TROM2 - Feedback and Suggestions

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Anyway you could add the telescope animation back into TROMII?

Also, I've noticed that with ships of the line, with the moral maxed out, ships tend to explode from fires on deck, rather them sink from damage. Anyway you can VASTLY reduce the flamablilty of ships so that they can sink properly from crippled hulls?

Also, I think farms should have a higher replenishment/supply rate, considering that farms and their upgrades cost so much money.

Hm, don't know about this telescope animation. Was it ever in? I did nopt remove anything.

I think I can reduce the explosion chance. Not shure about catching fire.

Farms also generate income. Their costs are based on the income they generate and is balanced against other buildings.


@Pdguru

I am really interested in feedback from more players. Personally I don't think that tactics don't matter, but there are no easy triggers like a cavalry attack from the flank will always succeed. It depends on the units and factions involved. Russian armies are more stubborn. Ottomans will run quicker. Moral bonuses by generals play a role, as well as bonuses of grenadiers and elite troops.

The AI has cash restrictions and the amount of armies they can have is finite. The AI can even go bankrupt if it fields large armies and you block their only trading port. Personally I can manage the larger number of CAI armies. I may loose a province or two at times but I get them back. Anyway I am interested in opinions and suggestions.

[Edax]

Hm, don't know about this telescope animation. Was it ever in? I did nopt remove anything.

I think I can reduce the explosion chance. Not shure about catching fire.

Farms also generate income. Their costs are based on the income they generate and is balanced against other buildings.


@Pdguru

I am really interested in feedback from more players. Personally I don't think that tactics don't matter, but there are no easy triggers like a cavalry attack from the flank will always succeed. It depends on the units and factions involved. Russian armies are more stubborn. Ottomans will run quicker. Moral bonuses by generals play a role, as well as bonuses of grenadiers and elite troops.

The AI has cash restrictions and the amount of armies they can have is finite. The AI can even go bankrupt if it fields large armies and you block their only trading port. Personally I can manage the larger number of CAI armies. I may loose a province or two at times but I get them back. Anyway I am interested in opinions and suggestions.

You had the telescopes in Empire. I've seen screenshots of them being used in Napoleon, but I don't know which mod allows it...Probably a sub-mod of All-In-One.

And the shipfires. BEYOND IRRITATING. My ships can spend 80% of a battle on fire...IN THE MIDDLE OF A RAINSTORM! They spend 80% of the time with fire-at-will off, which means that they should be combating to fire, which I can't tell if they are because the fire is so small it's not visable. Even so, being fire causes massive moral drop, and causes the ship to go up in flames RANDOMLY and at any second. The fires happen SO OFTEN, that I've seen only one 80 gun ship of the line sink, and about 40 ships explode from fires. Seriously, if this was realistic, Trafalgar would have been a navel disaster because Nelson would have lost his entire fleet to ship-fires before he'd even reach the Franco-Spanish line. I also note bitterly that the AI has no problems with fires. No matter how bad their on-board fire is, it always seem to die away eventually, even though they aren't halting fire, and getting shot at from all angles! If you could get rid of fire entirely, that would be a relief. Ships fires make navel combat even harder, as if one is on fire, you'll have to withdraw the ships from that line, and with the group pathfinding system, this would only cause the line to disintrate, and scatter to all points of the compass, all because a ship caught fire and had to stop. And because fires happen so often and so randomly, It just doesn't feel fun. No tactics are involved, no stratagy, doesn't even matter what ship you have. You could lose a First-Rate of the line to a merchent vessel just cause a 6 cannon broadside caused a fire!

Also, something to note in the campagin. After you win several navel engagements and control the seas, the AI stops building fleets entirely. I have never once deployed a steamship in the campagin because by then, there isn't anything left to fight on water. This is kind of a downer as you spend so much money building and maintaining a fleet, just to never be challenged on the water ever again.

[Spartan262]

Please make all factions playable in the next release it would make me one happy camper.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

TROM2 1.9 is released! Since the file has become to big you will get it over Megaupload (may take some time until it's up) or alternatively from Filefront. See the release thread for the links. Enjoy!

[Pdguru]

New 1.9 French campaign incorrectly gives free experience each turn to all French units - Yarkis will be fixing this shortly.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

*Cough* I hate when such things happen. Small oversight by me in the script for the French story campaign. I have a hotfix attached to the v1.9 release thread. Please download it from there.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Hi Pope! No changes to the naval side of the game beside lower chances of ships catching fire, which should affect both parties equally. I guess you had bad luck.

[Pdguru]

Is anyone else getting these characters pop up?

[The Juggernaut]

Is anyone else getting these characters pop up?

Yep, I've been getting those guys since the last version, I just figured they were observers.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Yep, I've been getting those guys since the last version, I just figured they were observers.

Btw I just released a patch (v1.91), which hopefully fixes above problem. Get it from the release thread.

[LordVaynard]

When i play as Prussia, building military barrack didn't add bonus exp to line infantry. Instead only admin buildings add bonus exp to the line infantry. Other units have the bonus exp as they should from both military and admin buildings. I don't have any other mods installed by the way. Oh other factions have the same problem.

[Pope_Fred_I]

Hi Pope! No changes to the naval side of the game beside lower chances of ships catching fire, which should affect both parties equally. I guess you had bad luck.

We'll chalk it up to shoddy seamanship, then.

If you need any help, Yarkis, feel free to give me a holler. I know NOTHING about modding NTW, but am always willing to learn. Love this game and this mod. Now, if you'll excuse me, Her Majesty's Royal Navy is about to land Lord Wellington on Spanish soil...

[Surveyor K]

Sounds like a good idea with giving infantry more morale penalties when attacking artillery. Marching towards enemy cannons in a hail of canister shots must have been frightening as hell.

[viri-712]

Hello,
The shrapnel of the artillery is very effective and the AI never therefore seeks to eliminate artillery units. I think it would be interesting to reduce their rate of effectiveness or remove this technology from the tree of technologies
thanks

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I think I will go for a stronger moral effect of artillery (-6 instead of -4), but keep the kill rate as it is. I will also increase the effect of musket fire slightly (-3 instead of -2), and also slightly increase the moral effects of recent casualities. The net result should be that low quality units (like armed citizenry and militia) should have a harder time assaulting artillery (and also infantry), while higher quality units remain to be a threat. I have attached a pack file with these changes and encourage everybody to try them out and provide feedback. You have to enable the pack file like all submods, and it has to be above trom2_core.pack in the mod manager or the user script.

Personally I doubt that artillery at that time was able to always repell a determined infantry attack. For example at Borodino the French took the redoubts despite the 12-pounder guns there. But that's probably a good question for the history forum.

[Pope_Fred_I]

I think I will go for a stronger moral effect of artillery (-6 instead of -4), but keep the kill rate as it is. I will also increase the effect of musket fire slightly (-3 instead of -2), and also slightly increase the moral effects of recent casualities. The net result should be that low quality units (like armed citizenry and militia) should have a harder time assaulting artillery (and also infantry), while higher quality units remain to be a threat. I have attached a pack file with these changes and encourage everybody to try them out and provide feedback. You have to enable the pack file like all submods, and it has to be above trom2_core.pack in the mod manager or the user script.

Personally I doubt that artillery at that time was able to always repell a determined infantry attack. For example at Borodino the French took the redoubts despite the 12-pounder guns there. But that's probably a good question for the history forum.

Thank you much. I haven't loaded this yet, but I will tomorrow. I have similar thoughts with regard to infantry vs. cannons. An armed mob of untrained citizens aught not last long when going straight into the teeth of the artillery, whereas a seasoned guard unit might well be capable of marching right up to the guns (don't know of a historical proof of this ever happening, however).

In contrast, I do find that the AI's cavalry do sense the value of taking out my artillery early in the game. That's a very historical concept (think Waterloo).

As a result, I end up placing my artillery and then building my infantry arrangement around that (a very historical concept, and something that the battle maps do not encourage or facilitate in any way whatsoever). The net result (partially due to my impatience or oversight, and partially due to the aforementioned crappiness of the terrain in so many of the battle maps) tends to be self inflicted casualties from my artillery unintentionally firing through the rear of my infantry formations. I've started trying to neutralize this by countering the enemy cavalry with my own, but I invariable don't have enough cavalry (those damn French marshals really seem to love stacks containing 5+ cavalry units).

Is anybody else having this kind of experience, or do I just gripe too much () and suck at playing the game?

[Edax]

Thank you much. I haven't loaded this yet, but I will tomorrow. I have similar thoughts with regard to infantry vs. cannons. An armed mob of untrained citizens aught not last long when going straight into the teeth of the artillery, whereas a seasoned guard unit might well be capable of marching right up to the guns (don't know of a historical proof of this ever happening, however).

In contrast, I do find that the AI's cavalry do sense the value of taking out my artillery early in the game. That's a very historical concept (think Waterloo).

As a result, I end up placing my artillery and then building my infantry arrangement around that (a very historical concept, and something that the battle maps do not encourage or facilitate in any way whatsoever). The net result (partially due to my impatience or oversight, and partially due to the aforementioned crappiness of the terrain in so many of the battle maps) tends to be self inflicted casualties from my artillery unintentionally firing through the rear of my infantry formations. I've started trying to neutralize this by countering the enemy cavalry with my own, but I invariable don't have enough cavalry (those damn French marshals really seem to love stacks containing 5+ cavalry units).

Is anybody else having this kind of experience, or do I just gripe too much () and suck at playing the game?

I never put infantry in front of my own artillery. Not unless I'm on a nice hill...However, the I agree, the maps can be pretty stupid. Napoleon would never in his right mind, set up for battle at a seige, in which his artillery cannot present a single shot at the enemy. I end up having either a hill in front of me, or a forest, or a perfect combo of both that means that my cannons are only good for canister.

Because of this, my battle strategy move away from my cannons. I'm a calvery general hands down. Find a quote about artillery, and I can replace it with calvery. Like "Calvary adds dignty to what would otherwise be a ugly brawl."
I tend to target all my cannons onto he enemy calvary. I then move my calvery and light infantry to harrass the enemy army, often with the intent to finish of the enemy calvery. Once this done, I flank the enemy infantry, and force them on an attack on my infantry, which hasn't moved the entire time. My cannons then fire on them with canister and musket fire, followed by a co-op bayonet charge and a calvery charge from behind. Course this is where the weakness in my plan is. Once the enemy infantry has routed, my entire army is tired and exhausted, and I still have to deal with the enemy cannons, and whats left of my tired calvery is often not up to the task to do. (Usually the AI will guard the cannons with heavy calvery the entire time. They are fresh, and at full strength, and if I charge my calvery at the cannon, I'll lose regiements. The only way around this is to hope your cannons are in range to damage them, is not, I get heavy losses in a 1000-man baynoet charge at a single battery. (This is why I prefer heavy cannons with very long range. I usually only get 12lbers, and hope that the 18lber cannons are made recruitable AOR in Ottoman lands.)

[Pope_Fred_I]

I never put infantry in front of my own artillery. Not unless I'm on a nice hill...However, the I agree, the maps can be pretty stupid. Napoleon would never in his right mind, set up for battle at a seige, in which his artillery cannot present a single shot at the enemy. I end up having either a hill in front of me, or a forest, or a perfect combo of both that means that my cannons are only good for canister.

Because of this, my battle strategy move away from my cannons. I'm a calvery general hands down. Find a quote about artillery, and I can replace it with calvery. Like "Calvary adds dignty to what would otherwise be a ugly brawl."
I tend to target all my cannons onto he enemy calvary. I then move my calvery and light infantry to harrass the enemy army, often with the intent to finish of the enemy calvery. Once this done, I flank the enemy infantry, and force them on an attack on my infantry, which hasn't moved the entire time. My cannons then fire on them with canister and musket fire, followed by a co-op bayonet charge and a calvery charge from behind. Course this is where the weakness in my plan is. Once the enemy infantry has routed, my entire army is tired and exhausted, and I still have to deal with the enemy cannons, and whats left of my tired calvery is often not up to the task to do. (Usually the AI will guard the cannons with heavy calvery the entire time. They are fresh, and at full strength, and if I charge my calvery at the cannon, I'll lose regiements. The only way around this is to hope your cannons are in range to damage them, is not, I get heavy losses in a 1000-man baynoet charge at a single battery. (This is why I prefer heavy cannons with very long range. I usually only get 12lbers, and hope that the 18lber cannons are made recruitable AOR in Ottoman lands.)

Interesting (we should really have a thread about this somewhere). I've always built my full stacks with 5 batteries of artillery (usually 3 12-lbers and 2 howitzers), two units of cavalry, a general, and a 3-to-1 ratio of infantry to skirmishers. that usually works out to:
3 - 12-lb artillery batteries
2 - 7lb howitzer batteries
2 - heavy cavalry units (usually dragoons or cuirrassiers)
1 - general
9 - line infantry
3 - skirmishers (Silesian Schuetzen are some of my favorites!)

The major problems I've found with that makeup are a lack of cavalry protection, and my line infantry seem to give up very easily and flee. Also it's hard to find a battle map where you can legitimately position 5 batteries of artillery. I agree ENTIRELY about the crappy battlemaps. No private would ever fight on these battlefields, let alone the finest military minds of history.

Recently I've started moving to a makeup that trades two batteries of artillery for two extra cavalry units (Lancers, Dragoons, or Cuirassiers), and I seem to have lots of success with this (most of my experience being with Prussia, and some with Britain - I haven't played many of the other factions very extensively).

The number of times that I've cussed these battlemaps as my cannons cut swaths through my infantry lines though - oh my.

On a barely-related note: one of my projects today is going to be to test the movement speed of various unit types in battle. I have a theory about this, and some of the movement speeds seem kind of whack to me. Or I might be in haling fumes...who knows. I'll report back if I find anything interesting.

[Surveyor K]

Thanks for the pack! I'll begin testing it soon. In the battle of Borodino the Russians failed to deploy their cannons in some points of the redoubts. Quote from wikipedia: "With the death of General Kutaisov, Chief of Artillery, most of the Russian cannon sat useless on the heights to the rear and were never ordered into battle, while the French artillery wreaked havoc on the Russians." However at Bagrations fleches the Russians deployd their cannons with devastating effect and canister shots wrecked terrible havoc on the French lines. The fact that the French still managed to take the redoubt is a good example on the capability of Grande Armee's officer's and fighting spirit of the men. People sometimes forget that the french army was a very capable fighting force even without Napoleons tactical genius and sometimes forget to give credit for the line officers and Napoleons marshals as well. I'm not saying that Napoleon wasn't one of history's greatest leaders, just that many seem to focus only on his role in French victories.

[Edax]

Young Guard Grenadiers seem underpowered. Standard French Grenadiers are cheaper and have better stats (they get +1 exp which may give them better stats, but still...) [Though I reconize that the young guard have more men per regiement]

And on the topic if new skins, I think the French Cuirassier could use an update. Their armor doesn't shine like seen in the movies.
I also prefered Napoleon in his overcoat. It was what he was famous for no?

Also: this is a bug
In a navel battle as the French against the Russians, one of my frigates' cannons stopped working. On closer look, all the cannons were facing odd directions at 50 degree angles, and was useless for most of the fighting.