The tactical gameplay balance in the demo

[Oleander Ardens]

As I'm sadly not able to play the demo (away from home) I wonder how balanced/historical the various unit types are in the demo. I tried to pick up questions not yet asked in other threads.

a) Light infantry: How well do they skirmish? How well do they in a firefight against line units? How fast are they compared to line units? How do the muskets and the rifles of the light units differ?

b) Line infantry: How well do they stand up to cavalry? How powerful(fast, accurate) is their musketfire? How strong their bayonett attack and defense? How fast are they compared to the rest?

c) Light Horse: Is it able to break line units head on? From the flanks and from the rear? How speedy is it compared to the heavier horse

e) Artillery: Is the artillery reasonably easy to deploy? How do round and canister/grape shot perform against horse and infantry? How accurate are they in the counter-battery role?

General question: Is fatigue pronounced? Is the speed "right"? Is the morale "right"?

Thanks
OA

[Sir Beane]

As I'm sadly not able to play the demo (away from home) I wonder how balanced/historical the various unit types are in the demo. I tried to pick up questions not yet asked in other threads.

a) Light infantry: How well do they skirmish? How well do they in a firefight against line units? How fast are they compared to line units? How do the muskets and the rifles of the light units differ?

b) Line infantry: How well do they stand up to cavalry? How powerful(fast, accurate) is their musketfire? How strong their bayonett attack and defense? How fast are they compared to the rest?

c) Light Horse: Is it able to break line units head on? From the flanks and from the rear? How speedy is it compared to the heavier horse

e) Artillery: Is the artillery reasonably easy to deploy? How do round and canister/grape shot perform against horse and infantry? How accurate are they in the counter-battery role?

General question: Is fatigue pronounced? Is the speed "right"? Is the morale "right"?

Thanks
OA

The following post is written from the perspective of SP balance rather than MP.

a) Skirmishers can beat Line Infantry if they get a good position and are allowed to use their increased range to get a volley or two off. They lose to Line infantry in hand to hand however, and will lose in a protracted firefight.

b) Line infantry do very well against cavalry. Musket fire is about as powerful as you would expect. From close range it can kill a lot of people, from further away it isnt as effective. Musket fire will probably be what kills most people in a battle, rather than melee. Melee is strong but not as strong as it used to be in Med 2. They move at a reasonable speed, perhaps a tad too fast.

c) Light horse will not break a unit head on. Rear charges and flank charges are more difficult to pull of given that units can shoot back, but they will break enemy morale. Unless the neemy form a square, in which case they are much less effective. Light horse are very, very, very quick. Indeed all horses are. They probably need slowing down somewhat for the actual game.

d) Artillery is easy and pianless to use and deploy. Canister is devastating at close range and not so much at distance. Roundshot is powerful but not overpowered. Artillery is to be respected, but an army of nothing but cannon would quickly lose. They are reasonably accurate in a counter-battery role although that is hard to judge given that the demo pitches 2 units of 6 pound horse cannon against much heavier American 24 pounders.

Fatigue is not pronounced. Speed is more or less right for infantry, cavalry are too fast. Morale seems to be spot on.

Hope this helps.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

A) I don't have the numbers off-hand, but light infantry have slightly better range and accuracy than line infantry. The skirmish feature is interesting - units in skirmish mode will fall back to avoid melee combat. I've used that to cut up an AI unit once, felt very clever. Unfortunately, they don't spread out naturally, so they're best used deployed in one lone row.

They might be a little faster or have higher stamina, but they will lose in a head-to-head with line infantry. What you might get away with doing is firing a volley before the line can (due to better range) and I high-tail it out of combat.

Units specifically with rifles (the Riflemen the US have in the demo) have very noticeably better range, but reload more slowly. Hand-to-hand, the riflemen are inferior to line infantry.

b) It might be hard to judge line infantry because they are a "baseline". One on one, a direct cavalry charge is not likely to beat a prepared line. They'll most likely get off a round and (with the ring bayonet) can beat off the survivors. The speed and accuracy of the musket fire is mostly based off of what quality of line infantry (regular versus Guard, for instance) and upgrades (platoon fire upgrade is much better than the standard first line volley).

C) We don't see truly light horse in the demo. There are only dragoons and hussars, which I think are "medium/heavy" and the general's bodyguard which is heavy but vulnerable. Dragoons are lighter than hussars and will gain on hussars speed-wise. Flanking charges are more effective than straight on, and targeting already engaged infantry can be pretty effective.

d) Artillery can be a little tricky to deploy - particularly horse artillery which have a large "footprint" and are thus susceptible to counter-battery fire. Round shot usually kills 2/3 in a unit when it hits, and it can bounce leading to hits on multiple units. Grapeshot requires the target to basically be in musket range. At the edge of its range, it will hit 2/3 people; closer than that and it'll tear big holes in a line unit. Counterbattery fire with roundshot is a mixed bag; pitting two batteries against each other will lead to losses on both sides, but usually the bigger batter (foot arty has more cannons than horse arty) wins.

Fatigue is there. If you aren't running your units around a lot, you generally don't notice it. However, routing units that have been running for a while move almost in slow motion (if they are "exhausted"). The speed feels right to me - though that may be a factor of the battlefield simply being bigger and more interesting. Morale feels right as well. Line units trading fire generally don't break unless outgunned badly, while flanking a unit or melee breaks morale much more quickly.

That's my take on your questions, anyway.

[DisruptorX]

The following post is written from the perspective of SP balance rather than MP.

a) Skirmishers can beat Line Infantry if they get a good position and are allowed to use their increased range to get a volley or two off. They lose to Line infantry in hand to hand however, and will lose in a protracted firefight.

b) Line infantry do very well against cavalry. Musket fire is about as powerful as you would expect. From close range it can kill a lot of people, from further away it isnt as effective. Musket fire will probably be what kills most people in a battle, rather than melee. Melee is strong but not as strong as it used to be in Med 2. They move at a reasonable speed, perhaps a tad too fast.

c) Light horse will not break a unit head on. Rear charges and flank charges are more difficult to pull of given that units can shoot back, but they will break enemy morale. Unless the neemy form a square, in which case they are much less effective. Light horse are very, very, very quick. Indeed all horses are. They probably need slowing down somewhat for the actual game.

d) Artillery is easy and pianless to use and deploy. Canister is devastating at close range and not so much at distance. Roundshot is powerful but not overpowered. Artillery is to be respected, but an army of nothing but cannon would quickly lose. They are reasonably accurate in a counter-battery role although that is hard to judge given that the demo pitches 2 units of 6 pound horse cannon against much heavier American 24 pounders.

Fatigue is not pronounced. Speed is more or less right for infantry, cavalry are too fast. Morale seems to be spot on.

Hope this helps.

Those are my thoughts, too.

I used my skirmishers to get close and destroy the American artillery, which couldn't fire back effectively because they were on a slope. In a fight with regulars, skirmishers will obviously lose, but I definitely found them useful.

Horses that do a frontal charge will cause some damage, but will ultimately be broken. I agree that infantry speed is spot on (one of my worries was that infantry would move at RTW speeds) and that horses are slightly too fast (zoom in and you can see them running in fast forward).

Balance, from the demo, seems really good. We just have to see how the AI reacts in a non-scripted scenario.

[Fisherking]

Has anyone noticed any tech advances beyond bayonets in the demo?

Platoon fire? Advancing fire? Units with other special abilities?

I have only been able to load land battle twice and didn’t look them over as well as I should have at the time.

[Sir Beane]

Has anyone noticed any tech advances beyond bayonets in the demo?

Platoon fire? Advancing fire? Units with other special abilities?

I have only been able to load land battle twice and didn’t look them over as well as I should have at the time.

These are present if you mod the demo. The only non-modded tech advancement I noticed was that the British are using ring or socket bayonets while some of the American troops seem to be using plug bayonets.

[Oleander Ardens]

Thanks for the kind replies.

Great news, especially on the infantry speed...

a) Did you try a shootout between skirmishers with muskets and rifles? I read that skirmishers can deploy stakes - when, how fast and how large are those things. Screenshots are very welcome

b) Can you deploy skirmishers in a loose, open formation? This would enable them as in history to engage artillery and line infantry with fewer casualities.

c) So Horse artillery has a large footprint (or horseprint) but how fast is it compared to the infantry and other cavalry? The light guns were often used in conjunction with cavalry to break isolated squares and for this task they would need some speed.

Thanks a lot
OA

BTW: Hussars should be fast light cavalry suited to irregular warfare...

[pdoyle007]

I found the horse artillery a little annoying with the 'limber' / 'unlimber' although this might have been my comp being slow and me basically clicking it two many times which cancelled the action and meant they sat there doing nothing.

HOWEVER, on the three times I've run the land battle each time I have engaged the US troops with line infantry (I had smaller numbers) held my own due to my troops being better and then moved the horse artillery into the flank and raked them with canister. Almost instant rout and your cavalry can easily mop up the troops once they're running. Won each battle losing around 400 men. Not ideal but just wanted to see each units capabilities.

The American artillery is powerful, although seems slower to load. I wait for them to fire then rush the cavalry in to skewer them while they can't fire back - thankfully the artillery aren't as heroic hand to hand as previous games and usually die without a prolonged fight.

[CBR]

Infantry run speed appears to be around 10% less than M2TW run speed. I'd prefer it was slower as missile range is so low now. Cavalry seems to be close to M2TW with both Hussars and Dragoons being fast cavalry and General unit and horse artillery having same speed (around 75% of fast cav)

Skirmishers did not have a loose formation in the demo.


CBR

[Strategy]

I've also seen the artillery behave strangely (unlimbering without orders). I'm playing this on a Core i7 rig, so it isn't just because your PC is slow.

To reply to the original post:

Light infantry can be a real pain, as they have longer ranges than the line infantry. This means that they can (in theory) stay right outside the line infantry's range and pepper them with shots. I don't feel the skirmish order works very well, though (I've never seen them automatically retire when attacked by enemy units... if this worked, it would be excellent).

Line infantry work as expected. It makes sense to deploy multiple lines (IMO) and have reserves. Combat is over-bloody, but that is to be expected in this kind of game. I haven't noticed whether the square formation works properly, but if it means the infantry will maintain formation instead of being knocked to pieces by the shock of the cavalry charge, then it should be excellent.

Melee combat is short and decisive. I can't say how good it is, since I've never allowed myself to enter an equal infantry melee. But off-hand, it feels about right. Melee always ends in one side or the other routing, which makes it a risky proposition that one only wants to do attempt if one has the upper hand and needs a quick resolution (enfilading the enemy position is a far less costly way of routing the enemy).

Cavalry are very deadly in melee, but are very vulnerable to musket and artillery fire. They can decide a battle, but an ill-timed (or stupid) charge will see them wiped out. You also don't want to send a single squadron (20 men) into battle with a single battalion (80 men) frontally as this is also likely to result in heavy losses if not outright defeat. Perfect, I think.

Hussars are light cavalry, btw.

Dragoons are mounted infantry - they can dismount. As expected they are not very strong in hand to hand and too few to form an effective firing line, but this is also very much as it should be. Their strength is their mobility (compared to infantry).

Artillery seems to be very vulnerable to other cannon when limbered and much less vulnerable unlimbered. This is also as it should be. They are effective (especially with cannister), whereas round shot will only result in small casaulties except at optimal ranges. This means that you can actually permit your infantry to stand in position while being peppered by artillery, just as happened in reality.

I am not impressed by the AI at all, but IMO the tactical gameplay balance with the units shown so far seems pretty perfect (as it should be). I'm still on the fence about the game, but I might be tempted to get it just for the multiplayer potential.

[Nelson]

I've had a good time with the demo.

Regarding light infantry, I used mine like Disruptorx did to harass the Yankee artillery. This it did well with gunfire although the LI did not shake out into skirmish line as well as I hoped. Perhaps the terrain was too constricted along the bluffs and stream bank. I need to melee more with the LI in game to see how they fare. Historically light infantry on both sides was strong with the bayonet and should be superior to line troops in general. The Brits and the Americans habitually used LI to storm enemy positions, often with unloaded muskets. Having no grenadiers, the Americans used LI for most of their shock assaults into fortifications.

The American guns are said to be 24 pounders. That is too heavy for field batteries. 12s were the largest guns used in the field. 6’s and lighter were most common during the War for Independence.

Batteries will fire through all sorts of intervening terrain and that I found disconcerting. The crews do look good serving the guns and the recoil is neat to watch. I dislike smoke trails on musket balls and artillery shots. (This is especially evident in naval battles)

Musketry is well done otherwise as is cavalry action.

Using grenades in the field is ahistoric but not so bad as to bother me much. The devs probably thought grenades would be too much fun to leave out.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I don't feel the skirmish order works very well, though (I've never seen them automatically retire when attacked by enemy units... if this worked, it would be excellent).

They don't withdraw under fire, they withdraw from melee (or just approaching enemy units in general) like the ranged units in the previous TW titles.

[Strategy]

They don't withdraw under fire, they withdraw from melee (or just approaching enemy units in general) like the ranged units in the previous TW titles.

Haven't seen that either... the American long rifles seem quite content to be charged by 2-3 times their number of line battalions. Unfortunate, since it probably means that LI will be killer for the player and pretty useless for the AI. If they implemented harassment fire properly, the balance would be perfect though.

[Vlad Tzepes]

I've noticed several complaints regarding the supposedly too high cavalry speed. Maybe somebody with some computer abilities coud check the figures in ETW, once released, but just from the demo it doesn't look quite so exagerated.

Think about it. Human average speed while running is around 20 km/h while a horse can gallop at around 50 km/h. To me it looks like cavalry charging 3 times faster than infantry in the demo, pretty reasonable. (on the other hand, maybe it's just me wanting faster cavalry, I remember losing my patience in MTW2 waiting for the Gothic kinghts to develop full momentum).

Let's see what happens during bad weather. Arty will get slowed down, I remember some preview saying. This should apply to everybody else on the field.

[Sir Beane]

I've noticed several complaints regarding the supposedly too high cavalry speed. Maybe somebody with some computer abilities coud check the figures in ETW, once released, but just from the demo it doesn't look quite so exagerated.

Think about it. Human average speed while running is around 20 km/h while a horse can gallop at around 50 km/h. To me it looks like cavalry charging 3 times faster than infantry in the demo, pretty reasonable. (on the other hand, maybe it's just me wanting faster cavalry, I remember losing my patience in MTW2 waiting for the Gothic kinghts to develop full momentum).

Let's see what happens during bad weather. Arty will get slowed down, I remember some preview saying. This should apply to everybody else on the field.

A horse could indeed travel that fast running at full speed. However cavalry seem to be able to run around at full tilt for ages without getting the slightest bit tired. A real horse would have died from exhaustion long before if it was forced to run about at that speed.

Also being on top of a galloping horse while in full battle gear would have been pretty damn uncomfortable.