pandakraut

@Grimthaur The AI strength on the campaign screen was reported in my post: Intelligence Report: 64-69k, 42-47% training, 38-43% armory. These numbers get set after the last completed battle and won't change no matter how I modify my current army. I suspect when scaling was implemented that whatever calculation generates the intelligence report numbers wasn't updated to apply the scaling factors. My goal with these tests was to see how many men I could put into my army without triggering scaling using different brigade sizes. For every test case if I added more men I would have triggered scaling, so testing larger army sizes wasn't of interest at the time. I just ran two new tests. One by adding several 2500 man brigades to the 1750 man test case and the other with maxing out units with the available weapons I had also using the 1750 test case. Test 1: CSA 63834 men with 144 guns. Union 66469 92 guns. Test 2: CSA 75329 men with 172 guns. Union 78933 178 guns. I'm somewhat surprised that the CSA scaling didn't increase more though I suspect this would be less favorable on Legendary. The scaling ratios for Antietam seem to favor allowing the union to mostly match the AI size. Playing as CSA the Antietam ratios seem to force around a 2:1 disadvantage from what I've seen. In general I like the scaling because it allows for multiple styles of play to be successful in terms of army creation. It certainly has it's realism issues, but it makes for a fun campaign. I'm currently doing a Legendary CSA play through where my normal unit size is between 1100 and 1250 and that has worked out fairly well through Chickamauga.

If you're willing to deal with manipulating scaling Antietam can definitely be worthwhile on Legendary. I was using veteran brigades with only 1100 men, rookie brigades with 1250, and 8 gun artillery units. I'm still outnumbered by about the same ratio as the other examples here but the AI units are much smaller and easier to deal with. If you can lure the AI into focusing on the fields in front of the church instead of flanking around to the northwest it makes the battle much more manageable. You can concentrate your artillery and get snipers and cavalry around the sides into the enemy artillery much easier.

@i64man It sounds like you're playing the version with the weapon changes at the moment, rather than the perks? I had a lot of fun with that iteration, so I'd probably recommend sticking to it until the latest version gets weapon updates included. The weapon prices are very expensive, so I would recommend investing in economy and medicine before politics. On my play through I started with 3 economy, bumped it up to 4 or 5 while getting AO up to 6-9(can invest less if you aren't manipulating scaling) and then maxed medicine. Since medicine returns veterans and their rifles I consider it more valuable than the other options once I've acquired enough initial equipment. I also use up all of my available reputation points buying rifles which helps a lot. The 1853 Enfields are almost always offered and they are fantastic early rifles in the mod.

@Private Keith Can you give some details on your army going into Gettysburg? Also what difficult are you playing on? If you take high casualties in every victory you can end up behind the AIs manpower and equipment strength somewhat easily.

I haven't seen any posts about the union campaign with the mod so definitely post some updates on your experiences with it.

Note that the money and manpower rewards displayed pre and post battle do account for points in politics so those will vary unless you're using a 0 politics play through. Data from a CSA Legendary campaign: Post Shiloh Government: - $75000 (18) - 3500 men (18) - 2500 1853 Enfield (11) - 750 Fayetteville (8) - 250 Whitworth (TS) (6) - 8 10 pdr Parrot (6) - Major Gen. Daniel Hill (6) - Major Gen. P.G.T. Beaureguard (6) - Brig. Gen. Joseph Kershaw (4) Post Gaines Mill Government: - $75000 (18) - 3500 men (18) - 1750 1853 Enfield (7) - 1750 1853 Enfield (7) - 8 10 pdr Parrot (5) - 8 10 pdr Ordnance (5) - Brig. Gen. Lafayette McLaws (4) - Brig. Gen. Paul Semmes (4) Post Malvern Mill Government: - $100000 (22) - 4000 men (22) - 500 LeMat (7) - 750 Fayetteville (7) - 2000 1853 Enfield (7) - 6 10 pdr Tredegar (6) - 6 6 pdr Wiard (6) - Brig. Gen. John Hood (4) - Brig. Gen. George Pickett (4) Post 2nd Bull Run Government: - $75000 (18) - 3750 men (18) - 2000 1853 Enfield (15) - 1500 CS Richmond (11) - 8 12 pdr Whitworth (7) - 8 14 pdr James (7) - Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead (4) - Brig. Gen. William Barksdale (4) - Brig. Gen. Richard Garnett (4) Post Antietam Government: - $70000 (30) - 3500 men (30) - 2000 1853 Enfield (15) - 1500 CS Richmond (15) - 8 24 pdr Howitzer (10) - 8 10 pdr Tredegar (7) - Brig. Gen. A.P. Hill (5) Post Fredericksburg Government: - $70000 (30) - 3500 men (30) - 2000 1853 Enfield (15) - 1500 CS Richmond (15) - 8 24 pdr Howitzer (15) - Major Gen. Wililam Hardee (15) - Major Gen. Leonidas Polk (15) Post Stones River Government: - $60000 (30) - 3000 men (30) - 2000 1853 Enfield (20) - 1500 CS Richmond (20) - 500 LeMat (20) Post Chancellorsville Government: - $80000 (40) - 5000 men (40) - 3000 1853 Enfield (25) - 2000 CS Richmond (25) - Brig. Gen. James Pettigrew (5) Post Gettysburg Government: - $75000 (35) - 4000 men (35) - 3000 1853 Enfield (25) - 2000 CS Richmond (25) - 1000 Fayetteville (25) - Major Gen. Patrick Cleburn (8)

CSA Legendary campaign with the mod update. Have made it through Gettysburg in decent shape. The strength of skirmishers and cavalry make Rio Hill, Brandy Station, and the first phase of Gettysburg very difficult to complete without significant losses. 1st day of Gettysburg required a complete change of strategy as capturing McPhersons Ridge early resulted in getting slaughtered by artillery and skirmishers. Might be easier if you don't put a third of your infantry brigades into the division that doesn't show up on day 1 though. Spencers, 1863's, snipers, and 20 pdr parrots are starting to show up and they are all extremely dangerous when you're heavily outnumbered and can't pick them off. Everettsville was also much harder than vanilla. Morale damage when fighting in heavy cover is extremely low. Isolated brigades can withstand fire from 3 sides for a long time. I'm expecting the first phase of Chickamauga and trying to win on the second day(third day trigger is bugged) to be a nightmare.

@LAntorcha Have you checked if the armory changes apply to the custom battles? If the weapon numbers could be increased there those could be useful for testing multiple weapon types against the same scenario.

The scaling at Shiloh and other battles that feature allied units definitely seems to be impacted by the allied unit sizes. You can absolutely see it in the size of enemy units even if numerical scaling is kept down. Using small unit sizes(1100 men each) I was able to get a bit better than a 2:1 ratio on CSA Legendary. 39359 men 113 guns vs 72902 men 208 guns. This was with the realism mod installed in case that has any impact outside of ease of getting kills and reducing manpower.

Reposting my data on Antietam as the Union from reddit

I've gone through the early part of both the Union and CSA campaigns on multiple difficulties and ballast units seem to be of limited usefulness prior to Shiloh. I suspect that either the number of brigades or total force size limits are so low early on that ballast units aren't worth it. Going with smaller size units early definitely can keep scaling down though. While the standard rules normally hold true(ballast units are useful in side battles, not useful in major battles, and more numerous smaller units can keep enemy unit sizes down) I would recommend experimenting with every method on all battles. You'll notice very quickly if they are having an impact and sometimes the normal rules are not followed. I've hit side battles where ballast units trigger scaling. I suspect this is due to building up for a major battle and then being over some total force size limit for the next side battle. The multi day battles that only show the starting strength are particularly problematic since you can't probably tell if you're triggering scaling. I've also hit major battles where ballast units somehow do reduce scaling. I've done extensive testing on Union Antietam MJ and ballast units never helped. But on my last run through of Antietam as CSA on legendary they did reduce scaling. I've even seen cases where adding men to core units reduces scaling when adding a ballast unit would increase it. Maybe it has something to do with the army size you come in with or how much you have depleted the opposing manpower pool coming in, but I haven't been able to find anything consistent.

Since one of the 3 star cavalry perks gives a cover bonus, is it possible to assign all of the 1 star perks a negative cover trait and increase damage taken that way?

Tried Lemats for the first time. They are insanely good for hit and run. The reload time takes forever but a 450 man 2 star unit will get 150-200 kills per volley on open ground.

The range falloff could definitely be part of the issue. In the vanilla game I would try to keep tredegars firing at medium(700-900 range). In the mod I've been trying to use them as highly accurate long range artillery suppression. If the tredegar inherently falls off at a certain point, combined with the low damage, that would explain some of the poor performance I've seen. As for massing them at 450 more per gun than 24pdrs it's hard to fit them in. I would normally only have max 2-3 units worth so I might not have the right play style for them. I wish the custom battles gave more freedom in army construction. It would make it much easier to test rather than having to play dozens of battles in a campaign to build up enough guns. If it would be useful for you to have more data on something let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Some feedback after playing through 2nd Manassas as CSA on legendary(vanilla weapon names used) Tredegars feel very weak. They are very poor at dealing with infantry at any range in comparison to the rest of the artillery options and do not feel particularly effective at counter battery fire either. The 10pdr Parrot feels far more effective at both tasks despite the smaller range and at half the price. 12pdr howitzers are great at short and medium range. They feel so effective I haven't felt any need to move to Napoleons or 3in. 24pdrs are still a significant upgrade though. After a bit of an adjustment infantry weapons feel fine. The progression is a little odd in that after getting 1853 enfields nothing feels like an upgrade until 1861s or later. Unless it's possible to completely revamp the enemy weapon scaling not much to be done though. This may work out better on easier difficulties where you don't capture upgrades quite so quickly. Snipers are still very good, maybe slightly weaker than in vanilla outside of the 750 range on the scoped whitworths. Command units do feel overly resistant to sniper fire if they are in any kind of cover though. Maybe that's a positive. The mod changes seem to have made condition less of a concern. Snipers can fire all battle long if they aren't constantly running back and forth through bad terrain. Infantry units can run across half the map and still be able to exchange fire for an extended period of time without becoming exhausted.

Good catch and updated. The downsides of manual data entry on not enough sleep. If you have a way to pull the values automatically with your program that would be far more reliable. Related to the horse artillery idea, have you tried a live test with them? The Artillerist's guide has a lot of anecdotal data about which guns are more effective with different shot types at various distances. Would be interesting to see what happens when you start cobbling a new type together. If there are additional hidden variables involved that would complicate things. JonnyH13 mentioned there was a splash damage value in another post.

I just tried this in the historical battle where old cold harbor was listed as contested when the mission timer hit 0. The battle continued until contested hit 0 and resulted in a victory. The draw was because you didn't take less than 40% casualties in your initial force. The victory conditions apparently only consider forces on the field rather than total army size committed. 8750 deployed, 3864 casualties. I was able to reproduce a draw under the same conditions when I took enough casualties. If you haven't captured old cold harbor, still control the central breastworks, and haven't taken too many casualties when the timer hits 0 the battle should move to the left flank. Assuming you don't capture victory points early and don't take too many loses the battle should keep switching between the left and right flank and extend to 3 days.

I realized I could just copy the accuracy max hex values over the accuracy min values and have the game translate for me. Spreadsheet has been updated with the vanilla decimal accuracy values and damage high/low values. Still needs to get cleaned up and compiled with the rest of in game values though at that point should probably move to a dedicated forum thread. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DGEviwckiN_zrMz7cN2swtkIb0REe24GQLaz5Vu2qss/edit?usp=sharing

Doc below contains a list of all weapons with their hex values for each stat for the vanilla game. I was using some of the examples in older modding guides on the forum to determine which values to pull. I made the assumption that the accuracy max values immediately followed the accuracy min values. This was based on some old screenshots in the modding tutorials, the consistency of values, and that those values were changed by the mod. So I could be completely wrong. My next step was going to be comparing against the modded values to see what patterns were visible and to start trying to convert the hex into readable decimal values. Do you know the formula for converting the accuracy hex values into the decimal that the game displays multiplied by 10? If that is known and I have the right value for the accuracy max then it wouldn't take long to get a damage range spreadsheet setup at least. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DGEviwckiN_zrMz7cN2swtkIb0REe24GQLaz5Vu2qss/edit?usp=sharing Note I didn't include most of the test weapons that are in the assets file. Most of them had values fairly inconsistent with the rest of the weapons. Exception is rifle_US_1855_58_RF_TEST since it wasn't listed with the rest of the test weapons.

Thanks for posting the spreadsheets. I'm working on creating something similar for the base game, but I'm new to reading hex files so it has been slow going.

In your comment on Aetius' Camp post Potomac Fort video you mentioned that the weapon accuracy values displayed in the UI were misleading. Is there any chance you have a document which lists the accuracy values used by your mod that you could post as a readme? If that information isn't easily available, adding some details in your original post about how the accuracy ranges work would be very helpful. If you only have the UI stats to go on there doesn't appear to be much reason to upgrade to the later rifles. Creating a document of the values used in the base game would also be very useful as it may reveal that certain weapons are actually more useful than they appear. Was all of this information in the resources.assets file? Your mod encouraged me to try and use far more cavalry than I have in the past and I'm looking forward to future updates.