Cavalry blues

[Bertram]

I am currently fighting a PBEM campaign against Squarian.

I got to say I like the game, and like the situation. Still, there are a number of things that really hinder my enjoyment, - so much in fact that I wont play the game again after this campaign unless they are solved.

First of course is the retreat across the river joke. This is documented elsewhere, and need not be repeated here. The fact that my whole Hessian army got destroyed, not due to enemy action, but because they liked swimming the Rhine towards France more then retreating towards their supply makes it difficult to keep on fighting the war. It seems a bit pointless to plan a campaing, when the outcome depends on things like this.


What got me this turn is the way several of my cavalry units are destroyed. I use the light cavalry to scout the terrain. I put them on evade, defend and the lowest ("green") agressiveness stand. One would expect them to retreat when an enemy army arrives. Not so - or they try and are catched by the enemy cavalry. One aftetr the other of my cavalry units got destroyed this way. This is rather silly - cavalry only engaged when they wanted. In game mechanics this is probably because the evade factor of the cavalry unit is compared to the patrol factor of the army - and if the army has lots of cavalry this factor is higher. In reality the higher patrol value should make it more difficult to get information on the stack, but not make it assured that the scouting cavalry gets caught. If you can outrun a hunderd horses, you can outrun a thousand horses just as well.

A second problem with the cavalry is the way they got locked when a leader is added. This is not only a cavalry ptroblem of course, but it is more prominent due to the way I use cavalry. Occasionally I use non-light cavalry for scouting purposes, of for "kleiner krieg" the taking of small, undefended towns. This generally goes wel, but when I add a commander, these units can get locked. No problem, it is a risk/reward desicion. What gets a bit silly is when the unit with commander gets locked halfway a move. And then stays locked for 3 turns. After which they are destroyed due to lack of supply..... It really hurts the immersion when your cavalry unit is sitting 3 days travel from supply, and stays there due to an indecisive commander for 6 weeks, after which all horses and men drop dead from lack of food....
My solution now is to seperate the commander and the unit as soon as they are locked, and recombine them next turn, if unlocked. That also feels rather silly though...

Meanwhile I am building depot battalions as fast as I can (at least one, and often two each turn), and buy all additional replacements that are offered, but my troops are still under strenght. I can hardly keep up with general attrition. We actually had a battle last turn (our second big battle this game), and it will take at least a year to recover. I have about 10 units down to 17 men in Torgau, that are camping there now for almost a year. Makes you wonder how those troops got gathered to begin with... If the campaign actually started with the invasion of Saxony Freddy wouldn't have men left to fight the Austrians afterwards.

[The Magi]

Hrm, you know that you can switch the activation option of leaders so they don't get locked or receive movement penalties at all right? You can see it in the options menu.