Artillery: The Pinnacle of Destruction (large post for suggestions and discusions)

[A. P. Hill]

Great Videos!

They've got the traces from the lead pair too long on that caisson. They'd find it much easer to control if they shortened them.

[Oleander]

I noticed that, and I'm wondering if they've been having trouble with a horse. I remember back when we did the street fighting training they had A LOT of issues with one of them. To the point that we nearly lost the gun down an embankment at one point, and almost split the trail spike when the horse reared and jack-knifed it on the limber.

[Conway]

I don't think sacrificing game-play for realism is always a good thing. You won't have 100% accurate re-enactments of battles and thats just a plain fact. Warfare is far to complex for any game to be able to capture it in a realistic manner. From my experience in NW artillery is a hit or a miss. If the enemy has good, competent infantry leaders then your arty can be as useful as pissing in the wind. Adding in a complex logistics system would likely severely handicap the artillery seeing that unless if the enemy marches in a double ranked line from across the map you likely won't get massive kills. Good infantry usually gets more kills than ok artillery. It just when a stupid officer gets his line in the open that arty sees its glory. Artillery is good for holding positions. It will cause the enemy to need to hide and look for flanking routes in order to not lose half their line to arty. If the arty has too run back to refill on ammo every 5mins its going to put your team at a disadvantage. I'd rather 25 infantry men than 2 cannons manned by 25 men any day simply because the infantry is more consistent. Whatever system is implemented it really shouldn't take a lot more than 8 men to man 2 cannons. Having to babysit 25 un-protected artillerymen an entire match would be the pinnacle of inefficacy.

[BloodBeag]

could you not just have horses stand still?

[A. P. Hill]

could you not just have horses stand still?

Come on, you know that's not 'realistic' nor 'authentic'.

Horses in real life need to be controlled by humans, left to their own, they tend to amble a lot and tend not to follow protocol. While the dev team could make horses statue still, I hope it never happens.

First, for the artillery to be mobile, the horses are going to have to be animated, move and be reactive to player commands. It's the only way I can see artillery being of maximum use to the armies.

Also, like players, I feel all animals and any AI teamsters etc., will have to be subject to bullets, shells, and other means of wounding/killing. In that condition, a horse will be want to rear up and take off, if it is not killed outright. As an artillery cannoneer, the last thing you'd want is for your ammunition to be carted off the field by a spooked team of horses.

It was a known fact that during the war, as a units charged a battery, one of the top commands always given was to shoot the horses to prevent the enemy from hauling away the trophy guns. Players are going to be shooting at the artillery horse teams, you can imagine the chaos should they be wounded. I think that at least with an AI controlled teamsters, there would be a less likely chance of a team running off.

I also think that should the AI teamster idea be incorporated, I would like that AI will not affect the numbers of players allowed in an event.

[BloodBeag]

but AI takes time to do. What if horses just stood still unless they were wounded or shot at and then one of the arty guys would just go over to them if they started taking fire.



eck

[GeneralSquirts]

I don't know A.P. It's hard for me. On one side I admire the love for the authenticity that you want to keep it as realistic as possible, and I actually agree with making it as realistic as possible personally. Artillery never got its due in NW, and you guys have a chance to do it here. But at the same time, I think this is the wrong way. Like Conway said, you can only reach a certain point of realism where certain expectations can truly be met. I think trying to focus on the AI will also take away on the promised amount of players a server was reported to eventually hold. At the end of the day I think it's a wrong foot in the direction, even though the direction is something I truly wish for but I think is something just not able to be expressed by this type of game genre.

Love you though A.P.

[Oleander]

If I remember correctly, the devs said they didn't want bots in the game. I don't know how I feel about AI teamsters to be honest, but I can see how a player having to take control of a horse team and basically sitting out the battle will be extremely boring. The same could be said of cavalry, once they dismount they effectively loose one in four soldiers since one will need to stay with the horses. This is of course with 100% realism, ai can take the tedium out of it by taking the boring jobs. I do think that if they do go in that direction that a player should be allowed to fill the spot from the AI if that's what they desire. One thing I don't want to see though is gun positions being filled by AI, mean one player can have an AI team manning the gun. My opinion is, if you don't have enough players to fill the positions of a gun and have enough for infantry as well then you won't need the artillery at all.

As was said above me, this is really the first time a game like this has been attempted, and really to make an effective mark you have to go all in. Not only does it add to the accuracy, but it also provides variety. I for one have done my time in battle lines, and I'd like to get the full effect of the different branches which is something that no other game has to offer. I'm sure there are others out there that feel the same way, it's a way to keep people from becoming burnt out, like so many other FPS games while not offering an alternative that is just boring. My two cents.