The Artillery and Infantry firing problem...

[fallendown]

I for one would prefer to see artillery and infantry not firing at enemy troops in close proximity to friendly troops. Let's be realistic here, Civil War Artillery was a direct fire weapon. Firing it at enemy troops with friendly troops in close proximity is inherently dangerous. At Chancellorsville for instance, Union artillery couldn't fire when it could have made a difference because friendly troops hadn't cleared their field of fire. In this game, both artillery and infantry can fire into a mixed mass of infantry and somehow not hit friendly troops at all. I've seen Artillery emplaced behind an infantry brigade fire canister through their own infantry and hit the enemy infantry without causing so much as one friendly casualty. Commanders in this game should be forced, as in real life, to emplace their artillery where it will do the most damage to the enemy and the least damage to friendly troops. Likewise, as in real life, artillery and infantry shouldn't take actions that would also cause friendly casualties. 

[guidon101]

While I agree about the Friendly Fire issue basically breaking game balance and immersion, I just wanted to get clarification on Infantry FF.

From my experience and testing, non-Artillery ranged units will not fire at a non-routing enemy unit engaged in melee. If I tell them to do so, they will run up to engage in melee.

Sometimes infantry looks like they can fire into a mess of troops engaged in melee, but that is only because one of those units have "routed" or "disengaged" from melee. But either way, it does look like there is no friendly fire casualties from this from what I can tell either.

However, when I have a unit behind another unit that the enemy is firing upon (just bullets, not cannon fire), I noticed that the unit behind sometimes gets hit by "stray bullets"... do you know if we suffer from friendly "stray bullets" too? I never noticed it, so suspect not.

 

On the other hand, if they add friendly fire to artillery, which can currently fire into a mosh pit of troops engaged in melee, I'd lose an ability to effectively succeed in a direct frontal charge to break the strong and deep enemy formations even when heavily outnumbered ;p (artillery close behind charging melee infantry simply muscle their way through any defensive line; melee + canister - friendly fire = gamey win, with minimal casualties to yourself)

In Take Command or Scourge of War, which has very similar battle mechanics as this game, they implemented friendly fire, and while it makes artillery so much more annoying to deploy properly (you'd have to create gaps in your line or clear fields of fire, etc.), it definitely feels more realistic with friendly fire (melee + canister + friendly fire = OUCH, pyrrhic win at best).

[Lincolns Mullet]

Good points from both sides. I think the biggest concern would be how the AI would deal with all of the placement restrictions and still use their artillery effectively. Currently its easy for them because arty can be placed anywhere and fire anywhere as long as the target is in range.

This is definitely a classic case of realism vs playability and how to find the right balance. Too much realism and it becomes frustrating, requiring micromanagement of all artillery units. This would especially be apparent in large engagements.

And yes the way melee is handled now, it would make it too easy to use overwhelming force to rush positions if arty couldnt fire on engaged enemy brigades. And how close to the enemy would friendly units need to be before your arty decided to hold fire? Would arty need clea LoS between it and its target before firing? Ie, arty couldn't fire "through" friendly units to hit a target in the distancd. Lots of things to consider if this change was made. It can be done, but what is the gameplay benefit and is it worth the time and effort to change?

[fallendown]

I've been calling into question LoS in this game anyways. Civil War Artillery could only fire at what it could see, as in true line of sight. However, I've routinely been able to sit my artillery on the reverse slope of a ridge and hit an enemy on the opposite slope as if there were no elevation between us. 

 

[fallendown]

Secondly the AI of the artillery can easily be set to make sure no friendly units impeded it's line of fire. It's makes the Artillery pretty over powered to allow it to just blast away with impunity. Also how long would it take you to figure out that the reason your artillery isn't firing is because your unit is blocking it's line of fire? Think about it. You're attacking an infantry position that has an artillery unit directly behind it. That artillery can fire it's canister rounds directly through the defending infantry and hit your attacking infantry without causing any damage to the defending infantry in front of it, and get this, your attacking infantry can't attack the guns because they're behind the infantry......do you get what I'm saying. The simplest thing to do is have the artillery cease fire, or shift fire to a different target when friendly troops are in it's line of sight, or do what TW does and just risk taking friendly fire casualties....

[Grognard_JC]

@ Fallendown

 

Though I would first completely agree on what you're suggesting, I, in a second time came to an opposite conclusion : Darth knows about it. He knows about the failed LoS and he knows about the canister shooting through melee without friendly fire.

1) About LoS : he knew it would not look realistic, and that it could make artillery overpowered. Therefore he chose to turn down the impact of long range artillery.

2) About the canister : he knew it could not look realist, but the situation that would happen on the field IRL, is that the enemy is charging straight at an infantry among which there's a full battery of artillery standing. You have to take huge casualties. Think about it. The other way around, if you cant shoot canister in the melee, you are making the game way easier for charge-blobers, as they will use charge wherever they can to NULLIFY artillerye, making jump-up tactics pay... This would be very poor.

 

All in all, this is more about making the game smoother to play. Less micro-management, more "in-depth" thinking, real choices, not just mass-click starcraft thing.

 

@ Darth :

Don't forget to send me the 20 bucks

Edited December 1, 2016 by Grognard_JC

[akd]

As has been pointed out, if I can put my artillery wherever without really thinking about it, then this in fact removes tactical depth from the game.  You don't really have to think about where to put your artillery to gain advantage in field of fire versus risk of being attacked directly if LOS and friendly fire is totally meaningless.  It removes artillery tactics from the game.

The infantry friendly fire / LOS issue is somewhat less troublesome as it is logical that adjacent units would be able to offer support even if the entire unit did not charge into melee.  Plus you are rewarding good tactics, not bad tactics.

Edited December 2, 2016 by akd

[fallendown]

Part of being an effective commander is proper emplacement of all your forces, including artillery. Guns operating without infantry protection were easy prey to infantry attack. This has been proven countless times throughout history. If the enemy commander doesn't place infantry to protect his guns then that's his fault. At Gettysburg, Armistead's brigade actually pushed back the Union troops and they captured some artillery, but they couldn't turn the guns before the Union counter-attacked. So the enemy charging through infantry and taking guns is far more realistic than canister firing completely through friendly infantry to attack enemy infantry. 

[Butch]

I completely agree with fallendown. I understand that there's a fine line between immersion/realism and gameplay but this game is actually marketed as a 'simulator'. Positioning artillery is way too easy right now. 

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

I do not mind micromanaging Artillery, and if contour lines were introduced as they were in UG Gettysburg I think it would be easier.  

[Koro]

I suspect one of the reasons why artillery is rather easy to manage is the endless complaints from ugg where people couldn't get their artillery to shoot because they couldn't place their artillery correctly. 

Another part we have to remember is that the brigades we see on the field are representative. It means they don't necessarily occupy the exact space shown f.x. so if there's artillery behind, there might be a gap in the line to shoot through. If that helps to justify it anyway

[Lincolns Mullet]

It's definitely a gameplay vs. realism issue that the devs could never win regardless of the direction they choose.  In general I think it's better to lean towards playability than realism, especially if realism ends up frustrating more people than it satisfies.  I know for some players the realism is the juice, so I get it. lol  But as it stands now the game is completely playable with how artillery works in the context of the game, even if it doesn't look or behave quite right compared to their real life counterparts.

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

4 hours ago, Koro said:

I suspect one of the reasons why artillery is rather easy to manage is the endless complaints from ugg where people couldn't get their artillery to shoot because they couldn't place their artillery correctly. 

Yeah I wish people did not complain about that mechanic because artillery was my favorite part of UGG.   If my arty wasn't shooting it was because it did not have Line of Sight, so I would move it.  

 

Now, this game has made it so that if you assign a battery a target it will move so that it can fire upon it.  Which is neat so long as you remember not to let it track across the entire map on its own (LOL) and you have a reasonable expectation for where that battery will likely end up.   

 

I think the devs were just a little bit too reactionary in light of the complaints about artillery from the first game.  Making it so that arty will move to find LoS is smart, but making it so friendly fire does not exist or at least having units block arty line of sight I think was going a bit too far.  

[GeneralPITA]

On 11/30/2016 at 0:24 PM, guidon101 said:

(artillery close behind charging melee infantry simply muscle their way through any defensive line; melee + canister - friendly fire = gamey win, with minimal casualties to yourself)

Agreed, and same goes if you follow with cavalry. Canister shot is deadly. Without friendly fire, it's a little overpowered. 

Friendly casualties would ruin this game, but I wouldn't mind if artillery reduced the morale of friendly troops. 

[Commander_Rahl]

I think that you should be able to fully capture enemy guns, and add them as part of your force, if you successfully route a group of artillery.  Would be historically accurate.   

[Alavaria]

32 minutes ago, Commander_Rahl said:

I think that you should be able to fully capture enemy guns, and add them as part of your force, if you successfully route a group of artillery.  Would be historically accurate.   

Sadly to capture these you need to actually capture the routers.

 

Because apparently they can run at top speed with their guns, and after that, even rally and continue using them....

[Nath33killer]

On 03/12/2016 at 5:23 AM, Koro said:

I suspect one of the reasons why artillery is rather easy to manage is the endless complaints from ugg where people couldn't get their artillery to shoot because they couldn't place their artillery correctly. 

Another part we have to remember is that the brigades we see on the field are representative. It means they don't necessarily occupy the exact space shown f.x. so if there's artillery behind, there might be a gap in the line to shoot through. If that helps to justify it anyway

It's not only artillery it's also infantry and then your argument does'nt fit any more, because infantry don't shoot in curves, they fire directly and it's very unrealistic to see your or enemie's soldiers shoot through their friendly troops in melee or firing themselves... this really has to be changed. Come on I don't understand you friendly fire would just force you not to do bull shit with your troops some people are just too stupid... I makes me sad when they say "we sacrifize realism to gameplay" BUT DO YOU UNDERSTAND GAMEPLAY WOULD BE BETTER ? 

[Nath33killer]

The best would be to forbid infantry shots through friendly troops, it means even if you ask them to do so they won't do it, but in some cases like if you fire on an enemy and there is a friendly unit behind, lost balls would kill some soldiers... but that wouldn't happen if you really concentrate your on a unit without taking any risks. Artillery could fire balls in curves from behind your troops but not cannister.

[Koro]

2 hours ago, Nath33killer said:

It's not only artillery it's also infantry and then your argument does'nt fit any more, because infantry don't shoot in curves, they fire directly and it's very unrealistic to see your or enemie's soldiers shoot through their friendly troops in melee or firing themselves... this really has to be changed. Come on I don't understand you friendly fire would just force you not to do bull shit with your troops some people are just too stupid... I makes me sad when they say "we sacrifize realism to gameplay" BUT DO YOU UNDERSTAND GAMEPLAY WOULD BE BETTER ? 

I don't see how the gameplay would be better if a slight movement of your troops behind another would then cause thousands of friendly kills, perhaps without even the players noticing. You'd easily end up in situations where the AI or the player kills more of his own troops than the enemy does. It's not a micro management game where you can easily avoid brigades either getting in to each other or in front or behind each other. There would be a million situations where players would get frustrated that friendly fire is happening. If I really try thinking about it, it would make the game near unplayable.. you can't have artillery anywhere in your rear without microing hold fire. Say they shoot in one direction when they leave and then the enemy shows up and the artillery turn and shoot right in to your own men. How would you prevent that? You'd have to monitor the exact position of everything on the battlefield at once.

Usually I don't respond to people who's caps lock button seems to be stuck btw.. there's no need to "yell".

[Wright29]

Gameplay would not be better with this. Realism would be better. But we are playing a game that is already challenging enough. Once multi-player rolls around, you will see people abuse the hell out of melee charges, even with the current system in place. If friendly units weren't able to "assist", then why would any enemy stay in close range while taking fire from every single one of your units when they can just charge? Players would just melee, melee. melee. And THAT would not be realistic and in-line with the Civil War tactics. 

From a gameplay perspective, melee has the purpose of breaking units that are wavering, dislodging lone brigades and skirmishers, attacking artillery blobs (a big problem in UGG), and breaking fortifications. For the purpose of infantry melee, it is right where it needs to be in terms of balance. Always go for good gameplay over realism. If I want realism, I'll put on my Union uniform and go to Gettysburg on July 1. 

[Lincolns Mullet]

The only way true LoS would work is if this game was designed using the Combat Mission engine and every bullet and every piece of canister shrapnel were modeled. 

Nath's argument to "forbid infantry shots through friendly troops" isn't as simple as it sounds.  What if only a small fraction of a friendly brigade is blocking your entire 1800 man brigade from firing?  Should they still not fire even if visually it looks like they can?"

Games aren't designed simply with ideas, if only it were that easy!  Entire design documents are created for how a unit moves, let alone how firing behaves.  I drew up a basic example in the attached image.  This doesn't even factor in friendly units, trees, elevation, etc.

With the blocking building, how many of the 1800 CSA soldiers have line of sight and can fire on the 800 man union brigade?  Does 55% of your men fire, while the others don't?  Which 55%?  There's some men on the far right that have line of sight and their attack would trigger a flanking penalty on the enemy unit.  Since only 30 men on that side fired their weapons, how much of a morale hit does the Union brigade take?  You'd have to factor the # of guns fired on the Union brigade from the flank and how much that shot effects morale, while also factoring in the effect of the other men firing on the left side of the brigade who are not causing a flanking attack.

What if the union brigade is at a much lower elevation?  Let's pretend I have artillery directly behind my CSA brigade and they're on a hill firing down at the Union brigade.  At what angle would the artillery be able to fire "over" my troops without hitting them with canister fire? If my troops are affected by canister fire, does the game model how much of the shrapnel hits a % of my troops?  Or does my brigade take max canister fire damage even if the canister fire is only touching 5% of my entire 1800 man brigade?  Visually it would look like it's barely hitting my brigade, but my brigade would take losses as if it were directly fired on them.  The amount of calculations required to do this in real time with 100k men all fighting at once would probably cripple a super computer.

And similar to what Koro said, the movement/pathfinding in the game is not accurate enough to have satisfactory control over friendly fire situations.  More often than not, your troops would either be subjected to heavy friendly fire and/or they'd stand around not shooting because 10 friendly soldiers are blocking the shot of your 1800 man brigade because if the 1800 man brigade fires, those 10 friendly soldiers would die.

The gameplay as it stands simplifies all of the above situations in a way to make it playable and enjoyable, in my opinion.  Could certain aspects be improved upon?  Sure, but I think friendly fire with infantry or artillery is a dead-end topic in regards to UGCW.

 

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

good discussion here and explanation for why LoS works the way it does in this game.  Very good insight 

[fallendown]

15 hours ago, Lincolns Mullet said:

The only way true LoS would work is if this game was designed using the Combat Mission engine and every bullet and every piece of canister shrapnel were modeled. 

Nath's argument to "forbid infantry shots through friendly troops" isn't as simple as it sounds.  What if only a small fraction of a friendly brigade is blocking your entire 1800 man brigade from firing?  Should they still not fire even if visually it looks like they can?"

Games aren't designed simply with ideas, if only it were that easy!  Entire design documents are created for how a unit moves, let alone how firing behaves.  I drew up a basic example in the attached image.  This doesn't even factor in friendly units, trees, elevation, etc.

With the blocking building, how many of the 1800 CSA soldiers have line of sight and can fire on the 800 man union brigade?  Does 55% of your men fire, while the others don't?  Which 55%?  There's some men on the far right that have line of sight and their attack would trigger a flanking penalty on the enemy unit.  Since only 30 men on that side fired their weapons, how much of a morale hit does the Union brigade take?  You'd have to factor the # of guns fired on the Union brigade from the flank and how much that shot effects morale, while also factoring in the effect of the other men firing on the left side of the brigade who are not causing a flanking attack.

What if the union brigade is at a much lower elevation?  Let's pretend I have artillery directly behind my CSA brigade and they're on a hill firing down at the Union brigade.  At what angle would the artillery be able to fire "over" my troops without hitting them with canister fire? If my troops are affected by canister fire, does the game model how much of the shrapnel hits a % of my troops?  Or does my brigade take max canister fire damage even if the canister fire is only touching 5% of my entire 1800 man brigade?  Visually it would look like it's barely hitting my brigade, but my brigade would take losses as if it were directly fired on them.  The amount of calculations required to do this in real time with 100k men all fighting at once would probably cripple a super computer.

And similar to what Koro said, the movement/pathfinding in the game is not accurate enough to have satisfactory control over friendly fire situations.  More often than not, your troops would either be subjected to heavy friendly fire and/or they'd stand around not shooting because 10 friendly soldiers are blocking the shot of your 1800 man brigade because if the 1800 man brigade fires, those 10 friendly soldiers would die.

The gameplay as it stands simplifies all of the above situations in a way to make it playable and enjoyable, in my opinion.  Could certain aspects be improved upon?  Sure, but I think friendly fire with infantry or artillery is a dead-end topic in regards to UGCW.

 

 

 

 

3

The easiest way in your example would be to simply halve the damage of the attacking unit or apply the defensive modifier afforded by the building as an equivalent attacking penalty. The logic behind this is that while the CSA Brigade is receiving a defensive bonus from the building they should also be suffering the same bonus as a penalty if they were to fire on the Union Brigade because a portion of their troops aren't able to bring their weapons to bear...As for flanking fire, I believe it's drastically over-represented in this game. For instance, the effectiveness of flanking fire degrades with distance because of the smaller target represented. Infantry firearms while having ranges of 600m didn't matter, the typical infantryman on both sides could barely be asked to hit a man sized target at more than 100 - 150m. This is not only an effect of training but also once you've fired 3 or 4 volleys you can no longer even see what you're firing at because of the smoke from massed black powder musketry, making accurate fire even at 50m impossible unless there was a breeze. In fact, towards the end of the war, the trend was to fight in skirmish order, with the main battle line simply reinforcing the skirmish line...

Edited January 10, 2017 by fallendown

[Nath33killer]

Of course it would be simple, yes, a few friendly soldiers retreating would forbid fire... that's only realism, you just have to put your troops correctly and have a clear vision on the enemy. As for buildings, they should forbid fire as well, there is no difficult point here, firing is fast and effective enough, nerfing it like that would not be serious in the game. And it would be the same for AI. As for artillery, it should be more effective, have a limited curve range that means below a certain distance it couldn't shoot through friendly troops or buildings, and cannister should be used directly. I agree with you that friendly fire allowed would make players slaughter their own units, but if you apply what I propose, there would be no problem. And If an enemy troop is facing an other like in lincoln's draw, and only few of your units are blocked by a building, then the entire unit shouldn't fire, it's as simple as that.