Artillery

[Jack ONeill]

All,

I think the "falling back out of cannister range" idea is a good one, perhaps after a certain percentage of casualties. I personally have ridden over to Battalions a number of times and ordered it to "GTFO" after it has retreated and then lain down under cannister fire. I find that to be almost insane. (This happens mostly in HITS, when I can't see all the units under my command.) RB has a good one there.

The advancing forward aspect I think we should mull over a bit. Advancing into the teeth of a battery belching cannister was/is not something to be taken lightly. I have read any number of times where triple rations of rum/hard liquer were given out to the assault troops before ordering them forward in a particlarly dangerous assault. (I am reminded of Harry Price at Badajoz. Sharpe asks him if he had been drinking. Harry replied - Just enough to get me over the wall. Not a drop more.)

Jack B)

Personal opinion - I have had relatively no problem fending off infantry assaults with cannister. However, it does depend on how many battalions are attacking. Damned devilish AI has taken to flinging an entire Brigade at my battery positions in order to punch a hole.

Note to VC - be REALLY careful about this AI. This damn thing is ALMOST inituitive. And I believe it actually learns. (Perhaps we have the beginnings of SkyNet here?).

Nore again - I was speaking of the Nap Mod in regards to artillery fire.

[Baldwin]

Yeah Jack I found in one game that a few units had broken and yet stayed inside canister range as they are unable to move once they are broken. You couldn't rally them either. So basically they laid down there for like 5 minutes until they routed. I think you should still be able to order broken units to retreat farther away so that you can rally them. Otherwise as far as casualties in carryover games 'broken' would be worse than routing if those situations arise. Or use some scripting or editing so that they continue retreating until not being fired upon by arty or infantry would be best.

[Von_Clausewitz]

In support of Gunships post I would say that there are some BIG variables in the base game and its these that both add to its enduring flavour - the unpredictability of events makes 1000 MP battles all interesting - but this large variable window on so many game mechanics also gets some players new to the game critical of it "so-and-so happened and it would never be like that IRL" and such.

You have to be here for months for the great quality and subtelty of the game to really sink in and this also makes rule tweaking problematic because its easy to over-adjust something.

I do agree with that, first impressions are almost always inaccurate in these games. more testing and playing should be done before making a judgement. From my NTW3 experience i do agree that is easy to over correct or even break another aspect of fighting mechanics while trying to adjust one.

VC

[Von_Clausewitz]

I tested canister alot, sometimes the unit ran sometimes it didnt , sometimes it would almost distroy a battalion sometimes not. At one point it was way to powerful so i adjusted it to give the AI some chance of winning otherwise it was too easy. This is something that would have to be rebalanced if an MP version was available. I admot that my testing is hardly extensive so tweaking canister might be a good suggestion, and something i can do.

But to answer your questions, no there is no bounce through in the engine that im aware of, however firing at a column with roundshot will cause more casualties then firing at a line. In one of the patches Norb implemented a area of effect for the roundshot hit.

The one ammunition type not talked about is shrapnel, in my poinion this doesnt do near enough damage but im not sure histrically that it ever did, considering the ratio of cannons to howitzers on the battlefield.

Canister i think is ok, perhpas the unit stats need to be tweaked abit to saddletanks suggestion of retreating then rallying? I can adjust the stats for taking casualties, like percentage change to kill from a hit, percentage change of unit withdrawing etc but I cant single out artillery fire.

One of the problems with balancing is that a battery has 6 guns (say), and thats a lot of canister flying around and batteries can fire canister way to easily, i.e. behind and close to freindly units. I think this issue is well known.

Because of my ever shrinking free time due to RL issues, i have not been very active even at the Lordz forum/community.
If it becomes possible to play your mod MP, i would definitely look into the modding tools/files for SOW and help you fine tune it for MP gaming.

VC