Road to Wargram and Peninsular Mod - Updated 1.6

[Jack ONeill]

Also,

Gonna start editing the French Divisions so Gudin can have a real one and find some troops to have Davouts other Favorite, General Morand, in the game. The three Brothers must all fight together! En Avant!

Jack B)

[born2see]

Jack ONeil wrote:

Can the square formation be put in just for visual effect? I realize the lads will run out of formation to fight in melee, but I'm DYING to form square in the face of Cavalry.

I put in a Feature Request for this and was informed it's already available. What I don't know is if it will hold the formation in the face of a charge. If it won't let me know and I'll re-submit it with a clarification. Here is the relevant formation.

DRIL_Lvl6_Inf_Square
DRIL_Lvl5_Inf_Square

B

[gunship24]

Square is in the stock game but I left it out for these reasons:
1) The drill modifiers dont seem to do anything so they will fight the same as if they were in any other formation
2) They will break formation to melee one on one even if CounterCharge is disabled in the drills file

I could live with the latter but the first point is the deal breaker, but if anyone else has had results using the drill melee and firing modifers let me know .

I am working on some more OObs as some of the units aren't used yet. The eager historian will notice there are some commanders missing from the OOBs provided, mostly brigade commanders. This is due to the sheer size of the brigades, so i split the brigades up into their respective regiments using historically correct Colonels.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Jack O'Neill wrote:

Gonna start editing the French Divisions so Gudin can have a real one and find some troops to have Davouts other Favorite, General Morand, in the game.

Tres bonne. Currently, the frogs don't give a very good accounting of themselves. They need the Bavarians to save their bacon. At least that is how my games have played out.

I have a modified drills.csv with the arty and cavalry positions reversed for divison line formations. I'll post it here. I was also thinking of adding a checkerboard corps formation.

[born2see]

gunship24 wrote:

Square is in the stock game but I left it out for these reasons:
1) The drill modifiers dont seem to do anything so they will fight the same as if they were in any other formation
2) They will break formation to melee one on one even if CounterCharge is disabled in the drills file

G - Tell me what you'd like to see and I'll re-submit it. I don't know enough to explain it to Norb.

B

[Jack ONeill]

All,

As regards to squares - Understanding that even if they fight as in other formations, Gunship has said the Cavalry has been made more fragile to compensate from "No Squares." Firing and the like could stay the same. The "breaking formation to melee" I think we could live with, IF the formation in question would fall back into square after they won the melee, assuming they did so.
Also, where would we put the "form Square" button? OR could we code it to a key on the keyboard? Hmmm...

As a side note, I just fought a great battle with an honest to God pursuit a l'autrace by the Archduke Ferdinand Hussars. Turned them loose to "Raid easy units" or whatever and they rode all over the battle field sabering fleeing French Infantry. Fantastic!! Especially since, years ago, I painted up this very unit. Great to actually use them again.

Jack B)

[born2see]

Jack,

Just so I understand. We have a Square formation already and they break formation for melee fight which I assume is historical, but they don't reform automatically after a victory; like the infantry reforms a Line.

The keyboard can be modded to accept a formation command right now, so can the toolbar to show a button. I haven't tried it but the commands I posted previously could be mapped to a key or button just like any other formation command.

Then it seems to me the only thing which needs to be coded is the automatic formation back to a Square.

If you can confirm that this CAN'T be done now then I'll submit it as a Feature Request.

Edit - Having said all that I'm not sure what this means. How should they fight?

gunship24 wrote:

1) The drill modifiers dont seem to do anything so they will fight the same as if they were in any other formation

Thanks,

B

[Jack ONeill]

Born,

My Brother, squares would not Historically break formation to fight. They were a defensive formation formed against cavalry only. They were extremely vulnerable to Infantry assault and especially close-range artillery fire, i.e. cannister. Squares required consideralbe combined arms support to survive. An unbroken square was practically invulnerable to cavalry attack. There are maybe a half dozen recorded instances of charging Cavalry breaking a formed square formation during the entire Napoleanic period.

Yes, there is a "Square" command line in the game. Gunship decided not to use it because the Square would not stay a square to fight. Since none of us has actually used a square formation, we really don't know what it would do. Gunship tried it and he said essentially the same thing I wrote earlier. If I knew how to set it up in the game, I would test drive it and see for myself. However, with my limited abilities, I could not, without help, map the formation to the keyboard or know where to insert the square formation lines directive you so graciously provided earlier.

Jack B)

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Since you're looking for trouble, let me help you go all in. The AI should form a square whenever the infantry feels they are being threatened by cavalry. For the game, maybe they form a square if enemy cav gets to within 300 yd? The cavalry would not normally melee with a square, and a square would certainly not initiate a melee with the cavalry. If there is a melee and the square wins, then they would attempt to reform the square.

1) The drill modifiers dont seem to do anything so they will fight the same as if they were in any other formation

I think what gunship means is that the entire square will fire on the cavalry once it is in range and the flag bearer is facing the attacker. In real life, the side of the square facing the cavalry will fire, but not the other 3 sides and regardless of which way the flag bearer is facing.

Please let us know Norb's response to this rather modest request. :laugh:

[Jack ONeill]

MTG,

Brilliant! Hadn't thought that far ahead. Tip o' the chapeau to you, Sir.

Yes, auto-forming at some distance unless under TC, AND form or not form as commanded under TC. Also, yes, I figured the firing would be all at once, rather than historically by the side facing the enemy. No, Cavalry generally did not melee the square. It was the THREAT that caused the formation in the first place.

Dude, I'm ALWAYS all in.

Jack B)