Napoleonic Mod

[Cuirassier66]

Quote[/b] ]I also found it neccessary to lower the honour of all troops, especially cavalry. Most infantry should have honour 0 or 1, cavalry 2 or 3.

In this case, low honour cavalry will have a great deal of trouble frontally chargeing formed infantry, but no trouble hitting them in the flanks or rear.

Also take away cavalry's armor for the most part... they are really not justified in having such high armor values. They should have significant melee advantages over infatry, and a moderate chare bonus (2-4).

I am yet to modify the armour stats. But I agree with you entirely on this.

Quote[/b] ]Dragoons and Carabiniers should have lower armor, honour, and melee ability, as they were traditionally mounted infantry. They should, however be equipped with carbines.

Dragoons, hussars and light dragoons should not havce any armour at all.

By the way, the French Carabiniers a Cheval was one of the most senior heavy regiments. Even though they were accustomed to dish out a volley of carbine fire before they engaged, their prowess with the cold steel was never in doubt. They were, in additon, armoured (full cuirass) and mounted on splendid black chargers.

The cuirassiers' primary weapon was the Kliegenthal straight sword, 36 inches long. They never carried the lance.

Welcome to the group and the discussion. You have made some good contributions already.
Best,
Cuirassier

[Soapyfrog]

Thanks

You clearly have the edge when it comes to Napoleonic cavalry minutiae

I really am just an unlearned amateur throwing in my two bits My forte is more tactics of the period.

My feeling is on the subject of charges and melee in general: the best outcome would be if it were quite difficult to make a frontal appraoch (at walk or charge, infantry or cavalry) without breaking, and that once melee commences it should be decided very quickly... making unit morale "fragile" by giving everyone low honour would certainly help but then there will be problems with regard to artillery and other weapons that cause fear.

In fact Napoleonic troops were frequently willing to take terrible punishment from artillery and musket fire without breaking, and yet frequently showed much more tredipation when threatened with cold steel... something that I think will be difficult to simulate in the game, esp. with regards to cavalry.

I'll keep toying with it and see what I find.

[Krasturak]

I have a few ideas:

I want the Lancers to have a powerful charge but limited melee. Should withdraw immediately after charging.

Cuirassiers should be the only unit with any armour, since they wore a breastplate thing but not a big armour factor like in the MTW period.

The range of different infatry types should promote different tactics with different types. For example, the famous thin lines of the English should be possible only with good morale units.

The whole problem about forming square seems odd to me. If I want to put my battalion into square, I can just arrange the companies into that formation myself. Each unit on hold form. No need for complicated programming.

And forming and dissolving square should take time, is difficult not easy to command this. So letting the player do it is good.

Now, for the AI, there are some pre-planned formations for them. You could make one for the square formation, and see ... but I do not know the details of this programming section. Saw it around here somewhere.

[Lord Of Storms]

Quote[/b] (Krasturak @ April 29 2003,20:48)]I have a few ideas:

I want the Lancers to have a powerful charge but limited melee. Should withdraw immediately after charging.



The whole problem about forming square seems odd to me. If I want to put my battalion into square, I can just arrange the companies into that formation myself. Each unit on hold form. No need for complicated programming.

And forming and dissolving square should take time, is difficult not easy to command this. So letting the player do it is good.

Now, for the AI, there are some pre-planned formations for them. You could make one for the square formation, and see ... but I do not know the details of this programming section. Saw it around here somewhere.

I agreee Krast, This seems the most Logical and simple solution. The hard part is getting the AI to follow along and in light of some new formation data it may be possible to add Square to the existing formation file the AI uses, this has yet to be tested I have downloaded the formation data file from LongJohn at CA but alot of it is greek to me, might take a little time to sort out.

[Cuirassier66]

I we assume that we are using one 60 man unit to represent a company (of say 120 musketeers) then your idea of using AI group formations to form a square would work out.

But in huge battles, it would be almost impractical to let a sixty man unit represent an infantry company. Again in huge battles like Waterloo (I shudder to think about biggies like Wagram)there is no way that we could represent three different armies if we use units at company level.

See my earlier posts. My humble opinion is that we have to let a sixty man infantry unit represent a battalion. A 40 man cavalry unit should reresent a cavalry regiment of 450 sabres.

I have played BreakAway Games' Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Battle to death and believe me Even with the above abstractions it is a monumental task to manage your battalions and regiments in large engagements if the AI is even halfway decent.

Good ideas though. Keep them coming.

Best
Cuirassier

[Soapyfrog]

I don't think MTW will ever be ideal for representing anything larger than skirmish level battles (a few 1000 on each side max), or perhaps sections of larger battles... it's a question of scale.

If you were to have each unit represent a regiment, and thus be able to have multi-brigade or division sized conflicts, then you have to adjust the scale of everything... movement rates, firing range, even building and tree size, and so on.

Do-able, but not ideal.

Still regiment would represent the absolutely maximum size you could reasonably have a unit of men represent (1 man represents 10-20 men). It would be an interesting excercise for sure, but perhaps a little more abstract in concept.

[Krasturak]

Quote[/b] (Soapyfrog @ April 30 2003,15:08)]... you could reasonably have a unit of men represent (1 man represents 10-20 men). It would be an interesting excercise for sure, but perhaps a little more abstract in concept.

I think you're on the wrong course if you start thinking about scaling the representation in the game to a lrager number of men.

The game works because it has a 1:1 relationship.

If you mess with this, you're opening a whole new can of worms.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with worms; on the contrary they carry plenty of nutrition.

*licks lips*

[Soapyfrog]

Well I happen to agree, the game was made with 1:1 in mind, which is why trying to scale it would be problematic, conceptually speaking.

Lord Krazy: No luck still with Excel, despite everything it always manages to screw up the file somehow.

Lord of Storms: The Gnome editor is really handy, thanks

[Lord Krazy]

Soapyfrog,Krasturak,

I understand you inherent dislike for the scale concept.
On the other hand if we don't try we will never know.

Lord Cuirassier
Is the person that is trying and I am confident
that if anyone can do this, he can.

Ok it may turn out in the end that the 1:1 ratio
is best and we scale the sprites down and add more.
This will give you more men and a 1:1 ratio
but only graphicly.

But in the end if we had to go with the present
setup, we would have to call it
something like
"Napoleon's Greatest Skirmishes" or
"Great Skirmishes of the 18 century"

I'm not sure about that.

My position on this is try it before you knock it.

I have not tried it yet so I shall reserve my
opinion till then.I want it to work
and hope it will.

I have been told for example that cannons in bif's
will never work nor catch on.
Yet I know of a hundred or so people
that use ours and are happier it exist's
rather than not.
That's 99 or so more than I accounted for.

I know it's not perfect but it was never suposed to be.
Just like the rest of the things we do.

Anyway thanks for your interset and comments.
It is an important issue for us and we do
consider your point view.

Keep them comming.

Thanks.
Regards,

LK

[Lord Krazy]

Hi guy's
I'm going away for a week.
Good news for me
Bad news for you.

I will not have time to update the site
with the latest downloads.

This is due to the bandwidth problem
as I have non untill tomorrow and I won't
be here.

V1.7 will made available on my return.

The other Lords will be still
holding the fort so I want you to hassel them
alot while I'm away.

Thanks regards

LK

btw no point in complaining
I'm not here.

[LeBob]

Hi everybody,

Below is a new web site dedicated to the Napoleonic Mod that the lords have been working on. This wite is in constant construction and will be updated quite a few time so bookmark it and go to see it often.

Lord Le Bob

http://napoleontotalwar.tripod.com/

A plus

[Efrem Da King]

If this is a sucsess we should go commercial.