Scourge of War Boards

After a regiment gets a certain amount of fatigue they can't charge any more. It's also possible to some extent to change the effects of fatigue on regiments' combat ability.

I was actually thinking about something similar to this. Instead of messing with the formation or creating a new one, we could just increase the amount of fatigue penalty for melee. So this way after a melee, you are going to be pretty much used up until you have time to rest again.

That's a double-edged sword though. In the instance Stu is referring to, I'm the culprit. In a random GCM battle (me and Seal v Willard and Stu), I decided to test the attack march command (I had never used it) that Seal has been using so often lately. I sent 7,500 men (4 brigades) into a 100 yard section of Stu's line. It was quite beautiful; all 4 brigades hit at the same time. Stu had maybe 8 regiments to my 20, I managed to get around 12 of mine in melee against his 8, that left 8 in reserve just behind the action. So even if there were a big fatigue hit, I still had a second line ready to finish him off, and the fatigue hit would have applied to any of his regiments that managed to win their melees, so they would have been at a disadvantage too.

Now, unlike Seal, as Stu brought up reinforcements, I withdrew back across the creek instead of pressing with my whole division until I won or was destroyed (basic Seal 101). But I had racked up over a 1000 points so the battle was basically over points wise after my assault.

How to counter the massed attack march assault:

Stu and I talked about this after the game, and really, he was in a good position to do what I've been considering doing to counter the Seal assault, using multiple lines and falling back to keep from being engaged in melee. The weakness of the attack march is that none of the units will fire, so you should form a defense in depth and time your front line withdrawals so that you stay out of melee. If the attacker keeps coming, your second line will fire until they get close and then withdrawal behind the next line, and so on. The tricky part is knowing when to fall back.

We've used a different tactic a few times the last couple of games, allowing Seal's massed division to break through a weak line and then forming a sort of bag for them to fall in as they advance. But this was 3 divisions or so working together to destroy the menace. And it worked well.

But defending against the massed attack march assault on your own is a much more difficult task.

I don't think we need to add a fatigue hit to regiments which melee. I think it's fun trying to counter the evolving tactics of the Pennsylvania butcher.

My two cents.

The biggest tactic to use against massed infantry is canister.


Gmc should use the game stock artillery. Canister should be brought back as a battlefield force.


Units in column should receive HUGH casualties. Casualties from small arms fire, canister, and artillery in general. I wouldn't mind seeing lines of infantry charging, but not columns. If the player wants to use column then so be it, but he should pay a price, that is as long as the defender has placed his artillery properly.

When Seal column charges a whole division(which did happen a few times in the civil war) he is able to reach his point of attack in full force. The small arms fire isn't enough to stop him (even though he is in column and every shot should hit 3 or 4 of his men) and canister has been really taken out of the equation.

I have no problem with lines of infantry charging a position like Picket's Charge. I do have a problem with columns of charging infantry hitting a defensive line in full force.

Solutions:


1. Greatly increase casualties while troops are in column formation. By 4 or 5 times.

2. Bring canister back into a battlefield force.

3. Shoot Seal.

The problem with canister is, as Garnier said, it can't be changed without changing the effectiveness of all ordinance, and as we saw after the last patch, cannon are uber strong and we had a bunch of games where no one wanted to move their infantry out of hiding.

I don't think we need to add a fatigue hit to regiments which melee. I think it's fun trying to counter the evolving tactics of the Pennsylvania butcher.

I agree. I think this goes back to the whole "if it's allowed in the game, then it's fair". If someone is using a gamey tactic, well use that same tactic against them in the next game. I really wish I had time to join you guys more often because it's always a blast, but from what I have seen, any "gamey" tactic is always countered. Jackson found a way to defeat the Union forces in his Valley campaign again and again, and he was hugely outnumbered. Jackson was probably the gameyist general of the war.

1. Greatly increase casualties while troops are in column formation. By 4 or 5 times.

Can't be done, there's no mod-able modifier for how much damage different infantry formations take from rifle fire. It's been requested.

Solid shot does kill more against columns when it hits because the troops are packed together.

2. Bring canister back into a battlefield force.

Again can't be done until munitions.csv is unlocked without messing up other stuff.


@Davinci, the terrain effects on fatigue, cover and movement speed are not mod-able in MP.

if it's allowed in the game, then it's fair

We still mod things (to the extent possible) so that people use tactics that most players find more fun.

Question Why can’t the host of the game set a higher value in the drills.csv file for the MinEnemy , this would disrupt the players divisional charges once they reached a certain distance from the defending troops.

The downside to this would be that it would also disrupt the formations of the defending troops, basically rendering all involved into chaos.

After the player charging loses control of their advancing army that should make future attacks illogical.

But the truth of the matter is that there is not a program existing that can counter the tactics of a devious human player!

EDIT Post:

@Davinci, the terrain effects on fatigue, cover and movement speed are not mod-able in MP.

OK, Thanks, I was not aware of that, my ignorance about the features of playing on-line!

davinci

Question Why can’t the host of the game set a higher value in the drills.csv file for the MinEnemy

MinEnemy doesn't affect TCed troops.

A similar feature where a formation can be not allowed within a certain distance of enemy has been suggested before.

So you are alive Garnier - come back to GCM - the games are not the same without your flamboyance. As for the rest of this thread, I have no comment ...

not sure if i made this clear. I have no problem with the people who do it, i have no problem with the maneuver being performed on the battlefield, but as Davinci said...

After the player charging loses control of their advancing army that should make future attacks illogical.

yeah you can charge ,in any formation you want. i just want the proper drawback.

and as Marching Thru Georgia pointed out , melee was a rare occurrence. 100%, or close to that, of our games have major melee battles because there is no drawback to the action.

Looking at this from an outside perspective it seems that there are two settings that are already in the game that what help with this problem.

The drills.csv file – using the N and the R ….. Columns

Considering that this is already in the game, there would not be a reason to add another formation, or any other new feature.

The problem here as the G-Man pointed out earlier is that a setting of TC will over-ride these columns.

These two settings once fixed so that they are no longer affected by the TC would still allow for a player to move his division \ brigades forward in the hopes of taking an objective.

The difference here is that just like in real-life they would pay the price of advancing while under fire, and if they take the objective or retreat there are no points awarded in a melee attack.

This is due to the fact that once the units reached a certain distance from each other, one of both would retreat.

Now , the downside to this is that a devious player can still manipulate this feature by advancing the first group of soldiers to disrupt the defending troops.

Then send another wave of troops behind them that are not affected by the first wave’s disruption and carry the objective.

But, that could also happen in real-life!

And yes I hate any type of melee in this game, I firmly believe that it just didn't happen that often, and if it did it only involved a few units, probably less than two percent of available forces.

davinci