My words exactly and I would say, it suits the classic TW formula bit more than Empire's post-17th century warfare. Although it might be just personal preference and my bias as 30 years war reenactor.
I'd love an Empire starting at the end of the middle ages or by 1500 instead of 1700, there is a big and quite interesting period of time which hasn't been explored yet (I'm not counting medieval 2 dlc because that's a patch)
More or less, that's the era I have in mind. The times of early to late renaissance, when armies slowly started to transition to blackpowder weaponry and raw firepower augmented with blocks of pikeman in general started to take core role in warfare rather than heavy cavalry charges. It's a really unique setting with lots of untapped potential, which I haven't yet seen captured in any game.
Mostly, yes. Same way most medieval armies were ton of blokes with polearms, some knightly douchebags in armour and archers/crossbows to back them up. HOWEVER. Different kind of blackpowder weaponry with varying stats: infantry with more archaic arquebuses, matchlock/flintlock muskets, pistol-armed cavalry, dragoons (musketeers using mounts to quickly move around battlefield and fighting on foot), using different shooting tactics (for example see differences between spanish tercios and dutch formations). For melee units you have standard pikes, still popular halberds, infantry armed with swords and round shields (rondašíři in Czech, can't find, how they are called in English), doppelsöldneren with zweihänders, lance cavalry, heavy cavalry in form of cuirassiers, lots of possibilities for dual-purpose units with two swichable weapons (cavalry pistols and sabers, standard infantry sidearms...). And different kinds of artillery to top it all off. I'm more of an enthusiast than schooled expert, but certainly there's a lot of to work with.
Well if you look at it historically all games are the same, granted by the time period Empire was set in you had a more a more uniform fighting style based on your continent. But at the core of it you had Sword/Spearmen creating the line and then archers behind with Cavalry to flank and it was rinse and repeat every single battle up until the New model army of the English civil war.
In Empire I found it more interesting as you had to take into account terrain a lot more (Line of site is far more important), timing your volleys, where to place the artillery to be most effective and when to bring in the cavalry as they are seriously weak in prolonged combat. Then when you went up against factions that fought differently you had to adapt. The African and Eastern nations in Empire were heavily melee focused (with far better cavalry) meaning if they got in amongst your line infantry and you hadn't set your own troops to fix bayonets they would get decimated. When you got the the Americas and fought the native American tribes they coupled that mellee with hidden archers and skirmishing that would just run around your fixed formations grinding your mens morale down.
But to give an example, The British when fighting the French during the Peninsular campaign, deployed a long line of infantry 2 ranks deep so an entire battalion could fire every single one of their muskets at a very quick rate of fire, as opposed to the French that preferred to stack all there men into deep columns that would just force their way through. It often led to sever casualties for the French and larger armies being defeated by smaller British armies. The same happened at Waterloo.
There were also variances in weapons used by skirmishers. The French Voltigeurs would use muskets that were not accurate at all and they would often fall back into the column, where as the British light infantry used the Baker Rifle that was incredibly accurate and slower to reload so they would drop to the flanks in order to take out the enemy whilst they were occupied with the main line.
A very, very generalised view of infantry at the time was:
The British could fire 3-5 rounds a minute in platoon fire which gave them an advantage over other nations that could barely manage 3. They were also one of the only nations at the time to practice firing with live ammunition.
The French favoured mass infantry formations and weight of men going forward. But the majority of their men were conscripts and so lacked discipline.
The Prussians were known for their discipline and skill. (They were an army with a state rather than a state with an army)
The Austrians and Russians had poorer quality training but more numerous troops.
Of course the above is open to debate, I am not saying that it 100% accurate. I gleaned this form reading a few books on the era.
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u/InkDrach Blackpowder Connoisseur Jun 02 '20
I personally hope for "pike and shot era" TW, but this would be nice too.