Typical land battle

[Swoosh So]

What can we expect from a typical land battle in this era?

Move guns into range shoot mop up with cavalry or?

[Mithradates]

From what i have heard there will be certain strategic point son the map such as buildings. I imagine that these places will be centres for shooting matches and also for some bloody hand to hand combat.

[Freedom Onanist]

There should be plenty of flanking manoeuvres, feinting with cavalry to put your infantry in a disadvantageous formation vulnerable to ranged fire. Terrain should be central. Concentrating force on weak points. Light infantry to harass line infantry and hit officers/NCOs. Cavalry to threaten light infantry. Artillery concentrations. etc...

[Boyar Son]

we can obviously know almost exactly how it is with MTW2, it has cannons and guns.

[Furious Mental]

Not really. MTW 2 has no bayonets. The vast majority of soldiers are armoured and shielded. It has no buildings to garrison in field battles. The countermarch functions like... well it doesn't function. The guns are also quite unlike real smoothbore guns- they are only marginally more lethal than crossbows, the projectiles move at only 20- 80m per second (which means they can fire at enemies they can't actually see), and they are way too accurate at their maximum range.

[geala]

You should really read some descriptions about 18th c. battles. They were a lot more tactical than anything you could find in the medieval times. (In fact till now we fought 17-19th c. battles with TWs medieval units.) It was not a standing fight with dumb units shooting at each other till nobody was left on the field. Terrain, formations, marches, skirmishing, time, deployment of artillery and careful or ruthess use of cavalry were very important.

I only fear that the most important factor on the 18th c. battlefield, moral, will not be so easy to simulate in a TW system. Hopefully they change a lot to create a system which is more or less at least a bit similar to what actually happened. Otherwise it could really be shooting, charging, bajonet fight (took place very seldomly), rout.

[Ozzman1O1]

i hope you can bombard forts and hide in trenches,to make it a more interactive and specific game

[Boyar Son]

Nope.

think about it, other than bayonets how are land battles between ETW and MTW2 (gunpowder) different?

c'mon u and I know we can be nepoleon already thx to MTW2

[Ozzman1O1]

come on,im pretty sure after years of many things ca didnt do that we wanted them to do they will probebly give us diffrent was to attack forts,send a diplomat threaten them,assault them,and BOMBARD them,like in the last of the mohecians movie.

[CountArach]

Nope.

think about it, other than bayonets how are land battles between ETW and MTW2 (gunpowder) different?

c'mon u and I know we can be nepoleon already thx to MTW2

Battles were a lot more linear and larger scale.

[R'as al Ghul]

I only fear that the most important factor on the 18th c. battlefield, moral, will not be so easy to simulate in a TW system. Hopefully they change a lot to create a system which is more or less at least a bit similar to what actually happened. Otherwise it could really be shooting, charging, bajonet fight (took place very seldomly), rout.

Actually morale has been an important factor in MTW1 and STW. It's adequately simulated in those titles and plays a huge role in battles. But unfortunately, like other features, it has been dumbed down or left out in the newer titles like RTW and MTW2.

R'as

[Noir]

But unfortunately, like other features, it has been dumbed down or left out in the newer titles like RTW and MTW2.

Morale appears present in the newer games - its just not tuned in with the gameplay; its either very high (m2) or very low (rtw) on average it seems to me.

In addition, it needs to be tuned in with other factors in the game (presence of enemy & friendly numbers as well as the rate at which a unit loses) and it seems certainly not. Modifications for RTW made morale very high to prevent the chain routs and re-introduce the flanking element it seems to me, but in the process they lost the importance of match ups.

All those need lots of playtesting and balancing that CA apparently does probably in a rush or as to emphasise specific elements of the gameplay (as the cavalry charge) rather than ending up with a balance between units and unit types.

STW in fact has a gameplay for its "late" stages that is very close to 18th century warfare; in SWs that uses STW unit types there is the opening shootout/skirmish in trying to envelop the flank before commit the melee troops and and then proceed with the "doubling" of the rest of the opponents that is very close to what was happening in the 18th century battles.

Even the cavary may be said to have similarities: HC:cuirasiars, YC:Hussars, NC:lancers - only cavalry archers don't have a direct equivalent since infantry could outshoot cavalry at that era consistently.

The major difference is probably that the melee troops and the shooter troops are different; in ETW they will need to have all a dual nature, i guess.

NTW had an interesting array of unit abilities: "line" troops were able to just resist ineffectively cavalry, and flank/light infantry were cavalry killers.

The problem with NTW, and my concern for ETW, is that the AI can't handle hybrids at all (shooters&melee) and similarly can't handle shooter heavy armies. Since in ETW most units will be hybrids if not all, i cannot imagine how the game will work with the TW AI as we came to know it so far. I will be pleasantly surprised to find that the ETW AI is light years ahead its predecessors, but i doubt it.

[Furious Mental]

There were cavalry detailed to shoot at enemies, to picket an advancing enemy force or protect the flanks of a friendly one. But I can't imagine they ever tried to outshoot infantry. Really every cavalry squadron should have a few in it for that sort of skirmishing, but I doubt that will be the case.

[Noir]

Perfectly agree with you Furious Mental

Originally posted by Noir
...only cavalry archers don't have a direct equivalent since infantry could outshoot cavalry at that era consistently.

[Ozzman1O1]

i think cavalry will prove unuseful since they will just falter under gunfire,theres no point in them exept for morale

[Noir]

I doubt that Ozzman1O1 - gunfire has reloading times and in all probability will need co-ordination (all men in unit fire at the same time) to be really devastating.

If you notice, in previous games, leaving fire at will on will change the number of men reloading and fire per volley as men die out in a shoot out. This means that you'll have to micromanage and time the volleys to rout cavalry haed on.

More importantly - cavalry will (hopefully) play the vital role of harassing the flanks in trying to get space for encirclements. Heavy Cavalry will also (hopefully) perform flank charges on units that advance in order to capture a strategic location (say a hill).

A long line unit will need time to re-arrange itself, load aim and fire at a unit of cuirassiers that advances at gallop at their flank.

*edit* Tactics in the period were particularly rich - its the implementation though that will either bring the fact out or make the gameplay poor. The fact that naval battles are also designed at the same time, will naturally cut in resources available. IMO, that's a bad sign.

[Ozzman1O1]

true but considering advanced firepower and that a bayoneted group is like a phalanx,cavalry will be as useful as a barbarain skirmisher in rome total war.

[Noir]

true but considering advanced firepower and that a bayoneted group is like a phalanx,cavalry will be as useful as a barbarian skirmisher in rome total war.

it wins indeed - thanks for putting me back in my place!

[Ozzman1O1]

and a toast to that.....hooza!

[Lord Winter]

true but considering advanced firepower and that a bayoneted group is like a phalanx,cavalry will be as useful as a barbarain skirmisher in rome total war.

Fire power wasn't enough to completly stop calvary, it would slow it down and make the charge costly but you could still break thorough if the enemy persented a flank or was wavering. Calvery in this era was used more as a reserve, commited at the decisive point to break the enemy not to do the actually slugging out of the infantry.

[Sheogorath]

I imagine land battles will be mostly focused on a lot of shooting followed by charges to mop up, since thats what most people think combat in the era was like. IE: An archery duel with guns.
Cavalry will most likely be more important than it really was. I imagine it'll be kinda like MTW2, only slanted more towards infantry (IE: a frontal cavalry charge will kill MOST of the infantry in a unit), unless the infantry are in square formation or something.
I hope they dont make the square TOO strong, but considering how much its been mythologized as the ULTIMATE CAVALRY STOPPING WONDER FORMATION...but then, CA usually does a decent job of balancing things.

Im wondering if we'll be seeing melee infantry units outside of the 'primitive' people (IE: Everybody not in Europe or a European colony, durrhurr). I know that the Russian Empire issued halberds to its NCO's up until the early 1800's.
Wait...are those fantasy units that I smell?

[geala]

Cavalry were indeed very important. Much more important than in the late medieval time at least. They were no longer so important as in the Thirty Years War (where after 1640 many armies contained almost only cavalry), but still the weapon to win battles with. The importance of cavalry declined a bit in the Napoleonic wars.

A man with a musket and a bayonet is a formidable foe for a cavalryman (if he is not running away and has room to move). But a unit with muskets and bayonets is not so comfortable when faced by good cavalry. A bit to contrary belief but that is what soldiers from the time thought about it. A fight between infantry and cavalry is a battle of moral and nerves. Fire discipline was by far the most important thing. The speed of fire was not so important. To hold back the fire and give the cavalry a good volley at the right time was important. Then cavalry never could succeed. If the infantry fired to early or began to move a charge by a good cavalry would often break the infantry. Carrees were not such a great help then. Of course frequently not so good cavalry were on the fields.

Perhaps CA could put effort to timing and situations.

[Sheogorath]

Yes, but CA isnt so keen on morale and such. They like piles of corpses. Besides, it'd be boring to sit around watching your guys launching glorious cavalry charges only to kill ten guys and have the rest run away.

[Ozzman1O1]

Fire power wasn't enough to completly stop calvary, it would slow it down and make the charge costly but you could still break thorough if the enemy persented a flank or was wavering. Calvery in this era was used more as a reserve, commited at the decisive point to break the enemy not to do the actually slugging out of the infantry.

have you even heard about the battle of balaclava!?destroyer of hope!

[Trax]

have you even heard about the battle of balaclava!?destroyer of hope!

Have you even heard about the battle of Hohenfriedberg, where the Bayreuth Dragoons broke 20 batallions of Austrian infantry or about the battle of Eylau, where Murat's 11000 cavalry charged through the Russian centre?

[Ozzman1O1]

have you heard about the thin red lin when 80 british and french soldiers made a russian cavalry charge of 2000 falter!

[Trax]

80

???????????????????

[Sheogorath]

have you heard about the thin red lin when 80 british and french soldiers made a russian cavalry charge of 2000 falter!

You mean the Thin Red Line, where 2200 elite British troops against 400 Cossacks?

[Ozzman1O1]

i think i meant the charge of the light brigade actualy

[hoom]

Have you ever heard that of the 673 who started the charge, only 118 were killed & a further 127 wounded?

That means 428 survived the charge up the Valley of Death, the battle (heavily outnumbered) at the battery at the head of the valley & the withdrawal back down the valley.
Albeit they lost at least 478 horses, with only 195 soldiers still having horses after regrouping.