Artillery retreat feature

[Garnier]

In the new patch artillery automatically try to avoid being close to enemy infantry. When they're limbered, they'll simply gallop away when the enemy gets close, and when unlimbered, they'll either withdraw by recoil or limber and retreat. They'll even do this when the guns and/or battery commander are TCed.

Yesterday we had an incident where infantry charging a cannon were unable to capture it, despite the distance between the regiment and gun was 0 meters.

This might be a bug or WAD, I don't know. It's listed in the patch features list as:

Artillery is more likely to getaway from approaching infantry making it harder to capture.

I assume this behavior is hardcoded, and if so, my opinion is that there needs to be an option to disable it, in a mod or scenario somehow. It may be nice for SP where the AI never escaped their guns in time, but in MP it's both annoying for gun commanders who now don't have control of their guns, and for those trying to charge guns who cannot capture them.

[Little Powell]

In the new patch artillery automatically try to avoid being close to enemy infantry. When they're limbered, they'll simply gallop away when the enemy gets close, and when unlimbered, they'll either withdraw by recoil or limber and retreat. They'll even do this when the guns and/or battery commander are TCed.

Yesterday we had an incident where infantry charging a cannon were unable to capture it, despite the distance between the regiment and gun was 0 meters.

This might be a bug or WAD, I don't know. It's listed in the patch features list as:

Artillery is more likely to getaway from approaching infantry making it harder to capture.

I assume this behavior is hardcoded, and if so, my opinion is that there needs to be an option to disable it, in a mod or scenario somehow. It may be nice for SP where the AI never escaped their guns in time, but in MP it's both annoying for gun commanders who now don't have control of their guns, and for those trying to charge guns who cannot capture them.

This was a feature we put in because a single regiment could potentially run through an entire artillery brigade and capture every gun in sight, SP or MP.. This is very a-historic. But maybe we could tone it down some. We can discuss more in the meeting tonight.

[Garnier]

Infantry being able to run right through enemy infantry without taking casualties or being stuck in melee is the issue there, not the fact that they can capture guns when they charge them. Guns should either be protected by infantry or aimed at the enemy to prevent/discourage capture.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Guns should either be protected by infantry or aimed at the enemy to prevent/discourage capture.

That's why they get out of Dodge when the enemy gets too close. That's what unsupported arty did historically. I agree though, that if they are TC'd, they should stay in place. Every dumb commander should have the right to have his guns removed from his posession.

[NY Cavalry]

A last stand gun line is a tactic. It was used at Getty and I have used it maybe twice in all the MP games I have played online. It should not be used very often, but it is a tactic.

In a MP game 4 vs 4 Spooms was bearing down hard on my right flank and the only thing I could do was set up a last stand gun line. It did hold ,barely and our team squeaked out a victory.


The change recently made where they pull back is historical and is good game play. Tc'd units should hold in place though.

[garyknowz]

I thought the "Hold to the Last" command would override the auto-retreat issue.