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John the Gamer

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How is the attack range of a unit calculated? Because I armed one of my infantry brigades with Fayetteville rifles (very expensive), which have an 'effective range' of 400 fires just as far as a unit armed with M1842 muskets (250 range), yet a skirmisher unit armed with Whitworth (TS) rifles (600 effective range) has over triple the range.

Just look at the screenshot; the fayetteville should be able to shoot a lot further away, yet it's range indicator only covers the bridge. The Whitworth sharpshooters cover more than twice that distance, reaching over halfway down the fence.

What is going on here? Is the range of infantry brigades hardcoded? Or is the range indicator line just wrong? Or am I just being an idiot who can't accurately judge the distance between two lines (though they really don't fire further than other infantry brigades)? 

 

BTW: I lost the entire unit of fayetteville armed infantry in the battle wherein I noticed this (really painfull loss, that), so I couldn't get a screenshot. So I started a new game and cheated a little to get enough of them in an early game battle (1st Bull Run) so I could make the screenshots.

EDIT: I added a third picture (I forgot one) that shows the range of an infantry unit armed with Mississippi rifles. You can see that the rang indicator is the same as the one on the Fayetteville rifle infantr, even though the Mississippi has a shorter range (about 100 less I think).Mississippi Rifle.jpg

Fayetteville.jpg

Whitworth (TS).jpg

Edited by John the Gamer
Adding an additional picture for clarification
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good question, but I think you should be somewhat happier in this case, while you may not be exploiting the full range of your guns, you have made it so the enemy must cross to come to your and with your better weapons you will inflict more casualties towards them... although then again you can still do the same either way. i'm sure darth is working on a way to resolve this issue, as it's probably just a bug. hell it could be like that based on the historical battle units, which cover the same range. 

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The range for infantry brigades is normalized for game play reasons. In early beta brigades could have widely different ranges and it was frustrating defending a hill while being blasted off it by longer range elite infantry and being unable to respond really, forcing you to come down the hill. It made fortifications useless and caused all kinds of problems.

What you get instead, is that better range rifle will lead to more casualties caused out longer ranges.

Skirmishers and cavalry can have different firing ranges depending on their weapon though and even detached skirmishers will utilize the greater range of various weapons.

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34 minutes ago, Koro said:

"The range for infantry brigades is normalized for game play reasons. (...)"

I suppose that makes sense and answer my question, but that doesn't mean I like it.

Could we possibly have the maximum range linked to the skill level of the troop? Something like - This musket has an effective range of 340 yards, but your guys are shit, so they can only hit things about 200 yards away?

Because I don't like the idea that if I just equipped my MOST ELITE infantry with INCREDIBLY expensive rifles I have to tell them to only shoot at point-blank range because it wouldn't be fair to the yankee jerks respectable opponent on the other side.

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It would go both ways then too, right? So confederate elite infantry would shoot back at you from much greater range than you can shoot back. It was possible to achieve almost cannon like ranges to your guns. It also allows elite infantry to sit in the back and comfortable shoot at any incoming attacks and get thousands of kills without ever even exposing them remotely to danger. while using some poor sods as fodder.

Even small differences in range would make the game near unplayable. It didn't show much at first but imagine you have 60 different brigades at Antietam and they ALL have different ranges, and the enemy does too. How can you keep something that even looks like a battleline then? You can't really. 

I remember at 2nd Bull Run when I ended up defending as Union on the hills, I had twice the army but half of mine was completely useless in defense since the rebs had almost twice the range.

You never know what kind of range enemy troops will engage at, and any defensive posiiton you hold is virtually useless as enemies can just outrange you.

It's not viable, even if it's disliked :).

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In fact the normalization makes great to have a  historical feeling....this is XIX century, you do not stop a full brigade to allow his first lines to make low effectivity shots from long range to the enemy, thats skirmishers' job (so is right skirmishers range do depend on weapon)

Edited by JJPettigrew
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It actually makes a lot of sense to normalize these ranges.. after all it was not about individual rifle or musket, but about entire unit. and in history, it was quite common to blast away at much greater distances than the accurate range was.. for example in Nappy times, it was quite common to start firing when enemy was 200 yards away while muskets were only accurate to about 50-70m...

Civil War was still fought with black powder weapons, therefore gunpowder smoke was quite obscuring for any long range accurate fire.. it was smokeless powder that changed things in favour of accuracy.

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/15/2016 at 2:46 AM, Koro said:

The range for infantry brigades is normalized for game play reasons. In early beta brigades could have widely different ranges and it was frustrating defending a hill while being blasted off it by longer range elite infantry and being unable to respond really, forcing you to come down the hill. It made fortifications useless and caused all kinds of problems.

What you get instead, is that better range rifle will lead to more casualties caused out longer ranges.

Skirmishers and cavalry can have different firing ranges depending on their weapon though and even detached skirmishers will utilize the greater range of various weapons.

OK, this makes sense. It explains why I keep getting kills out beyond the range indicator of infantry brigades. 

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  • 1 month later...

It is yet another near game breaking bug that makes getting anything with a longer range useless. The only stat that matters is reload time. Battle lines were irregular because of the range disparities and units with longer range guns did destroy units with crappier guns forcing them into suicidal charges. It isn't like homogenizing the ranges made fortifications useful. I never use them anyways as a unit in heavy forest in line formation is far more effective and protected then a unit behind the walls of a fort.

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