Multiplay totally broken-Due to Gamey ARTY TACTIS

[GShock]

I agree on *all* the points and proposed solutions with the exception of TC because it would actually hurt the game.

However, the way he expressed it is perfectly legit with TCing being an option that players may enable/diable at will, even though at the current state of the AI, I don't think it would make much sense, the more customizable the settings, the more variety AND ability to make everyone happy (and i mean everyone) which is important nonetheless.

Point of it all is that you are the commander and manouvering a single regiment which is 1000 yds away by TCing is unrealistic when UnTCed (and it might JUSTLY not be possible if you can't even see it with restricted camera). UnTCed units are never alone, they are part of a force. TCed units should still be following orders... so, we go back to my proposal of regimental couriering system, couriering from commander DIV to BDE subcommander and from BDE subcommander to RGT TCed or UnTCed unit.

You can move it manually, wherever it is when this RGT is TCed but it's got to have orders (with the delay you can imagine) to do so.

[Tacloban]

Excellent case in [my] point in Monty's also excellent AAR "Battle of Mummelbaugh Farm."

He didn't TC, so an entire division (1/3 of his force) walked off the line during the battle and the player had to gallop around looking for his division(!) that he had previously posted. TC-ing at least the division commander in that case would have produced a more realistic outcome. I don't think a division commander would have taken his command off the line, even a Union commander (smiley face).

[Monty]

I did run into issues in this area, but I wouldn't cite Caldwell's disappearance as one. I ordered him by courier to take up a position in front of the woods and I left him to it. All he had to do was advance a few hundred yards to his front left so I assumed he could be left with it. When the crunch time came and I realised that Caldwell was nowhere to be seen, I just chalked this up to General Caldwell channelling Lew Wallace.

As I said, though, I did run into some examples of "Hold at All Costs!" failing to work. I had detached two brigades from Caldwell to cover the wings of my guns (the Irish bde on the left, Zook's bde on the right). Both had orders to hold at all costs. From what I could see, the Irish bde stayed put when the Rebs attacked, but Zook was enticed out of his position in the cemetery by Rebel guns trotting up the road in front of his position. He left his position and kept on attacking until he became entangled with Reb infantry and (I think) precipitated the Rebel attack.

The next example was in the final phase of the battle where the plan I had was for Caldwell and Hays to attack through the woods on the left while Gibbon takes and holds the objective on the right. Taking the objective was no problem, but I was expecting a counter attack so I ordered Gibbon to "Hold at All Costs" but then went as far as detaching the brigade on Gibbon's left and personally ordering it to "Hold at All Costs". Neither Gibbon nor the detached brigade stayed put. Despite being behind a mixture of stone wall and fence they both moved out to attack a much stronger enemy that was assaulting their position. Sadly, Gibbon even chose to regard the attack to his left (my corps' centre) as being more troublesome than the Reb infantry amassed to his front out in the open.

I was playing this using the historical setting so TCing units simply wasn't feasible.

My AAR is here.

If I might make a suggestion, it would be great if the "Hold" order would order the commander to defend a certain position. The commander would find the best available ground in the immediate vicinity and root his units to the spot, but would also retain a reserve which he would throw into the position if it was threatened. The "Hold at All Costs" command would have the commander root all of his units to the spot, wherever the spot is and wouldn't make allowances for a reserve.

[Smintar]

Like to add my 2 cents worth in. I believe in mp play that no one be allow to use battery units,only the ai will control them especially in league play. Maybe there can be an option to do this. time to think and agree or disagree..

2.if there be an AI control brigade, maybe there should not be able to charge? how to do this not sure. I once charge another unit thinking I had the ability to take them out, I had a high scroe and Moral, but fail.Terrian etc places a large part how these events take hold. A unit can have high moral but very low stam. thus not able to fight aswell as the other units.

3. Lets say that arty is controled by a player, 2 units that can reap devastation on them: Sharper Shooters and Cal.but the rate of fire to me is to fast for the shooters, it takes a bit to get a good aim especially at 400 yards and standing accuracy should be determine by standing kneeling or laying dn. So I ask for different options. Also not many sharp shooters in game.

Jusy for consideration

[MrSpkr]

Smintar wrote:

Like to add my 2 cents worth in. I believe in mp play that no one be allow to use battery units,only the ai will control them especially in league play. Maybe there can be an option to do this. time to think and agree or disagree.

Strongly disagree. I may have plans for moving my division or for how I am going to set up my defenses that would require me to be able to place my artillery or direct it's movements for maximum effect. I do not trust the AI to do this, and find it ahistorical for a superior commander to be unable to order his subordinate artillery unit on the battlefield. Better to make arty more fragile in close proximity to infantry, or to make arty unable to fire cannister absent a large cone free of friendly units (or maybe even putting friendly fire casualties into the game!).

Stev

[Janh]

From what I have seen from the demo, there is still some heritages from TC2M design that enables people to use "gamey moves".

I think many of the values like including inflicted casualty rates (both rifles and guns) correspond more to "ideal" ("optimal") conditions, and I had tuned them down quite (50% for rifles and canister, enhanced hit rate of long range arty munition by 400% by halves casualties per hit and reduced firing speed by 2) a bit in my TC2M install (including all mods from Gettysburg to Murfreeboro). I also reduced melee efficieny and probability (stance.csv) so that they take longer (they were really toooooo quick) and lead to significant disorder and fatigue loss in both combatants.

That gave the game a more historic overall feeling and more long range artillery power, while battles were still deadly and could be in rare cases (as should be) extremely costly to a regiment. I also reduced movement rates at bit (30%), and changed moral and stance.csv ratings to that fallbacks and retreats (on other than "HOLD") were more frequent and the battle more flowing for longer times. I allowed BGs to reform ealier, too, while almost eliminating routs completely. That way the only way to go for long 1-3 day scenarios, if you didn't want to see AI wipe itself out by the end of July 1stby overly aggressive behavior, but see his units reform during the 2nd day and come back to give you headaches!

The 2nd point that I find familiar reading this post has already been mentioned above: The stance system: for example "aggressive" seems presently to mean that a commander will venture anywhere, no matter what the terrain is like, or whether he'd be more prudent to stay in the cover he presently uses. I tuned that one down a lot in the stance.csv, too, basically only allowing "ATTACK" to venture out more than one "rifle" range for an attack. I think the stance system could be refined to at least make sure that AI makes much more used of covered terrain, wall etc and keep a closer eye on integer lines. Maybe the above points are for modding once the SDK is out, but maybe even for patching the game. I am really looking forward to this!

[Roberdeau Ch. Wheat]

I think too, that by increasing long/ mid range impact of artillery and counter-battery-fire, one could effectively reduce the use of artillery one very short range by the other side. But I guess, it’s very complicated to properly balance both the physical and moral impact of artillery on the enemy guns and soldiers.

Concerning the attack in column on artillery as gamey: I had yesterday my first MP game (which I really enjoyed) with JBHood, smintar and talon. Hood’s division marched to the center of Gettysburg and JBHood’s was the leading brigade. The AI had placed all of its artillery at one spot several hundred yards in advance of the infantry, so as JBHood spotted them, he made the only valid decision and attacked the guns with two regiments in column. In the end the artillery and his regiments were routed. In my opinion, it was a real or so to speak historical decision to attack unprotected artillery only 300 yards away. Maybe another player would have fallen back to form his brigade in line and await the enemy’s attack, but that’s another story.

Another example, I’ve seen, was Anderson’s division (under AI control) in the Jackson Scenario attacking a six gun union battery. Finally he took the battery but it took him around 20 minutes and over 2000 casualties.

Therefore my conclusion is, that I will use this “gamey” attack in column-tactic as long as there is no good (good means, not to suffer several hundred casualties and get 1 or 2 regiments routed when attacking a battery) other way to chase away or capture guns either with infantry or artillery.

But concerning mp games, artillery is a minor issue for me. I really would like to write and send my own messages via courier to the other players. Another thing I would like to be addressed is, that you should be able to send messages to all players on your side, because as we were playing (every player commanded a brigade) I could only send messages to JBHood because he was in the same division as me, but not to smintar and talon, because they were part of McLaws’ division.

[GShock]

The only real problem of attacking artillery with infantry, I mean musket vs cannon is the fact that musket fire at 160yds is too inaccurate compared to the cannister hits the cannon will do.

Artillery is currently overpowered just for this reason but if the weapons were modded properly, a regiment firing on 4 batteries one close to the other would inflict devastating losses and you wouldn't really need to charge the batteries and engage in hand vs cannister.

I wasn't there at Gettysburg but I GUESS if 300 muskets fired on 60 men (who are not shooting back but loading a cannon) they would be disposed of very very quickly.

I hate the fact you can rout a battery after being hit so many times by cannister rounds... and then when you limber/unlimber it takes you 30 seconds but to rout and take the cannon away with you takes an instant.

Unfortunately, if you want to capture the batteries, you have to charge them, you can't just kill/rout the servers.

To all those who play MP I have often wondered if it truly is worth the trouble charging the artillery in close range.

With it's totally inept efficiency at medium/long range I think it's fairly possible to capture the objectives and win the game totally ignoring the artillery, which will ultimately lead the player who controls it to move it towards the infantry to make it useful to some extent. And that's basically another gamey tactic. The only good place for artillery therefore, at least to my eyes, seems to currently be either in front line OR right on the objective (if you are defending).

It truly historically was behind the lines, on the hills, sometimes even pretty far from the battlefield and almost always dug in and in safe locations and since it DID kill, in the civil war, routing by musket or counterbattery, or capturing artillery was mandatory but if the arty in SoWGb MP is the same as Arty Tutorial, is it really worth the trouble?

I think THAT is the top priority here, not the gamey tactics... I really think gamey tactic comes out of the fact there's no viable way to make the arty effective out of cannister range so once the arty is fixed (and fixed it shall!) all these problems on gamey tactics will be history.

If the game is designed to be realistic, the only winning strategies will be the ones that were really used at that point in time.
Just my opinion (as usual).

[Kerflumoxed]

I think you mean 4 guns, not 4 batteries.

Also, guns were not "hub-to-hub" but were spaced between 14 to 17 yards depending upon whether the battery was field artillery or horse artillery.

J.

[norb]

It will be fixed. I'm just trying to get some good saved game showing the issues. It's the only way to really get to the heart of the matter. I am trying to understand the issues and figure out where our design is flawed in allowing this to happen.

We know that the arty is not effective enough right now and we have lots of reasons why, but it will get fixed. We are doing extensive testing and we'll get into our formulas and get them working right.

As always, if anyone gets any saved games demonstrating the problems, please send them to our support email and they will get to me. The hardest part is setting up the proper situation. I probably need to make the in game editor