Not much talk about one of my most favorite new features: Cover!

The cover system is so awesome and really different from anything in previous total wars,

I've been having a blast on a lot of defensive battles, setting up extremely tight defensive zones based around stone walls. It's really effective but challenging, since you need to seriously guard the flanks of the guys in cover.

This one was lots of fun as Russia against the Crimean Khanate:

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...95583c12a6.jpg http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...a79540312d.jpg

I like it, but not being able (AFAIK) to stretch out a unit along cover is annoying.

Those massive infantry earthwork things you can build are great too, but only (I think) if you're defending.

cover is cool as is the defences u can build, the problem is that the ai reacts so poorly to it, ive seen my housemate slaughter armies which just stand there and do nothing cept die.

EDIT : i think they just need to adjust the AI's priorities

no 1. should be flank them
no 2. if they cant be flanked or a flanking attack is beaten off, try and draw them out, longer range infantry or even cannons or some form of horse gunner skirmishing (of course this depends on army makeup)
3. melee - no point having a shooting battle with someone sitting behind a wall. u will lose every time.


basically the ai just seems to get confused about which course of action to take when faced with units using cover.

I've noticed that one more than one occasion I've been behind a stone wall and only 1 troop in the unit will actually be firing. Other than the 1 the unit just sits there ducked behind the stone wall not firing. I haven't quite figured exactly why it behaves that way as of now.

Yeah, flank or get into melee asap if flanking is not an option.

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Originally Posted by Ardri

I've noticed that one more than one occasion I've been behind a stone wall and only 1 troop in the unit will actually be firing. Other than the 1 the unit just sits there ducked behind the stone wall not firing. I haven't quite figured exactly why it behaves that way as of now.

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Have you researched advanced shooting drills?

If not, then even if they are standing up, only the front rank will fire.

Yeah I have fire by rank researched, but on stone walls not even my front row has been shooting. I've had to pull my troops out from behind the stone wall on more than one occasion because they simply were not firing. I'll look at it some more today to see if maybe I'm going up against troops with greater range. Maybe I have been on the downhill slope and the computer troops firing down at me have a greater range and I just can't reach them.

I'm very early into things but when I did some fighting in RTI I had big units inside native-constructed buildings and it seemed as though they did nothing at all in spite of there being apparent windows to shoot out of. I thought I was setting up an impressive strongpoint whereas I was apparently just taking one of my units out of action.

I think I've noticed that behind cover units fire more quickly when not using guard mode, but I have been playing on VH which makes the computer troops look dominant as far as accuracy and reload speed so it is hard to tell. However, I can attest that my units die less quickly behind cover!

Yeah, the cover stuff is pretty damn cool.
Would be nice if they shot faster (having the guys behind doing reloading) or if you could drag them out thinner.

Does the cover feature only work when you are defending? And does the season make a difference? I seem to remember being attacked in Winter and not being able to dig any defences.

Yeah there's been battles where I'm pretty sure I was the defender, but I couldn't place any defences.

Is there any way to force which side of a wall a unit takes cover on?

It appears that each wall can only be manned on one side and I've been finding this aspect very annoying. I'ev even had a few walls where sections were different, so you end up with something like this if all units were taking cover.

.............................\/\/\/\/...............
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^^^^.^^^^.^^^^............^^^^....

It also means I rarely see a wall out in the field that I can make use of because it's usually the wrong way for what I need. For instance, there was a wall around a house which an enemy unit was occupying. I wanted my men to take cover behind the wall to shoot at the house, but they would only take cover on the house side of the wall.

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Originally Posted by Murmandamus

Is there any way to force which side of a wall a unit takes cover on?

It appears that each wall can only be manned on one side and I've been finding this aspect very annoying. I'ev even had a few walls where sections were different, so you end up with something like this if all units were taking cover.

.............................\/\/\/\/...............
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^^^^.^^^^.^^^^............^^^^....

It also means I rarely see a wall out in the field that I can make use of because it's usually the wrong way for what I need. For instance, there was a wall around a house which an enemy unit was occupying. I wanted my men to take cover behind the wall to shoot at the house, but they would only take cover on the house side of the wall.

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If you click and hold on the unit concered you can 'pull' them to the side you want

Units in cover behind a stone wall with canister shot cannon behind them is my new favourite defensive setup. The AI tends to go for the cannon and get really close to the cover sometimes, so it's even useful to put some infantry with the cannon in a second line. The guys in cover are pretty much completely safe from friendly fire. Cover is the new black (the new DFK?)!

It's been my experience that my units don't, or only very rarely return fire, when using a wall for cover. Forcing me to abandon them to actually kill enemies.

I didn't want to start my own thread, but am i the only one who thinks covers a bit broken? Surely it should be a lot harder to assault a unit behind a wall, or a fence, infact cavalry launching itself over a wall seems to do even better then one attacking a unit in a field? Surely defending a wall should make it very difficult for infantry or cavalry to assault over it?

It is indeed awesome,
I simply couldn't think of much to actually talk about it though.

Cover has started behaving crappy for me... More often than not units in cover won't fire at all. This is with fire by rank researched, maybe it has something to do with it...
I've also charged a unit in cover from behind several times with cavalry and lost a stupid amount of men in the charge. For example, a weak, decimated infantry unit in cover just took the charge in the back but the cav dies when they reach the wall or something. Very annoying and counter intuitive.

Cover is kinda buggy. :-\

But the defensive stuff is nice especially because normal towns don't have a town square anymore. I just fortified all the approaches to a garrisoned building with trenches and defeated a 1/2 stack of AI militia the 4 Line Infantry.

Hiding behind walls is actually a bad idea when facing melee units like buccaneers or Native Americans. First, the firepower of your units is lessened. Only the front row seems to fire. Some have said fire by ranks makes this better but it seems silly that I have to research that to get a decent RoF from my guys.

Second, cover doesn't really hinder charges much. In my experience, at least. If given a running start, units can jump straight over cover, right into your unit. This should result in a bayonet sandwich but it doesn't. Cavalry barely seem hindered in the initial charge. Once stopped, their horses can have issues getting over the walls but the impact is still quite hard. Infantry, who aren't as wall challenged, are worse.

So, you end up killing fewer enemies at range and then having little to no advantage in the ensuing melee. Since melee units can't shoot back, I'd rather just deploy my men normally, in longer lines, behind the walls. That way, they can give off one nasty volley before they have to melee and maybe some enemies get tangled up on the walls. The PITA is when you face the sometimes charge-happy light and line infantry. Never know if the AI will want to shoot it out, where cover is quite awesome, or charge, where cover doesn't help as much. Though I haven't tested them as extensively, all this also seems to apply to the deployable "trenches," which are really walls.

Now I, the player, would never charge my men in such a manner, it's a pointless waste of lives. There are better ways to assault such units. The AI, usually having plenty of men to waste and the tactical brilliance of Larry the Cable Guy, doesn't care. It seems strange that it works so well anyway.

Cover is bugged for me. Only 1 or 2 guys shoot while the rest scratch their balls. Also most of the time it feels like a deathtrap. Enemy cav just ROLLS right over the wall without pause whereas my cav stalls right in front of a wall and just gets annihilated by a coupla volleys. Also i find buildings buggy as well. Whenever the AI takes cover in the building i can barely hurt him even with 3 units shooting at him (okay makes sense, cool), then when i occupy the EXACT same building type AND being shot at from the same direction that i was shooting enemies before by a SINGLE unit, i steadily lose units and give back garbage return fire since only like 10 guys are shooting back. Now things like this really need to be addressed cuz most of the time i'm just forced to bullrush since cover and musketry ALWAYS work against me.

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Originally Posted by Warhammer3025

Cover is bugged for me. Only 1 or 2 guys shoot while the rest scratch their balls. Also most of the time it feels like a deathtrap. Enemy cav just ROLLS right over the wall without pause whereas my cav stalls right in front of a wall and just gets annihilated by a coupla volleys. Also i find buildings buggy as well. Whenever the AI takes cover in the building i can barely hurt him even with 3 units shooting at him (okay makes sense, cool), then when i occupy the EXACT same building type AND being shot at from the same direction that i was shooting enemies before by a SINGLE unit, i steadily lose units and give back garbage return fire since only like 10 guys are shooting back. Now things like this really need to be addressed cuz most of the time i'm just forced to bullrush since cover and musketry ALWAYS work against me.

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Yep same issue for me. Cover is an annoyance as it's something the AI gets to use and I don't.

There is the issue of cav charges. Cavs + hiding behind walls = death. Especially if you're caught between the wall and the horses. I've seen 1/2 of a unit die from that.

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Originally Posted by Warhammer3025

Cover is bugged for me. Only 1 or 2 guys shoot while the rest scratch their balls. Also most of the time it feels like a deathtrap. Enemy cav just ROLLS right over the wall without pause whereas my cav stalls right in front of a wall and just gets annihilated by a coupla volleys. Also i find buildings buggy as well. Whenever the AI takes cover in the building i can barely hurt him even with 3 units shooting at him (okay makes sense, cool), then when i occupy the EXACT same building type AND being shot at from the same direction that i was shooting enemies before by a SINGLE unit, i steadily lose units and give back garbage return fire since only like 10 guys are shooting back. Now things like this really need to be addressed cuz most of the time i'm just forced to bullrush since cover and musketry ALWAYS work against me.

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Just placing your units behind walls gives them some useful cover , without having to actually deploy right along it {ie without having to use the specific feature , like what you do in the tutorial behind those log piles} .
This allows your unit to use its' full firepower potential {unless the enemy is closer to the wall than you , in which case the greater advantage goes to them} .

Any bugging of the feature must be intermittant and/or specific to certain conditions because it worked pretty much "as advertised" for me last night .
Try just standing them behind {and close to} a wall in custom battles to see if that works for you .

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Originally Posted by knoddy

cover is cool as is the defences u can build, the problem is that the ai reacts so poorly to it, ive seen my housemate slaughter armies which just stand there and do nothing cept die.

EDIT : i think they just need to adjust the AI's priorities

no 1. should be flank them
no 2. if they cant be flanked or a flanking attack is beaten off, try and draw them out, longer range infantry or even cannons or some form of horse gunner skirmishing (of course this depends on army makeup)
3. melee - no point having a shooting battle with someone sitting behind a wall. u will lose every time.


basically the ai just seems to get confused about which course of action to take when faced with units using cover.

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In my games (VH/VH) the AI does 1 and 3 quite consistently, never saw it just stand there and die tbh.
As for 2, I dont ythink the AI has been in a position to do so yet; my armies are typically quite artillery heavy, so trying to outshoot me would be a bad choice. Which it didnt make.

The way I do it is position my units a little further behind cover, so that they shoot the enemy when they try to climb over those walls. I also always have some grenadiers to smoke out any enemy units trying to hide behind those walls :)

It works perfectly, as the eney is temporarily slowed when they climb over walls, I get at least 6 volleys (2 times all three ranks) before they return fire. I get at least 2 volleys if that is a cavalry unit comming.

All on VH/H

Yes I found also my units ducked behind the wall without firing. For the cavalry charge I saw, instead, that fences are a more hard obstacle, with many, sometimes half, of the horses refusing the first jump. A line at twenty paces of a rail, holding fire till the Cavalry is jumping has a good chance to stop cold the charge

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Originally Posted by quadalpha

Those massive infantry earthwork things you can build are great too, but only (I think) if you're defending.

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yeah, defending - but there must be other conditions as well - I have only seen it once so far :help: