Scourge of War Boards

Gents,

After playing this amazing game for a while, I've decided that the artillery needs a serious revamping. This is probably because Artillery is my trade, which makes me somewhat of a stickler.

Arty in SOW seems to be largely ignored at distances of 400m+, and only useful for it's canister. This results in Artillery flying around the battlefield, in some cases outpacing the infantry. More akin to an MG-42 than a half-ton smooth bore weapon.

Even with that Cannon fire & Enfilade fire mod, I still didn't think Arty measured up to more than a mild irritation to the enemy.

My quick fix was just bumping up the kills per shot, but I must admit that I feel guilty, because even a casual viewer can see the amount of love that Norb put into those damn arty tables. REAL ARTY TABLES AREN'T DONE WITH THAT MUCH LOVE. That said, increasing the kills per shot by say, 2, gets some pretty sweet results.

Problem is, they are SO realistic, the minor unrealistic aspects of the rest of the game compound upon it, making Arty useless when used in a realistic fashion.

I'm pretty new at modding, so I was wondering if ya'll could help point me in the right direction. These are some things I want to start on.

1. It would be nice if the target was forced to lie down when Arty hits them. I know that some regiments do so, but I think that is more of a decision to take cover rather than an onslaught of steel forcing them to the ground. Suppressing fire, if you will. Perhaps the unit takes a morale test and if it fails, they hit the dirt.

2. How to I slow down the doggone horses? It is far far far to easy to wheel up some guns, blow away an entire brigade, and retreat. People might call this "Gamey", but what do you expect when those are their options?

oops, the powers that be are killing the power at the COP, so I'll resume my rant later.

"It would be nice if the target was forced to lie down when Arty hits them."

I'm guessing you meant "wasn't" in terms of them always hitting the ground. I'm no expert in arty by any means, but I like where your going with this. Since most units have the same morale (default 9 in OOB) having a morale check wouldn't work. However keeping with that thinking, if it did a check on the unit's experience which does vary from regiment to regiment that would be great. The hardened veterans would press on under fire while the greener troops would cower in fear. I also agree that long distance artillery needs to do a tad bit more damage, maybe not a 2X multiplier but definitely an increase from what the default is.

I read these posts and wonder if I'm playing a different version of the game. I am seeing lots of casualties beyond 400 yards. As rebs, I used to regularly bring my guns up to 400 yards. Since one of the recent patches something was changed and effectiveness has increased. Now as rebs, I will not bring my guns to 400 yards as the counter battery fire from the union guns wrecks them. I have had Union batteries cause 150 to 200 kills at ranges of not less than 400 yards.
The Union artillery is far superior to the rebs. Even with firing from higher elevations the rebs guns don't do very well.
If a gun crew is rated low it will perform with less effectiveness. Higher rated crew do much better. Before modding the ranges/effectiveness of the guns, you might want to just increase the quality of the gun crews. The artillery arm had the best men assigned to them usually. By Gettysburg all the batteries (in my opinion) should be rated high. The game has several reb batteries' crews rated average.

Redleg -

Artillery does need to be tweaked a bit. It should be causing some more casualties, morale and fatigue malus with enfilade fire and when firing upon troops in column. However, overall it is performing pretty well and you should exercise some caution with tweaking it too much. I play arty pretty regularly and Yankee arty is superior than Reb arty. The Reb arty problems are built into the game - there is another thread about the actual stat difference - to accurately reflect the probs the Rebs had with arty effectiveness outside of canister range.

Reference the supressing fire suggestion, that already happens and other greener units will break pretty quickly. It is important to remember that arty is a force multiplier in this game. IF you start pounding fresh infantry early in the game, the results aren't great. However, the longer the game goes on, provided the pounding continues, it will impact infantry units. Tired and beat up infantry will break if hit with 1-2 canister shots after getting pounded all game. Fresh regiments can withstand that pounding and reach your guns before you can kill enough of them - that is why you must protect your guns with infantry.

Reference #2, you may get away with that in SP, but if you do that in MP you will either lose your guns to infantry or I will knock them out with counter-battery fire. Although I think CB fire should be improved a bit, in the current version of the game, you will lose guns if you roll them out in the open like you described. Everytime you limber/unlimber and move, you aren't firing and are tiring. That allows my guns to keep pounding away and eventually slow down your ROF and knock your guns out.

Everything comes down to the math. If I send a brigade of troops (say 1200 men in 4 regiments) at your battery of 6 guns which are 200 yards away (canister range), I will take those guns before you can kill the brigade. At that range/speed, the max you will fire is 3 canister shots per gun for a total of 18 canister rounds. Canister rds will average about 20 casualties per shot so that will cause 360 casualties at best before the guns are taken. IF I need that position bad enough, it can be taken provided I am willing to take that many casualties. IF I assault through the woods, canister effectiveness is decreased by at least 1/2, so even with the slower infantry speed I will actually take less casualties - prob about 240.

I would recommend playing some more - especially MP if you haven't had the opportunity - before tweaking the numbers.

Regards,

Willard