adishee
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Posts posted by adishee
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@pandakraut Is there any way to disable the battlefield visual effects, eg shell craters and bodies? For performance issues.
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11 hours ago, pandakraut said:
I've tried multiple times to allow units to rout off the map with no success. The engine definitely supports it, but I can't figure out how to make the pathing happen.
A workaround we are exploring is having units shatter or surrender at 0 morale. This requires a rework of morale damage as it would occur far to often currently and finding the right balance has been difficult.
I'm excited to see where this mod goes in future, PK. I wish I had the know-how to help.
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1 minute ago, pandakraut said:
HA is actually my least used perk for artillery. I have it on a few napoleon units but the majority of my artillery uses the other perks. While convenient, taking that perk will definitely slow down your damage progression until you get high enough firearms/efficiency. Getting to 2*s is also essential for a unit with that perk to deal effective damage. Units with horse artillery really need to be getting in close and preferably hitting units in the flanks or in concert with several other units until they level up a bit.
My beloved tactical batteries.
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1 minute ago, pandakraut said:
This works as a quick solution, but if you want to optimize you actually want to adding the veterans first. You'll be paying the same amount for veterans whether you add recruits first or second, so it's better to save the higher stats by adding them first and then diluting the stats with recruits. Requires more trial and error to find the right balance though.
Oh I see, I hadn't considered that. Thank you. I mostly do the $5k trickle method as described by you and Fiasco.
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2 minutes ago, pandakraut said:
Happy to hear that you're enjoying the mod
Part of the damage calculation is base damage * range damage multiplier. The range damage multiplier is actually a full curve that covers a weapon's entire range. Based on how far away the units' target is, the given multiplier applies to the unit's damage. The tooltip will give you a decent indication of how well a weapon will do in a given range, but you won't see a 1:1 relationship with casualties inflicted because there are lots of other things going on behind the scenes(morale, condition, cover, etc).
I can't display the full curve in the tooltip as space is very limited, so I'm showing what the multiplier is at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and max range. Artillery also displays at 100 range since they tend to have spikes at close range. While not perfect it gives at least a decent idea of what the curve looks like.
So the damage curve is in fact a smooth gradient? I had been wondering about that.
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5 hours ago, dixiePig said:
Artillery
The range indicators for artillery are an excellent addition.
When I researched civil war weapon effectiveness back when I designing my own board game, I was left with the impression that artillery was far more effective than musket and even rifle fire. I feel that I don't really see that in ugcw. Am I missing something?
Have you tried using decent guns with experienced gun crews? It can be very effective.
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5 hours ago, dixiePig said:
Currently the ongoing necessary task of re-fitting your troops between battles is a Guessing Game: When I get a 2-star rating (huzzah), I want to maintain that level of fighting power as I re-fit with replacements. I choose some Veterans and some Rookies, press the [Apply] button, and hope I win the lottery. If I did - and I still have 2-stars, then goody. If I didn't, - and I drop to 1-star, then I have to start over and guess again (assuming that I saved my last 'camp', before guessing wrong. This = much unnecessary time-wastage.
The experience slider adjusts with the add-manpower slider, so you can clearly see when you will lose a perk by adding too many recruits. What is the problem? PK can't change any core mechanics of the game, and this sounds like just the sort of interface mechanic he wouldn't be able to change.
A little trick: add recruits until just before it takes a star, and then add nothing but veterans.
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On the topic of skirmishers and damage output, I'm wondering why repeating rifles' reload rates are so low? The Henry for example is 130. I would expect these revolutionary weapons to pour down a continuous stream of fire. I'm toying with figuring out how to do it myself and changing it to about 300. (And on the broader topic, I find it annoying that weapons' descriptions sometimes specify if they are single shot, cylinder, whatever, but in fact they all fire just one shot without any exception. Shouldn't a revolver fire six shots and then reload? Is there a way to effect this?)
Also, is it possible to change the fire pattern of skirmishers -- or any unit -- to a kind of "fire at will" firing style? I think you can see this when routing troops are falling back, they fire without cohesion unless I'm mistaken (and if I understand correctly, in J&P this fire is very ineffective?). Would there be a way to select this fire pattern for units? It seems to me (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that skirmishers would have been likely to fight in this sporadic way.
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Hi all. I recently rediscovered the UG series after having played UGG briefly a few years ago. I don't game that much anymore, partially because I am laptop-bound now, which has prevented me from playing the only thing I have really wanted to lately: the Europa Barbarorum 2 mod for M2TW (I've played EB off and on for ten+ years now). (UGCW runs on modest hardware.)
I think this game, UGCW, is absolutely brilliant (especially with the J&P mod). I am completely in love with it, and I think it's perhaps the best tactical wargame I've ever played, along with Close Combat which I think has a similar feel (despite the obvious disparity in scale). I guess I don't need to sit here and sing UGCW's praises too much, as you all are already here and get it.
I'm writing to express my fervent hope that the developers are not quite finished with UGCW -- or failing that, with the UG series expanded into other conflicts (perhaps in Europe in the 19th century, of which there were many).
Specifically, I am tantalised by the prospect of playing multiplayer campaigns. I don't just want individual multiplayer battles, although this would be a leap on its own. Because while the tactical mechanics in UGCW are fantastic to the point of being, in my mind, close to perfect, I've come to find just as much if not more enjoyment and addiction in the careful curation and development of my corps, divisions, brigades, pickets, batteries and squads.
It's a testament to the game that I can't actually figure out which part I like more, and I don't want to. I spend hours poring through unit and equipment stats, moving officers around and growing their careers, and trying to eek out enough kit and units to take on the next battle -- and trying desperately to keep as many alive during the battles as I possibly can. Even carefully constructing a naming convention that is both entertaining and useful -- or whatever else you want it to be (roleplaying, historical) -- has become a great enjoyment.
Because of how carefully and delicately we treat the Camp screen in this game (especially with J&P!), making mistakes *really* hurts in this game -- that feeling when you lose a swath of your veteran rifles from a dumb mistake hits in your gut.
That is, unless you just restart the match and play "perfectly," because you will unless you're playing with house rules. This is the area where I hope UGCW's potential does not end up going to waste, by not having a multiplayer mode. What if you *couldn't* restart the match -- at least not without the consent of your opponent, which he surely will not give -- ? What if you had to own every mistake, and so did your opponent, and your carefully cultivated and considered unit gets slaughtered? I can foresee a level of tension in a multiplayer campaign that I've never before imagined from a wargame. Because YOUR carefully built units will be dying. You will really care when some of your units get killed off (or, alternatively, not care so much about the cannon fodder), and what better way to simulate the consequences of war by having our beloved units get wasted? That James battery you were finally able to field? Oh, it was flanked by speed skirmishers and melee'd to death. Oh, you finally got up a squad of two star snipers by dropping a high level colonel in to get that second perk and using your rep points to order some scoped Whitworths from the government (and went into negative morale because of it)? Oh sorry, you left them just out of cover and they got cut in half by the Union's (much better) heavy guns. And the colonel was killed. Sorry. Etc.
To have two players brawling it out in a campaign, along with all the penalties and rewards that are applied to the single player campaign (withheld or rewarded forces based on victories/defeats, political points, and even randomness) instead applied to each other, I can't imagine how fun that would be. And further, how much longevity it would lend to this title. That's the kind of thing people would play for ten years or more -- even without new content, which Darth has mentioned an interest in producing! Honestly, I would beg the devs to make me buy another multplayer-only copy of the game if it meant it would actually get made, because I will gladly do it.
A final note on the single player experience. Being a creation of Darth, obviously the AI is really good. It is. And with J&P, the campaigns get challenging to the point of being unbeatable -- which is fine. But I submit that they are unbeatable in a specific way: you have to stack the AI with so many advantages to get a real challenge. And you have to learn how to play more or less "perfectly" in a specific way, to juice the game into giving you experience that your troops need to progress against such stacked odds.
This is not the same challenge of facing another human player, who is also desperately trying to conserve his troops, and we all know it. And on this latter point, in that case we might actually get more historically correct casualty numbers -- instead of 10x what they should be -- as players would perhaps prefer to cede a battle or two than lose all their troops as killed/wounded/surrenders. And we certainly wouldn't have the opportunity to farm experience from another human player: they wouldn't allow it.
Anyway, thanks for reading, sorry for any errors. I hope Game-Labs don't miss the chance to put the final keystone in what they've already built, as it would be a real shame not to.
Cheers.
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On 7/22/2019 at 5:42 PM, adishee said:
I would really, really, really love to see even a basic multiplayer support. Campaign would be way better. It would extend the life of this game for years for me.
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On 7/28/2019 at 2:36 PM, LeBoiteux said:
If I understand correctly, the game seems to be built around the concept of campaigns (Admirals' careers), not battles, and it is meant to include for the moment only two campaigns in which the player can't even choose his side.
Customized battles (PvP or player vs AI) where the player can choose his nationality, the location of the battle, the AI characteristics (nation, difficulty level...), etc like in the TW series would be an extra feature that would certainly require a lot of development.
Not to mention an OW (meaning an entirely new game).
I for one hope, above all, that other nations will soon be playable. I guess it takes new future campaigns with French, Spanish, Dutch... Admirals.
You could have multiplayer campaigns. Easy.
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20 hours ago, pandakraut said:
Jonny is also worked on a unique version of the campaign where everything is scaled up to ridiculous levels to make things as difficult as possible
Lol. Nice. There is a lot to learn in this game + your fantastic mod I am slowly discovering. I'll be playing it for years (fingers crossed for expansion pack, if they still make those).
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2 hours ago, pandakraut said:
Yes, that would work.
Thanks PK.
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11 hours ago, pandakraut said:
That isn't something that is configurable currently. While the AI does use those values in battle, they don't actually control how the AI units gain experience throughout the campaign. AI units all have defaulted stats for each specific battle, these defaults also have random modifiers, difficulty modifiers, and the AI training % applied to them. So for any given campaign you'll encounter slightly different experience levels and the most you can do to mitigate the AI experience levels is to kill as many men as possible.
Ah, that's interesting. Thanks for the explanation. So if anything, if I wanted to handicap myself in a Union campaign further, I would actually increase the XP-gain difficulty -- because the AI would be less affected than me?
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@pandakraut Is there a way to modify these values just for the AI player? Do you just add those into the AI config file?
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Thanks for responding, PK. I kinda regret writing what I wrote, I was just really frustrated. Obviously the mod is meant to jack up the difficulty a lot. I absolutely love the mod in general, and the mechanics changes. I'm still tinkering with the config files + difficulty settings + some house rules to try and find a play style I like. I've watched a lot of your and Fiasco's videos, and they're instructive.
I'm wondering, is there a setting in the config files to increase the AI player's experience growth? I'm playing as Union, and I'm trying to get the effect of playing a more experienced CSA army with a more numerous, recruit-heavy Union army -- kind of a historical-ish play through. I couldn't get the desired outcome tinkering with things on MG, they all just turned into SS super soldiers who still outnumbered the shit out of my forces. (One of my house rule is that I never revert to saves -- all decisions, including camp selections, are final).
cheers and thank you
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Well done sirwaldi. I gave up trying and edited config files. The game certainly has a lot of longevity trying to get through it on MG ... I really wish there was a multiplayer capability.
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Thanks joxer. I've changed the CSA army size to something a bit more historically accurate (Union apparently outnumbered CSA after the Army of Ohio reinforcements arrived). Currently playing through it again and having a lot more fun -- still very challenging, but no more 9k-man bayonet charges on my 120-man skirmisher unit levels of absurdity. I'll change it back after I get through it.
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Is there a way to edit a file in order to just somehow bypass Shiloh? Because at this point, I can no longer even play the game + mod.
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I have to agree with the complaints about Shiloh on MG. The most I can get on the field is about 30k troops, two 2-star infantry, plenty of quality troops ... there is just no way to win. I've tried about ten times, gone back to refight the campaign three times to optmise my army, and just now spent about eight hours straight trying over and over again.
This shit is really broken to be honest. It's not fun. You can't beat it and even if you manage to, it would just boil down to some fluke or blind luck or some anomaly with the game. I had no problem getting through Shiloh with the base game. Something is wrong here imo.
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I would really, really, really love to see even a basic multiplayer support. Campaign would be way better. It would extend the life of this game for years for me.
J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4
in General Discussions
Posted
Units do already march in column if you order them to move a long distance. And I personally direct my units to use roads if they are available, or any open ground, for movement. I'm positive that the modders can't modify pathing logic.