Cavalry fault found?

[mcaryf]

Hi Roy

Who were they fighting? Their edged weapon proficiency is 6 or 7 so if they were fighting British elite cavalry the British would be 3 times as quick at stabbing which is probably right for swords versus lances.

Regards

Mike

[roy64]

I just checked it was the Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde v Brandenburgisches Husaren-Reg Nr3. The Lancer lost about 120 to 10 to the Brandenburgisches.

I just played the save again & got better results, the Chasseurs were losing by 4 to 1 but they were also winning by 4 to 1. About even overall I would say. This was A sandbox line of site game.

I'll carry on with some scenarios & see what happens.

[Capt Saucier]

Since I had not acquired Wavre due to the cavalry problem, I decided to buy the collectors edition, as it was on sale. I have tested 2 cavalry on cavalry scenarios, including French Chasseurs and Dragoons, against Prussian cavalry. I purchased a disk. The good news is it appears that the cavalry on cavalry melees had results that I would expect. Even the Chasseurs stood up to the Prussians, so I am hopeful that the problem had something to do with my original install or subsequent additions or maybe the Grog toolbar, which I did have on my old install. I am almost afraid to install the grog tool bar, but the game is certainly better with it.

I have not tried the mods yet on this new install. There are 3 choices:

1. Expanded Toolbar - Grog
2. Full_French Campaign
3. Toolbar Expanded - Grog.

What is the difference between 1. Expanded Toolbar - Grog and 2. Toolbar Expanded - Grog?

Thanks!

[Hook]

I bought the collectors edition and the problems with cavalry that I posted in the general discussion area seem to have gone away.

This quote from another thread.

This seems to be the proper fix for the cavalry problem and is why some people had the problem while others didn't. Now we need to figure out what was different with the collector's edition.

Hook

[voltigeur]

have been following this thread, also own all the individual games rather than the collectors edition (although patched to "1.02") - and also have noticed dramatic variances in cav battles since I got the game when it was released. French Lancers seem to fare very badly generally (even when able to counter charge) - or at least their results vary greatly but often result in a surrender.

[roy64]

have been following this thread, also own all the individual games rather than the collectors edition (although patched to "1.02") - and also have noticed dramatic variances in cav battles since I got the game when it was released. French Lancers seem to fare very badly generally (even when able to counter charge) - or at least their results vary greatly but often result in a surrender.

I knew I wasn't the only one. :unsure: :ohmy: The French Lancers are poor for me as well but the Carabiniers seem worse.

[mcaryf]

I have been looking at the incredible array of ratings that are available to modders in this game to change unit attributes. If you really think that Lancers should perform better there are various ways you can change their ratings. For example there are two main determinants of the outcome of a cavalry melee. The two are melee modifier which determines the likelihood of achieving a hit with each attack and stab time which determines how quickly a cavalryman can get in with a second strike. Now you could argue that Lancers have a fair chance of getting the first hit given the length of their weapon but also of course if they miss with that hit, then a sword armed opponent might be able to get in several thrusts whilst the lancer is probably having to drop his lance and switch to using his sword. As far as I can see at the moment the standard ratings do not especially pick out these aspects of a Lancer.

Thus the first hit rating is influenced by experience (up to 4.5%), fatigue (up to 5%), morale (up to 7%), edged weapon efficiency (up to 17%).

The stab time is influenced by experience (up to 4 secs quicker), edged weapon efficiency (up to 8 seconds quicker)

Surprisingly the horsemanship rating only seems to influence the distance at which cavalry will charge each other

The French Red Lancers have experience 8 but Edged Weapons only 7. Thus their Edged Weapon ability only improves their first strike by 11.5% whereas English Heavy Cavalry at rating 9 are improved by 17%.

Now if you want to give Lancers an advantage for the first hit you could use a specific horsemanship rating for Lancers, ratings of 1 or 2 out of 9 are not used in the Waterloo OOB, so give those two values the ability to increase the first hit percentage by, say, 10% or 20% for the elite Red Lancers. You could then reduce their edged weapon rating even further to, say 6, to reflect their longer stab interval.

The horsemanship rating is used for other units e.g. for infantry it determines stand up time and for artilleryit improves limber/unlimber times so by using the unused 1 and 2 ratings, I do not need to change any other unit's attributes.

in fact having started looking at all these unit attribute ratings I am inclined to change quite a few of them. For example I would be inclined to use the horsemanship rating to improve the limber times for horse artillery which seems not to be done at present. I can also see that French Imperial Guard 12 lb cannons have slightly poorer ratings for limber times than the 12 lb cannons deployed by Charlet in D'Erlons Corps.

I would be interested to know if anybody has actually looked in detail at all the standard OOB unit attribute values to see if they make sense. Given the short time the developers had to produce the original game I would be surprised if they managed to make every value reasonably consistent with historical capabilities.

I will conclude by saying that I am continually amazed by the number of opportunities that the game gives us to fine tune capabilities. The only serious aspect that appears to be lacking is to be able to change defensive characteristics. Thus I would like to use better horsemanship to allow a cavalryman to evade a thrust or a cuiraissier to be harder to hit because of his armour.

regards

Mike

[mcaryf]

I have since realised that I did not need to differentiate so much between cavalry unit qualities when the cavalry is attacking infantry so my new version of the mod will have all cavalry rated good or better equally effective versus infantry. This mod can be used with standard game scenarios. In my experimental scenarios in another thread I have a different version of unit attributes where fatigue reduces the effectiveness of cavalry v infantry in that variant fatigue will have less impact on higher quality cavalry units so quality becomes a relevant factor again.

The mod is attached to the first post in this thread.

regards

Mike

[Capt Saucier]

I have recently placed Quatre Bras and Ligny to focus on cavalry results and particularly lancers. It appears that other than lancers, cavalry results are reasonable, although the French cavalry of all types generally fare worse than I would expect against even inferior Prussians and British. French lancers lose by wide margins every single time (usually 50 to 10 or worse) even if they are completely fresh. My readings convince me this is incorrect treatment, as lancers should have an advantage at contact, then a disadvantage during melee against other cavalry. Higher quality lancers could be devastating in the charge.

Nevertheless, I would like to try mcaryf's mod, but I always have trouble getting the mods to work. I have the collectors edition on disk. Should I first upgrade to the latest version of the game? When I go to multuiplayer in my game it says I am on version 1.01. Also should I then upgrade to the newest version of the grog toolbar first?

Thanks

[RebBugler]

Capt Saucier

You need the last update for all the functions on the Grog Toolbar to work properly. So yes, update to the latest WL patch before updating to the latest Grog Toolbar version.

Several months ago after hearing about some of these cavalry issues I set up some test scenarios with equal troop strengths, experience, etc., only the nationalities were different. After multiple rounds of engagement testing I found no nationality advantages whatsoever. And yes, fatigue was a primary consideration also. So, I'm just not finding these weak French cavalry squadrons that you and other folks are seeing.

You're spot on that Lancers should be devastating upon initial contact with the enemy. By my testing they are not, behaving similar to sabers and the like.

Wish I had a more encouraging message for folks that are expecting more. Just keep in mind that this game is highly modable, keeping the door open to better realism down the road.