Artillery/Cavalry. Keep them or not?

[Damocles]

The actual solution that I would propose, if it is possible, is to give infantry many of the same traits as artillery and then make artillery even greater. I believe this has to do with fiddling around with the combat results table or some such. Basically, doubling the firepower of the infantry so that they can more easily take fortresses. However, the AI likes to build only cavalry and artillery 95 percent of the time...

So....Perhaps even restrict the AIs ability to build cavalry and make it a pure infantry deal? I know alot of people may not like that, but I have some extensive experience dealing with the AI in recent experiments. Including a PBEM game where you let the AI run your country for up to 15 years at a time. Its amazing how incompetent it is. It jacks its maintenance cost through the roof building only warships, cavalry and artillery and all in their own little armies.

Merging cavalry and artillery into infantry would have alot of benefits I think, and not be too inaccurate considering the age. Such as the American Civil War...Cavalry stopped being a real separate arm (At least on a EU scale) and could easily be factored in.

I don't know if this can be modified, but if cav/arty aren't done away with, then maintenance costs should be drastically lowered. At least in the 19th century, armies were composed almost entirely of infantry because of the changing nature of how armies were composed.

I don't see anything that artillery or cavalry contributes to the game that wouldn't be more effectively and realistically done by simply combining them into infantry. Would make the AI ten times more efficient.

 

[unmerged(7398)]

This is all very well and good, but the point is moot unless we can disallow building of cavalry/artillery, or change their maintenance. Artillery just might be possible (in much the same way that changing the minimum tech level for fortresses might be possible - i.e., there's rumors to the effect that it can be done, but I've yet to see someone describe how to do it); cavalry, though, is buildable from the start instead of being granted by a land-tech level, so I'm more pessimistic on that front. As for maintenance, I rather suspect that the best we can do is make sure every nation has a (very) large maximum troops level.

Mind you, I'd be ecstatic to be shown wrong on any of these counts.

 

[unmerged(1196)]

I think we can prevent certain countries from having cavalry, but that's it. Unless someone has an explanation for the whiteman value.

 

[unmerged(6603)]

whiteman value affects tech research I know. I think as soon as they have contact with Euros, the natives get horses. So probably if your whiteman equals zero, you can't build them. It would last exactly 1 day, and then all bets would be off...


I don't believe we can do whats being suggested. The best thing to do would be tweak the tech levels and make cav almost worthless....

 

[unmerged(7398)]

Whiteman only works for nations whose capitals are in the Americas, as I understand it, and also prevents the building of ships, which would be Bad.

 

[unmerged(7398)]

And, er, making cav worthless would cripple the AI even more - I seriously doubt that it checks for modifications before choosing what to build, in which case it would build just as much cavalry as it does now - except that it would be even more ineffective. I could, naturally, be wrong.

 

[Damocles]

No, you're right. The AI would just keep building cavalry. Make cavalry cheaper, it'll just build more. It literally builds 90 percent artillery/cav. I've observed it numerous times. I was Muscowy, poor as hell, yet I let the AI take over for 15 years and it built me 150 artillery.

I wonder if it would be possible just to make everyone whiteman=no. As for tech levels, is it possible to modify them so that there are different results for reaching them? I know the CRT levels are modifiable.

I've seen some amazing results from people who knew what they were doing, deciding to delve into a game's mechanics. Perhaps it isn't too far fetched that someone can work something out to the effect that cavalry isn't buildable.

 

[Damocles]

Actually.

Now that I think about it, the AI *might* be dissuaded from building cavalry if it was made cheap and worthless.

Someone should experiment, see what the AI does when there is no artillery available and cavalry is drastically decreased.

At the same time however, Infantry should be significantly improved on the CRT tables and such as it will represent entire armies, so shock and firepower would take considerable gains.

Furthermore...I know this has been done before, set armies to take bigger morale losses and thus retreat before losing 25%-50% casualties. This might include everything from killed, wounded, captured and deserting during the course of fighting in a province, but rarely, were armies reduced further without just breaking and running. Overly adverse conditions would still take their toll.

 

[unmerged(6603)]

Um... I don't know what your talking about. The AI's armies are primarily infantry in any game I have EVER played. THere are occasional cavalry forces in rich countries, but for the most part they aren't built


Just jack the price of them up, and the AI shouldn't built them... I think.

 

[Damocles]

No...They'll still build them.

I wonder if the AI makes the decisions based on the position of sliders. *ponder*

Anyhow, I've played two PBEM games, one as poor Muscowy and a second as rich France. The AI always built me arty/cav each time with the odd few infantry (but mostly not, just leftovers from what I made). In order to not bankrupt, I'd have to disband them all, and start with infantry again.

Also, in the latter years of the napoleon scenario, all the French build is cavalry and have a hard time taking provinces.

This is just what I've personally observed to be consistant in my experiences. Perhaps there is some prerequisite that causes the AI to be inclined to certain kinds of units? Wealth dosen't seem to be a factor. Except that I believe if a country is dirt poor and has all of it's income going into the treasurey, and it is at war under certain conditions, it will use whatever money it earns monthly to build as much as it can. Which would explain all of the 1-3k armies of infantry that seem to flood the map in the Napoleon scenario after the first 3-5 years.

Tho, soon as a nation is stable and wealthy, it skewers itself by unwise building.

On a less hazardous note, the AI also is 95 percent disposed towards building warships. Or at least, the France and Muscowy AI is. They rarely built me a galley. Even in the 1400s.

Maybe the aristocracy slider has something to do with it? It was maxed in both games. I'm assuming that for the Age of Nationalism scenario the majority of countries will have mostly plutocracy ratings and free subjects. Maybe that will influence the AI...

I'll run some experiments tonight.

 

[unmerged(9145)]

Instead of thinking of cavalry as guys on horseback with swords during this time period, call it 'dragoons' instead. For those not in the know, dragoons were simply mounted infantry; they used horses to get to a battlefield quickly, and around the battlefield quickly, but dismounted and formed lines as infantry when actually engaging the enemy.

Make the cavalry the same strength as infantry but increase the support cost. Dragoons were incredibly effective units; the only reason they didn't surpass infantry was because a) horses were bloody expensive, and b) horsemen took longer to train than footmen. As dragoons they'd still have some shock value, to reflect their ability to outmaneuver foot-only troops and line up against flanks and the rear.

An alternate to traditional cavalry, but the expense per point of firepower would make infantry the better buy for everyone except those with huge amounts of cash to burn. Perhaps the AI would forego building all-dragoon armies if the ratio of cost to firepower were reduced?

Max

 

[Damocles]

From everything I've been able to deduce, working with mostly the latter scenarios (1700+), the AI will still build cavalry and still get stalled forever even by a simple minimal fortress, unless it has leftover infantry from the start of the scenario. The only real viable solution (as opposed to ignoring it), is to discover a way to remove cavalry entirely...

 

[unmerged(9167)]

The problem is that artillery had improved dramatically during Civil War period, look at rifled cannon which could shattered the fort easily. So we should have higher firepower for the artillery. Maybe even have a tank in 1910.

 

[Damocles]

That would be like having a submarine in the American Civil War .

I've seen the AI do fairly well at storming, but only when they had lots of infantry. Perhaps some tweaking with the Aristocracy/Offensive sliders towards Pluto/Defensive and raising of prices for Cav and lowering of prices for Infantry even more so, will help some. There has to be some way we can simulate even a small Balkan state like Bulgaria, Serbia or Hellas, being able to raise 300,000+ troops in less than a year from a single province

 

[unmerged(6603)]

we can't simulate armies that large practically.

end of story

if you want to pretend, just multiply the army of 30k by 10 in your head