Interruption of Moves

[Athos1660]

P&S and FoG2 are fascinating and complex games that arouses endless interesting questions about gameplay and History.
Here is mine of today about a feature I do like
Any hint would be appreciated.

The manual says about the interruption of moves :

A unit’s move may be interrupted by enemy fire. It halts briefly then will require a further Move order to complete its move. However, if the originally intended move was not directly forwards, the unit may no longer be able to complete it. This represents disruption of manoeuvre when the unit comes under enemy fire.

For example :
1) I want to move my cuirassiers 3 squares forward :


2)... but the Arquebusiers stop me before, killing some of my cuirassiers :


If I am not mistaken, I've noticed that "interruption of moves" only happens during moves, not charge.
So if my cuirassiers charge the Arqubusiers, they will never be shot at.
And the same thing happens to Infantry charging Infantry.

Why doesn't it happen on charges ? Because there would be too many interruptions and it would make interruptions of "charges" boring ? Because it translates the right behavior of the stressed charged one ? Because a charger won't stop under fire ?

What if the charged one could fire and make some casualties before the impact or the evasion, whithout making the charger stop (unless shooting makes the charger disrupted/fragmented) ? At least, if the charged one is Arquebusiers on horseback, detached musketeers or dragoons ?

In the case of Arquebusiers vs Cuirassiers as above, it would compensate a bit the weakness of the Arquebusiers, but would it be an historical behavior ?

[rbodleyscott]

P&S and FoG2 are fascinating and complex games that arouses endless interesting questions about gameplay and History.
Here is mine of today about a feature I do like
Any hint would be appreciated.

The manual says about the interruption of moves :

A unit’s move may be interrupted by enemy fire. It halts briefly then will require a further Move order to complete its move. However, if the originally intended move was not directly forwards, the unit may no longer be able to complete it. This represents disruption of manoeuvre when the unit comes under enemy fire.

For example :
1) I want to move my cuirassiers 3 squares forward :


2)... but the Arquebusiers stop me before, killing some of my cuirassiers :


If I am not mistaken, I've noticed that "interruption of moves" only happens during moves, not charge.
So if my cuirassiers charge the Arqubusiers, they will never be shot at.
And the same thing happens to Infantry charging Infantry.

Why doesn't it happen on charges ? Because there would be too many interruptions and it would make interruptions of "charges" boring ? Because it translates the right behavior of the stressed charged one ? Because a charger won't stop under fire ?

What if the charged one could fire and make some casualties before the impact or the evasion, whithout making the charger stop (unless shooting makes the charger disrupted/fragmented) ? At least, if the charged one is Arquebusiers on horseback, detached musketeers or dragoons ?

In the case of Arquebusiers vs Cuirassiers as above, it would compensate a bit the weakness of the Arquebusiers, but would it be an historical behavior ?

I don't recall whether there were technical reasons. However, the rationalisation would be that once committed to the charge they would not stop. The enemy has already had at least 2 opportunities to shoot at them prior to the charge.

[Athos1660]

Thank you very much, Richard, for taking the time to answer about decisions taken years ago.

The enemy has already had at least 2 opportunities to shoot at them prior to the charge.

Two opportunities when the charger is infantry ; at least one if the charger is cavalry and sometimes none if it is hussars and their 20 APs that is > max shooting range), right ? Indeed ! I haven't thought about that point. It makes sense.

Here is another of case of charge without being shot at : my charging unit, on the left hand side of the pics, will pass ahead of shooting enemy units without suffering casualties :





What if the charging unit suffered casualties (1) without stoping charging ?

Maybe it would be difficult to code the effects of such casualties on the impact/melee results. And multiple shooting during a charge could cause technical issues...

____
(1) a small number of casualties as the charging unit is in motion ?

[rbodleyscott]

I suspect there were technical issues, but I did write the code 6 years ago, so my recollection is somewhat hazy.

[Athos1660]

It is natural.

Thanks again, Richard, for your answers.

[Cronos09]

In FUNCTION UNIT_ASSAULT (Assault.BSF) there is a subfunction ResolveSupportShooting(me). Its reminder says 'If we decide to have reaction shooting against chargers, it goes here. However, it appears to be too effective - and FOGR works fine without it'. It is an answer why that subfunction is really absent.

But we can try to turn on unit reactive fire during charges (like the reaction during a move). At first I thought it was a special function for that in the game script folders. But it turned out to be easier. The main command responsible for unit moving is SetRoute(id, x, y, [react]). [react] is the key for units reaction (0 - no reaction, 1 - normal reaction, i.e. reactive fire).
In FUNCTION UNIT_ASSAULT (Assault.BSF) this command is used as AddVizFunctionCall("SetRoute", me, adjacent_X, adjacent_Y, 0). If we replace 0 with 1 we will see unit reaction during a charge but after the impact and without any interruptions. This works the command AddVizWaitOnMove(me). If we comment out it, also SetCannotControl(me, 1) and SetAttrib (me, "Shots", 0) we will see interruptions when the target unit is firing. But in this case we cannot charge directly - at best we can move the charging unit to a tile adjacent to the target unit. Then we can only charge. That is, it is equivalent to moving a unit to an adjacent tile with the target unit in the original game and then charging it.
Such technical issues we have.

[Athos1660]

In FUNCTION UNIT_ASSAULT (Assault.BSF) there is a subfunction ResolveSupportShooting(me). Its reminder says 'If we decide to have reaction shooting against chargers, it goes here. However, it appears to be too effective - and FOGR works fine without it'. It is an answer why that subfunction is really absent.

iirc and correctly summarise a couple of posts from Richard (sorry if I misinterpret them here), adding Undo to FoG2: Ancients made him remove any opportunity fire. He then offset the latter by buffing 'normal' shooting. Maybe this is the solution for P&S too.

But we can try to turn on unit reactive fire during charges (like the reaction during a move). At first I thought it was a special function for that in the game script folders. But it turned out to be easier. The main command responsible for unit moving is SetRoute(id, x, y, [react]). [react] is the key for units reaction (0 - no reaction, 1 - normal reaction, i.e. reactive fire).
In FUNCTION UNIT_ASSAULT (Assault.BSF) this command is used as AddVizFunctionCall("SetRoute", me, adjacent_X, adjacent_Y, 0). If we replace 0 with 1 we will see unit reaction during a charge but after the impact and without any interruptions. This works the command AddVizWaitOnMove(me). If we comment out it, also SetCannotControl(me, 1) and SetAttrib (me, "Shots", 0) we will see interruptions when the target unit is firing. But in this case we cannot charge directly - at best we can move the charging unit to a tile adjacent to the target unit. Then we can only charge. That is, it is equivalent to moving a unit to an adjacent tile with the target unit in the original game and then charging it.
Such technical issues we have.

Good job, Cronos ! Interesting. As Veles pointed out here, there should be some exceptions though.

For my part, I am going to refrain from suggesting anything.

[Athos1660]

Yesterday, with the Vanilla game, I saw an AI arquebusier unit moving forward a shooting unit of mine, getting shot (by opportunity fire), suffering losses and stopping, then charging during the same turn. I guess that the AI unit first moved then charged and that it was not an "interruption of charge". However that was nice.