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Grognard_JC

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Posts posted by Grognard_JC

  1. I read your post, but before starting discussiing it there are 2 important informations I need from you :

    1) At what level of difficulty are you considering the issue ? (It's a question of challenge all in all, and you cannot simply ask the AI to adjust to the human brain)

    2) Your propositions.

  2. At long last I had the occasion to play the game.

     

    Legendary ofc.

     

    Wooooow ! First battle as CSA : defeat : one of the artilleries just fled away and got behind a line of yankee, and I was too exhausted to reach it in time. EXCELLENT!

    At the beginning of the battle, I sent my skirmisher unit far forward to intercept the two infantry units coming from the west. Guess what ? The AI took its own infantry unit (that usualy camps in the fort all the battle long) and brought it out to counter push me. So my skirmishers where on the moon while my two columns were having a hard time in the wood trying to overcome the enemy skirmishers. This was really great, as I had got bored of playing this battle again and again with the same tactic.

     

    I tried a second run and, while playing more cautiously, I achieved victory. Normaly, even on hard, I should have ended up capturing ALL enemy units. With legendary on, I had to play CAUTIOUSLY & to camp the fort at all cost, while micromanaging the cavalry unit to make (unsuccesful yet diverting) raids on the enemy artillery and general. I lost 2411 out of my 4000 men, nearing 2/3 army casualty for the first battle.

     

    At long last, challenge is here, and you definitely feel you'll have to play cautious, avoiding to push your advantage too much. And I love that. Thank you Darth.

     

  3. @Slaithium :

    You are asking for a "better" AI because you do not like the idea of having challenge come from cheer "bonuses" given to the AI's troops. Fine.

     

    But, for real, you cannot blame Darth for this, or maybe you do not know what he has achieved, even before he started working for Game Labs. He is a king of AI.

     

    Most games have crap AIs. AIs are scripts mate. The more scripts you put in, the more weird the AI behaves. You have to be a very patient Magician to find an AI that works. And NO, it's not "easy" to create a "better" AI. It would cost tones of money of developpement that even SEGA is not willing to pay !!!

     

    The best AIs I know on the video game markets are in CK2, EU4, Naval Action and UGCW. No wonder these are niche games.

     

    If you want to ask the devs something they can ACTUALLY make real, so that you get a real challenge from a good "AI", just ask them to put the Multiplayer mode in. This way, the game will be much more challenging, without cheats.

     

    • Like 1
  4. Alright. Just finished the CSA "hard" campaign.

     

    I like the AI, mostly, though it is way too cautious IMO. At Fredericksburg, it never tried to outflank me in the North though there was a great opportunity to do so. Ofc, this is close to history, but the whole battle was hardly a challenge. I lost 7k against 70k mostly watching.

     

    I don't know how the AI  works but here are two suggestions :

    • The AI should be able to to check local superiority and take the decision to charge in. There are often instances where the AI is 10vs1 against a fortified point which it could easily overrun by mass charging.
    • The AI should make checks on fortifications. When the enemy holds like 4-5 full units in fortifications, the AI should try to outmaneuver the thing, mostly.

     

    Playing HARD campaign feels more like playing like NORMAL in the new system. Overall, I recall the 0.68 campaign was harder. It's my first CSA campaign with 100% Victories.

     

    Very addictive game. My wife hates me because of you Darth ! :D

  5. Just won Antietam in my current CSA hard campaign.

    Just a thought. At one point, the AI could have pressed its advantage and crush me, but it did not. I really get the feeling the AI is way way too cautious now and will pull back whenever it is faced with the slightest flanking threat, prohibiting it from taking actual BIG actions that matter, like taking a Victory location. This said, the AI now redirects its troops here an there to test where you have the least resistance, so there's good and bad in the change.

    I'm just a bid sad the AI does not seize the advantage of overhelming superiority when it can. At Antietam center, I should have lost, had the AI dared to charge. IThe battle felt a bit like in previous to patch 0.68 game, when units would stack forever in front of an obstacle.

    Aaah, anyway that's just an AI (though a very good one) and not a human player. This would be crazy against a human!

     

    Oh, and I keep winning and winning. The new system seems to make me snowballing, the more you win the easier it gets to win each next fight. Well, that's maybe not that bad, I can't imagine what I would have face at Antitetam if I had not won the previous fights before... LoL !

    Very hard game mode, where are you ? :P

  6. My first impressions on the new update :

    Great work as always.

    Morale has somehow changed a bit, as my units tend to surrender more often, almost systematically in bad conditions. Now you have to watch out.

    As CSA hard campaign, the small battles are now tougher. It's no longer possible to chase/destroy the AI as it is too strong. 1st Bull Run was harder than previously, though not too hard, the AI did not concentrate on Henry Hill, so I kept her busy here and there forever.

    My first win ever on Shiloh as the CSA. I supposed you fixed the Hornest Nest instant battle end bug. It really felt epic chasing the Yankees trying to withdraw.

    The CSA new "uniforms" could be a bit more polished I suppose.

    Custom battle mode seems to work alright, this is a very interesting feature if you are to go multiplayer.

     

    Enemy units stuck behind your lines really need to be dealt with. It's a real pain for the game.

    Oh and maybe, you could add a VERY-hard campaign mod next time. I'd really love to lose a campaign. What's more, you have to delete "restart" button if playing in such mode.

  7. 1 hour ago, Koro said:

    Right, so I missed that it was an experiment. To be fair it's not completely clear.

    I still don't see the point. To me, it just looks like you build your army purposefully wrong for the engagement by only having 1.000 sized units that won't stand up to the AI in the long run and spread your units extremely thin also on purpose by spreading them in to 4 corps rather than 3 as you could have. And even then, not putting most of the men in to the two corps that will be engaged for the most of the battle and as Lee did, leave the far right  flank lightly defended to be reinforced by men from the north.

    Army organization allows you have a lot of units sure but if you don't have the men to fill it, you've just wasted the career points? That can hardly come as a surprise. You take the career points you need to build the best army and not just go all in on it. Later in game, who knows, 10/10 AO might be useful but having 6 or so at Antietam is plenty to get you through it and allow the army necessary.

    All choices can't be equal as such, it's not just a matter of putting them all in to a few categories. 

    Recon is not useful though, not past 4 points, that I agree with.

    If I missed the point again, I am sorry in advance.

    It's not purposely wrong built. It's about the possibilities the game gives me about the perks.

    If the game was perfect, it should be a very hard choice whenever you'd have to spend 1 perk point, that's all. As you said it, now AO is only about keeping up the pace with the battles getting bigger. So what about disabling AO anyway ? Army scaling screws it altogether.

    Last but not least, my experiment shows the army scaling is more about the number of brigades you bring than the number of men you bring. So the worst choice you'd make with army sclaing, in its current state, would be :

    • Not to max each of your regiment
    • to max your number of regiments
    • to max Army Organization

     

    Take that ! Koro ! :P

  8. 15 hours ago, Koro said:

    That's just hard for you Grognard. It's difficult to justify "balancing hard" when it is supposed to be just that.. Hard. 

    Your force is really small though, even for hard and you divided it up in to many smaller brigades rather than in to 2 big corps with a minor corps in support which probably isn't the best way to go on hard. You could complain about that too, but you must max out on all levels and hard and it's simple better to have fewer but larger brigades. Also so you can have bigger brigades in 1 corps and consequently more men, rather than spread them out too much so they'll be active on the field longer at Antietam. Brigades from the 3 corps don't participate until long in to the battle and even if the reinforcements weren't bugged, those would come much later so it would have been much better to put those 13.000 men in to brigades from another corps and stack them up bigger. I'm not sure where you got the notion that more brigades are better rather than fewer but more powerful. 

    There is a limit to how far the AI scales down on hard and other difficulties, maybe it's 130.000 on hard or maybe it's just the scaling.. See steam forum for other people who beat hard and even complain about it being too easy now. 48.000 to 130.000 is rather heavy though but again, that is hard mode. If you had had all of your army on the field, it would have been easier anyway, but as I said, you've simply structured your army poorly for hard mode. 

     

    This is TOTALLY NOT my point Koro.

    In this same very thread I complained the campaign as CSA was too easy going with full VETERANCY. I completely crushed the AI at Antientam that way ! (By the way, it only got 75 000 men this time)

    SO : This fourth run was a TEST to see how ARMY ORGANIZATION was balanced. It's not well balanced compared to other perks.

     

    Imho, ALL perks should weight the same in the campaign. You should get equivalent, but not same benefits from them. My test just proved HOW Army Organization is NOT worth the spending in the current game version.

     

    I'm very sad I had to clear my point to you Koro. I thought you'd be among those who'd get the point.

  9. Hello guys.

    I just found time to finish my CSA campaign at Antitentam with Full Army Organization focus. The goal was to max the number of units I could get. Hard difficulty.

     

    So I was able to bring together 4 corps into battle. 1 veteran, 1 average, 2 recruits.

    I don't know what happened (I got wipped too fast maybe ?) but the reserve corp NEVER entered the battle. Maybe it's a bug ?

     

    The Union was SO NUMEROUS (minimum brigade strength is around 2600 while I oculd not bring more than 1000 men/brigade) and SO STRONG (2-3 stars everywhere).

     

    It was complete disaster. I got completely wiped, and I really tried y best.

     

    The AI deployed more than 130 000 men, while I deployed 48 000 (according to the battle result) of which I did not see one full corps of 13 000 men.

    I totally got wipped.

     

    Think of it : 130 000 against 35 000 !!!

     

     

    This is it, maxing Army Organization is the way to make the game MUCH harder. I you want less challenge, just play soft and max out Veteran and politic/economy.

     

    Hope the next patch will  help things balance.

  10. 1 hour ago, jwsmith26 said:

    I haven't read that there is a "division command radius" anywhere.

    Is there some visual indication of the radius onscreen?

    What are the consequences of being outside the radius?

    I haven't read of it neither.

  11. Hi guys, simple question. At what point will a unit break apart ?

    This is a very important thing to know in fact, as you always want your units to survive battles.

    I'd say any unit will break apart when it reaches a number under 1/5th of its starting battle strength. Hence a 2500 brigade will disapear only when downed to 499. ut a small unit starting at 250 will only break under 49 men. Is that it ?

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