Road to Wargram and Peninsular Mod - Updated 1.6

[born2see]

I can do that for you but I need a little time. If someone beats me to it let me know.

B

[Jack ONeill]

Roger that Brother. BTW, How was the Event @ Kearney Park? Just remembered you went.

Jack B)

[born2see]

jack,

I was wrong. You can't use the formation command as a keystroke because it crashes the game. What I'll need to do is create a little Mod which will take some more time. Let me do that and when it's done I'll send it to you. I'll probably just use one of the stock buttons without changing the way it looks. Funky but it should work for our purposes. Again if someone has an easier way let me know so I don't waste my time.

B

PS: I never made it to the re-enactment but my friends did and they said it was great. Lots of people and exhibits and it was a two day event with a night battle. I was really sorry I couldn't go.

[Jack ONeill]

B,

Roger that. How much of a problem would it be to add a button? There doesn't seem to be any room on the toolbar for one. You wouldn't think this would be such an issue.
BTW, I'm doing a music mod to incorporate period music for the march music. Might be a little weird having Austrian troops marching to the French National Anthem but, oh well...LOL!

Jack B)

P.S. - Sucks you didn't get to Kearny Park.

[Jack ONeill]

Oh yes, and French infantry marching to Bagpipes. LOL!

Jack B)

[born2see]

I've never done it but there are a couple of Toolbar mods out there. I use RebBugler's which I really like.

I'm not a modder but I could probably kluge one together for testing. If you wanted a more permanent solution then someone else who's an experienced modder would have to add it to a custom toolbar.

I suspect gunship could probably provide you with something better to test with.

B

[gunship24]

Just to add what I've found:

What are Squares

This is a defensive formation used in this period against cavalry. The square which we see in movies is the Hollow type and was the most common during the war. This consisted of ranks facing out, the first rank kneeling, the majority of them pointing their bayonets out and not firing. Now matter how hard you try a horse will never go into such a wall of spikes, therefore this makes it superb for dealing with cavalry.

Types of squares

Mostly the Hollow type, that being edges with space in the middle for the colours and commanding officers, surgeons, drummers etc. These could be battalion or brigade squares. In fact many times they weren't even squares but more irregular shapes as several battalions came together hastily. Most of the time squares did not move, however it wasn't unknown to have the rear guard form square while marching as often the enemy cavalry would be nearby.

Vs Infantry and Artillery

Squares are highly vulnerable to artillery fire as you can imagine all those bodies tightly packed make a good target. Their firepower is greatly reduced as most of the men are forming a steel wall so if an enemy line comes up then the square will take casualties and not be able to respond. The idea therefore is to threaten the square using cavalry then bring up infantry and artillery support to blast away. Should the square react then they would be sabred by the cavalry, something which didn't happen at Waterloo.

Squares in SoW

While I would love norb to put the square stuff in more I think that because they weren't used hardly ever in ACW it would go against the grain of the game somewhat.

However let me put that aside for a minute and see what it would take to have cavalry done fully. I think the reaction to cavalry is a good idea. This could be combined with the commander skill rating to determine when he would form square if at all. To prevent any ACW unit forming a square you could have a special type of cavalry that would trigger the reaction to form square, regular ACW cavalry then no, special type either scenario or historic then yes.

There are few quirks with the square formation that would require their own code to all other formations. The need to have the flag facing the enemy must go. A square cannot be flanked. A square should never break formation to melee but should stand where they are to melee even against infantry. I'm not going to go as far as only the face firing at the enemy should be shown as firing as I think thats pushing it way to far B)

What I have tested
I have tested the square formation in combat. I had the following set in drills:
KeepFormation = 0 (the unit will change to column to march forming square at the end)
CanWheel = 1 (square will wheel to face enemy)
CanFight = 1 (square will fire back)
MoveRateMod = -0.9 (squares move slowly in my test)
CantMove = 1 (this doesn't work as I can still move the square, perhaps it has another meaning but you can combat this by putting a large negative number in MoveRateMod)
CantCharge = 1 (square will receive the charge and not counter charge)

One good thing I noticed is that the unit will reform to square if it wins a melee. The stock square shows all sprites firing but you can easily just get the outer ranks firing by assigning the number 2 (NCO) sprite to the formation positions. All sides fire but that is fine, imagine the odd horse or soldier moving around the sides.

What I think would work
Ok so ive already discussed the reaction based on commander skill and the special type of cavalry to trigger the reaction. This would keep ACW era normal. At the very least I would love to see the FireMod and MeleeMod in the drills working, these would act similar to the Melee and Fire modifiers in unitattributes that are set with the units expereince level. It's been placed but doesn't seem to do anything. This would improve the ACW engine in my opinion as you can reduce the melee and fire ability of a skirmish formation, increase the melee of an attack column while reducing fire power etc. In the case of squares you could use it to increase melee skill (you would have to balance this for infantry) whilst significantly reducing fire power.

A CanBeFlanked column in drills would be good. Or simply hardcode it.

Artillery targeting a dense square is already in the game due to the radius hit thingy that you see when enfilading.

Conclusion
So without the ability to modify a square's melee of fire ratings the only reason to have them in square at the moment is for show.

[Jack ONeill]

Brilliant!

Gunship, well laid out. Yes, realistically, at this point, a square would almost be just for show. Again, given my points from earlier AND your points above, I believe that having squares would be permissible AND somewhat functional if they were to be operated manually by the player. This would alleviate changing the game engine and thus having ACW troops forming square, while adding to the already fantastic visual effect of this stunning Mod.

Again though, how can I do this? As stated before, I really have no idea how to get the square code lines in the right file, then install a button on the toolbar like you did with L'ordre mixte.

Jack B)

[gunship24]

Again though, how can I do this? As stated before, I really have no idea how to get the square code lines in the right file, then install a button on the toolbar like you did with L'ordre mixte.
Jack B)

This might work:

Open gui.csv and add this:
GUI_LVL6_Inf_Combat,GFX_BS_Buttons,939,655,,,,3,3,3,5,3,3,3,4,0,0,0,0,form:DRIL_Lvl6_Inf_Square,,Square,,,#formnum == 5,
GUI_LVL6_LINE_Inf_Combat,GFX_BS_Buttons,939,655,,,,3,3,3,5,3,3,3,4,0,0,0,0,form:DRIL_Lvl6_Inf_Square,,Square,,,#formnum == 5,

This will add another column button on both infantry toolbars but when you cursor over it it will say square. You will therefore have two column buttons like my screenshot and its the left one that will form square.

[Jack ONeill]

Roger that. Will giv it a try. Thanks.

Jack B)