Tests on 1.1b

[GShock]

Did another major test. Garber will not take the NO ORDER, he basically does whatever he wants and I don't know why. There's not much else to do at this point, at least in this tutorial, but cover him as best as the player can to avoid losing the guns entirely. This time he got engaged pretty close. 2 guns routed, the rest exhausted the cannister rounds but the total score of the battery was still only 220 and this time the battle lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes.

On the final part, I attacked the enemy artillery with about 700 men and it took them 5 minutes to rout all the enemy guns. I assisted to the USUAL scene of hundreds of men shooting on separate guns for 5 minutes before they routed and, obviously, the usual COMIC scene of the guns plainly limbering in an instant and running away like the wind.

Regardless of the artillery ineffectiveness, the musket ALSO is ineffective against the arty. As I said, you shoot a cannister round but if there's no infantry rushing to cover you, as server, you ROUT and you ROUT leaving the gun in place, that's what should happen... unless you want to die, which is a matter of instants with just one regiment, imagine against 4 regiments at 100 yds.

Noted the way you personally do the couriering from the other thread, unfortunately, it looks like the command map is NOT implemented with the move order, hence you can NOT send the guy wherever you want via couriering but need to select a specific landmark (i.e. orchard's farm). Sadly, I have no idea where each landmark is (there's no text marking them on the 3d map and of course there can't be one on the game map or command map either) so ultimately, the map feature in the couriering window can't be used.

... which is the main reason why Garber, again, did whatever he wanted in this test. Again I must have ordered at least 20 times to go to NO ORDERS and I kept seeing him going on hold to the last. Scripting probably... don't know anymore how to tackle this game. I hope you guys have modded the weapons and that a little tweaking can be done about the way generals take the orders (if they want to take them that is) and the implementation of the command map into the couriering system.

The tutorials are especially important because they are the business card of the game. I think the tutorial text helpers should explain in detail how to give orders so that the generals will follow them... strangely though this problem only occurs with Garber, it must be scripting. In this case, perhaps the scripted behavior should be added to the notes of the tutorial description so the player doesn't waste time (and lives!). I am still open 80% that it is MY fault if what I am describing happens so I'll be waiting for your acknowledgment (and read your beautiful AAR again)

[Marching Thru Georgia]

GShock wrote:

strangely though this problem only occurs with Garber, it must be scripting. In this case, perhaps the scripted behavior should be added to the notes of the tutorial description so the player doesn't waste time (and lives!).

If this is the division tutorial, then you are right, it is a scripting issue. Garber is detatched, so no orders will have any effect. I agree, that should be added to the intro text, so time is not wasted, as you pointed out, by players trying to learn the game. Looking at the script and OOB, (they are in the SDK), it appears that he can be attached using the attach command. Then the player would have control of the arty.

Are there any good mods in use for this version? Are you using modified artillery files? Do you agree that the artillery figures while still being much better than before are still inaccurate?

I have not updated the Couriers & Mini-maps mod yet. There is a bug with the command map movement and also with the new, "Move your unit x yards forward" order. I was waiting for those to be fixed.

The arty is still too weak IMHO, but it can be made as powerful as the player desires by modding the three arty csv files. I did that in the Artillery & Enfilade Fire Mod. My solution was to increase the optimum and typical ranges of the guns in artillery.csv. I noticed that Norb & Co have also done this in the beta, so I must be on the right track. More importantly, I decreased the adjusted spread of the shots in artytables.csv. Finally, I upped the morale and casualty hits in munitions.csv. I also increased the fuse reliablity too. That last change is probably unhistoric, but it is needed to compensate for the incorrect way that area effect ammo is handled by the game engine.

For the update of this mod, I am also getting rid of shell ammo and adding more solid shot to the gun loadouts. Solid ammo is now correctly handled. I haven't released an updated version of this mod yet, due to a bug in the flanking fire effect.

[GShock]

Yes he's unattached but if you send the order to reattach right away before the courier arrives, the man is already engaged and it's the end of the story. He keeps selecting the strat order to hold at all costs no matter how many times I sent him the no orders command most likely because of the distance to the enemy. I am going to try again this time by moving Early closer and thus saving the time for the courier to arrive.

Do we have a ETA for the fixes you mentioned? Is your mod working in this beta? I would like to try if so (but i haven't got the SDK anyway so I need indications).