Some ideas and queries

[Offworlder]

Had some ideas and would like to bounce them around. Though as a disclaimer, I have to say that I am no programmer, so the feasibility of the following depends on whether these are actually possible to implement in practice... I've also some questions regarding some of the factions, so bear with me

Fortifications and sieges

Currently, its too easy to both fortify cities to the maximum limit and to assault them, especially with a large army. I propose bringing back some of the mechanics found in Rise of Prussia in this regard since it tallied more with reality of the period, namely that the construction of fortifications depended on expending substantial amounts of money, labour and resources while taking a lot of time. Essentially, fortifications were capital class investments and should force the player to make decisions between strengthening the field army or fortifying a particular border. Although Napoleonic warfare was dominated by big battles, fortifications did impede operations and few sieges were prosecuted because the armies either avoided them like the plague, or just masked them and continued onwards towards their objectives. However, fortifications repeatedly showed their worth be it in Prussia, Spain, Northern Germany and so forth.

Thus, I feel that the removal of the 'build fort' option from field forces is warranted and substitute it with and RDG system similar to RoP. This gave a limited number of such decisions to the player and additionally cost him money and resources and took several months to implement. The only change I'd suggest is to effectively be able to build up any fortification up to level 3 (ie if presently there is a level one fortification in a particular city, a player could deploy 2 RDG cards in succession to bring it up to level 3). So say one or two cards every six months for a major power would be the limit in order to avoid spamming the map with level 3 forts. Maybe it would also be wise to make higher level fortifications less prone to being destroyed during an assault.

As to sieges, it would be ideal if the RoP system was brought into place with a little change, in the sense that higher level fortifications (levels 2 and 3) would require a formal siege. Assaults would then only be carried out if there are effective breaches, possibly utilising the presently available RDGs which are currently useless, as armies can literally carry out an assault on the march. It would also then make sense to actually recruit garrison units (especially infantry and supply units which are quite expensive but currently useless) and place them under a general with fortification defence attributes in order to prolong a siege.

Military reforms

Military reforms are (or should be) a powerful tool for non French factions to be better able to resist the Napoleonic war machine. In order to maintain an interesting game against the AI, would it be possible to script that those AI factions which undertake such reforms actually get a number of the new units with the reform with a few such units added every year or so? This is especially important during the long campaign in solitaire, where major powers tend to be reduced to insignificance because of the AI's inability to rebuild its forces over a period of time, even though it may have the resources to do so. (I've seen Spain actually jumping to third place strength wise simply because the Austrians, Prussians and Russians had their armies totally destroyed. Also, the AI doen't usually help itself as it just spams a lot of artillery, engineering and other support troops). In this sense, of particular importance would be the Russian army which was the only army that actually matched the Grande Armee in size, if not effectiveness.

French issues

France does not have a powerful option a la military reform available to other factions. However, it has the Grand Empire option which costs a lot of EPs etc, but is rather bland. Could it be somehow be beefed up? My idea is that since the Grand Empire essentially made all direct and indirect subjects equal, it would make sense if new military pools were created. In this case, a few units made up of Dutch, Italian, Poles and later Spanish became available for construction. (I'm purposely avoiding Neapolitans, Germans including Westphalians and Portuguese which remained apart from the Grand Empire itself. I don't know where the Swiss would fit in such a scheme). I'm thinking along the lines of a few divisions of infantry, a brigade each of foot and horse guards, a few cavalry brigades and some horse artillery in each case.

Regarding the Imperial Guard, maybe it would be wise to simply remove the light cavalry brigades (maybe with the exception of the original brigade) and stick to the Guard light cavalry divisions since the number of light cavalry units was not that large. Maybe for flavour, a Guard lancer unit may be raised following the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw to reflect the Polish influence in this regard. A little addition could be the inclusion of a small brigade of Guard marines as well.

The Gendarmes infantry also seem to be slightly overpowered (though the cavalry seems to be ok though quite numerous). In the Spanish Ulcer scenario of the Wars of Napoleon, a host (20 to be precise) battalions of Gendarmes arrived. Since these were not combat troops in the strictest sense, could the brigades be cut down to say 2 infantry elements or at least have the artillery removed? I'm not sure if they actually had artillery units incorporated historically.

Also I remember from the Spanish Ulcer scenario in the previous Ageod game on Napoleon, there were small units of mountain troops (like the Chasseur Chabot and the battalion Valasain). Is there a way to bring them or similar units back?

There are also some brigades that do not fill up like Lecchi's, the Hanoverian brigades or the Italian Legion - is this WAD?

British issues

Can the Fencible and Yeomanry regiments be made static until there is an invasion of the British Isles? Currently they inflate the British Field Forces beyond measure. These were essentially temporary regiments of mobile militia and employed as such. Another option could be to use the mechanism used for the Austrians and Ottomans, in that these are raised if an enemy actually landed.

Also there seem to be an excess of artillery brigades. The names of these brigades seem to be those of batteries used by the British army. Since lonely batteries cannot be created in game, what if the named batteries were actually concentrated in a few brigades with the option of building more for the player.

Can the British actually request expeditionary forces from other states? I haven't seen it as an option yet, but I haven't progressed much beyond 1807 as the Brits.

Austrian questions

Admittedly, I haven't played as the Austrians much. However, I noticed that they seem to have no Guard formations. Am I missing something?

The Spanish

I'm actually impressed by this faction's military, despite its historical reputation, which has great potential if its strength is preserved. Though I've never played this faction until the French invasion, I couldn't but help note that they actually have a kernel of decent troops around which to build a decent army. The Guards, light infantry and the foreign brigades are quite good and there are some decent generals too. Regular brigades, if properly reinforced, are also comparable to the French. Also, the fleet is quite numerous, and used judiciously (ie no suicide runs), it can actually give the English a run for their money, especially since they do have a few decent admirals. For those who maybe played this faction long enough, what does its reform bring about?

[PhilThib]

Thanks. Good lot of interesting remarks.