Napoleon Empire Realism 5 - Design changes

[JaM]

Experience and Unit Stats overhaul:

Experience impact on accuracy is drastically lower than before. Overall, it only improves for high experience units twice, at 4th and 7th exp level, +5 each time. This change was influenced by randomness of smoothbore weapons accuracy, where experience didn't played any role above technical limitations of the weapon. Rifle equipped units instead, got unit and weapon linked accuracy bonuses instead. From stats perspective, this allows player to quickly assess the unit quality, as accuracy is one of the stats typically shown to player. I have created certain accuracy bands for units, where units with accuracy 20 represent lower grade units with limited training, 25 represents standard trained line units, 30 represents units with additional musketry training and 35 is given to skirmishers. 35 is also highest accuracy achievable for Line infantry or Grenadiers. Yet, this accuracy rating doesn't tell the whole truth. weapon itself adds either additional accuracy bonus or penalty, based on weapon type. Rifles usually get high bonus (40-50), while smoothbores might even have penalty assigned (-5 to -10), effectively reducing units final accuracy down, keeping it within smoothbore technology limits.

Other stats like Reload, melee attack, melee defense and morale, keep linear progression with each level, yet bonus added between exp 0 and exp 1 is slightly higher, making inexperienced units lot less effective than units with at least base training. As before, units with 0 experience represent untrained men who never fired a musket.

Unit stats keep same approach, making stats clearly distinctive for different unit types. Line infantry is good standard unit, Grenadiers are better in melee, and Light Infantry is better at shooting. Average height of men is taken into assumption for melee effectivity, therefore taller grenadiers(1.75m minimum height) are a lot stronger than short Light infantry(1.65m max). Skirmishers were usually composed of shortest men, below 1.6m height. At the same time, certain stats were adjusted so units would be properly used even by AI in their supposed role. This was main reason why for example all skirmishers got bayonets removed, even if they actually might have used some, as AI tended to use these units for charging, instead of keeping them at range firing.

Even bigger change was done to cavalry, where stats were completely redesigned from scratch. former "shield" stat was reused simulating unit swordsmanship skill. This stat is part of stats that are summed up into defense stat together with defense and armor. For cavalry, base defense stat now represent horse quality/size, and armor covers any possible protection cavalrymen might have, like helmets, breastplates or even rolled up coats and jackets. "Shield" stat has now absolutely minimal impact on projectiles, while armor and base defense give normal resistance. This means cavalry will be slightly more resistant to musket fire than before, but wont be immune to it, especially not from close range, so properly handling infantry would be a lot more important, as wasting your first salvo against cavalry that is too far would be fatal.
Overall, new cavalry stats give more combat chances to light cavalry like hussars when attacking heavy cavalry from flanks, as such units would be able to balance out their skill vs enemy resistance coming from horse and possible armor. it also means casualties from initial impact will be slightly lower, and overall cavalry melee when it happens, will be longer. Cavalry use will be a lot closer to reality, where cavalry attacked in waves, withdrawing from contact before another wave hits the enemy (or if attacking unit gets routed, second will charge already weakened defender)

Musketry overhaul:

I've spent some time investigating actual historical data about musket use in Napoleonic era, then trying to simulate it within game stats. Overall, my goal was to make sure first salvo was most destructive, with effectivity falling down with each concurrent shot fired. Only way how to do this is through penalties assigned to fatigue/disorder stats, yet the way its done in v5 is a bit different from setup used before. Instead of using -100% accuracy penalties for disordered units, i have halved actual musket accuracy, and instead set all penalties to -50%. Main problem with previous version was that those penalties practically made skirmishers completely ineffective once their cohesion fall down, which they didn't care about in reality.. Instead, in new version, their accuracy will fall down to 50% of maximum, but due to having a lot more accurate weapons than line infantry, they will still be effective, and that 50% reduction can simulate actual smoke obscuring the area making targeting a bit tricky. But for Line infantry with their limited accuracy - average Line infantry with accuracy rating 25, using musket with -10 accuracy penalty, giving it effective accuracy 15, 50% reduction means a big impact to overall accuracy, especially at longer ranges.

As mentioned in changelog, historical data was used for simulating country specific muskets. here are some details i was trying to simulate. French Charleville musket was considered to be best musket of Napoleonic era. It fired smaller caliber ball than others, but used same amount of powder, therefore such ball was easy to load, yet had a lot higher muzzle velocity, which gave bullet a bit more flat trajectory than other muskets would have firing heavier and larger bullet with slower velocity. At the other side, Charleville didn't used self-priming lock, like for example Austrian and Prussian muskets did, which added additional step to loading process slightly decreasing its rate of fire. Typical reported rate of fire for Charleville was 3 rounds per minute, or about 20 second for single shot. Austrian and Prussian muskets, especially models used at the beginning of Napoleonic wars, that were developed with 18.century focus on rapid fire, had self-priming lock, and wider ramrod fitting, which allowed for rate of fire 4 rounds per minute.
Another big difference between Charleville and other muskets was shape of priming channel. While French musket used smaller hole, which didn't allowed portion of gunpowder explosion to went through, others used bigger holes, therefore further reducing muzzle velocity, but increasing musket reliability as powder was burned down a bit more clearly with larger touch hole. This meant that French Charleville had about 1 failure in 25 shots, where Austrian musket 1 failure 40 shots.
In live fire tests, typical musket was only effective at 70 meters when fired at man sized target, but that was not how these weapons were used. Muskets were salvo weapons, relying on share number of shots sent into area occupied by enemy, which means weapon target practice accuracy had minimal effect on actual performance. What made Charleville superior to others was the fact it fired lighter bullet a lot faster, therefore it had more flatter flight pattern and therefore unit with leveled muskets had better chance to hit opposing infantry instead of overshooting or hitting the ground in front of enemy, which would be the case with heavier bullets flying slower.
For this particular reason, French Charleville musket has 5% smaller dispersion (5) than other muskets (6), while projectile speed is also increased. This gives french infantry a slight advantage when hitting enemy at longer range, but its not that impact-full to make it too overpowering.
Yet, not just accuracy and dispersion is playing the role. Rate of fire and entire salvo delivering is different now to some degree. French Charleville for example has now reload time increased to 18-20, while Austrian and Prussian muskets are set to 15-16. British Brown Bess is now set to 16-17, so reload wise, is in the middle.
Historically, many countries tried to use various fire drills, but all learned fast that once shooting started, it was very problematic to control soldiers to fire when told to, plus, noise and smoke made passing commands problematic. For that reason, there is no point using any NTW or ETW fire drills, and instead, everybody uses voluntary fire drill, with all men firing.
Firing animation was adjusted, some additional delay was added to aiming and readying process, therefore initial salvo looks a lot better organized, while follow on shots are more sporadic. And as mentioned before, cohesion drop reduces accuracy, which makes those follow up shots a lot less effective. This opens the opportunity for player to use his infantry more offensively, and charge the enemy after delivering single salvo. Letting enemy fire at you at maximum range means he gets disordered, so his musket fire will be less effective as you get closer.. while this was already present in v4, this time overall effect is a lot more profound, and increased by the actual morale penalty dealt by killing 6% of enemy soldiers in 4sec (combat morale shock).

Changes to Morale and Cohesion:

Morale penalties and bonuses were reworked to provide more tactical gameplay. Bonuses complement penalties a bit more, therefore you can overcome certain impacts by deploying your units properly. For example having your infantry deployed with other units covering their flanks gives your infantry additional morale bonus, which is able to overcome morale penalty for being hit by enemy musket fire. Yet if same units get outflanked by enemy, they can be routed by the same musket fire.. Even concentrated enemy effort can be handled by properly deploying units, and keeping general close to provide (passive) morale support.
Using combined arms will be extremely effective, due to combined morale impact of musket and artillery fire, with presence of cavalry on enemy flanks.
Generals are now extremely important thanks to their passive morale bonus (presence) and active abilities. Rally ability is now very powerful, and it allows player to rally his units more effectively. Yet, each general can do this just once, and actual effect depends on General rank. General also has multiple (3) chances to actively inspire particular unit, increasing its accuracy, morale and melee stats. This is particularly effective when used at specific moment, like for example inspire unit about to deliver musket salvo, or bayonet charge, or inspire leading cavalry squadron that is about to charge. This inspire bonus will last longer than before, to make sure unit can actually use the bonus (and not have it pass while getting to enemy).

Entire morale system is now built towards more historical use of units. Some other mods or vanilla game are built more towards getting local superiority vs enemy, to crush him fast, in NER opposite is true, and actually not commit all forces into initial push will make difference, as all units in contact with enemy are also impacted by these morale penalties for being under fire, or hit by artillery, which decreases their morale and makes them easier to break. Keeping units in reserve gives you option to send fresh troops with unimpacted morale against already weakened enemy, gaining qualitative superiority, instead of quantitative.
You can now rout large force of enemy easier by properly used maneuver, but at the same time, that enemy will rally and come back more often, which means to effectively deal with such situations, you would need to keep cavalry reserves ready to pursue routed enemy to make sure they wont come back.
Cohesion system, similarly as morale was updated for better tactical role. Units gain order faster, when left idle, while they can march forward in good order (walk). As mentioned before, instead of 100% accuracy penalty, only 50% penalty is applied, yet melee stats are impacted a lot more, specifically with infantry. Disordered infantry is completely ineffective in melee, much more than cavalry, which means cavalry can effectively kill infantry while chasing them down, as cohesion penalty for being in combat doesn't impact
them that much.


Changes to Naval Combat

There are multiple big changes in this area that improve gameplay of naval battles. In previous versions one of the complains was the actual length of the firefight, as ships could take a lot of damage before routing or surrendering. At the same time, difference between some ship types was small, even if actual stats were significantly different.
To address these issues multiple areas of naval combat were redesigned.
Most radical impact comes from gunnery. Solid shots fired by naval guns now causes splintering effect on impact against enemy hull, which can wound or kill anybody near the impact. Amount of splinters is based on caliber size, therefore bigger caliber guns have better antipersonnel effect. Gun damage value is now more about penetrating power. This change made Carronades quite useful, as relatively small ship equipped with 24-32pdr carronades now can deal lots of damage against ships with weaker hulls.
Ship Hull resistance was reduced down significantly for all ships, therefore amount of damage ship takes is slightly bigger than before. This means you can cause enough of damage to effectively rout enemy ship, which was problematic in previous version because of high amount of hit-points ship hulls had.
At the same time, ship accuracy, reload and morale was extensively reworked. Accuracy is completely linked with ship size, where biggest ship is, more stable it is on open sea, therefore more accurate it is. (which is exactly the opposite what vanilla does).
Reload at the other side is based on crew training. Base stat is same for all, main difference is now in assigned chevrons, therefore British ships with 3-4 chevrons can fire a lot faster than French ship of the same size with just single chevron of experience. There is no difference in reload time between gun calibers, as usually these guns had crew sufficient enough to effectively handle the gun. Bigger the gun was, more men was assigned.
Morale is another big area that seen major rework, as entire morale scale was completely reworked, where instead of using morale scale 1-16, ships have morale 5-75. This gives important difference between combat and trade ships, which means that trade ships wont really pose any serious threat and will surrender if threatened. At the other side, combat ships will now have slightly more morale threshold to spend, therefore will fight a bit more before routing. Of course, new gunnery changes will produce more kills on enemy crew, therefore combat will be still faster paced.

To improve the tactical aspect of naval game, area of fire was reduced for all guns from 60 degrees to just 40. this gives slightly more narrow engagement area, which means opportunity to fire at enemy will be shorter. At the same time, it will give both sides chance to escape from dangerous position, as ships would get through firing range of enemy ship faster. Player will benefit from disabling fire at will, to get his broadsides off at the moment he considers right. When set to fire at will you might waste your salvo on enemy too far, or somehow angled towards you which would produce limited results.
Another important change, which will play significant role are Sails hit-points. While previously, lowest sails had larger hit-points and therefore were most resistant, new redesign changes this completely. Instead, lowest sails are fastest to damage now, as they are closest to gun-deck therefore would take most hits even from fire originally aimed at hull. Top sails will be harder to damage, anyway their impact on ship speed is small. Overall, player would benefit from historical use of sails, if he stays on battle sails during combat (Battle sails means lowest level of sails is not set, which game does automatically for you when you change the course of ungrouped ship). This will make you sail slower, but at the other side it will preserve your main sails intact, so if you would need to escape or chase, you would be able to do so.

[JaM]

Hidden Artillery Feature explanation


NTW AI is not really AI. It doesn't "think" what to do, it reacts on player actions based on scripts. Some of those scripts are written extremely bad, one of such AI scripts always activates, when player aims his artillery against enemy artillery. This action is activated instantly, you don't even need to fire your guns, so its like AI "reads your mind" and reacts by charging its cavalry against your artillery. If you chose different target the same moment, cavalry stops the charge.. This is a huge problem that kills the immersion of battle.

Only way how to make sure that single script wont activate, is by giving all artillery "can snipe" attribute. This gives artillery way to target enemy without AI reacting on sole intention. Of course, this change is not without drawbacks. Whenever AI is on defense, it will become passive vs player. Thing is, I don't believe its necessarily a bad thing - AI didn't initiated that battle, it was player, therefore its not fair to expect to be active attacker in defensive battle they did not initiated. Therefore its up to ATTACKER - PLAYER, to actively attack enemy AI in such battles. AI fights properly whenever it attacks you, therefore player should have courtesy doing the same. Attacking AI army, and then sitting back and just bombarding it with artillery will not win you that battle - artillery alone has much slower rate of fire, so even if you bombarded enemy army for entire hour, you wont cause AI to rout.. Only choice is to attack it with your army anyway. So please consider this to be BASE RULE of Napoleon Empire Realism Mod.

[JaM]

Reworked Infantry Cohesion system in version 5.2

Cohesion system is one of the main features of NER mod for quite some time. And while it provides some additional challenge to player, it did not worked properly with AI which is not scripted to use the "fatigue" mechanics properly. For this sole purpose i have decided to adjust how Cohesion (Fatigue) works in NER mod.
Previously, Units could get disordered either by moving fast, or by combat (musketry or melee). Problem is, AI doesn't care about it, and tends to run its units, therefore AI units always end up being disorganized, which makes AI easy to defeat due to morale penalties linked to cohesion. In the past i have reduced these morale penalties, but at the same time, it made Cohesion a lot less important.

This time, i have decided to go around this problem different way. Every infantry unit now moves automatically the speed it can keep the cohesion intact. Therefore Infantry units no longer lose cohesion by moving. Infantry movement speed was therefore reduced significantly to offset this, as well as unit maneuverability. Running as before, represents "Quick March" pace, which was usually used to get troops into formation faster. Yet to not make "Walking" completely pointless, Walking now restores the unit cohesion at 50% rate to being Idle. Running is completely neutral (doesn't restore cohesion, doesn't impact it either) Being under fire by small arms reduces this bonus slightly, while being under artillery fire neutralizes it.

This will give you option to move units that were engaged in combat forward or backwards, to restore order. Practically, it will help you control cohesion in prolonged shootouts, will benefit the active use of infantry instead of passive one.

And because movement speed doesn't impact cohesion anymore, i could bring back the movement bonus for disordered units - this way, if one unit routs due to melee combat, it will get additional 50% movement bonus allowing it to flee away from enemy. this bonus will clear out once unit it rallied (unit will stop, therefore cohesion bonus will apply, which will remove the speed bonus)