Cavalry Melee penalty in woods is to extreme

[Hitorishizuka]

26 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

I will also note though, that while the melee damage nerf for cavalry in forests is still in place, even this change wouldn't matter much due to units being in cover while meleeing (ask not how Farmer Joe manages to put a tree or a buddy in the way of every shot that comes flying towards him, including canister).

A separate change to make cover not apply to units who are in melee with each other would not be unwelcome at that point...

[Wandering1]

1 minute ago, Hitorishizuka said:

A separate change to make cover not apply to units who are in melee with each other would not be unwelcome at that point...

It would be great if that were technically possible; I find it unlikely to be implemented at this stage of the game, if we want only the units meleeing each other to not be considered in cover, whereas other units shooting into the melee would still have to treat them in cover. I can see other problems if it's a blanket effect of meleeing units not being in cover. Fredericksburg, anyone?

 

[Hitorishizuka]

Just now, Wandering1 said:

It would be great if that were technically possible; I find it unlikely to be implemented at this stage of the game, if we want only the units meleeing each other to not be considered in cover, whereas other units shooting into the melee would still have to treat them in cover. I can see other problems if it's a blanket effect of meleeing units not being in cover. Fredericksburg, anyone?

Oh, yeah, that's what I meant, sorry if that wasn't clear. Units who are in melee with each other don't have cover to each other if doing point blank shooting, especially in relation to a proposed change to make revolvers better.

[Wandering1]

1 minute ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Oh, yeah, that's what I meant, sorry if that wasn't clear. Units who are in melee with each other don't have cover to each other if doing point blank shooting, especially in relation to a proposed change to make revolvers better.

And what I meant it being technically possible; doing something precise like that, from a programming standpoint, would require a rather significant change to the underlying engine. Among other things, there is still the rest of the campaign to finish...

[The Soldier]

23 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

It would be great if that were technically possible; I find it unlikely to be implemented at this stage of the game, if we want only the units meleeing each other to not be considered in cover, whereas other units shooting into the melee would still have to treat them in cover. I can see other problems if it's a blanket effect of meleeing units not being in cover. Fredericksburg, anyone?

There's a difference between Cover and Fortifications - do note that Fortifications already give a direct melee boost, and in the case of Stone Walls, it's 100% melee boost.

I'm not experienced with the more in-depth coding (as opposed to scripting things like waves of enemies), but it feels like removing the melee boost while in cover shouldn't be too difficult, considering it had to deliberately coded in and varies with the amount of cover.

Edited March 6, 2017 by The Soldier

[Wandering1]

 

1 hour ago, The Soldier said:

There's a difference between Cover and Fortifications - do note that Fortifications already give a direct melee boost, and in the case of Stone Walls, it's 100% melee boost.

I'm not experienced with the more in-depth coding (as opposed to scripting things like waves of enemies), but it feels like removing the melee boost while in cover shouldn't be too difficult, considering it had to deliberately coded in and varies with the amount of cover.

It's not a matter of removing the bonus; it's removing the bonus for one case (cover bonus between meleeing entities) while retaining the bonus with respect to every other entity that is not in melee with it.

In a system that is designed around having to run on computers with low specs, you can't expect every unit to maintain two states of statistics (w.r.t. melee units, and w.r.t to non-melee units) for every brigade on the battlefield.

[The Soldier]

38 minutes ago, Wandering1 said:

 

It's not a matter of removing the bonus; it's removing the bonus for one case (cover bonus between meleeing entities) while retaining the bonus with respect to every other entity that is not in melee with it.

In a system that is designed around having to run on computers with low specs, you can't expect every unit to maintain two states of statistics (w.r.t. melee units, and w.r.t to non-melee units) for every brigade on the battlefield.

Far as I can tell, the sentiment in the thread was just to remove the melee bonus from Cover alltogether, so it's just the melee stats of the unit, their weapon, and the number of brigades that determines what happens (so it's effectively as if everyone was meleeing in open ground, to compare it to the current system).  No two different states of statistics needed.  Just removing it as I said, shouldn't be very difficult.

Besides, the devs already showed that they could reduce the effectiveness of melee of cavalry while in cover - hell, that's the point of this thread.

Edited March 6, 2017 by The Soldier

[JaM]

one thing to realize regarding skirmishers - they are practically a prototype of modern infantry.. they should be hard to wipe out in terrain well suited for their type of combat...  

[The Soldier]

18 minutes ago, JaM said:

one thing to realize regarding skirmishers - they are practically a prototype of modern infantry.. they should be hard to wipe out in terrain well suited for their type of combat...  

Yup.  But this is a game, and balance reigns supreme, and I want at least one way of getting these annoying little things out of my hair.

[Slobodan]

I think that, with latest patch, Melee Cav is tuned superbly. It still can wreck havoc on skirmishers and art in open, much more difficult in woods now.

It's more realistic now, previously I got a feeling that  Melee cav was almost unstoppable while charging (regardless of terrain).

[JaM]

7 hours ago, The Soldier said:

Yup.  But this is a game, and balance reigns supreme, and I want at least one way of getting these annoying little things out of my hair.

Thing is, this is game about Civil War, therefore player kinda expects Civil War type of combat where melee cavalry was useless.. Its not Napoleonic War where cavalry reign supreme, Civil War Skirmishers equipped with repeating rifles were exactly what infantry eventually evolved into, and it didn't took too much time either, as in Europe, just few years later, Prussian infantry fighting in open skirmish order using repeating rifles managed to wipe out enemy armies still using obsolete tactics..

So personally, i'd like to see skirmisher units which get costly repeating rifles to really be worth their weight in gold, because that was how they fought in reality, and all those CW General theories about ammo consumption (why they didn't wanted to use such weapons for all infantry) be proven dead wrong...  Firepower started to dominate the battlefield, bayonet mass attacks or cavalry charges were futile..

 

oh, and don't get me wrong, i would love to see a cavalry-centric game from Game Labs sometimes... Napoleonic Warfare is my favorite.. but Civil War was a far cry for shock cavalry..

 

[Wandering1]

9 hours ago, The Soldier said:

Far as I can tell, the sentiment in the thread was just to remove the melee bonus from Cover alltogether, so it's just the melee stats of the unit, their weapon, and the number of brigades that determines what happens (so it's effectively as if everyone was meleeing in open ground, to compare it to the current system).  No two different states of statistics needed.  Just removing it as I said, shouldn't be very difficult.

Besides, the devs already showed that they could reduce the effectiveness of melee of cavalry while in cover - hell, that's the point of this thread.

There's a difference between melee bonus that is granted by fortifications, and the general damage modifier that is implemented by different types of cover. The bigger reason why melee cavalry kill so slowly in trees now is because a 65% damage modifier is applied to the cavalry units while mounted; previously there was a bug preventing this from working.

Damage modifiers work on top of the cover bonus. So if infantry are shooting each other in the trees, they kill really slowly first from the cover bonus on the defending unit taking effect, and then whatever damage modifier is applied on the attacking unit (I think it's 75%? Skirmishers are 75% in the trees). As far as melee goes, it's strictly the opposing melee stats (unit stats + weapon), damage and their modifiers, and any associated fortifications bonus.

In particular from trees, the main thing that trees provide to a melee is the damage modifier. This modifier applies to both melee and ranged; it's just that the range damage is miniscule anyways from the 100% cover that it isn't affected by the damage penalty very much.

 

[A. P. Hill]

Just be careful what you wish for in your desired destruction of the enemy. The AI will also get all the badassness you want and will use it to advantage to destroy the player.

[Fred Sanford]

Put me down as another vote for historically based games having units that reflect historical capabilities.  There's plenty of fantasy world games out there.

One thing that may help the original complaint about the artillery unit- maybe artillery units shouldn't be able to retreat while under direct attack (and still keep their guns).  Personally, I'd like to see artillery units that retreat 'drop' their guns (leaving them in place on the map).  If they don't rout away, and the owner manages to recapture the position, they can take the guns back.

[The Soldier]

2 hours ago, Fred Sanford said:

Put me down as another vote for historically based games having units that reflect historical capabilities.  There's plenty of fantasy world games out there.

Then what's the point of even using Shock Cavalry, or even keeping them in the game if they're entirely pointless?  It's there, it must be useful otherwise it might as well not be there.  That's the way a game works, historical accuracy be damned.

Good thing though, the devs said they're going to look into cavalry again on the Steam Forums.

Edited March 6, 2017 by The Soldier

[Fred Sanford]

1 hour ago, The Soldier said:

 That's the way a game works, historical accuracy be damned.

 

Then where's my Laser Tanks?

[JaM]

Melee cavalry was there, but if it tried to do what it was doing in Napoleonic times, it got shot to pieces... so instead, they practically evolved into mobile skirmishers.. with the use of revolvers hand guns, each cavalrymen could fire  multiple shots at short range, therefore trying to get close to be able to use a saber was quite suicidal.. and similarly, charging with saber against somebody with a repeater rifle, would be suicide as well... Game should portray that, so instead of enforcing completely unhistorical and unrealistic tactics that has no base in Civil War, it should do the opposite - create a system where weapons and tactics works the way it did back then, so player will have proper Civil War experience instead of some artificial made up one..  (as Civil War cavalerist, i would rather use winchester carbine than a saber in a close combat scenario...and i doubt anybody would want to be in a situation where you have a saber against somebody equipped with a repeating carbine...)

Just because some weapon type was used initially, it doesn't mean it wasn't a stopgap that was eventually completely dropped.. everybody used smothbore muskets at the start, just to drop them and use rifles as war progressed.. so why should be melee cavalry an exception in this? it was obsolete way of fighting, same as those smothbore muskets were..

[The Soldier]

You know damn well what I'm talking about. Unfortunately for all of us, laser tanks didn't exist.  Cavalry armed with sabers did.  Also, to pop your historical accuracy bubble even more, Confederate cavalry units rarely used sword or carbines - they more often than not used pistols like the Colt M1858 Navy and M1861 Army pistols, and a lot of the time carried two of them - and they used that throughout the entire war.  Union cavalry preferred swords over pistols before breach loading and repeating firearms became more widely available.  Both of which are close-range weapons.  And unfortunately, there are no pistols available in the game.  I'd totally go for a pair of horse pistols over some silly pseudo-carbine that was as rare as rocking horse shit and a saber.

[JonnyH13]

I am quite sure that there was a carbine version of the Lemat design and the other weapons are revolving carbines instead of pistols (except the maynard but the maynard sheet paper firing system was inferior to the percussion cap).  I would prefer pistols though since I regard revolving rifles and carbines to be inferior (or at least much riskier to use) than pistols (think chamber firing and what happens when your hand is holding the barrel.  Say goodbye to your hand and arm).  

As a side note: contrary to what many think of revolvers of the Civil War their reload time was really slow.  Look up how to reload a colt navy 1858.  It takes forever!

[The Soldier]

6 minutes ago, JonnyH13 said:

I am quite sure that there was a carbine version of the Lemat design and the other weapons are revolving carbines instead of pistols (except the maynard but the maynard sheet paper firing system was inferior to the percussion cap).  I would prefer pistols though since I regard revolving rifles and carbines to be inferior (or at least much riskier to use) than pistols (think chamber firing and what happens when your hand is holding the barrel.  Say goodbye to your hand and arm).  

As a side note: contrary to what many think of revolvers of the Civil War their reload time was really slow.  Look up how to reload a colt navy 1858.  It takes forever!

Carbin-ized versions of all these pistols existed, sure - but they were as rare as rocking horse shit, especially the LeMatt carbine version.  There's precisely zero chance that 500+ made their way into the CSA, let alone that 500 were even produced.

Reloading revolvers isn't much slower than reloading a musket - it's just that you have 6 chambers instead of one.  The men were issues paper cartridges just as muskets were, and since you had the ramrod right there and didn't have all that distance to travel, reloading one cylinder was faster than reloading a musket.  I've fired and reloaded a friend's Remmington New Model Army 1858 revolver plenty of times, and since he makes paper cartridges for it, I know it isn't *that* slow.

[JonnyH13]

When I meant slow I meant relative to the post war models that used metal cartridges rather than the good old lever.  

[Fred Sanford]

Nobody said pistol armed cavalry didn't exist, it just wasn't useful for chasing enemy units through thick forest, and the game's units should reflect that limitation.

[The Soldier]

5 minutes ago, Fred Sanford said:

Nobody said pistol armed cavalry didn't exist, it just wasn't useful for chasing enemy units through thick forest, and the game's units should reflect that limitation.

I don't care about chasing units through thick forest, currently shock cavalry struggle to catch up to skirmishers while in the open (and when they do catch up, there's a chance the skirmishers can fire point-blank and just Rout them, while the Shock Cavalry rarely fire their weapons), carbine cavalry can beat them in a fight, and they're slow in slicing up artillery.  They're completely pointless, even right from the get-go.

[Wandering1]

I would also point out for people that think Shock Cavalry was irrelevant during the Civil War: wasn't it Nathan Bedford Forrest that popularized cavalry charges during the period?

You do get his 3* cavalry group as a reward for CSA Shiloh, if I do recall...

[A. P. Hill]

Forrest used his cavalry as mounted infantry more than anything.   His slogan was ... "Get there first with the most"  (modernized for some of you folks.)   And the best way he could get units in the field of battle faster than his opponent was mounted ... almost to a man he always dismounted his  troops in conflict.  So not really "shock cavalry".