Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud

1. In CoG the first advance I used to try to acquire was Impromptu Squares. Experience had shown that enemy cav were quite active in trying to drive my troops into squares.

In CoG:EE reaction fire seems to have negated that threat to a large degree. My foe's cav does a lot of running up to my line, getting blasted by reaction fire for heavy losses, and then deciding that their morale is too smashed to continue with a charge. In fact, through a great many battles I have had only two instances where cav delivered a charge and forced me into square.

2. In detailed battles, the AI is extremely dilatory when, as the attacker, it is faced with a choice between approaching my forces or attacking the various garrison units. The too slow advance has often spent the first two days approaching with infantry while their cav get blasted doing unsupported charges. Strangely, when my foe has artillery, their lassitude disappears and they quickly deal with garrison troops in their path, and move on.

3. As France, 1792,I have controlled the Channel with my Brittany and Normandy fleets for over a year without ever being challenged by the English fleet. I blockaded one fleet in Kent and the rest of the Jolly Tars are gathered adjacent, west and north, allowing me to dominate. There's should be no way this is permitted by England. They are practically begging me to land troops. They've not been involved in war prior and, so, have their entire complement of ships.

4. In naval combat, grappling, it seems, is never conducted by the AI, though they have successfully UNgrappled on occasion. Maybe it's because their morale is too low or their crews inferior in number. All I can say is that, in battles between my France and all the other nations, they have never, once, grappled a French ship.

5. I had a war with Spain, which they declared. I had but a single army of 52k to spare for that front. The Spanish attacked with equal numbers. They had several arty, which I feared, at first. However, after taking not much worse than equal losses from their attacks on my infantry, I had inflicted about 1500 losses, each, on their arty. Strangely, their strength now read as '0'! Worse, I captured them both and both were disbanded after battle for being too low in strength. Was Spain going to war with military readiness at 50%? Their other units, too, were below strength. I was playing defense, so, Spain chose to go to battle with these.

6. I love the unrest caused by the French Revolution. Scrambling to feed the nation was very enlightening for this, doubtless, was the mirror of the actual event then. The guerrillas which might occur in neighboring provinces do not seem to be prolific, however. Only one group has ever sprung up, (of 30K) in Spain.

7.In France, 1792, I thought I'd be giving the other nations a boost by starting them off with 100 or 200 glory points. Instead, it seems to inhibit them, early on, from perceiving France as a very great threat. Anyway, after trouncing Prussia and Austria pretty quickly, France is leading in Glory again and all I seem to have achieved by granting the others glory points is to insulate France from multiple enemies, early on.

8. Do units, other than charging cav, ever get disordered from combat? I have yet to see it occur, despite inflicting 1200 to 1800 losses in a single fire attack. If this has changed it negates any point in acquiring the Mixed Order advancement.
Lastly, This should not be read as negative. I waited for and am truly enjoying this game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

I'm also playing entirely as 1792 France on Normal Difficulty settings. Some of my experiences match yours. Specifically, the first two points, I agree with strongly. The AI does not seem to get on with it in detailed combat. For number 3, I have not had the same experience exactly; in fact, I had one naval encounter with Russia where they kicked my butt, and one with Britain where they royally kicked it. But in general, I have to agree: when at war with GB, she does not seem to make much use of her Fleets, and leaves them all cooped up in Hampshire. Strangely though, as soon as Russia is at war she seems to send her Black Sea Fleet out to the Med to fight.

(Like you I am playing at Normal Difficulty. Re: Your observations on the Russian fleets, I, also, note their more aggressive nature. While the Brits are bystanders I've had two battles with the Russians in the Channel and pretty mush destroyed their Black Sea fleet as it transited the Med. They and the Spanish and, sometimes,, the Turks, try to get active with the fleets. Strange, that Britain, the most powerful naval force, is so lax)

On point four, I cannot exactly disagree, but cannot exactly agree. It is true that they rarely if ever seem to grapple. I think I've had it happen once, and in that instance they did not try to board. But the main issue here is that my human ability to smash their line of ships is so much greater, by the time they move up to boarding range, their WTF has already dropped pretty considerably, so it doesn't surprise me that they rarely grapple or try to board.

( I read your methodology on naval battles. Interesting! I never shoot beyond a range of 5. Didn't seem to ever hit. When I first started, I used to grapple and board, but, eventually I realized I just needed to hold them till their morale dropped, from fire, guns, etc , and I got the surrender without the usual casualties from boarding. I think the AI's methodology for firing is fine. They angle for rakes well and even concentrate fire from multiple ships, BUT, I've never seen them reduce sails, so, their's take a battering that my fighting sails do not. That's a advantage for the human that a little tweaking could remove, eh? Lastly, I must say that I'm not actually very good at naval battles. My grapple-and-hold method FAILS against the Brits, when they fight, because it's MY morale that breaks..lol. Yet, even lacking the nuance a more knowledgeable player will display, I've done well as France. Maybe I'd get my ass handed to me as the Russians?)

Point five: I've had almost it seems automatic wars with Britain, Sweden, Russia, and Spain in most of the 1792 games I've started (which is in itself a bit suspect), and in every instance Spain has been a bit of a pushover. In at least one instance however, I declared war on her. In another, she had got an ROP to go fight Austria or one of the Italian kingdoms and then either she or I declared war while a sizeable chunk of her army was trapped on the other side of France. Do not recall for certain, but I think she declared war on me in this instance where she had the ROP. I am pretty sure it was a treaty/alliance type of thing. This I think is what might need a wee bit of tweaking? AI nations X & Y seem all to eager to throw in an alliance with Z against Q. Then four turns later, Z, Y, and P break their treaty and ally against X. Then half a year later X, P and Z ally against Y . . . haven't played it long enough to see if this is incessant, but it seems to be prevalent in my games so far. The AI seems _very_ fickle, opportunistic and disloyal. I've made probably 6 or 8 treaties of mutual defense if not alliance, and virtually every one of these has been broken!

Maybe that it is the way it is supposed to work?

(I don't think it's suspect that you got a lot of piling on from other nations in 1792. That's what actually happened. In truth, I look forward to that! The Revolution threatened everyone's position. Anyway,I enjoy it when I have to dash around and deal with enemies on every front.
I don't see many broken treaties, tho, except the ones they break with me. They seem to be sensitive to the glory loss involved.
One key decision is who Russia DoW's, and they always do, on turn one. IF it's Sweden or Turkey, that sideshow keeps those two sidelined, sometimes for a long while. If it's Prussia, that's 'Game Over', for Prussia. She has just enough force for one army, but, it's split with a small force attacking France and the rest, which is not enough, facing Russia. Since the Swede's start friendly to France, and Turkey is so weak, that leaves no one to help the Austrians, whose best force is no more than equal in numbers to the French. IF they add in their green troops, that just make it easier.)

Point 6: I've seen quite a bit of variation in the French Revolution event. Out of four of five games played from 1792 to about 1794, I've seen it happen about half the time. In the most recent instance, I had not chopped off Louis head in order to not lose the 300 attitude with every major power, and in that case, I had counter revolutionaries popup in French provinces 5 or 6 times, but they were all in the ballpark of 10 to 35K and I beat them pretty handily. Maybe i need to go up to Difficult?

(Hmm, I've never gotten any choices about chopping Louis? I've seen it in events when playing as other than France. Is that supposed to be a decision I get to make, as France?)

Point 7: have not tried that.

Point 8: DEFINITELY YES! units other than charging Cav do _very_ often get disordered in detailed combat! I would say that in any given battle I generally get about 15 to 30% of my units disordered and perhaps one to four brigades wind up routing and starting to flee if not fleeing altogether.

(Saw my FIRST such disordering last night. Amazingly, it was against the toughest target, a hvy cav. Still, that's the only time I've seen it.)

The thing that is always difficult to know for sure about these issues is the influence of: difficulty settings; player ability; player style. While on several points, my observations so far match yours, on others they are quite different. Other players may have a slightly different permutation of comparing and contrasting observations

(Thanks for your extended reply!)

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ORIGINAL: Joram

Good discussion.  Good use of reaction fire, I was wondering if people would pick up on its uses like that one. Just will clarify in point 5 the tooltip you see on the strength is an estimate.  If you see 0 strength, that usually just indicates strength <1000.  Point 7, I don't think you can judge the conclusion based on that one sample, I would believe it's just a coincidence and you would have gotten the same response unless one is way way ahead (and get an 'all of europe is alarmed' message).  FYI, you can enter negative numbers too, so it may be easier to just give France -200 instead of increasing everyone else.  Makes a slightly longer game though that way.

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ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joram

Good discussion.  Good use of reaction fire, I was wondering if people would pick up on its uses like that one. Just will clarify in point 5 the tooltip you see on the strength is an estimate.  If you see 0 strength, that usually just indicates strength <1000.  Point 7, I don't think you can judge the conclusion based on that one sample, I would believe it's just a coincidence and you would have gotten the same response unless one is way way ahead (and get an 'all of europe is alarmed' message).  FYI, you can enter negative numbers too, so it may be easier to just give France -200 instead of increasing everyone else.  Makes a slightly longer game though that way.

I have not gotten many captured arty that survived. This just occurred again last nite. 1500, or so, losses and the number went to zero, I charged it with cav, it routed, then disappeared on it's movement turn. I think the AI is either playing at less than 100% readiness or is too frugal with its draft to build their units up to full strength.

I think that giving myself minus glory won't change the problem with everyone dismissing the threat of France and making the early going easier on her. As I fight all my battles in detail, I win (I play defense until I've smashed their main armies, then advance, virtually unbeatable, into their territory) and, thus, in a few years am easily ahead by 500+ glory. In my present game, it's early 1797, I'm at 1200+ glory while Austria, at the bottom, is -400+.

I have a question about reaction fire. How long does such an order last? Do I have to keep re-ordering reaction fire every turn? It seems that I do, which is a bit non-user friendly. And, thanks for your reply, friend.

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ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud


On the same subject, since a unit must have at least half its movement points available to give it a reaction command to fire, is the damage done reduced in accordance with the amount of movement points used that round?

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ORIGINAL: dude

quote:

ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud


On the same subject, since a unit must have at least half its movement points available to give it a reaction command to fire, is the damage done reduced in accordance with the amount of movement points used that round?

That part I'm not sure of... I'll have to check the battle report during combat and see if the unit get's reduced. (if you want to review the battle report click on the little "menu" on the right side during a battle... one of the options is to bring up a battle report. It will list out firefights. The newest are on the bottom.