Promotion

[Majickthyse]

Hi All,

I have 701 prestige as an artillery captain.

How do I get myself promoted? Does it just happen or do I have to spend prestige on it somehow?

[crono900]

In your career panel on the first page there is a white slider right above the stats. This tells you how close you are to being promoted, when you hover your mouse cursor over it for a bit. It takes a while to get promoted naturally though. You could pay prestige to get promoted faster if you want as well.

[Majickthyse]

Ah ok thanks. I wasn't sure if you needed to hoard prestige to get the promotion :)

[crono900]

I think for every 50 casualties your men inflict, you should get at least 1% added to your promotion bar. I don't think that is how it works but it sure would be nice. to speed up promotions for artillery.

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

I think for every 50 casualties your men inflict, you should get at least 1% added to your promotion bar. I don't think that is how it works but it sure would be nice. to speed up promotions for artillery.

Really? uh-oh If i'm lucky enough for a shot to do anything it's never more than 2.5 casualties. How about points for touching objective boxes and routing enemy units?

[crono900]

So every time you cause casualties you get prestige. that is what that 2.5 is. That's a decent hit, You probably took out 20-30 men with that it. But if you look at your unit history in the army management screen after the battle it will tell you how many casualties they inflicted in the battle.

Your promotion is separate form prestige. I'm not entirely sure of all the factors that increase your chance of natural promotion.

I think my best prestige points for 1 volley were around 6 pt. It was from a point blank canister shot at a routed unit. They had to rout around a bend in the river to get to the bridge, of which I had that whole area inside my canister range. So I got about 7 or so canister shots into them dealing about 50 casualties each shot.

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

So every time you cause casualties you get prestige. that is what that 2.5 is. That's a decent hit, You probably took out 20-30 men with that it. But if you look at your unit history in the army management screen after the battle it will tell you how many casualties they inflicted in the battle.

Your promotion is separate form prestige. I'm not entirely sure of all the factors that increase your chance of natural promotion.

I think my best prestige points for 1 volley were around 6 pt. It was from a point blank canister shot at a routed unit. They had to rout around a bend in the river to get to the bridge, of which I had that whole area inside my canister range. So I got about 7 or so canister shots into them dealing about 50 casualties each shot.

Ouch. I nearly canistered a couple of cavalry units but they got to me first :-/

[crono900]

Try setting your AI initiative to OFF, Then set your guns to Counter-battery. This keeps your guns from auto firing at anyone but enemy batteries. Then if there are no batteries to attack, watch your men's loading animation and right-click a unit to fire at when all guns are loaded and your status says Idle.

The reason I mention this is that if a unit is about to enter canister range and you are already firing you can get hit hard, do to reloading animation. It is best to load the guns and wait for that unit to enter the canister range then right-click them to fire a devastating volley of canister shot right into them, to cause massive damage, both physical and psychological. Then wile your men are reloading after that firs blast switch them to Fire at Will so they keep up the canister shot.

To stop your unit from firing at all you can deselect the firing option like how you deactivate AI initiative. (IMO you should be able to still right-click a target to fire a single volley at your command but that doesn't happen without one of the firing stances active)

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

Try setting your AI initiative to OFF, Then set your guns to Counter-battery. This keeps your guns from auto firing at anyone but enemy batteries. Then if there are no batteries to attack, watch your men's loading animation and right-click a unit to fire at when all guns are loaded and your status says Idle.

The reason I mention this is that if a unit is about to enter canister range and you are already firing you can get hit hard, do to reloading animation. It is best to load the guns and wait for that unit to enter the canister range then right-click them to fire a devastating volley of canister shot right into them, to cause massive damage, both physical and psychological. Then wile your men are reloading after that firs blast switch them to Fire at Will so they keep up the canister shot.

To stop your unit from firing at all you can deselect the firing option like how you deactivate AI initiative. (IMO you should be able to still right-click a target to fire a single volley at your command but that doesn't happen without one of the firing stances active)

Thanks for the info! I used some prestige to make Major, but there are no battalions to take over yet :)

Is there anything I can do to get my unit strength back up to 6 guns?

[crono900]

In army management screen on the campaign, all but your unit is grey-ed out because you don't have command. There are some with little tags next to them those are what you can take command of. NOTE: YOU WILL LOSE CONTROL OF YOUR PREVIOUS COMMAND. It take prestige to switch commands. Battalions can have 16 guns so your current unit can now have about 240 men max. So a good time for a furlough to replenish troops (if replacements are available).

Edit: I guess this answered your edit to.

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

IBattalions can have 16 guns so your current unit can now have about 240 men max. So a good time for a furlough to replenish troops (if replacements are available).

When you say my current unit, I'm assuming you don't mean that the battery I currently command can become a battalion by furloughing?

I would need to find a battalion to take command of I guess? (furloughing now anyway to at least get back to 6 guns :) )

Edit: That furlough left me with less men :)

[crono900]

The issue is that your 3 month contract expires after about 30 days from the start of the Summer '61 campaign. If you look at your unit history it should tell you how many left and how many signed on for the 12 month contract. I'm beginning to think it is better to wait until the first 3 month contract expires then go on furlough.

Yes you can upgrade your men to a battalion by replenishing. I did it once where I ended up with 180 something by the time my men returned. The problem I've been running into is that there have not been enough volunteers to fill my ranks. The AI keeps recruiting several armies, right away, which eats up all the replenishing volunteers that are available.

Something that might be worth trying is taking command of a battery then immediately paying prestige to get promoted to Major and sending your men for a furlough before the first fight. You wont be present in that battle, but you could probably monopolize the volunteers. Though with your men's 3 month contract expiring you'll probably lose some 45 men or so from that. Maybe that is how I got 180 men (12 gun).

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

The issue is that your 3 month contract expires after about 30 days from the start of the Summer '61 campaign. If you look at your unit history it should tell you how many left and how many signed on for the 12 month contract. I'm beginning to think it is better to wait until the first 3 month contract expires then go on furlough.

Yes you can upgrade your men to a battalion by replenishing. I did it once where I ended up with 180 something by the time my men returned. The problem I've been running into is that there have not been enough volunteers to fill my ranks. The AI keeps recruiting several armies, right away, which eats up all the replenishing volunteers that are available.

Something that might be worth trying is taking command of a battery then immediately paying prestige to get promoted to Major and sending your men for a furlough before the first fight. You wont be present in that battle, but you could probably monopolize the volunteers. Though with your men's 3 month contract expiring you'll probably lose some 45 men or so from that. Maybe that is how I got 180 men (12 gun).

Thanks for all the pointers, I'm already inflicting more casualties with volley fire :)

[crono900]

How many guns are visible for your battery?

[Majickthyse]

Originally posted by crono900:

How many guns are visible for your battery?

At the time you asked 5 were listed on the unit roster and 3 were visible on the map.

Sadly in my current battle my numbers have dropped to 59 and so now it's 4 and 2 :)

[crono900]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3026209192
I love seeing all the guns. Here are my modded values in case you'd like to play with all the guns visible.

Artillery mod to show all guns in batteries;
_________________
Unitprefs lines :
_________________
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #2
0.53

Guns per sprite to show up (used for stats)
0.124

Size adjustment for horse artillery (factor to regular artillery)
.5

The 'how many men' value is the one for artillery if that is not obvious. I figured I'd mention it since your starting as a fellow artillery officer. It definitely raises the enjoyment IMO.

Also in battleprefs you can edit the minimum camera height to about 10 for more immersion without any issues.