Screenies

[PBI]

Maybe they just haven't gotten around to doing the formation commands yet?

Although, in all TW games so far there has been a tradeoff between increasing the width of a unit to maximise its firepower, and increasing its depth to make it more robust. I don't see why this can't be the same in Empire, the differences are more just stark but the tradeoff is the same.

[Furious Mental]

Well a developer said in TWC: 'Just they way they're deployed. Square is ingame, and line and column are just a matter of unit depth and width'

The way I interpret that comment is that there is no specific column or line formation. Frankly I find that quite disappointing because I very much doubt that they will have programmed a deeper formation to have many of the advantages of a dense column, to whit:
- It is very reassuring to be in a big group;
- It moves and manouevres much faster;
- It gets much more momentum behind it when charging;
- It is scary to have it charge at you;

[PBI]

Well a developer said in TWC: 'Just they way they're deployed. Square is ingame, and line and column are just a matter of unit depth and width'

The way I interpret that comment is that there is no specific column or line formation. Frankly I find that quite disappointing because I very much doubt that they will have programmed a deeper formation to have many of the advantages of a dense column, to whit:
- It is very reassuring to be in a big group;
- It moves and manouevres much faster;
- It gets much more momentum behind it when charging;
- It is scary to have it charge at you;

I don't see why they wouldn't do this, it seems to me it would be easy enough to program a unit to have all these advantages (+morale, +charge bonus etc) when the formation is more than a certain number of men deep.

I'd be very surprised if a deep formation conferred no special advantages, it has in previous titles.

[Intrepid Sidekick]

I'm amazed that people think that they can tell what units are going to be capable of from a still shot. This is a relatively old shot of the game.

FYI There are intrinsic combat benefits to having units in different formation widths and depths. Those benefits alter according to the training of your units. As in our previous games we have different combat adjustments according to unit density and depths etc

An basic example of an intrinsic gameplay benefit is: A thin line provides greater fire power than a column. But a column is more useful for attacking a line unit in melee etc. There are a number of other gameplay effects but I'm not going to go in to those here.

[BeeSting]

I'm amazed that people think that they can tell what units are going to be capable of from a still shot. This is a relatively old shot of the game.

FYI There are intrinsic combat benefits to having units in different formation widths and depths. Those benefits alter according to the training of your units. As in our previous games we have different combat adjustments according to unit density and depths etc

An basic example of an intrinsic gameplay benefit is: A thin line provides greater fire power than a column. But a column is more useful for attacking a line unit in melee etc. There are a number of other gameplay effects but I'm not going to go in to those here.

18th century european war was about firepower and blasting away the opponent, and best to achieve that per regiment was linear formation, a long line of two to four ranks deep. 90 percent of wounds at this time were from musket shots. your alluding to the benefit of depth of formation suggests to me that CA is still implementing RTW and MTW melee combat mechanics.... my suggestion: make things simple and limit formations to 2-4 lines deep for a unit/regiment, which i'm sure the AI will have much easier time applying.

If one desires added benefit of deeper ranks it should be of stacking said line units and not stretching a single unit to 4 plus ranks deep, for units behind it boost morale and confidence as having a back up, not unlike the mechanics applied by Sid Meier's civil war games.

[Furious Mental]

Actually that would not make much sense because movement and manouevres were frequently done in a column, and in the latter part of the century the attack column came into use. Also it would ignore the fact that everywhere else in the world plenty of people were still fighting with medieval weapons. Also it would totally constrain modding scenarios based on earlier periods. We should have the discretion to make deep columns (without having to commit a quarter of our infantry to one) or thin lines, provided they each offer worthwhile advantages.

But I think we'd all like to see some screenshots showing some lines and the effect of a volley too!

[BeeSting]

Actually that would not make much sense because movement and manouevres were frequently done in a column, and in the latter part of the century the attack column came into use. Also it would ignore the fact that everywhere else in the world plenty of people were still fighting with medieval weapons. Also it would totally constrain modding scenarios based on earlier periods. We should have the discretion to make deep columns (without having to commit a quarter of our infantry to one) or thin lines, provided they each offer worthwhile advantages.

But I think we'd all like to see some screenshots showing some lines and the effect of a volley too!

Good point. but movement and maneuvers are hardly represented in tw games because from the start of a battle, you have already set your units in line of battle.

And about deep columns, i'm mainly concerned with the AI not taking advantage of the revolution in fire power of 2-4 rank lines. I believe it's all in the modifiable scripting for battle formation so i didn't mean for it to be hard coded.

i think we are having a constructive discussion here so let's keep it going.

[Csargo]

Happy Birthday BeeSting!!!

[BeeSting]

Wow! Thank you, Ichigo.... can't believe i'm 35 already and have been playing Total War games for almost 8 years.

[Jolt]

An basic example of an intrinsic gameplay benefit is: A thin line provides greater fire power than a column. But a column is more useful for attacking a line unit in melee etc. There are a number of other gameplay effects but I'm not going to go in to those here.

Ah, much like the great wedge formation in RTW, except that it did nothing.