This game entails some unique challenges in unit handling, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do things smoothly. I would like to know if anyone has any ideas about how to do things better.
Provinces have a width value. The width is 30 in 1836, will drop from 25 to 20 sometime soon after 1880, will be 15 soon after 1900, and 10 soon after 1919.
If width is 30, you can put 30 front-line units on the front-line, and all of them can fire at an opposing front-line unit. If one side can't fill the front line, the units on each flank may end up taking fire from more than one enemy unit (2 if only infantry are involved, and as many as 3 if there are cav present).
Any artillery go into the back line and will fire on the unit across the line from them, and according to the strategy guide they'll also augment defense on the friendly unit in front of them.
If there are more front-line units than will fit in the front line, they go in the back line and do nothing until they migrate to the front line.
In the early game it is possible to fill up the front line in a combat, but it would seem that this would be much more rare than it is in the later game, since the front line narrows, support limits increase, and brigade limits increase.
I asked if artillery were useless in a post the other day, and someone said no. Having figured out width, I'm sure that the answer is yes. I'm guessing they are more useful later in the game, but I'm not certain. If you have to choose between 5 inf + 5 art, or 10 inf, I am not sure what would win, but when the combat is over, and it is time to break this stack to siege a bunch of provinces, I'll take the 10 inf, since it's easier to manage, and because naked artillery seem to get one-shotted by rebels and small enemy stacks. I'm not sure if that gets better in the later game.
Later in the game, I want to use artillery. In 1898, width is 20, and AI UK has no problem filling this front line, so I'd better be able to do it too. They'll fill the back line with infantry as well, since it's mostly mobilized troops, and depending upon circumstance I may be able to beat that with a single line of guards, but it would seem that backing that with a line of artillery would be absolute murder, and this seems to be borne out in practice.
The problem is that 20 inf is 60k troops, and that's more than the attrition limit of some provinces, and if you get two stacks of these crossing over each other for a while, that's certainly over the limit.
I've considered making smaller stacks of perhaps 5 guards + 5 art, but this runs into problems after the battle is won, because it's likely you have to split that stack in order to avoid attrition while sieging. You also need a lot of artillery, rather than having just a few stacks of artillery that you can move to hot spots.
I'm thinking this is probably the best way though. Making stacks of 20 guards *or* 20 art is just a nightmare to manage.
I'll probably make additional stacks of 3 guards that I can use as siegers.
Anyone else have any ideas about this?
Provinces have a width value. The width is 30 in 1836, will drop from 25 to 20 sometime soon after 1880, will be 15 soon after 1900, and 10 soon after 1919.
If width is 30, you can put 30 front-line units on the front-line, and all of them can fire at an opposing front-line unit. If one side can't fill the front line, the units on each flank may end up taking fire from more than one enemy unit (2 if only infantry are involved, and as many as 3 if there are cav present).
Any artillery go into the back line and will fire on the unit across the line from them, and according to the strategy guide they'll also augment defense on the friendly unit in front of them.
If there are more front-line units than will fit in the front line, they go in the back line and do nothing until they migrate to the front line.
In the early game it is possible to fill up the front line in a combat, but it would seem that this would be much more rare than it is in the later game, since the front line narrows, support limits increase, and brigade limits increase.
I asked if artillery were useless in a post the other day, and someone said no. Having figured out width, I'm sure that the answer is yes. I'm guessing they are more useful later in the game, but I'm not certain. If you have to choose between 5 inf + 5 art, or 10 inf, I am not sure what would win, but when the combat is over, and it is time to break this stack to siege a bunch of provinces, I'll take the 10 inf, since it's easier to manage, and because naked artillery seem to get one-shotted by rebels and small enemy stacks. I'm not sure if that gets better in the later game.
Later in the game, I want to use artillery. In 1898, width is 20, and AI UK has no problem filling this front line, so I'd better be able to do it too. They'll fill the back line with infantry as well, since it's mostly mobilized troops, and depending upon circumstance I may be able to beat that with a single line of guards, but it would seem that backing that with a line of artillery would be absolute murder, and this seems to be borne out in practice.
The problem is that 20 inf is 60k troops, and that's more than the attrition limit of some provinces, and if you get two stacks of these crossing over each other for a while, that's certainly over the limit.
I've considered making smaller stacks of perhaps 5 guards + 5 art, but this runs into problems after the battle is won, because it's likely you have to split that stack in order to avoid attrition while sieging. You also need a lot of artillery, rather than having just a few stacks of artillery that you can move to hot spots.
I'm thinking this is probably the best way though. Making stacks of 20 guards *or* 20 art is just a nightmare to manage.
I'll probably make additional stacks of 3 guards that I can use as siegers.
Anyone else have any ideas about this?