JaM

British Navy in 1805 had in total 7x 1-rate ships of the line with 100+guns, 15x 2-rates with 90-98guns, 90x 3-rates with 64-80guns (huge majority of those were 74gun SoLs) At the same time, French Navy in 1805 had 3x 118gun SoL, 2x 110gun SoL,3x 80gun SoL, 25x 74gun SoL and 8x 54-64gun SoL.

I will be the one that goes against the stream, but i would say in-game saves are not that important, and will make game much easier because player would eliminate random things happening to him (losing a mast,or ship blowing up for example ) by simply saving a lot...

Regarding Rockets - British used Rockets during Napoleonic wars...they bombarded ports with them, firing rockets from small gunboats (it was a way too big fire hazard to fire them from normal ships)

my only worry about UG:AR is the new "focus" system, where you only control units you have with your commander.. Because people like to play the game, not the game to play itself without player interference

Dont buy cannons through the store.. buy them through the cannon mounting interface. Because in store, you might buy guns that cannot be fitted on your ship, while in cannon interface you only see cannons you can actually mount... and FYI, dont buy 7 rates... they are worthless and only useable as fireships.. focus on 6-rates or preferably 5-rates as soon as possible... Its better to have single 5-rate than 5 7-rates when you have to face enemy 5-rate... In game, there are certain ship type "barriers" you need to overcome.. 5-rate is the first barrier.. you cant effectively defeat it without own 5-rate... you can do it with few 6-rates, but it will be tough fight, and you might lose a ship, which means you lose money.. Second barrier is 4-rate Razee.. these are very tough opponents, due to their armament.. 5-rates will struggle to take them down, especially when you want to capture them afterwards.. Their broadside is way too strong, especially from close range due to those 32pdr carronades... Third one is 3-rate Ship of the Line... and against these, you really want to have at least a Razee and few 5-rates to fight them effectively.. Razee in particular is quite good against them from close range, because those carronades have 2x higher rate of fire than long 32pdr guns they carry, while at close range, they can penetrate SoLs armor just fine. Once you have access to own Ships of the Line, game becomes much easier..

Right now, Dragoons seems to be quite weak in melee and charge. While they are not really a shock cavalry, they still should be semi-dangerous to skirmishers.. In my recent battle (Savanah), my 75 dragoons were routed when they charged 35 skirmishers... in melee they took 2-3 losses per single killed enemy up to the point they routed and ran away.. so i would say best thing about them is that player dont have ability to recruit them, as they would be quite a waste of money..

At this point, Land Artillery makes land battles practically unplayable.. its causing way too high casualties to the point, its absolute suicide sending units forwards when there are few artillery units in the vicinity... Units take 25% casualties from first few shots, smaller units are shattered in one or two hits (detaching skirmishers is pointless, you just lose men faster) I just tried to play Corsica mission, and its quite a nonsense with enemy artillery on top of hills murdering anything that gets close, while being invisible... mass charge only results in massive casualties... even my light infantry units which are supposed to be in loose order and hidden in trees are taking ridiculous amount of casualties from a solid shot? its makes no sense at all, as to kill multiple people, you would need to hit them all with single roundshot.. but in loose order, that chance is absolutely minimal, and Light infantry should take minimal casualties... after all, their main purpose was to supress such units from open order... Artillery needs to get its effectivity tonned down a LOT... as it is, it makes late land battles practically unplayable.

Dragoons, which were actually implemented are not really heavy cavalry in that time period.. British Dragoons during American war for Independence were Light Dragoons, light cavalry force not very effective in charges, and mostly used as mobile skirmishers.. But they should be quite effective at mopping up routing enemy due to their speed, and relative ease of sabering down retreating men.. Overall, i think what is currently missing in Land Combat is overall army morale.. game depends way too much on actual kill ratios instead of morale..It needs to be possible to break enemy fighting spirit so it will rout and wont continue fighting. Large majority of AWI engagements were quite small skirmishes with not that high casualty rates.. My suggestion would be - make morale recovery slower, increase morale drop from musket fire, and artillery fire, especially for flank attacks. At the same time, there needs to be a global morale check, so if majority of army is routed, battle should be lost for player or AI. And of course, Artillery casualty rate needs to drop significantly.. right now, they wipe out entire units in few barrages..

Btw, isnt 18.century way too early for Gunnades? they were introduced in 1820, yet in game, they are available way too early in British campaign, making other guns practically pointless, as they cannot compete per weight or accuracy, while their deficiencies are not that important... If anything, these should be very late tech, and quite costly...

Overall, Land combat feels way too much about killing other men.. 18.century combat was not that lethal in reality.. During entire war of American Independence not that many people perished in combat, especially compared to later Napoleonic wars.. even larger battles were practically a mere skirmishes in comparation to standard battles in Europe.. Yet, in this game, amount of casualties seems to be excessive.. units tend to lose 50% strength quite commonly.. Whats particularly is missing in current land battles is the higher effect on morale, than casualties.. Delivering musket salvo should have higher morale dropping effect, even if amount of casualties dealt is not that high.. It should be more common to rout an enemy by delivering a salvos, instead of them fighting to (almost) last men.. At the same time, it looks like Artillery effect is vastly exaggerated, solid shots were not as effective as this game is making them to be.. after all, typical infantry formation was 3-rank line, so direct hit against a line formation would not deal more than 3 casualties (typically 1-3, not all hits would go through all ranks perfectly), so 2 guns should cause at most 2-6 kills per shot.. yet in AoS, you can wipe out units using artillery way too easily..

I just finished 4.6 mission with 3 light frigates/Corvettes, armed with carronades and gunades, sinking every single british ship that came on me (even two 5rates)... below waterline hull damage is way too easy to achieve...

Current game design choice around bayonets is quite unhistorical. Sword Bayonet was in no way anyhow superior to Socket, triangular bayonet, which was the most effective melee weapons of 18/19century.. Sword Bayonet was instead an attempt to provide a bayonet to units equipped with shorter weapons like for example Baker Rifle, so these light units would have some sort of melee capability. Yet in combat, these sword bayonets were nowhere near as effective as standard socket bayonets on muskets. One of problems was that they were more suitable for cutting than thrusting, while long blade was quite problematic and it was quite common to break in combat.. Socket Triangular bayonets were also dealing much more deadlier wounds due to shape, which created a deep wide hole in body, with immediate blood loss. So, in terms of game balance, all musket weapons should have either old socket bayonet available, while with research, new triangular version should be available. Sword bayonet should be predominantly linked with short muskets (Dragoon muskets) or short rifles (Baker rifle)

i find sinking ships way too easy... It kinda makes no sense to deal so much structural damage to a ship, when all guns are placed above water and usually aiming on enemy deck/hull.. Usually, large majority of shots would just hit the hull above water, and therefore not deal that huge problem for a ship to stay afloat... yet in this game, once "armor" is gone, ships go down very quickly... Personally, i think close range gunnery using solid shot should be predominantly dealing damage to armor/crew/guns, but not as much to waterline... (those guns were not supposed to be aimed like that) Damage to waterline should happen for longer range shots, which while aimed at hull, might hit slightly lower and penetrate at the waterline..

While number of crew is semi-important stat, i think there is something more important missing currently - and its number of guns.... It was number of guns that "defined" strength of a ship, and in combat, its quite important to know what you are actually facing... In reality, captains would refer to enemy ships in terms of how many guns they had, yet in UG:AoS, its practically impossible to tell how many guns enemy ship actually has.. there is no easy identification system implemented... I think it would be much better, if number of men was swapped for number of guns for naval battles. Instead, you could just add additional bar to Sail/Armor/Hull strength bars to show how many crew ship has... Personally, i think not showing crew numbers so openly would make game more interesting and unpredictable.. Because in reality, you would have no real idea how many sailors are actually on board anyway....

There is a simple rule for solid shot deflection - If Projectile diameter is larger than armor thickness, then shell will not bounce despite the angle, but instead will dug into armor.. so even if slope wont trigger the fuse, shell will dig into armor and explode (once fuse makes full contact with the armor) Same thing was the case for tank combat - Soviet 122mm APHE projectiles were supposedly on paper no able to penetrate 80mm face hardened armor sloped at 50 degrees (Panther front hull), yet in reality, these projectiles managed to do so even at quite extreme ranges... 80mm plate was just simply overmatched by 122mm projectile.... same thing applies for german 75mm shell penetrating T34 hull which was 45mm thick sloped at 60 degrees.

Skirmishers did not fire at longer range than ordinary infantry... Muskets had very similar ranges.. even ordinary musket could fire the same range as any specialized skirmisher weapon or rifle... One of big problems of that era was that commanding officers did not assess the situation and range of enemy properly and wasted their ammo at distances musket fire was ineffective... Similarly, soldiers in combat tend to shoot back at enemy who is firing at them, be it other Line infantry or some skirmishers hundreds of meters away... 18.century combat was not about musket barrages at 30m killing hundreds of men per salvo... it was about musket exchanges at ranges beyond accurate range.. after all, while musket has maximum accurate range against man sized target around 50-70m, accurate range against battalion size unit would be longer - average distance Line Infantry usually opened fire was around 200-250m... So, to make this a bit more realistic, ranges should stay the same for every musket or rifle, but actual accuracy should be more varied.. where muskets should be only effective around 75m against skirmishers (single men target), skirmishers should be able to deal casualties at much longer ranges (firing at battalion size target, not particular men). And of course, when line unit fires at other line unit, effective accurate range should be slightly higher due to size of units firing each other.. Oh, and in terms of pure musket vs rifle technology - muskets tended to have longer (maximum) range than rifles - rifling slowed the bullet down a bit, therefore muzzle speed was lower, where muskets without any rifling fired the bullet a lot faster.. Charleville musket for example had muzzle speed around 400m/s as it was using lighter bullet than Brown Bess or Baker Rifle... One of advantages of Charleville musket was its much flatter trajectory compared to other muskets...

still fighting to the last man.... never happened.. i have no problem with combat ships fighting hard, but unarmed trader? Personally, i think crew shock should give a much higher incentive to surrender than anything else for trade ships..

i had 3 ships nearby, 2x 6th rates with 28 and 30 guns, 1x brig with 18 guns.. each ship had 160-180 men on board... that trader originally had 40 men on board, hud icon flashed multiple times from "crew shock" , yet ship did not surrender even with just 1 man left.. Historically, trade ships would surrender after first shot hit the ship.. even warship crew would not fight to the last man...

im not questioning that.. but amount of morale for a trade ship is ridiculously high...

Its kinda ridiculous.. in recent battle i literally killed 39 men from 40, yet ship wont surrender.. it quite unrealistic for an unarmed trader to not strike its color when faced with superior enemy..they usually surrendered after first shot.. but i understand this is a game and they have to be a bit more challenging, but killing practically entire crew and nothing? who is sailing that ship??? single guy?

number 1 thing i dont like about land combat is how there are no proper formations for units... the fact that militia units are always spread out is kinda strange - tight formation was not just necessity for concentrated firepower, but mainly to keep the morale intact.. with troops spread out as in this game, men would just ran away from battlefield because they would not feel presence of other men in unit near them.. while this is not as big problem in broken up terrain, its huge problem in open terrain

you are mistaking battlefield unit with organisation... Artillery unit on the battlefield was called Battery... it could be named Regiment, Company, whatever, that was just organisational name... but on the battlefield, artillery pieces were always deployed into Batteries..... Battery was the lowest tactical battlefield unit of Artillery. Same way as Battalion was the lowest tactical unit of Infantry and Squadron was the lowest tactical unit of Cavalry.. Of course Battalion was composed of companies, but these were not operating on battlefield on their own, but always as part of Battalion.. same thing with Cavalry and Artillery. Anyway its true British had a bit different naming in 18.century, but eventually adopted European convention. For some reason they were using "Brigade" as a lowest artillery tactical unit. Anyway for everybody else (Spanish, French and later Americans) Battery was the name of lowest tactical unit on the battlefield.

no, what i meant, is that artillery was always organized into battery. No matter how many guns its had, it was always called battery.. 2,4,8 or 80... always a battery.

Artillery is always a battery.. it was never called company.

Skirmishers were drawn from Light Company of each regiment, not from fusilier company... Each regiment had single Light Company that was supposed to perform skirmish duties when needed. Light Company was also considered "Elite company" of the Regiment, same as Grenadiers. They were also commonly brigaded together with other Light and Grenadier Companies, creating "temporary" Grenadier Battalions (typically 4 Grenadier and 4 Light Companies)