How to Encourage the Cooperation of Artillery and Cavalry?

[sandman]

Back to HW : From my recollections, of several hundred MP games, the main problem with artillery batteries being taken by enemy Cavalry was [in my opinion] very simple -

The battery was often deployed too far ahead of the main line, too far away from any support to help out in time.

Right after that, we have to talk about the 2nd issue: lack of self protection by redepolyment in time.
There are many situations when a commander of an isolated battery realizes soon enough, that remaining the position leads to an irresponsible risk or even to a safe death. In HW unfortunatly batteries often appear to act like kinda passive lemmings.
Not sure, but I think JMM had improved that behaviour in previous patches, but still imo there was a lot more to do to see a more reasonable effect.

[AJ]

First of all, from my side there isnt any effort to make you play SoW, even if I got paid for, since you stated you made a certain decision for yourself. The fact that you didnt consider to try the mod and the setup we´re playing, doesnt change anything about it.

Secondly I did SoW for 634 h, much of the time on MP. But thats not the point. Some people gain more insight in 100 h than others in 1000 h.
After all, I disagree with what you alleged. Of course its basically possible that you loose all of your cannons. But thats simply not the case in nearly all of the MP games I had, no matter if larger numbers of Cav squadrons came around or whatever.
The common command for MP is the division. The division mostly has 1-2 batteries. Assuming the human player keeps up overview, does anticipate enemy movement and is skilled enough to use the AI stances properly, he mostly will be able to keep at least a good amount of the cannons.
Furthermore, as I stated in my previous post, if managing the AI-stances correctly, the AI in SoW does a much better job in terms of self protection than the one of the most recent version of HW could. Anyway, thats not relevant, if the human player cares for deployment, redeployment and emergency withdrawing according the principles I mentioned above. At divisional level the subordinated AI is more like a second level reassurance anyway.
Even at corps level, if some divisional AI acts independently, the batteries have a reasonable higher life expectancy than in this version of HW, where complete batteries often get extinguished within one single Cav raid. Most of us know, that it is absolutely normal, that cannons and gunners get lost, destroyed or killed in the chaos of napoleonic battles. And in SoW, apart from AI self protective redeployment, even if Cav squadrons infiltrate the lines, assuming the tactical basics are practiced decently, normally at least parts of the batteries can be remained.

I have to agree with Sandman on this point. The behavior that Mr.Doran describes in SOW can easily be overcome by Darkrob's "Fortress", which is to say guns between squares placed a little to the rear with skirmishers in front of the guns, if the frontline of the skirmishers is  in line with the center of the squares it makes the guns and skirmishers impervious to rogue cavalry. Also if you add a cavalry squadron in the proximity of each square it will force any attacking infantry into square also, anything coming near gets blasted by canister and skirmisher fire. The formation takes a lot of practice to perfect but is very effective in SOW Waterloo

[Mr. Doran]

My point is that you should not have to go through to such an extreme extent to protect yourself from rouge cavalry to begin with.

[Mr. Doran]

A problem I continuously encounter is that issuing cavalry to support artillery does not guarantee support  or protection to artillery. If there was more of a guarantee the amount of guns that would be lost due to no support would go down.

Simultaneously, I think we need the ability to issue a defensive or more passive stance to cavalry corps. The only way to try to get this behavior to pass is by incorporating infantry or artillery into a cavalry corps. Cavalry corps are also not very fond of using their artillery even when given massive amounts of it. I have routinely tested giving a cavalry corp 30+ guns to see if the AI would prefer to use it to wither the enemy away with cannonades but this is quite the rarity. Most of the time they ignore the artillery they have at their disposal and resort to other tactics that tend to get themselves routed rather quickly.

On another note, when issuing a corp commander the bombard order instead of the corp deploying its artillery forward to bombard the enemy it is halted along with all other units in the corp never to be brought forward. This is not a matter of order delay either as they will sit there indefinitely even with order delay off.
When issuing infantry corps, or any corp for that manner, we should be able to specify if we want that corp to bombard the enemy first and for what duration we want the bombardment to last.  The AI in general is just not fond of using its artillery for preparatory bombardments.

[Mr. Doran]

A general AI behavioral change that could go a long way I think would be for the AI to more routinely retreat its artillery and simultaneously for artillery to be more willing to retreat. Horse artillery in particular I find is almost impossible to get it to disengage even when it is detached and the AI is turned off.

Here is a situation I routinely see develop:



A cavalry corp with many horse guns is sent to halt the advance of an enemy infantry corp. The AI cavalry corp commander deploys its pieces forward but the cavalry over time begins to waiver. While many of the horse regiments are in rout the guns still remain static in their forward firing positions highly vulnerable to attack and with no support. I can try to issue a new line of diversion far away from the current area being contested in order to allow the corp to regroup but the problem of course is that the artillery, most of the time, refuses to move at all. By time it decides to fallback, if it at all, the cavalry has already moved far away to the new line of diversion that was issued. There is something incredibly ironic about being able to get cavalry to disengage more easily than artillery.

Solution wise, I think we need:

A) For artillery as a whole (especially horse artillery) to be much more willing to leave its position and fall back without the urge to continually fire or set-up and fire
B) For our AI commanders to issue artillery to retreat if the active amount of non-routing units falls bellow a certain percentage threshold to support and protect its guns.
 

[sandman]

Its one of several issues I would confirm and made me stop playing HW until certain improvements have been done, cos its one of those things which often impact the battle outcome very much.
Even if a CiC conducted a very successful battle plan, several shortcomings of the engine/gameplay often ruin the whole performance.

At least detaching and setting direct control for single units (better subformations) should ultimatively resolve the issue. Direct control means the complete absence of AI interference, but in fact thats not what we get.

There is an alternative napoleonic battle Sim I use to play, which gives me direct control if ordered. As dicussed before, there I am able to actively prevent situations of isolated lemming batteries.

[Mr. Doran]

Another visual example of how far the cavalry can have moved away to a new ordered position while the artillery is still firing. The guns deployed forward never end up attempting to retreat; cavalry were moving towards the new line for over 20 minutes by this point.

[Mr. Doran]

There were some fantastic feats of bravery by those of the horse artillery during the Napoleonic Wars. But I think this might be a bit too brave...

Circumstances are a cavalry corp attached to the rear in support to an infantry corp. I notice that this type of behavior happens quite often. Foot artillery generally behaves relatively rationally but the occurrence rate of unnecessary redeployment needs to be made less. When they redeploy it is often just barely a distance away from their original position; the time it takes to unlimber and limber adds up often ending in a fatality for the battery.

[Mr. Doran]

I've noticed another rather undesirable behavior. You issue a bombard order to a battery and they go to that area, unlimber, and then begin to fire if there are targets. What is bad, is they have a tendency to re-limber if there is not a target immediately available even with the AI is turned off.

[sandman]

My point is that you should not have to go through to such an extreme extent to protect yourself from rouge cavalry to begin with.

Due to various questionable submissions regarding the functionality of Scourge of War - Waterloo, it is my intention to come back to this discussion again.
From my experience, it is still a good means, but not necessary to try to build a complex artificial formation to avoid cavalry raids on artillery batteries. The self-protection of the AI ​​battery commanders has been well implemented. In estimated at least 60% of the cases, the artillery withdraws in time, unless the aggressor is intercepted by cavalry anyway.
In about 20 to 30% of cases, more or less high losses occur. A complete extinction is the exception and is anyway only in a variety of squadrons into consideration.
I think that's about realistic.
As far as high losses in batteries by cavalry raids should be the rule, so I have to assume faulty settings.
If the AI ​​or even a human player in multiplayer battles selects the setting "hold to the last" or a very aggressive stance, then the artillery in question will experience excessive passivity or, in the latter case, excessive risk-taking. The same applies, if a human player keeps the battery under direct control. It seems very well, that the AI ​​of divisional or reserve arty, set their batteries to "hold to the last" stance. This should always be checked and adjusted accordingly.
Recommended for effective self-protection on the part of the AI ​​is a medium stance such as "defend" or "probe". To make sure the cannons being secured in case of closing Cav, it is also possible to give order to move them manually or order an emergency withdrawal, if the certain battery is part of the own OOB.

[JMM]

Hello,

Short information...
I am working on the internal engine and I hope to fix several issues.
Among them, I am redifining the artillery behaviour. No really easy to get good rules, maybe anticipated the reaction of the support units...
That said, it is not my priority this day... yet some bugs around the battalions position... very old codes and a bit difficult to work on them.... slow process but it will run:-)

I'll be back on this thread.. and too on the thread about the CinC view...

JMM

[sandman]

Hello,

Short information...
I am working on the internal engine and I hope to fix several issues.
Among them, I am redifining the artillery behaviour. No really easy to get good rules, maybe anticipated the reaction of the support units...
...

There are still situations of isolated batteries, especially when chaos of battle divided the formations. IMO its a matter of an independent risk management of batteries. In general also a decent AI reposition check for better locations according a dynamic front would be an important feature.

I'll be back on this thread.. and too on the thread about the CinC view...

JMM

Mr. Doran made an important point here: All for humans playable commanders should have some sort of zoom-in view in the 3D-mode, best a simulated spyglass.