@@acerld519 Well, it is mostly known. The map supposed to be bigger, more detailed, more factions, more playable factions (Mughal, Denmark), deseases and disasters (there is a mod which add them by extra programm), animations what i showed, priests supposed to have possibility to build missions, family trees etc.
i mean, realistically its pretty decent, the idea is that once the first row has shot, they instant reload and the next row keeps shooting till they are done reloading. game is very janky doe and formations are at best discribed as rough
@@TheBurnknight Realistically, the front line would shoot, then the back line would run to the front and shoot, followed by the new back line, etc, etc. until the initial front line finds itself at the back and fully reloaded. This would keep the unit advancing at a steady pace without opening up a huge gap between lines and slowing down the rates of fire and advance.
The depth of this unit was way too deep to make effective use of it. Ideally it would be 3 deep or so so that there's no time standing around waiting after reloading is finished. As soon as they're done reloading you want them moving up
The crazy thing is that they actually nerfed it in Napoleon: Total War. Their range is halved and instead of continuing to move forward they retreat to their starting position after all ranks fire, completely defeating the purpose of firing and advancing in the first place.
I remember that in the version I had wasbrutally good and the british IA always used it. After everyone shoots they did a melee charge. And I always found a way to lose all my infantry against this tactic
No, to use this you need to manually click attack on the enemy, so that after firing all muskets the unit will charge. Pretty much empty the muskets and charge probably only the Russian units could use this.
The biggest problem is that after forming, the units that just fired have to fire again, instead of the ones in the back that already reloaded. This tipe of firing might be used to attack constantly retreating skirmishers or units that can outrange you
The issue is that after the last rank has fired, the first rank hasn't reloaded. First they need to reshuffle, which kills the momentum, and then they have to reload, which further kills the momentum. If it worked properly then it would basically be Fire by Rank while advancing on the enemy, instead of standing still.
I like how long that firefight lasted. You also accelerated time alot inbetween so I guess the whole fight lasted up to 3 minutes. I am afraid if CA made a new Empire game the firefight would be over in less than a minute. Basically just like how they increased the damage and accuracy of all ranged units in Rome 2 by like 400 % compared to Rome 1. I wish that atleast for historical titles CA would make a bigger focus on authenticity instead of fast arcade mechanics.
If you have played FOTS you know that that is EXACTLY what happened. One volley from even a mid-tier unit can utterly shred whatever gets hit by it, and I've seen many times dudes dropping so fast the unit gets stuck reforming and doesn't ever return fire (HeirofCarthage coined the term "Tosa Shuffle" to describe it).
@@demomanchaos In Fall of The Samurai it was done on purpose but it feels authentic to me. Because from all Total Wars this is the one that plays the most in the future. They have access to extremely accurate rifles. It plays around the time when the franco-prussian war or the american civil war took place, both wars that showed that firefights became much more brutal due to the advanced new weapons.
@@colonelthyran7755 They weren't drop the entire enemy army in 3 volleys deadly though, but that rate of kill was likely to make sure the gun units could take down melee troops before being engaged. I do wish they instead lowered the kill rate of both melee lads and gun lads rather than going into absurd levels (Revolver Cav erases units almost as fast as Donderbus Cav). That said though, I've done more than my fair share of S2 modding so it isn't a hard fix.
Honestly the only total war games I've enjoyed in many years are the warhammer ones because the broken mechanics don't feel as much of an issue when there's magic, giants and flying units. The rest just feel like pretty arcade games that have been designed to satisfy everyone over 12 years of age.
If you would have spread the unit out to only three ranks, it's very very effective, even in-game. Mass fire from highly trained troops every 5 seconds.
Which is also more accurate to the formation utilizing the tactic historically. Long thin lines mean more guns firing at a time, fewer ranks mean less time running up to the front and none just standing and waiting. It was a very efficient use of time and firepower.
I can never remember troops in Empire ever reloading that quickly. It felt like they were lucky to make a shot every minute, even fully upgraded and experienced. Used to drive me crazy. Yet, I still racked up 700 hours somehow.
This tactic is one of the variation of the countermarch. Actually this is avantmarch or fire by introduction. Indeed, countermarch was developed by Dutch at the end of the 16th century. It was obsolete by the beginning of the 18th century but still used by some armies. Something similar will appear in the light infantry tactical doctrine later on. The game tech description says: 'The tactic has remained in use to the present day as a method of advance called "bounding overwatch", a particularly useful technique for armoured units where tanks give each other covering fire.'
@@marlborotheman1222 that last bit is a bit like saying matchlock muskets continue to be used today. Yeah in like a completely different, unrecognisable form which doesn't have much to do with the original except the core ("things fire and move" "boom tube projectile whoosh")
@@ebbelille No, it would mean the time between volleys is always the same and unit advances at a steady pace. In this video, the time increases between each volley until the last line would take twice as long to fire if you were just always advancing the back line because of the huge gap that's opened up between them and the rest of the unit. Whatever time you saved advancing the next line would ultimately be lost as the gap grows wider. In real life this would also introduce huge unit cohesion problems.
Fire and advance is highly unreliable. In one instance three lines fired which caused a pause in the action then all the lines fired. I used this to my advantage on several occasions. However, this was caused by a mod and I couldn't remember which one. It didn't happen again when I installed other ones or tried to replicate the scenario. In either case in my opinion it proved that a mass volley was more effective with a large mass of line infantry that stead firing with 3 ranks. For it allowed each man a chance to essentially fire although not in a uniform manner. This being something that made certain factions with larger unit sizes capable of overcoming superior quality line infantry due to their massive amount of fire power in an instance. Especially when they had the first volley.
One of the downfalls was that you could have them be in that position before the enemy reached firing range and that it was not a continuous rolling advance…
It seems it would not be a bad option if you have your troops stand only 2 or at most 3 ranks but anything more than that and it seems like one of the worst choices.
quite useless mechanic and don't have any chance aganist firing drill, which is earlier technology. It is possible to make it a little better. Maybe empire 2 total war in next 10 years will be dream
This might be useless as a way of moving, but as a way of maintaining fire this seems like an effective option. Like if you get your 120 men into 3 lines all 40 men across, you can maintain a nearly constant rate of fire - which is good for breaking enemy moral and defending flanks (they will drive off attacks with a constant rate of fire).
The super delay commanding was killed them if using any tools formation , ur army Will stuck get bayonet charge from the enemy , thats why im always use normal formation
Unless I'm mistaken, the reason Fire and advance mechanic appears so ineffective is because you're not using it properly. Firstly, your formation is too deep. Fire and advance can be done with line formation of around 2-3 ranks deep where it is more effective. In this game, any infantry formation deployed in column would be at disadvantage against an enemy deployed in line. Secondly, the fire and advance mechanic worked better if, rather than setting FAA and just waiting for the enemy to come into range, the player selects FAA and then actively selects the exact enemy unit they want attacked. The difference is that, unlike what is seen in the video, when targeting a specific enemy unit, the player's unit would fire and advance until all ranks had fired, and would then AUTOMATICALLY bayonet charge the enemy. This makes FAA effective against a line based enemy, because in the time it takes the front rank of an enemy to fire two shots, the unit deploying fire and advance has fired from every available soldier and begin a bayonet charge. So, I would encourage you to try again, but this time, actively select/right click the enemy militia unit.
It's kinda of a useless formation.... it's only ever good if the formation and unit is not so heavily dense and packed. If you spread them out abit more they'd be more effective. Fire by ranks will easily beat this due to fire by ranks is constant while fire and advance your too busy waiting for the last few lines to move up into position and reform.
I think at some point this tactic could be nice for countries like russia or france with line Infantry with high close combat skills? Getting closer and then boom! , charge? What do you think?
I feel that the developers really did a half job with this code, if the lines filtered forward cocurrently then it might be somewhat useful. But the other lines not moving forward until the front rank has finished it's volley, just makes it truly useless. They knew it was poor because they didn't even program the AI to use it
Damn this game had so many mechanics that were Just too useless to use.
You cannot possibly imagine amount of content cutted from it and unfinished:( It will be probably enough for another Saga-like game.
They are useless because they never got implemented correctly. Most of them are broken or unfinished.
@@tefras14 It's also frustrating to see that they could've done with this, but buggered it then just gave up for the next games.
@@marlborotheman1222 You would probably get a lot of views if you documented that cut content :)
@@acerld519 Well, it is mostly known. The map supposed to be bigger, more detailed, more factions, more playable factions (Mughal, Denmark), deseases and disasters (there is a mod which add them by extra programm), animations what i showed, priests supposed to have possibility to build missions, family trees etc.
Good old tactic of "how to make your units both shoot and move in least effective way possible"
i mean, realistically its pretty decent, the idea is that once the first row has shot, they instant reload and the next row keeps shooting till they are done reloading. game is very janky doe and formations are at best discribed as rough
@@TheBurnknight Realistically, the front line would shoot, then the back line would run to the front and shoot, followed by the new back line, etc, etc. until the initial front line finds itself at the back and fully reloaded. This would keep the unit advancing at a steady pace without opening up a huge gap between lines and slowing down the rates of fire and advance.
The depth of this unit was way too deep to make effective use of it. Ideally it would be 3 deep or so so that there's no time standing around waiting after reloading is finished. As soon as they're done reloading you want them moving up
yeah i think i face palmed through my skull
The crazy thing is that they actually nerfed it in Napoleon: Total War. Their range is halved and instead of continuing to move forward they retreat to their starting position after all ranks fire, completely defeating the purpose of firing and advancing in the first place.
I remember that in the version I had wasbrutally good and the british IA always used it. After everyone shoots they did a melee charge. And I always found a way to lose all my infantry against this tactic
I wonder what was going on inside CA's head
Nah, In Napoleon after the last rank fires they charge forward with bayonets
Fire and retreat..? They might have invented a brand new defensive tactic!
No, to use this you need to manually click attack on the enemy, so that after firing all muskets the unit will charge. Pretty much empty the muskets and charge probably only the Russian units could use this.
I never used that mechanic, it's not useful in any situation also your super vulnerable to charges.
U can use this for rapid advances
I cover my cavalry with supporting fire long enough for them to rout the enemy
@@nicholasthuya7683 rapid?? did you see how the speed they were going?
@@nicholasthuya7683 the only rapid advance i accept is uraaah charging with bayonets
1:58 those two must have really been intimidating, they ran up to the front by themselves, fired, and the whole enemy group ran.
The biggest problem is that after forming, the units that just fired have to fire again, instead of the ones in the back that already reloaded. This tipe of firing might be used to attack constantly retreating skirmishers or units that can outrange you
fuck man i didn't think of this. you might have found the only way this can be useful
The issue is that after the last rank has fired, the first rank hasn't reloaded. First they need to reshuffle, which kills the momentum, and then they have to reload, which further kills the momentum. If it worked properly then it would basically be Fire by Rank while advancing on the enemy, instead of standing still.
I like how long that firefight lasted. You also accelerated time alot inbetween so I guess the whole fight lasted up to 3 minutes.
I am afraid if CA made a new Empire game the firefight would be over in less than a minute. Basically just like how they increased the damage and accuracy of all ranged units in Rome 2 by like 400 % compared to Rome 1.
I wish that atleast for historical titles CA would make a bigger focus on authenticity instead of fast arcade mechanics.
If you have played FOTS you know that that is EXACTLY what happened. One volley from even a mid-tier unit can utterly shred whatever gets hit by it, and I've seen many times dudes dropping so fast the unit gets stuck reforming and doesn't ever return fire (HeirofCarthage coined the term "Tosa Shuffle" to describe it).
@@demomanchaos In Fall of The Samurai it was done on purpose but it feels authentic to me. Because from all Total Wars this is the one that plays the most in the future. They have access to extremely accurate rifles. It plays around the time when the franco-prussian war or the american civil war took place, both wars that showed that firefights became much more brutal due to the advanced new weapons.
@@colonelthyran7755 They weren't drop the entire enemy army in 3 volleys deadly though, but that rate of kill was likely to make sure the gun units could take down melee troops before being engaged. I do wish they instead lowered the kill rate of both melee lads and gun lads rather than going into absurd levels (Revolver Cav erases units almost as fast as Donderbus Cav).
That said though, I've done more than my fair share of S2 modding so it isn't a hard fix.
@@demomanchaos Going to Ultra Unit sizes actually helps alot in FOTS.
Honestly the only total war games I've enjoyed in many years are the warhammer ones because the broken mechanics don't feel as much of an issue when there's magic, giants and flying units. The rest just feel like pretty arcade games that have been designed to satisfy everyone over 12 years of age.
In Napoleon total war the men just turn their backs on the enemy when finished and run back to where they started it's crazy.
Empire total war "Fire and Advance"
Napoleon total war "Fire and Advance"
Fall of Samurai "Fire and Banzai"
Reckon you are only supposed to use this in thin ranks of three or four.
Files of 3 or 4, ranks 3-4 wide would used only for a marching column.
@@fenriders7008 Yeah, sorry, mixed up the terms
If you would have spread the unit out to only three ranks, it's very very effective, even in-game. Mass fire from highly trained troops every 5 seconds.
Which is also more accurate to the formation utilizing the tactic historically. Long thin lines mean more guns firing at a time, fewer ranks mean less time running up to the front and none just standing and waiting. It was a very efficient use of time and firepower.
I can never remember troops in Empire ever reloading that quickly. It felt like they were lucky to make a shot every minute, even fully upgraded and experienced. Used to drive me crazy.
Yet, I still racked up 700 hours somehow.
We need Empire II
with more nations like denmark, Portugal and mughals
How about 3 row fire advance?
If I remember correctly this tactic was devised by Maurice of Orange in 16th century.
This tactic is one of the variation of the countermarch. Actually this is avantmarch or fire by introduction. Indeed, countermarch was developed by Dutch at the end of the 16th century. It was obsolete by the beginning of the 18th century but still used by some armies. Something similar will appear in the light infantry tactical doctrine later on.
The game tech description says:
'The tactic has remained in use to the present day as a method of advance called "bounding overwatch", a particularly useful technique for armoured units where tanks give each other covering fire.'
@@marlborotheman1222 that last bit is a bit like saying matchlock muskets continue to be used today. Yeah in like a completely different, unrecognisable form which doesn't have much to do with the original except the core ("things fire and move" "boom tube projectile whoosh")
It's generally considered that it was indeed invention of his, but the Spanish had been using it as early as 1522, at the battle of Bicocca.
The slow-mo jogging in the midst of a life or death battle is infuriating
Should the back line advance to the front instead of leaving a gap and an increasingly longer period between volleys?
totally what i thought
That would mean that you always have to wait the longest amount of time possible between volleys.
@@ebbelille No, it would mean the time between volleys is always the same and unit advances at a steady pace. In this video, the time increases between each volley until the last line would take twice as long to fire if you were just always advancing the back line because of the huge gap that's opened up between them and the rest of the unit. Whatever time you saved advancing the next line would ultimately be lost as the gap grows wider. In real life this would also introduce huge unit cohesion problems.
@@Aethgeir I dont think that works how you think it works, brohan
@@ebbelille Well that's how it worked in real life, take it up with history "brohan"
Fire and advance is highly unreliable. In one instance three lines fired which caused a pause in the action then all the lines fired. I used this to my advantage on several occasions. However, this was caused by a mod and I couldn't remember which one. It didn't happen again when I installed other ones or tried to replicate the scenario. In either case in my opinion it proved that a mass volley was more effective with a large mass of line infantry that stead firing with 3 ranks. For it allowed each man a chance to essentially fire although not in a uniform manner. This being something that made certain factions with larger unit sizes capable of overcoming superior quality line infantry due to their massive amount of fire power in an instance. Especially when they had the first volley.
Most useless mechanic in history of total war?
They should do a proper fire in columns, not with single men, but with half companies..
they should have been arranged in a wider thinner formation so the rate of fire is a lot faster... too much idle time when you use it this way.
One of the downfalls was that you could have them be in that position before the enemy reached firing range and that it was not a continuous rolling advance…
how does it end? it ends in a loss
is this loss
Pretty sure if you just do this once, it can be an effective way of using troops, and then firing by rank might be the best tactic from thereon in.
when the line moves forward, the ones behind should too
I saw Fire and Advance and I thought it would be like Zulu.
Tried it and never used it again.
It seems it would not be a bad option if you have your troops stand only 2 or at most 3 ranks but anything more than that and it seems like one of the worst choices.
quite useless mechanic and don't have any chance aganist firing drill, which is earlier technology. It is possible to make it a little better. Maybe empire 2 total war in next 10 years will be dream
3 rows then charge
can you call that a win?
This might be useless as a way of moving, but as a way of maintaining fire this seems like an effective option.
Like if you get your 120 men into 3 lines all 40 men across, you can maintain a nearly constant rate of fire - which is good for breaking enemy moral and defending flanks (they will drive off attacks with a constant rate of fire).
The super delay commanding was killed them if using any tools formation , ur army Will stuck get bayonet charge from the enemy , thats why im always use normal formation
Unless I'm mistaken, the reason Fire and advance mechanic appears so ineffective is because you're not using it properly. Firstly, your formation is too deep. Fire and advance can be done with line formation of around 2-3 ranks deep where it is more effective. In this game, any infantry formation deployed in column would be at disadvantage against an enemy deployed in line.
Secondly, the fire and advance mechanic worked better if, rather than setting FAA and just waiting for the enemy to come into range, the player selects FAA and then actively selects the exact enemy unit they want attacked. The difference is that, unlike what is seen in the video, when targeting a specific enemy unit, the player's unit would fire and advance until all ranks had fired, and would then AUTOMATICALLY bayonet charge the enemy. This makes FAA effective against a line based enemy, because in the time it takes the front rank of an enemy to fire two shots, the unit deploying fire and advance has fired from every available soldier and begin a bayonet charge.
So, I would encourage you to try again, but this time, actively select/right click the enemy militia unit.
It's kinda of a useless formation.... it's only ever good if the formation and unit is not so heavily dense and packed. If you spread them out abit more they'd be more effective.
Fire by ranks will easily beat this due to fire by ranks is constant while fire and advance your too busy waiting for the last few lines to move up into position and reform.
It would be good if they walk in a zig zag pattern and maybe a bit faster otherwise no
isnt this better used when youre closer to the enemy to charge them after like 2 or 3 fires
I think at some point this tactic could be nice for countries like russia or france with line Infantry with high close combat skills? Getting closer and then boom! , charge? What do you think?
Just frustrating
What are these angles you put the camera in, i love your videos but sometimes they are so frustrating to watch
Having the back come to the front is a waste of time...
imagine Zombie Gunnery Mob doing this...
Being a zombie would definitely explain the sluggish movement, too. They wouldn't have to change anything.
Not bad
Mod?
I feel that the developers really did a half job with this code, if the lines filtered forward cocurrently then it might be somewhat useful. But the other lines not moving forward until the front rank has finished it's volley, just makes it truly useless.
They knew it was poor because they didn't even program the AI to use it