Musket & Pike series, long turn wish list

[HOPLITE1963]

I thought it might be interesting to kick off the dedicated Musket & Pike forum with some ideas for a long term wish list of engine changes. It’s obviously far too late for the first patch and probably the second but if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Firstly increase the number of armies you can field in a particular battle to 6, I am mainly interested in getting 3 a side here but 4 verses 2 and 5 verses 1 could have its benefits as well.

Secondly add in War Elephants both the 2D units graphics files conveniently have 6 spare slots in the bottom right hand corner.

Thirdly add a “Creating A Scenario From Scratch” document along the lines of that provided for the “Squad Battles Dien Bien Phu” game to the documentation.

Fourthly add PDT sub map and OOB editors to the series.

Any thoughts

 

[TheGrayMouser]

Just some of my own thoughts on some tweaks that would be nice for the Ren Engine:

the big one: revisit the basic combat casualty "range" for defender / attacker as it stands, the casualty band always gives the defender a big advantage (this made sense in the napoleonic engine, where melee combat was rare), since I have alway envisioned melee combat as happening somewhat simultanious, the defender really shouldnt get such an advantage, also the problem seems larger in cavalry vs cavalry combat where elite Gendarmes more often then not lose to larger light units(who often have in general more men)

pike units not being able to attack in column: I see this as an aboration as it is the only unit in game that cannot melee in column, ie all other units in column are assumed to be in march and or assaault column and can do so, purhaps they should be allowd to melee attack but with some penalties? also, it makes bridge assaults impossible in some scenarios as blocks cannot assault defended bridges, forcing one to use less suitable troops, like crossbowman when shock troops , ie pikes are right there! this happened to me in the Pavia campaign....

PDT entry: maybe open it up to allow editing movement rates for block formation?

Block and column: would be nice if the 2 formations could coexist in same hex w/o auto disorder... if for no other reason it would make the AI much more effective... (also, i can imagine the columns of arquebusers in same hex of a pike block as "the sleeves" of a Tercio

Cavalry charges : i have always been disapointed w my cavalry charges into enemy cavalry units, i realize w the engine not having a counter charge phaze, giving charging cav the 3x modifier would be a game balance issue, however , how about the following tweak?: Charging cavalry gets the 3x modfier vs enemy cavalry units if : A the charged cavalry unit is routed or disordered and or B if the charged cavalry units is hit in the flank or rear? Would make cav vs cav combat more decisive and dynamic imho.

Finally for pure eye candy, how about some 2 handed sword unit graphics?

Cheers

 

[rahamy]

Thirdly add a “Creating A Scenario From Scratch” document along the lines of that provided for the “Squad Battles Dien Bien Phu” game to the documentation.

Fourthly add PDT sub map and OOB editors to the series.

I'll see what I can do about creating a design document for the series which details the scenario creation process and also holds details about sub-map creation & PDT values. The OOB structure is details in the Notes.pdf file - not editors like you are asking for, but the info is there.

As someone who has created many, many OOB's over the years I find it much easier to work in a plain text editor (such as UltraEdit) to work with these files rather than a GUI OOB editor - as I can work much more efficently utilizing copy & paste for whole formations, "Find & Replace" functionality, etc.

 

[rahamy]

pike units not being able to attack in column: I see this as an aboration as it is the only unit in game that cannot melee in column, ie all other units in column are assumed to be in march and or assaault column and can do so, purhaps they should be allowd to melee attack but with some penalties? also, it makes bridge assaults impossible in some scenarios as blocks cannot assault defended bridges, forcing one to use less suitable troops, like crossbowman when shock troops , ie pikes are right there! this happened to me in the Pavia campaign....

Block and column: would be nice if the 2 formations could coexist in same hex w/o auto disorder... if for no other reason it would make the AI much more effective... (also, i can imagine the columns of arquebusers in same hex of a pike block as "the sleeves" of a Tercio

Cavalry charges : i have always been disapointed w my cavalry charges into enemy cavalry units, i realize w the engine not having a counter charge phaze, giving charging cav the 3x modifier would be a game balance issue, however , how about the following tweak?: Charging cavalry gets the 3x modfier vs enemy cavalry units if : A the charged cavalry unit is routed or disordered and or B if the charged cavalry units is hit in the flank or rear? Would make cav vs cav combat more decisive and dynamic imho.

The first item is an OOB value, so it could be changed at the user level if you wished, but must be shared if you play against someone else.

The second item has been changed and will be included in the 1.02 update which we hope to have out in the next 30 days or so.

And finally, routed units (25% effectiveness) & disordered units (1/3 effectiveness) have a penalty assigned to them for melee, so if you attack with good order troops you are already getting that...using the flank morale modifier will also give you an edge when hitting a unit in the flank.

Generally speaking, we're open to tweaks (in the long run) for the series, but no radical changes as it can really skew things...and there's usually a domino effect involved for any change made. So keep the ideas coming, and we'll see what can be done. The ultimate goal though is to find that fine balance between historical accuracy & "fun" that makes this a game, and not just a simulation.

 

[jimcrowley]

Great to hear that pikes and arquebusiers will be able to happilly co-exist, as they did historically.

However, IMHO, I still think that disorder caused by movement/maneuvor (as opposed to combat) is still too rampant.

Whilst re-aquanting myself with the mechanics of REN, I played the Scots v the AI English in the Getting Started scenario. By the time the first few turns were over and before combat was joined, most of the English army was disordered. This has serious implications for the AI, if it is to be hobbled before it can even get its units into a fight.

These issues were superbly summed up by decaf:

http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?84046-REN-Xtreme-Disordering

I thought there was a planned move to link disorder to numbers in a hex , such that small/average groups of different units could move and change formation in the same hex without them all becoming disordered?

If the AI is going to be able to offer a decent fight, surely it would be better to tone down the complex mix of disorder-inducing movement rules. And that applies equally to the human player as well. It is no 'fun' spending ages trying to move your units efficientlyto point of contact. It may be realistic at a micro-management level but that aspect ought to be automated to a large extent to allow the player to concentrate on the tactics around fighting - the'fun' part, by-and-large.

And the new 3D Icons are excellent, by the way.

 

[TheGrayMouser]

The first item is an OOB value, so it could be changed at the user level if you wished, but must be shared if you play against someone else.

The second item has been changed and will be included in the 1.02 update which we hope to have out in the next 30 days or so.

And finally, routed units (25% effectiveness) & disordered units (1/3 effectiveness) have a penalty assigned to them for melee, so if you attack with good order troops you are already getting that...using the flank morale modifier will also give you an edge when hitting a unit in the flank.

Generally speaking, we're open to tweaks (in the long run) for the series, but no radical changes as it can really skew things...and there's usually a domino effect involved for any change made. So keep the ideas coming, and we'll see what can be done. The ultimate goal though is to find that fine balance between historical accuracy & "fun" that makes this a game, and not just a simulation.

Thanks for the reply Rich, of course now I have questions/comments on your comments!

The ist item ie changing OOB so pikes can melee when in column: I assume you mean editing the very last value for units in the OOb (the "binary value" ) I changed to all known values and even made up my own to no avail. Maybe its not possible.. or I am not doing something correct.

Item 2: Awesome, look fwrd to patch 1.02

and thirdly: I agree that any change(s) can have a rippling effect of unknown consequneces and blance issues. I still feel attacking cavalry is "punished" in melees vs other cavalry whether they charge or not ueo to the causalty band favouring the defender. You gave and example of cvalry attacking a disrupted unit has a 25% advantage, however after the ist melee, assuming the attacker charged and wishes to melee again , BOTH units are now disupted , and since the attacker attackes at 1/3 vs the defenders 2/3 it is an even larger disadvantage. Hmm just an idea, instead of my pervious somehat convoluted suggestion, how about simply opening up the PDT file so players can add ther own values for attacker/defsnder modifiers while disrupted (or even better have four values: cav and infantry on attack/defense)?



I havent had too much play time w the new Tercio units but did play a part of the new Dreaux scenario: My thoughts on the combined arms units so far: I like them, the over all game had a nice flow, the AI seemed to handle the combined armed units reasonably well, and also the unit density was of course much lower.

 

[rahamy]

You're in luck! Most of that is editable in either the PDT or OOB. Check out the Notes.pdf file (Designers Notes) for details on the file structure. We try to give customers as much flexibility as possible...and often times there's a lot you can model by altering the included values...some of our scenario designers have come up with some pretty imaginative ways to do thins, and JT makes a powerful game engine.

Just remember, you need to save your files with a new name when you make changes like this & then open up the scenario file you wish to play in a text editor & point it to the new PDT/OOB file. You want to do that for a few reasons:

1) When we push updates out it possible your work will be over-written if you use the stock file names.

2) If you play against someone else you need to be sure youa re using the same files. If you don't, it will quickly become apparent and you'll have a sticky situation to deal with.

And if you choose to make alterations, please be sure to share them with everyone here in the Downloads section!