Just to know under what perspective I view the Extended Line:
- Phased gameplay, I think that is the only way to play the engine.
- Scaling of the fire value by unit size, if you look at the calculation you will understand.
First, phased gameplay will conduct defensive fire at 100% and not 50%, big and not to be neglected difference besides the fact that the AI defensive fire in turn gameplay often enough does not trigger at all.
Second the fire value of a unit depends on its size. Simply put:
- Units of 540 or smaller(these are shown as Line)will fire with 100%
- Units of 541 or bigger(these are shown as Shortened) will fire at 75%
That simply means although larger in size a unit bigger than 540 can have a lower fire value compared to a unit of 540 men or less. And you will only solve this if your unit has at least 720 men or above, because only from that size on it's guaranteed that the 75% fire value of such a large unit is better than the 100% of a 540 men or smaller unit.
There are now 2 things one can do.
A. Send out skirmishers to lower the unit size to or below 540 to get 100% fire value.
B. Switch to Extended Line what gives 100% value.
When to do it is the question and that simply depends on the units ability to send out one or more skirmisher units and the size of the skirmishers fraction.
The attached graphic shows the situation for units only able to deploy a single skirmisher unit in Leipzig which uses 1/6 skirmisher fraction. Simply explained:
1. Units of 540 or smaller will fire with 100%(that is the red line up to the point of the sharp drop), nothing has to be done.
2. Units between of 541 up to 648 will fire at 75%(that is the red line after the sharp drop). This can be countered by using skirmishers, by this one lowers the unit to less than 540 men what means that the unit fires with 100% while only the skirmishers fire with 75%(the combined fire value of unit & skirmisher is shown by the blue line).
3. Units of 649 or bigger can't lower themselves below 540 even with skirmishers so it will only fire with 75%(that is the red line from the point where the blue line sharply drops). At that point one must consider using Extended Line to maximize the fire value back to 100%.
Now all the drawbacks when using Extend Line can also be seen as a benefit, just like any other formation that is usually beneficial in some situations but nor formation is beneficial in all situations.
Bill Peters wrote:
1. Cant square with one portion of an Extended Line (EL).
Surely on purpose as a square has a ZOC all around it while line/column has a ZOC only in the hex left and right of its orientation. Squares already block cavalry completely although cavalry could simply ride around them, now if one could make 2 squares instead of one it would be even more problematic than it already is.
Bill Peters wrote:
2. Diminished defense value means that it is more vulnerable to melee. (odds heavily in favor of attacker)
AFAIk the defender isn't more vulnerable, because the damage done to it depends only on the attackign units size and its modifiers. One can say that a single hex of an Extended Line dishes out less damage because of less men in the hex that gets attacked, but if the defender maximized its fire value by using Extended Line he can do more damage by fie what leads to a higher probability of disrupting the attacker what would drop its attack value to 2/3 and by that makes it less likely to win a melee even against a unit in Extended Line. That is what line is all about, stop the attacker by fire.
Bill Peters wrote:
3. If one part of the Extended Line routs means that the other part is hung out to dry. It cant reform with its other half until that part rallies.
One can also see the benefit here, if only one half of the unit is routed the other is still capable of firing unaffected into the column that now shows its flank and by that is even more like to fail a triggered moral check because the rules state that if the unit is fired upon Enfilade 2 is subtracted from the Morale value.
If its about rallying & ordering it it is not much different because is disorder or routed formation changes can't happen anyway.
Besides all this one can also see other benefits:
- Covering 2 hexes instead of 1 with a single unit enables you to form reserves.
- It forces the attacker to spread its fire onto 2 not 1 unit.
- It forces the attacker to spread its melee onto 2 not 1 unit.
So overall I do not advise to use Extended lines under all circumstances but it surely has it's benefits that get easily overlooked b<y the clumsiness of the way it's depicted in the game.
If John ever finds time to modifier a feature I would like to see that Extended Line command as full independent command and not as a follow-up command of the line command.