Marching Orders Comments

[bonsainut]

I have only been playing the game for about 10 hours, but one of my first comments has to do with unit movement.  It doesn't feel at all realistic to me.  Now I know that we aren't shooting for 100% reality 100% of the time, but when I have a regiment moving in line of battle through a field... I expect it to look and feel like a regiment moving in line of battle, not a bunch of skirmishers scattered all over the place.  Likewise troops moving down a road to approach a battle - they would be in column, not line of battle, and would generally move much faster, but not be able to respond well to attack.

Even green troops would spend hundreds of hours practicing movement drills before being put into combat.  They would learn how to shift from column to line, pivot, advance, retreat, close ranks, all while maintaining unit cohesiveness.  Right now the game doesn't capture this feeling (to me).  I have to be careful because there may be functionality in the game that I don't know how to use - I may not be using all the proper commands(?) but if so the game needs to little work (perhaps early tutorial) on unit movement.

Civil War Unit Drill

Additionally I am hoping we might see the ability to break from ranks in order to take defensive positions - in entrenchments, along sunken roads, among boulders, etc, or to command units to entrench in place.  Perhaps this is currently in the game and I just haven't learned how yet

These are all functions that were present in Sid Meier's Gettysburg and Antietam of 15-20 years ago

 

[bonsainut]

The other thing I will be interested to see is how the game handles morale.

The flip side of unit movement is how supporting units had a positive impact on unit morale... and lack of support units had a negative impact.  One of the reasons why you would advance in line is because your flanks would be covered by supporting units.  I see in the game the penalties associated with being flanked (from a damage perspective) but I don't see anything associated with the impact of friendly units on your flanks, or friendly units behind you.  Right now a lone unit in the middle of a field seems to have the same morale as the same unit in line of battle with friendly supporting units on the flanks and rear.  Is this true?

[LuxAeterna]

 

16 hours ago, bonsainut said:

I have only been playing the game for about 10 hours, but one of my first comments has to do with unit movement.  It doesn't feel at all realistic to me.  Now I know that we aren't shooting for 100% reality 100% of the time, but when I have a regiment moving in line of battle through a field... I expect it to look and feel like a regiment moving in line of battle, not a bunch of skirmishers scattered all over the place.  Likewise troops moving down a road to approach a battle - they would be in column, not line of battle, and would generally move much faster, but not be able to respond well to attack.

Even green troops would spend hundreds of hours practicing movement drills before being put into combat.  They would learn how to shift from column to line, pivot, advance, retreat, close ranks, all while maintaining unit cohesiveness.  Right now the game doesn't capture this feeling (to me).  I have to be careful because there may be functionality in the game that I don't know how to use - I may not be using all the proper commands(?) but if so the game needs to little work (perhaps early tutorial) on unit movement.

Civil War Unit Drill

Additionally I am hoping we might see the ability to break from ranks in order to take defensive positions - in entrenchments, along sunken roads, among boulders, etc, or to command units to entrench in place.  Perhaps this is currently in the game and I just haven't learned how yet

These are all functions that were present in Sid Meier's Gettysburg and Antietam of 15-20 years ago

 

I was about to create a topic when i did find yours... well to sum up i agree with all you said regarding movment and unit positionning. I will add that in Sid Meier's Gettysburg there was also an option where you could ask your brigades to take roads for a good movment bonus it was really helpfull (depending on the situation) to get your units faster on the front.

I have also seen some weird unit behaviour where when i ask a brigade to repostition itself to properly face an enemy brigade, it will nearly do a 360° instead of doing the 15° needed to acheive the same result giving the enemy brigade time to fire a volley inflicting flanking damage...

 

[GeneralPITA]

This might be difficult to implement, but brigades should have two foci when pivoting. This will reduce the exposure to flanking when making small position adjustments. Currently they pivot on a single focus. It's inefficient and unrealistic to pinwheel in the fashion that they do.