Cover?

[Vealer]

Hi

Can anyone explain the benefit of taking cover behind a wall on the map?

I fought a large battle as Prussia defends against Swedes VH/VH. We both had large stacks of mainly line infantry. I lined up mine taking cover behind a nice long solid wall in the line of their advance.

However once the swedes got in range they let rip in massive volleys firing by rank, and my troops seems to just take the odd pot shot over the wall, whilst the ones not shooting mostly well, died..

Questions

1) How is cover worth it then? what am I doing wrong? I have never had such a clear case before to try out the relative benefits, seems not much in a head on fight as you dont fire by rank and cant lay down enough fire

2) is there a benefit in just standing behind the wall? (instead of slecting the cover option) Like partial cover? that could work as you can fire by rank/platoon - generaly actually do something

V

[Razor1952]

IMHO taking cover is of great benefit for your line infantry, but it also helps stop charges by cavalry and melee troops I think. I prefer to use those solid fences for cover over taking a building( an getting blown apart by artillery.

Standing behind the fence without cover still seems to break up the cavalry charge.

[Didz]

Can anyone explain the benefit of taking cover behind a wall on the map?
The trick I found was to use the cover without becoming attached to it.

The observation you make is perfectly accurate. If you allow you men to cower behind the wall, they will do exactly that. They will cower behind the wall and hardly ever pop their head over to fire at the enemy, they also seem to be reluctant to reload after firing. So, any benefit you gain from the wall is lost by the fact that your men become little more that targets in a shooting galley.

The other big disadvantage I found was that using the wall to cower behind forces you to use a standard 'lets all hide behind this wall' formation which is not always the best formation for the unit involved.

My preferred approach now is to form my troops behind the wall, without actually attaching them to it. This allows them to use their full firepower potential (e.g. Volley fire, Platoon Fire, etc.) whilst still gaining some protection from enemy fire which will still hit the wall in front of them.

It has the added advantage that if the enemy try to charge into close combat, they actually have to climb over the wall to get to you. Not too much of a problem for infantry, but cavalry can get themselves in a terrible mess trying to jump and fight at the same time.

One word of caution however, be careful about the placement of artillery in this position. You either need to make sure the gun muzzles actually protrude through the wall, or make sure that they are far enough back from it that the trajectory of the shot will clear the top. If not then at best you will be firing into the wall and never hit the enemy, and at worst you can actually destroy your own gun with an exploding shell (I've actually managed to do this with a bale of hay, too, so beware of deploying artillery in hay fields). Cannister fire will lose some of its effect when fired from behind a wall, but not enough to notice.

The only troops I actually attach to the wall now are melee troops who are being used in a defensive or 'speed block' strategy. They can't fire back anyway, so hiding them behind the wall tends to preserve their lives longer.

[FactionHeir]

Also, another downside of taking cover is that your units exhaust very quickly, even if not in combat. AI troops only exhaust when taking cover and in combat (shooting or otherwise), which is rather unfair.

[Prussian to the Iron]

i did not knoe there was a "take cover" button. i always just formed up y guys behind the wall; works fine for me unless the enemy is on a hill above me.......

thanks for the arty tip; ill definitely use it.

[Oaty]

Another problem is the wall gets negated if their is a lot of cover for the enemy to use. Seems walls don't have as good of a benefit as trees and shrubs do.

Another thing I occasionally do is to put my firing range so that I can shoot slightly past the wall so As they are climbing over the wall they make very nice targets. When you are doing this against melee infantry the benefit is twofold as I always get off 2 really good volleys instead of 1 before being charged.

[antisocialmunky]

Instead of taking cover behind walls, line your men up so the walls are about half way within your troops range. That way to kinda get wall cover without the cowering bug and the AI troops have to jump the wall to get into melee(which it loves to do).

[Marquis of Roland]

I hate it when my light infantry bunches up on a wall (when the wall is perpendicular to the formation). I think this only happens when light infantry behavior is on.