Near Term

[norb]

We are looking into doing a small beta patch to address the major concerns from the 1.4 patch. It will take a couple of weeks to finish.

[KG_Soldier]

Autocharge is a real problem in MP; I know it's not because of the 1.4 patch.

But in MP games, once you engage in melee, you can't get out without your unit recharging into melee. You can hit retreat, and they will run a few yards and turn and go back into the melee. They can retreat on their own, and they'll do the same: run a bit and then autocharge back into melee. Again and again and again until they rout. Or surrender.

I'll be the first to say that autocharge has made MP play better: no more running columns through lines.

But tweaking the autocharge so that a retreating unit actually retreats would be a big plus as well.

[Little Powell]

KG - Just to confirm I have your info correct, it would be ideal if units can be tweaked so that when they retreat, they retreat for good and will no longer auto-charge into other units?

[Garnier]

It's not quite that simple, if autocharge is disabled for retreating units, they can retreat right through the enemy.

Currently, to escape a melee, one can give continuous, rapid move orders, and if the regiment is in column and TCed, they'll not go back into autocharge fast enough, so the player can get them out of a melee. This takes all of a player's attention, but it's not hard. OR the player can spam the retreat button which will do the same thing, preventing autocharge.

Ideally, the only way for a unit to escape melee once they're in the autocharge radius would be to use the retreat command, thus losing control of the men while they retreat. The best way to accomplish this that I can think of is disabling move orders when a unit is in autocharge.

The issue then becomes retreating being too easy. If I understand correctly, units can only be captured if they are routed and too close to enemy. By spamming the retreat button, one can escape any melee situation. Sometimes they end up behind enemy lines, so it is risky.

I've also heard about a "retreat bug" that people are using, I need to find out exactly what this means. It may be the same as the "spamming retreat" thing I described.

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The main issue is the melee bug which is already clearly defined.

[Little Powell]

Ok, thanks Garnier. This bug might be a little too complex to fix for this patch then. This is just a quick-fix patch that will only take a couple of weeks.

However, the melee bug is first on the list to be addressed.

[Garnier]

I've ammended my post after testing this. KG Soldier is right that retreating units get sucked into melee, but by spamming the retreat button (clicking it repeatedly), they won't go back into autocharge.

So two things that would be helpful for solving this:

1. Disable move commands when a unit is in autocharge.

2. Disable autocharge for units that are retreating.

Depending on how the code is set up, these could be simple or difficult to do.

This isn't a bug, more like a gameplay tradeoff. Currently, you can escape any autocharge if you want to, but it takes some work for the player. It could be made impossible to escape autocharge, or (by doing the two things listed above), it could be made easy to escape with no work, by clicking retreat button once -- but you'd have to retreat which means losing control.


When you do get a possible fix for the melee bug, if it's not too difficult to just give us the SOWGB.exe before making a full patch, we'll be able to test it immediately and it will save a lot of players' time -- plus make it easy for us to revert if the fix breaks something else.

[KG_Soldier]

I've ammended my post after testing this. KG Soldier is right that retreating units get sucked into melee, but by spamming the retreat button (clicking it repeatedly), they won't go back into autocharge.

So two things that would be helpful for solving this:

1. Disable move commands when a unit is in autocharge.

2. Disable autocharge for units that are retreating.

Depending on how the code is set up, these could be simple or difficult to do.

This isn't a bug, more like a gameplay tradeoff. Currently, you can escape any autocharge if you want to, but it takes some work for the player. It could be made impossible to escape autocharge, or (by doing the two things listed above), it could be made easy to escape with no work, by clicking retreat button once -- but you'd have to retreat which means losing control.


When you do get a possible fix for the melee bug, if it's not too difficult to just give us the SOWGB.exe before making a full patch, we'll be able to test it immediately and it will save a lot of players' time -- plus make it easy for us to revert if the fix breaks something else.

Sorry, Garnier, but you're wrong, last night while engaged in melee, I must have hit the retreat button 25 times (as fast as I could click) and I also tried the TC'd, column, run thing about a dozen times. Neither worked and my regiment (which had won its initial melee but tired out) got sucked back into melee with Seal's regiment over and over until they surrendered.

Regiments should always be able to retreat from melee. I doubt there was ever an instance of a unit which ran from a melee where they were whipped and then decided to run back and get whipped again and again.

Well. . . perhaps wrong is a bit strong. Sometimes spamming the retreat button will get you out of melee, but often it will not.

[KG_Soldier]

KG - Just to confirm I have your info correct, it would be ideal if units can be tweaked so that when they retreat, they retreat for good and will no longer auto-charge into other units?

Yes.

[KG_Soldier]

"It's not quite that simple, if autocharge is disabled for retreating units, they can retreat right through the enemy."

So? I mean. . . they will still take casualties from fire and will more than likely retreat several times until they get to a safe place.

[Little Powell]

KG - Just to confirm I have your info correct, it would be ideal if units can be tweaked so that when they retreat, they retreat for good and will no longer auto-charge into other units?

Yes.

We'll start with this and see what we can do with it. We are going to address the cav auto-charge against artillery, and maybe Norb can look at this too while he's at it.