Charge Range...

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Jack ONeill
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Charge Range...

Post by Jack ONeill »

All,

Does anyone know if the "Charge Range" can be changed by us, or is it hard-coded? If we can, where is it? I'd like to change the Cavalry auto-charge distance to 150 yards vs. the 100 yard range we have now. This would truly be annoying for NapMod Infantry, forcing troops into square earlier than they have to (or not), but not be able to fire until the Cav really closed.

Thoughts?

"Molon Labe"

Jack B)
American by birth, Californian by geography, Southerner by the Grace of God.

"Molon Labe"
Marching Thru Georgia
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by Marching Thru Georgia »

The auto-charge ranges are hard-coded.
I can make this march and I will make Georgia howl.
Jack ONeill
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by Jack ONeill »

Thought so. Just wanted to check.

"Molon Labe"

Jack B)
American by birth, Californian by geography, Southerner by the Grace of God.

"Molon Labe"
garyknowz
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by garyknowz »

The auto-charge ranges are hard-coded.
Is it possible to adjust the auto-charge to where the defending unit (or stationary unit) does not counter-charge? It seems that the unit encroached upon would have less an incentive to charge, especially when especially if it's graced with good defensive terrain while forcing the attacked to charge under a hail of lead. Seems more historical to me. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers!
Gary Knowlton
Sorry. I suffer from a serious case of typosis. Don't worry, it's not contagious :)
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norb
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by norb »

The idea is that there is some distance where our units are mixed and we are not going to stand there and be chopped to little bits. If someone shoots me an email I will see how hard it would be to make this moddable, but I cannot count on the results. It might be very simple. No IMs or posts here, I'll forget. Email is my todo list :)

There is also another charge range based on the attributes of the commander and the orders given. This varies on situation and type of leader and won't be able to be changed.
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norb
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by norb »

OK, took a look at this code and there's not much we can do in a patch for this, as it's working the way we want it for GB. It's not just a value to change.

Most of the auto charge comes from the officer and their orders, so you can try having no orders for their officer. One thing that I cannot change at this point is if someone is meleeing me, then I melee them. This is a base feature of the AI and it's just not something we can change now. I also believe that a lot of the charging will not happen if the formation is marked as can't charge.
Marching Thru Georgia
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by Marching Thru Georgia »

This is a base feature of the AI and it's just not something we can change now. I also believe that a lot of the charging will not happen if the formation is marked as can't charge.
Therein lies the rub. Charging was quite common in 19th century battles, but melees were quite rare. From what I have observed, the AI does a good job of deciding when to make a charge. Contact just needs to be avoided most of the time. Hopefully in the next incarnation of the game you can address this.
I can make this march and I will make Georgia howl.
alessillo
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by alessillo »

I don't know if this can be of any use, but it's something I have in mind and I hope to be able to explain it with my poor english. I'm working on two mods The War of The Spanish Succession and The Zulu Mod, during this work I made some experiments to obtain a longer distance for charge, in one of them I made a scenario and a battlescript with this trigger: evtdisttarg,OOB_Zulu_20 (the Zulu regiment),charge:400; so I have seen a charge from 400 yards, a spectacular wave of Zulus charging a thin red line of British soldiers and I thought that I had the solution to the problem of charging range, but I was wrong because the event is triggered only one time, then the Zulus return to charge only from 100 yards. Now come my question, could it be possible to add a command like this (evtdisttarg,charge:400) in drills.csv or unitglobal.csv or even in the OOB and have that unit execute that command whenever the condition is true? For example in the game Operation Flashpoint you can add some commands to a unit that are executed during the game.

Cheers
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norb
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by norb »

I don't believe that's possible, you are correct in that events are only ever triggered once. I know that you can have timed commands, but I'm not sure if you can add events this way.
alessillo
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Re: Charge Range...

Post by alessillo »

Thank you for the answer, I noticed that in the gui.csv there are some conditions that determine whether or not to draw a particular graphic, for example the condition #visible==1 (visible to enemy = true) shows a binocular on the toolbar; I suggest, for a future patch, to introduce some user defined conditions to add in the gui.csv that determine the behaviour of the unit exactly like pressing a button. As an example the user defines the variable #chargerange=200 and in the gui.csv of the cavalry units adds this condition #chargerange==1 (chargerange=200 is true)that does not determine to draw some particular graphics but to perform a command, in this case the command charge.
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