Empire Realism - Feedback and General Discussion

[JaM]

1. never had that problem before, i tested it in my game and unit reloaded their weapon even with fire at will disabled..
2. Not sure what exactly is the problem you are reporting. did they fired,or what exactly is the problem?
3. i have increased populace numbers for that campaign, anyway they get removed after first turn.. so only way how to recruit those units is to do it during first turn. (its the only way how to do it without sacrifying the gameplay for the rest of the game)

[gogopher]

three things i noticed playing as france realism IV....

1) iron mines at lvl 3 actually decrease province money compared to lvl 2 (not sure of the exact figures but they actually decrease the province wealth while giving an extra -1 to happiness)...what i mean is say lvl 1 iron mine gives 1000 province wealth...lvl 2 2000 province wealth, -1 happy, lvl 3 will give 1500 province wealth and -2 happiness...no reason to upgrade past lvl 2 atm
2) arc de triumph...all other barracks decrease tax base of province...the arc negates this giving no decrease in tax base
3) england for some inexplicable reason tends to take its entire army out and brings it to the new world...was very easy to invade and seige london while the AI does nothing to respond...5 turns of seige and the AI was more concerned with newfoundland than london...not sure what or why but the UK in particular does nothing to defend its european provinces

[JaM]

gogopher:
1) its a bug, i will fix it in the patch, values are swapped between level 2 and 3..
2) actually intentional to improve financial situation for France in late game.
3) this AI behavior is something that is present in the game from start. I tried to fix it somehow, anyway the way who AI values the targets is bugged so they sometimes decide to do such invasions.

[MariusHealth]

2. Not sure what exactly is the problem you are reporting. did they fired,or what exactly is the problem?

When they're shooting at the enemy, within range, if you turn off fire at will they will keep shooting at the enemy, you cant stop them without giving them a move order. They will keep firing at the enemy well beyond range. This happens to the musket native auxilia as well.

[JaM]

Thats the standard game behavior from day 1. You just removed the fire at will,but you didn't ordered them to stop firing... so if you want them to stop, you need to turn off Fire at will (so they wont start firing immediately) and also order them to stop.

[Destin Faroda]

1. never had that problem before, i tested it in my game and unit reloaded their weapon even with fire at will disabled..
2. Not sure what exactly is the problem you are reporting. did they fired,or what exactly is the problem?
3. i have increased populace numbers for that campaign, anyway they get removed after first turn.. so only way how to recruit those units is to do it during first turn. (its the only way how to do it without sacrifying the gameplay for the rest of the game)

1. I have played some more and noticed that most units do reload their weapons automatically, but not all. Especially John Smith's Colonial Militia is extremely stupid and winning against the Native Americans in the first USA campaign battle is impossible!
2. The Prussian Jägers continued to fire at the enemy although the enemy was out of the firing range. That's not supposed to happen. The Rangers in the USA campaign were behaving properly. Strange.
3. I was able to finish the first two missions without great problems.

Suggestions:
- Would it be possible to change the game so that there are 4 rounds per year (3 summer and 1 winter season)?
- Will AUM compatibility come in the near future?
- Will you add realistic uniforms and flags or would that be too much work? At the moment, I am using a combination of Regalia of Nations and 7 Year War uniforms, but having only one properly made mod would be far better.

By the way, what would I have to do to restore the German texts? I guess I would have to translate some files, but most of the old stuff could be restored via copy and paste. Is that correct?

[MariusHealth]

Can't order them to stop (halt order) because I never ordered them to shoot in the first place. They start shooting because of fire at will, not because of attack order. Since turning fire at will off doesn't stop them and halt order is unavailable I have to give them a move order. If not they will keep firing even far beyond range.

[Dandelion]

Can't order them to stop (halt order) because I never ordered them to shoot in the first place. They start shooting because of fire at will, not because of attack order. Since turning fire at will off doesn't stop them and halt order is unavailable I have to give them a move order.

well, one short click on the "upward" arrow and they take about one step ahead.. not a real solution, but a workaround that isn't too complicated ^^

If not they will keep firing even far beyond range.

They just fire beyond EFFECTIVE range.. not weapon range. At least as far as I know..

[The Bold Burgundian]

Hello friends I noticed a few bugs while playing in my Spanish campaign.

Howitzer roundshot is very short-ranged, i was forced to use explosive shot to be able to hit anything far away, and Paris has 94 million people residing in it, in ~1760, while other capital cities have around 12-18 million.

Edit: Just checked paris, 12 million now, so I must have made a mistake about that.

[JaM]

Roundshot was never really used with howitzers, so its changed to canister shot.

[wangrin]

Historically :

• Cannon used :
  
  • roundshot
  • grapeshot (up to mid-18th century)
  • canister (large and small)
  
  
• Howitzer used :
  
  • explosive shell (bomb)
  
  
• Mortar used :
  
  • explosive shell (bomb)
  • carcass

Russian created and used "unicorn" (mid-18th century, designed by Shuvalov), an artillery piece between cannon and howitzer.
Its range was shorter than cannon but longer than howitzer and can fire roudshots, canisters and explosive shells.

[El Chupanibre]

That firing bug is a vanilla bug, nothing modders can do about it really. The biggest culprits I've seen are Riflemen and Prussian Jaeger type units, they tend to just keep firing at nothing even when halted and FAW disabled. You just have to try marching them around until they stop doing it.

My only feedback so far is that Light Infantry units are too large; when trying to use them in light infantry mode they take up too much space and don't maneuver (I can never spell that) too well. I'd cut their numbers in half.

Also what exactly is the difference between Dragoons and Light Dragoons since LDs can't fire from horseback now?

[JaM]

Light Dragoons are good skirmishers using rifled carbines. Normal (medium) Dragoon are not as good ad shooting, are about as skilled as normal line infantry. Dragoons are better at cavalry combat,but not as good as Dragoon Guards, which are practically a heavy cavalry unit armed with carbines able to dismount if needed.

[Mjarr]

When they're shooting at the enemy, within range, if you turn off fire at will they will keep shooting at the enemy, you cant stop them without giving them a move order. They will keep firing at the enemy well beyond range. This happens to the musket native auxilia as well.

Try using backspace to simply cancel _every_ order\whatever they are doing; movement, shooting etc, seems to work like a charm overall. Also I would recommend using guard mode for most units.

My only feedback so far is that Light Infantry units are too large; when trying to use them in light infantry mode they take up too much space and don't maneuver (I can never spell that) too well. I'd cut their numbers in half.

Also what exactly is the difference between Dragoons and Light Dragoons since LDs can't fire from horseback now?

I actually used to think the same, but since I usually only have 1-2 light infantry units per large stack army later in the game, one usually as reserve and the other one marching bit ahead of the main force, it's mostly matter of management. Then again it does not take much effort to use pack file manager to reduce their size manually as stop-gap solution.

Though speaking of light dragoons, I would not mind if the mod would have additional light dragoon unit representing a single company or two or so that would be capable of firing while mounted (but of course their numbers and perhaps reduced morale would mean they are pretty brittle for anything that looks ugly at them\takes heavy fire), but I doubt the AI could probably figure out it's not worth using in large numbers. That being said, I usually use light dragoons as garrison units for provinces since their mobility and skirmishing is more useful in more focused environment than out in the field IMHO, at least against the AI.

[JaM]

Actually Line version of "Light Infantry" is supposed to fight in close order same way as normal Line Infantry. Only Skirmisher class is representing the open order infantry. Light Infantry has better spotting added, and can hide in broken terrain better than line infantry. They also have better campaign movement than Line Infantry, so they are ideal as part of fast response columns together with light cavalry. (skirmish order button for them will be probably removed in a patch to not confuse players)


And regarding firing on horseback, there are few problems with it. It was practically impossible to reload a carbine or musket on horseback, while game allows this without problem. I could give them much longer reload rates, but that would make them at huge disadvantage when dismounted. (same reload stat used no matter what) so its always about a compromise...

[Mjarr]

And regarding firing on horseback, there are few problems with it. It was practically impossible to reload a carbine or musket on horseback, while game allows this without problem. I could give them much longer reload rates, but that would make them at huge disadvantage when dismounted. (same reload stat used no matter what) so its always about a compromise...

Of course you could make them simply undismountable, but that still has the problem two light dragoon units will probably hurt the AI more than there's any possible variety benefit, and sometimes it's just better to keep things simple and abstracted.

[JaM]

yes, major problem with small units is their value vs cost - AI might find them good enough and will use them a lot in single stack.. there was an issue with light gun batteries which only had 2 guns, AI in ER 3.7 often built like 8-9 of them as an artillery only army...

[Dandelion]

I encountered a small problem, JaM:

First time for me playing Maratha at ER. I knew, that You reduced the number of tradeships / Dhows and to have four seems quite enough for me. But I still haven't found out how to build a Xebec.

I started the game with a shipyard at Podicherry in Carnatica. Wasn't able to build anything there, so I had a look in the tech list. Xebec shows up as supposed to be built in a Dockyard.. Ok.. so I build the Grand Admirality (to be able to research Naval Shore Facilities).. takes quite a while - thirty-something turns or so.. When it's done, I build the Dockyard... further nine turns IIRC.. Now the Dockyard is built and... nothing. Nothing to be recruited there.

So, either I'm to dumb to find it in the research list or You forgot to include it.. or Maratha being unable to build Xebecs - or any other ships, apart from those four Dhows - is intentional?

[JaM]

yes it is intentional. after some beta testing there were still reports about Maratha sending armies via these dhows to Caribbean so i disabled them completely. (it needs further testing, so i might enable them in 4.1 patch.)

[Dandelion]

yes it is intentional. after some beta testing there were still reports about Maratha sending armies via these dhows to Caribbean so i disabled them completely. (it needs further testing, so i might enable them in 4.1 patch.)

Uhm.. what would keep Maratha from using Dhows for the same kind of expedition? I've already seen a french tradeship blockading an english harbour in the release version ^^
And.. as Ceylon is one of Maratha's targets, even I will have to use a Dhow to invade there..

So, although I can understand WHY You did it, I don't think You will achieve the desired result As long as the AI sees any benefit in going to the americas, it surely will do so - even on Dhows