mod J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4

[limith]

"The MaxSize entries are reused for the player as well, but if you turn off removeSizeCap they aren't used for the AI. " Wait so if I want the size cap that is defined below to be enforced I should set this to "true"? The name is confusing then, should be something like overrideSizeCap.

"More of a general question, but do you feel limited in resources? My current impression is that it's far to easy to acquire far more men and cash than I can ever use. I'm sitting with a reserve of 500k/100k around Chancellorsville for the Union Legendary. I'm not sure if that matches other player experiences though." On the CSA side, men is not a problem, but cash and weapons are (to midgame, when weapons becomes less of an issue once logistics and economy finally ramp up). I burned through 400k cash preparing for Fredericksburg (recruited about 9k men, army of 40k men). For the last battle on CSA it's good at have at least 100k troops, so I expect to need 2.4 million to ramp up to the final battle. That being said, after learning that capturing enemy units causes the AI to weaken (while shattering doesn't) I've discovered I don't need to invest in veterans so much. AI brought nothing but green troops after 4 battles in a row of capturing almost their entire army, and my 2 star units ate through them, so maybe only half of that would be required. It's very expensive recruiting veterans. I've found pretty consistently that I will burn through this much money for every 10k men I've added to my army (while maintaining level of veteran).

In terms of making money more of an issue: 1) reduce politics max money effect to 50% instead of 75%, 2) increase power of medicine (it's too weak right now when I take only 1200 casualties in a side battle and 3000-8000 in a major battle), it's a dump stat right now 3) making us pay for supply usage should cut down on excess cash, maybe have supplies cost double what they currently do so at logistics 0 and go down to normal at logistics 50% 4) I'd consider increasing the cost of officers by 25%.

" think the range perks are the best selection in basically all cases currently. Since they all come with +accuracy as well they give you everything you need. I hear speed and reload can be very good as well depending on play style. Currently I feel like there is little reason to take the non generic accuracy damage bonuses." I tend to take the grape/round shot bonus for tier 2 and it's effective. I find most shots are at round/grape range (the middle one) when I'm on the defense, and it's basically a +100% damage. It makes it so that counter battery fire is fairly effective and worth it, even if damage to infantry isn't great.
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So for Training in campaign, the tooltip says + stats for rookies, but I don't see the tooltip changing the stats my rookies have even after putting in 2 points of career points into it. Does it only affect manpower gained AFTER I invest points into it? In which case it's useless since I'm sitting on a stockpile of 100k troops which I can't use since I a) don't have army slots and b) don't have weapons in the armory I can buy to use 100k. A few extra points in training later on wouldn't have an impact then, I should have maxed training first then or something.

Edited June 24, 2018 by limith

[chemical_art]

2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I think the range perks are the best selection in basically all cases currently. Since they all come with +accuracy as well they give you everything you need. I hear speed and reload can be very good as well depending on play style. Currently I feel like there is little reason to take the non generic accuracy damage bonuses.

I go with range for the first perk, but that is because it has accuracy too iirc. It would be a more difficult choice if it was an either/or situation.

 

For the second perk, I actually go with shell damage. For me it is relatively uncommon to actually use canister, and that additional range is circumstantial while the damage boost is common.

 

Don't have 3 star artillery, can't comment on that.

[chemical_art]

15 minutes ago, limith said:

So for Training in campaign, the tooltip says + stats for rookies, but I don't see the tooltip changing the stats my rookies have even after putting in 2 points of career points into it. Does it only affect manpower gained AFTER I invest points into it? In which case it's useless since I'm sitting on a stockpile of 100k troops which I can't use since I a) don't have army slots and b) don't have weapons in the armory I can buy to use 100k. A few extra points in training later on wouldn't have an impact then, I should have maxed training first then or something.

I can't speak if it actually occurs on that day, but I assure you that it does increase the starting values. Once high enough it will raise your unit stats so they start with one star, which means they don't need a battle to be bloodied. This does save a lot of men and money, and makes medicine less important. I agree medicine is a contender to bottom two stats right now in power, it needs a second perk of some sort like logistics and recon does right now.

Edited June 24, 2018 by chemical_art

[drhay53]

On lower difficulties than legendary I really like the horse artillery perk for the first level of an artillery brigade. It allows you to move arty around at will for end-of-battle routing. If you're looking to keep arty in canister range, it's a major help. Also I'm sometimes impatient so it helps with that too

Not to be pushy, but I've kind of put my playing of the mod on hold until weapon damage spreadsheets are available. My OCD requires me to evaluate each weapon so I can decide on a progression for different units/XP builds. Take your time, but just so you know; I'm really looking forward to seeing the damage curves of the modded weapons!

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, limith said:

"The MaxSize entries are reused for the player as well, but if you turn off removeSizeCap they aren't used for the AI. " Wait so if I want the size cap that is defined below to be enforced I should set this to "true"? The name is confusing then, should be something like overrideSizeCap.

removeSizeCap takes the base games hp size limiters off of the AI scaling algorithm. The sizes defined in the config file are the new max hp size in the mod. So if you want vanilla AI sizes set the flag to true.

1 hour ago, limith said:

reduce politics max money effect to 50% instead of 75%

I don't even put points in politics, so this isn't the only issue.

1 hour ago, limith said:

increase power of medicine (it's too weak right now when I take only 1200 casualties in a side battle and 3000-8000 in a major battle)

I think medicine is already plenty strong, the issue is that it's too easy to not take any casualties.

1 hour ago, limith said:

So for Training in campaign, the tooltip says + stats for rookies, but I don't see the tooltip changing the stats my rookies have even after putting in 2 points of career points into it. Does it only affect manpower gained AFTER I invest points into it?

Training bonuses to recruit stats only impact any new recruits you gain as rewards. Even if you invest later it's plenty useful as the stats will go up on average. My recruits are sitting at 27-30 for all stats currently. I did boost training fairly early though.

44 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

I'm really looking forward to seeing the damage curves of the modded weapons!

Here is the arty spreadsheet. For the other weapons I would recommend just looking at the vanilla spreadsheets I posted in the mechanics thread. The ranges are close enough that I just use those. ModdedArtilleryWeaponCurves.xlsx Remember there are a lot of factors that go into the final damage numbers, the curves should be used as a general guideline, many weapons can still be effective at the low end of their curves if other stats make up for it.

As a general update, we're working on a complete overhaul of weapon and perk damage(again). Highlights include no longer having to worry about making units to big and losing damage. No eta on when it will be ready but it will probably be a few weeks at the very least.

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by pandakraut

[drhay53]

37 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Here is the arty spreadsheet. For the other weapons I would recommend just looking at the vanilla spreadsheets I posted in the mechanics thread. The ranges are close enough that I just use those. ModdedArtilleryWeaponCurves.xlsx Remember there are a lot of factors that go into the final damage numbers, the curves should be used as a general guideline, many weapons can still be effective at the low end of their curves if other stats make up for it.

 

Can you post the conversions from default weapon names to names in the mod? It's not always obvious to me.

[pandakraut]

9 hours ago, drhay53 said:

Can you post the conversions from default weapon names to names in the mod?

For the artillery the spreadsheet tabs have the modded weapon names. The A column on all of the sheets has the base game weapon name. I will need to check with Jonny on the rifles.

Weapon replacements in the mod. Modded value -> base game value.

1855 is the palmetto
musket is farmer
Sharps is Colt Revolving rifle
whitworth is fayetteville
HF1855 is Lorenz
Lorenz is 1855
1863 is 1861
1865 is 1863
1861 is HF1855
Sharps 1859 is Sharps 1855
Merrill is Sharps 1859
Tarpley is CS1862
E1856 is Hunter
Colt 1855 is Sharps
DNC is Whitworth

 

Edited June 25, 2018 by pandakraut

[Zenneh]

On 6/24/2018 at 6:56 PM, pandakraut said:

As a general update, we're working on a complete overhaul of weapon and perk damage(again). Highlights include no longer having to worry about making units to big and losing damage. No eta on when it will be ready but it will probably be a few weeks at the very least.

 

1

So If I'm reading this correctly it means that 14 cannons won't be the best but simply more cannons - at least if they can be commanded efficiently.

 

If that's the case Huzzar! Sick of the damage drop off from having more cannons. Should make a very heavy artillery run of the union be very interesting indeed.

 

I also guess that makes large infantry divisions pack more of punch at range since they were already effective at melee.

[pandakraut]

4 minutes ago, Zenneh said:

So If I'm reading this correctly it means that 14 cannons won't be the best but simply more cannons - at least if they can be commanded efficiently.

Once that change is released then yes, adding cannon will always result in higher damage. There will still be diminishing returns though, so until economy is no longer a concern it will likely still be better to have multiple smaller units.

[killjoy1941]

Still running BG and MG Union campaigns at or just past Chickamauga on 1.12 and I'll post more observations when I hit Harrison's Landing (gold standard for testing artillery v. fortifications), but the mod is astonishingly well balanced so far.

Some highlights:

1. Using scaling makes battles exceptionally manageable. Deliberately up-scaling adds instant challenge and is some of the best fun I've had yet.
2. Artillery is no longer OP, but counter-battery is still effective and worth dedicated batteries.
3. Skirmishers gradually come into their own, then become quite powerful.
4. Cavalry is finally balanced between melee and skirmish. You can build for either and viably gain experience.

All in all, I'm very impressed.

Edited June 27, 2018 by killjoy1941

[madmatg]

Finished a MG CSA campaign with the newest update almost all the way through

Final numbers were a million Union killed 200,000 MIA

A little under 200,000 CSA killed 500 MIA

My army this campaign was going for lethality rather than realism so a normal division was 2 rifle brigades, 1 mob brigade, 1 arty, and 1 skirmisher (a little over halfway through the campaign half of those in my 1st corps were SS with scoped whitfields)

I think if using large brigade sizes it needs to be a commitment of the whole army. I played with normal size(1000-2000) rifle regiments and then oversized (6000-9000) regiments for mob infantry rushes usually with 1 of them at the largest size possible. This led the scaling to get confused and didn't make units near large enough to counter my large mob units just walking/charging through them and dispersing or causing to surrender multiple units at the same time. Even when the enemy had '63 or '65 rifles they couldn't cause enough damage to make any significant dent in morale or size. Especially when enough points were in Training to get me 2-star recruits if commanded by high level colonels it was easy enough to get 3 star mob brigades quickly as they were getting more than 6-1 KD in missions.

I found cannons and SS were my best brigades until I found the oversized mobs and they became #1 but SS is devastating to the enemy, they caused rolling routs by themselves basically once they were up to 2 stars.

[The Soldier]

21 minutes ago, killjoy1941 said:

Artillery is no longer OP, but counter-battery is still effective and worth dedicated batteries. 

When a 14-gun battery of rookie 6pdr Field Guns can get 120 kills in a single canister blast, or when a Vet 1 unit of 18 Napleons gets 500 kills in a single canister volley, something tells me that is a bit overpowered.

22 minutes ago, killjoy1941 said:

Skirmishers gradually come into their own, then become quite powerful.

I highly suggest running a set of skirmishers (at either 375 size or 1000 size before the update with reworked size modifiers gets released) with infantry rifles like the P53 Enfield and using what I call the "light infantry" or "Zouaves" route, the mobility branch that grants extra cover and speed.   A combination of the new perks, the ability to use infantry rifles, and larger sizes makes mobility focused skirmishers incredibly effective, both in their ability to hold the line and push it forward.  Of course a 1000 man skirmisher brigade, even at Vet 2, isn't going to be as powerful as a 2,000 man infantry brigade (even with the monstrous +100% Cover you get from Fieldcraft and Open Order Infantry), they are definitely capable units.  The sheer mobility and flexibility the Zouave route grants is definitely worth having 2 or 3 of these units in each of your Corps.  I've got 7 of these units in my army currently, and they've proved their combat capabilities very well.  Open Order Infantry is the way forward my friend - it is the future.

37 minutes ago, killjoy1941 said:

Cavalry is finally balanced between melee and skirmish. You can build for either and viably gain experience.

Eh, I'm not impressed by cavalry currently.  The breachloading carbines just don't have enough punch, even on dismounted 1000-man Cavalry brigades.  I ran a division of these at Antietam and Iuka and they just haven't been able to do much.  Shock cavalry is only useful for chasing down isolated, Routing units, which is a rare occurrence.

[limith]

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When a 14-gun battery of rookie 6pdr Field Guns can get 120 kills in a single canister blast, or when a Vet 1 unit of 18 Napleons gets 500 kills in a single canister volley, something tells me that is a bit overpowered. 

I find that's very rare to happen, and I have maxed out 2-3* artillery brigades. My artillery generally makes only 1200 kills over an entire battle (about the same as one of my elite infantry) and that is because the enemy are usually not in canister range. I find artillery's morale impact to be more effective in rolling up the enemy lines. You have to really try to get canister kills by constantly moving into enemy range and it's not worth it vs just shelling them at shot range and routing them (then running the routing enemy down with your infantry in melee).

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I highly suggest running a set of skirmishers (at either 375 size or 1000 size before the update with reworked size modifiers gets released) with infantry rifles like the P53 Enfield and using what I call the "light infantry" or "Zouaves" route, the mobility branch that grants extra cover and speed.

I modded my game to have a skirmisher cap at 350 men, so that doesn't work. Also I find my skirmisher brigades lose leaders (KIA) to barely any fire whatsoever so I only ever run snipers (who don't get shot at to not lose leaders). Skirmishers seem to still be bugged in not firing automatically even with hold position off and it's not worth running large amounts of skirmishers in my army having to give them fire orders for every single volley. I can get 100% cover in most areas anyway with the right tactics, and I have +25% speed corps general and +speed 'rearguard/reserve' brigades in every division who moves about as fast as skirmishers. Skirmisher perks don't result in as much fire damage as maneuver infantry, and infantry don't need to be micro'd to fire every single volley. If I needed light infantry to hold the enemy's attention in no cover terrain then I'm doing something wrong, such as approaching from the wrong direction or not lining my units up properly for a charge. If you position units correctly you can have infantry in no cover firing at the enemy in cover without getting shot at (basically take advantage of the way the AI does targeting priority)

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Shock cavalry is only useful for chasing down isolated, Routing units, which is a rare occurrence.

It's a big difference between whether the enemy infantry will surrender or not I've found. Shock cavalry is almost mandatory for them to surrender. Surrendering results in the enemy losing veterancy in the campaign, while an enemy unit shattering doesn't (according to panda), thus having 1 shock cavalry in each corps to force the enemy to surrender after routing enemy units is mandatory in my book. In addition, routing enemies is very common for me when I use my artillery not as canister shot killers (which takes a significant amount of time moving, I assume you have horse artillery perk) but rather morale damage dealers. I don't have more than 1 per corps since that's all I generally need. I've started capturing about 1/3 of the enemy army now after figuring it out halfway through the game. Their job is not to run down enemies, but to force surrenders. My maneuver infantry do a better job of running down routing enemies, or charging into enemy artillery.
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Haven't used oversized brigades myself, using nothing but 1000 men brigades and 6 gun artillery. K:D (including surrender) tends to be between 1:8 to 1:10. My infantry deal most of the kills, artillery is there to cause routs.

Edited June 28, 2018 by limith

[pandakraut]

15 minutes ago, limith said:

Skirmishers seem to still be bugged in not firing automatically even with hold position off and it's not worth running large amounts of skirmishers in my army having to give them fire orders for every single volley.

If you issue them a move order when you think they should be in range, they will start firing. I don't find they are that hard to use, but I can see not wanting to bother. The skirmishers not firing issue tends to be more of a problem when you are at the very edge of their range, if you're closer it's less of an issue.

21 minutes ago, limith said:

kirmisher perks don't result in as much fire damage as maneuver infantry

Not sure what you mean by this, both unit types can get the same amount of damage bonuses through perks. One trades reload speed for range is the only real difference.

[limith]

6 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

If you issue them a move order when you think they should be in range, they will start firing. I don't find they are that hard to use, but I can see not wanting to bother. The skirmishers not firing issue tends to be more of a problem when you are at the very edge of their range, if you're closer it's less of an issue.

Not sure what you mean by this, both unit types can get the same amount of damage bonuses through perks. One trades reload speed for range is the only real difference.

If I give them a move order they'll fire 1 volley then they'll refuse to fire the next volley unless I give them another order. It doesn't have to be at the edge of their range either. Usually happens if the enemy has no vision on my unit and my unit isn't getting shot back at and if firing would reveal my unit. I think there's AI logic to keep your units hidden (my skirmishers have stealth perk)
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Infantry L1 has +100% accuracy while skirmisher L1 has +50%. Afaik accuracy = greater damage. Granted skirmisher L1 has +50% cover too but in terms of raw offensive output, skirmisher is weaker. I've found it's harder to level up my skirmishers compared to infantry (can't use them in melee, have to micro every volley, can't purposely exhaust their condition via toggling running) so getting the L2 is harder than infantry as well, and forget about L3 perk, I had skirmishers training since beginning of game and am in Charlottesville and they just got L2 barely.

Edited June 28, 2018 by limith

[pandakraut]

Just now, limith said:

Infantry L1 has +100% accuracy while skirmisher L1 has +50%

There is a 100% accuracy lvl 1 skirmisher perk as well?

I have Snipers at lvl 3 by Chancellorsville, just depends where you put your kill priorities I think. I don't have near the issues with skirmishers firing that you are running into, probably a difference in control style though. Skirmishers can do pretty well in melee, but only if you use the larger unit sizes, so not useful in your case. Seems like there are multiple ways to make use of them successfully at least.

 

[The Soldier]

6 hours ago, limith said:

I modded my game to have a skirmisher cap at 350 men, so that doesn't work. Also I find my skirmisher brigades lose leaders (KIA) to barely any fire whatsoever so I only ever run snipers (who don't get shot at to not lose leaders). Skirmishers seem to still be bugged in not firing automatically even with hold position off and it's not worth running large amounts of skirmishers in my army having to give them fire orders for every single volley. I can get 100% cover in most areas anyway with the right tactics, and I have +25% speed corps general and +speed 'rearguard/reserve' brigades in every division who moves about as fast as skirmishers. Skirmisher perks don't result in as much fire damage as maneuver infantry, and infantry don't need to be micro'd to fire every single volley. If I needed light infantry to hold the enemy's attention in no cover terrain then I'm doing something wrong, such as approaching from the wrong direction or not lining my units up properly for a charge. If you position units correctly you can have infantry in no cover firing at the enemy in cover without getting shot at (basically take advantage of the way the AI does targeting priority)

Ah, that's a pity then - with the skirmisher size reduction you're missing out on a lot of good opportunities.  Just for the record, of the now 8 Light Infantry skirmishers I have, I've only had one commanding officer killed, and none wounded (poor John Sedgwick).  +100% does wonderful things, you know. At Iuka I had 1800 enemies firing Sharps carbines into a single brigade of Light Infantry skirmishers and they did not take a single loss for quite a few volleys.  Also, I find that I don't need to do much microing for my light infantry skirmishers.  If they need to hold the line while taking direct fire I tell them to Hold Position, and if not, they have a reasonable sense of self-preservation to avoid most threats while keeping fire on them when required.  Using P53 Enfields on them also results in them being extremely proficient in melee, so even if they do get caught out they can care for themselves.  They usually perform just as well as my infantry brigades do, except they're much more satisfying to use.  They reflect Modern Infantry tactics very well...

(if you couldn't tell, of all the changes this mod made, this was my favorite )

As for surrendering - I forced 17 enemy units to surrender at Antietam, 10k Rebels in total (out of 40k total, similar to historical unit sizes).  And all of that when my cavalry was out prancing about after supply (which they captured loads of).  A unit is vastly more likely to surrender if it is Routed, in melee, and taking rifle fire while not near a unit with higher than Wavering morale.  Cavalry can do nothing to force surrenders if no one's there to shoot at them.  This is especially prevalent after I've changed Routing speed to 3 (as it will be in the future, currently it's set to 1).  Good luck capturing after that change, though there is a silver lining - any units of your own that get Routed get out of danger much faster with the "stickiness" being felt less, which is well worth the trade.

I also don't use Horse Artillery very much.  I've got it on my batteries in my mobile corps, but not anywhere else.  Extra range and reduced reload is just far too valuable when my guns can just keep up with the infantry, or are static in defense (as they have been in most of the previous Grand Battles).  Let me tell you, 12pdr Napoleons with -30% Reload or -15% Reload and +50% Shell / Shot damage is something to fear.  They'll get off 2 canister volleys, or 3 with -30% Reload, before an enemy brigade has a change to Rout out of range.  Those rebels suffered mighty at the hands of my cannon at Malvern Hill, payback for the whipping I got at Gaines' Mill.

I find having a division of 3k brigades plus a 44 gun battery as the army reserve is a wonderful asset to have.  One division-sized battering ram where ever needed, to plug or make one helluva gap in the line.  Speaking of, once you get Level 10 Training and Economy, well, you have so much money to throw around that you might as well fuel the men's camp fires with it.  So cost is actually a nill issue for me by Fredricksburg, at which point there's not a single smoothbore musket left in circulation.

[killjoy1941]

12 hours ago, The Soldier said:

When a 14-gun battery of rookie 6pdr Field Guns can get 120 kills in a single canister blast, or when a Vet 1 unit of 18 Napleons gets 500 kills in a single canister volley, something tells me that is a bit overpowered.

I've literally never seen that in 1.12. Canister typically nets me 250 max unless I have 3-star, short-range focused batteries. My rookie 6lb guns at Shiloh were hardly even capable of vanilla casualties, with my best battery netting about 2,600 casualties having been incessantly firing the entire battle, and at canister/shell range the entire time as well. I've had 6lb batteries deal well over 4k in vanilla Shiloh.

20lb Parrots might be a little too effective, especially at range, but they're generally not getting over 2,500 kills per battle, and again, my vanilla 20lbers can and do deal far more damage. Chickamauga was the exception, but then I'd deliberately engaged scaling, so that was a 190,000-man battle. You kind of have to expect massive artillery scorecards in an environment like that. 

12 hours ago, The Soldier said:

I highly suggest running a set of skirmishers (at either 375 size or 1000 size before the update with reworked size modifiers gets released) with infantry rifles like the P53 Enfield and using what I call the "light infantry" or "Zouaves" route, the mobility branch that grants extra cover and speed.   A combination of the new perks, the ability to use infantry rifles, and larger sizes makes mobility focused skirmishers incredibly effective, both in their ability to hold the line and push it forward.  Of course a 1000 man skirmisher brigade, even at Vet 2, isn't going to be as powerful as a 2,000 man infantry brigade (even with the monstrous +100% Cover you get from Fieldcraft and Open Order Infantry), they are definitely capable units.  The sheer mobility and flexibility the Zouave route grants is definitely worth having 2 or 3 of these units in each of your Corps.  I've got 7 of these units in my army currently, and they've proved their combat capabilities very well.  Open Order Infantry is the way forward my friend - it is the future.

That's how I ran them, though I kept the numbers smaller. I had 3-5 300 man skirmisher brigades armed with '55s, '63s, and finally Spencers, per corps. I had ten at Shiloh on MG, though 3-6 would've been enough.

12 hours ago, The Soldier said:

Eh, I'm not impressed by cavalry currently.  The breachloading carbines just don't have enough punch, even on dismounted 1000-man Cavalry brigades.  I ran a division of these at Antietam and Iuka and they just haven't been able to do much.  Shock cavalry is only useful for chasing down isolated, Routing units, which is a rare occurrence.

You need to use much smaller units that you might think, at least until you get a couple stars and a much better efficiency rating. Cav actually gets awful if you pack more than 500 men into anything less than a high-efficiency, 2-star brigade. I'd also keep them at 1,000 max until the next version of the mod. Anything higher and they become entirely ineffective.

Like skirmishers, they're kind of terrible until they get about halfway to their second star, so build one or two and take them to every battle you can. Also, Recon points are your friend. Once you get four, you'll be amazed at just how bold you can be with cav. The best place is behind a defensive line, just behind your infantry, and where there are no enemy batteries within canister range. When you break a brigade, run out to get some kills, and repeat as necessary.

[limith]

So on the union side I've discovered high amounts of infantry skirmishers is mandatory unlike the CSA. Seems my infantry can't hold the line when charged and artillery doesn't seem to be able to rout charging CSA troops in 1 volley of canister. My infantry can't fall back fast enough in forest but skirmishers can.

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As for surrendering - I forced 17 enemy units to surrender at Antietam, 10k Rebels in total (out of 40k total, similar to historical unit sizes).  And all of that when my cavalry was out prancing about after supply (which they captured loads of).  A unit is vastly more likely to surrender if it is Routed, in melee, and taking rifle fire while not near a unit with higher than Wavering morale.  Cavalry can do nothing to force surrenders if no one's there to shoot at them.  

I've consistently managed to get AI skirmishers to surrender with my cavalry alone in melee (after they've routed), and if I send a cavalry brigade into a bunch of routed enemies at the end of a battle )when they are surrounded) I've found more units will surrender than if I send an infantry. Infantry can cause surrenders too, but cavalry are much better at it in my experience.

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This is especially prevalent after I've changed Routing speed to 3 (as it will be in the future, currently it's s

et to 1).  Good luck capturing after that change, though there is a silver lining - any units of your own that get Routed get out of danger much faster with the "stickiness" being felt less, which is well worth the trade.

This change would be absolutely ridiculous and I would definitely mod it back to 1 if it ever changes like that. "Silver lining" is only relevant on the Union side, and is a big annoyance on the CSA side. You can't catch up to them unless you have them surrounded already, even with a 1.0 modifier. I never have problems on the CSA side with my units being stuck. In fact even on the union side I prefer the enemy units to be more stuck (eg I changed artillery rout speed from 1 to 0.5 myself). This is because it's very easy for units to lose all condition while in melee fighting routed units even if my unit does not move. I had a unit in my battle on the corner of the map lose all condition in melee vs 100 artillery that had routed and there was absolutely no place for the artillery to go. All a 3.0 modifier means is that you can't chase down artillery at all. The AI can run away from your units fine as it is in melee with a 1.0 modifier if there is a place for them to run. A 3.0 modifier won't prevent me from capturing units on the CSA since I devote around half of the battle timer moving my units to surround the AI location (no shooting at all) so there's no place for them to rout to. TERRIBLE IDEA. If my unit is caught that's my fault, I don't want my unit to run 3x as fast when routed than when not routed.

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I've literally never seen that in 1.12. Canister typically nets me 250 max unless I have 3-star, short-range focused batteriwes. My rookie 6lb guns at Shiloh were hardly even capable of vanilla casualties, with my best battery netting about 2,600 casualties having been incessantly firing 

the entire battle, and at canister/shell range the entire time as well. I've had 6lb batteries deal well over 4k in vanilla Shiloh.

Union first battle you get some 2 star napoleons and they deal like 10-20 kills at canister range with 12 cannons. I agree, I've never seen such high damage numbers. You'd have to be hitting them in the rear in open territory, and even then it does maybe 40-90 kills per volley. Are you sure you applied the mod correctly The Soldier.

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I've confirmed the skirmishers not firing thing is due to the units being hidden. On the Union side none of my skirmishers didn't fire since the AI kept charging me forcing me to fall back (and they always had vision on my skirmishers). My units not firing constantly happened on the CSA side since the AI never was able to close the gaps so I could hole up in forest and not be seen (and my skirmishers were useless as a result).

Edited June 28, 2018 by limith

[killjoy1941]

4 hours ago, The Soldier said:

I also don't use Horse Artillery very much.  I've got it on my batteries in my mobile corps, but not anywhere else.  Extra range and reduced reload is just far too valuable when my guns can just keep up with the infantry, or are static in defense (as they have been in most of the previous Grand Battles).  Let me tell you, 12pdr Napoleons with -30% Reload or -15% Reload and +50% Shell / Shot damage is something to fear.  They'll get off 2 canister volleys, or 3 with -30% Reload, before an enemy brigade has a change to Rout out of range.  Those rebels suffered mighty at the hands of my cannon at Malvern Hill, payback for the whipping I got at Gaines' Mill.

I use the Horse Artillery perk exclusively. Having my guns forever within canister range with a flanking division is godly vengeance. I also keep a battery of short-range focused Napoleons with every division expressly for this purpose, with the other battery being long-range focused 20lb Parrots for a total of 120 guns per corps. With the three division cavalry corps, that's just shy of 400 guns. It's a Union campaign - you should be paving roads with guns. 

[limith]

I find having a division of 3k brigades plus a 44 gun battery as the army reserve is a wonderful asset to have

This is abusing the scaling system if I did this with 1k infantry brigades and 6 gun artillery, so definitely not going to do this. Also having such large gun batteries means your cavalry will be useless since the AI artillery will be too large to charge with cavalry or infantry reliably. I never use more than 12 guns to keep AI artillery size low, usually 6 guns.

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, limith said:

I don't want my unit to run 3x as fast when routed than when not routed.

There is some confusion here on what the route speed of 3 represents. Currently with a rout speed of 1 routing units move significantly slower than if they were falling back or just walking somewhere. A speed of 3 allows them to move a bit faster while routing than if they were falling back.

1 hour ago, killjoy1941 said:

I've literally never seen that in 1.12. Canister typically nets me 250 max unless I have 3-star, short-range focused batteries. My rookie 6lb guns at Shiloh were hardly even capable of vanilla casualties, with my best battery netting about 2,600 casualties having been incessantly firing the entire battle, and at canister/shell range the entire time as well. I've had 6lb batteries deal well over 4k in vanilla Shiloh.

20lb Parrots might be a little too effective, especially at range, but they're generally not getting over 2,500 kills per battle, and again, my vanilla 20lbers can and do deal far more damage. Chickamauga was the exception, but then I'd deliberately engaged scaling, so that was a 190,000-man battle. You kind of have to expect massive artillery scorecards in an environment like that. 

Remember damage rolls are random and very dependent on range. The 500 type numbers come up at nearly point blank range and aren't all that frequent in my experience, but they can happen with the right perks/situation. Usually to try and get that type of number you have to manually hold and release fire.

Depending on your setup you can definitely get very high kill rates with heavy artillery. Currently they are mostly winning battles by themselves for me.

 

[limith]

Quote

There is some confusion here on what the route speed of 3 represents. Currently with a rout speed of 1 routing units move significantly slower than if they were falling back or just walking somewhere. A speed of 3 allows them to move a bit faster while routing than if they were falling back.

Either 1) AI routing units are ignoring condition, 2) AI ignoring melee movement penalty or 3) something is odd with hitboxes because even with rout speed 1 (and even rout speed 0.5 but very rarely with 0.5) I still see cases where the AI can escape melee lock and then maintain it's distance gap from high condition (60-80) units when routing despite it supposedly being "slower than if they were falling back". If they are ignoring condition then the default rout speed should NOT be faster than falling back. This is because your units lose condition when engaged in melee at a very fast rate, even if the enemy is routed. In addition, afaik, your units in melee get a movement speed penalty, which needs to be taken into consideration. The people catching up to the routing units are not moving as fast as a normal walk or fallback. So you have funny things like AI artillery routing faster than skirmishers or cav (which is what happens in Vanilla) that are trying to finish them off. Or skirmishers routing faster than cav.

Quote

The 500 type numbers come up at nearly point blank range and aren't all that frequent in my experience, but they can happen with the right perks/situation. Usually to try and get that type of number you have to manually hold and release fire.

The Soldier says he gets 120 kills/volley with rookies using the worst cannon and only 14 guns and says artillery is OP. I'm winning battles thanks to artillery, but due to morale damage, not kills. I can get more kills from my veteran infantry. I haven't noticed any sky high kill rates myself with artillery on a consistent manner, most battles are like what killjoy says. Maybe change the damage curve to prevent this type of damage at point blank. In a 6 hour battle with rookie (9 veterancy, 40 firepower, level 1 perk) Napoleon, 12 batteries campaign start, I got around 2.5k kills, when I did nothing but canister the enemy at basically point blank in no cover territory. If artillery did the amount of damage The Soldier says they do, it would've taken me only 16 rounds to get that many kills. They don't, on average, it takes me something like 5 volleys of canister to rout the confederate troops, and a volley does maybe 20 kills at best (unless the enemy is routed, then it does a bit more). Maybe artillery is overpowered at the best case scenario, but balancing things around the best case scenario being the average isn't the right thing to do.
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Random thought: Would it be possible to make artillery surrender work similar to supply wagons, but be able to fire? It doesn't make sense the way artillery is modeled in game right now. If they just instant surrendered that'd be closer to what happened in real life. It also means you have to defend the artillery you capture, and you could have fights over cannons. If surrender with fire is too OP against the AI, then just making them surrender like supply caravans is good enough. Means you can't just go behind enemy lines with a single unit. I imagine it would mostly help the AI since the AI could then recapture cannons. Definitely would make some early game battles harder.
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Campaign balance: 1st side battle Union is incredibly hard on MG. AI gets a bunch of 2 star units and outnumbers you tremendously, you have to spawn camp and abuse knowledge of the game so much since even with veterancy 7 you can only have 1 star units with 28ish melee and a random 2 star that may or may not be good at melee. You can also only deploy 3 units and if you bring reinforcements, the starting scenario troop numbers are way too low (2x200 men skirms + 2x600 men inf + 1x250 skirm cav) with no detach skirmisher option. The AI can charge your infantry and kill 300-500 men in one charge. The AI has 8+ 1200 men inf and 2 250 men skirmisher cav along with 3 artillery against your troops in the first phase, and gets more reinforcements in the 2nd when yours come in (I could barely afford 1 extra brigade of 1000 men). The fortification melee bonus inside the supply depot are absolutely worthless, the AI can just charge into them and instant rout the unit inside and there's nothing you can do. There also seems to be a bug with the fortifications where you units don't engage in melee while suffering melee damage (your units will "shoot" at the AI dealing melee to them). The 2* AI charge bonus is way too much this early on in the game when you have either 0 or 1* units.

Edited June 28, 2018 by limith

[killjoy1941]

2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Remember damage rolls are random and very dependent on range. The 500 type numbers come up at nearly point blank range and aren't all that frequent in my experience, but they can happen with the right perks/situation. Usually to try and get that type of number you have to manually hold and release fire.

Depending on your setup you can definitely get very high kill rates with heavy artillery. Currently they are mostly winning battles by themselves for me.

Any gun that's not rifled sits directly behind the infantry in my army. That's why I use the horse artillery perk; point blank canister is the only canister worth using.

Edited June 28, 2018 by killjoy1941

[The Soldier]

4 hours ago, killjoy1941 said:

I've literally never seen that in 1.12. Canister typically nets me 250 max unless I have 3-star, short-range focused batteries. My rookie 6lb guns at Shiloh were hardly even capable of vanilla casualties, with my best battery netting about 2,600 casualties having been incessantly firing the entire battle, and at canister/shell range the entire time as well. I've had 6lb batteries deal well over 4k in vanilla Shiloh.

20lb Parrots might be a little too effective, especially at range, but they're generally not getting over 2,500 kills per battle, and again, my vanilla 20lbers can and do deal far more damage. Chickamauga was the exception, but then I'd deliberately engaged scaling, so that was a 190,000-man battle. You kind of have to expect massive artillery scorecards in an environment like that. 

On battle where ammunition is...limited, to say the least, you don't just do firing at enemy brigades in the distance.  This is especially prevalent at Shiloh and Malvern Hill, where you almost always run out of ammunition for your guns before your second corps and arrive.  Hold your fire until you can see the whites of their eyes - one battery of 12pdr Napoleons killed 3,000 Rebels at Shiloh, then 4,000 at Malvern Hill.  Another battery of 20pdr Parrotts killed 2,000 at Gaines' Mill, and 4,000 at Malvern Hill.  Two batteries are responsible for fully a third of casualties I inflicted on the enemy that day.

4 hours ago, limith said:

This is abusing the scaling system if I did this with 1k infantry brigades and 6 gun artillery, so definitely not going to do this. Also having such large gun batteries means your cavalry will be useless since the AI artillery will be too large to charge with cavalry or infantry reliably. I never use more than 12 guns to keep AI artillery size low, usually 6 guns.

Not particularly.  I'd like my army to be bigger but officer experience is really delaying that thought.  I don't have many officers that can command brigades larger than 2500 strong or have batteries of guns larger than 14.  Those who can are concentrated and given the best assets.  If I really wanted the abuse the scaling system I'd make them all 8k strong, my current Infantry size cap, but I'm not.

Did you really just go out and ask if I'd installed the mod correctly...?  I'll remember that in the future.