Question about Commanded shot

[Athos1660]

Still modding my "Early Swedish Cav with CS" unit to make then effective against Cuirassiers (leaving apart the Polish Winged Hussars for the moment), I came across some questions :

1) Cohesion test

Does cohesion test taken after losing impact phase combat against (in my case) impact mounted also depends on the stats of the next melee Round ?
In other words, if the Net PoA of the next Melee Round favours the troop testing for having lost impact foot, will it have more chance to pass the test successfully ?

(because of if "trusting" in its ability to win the next melee)

If so, is the next melee a significant factor for the cohesion test after losing impact phase ?

(a bit like it was the case, iirc, in a previous situation posted on the FoG2 forums about a cavalry unit preferring to evade on the impact, partly because of the next melee phase outcome.)

2) Musket and Armour

Here is a thing that surprised me :

In the two following cases, the Armours are unchanged. Only one thing changes : the Musket attribute.
But the Armour Advantage changes.
Is it a way to take into account that muskets keep on shooting during the melee ?





(edit)

3) And from the above :

Is it possible to create a cavalry unit :

• really strong on the Impact (ie able to often generate Cohesion test as it charges at full speed after a musket salvo),

• and really weak during the melee (being without armour and less numerous vs Cuirassiers) ?

[SnuggleBunnies]

1) In a word no. Subsequent melee chances do not change Impact cohesion chances.

2) Yes, it's in the melee POA section of the manual. Although muskets don't provide melee POA, they do negate armor, unlike pistols.

3) Sure, do Impact Mounted, no armor, maybe 75% melee pistol, or 50% if you want them really weak.

[Athos1660]

SnuggleBunnies : Thank you so much for answering

2) Yes, it's in the melee POA section of the manual. Although muskets don't provide melee POA, they do negate armor, unlike pistols.

Interesting! I should know my manual much better...

1) In a word no. Subsequent melee chances do not change Impact cohesion chances.

(...)

3) Sure, do Impact Mounted, no armor, maybe 75% melee pistol, or 50% if you want them really weak.

Indeed it is not difficult to make a Determined Horse (DH) weak during a melee against Kuirassiers because of their armour and their superior quality.

But it seemed to me harder to make the DH really good at the impact, hence my first question. I made lots of tests (with several qualities of DH and %age of Impact Mounted) and never get the same feeling I can have with French P&S and their Impact foot.

Maybe the simple solution is, after all, to look for a Impact Win = about 50% (like the French P&S vs P&S), thus to use Superior DH with Impact Mounted (100%) against Kuirassiers. Then Melee pistol can be tweaked.

PS : ... as it reads in the manual that troop quality as an effect on cohesion test (p. 42).

(edit)

Is Impact mounted as effective as Impact foot... ?

[SnuggleBunnies]

To quote myself from a different thread:

"As for cavalry on cavalry matchups; Impact Horse get +100 in open terrain, and against non-Superior Determined Horse armed with pistols. So Veteran Horse can contend with Impact Horse, but Horse cannot. Mounted Swordsmen don't get their +100 POA vs mounted melee pistoleers, unless the pistoleers are disordered or unsteady. So if you are fielding Impact Horse, you want a mass charge in open terrain to sweep away the opposition. If you are fighting against Impact Horse, you want to camp out in broken terrain or on hills, and cover the front with ZoC to force the Impact Horse to either stand off and do nothing, get shot at, or engage in circumstances less favorable to them. Since Impact Horse are more expensive, losing them to fire or engaging on even terms in a grinding, slow melee in rough ground or forests is no good for them."

Basically, it's hard to give a straight answer, as the circumstances of terrain, what supporting forces are available to a particular army list, who the opposition is, etc. etc. can effect things so much.

[Athos1660]

To quote myself from a different thread:

The advantage with quoting oneself is the fact that one does often totally agree with it.

"As for cavalry on cavalry matchups; Impact Horse get +100 in open terrain, and against non-Superior Determined Horse armed with pistols. So Veteran Horse can contend with Impact Horse, but Horse cannot. Mounted Swordsmen don't get their +100 POA vs mounted melee pistoleers, unless the pistoleers are disordered or unsteady. So if you are fielding Impact Horse, you want a mass charge in open terrain to sweep away the opposition. If you are fighting against Impact Horse, you want to camp out in broken terrain or on hills, and cover the front with ZoC to force the Impact Horse to either stand off and do nothing, get shot at, or engage in circumstances less favorable to them. Since Impact Horse are more expensive, losing them to fire or engaging on even terms in a grinding, slow melee in rough ground or forests is no good for them."

Thank you for this interesting part !

Basically, it's hard to give a straight answer, as the circumstances of terrain, what supporting forces are available to a particular army list, who the opposition is, etc. etc. can effect things so much.

Indeed. It requires the skills and knowledge of a game designer that I don't have, in terms of gameplay, balance, historical knowledge, etc.

My goal is much more modest : modding an existing unit to make it effective against his direct historical opponent(s) on a given terrain (the most effective for the unit : open terrain for impact mounted), according to my modest reading, without the idea of making it 'better' than in the Vanilla game, just to see if I can make what I have in my mind

[TheGrayMouser]

If I understand what you trying to accomplish, just give impact mounted a 200 poa vs all other mounted in the open.

[Athos1660]

If I understand what you trying to accomplish, just give impact mounted a 200 poa vs all other mounted in the open.

Thank you for the advice.
Increasing Impact mounted is indeed my main trail.

1) You’re right I should recap what I'm trying to do, ie a unit :

• for the Swedish 1630-1634

• able to compete with the non-light Cavalry of the Catholic League, Imperial, Spanish, German Catholic of the period that is usually Superior and Armoured (Reiters, Large and Small Arkebusiers, Large and Small Kurassiers) and, if possible, the Polish Winged Hussars. Btw, I've just figured out that German Catholic had also Average/Veteran armoured Horses.

• adopting the following tactic : within 20 paces of the enemy, the Commanded shots (and maybe the first (one or two ?) rank(s) of cavalry) shoot. Then the cavalry charge, with swords drawn, trying to reach the fastest possible speed to get the best impact possible. Then during the melee, the cavalry shoots with the remaining pistols that were still loaded and use their sword. I guess CS would most likely gather together a few tens of paces behind the melee reloading and waiting for the cavalry to fall back/evade/gather in order to charge again with the musket support, rather than participating in the melee or shooting at another opportunity target ? So the Commanded shot would cause casualties (or confusion) mainly/only at the moment of the Impact, in combination with the violent charge of the Cavalry. Musket shooting could be only cosmetic : the smoke and fire of the musket when charging/charged. Cavalry and CS move together at the speed of Light Foot.

• Strength : the charge and the impact in a open terrain, ie being able to generate cohesion tests like the French P&S vs P&S. Howsever, there is a big difference between the French P&S and the unit I try to make : the weakness of the P&S comes from the shooting, it has an advantage on the Impact and the melee is a fair fight (same attributes and number of men as the enemy).

• Weakness : the melee, being unarmoured and less numerous vs cavalrymen using the pistols and usually armoured.

2) At the moment, I think that the following things are set :

• AP = 12

• Impact mounted

• Cavalry and Commanded shot being combined in a single unit

But the other parameters remain uncertain :

• Impact mounted 100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%... ? Impact mounted seems to me less effective than Impact foot to generate cohesion tests.

• Troop quality : average (100) and/or superior (200) ? I guess Superior, the Swedish cavalry being well-trained and most of the enemy cavalry being Superior (for the Cohesion test).

• Musket : 0 or 60% (=150 men) ? I guess 0%.

• Unarmoured

• Pistol melee or swordsmen ? I guess Pistol melee. Which %age ?

I tried with Impact Mounted 200%. Got an Impact Win = 75-82% and 5 failed cohesion tests out of 6 this time !



With Impact Mounted 175%, I got about the same Impact Win = 75% but only 3 failed cohesion tests out of 6… this time.

Here is the line one can copy-paste in one's Squads file, if one wishes to test the unit in the Scenario and tweak it:

Blue_Horse_CS_Vet,332,Allies,2,Determined_Horse,Horse,1,60,25,200,20,84,0,2,12,900,1,0,Cavaliers_Veteran,100,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,-1,1,-2,0,0,0,0,0,0,200,250,400,0,200,200,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,100,0,0,0,0,0,0,175,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,100,,,,

(just avoid unit number duplicates : 332)

Any suggestion or comment would be welcome

[Athos1660]

I guess the 'best' we can do is this :

Early Swedish Cavalry with CS :
Determined Horse
Troop quality : Superior
Musket : 60% (150 men)
Impact mounted 100%
Melee Pistol 100%
Unarmoured
AP = 12



Squads :
Blue_Horse_CS3_Vet,332,Allies,2,Determined_Horse,Horse,1,60,25,200,20,84,0,2,12,900,1,0,Cavaliers_Veteran,100,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,-1,1,-2,0,0,0,0,0,0,200,250,400,0,200,200,0,0,0,0,0,0,60,0,0,0,0,0,0,100,0,0,0,0,0,0,100,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,100,,,,

[Athos1660]

Modding Huguenots’ Commanded Arquebusiers

Still thinking of other ways to mod Commanded Shot just for the fun, I looked at the Huguenots List.

1) Army Lists
Here are the Army lists of the French Huguenots and their two main enemies.

FRENCH_HUGUENOT 1589-1599

Non-light cavalry :
Kurassiers_Early_Small : 2 - 6 units
Reiters : 1 - 6

Light Horse :
Mtd_arquebusiers : 0 - 2
Early_Dragoons : 0 - 4

Medium Foot :
Massed_Arquebusiers : 2 - 6

Light foot :
Arquebusiers_Light : 0 - 4
Blue_Commanded_Arquebusiers : 0 - 8

+ Artillery and infantry

FRENCH_CATHOLIC 1589-1590

Non-light cavalry :
Late_Noble_Gendarmes : 0-4
Late_Gendarmes : 3 - 10
Reiters : 0 - 10

Light Horse :
Celadas : 0-1
Mtd_arquebusiers : 0 - 2

Light foot :
Arquebus_Light : 2 - 10

+ Artillery and infantry

SPANISH : 1569-1599

Non-light cavalry :
Late_Noble_Gendarmes : 1 - 4
Late_Gendarmes : 1 - 4
Reiters : 2 - 2
Demi_Lancers : 1 - 4
Arkebusiers : 1 - 3

Light foot :
Arquebus_Light : 0 - 6

Light Horse :
Celadas : 0 - 3
Stradiots : 0 - 1

+ Artillery and infantry

2) Quick analysis :

On the face of it, the French Huguenots use lots of Arguebuses in all its forms (light, massed, commanded).

Its non-light cavalry is less numerous than their opponents and without lance.

The proportion of Reiters among their non-light cavalry is high, 50%. Reiters are fragile little things at the impact against their main opponent, the Late Gendarmes, as they have no Impact ability, but do very well during the melee (if they survive the said impact) having Melee Pistols. So they need their mommy (ie Commanded Arquebusiers) during the charge.

Their Kurassiers are few but true bulldozers against Late Gendarmes (Noble or not), Impact Pistol being overwhelming vs Heavy lancers. Ditto for melee.

3) My modding

As...

At the battle of Ivry, Henri IV "ordered the 250 Reiters in his pay to dispense with the caracole tactic and to charge with the rest of his cavalry." Moreover, Henri IV is said to have favoured the Impact/shock.

... I would give Reiters a small amount of Impact abilities.

And following...

In the TT game commanded shot protected adjacent horse by reducing any PoA disadvantage when the protected horse were in combat with enemy horse. So a 2 poa disadvantage became only 1, and if 1 then they became equal poa wise. Comparable or superior protected horse received no benefit.
(…)

… I would make Commanded Shot provide the cavalry extra Impact PoAs.

So I tried to mod ‘Huguenot Reiters with Commanded Arquebusiers’ as two separate units :

1) Charging Reiters (not doing the caracole) :
= Kurassiers with :

• Troop quality : Average

• Pistol Impact < 50%, so that these ‘Reiters' and the Average Late Gendarmes have the same chance to win the Impact.

• Cost : ?

PS : using here the Kurassiers model (instead of the Reiters) reduce UnitSize from 400 to 250 and disable Pistol shooting (caracole).

2) Commanded Arquebusiers

• Protection : same as in game mechanics.

• They give additional Pistol Impact PoAs to the adjacent Reiters, so that the Reiters and the Noble Gendarmes have the same chance to win the Impact.

As Impact Pistol = 50% is too much :



And, as reducing Impact Pistol by writing a smaller pourcentage in the Sqad file creates an unwanted effect :



… I guess that the only way is to :

• assign say 20 or 30% Impact to my custom 'Reiters',

• make the Commanded Arquebusiers give additional Pistol Impact PoAs to the Reiters, when protected

…by modding.

And the FRENCH_HUGUENOT 1589-1599 might look like this, for the Non-light cavalry :
- Kurassiers Early Small : 2 - 6 (a Huguenot version a bit nerfed ? [1])
- Reiters (caracole) : 1 - 2 (Vanilla ones)
- Reiters (charge with CA) : 0-4
- Commanded Arquebusiers (working only with the charging Reiters) : 0-4

Any thought ?

_________

[1] btw the French Huguenot are also to fight against the Danish Small Kurassiers.

[Athos1660]

Interestingly, in his Memorie della guerra (here in French), Raimondo Montecuccoli, the great commander, writes about Commanded shot :

1) Book 1, chapter 2, p. 39 :

"The distance between two nearby cavalry units is 18 paces, so that :

• this space is enough for a unit of 8 x 5 detached musketeers to take action

• when this unit withdraws, there is enough space for the two nearby cavalry units to move without any problem.

• there is not enough space for a enemy cavalry unit to pass though."

Book 3, chap. 4, p. 469 :

"The following rules (written on 30 July 1664) will apply during the Battle of Saint Gotthard (1 August 1664) :
(...)
3. After the commanded shot shoot with their musket, il they are attacked, they'll have to flee to the nearest Pike and shot units (to get protection)."

(btw cavalry and infantry must always remain next to each other in order to protect each other.)

[Athos1660]

Having played a few Vanilla SP games with Commanded shots (CS) lately (mostly with the TYW module), here are a couple of thought :

1) CS can be very interesting in case of cavalry confrontation when in inferior position in terms of number and quality.

For example, thanks to a bit of luck, terrain and CS, I succeeded in dealing with 5 determined horses (3 of which were Superior) with only a unit of CS and my 4 determined horses (only 1 of which was Superior) till my infantry won the game. And the enemy cavalry was about to be defeated. Another time, my very inferior cavalry resisted long enough before being routed to once again let my infantry win the game.

But sometimes too, I also was unable to use CS correctly.

And if the enemy cavalry is inferior, it can become a useless expense.



2) The 150 men of the CS seem to be a priority target for the 250 men of the AI dragoons/Detached musketeers. But this concerns MP as well.

This lead to the situation where you have to protect the already-protected CS with light troops. This is a quite strange situation : your horses face the enemy horses ready to charge, your CS is protected from the enemy cavalry and protects your cavalry and then enemy dragoons or musketeers enter the fray 'in the middle' of enemy cavalry quite safely (as your cavalry won't/can't charge them at that moment) and remove your CS.

Yet armies with CS have much fewer other Light troops than their enemies.

How about (maybe) adding a few Detached musketeers when historical ? e.g. French used Enfants perdus on the Southern front of the TYW (at Lérins, Leucate...). Or maybe I should assign the only units currently in the lists (Hussars, dragoons) to this very task of protecting CS ?

PS : not to mention the case when AI CS attacks your CS without attempting to use the CS mechanism of protection, which is logical as AI can't use it (which concerns only SP).

However, one thing I know is that I still need to practise with CS

[Stardona]

Still modding my "Early Swedish Cav with CS" unit to make then effective against Cuirassiers (leaving apart the Polish Winged Hussars for the moment), I came across some questions :

1) Cohesion test

Does cohesion test taken after losing impact phase combat against (in my case) impact mounted also depends on the stats of the next melee Round ?
In other words, if the Net PoA of the next Melee Round favours the troop testing for having lost impact foot, will it have more chance to pass the test successfully ?
(because of if "trusting" in its ability to win the next melee) eduzaurus
If so, is the next melee a significant factor for the cohesion test after losing impact phase ?

(a bit like it was the case, iirc, in a previous situation posted on the FoG2 forums about a cavalry unit preferring to evade on the impact, partly because of the next melee phase outcome.)

2) Musket and Armour

Here is a thing that surprised me :

In the two following cases, the Armours are unchanged. Only one thing changes : the Musket attribute.
But the Armour Advantage changes.
Is it a way to take into account that muskets keep on shooting during the melee ?





(edit)

3) And from the above :

Is it possible to create a cavalry unit :

• really strong on the Impact (ie able to often generate Cohesion test as it charges at full speed after a musket salvo),

• and really weak during the melee (being without armour and less numerous vs Cuirassiers) ?

I am also interested in solving the questions. Thank you for your inquiry.

[SnuggleBunnies]

1) No it does not.
2) Yes, Arquebus and Musket both cancel out armor even in melee.

[Athos1660]

When planning a Commanded shot's attack works (against AI) due to good fortune :



Commanded Shot (A) is placed to exerts a ZoC over the enemy Veteran Horse (D), being protected by friendly Average DH (B). (D) can either fall back (at the risk of suffering a cohesion drop) or attack the Commanded shot (A). It decides to attack. The Commanded Shot resisted for a couple of turns, long enough for the friendly Average DH (C) to come from the rear and flank charge (D) making the latter fragmented at once.

That's nice when it works

PS : When (D) broke, (C) also rear-charged the other enemy cavalry (domino effect) but that wasn't planned...

[StuccoFresco]

Love when a well-placed charge leads to a domino effect, while your frontliners hold the ground for just long enough.