Expanded Toolbar - Grog

[DarkRob]

Why not just add my fortress formation as a divisional formation lol. All jokes aside, I think some thought should be given to how easy the game becomes just because of the tools the Grog toolbar already gives us. Tools that didn't exist when the stock scenarios were written, written and intended to be used with the stock toolbar.

Also by his own admission mcaryf plays a heavily modified, homemade version of the game. Im sorry man but you cant balance a game around someones homemade mod that nobody else uses but you. We've already just added an update to the grog toolbar that is really only made for your mod and serves no purpose at all in the stock game. Its no big deal because it simply has no use in the stock game and so would never be used, but if we start adding things to suit your mod(that no one else uses)it could start to unbalance the game further.

As an example:
How much easier are the two army size Wavre scenario's simply because the grog toolbar allows us to lockdown all our forces at the beginning with TC all subordinates? The scenario was clearly written without that ability in mind and is the only army scenario to start off without officers on TC. Its done that way for a reason because your forces start off directly engaged with the enemy and half the challenge is supposed to be gaining control of the situation. We don't have to do deal with that with the Grog toolbar because we can lockdown all our forces in one button press so we immediately have total control. Makes both scenarios a ton easier.

Lets think about this divisional formation that puts artillery in a primo spot within a formation of squares. What does that do for a divisional scenario like "Mont St. Jean: Sabers vs Bayonets"? It makes it real damn easy to win with one button press.

Now don't get me wrong, Im a fan of the TC options the Grog toolbar gives us and I wouldn't want it any other way. But Ive also shown repeatedly how abusable those abilities are. The game is easy enough as it is once you understand the high level mechanics of it. I don't think we should start adding things to make it even more easy mode, or if we do, we should think long and hard about how they will affect the overall game, and not just a homemade mod.

[mcaryf]

Hi Rob
The whole purpose of modding is to add variants and in some cases improvements to standard games or scenarios so that people want to keep on playing them.

The reason I have requested the change to the divisional square formation is so that the AI can be improved rather than to make it easier for human players - a better AI equals a more interesting challenge for players. Coding AI routines can be quite complicated as obviously you can only surmise what situation the AI side might be facing. Having a reasonably good general purpose defensive stance against both cavalry and infantry attack that you can implement quickly would be a benefit. The current divisional square formation with the squares effectively blocking the divisional artillery line of fire is not too difficult for a human player to unscramble but would be much harder to code into the AI routines. It is also in line with history as Wellington had his artillery located in with his squares.

In your videos you have identified quite a few design flaws in the standard scenarios, for example the mistaken classification of one of the objectives as being a hold rather than a way point in the Ligny Battle scenario playing as the French. It is a very simple mod to correct that. With your knowledge of all the scenario weaknesses it could be very helpful if you produced some modded versions yourself.

Regards

Mike

[Didz]

It is also in line with history as Wellington had his artillery located in with his squares.

I would suggest you avoid using Waterloo as a reference for this sort of historical assumption. The orders issued by Wellington to his artillery commanders at Waterloo, were certainly not normal historical practice, nor were they in line with accepted tactical doctrine, and there is plenty of evidence that in practice they were largely ignored by the artillery officers on the ground.

In fact, Wellington was so annoyed with the failure of the artillery to comply with his stupid orders that he refused to approve medals for any of the British artillery officers present or to sanction their pensions. I believe Mercer was one of the few battery commanders who actually did keep his guns with the squares, and even he ignored Wellingtons order to shelter within the squares when the cavalry attacked recognising that the nearby square of Brunswickers which was composed mostly of children would almost certainly panic and dissolve if they saw his men running towards them. He remained in position purely because it was protected by a low bank and difficult for the French cavalry to assault. Most other batteries were withdrawn to the rear as soon as the French cavalry began their attacks, because squares cannot protect guns.

[DarkRob]

Hi Rob
The whole purpose of modding is to add variants and in some cases improvements to standard games or scenarios so that people want to keep on playing them.

I understand that, but these mods need to be self contained. For instance, theres nothing wrong with you releasing your own mod with all the game changes and changes to the toolbar you like. But that's not what you're asking, you're asking Reb to make changes in the official updates to the grog toolbar that arent meant for the stock game. That's whats not cool because these changes have nothing to do with the stock game and so shouldn't be made to the official grog toolbar, but only to the toolbars within your mod.

The reason I have requested the change to the divisional square formation is so that the AI can be improved rather than to make it easier for human players - a better AI equals a more interesting challenge for players. Coding AI routines can be quite complicated as obviously you can only surmise what situation the AI side might be facing. Having a reasonably good general purpose defensive stance against both cavalry and infantry attack that you can implement quickly would be a benefit. The current divisional square formation with the squares effectively blocking the divisional artillery line of fire is not too difficult for a human player to unscramble but would be much harder to code into the AI routines. It is also in line with history as Wellington had his artillery located in with his squares.

But you aren't thinking about how it affects the stock game or the stock scenarios. Again, take a look at Mt. St. Jean: "Sabers vs Bayonets". Your one button divisional square/guns formation invalidates any challenge at all and would turn that scenario into a 1 button win. And as for your argument that it would make the AI better and the game more challenging, well what if the AI used your formation in Mt. St. Jean: "Sans Infantry"? Now that scenario becomes unwinnable because there is no way to accomplish your objective of capturing the three batteries and the objectives because they would now be behind enemy infantry squares.

Again you aren't thinking about the stock game at all, just your mod, but yet you're asking for changes that would directly affect the stock game without giving any thought to it at all. Im sorry but that's wrong man. Change the grog toolbar all you want, that's fine, but keep it as part of your mod so to avoid making changes to the real grog toolbar that either don't need to be there, or maybe shouldn't be there.

Also we can leave the history discussion out of this completely. It has no bearing at all on game balance. It doesn't matter if historically Wellington had artillery that could target the moon. It only matters if it works in game, and Im far from convinced it would without seriously unbalancing some scenarios.

For instance is 30,000 points reasonable to achieve a French major victory in the full battle of waterloo scenario given the excessive casualties they are likely to take in your mod? Do you know? Do I know? Probably not, because it probably hasn't been playtested to the degree it should be.

What about the british score of 100,000 points? Is that still reasonable? They practically get that in the stock game just by holding the objectives throughout the whole 9 hour scenario. Now lets tack on all the extra points they will get from having artillery that basically fire canister out to the French main lines. Have you ever noticed the amount of points canister can generate over time? Its enormous. They might hit 100,000 points 4 hours into the scenario.

All these types of things get affected just by changing one thing about artillery. Have you given due thought to that? Have you tested it? Retested it? Adjusted anything besides giving the British super guns in a game that wasn't initially designed for that? And yet you want Reb to start implementing changes to the official toolbar based on your mod? Does this make sense?

In your videos you have identified quite a few design flaws in the standard scenarios, for example the mistaken classification of one of the objectives as being a hold rather than a way point in the Ligny Battle scenario playing as the French. It is a very simple mod to correct that. With your knowledge of all the scenario weaknesses it could be very helpful if you produced some modded versions yourself.

Because modding is in many ways changing the game to suit your own taste. How could I claim to be an expert at defeating the games scenarios when Im tweaking them to my specifications to begin with? And then am I to expect that 100 plus subscribers are going to follow suit and download my homemade mod that's better because I say it is? I mean you've already got Didz in here who disagrees with a lot of what you say, so whos to say you're right and hes wrong or hes right and you're wrong? Not me. Im just a video game player, not a historian. There has to be a gold standard to go by and the stock game is it. Now we can all agree about the things that aren't right in the stock game, but at least those things are the same for all of us. I cant do a video series if everyone is using wildly different versions of the game.

Its bad enough I had to start out my series by convincing people how bad the stock toolbar is and pushing them to use the grog toolbar. It would have been better if the Grog toolbar was the stock toolbar to begin with. No, the game is not perfect, yes it has some flaws, many of which Ive never even revealed in my video series because it wasn't necessary. But it is the game we all bought, and it is the standard version of the game. My series was designed to help new players get into the game and learn the mechanics of it, not how to mod.

(Also with regard to the Namur road objective in "The Eagle Triumphs" I never flat out said it was a mistake. I suspect it is, but theres no way I can know for sure because I didn't write the thing. It may be that the scenario writer wrote it that way for a reason, or had something else in mind, or didn't expect a player would base his whole strategy on just getting to that objective while ignoring everything else about the battle. I cant say for sure, and it would be somewhat arrogant of me to go changing it without at least having some idea of what the scenario writer was thinking when he designed it that way)

[Didz]

I mean you've already got Didz in here who disagrees with a lot of what you say, so whos to say you're right and hes wrong or hes right and you're wrong?

I'm afraid i have to agree with DarkRob, and as he says after spending most of my life studying Napoleonic combat tactic's and the battle of Waterloo in particular I don't agree with your assessment of Napoleonic tactical doctrine or the actual events that occurred during of the battle. Consequently, if I were pressing for changes they would be very different to yours. But I recognise that my views are not in line with the accepted historical propaganda which was contrived after the battle and presented to the British public at the time and have been passed on to today through historical plagiarism. I only really stick my nose in to these conversations when asked to do so, or provoked by some obvious inaccuracy.

One thing that is perfectly plain from the correspondence of all parties present at Waterloo was that their behaviour and tactical doctrine was largely driven by what we might today call 'accepted best practice', rather than any sort of scientific understanding. For an officer of this period to deviate from 'accepted best practice', was for him to risk censure from his peers and possible banishment from the military and society in general. Therefore the behavior of troops on the Napoleonic battlefield was largely predictable based upon the accepted practice of the nation and period, even if to our modern eyes it seems stupid or ineffective.

Exceptions such as the order to try and keep the artillery with the squares, and the bayonet charge of the 7th Line against a unit of French Dragoons, were just that, exceptions, and notable enough to be highlighted in the correspondence produced at the time and thus picked up by historians.

The vast majority of the correspondence confirms that the officers on both sides played their roles according to the rules. Infantry formed square whenever threatened by cavalry. The cavalry then attempted to provoke them into wasting their fire by demonstrating against the squares, whilst supporting artillery and infantry were rushed forward to destroy them.

That was largely what happened at Waterloo, despite what the British version of the battle claims. That was what Blucher and Bulow saw happening to the Allied centre and what promoted Blucher to break with tactical Prussian tactical doctrine and order Zeiten to advance and rescue the Allied centre before his corps was fully formed. That was also what numerous other officers saw and later recorded all along the Allied front in the mid-afternoon including the Prince of Orange who in the infortunate position of being the only surviving senior Allied officer in the centre of the Allied line and thus faced with the problem of trying to drive off the French skirmishers supporting the French cavalry and has been ridiculed by British historians for his efforts ever since.

In fact, Wellington was one of the few officers who was not to be aware of the imminent collapse of the Allied position because he was trapped in a square on the reverse slope of the ridge behind Hougoumont and couldn't see, or do, a thing.

In fact the Allied army had been in a state of almost complete tactical paralysis for much the afternoon, largely because Uxbridge had spent the British cavalry against D'Erlon's Corps and had nothing on hand to fend off the French. Not helped by the fact that Wellington had failed to agree with the Prince of Orange that the Netherlands Cavalry would be under his command, and so they ignored him and fought their own battle.

I'm convinced that if Napoleon had actually supported Ney's assaults on the Allied centre he would probably have won the battle, and it is a real act of providence that at that precise moment his nerve failed him and his faith in Ney wavered and he refused to make that final commitment that might have secured his victory before the Prussians could intervene.

[RebBugler]

Update version 5.7...

- Addition of Infantry Division level formation 'Artillery between Squares'
- Edited the Infantry Division level 'Squares' formation so battalions don't overlap

Division Square formation fixed, no overlap of battalions

The attachment DivisionSquares.jpg is no longer available

'Artillery between Squares' formation, view from the left flank (new formation button located in the lower right corner of the formations window)

The attachment DivisionArtillerybetweenSquares.jpg is no longer available

'Artillery between Squares' formation, view from the center to the right flank

The attachment DivisionArtillerybetweenSquares2.jpg is no longer available

'Artillery between Squares' formation, view from the rear center

The attachment DivisionArtillerybetweenSquares3.jpg is no longer available

Just from its structure I feel this formation will make a nice addition to the SOW arsenal. Thanks go to Mike for the addition, he convinced me of its worthiness. Sorry Mike, that other formation you suggested would take a custom OOB mod to make it work, so is not Grog Toolbar friendly.

I understand Dark Rob's concerns about new formations such as this and their affect on the scenarios. So, before releasing this update I tested the scenario used as a "one click formation to Victory" example. I tested the scenario twice with 'one click' moves and suffered a Defeat twice. There might be a one click Victory formation move possible, but I'll leave that for someone else to find. Still, I highly doubt it because that scenario in question, Sabers vs Bayonets, is my scenario. And there 'ain't no way' anyone is going to beat one of my scenarios with a one click formation move, regardless of the formations design.

The Grog Toolbar is designed to aid player control of this game, formations being an important part of that control. Since SOW has included all the historical formations possible, the Grog Toolbar has moved on by adding 'better player control' custom formations, many have been added since the game has been released. Varying custom formations simply translate to better options of control by requiring less micro management, leaving the player more time for strategy, and less time struggling with unit positioning.

One more concern mentioned about this new formation, the AI using it to affect scenario outcomes. Not by my observations. I have never seen the AI use a division formation short of the initial setup. Furthermore, I have only seen the AI use three brigade formation groups in the unitglobal file, the formation groups of Line Fight, Move, and Assault.

[mcaryf]

Hi Reb

Many thanks for doing this it looks very good and I will try it out soon.

If I want to try to call this divisional formation from within my scenario coding for the AI side can it be done from the formtype command and what reference would I use to point to the specific formations in your mod's unitglobal file?

Regards

Mike

[DarkRob]

And there 'ain't no way' anyone is going to beat one of my scenarios with a one click formation move, regardless of the formations design.

Is that a dare or a double dare?

[RebBugler]

Hi Reb

Many thanks for doing this it looks very good and I will try it out soon.

If I want to try to call this divisional formation from within my scenario coding for the AI side can it be done from the formtype command and what reference would I use to point to the specific formations in your mod's unitglobal file?

Regards

Mike

I don't know what you're asking but here's the unitglobal info: The formation is listed in column AO (formtype:13); Division formations are listed on rows 20-25.

Good luck with your mod, mods are key to any game's longevity and NSD made sure that WL is highly modifiable, more so than GB.

[RebBugler]

And there 'ain't no way' anyone is going to beat one of my scenarios with a one click formation move, regardless of the formations design.

Is that a dare or a double dare?

Neither, just covering my ass. Seemed like the diplomatic solution at the time since things were getting somewhat unfriendly and I felt it was a neutral route to take to comply with a request without taking sides. Did it work?