suppose 1-2/A/1 would even work for the 1st and 2nd platoons, A company, 1st Battalion. I named my Army's after the commander in charge for a while. Or the region they were raised in or ordered to protect. "1/1st/1 Ile de France".

Sorry if my questions are a bit pedantic and shifting from the tactical element of your guide, but I hope you're able to help me.

Thanks again!

Well since you asked, I hope that helps. The naming in my opinion, is simply there to help you keep focus on the battle field. You can really name them anyway that makes sense to you. As long as you follow the spirit of reserve, fix, flank, fire, advance on attack, retract then advance on defense you'll be following the spirit of the guide.

You're welcome.

[coman]

On a side note; I've completed half the videos I want to use for the rest of the sections. However, I've run out of steam to play the game until it gets major content and bugfix/AI patches.

With Godfather II releasing this week, and all the planting and gardening I'm doing, I just don't feel like making a guide then really needing to update it again when they fix half or more of the problems I've run into.

Sorry folks. I do hope the first section continues to help but I just can't bring myself to play any longer without a better campaign AI. I've toyed with the idea of using RTI to detail the last part, as it at least has some level of script to follow. Perhaps.

Bye for now.

[Matsky]

Thanks for the replies mate. You're probably not too interested in my OCD naming habits (so I'll put it in spoiler tags), but here's how I'm naming my units according to your organisation (which I'm also using):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I've chosen to use Light Dragoons as my Horse unit. The numbers represent the Infantry Battalion, Company of Horse, and Artillery Battalion. The three by three format works out perfect too as I generally use 3 Armies in my campaigns, meaning there's one whole Infantry Regiment (Royal Scots, Queen's Royal Reg., The Buffs) in each Army and a whole single Regiment each of Dragoons (Royal Dragoons) and Artillery (Royal Artillery Reg.) spread equally throughout the 3 Armies. Brilliant! These names also fit within the 32-character limit of units (unless the Regiment name is too long, then I just abbreviate it).


1^st Army

A Company, 1 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
B Company, 1 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
C Company, 1 Royal Scots - Line Infantry

A Company, 2 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
B Company, 2 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
C Company, 2 Royal Scots - Line Infantry

A Company, 3 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
B Company, 3 Royal Scots - Line Infantry
C Company, 3 Royal Scots - Line Infantry

D Company, 1 Royal Scots - Grenadiers
D Company, 1 Royal Scots - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 Royal Scots - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 Royal Scots - Grenadiers

A Squadron, 1 Royal Dragoons
B Squadron, 1 Royal Dragoons
C Squadron, 1 Royal Dragoons

A Battery, 1 Royal Artillery Reg.
B Battery, 1 Royal Artillery Reg.
C Battery, 1 Royal Artillery Reg.

General's Unit


2^nd Army

A Company, 1 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
B Company, 1 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
C Company, 1 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry

A Company, 2 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
B Company, 2 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
C Company, 2 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry

A Company, 3 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
B Company, 3 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry
C Company, 3 Queen's Royal Reg. - Line Infantry

D Company, 1 Queen's Royal Reg. - Grenadiers
D Company, 1 Queen's Royal Reg. - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 Queen's Royal Reg. - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 Queen's Royal Reg. - Grenadiers

A Squadron, 2 Royal Dragoons
B Squadron, 2 Royal Dragoons
C Squadron, 2 Royal Dragoons

A Battery, 2 Royal Artillery Reg.
B Battery, 2 Royal Artillery Reg.
C Battery, 2 Royal Artillery Reg.

General's Unit


3^rd Army

A Company, 1 The Buffs - Line Infantry
B Company, 1 The Buffs - Line Infantry
C Company, 1 The Buffs - Line Infantry

A Company, 2 The Buffs - Line Infantry
B Company, 2 The Buffs - Line Infantry
C Company, 2 The Buffs - Line Infantry

A Company, 3 The Buffs - Line Infantry
B Company, 3 The Buffs - Line Infantry
C Company, 3 The Buffs - Line Infantry

D Company, 1 The Buffs - Grenadiers
D Company, 1 The Buffs - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 The Buffs - Grenadiers
D Company, 2 The Buffs - Grenadiers

A Squadron, 3 Royal Dragoons
B Squadron, 3 Royal Dragoons
C Squadron, 3 Royal Dragoons

A Battery, 3 Royal Artillery Reg.
B Battery, 3 Royal Artillery Reg.
C Battery, 3 Royal Artillery Reg.

General's Unit

[coman]

That's awesome Matsky. Thanks for sharing! Will probably inspire others.

[Franbo]

Am I the only one who loved both the original post and the discussions generally and is eagerly waiting for the part 2? I suspect not

Go on Coman... you know you want to

Franbo

[Mooncabbage]

I think people who can't get past the fire by company leapfrogging thing and are bagging it out, not only miss the point of everything else in the guide, but clearly can't see the benefits of that trick anyway. It's like fire and advance, but more reliable and earlier in the game. It allows you to maintain a greater RoF over a given frontage, which clearly has advantages in the 2vs1 department. as for artillery....

People way overuse it, and in the wrong way I feel, but then the vanilla game is cheesy and unbalanced and pretty much only good for campaign when you don't really care when you win too easily anyway.

At the end of the day, and I think coman would agree with me, if you overemphasise any part of your army, you're going to get creamed against anyone with a lick of common sense.

PS. Coman, have you considered doing up the rest of the videos in Custom Battle, or multiplayer with a buddy? Either option would allow you more control over the setups.

[♔GrinningManiac♔]

I WANT MORE GUIDES.

I'll pout, I'm warning you...

[coman]

I want to see some of these "improvements" that tCA is chattering away about. If this game has a life beyond their terrible release condition, I'll put more effort into the guide approach.

[Mooncabbage]

Shame coman, your guides are fantastic, I'm not ashamed to say they completely changed the way I play the game... not just tactically, it feels more scenic to me too With my infantry marching in column I can almost smell it ^^

What are your specific gripes with the game? I am an active member of the Grognard mod team and it's entirely possible your specific problems are addressed within the scope of that mod. Please feel free to PM me with what you consider to be the problems. I always like hearing new complaints

[coman]

My complaints are largely the same as others, I'm sure:

1. Lack of Naval landings and movement overseas

2. Completely stupid Campaign AI with no restraint (90 turns running, offered complete crap for the world by enemies)

3. Weak alliance and combined defenses mean that the Baroque and Renaissance period cannot play like anything resembling history - it is far too easy to take and hold land in this game. The campaign does not resemble war, trade or peace anything like the period.

4. Naval components of battle are retarded, the mechanics and system of naval battles is arcade like and so bug prone as to be an afterthought and likely just auto-resolved. The way the AI handles its own navies is proof that the AI cannot USE its own navy properly, so it's time to develop scripted behavior. Ports, the English Channel and Narrow Seas all need to be strategically critical to the great powers. Regions that participate in these conflicts must be scripted to be a part of such conflicts.

5. The scale of armies and the scale of navies at play in this period require an intermediary strategic element of maneuver, supply and proper reinforcement/attack. In short the feature simply doesn't exist to participate in the kind of battles that existed in this period.

6. Instead of it being a truly strategic experience, the game remains purely a tactical land focus, (which is enough for me, honest). I've spent dozens of hours with the same save games maneuvering and forming Corps and Armies and attacking from this direction and that direction. I've sent in infantry with groups of dragoons and horse from other stacks. Reinforcement seems entirely random, but somewhat predictable based on direction of attack. A mini-game in between the campaign map and the tactical battle would be required, where do you place your supply train? Where do you defend from? Where do you maneuver on attack towards? Army level actions in this period were deliberate and complex matters. No longer do generals just form their men and meet in an open field... Empire should have reflected this.

7. A few random bits:
- Mortar range needed to be very short and mobile
- Naval ships need to be arranged and statistically modeled by displacement and gun weight.
- Unit formation and scale should not be changed, as it then impacts the maneuver and scale of the tactical map
- Doubly so that weapon ranges should not change, especially infantry range per the point above

8. I've mentioned the word "supply train". This was critical to model in a black powder game. No "if" and or "but" about it. The idea of supply and the requirement of protecting one's supply was a major element of war in this period. I'm sad to see it doesn't exist and that logistics simply doesn't exist in this "revolution" of Total War.

9. Artillery needs to have limited ammunition - period - but it's impossible under the current game to simulate supply of artillery. There's no batch of horse panniers or wagons constantly moving about bringing powder and shot forward to the guns.

I should really just stop there. I know I'm reaching outside the current game engine.

I suppose my issue can be summed as follows:

This is no Total War "Revolution". It's an evolution and a pretty feature dry version at that. I will not be trusting any further words from tCA. Not until it's been released and can be evaluated. I cannot tell you how excited and hyped up I as about this game. I'm glad to have to have it, I'm thrilled at how pretty it looks, but I'm ultimately disappointed and still looking for someone to create a full period piece that models strategic realm management, treaty and diplomacy, strategic land military and naval elements with specific naval and land engagement mini-games for maneuver, position, defense/offense/supply with a robust and intelligent single-player tactical experience.

Perhaps Empire Total War III after Sega buys a few other game companies and merges them together? It wasn't enough to simply pull out the Universalis diplomacy measuring system, I think the tCA guys have an incredibly narrow vision (or are entirely too limited by their technology) and have on occasion entirely missed opportunities in the game design that would improve complexity for strategy and tactics without increasing confusion.

Before anyone blabbers off; I was in entertainment for 10 years a long time ago - I know this business and its challenges. I've made complex AND simple games and I've been both a game developer, designer, and producer. I've run companies in the hundreds of developers with multiple projects and revenue requirements. I now focus on systems architecture, the management of and performance of SOA enterprises.

I'm greatly unimpressed that game companies still seem to be managed by either post-Hollywood entertainment types, corporate straight-jacket accountants or bufoons with personal fortunes to waste making the "best game ever".

I ramble. I'm sorry.

coman

[HawkDreams]

ROTFLMAO! You go Coman!

By the way! VERY nice guide! My humble attempt is greatly overshadowed!

[Mooncabbage]

If the tactical game is enough for you and you are looking for a challenge you might consider the multiplayer game. The NWG group on steam is made up mostly of serious wargamer types, so you won't see too many dodgy looking army lists, unfortunately I think a lot of people use the grognard mod, which does fiddle with a lot of things you have said should not be changed, in an attempt to create some realism, atmosphere and gameplay balance.

I think unfortunately you could be waiting a while before the campaign game satisfies your standards. It really is just a vehicle for the tactical game still, as it was designed to be all the way back when Shogun came out.

[MyKingforahorse]

Coman, based on early mod information so far the supply chain should be pretty easy to modify in.

Add a new building type in one of the town slots for main regions, it adds a modifier for unit upkeep in that region. Any units in that region benefit from the lowered cost, units outside that region have increased upkeep.

In this regard all units in lower secondary regions like colonies, etc.. are always going to have increased upkeep since you cannot build that building without the proper town slot.

[coman]

I think unfortunately you could be waiting a while before the campaign game satisfies your standards. It really is just a vehicle for the tactical game still, as it was designed to be all the way back when Shogun came out.

Mooncabbage,

Couldn't agree more and the phrasing is perfect. It is just the "tactical experience delivery module".

I have played quite a bit of multiplayer, but for one, a fight without context or greater purpose is just a fight. I don't really care for that.

coman

[Mooncabbage]

I totally understand, I used to feel the same. I don't know what changed, but I guess I just enjoy the tactical challenge. Custom battles get boring for the reason you stated tho... there is no point at all. Europa Universalis III has a fantastic(ly complicated) campaign map, and I had hoped empire would poach more from it. I guess you can just wait for CA to do something about it, or maybe you could try modding the game to your own tastes? It's not actually that hard once you have an idea of what you're doing. Empire is much more powerful on the modding side of things.

I just really like your guide, and I want the rest

Even if you just write up a rough theory with pictures in paint or something

[abuassad]

slightly off topic - i was watching ur musket drill viedo - couldn't help noticing that the animation shows the soldiers priming their powder holes before putting powder n bullet n then ramming them home, and then taking a shot. is this correct? wouldn't the powder at the firing mechanism fall off? or am i missing sumthing? thanx.

anyway, as others, waiting 4 ur other guides.

[Souvorov]

Thanks Coman!

Very useful guide! Keep it up!

I wanna ask you - why keep a unit in deep formation? I don't understand the advantages.

Thanks

[Mooncabbage]

Thanks Coman!

Very useful guide! Keep it up!

I wanna ask you - why keep a unit in deep formation? I don't understand the advantages.

Thanks

It's historically accurate, so you get something out of that, but it also allows you to maneuver more easily, and deploy more troops where you want them, more quickly, unlike a long line which is basically static once deployed.

[Franbo]

I'm not certain... but isn't there an advantage when charging if you have a deeper formation?

Franbo

[Souvorov]

Thanks Mooncabbage,

but I'm still not sure what you mean. Do they really move that much faster? I guess charging like that would be better.

But also would it not be better to have a third unit firing?