JaM
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Posts posted by JaM
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it would be great if actual visibility range was close to reality - usually, first thing spotted were sails on the horizon.. right now, ship just pops out.. would be cool to actually sometimes be unable to spot them due to sun or clouds.. but definitely, visibility range should be slightly longer than horizon distance.
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mostly because there is already a 7 years war game (even though graphically not very appealing).. plus, i think Napoleonic tactics were a bit more advanced than middle 18.century linear tactics..
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i'd like to see chat window integrated with the rest of the UI.. as im most of the time fighting to find a good possition for it, where it doesnt obscure anything important..
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fully agree, ships should have their own names (give ability to players to name own ships if they want..), while you could also show the ship class. I see no problem showing all frigates as "Frigates" as identification should be another skill that needs to be learned by players.. it would also make some fights more interesting, because you wont be able to quickly acess enemy power by looking at what ships he has and decide what you do... instead,let say you will see he has several frigates, but wont know for sure if those are light 9pdr frigates or heavier 18pdr variants, or even 24pdr superfrigate... same with Ships of the Line.. you would measure the power of enemy by ship count, not by knowing exactly what force he has... this would give much more variability in battles making them more unpredictable and fun.
Identification was one of the hugest things in age of sail period, traders often painted their ships with military colors, painting gun ports to confuse possible attacker.. i think it would be great if this aspect was also present in the game... so technically, it wouldnt be a bad idea instead of ship type, show its rate...
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what i would like to see - compass present when you open the Map, ability to measure your possition every day at midday (a marker on the map) due to sextant.
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i'm a quite new to the game, so i chose PvE server. Personally, im more singleplayer type of gamer, so it was obvious choce for me.. PvP feels a bit strange, as everybody aims for biggest ship he can get, so eventually, there are fleets full of Victory or Santissimas around which feel very unrealistic considering how rare those ships were in reality... (British Navy at its peak had like 10 First Rates in service..) I like sailing, do occasional mission, but will most likely switch to trading and exploring when time comes..
Overall, i feel like experience given should be adjusted more based on ship type.. If you sail Ship of the Line, you should not get any points from firing at Frigates or unrated ships... In reality, there was an unwritten rule that those ships were not fired at unless they fired first.. Frigates in naval battles had functions of signaling vessels, or to pass the orders to other ships in the battle line..
Also one thing that bugs me are the ship model names used.. Personally i would preffer if those ships were called by their type instead of the model name. Also would be probably more motivational if certain ships were only available from certain nations.. So Santissima only for Spanish, Constitution from US etc..
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It gets much better later on... Season 3 is especially great, with big storm in the first episode (better than the one in Master and Commander...),while last episode of Season 3 is like a dream come true... with large land and sea battle, with Blackbeard leading a fleet of pirates against British ships...
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definitely Napoleonic wars, because it gives more role to cavalry, makes battles more about maneuver than pure firepower..
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Another British admiral worth mentioning is winner of Quiberon bay - Admiral Edward Hawke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hawke,_1st_Baron_Hawke
batle of Quiberon bay was one of those crazy battles near the shore in bad weather, with some ships even sinking because they tried to open lower gun ports..
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Admiral George Anson (1697-1762)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Anson,_1st_Baron_Anson
he was practically a mastermind behind British rise to power in the middle of 18.century..
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I think you have missed Anson... there would be no Nelson without Anson.. his reforms allowed Britain to become dominant power. plus he was quite a good admiral as well.
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use battle sails, minimize the pressure made by sails on masts..
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wasn't chainshot rarelly used? i read somewhere that chain links could damage the gun barrel during movement out.. instead, ships used bar shots with fixed rod between halfshots, so there was no chance of link getting between barrel and the shot.
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you know what amuses me? that there are so many contradicting studies being made, one downplays artillery effects, another musket lethality, bayonets, cavalry... but then if you take them all seriously, what exactly caused all those dead? they didnt died of the old age... Norm during Napoleonic times was around 2000-3000 musket rounds fired for a single casualty, yet average musket couldnt fire more than 40-50 rounds without malfunction, while average ammo load was around 25 rounds (60 for British)...
Statistics are made from innacurate numbers. We dont have real numbers, they are just extrapolated from incomplete info. like the assumption of 10-15% casualty rate for artillery during Napoleonic times because of data published by Frech hospitals, where about 10-15% of wounded were due to artillery - such assumption doesnt take into consideration that being hit by a solid shot would most likely kill you, while even if you are "lucky" and it just takes your leg, you had pretty low chance surviving the following operation...
same is true for bayonets.. It its nature, bayonet was technically very dangerous weapon - soldiers didnt used armor, so were practically defenseless against it, while you actually didnt had to thrust it hard into enemy, as even thrusts with relatively low energy had high chance to get deep into human torso and cause lethal wounds. Yet, bayonet fights were extremely rare, (french in the same report, reported 3% wounded by bayonet). Why is that? it actually has more to do with the psychical aspect of close combat than anything else.. amount of psychical stress soldier was facing equipped with a weapon that can kill enemy but gives you no protection against enemy doing the same to you was just way too much for majority of men... instead of following thorugh with bayonets into close combat, one side (with lower morale) just withdrawn from the fight before contact.. majority of bayonet use was when one side chased down the retreating enemy, while soldiers could stab enemy in the back without fear of being stabbed by somebody..
but lets get back to artillery. As all weapons, its effectivity depends on many aspects, and in some cases, if something is not right, results will be flawed. Using direct fire artillery against broken terrain would greatly reduce its effects on target, smoke on the battlefield would eliminate any advantage guns could get from rifling, inexperienced officers unable to realize potential of their weapons... etc etc etc.. these are factors that could greatly impact the effectivity of artillery in particular battle and it was not that uncommon to get totally different results with some adjustments to employed tactics. Like with the Seramont battery at Friedland who refused to use its battery statically, and instead he "charged" the enemy with first example of overwatch fire tactics that is something used today with tank units (one unit is stationary and covers another unit moving with their fire). At Friedland he managed to literally wipe out several Russian regiments completely, causing incredible carnage, yet there are plenty of examples of poor use of artillery which fired hundreds of projectiles and achieved nothing...
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no i was refering more to the fact that European battles of the same era were a lot more decisive, battles were not of inconclusive line agaisnt line shootouts where commanders soon lost the control of the unit. Instead, Prussians set the base for the modern infantry fighting in open order, something Napoleonic Light Infantry was predating but was unable to use it as a main doctrine due to insuficient firepower of muzzle loaded muskets.
As i said, im no expert on ACW, but in Napoleonic times, aritllery created in average about 10-15% casualties, but it greatly depends on particular use in battle (Check battle of Friedland or Borodino, where artillery were actually a main killers) Musketry was always random for plethora of reasons, actual weapon innacuracy practically didnt played any significant role.. more important was the fact that majority of men didnt even aimed their weapons at enemy, or fired into couds of smoke blindly... advantage of rifles during Napoleonic times was minimal during large scale battles because of the same reasons... once battlefield is obscured, actual point accuracy goes out of window. add stress, lack of training, poor command and control, and you end up with completely random musket fire. What actually changed the battlefield was smokeless powder, open "skirmish" order and actual proper command and control for infantry, which was used by Prussians and later Germans in WW1.
and about case shot, it really doesnt matter if bullet is made of steel,iron or lead. human body is soft, armor was not in use.. question is how much different it would be from minie hit, and how easily could medical examiner identify the entry wound to be able to say what was caused by minie bullet and what was caused by case shot bullet. Especially when these statistics were made shortly after battle with hundreds of wounded and dieing men being moved to field hospitals. Were there any medical examinations made on dead bodies? Data from Napoleonic times were made only from wounded, not from dead (there was no time to examine dead and make statistics of it)
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please dont go there.. dont change the course of discussion by marking me as some religionist. I have stated im no expert on Civil War, i have specialized myself on Napoleonic warfare, and i mentioned the fact of common misidentification of battlefield wounds, because it was common during Napoleonic times. if you want to discard any possibility of such, and want to completely believe those data, im fine with it. It is your choice. I just find quite interesting that CW produced completely different results than wars waged in Europe of the same Era, with similar/same technology. (French vs Prussians, Austrians vs Prussians etc)
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yet still, you didnt replied on the fact i was mentioning Shrapnell bullets to be hard to identify and easy to confuse with the musket wounds.. similarly in Napoleonic times, canister bullets were also causing wounds very hard to distinguish from musket wounds. statistics during Napoleonic times were based on medical records made by surgeons in the field, who determined the wound by sight.
So, yes, you can clearly tell what is wound caused by solid shot or shells, but it would be impossible to tell a casualty made from musket fire to a casualty caused by Shrapnell round (the one which explodes in the air and kills target with a cloud of bullets) or canister...
the only way how to identify those would be after operation with bullet removed, but medical statistics were usually made from data given by medical examiner, who filtered wounded with a chance to survive and those who couldnt survive the operation. (at least that was a practice set up by Napoleonic surgeons)
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Also, i think more ammo types should be added, for example, there is no shrapnell round in the game, which was the main anti-infantry round at medium range. I think it would be not that bad to remove ammo selection from player and let the battery itself to decide what to use based on target, terrain and distance. Battery itself would then chose based on type of guns in the battery what ammo it will use.
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definitely Napoleonic battle, or preferably entire campaign... like.. having command during Italian campaign of 1796, orAustrerlitz campaign or similar.
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I was not talking about solid shot or shell wounds. those are definitely quite distinctive. But about Shrapnell wounds. these contained multiple small lead balls and were quite undistinguishable from musket balls unless removed from wound. (shrapnell balls were round, musket ball werent.)
and btw, quite interesting essay about this topic can be found here:
http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/cwarmy.html
btw, i dont claim to have some ultimate knowledge about Civil war, it is not my area of expertize, so far i have focused myself more on Napoleonic era or 18.century. Anyway a lot of things are quite similar, Artillery was underestimated in those times as well, yet again, canister casualty effect was also greatly overlooked back then,as again, medical sources didnt differentiated musket wounds from canister wounds, and counted them towards musket casualties..
Despite all this, many historians still believe that artillery wasn't important during the war. Casualties caused by artillery fire were negligible - or so they say. A frequently cited example is the Wilderness, where artillery was said to account for only about 6% of all casualties. Paddy Griffith points out that many casualties attributed to small arms fire may in fact have been caused by artillery, specifically by the small round balls in Shrapnel rounds. Griffith suggests that the percentage of casualties caused by artillery in this battle were probably in proportion to the percentage of artillerymen in the armies. Because of the terrain, this battle, and this result, represent an extreme case. Lee knew that he was deficient in artillery, and he fought in the Wilderness in order to negate the Union advantage. The relative ineffectiveness of artillery in this battle is clearly an aberration. Chancellorsville was also fought in the Wilderness. In this battle, perhaps only the Confederate guns at Hazel Grove allowed Lee to capture Fairview Heights and defeat the Union army. Look at Spotsylvania a year later, also fought in the Wilderness. The massive Union attack on the Mule Shoe broke through because Lee had withdrawn his artillery the night before. Several days later, a Union attack on the base of the salient failed quickly and decisively due to Confederate artillery fire. And we must remember that most ground was NOT as unfavorable as the Wilderness. Take a look at Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg and the importance of artillery is obvious. Clearly artillery was important or army commanders wouldn't have eagerly added to their stocks of guns up until the last year of the war. In fact, Paddy Griffith suggests that in some battles, artillery accounted for 20 to 50% of casualties. Those who over-estimate the advantages of the rifled musket say that it threatened to make the artilleryman obsolete, but perhaps the opposite was more true. Although many historians do not stress this point, or even acknowledge it, advances in the artillery arm had made Napoleonic combined arms tactics difficult to impossible.
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This makes sense, historically. But from a game "meta" point of view, would be dangerous to ignore...
depends on damage model.. Frigates had no real chance to damage SoL in direct fight. Only heavy Frigates with 24pdr guns could have some change, but definitely not light ones with 12pdr or 18pdr as main armament. At the other side, 32pdr guns from main battery would be quite lethal to much thinner hulls of standard frigate..
but of course, it all depends on what your enemy does.. If he uses Frigates agressively against you, its his loss... it would be justifiable if its several Frigates against single SoL, but definitely not for use in battle line.. even old 4.rate SoLs were not sufficient to play that role once 74's became standard...
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When two fleets of mixed SoLs and frigates are approaching each other, the frigates are the main targets because the SoL's are too far away to hurt each other. Unless one fleet has decided to target masts.
in reality, SoL's captains never engaged frigates, but concentrated on other's SoL's. They only targeted frigates if they fired at them first. Practically, no Frigate could survive for long against heavy broadside from SoL.. those 32pdrs were quite effective...
Frigates were usually kept in reserve, used as signaling ships, or used in late stages to hunt down damaged SoL's that tried to get out from fight.
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i think you can simplify it to some degree.. practically all you need are some dark/black holes to the hull, as that would be the only thing visible anyway.. something like this worked quite well for damage model in Empire Total War mod i was working on, and ships looked quite well especially when damaged, instead of original unrealistic damage boxes...
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David Fair: regarding aritllery casualties - medical records are a bit flawed, because artillery also used shrapnell and canisters, while for a doctor these wounds were similar to musket wounds therefore were not counted as caused by artillery. (doctor would not know what caused them until bullet is removed). so 10% is casualties caused by solid shots and percusion grenades, but not for all aritllery projectiles used.
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Increase view distance (again?)
in Current Feature Improvement Suggestions
Posted
actually thats not a bad idea - make map smaller (scale down) so visibility would still represent realistic range, then you could even give normal speed to ships in open world, but keep time compressed for faster pace... (it really looks strange sailing at 18-20knots...)