Fatigue

[Garnier]

Just so everyone can know the facts about fatigue for infantry, and also my opinions.


Avoid double-quick unless you will have time to rest when you reach your destination. It takes longer to run somewhere and rest than to just walk there.

Regiments lying down rest significantly faster than standing up.

Thus, if a regiment not fully rested, and is not fighting, and doesn't need to be moving, always have it lie down.

It takes longer to recover each point of fatigue if you let a regiment get exhausted before letting it rest. So it's better to cycle your units, always rest those that are fatigued and fight with those that are rested.

If any of your units are fighting, do not keep a reserve. Only fatigued units should be out of the fight, and they should be laying down until they are rested -- then send them back in.

It's OK to have a unit lie down to rest right behind the front line. It's faster to get them resting immediately than to run or walk them far away before resting. Use the "halt" command to get them to stop quickly so they can rest, particularly if you have difficulty moving them to a place where they will stop on their own.

Troops following the "fall back" or "advance" commands gain fatigue at the same rate as troops firing.

Troops running, charging or meleeing all gain fatigue at the same rate.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Garnier Wrote:

Thus, if a regiment not fully rested, and is not fighting, and doesn't need to be moving, always have it lie down.

Okay I didn't know this, thank you.

Cheers, and take care.

[born2see]

Garnier Wrote:

It's OK to have a unit lie down to rest right behind the front line.

That must have been something to see on the real battlefield. :ohmy:

B

[Little Powell]

In the big 1.2 patch, we did a major overhaul to get fatigue to realistic levels. Before, you could run regiments all over the map and they would get tired, but they would be back to full strength again in just a few minutes. I can't remember exactly what the formula is now but tired troops can take up to 30 minutes to get back to rested status.

[SouthernSteel]

Waiting for soldier to weigh in on one of his favorite Garnier tactics...

[KG_Soldier]

Waiting for Southern Steel to show up for a game.

[SouthernSteel]

too much going on right now, don't even have a computer hooked up

[Garnier]

In the big 1.2 patch ...

Waiting for soldier ...

I modded it as soon as we were allowed to, so the formula is different anyway. But yeah, it's totally different than pre 1.2 unmodded, where I would always run.

Artillery has a bug where it can run even when exhausted, but I don't think it's worth running them with the mod because they fatigue really fast. They also fatigue really fast doing withdraw by recoil so that's not such a problem.

[Martin James]

Thanks for that information Garnier, which I found very helpful. Here are a couple of related points:

(a) I have formed the impression that troops do not get fatigued from long marches as I would have expected. I did a test this morning, and marched an infantry brigade right across the Alpine map from the middle of the N edge to the SW corner. The troops were ordered to march at normal speed and go across country. The distance was therefore about 6 miles as the crow flies, but in reality I suspect 7-8 miles, as they were going uphill and down dale. There were no periodic stops for rest. Yet they all arrived 'rested'.

(b) The other odd thing is that this 7-8 mile cross-country march took only 65 minutes, which was surely impossible for any troops at normal speed, however good. I would have thought that troops marching on good roads, would have done well to achieve 2.5 mph if they took regular stops for rest, and 3 mph if they didn't.

Have just returned from a walking holiday in Yorkshire. Now clearly our marching ability would not compare with that of Lee's veterans, but it does seem to me that going cross-country, the rate should fall sharply for several reasons. The poor surface means you spend a lot of the time just watching where you put your feet (rocks, loose stones on the upland stretches, hummocks & divots on pasture land), lack of roads means you have to negotiate every wall, fence & stream, rather than go through or over them. And of course the formation has to move as the speed of the slowest if straggling is to be avoided. For all these reasons, going cross-country means it's a lot more tiring, as well as slow.
Roads also provide a huge advantage in that that you normally know where you are going on a road or track, proving you have a reliable map, so there is less need to stop and try and decide your route. We did well to achieve 1.5 mph on some of the marked footpaths, on terrain less challenging than the Alpine map.

The AI normally uses the roads for its approach march, which is excellent. But it seems to me that players are better off going cross-country, in view of the lack of penalties. Now you might say the AI is strong enough without levelling this particular playing field, but I want to beat it fair & square. Am I missing something?

Still a great game though, and thanks for the Pipe Creek maps too. My game is patched to 1.3 btw.

Martin

[Little Powell]

The AI normally uses the roads for its approach march, which is excellent. But it seems to me that players are better off going cross-country, in view of the lack of penalties. Now you might say the AI is strong enough without levelling this particular playing field, but I want to beat it fair & square. Am I missing something?

Still a great game though, and thanks for the Pipe Creek maps too. My game is patched to 1.3 btw.

Martin

The AI will always want to use roads when traveling long distances. They can move faster and suffer less fatigue. However when you are in sight, it starts to formulate a strategy to attack you, flank you, etc. and roads are no longer important.

I think it's more historically accurate this way.. Back then, leaders relied heavily on maps and utilizing road systems. I've heard of entire divisions getting lost when they veered off of a road and into woods etc. In the battle of Shiloh, the entire Confederate Army used two parallel roads to move to the Union position.