Automatic Formation Change to Column

[klightfoot]

I did solve my installation problem. Just took a few tries and will post what I did to get it working.

To be exact it was four men marching abreast resulting in a column of men taking up about 50 yards of road for a typical regiment. If a cannon happened to fire a ball down the length of the column assuming it didn't hit something like a rock to bounce it over the remainder of the line, it would kill or maim one to two men in each row. Any regiment that took a single 25-50% casualty hit would be useless. Then add that single guns seldom fired at such a beautiful target. A battery firing cannister would level the whole regiment. It never happened as far as I know because they weren't that stupid to march around like that but apparently are in this game.

SoW is billing itself as a Civil War simulation. I don't fight these type games historically, especially if my side lost that way, but I expect the game to make a reasonable attempt at having the units work historically. Having a regiment go into column from line, march a few hundred feet and then redeploy in front of the enemy into line just screams out that this is a toy not a simulation. That doesn't mean you can't be perfectly happy playing the game that way. The graphics are unbeatable. It just not Civil War. It's a war in some alternate universe where the laws of physics are different and a column of infantry can march up to an enemy line before deploying.

Right now I just want to be sure it really works the way I am seeing and I didn't fail to set some option or use the right button. With the release of Antietam there was renewed interest in this game at the ACWGC and I started a systematic review of the game. I ran into this oddity very early, first Tutorial, remembered it from my first playing of the game, so wanted to be certain what I was seeing was the way the game played not just in tutorial mode but in large scale battles.

[william1993]

If, which rarely happened (one ball taking out a whole regiment). Ball would lose energy before it'd get through the WHOLE regiment. And men did not stay in line all the time. They did use road column on battlefields, to get places quickly, and even to deploy behind a firing line (coming up in support). Everywhere wasn't wide enough for column of companies or battle line. Formation depends on terrain, in the civil war and in this game.

If you have your regiment in line before an enemy and you march them up in line they stay that way. If you run men up in column, when they get in firing range they immediately deploy. Sometimes the firing range was less than 160 yards. It all mattered what type of terrain you had.

They aren't stupid to march around like that, you have to control them. If you just walk them up onto a battery they will get shot to hell. This is a game, you have to control it, these aren't real people. You seem to want it to be real life instead of a game. No computer can really replicate everything real humans do, it can try and come close, but not all the way there.

What did they do to the laws of physics? Dead men still fall over...

[klightfoot]

If you have your regiment in line before an enemy and you march them up in line they stay that way. If you run men up in column, when they get in firing range they immediately deploy. Sometimes the firing range was less than 160 yards. It all mattered what type of terrain you had.

This is the information I am looking for. The tutorial has no threats although it is still silly to make a formation change to go a short distance. The question is if you have regiments in line of battle (2 rank) will they stay that way when order to advance on the enemy? The AI shouldn't switch them to column if they are under fire and should automatically change them back to line if their advance puts them under fire.

If it doesn't then you have to micro manage your battles or they become like Total War, mobs fighting.

[william1993]

If there are enemy around. I mean enemy near. Not form a line when an enemy is 500 yards away. If I have a regiment, and I give them a move order, and click on line after I give them the order, they will form line when they get there or before if confronted by an enemy. I mean confronted, not just sighted.

Battles in the civil war did become like mobs, smoke so thick, noise, all you had to go by was the scrap of regimental flags stuck to the staff. If you are wanting this game to be like some balanced chess game where everything goes smoothly and scripted you won't get it. If you don't micromanage the AI will kill you, just like in real life. One minute a regiment could be fighting, then next minute getting flanked through the smoke. War is chaotic.

[klightfoot]

I assume in the game artillery does have range and would be firing at 500 yards. I haven't verified this is true in this game. If it does would the AI still march through artillery fire in column?

Yes they became mobs but they never became mobs in road column. Total War expects you to micro manage to overcome AI stupidity. But they give you only a few units to represent very large armies. I haven't gotten far enough in SoW to see if they have size limits but I know even handling a single division with artillery would get you into 20 plus units very easily. This can be quite a handful to micro manage.

[william1993]

Yes. Artillery isn't 100 percent accurate, not in the game and not in real life. They won't hit everything they aim at dead on all the time. And yes, men would march through artillery fire, to try to get out of it. They most certainly wouldn't deploy into a clumsy line to get bombarded 500 yards away.

Scourge of War and Total War are two totally different games. You can't compare one to the other, one is more about graphics and arcade style and one is more about some type of simulation. I don't know if you are expecting SoW to be like total war but it's not.

Divisions do not have size limits as far as X amount of units as the most, the divisions are just formed with the correct order of battle historically. So whichever regiments they had in the real war, they have in the game.

[klightfoot]

I am not comparing them. They are completely different concepts. That was to illustrate something only.

During the Civil War soldiers did not remain in road column in the open under artillery fire. Artillery was relatively inaccurate and could do little harm to a two rank line at 500+ yard distance. But it was deadly agains column formations at that distance. If SoW leaves men in road column marching through artillery fire in the open at that distance instead of staying in line formation, then it is poorly simulating the Civil War. Either the formation should be decimated which means poor AI handling or the artillery is poorly simulated.

What I can't understand is why the game designers would put such a totally unnecessary logic into the game. By simply leaving it up to the player to order the correct formation the problem is solved regardless of how one interprets Civil War tactics.

[Jack ONeill]

Klightfoot,

I'm going to ask you a question I have asked a number of people here - what is the date on your DD214?

If you don't know the answer, don't feel bad. What it tells me/us is you may not know what you are talking about.

No ACW field commander in his right mind is going to move troops under fire in anything less than the fastest way possible. Troops under artillery fire at 500 plus yards had better be moving at some speed in order to cross the ground faster, ie: a column. Time of exposure is critical. Marching forward in line of battle that far away only gives gunners more time to drop shells or plow roundshot thru your ranks, to say nothing of the morale effect on your troops. Yes, columns DO present a better target. This must be weighed against the speed of movement the column can generate. Artillery in all time periods is at it's best against static positions or troops holding a position. Artillery fire against moving targets is, (no pun intended), pretty much a hit or miss affair. Luck of the draw CAN be fairly grim - witness morning at Antietam when a random shell from a Confederate field gun dropped on a Wisconsin Regiment moving up in the fog. It killed or wounded 20 men. This is an exception, not the rule. Artillery at distance was not the man-killer people think it is. Artillery up close, (cannister), is.

But what do I know? I'm just a begonia...

Jack B)

[Blaugrana]

Jack,

I don't think it's right to (partially) disqualify people's opinions on whether or not they have a DD214. I can think of people whose opinions you value highly who don't have one (if it's what I think it is).

IMHO, we should argue the merits of people's posts on their content.

I am way off being an expert but fwiw I also find it strange that regiments, with enemy artillery in LOS, will deploy into columns.

Yours,

Jeff

[william1993]

No ACW field commander in his right mind is going to move troops under fire in anything less than the fastest way possible. Troops under artillery fire at 500 plus yards had better be moving at some speed in order to cross the ground faster, ie: a column. Time of exposure is critical. Marching forward in line of battle that far away only gives gunners more time to drop shells or plow roundshot thru your ranks, to say nothing of the morale effect on your troops. Yes, columns DO present a better target. This must be weighed against the speed of movement the column can generate. Artillery in all time periods is at it's best against static positions or troops holding a position. Artillery fire against moving targets is, (no pun intended), pretty much a hit or miss affair. Luck of the draw CAN be fairly grim - witness morning at Antietam when a random shell from a Confederate field gun dropped on a Wisconsin Regiment moving up in the fog. It killed or wounded 20 men. This is an exception, not the rule. Artillery at distance was not the man-killer people think it is. Artillery up close, (cannister), is.

Thank you. I've been saying this. Getting men in column would move them out of the way faster, and civil war artillery was not the rapid-firing, radar directed artillery of today. It was harder to aim, and once fired had to be put back in position. There wasn't a guarantee that it would hit the small target that is a regiment in column from far away. A line equals a bigger target. Artillery was inaccurate at long ranges for small targets, and a column presented a smaller front and more movement.

then it is poorly simulating the Civil War. Either the formation should be decimated which means poor AI handling or the artillery is poorly simulated.

No it's not. Artillery didn't have the sniper's rifle accuracy you think it does. No, men did not want to stay under artillery fire and the column got them out quicker. But sometimes, when it came to deploying, they'd be under artillery fire regardless of where they were. Sometimes it was unavoidable.