Shooting on the charge in competitive battles?

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Hekko

Master Knight
Since I don't want to derail the ILC thread further I will take the discussion here in order to allow that thread to focus on issues around the championship and discuss why shooting on the charge is a necessary bit of a competitive linebattle.

For some reason all my arguments and standpoints seem to become economy/finance based, but here goes:

Shooting while charging is essential to maintain a balance between regiments prefering shooting and regiments prefering melee:

First a few basic ceteris paribus asumptions:
1) Both sides have an equal number of players
2) Both sides are equally good at shooting, melee and pointblanking, formations, manouvering etc.
3) The map is entierly flat (removes the option of reverse slope camping the enemy into moving)

These basic asumptions mean that any difference in shooting casulties between the sides are caused by the overall desicion of either going straight into melee or starting shooting immediatley.

We also assume that it's a 1v1 linebattle. Thus we have two agents A and B, they have the following option 1 (Shoot directly) 2 (Get into melee directly). This gives us the following matrix of possible outcomes:

linebattlematrix1.png

A1B2 and A2B1 are the same for all intents and purposes, since A=B when it comes to performance.

Now lets just start adding values to different scenarios, these numbers are by no means exact, but they are correct relatively speaking so while the magnitude is off they certainly are right when it comes to ranking which scenario is best.

First we have the option of both sides shooting it out from begining to end at long range: in this situation all casulties are shooting and and as such it will gain the number of 7 just in order to give it a number, this scenario is a bit uninteresting at this point since the equal shooting skill means that the outcome of this scenario is purely down to luck though.

The second scenario regarding shooting is when you are pointblanking the enemy during a charge where they are not allowed to fire back, this I will give the number of 3 since in my experience if the stationary line is firing at will sees the charging line reduced into some sort of borderline permanent state of strafing which means very high casulties from shooting.

The third scenario is pointblanking where both sides are spread out charging eachother, in this scenario melee at large commences alot quicker and as such the shooting kills will be lower than when shooting at chargers that cannot fire back, thus this gets the number 2

The fourth scenario is when the stationary line is shooting at the column advancing towards melee before the charge, this generally results in quite few shooting kills, but they do exist, also these shooting kills means less muskets on one side in the third scenario and thus I allocate these shooting kills the relative value of 1

Then we have the final scenario where you go for melee directly and you are not allowed to shoot back at the enemy when they are pointblanking you during the charge, this gets the value of 0, since you will not be getting any shooting kills.

Lets now make the matrix for the different scenarios using no firing on the charge, remember the important part is not the absolute number of shooting kills but the largest absolute difference in shooting kills. First ruleset, no shooting on the charge:

linebattlematrix2.png

As you can see, in this case the clearly largest difference is between someone charging at someone standing still. The main question is though, is there a strategy that maximizes the difference regardless of what the opponent picks? The answer is yes, standing still and shooting is better, because if the enemy charges you will get the longrange shooting kills as well as the substantial pointblanking kills and if the enemy halts you are atleast not worse of you're at equal numbers of shooting kills which is as good as the best possible outcome of the other option. Thus you want to stand still and shoot under this ruleset if you're playing in a fashion to maximize your chanses at victory.


Second ruleset, with firing on the charge (remember the absolute difference is still the important thing):

linebattlematrix3.png

As you can see, the scenario with the largest difference is still the one where one side tries to close to melee while the other starts shooting immediately, howver, the difference in absolute terms is alot smaller instead of 4 and 0 it's now 3 and 2. Nevertheless, the same reasoning as above applies, which means that if you are playing to maximize your chanses of victory you will still utilize shooting.


So we have now proven that all other things equal shooting will be the dominant tactic regardless of the ruleset, and since the the matrix is symetrical it means that if both sides are going to be shooting, which means that melee does not have any place as a competiteve strategy. This isn't true, as can be observed in competitve linebattles.

The explanation why melee is used at all in linebattles (other than as clean-up) is quite simple, the skill ceiling is higher with melee than with shooting, which means that the possibility and probability to have a sufficiently large gap in skill in melee to bridge the gap of the extra benefit static shooting gives as well as winning comfortably, is alot higher than the chanses of being good enough shots to win shooting comfortably every time.


So the problem where linebattles become melee fests does not lie with charging being overpowered, on the contrary, it's underpowered (even with shooting), but with the fact that the regiment being charged not being good enough in melee. This also illustrates why it's beneficial to be good at shooting, since it forces the enemy forward giving you an advantage, which is determinal between two almost equal opponents.

I base these findings to a large degree on our linebattles against the 8Lr as well as our linebattle against the 51st which is where I fully realised the devestating power no shooting on the charge exercises over getting into melee. Since our melee has been sufficiently equal to that of the 8Lr and 51st meaning that shooting and pointblanking played a very visual role in the outcome of many of the rounds.

Accordingly my bottomline is that playing it with a no shooting while charging rule breaks down almost all usage of melee and kills of a variety of playtyles pidgeonholing it into shooting first until the round is already decided, after which one may or may not charge to speed things up slightly.

Thanks to Evan for the graphics (as per usual)!

P.s.

Alot of people are using some sort of realism argument here, but I will point out that due to the lack of morale and other similar things charging at the moment lacks the real life benefits it actually had, which means that ingame a charge is alot weaker than it would be in real life, thus, to allow for a playingstyle that is faithful to the era, i.e. charging, one has to allow shooting on the charge as some sort of compensation. However, I do not think these or other realism based arguments have a place when discussing a competitve situation.
 
I'm assuming this is mainly in response to the somewhat split between mainly EU regiments and Us regiments-and in response to that nations cup thing- i don't mind it actually shooting in charges adds a somewhat chaos to a charge as it can then be turned on its head giving the losing team a chance to win.

I feel it also brings another strategic field to the board as especially in 1vs1 a regiment will try and force the opposing regiment into a charge without having reloaded or you will try and charge whilst the opposing regiment is still reloading making a well time charge all the more devastating.

Although i can see why people are against it as it is a bit of a "cheap way to play" and it may prevent more charges but i don't personally think it does and on the side of "Realism" i would bet on many occasion a few odd men popped of a shot in the charge.


Also Hekko why do you always type so much i mean i am almost fed up of reading all your long winded posts.  :lol:
 
DarkOmega said:
I'm assuming this is mainly in response to the somewhat split between mainly EU regiments and Us regiments-and in response to that nations cup thing- i don't mind it actually shooting in charges adds a somewhat chaos to a charge as it can then be turned on its head giving the losing team a chance to win.

I feel it also brings another strategic field to the board as especially in 1vs1 a regiment will try and force the opposing regiment into a charge without having reloaded or you will try and charge whilst the opposing regiment is still reloading making a well time charge all the more devastating.

Although i can see why people are against it as it is a bit of a "cheap way to play" and it may prevent more charges but i don't personally think it does and on the side of "Realism" i would bet on many occasion a few odd men popped of a shot in the charge.


Also Hekko why do you always type so much i mean i am almost fed up of reading all your long winded posts.  :lol:
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

Also, seeing as you guys based your findings partly on the lb you fought against us, allow me to give my point of view on it. You guys were definetly en par with us in melee. However, in the rounds you couldn't shoot in the charge, you guys simply lost due to poor, poor tactics. You basically charged over a too large a distance, causing you to lose many men. It all came down to tactics in those rounds, and it is where you guys didn't do well. No disrespect intended, but that is just the way it was.
 
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

That means that melee will then be obsolete as no team will charge as they will be shot down and will result in regiments running around the field in endless patterns taking volley at each other knowing that if they go into melee a man left they might as well throw in the towel.

Edit: This is still assuming that both regiments are equal and the map is flat.
2) Both sides are equally good at shooting, melee and pointblanking, formations, manouvering etc.
3) The map is entierly flat (removes the option of reverse slope camping the enemy into moving)
 
DarkOmega said:
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

That means that melee will then be obsolete as no team will charge as they will be shot down and will result in regiments running around the field in endless patterns taking volley at each other knowing that if they go into melee a man left they might as well throw in the towel.
Not really. There are ways to get close to an enemy with taking minimal amount of casualties. It's called being tactical. And even so, if a regiment wants to bring it close, because they know they're better in melee, isn't it fair then that they take a few casualties in return for bringing it close?

As I said before, we have played with the no firing in the charge ruleset in most of our matches, and we have played both defensively and offensively (close range volley, charge in) without any problems.
 
I like it when you have that rule, as I just don't like point blanking, but it has the effect that no-one wants to get close, and it just becomes a camping battle, which is even less fun than being point blanked.
 
Not really. There are ways to get close to an enemy with taking minimal amount of casualties. It's called being tactical. And even so, if a regiment wants to bring it close, because they know they're better in melee, isn't it fair then that they take a few casualties in return for bringing it close?

As I said before, we have played with the no firing in the charge ruleset in most of our matches, and we have played both defensively and offensively (close range volley, charge in) without any problems.

Of course it is fair and shooting in a charge adds that aspect for the people charging and those allowing them to charge whilst loaded.

I have played many a linebattles that charges only happened when there is 3 men left because shooting in charges was not allowed.
 
HarbingerOfDoom said:
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

The thing is, as I have shown shooting is still dominant, and in our match you guys always held an advantage since you got a couple of shooting kills when we closed the distance to charging distance against you during the rounds with firing on the charge. So being good at shooting was always a benefit for you.

HarbingerOfDoom said:
Also, seeing as you guys based your findings partly on the lb you fought against us, allow me to give my point of view on it. You guys were definetly en par with us in melee. However, in the rounds you couldn't shoot in the charge, you guys simply lost due to poor, poor tactics. You basically charged over a too large a distance, causing you to lose many men. It all came down to tactics in those rounds, and it is where you guys didn't do well. No disrespect intended, but that is just the way it was.

I know what you mean, but ultimately, to get into melee you have to charge, and with you firing at will it will put us in a perpetual state of strafing, and you can always turn your line quicker than we can flank due to the shorter distance travelled we're pretty much ****ed. Unless shooting, which we were inferior at. In a game we had against 19te yesterday I can tell you that it was incredibly easy for our side to absolutely murder them when they charged us regardless of what the tried. So it in my illustrates that charging as such is a poor choise overall where better tactics may slightly improve the performance of it.
 
Hekko said:
HarbingerOfDoom said:
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

The thing is, as I have shown shooting is still dominant, and in our match you guys always held an advantage since you got a couple of shooting kills when we closed the distance to charging distance against you during the rounds with firing on the charge. So being good at shooting was always a benefit for you.

HarbingerOfDoom said:
Also, seeing as you guys based your findings partly on the lb you fought against us, allow me to give my point of view on it. You guys were definetly en par with us in melee. However, in the rounds you couldn't shoot in the charge, you guys simply lost due to poor, poor tactics. You basically charged over a too large a distance, causing you to lose many men. It all came down to tactics in those rounds, and it is where you guys didn't do well. No disrespect intended, but that is just the way it was.

I know what you mean, but ultimately, to get into melee you have to charge, and with you firing at will it will put us in a perpetual state of strafing, and you can always turn your line quicker than we can flank due to the shorter distance travelled we're pretty much ****ed. Unless shooting, which we were inferior at. In a game we had against 19te yesterday I can tell you that it was incredibly easy for our side to absolutely murder them when they charged us regardless of what the tried. So it in my illustrates that charging as such is a poor choise overall where better tactics may slightly improve the performance of it.
I'm not trying to advocate shooting-only matches, I'm really not. A lot of times we actually prefer taking it straight to melee because we know we're superior and having a shooting match would only disadvantage us. What I'm trying to advocate is the tactical aspect of bringing it close. I agree that it's not always the easiest thing to pull off tactically, but it is a sacrifice you have to make if you want to bring it close.

Bringing it close is all about snaking around their flanks, feeling when they have shot their bullets, maybe even lining up yourself for a quick and devestating short range volley. It is /not/ about charging over an open field strafing like crazy, that'll just get you killed. Your players can be good at melee, but you need to have the tactical mind to actually get those players in the position where you want them, namely in melee.
 
You can't really be "tactical" when as Hekko has pointed out, you can turn your line quicker that you can be flanked. All it takes is to find a nice point to do that at. So there is nothing tactical about it.
 
Wardr1 said:
You can't really be "tactical" when as Hekko has pointed out, you can turn your line quicker that you can be flanked. All it takes is to find a nice point to do that at. So there is nothing tactical about it.
We've done it successfully many a times.
 
HarbingerOfDoom said:
I'm not trying to advocate shooting-only matches, I'm really not. A lot of times we actually prefer taking it straight to melee because we know we're superior and having a shooting match would only disadvantage us. What I'm trying to advocate is the tactical aspect of bringing it close. I agree that it's not always the easiest thing to pull off tactically, but it is a sacrifice you have to make if you want to bring it close.

The thing is, with equally good opponents shooting only is the way to play, regardless of this rule, this rule only increases the gap in skill the charging side has to bridge in order to be able to use melee to win instead of shooting.

HarbingerOfDoom said:
Bringing it close is all about snaking around their flanks, feeling when they have shot their bullets, maybe even lining up yourself for a quick and devestating short range volley. It is /not/ about charging over an open field strafing like crazy, that'll just get you killed. Your players can be good at melee, but you need to have the tactical mind to actually get those players in the position where you want them, namely in melee.

You can't snake around their flank since they will turn quicker than you can flank. With firing and will and a sufficiently long line 20+ they will never have shot their bullets. Lining up means that you're commiting to shooting, unless you wait for everyone to halt before firing which is rather destructive if at short range. And even if you tank the destructive short ranged shots to fire a big volley you still are reduced to closing a distance until you are in melee, all while strafing and getting shot by the defender. So the situation is still the same, except if you were worse at shooting you got mauled when shooting. So while it's more tactical it still doesn't change the fact that on an equal skill level all tactics will be bad since the static player has all the good options.
 
HarbingerOfDoom said:
The thing is, the losing team shouldn't be given an advantage. If they were worse at the shooting part of the match, they should be punished for it, not "oh well, just make it up by shooting them in the face".

Also, seeing as you guys based your findings partly on the lb you fought against us, allow me to give my point of view on it. You guys were definetly en par with us in melee. However, in the rounds you couldn't shoot in the charge, you guys simply lost due to poor, poor tactics. You basically charged over a too large a distance, causing you to lose many men. It all came down to tactics in those rounds, and it is where you guys didn't do well. No disrespect intended, but that is just the way it was.

They never get an advantage, because the defender always either gets more volleys at them, get their volleys off first or can simply match the charge with an equally costly counter-charge. And seeing as generally it's the regiment that's losing the firing war who decides to charge they're usually disadvantaged in numbers already; it's just that they don't lose as many men in the charge with the 'firing in charge' rule and therefore not making charging better, but making charging more viable.

I know we were poor in that LB, mainly because we'd never had a 1vs1 with such large lines. It merely emphasised how costly charging is though, regardless of the ruleset. We did charge over a large distance, but I was certain we'd have lost just as many if we tried to track around you guys for ages. On a larger scale everything slows down and thus makes shooting volleys more favourable anyway.
 
I agree it could be done. But would you agree that the methods used to do it could percievably to construed as just as gamey(although called tactics and strategy) as some people are calling shooting on a charge.

Fundamentally, liking shooting on a charge/disliking it, are both biased positions, based on preffered and practiced gameplay. But both are fundamentally "gamey", for either to work or work effectively you have to play to win, and use whatever dubious tactics are at your disposal. Let's make this about what is it. A game. And lets apreciate that and not try to make it all about "Teh essence of teh linebattle" the realists want to.
 
Vorlen said:
I agree it could be done. But would you agree that the methods used to do it could percievably to construed as just as gamey(although called tactics and strategy) as some people are calling shooting on a charge.

Fundamentally, liking shooting on a charge/disliking it, are both biased positions, based on preffered and practiced gameplay. But both are fundamentally "gamey", for either to work or work effectively you have to play to win, and use whatever dubious tactics are at your disposal. Let's make this about what is it. A game. And lets apreciate that and not try to make it all about "Teh essence of teh linebattle" the realists want to.
I don't really care about "the essence of linebattle" that much either. I just want linebattling to represent all aspects, which basically comes down to melee, shooting and tactics. Shooting in the charge heavily promotes getting close, spreading out and pointblanking, which almost completely wipes away the tactical and volley-fire part of the linebattle
 
From what i see, the argument being made here is that when you charge into melee and you do not shoot, you will be decimated by enemy fire. The problem Hekko is the fact that no line battle will ever have a completely flat map with no elevation or cover and the fact that the only way you will take massive casualties is if your regiment leader does not know how to properly charge. Most maps will have points where yes, people do have quite a large distance to charge, in fact most maps do have some sort of large plain, bu that being said most maps do, in-fact, have terrain that goes around the plain or just enough hills to cover a regiment. If your leader is stupid enough to charge across an entire plain towards an enemy with out stopping to fire or using terrain then i have a suggestion for you, get a new one.

Now we go into how to charge, obviously you do not charge when the enemy is loaded, doing so will make them hold their shots till the last second so they can unless a devastating volley, you have to wait till just after they fired to give you ample time to charge. Then you have the problem of being close, you have to be close enough to a regiment to charge it, not across a huge giant field or 50 yards away, just close enough so that the enemy is still ramming the rods down their guns when you hit them.

On realism, i am sure during times, people did discharge their guns during a charge, but did the entire regiment do it? No. So realism is out of the window.
 
HarbingerOfDoom said:
I don't really care about "the essence of linebattle" that much either. I just want linebattling to represent all aspects, which basically comes down to melee, shooting and tactics. Shooting in the charge heavily promotes getting close, spreading out and pointblanking, which almost completely wipes away the tactical and volley-fire part of the linebattle

It doesn't though, please read the OP, I quite clearly demonstrate that there are only downsides to be the one seeking melee. Even if shooting on the charge is allowed. So the only thing that promotes charging is discrepancies in shooting/melee/tactical skill.

Assuming equal skills on both sides shooting directly is always better than doing anything else, both getting into melee as well as getting closer and using tactics. Both with and without shooting on the charge, thus, accordingly, there's no point in making melee useless.
 
Hekko said:
HarbingerOfDoom said:
I don't really care about "the essence of linebattle" that much either. I just want linebattling to represent all aspects, which basically comes down to melee, shooting and tactics. Shooting in the charge heavily promotes getting close, spreading out and pointblanking, which almost completely wipes away the tactical and volley-fire part of the linebattle

It doesn't though, please read the OP, I quite clearly demonstrate that there are only downsides to be the one seeking melee. Even if shooting on the charge is allowed. So the only thing that promotes charging is discrepancies in shooting/melee/tactical skill.

Assuming equal skills on both sides shooting directly is always better than doing anything else, both getting into melee as well as getting closer and using tactics. Both with and without shooting on the charge, thus, accordingly, there's no point in making melee useless.
You can't assume that both regiments are of equal melee skill. The upside to seeking melee is knowing that you are better and will destroy the other regiment in melee. If you'd assume that both regiments are of "equal skill" (although NO REGIMENTS IN NW ARE EXACTLY OF EQUAL SKILL), then it's all "down to luck", whether you'd be shooting from the start or melee'ing from the start.

 
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