TROM2 - Feedback and Suggestions

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I finally got the Spanish CAI going again. It turned out that the way I modfoldered the custom campaign in 1.7 somehow prevented the CAI from doing its proper job (at least the Spanish one). In 1.8 the CAI will be more active on land (the naval CAI is already very active). Here are some pics from my CAI testgame featuring the Spanish and the English fleet. Btw the Spanish took Piedmont because it was occupied by British forces.

[diadok]

i am disappointed in all empire/napoleon vanilla/mods, with the "campaign unit movement" : 23 for foot artillery, 34 (max) for light cavs, it's more than unrealistic.

would be better for example like :

20 for foot artillery, citizens/peasants
25 for infantry line, milice, grenadiers, horse artillery
30 for skyrmishers, light infantry, irregulars
50 for heavy cav
55 for dragoons, lancers
60 for light cavs, generals

something like that (even if i don't know really where should be horse artillery)

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

i am disappointed in all empire/napoleon vanilla/mods, with the "campaign unit movement" : 23 for foot artillery, 34 (max) for light cavs, it's more than unrealistic.

would be better for example like :

20 for foot artillery, citizens/peasants
25 for infantry line, milice, grenadiers, horse artillery
30 for skyrmishers, light infantry, irregulars
50 for heavy cav
55 for dragoons, lancers
60 for light cavs, generals

something like that (even if i don't know really where should be horse artillery)

In TROM2 I reduced the marching speed of all land units by 20% (and increased the speed of ships by 20%) with a global multiplier. It may be possible to do this for artillery, infantry and cavalry separately, but I have to test that.

It's an interesting question how the marching speed of cavalry was compared to infantry. I am not shure if cavalry was really 50% faster then infantry over many days of campaigning. Maybe that is something for the historical research subforum.

EDIT: With some ingenious relabeling of effects it's indeed possible to change the movement speeds of unit categories globally without having to edit each single unit, which would be a chore because you have to do that for all starting units in the campaign files. I await your suggestions...

[Edax]

In TROM2 I reduced the marching speed of all land units by 20% (and increased the speed of ships by 20%) with a global multiplier. It may be possible to do this for artillery, infantry and cavalry separately, but I have to test that.

It's an interesting question how the marching speed of cavalry was compared to infantry. I am not shure if cavalry was really 50% faster then infantry over many days of campaigning. Maybe that is something for the historical research subforum.

EDIT: With some ingenious relabeling of effects it's indeed possible to change the movement speeds of unit categories globally without having to edit each single unit, which would be a chore because you have to do that for all starting units in the campaign files. I await your suggestions...

I worry that this will give the AI the ability to raid and disable all my towns with just a single unit of light calvary and still have time to make it make safely to their territory.

[diadok]

you can have some regiments of light cavalry to counter many attacks: some enemy units can make many destroy in your land, but you can intercept more units and faster, so all in all it will not be better or worst, but more realistic. but about what i see, raiding AI troops are not exclusively composed of cavalery, so this will not often happen.

With some ingenious relabeling of effects it's indeed possible to change the movement speeds of unit categories globally without having to edit each single unit, which would be a chore because you have to do that for all starting units in the campaign files. I await your suggestions...

sure, i don't know how to do that, as i have just edited unit stats land tables.

It's an interesting question how the marching speed of cavalry was compared to infantry. I am not shure if cavalry was really 50% faster then infantry over many days of campaigning. Maybe that is something for the historical research subforum.

about infantry : a roman army can walk on a good road usually 5km/hour, 35 kilometers per day (50 max if absolute necessity), and it is usually known that "it was not possible from fall of empire to the french revolution" : it's something like 16-20 kilometers before revolution and napolean wars. during this ones, with better logistic and lighter artillery, the "average distance" for "average army" is something like 25 kilometers per day.
example : napolean troops are walking 5km/hours, 30 kilometers/day during 27 days (24 walking + 3 steps, 700 kilometers) from boulogne camp (30 august) to spire (25 september). and before austerlitz, some french regiments walked much faster during many days, to succeed the large decisive manoeuvring.

about standart cavalry, the top max is considered as 10 km/hour for long distances (cavalry get three speed : 6,6 km/hour, 15 km/hour, 21km/hour).
--> and in the game it looks like they choose the slowest, so how can we use it in his strategic and tactical aspects on campaign map ? i hate to use few stacks of 4/5 cavs, which needs so many turns to join the rest of army, and the worst is to get this stacks that can't escape from big stacks that should never be able to catch them so easily.

for light cavs : they can do very long distances in few days, and it is the first reason why a general recruit them. that's why i think the stats given in vanilla are nothing more that a bad joke.

after some reading on web (i discover that for cavs it's really hard to find something) it looks like i may give less movement points to standart and heavy cavs (40/45 would be better than 50/55), and the same (60) for light cavs, as they can do much more in operations of covering retreat, raiding, but they can't do that during months, so it need a compromise (60 seems a good one to use it strategically without breaking some gameplay elements)

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I worry that this will give the AI the ability to raid and disable all my towns with just a single unit of light calvary and still have time to make it make safely to their territory.

Hm, Ltflak, interresting idea . I wonder if I can teach the AI to only use cavalry in small forces. I already removed artillery from forces below a strength of 4 and didn't see any negative influence on the force composition of bigger armies. That way, small AI raiding forces should be most of the time pure cavalry forces.

Anyway the AI raiding in TROM2 is tuned down, so you won't have to deal with swarms of cavalry raiders.

after some reading on web (i discover that for cavs it's really hard to find something) it looks like i may give less movement points to standart and heavy cavs (40/45 would be better than 50/55), and the same (60) for light cavs, as they can do much more in operations of covering retreat, raiding, but they can't do that during months, so it need a compromise (60 seems a good one to use it strategically without breaking some gameplay elements)

In NTW a turn has 14 days. While it seems to be possible for cavalry to be twice as quick as infantry over a short period of time, I doubt they can hold this speed up over longer time periods. I will put forward this question in the historical research forum to see what other people come up with. I think I will start with 50% movement point increase for all cavalry forces over the current values and see how this plays out. Not shure if I can handle horse artillery seperately without having to touch the unit values. I would give them a 30% movement point increase for now.

[Edax]

I am somewhat annoyed that the computer can fire artillery directly backwards (or at perfect 90 degree angles). This means that attacking artillery with calvery can result in heavy loses because they will take grapeshot everytime. Flanking is no good, you might as well charge from the front and save yourself some time. In Empire, the AI wasn't allowed to fire in this manner...so what changed in NTW?

[iCore]

edit: sorry, wrong topic!

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

They have a 360 degree reaction radius. Your own guns do the same btw. I see no reason why it shouldn't be possible.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Both problems are dealt with in 1.8.

[AirnetSnake]

The idea of changing victory conditions for most major factions was very nice. It keeps Coalition as a solid union through all campaign, but on the other hand it's kinda boring to play as coalition countries, it's Total War after-all... Feeling that you can be back-stabbed by AI after making wrong political decision very nice, so maybe ,Yarkis , you can make a separate version of esf campaign files with regions from neighboring factions added to vc?
At the same time some countries are just sleeping until enemy (France as example) will cross their borders, not sure if it's AI's problems which'd be fixed soon, or victory conditions again. I suggest adding some regions from "the other side of the world" to vc, such as Paris for most coalition factions and their capitals for France and it's allies. Think it'll make ai to do more aggressive movements.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

You can still play the original Campaigns of the Coalition if you disable the TROM2 campaign. The old campaigns still have the overlap of victory locations.

[AirnetSnake]

It'll disable TRoM missions doesn't it?
Upd: Just checked vanilla vc, they look very odd from all points of view. Only GB's one is ok i think.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

If you play the original campaigns you still have all the TROM2 features, even the additional starting units. The missions in the TROM2 custom campaign for Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia are the original ones anyway. Only Spain and the Ottomans ahve new missions so far.

[Edax]

Is there anyway you could get navy units to react to cannonballs to resemble more like land battles? So say a marine gets hit by a cannonball, instead of clutching his gut and dropping dead, he would fly off the ship entirely. Or if a gun crewmen is near a cannon ball strike, he'll fall back (presuembly from splinters) but get back up and man the gun. Would this be possible?

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Is there anyway you could get navy units to react to cannonballs to resemble more like land battles? So say a marine gets hit by a cannonball, instead of clutching his gut and dropping dead, he would fly off the ship entirely. Or if a gun crewmen is near a cannon ball strike, he'll fall back (presuembly from splinters) but get back up and man the gun. Would this be possible?

No. This seems to be hardcoded for battles only.

[AirnetSnake]

Doesn't anyone else think that player's units are getting experience really too slow? I hate seeing full 2-3xp AI armies fighting my still newbie after 3-4 grand battles troops.

Oh and I've found a some kind recruitment-exp problem: In TRoM basic units can be build from all kinds buildings in cities, but when you level them you don't get ability to recruit more experienced units from a pool, despite having them in building description.

[Rick]

In future releases, will TROM2 add years to the turns. I'd like to see something that goes to 1820, at least.

[Vizze]

I like your mod a lot I think I am a veteran total war player, but your economy system is rather brutal... As Russia I am having a hard time staying on the plus side, eventhough I havn't build any units, gone into any real wars (little with Ottoman) and constantly building for a better economy.. Trade and all that. But I am still only getting 4000 plus each round. And i have like 1 army... I have tried installing the easier economy mod, but I am not sure if it working.. How can I make sure if it is working ? Upkeep or ? Is it save compatible ? But this mod ! Like how the enemy sends full stacks in a very smart way. An how GB have taken different places in France

[Edax]

I like your mod a lot I think I am a veteran total war player, but your economy system is rather brutal... As Russia I am having a hard time staying on the plus side, eventhough I havn't build any units, gone into any real wars (little with Ottoman) and constantly building for a better economy.. Trade and all that. But I am still only getting 4000 plus each round. And i have like 1 army... I have tried installing the easier economy mod, but I am not sure if it working.. How can I make sure if it is working ? Upkeep or ? Is it save compatible ? But this mod ! Like how the enemy sends full stacks in a very smart way. An how GB have taken different places in France

4000+ is a lot of money, Playing as the Ottomans, I probably went 80 turns with just 1000+