Making the Line Battle Rules.

[Vincenzo]

Admining 250 players is hell.. Don't get your hopes up to much.

Just keep discussing and presenting your ideas, I am not going to read all walls of text...
If I get some kind of summery in a few days of what you want Ill discuss it with our linebattle administration and will see what rules will be added. If any.

 

[Plazek]

You highly underestimate the flame potential!

I agree with most of what you say Stalker, if you remember I tried to get people to reform the BG2 rules for those very reasons, only to be met with fiery death on the BG2 forums. I do still dislike crouching though. It is not rules themselves though that are the issue, it is rules that are open to interpretation that are a problem.

Simply being able to crouch or not crouch is very simple. Being allowed to use cover is very simple.

The problem with BG2 was that people were never quite sure what counted as cover. Some people would call you if your ankles were behind the ridge of the hill, some people believed hiding behind a ridge a little was ok.

So long as rules are kept black and white there should not be any troubles. Really though I am quite happy with what we have right now on the most part. It just needs to be standardised and put in a nice concise format.

 

[Kator Viridian]

why nerf crouching? Our regiment uses it to tell who has reloaded or not before giving further orders, its a very viable method, it also allows units to hide behind hills and give ambush or tactical advantage. It then up to the opposing side to deal with that .. if its just going to be a flat map then one should be made, it would have 0 tactics and would probably be boring.

 

[Desideratus]

Oook... On Skirmishing, which I noticed in the Publics LB.

During the Napoleonic Wars skirmishers played a key role in battles, attempting to disrupt the main enemy force by firing into their close-packed ranks and by preventing enemy skirmishers from doing the same to friendly troops. As the skirmishers generally fought in open order they could take cover behind trees, houses, towers and other obstacles and as such were harder targets to hit with small arms and artillery fire, though this made them very vulnerable to cavalry - From Wikipedia

A Skirmish line is literally, a skirmish line. Take the british on a random plains map. Trees are there, shrubs are there, and there's small hillsides. A skirmisher, by default, would take whatever cover he could find and shoot at the enemy in whatever seemed like a good idea. If you played Napoelon Total war (Which isn't exactly accurate) skirmishers would kneel and fire in a disorganized fashion. The MM Battle Server is a great version of skirmishing, in my opinion, though I think a way too damn much melee and way too close to be called real Skirmishing.

ON CROUCHING

I don't like crouching because of what I was told in Battlegrounds. In my opinion only skirmishers should crouch. Sure it makes your hitbox a little smaller but honestly, it was frowned upon in Napoleonic Warfare (as far as I know) therefore. Nay to crouching.

A Skirmisher, IN MY OPINION, takes cover in the tall grass, behind a tree, a ruined house, or a small hill. BUT THEY STAYED TOGETHER. Opolchenie/Militia whatever you want to call it, were normally untrained, and therefore had a bit broken formations. Skirmish lines typically were VERY broken, but they were still able to pack together at a moments notice.

COVER

Cover needs to be clearly defined. That is up to the mods and admins who host the Linebattles. Me? Your standing on the side of the hill facing the enemy or your covered.

 

[Kator Viridian]

I don't like crouching because of what I was told in Battlegrounds. In my opinion only skirmishers should crouch. Sure it makes your hitbox a little smaller but honestly, it was frowned upon in Napoleonic Warfare (as far as I know) therefore. Nay to crouching.

Rendering the square, double line and even line formations rather useless huh? for one single lines were hardly used in this type of warfare for the simple fact of number of men so you can't say single lines never crouched because there are very little recorded cases of single lines being used, and i'm very sure that given the tactical advantage making yourself a lower smaller target were used ... remove crouching and your removing part of the tactical ability of units, standing their soaking bullets it not what any captain would want of their regiment.

 

[Key]

I think that what everyone is trying to say is to make TRR_Strangeways in MM so we can play it all the time again.

 

[Desideratus]

隐藏

I don't like crouching because of what I was told in Battlegrounds. In my opinion only skirmishers should crouch. Sure it makes your hitbox a little smaller but honestly, it was frowned upon in Napoleonic Warfare (as far as I know) therefore. Nay to crouching.

Rendering the square, double line and even line formations rather useless huh? for one single lines were hardly used in this type of warfare for the simple fact of number of men so you can't say single lines never crouched because there are very little recorded cases of single lines being used, and i'm very sure that given the tactical advantage making yourself a lower smaller target were used ... remove crouching and your removing part of the tactical ability of units, standing their soaking bullets it not what any captain would want of their regiment.

Squares = tighter formation. Tighter formations = AIM AT THE LUMP!
Double line = Tighter formation. Tighter formations = AIM AT THE LUMP
If their commanding doesn't want them to soak in those lovely pieces of lead he wouldn't put them in double line or square, right? You are right about the single lines... They weren't used. Course I play BG2 and in BG we used single lines and if we used double line or square (Never saw square in BG2) we were basically a mobile meat grinder, and I don't crouch for any reason because of what they told me. I'm biased.
I love TRR_Strangeways...

 

[Jansay]

Here's one for artillery: no more than one battery (i.e. one cannon). Otherwise under the control of skilled people it'd be bloodbath.

 

[crazyboy11]

A simple and easy rule to remember regarding crouching:

You must be standing to fire a weapon

 

[Rigadoon]

There really needs to be a proper ratio from infantry:cavalry:artillery:skirmishers or these events can be very unbalanced.

 

[wokelly]

I'm going to add my 5c here. I spent last summer as a part of the British Guard at Fort York in Toronto. For demonstrations we did skirmishing tactics for the audience, so we trained as stated in the period manual for the British. Skirmishing according to the manual is not using cover. It is open order combat, 3 paces between men, two ranks five paces apart, both kneeling. One rank fires, the second leapfrogs ten paces forward (since they are 5 behind the front, they will end up five in front) and then kneels. The new front rank waits the rear rank to reload before letting off shots, and begins to reload while the rear rank leapfrogs and so on. You are allowed to individually aim and fire on your own time, but the entire practice is still quire rigid, you fight in a spread out line (hence skirmish line), but you still are largely in the open and you maintain a 3 pace spread between men, you don't go running for cover. Think of Napoleon Total wars fire and advance option, that is essentially how skirmishing was suppose to be done, going forward or backwards.

The units that tended to be more skirmishy like many people complain about in game were usually irregular forces, and possibly elite rifle units. For example the Quebecois during the seven years war in North America fought in this "indian" manner, the british grudgingly giving credit for their effective use of trees and rocks in covered ground but making a point to criticize their poor line fighting ability if cover was absent. However European skirmisher were much more controlled than the irregulars, at this point as the art of official skirmishing was still quite young (first appeared in euro armies in the 7 years war with Austrians I think), and the highly ordered method of battle that was common was hard to give up.

If you want realistic skirmishing, there needs to be more order in it. European skirmishing is much more rigid than many would believe, the commander is still in charge and the formation had to be relatively close together in order to hear his commands over the noise of the battlefield. They had to be close enough to form up into ranks and form a square if Calvary was bearing down on them. In practice things may have been somewhat different, for example the manual of the time period still talks about fighting in 3 ranks despite most armies having gone to two ranks, but officially skirmishing was suppose to be quite rigid compared to the "indian" skirmishing of irregulars.

 

[Hibiki]

A simple and easy rule to remember regarding crouching:

You must be standing to fire a weapon

Again, bad. I am against single lines crouching, but the first rank of a double line or square should be allowed to crouch and fire.

I'm going to add my 5c here. I spent last summer as a part of the British Guard at Fort York in Toronto. For demonstrations we did skirmishing tactics for the audience, so we trained as stated in the period manual for the British. Skirmishing according to the manual is not using cover. It is open order combat, 3 paces between men, two ranks five paces apart, both kneeling. One rank fires, the second leapfrogs ten paces forward (since they are 5 behind the front, they will end up five in front) and then kneels. The new front rank waits the rear rank to reload before letting off shots, and begins to reload while the rear rank leapfrogs and so on. You are allowed to individually aim and fire on your own time, but the entire practice is still quire rigid, you fight in a spread out line (hence skirmish line), but you still are largely in the open and you maintain a 3 pace spread between men, you don't go running for cover. Think of Napoleon Total wars fire and advance option, that is essentially how skirmishing was suppose to be done, going forward or backwards.

The units that tended to be more skirmishy like many people complain about in game were usually irregular forces, and possibly elite rifle units. For example the Quebecois during the seven years war in North America fought in this "indian" manner, the british grudgingly giving credit for their effective use of trees and rocks in covered ground but making a point to criticize their poor line fighting ability if cover was absent. However European skirmisher were much more controlled than the irregulars, at this point as the art of official skirmishing was still quite young (first appeared in euro armies in the 7 years war with Austrians I think), and the highly ordered method of battle that was common was hard to give up.

If you want realistic skirmishing, there needs to be more order in it. European skirmishing is much more rigid than many would believe, the commander is still in charge and the formation had to be relatively close together in order to hear his commands over the noise of the battlefield. They had to be close enough to form up into ranks and form a square if Calvary was bearing down on them.

Thank you. I was going to make this point, but you beat me to it.

 

[Ducksrulez]

is it possible to recode the random plains to make the maps more flat?

 

[Azrooh]

is it possible to recode the random plains to make the maps more flat?

Nope.

 

[Plazek]

A simple and easy rule to remember regarding crouching:

You must be standing to fire a weapon

Again, bad. I am against single lines crouching, but the first rank of a double line or square should be allowed to crouch and fire.

You must be standing to fire a weapon when in line, unless the formation demands it.


---

As for the more organised skirmish lines I agree they should be encouraged in open terrain. However where cover is present I see no reason to deny the use of it. I suspect the reason such formations existed is because much of the combat during the Napoleonic era was in such open terrain. However we can see that where the terrain made access to superior cover it was often made use of, examples being the Peninsular war in the Spanish hills and the Quebecois mentioned previously.

Which is why I think a rule banning such tactics and removing the strategic use of cover from the game would be foolish, where present it should be allowed to be used. Out of cover is a different matter, demanding a specific type of light infantry formation is a large change so it should be carefully considered but I am not too fussed either way.

 

[Jock]

A simple and easy rule to remember regarding crouching:

You must be standing to fire a weapon

Again, bad. I am against single lines crouching, but the first rank of a double line or square should be allowed to crouch and fire.

You must be standing to fire a weapon when in line, unless the formation demands it.


---

As for the more organised skirmish lines I agree they should be encouraged in open terrain. However where cover is present I see no reason to deny the use of it. I suspect the reason such formations existed is because much of the combat during the Napoleonic era was in such open terrain. However we can see that where the terrain made access to superior cover it was often made use of, examples being the Peninsular war in the Spanish hills and the Quebecois mentioned previously.

Which is why I think a rule banning such tactics and removing the strategic use of cover from the game would be foolish, where present it should be allowed to be used. Out of cover is a different matter, demanding a specific type of light infantry formation is a large change so it should be carefully considered but I am not too fussed either way.

79th does it all the time, only crouches when reloading or when making a 2-3 rank line where 1st rank has to crouch.

 

[Hibiki]

79th does it all the time, only crouches when reloading or when making a 2-3 rank line where 1st rank has to crouch.

That's what we're talking about. This crouching while reloading business is rubbish. I don't suppose I would go so far as to make a rule about it - at least, not for the type of "unprofessional" line battles that we are doing now. However, it's quite unrealistic, and I wish people were encouraged to -stand- in line. But right now, I would be happy just to see flat maps and companies properly working together and supporting eachother.

 

[sir Luca]

And once again us limit line infantry and light bands can do what they like...
Until we have returned to normal behavior of cavalry and skirmishers in some way, you have to somehow allow the infantry defense. Now the only way is hiding behind hills and crouch. Skirmishers have greater accuracy and speed of movement so that even they can not be charged ... Somehow we have to deal with so we hide from fire and maneuver.
Personally, I was even a match, it requires thought and a kind of wit from the commanders.

 

[Leberecht Reinhold]

I sometimes wonder how different LBs could be if they were played in a 100% flat plain map. Maybe two small hills for the cannons, no trees at all. And being somewhat smaller than the usual LB map, they are really awesome.

The would be no hiding, no running around just chasing things behind hills...

But I agree, skirmishing needs to be more regularized, and no crouching while reloading.

 

[Kator Viridian]

79th does it all the time, only crouches when reloading or when making a 2-3 rank line where 1st rank has to crouch.

That's what we're talking about. This crouching while reloading business is rubbish. I don't suppose I would go so far as to make a rule about it - at least, not for the type of "unprofessional" line battles that we are doing now. However, it's quite unrealistic, and I wish people were encouraged to -stand- in line. But right now, I would be happy just to see flat maps and companies properly working together and supporting eachother.

Sorry but tactical logic dictates the more men you have the more likely to secure victory, you can hardly call crouch whilst reloading "unprofessional" when ever todays armies encourage finding cover, they must all be wrong too? not like they've been perfecting military techniques for near ... 300 years of the creation of the British Army.

You can't support one another or work together on a flat map, each team would be even, it would be Company v company right down the line, you can't support because you'd leave yourself open, then resulting in a stalemate because No-one has the advantage of making the first move until the most indervidual thinking captain goes "F*** this!" and breaks ranks, therefore not playing as a team.

The point of slightly hills yet mainly flatlands is to give either advantage to position or encourage attacks, there would be no point bayonete charging in flats for the simple fact of being out in the open for a duration of time for all the regiments on the opposing sides, and as most people know numbers count a fair bit in melee because you don't know who will get blindsided.

Right now crouch should be allowed whilst reloading, every regiment does it, it offers tactical advantage, as I said before, if your regiment can't stand it then do something about it, flank them, pin them, charge them and take it away.

This is warfare, not a school playground, tactics must be allowed to be used, or eventually it will be flat boring maps where people spend 20 minutes sat there watching the enemy positions for the next move.