pandakraut

That's likely something with the officer replacement changes breaking. I played through that battle very recently so I don't think the bug is something consistent. It sounds like you have an in battle save? Would you be able to send it to me? Save file location is C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Game Labs\Ultimate General Civil War. Save file names are not human readable, so the easiest way to find the right one is to load the save, save it under a new name and then sort the save folder by date.

You can get them to fire if you click past the unit you want to target. Holding position or giving them a different move order once they are in range(just barely outside of melee) will trigger the pistols to fire. Getting this to work is inconsistent depending on unit angles. Otherwise they will usually fire after the unit tires out and can't keep up in melee anymore. Upgrading to Lematts can be nice, but usually it's not worth upgrading unless you have more money than you know what to do with.

Other than the cross battle size reduction and any reduction you can get from kills, there is no benefit from running those last two side battles outside of loot/experience. Both of those side battles are just slogs through defenses so I wouldn't blame you for skipping them.

Accidental double post

Canister shot is always out to .25 of a cannons range. Shell shot is from .25 to .5. If you haven't tried it yet check out the UI and AI Customizations mods. I updated the weapon arcs to show the ranges.

Current list of UGCW mods: Surrender Mod: https://steamcommunity.com/app/502520/discussions/0/1694919808758873844/

My understanding is that the elevation lines feature was not retained from UGG because the contour lines were hand drawn and would have been a large amount of effort to replicate across a larger set of maps. Also elevation has far less impact in UGCW so that information is less relevant to the player.

That's just random chance, there is no damage increase from firing at the same target repeatedly.

Added shell and canister shot modifiers. Where the 20pdr shines is that from range ~550 to max range it basically has a degrade of .2. Whereas the 3in drops to nearly 0 at its max range. The wiard, tredegar, james, and whitworth are the only other cannon that come close to matching that consistency but all have their own trade offs. Usually in terms of lower damage or range. Being able to use shell shot out to range 1000 and deal reliable damage at 2000 range is very useful even if the fire rate is slow. If you're never using your artillery at anything further than 700 range the analysis of which cannon are useful is going to look very different. If you include firing rate the calculations change again. Another user did that kind of analysis and from what I recall the 3in was near the top in terms of dps. I tend to value the initial hit damage more than relying on being able to get off multiple rounds though which is why I didn't add that into my analysis. I would rather maximize my damage in a single volley to increase the chance to break a units morale immediately. I also think that the huge damage range of the 3in is more a flaw than it might seem if you just look at average damage. Yes it can go very high, but sometimes you get point blank canister doing almost nothing. User preference for consistency versus potential.

The mod is still under active development Jonny and I have just been busy lately so haven't made a lot of progress recently. After some additional tests the modified steam dlls do not appear to be compatible with the GoG version even if the patch version is the same. When I get the time I'll pick up a GoG copy and see if I can get it to work.

Artillery surrendering is currently not working. Will patch it in once I get some other new things working.

Nicely done! How bad is the intelligence report looking at this point?

I thought you only needed to hold until the contested timer hit 0?

The + accuracy perks affect both the accuracy low and accuracy high by the same amount. As far as I can tell + accuracy is generically good and there isn't any extra benefit to specific weapon types. Range values are the same across different weapon types. I would say the 12pdr howitzer is below average but fine at canister and short shell range. Completely usable as a cheap close support cannon. I think the 20pdr is very good. It maintains decent and reliable damage out to its max range and that range is better than nearly any other option. It is my preferred counter battery cannon. The 10pdr ordinance is a very good mid range cannon. It's very lackluster beyond mid range though and the very high damage variance means it can under perform if you get unlucky. Keep in mind that while the 10 pdr ordinance has a much higher accuracy high than the 12pdr howitzer, the 12pdr howitzers base damage is more than double the ordinance's. It's also worth noting that if you care more about firing rate certain cannon start to stand out again. With the way I play I tend to value the initial hit more than the firing rate, though others would very much disagree with me. The 24pdr is generally unmatched at close range. Much more expensive to keep it firing though and it starts to fall off pretty bad beyond mid shell range. Basically accurate. It's hard to know how much value to give to the weapon curves for rifles because of the variance in starting damage. For instance both the Tyler Texas and the 1841 Mississippi have very good curves but are held back by their other stats being lower. A lot more data and analysis would be needed, but it seems generally safe to say more expensive = better.

If you try for a full day 3 again, it sounds like you need to assign more to the church area. It might be worth splitting up larger rookie units into smaller ones. A lot of them will mostly just be standing in trenches doing nothing for most of the battle and you just need to be able to cover the area for the AI to leave you alone. If you can pull off the day 1 without hitting the 40% casualty cutoff that might be the best choice. I disagree that the battle on legendary isn't worth playing out, but it does seem like a drastically different play style is needed to come out ahead on recruits. I tend to get burned out on the campaign around this point so I have less data to go off of than with other battles. You should be able to meet the victory conditions on day 2, but I've never heard of anyone trying that option as the CSA. The VPs are far better protected than trying to do the same as the union and on day 2 they seemed to still be pretty well manned. Might be worth a test run just to scout out the lines and see if there is a place to smash through. Hard to say if it'd be better to try around the old church or old cold harbor.

My weakest corps usually holds the right, second best on the left, weakest on the right. As you weaken the union units the northern defenses of the union center tend to get stripped and you can eventually break through there on the last day. If you haven't already been abandoning some of the weaker trenches and exposed positions that aren't needed, I would definitely recommend it. The AI will often leave those areas alone if you don't man them. I usually try to have all of my best long range artillery in the center. Both to inflict as many infantry casualties as I can when the AI decides it doesn't want to push forward, but also to focus fire any union artillery that shows it's face. Keeping your artillery alive is a pain though, if you put it in the trees the collateral damage will wear them down, and if you pull them back further they will still be visible. I usually try to keep the long range artillery further back and put the howitzers at the edge of the treeline where the infantry is positioned to try and minimize the splash damage. I'll usually spend all battle trying to shift the artillery around to help, but losses will still be higher than normal. I usually slowly try and work snipers forward to get at more artillery, but it's tricky at best even with lvl 3 snipers as the cover and sight lines are very unfavorable. I've seen people break through the lines with mass cavalry to get all the artillery at well, but I've never pulled this off without taking unreasonable losses. Something that can be useful is when the AI infantry starts standing around instead of advancing you can pull your infantry from the forward trenches and replace them with detached skirmishers. This way you'll take less damage from the artillery pounding that is difficult at best to stop. This of course can cause the AI to decide to charge again so you'll have to be ready to switch your infantry back in, but this lets you continue inflicting casualties when otherwise the AI would wait out of rifle range. From what I recall on the right flank you can pull back from some of the most forward trenches and establish better lines that leave union forces out in the open more. You can usually shift all but a token force to man the fortifications from the area between the center VP and the right VP onto the hill as those lines rarely get attacked much. It will probably take some experimentation to find out how far you can stretch this though. Similarly on the left you want to pull as much as you can from the southern areas to reinforce the north as that is where the Union attacks tend to be the strongest. While the center gets hit harder, I've found this section the hardest to hold since the positions just aren't as good. On the left the union artillery is nearly impossible to spot so I put mostly close support artillery there and give up on counter battery. The lines are all solid so cavalry is of little use unless you are using it for counter charge support.

Updated cavalry spreadsheet to include the 1861 Enfield

The big thing I notice in this screenshot is you have no units on your far right. You need skirmishers and such in this area to constantly try and hit any flank you can and prevent the CSA from spreading out and enveloping you like what happens in the later screenshot. Somewhat true for your far left as well. Even just having skirmishers over there to move in and out of vision will disrupt the AI's attacks. Also, always be considering if it's worth being in fortifications or not. They will lower your damage, but allow you to take reduced damage. On the far ends of the line I would not use them most of the time if you have tree cover available. There are also two AI artillery batteries on the flanks that could be hit by sniper fire currently.

I agree, if you can trap the cavalry early on it makes the rest of the battle fairly straightforward. With the reinforcement timing I think the battle is now similar to Siege of Suffolk where you've largely won or lost the battle by the time the reinforcements show up. The reinforcements are really only there to help mop up, putting a couple cavalry units there works out nicely.

Not sure where you are getting this number from? I lost 2k, battle reward was 4200(no politics points) and I had enough prisoners to get an extra 1k recruits. If you're only looking at recruits then I'm at +3k?

Falling back is definitely difficult as the higher veterancy CSA units will usually have more speed perks than you will. Delaying skirmishers are my preference as the AI is very willing to just stand and fire at them while everyone else escapes. That screenshot looks decent though definitely get that artillery out of the fortified positions if you haven't been. With the amount of artillery you have both Cutts units, woods and trimble need to be moved north of the VP or slightly northwest of it. If you can keep them out of the woods so they do maximum damage, counterbattery fire should be limited. You want at least double lines at the VP and the trees to the west of it as most of the charges will hit there and you can't afford to lose either location. The lines closer to the river can be weaker as you can afford to get pushed back there a bit.

Wherever your first corps starts you have to be able to get them back to the landing. As you noted that corps holds most of your firepower so having it isolated makes holding the landing very difficult. Instead of retreating to the line your first corps is holding I usually move to the thick line of trees to the northeast, below the strength part of the end battle screen. I try to hold this and inflict more casualties until the AI starts massing up again. A few units might get routed as part of the retreat. I usually try to have a few rookie brigades in 1st corps to pull out last and take whatever punishment results. If your units are exhausted prior to both sides being combined or the landing opening up you are probably getting stuck in to many melees. With 1k sized units these must be avoided whenever possible against the large brigades. If you are forced into melee, stop chasing as soon as you can to preserve stamina. Buell's brigades will do little damage outside of melee. They mostly go into the fortifications and take the initial charge while the experienced units fire into melee or counter charge as needed. You want to be pushing any non musket skirmishers and any other units you can spare down both flanks once the AI bunches up in front of the landing. Getting to any of the artillery will be hard, but if you have snipers or counter battery artillery the sooner you can afford to start taking out artillery instead of breaking up charges. Day 2 is more of the same but you'll have more allied troops to soak up fire. Multiple in battle saves are worth considering here, especially if a particular phase goes well or you get to the landing in good shape. Sometimes the AI makes better decisions than others and it's possible for the battle to end in a single mass charge if you get unlucky. Also worth noting is that the random elements will be very rough here. If one of those giant brigades rolls to increase it's size and then doubles it'll be a bad time.

Full clear on Legendary 1.11 with 2k casualties. The reinforcement change is not that big a deal, just have to adapt to it.

I'll check it tomorrow. I was forcing increased surrender rates when I originally tested so maybe I overlooked something. Or the conditions are just to strict for units as relatively small as artillery are.

That looks like just the variance stuff. There are enforced minimum unit sizes which in the early battles can result in larger units. Undecided if I want to change that or not.