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.

[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...

[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.