Stacking Infantry/Artillery Unrealistic

[Pandemonium]

Didn't get much traction on this via hijacking other posts, so thought I'd start a thread here to see if anyone bites. First of all, love the game. Got about 450 hrs playing through Union and CSA. I think it's one of the best mil RTS games I've played at the tactical level in quite some time.  Thank you for the team developing it.

One thing I've been reading a lot on is tactics and how to game the system to win/beat the challenge of the AI. "Stacking" units and having artillery blow canister rounds behind your lines, etc...I just find this silly. Is it allowable from a development perspective due to the unit/terrain mismatch of space, or allowed because at the macro level, units are integrating the cannon into their lines? Or stacking three brigades deep and all of them firing through one another?

I'm a 20 year Army veteran and former Civil War reenactor, so my bias here is pretty hard.

Thoughts? "Shuddup Pandemonium, get over it." or "We are fixing that in the next release to make it more realistic and A LOT harder to play with current numbers.."

[GeneralPITA]

It's a bit cheezy that you can literally stack a dozen brigades on top of each other by using the hold command. There should be a limit to how many you can stack at once. This was partially fixed with the advent of the blocking function, but it only kicks in for brigades behind the front line. 

I'm all ears for suggestions. 

[A. P. Hill]

I think you shouldn't be able to "stack" more than two infantry.   And you shouldn't be able to "stack" artillery at all.

The "stacking" should come with a distance limitation, per the laws of physics, and the universe, you cannot put two items in the same space, so theoretically, we should not be able to "stack" in game.

"Stacking" should be permitted with a 20 yard hard gap between units.      In other words, you place your front line, then when you move the second line up, the second line should come to a stop with a 20 yard gap.     But then if the gap were actually "hard", I suspect that passing brigades through each other might not be a possibility.

I dunno, it's a conundrum.
 

Edited February 3, 2017 by A. P. Hill

[GeneralPITA]

The problem with your suggestion A.P. is that you'll have a heck of a time overcoming fortifications and achieving local fire superiority. Concentrating units is the name of the game for me. I'll have to alter my tactics if this feature gets nerfed and my casualties will go up exponentially. There needs to be a compromise.

[Pandemonium]

My suggestion would be to keep the "blocked" function for not being able to fire through friendly units.  You should still be able to pass through units, forward passage of lines, fortifications and routing units through another solid unit, but put a hard stop on firing. This should also apply to artillery canister firing through lines, but not for shells - cannons can easily fire over infantry. Making the last distinction might be a little tougher.

This should also apply to firing into a melee and only hitting enemy units. That's a bit over the top as well. I was a bit shocked when one of my brigades fired point blank into a melee and then perplexed as my guys were all safe. If you've ever played Total War, friendly fire is a real thing - and it ain't so friendly.

In a quote from Braveheart ..."sire, if we loose volleys into the fray, we will hit our own men." The king replied, "Yes, but we will hit theirs too." 

[Wandering1]

Well, a much simpler way of dealing with the stacking problem is to introduce hard collision detection on the brigades.

However, enforcing hard collisions for the AI actually makes the combat much simpler, by virtue of the computer not having enough space to put all of his troops, since typically the computer severely outnumbers you in the later battles.

This is especially true if you end up boxing the enemy in, such that there's always at least one brigade that can't shoot because all available firing space has been taken up.

 

[Pandemonium]

I would expect the AI to use more terrain then, and make it harder by outflanking you when so outnumbered. That or use their numbers in ranks. That was realistic as well. But then again, the AI would have to be tweaked to account for not allowing 80,000 troops on a farm. As for boxing them in, that's realistic. At Stones River, I boxed in the entire center of the Union Army when I cut them off from their fortifications, and watched as 30,000 men broke and ran. That's more realistic (they couldn't surrender because as soon as one unit surrendered, the other unit they were stacked on recaptured them).

[Zwerty99]

I would like two things from this--

1. AI Reserve. Unless historically present and placed, the AI doesn't seem to keep many fresh brigades or shuffle them in/out. This could help discourage random charging on both sides. The possibility of a second line to fire into my blobs is a frightening thought. 

2. Limit practical space. In the historical battle of Fredericksburg, only one or two brigades could attack the Mayre's Heights at a time. This hurt on attackers can hopefully be balanced a little by the fortification patch going out (or so I hope). Perhaps an accuracy penalty for partial friendly fire as well as perfecting the "blocked" response?

Edited February 3, 2017 by Zwerty99
Clarification

[Wandering1]

3 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

I would expect the AI to use more terrain then, and make it harder by outflanking you when so outnumbered. That or use their numbers in ranks. That was realistic as well. But then again, the AI would have to be tweaked to account for not allowing 80,000 troops on a farm. As for boxing them in, that's realistic. At Stones River, I boxed in the entire center of the Union Army when I cut them off from their fortifications, and watched as 30,000 men broke and ran. That's more realistic (they couldn't surrender because as soon as one unit surrendered, the other unit they were stacked on recaptured them).

The point still remains, in that the combat becomes significantly simpler for the player, because the maps are designed around a certain number of troops, and not larger than that. If the computer can only realistically fit a hard number of troops in a given area, simply because there's no room to fit any more, then it becomes a matter of having enough troops on your end to grind out the enemy in a fitting location, and becomes rather static after that because neither side can fit more troops, and you're just waiting for the infantry to grind it out.

Not to mention all of the downstream concerns of making combat simpler, like scaling not really making a difference in difficulty, to the point that there's no reason not to use max-size armies, because the computer will be unable to use it's manpower superiority if there are ideal points in the map to box the computer in. Simplest example being the bridges in Antietam, if you manage to box the left in by pushing them all the way to the forests outside their spawn point.

[Pandemonium]

Wandering1, yes. I see your points. However, when was the last time you saw a Brigade of 2,500 men cross a stone bridge? It's real. Fitting massive numbers of troops into small places leads to disaster (Petersburg anyone?) Fredericksburg was a slaughter for the same reasons, I have done a terrain walk of Fredericksburg, my daughter lives in the old town right where the Feds crossed, and the railroad is still there.

There are developmental ways of improving the terrain or maps to allow more terrain to maneuver. But stacking and firing into friendly lines is wearing me down to make it a mechanical game of beating the system instead of a realistic fight.

As to your point of grinding down the enemy, yes. That's reality. Tactical fights are often attritional with some maneuver. Operational and strategic levels of war are maneuvering to a position of advantage.  This has been true since the dawn of war.

EDIT: To my point, at Gettysburg, Sickles kept having to feed units in the wheat fields, because he maneuvered his units to a place not instructed, and you can't fit more than what he had into the same spot - I live close to the battlefield and have been there several times. It was realistic to keep feeding units into the line in tight spaces...if you could not maneuver out of it operationally.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Pandemonium

[Wandering1]

4 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

Wandering1, yes. I see your points. However, when was the last time you saw a Brigade of 2,500 men cross a stone bridge? It's real. Fitting massive numbers of troops into small places leads to disaster (Petersburg anyone?) Fredericksburg was a slaughter for the same reasons, I have done a terrain walk of Fredericksburg, my daughter lives in the old town right where the Feds crossed, and the railroad is still there.

There are developmental ways of improving the terrain or maps to allow more terrain to maneuver. But stacking and firing into friendly lines is wearing me down to make it a mechanical game of beating the system instead of a realistic fight.

As to your point of grinding down the enemy, yes. That's reality. Tactical fights are often attritional with some maneuver. Operational and strategic levels of war are maneuvering to a position of advantage.  This has been true since the dawn of war.

EDIT: To my point, at Gettysburg, Sickles kept having to feed units in the wheat fields, because he maneuvered his units to a place not instructed, and you can't fit more than what he had into the same spot - I live close to the battlefield and have been there several times. It was realistic to keep feeding units into the line in tight spaces...if you could not maneuver out of it operationally.

I agree, if we were talking about historical realism, we wouldn't be seeing the sizes we are seeing right now in game, however, if we did follow historical sizes, we'd be back in Robert E Lee's Civil War Generals or Civil War Generals 2. Which, has very different campaign mechanics.

The tradeoff at the end of the day here is gameplay versus historical realism. As there were not really a lot of area-of-effect mechanics back in the Civil War period, like the common counters to masses of infantry being machineguns or artillery, we essentially have to design around the fact we have very few aoe options. A much simpler way of dealing with the stacking mechanics, if it was just the fact that units shouldn't be on top of each other, is to increase the incidental damage effects (instead of 1-10 guys dying in the nearby squads, increase the damage by an order of magnitude) to discourage people from stacking. It still allows the computer to have the unit size difficulty lever, but allows you to grind units faster if they're stacking. Similarly, players would be punished for stacking by virtue of suffering a lot more losses than if they were spread out.

[GeneralPITA]

20 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

A much simpler way of dealing with the stacking mechanics, if it was just the fact that units shouldn't be on top of each other, is to increase the incidental damage effects (instead of 1-10 guys dying in the nearby squads, increase the damage by an order of magnitude) to discourage people from stacking.

Great solution, Wandering1. If I can stack my firepower, the AI should be able stack its kills when firing into a dense column of men. 

+1

 

[Pandemonium]

You are addressing the stacking issue, which is a compromise at some level. What about firing through each other? What about canister through lines? Firing into melee? None of this seems realistic. I suppose if you are more interested in gaming than realism, I can understand it. I'd prefer a balance of both, as no game will ever get there...

[Zwerty99]

Quick addition--Bridges and crossings need limits on how many troops can funnel through. There shouldn't be 10k federals charge over where historically only a few regiments or a brigade at most could attack. It's less of an issue when moving unopposed, but bridges should still slow down movement nonetheless. 

[GeneralPITA]

4 minutes ago, Zwerty99 said:

Quick addition--Bridges and crossings need limits on how many troops can funnel through. There shouldn't be 10k federals charge over where historically only a few regiments or a brigade at most could attack. It's less of an issue when moving unopposed, but bridges should still slow down movement nonetheless. 

I suppose you're referring to the deluge of federals at Burnside Bridge (Antietam Creek south). Hindering movement across bridges will make that VP too easy to hold imo. 

It would also make missions like Blackwater very costly

[Wandering1]

12 minutes ago, Pandemonium said:

You are addressing the stacking issue, which is a compromise at some level. What about firing through each other? What about canister through lines? Firing into melee? None of this seems realistic. I suppose if you are more interested in gaming than realism, I can understand it. I'd prefer a balance of both, as no game will ever get there...

Firing through other brigades is probably more an issue with the engine, in terms of how it is calculating whether the brigade has line of sight to the enemy or not. Since the brigade fires all at once instead of staggered depending on line of sight, and the animation for firing not halting in the middle of the volley.

Friendly fire was probably disabled to make sure the computer doesn't strictly always just start with a charge, since if the computer just wants to inflict casualties, it will force melee to happen a lot sooner to prevent your other squads from firing, since the computer usually has 1. better melee stats and 2. more soldiers to melee with.

Similarly on the flip side, if you add friendly fire in the mix, it would make more sense to just focus your entire army around melee, because if the computer shoots, it would be generating casualties on itself a lot faster. Which means suddenly fresh recruit brigades with farmers muskets are more valuable than the 3* veteran squad with Fayettevilles, because you're literally using clubmen as area denial (in the form of soldiers meleeing another squad). If the computer squads charge themselves and add themselves to the melee fray? You're eating up the condition of multiple squads per one farmer squad, meaning followup farmer brigades are going to have an easier time clubbing the remainder over the head.

Unfortunately, realism does have a lot of downstream effects in terms of how people game the realism for maximum effect. As it is right now, if you're going for realism, Brigadier (normal) difficulty gets closer to the realistic values than Major General (Hard) and Legendary. As the more recent campaigns I've been running are Hard or Legendary runs, that perspective is more what I am speaking from. 

[Zwerty99]

22 minutes ago, GeneralPITA said:

I suppose you're referring to the deluge of federals at Burnside Bridge (Antietam Creek south). Hindering movement across bridges will make that VP too easy to hold imo. 

It would also make missions like Blackwater very costly

Not movement really, just stacking units on top of one another specifically there... I was indeed referring to burnside bridge and the two hours it took to cross in total. But I agree that there needs to be a compromise regarding playability and realism.

[waldopbarnstormer]

I think artillery should be allowed to stack with infantry to represent guns fitting in to the space between regiments in a brigade. I also think that friendly fire casualties should be included for firing on units in melee.

My view is that at the moment charging into melee is suicide for units because everyone can fire at the attackers without cause for concern to friendlies and the attacker gets quickly annihilated. This makes charging underpowered as a game mechanic. I have spent a lot of time reading about civil war battles and tactics because this game got my interest and I have seen multiple instances of lines being broken because of a well timed charge, chickamauga comes to mind. The defenders could not bring overwhelming firepower to bear in fear and reluctance of the commanders to fire on their own men. The effective solution was to have a reserve line to fire once the retreating units had cleared the field of fire or countercharge before the attackers had reorganised. This could be represented in game by using the blocked feature until the friendly brigade has broken from melee leaving the field of fire clear for a brigade behind. I would still allow flanking fire, and it might even mitigate blobbing and stacking by making the ai hold reserves back to cover breaches.

I also don't like the ability to stack units onto bridges or Ford's because it removes the tactical use of such features as choke points. At antietam the union ai just swarms across Burnside bridge and swamps any defenders within minutes of spawning, if they were limited to one brigade crossing at a time it would allow the defenders a chance to delay them as was historical. They can always try the other fords and bridge upstream or use artillery to force defenders back.

Edited February 4, 2017 by waldopbarnstormer
Spelling

[Hitorishizuka]

9 hours ago, waldopbarnstormer said:

 

I also don't like the ability to stack units onto bridges or Ford's because it removes the tactical use of such features as choke points. At antietam the union ai just swarms across Burnside bridge and swamps any defenders within minutes of spawning, if they were limited to one brigade crossing at a time it would allow the defenders a chance to delay them as was historical. They can always try the other fords and bridge upstream or use artillery to force defenders back.

There are usually not enough fords or bridges on these kinds of maps to make this practical (Antietam they will have to swing very wide around to the north as that's the only uncontested crossing. Artillery won't do anything, even medium range artillery isn't particularly effective as implemented right now. I kept defenders in cover in the area getting shelled basically because I didn't care and a hundred, even two hundred casualties was meaningless compared to the ability to hold good cover and keep that flank secure and the crossing area contested.

[Wandering1]

31 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

There are usually not enough fords or bridges on these kinds of maps to make this practical (Antietam they will have to swing very wide around to the north as that's the only uncontested crossing. Artillery won't do anything, even medium range artillery isn't particularly effective as implemented right now. I kept defenders in cover in the area getting shelled basically because I didn't care and a hundred, even two hundred casualties was meaningless compared to the ability to hold good cover and keep that flank secure and the crossing area contested.

At the end of the day, I tend to think this is more a symptom of the fact that cover does not degrade through any means, even if the terrain may as well be pot holes instead of a forest or a wheat field.

If artillery could, over time, degrade cover, that would actually give you the niche that shells need to actually be meaningful.

[GeneralPITA]

3 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

At the end of the day, I tend to think this is more a symptom of the fact that cover does not degrade through any means, even if the terrain may as well be pot holes instead of a forest or a wheat field.

If artillery could, over time, degrade cover, that would actually give you the niche that shells need to actually be meaningful.

The shells at Shiloh were effective because the naval cannons had 10-15 second fuses. They'd fire directly at the river bank and ricochet them upward several miles inland. The batteries harassed the poor rebels all night in the rain, which is a big part of why they failed to take Pittsburgh Landing. So...shells can have many uses.

[Hitorishizuka]

2 hours ago, Wandering1 said:

At the end of the day, I tend to think this is more a symptom of the fact that cover does not degrade through any means, even if the terrain may as well be pot holes instead of a forest or a wheat field.

If artillery could, over time, degrade cover, that would actually give you the niche that shells need to actually be meaningful.

Well, if you take lessons from WW1, no man's land craters can actually be okay cover.

[Wandering1]

21 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Well, if you take lessons from WW1, no man's land craters can actually be okay cover.

Well. Company of Heroes did model this, wasn't as good as a stone wall or a tree though.