Historic Waterloo as Napoleon scenario plus associated Artillery mod

[Jean Lafitte]

Hi Jean

It is very strange as one from the four Prussian variants is always selected by the game engine at 11.30 am although the actual arrivals start between 4 and 5 pm. For Grouchy's forces typically there are 2 or 3 variants whereby each Corps will appear and one or two whereby they will not. Again each variant is selected at 11.30 am for implementation in the early evening.

The Prussian units all have commands that will send them to attack towards either Plancenoit, Papelotte or Wellington's left flank. Thus they should be noticeable. If there was a mix up with the OOB file for the Prussians or some such in your mods you would get some sort of error message or the game might crash.

In any event if you now have a situation where the Prussians have appeared you can see how you get on. Did you note what time they actually did appear?

I would still be interested in seeing the game database to see what impact the artillery mod is having on your casualties.

It is the strangest thing! But I swear that no new units appeared by the time I quit the game at 2200 hours game time.

On the second play-through that began at 1437, the new units arrived at around 1700. First, Exelmann's Corps near Maransatt and the Prussians appeared a few minutes later.

BUT BE ASSURED that I am right about how the two separate play-throughs had different results. On the original play-through, the random events may have fired at 1130, but, some later glitch prevented their appearance.

I did not recon the entire battlefield map so there is a possibility that the new units did appear at the map edge and just stayed there for the duration without moving. However, I did send some light cav over to Mansaratt to occupy that Waypoint Objective and saw no new units at that map area.

[Jean Lafitte]

The attachment SowWL_gamedb_07-05-18_19-41-58.csv is no longer available

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean
I notice that you captured a tremendous number of Wellington's guns - over 100! I guess you must have done that with cavalry as I only saw a very few British guns converted to French ones. I also noted that 10% of the entire French casualties were caused by just two of the batteries that I added to be historically accurate - those of Mercer and Gardiner. In general Wellington's artillery seems to have caused you less casualties than I had expected. I presume you captured the guns quite early on otherwise they would have done you more harm. My latest variant has some guns come back into action after being "captured" in cavalry raids. Do you think that would have had an impact on your game? If your infantry followed up your cavalry rapidly (as the French actually did not do) then the "captured" guns cannot come back into action.

You seem to have largely destroyed Wellington's army and some of the units I had programmed to withdraw if objectives are captured had already been destroyed.

More than 50k Prussians plus Wellington's remnants have yet to be destroyed and I guess your available strength is just about 50k as well. However, as the Prussians will try to attack, the longer range artillery should make it easier for you to cause them lots of casualties.

Have you found this variant easier or harder to play than the standard game whole day scenario?

Obviously I cannot tell from this dump why the Prussians did not appear last time as on this run through they did. I still do not have a theory to explain that.

Thank you for sending the dump file.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

Mike:

Yes, the AI doesn't protect the artillery batteries very well, so, I use Cavalry to get them.

Your variant is probably more difficult because of the additional Prussians appearing. The AI seems to handle the Anglo-Allied forces the same in both Stock WL10 and your variant -- just sit in square and wait for the Prussians.

I plan to try your variant again, unless you think I should wait for your next variant.

I think it's a good idea to allow some guns come back after being captured by Cavalry because the AI does such a poor job of protecting its artillery. And certainly, it would be more challenging for the Player to defeat the AI with that feature.

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean

Did you finish the one where the Prussians arrived?

I would like you to try the version you have again to see if the Prussians appear or if there is a bug that I have to investigate. You do bot have to play it properly just give the French Corps commanders some stances and leave them to get on with it until the Prussians do or do not come by 5pm.

My current variant has some other new features such as different speed cavalry and different melee attributes for Lancers. I will have to wait to publish that for Reb's new toolbar version as he also changes a file that I change so I have to incorporate his version of that file in my mod and mine has to be the last mod to be applied.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

No I didn't finish the one where the Prussians appeared. The reason is because just ran the game on auto-play instead of playing the game.

However, I did begin the same game file with the glitch at the 1437 hours point. I will finish it and post the dump file here for your review.

This is the original game file that had the glitch, so, you expect that all random events were determined at 1130 hours. It's currently approaching 1600 hours, game time. I will continue and post the dump file.

On this play-through, I am controlling the units. Exelmanns appeared at 1630 hours and some Prussians appeared at 1635 hours. The Prussians are still marching West.

[Jean Lafitte]

I am up to 1800 hours on this play-through. Looks like all Prussians have appeared. Exelmann appeared.

Can anything be done about how the AI protects its artillery batteries? The AI grouped all 100 or so guns of the entire Prussian IV Korps artillery and moved it forward without any support whatsoever towards the French line -- not one Cav squadron or Inf battalion in support.

Really sad. I guess that's why so few of us play vs the AI.

[Hook]

I've had everything from enemy artillery that was ridiculously easy to capture to artillery that was impossible to capture. I have also lost much of my own artillery when I didn't have the necessary forces in a position to protect it.

Enemy artillery can be very deadly indeed, which is why I don't care to increase the power of artillery. You remember the AusArtyPatch, right?

Hook

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean

I did set up a few Prussian artillery batteries with units that had Guard commands that effectively detaches those units from their parent. Unfortunately apparently the AI will disregard the detach state and call the unit up if it thinks it has a need for it. It is easier I think to script the AI to look after its guns better when it is essentially on the defensive. I have been experimenting with the "screen" command but so far I cannot make it work from battlecript, I raised that in another thread.

I will have another look at the way I have set up the Prussians and see if I can reduce the clustering.

Regards

Mike

[Hook]

Prussian artillery tends to cluster even in the stock scenario.