Troop Scaling ...

[Beruldsen]

As I understand it ... enemy troop size is scaled to whatever size your army is (some hidden multiplier).  Does this apply to both Union and CSA forces (depending on which side you choose)?  Does is apply to all battles including the small ones?  If this is true ... wouldn't it be best to develop a few corps with more veteran troops versus producing a ton of rookie brigades.  This would also have the added benefit of having a pool of reserves available on those multiple battle days.

[veji1]

My understanding as well, it does seem to me though that the quality of AI troops seems to scale up as well when yours does, but I my be mistaken. The point remains that as the CSA you are better of fighting a 40k to 80k Antietam with experienced soldiers on both sides AND manpower in the piggy bank then fighting a 60 to 120k Antietam with less experience and no manpower in the bank. Why ? Well first of all manpower in the bank will allow you to avoid army crunch later on and mainly battles that get too big become slugfests of melee blobs. When you fight Antietam with less men on both sides there remains more room for manouver, flanking, etc, whereas numerous big massive units tends to lead to more grinding and brutal game.

[Wandering1]

The scaling applies to both sides.

If you're playing for min-size armies, you get as fewest corps as possible to proceed on the map. On some maps though, like Antietam, you want the large unit count if you want to be able to hold a long front without falling back to Sharpsburg as CSA.

Regarding the long-term game of using maximum size armies, there are tradeoffs. Maximum size armies with dense units tend to be able to resist in one location longer than if you kept the units at a minimum of 1000 men. Also, if all of the corps available end up on the map, it means in general you're training a deep officer bench, because even if one corp sees action less than another corp, the officers in that corp are still gaining experience, along with the little bit of experience that most troops get by default (via morale gains).

The drawback is, on the major battles, if you have spare corps that don't see action. Scaling accounts for total army size on majors, which means the corps that are not seeing action are adding to the scaling.

[veji1]

Indeed it's a matter of tradeoff, but basically as the player, you are better of on any given battle fighting with 15k against 30k which will allow you to move, choose terrain, be more fluid than with 80k agaist 160k ! With smaller armies you can still have flexible troop composition : a few 1500/2000 brigades to hold the choke points and withstand fire, smaller elite 1000 brigades to put the hurt to the ennemy and the cav units that become very useful in that context to hold your flanks. I just find that with massive armies the game loses some of its fun with more frontal blob assaults. But it's a matter of opinion. Play historic Antietam or "campaign beefed up Antietam with bigger armies" and the first one is going to be more fun, well at least for me !

[Wandering1]

Consider, on the reverse, the scaling affects the computer also by having brigades too large to fit in a single space. Which means you have lots of computer brigades side stepping each other, and giving you free shots.

Now, there is the problem of if the computer throws all those units in a suicidal charge. At that point, it's having enough resources on hand to repel the charge; namely having a few 24 pdr batteries to canister the entire blob after they come in.

[veji1]

My point wasn't necessarily on what gives the players the best results, it was just in terms of fun. Antietam at 60/120 is just a lot less fun to play than at 40/80, that was my main point !

[Wandering1]

Would also depend on one's definition of 'fun' in that context.

Previously, crushing an 90-100k army was not particularly difficult with 50k troops, because the computer was not particularly bright about troop placement. The number of brigades that the computer gets doesn't change with army size, only the number of troops in those brigades. Meaning if you have more brigades, you actually get more opportunities to flank than with fewer brigades. 

Note that more brigades and more troops are not one and the same; denser brigades yields a similar effect in terms of troop scaling, yet doesn't give you more tactical options in terms of flanking or using different types of units.

[veji1]

Denser brigades does, imho, lead to a more frontal brutal game, but again it's all a matter of what the player finds enjoyable !

[Wright29]

I haven't figured out an exact formula, but from my experience, the optimal min-max size of infatry brigades is between 1400 and 1500. Why? 

1. You want the brigade to be large enough to be able to resist large charges, deploy large detached skirmishers, and avoid being shattered. 

2. You want it to be close to 1250 so that you can combine brigades after taking some casualties. 

3. You want it to be small so the rewards are adequate to keep your fighting force effective and also to prevent auto-scaling. 

4. The weapons and officers availability (doesn't scale to your army size to my knowledge) favors smaller units. Lt. Colonels will have no trouble commanding 1,500 men. Continually equipping 2,500 sized brigades is nearly impossible on Hard and Legendary. 

My legendary CSA campaign has unit sizes of 1500 when 3* and 1800 when 2*. Union I go for even smaller brigades (around 1,400 on all experience levels) since they'll let you deploy more of them for big battles. Though I'll have a few very large units for when they only let you deploy a few vanguard brigades that need to hold a position or set up for a counterattack. 

[Wandering1]

When the division commander is a Major General or higher, you can have Lt. Colonels commanding 2000 man squads. 

I agree on equipping 2500 man sized brigades for Legendary; you'll easily out-strip the amount of guns available. 2000 man squads is doable though. Doing such will empty the entire stock of Farmers and Re-Boreds between each battle depending on how many casualties your sponge squads take.

Also on Legendary, somewhere between 1500-1700 is when the enemy squads essentially cap out at 2950 for the major battles. Meaning taking more men in those squads will not penalize you from a scaling perspective because the enemy squads are already capped. 

[sonnypemberton]

On ‎4‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 5:10 PM, Wright29 said:

I haven't figured out an exact formula, but from my experience, the optimal min-max size of infatry brigades is between 1400 and 1500. Why? 

1. You want the brigade to be large enough to be able to resist large charges, deploy large detached skirmishers, and avoid being shattered. 

2. You want it to be close to 1250 so that you can combine brigades after taking some casualties. 

3. You want it to be small so the rewards are adequate to keep your fighting force effective and also to prevent auto-scaling. 

4. The weapons and officers availability (doesn't scale to your army size to my knowledge) favors smaller units. Lt. Colonels will have no trouble commanding 1,500 men. Continually equipping 2,500 sized brigades is nearly impossible on Hard and Legendary. 

My legendary CSA campaign has unit sizes of 1500 when 3* and 1800 when 2*. Union I go for even smaller brigades (around 1,400 on all experience levels) since they'll let you deploy more of them for big battles. Though I'll have a few very large units for when they only let you deploy a few vanguard brigades that need to hold a position or set up for a counterattack. 

ditto

[Karri]

Finished a playthrough on colonel as Union. Ideal brigade size seems to be 1 to 1.5k troops, with 6-9 gun artillery batteries, and that pretty much means you are facing equal number confederates. Did I say I hate scaling? I hate scaling. With brigades under 1.5k casualties and battles tend to work somewhat better...I have a feeling that 3k brigades +super guns +maxed out units break the mathematic formulas in the game.

However, with 4 corps of 2 and 3 star brigades I still ran into massive scaling issue by Cold Harbor. I have to raise new brigades to finish some of the missions, or simply disband my veteran units since I cannot reinforce them all to proper size. Or face 3k brigades with 500 men units...I think I'll disband all and just throw in the 150k raw recruits I've been pooling up. Just need some pikes and pitchforks for 'em...

Edited April 8, 2017 by Karri

[Wright29]

4 hours ago, Karri said:

Finished a playthrough on colonel as Union. Ideal brigade size seems to be 1 to 1.5k troops, with 6-9 gun artillery batteries, and that pretty much means you are facing equal number confederates. Did I say I hate scaling? I hate scaling. With brigades under 1.5k casualties and battles tend to work somewhat better...I have a feeling that 3k brigades +super guns +maxed out units break the mathematic formulas in the game.

However, with 4 corps of 2 and 3 star brigades I still ran into massive scaling issue by Cold Harbor. I have to raise new brigades to finish some of the missions, or simply disband my veteran units since I cannot reinforce them all to proper size. Or face 3k brigades with 500 men units...I think I'll disband all and just throw in the 150k raw recruits I've been pooling up. Just need some pikes and pitchforks for 'em...

In the early and mid game the economics of the game favor those that have these medium sized brigades. By that I mean given the number of officers and guns available in the shop, it's often hard to outfit very large brigades. 

However, at some point in the campaign there is a tipping point where having large armies won't hurt you anymore. The number of brigades is set, but the AI is maxed out at 2950. 

[civsully1]

21 minutes ago, Wright29 said:

In the early and mid game the economics of the game favor those that have these medium sized brigades. By that I mean given the number of officers and guns available in the shop, it's often hard to outfit very large brigades. 

However, at some point in the campaign there is a tipping point where having large armies won't hurt you anymore. The number of brigades is set, but the AI is maxed out at 2950. 

Timely question and interesting too. I've been wondering at the current patch level if one was to begin a new campaign say at BG level, what would be the ideal brigade growth plan starting out? Would it be different from the original introduction of the early access version? Any thoughts on differences between CSA and Union?

[Wright29]

1 hour ago, civsully1 said:

Timely question and interesting too. I've been wondering at the current patch level if one was to begin a new campaign say at BG level, what would be the ideal brigade growth plan starting out? Would it be different from the original introduction of the early access version? Any thoughts on differences between CSA and Union?

I started a MG Union campaign for .78 patch and finished Shiloh. So far haven't seen major balance changes from the other MG campaign I've done. The way I plan my brigade size on hard is 1000 by Shiloh, Antietam 1500, Stones River 1800, Gettysburg 2000 (this is the highest level that I would do for the entire army). Subtract 150 for each for Legendary. 

Confederate is sort of the opposite- rather than ramp up, you want to get a constant level of high experience soldiers. And when you take casualties, just replace them with rookies so they can hopefully tread water at the current level of men and experience. So Shiloh 1400, Antietam 1500, Stones River 1600, Gettysburg 1600. Same numbers for Legendary. 

[civsully1]

1 hour ago, Wright29 said:

I started a MG Union campaign for .78 patch and finished Shiloh. So far haven't seen major balance changes from the other MG campaign I've done. The way I plan my brigade size on hard is 1000 by Shiloh, Antietam 1500, Stones River 1800, Gettysburg 2000 (this is the highest level that I would do for the entire army). Subtract 150 for each for Legendary. 

Confederate is sort of the opposite- rather than ramp up, you want to get a constant level of high experience soldiers. And when you take casualties, just replace them with rookies so they can hopefully tread water at the current level of men and experience. So Shiloh 1400, Antietam 1500, Stones River 1600, Gettysburg 1600. Same numbers for Legendary. 

Yeah for the CSA on BG when I first started playing over a couple of months ago I tried building up to 2000 brigades with the best weapons I could buy. This approach set me back as I've found early on. I used reputation to get better guns too. All this has hindered me fielding 3 full corps for the larger battles. Have learned a lot of lessons the hard way! But rather than start over I'll just keep playing and making mistakes to get a better handle on all the nuances of this game. Appreciate your comments Wright29....Thanks!

[sonnypemberton]

My plan for a new CSA play through is to keep only 1 corps stacked and to disband any troops not used in a grand battle. In theory, not only will this keep the AI from scaling like crazy, it will really improve the quality of the "bank" troops. I have done a half dozen playthroughs with 2 good corps, both min and max size, but I'm curious how this approach will work.

[Wright29]

7 hours ago, sonnypemberton said:

My plan for a new CSA play through is to keep only 1 corps stacked and to disband any troops not used in a grand battle. In theory, not only will this keep the AI from scaling like crazy, it will really improve the quality of the "bank" troops. I have done a half dozen playthroughs with 2 good corps, both min and max size, but I'm curious how this approach will work.

You cannot win on Legendary WITHOUT doing something similar to this. You simply can't keep troops idle outside of battle. The auto-scaling hurts too much. 

[sonnypemberton]

so far so good - only keeping 1 corps and build a new 2 corps for each grand battle. I can tell the side missions are more manageable, but obviously notice no difference in grand battles.