Road to Wargram and Peninsular Mod - Updated 1.6

[born2see]

OK. So the Square should not break against a cavalry charge but would if attacked by infantry. I assume that would be by melee or attrition. The only thing I've read about Squares was Keegan's The Face of Battle where he talks about the men holding fast against artillery even if the man next to you was decapitated and the officers holding their swords flat against the backs of the soldiers to keep them in formation. At some point they would break and head for the hills like units in any other formation. Am I correct so far?

As far as mapping a command to a keystroke, I could test that but I'm sure G has done that already. My question is when he says they wouldn't stay in formation when they fought he means once they started shooting they would dissolve into a line.

I guess we should get him involved in the conversation. What I'm trying to do is distill what needs to be changed in the game engine so I can present it to Norb. That's important for getting changes like this made.

B

[Jack ONeill]

Born,

Yes to all, I believe. I own Keegan's book, too. I know the relevant passage. However, All I was originally looking for was the ability to use the formation. A GOOD commander would hold his Horse back, using the threat of a charge to force a square. Horse batteries, attached to the Cav brigades, would trot up, unlimber and crush the squares with cannister, allowing either the horsemen to ride down the fleeing infantry or the approaching friendly infantry columns to charge and break them that way. The rest of it would be icing on an already groovy cake.
I agree, Gunship and Norb must be consulted. It IS G's Mod, after all. :laugh:

Jack B)

[born2see]

Jack,

I'm going to wait to hear from G and then once we have a concise idea of what is needed I'll submit the request. I need you guys to define it for me because I know very little about the tactics of the period beyond what I've already mentioned. I've already put in a request regarding cavalry not charging unlimbered artillery.

I would like to get this resolved as I think it will be a great addition to the game if we can model non ACW battles accurately.

B

[cliometrician]

Thanks for the quick reply, Gunship. I deselected all my mods, activated the Napoleonic mod, but I still get the error message when I hit the space bar. Black screen comes up and says that Sourge of War has quit working?

What am I doing wrong?

[born2see]

Have you set your uniform quality to best?

B

[Marching Thru Georgia]

born2see wrote:

I would like to get this resolved as I think it will be a great addition to the game if we can model non ACW battles accurately.

The game would handle the Seven Years War very well since the ACW was essentially a sloppy continuation of that type of warfare. However modeling Napoleon's wars would be a major undertaking. Many more formations would need to be added along with dedicated AI's for both the artillery and cavalry. Many more rules would have to be introduced to govern the interaction of all three branches with each other. It was combined arms warfare after all. As much as I would love to see SOW morph into such a game and can think of no better programmer than Norb to do it, given the development needed, I don't think he will want to do that until he feels he's done all he can with the ACW period.

[born2see]

Marching Thru Georgia wrote:

I don't think he will want to do that until he feels he's done all he can with the ACW period.

You're right about that. I guess what I was looking for was a way to add a couple of features that would enhance the playability of the Napoleon and Zulu mods.

Maybe because I'm playing so much ACW these days it would be fun to play another period. That's why I was excited about both of those.

Let me know what I can do to help.

B

[Marching Thru Georgia]

born2see wrote:

I guess what I was looking for was a way to add a couple of features that would enhance the playability of the Napoleon and Zulu mods.

Implementing the square formation would be a well defined and good first step. There was even a rebel regiment that formed one on the 1st day at Gettysburg.

[Jack ONeill]

All, Sorry to be out of it last night. Other half was online.

After giving this "square" issue more thought I came up with this - Square formations should be done manually by the player. Reason - if we ask Norb and Team to put this actually IN the game engine, the following will happen - It might/will carry over into the ACW side of the game. Thus, we will have the spectacle of the 7th. North Carolina forming square to repel the 9th. Pennsylvania Cavalry as it approaches the 300 yard mark (or whatever.). Not what I want to see. There was another thought but it's gone for right now. I think we must consider the Base game of ACW as the standard and not change things to suit another period IF it will indeed affect said base game.

Jack B)

[Jack ONeill]

All,

I realize Gunship tested and chose not to use the square formation in his Mod. I would like to test it out myself, just to see if it may be tweaked just a tiny bit to allow it to be incorperated. As to that, I need to do two things -

1) put in the 2 lines of code (or instructions) Born has graciously posted earlier in this thread. I have no idea where they go, so help there.

2) Route the square command to a key on the keyboard. I have never done this. May seem obvious to some out there, but I haven't done it, yet.

Thanks in advance.

Jack B)