Critique

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

What if movement would be cut by half and lethality of missiles cut by half? Units would move in more realistic way and missiles would kill less in one volley.
Something could be done for sure, as for now we have great mod with snipers (musketeers) and commandos (pikemen).

In the previous version of 1648 and occasionally during development of this version, movement of pikemen was 10-20% slower. Unfortunately, this disadvantages the computer player, because melee units are the ones M2 BAI uses best while cavalry units are normally the ones that give the human player the most advantage. Not only that but if there is a disparity between musketeers and pikemen in terms of movement speed, it can be exploited by the player by taking his musketeers quickly to the flanks of engaged enemy pikemen. And friendly musketeers can escape too easily when attacked by pikemen whereas in actual fact the weight of a musket plus shot and powder equaled or exceeded the weight of a pike. Now you could make them both slow which would still leave the enemy musketeers at the mercy of your cavalry. One solution would be to make also cavalry half as fast. I.e. make everything move half as fast. That would require a whole set of new animations for all types of units. Would everyone like that?

As for the cannon, it is not possible to have stationary cannon in M2. Or rather it is, just that they would never be firing.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Everything half as fast would certainly seem more "realistic", and very different than any other Med2 mod, but one would have to wonder how often the player will be clicking the X2 speed button out of sheer boredom at the slowness of everything. To be honest, I'd love to see it done as a proof of concept, but I'm not sure if that would be good implemented, and it's also a lot of work to do.

There's simply no possible way to accurately and beautifully model 17th century warfare in a game designed to emulate 12th century warfare. A lot of these "strange" decisions made by the mod team have logical reasoning behind them, to sort of cheat around bringing accuracy into the game.

IMO, there should be a post with a listing of what certain decisions were made for, kind of like the FAQ, but gameplay specific. For instance, saying "Dragoon type units are fast to emulate hopping on and off a horse during the battle, just pretend they're there.
Pikes do X because Y.
Generals have sniper pistols because they're supposed to stay in the back." etc.

[PikeStance]

Another possibility to reducing some of the effects is to reduce the number of musketeers within each unit. While the ratio may be off, the "power" achieve may be more accurate. You can also increase the number of pikesmen in unit as well. This would allow for a lower morale value resulting a better battle dynamic. This is similar to the cannon in Empire, which is incredibly powerful especially against mountain units. You can play with the numbers all day and still not get the results you want- the best alternative seems to be to reduce the number of guns per unit even if the results is inaccurate for the number of pieces on the battlefield.

[k/t]

Pikemen didn't move slowly because pikes are heavy but because they had to maintain their formation.

There are already few musketeers and they don't get very many kills. Jager Militia, on the other hand, are completely overpowered. They have 13 AP attack and much higher rate of fire. I just fought a battle in which I had 2 musketeer units and 3 Jagers. The musketeers got about 25-30 kills each and the Jagers 220.

The armour values are also really screwy. Cornet Cuirassiers are wearing 3 quarter plate but they have 5 armour. Same for the General's Escort.

And some Zweihanders have 24 attack...

There isn't enough cavalry in the game (or maybe I didn't build the proper barracks yet). There is no light cavalry, and the cuirassiers are expensive and few in number.

[knight of meh]

Pikemen didn't move slowly because pikes are heavy but because they had to maintain their formation.

actually maintaining formation was just a bonus of walking the main reason for moving slowly is because a pike was so unwieldy ,not so much heavy but hard to move were you want it to be at any short of speed

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Lets not forget that they also moved slowly because the space between them and the guys to every side would be mere inches (on top of carrying a really long pike that was both heavy and unwieldly, and sticking out straight to the front, over your friends' shoulders). They walked lockstep at least partially because at that level of mass, it's almost impossible to walk any other way.

The point being, though, is that they were very, very slow. However representing this in the Medieval 2 engine without making them useless, or slowing the entirety of battles to a crawl, is difficult.

I think I might just try making a copy of my EDU with a few units of each type with their move_speed_mod set to 0.5 and test the results.

[$Arminius1]

For me it is most important to diminish the effect of gunners. "arquebus_shot" is to much accurate against units - I lowered it to 0.03. I lowered artellery accuracy to 0.05. Therefore pikemen need not to move so fast. Most of them are alive reaching the enemy in close range.

[knight of meh]

the op units are the jagers really...

and is everyone else talking about a gunner unit not the "regiment of foot" because i can get 3 volleys of with them before pikes get close and i still only kill like 5 of them...

[Teutonic]

There isn't enough cavalry in the game (or maybe I didn't build the proper barracks yet). There is no light cavalry, and the cuirassiers are expensive and few in number.

I am very surprised that there isn't arquebusier cavalry in the mod. In the HRE army in 1625 out of 21 cavalry regiments (not counting units with only 1-2 companies) 10 were arquebusiers and only 6 cuirassiers. Of the smallish units almost all were classed as arquebusiers.
Maybe it's for gameplay reasons, but it seems to me a stunning omission, given the number of other units in the mod. Cuirassiers-Arquebusiers-Muskets-Pikes-Artillery: this is the spine of any army in this period, at least at the start.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

I believe some of the "Dragoon" type infantry are supposed to represent arquebus cavalry that dismounted.

[Gigantus]

This section in the EDU has the missile cavalry: "Berittene - Fernkämpfer" - have a look if there is a unit that fits your description.

[Teutonic]

Thanks, I'll check it out. So far I had a chance to play it only superficially. I assumed light cavalry would be available as a generic unit like the cuirassiers, foot pike and musket, militia, etc, each faction has.

[k/t]

For me it is most important to diminish the effect of gunners. "arquebus_shot" is to much accurate against units - I lowered it to 0.03. I lowered artellery accuracy to 0.05. Therefore pikemen need not to move so fast. Most of them are alive reaching the enemy in close range.

Hahaha. If you want the unit to be less accurate, you have to increase the number, not lower it.

So...if I'm Wurttemberg, what do I have to build to be able to recruit arquebus cavalry?

[Teutonic]

There are some lighter type cavalry, including Spanish arquebusiers, and some mercenaries, but there is no regular arquebusier cavalry available, like there are cuirassiers. It doesn't exist in the mod. If it did, in my opinion it should look like the early foot musketeers (the 77 men units), maybe with breastplates, and with cavalry boots.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Pikemen didn't move slowly because pikes are heavy but because they had to maintain their formation.

There are already few musketeers and they don't get very many kills. Jager Militia, on the other hand, are completely overpowered. They have 13 AP attack and much higher rate of fire. I just fought a battle in which I had 2 musketeer units and 3 Jagers. The musketeers got about 25-30 kills each and the Jagers 220.

The armour values are also really screwy. Cornet Cuirassiers are wearing 3 quarter plate but they have 5 armour. Same for the General's Escort.

And some Zweihanders have 24 attack...

Just briefly,

The mod is a total conversion maybe in more ways than one. By this historical period much had changed. Plate armour, for example, had become practically obsolete by the end of this war. But most units in the game have their niche of usefullness, even the most unlikely among them.

There are indeed several special units with unusual stats, like those you pointed out. Some look good, some not as good. They all tend to have their advantages and disadvantages, some more obvious than others.

[k/t]

The pikemen don't seem very useful, since there is so little cavalry.

"Plate armour, for example, had become practically obsolete by the end of this war."

I don't see what that has to do with what I said. The Cuirassiers should have much higher armour, that's what I'm saying. They also make a lot of noise and smoke but they barely kill anything.

[Blackader]

I agree with the last point. As I mentionned in the FAQ section, despite theirs high stats, Cuirassiers aren't effective in ranged fight.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

If you do not understand what I am saying, you may be thinking of battles in this period in different terms. These types of units are not what they were meant to be in the Middle Ages.

If you are thinking of outflanking and crushing the computer player with masses of heavy cavalry, they way most M2 mods go, this is not going to work out, on that I would agree. In any case, that is not how battles were fought at this time. These armies were not professional for nothing.

Cuirassiers were mounted pistoliers. They were also very expensive bullet magnets. Try to imagine these pistoliers reloading while riding their horses, as companies of musketeers are firing at them. There is no comparison. There was a manouever called the caracol in the 16th C that pitted mounted pistoliers against musketeers and arquebusiers on foot. It had been abandoned by this time. It is not hard to see why - which one is the easy target and which of the two can put in the most devastating fire power ...

If you use the various units historically, your units will do well. Cuirassiers are a strong unit. The human player, let us not forget, can use cavalry better than the AI.

[Judeman266]

Heavy cavalry lancers still did exist in this timeframe. In fact the French created new gendarme or lancer units as late as 1609. Even ignoring that, heavy cavalry if rarely, existed throughout the Thirty Years' War in the form of demi-lancers (lancers on unarmored horses in cuirassier armor) which at least the Dutch and French were still using at this time. While they shouldn't be available on the level of the 16th century, they should still exist but with much lower availability (much lower replenishment rate, very few places that can recruit them or you could even have some regiments that are existing at the start of the campaign and you can only retrain them and not recruit any more; via edb: ask if you don't know how). They were being phased out, which is a gradual process not an instant abandonment. If cuirassiers' armor reflected what they were actually wearing they would much more useful. It would enable the much used tactic of firing their pistols at close range and immediately following it up with a sword charge. This is the type of charge used promininently by Henry IV of France and Gustavus Adolphus.

[k/t]

Geoffrey, you are not understanding me. I am perfectly clear on how tactics were changing. I am not looking for swarms of heavy cavalry (but there should still be some available, as Judeman pointed out). All I'm saying is that the armour value of the Cuirassiers doesn't reflect the armour worn in-game. And also that they barely get any kills. They have 16 AP missile damage and they do extremely poorly against infantry with 2 armour. Something's not right. They poof and they crack and they smoke, and enemies don't fall down.

Maybe the projectile angles for pistol bullets need tweaking like they do for grapeshot.

By adding some charge cavalry we would actually make it worthwhile to include pikemen in an army, since right now the very short-ranged missile cavalry is easily killed by gunners and it never charges your lines.

Also, we're in agreement that there should be some arquebus cavalry?