road movement and supply questions

[Archer]

Can you share if movement/road movement will be any different then it was in Gettysburg? Specifically will units still bunch up when moving in road column like they tended to be in Gettysburg? Or was a way found to try and space units out while marching in column?

Also, will resupply be any different in Waterloo then in Gettysburg?

thx!

[con20or]

We spent alot of time working on unit bunching - but it resulted in big traffic jams at road junctions. Very realistic maybe, but not very fun. So we scaled it back somwehat. You should now also see units working to avoid overlapping in battle, stopping to let others pass instead of obscuring them, etc.

[Saddletank]

That sounds like a move in the right direction. Are the road column algorythms moddable so us realism grognards can spend 2 hours of a 3 hour battle stewing in a traffic jam?

Also - any work done on supply wagons?

[con20or]

No, I think the road marching is hardcoded.

[mitra76]

Yes is hardcoded, from the AI you can only stop the movement if overlap, but halt mean you lost reference to the final destination previously set and a part this probably you going to stop the full column like a domino effect

[Saddletank]

Thanks guys.

And supply wagons? Any change?

[con20or]

No, i think the ammo types are very similar.

[mitra76]

no, nothing. Their AI is very simple since the start (follow the division commander if too far, supply nearest friend without ammo and avoid enemy) and the presence of much more roads on the maps permit them to make less strange path. It was not a real priority change them in this moment

[Guest]

In my opinion road path following really need to be addressed in a future patch.

It's an essential element of Napoleonic Warfare, just consider artillery (which normally didn't deploy much far from roads) and supplies movement through the battlefield, campaign-generated encounter/rearguard/vanguard battles, reinforcements, etc.

I'm not an AI programmer, but I think a clever use of danger (influence?) maps for pathfinding and column layout (attached skirmishers, cavalry patrols, etc.), "discretization" of the road network in graph form (vertices being deadends, crossroads, etc. and edges being say bezier splines reparametrized by arc length at fixed steps), fast collision detection/prediction, prioritized resolution (slow pace, avoid obstacle using lateral lanes request, obstacle removal toward lateral lanes request, even disorder, take out from road and replan everything in case of unavoidable collision), FSMs (road follow, enter road, exit road) and so on should do the trick.

Quite a lot of work involved though.

[con20or]

In my opinion road path following really need to be addressed in a future patch.

.

Future patch!? This game has not been released yet! Too early to talk of patches

We have a very complex AI - probably the best on the market but it requires a CPU/GPU and likes FPS - every in-game check a regiment makes reduces that. We have thousands of regiments so we needed to make an amazing game that maximizes everything. There are movement penalties for all unit types on different terrain and different unit types will avoid danger zones - try getting your artillery close to enemies unsupported after this release