[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

Do weapon random prob and attribute random prob work at higher settings than the defaults (.3 and .2 respectively)? I've put the weapon random prob as high as .9 but don't seem to notice any difference in the weapons I'd usually see at a given battle?   Can't say about attribute random prob because I don't have enough recon to see them in game unless I capture a unit.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

@pandakraut

I've been playing MG with AI Scaling Size Multiplier anywhere from 1.3x up to 2x (depending on the battle).  Often, the limiting factor is not casualties nor CSA unit size, but rather, the killing speed of my units - just literally being able to kill enough enemies during the allowed time.  I crank up the multiplier just to get a bigger return of weapons after the battle and to farm more experience for my units. 

I often do not have an issue managing charges. Between getting multiple INF firing on a charging target, snipers flanking, carb cav stepping up to fire, cannister fire, and if that doesn't work, then falling back with the unit being targeted while other units continue to fire...  River Crossing is a great example. As soon as you take the first VP nearly all remaining CSA units will come up from the south VP and it's not uncommon for 4 to 6 CSA units to all charge at once to try and push you off the VP. I can cancel most of them and only end up dealing with one or two that make it all the way through.

Shiloh is a completely different animal. Is there anything about Shiloh that is programmed differently?  I need to blunt scaling down to .8 just to realistically manage it without crazy casualties...  CSA units just seem to completely ignore typical charge cancellations at Shiloh... especially if 3 or more get rolling at one time.  I watch peoples YT vids and see them take a single fallback step and the CSA unit stops charging - I think, how many times did they need to replay this to get it to work once?

My feeling has always been that the charge logic is such that at Shiloh the CSA knows you are massively outnumbered, so it calculates that it should just keep charging. However, if that is true, it should happen in battles when I've cranked the multiplier way up, but it doesn't.

 

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

Thanks panda.

Is there a mathematical percentage in regard to wounded allied officers showing up in the barracks after a battle? Is it only for Division commanders, or does it also apply to brigade?

Thanks

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

@pandakraut Not that I am saying anything new here - but when I started playing the base game I did Col once, BG a bunch of times as Union and CSA, then about half an MG campaign where I was playing Union and CSA at the same time - taking the Union up to a major battle, then taking CSA up to the same major battle, but I never actually finished MG before starting on the Mod early this year, but I do remember it being a difficult challenge for me back then. Now, 9 months of playing the mod, I'd rate myself as "above average" (not good, definitely not great) with the mod on MG difficulty after playing up to Gaines' Mill with over 12 different career stat and perk configurations before taking one build to the end.

A couple of weeks ago I loaded the base game and started a Legendary campaign and by the time I finished 2nd Bull Run I'd clearly realized that there was no challenge to it.  Since the mod removes all the cheesy ways to control enemy charges, you have to learn to fight differently and much more effectively, so going back to the base game you are just way ahead of the Legendary AI. I feel MG in the mod is harder than Legendary in the base game (although I've been playing with boosted AI Scaling Size Multiplier at 1.2 and size & weapon random prob 0.3). I just found it so interesting how much of a contrast there is between the two after learning how to fight in the mod.

So, now I start my Legendary "education" with the Mod and we'll see how it goes.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

On 10/15/2021 at 4:41 AM, Radek1 said:

In 2 days battle if I refill my brigades after 1 day, do I get benefit from medicine from 1 day?

I think Panda may have overlooked this question during his replies to dixiePig, so I'll comment to give it a bump.

I know that it doesn't work correctly in the base game. The calculation of losses seems to only look at how many of each unit type you had at the start of the battle vs how many you had at the end of the battle. So, it does under report total losses in the battle wrap up displayed at the end of each battle if you refilled them.  For example, if an infantry brigade had 1000 troops at the start of the battle and lost 200 on day one, you refill to 1000 and they lose 200 more on day two, the base game will say you lost 200 troops when you really lost 400.

I don't know the facts, but it has always seemed to me that having the limited "camp" screen available between days of a multiple day battle might have been a late add to the base game because the programmers don't seem to account for changes made during those screens. 

Then again, the base game often doesn't update the condition of troops that supposedly just sat overnight (the condition is the same between the end of day 1 and the start of day 2 even with a large amount of supposed down-time). However, Panda and Johnny's mod DOES correct the condition issue, so maybe the mod does accurately account for refilling units.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

@pandakraut

In the configuration files, does "sizeIncrease" stack with "AIscalingSizeMultiplier"?

In trying to farm as much XP and as many weapons as I can in the early game, I reset the AIconfig and Config files back to the default current version and changed sizeincrease and AIscalingSizeMultiplier to 1.2. Also changed duplicateRandomProbability to 1.3.

I played Distress Call and 1st Bull Run and the total CSA size at each battle was close to a 50% increase. I looked back at several of my previous MG playthroughs and around 24k CSA INF is normal at 1st BR, but I'm seeing 37K+ CSA infantry, 1700 CAV, and 115 guns.  Some very fun battles to be sure, so it has worked out as I wanted, I was just curious as to correlations between those two size related settings.

I am also going to assume that Philippi is a set amount based on difficulty level since playing around with any increases in the configuration files makes no change on CSA army size.

Thanks! 

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

20 hours ago, Rubinfan said:

Hello! Finally managed to beat the Union campaign on Legendary. Took like 3 tries and a run on Hard to learn more about ins and outs. Had to accept defeat at Shiloh (ran away from the map without fighting) since I couldn't find a solution, how to stop 3000+ men 3-star charging enemy brigades with useless cannon fodder my army is at the beginning. So chose to take a reputation hit and forfeit 2 (or 3 career points). I know there is a way to beat this battle, but just chose not to waste my time and spend more money buying all the 6 and 12 pounder scrap, than the 100.000$ reward difference between the victory and defeat. 

Also skipped 2 minor battles - Siege of Suffolk, because the allied 1 star units break under 200+cannons firing and 2000 Lemat-equipped cavalry charging at them and 89000$ is not enough to cover the losses in my artillery. 

The other problematic battles were:

1.Secure River - outnumbered 2 to 1 and on the offence, needed the right timing to put the unit on the objective right at the end of the timer so the enemy couldn't countercharge.

2.Malvern Hill - got pummeled repeatedly until I managed to find a spot where the enemy had to cross the bridge to get to me and just evaporated them with canister while they were at 0 cover. 

3.Thoroughfare Gap - defended in the northern woods with my line along the stream, outnumbered 2 to 1 and with a limited number of units. Had to make several restarts to get lucky when the enemy sent most of it's army in the clearing near the flag. Purely lucky win. Also had to disband almost all of my skirmishers so to avoid 1000 men enemy skirmisher packs. 

4.Salem Church - got completely wrecked by the enemy reinforcements but managed to hold onto the objective with a routing unit. Technically - a loss. 

5.Chickamauga – day 1 in particular. The allied units were only useful at shooting the enemy on the bridges at 0 cover. Once out of their favorite spots, their battle value was reduced to 0. Also the enemy had 3 2000 LeMat horse packs that kept killing and capturing everyone in their sight. Had to disband all of my 5 units of 2-star cavalry to make their sizes more manageable and capture supply wagons on foot. Later in the campaign managed to resurrect 2 horse units and even level them up to 2 stars in the remaining battles.

2.Sometimes cannons refused to fire even when the target was clearly in range and kept telling they need to get closer. This either ended in the cannon driving towards the enemy (and getting shot if I failed to notice) or idling until I notice (sometimes with the Reload bar half-filled and stuck). Frequently happened during Harrisson Creek (failed an attempt because of this), but also sometimes at Gettysburg and a number of smaller battles.  

In conclusion I have a couple of questions, that more experienced players might have answers for

1.Second Tier Artillery perks – Fire direction drills gives +25% accuracy and +50% spotting. Does the accuracy buff make the gun 25% more efficient on all ranges? It might be worth to sacrifice the cover or stealth bonus then.

2.How does this 25% accuracy buff work? If a gun has 37% effectiveness on medium range, then with a perk will it get 46,25% or 62%? Do perks stack or each new is calculated from a default value?

3.I have maybe two detached skirmishers, a horse and a dedicated skirmisher regiment nearby. But they still can’t spot a nasty pack of enemy skirmishers firing at me. I detach one more pack from a random unit and the enemy goes out of stealth mode right in front of my nose. Magic or the spotting parameter stacks somehow?

4.Is it actually worth swapping Napoleons for 24PDR in the smoothbore artillery? Got an impression that the Napoleons kill better but the 24PDR more scare the enemy off forcing to rout.

5.What is the most effective number of cannons in the battery? I tried 20+ 30+ but haven’t noticed much difference with a 12-14 gun battery, except for the costs skyrocketing.

Congrats on finishing Legendary difficulty. I'm definitely not an expert, but can provide some feedback based on my experience.

Shiloh - The scourge of every Union player. On MG and below I find I am much better off just holding my lines and finishing it on Day 1. On LG I think you have to play it as designed with falling back to Pittsburgh Landing and going into Day 2. However, there is a balance there - if you fall back too quickly and don't whittle down some of the CSA they will just bulldoze you at Pittsburgh Landing before you can get to Day 2. On the other hand, it is hard to know how long to hold the line to inflict damage before it is "too late" and you get decimated trying to fallback. For this reason I avoid taking any heavy artillery to Shiloh because they are so damn slow and either get caught by the CSA, or my infantry takes excessive casualties trying to protect them. 

Siege of Suffolk - Can be incredibly tedious. On the north end of the map I don't bother using the fortifications. I find that I am better off keeping everyone in the woods. The south end never seems to be as bad, and I flank from that side once my reinforcements show up.

Secure River - Most people try to go straight up the right side and try to push the CSA to the left/north. On MG and LG if you run right out and do that half the CSA forces will be sitting in the woods firing at you while you are out in the open and trying to go up hill. What I've found to work best here is to slightly feign an attack to the left/center to lure the CSA forces into charging. I don't actually attack the left/center, I just move a unit or three in that direction until the CSA can see me and when they move forward to engage I fallback or move into cover. I usually take 2 smoothbores and 3 rifles to this battle. Between the 5 of them and the 2 gunboats you can manage any CSA units that engage. CSA usually has 2 artillery batteries here (unless they roll as duplicates). By feigning attack to the left/center, one battery to the north usually comes out into the open and the battery in the woods to the south will pull all the way up to the wood line and sometimes out into the open. This puts both batteries in range for my rifled guns. I spend the first 2 game-time hours killing off charging units and taking out the CSA guns without every moving any units to the right side. With an hour left, THEN I flank to the right to push the CSA to the left/north and by that time there isn't much resistance left in the woods there. This battle is difficult to fully clear because it ends as soon as the timer is finished but using this strategy I've finished with less than 3 CSA units left on the field.

Malvern Hill - Most people withdrawal for phase 1 and phase 2 then set up along the back wood line at the start of phase 3 while your reinforcements come in. I also do this but with the following adjustment. At the start of phase 1 I move 3 INF and 1 or 2 CAV into the woods on the far left and let them sit there. Move the rest of my units to the bottom of the screen to give CSA the VP and trigger phase 2.  At the start of phase 2, I setup those 3 INF units I left on the left side down to down to the bridge area just south of them but keep them in cover in a semi-circle because CSA will be attempting to come through that way to flank you on the left.  I move the CAV north to start picking off supply wagons and straggler artillery units once the CSA infantry has passed.  On the right side of the screen, I move one INF unit to the far right because CSA usually sends a unit or two down the far right passage. I also set up 1 smoothbore and 3 INF units in the woods near the bridge on the right side - this becomes a massive killing ground with CSA constantly trying to charge across the bridge. You will need to micromanage quite a bit here.  The rest of my units fall back to the south.  Phase 2 ends very quickly once the VP timer expires and you have not taken it back from CSA. Phase 3 is just setting up units in the southern wood line. Since all the CSA is in the open your artillery should be racking up huge casualties. Also, if things start to get out of hand at the left bridge, your rifled guns can support from the southern wood line. Toward the end of phase 3 I start moving my units north because the CSA is usually just milling around in the center and have stopped attacking.  I also move the three units I had at the left bridge up and around to come in from the north, along with any CAV, to take the VP in the last few minutes. You may be able to fully clear CSA from the field but it is difficult on legendary.

Thoroughfare Gap - Always a nail biter. My general strategy is 3 INF units, a smoothbore, and a rifled gun in the woods north of the VP and repeat the same setup in the woods to the south of the VP. I then park one heavy rifle battery right on the VP or in the woods just behind it. I also have 1 melee CAV that I put all the way in the south woods just because CSA will go straight there if you don't have any units there. Once fighting starts I use the melee CAV to backup INF that gets into melee, so the fighting doesn't rout into my artillery batteries. I also occasionally send them to take out CSA artillery or routing units when it is safe enough to do so. The two smoothbores pretty much spend the battle engaged with the closest enemy. The range of the 3 rifles allow them to support wherever the action is heaviest. This strategy works for me as long as the AI sends units both north and south, but sometimes it gets tunnel vision and wants to send all of its forces in either direction - I then try to shift some idle INF units but more often find myself overrun and need to restart.

Salem Church - Generally strategy, I send all my forces south to engage the CSA reinforcements that will come from that direction, then move north to engage CSA guarding the VP. Depending on how it goes, I may send my fastest moving units to sweep around south and come into the VP from the west at the end of the phase if I feel that I won't be able to fight my way up there. In most battles the AI will commit nearly all of its forces to wherever it can see your units, leaving the back door open to take VPs.

Phase 1 Chickamauga is just a pain and you don't need to hold any of those VPs to move the battle forward. I usually abandon the far right bridge immediately and use those units to fight at the southern bridge until the phase ends. Knowing that CSA reinforcements will come in from the right side (below the bridge area), sometimes I move those forces to cut them off, or at least engage enough to delay them. Once my forces come in to defend the fords, I try to move as many of the allied units to the left as possible, but like you said the enemy CAV is brutal. Sometimes I will send my CAV north to support or at least cover the survivors during their withdrawal.

Terrain Issues - It is very hard to see and sometimes indistinguishable, but if ART says it is moving to fire while the target is in the range cone, then the issue is related to an elevation difference between the artillery battery and the target. It can be frustrating, especially when it looks like there shouldn't be an issue.

NAP vs 24HOW - It depends. If you want MAX damage at cannister/short range, then 24How is the best. Just like MAX damage at long range is going to be your heavy rifles.  The heavy guns are all the best at a specific range while being weak at the opposite range, as well as being slow to move, slow to load, and the most expensive to feed. Medium guns are the most versatile. Light guns are cheap and fast. Every gun has a purpose based on the situation. If you want versatility throughout the full range of the gun then Napoleons, James, and to a lesser degree, Ordnance rifles are your best bet. Napoleon smoothbores and James rifles paired with the tier 1 range perk and the tier 2 accuracy perk make them useful for most anything and since they are medium duty guns they can be moved at a decent speed and the ammo price won't break the bank. They will never be the best at anything, but they will get the job done. 

Accuracy - The perks do stack. Mathematically a 25% accuracy perk and a 25% increased damage perk are the same (looking at the tier 2 artillery perks). However, the accuracy perk works in all ranges and the damage perks are limited to either cannister or shell/shot. This ties into the paragraph above, pick accuracy for versatility or range/damage perks for MAX damage at a particular range. Personally, I tend to take reload and accuracy for my medium guns and increased range and damage for my heavy rifles. By mid-game you have enough extra units and corps that you can pick which type of gun you want to deploy for each type of battle and let the others sit on the bench.

 Spotting - I feel your pain. I find it ridiculous that, at times, my scouts with spotting perks can't see an enemy unit until I am right on top of it taking fire, especially when they are out in the open and not in a field or wooded area. These guys are wearing either blue or gray uniforms. Napoleon had his snipers wear green back in the day, but nobody here is wearing camo. The only real way to manage it that I've found is detaching skirmishers because they can spot +200 further than their parent infantry unit. That extra 200 is often enough to see where the enemy dedicated skirmishers are for the moment so I can hit them with my artillery.

Efficient vs Effective ART battery size - In the mod the more guns you have, the more damage your battery will do in total. So, if by effective you mean most damaging, then more guns equals more damage. As you've noticed, more guns is not more efficient. I believe in the mod 14 is the most efficient for a veteran unit as far as dollars invested per kill (12 guns in the base game) Efficiency is relative to unit stats and command level. So, for rookie units in the early game smaller artillery sizes can be more efficient (4 to 9 guns) depending on their starting stats and the rank of the officer.  Often the AI will have some 700+ battery of 6pd Field guns (3 inch) that hit my units hard, but when I've tried to use the same numbers with a bunch of spare 6pds gun I never have close to the same effect on the enemy so I just avoid oversized artillery.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

39 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Remember the AI scales off your allied units as well. So it is factoring in the dozen or so additional infantry brigades and their men. But otherwise, glad the config options are working for you.

Before I changed any settings, I was playing around with forcing the scaling UP, on MG while working on Training emphasis builds. Obviously, if you go all in on Training in the early game you don't have any, or much, in logistics and even if you did you can't afford to buy stuff. So, the idea was to push scaling as high as I could to boost weapons taken in all the battles up to Shiloh, then de-escalate the scaling there, having let them bleed down to my intended size.  I mean, I got the AI to send close to 20k troops into distress call - it got so out of hand I started laughing - it was like some Hollywood barroom brawl where there was fierce fighting going on everywhere - but it had the intended effect on getting more weapons.

I don't have any issues with any other battle except Shiloh - like everyone else I guess. I may decide to only reduce the max unit sizes for that battle and keep them at the default for everything else. I can get through Shiloh and win, but it is always with 15k+ casualties. Fortunately, the three side battles are before Gaines' Mill are great for rebuilding everything and I do great at Gaines's and Malvern anyway. 

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

13 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Remember the AI scales off your allied units as well. So it is factoring in the dozen or so additional infantry brigades and their men. But otherwise, glad the config options are working for you.

Scaling does not affect the number of enemy units. duplicateRandomProbability in the AIConfigFile controls the chance for any given AI or allied unit to split into two. So the chance could be increased to do what you want. However, on larger battles 100% duplication will result in breaking the unit cap and crashing the battle so you would need to adjust it up and down to have full duplication on smaller battles but less on larger ones.

The historical submod has implemented a scaling system sort of like you described though it is more hardcoded to avoid crashes as far as I'm aware.

The game does mostly work the way you describe. Stealth increases concealment, which provides no bonuses once revealed. Cover reduces damage taken with no impact on visibility.

Skirmisher's higher base cover represents the increased difficulty of scoring a hit against the unit due to their spread out order and greater ability to take advantage of the local terrain. The cover perks further represent this through some combination of keeping more distance between members of the unit, taking advantage of nearby trees, rocks, rolling ground, etc to put something between them and enemy fire. You could also look at this as the unit being more experienced at generating their own cover through digging in, stacking rocks/trees and such.

A cornfield isn't going to provide much cover, but there is certainly more in the way than if you were standing in an open field.

Cover and skirmishers bonuses to it are getting adjusted a bit in the future.

Thanks Panda

One other question. Do the CSA SS Palmettos (like at Seven Pines) have set perks, or are they random like most of the other units based on CSA training and arms quality percentage listed in pre-battle stats? No matter how fast I eliminate that unit it always finishes the battle having done serious damage to my units. I've never been able to get them to surrender to find out what they have, they always eventually shatter instead. I know they are using firearms with over 400 range because they easily out distance my INF units. I assume they are using +cover rather than +stealth (maybe a combo since they are 3-stars). They seem to be very consistent in performance on multiple play throughs, so made me wonder if that is a special unit with set perks and weapons.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

1. Question regarding scaling

Everybody has various preferences regarding both the config and aiconfig files. The only percentage value I changed was making the chance to surrender equal to the chance to shatter, at .19. The other thing I did was put a cap on max unit sizes. I started with the player values and set them to the values I normally play.  Something like 1500 for INF, 1000 for CAV, 500 for SKM and 350 for ART.  I then set the AI max unit sizes to 3900 for INF, 1500 for CAV, 700 for ART, and 900 for SKM. I was tired for having Trabue at Shiloh roll up with 5k+ in a brigade when I don't have more than 1250. 

My question is this; will the AI add more units with smaller values?  That's what I'd like it to do. I don't want to down scale the CSA Army size, I just don't want colossal units coming onto the field. If it wants to bring 2 units of 2500 rather than 1 unit with 5000, I am ok with it, but I don't know if the AI calculations work this way.

2. Cover vs Concealment

As a prior service member, I wish the game would use the terms cover and concealment and apply them the way that the military teaches them in basic training. Concealment hides your location but does NOT provide any level of protection against receiving damage. A sniper wearing a ghillie suit provides concealment (stealth) but doesn't stop bullets. Once the enemy knows your location you beat feet out of there because you have no protection. Most of the combat operations I was involved in were at night because the darkness provides concealment. Cover provides both concealment and protection.  When I see perks like "% to cover" I start thinking - are we putting on body armor - how exactly do we have mobile cover bonuses in the civil war era? From my view, the game tends to provide cover (protection from fire, or reduction in damage taken) when it should only provide a modifier to stealth. Once the enemy can see you, you are no longer concealed - like in a wheat field - you should still receive 100% of the damage coming your way.  It happens a lot with enemy skirmishers - once they can be seen, they should not be getting damage reduction cover bonuses when they are out in the open. I shouldn't need 3 full INF brigades and 3+ ART batteries firing multiple volleys at one skirmisher unit to get it to take enough damage to rout.

 

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Thanks for the report, will look into this.

I know that reloading a game in the middle of battle doesn't truly restore the game as it was when you saved it.  All charges are immediately cancelled and put into cooldown. Any "hold fire" on units will be cancelled so they can fire. Units that were moving will load in a "stopped" mode and take a minute to start moving again - moving artillery may even load stopped and deployed and go into "remounting" before they can move again. It made me wonder if losing the group commands had something with those things. 

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

30 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

I ran a quick test on MG and by not winning distress call, but still playing the battle you'll likely see more reboreds instead of muskets and 12pdr howitzers instead of 6pdrs. Up to you if that is worth the trade off. Personally I'd rather have the career point and increased rewards from distress call rather than slightly better weapons from bull run.

Thank you. I forgot about the career point loss! I appreciate you testing it and saving me the effort.

I had been considering that it carries a -12 on reputation, which is actually a 16-point swing since you do not get the +4 for the victory either. Up to Gaines' Mill I tend to spend a lot of my reputation points, plus the reduced recovery rates for distress call itself. Not knowing the potential rewards is what kept me from trying it. If it was Ordnance or Napoleons and Mississippi's I might be inclined to play it out a couple times and look at the numbers, but definitely not for rebores and 12p How.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

@pandakraut

Bug: You may know this already and I don't know if there is a public bug log to look up bugs already reported. I love the addition to setup command groups with hotkeys 1-9, the feature is pretty much a given in most RTS games. I've noticed that if you need to do a reload for any reason, after a group has been setup, something gets disconnected when the game reloads. The unit icons will still highlight (usually) when the hotkey is pressed, but they don't take any commands until you reset the command group.

Question 1: Are the default weapon recovery rates for victory on MG/LG still as follows: 10% of enemy units killed, 25% of enemy units captured, 30% of players unit casualties recovered, and 42.5% of allied unit survivor weapons award?

Question 2: In MG Union Campaign, you come out of Philippi with a fair number of M1841 Mississippi small arms, especially if you can get the phase 1 units to surrender because many of them have that weapon - whether that is hard coded or random assignment, I have no idea, but in my testing it seems that all of the skirmishers have them and maybe half of the infantry - obviously it is a great early game weapon that is only available to the Union via capture/recovery. However, in Distress Call and 1st Bull Run the CSA weapon quality is very poor.

I've noticed that by winning Distress Call there is an effect of -30% weapons quality for the 1st Bull Run battle - so CSA has a ton of muskets, 1842s and re-bores at 1st BR.  In theory, let's say that I decide to destroy most of the CSA units at distress call for the XP, but then withdraw to give them the supply depots and the victory, so there are better weapons to harvest at 1st BR. Honestly, the only weapons I really want out of distress call are the '59 carbines from my allied skirmishers and cav so I can economically start building carbine cav units. What MIGHT a 30% improvement of CSA weapons quality at 1st BR entail?

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

6 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I'm very confident that the captured equipment reflects the enemy units on the field. Are you certain that you captured every single enemy artillery unit that was on the field in this scenario? If you think you can reproduce this with an in battle save prior to the battle ending feel free to send the save to me and I can take a look.

AI perks are identical to the players. Did you manage to kill them to see what cannon they were equipped with?

I will pay attention to this in the future and see if I can send you a file.

As for the cannon perks, unfortunately, I took enough casualties about 1/3rd of the way through that I knew I would replay the mission before moving the campaign forward, so I hit restart and the next time the AI artillery range was what I had expected.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

Hey Pandakraut,

Just a couple general questions.

1) Are there any controls to tell your unit to prioritize enemy charging units, especially when the unit is charging them directly? I think most people would agree that on MG and LG managing enemy charges may be the most important skill you need to learn to win without insane casualties. It's not an issue when you are dealing with a few at one time. However, when you get those situations when 5 or 6 enemy units are coming and you are trying to manage the chaos, I always seem to end up with a unit or two who either: A)  have turned and are firing to support their buddy - completely oblivious to the unit that is 2x their size and just 2 seconds away, or B ) an enemy unit is routing - a charging unit approaches from behind the routing unit and passes them - so they are now in front of the routing unit - but when I click on my unit and it reveals the "orange glow" of who they are targeting - they are still focused on the routing unit even though they should be technically blocked from targeting them by the charging unit that is now right in front of them. Either way I face palm and say "idiots, shoot the angry mob in front of you"

2) Ghost CAV - how is it even possible that a game that is 100% installed on your local hard drive and is only single player can lose sync with cavalry units to cause ghost cav? If we were playing over the internet on a server, it would make sense if we lost sync now and then, but on the local hard drive? I don't get it. It doesn't happen with any other unit type.

3) My understanding is that when the little "eye closed" symbol is over your units, then the AI shouldn't know where I am located... yet enemy ART seems to know where to shell and enemy CAV knows exactly where to go to find any units susceptible to melee attack. I mean, I've literally watched enemy CAV move across the screen in one direction, change direction 90 degrees and charge a unit that supposedly can't be seen by the AI. Almost like there is a delay between when the AI can see you and when the closed eye icon disappears.

4) Enemy ART - I've taken advantage of surrender mechanics quite a bit in the mod. In early game the enemy ART is always 6pdr field guns when they surrender during the battle. Yet, in the battle summary where it shows equipment recovered and captured there can be artillery listed as captured (not recovered) that I know was not deployed by the enemy. 

4a) I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the enemy AI is limited to the same perks as the player. Playing MG a ton lately and I ran into a variance at River Crossing that I'd never ran into before. Typically, my Ordnance rifles, even with just one star, have more range than anything the AI has in a battle as early as River Crossing. But in this variance the AI was significantly out-ranging my guns - it wasn't even close. At first, I thought maybe the AI guns were deployed closer to the river crossing - but once I had skirmishers in place to locate the AI units, they were in the same place that they nearly always start - just behind the farmhouses on the right side of the river - but they were hitting units much further away than I've ever seen. You're familiar with the "eye" lookout point on the left (union side of the river) - typically that is about max range for the AI guns from their starting location - but in this variance they were hitting all the way back to the edge of the wood line (the wooded area where your units start the game). Later in the game I found that the AI guns were 1-star. Do you think this was just some one-off glitch? Or, are there multiple ranged perks at the corp level that the AI could get to fire that far? I mean, generally speaking, the AI's most common rifled guns are Ordnance rifles and 10P Parrots and only rarely deploys longer rifles in certain battles - but nothing that early in the game.

Thank you

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

(@pandakraut You may already realize this, but the current mod version (1.27.4.3) does deploy 12 units at Distress Call even though 10 units is indicated on the display screen. I only realized this when I was playing around with +7 training builds and getting 4 in AO to build max units after Philippi and just happen to realize that I had two extra units on the field - which brings me to the main point - there is only one way to get AO 4 after Philippi. You must use your 2 career points from Philippi on AO, plus have previously selected the 2 AO options when making your campaign/career selections at the start.  Everyone gets +1 AO at the first screen, along with either Training, Recon, or Logistics. The second AO point can only happen if you select +3 Training / +1 AO on the third screen. 

Since the game says you deploy 10 at Distress Call, I'd guess most people don't even realize that 12 units is an option because if you take +3 Econ or +3 Politics, you'll never discover it.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

On 8/20/2021 at 6:20 PM, Edward Reynolds said:

Using your disband method this morning I was able to pop out 1 star units with a captain. This is fantastic! I Also added Rookies with my boosted recruit pool (disbanded all my high skill units) to a garbage unit with crap stats and noticed that the units stats actually increased by a couple points.

Starting to feel like I aaaaallmost know what im doing.

I've found that if I use all captains and go with Gibbons and Wagner as my starting Division leaders (doing a disbanding of starter units with +7 training) I end up  with 1-star units all with 90+ XP when I go into camp before Shiloh. I've played through a bunch of ways to try to get them to 2-star for Shiloh and with captains the INF fall short - though ART units with captains get there with no problem.

If I use majors or higher for my starting 1-stars I can get at least 10 to 12 of them to 2-stars for Shiloh.  That's 10 to 12 of my initial units out of the 14 or 15 created after Philippi.  It's also worth mentioning that your existing Colonels (Scales, Woods, Walton, and Loomis) from the units that you disbanded - they can get a unit to 2 stars in just 2 to 3 battles. I've done it in two battle with them fighting heavy at 1st Bull Run and either River Crossing or Logan's Crossroads. I've had them do it in 3 by fighting the 3 side battles - Distress Call, River Crossing and Logan's Crossing because I sit them at 1st BR to let me younger units/officers get experience. It just takes some experience to know what is possible. Same thing if you decide after 1st Bull Run to spend up on a few Colonel's from the barracks or via reputation points - if they are higher XP than Scales/Walton/Woods/Loomis - and Sherman and McDowell always are - they can push a unit to 2-stars if they are heavily involved at River Crossing and Logan's Crossroads.  Be sure to give your units that are fighting the best accuracy weapons - anyone not deployed for a battle can sit around with muskets or SP42's.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

21 hours ago, pandakraut said:

In the mod, training increases the stats of recruits gained from a battle. So you won't see any immediate benefit when you assign the point, but when the next battle is completed, the rewarded recruits will have higher stats than what you would normally receive. So for example if you start the campaign with 7 points in training, all recruits you will have received when you enter camp will have +20 to all stats. You can see your current stats using a tooltip on the total recruit number.

Panda, I believe you meant +16 to stats at level 7 (not +20). Unless the display is wrong in-game. Right now, taking all 7 of the training perks at campaign start gives +16 to the recruits you receive after Philippi. For example, base efficiency for new recruits with no training perks would be 8. With level 7 training and the +16 to stats the new recruits are now start with 24 efficiency.

On 8/18/2021 at 1:33 AM, Edward Reynolds said:

Some of the comments also seem to indicate high training will let you recruit 1 star units - ive not found this to be the case, everyones at 0 exp. 

There are several variables that go into being able to create 1-star units from the new recruit pool.

CSA vs Union - The CSA campaign starts the game with much better recruits (worse weapons quality), so they don't need as many points in training to start creating 1-star units.  The union has inferior new recruits to start the game, so even having 7 in training will be hard to get 1-star with a new recruit unit.

Level of Officer - Higher level officers give a unit greater starting xp, creeping closer to 1-star. Of course, officers are expensive in the mod and usually scarce at the beginning. 

With that said, if you have 7 in training playing the Union, you can usually get them to 1-star in a single battle - assuming they are actively killing things and not just sitting around - even when lead by low level officers.

I can recommend some strategies for getting 1-star units to start the Union Campaign.

Take all 7 training selections at the start of the campaign. During the first battle, ensure that the units that you get to keep get 500+kills each (this would be INF units Scales, Walton, and Loomis, plus ART Woods). It's not hard to get 1200 to 2000 kills for each of them if you full clear this battle (depending on the difficulty level since higher difficulty puts more enemy units on the field to kill). When you go to camp, disband all four units.  Sending these "seasoned vets" back into the recruit pool boosts the stats of all the recruits CURRENTLY in the pool as the stats get averaged out. Optionally, you can decide to only disband Walton and Scales since they have the highest stats at the start of the game. Disbanding Loomis after Walton and Scales will only result in a few additional stat points, same with Woods. I disband Woods because doing a 7 training build results in a scarcity of weapons in the early game (another reason to do full clears and get captures to boost your weapons recovery with this type of build), so I don't want 13 guns in one ART battery.  With 0 logistics perks, you'll usually get 4 more Napoleon's (plus 4 Ordnance rifles, and some 6pd Field guns) in the armory when you finish the first battle, and I can divide those guns into two smaller units - even with your lowest experience Captain's leading them they will start with 1-star and be 2-star going into Shiloh.

If you don't want to spend any money on higher ranking officers to start the game (no Economy means you pay full price for officers and equipment), I would recommend that you leave yourself as the Corps Commander, buy General John Gibbon using reputation points and give him 1st Division, and then bump Colonel Luis Wagner to 2nd Division (he will get to BG fairly quickly). With that setup, and if you disbanded all the starter units, you will make 1-star units immediately, even if you use Captains with as little as 30 to 40 xp. However, I would recommend using at least Majors for your INF units due to the fact that a unit's efficiency cannot be greater than its command rating. Units in Gibbons division will be fine, but units in Wagner's division might start with efficiency equal to command - so efficiency in battle can't increase any faster than the officer gains experience to boost command. By using Majors (or higher) you can get a buffer between the starting efficiency and command rating, so you don't slow down your unit gaining efficiency. 

Opportunity cost is huge in this game, so just as taking 7 training to start the game means you won't have much (if any) logistics, economy, or politics. Disbanding your starting veteran units means you are giving up having some good units now in order to have better starting units throughout your army. Also, you are giving up the +1 battles-led bonus for those brigade leaders. However, the battles-led bonus is capped after 4 battles and you will fight exactly four more battles before you get to Shiloh, so you still have same battles-led bonus level going into Shiloh - and these newly formed units will level like crazy leading up to Shiloh.

One very important point to make about disbanding units the starting units!!! Understand that when we disband a unit and send the vets back to the recruiting pool, mathematically we are getting an average. For example, 7 in training gives +16 to all stats, so our new recruits are starting with Efficiency of 24 (8 pts base + 16 training bonuses). Let's say that after Philippi (capture the train station) you have 10,536 new recruits with these stats (recruits given for winning the battle plus prisoner exchange for anybody you captured). 10,536 recruits x 24 efficiency points each is a total of 252,864 efficiency points. Let's say Scales has 1200 men when we disband his unit and their efficiency is 40. 1200x40 gives 48,000 efficiency points. We will also say that Walton has 1050 points (he always has the smallest starting brigade but with the highest stat points) and his efficiency is 55. 1050x55 = 57,750.  Now, to average this out we add up the three efficiency numbers. 252,864 + 48,000 + 57,750 = 358,614 efficiency points divided by the total number of men, which is 12,786. That means the "new" efficiency for the recruits is 28.04. The game rounds off to the nearest whole number, so efficiency is now 28, which is 4 points higher than it was before we disbanded Scales and Walton. HOWEVER, you must realize that you are given more recruits at the conclusion of each battle - those recruits are coming in with the +16 from your 7 to training perks and they are then averaged in - driving down that +4 to efficiency you gained originally. THEREFORE, I recommend you build as many new units as you can after disbanding the starting units. You can take 10 units to Distress Call, 12 into 1st Bull Run, and 14 into Logan's Crossroads and River Crossing. So, even though you can't deploy 14 total brigades for a bit you'll be further ahead building as many units as you can with whatever weapons you have for no-cost in your armory and just "parking them" until you can use them all. For this reason, I would put my 2 career points from winning Philippi into AO, for a total of four, so I can build up to 15 units.  If you don't do this, you need to understand that winning all the battles leading up to Shiloh will reward you at least 23,000 new recruits on MG difficulty (not including prisoner exchange or perks in politics) and all of them will dilute the benefits you gained from disbanding your units.

There are few ways to manipulate the numbers. Understand that the only discount you receive from 7 to training is in buying vets. So, even if you don't have enough weapons at the first camp to build full size units, you can create smaller ones and just let them sit while you build up your money and then "buy veterans" to fill them out when you are ready to use them, since buying vets gives you the same stats as the existing units and being low-end 1-star units won't make you go broke to fill them out later.

If you don't mind spending some money on vets right at the start, you can also buy vets to fill out the starting units before you disband them. This actually manipulates the numbers in two ways. First, you are adding more veteran troops to the starting units, so their stats are diluted down less when they return to the recruiting pool. Second, even though you are buying veterans, they subtract from the number of recruits in the pool when you add them - the idea being is that you took a recruit out of the pool and spent money to bring him up to the level of your existing unit - so as the vets you buy goes up, the number of new recruits goes down.  You'll have to play with this some to figure out how much tolerance you have for burning through your starting funds.

Another method to boost recruit starting stats would be to buy better officers (assumes you disbanded the starting units and have 7 training (might be able to do 6 training so you can get a point in logistics at the campaign start to boost the number of weapons availability). Keep in mind that without any career points in economy you are paying full price for officers. There is also some luck involved in regard to how many of each type of officer spawns in the barracks at the start of the game. But, assuming you have at least one high ranking general in the barracks, you could decide to bite the bullet on the cost and take him. Make him the Corps Commander - he will get to MG faster for that second command perk than if you keep yourself in there. Then, buy John Gibbon with reputation points and put him and yourself in as the division leaders. This will put BG's leading your divisions through 1st bull run and that will allow you to just use captains (plus reuse the Colonels from the units you disbanded) to build all of your new units.  You could also decide go the opposite way and use John Gibbon or yourself as the Corps Commander and 1st Division officer, and put Wagner in 2nd Division, then spend up for Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels to build your units - either way you are spending money to buy better officers to improve the starting unit xp.

As you can see there are several variables to getting 1-star units early on. It's not a "one solution fits all" type of thing.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

Question regarding Corps Commander Perks in 1.27.4.3

1) In the base game, some Corps Commander Perks are unit-type specific (INF, ART, CAV). I assume the perks in the current mod apply to all unit types. True?

2) Do any of the Corps Commander perks function outside the commander's area of command / aura? Or must units be within the displayed command radius.

3) I've noticed with supply wagons, units closest to the supply wagons will resupply faster, and units close enough to gain resupply, but farther away will resupply slower. Do the Corps Commander perks have less effect on units that are on the edge of the command radius versus having the commander standing right next to them?

4) Do all Corps Commander perks stack when two or more commanders are on the field? Do they only stack if they are different perks, or if they are the same perk? 

Thank you!

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Are you on the latest patch 1.27.4.3? The current stopgap fix is that any detached skirmisher that can't find it's parent will get shattered so that worse bugs don't occur. Merging effectively results in the parent not being found. The next patch will have a much cleaner for this entire issue, but that is coming along with some major changes so it won't be out anytime soon unfortunately.

I updated to 1.27.4.3 in June right after Jonny posted the files. I then moved my old saves to a separate folder and started fresh. Admittedly, I am a bit later than most to UGCW, as I didn't start playing until a year ago. Had fun with the base game and then started playing your mod in April. Played Union and CSA through on BG to get a feel for the changes. Now, I'm trying to master MG difficulty.

I've been experimenting with different career stat and perk builds to see what fits my playing style. In BG you can make any stat combination work, it doesn't really matter what you pick if AO is high enough to field your army. I can't say the same for MG. So far, I've taken six builds through Shiloh and five of them had similar results - going through all phases and winning, but with a large number of casualties. My last build cleared the board on day one with half the casualties, so I either got lucky, or found the right combo that fits me for MG difficulty.

It is interesting how much individual playing style impacts the battles and people's perceptions of the battles. For example, it seems that most people have a much easier time with Shiloh phase 1 (Union right) than they do with phase 2 (Union left), whereas I am the exact opposite - to the point that I give my troops on the left flank my worst equipment and most of my green units and they still do better than my union right in regard to holding ground. Most people just despise Philippi, but I love Philippi it in both the base game and mod even though I play them extremely different. In the base game, if you take the objective with less than 10 game minutes left it will cut off early, so you never face the CSA counterattack (thus having fewer casualties to start the campaign). The mod doesn't allow early cut off (that I know of), so I avoid tripping the objective to prolong the battle and do a full clear of phase one CSA units to allow my starter units to rack up as many kills and captures as possible - killing the last CSA unit will start the counterattack phase whether you take the objective or not, then I full clear phase two.

The whole experience is just interesting and challenging, while being frustrating as hell when things don't work out, but extremely satisfying when you realize you've figured out an optimal strategy for each battle that fits your play style.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

With the replacement officer system of the mod, it is extremely rare that I merge units, unless it is a prolonged battle, and a unit takes heavy casualties early. So, this might be a known issue and I just happen to notice it for the first time.  That is, merging two units that both have detached skirmishers causes skirmisher morale to rapidly countdown negative, without stop. Granted, this was with two allied units.

Playing Seven Pines on MG with the most recent mod files. In both the mod and base game, the two small INF allied units in the center are terrible, so I usually merge and park them behind my troops and keep them in reserve. Since the AI skirmishers are great at remaining hidden in this battle, I will deploy a few detached skirmishers to take advantage of the increased spotting. In this play through, I decided to deploy detached skirmishers from those two allied INF units. 

After detaching the two skirmishers, I clicked on the "merge" for those two INF units.  I then clicked on each detached skirmisher to deploy them to my desired location. I happen to have unit stats revealed rather than the default condition screen and as the detached skirmishers were moving into position (and at the moment the two INF units merged) I realized the morale for each detached skirmisher was furiously counting down negative - into the minus several hundred in seconds - even with the game paused.

I did a quick save and reload to see if they would reset. Well, when the game loaded, the two detached skirmishers were flashing white as if they were rooting even though they had not taken damage - assuming from the negative morale.  They sat there flashing for about 20 game minutes. At some point, when the action had calmed down, I went ahead and did a save and load again to see if they would reset. This time the detached skirmishers were gone - I assume the game assumed those units had rooted, so it removed them from play.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

I'm curious, is there a benefit of the melee perk that isn't listed on the tool tip? Obviously, the perk says 25% to charge and 15% to speed (lvl 1). So, the implication is that the only melee bonus would come from pressing "Charge", but from my game play observations there seems to be more to it.  Mainly, I've found that my units with a melee perk do much better tanking/resisting a CSA infantry brigade WITHOUT pressing charge.

Originally, if I was in a situation where CSA infantry is charging one of my units, and I can't stop the charge or avoid it, I would "charge" them too, in order to get the 25% bonus. This would result in my unit doing more initial damage, but they would burn through morale and condition so fast that my unit would route. However, if I don't charge, and the CSA unit is of similar size, my melee units don't inflict as many casualties initially, but they often outlast the charging CSA unit, then when the CSA breaks and routes my unit continues doing damage and holding their ground...  whereas my units with accuracy perk usually can't do this, so it just seems to me more is going on with that melee perk than the tool tip is indicating.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

 

10 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Accuracy is basically a damage multiplier as there is no actual 'to hit' chance in the game, just lower and higher damage. Functionally accuracy and shot/shell damage provide the same bonus, however accuracy also applies to canister damage while shot/shell only applies to those two shot types.

Thanks Pandakraut. I do build dedicated anti-battery rifle units, but with my smoothbores, I may swap them for rifles at times if cannister won't be used much in a given battle. So, accuracy is always useful because it doesn't matter which gun that battery is using.  Much appreciated.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

Regarding the second artillery perk in the mod, trying to decide between 25% increased shell/shot damage or 25% accuracy, what is the math behind the 25% increased accuracy? Normally, I would typically pick accuracy but from my limited understanding of how accuracy works in the game I'm not how it is applied.

[J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4]

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

If you run into this elsewhere, or it seems like it's impossible to flip a point back no matter what you do, make a save and let me know. I ran into this once the other day and I'm not sure if that was a one off or not.

Will do. Of the three times that it happened; the control switched back to Union fairly quickly.  The one time when no CSA units were close to the depot, control switched back and forth between Union and CSA 3 or 4 times within a few game minutes before settling on Union.  I do think the ghost CAV thing is at least part of it.