Artillery melee too powerful

[bonsainut]

Is anyone else finding artillery melee too powerful?  Examples:

(1)  300 unit cavalry with sabers attacks 300 unit artillery.  Cavalry gets in melee without taking damage.  Manages to destroy artillery, but cavalry takes 50% damage.

(2)  375 unit artillery is charged by 1200 unit infantry.  1200 unit infantry gets into melee range without taking grapeshot.  Long melee combat... infantry unit is eventually routed.  Infantry takes 150 damage, artillery takes 50 damage.

Seems like artillery is a little weak on ranged atm, but overpowered on melee?

[Hitorishizuka]

That is completely contrary to what I've seen.

1) Are you sure the cavalry wasn't getting shot by something else? Was the cavalry mostly full condition before you moved them in? I've generally seen cavalry wipe out artillery its size while taking maybe 20-30 losses, if that.

2) Same as above, do you know the condition of the infantry before they started? If they had 0 condition, they're not going to do anything in melee, it's going to be a slap fight. And then the infantry are going to get fired on by other units and eventually rout.

[Gen. Briggs]

I found that the artillery is super-awesome in melee in pairs. - Because strangely, second artillery battery firing grapeshot point-blank into melee only damages the enemy infantry. So, it's almost impossible to storm two batteries supporting each other, unless you charge them both. I hope it's a bug that gets fixed.

[Meagre Heart]

It would appear that infantry is reluctant to fire into a mob of melee combat to avoid friendly fire, but cannons apparently have better aim! It's likely a bug.

[Hitorishizuka]

On 11/27/2016 at 8:29 PM, Gen. Briggs said:

I found that the artillery is super-awesome in melee in pairs. - Because strangely, second artillery battery firing grapeshot point-blank into melee only damages the enemy infantry. So, it's almost impossible to storm two batteries supporting each other, unless you charge them both. I hope it's a bug that gets fixed.

 

On 11/28/2016 at 0:13 AM, Meagre Heart said:

It would appear that infantry is reluctant to fire into a mob of melee combat to avoid friendly fire, but cannons apparently have better aim! It's likely a bug.

Nah, infantry will absolutely fire into a mob of melee combat, if you're watching closely you're probably just seeing the standard infantry take forever to go through their fire cycles.

If neither artillery nor infantry were allowed to fire into melee, not only would positions be a lot more difficult to hold in general (because the AI almost always has more men and can just overwhelm you in melee by shoving units down your throat) but cavalry would quickly become OP. The only thing that keeps frontal cavalry charges balanced right now is that after/in the process of killing the first unit they hit, they'll take withering return fire from everything else around. If they weren't allowed to be shot at, they'd kill the first unit basically for free and then have a chance at either making it to the second unit in line and getting in melee and protecting themselves again or at retreating afterwards and only taking a single volley in the back as they run.

[A. P. Hill]

I've noticed that artillery crews will stand and fight surprisingly.

The thing to remember about ACW artillery, is they were only equipped as artillery.  Meaning, no carbines, no sabers, no weapons of any kind on the crewmen, (officers, Sgt., and up, were all equipped with 1 revolver and possibly a sword dependent of rank,) all the crews had as weapons were the implements of the artillery piece they were serving.   There was no such thing as in the Old world pre civil war era, called an artillery guard or anything like that. Artillery was determined to be protected by the troops they were supporting.  If those troops broke and skedaddled, the artillery usually did the same.

Also as long as we're discussing this, I would like to be able to lay claim to the pieces after over running an artillery position.  They should be selectable and either be able to draw them off the field as trophies or turn them on the opposition.

I would also like to see the sprites changed to reflect actual ACW artillery, 12 pound and up artillery pieces were pulled by 6 horses, all 3 inch or 10 pound pieces were pulled by 4 horses.  I'd also like to see the limber as an attached piece if possible.  And with that said, the limber and the team need to be on the field as the guns are firing and not instantly and mysteriously vanish from sight.   Please!

Of course if you really want to get into your authentication mode, each gun should be supplied with at least, one limber and caisson team as well. 4 horses per limber.

On a side note, the supply wagons need to be pulled by a team of 6 mules with 1 teamster sitting on the left wheel mule.

 

Okay, I'm done being anal now.

Edited November 29, 2016 by A. P. Hill

[Hitorishizuka]

1 hour ago, A. P. Hill said:

Also as long as we're discussing this, I would like to be able to lay claim to the pieces after over running an artillery position.  They should be selectable and either be able to draw them off the field as trophies or turn them on the opposition.

I would also like to see the sprites changed to reflect actual ACW artillery, 12 pound and up artillery pieces were pulled by 6 horses, all 3 inch or 10 pound pieces were pulled by 4 horses.  I'd also like to see the limber as an attached piece if possible.  And with that said, the limber and the team need to be on the field as the guns are firing and not instantly and mysteriously vanish from sight.   Please!

 

First, you do. The pieces show up as captured in post-battle. No, you can't use them directly during the battle but it's at least something.

And the basics of horses do show up already, so it's fine. There always needs to be a tradeoff for performance vs verisimilitude. It's not as if every single gun or man is rendered, anyway.

[Gen. Briggs]

21 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

 

If neither artillery nor infantry were allowed to fire into melee, not only would positions be a lot more difficult to hold in general (because the AI almost always has more men and can just overwhelm you in melee by shoving units down your throat) but cavalry would quickly become OP. The only thing that keeps frontal cavalry charges balanced right now is that after/in the process of killing the first unit they hit, they'll take withering return fire from everything else around. If they weren't allowed to be shot at, they'd kill the first unit basically for free and then have a chance at either making it to the second unit in line and getting in melee and protecting themselves again or at retreating afterwards and only taking a single volley in the back as they run.

That is understandable, but I think should not qualify as any kind of jsutification even in a remotely historical simulation of a battle. That would be perfectly fine a reason in a game with a pretense for realism at the level of Darkest Dungeon or Starcraft. I do want to hope, that UG:CW will grow to be way more on the historical side of gameplay. Of course, this is personal preference, not any kind of absolute standard, but I dare hope I'm not alone in this  

[Hitorishizuka]

1 hour ago, Gen. Briggs said:

That is understandable, but I think should not qualify as any kind of jsutification even in a remotely historical simulation of a battle. That would be perfectly fine a reason in a game with a pretense for realism at the level of Darkest Dungeon or Starcraft. I do want to hope, that UG:CW will grow to be way more on the historical side of gameplay. Of course, this is personal preference, not any kind of absolute standard, but I dare hope I'm not alone in this  

The AI autoscales the # of units it brings to whatever you have and can have been utterly wiped out in a previous battle and still bring nothing but 2 star vets. Nothing about this is a historical simulation. ;X

[Gen. Briggs]

That's true and a pity. It doesn't mean I can't wish and recommend it to become more historical.

[Lincolns Mullet]

Keep in mind that its still early access with much work ahead. This is the time to mention anything and everything, since once its finished it'll be harder to make bigger changes. Throw everything at the wall and maybe some of it will stick  Doesn't hurt to try and the devs will have a better idea of what can be realistically implemented or too difficult/game altering. Some things can sound like a simple change but could have a huge effect on gameplay, for good or bad, requiring more changes or balance adjustments.

[LyciaPintella]

Artillery holds up pretty well in melee, true. Also, I've noticed that charging cavalry are pretty weak until you have their melee skill trained up. I'll try to get them involved in some already-winning melee battles a few times to train the skill up before I rely on their charges on their own. If you don't do that, you may have more luck with a skirmishing gun varianty and dismount them to rapidly shoot at the arty.

[Grognard_JC]

What I have to say is that artillery dies pretty quickly against melee-cavs. Having a pair of elite-melee-cavs run in the enemy's rear can completely turn the battle as you will certainly wipe em all.

As a general rule, infantry does poorly in charge againt artillery, but that's not true with melee-focused veterans. However, I try to never charge artillery wwith infantry.

Withworth guns can kill them so fast anyways...

UGG art was more squishy, and I prefer UGCW now.

 

Edited November 30, 2016 by Grognard_JC