nwg

This battle was well worth a watch. Things I noticed:

- No cavalry. I know this was a test and thats why. Nevertheless, if cavalry where present its cost would have reduced the number of cannon available simply by way of not having enough florins left to spend.

- Both sides started the action with an artillery barrage. The real action didn't start until that had subsided. This is a pretty classic sequence of events so no surprises there, however, with a lot less canister available in the game now I wonder if particularly aggressive players might start the hand to hand and musket work earlier?? Hard to know. Anyway, the length of time the barrage lasts is directly proportional to the ammunition available...are we happy that there is not too much?




I'm going to be on the watch out for problems here, but I don't think we'll know until we get out of the test phase and proper games start.




I think we'll go this way. I watched the above replay without the fireball effect and it certainly makes a difference to your visual perception of shell effectiveness.




I think we're a breath or two away. I'll change the fireball graphic and get some specific feedback in a post I'll make this afternoon then we're away.

Regards, M

Moopere, the url is:

www.babylon.com

Best regards, gp.

Have no fear M, Gunner and i were testing here Artillery only, i was particularly looking at shell.


Very very good point this one
Best to get the views of Gunner, he certainly being one such aggressive player.
One thing i will say is that corps size especially 12p battery when well positioned can still do some serous damage at close range, so maybe this could be enough of a deterrent. Gunners performance of this unit in the last test would certainly support that opinion.
OK we still have cannister with 6P's although i for one rarely deploy this unit, i find it pretty difficult to get a lot of value from it, one reason for this maybe facing Gunner a lot as he will put everything he has against such a unit if it has moved to cannister range.




Dam i have been failing in my duty's as tester and haven't payed enough attention to this issue
Although thinking back one of my 4 gun 12p's I'm pretty sure did run out of ammo late on. i didn't at all feel it was to early.

I would say the ammo levels are ok, if you reduce them you have to reduce the cost of the unit, and we don't want arty too cheap....this TEST game without Cav was to test arty as we don't have any issues with Cav......but that means there was a lot more arty there than there would be in a proper battle.....so no one needs to worry about arty being too strong - Cav would make the arty crews life hard work in a normal battle.

So at last the testing part of the CB321 build is complete. This has been by far the most tested version of Corps Battles yet and I think the outcome is better for it.

Considering the fairly radical changes contained within this new version I think the testing went pretty well and issues, such as there were, were fairly minor.

I would like feedback from the testers on the assumptions below:

- The auto-execute installer for the patch seems to work as expected and should be fairly easy for existing CB32 users to negotiate and get a good known outcome.

- I'm particularly fond of the smoothed out costings for this version. If anyone has noticed anything strange speak now or forever hold your peace.

- Artillery in most of its forms has had the most love this time around and quite a bit of discussion too (which is great!). I'm pretty happy with the result we've thrashed out but I want to hear from any of the testing team with specific problems or who foresees specific problems (PM if you like).

- As a rock/paper/scissors game, which RTW/NTW2/CB is, I think we've got a good choice of tools now which logically hold together. If anyone has noticed an oddball unit or one which seems a little bit too superior without any reasonable and effective counter unit please let me know.

For those testers who still have some enthusiasm left, that I've not beaten out of you in the last 7 days hehe, there is a CB321d available in the usual place. The -only- difference with this version is that it has had the fireball graphic for howitzer shell removed in favour of a more conservative graphic (rockets are still flames though). Interestingly this version is completely compatible with CB321c, so, if you like, you can watch any of the existing CB321c replays with CB321d to see how different one of the recorded battles might look.

CB321d will become the official release version so long as the testing team don't raise any issues or problems as a result of the queries above.

Thanks a lot to GP, Gunner and Dougie for their energy, patience and enthusiasm. This short testing cycle has been stressful in some ways and has been a challenge and an absolute sink-hole for spare time, I appreciate all of your help and discussions.

Best regards,
Moopere

I will take a look now, I don't have any problems to report that warrent any further work - yet !.

When REAL games get under way, IF, artillery appears to "cheap" and there are masses of artillery batteries about, the price may need to be eased up a bit - but I don't really expect this to be a problem, as artillery is hard to use well in CB, if you get too much you will find it destoyed by roving Cav - as it's very hard work trying to protect 4 or 5 artillery batteries.


I would think you have spent 10 times more time on this than all us "testers" put together - so thanks for that.

Strangely i had a few probs with CB32A and i cant figure out why Absolutely no issues since and yes it should be very straight forward for everyone to update there current version.


All looks fine


I will suggest to Gun24 today that we play out a couple of normal CB games I.E. no extra arty and no ban on CAV etc, I'm sure all things will run smoothly.


Again all looks fine



Mo its been a pleasure being involved in the testing and never a chore.
There cant be many opportunity's these days to have a genuine input into something you enjoy so much.
Great stuff, and many thanks to you for all your unbelievably thorough and very hard work.
Cheers DJ

For Moopere' attention.....

Moopere, was it INTENTIONAL that Howitzers fire cannister in the same way as a 6pdr cannon ?.....this may sound really stupid but I thought Howitzwes fired as Howitzers and not as cannon. If you re-call in the test game with me, GP, and yourself I was saying that cannister was not working - you told me it had a VERY short range.....well, yes it does work at very short range BUT like a cannon, not a howitzer.

It is NOT possible to shoot OVER friendly troops, hills, buildings etc with cannister - this this intentional ?, or a "fault".....

If it is intentional, no problem at all, it works well like that, but you need to explain very clearly this is the case....I have been killing my own troops in testing NOT knowing they have to be used like a cannon for cannister shots !.

Funny but when i thought of howitzer firing cannister i always assumed it would be firing as a 6P cannon, as it does now.
I had a mental image of the Howey barrel being levelled at close range to fire into the enemy's lines.
Was this ever the case M on the Napoleonic battlefield ??

Anyway if Howey cannister remains as is now, it will be useful.
With the range as just tested by G24 and myself being fine at just outside musket range.
It certainly makes Howey's a bit more viable as an option.

Oh yes almost forgot again, my 12p's did run out of ammo at the very end of the battle after registering 700 kills so no problem there, Howey's still had some left.

700 kills !....heck, that was a lot - with no cannister.

Moopere, what about the howitzer question above ?.

Yes mate i was expecting a high number of kills, as my 12p's spent a lot of time firing across your lines,from that small hump on the left of my deployment area, as you know this makes a huge difference to casualties inflicted.
Although 700 seems a very high number i remember GP getting pretty close to that in a battle with Ank's Russians and no cannister was involved there.

Hi Gun,

Yes, Howitzers would historically fire canister as Dougie suggests, they would level their short barrels and fire the case shot at 0 degrees. The reason for the short range is the short barrel as it has an effect on muzzle velocity I'm led to believe (which is why short muskets and carbines don't have a long range either).

The very little data I've been able to gather on Howizter canister does seem to indicate that the effective range was -extremely- short, in the region of the 3 and 4 pound field cannon, and this is with the big 6 and 8" howitzers.

In the game canister range is the same as a 4lb cannon canister range, which is scary close to your enemy. When they see it coming they will concentrate on removing the threat so I don't expect many howitzer crews to live to tell tales of the battle. Nevertheless, there are ways to effectively use the short range...for example, instead of placing these weapons in front of your infantry line, make a small space between two line units and nuggle your howitzers in there...note that I'm -not- talking about embedding the artillery but making it part of 'the line'.




Yep, as designed.




No, not possible. The canister balls themselves were often just musket balls jammed into a metal case (thus canister is also called 'case' shot) and the musket balls just don't have the mass to still be effective when dropping from the sky after following a parabolic flight path.

This is doubtless the reason Major-General Shrapnel invented shrapnel. The combination of shell and canister seems like a good match, and indeed it was.




Mmm. Thats reasonable. Anyone want to put up their hand to build a page to describe Napoleonic weaponry and use? Seems like a really good idea, particularly as we are on the verge of probably getting a huge influx of new players who may not have been exposed to Napoleonic weaponry before (ETW looms large).

Best regards, M.

Thanks M, that explains things, I must have been having an "off" few days......the idea of a page is good but it would be quite a lot of hard wotk, I'll give it some thought when I'm feeling a bit better......I was also thinking of putting the howitzer for cannister shot between two Inf units....ops, bathroom calls again !!!!

Are we now LIVE with the latest version of CB ?.

Yes, there will not be further changes.

I have to build the new version wiki page and formally package the live version but rest assured there will not be anything new from here.

Everyone, including me, is ready to launch into the new version I know. RL got in the way yesterday but I'm hoping its all going to be done -before- this weekend.

Regards, M.