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Thank You very much for the answer Jack.
I am curious if these options allow to have an army according to Napoleonic times standars, where bulk of the army were line infantry units supported by some elite, light infantry, artillery and cavalry units.
I do hope we ll start balancing thread the day the game hits shelves, but if balance from Italian campaign is maintained in MP area i think we ll have not that much to do..
As i remember Militia goes for 40% of Line infantry, when light infantry is more expensive than line infantry by some 15%.
Seeing their abilities and stats i can say that job has been done well.
Of course i am missing more advanced units to be perfectly sure but so far it s looking good
Tonight i ll give You guys some prices and stats so You can share Your impressions about pricing and balance. It is however campaign balance and as Jack said few monts ago - Campaign and MP have separate pricing.

Artillery and fatigue - this is a totally different thing. Plenty of job has to be done in this area.

I observed bug present on 1.5. It is immortal crew pushing guns under musket fire. Is there a way to change this situation? It should be modifiable as first reports about this bug started to come after 1.5 was implemented.

If You made some changes to round shots then all we need is wait till release. I do hope that problem with canister shot direction ll be corrected too.

Personally i can tell You that i just admire TROM way of artillery balancing. It has been done perfectly there, but as NTW artillery should be lil more effective maybe some slight changes should be applied.
Imho You should just check what has been done by Johann217. I do not say - he's better, but i just like his approach and all good things should be reconsidered.

About fatigue - is there a chance that for beta preview purpose some values have been removed or changed?
I ll recreate fatigue today on campaign battles, but there i ll have no heavy cavalry except generals units, and maps are full of gradient_modifiers

5.400tics until Exhausted is a strange thing for heavy cav comparing to ETW 500m and one charge for Winged Hussars to get V.Tired status (i always thought that tight_formation is a unwanted modifier making this mess here)
I ll make tests on ETW and NTW beta preview tonight to have full comparison.

Ok, i ve just finished tests on ETW and siege of Milan map, where is enough quite flat place to make units sweat.

Result is as You told, but it is strange why Ligny gave such a different results.

I ll make chains of numbers where each number represent fatigue status:

Normal --> Active --> Winded --> Tired --> Very Tired --> Exhausted

ETW units on flat map:

Rifleman (light inf) 0 --> 350 --> 700 --> 1450 --> 2150 --> 4350
Line infantry 0 --> 350 --> 700 --> 1300 --> 1900 --> 3800
Winged hussars 0 --> 270 --> 540 --> 1600 --> 2300 --> 4400
i did not do light cavalry

Napoleon units
Chasseurs (light inf) 0 --> 350 --> 700 --> 1500 --> 2200 --> 4400
Fusilliers (line inf) 0 --> 450 --> 800 --> 1600 --> 2300 --> 6150
Light cav 0 --> 900 --> 1700 --> 3400 --> 5000 --> ???, as even when counter passed 10200 tics (17 minutes) status did not change
Dragoons (h. cav) 0 --> 450 --> 800 --> 1400 --> 2.000 --> 4200


It looks pretty similar, but having in mind strange difference in line infantry score i made tests again.
I was liittle surprised as during subsequent tests i had different scores and differencies were even bigger when i was ordering two or three units to run. Being in the same terrain they should catch fatigue level in approximatly same time, but they did not. It was not like matter of seconds - that would mean i was making small errors. Sometimes i had delay like 1200 tics

I give up with further tests as something looks unstable. I ll check that again on flat maps because here it may be just beta fault.
Tomorrow i ll check if i get same unstable results on ETW.

Hm... i saw Jaegers for the first time since i ve begun campaign. i attacked Modena - Papal States province and they were there.
I was watching them carefully......and, You know what........ they've planted inflatable stakes it is still there

Another story.

Until now we had confirmation of inflatable stakes.
Today, being in 29th turn of IC i saw two other ETW problems.

1. My Fussiliers of the line have been attacked from the back by unit of Papal States Hussars. Guys on TWC said that golden build does not allow forming squares after infantry line is charged.
Maybe golden build does not allow, but mine does...... They formed it with speed of light and razed cavalry.

2. Until now i saw great unit cohesion. Passing thru the trees never encountered problems with people lost for a poo - until today.
Francois from the howitzer unit has lost the way and the entire unit waited just for him and refused to unlimber howitzers for some 2 minutes. Napoleon was some 30 m away. Francois passed near him, joined the unit and finally they did their job. I was so charmed, that i took a screen immediatly.

Jack. Can You confirm please that square cannot be formed when infantry is engaged in melee with cav already?

I am making quite nice collection of screens. I ll publish it on the release day. Looks great

My new holy number for next 17 days is 77.711.

It is so nice Jack that You added column formation morale modifier.

Quoted from "KO|Druid"

When does the column modifier kick in Nies? 3 ranks plus?

I d simply love to know it , but i suppose that minimum should be 6-8.

OK gents.
I just finished Italian Campaign. Officially i lost, as i did not accomplish mission in time, but there's a chance to continue.
I am quite mixed with what i saw, because some types of units are v good, others not so good and there's a group Totally unaWare units.

Line infantry and grenadiers
It looks these units are proud and effective enemy in hands of AI. I saw good reactions on the battlefield. Long line forming, shooting, pressing on one wing, melee on my weakened units. Everything just looks good.

Militia, Armored Citizenry
They re like rabble and act like rabble. I haven't seen em exchanging fire for too long and shooting happened only when 2:1. Otherwise they attacked immediately, but i do not treat it like it was melee bug. These units simply have so poor firepower accuracy and reload, that the only solution seems to be violent attack and a try to cover enemy with bodies .
i was just missing AI knowledge to use column formation in case of militia (poorly trained, but trained and an important aspect is that they could have morale improved on approach when using column formation)
Being honest - i never saw any AI unit using column formation for melee.

Light infantry
I haven't seen any AI unit with muskets and 100m range, but i have seen some Jaegers with telescope stick to kill cav. What a mess. They re simply useless.
They haven't been programmed how to use shooting range properly. Stakes are planted in random locations. Units can run in space between my units, but there s no higher sense in it. They just run in spread formation without easiest attempt to use a weapon.These units do not retreat when pressed by line infantry units loosing their only advantage......Bloody mess.

Cavalry.
Mixed behaviour again. I have seen cav chasing for artillery units (but it happened only during Ligny battle). I have seen frontal charge performed by prussian Uhlans +21 charge. That was something. Seeing em charging on my moving fussiliers of the line unit i ve let them to hit my unit and did not form square. Charge and 5 sec melee killed my 70 out of 120 soldiers.
That s good behaviour expample, but very often cavalry is just running to the wing ETW way and then simply runs to left and back to right behind of my army's backs (NTW way) without any attempt to harm me.
Slowly moving cavalry looks like was blind. They do not have spotting distance, they do not use collision distance either.... they just enter my musket range n die. Same General's unit.

Artillery
Woooow - that's a big mistake.
Units love russian NKWD way and friendly fire can kill
Artillery is unable to see terrain conditionig. Once i placed my cav behind a small hill. AI controlled artillesy unlimbered 200m from there and started shooting in an attempt to kill my cav..... but the hill was on the way.
To make it even more pleasant enemy General entered line of fire, has been killed and half of the unit with him , but it's not the end of story. Same way was used 15 seconds later by AI line infantry column. Just imagine the mess i saw.....
During deployment phase artillery can be placed too close to buildings and it causes friendly fire to units placed there and to artillery itself, as parts of damaged building destroyed one of cannons.
Artillery is often left without any covering units, so it is just matter of time to have it destroyed by player's cavalry
Monty Pyton rulezzzz
Sieges - as i wrote........ boring as the best way is to use cannons and kill all hiding in buildings soldiers.

VH/VH is giving massive bonuses to AI. Accuracy and reload rate is much higher, our units are loosing men and morale quite fast and it gives good opportunity to AI to use all-it-can-do-to-rout-me.

AI controled Generals looks like they try to support units and once i have seen stars going up over 2 enemy units at a time, so it looks like AI is using morale boosting commands.

Overall - much much better than on ETW, but still there's plenty of things to be done.
I have preordered Imperial version. I am sure that i ll play GC and ll repeat IC just to see if there was some improvement between beta and final build. Egypt is not attracting me so much, but finally - why not.