Dragoons make me pull my hair out

[mainiac]

This game is a lot of fun but it's very annoying how closely I have to babysit my dragoons and skirmishers.  When I give them a move order they take their sweet ass time getting moving so that even infantry charges can catch them if I'm not careful.  And dont even get me started on how bad they are at running away from sword cavalry.

It's particularly bad IMHO with dragoons because the entire damn point of a dragoon is that they can withdraw quickly.  But instead they just stand there and die.  Please make it so that they start moving immediately if they are stationary and given a move order.  Their lives are on the line, they should be anticipating the withdrawal!

[Andre Bolkonsky]

2 hours ago, mainiac said:

This game is a lot of fun but it's very annoying how closely I have to babysit my dragoons and skirmishers.  When I give them a move order they take their sweet ass time getting moving so that even infantry charges can catch them if I'm not careful.  And dont even get me started on how bad they are at running away from sword cavalry.

It's particularly bad IMHO with dragoons because the entire damn point of a dragoon is that they can withdraw quickly.  But instead they just stand there and die.  Please make it so that they start moving immediately if they are stationary and given a move order.  Their lives are on the line, they should be anticipating the withdrawal!

If your dragoons are mounted, they can ride away. But a cavalry column moving towards them already has momentum and can probably catch it if the riders blow their horses. 

If they are dismounted, they have to retreive the horses from where they are picketed/held and saddle up, give the command to ride, then it takes a horse time to build up speed. They aren't holding the reins with one hand and firing with the other. Usually. 

[GeneralPITA]

He's referring to their tendency to pinwheel before moving, as in the case of infantry. It makes no sense with cavalry to do this, they have a much more loose formation. 

[RoverGrover]

Yeah, I tend to agree. I extol their virtues, but their micro is a giant pain. I have noticed that if you can manage to keep them skirmishing and let them retreat on their own they tend to wheel back much faster than manually move commanding them backwards for some reason. 

The obvious problem being that that isn't always feasible and additionally they sometimes don't fall back when left skirmishing or take too long figuring out they want to retreat. 

As it is, I'm extremely careful about when I attack with them.  I've had a lot of battles where I've gotten a ton of kills with them... but I've had a few where I messed up the micro and they took forever wheeling back and got mauled for essentially no damage. 

Just shortening their turn animation would help a ton. Even if it were just kept the same but sped up.

[Hitorishizuka]

They're so rewarding once you do get to use them successfully. Maybe too rewarding? *laughs*

Side battles are pretty much the ideal place to get work done using Ranged Cav and Skirmishers since you have all the time in the world to micro with them. You can even see the difference between my Melee Cavalry (Wickham), which had to put itself at risk and took a lot of damage for the good work it did at mauling a couple units and killing some skirmishers and artillery, vs the Ranged Cav (Fry) which took flank and routing shots all day, harassed and killed off artillery as well, but basically didn't have to put itself at risk. Of course, it's also reflective of their fragility--half their casualties were taken from a single volley by their last depleted unit when I was pursuing with them.

 

[RoverGrover]

I also have done similarly with them.  Seems like a single volley, or two maybe can completely cause all the casualties I take with them.  Which is fine, I just wish they'd wheel quicker.  Makes it frustrating to use them.  That being said, even in larger battles I find they can really get some kills in there.  Even if they aren't constantly attacking, you can really decimate them if you get the timing right.  At Fredericksburg I was really able to use them to good effect.  Not just the kills, but forcing units to fall back at very advantageous times.  Helped a lot. 

Note that all 4 cav brigades shown are ranged.  Not near the top of my list, but they were mid-high on it. 

[mainiac]

On 1/10/2017 at 3:45 AM, Andre Bolkonsky said:

If your dragoons are mounted, they can ride away. But a cavalry column moving towards them already has momentum and can probably catch it if the riders blow their horses. 

 

That sounds extremely dodgy to me.  I am talking about dragoons already mounted on open ground getting charged by enemies they can clearly see and have no design to engage.  Can you name any historical examples of that happening?

[RoverGrover]

11 hours ago, mainiac said:

 

That sounds extremely dodgy to me.  I am talking about dragoons already mounted on open ground getting charged by enemies they can clearly see and have no design to engage.  Can you name any historical examples of that happening?

"A few guerrillas equipped themselves with carbines captured from the Union, but "they were unhandy things to carry" and unsuited for fighting on horseback, indeed in the thick of a February 1865 fight the carbines' long barrels made them too unwieldy to fire, and they were used instead as clubs." Wiki, citation: 43rd battalion Virginia cavalry "on the effectiveness of carbines"

One would presume that if they were used as clubs that the enemy had managed to close the distance.  I would also note that Mosby's men had great disdain for sabers and preferred dual pistols... a setup that had great results for them. But that is entirely another discussion. 

 

[mainiac]

1 hour ago, RoverGrover said:

One would presume that if they were used as clubs that the enemy had managed to close the distance.

 

The account makes no report of them trying to vacate the premise so I don't see why you assume they were.

[RoverGrover]

9 minutes ago, mainiac said:

The account makes no report of them trying to vacate the premise so I don't see why you assume they were.

In that case, I would counter that I don't understand why you assume a horse at full gallop would have no advantage catching a horse stopped, facing the wrong direction. Can you give an example of a horse at rest outrunning a horse already at a gallop?

Also, if you're looking for that level of detail then you will indeed be hard pressed to find such an account. But you'd be just as hard pressed to find accounts of dragoons preferring to fight on horseback rather than just dismounting.

[mainiac]

16 minutes ago, RoverGrover said:

In that case, I would counter that I don't understand why you assume a horse at full gallop would have no advantage catching a horse stopped, facing the wrong direction

 

In that case I am asking why you are ignoring the situation I laid out in the OP and instead asking stupid questions.

Edited January 15, 2017 by mainiac

[RoverGrover]

Just now, mainiac said:

 

In that case I am asking why you are ignoring the situation I laid out in the OP and instead asking stupid questions.

I've no desire to argue rather than discuss.  I will respectfully agree to disagree and decline to contribute further to the discussion in light of personal attack. 

[mainiac]

If you want a respectful discussion then please don't derail discussions in this fashion.  It's extremely annoying to me when I raise a legitimate, frustrating topic and you treat me like an idiot who is discussing something else entirely.

[RoverGrover]

3 minutes ago, mainiac said:

If you want a respectful discussion then please don't derail discussions in this fashion.  It's extremely annoying to me when I raise a legitimate, frustrating topic and you treat me like an idiot who is discussing something else entirely.

You asked for a historical example and I felt I provided one.  If you look back, I actually agreed with your original post... commented on it twice, in fact.   

I was also nothing if not respectful. I have not treated anybody "like an idiot" on this board. It was you in fact who called my question stupid.  Discussions work both ways. If you only want people to agree with everything you say rather than having their own viewpoint then I'm not really sure what to tell you. 

[mainiac]

Glad to see that you think the original topic was worth talking about then.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

19 hours ago, mainiac said:

 

That sounds extremely dodgy to me.  I am talking about dragoons already mounted on open ground getting charged by enemies they can clearly see and have no design to engage.  Can you name any historical examples of that happening?

 

You are talking about game mechanics, and there may be some validity to what you are saying. I think that is what you are referring to. 

But, yeah, for the hell of it, to take my mind off the memory of just watching the Houston Texans get destroyed by their own quarterback, I can explain my comments above using historical precedent:   

 A Hussar unit is built for speed. Properly mounted on swift light coursers, they train to run in formation and turn on a dime, Hussars are custom built to intercept and defeat opposition cavalry. They are fast, designed to close and overwhelm an enemy with bravado and elan. They are incredibly reckless, and as one of Napoleon's cavalry commanders once said 'any Hussar who isn't dead by the time he's thirty is a blackguard'. 

Dragoons, properly mounted on rouncey general purpose mounts, can carry a much heavier payload of arms and munitions; as such, their horses tend to be stronger, but slower. Just like the men who ride them, they have to be good at many different things to be effective in combat. 

Full blown Currassier, armored cavalry mounted on heavy destriers, are obsolete in this war. But to this day you can travel to London and see what they look like if you feel the need. Just stand outside Buckingham Palace about 10:30 in the morning; then extrapolate that out to many thousands of horses running at the same time. They aren't fast, but I hear they can make the ground shake beneath you. 

And, not forgetting our Russian friends, Cossacks. But that's a different sort of animal all together. Part soldier, part policeman, part saddle tramp, part mercenary; the Cossack is whatever you need him to be; and it never hurts to have him on your side. 

Back on topic, a Dragoon unit in firing rage would have difficulty turning, running, and evading Hussars at full gallop. And the Hussars would specifically seeking out targets of opportunity like these aforementioned light dragoons. They would eat them for breakfast. 

During the War of the Rebellion, 'Cavalry' loses a lot of the nicer distinctions listed above. It's going to come down to the unit commander. A commander who is handing out pistols and sabers wants fast horses (Custer); a commander using Henry rifles who just wants to ride to the next battle and dismount (Sheridan, Augustus McCray) won't be quite so picky. 

Edited January 15, 2017 by Andre Bolkonsky
Wait, did I just say Augustus McCray wouldn't care about his horse? Did I really just say that? Surely not.