Friendly Fire

[Saddletank]

Would NSD consider adding this feature at some point? I find the lack of friendly fire can allow some rather unhistorical and odd game play especially in player vs player MP. The famous "magic canister" of SoW:GB that can fire through the backs of your own men and kills only the enemy beyond them, or that fires into a melee and hits only enemy soldiers is an issue that is long overdue to be fixed.

As a part of this process you could also add increased casualties for denser/more massed targets like whole brigades advancing in column of lines (as in D'Erlon's 2:00pm attack) or in MP where a player can mass a whole stack of battalions together and punch a hole by sheer weight of numbers. Making such dense targets very vulnerable to canister, roundshot and musketry would help a lot.

Thanks.

[Little Powell]

Friendly fire is something I have requested as well, but there's just too many repercussions for it to make it into the initial release. But it's definitely something on the radar.

[con20or]

Yep - would be cool, but we have a list of 'cool features' a mile long, no joking. In relation to the massed targets - I could have sworn we already had that. I rememember Norb explaining about the route calculation of round shot. Ive definitely seen files of sprites taken out - and on that, that 'file destroying' sound effect is my absolute FAVOURITE in WL. LP did an awesome job on the sounds and music.

[Saddletank]

Thanks guys - also sorry, this should be moved to the Waterloo board.

Yes, correct, there is a depth of formation bonus for roundshot - I've seen enfiladed lines take huge losses from a roundshot bouncing right down the line. My question though relates to concentrating more than one unit in a small area, so in the case above that roundshot wouldn't just plough through one unit but through any unit behind it as well.

Same with canister, a single battalion marching in column towards a battery will suffer but a second battalion right beside it won't if it's 10 yards further away; they should both suffer equally and a battery commander would get his gunners to usually shoot at the centre of a target mass, which in that case would be where the two battalions join.

I agree that implementing this change would be a lot of work given how the game functions now, but for the cool factor I think its high on the list (and not just for the cool factor but for reasons that critically affect gameplay too to try and discourage players from piling 10 battalions together in a huge column and stomping the enemy lines with overwhelming strength - an attack like that ought to take overwhelming losses, from musket/rifle fire as well).

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Roundshot currently will pass through the first unit and into a second one if it is close enough. I've tested that. The length of travel probably needs to be lengthened though.

I think the way to avoid the magic canister and guns firing through friendly troops as it does now is to change the firing logic for the guns. If friendly troops are between the gun and the enemy target, do not fire. It can be that simple. Historically, guns did not fire during the entire battle as they do in SOW. They stopped whenever friendly troops might be hit.

I'm hopeful this will be a relatively easy mod to make.