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Gazza

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Landsmen

Landsmen (1/13)

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  1. I’ve just finished a MG Union campaign with the historical mod [1.27/1.28], I have to say it’s the most fun I’ve had with UGCW in a very long while. I like the way it looks and plays, it made me rethink my strategies and battle tactics. The days of straight victories through a MG campaign are over! Had many, many desperate battles, often they were right on a knife edge or went down to the wire, not at all comfortable! Lost four battles: Cramptons Gap, Siege of Suffolk, Supply Raid & Second Winchester Drew three battles: Parker's Crossroads, Chickamagua & Harrison's Creek Here are some of my observations / thoughts: USA unable to add recruits to existing regiments: Good feature. One of your objectives was to reduce the excessive casualties. Campaign losses were 767k, pretty close to the historical total of 750k (I think this is the latest accepted estimate). Did not get any of my USA units up to 3 stars? The Iron Brigade stood alone. Spent virtually all of my reputation points on recruits? USA was still fitted out with quite basic weapons at the end of the campaign? Never really had enough cash or spare reputation points to upgrade? Best equipment I had was captured. This campaign as the USA did not see men or materiel advantages. LOS limitations: Sometimes quite frustrating, I understand that you’ve used them to set difficulty, but counter‑intuitive when you can’t spot units right out in the open. Maybe back it off a little for MG? Movement speed: Again, I understand that you’ve used this to set difficulty, but counter‑intuitive when charging CSA infantry catches my mounted cavalry, across open ground with a head start. Maybe back it off a little for MG? CSA Forrest’s cavalry / skirmishers (in general?): Maybe too overpowered? They’re super deadly! e.g. Parker's Crossroads & Chickamagua (you’re working in the south, return up north, where have those units gone? Ah, those deadly invisible skirmishers again). Skirmisher brigade size: Capacity grows through the campaign, 1k seems too big to me, Maybe limit size to 50% of infantry regiment size? Nansemond River: Are the USA gunboats overpowered? The battle was very one sided once they appeared. Supply Raid: Imbalanced playing as USA? USA has 3k troops vs CSA’s 13k. Is this imbalance a result of the 250 cavalry limit in the mod? Chain Charging: Lost Cramptons Gap, Second Winchester & Siege of Suffolk to this. CSA infantry just chain charged me off the map as soon as it spotted my units. Tried dozens of times with different strategies, unit mixes etc. Couldn’t even get established on the map to fight. In the end I just retreated of these maps without fighting to minimise campaign losses. Did manage one draw of Siege of Suffolk, but with losses of 10k from corp of 12k, unsustainable. Cold Harbour – day 1: Same thing happened here, just got chain charged off the map time and time again. I only managed to continue the battle (campaign) by using cavalry to draw CSA off to the edges of the map and then dashing in to take the victory point just before the timer ran out. I don’t think this is how this day’s battle should play out given the parity in numbers and all of the USA breastworks? I wonder if the upgraded stats of forts will assist with this (assuming breastworks have also been improved?). Multi day battles repositioning: I’m guessing this is unfixable? By the end of the first day, yes, held them off, good defensive positions established at last, wake up the next day, whoa, what did my units do overnight! Cold Harbour: Last day ends too early on timer? Both of the previous days fighting took place late afternoon through evening, nice early start on the final day, plenty of time, what! The battle timer runs out at lunchtime? Did feel that I was up against the timer for loads of battles. Pace of mod is great, maybe extend some of the battle times? Reviewing this before posting I thought it could be interpreted as sour grapes over those lost / drawn battles, it’s not. They were mentioned because they were the anomalies of the bunch, no other reason. Great mod!
  2. Update: Turns out this was a problem with the file editor I was using (or my use of it). This makes sense as it was only me being affected. Historical submod is running fine with Ironman 'false'. Hi, I don't think it's the victory condition bug. It's something to do with Ironman. It's not cosmetic, the finish button is disabled when the timer ends and you cannot exit the battle. I reinstalled UGCW, completed a vanilla test campaign battle that saved, exited and loaded correctly. I reinstalled the J&P mod, completed a test campaign battle that saved, exited and loaded correctly. I reinstalled the Historical submod (edited the Historical.txt file to set Ironman 'false'), completed a test campaign battle. Once the timer ended the finish button was disabled. The save file, saved just before the timer expired, reloads, but takes you back to the army camp before the battle has started. As the only way to exit the battle was via the menu there are no other save files available. It appears that even though the edited Historical.txt file Ironman is set to 'false', there is something else in the background that is not reset to align with 'false'. It's consistent throughout the game, I've experienced the issue on intermediate and major battles. As far as I can see, it appears that the Historical submod works with Ironman 'true' but not 'false'.
  3. Hi Adishee, there seems to be some trouble with the Ironman on / off option. I have set the value to false, so should be able to save & load. However what happens is that everything seems ok and you are able to save as often as you wish through a battle, but when the timer expires and the 'finish' button appears it doesn't work, it's not possible to end the battle? So save and reload, sometimes this gets you the 'end of battle' victory screen and you can continue your game and sometimes it just resets to the start of the battle just completed? Other times when you try to save or exit it is in Ironman mode and allows you to save Ironman. At the moment its not working as Ironman or normal just some weird mix between the two.
  4. Edit: The Historical screenshots below were taken at the very end of a campaign, I'm guessing that the Training level was high enough to make the recruits behave like veterans when added to regiments. Tried this out with a new campaign and the functionality is working correctly, high investment in Training will get you recruits with good stats. Edit: Ignore the post below, invalid. Hi Adishee, I've grabbed some screenshots to assist in explaining one of my previous comments posted (shown below in quotes). Hopefully this will demonstrate what I was trying to get across with the words. "Recruitment - recruiting new soldiers into a regiment – in J&P to retain a regiment’s stats / experience you needed to buy veterans while recruiting rookies degrades a regiment’s stats / experience (I assume this is your intention too having disabled veteran recruitment and provided the ability to combine veteran regiments in Camp?) However I’ve noticed that when you add recruits (rookies) to a regiment in the ‘Historical’ submod the regiment’s stats / experience do not visibly deteriorate at all? Might be worth checking behind the scenes to ensure that the new recruits being added are indeed tagged as rookies as against veterans." J&P rebalance mod - regiment to upgrade - pre upgrade J&P rebalance mod - regiment upgraded with veterans - post upgrade Experience, efficiency, morale, stamina, firearms and melee values all retained at pre upgrade levels, no change to values, when unit filled with veterans. Easier / quicker to obtain next regiment perk. If you recruit veterans all of the time you will have more starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. they have obtained perks). J&P rebalance mod - same regiment upgraded with rookies - post upgrade Experience (-40), efficiency (-2), morale (-28), stamina (-15), firearms (-14) and melee (+2) values all changed from pre upgrade levels when unit filled with rookies. Harder / longer to obtain next regiment perk. If you recruit rookies all of the time you will have very few starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. not many will obtain perks). Historical submod - same regiment to upgrade - pre upgrade Historical submod - regiment upgraded with recruits - post upgrade Experience, efficiency, morale, stamina, firearms and melee values all retained at pre upgrade levels, no change to values, when unit filled with recruits. Easier / quicker to obtain next regiment perk. In the historical submod recruits are the equivalent of J&P rebalance mod veterans. So in the historical submod you will have more starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. they have obtained perks). Tthe historical submod has disabled the veterans / rookies selection so that all new recruits are rookies (a good feature), however in practice it seems that the recruits are actually being added as veterans. I believe that this is the opposite to the desired effect.
  5. Questions / requests With supply wagons there is a supply area (circle) displayed when they are selected. Is it possible to add this feature to the fixed supply depots on the maps? I’d like to be able to see visually the extent of their range for positioning regiments? Could you please provide a table (spreadsheet?) cross referencing the ‘Historical’ submod’s career choices (politics, economy etc.) against the benefits accrued at each of the levels 1 through 10? A quick look up guide would much improve the career choices element of the game. I often felt I was guessing a little rather than making informed choices when assigning career points. LOS – I wonder if this could be extended to include the division’s second in command? Maybe the 1st brigade officer (or the 1st brigade as his proxy) could be assigned a LOS level perk too? Less than the Generals but more than the rest of the brigades? I feel this second pair of eyes would improve gameplay somewhat as the early game LOS limitations are quite frustrating. Maybe the 6th brigade could also get this LOS so there are 3 pairs of eyes per division? Here’s one for you. How about a complimentary skirmisher and cavalry regiment for the player? To make it through the campaign I often end up using just infantry and artillery. Whilst I always like having skirmishers and cavalry available in the intermediate battles, I cannot afford to release the slots for these weaker regiments, in the grand battles they are often sidelined. What about an extra brigade containing a skirmisher and cavalry regiment for the player? Or they could be attached to the General as staff? Or part of the army like supply wagons? In the army but not counted against the players slots. My thinking on this is; that it would make the intermediate battles more interesting (fun) by having all types of regiment included in all battles LOS historically cavalry were the eyes of the army They could be limited to the LOS perks only I guess the AI would also need the same forces for equality. Losses could be made up from the players recruitment pool automatically in Camp. The third regiment slot could be defined as a sniper regiment?
  6. Observations - ‘Historical’ submod Difficulties LOS – your General – in the early campaign you have to use him to spot enemy regiments, however he can be targeted and picked off LOS – the option of using skirmishers out in front of infantry regiments for improved LOS is negated by the fact that the skirmishers block the infantry behind them from firing, when the skirmishers are pulled back the enemy regiments get hidden again, so you end up advancing your infantry from cover into fire just to be able to return fire LOS – counter artillery fire – difficult / impossible during early campaign – your artillery regiments can be picked off by the AI before you’ve even located theirs skittish Generals – he’s gone again, oh no, killed? No just run off into the distance far far away from the action – have to use hold to keep him in position manoeuvring skirmisher regiments – long regiment footprint often gets them caught up and wiped out in melees – need to retreat them quite some way to enable any safe lateral movement (could they get a smaller footprint when moving?) Charge! - in the early campaign confederate regiments seem to charge on sight almost the instant they encounter USA troops? Potential issues / bugs? Recruitment - recruiting new soldiers into a regiment – in J&P to retain a regiment’s stats / experience you needed to buy veterans while recruiting rookies degrades a regiment’s stats / experience (I assume this is your intention too having disabled veteran recruitment and provided the ability to combine veteran regiments in Camp?) However I’ve noticed that when you add recruits (rookies) to a regiment in the ‘Historical’ submod the regiment’s stats / experience do not visibly deteriorate at all? Might be worth checking behind the scenes to ensure that the new recruits being added are indeed tagged as rookies as against veterans. Battles using pre-supplied regiments (Union - Supply Depot & Salem Church) – both of these battles were impossible to win because of the scaling – in the Supply Depot battle I counted at least 20 infantry regiments - odds of at least 20:1 against for each battle. Is it the same for these types of battles in the confederate campaign? I recollect that prior versions of the J&P mod had negated this scaling issue somewhat and made these battles more manageable? Supply wagons don't rout even when their armies are long gone – they stay on the field, available for capture. Supply wagons - often seem to be full with supplies after capture (is the AI consuming supplies like the player?) Overabundance of cannons in armoury? (maybe also muskets / rifles?). Caveat: Not played UGCW, USA or as BG for a while so may have just forgotten how it is for the USA as against the CSA (my previous campaign). As the CSA part of the fun is scrabbling together ad hoc regiments with whatever weapons you have managed to obtain. In the submod, very early in the campaign it was similar as the USA. However it soon became clear that there were way more cannons than I could ever use. Given the lower regiment sizes (e.g. 6 gun artillery) have the availability of weapons in the armoury been scaled back appropriately? N/A – no screen shot or specific save file Gettysburg – part way through the battle Ironman mode kicked in? seem to remember one regiment being named the 0th rather than 1st ? N/A - already reported First battle – regiment numbers changing between scenarios Smoke – sometimes blacks out whole screen – easily sorted with save and load Note1: Loads of save files available if you need them for analysis. Note2: Some of the above may relate to the J&P mod rather than the ‘Historical’ submod.
  7. Likes - ‘Historical’ submod I like these submod features; visuals – the smaller and more numerous sprites regiment sizing – 1025 infantry, 6 guns etc. regiment naming the increased number of brigades the reduced number of regiments per brigade (3) ironman mode optional chain charge (think this is base J&P) Generals targeted by AI fallback combine regiments in Camp plenty of officers available officer promotion (seems quicker) – had enough BG’s coming through the ranks for each of the new brigades ammo reloading slowed pace I like these features that have reduced exploits / gaming no save on first battle (despite my best intentions, it is easy to become a serial offender!) scaling – seems to be much better – this is a biggie for me – opposing battle forces often seemed to be better balanced (in the past, to counter the inappropriate scaling you had to get as many minimum size regiments as possible into your army – effectively dummy regiments solely to sway the scaling algorithm – gaming, but it was absolutely necessary to have a decent game – this never felt right and was quite time consuming – I had no need to do this with the submod) nerfed over powered, over sized skirmisher regiments (this stops the use of huge skirmisher regiments being used in certain battles instead of infantry) limited sniper rifles (this stops the use of large over powered sniper regiments becoming the focus and critical factor of every battle) less surrenders (now there is minimal advantage to be gained by chasing down those retreating regiments into the map corners to finish them off, if you do they often rout and flee so you don’t get the prisoners and discarded weapons. Often the only prisoners I managed to get were the crews of supply wagons) friendly fire (no more firing into melees with every available adjacent regiment) no combining regiments during battles (not available to AI so fair to disable for player)
  8. First thoughts on ‘Historical’ submod UGCW sits atop my list of games by hours played, the majority of those hours have used the J&P Rebalance mod (thanks guys, great mod). However I’ve been in the ‘comfort zone’ with the game for some time, with just an occasional visit to an old familiar favourite. Your ‘Historical’ submod seems to me to be a significant improvement, really impressive. The layers you have added onto the substantial base of the J&P mod and the changes you have made have improved the game tremendously. I’ve just given the campaign a run through as a Union BG (v1.26+). I had to rethink my standard strategies and tactics on many occasions to adapt, survive and progress, I can see many more fun hours ahead with this submod, great work, thanks.
  9. Union campaign - Supply Raid map (Chancellorville) - fortification issue. Fortification point at top left of map is not working correctly. Shows normal when empty (see screenshot) but does not have an indicator when occupied by troops of either side. If occupied by union the only way to get your troops out is to select them from the unit list.
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