Infantry Experience

[Grenzer]

I am really enjoying this mod (apart from the inability to recruit Landwehr).

I think cavalry and artillery gain experience at about the right rate, but infantry experience is painfully slow and difficult.

Here are the war records so far of a couple of my infantry units. (I am playing as Austria. I use no other mods except the recommended smoke and deployment zones ones). I have got to the end of 1807 and some of my units are still to gain any experience at all. Here are the war records of two of them:

5th Jaegers (60 men)
Battles:
1. Present but not engaged.
2. Fought a musket duel with French Leger. Lost 11 killed 31 (siege).
3. Constantly engaged as a skirmish screen; withdrew in the nick of time to avoid being run down in melee; lost 1 killed 50 (siege).
4. Ineffective long range skirmishing from across a river. Lost 0 killed 2.
5. Skirmished most of the battle, when not resting to recover from fatigue; lost 1 killed 18 (siege).
6. Skirmished in woods on a flank, but delayed too long when French infantry appeared - charged and broken in the melee - lost 46, killed 16.
7. More long range skirmishing across a river, to little effect. Lost 9 killed 9.

German Fusiliers "Arcduke Charles" (160 men):
1. Present but not engaged.
2. Fired a couple of volleys; not heavily engaged. Lost 4 killed 25 (siege).
3. Held the centre of the line and was heavily engaged throughout, though did not enter melee; lost 18 killed 45.
4. Arrived late as part of a reinforcing army; lost 1 (stray bullet?) killed 0.
5. Engaged heavily throughout - broke French fusiliers with close range volley fire, then charged a gun battery - morale a bit shaky, but with the encouragement of a General broke the enemy. Lost 56 killed 58.

Neither of these two units are especially impressive but my point is that they have participated in half a dozen battles, lost and killed scores of men, marched hundreds of miles, and they still have NO EXPERIENCE! Please, JaM, could you consider tweaking this in your next update? (It's only for infantry - I think cavalry and artillery get experience at a much faster rate - but still slow enough so that is feels like a real achievement).

I realise my ponderous style of play ( I really try to role play as an Austrian General!) may have something to do with it

[mAIOR]

It has to do with the way battles play. If you engage in long range musketry you have to take into account low casualties to the enemy vs lower casualties to you. You can use this kind of action to a standoffish effect while you flank with cavalry and such. If you perform close range musketry it'll give you more casualties to you but prepare to see your units getting loads of experience. Consider also the larger unit sizes for infantry. for each enemy you kill, infantry gain xp dividing by 160 or 60 depending on the kind of troop involved. the Besto way to use your skirmishers is to approach in open order and engage a bit lower than your maximum range. the extra damage they deal thanks to accuracy and the bonus they get for being in open order more than makes up for the casualties. In a recent battle, I made a screening action with one unit of chasseurs in open formation, got near the enemy (he was charging my flank and I ambushed them when they were at a range of 50 or so, I opened fire. From the musketry that ensued I lost maybe 30 or 40 guys and killed around 120~130. They never charged and if they I'd just pull the light infantry back (the automatic distance should be lower imho). Since they run a bit faster you can tire the enemy unit and return fire with deadly accuracy. One detail I think needs changing is the fact that AI units always get exhausted before reaching me. That's a bit of a game breaker since with a frontal charge of heavy cavalry you can cause them to rout because they're already wavering by the time they reach you. Anyway, to the point in quetion,get those buggers closer to the enemy units in open order. Not only are they better shots, they're also harder to hit and so you can get some decent casualty figures (my voltigeurs never get less than 80 per battle and they are 80 men units) Just use them in the right way. either as a screening flank early on to obstruct the enemy movements and to hold forest areas and whatnot and latter where you need some good flanking force to pour devastating fire (usually after the AI is contained I send a force of skirmishers to fill a gap (usually side by side with my grenadiers) and pour some effective fire on the enemy unit. At 20 or 40 range those guys are deadly!
They have another advantage, units in open order can pass through closed ranks quite easily so you can ambush enemy units into an early charge with your skirmishers and then pull them behind an infantry unit. If you use them this way, you'll get many kills for your infantry and you'll see them rank up mighty fast (in the battle I gave as example my chasseurs ranked to from level 1 to level 2.



Cheers...

[JaM]

Experience gains are linear, so if I make it easier to gain, Artillery and Cavalry will skyrocket to the roof way to fast... Everything is about how effectivly you can kill the enemy.. if your units spends too much of ammo firing and not killing anybody, expect low experience gains... try close range salvos, combined with charge.

[Grenzer]

Thanks for the replies. I have played a couple more battles with more aggressive tactics, and have been rewarded with some experience at last. I take the point about the linear progression of experience gains.

One way to speed up getting infantry experience is to auto resolve but I hate doing that - I prefer to fight out every battle. (I did notice on some auto resolves that my skirmishers were getting insanely high kill rates - often over 100 - whereas there is no way I am able to do that however carefully I play them!).

Is experience affected by the quality of the men you kill, or is killing town garrison worth the same as killing Old Guard?

As experience is so painfully gained, I dismantle supply depots immediately and build banks instead. If it takes a dozen hard fought battles to get an experience chevron it is very annoying (though admittedly historically accurate) to lose it again with a big draft of raw recruits! Of course, this does mean having to rest your favourite units out of the action for a while; but there's always a down side.

(Does anybody else keep detailed battle records of every unit or do I need to get out more? It's very time consuming, but I find it gives a rewarding depth to the role playing).

[JaM]

I believe killing elites gives you more experience, but i never tested it. Anyway, i always micromanage my units. decrease of experience by fresh recruits is exactly what i wanted to have in game - French army starts with experienced troops (the main campaign of 1805),but as you loose experienced men, you get weaker, so once Grandee Armee veterans are gone, you are stuck with fresh recruits... Allies are different. they get slightly more experienced men from higher tiers than French, simulating improved training and lots of training thanks to British money (live fire training etc), so in long run, they will have more experienced armies as time progresses... so strategy for France is simple - make your wars short and decisive,because once Allies build up they will roll over you... Just dont forget one very important thing - generals... Army commanded by Napoleon will be very tough to beat no matter the unit experience (AI benefits from high morale bonuses even if it is tactically incapable sometimes)

[Grenzer]

Well after playing a good few hours with revised tactics in the light of mAIOR's suggestions (thanks!) I've come to the conclusion that experience is just right and doesn't need tinkering with.

I really racked up lots of kills with my Jaegers and Grenzers by putting them into close order, moving right up to an enemy flank and pouring in fire from just a few yards. Provided the enemy were being distracted by a close order unit to their front, they usually ignored my skirmishers and when they broke I was close enough to charge in and club them while they ran. Instead of inflicting half a dozen casaulties per battle my light infantry formations were frequently racking up scores of 100+.

Line infantry experience still seems difficult but when I tried playing as the Russians I found things very different. The Russians are really designed for bayonet work rather than musketry and I found I simply had to bring the enemy to a melee or I would be wiped out in a musketry exchange. So I had to be a lot more aggressive with the Russian infantry than I was accustomed to be with the Austrians. The consequence was that their losses - and also their experience - went up to a far greater extent than had been the case playing as Austria. Which all felt rather splendidly historical

[mAIOR]

Good to know it's working for you It took me some "using to" as well after coming from vanilla. Muskets without heat seeking capabilities and laser bullets are much less effective I'm afraid...



Cheers...

[Legionary Titus Pullo]

that answers one of my questions. very good mod, the battles play out very well.

[Ishiro]

One other thing most players don't bother at all it's avoiding friendly kills. By either fire volleys, artillery and cavalry charges. That will surely deny you experience for your troops.

A good advise is to have present the "Fire at Will" option in every battle in order to deactivate and activate when it's appropriated. Also the "Hold" option to prevent unwanted charges. Another good advise for example when using artillery it's to attack the ground instead of targeting units directly with cannons, howlitzers and rockets, but if you choose to target units then do so on unmoveable targets (artillery) that pose a greater threat to your own troops than any cavalry unit.

[JaM]

Problem with artillery is with the hard-coded AI script - every time you aim your guns at enemy cavalry unit, it will automatically attempt to charge your guns. THis is quite nasty bug, as human player can easily exploit this and lure enemy cavalry into ambush...

[spab]

That explains it - I usually target cavalry first and then they immediately charge my guns. And I thought it was my brillant tactics.

[Ishiro]

I either target the ground in front of them or back, so they stand still and get killed.

[irish437]

Problem with artillery is with the hard-coded AI script - every time you aim your guns at enemy cavalry unit, it will automatically attempt to charge your guns. THis is quite nasty bug, as human player can easily exploit this and lure enemy cavalry into ambush...

Really, I haven't noticed this. I currently play vanilla with a campaign AI mod, but always read what features these mods add and would like to try this one.

Anyway, I play quite a bit of vanilla and most of the time their calvary hangs out on the flanks or guards their artillery. Most battles have my clavary and their calvary fighting on the flanks. I even see the enemy calvary retreat to out of distance of my cannon and then reappear on a flank.

I do notice though that the calvry tends to charge a square if its there.