Pike and Shot Campaigns Feedback

[sage3]

I've been playing through a campaign a bit. A few pieces of feedback:

1) Battles can win too abruptly. I've won a number of battles now because the enemy cavalry routed, and even though my entire line of dutch pike and shot was about to rout in the face of tercios, I was the victors. How about a random timer that triggers once the win conditions would be met, and is modified by the number of active melees.
2) I'd love to see the ability to fortify a province, making it a bit harder to siege, and
3) Establish a supply depot in an adjacent province (friendly or not, as long as it's not unoccupied). This would allow a bit more operational control...
4) Fund supply trains instead of troops...
5) and of course raid the above enemy supply trains and depots as apporpriate.

[rbodleyscott]

Thanks for the suggestions.

[rbodleyscott]

Battles can win too abruptly. I've won a number of battles now because the enemy cavalry routed, and even though my entire line of dutch pike and shot was about to rout in the face of tercios, I was the victors. How about a random timer that triggers once the win conditions would be met, and is modified by the number of active melees.

With regard to this, many historical battles were decided because the morale of one side collapsed just before that of the other side would have collapsed.

When an army panics, it panics, and the fact that they would have won a melee if they had continued to hold their resolve is no longer relevant. And of course, if they had won those melees a turn earlier, the battle might have gone the other way.

[sage3]

Battles can win too abruptly. I've won a number of battles now because the enemy cavalry routed, and even though my entire line of dutch pike and shot was about to rout in the face of tercios, I was the victors. How about a random timer that triggers once the win conditions would be met, and is modified by the number of active melees.

With regard to this, many historical battles were decided because the morale of one side collapsed just before that of the other side would have collapsed.

When an army panics, it panics, and the fact that they would have won a melee if they had continued to hold their resolve is no longer relevant. And of course, if they had won those melees a turn earlier, the battle might have gone the other way.

Yes, but I think it should be modeled a bit more fuzzily. Instant battle win when > 40% rout doesn't feel quite right. It can be very abrupt, and while I hear what you're saying, in-game it just seems too sudden.

[KiwiWarlord]

A P&S Campaigns Game Manual would be handy as well.

[sage3]

Battles can win too abruptly. I've won a number of battles now because the enemy cavalry routed, and even though my entire line of dutch pike and shot was about to rout in the face of tercios, I was the victors. How about a random timer that triggers once the win conditions would be met, and is modified by the number of active melees.

With regard to this, many historical battles were decided because the morale of one side collapsed just before that of the other side would have collapsed.

When an army panics, it panics, and the fact that they would have won a melee if they had continued to hold their resolve is no longer relevant. And of course, if they had won those melees a turn earlier, the battle might have gone the other way.

Yes, but I think it should be modeled a bit more fuzzily. Instant battle win when > 40% rout doesn't feel quite right. It can be very abrupt, and while I hear what you're saying, in-game it just seems too sudden.

Was thinking about it more - here's another way I would say it. Right now, I've been making very gamey decisions along the lines of, "oh, I've routed 36% of the enemies troops, so I'll just concentrate to units of Kuirasseiers on those detatched musketeers, and even though I know the cav would get slaughterered the following turn by flank charges, I know I'm safe because the battle is going to end. Saved by the bell..."

[deadtorius]

except of course when your luck goes bad and the battle does not end you get flank charged. I can't say that I will judge risky moves in the hopes that a game will end favorably. Keep in mind that the win loss does not occur till the end of the AI turn, or at least that's how it used to work. So your risky move could end with you getting flank charged as you might get the win ration you want, but then give the AI some nice targets and then your own broken ration will go up and the game might end up continuing as you no longer have the necessary lead to end the game when you hoped.
I have had some games where I thought I had a win only to see the AI break a few units during its turn and the battle continues as I no longer have the needed difference in % broken.