PaulD

Here is a features overview of the new 1.28 mod.

My intention was to help demonstrate that the build combo can be maniputed without the AIConfig changes, plus just wanted to apply what I've learned and see if I could do it. By the way, after fighting my last two campaigns with the AI scaling cranked up, I found the battles very easy in this little mini run. In my campaign prior to starting my YT series I fought 40k CSA with 22k Union at 1st Bull Run. I will probably play MG with the new version of the mod just to get the feel for the changes then work on going to LG. I'll do a video covering the changes, compare and contrast the obvious stuff, then try different strategies and post a new series. Maybe CSA first this time.

After our conversation about using the AI Scaling in the AIConfig to indirectly boost XP and weapons harvests, and how that snowballs, I decided to go back and do a quick run up to Shiloh to see if I could get 12 2-star units for Shiloh "naturally". - The only changes in the mod files were using the bypass recon setting to allow me to see AI Army size prior to battles, and having the arty limber set at 1 to force limbering when they move. - I did NOT buy any vets for Walton, or any of the existing units prior to disbanding in the camp before Distress Call like I do in my YouTube series. The result? 14 2-star units sitting in camp prior to Shiloh! I didn't record the battles, but I have the before and after camps of all battles to show what I did. I know the mod is changing soon, but I thought I'd but together a brief YT synopsis of how I did it with this version. For timing sake I just reused one of my post-Philippi saves rather than fighting that battle over again - didn't seem like there would be any benefit other than I may consciously try to get my core units more kills in that battle. What makes it possible currently: - Obviously, you need to take all the Training selections in the campaign set up, and disband all the units after Philippi. Those are a given. - Distress Call and 1st BR allow 12 units (though Distress Call says 10, 12 will actually deploy). River Crossing and Logans Crossroads can take 14 units. - Mid-level Colonels and above can get a new unit to 2-stars in just 3 battles. So, Loomis, Walton, Scales, and Woods will all get their new units to 2-star with no problem. If one of the battles is 1st BR it is easier than doing 3 minor battles, but it is doable and you just have to ensure those guys are right in the middle of the fighting racking up kills. After Distress Call I bought Brewster and Brooks (some combo of them, Franklin, Willcox, and Heintzelman are nearly always in the starting academy). I made 2 more INF with Brewster and Brooks and sent them to Bull Run and left Loomis and Scales on the bench. - Assigning captains to SKM and CAV will more than likely require that they fight in all 4 battles leading up to Shiloh. One of my skirmishers made it in 3, but the rest needed 4. - Assigning captains to ART can get to 2-star in 3 battles if they have NAP and/or ORD. The small 6pd Field guns can't quite get there. I had 17 NAP to start out and bought one more to make 3x6 batteries. I had 4 ORD and bought two to get them to 6 for Distress Call. - You can only take 12 units to Distress Call by putting both Career Points into AO after Philippi. If you then put your point from Distress Call into AO, you can make divisions of 6 units and thus the player can determine which units deploy at 1st BR because the game will take the 12 in the first 2 divisions and not take any from 3rd - if you can only make divisions of 5 the AI will pick whomever it wants from 3rd. This also allows you to build ballast units with whatever extra weapons you have laying around in 3rd Div - I made 1 INF with Muskets and 2 artillery with the extra guns in my armory. HOWEVER, putting the point in AO rather than Training results in not being able to make new 1-star units in the camp prior to Shiloh, because the large influx of new recruits you get after BR will all be 2 points less in every stat. You could put the point into Training to get 8 before BR, but it will be hard to get the AI to deploy the units you want from 3rd division. - To offset not creating larger armies with the AIConfig file, I moved all the allied units at Distress Call and 1st BR into areas where they could support me and I could use them if my units got into trouble, but I tried to use them as little as possible. Basically, I let my units "hog" up all the XP they could. Also, rather than building INF at 1,200 troops like I normally do to start, I built as big as I could get. - Finally, getting the battles led bonus at levels 3 and 4 is a big help to the units that start as Captains. Unit progression is noticeable with each battle. Obviously, keeping officers intact goes a long way to success in this aspect.

Just FYI, in case you haven't noted it yet, Parker's Crossroads says 12 units, but 13 will actually deploy. 8 in the deploy box, then 5 more when reinforcements come in.

Concerning morale degradation, it seems true that taking any volley of fire from a unit causes degradation regardless of the amount of damage done. So, although smaller units might do less damage, they can cause the enemy to rout just as easy. Is this correct, or am I missing something? If this is true, I may play around with stacking reload and fire rate vs just going for accuracy.

Nothing in particular. I was deep into Diablo II in the first decade after it was released and understanding how and when various modifiers were applied mathematically changed the value of the bonus. For example, -5% to X damage vs -10% to Y damage, one would naturally think that the latter is of more value since it is bigger, but once you see the math formula for how the game damage reduction works you would discover the first to be more valuable because X is applied early in the formula (so it reduces a big number) and Y is applied at the end of the formula (reduces a smaller number). I've been taking Sharpshooters at Tier 3 for my Infantry for the cover and accuracy, but with cover being capped at 100% and I use a corps commander with the cover aura, I may switch my INF over to Elite instead. Basically, if something stacks (say accuracy or reload) then having more is always a benefit, but if something is capped, then once you are comfortable that you can hit the cap frequently, then taking more is wasted.

Does cover have a cap, or can it be over 100%? Or, in other words, if a unit is already in a 100% coverage area of the game, do their cover perk bonuses apply above the area coverage? Is there a set order in which modifiers are applied during combat? Is there somewhere else where that may already be published? Thank you

Ah, I don't usually get to day 3. I try to end it on day 2 because the complete reset on day 3 is just an inconvenience. On day 2 you have all of 2nd and 3rd corps, then the first 3 divisions of 1st corps. Since all of 2nd and 3rd corps are on the field I assumed all of 1st would be there.

If you don't have it already, please add to the To-Do List 2nd Bull Run, ensure that 4th division in 1st Corps deploys. Currently that division never takes the field. Thanks

Understood. There are a handful of battles, like Secure River, where I'm thinking the AI should stay in the superior defensive position - yelling obscenities, flipping my guys off, mooning, and basically saying "come and get it sucker" rather than charging down hill into the open. A couple more... - Lets say that a unit has 2-stars. They get beat up a bit in a grand battle so you give them some rookie recruits and that pulls them down to 1-star. During the next grand battle they gain enough XP to get back to 2-stars. My question is, will they function as 2-stars from the moment they get that experience back during the battle? Or, does it require going to camp to reset them back to 2-stars? On-screen during the battle I notice they display a 1-star but as soon as your back to camp they are 2 again. - To what degree does weapon damage equate to more kills, or doesn't it? I mean, if one small arm does 4 to 6.5 damage and another weapon with completely equal stats other than damage does 4.5 to 7, does it may any difference at all? Does the game even consider the damage range, or does it just check for hits and a hit equals a kill? Thanks for always educating us on the mechanics Pandakraut! Much appreciated.

Hey Pandakraut, Two questions: - If you have zero in Training, do incoming recruits still get better with time? If so, does at which points of the game does this occur? - This may already occur, but is it possible to cause the AI to be less aggressive when it is meant to hold a VP (defense). It seems like it is always on the offensive even when it should be defending.

Hey Panda, I created a new YouTube channel to post gaming content (Gonzo Gamer). Philippi is up now. I know you had subscribed to my Paul D. YT ID, but I decided creating a new channel was a better idea.

Got it. I was just wondering if there was a set percentage of losses involved. Like, if the AI has a 4,000 INF unit, does 10% (400 killed) cause enough damage to root? So, they root, recover, and come back with 3,600, and another 10% is 360 casualties to root them again. I know I'm using round numbers and simplifying. In my Shiloh narration I am trying to cover some of the reasons that the battle is such a challenge, and many people likely have built up a false sense of their forces capabilities since in every battle prior to Shiloh, the player either outnumbers or has equal forces to the AI (Distress Call, Logans, and River Crossing), or the AI forces enter the battle piece meal so the player can take them out in phases (Philippi and 1st Bull Run). At Shiloh it is completely reversed, with the player having smaller units entering the battle in smaller groups with the AI having all of it's forces early on. Plus the AI units can be so massive (4k to 5k in some cases) that doing enough damage to make them root is a real challenge. Just stopping charges feels like a victory - those big AI units seem like they can tank forever. Up until this battle, the player has not experienced this combination of battle conditions.

Two questions: 1) Obviously you can name your brigades or corps whatever you want. Is there a way to reset brigade name to display whichever officer is in command after you've changed it once? Or, once you've changed it manually, you can only change it manually. 2) I've done searches for this but haven't been able to find it - how much damage is required to affect morale changes? Is it a flat 10% or something like that, or is it more complicated? Thanks

A couple things: I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "destroy all my units". I assume you are talking about disbanding units in camp. But on the chance that you meant killing off allies in battle, I'll include the a comment on that. 1) Vanilla gives you more weapons if you kill off your allied units, the mod gives you more weapons from allied units if they are not killed. 2) In the mod, brigade officers get a bonus from battles led. If you hover the mouse arrow over the officer XP you'll see the bonus listed. At 3 battles led, you get a 15% bonus to Command, Officer XP gain, and Unit XP gain. So, keeping units together with the same officer produces a greater return. New officers get a -7.5% penalty, 0 penalty with 1 battle led, 7.5% gain with 2 battles led, and 15% gain with 3 battles led. The bonus caps at 3. Officers do keep the bonus if they are wounded and come back to the same unit, but if they go to a different unit they loose the bonus. 3) In vanilla and the mod, career points in Training gives recruits better starting stats. If you hover over the recruiting pool you can see the starting stats, which I'm sure you know. So, in both the mod and vanilla, you can disband units to cause the stats in the recruit pool to increase since disbanded units go back into the pool - it is just a calculated average of the recruits in the pool and the unit(s) that you disband. However, you loose the bonuses discussed above. And, each time new recruits are added to the pool after completing future battles the average stats in the pool is recalculated, so it will go down since the new recruit stats added after each battle are based on your level of Training points. Hope this helps.

Panda can help you with any config suggestions. Just a few ideas... This is just how I do it. I'll be posting a video series in a week or so that will include this. I'm always envious of the guys that can fight this in a more traditional way, but when I do that I end up with 15k casualties. This way is at least entertaining for me while reducing casualties. In all the battles prior to Shiloh you pretty much have all of your units on the field before the heavy action starts. Take 1st Bull Run as an example. Assuming that you wait for all of your units to be on the field prior to assaulting Matthews Hill, then you have 100% of your forces fighting about 30% of the CSA forces. When the CSA falls back to Henry Hill they get another 30%, but you still out man then 100% to 60%. They don't get the last 40% of their forces until after you take Henry Hill - and you've probably eliminated nearly all of their troops by then, so it is never really a fair fight. At Shiloh, everything is reversed. In overall number of troops, you probably have the bigger army (your army plus the allied units). However, you only get about 9 brigades to start while the CSA gets about 40% of their forces, then you get 4 brigades of reinforcements. When phase two begins the remaining 60% of the CSA take the field and you get another 10 units followed by 4 or 5 reinforcements. Phase three starts when you are told to fall back to the Hornet's nest - you'll pretty much get the rest of your army along with 3 or 4 allied units, but the balance of the allied force will not arrive until the next day. So, only about 55% of your total combined force will be facing 100% of the CSA for a substantial time... add in the fact that the CSA is much more experienced (more stars/perks) and has bigger units, and its a tough fight. The AIscalingSizeMultiplier can give you some relief, but the AI is still going to deploy all of its forces before you. I use a "mobile" force strategy here. Have you noticed which units deploy in each phase? With some testing you can identify which units are deploying at each phase so you can predict where your units take the field - I can tell you my best guess if it would help. I deploy mostly skirmishers and cavalry in the first two phases with infantry in the reinforcement spots. I end up disbanding some skirmishers after this battle because I don't need that many, but they are very useful here. Artillery are slow and unless you know how to micromanage them to get them out of harm, they are not worth having until phase three. CSA charges will run down your artillery with little difficulty. I use hit and run tactics to slow the CSA down. I also snake my CAV deep into the south to raid enemy supply wagons and artillery - in phase one you can do this easily, but staying to the left of the screen helps. In phase two try to stay to the far right because the CSA force marching north is huge. The CSA infantry tends to get ahead of its arty, so you will find targets of opportunity. I do this in both phase one and phase two. Many players outright refuse to fight phase two and they just immediately pull their units north and to the right to give up the VPs - fighting this phase puts about 60% of the total CSA forces up against 15 of your brigades, its very one sided. I setup all of my artillery to deploy at the start of phase three, along with the rest of my infantry. I do NOT, however, attempt to hold the hornet's nest - the CSA can have it and giving it to them will NOT end the phase early. Putting two units in the fortifications can help provide cover for your retreating units moving north. There is no benefit to trying to keep it once everyone is clear. So, I setup a defensive perimeter all along the northern boarder of the map in the wooded areas. Let the CSA come to you and ALL of your arty will be in place to support your infantry. The 3 or 4 allied units are a decent size but have no stars/perks. I use them to backup my infantry and to countercharge the CSA just before they reach my lines as a meat-shield so the CSA doesn't blow through and take out my guns. In the meantime, my CAV and most of my skirmishers should actually be behind enemy lines - the units from phase one coming in from the left, and the units from phase two coming in from the right. Again, taking out targets of opportunity. You can use skirmishers to bait CSA infantry units to come back south to engage your skirmishers - If you can get 4 or 5 (or more) skirmishers firing into one enemy infantry brigade you will cause morale damage even though you are not killing a lot. Once you get them to route your CAV may be able to force a shatter or surrender before they need to disengage. Basically, my southern force is just harassing the CSA main body because every brigade I cause to move back south is one less attacking my defensive perimeter and every gun I destroy is one less shooting at my guys. Do not take back any of the VPs with your CAV and skirmishers during this phase because it may just prolong the timer. Once this phase ends Pittsburgh landing will open up. Now, I have won the battle here without falling back to Pittsburgh Landing, but I don't advise it for two reasons. One, you'll likely take more casualties than if you strategically fall back to the landing - send back your most damaged units first, then get your arty moving, then your infantry. Once CSA realizes you are falling back the AI can get pretty "chargy" so once your arty is limbered and seems out of harms way you can get all of your infantry moving back at once. Obviously, put your healthiest units into the fortifications and rotate in units as needed. Two, if you end the battle early - so that the other allied forces never arrive - then you don't get any of their weapons after the battle. They have to take the field for you to get a percentage of their weapons after the battle. My last bit of advice - when running down arty and supply wagons with your CAV, keep an eye on the little strategic map in the lower right corner. I've found that very often enemy units will appear on the strategic map before you can see them on the battlefield. It sucks when your CAV just get to a target only to get flanked by a force you couldn't see, then take a bunch of damage before you can get them to disengage. Sometimes the strategic map can save you some heartache. Shiloh has actually gotten to be a pretty fun battle for me playing this way. It's MG - you are going to take damage and may even lose some gun batteries or have units shatter - but it is manageable and the better you get at it the more fun it becomes. Good luck

I can understand that, and people would do it. The situations that I am think of are early game, maybe that first 10 battles when you are building your army, it would be nice to reduce unit size in order to match the numbers of weapons I have available, even if reducing caused the troops to be "dismissed" rather than go back into the recruit pool. Since Logistics only resets after major battles, there are times when I may have 350 skirmishers with carbines or SP55's and I could upgrade to a sniper weapon but I only have 300 of them. Same thing happens as you start to phase in heavy guns, my batteries all have 10 or 12 guns, but there are only 6 to 8 of a given heavy gun. It may be worth the cost to give up 50 artillery men vets in order to get the better weapon on the field. The easy solution would be to make a new unit that fits the number of weapons available, but oft times that means somebody needs to sit on the bench since I can't deploy everyone.

Thank you for the clarifications. I'll let you know when I start posting them. You know what I wish this game had? The ability to remove troops from a unit without disbanding it, like Ultimate Admiral allows you to reduce your crew size and put them back into the recruit pool and put them on another ship.

Hi Panda, I've started recording an MG campaign with the current version of the mod. I want to confirm a few things before I record my audio comments. Unit Stats: Command is based on a combination of corp/division/unit officer ranks. Melee - increases from melee kills. Firearms - increases from full load and firing cycle regardless of kills or accuracy. Stamina - increases from marching/moving. Efficiency - I haven't been able to reverse engineer efficiency. Kills are a big part of it, unit size vs officer rank is a part, what else? Career Perks: AO, ECON, and RECON most effects are immediate (resupply discount is next battle). POL, MED, TR, effects applied after next battle. LOG - Shop stock multipliers only apply after major/grand battles, additional ammo and resupply discount apply next battle, and max supply increase is immediate. Training - stat increases only apply to new recruits gained after the next battle. Actual average recruit stats will be the mathematical average of the new recruits awarded from the battle and whatever recruits are already in the pool Academy - Officers in the academy are generated randomly and only reset after grand battles, although there are an infinite number of captains available for hire. Wounded officers in barracks become available after the next grand battle, but may be available sooner if wounded early during a multiple day grand battle. Corp Commander - The first two perks apply to everyone in their corps, the third perk only applies to units within their aura. Regardless of perks, units within their aura regen morale (and condition?) faster. Unit Officers - COL gain XP slower than any other rank. Since rookie units have the largest room for growth and unit officer XP is based on unit XP gain, officers will gain XP faster when commanding less experienced units than they would very experienced units. Thus, if I wanted to fast track a COL to BG, I should give him a rookie unit rather than a 3-star unit. Proposed Future Change - is it possible to tell the AI NOT to start a charge if unit morale is at "wavering"? My line of thinking is that wavering means I've already decided to withdraw, I just haven't given the order to do so yet. But the AI will actually start a charge when wavering - which is just a waste because they basically last just long enough to take a volley or three, then they may stand there "white" and not moving while taking more damage. It just seems more realistic and unit preserving if the AI won't charge if their morale is that low. Especially since the AI morale recovers fairly quick anyway, if they waited a few minutes they would be ready to charge soon anyway. Thank You

Hi Panda, Quick question. On the campaign start menu MG says a 10% reduction in Gold and Recruits, 15% increase enemy strength, and 25% reputation reduction. 1) Does the Mod have the same percentages on MG? 2) What are the modifiers for LG since the campaign setup doesn't really say, or is the change more related to enemy stars/perks rather than unit size? Thanks

Thank you! Yes, I've noticed that you can't really issue limbering/mounting orders when paused and expect anything to happen. Much appreciated.

Limber/Unlimber & Mount/Dismount - just observations and a wish. I don't know how many times I've told a battery to move across the screen a healthy distance and they decide to move unlimbered. Also, the yellow "limber" fill up (limber) and down (unlimber) doesn't always display what the unit is actually doing. This also happens with mount/unmount for CAV where I press mount/dismount and a minute later they still haven't done anything. Especially if they are dismounted, sometimes I have to press the icon to mount a few times to get them moving. Ideally, I would love to be able to set my Arty to ALWAYS limber unless I order them to move unlimbered. Right now I have to wait and check back with them to see what they've decided to do on their own. I'm sure the AI is supposed to limber for long distance and unlimber or short advances, but there are times when I've told them to move half way across a battlefield and the AI is trying to push the guns the whole way.

Hey Pandakraut, Can you confirm or correct this assumption regarding rate of fire. If one weapon has a fire rate of 125 and other has a fire rate of 100, with all other factors being equal, the 125 rate weapon will fire 5 times for every 4 shots taken with the 100 rate weapon. Likewise, a weapon with a 150 rate of fire would get off 3 shots compared to every 2 shots of a 100 rate weapon.

Just my 2 cents... I also find BR to be a difficult CSA battle. I find it best to just avoid Matthews Hill completely. If you focus on the right side of the battlefield, you can nearly eliminate Sherman, Keyes, and all the other units that come from the right before you need to focus on the left side. Ignoring Matthews Hill usually results in the AI funneling most of the Union troops south and down the road that runs along the wheat fields to the left of Henry Hill. Setting up a perimeter in the woods all along Henry Hill to the right and south of those wheat fields sets the Union up for failure as your reinforcements come in. Regarding weapons recovery. When playing as Union I wanted to have 2-star units at Shiloh, so I used a max training build and to overcome the lack of weapons while grinding experience I cranked the AIscalingSizeMultplier way up - as high as I could handle it from battle to battle, then when I hit Shiloh I dropped it back to the base level of 1. Worked like a charm. I never touched the weaponrecoverypercentage. It can be a bit of a grind at times, but you may find the net results of weapons farmed is betterr than just turning up the weaponrecoverypercentage.

Hi Otto, I've tried to verify this and I'm unable. Are you on version v1.27.4.3? For Newport News I am getting 4 units on the load screen and 4 units on the deploy screen.