Every battle is exactly the same

I think the problem is that everything is on too small a scale to represent a true napoleonic battle, and the use of tactics.

Every battle at least where I have artillery (which I have to playing as the Emperor) ends up the same; deploy infantry in a long line interspersed with 4 artillery, place cavalry and skirmishers on the flanks because the AI will charge your flanks with their cavalry.

I had more fun playing Empire Total War's campaigns' (with mods) battles as they offered more variety but I am such a massive fan of the Napoleonic era in general I was wondering what you do to keep the game exciting. I like the campaign itself but the battles get boring after 3-4 of them.

Originally Posted by Dodge

I think the problem is that everything is on too small a scale to represent a true napoleonic battle, and the use of tactics.

Every battle at least where I have artillery (which I have to playing as the Emperor) ends up the same; deploy infantry in a long line interspersed with 4 artillery, place cavalry and skirmishers on the flanks because the AI will charge your flanks with their cavalry.

I had more fun playing Empire Total War's campaigns' (with mods) battles as they offered more variety but I am such a massive fan of the Napoleonic era in general I was wondering what you do to keep the game exciting. I like the campaign itself but the battles get boring after 3-4 of them.

I agree - the AI suffers from the same basic problem that Rome had. It realises that the line formation is the most effective formation units should adopt to throw out maximum firepower or to overlap/ outflank an enemy. This hardly ever happened historically. By the mid Napoleonic Wars nearly all european armies had adopted the French Columnar formation, inspired no doubt by the success that the Empreror's armies had achieved using it, & the fact that it was much easier to train conscript soldiers to adopt it rather than the more shallow line. This is a major historical flaw in the game. The AI hardly ever makes use of tactical infantry reserves, held back to exploit/ reinforce points in the battle line. Also there is no brigade/ divisional organisation in the game.

These 3 shortcomings, IMO, result in the AI time & again forming it's units in the same old long extended battle formation, which indeed does get boring very quickly.

Re making the game more exciting, unfortunately the AI's tactical formation choices are hard-wired, so no joy there. Maybe someone has designed a mod to get around this ? I can suggest trying out new army builds to see if other unused units work for your tactical choices or trying different strategical approaches on the main map. Perhaps you could make greater use of agents in your game ?

Play MP.

Originally Posted by daniu

Play MP.

I haven't got time. Would love to though but it's too much effort.

I played both N:TW and E:TW. I had more fun with Empire, especially when doing the American campaign, because I fought the native americans and the battles were a little different. There was some battles where they were hiding in the woods forcing me to attack them, it was interesting. Also as an american against the british later, I had to try different tactics with my minuteman militia because the line infantry is not available at start.

One thing also I tried and did like was playing the french against the british. There was some battles where the british AI was holding his position, forcing me to attack. I must say that when the AI does that, and you must attack, it is quite challenging and difficult, in fact I lost many battles that way.

You joking Daniu? Mp battles look more alike early wwI or late 19 century. If you want napoleonic games ntw is surely not the on you seek.

Yeah I know what you mean.

I don't know whether its' because I have cannon or not, but the enemy charge even when defending and don't try any other tactics than flanking even if you have strong flanks. AI like that is for medieval really.

Install mods that change their AI and play on VH/VH

Maybe one of you would like to try out my mod for ETW? I need historically interested testers / realism freaks. If you're interested, just follow my signature and klick at the seductive black bar. It doesn't change the AI, but it changes almost all combat parameters and, as far as the size of battles is concerned, I use a 4:1 scale. And it doesn't have a WWI feeling to it. It would be easy to apply these settings to NTW as well, by the way.

Here is a kind of ...promo...immersion...video... (selfmade but all sounds are ingame!):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Originally Posted by Dodge

I think the problem is that everything is on too small a scale to represent a true napoleonic battle, and the use of tactics.

Every battle at least where I have artillery (which I have to playing as the Emperor) ends up the same; deploy infantry in a long line interspersed with 4 artillery, place cavalry and skirmishers on the flanks because the AI will charge your flanks with their cavalry.

I had more fun playing Empire Total War's campaigns' (with mods) battles as they offered more variety but I am such a massive fan of the Napoleonic era in general I was wondering what you do to keep the game exciting. I like the campaign itself but the battles get boring after 3-4 of them.

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Order of battles: What bugs me is how its hard to maintain units in organized positions withouth running into each other or different directions. It would be cool to be able to launch assaults withouth the troops looking like a disorganized mass.

Rank fire: Also theres a lack of proper rank fire Imo.

Musket accuracy: The lethality of the muskets is way too high. It should be according to the small scale played in game when both sides only have a couple of thousands. What are they? Looks like they are armed with rifles the lot of them. And it should somehow decrease with the "fog of battle".

Casualties/Morale: Way too high on such a small scale. There should be a chanse to make the enemy retreat withouth having to annihilate his entire army down to the last battery, which was also how it went down back then. Battles become a expcencive affair no doubt.

Skirmishers: Aside from running scattered they don't engage much like skirmishers of the time; taking cover/battle engagement. They fight basically like scattered linear infantry.

Assaulting: Why on earth didn't they add actual ladders to the gameplay?

I get the opposite. In my experience the AI loves usuing collumn formation and rarely spreads out its lines.

If you do the same thing over and over again, well of course the AI isn't going to do something radically different so you can't complain of identical battles. I never have that feeling. To mix it up, use different units and try different formations. Try to go on the offensive and break their centre.

Originally Posted by Skarpskytter

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Order of battles: What bugs me is how its hard to maintain units in organized positions withouth running into each other or different directions. It would be cool to be able to launch assaults withouth the troops looking like a disorganized mass.

Rank fire: Also theres a lack of proper rank fire Imo.

Musket accuracy: The lethality of the muskets is way too high. It should be according to the small scale played in game when both sides only have a couple of thousands. What are they? Looks like they are armed with rifles the lot of them. And it should somehow decrease with the "fog of battle".

Casualties/Morale: Way too high on such a small scale. There should be a chanse to make the enemy retreat withouth having to annihilate his entire army down to the last battery, which was also how it went down back then. Battles become a expcencive affair no doubt.

Skirmishers: Aside from running scattered they don't engage much like skirmishers of the time; taking cover/battle engagement. They fight basically like scattered linear infantry.

Assaulting: Why on earth didn't they add actual ladders to the gameplay?

1. It is in fact very easy. Have you noticed the arrow buttons in the centre of the screen? Have you tried selecting all units and just clicking forward? Keeping formation on the movie is easier here then any other TW.

2. There was no rank fire in this era.

3. and 4. This game CANNOT represent the scale of a real war, it has to reduced in scale otherwise no PC could run the game. Accuracy is fine, most units inflict very low casaulties per volley but since battles are speeded up so that they are manageable, units fire faster so that they are depleted more quickly. losses are ahistorically high but TW has always been like this.

5. Skirmishers do take cover and they fire individually and individual targets. Either you are lying are you are talking about light infantry which can fight either way.

6. Probably because soldiers cannot pull a ladder out of their ass.

Originally Posted by KillaJules

6. Probably because soldiers cannot pull a ladder out of their ass.

How do they get stakes longer than themselves?

The thing I miss in NTW that I got in Empire was the sense of improvement. That requires some explanation:

At the campaign level I could grow regions from backwaters to powerhouses with careful management. Eastern provinces especially could start with one farm and a mine and end up with a university, 4 industrial towns, a happiness building (spawning spies) and so on. With the timeframes and set town uses in NTW this feeling of improvement has gone.

At the battle level my troops improved in ETW. They began as a pretty undisciplined mob firing ragged front rank half volleys and could break at the mere mention of "mellee". But as the game progressed the volleys became more pronounced, rank fire made them even more efficient and deadly, better bayonets and drills made them tougher and better at holding a line in mellee. The time, effort, research and nuturing payed off. You could watch and hear how much better your troops were. In NTW ragged front rank half volleys begin as the norm and stay that way regardless of troop quality. Most research is about making troops cheaper to build or maintain, not actually better. With the horrific damage musket formations can do in the game it is almost impossible to spot the difference between Guard and Line as they kill each other at a relentless rate. To get a reasonable battle experience you need to play on hard minimum and once you go there the Ai's Militia can chew up a lot of your Guard in a firefight.

Empire felt like you were taking a country and building it into an Empire and a military machine. NTW lost it in my opinion.

If you want realistic napoleonic battles I recommend the game Histwar: Les Grognards.

Originally Posted by Dodge

I think the problem is that everything is on too small a scale to represent a true napoleonic battle, and the use of tactics.

I recently upgraded my rig, and now I can play with a 2.5 unit multiplier on ultra size. This means 400-man line troops and 150-man/horse cavalry. While it sometimes congests the battlefield even more since there is less room, it really adds to the grandeur of the battles. Not everyone can upgrade though. I had an awesome 3 stacks vs 2 stacks battle in my last GC, 17k French against 11k Prussians.

Every battle at least where I have artillery (which I have to playing as the Emperor) ends up the same; deploy infantry in a long line interspersed with 4 artillery, place cavalry and skirmishers on the flanks because the AI will charge your flanks with their cavalry.

... but I am such a massive fan of the Napoleonic era in general I was wondering what you do to keep the game exciting.

So basically, I don't do what you do. I mean you can do that, but it indeed gets boring. Here's a few things I do:

Divide your army into smaller armies and operate them almost independently. Here is where you can get your grand envelopments, albeit on a smaller scale (imagination!). Set up your artillery as an independent Grand Battery on a hillock or somesuch. I often times have my arty firing down their ranks from the flank because its off on its own. Protect it with a grenadiers unit and dig it when they send their cavalry to shut down your guns.

I pause my battles all the time and really micro every mini battle. I don't want to have one big moment when my line meets theirs and I sit and wait till their morale breaks. I want to have 3 or 4 mini skirmishes or fights going on at once while directing the Grand Battery to fire in support of each. When you do stuff like this the AI (at least the UAI mod that I use) will react to you pretty well and send out decent units to stop your designs.


I dunno, a few of the things I do to keep each battle fresh.

I like the campaign itself but the battles get boring after 3-4 of them.

I usually end up fighting only a handfull of battles during a campaign, usually just the major ones in the interest of time.

I dunno, this is what keeps me playing. I have nearly 400 hours on Napoleon which is almost double what I put into Empire... and I'm going to pass on Shogun 2 because I dig this so much.

Skirmishers pulling out stakes is a lot less jarring than soldiers pulling ladders twice their own height at least out of thin air.

But no more realistic. Stakes should probably be deployable only during the deployment phase. Even if those guys really could somehow carry stakes around with them during battle, I have a really hard time believing that they could just ram them into the ground in a matter of seconds.

But of course if you're CA, logic doesn't really factor into it anyway ...

Originally Posted by antred

But no more realistic. Stakes should probably be deployable only during the deployment phase. Even if those guys really could somehow carry stakes around with them during battle, I have a really hard time believing that they could just ram them into the ground in a matter of seconds.

But of course if you're CA, logic doesn't really factor into it anyway ...

I agree they should only be deployable during deployment, but how else should they put the stakes in mate? Would you rather they cut trees down, hone them to points, and then use a mallet? The cavalry would mop you up in seconds.

The real issue for me is size... Size of all units is too low to do the era justice. The Peninsular Campaign feels better due to many skirmishes that occurred during that time frame, but the Grande Armée is barely a regiment... I know pc's cannot handle the real sizes and all that..., that's why I wish NTW would've been shelved till the right time, which now will be when they make NTW2

I just did a custom battle, lancers v skirmishers.

The AI skirmishers deployed stakes as I approached, pretty smart. But then immediately charged.

try attacking

and not fighting on open plains

it gets really tricky

and the Ai gets difficult as hell in later campaign when they can throw 3+ armies into a single battle