Question about Military Technologies

[Quillan]

Here's what I've observed in battles before and after I had the Platoon Firing tech:

With just the Rank Firing tech, rank 1 fires en masse and then kneels, when rank 2 fires a volley and then kneels, followed by rank 3 firing a volley and kneeling, at which point all three ranks are reloading. Rank 4 does not fire, only the first 3 do. Even though this is better than before I had the Rank Firing tech, when the entire first 3 ranks would fire as one followed by a long reloading period, there's still a period where the unit is not firing because all shooters are reloading.

With Platoon Firing, behavior is a little different. It's worth noting that I typically deploy my line infantry in 3 ranks so that they all can fire. It looks to me as if about 1/4 of each of the three ranks fires a time, so I see some shots from area A, then some from area B, etc. The result is the unit never stops firing. They do not have the same concentration of fire they did with Fire By Rank, but the shots are constant and they seem to cause more casualties as a result. Perhaps that's because targets aren't doubled up nearly as much.

[antisocialmunky]

I would think that it would disrupt the enemy formation more because they are continually shifting men forward to replace the constant stream of losses rather than all happening at once. Then there's always the issue of fire at rank encountering a bad angle.

[Barkhorn1x]

Platoon firing is indeed for "elite" units only and looks wicked cool. ***


***...yet another reason to research it ASAP.

[JeromeBaker]

I forget the name of the tech, but has anyone got an opionion of the tech that lets you advance and still fire?

[Quillan]

My opinion: it sucks. The toggle is apparently not for that unit, but for the entire army. If I pick one unit and turn F&A on, all my line infantry units stop whatever they were doing (including shooting) and proceed to pick up with the rank fire and advance in whatever direction they were going, no matter if they have a target in range or not. It's a waste of ammo and costs you control.

[antisocialmunky]

It really should be you move your unit, half the unit advances, the other half doesn't move and covers the first half. When the first half is out of range, the second half moves up. Long distance movement is accomplished by leapfrogging. You can turn it off for your men to move faster. Really you can do it yourself. If you have the patience :-p The only thing that really adds anything is fire-by-rank.