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pandakraut

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Posts posted by pandakraut

  1. 42 minutes ago, LAVA said:

    So it would require me to play a BG Campaign first, followed by at least a half way run through on MG, before I would have the confidence to do a Legendary one. That is a lot of time...

    It may have changed at some point, but it looks like you can select legendary immediately on a fresh install.

    25 minutes ago, LAVA said:

    As for play ability sake, IMO, it is far more important to get the logistics perk for Corps Commanders working correctly. I think the Developers are hot on fixing that so I would expect a patch sooner rather than later.

    After the hotfix the artillery logistics perk is definitely working now. The general strategy perk is also working and applies army wide now. I'm not sure yet if the other lvl 1 general perks are also army wide. Without modded values the impact is so low that it's hard to test reliably.

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  2. With the new patch the oversized brigades on Bull Run are mostly gone even on Legendary. As the Union you get about 7k fewer allied troops but face about 6k less enemy troops. Considering that's trading 0 star for 3 star that battle will now be much much easier. As the CSA you get about 8k fewer troops and face 10k less on Legendary. Depending on your army setup you can still end up facing 3.5k - 4k units. So overall Union now probably has the easier Bull Run, but they have the much harder version of Shiloh. 

    Mod update probably won't be for a few days at least. There will be a few AI and balance updates rolled in however.

  3. I think on MG you still have a decently wide array of setups available, your margin for error just gets smaller. Everyone I've heard of who has played MG so far has gone through with a completely different army setup. Once you've gotten a good ways through BG I think you may find that going back to the early missions will be entirely manageable on a higher difficulty. There are all kinds of tricks you will start to pick up that can let you deal with even overwhelming odds.

    Glad to see you experimenting with the career points. There is a starting point setup that no one has even talked about yet that might be actually be the strongest start.

  4. Big brigades are overrated :) I've gone all the way past Chickamauga using nothing bigger than veteran units at 1.1k and rookies at 1.3k on Legendary and most of the army is at the Veteran size. May have had to bulk up slightly for Cold Harbor and those last few battles of storming fortifications, got distracted by learning how to mod the game though. With the current strength of artillery in the mod you'd probably have to go slightly larger since you'll take more casualties before you can kill them off.

  5. I tend to try and grow wide instead of tall and get the experience that way. I've found I usually can field more total men that way. Also helps you rank up more officers which is super important in the mod, though you spend a lot of money getting them. Jonny tells me my units are too small every time he sees me play :P

    The side battles being fun with the larger brigades is good news as that is likely going to be the case in the future, at least on the harder difficulties.

  6. If you were using brigades in the 1.2k - 1.5k range at bull run and had more than 2 infantry units you definitely added several thousand men due to scaling. I'm nearly certain you triggered it for the side battles. I checked my old saves and even on legendary I'm not facing anything much bigger than 2k in the side battles before Shiloh. I play a bit on the smaller end but hitting 4k would have required adding a ton of men. Though again, could be you just got super unlucky with the reinforcement types.

    36k to 64k at Shiloh is in the right range for Shiloh MG in the mod currently. The unit sizes should probably come down a bit though. I've gotten so used to seeing 3 or even 4 to 1 odds that 2:1 seems normal in most cases. Dealing with the huge brigades is definitely a giant pain with the limited resources you have initially. At Bull Run you can take them apart with cavalry, but that's not really feasible at Shiloh. Though once you get some 2 - 3 star artillery I've found you can start wrecking just about anything currently.

    I actually kind of like the random side battles with allied troops is it gives you a bit more variety. Especially with the cavalry focused ones it gives you a chance to try using large numbers of those units without dealing with the cost of setting it up. With the impact of perks in the mod currently, pushing at least some of those units up to 1 star is probably a good idea.

  7. I'm surprised to hear that you're facing 5k+ brigades on MG. I checked Legendary CSA and while there is one 5.7k brigade and around eight 3.5-4k brigades the rest are 3k or smaller. I'm sitting at 38.5k vs 85k These are mostly 1-2 star so they were managable. On MG the AI capped at 72k for me and I can bring up to 45k if I use up all the muskets. The cap will change a bit based on your previous battles but in my case I'm only seeing 6 units over 3k and only one of those is 4.5k. Once you get past Shiloh unless you're building very large you probably won't see any AI units over 2.9k on MG.

    What is your average infantry brigade size? The allied units largely determine the scaling at Bull Run and Shiloh but you can definitely push it up if you go overboard. Though in my experience that only really happens on Legendary. How did your earlier battles go? Did you largely kill off most of the enemy forces? It's also possible you had bad luck with the reinforcements randomization. I've seen that push the AI up an additional 6-10k early on.

    Your issue with weapon availability, specifically were you low on money or low on weapons to buy? Can you post your career setup?

    I'm a bit confused about the supply raid comment. Supply Raid is the union battle pre Chancellorsville were the player has all allied cavalry units. If the player has a large enough army it can cause the AI troops to scale far past the size of the allied troops, though it seems to be less of an issue in that battle than at Brandy Station. 

     

  8. Just to make sure, by skipping the second day of Phillipi you mean the second phase where you have to hold the city against a new set of attacking units and the train? I had no clue it was even possible to skip that.

    Things are still in the planning phases, but currently the idea is that the campaign changes that boost difficulty will start to take affect at MG or higher. I agree that less experienced players have enough to learn already, and don't need any additional tricks thrown at them.

    It definitely sounds like you're on the right path to adjusting to the mod. For me, the most enjoyable part of the mod is that it requires coming up with new solutions to battles that I've already 'solved' in the base game. So it's nice to hear that others are getting a similar experience. 

     

  9. We released with the knowledge that on Legendary some of the battles with allied units would be absurdly difficult if not impossible. Things will be smoothed out a bit in the campaign release. Some of the issue is the size scaling, but as you noted the experience gap is very difficult to overcome with how strong perks are. Restarting battles until the AI gets a bad perk selection can work but it's clearly not a long term solution.

    Ranged cavalry and skirmishers are in an awkward place at the moment, partially because they share weapons. If we make the carbines better to make non sniper skirmishers stronger then ranged cavalry becomes ridiculous. We're working on some alternatives to improve this.

    It's good news that a variety of cannon continue to be useful though clearly there are some outliers and the upper end probably needs to come down a bit or at least take much longer to reach.

  10. 4 minutes ago, aileycc said:

    How early can you promote to Major General? It seems like the mod prevents you from getting MGs too early on.. Is that true?

    The changes to the officer experience mean that even on MG and Legendary you don't start with a MG and the reward MGs will only be BG. As the Union on Legendary you can get a MG by Bull Run if you push for it. Not sure if you can do it as the CSA though I also haven't tried. As the CSA rushing the MG feels less necessary.

    The ability for the player to create massive brigades is probably completely overpowered even on Legendary once you get them online. 

  11. I went with a completely different strategy for Shiloh on Legendary but don't really want to say more as I'd rather people experiment and see what is possible. Hopefully someone better than me can manage it with less blatant exploitation of the AI. Still took 20k casualties with a bit more than half of those being my own men, which is definitely the worst losses I have ever had in that battle.

    Both Secure River and Crossroads can be completed with <1k casualties on Legendary if you discover how the AI is setup to work.

  12. @Louis Davout Your conclusions are strikingly similar to how Jonny has described his goals of where weapons should end up. Weaker than base game for 0 star units, stronger than base game with the right perks. Some of the damage spikes from a single perk are too high, I'd like to see the damage curve even out a bit more. Whitworths clearly need to be looked at, though I think any artillery with shot/shell and an accuracy bonus is currently too strong.

    The xp gain definitely needs to be changed. Especially on legendary where there are so many men you are basically at late game once you make it past Shiloh. The WWI feel should be setting in closer to cold harbor than 2nd Bull Run. Assuming you can make it past Shiloh, not an easy task the battle took me 6 hours as the Union, the rest of the campaign is comparatively easy. Though if you make your army huge and force the AI into having 4k+ units again that would probably change.

    CSA Legendary felt difficult but entirely manageable. The easy access to 1 and 2 star troops, lower experience of the oversize union brigades, and overall easier early battles makes it a much easier start than the Union. Building up a good enough melee and artillery corps to get through the fortifications in the last 3-4 battles might be the more difficult part of the campaign.

    Union Legendary I'd currently only recommend if you want to try and solve a puzzle. It took me at least a dozen attempts to find a way through the first 2 battles in good enough shape to manage Bull Run and Shiloh is barely playable. Extreme AI manipulation may be required to progress. 

  13. 3 hours ago, Zenneh said:

    Regarding Salem:- I think the only way is to do it like supply run - take the point then lure them all away from it or do it last second a cheesy tactic though 

    Are you referring to supply raid on this current run of BG or in the base game? In the mod with your size of army I would expect that to also be drastically over scaled. It's definitely possible to wipe out the enemy on that mission even on Legendary in the base game.

    An eye towards scaling is probably a good idea on MG and above. In the base game the AI will cap out but that won't be the case in the mod. That doesn't mean it's necessary to play a minimal campaign, but at least until you have a good corps of veterans that can handle many times there number going overboard with giant rookie units is probably a mistake. The upside is you get a decent spotting bonus for going 2 recon in the mod.

    On the harder difficulties I think the intro missions are actually some of the harder battles in the game. Partially because of the secondary objective of preserving your starting units. I've lost or abandoned both plenty of times. Why the in game timers are intentionally misleading I'll never understand.

  14. I entirely forgot that Salem Church used allied units for the Union, and I indeed do not have a save for it so it never got tested. That scaling is likely going to be quite a surprise on Legendary... 

    It's been a while since I played it but it may still be winnable for you, though you'll probably have to draw them into attacking you. Might have to sneak in behind for the flag towards the end as well. 0 star troops are terrible in the mod though, so might not be possible.

    Otherwise how has the campaign been going with such an over sized first corps? Are you regularly facing over sized units? Does the scaling keep it a challenge even with the huge numbers you can deploy? We've done most of our testing on Legendary where setting something like that up isn't really feasible so any feedback on how things play out on BG would be appreciated.

  15. Checked my install to try the 2nd corps supply and it doesn't work for me. Max of 35k. 

    I wrote up a long response about artillery, but I think it really just boils down to snipers again :) They take up slots that you use to field extra artillery, and they mostly perform the flanking shots role for me in the initial stages of a battle.

    The current state of the mod I'm working on makes snipers much harder to get going and provides a better speed perk for artillery. I'm going to give your approach a try there.

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