TechnoSarge

Has ANYONE figured out how to interpret the land weapon stats? A particular musket, Dragoon Carbine '66 for instance, might display Efficiency 0.7 - 1.1 and give a graph based on range. Then if you look at just about ANY other musket or rifle, you'll see perhaps different lsted Efficiencies... but the graphs are almost the same. In particular, they all seem to show approximately 0.75 at 150 yards (midway between the 0.6 and the 0.9 lines). When you target an enemy unit, your guys will typically walk up to the edge of their arc of fire. I have no idea what range that might be. Are you now at 250 yards, where all these guns can still reach? Or are you at 100 yds, where you might hope to be in the stated Efficiency (but it's inconsistent; that Dragoon Carbine above is still above the stated bottom of its Efficiency at 150 yds!) Is that distance the same for all weapons? Don't know. If you want increased damage, it's clear you need to move forward more, but there is no ready way to tell where a sweet spot might be. Because the graphs are so terribly similar, I rely more on Reload time, where it's a single number and smaller is better. Paradoxically, the older guns have shorter reloads in general than newer ones, so it seems pointless to buy more modern gear, except if it comes with bayonets.

Do you have any idea of why, on certain maps, you can chase the other side out of their entrenchments, but then you can't use them yourself? I've been chafed that I have to absorb counterattacks without the bonus my enemies enjoyed!

Thanks!

Pandakraut, I've been thinking about revisiting my spreadsheets on weapon effectiveness. The mouse tool tips for the weapons were changed by you to provide better information some time ago... Please tell me: 1) Are the degradation curves the same as formerly? (My impression was that you couldn't modify them.) 2) Formerly, some of the rifles were listed with ranges > 300 yds; now, only certain skirmisher weapons do. I seem to remember that the game actually limited them, although the curves showed nonzero data out further. Please clarify for me. 3) Your UI tool tips now list Short, Medium, Long, and Max "Damage Multipliers" (which I believe is same as Degradation). What are the breakpoints for these? And are cannons rated the same way?

Never knew about the exploit - and don't use it. I'll run detached skirmishers into artillery I catch unaware, but I expect skirmishers to have lousy melee numbers so I don't generally launch attacks with them. I understand the mechanic now, and I agree on the outcome.

This is counterintuitive... so is it right? The large unit engaged with 2 smaller gets a larger penalty, so should crack easier, not harder.

Update to my intentions above to run a campaign with low-experience infantry.... The campaign has been surprisingly easy! Until recently, scaling kept the other side in packages that could be handled. Limiting myself in experience means that re-equipping after a fight is not nearly so expensive. In fact, until Chickamauga (as Union) I did not spend a single point on Training! I also limited myself to 1,000 man brigades until recently. When I finish the campaign, I'll give some stats about what I saw from the AI.

Of vanilla/surrender/rebalance/UI&AI modes, I like UI&AI best, at least at present. I choose to play BG because I'm not trying to be best Ultimate General player ever - I just want to have a generally victorious time with a few close calls along the way. I do very little to exploit the AI except to raid its rear, since I like fighting in a generally period style. For my present campaign, I've hit on this to try: I'm not going to allow any infantry brigades to exceed 1-star. I'm a small-unit, skirmisher & artillery-minded guy, like PK, and I'll let them grow experience as much as possible. My cavalry generally is disposable (and if I lose a whole unit, it's always my cavalry!) Restricting my infantry's experience should really make the battles more iffy for me. I just won Shiloh as Union on Day 1 and got 15 of my 24 brigades promoted to their first star in the battle. Off and running!

PK, a general question - As you've been noodling around in perks, can you tell me if in Vanilla the Corps leaders' 2nd perk holds for ALL their troops, or just the ones specialized? There is a choice of Artillery, Infantry, and Cavalry specialties... and I've wondered since Day 1 whether they only apply to the named troops. If so, I can't imagine why anyone would ever choose other than Infantry, unless perhaps they were making a whole cavalry corps.

I'm not sure they do... but at any rate, I find myself noticing a message and reaching for it with my mouse when it goes away. [Situational Awareness!]

Pandakraut, if there is a way to extend the time messages are displayed, I'll put that on the wishlist. I am frequently frustrated by messages disappearing before I can get to them in a tense fight.

I just realized I am using UI and AI Customization mod, not the Rebalance - whoops! Posted in wrong thread!

I'm not at all sure how to build armies > 100K, at least before the final battle, from either side. I usually play BG because I play for enjoyment and being beat on for 6 hours in a major battle isn't enjoyable. I just played 2nd Bull Run (by the way, I grew up a dozen miles from that battlefield!) as CSA . I sold practically everything in my Armory before the battle that I couldn't turn into a unit, and the game reports I had ~31K infantry, 3K cavalry, 144 guns. The game lets you bring 85 brigades into that battle - for god's sake! - and I was trying to put together a big force. Wikipedia reports that the actual battle had 50K Confederates, and I only managed about 37K. I recognize that earlier decisions to train 2-star brigades cut the raw numbers, but I couldn't buy or capture weapons any faster. I just realized I am using UI and AI Customization mod, not the Rebalance - whoops! Posted in wrong thread!

I spent ... a few... decades with naval miniature wargaming. I know game players like to be armchair ship designers. What owners of the books shown in above posts know is that putting a ship together is 'way more complicated that choosing hull modules in SOTS. Every choice affects everything else to be chosen. I spent a lot of time with my set of books creating empirical formulae for the different warship categories, based on actual ships built and operated by the world's navies. (much better than working directly with naval architecture principles, as in "Modern Ship Design" by M.I.T. professor Gilmer). This was aimed at letting me make plausible design decisions, based on the technologies available at the time, for never-designed warships. Y'know - I gave it up. There's a free tool by some guys who have done all the work! It's illuminating to discover that your imagined ship is not sufficiently stable, or lacks adequate hull volume to carry out needed functions! The interface is not the friendliest, but I trust the output. Visit http://www.springsharp.com/ My advice: hire those guys for working on your game's shipyard. Your 3D model maker will be wonderful, I'm sure. And with good scientific integrity behind the design work, your game can not only be a game and a history lesson, but a revelation to those people who have yet to clamber below decks on an old warship and wonder, "Huh! I wonder why they did THAT!"

Pandakraut, I changed out my files for the recent version and then started a BG Federal campaign. I am shocked at officer losses - like I've never seen before. It is not uncommon to lose 5 leaders even in a minor battle. As an example, I just finished Seven Pines... I only absorbed 2529 casualties, but I lost 4 leaders! Thank goodness 3 of those were from borrow units! Is there anything in the changes that might account for this?I realize it may be luck of the draw, but I've had to take every officer offered for reputation, my Barracks is empty of unwounded guys (and there are only 2 wounded because of the KIAs), and there are only 2 better than a Major left for me to hire! I've only been able to make 3 units in my 3rd Corps for want of leaders (and weapons) and one of those is currently leaderless from a previous fight.

I have to ask - when you talk about a minimum scaling point, is there a known optimal or possible unit size for each engagement? - On my last BG campaign with your Rebalance mod I worked up to 1500 men and pretty much kept that size through the campaign (although I believe I went to 1600 if I judged the available weapons for a particular brigade as inferior to the rest).

I agree, Longstreet - the devolution of command to the next-ranking officer was prototypical and pretty automatic. Officers knew where they stood in seniority and news of a higher-level incapacitation led to the next in line stepping up. The sudden and nearly complete loss of Efficiency in vanilla when an officer gets winged is a problem I'm glad the modders have solved.

Heck, I just played Shiloh in my MG CSA campaign. After rolling over everyone at BG level, I discover the AI ups its game in MG. I managed a draw... and my corps came out with only 2 of its 12 brigades, with a total of 179 men and 3 guns. Ouch! Gonna need a rematch on that one!

Woohoo! Perfect!

Has anyone put up a thread listing the battles in order, and the Corps/Brigades you can bring? Knowing when you need to increase your units is important, as otherwise your money can go toward better weapons.

I had to test what you said about, in Camp, that if you load a depleted unit with Veterans first, and then top off with "rookies" (I prefer "recruits"), you get better final stats than adding the same numbers but in the opposite order. I found that true - and I'm shocked! I have often added recruits first, consciously penalizing units that had poor performance in the previous battle with more recruits than better-performing brigades. I figured the order didn't matter ... but it does. So now the Vets will go into a unit first!

The game has never informed you that the officer casualty you're receiving notice of is a Division commander. IMO, Division commanders are almost a waste in Ultimate General. You're penalized on Efficiency on brigades if he isn't ranked high enough, but he doesn't appear on the battlefield, has no perks, doesn't gain XP at anything like the rate the brigade commanders do, and is still subject to being shot. (edit) Gosh! If they do make another Ultimate General game, I HOPE they read some of the commentary in these fora and learn what their customers think works and what doesn't work!

I see. I don't normally use YouTube when a video is embedded, so I was unaware there was a speed control on YouTube.

Pandakraut, I watched your camp video, as I have never disbanded anything to play with the recruit quality. I just want to say that your familiarity with what you are doing makes you whiz your mouse pointer around far to rapidly to follow easily. By the time I've tracked what you're pointing at, you've moved on. Your listener needs/wants to be able to read the information (for example, the rifles you have in Armory) which is not covered by your audio. Just slow yourself down some, please!

I'm glad you made detached skirmishers configurable. I use them as scouts, primarily - not as fighting units, which is what I use dedicated skirmishers for. My dedicated ones are armed with the longest-range weapon I can buy; I like sniper rifles for these formations. Of course, detached skirmishers are carrying the infantry rifle or musket of their parent formation, and are no better than that unit. The reduced casualties of troops in open formation makes the detached troops viable also as a "meat shield" for units going into assault against entrenchments. Note that using a cloud of skirmishers in front of the battle line reaches back to Napoleon and before - and most of the professional officers were trained in Napoleonic warfare. For this reason, I'm loath to give up the ability to detach skirmishers. The AI always seems to produce many skirmisher formations, which are usually twice the size of my detached units, and without my scouts before me, my brigades would often take a galling & unexpected fire. Experimentally, I reset the deploySizeMultiplier to 1.1 as apparently the default is, and restarted Richmond. I verify the brigade limit went to 30. Still, when I checked my unit organization permissions, I found I was allowed to build 4 corps, each with 8 divisions of 5 brigades (Unit Org maxed out). I still find the ability to build corps that can't carry all their brigades to ANY fight to be a flaw in the design of Ultimate General. BTW - I am SERIOUSLY hoping the designers are going to produce other, similar titles. I'd love a Napoleonic version!