nik_nv

Guys, I'm sure the visible sizes of the ships are not correct in this game. Look at the image, the 3000 tons destroyer should NOT look the same as a 16000 tons heavy cruiser..

I play MG legendary always. This time the Gettysburg is very interesting, I guess because my total forces were weaker or equal to Union army. During the first phase, the attack on that Oak and Seminary ridges was sooo realistic! The Seminary ridge changed the side 4 or 5 times, I captured it then had to retreat and like that several times! One moment I though I play against a human not AI.. such effective it was the enemy' defensive tactic. Look at my losses, 46,5% from the attacking corps. The first time I see the game behave such interesting. If my north corps did not arrive I could probably loose the battle. When my north corps came to the map, the Union brigades quickly retreated to the city and then to Cemetery Hill, like during historical battle, amazing! Only some of them I could manage to catch in the city. Usually, AI brigades are just standing and waiting when I crush them, but now I see something new. I think due to numbers (almost equal) and quality of the forces (3 stars brigades on the both sides) the game used some different algorithms than usual..

Finally I've got historically correct (almost!) Gettysburg. It was VERY hard and "very costly".. At the end, after capturing Little Round Top, I defended it against arrived Union reinforcements (25000+) with few brigades each around 500-1000 men only! With only 15 guns.. Only the features of the capturing mod saved me..

Not sure what approach you used, but like most battles in the game Mule Shoe can be broken pretty easily. Something Compass recently played it in the base game with 5k losses for 50k kills. There is no strategy at all, I just wait until union units start to charge.. and they go to my rear and outside the map surrendered 😄 The remaining artillery and those hard headed units I just clean up later..

That mod is something.. I usually manage to capture 60%++ of the enemy's army. There should be more strict limitations for that case when the unit decides to surrender, like its commander should be dead or wounded and the unit has lost 50% of its men for 0*-1* and up to 80% for 2*-3* together with morale drop to 0 and there are some wavering units around.. Otherwise almost any charge for AI may end up with some surrendered units. P.S. I easily win that battle at the Mule Shoe for CSA (with 50%+ of enemy army surrendered..). How comes its possible..

I have an idea. Its supposed to be there a cap stating if when the unit is destroyed (and become that retreating crowd moving out of the field), I guess it's 5%. You can try to find it and increase.

Why to do not let AI to completely retreat? Why the player can do it for his units but AI can not? If AI feels it is loosing the battle the best strategy is to retreat right, not stack in the corner, but move out from the map. Is there an issue in the base game? I never saw AI completely removing its units, I saw it only for captured ones.. AI retreating will resolve many realism problems with too many kills/captives.

The bright example of how AI is working in this game is Antietam. If you play for CSA It was scripted for that battle for AI to attack just 2 areas (the church and the sunken road), so the whole enemy army is trying go there regardless of how strong is your position and what's happening on flanks. So if you have managed to stop their push at the corn field they will stand there until you encircle them and destroy/capture all. It's possible to win (with total wiping out the enemy!) even if you have just 30k army against 80k (the most I tested), just stop them at the corn field and then the enemy numerous advantage will not matter anymore.. Not only, the skirmishers now are more fast than cavalry! pandakraut please fix it 😓

It will be very interesting to see of how the damage system is working in this new game.. The best of what I ever saw it was in the great naval battles 3-4. I really don't want the upcoming game to be like that arcade world of warships, beautiful but childish.. P.S. Remember of how heavy SMS Seydlitz was damaged in Jutland, but survived.

Please find a way to open the whole map at once.. I'm so tired from that micro-maps 😒

Played the 1st bull run again for CSA on legendary. Well, it was a little more hard, more casualties, but it's ONLY because of poor weapon. Old musketes with 250 effective range against Enfield 1853 with 400 range.. What to suggest: 1. Dig for that AI scripts, it's really stupid for now, I can predict what will be the AI' next step with 100% precision. It's simply tries to charge me if it seems I'm outnumbered. Actually this can work as a trap for AI, I usually put behind my "weak" unit some strong melee cavalry, and they charge back the attackers and.. attackers surrenders! Then this story happens again and again.. 2. Artillery does not surrender! This is actually the problem, if they are too many like 1000 ohh it takes much time to kill them all, tired of that.. 3. Morale drop in case of flanking damage is too much. It's not good for both sides. My units suffer excessively much from some far cannon and enemy's units suffer some unfair damage when charging. I suggest to consider the distance at first.. 4. Long range cavalry is too strong even in melee fight. How many times I used them to capture some wavering units.. I think that cavalry rifles should have the melee damage no more than 50 even for the best ones.. 5. I don't know how to make it, but in artillery duels damage/destroying the guns is more important than loosing men. So let's consider the situation when an artillery unit has lost all its guns.. I suggest to transform it to skirmisher with a poor weapon.

Yes, correct, and I enjoy it. At least it looks more realistic, people don't want to die right.

Potomac fort for CSA, legendary difficulty.. Is that so legendary?

Ohh thats very very basic approach so far.. There should be geometric calculations about the overall formation/coordinates of own and enemy units so the AI can always track the Cannes scenario and protect flanks. It's actually does not matter how strong the units, I managed to completely wipe out huge 100k enemy army having only 50k+ my brave 2-3 stars men. I just surrounded them by skirmishers (!) and artillery (so they have constant damage and morale drop), so after 10-15 min almost half of enemy' army start to surrender..

Hmm, this is not friendly solution for modders. If you are close to developers you can suggest them to use like LUA or XML for scripting in the next release, especially for scripting the battles. Really, there some battles (like that one where you have to attack a bridge) where you are in such tiny parts of the source map, so there is no choice for the players, it contradicts with reality where you always have a choice to attack or maneuver.. Same problem, there are no AI scripts are opened. How do they program the behavior of CPU army? It would be nice to see some mod or modding abilities in this part. There a lot of games where you can programm NPC' behavior making them as really smart and formidable opponent. I understand the current game is like civil war' live encyclopedia, but anyway just with a little effort and with our help they can make it as a realistic simulator of war for those times..

I'm sure it's scripted somehow in that files level0-level28.. What kind of language do they use there, I can't recognize the signature even.. There should be encoded (for each battle in the season): 1. Map index. 2. Corps initial positions/appearance for both sides. 3. Four coordinates limiting the map for each phase of the battle. I'm not that good in hex editing, but I feel I'm on the right way

I realized the only serious problem of this game is the size of maps, the maps are too small. Sometimes I simply do not have space to unfold my 100k army! Is there possible at least to do not limit the current map, to use it always the whole as it shown on the preview of each battle?

Oh thank you this is very helpful info. Now it's clear that's the size does not so matter Yes, exactly! This is actually may change everything. Even increasing the battlefields twice to current sizes will give an opportunity for players to do interesting maneuvers, and possibly outmaneuver the enemy.. Sometimes the scripts in battles are annoying like the Chancellorsville, there in the middle of the battle the script takes half of your army and moves somewhere far, hmm, I could do it by myself IF the map was big enough.. Yes I noticed it. At the 2nd Bull Run, 2nd phase if I play for CSA and my defense is strong the enemy comes and just wasted time outside my rifles range, but if my brigades are small, somewhat around 1000 ohhh, you can see the massive charge, when 20000+ soldiers are charging your position at the same time (by the way I could manage to repel that charge).. Do you know there the same parameters to limit the palyer's units?

Ok, ok, I have got your point. Regarding the sizes, it seems the ratio of power between sides is hard-coded in the game for major battles somehow.. So as bigger my army the bigger force I meet. If it would be possible to make it flexible depending on the player' progress through the story, so it will never be the situation when you destroy a 100k army, then you meet 150k army in the next battle.. As for brigades size, I suggest to limit it by 2500 for linear infantry for both sides since 3000+ brigades are historically incorrect. In fact, during the war the north brigades variated between 800 and 1700 men, and south 1400-2000..

I play with middle difficulty. Well ok, I will try the hard one, let's see the changes. In combination with surrender mod, the game a little more adequate. At least the enemy surrenders instead of just die 😁

This mod is kinda funny.. It looks like the rifles are advanced to WWI era. I always finish the battle not because of the timer, but because of no enemy, all killed/escaped or surrendered. Sometimes one brigade can manage to kill 10000+ enemies, even skirmishers could kill 5000+ for one battle. It's totally unreal.. Battles always turn to massacre of enemy. AI is so passive, it does not control its flanks, so Cannes happened all the time. Antietam is for example (attached).

Can someone tell me why CPU brigades sometimes oversized, infantry is up to 3000, cavalry & skirmishers are 1000+. How to reach those sizes for human player?

I have so many just amazing battles, and it would be nice if the developers will implement the option "save replay" together with save the current game, so everyone can see the battle later like a movie. Is it planned?