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Rubinfan

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Everything posted by Rubinfan

  1. Ah, great to hear. I decided to make a new Legendary run, keeping the default mod values unchanged and adjusting the initial career point distribution and heeding some of your other advice. I ended up beating the 1st Bull Run with no cavalry at all eventually. There were multiple problems that forced me to decide this way: 1.Only one cavalry unit was up to the desired strength of 600 men. The other had 282, as far as I remember - all due to lack of Palmettos in the shop. So this unit was more like a liability - not enough numbers to melee anything more than cannons, single-shot pistols, even one infantry volley taken meant drastically reduced combat worthiness. 2.The cannons were positioned in a way to incur volleys from close range from the enemy infantry nearby, should I choose to yolo-charge them. So had to make use of the pistols while shielding myself with the cannons from the enemy. This didn't always work and sometimes the enemy could shoot me through the cannons. Also took some losses from the cannons while running back and forth and eating some canister due to bad timing. 3.Couldn't find any more meaningful ways to influence the battle after the cannons were done for. It was possible to kill the artillery supporting Sherman's and Keyes's brigades, should they take the route to attack Henry Hill from the rear, but not much more due to decreasing condition and enemy size. 4.The enemy spawned an insane amount of cavalry, totaling around 2500-3000 men. I couldn't risk bringing my cavalry closer and see it getting killed and also my infantry already had its hands full with dealing with superior enemy infantry. The last thing I needed were packs of enemy horses wrecking my lines. So I chose to disband my horses and add 2 more 1000-men infantry brigades. This helped me to get through. As for holding then retreating - I found it problematic to pick the right moment and retreat behind the river. All this extra walking makes my lazy bums tired and prone to rear flanking fire in the water. So chose to take my positions in peace at the beginning. Could be. But at CSA Shiloh you get a ton of loaned no-perk artillery. In my previous playthroughs I remember it getting hopelessly stuck in the woods, struggling vainly to reach the desired positions as these positions kept moving forward with the advancing army. But in my previous walkthrough they were able to keep up. Same with some of my own guns with other battles. In my new campaign I decided to keep my units around 1000-1500 at the beginning like during my very first walkthrough and expand, maybe, after Antietam. Let's see how it goes with the newest version. Great. Tried to start with 4 in training and the recruit pool stats are certainly going up. This also eliminated the problem present in the earlier versions - if you pump a lot into politics early, you'll get a ton of low-stat recruits and once you start investing into training and get decent recruits, the previous recruits will keep pushing the skill average down until the end of the game. I usually go with the cheapest officers until pumping up Economy high enough - they level-up pretty fast on rookie units anyway. However, in the new run had to break the bank and hire some Colonels exactly for getting the first perk faster. All of my starting officers got wounded in the first battles and Kemper died (R.I.P).
  2. I ended up with my infantry being between 2 and 3k depending on funds and weapon availability. I have 3 units of 3000 men that are the largest. Tried to load again and tried clicking in and out of the battle map. 170k was probably a one-time extreme, but mostly I get an enemy size of 161-164k for my 44,5k. Tried to disband my army and form 850-men brigades, then I get 130k+ vs the same 40k+. I admit that my brigade swelling went out of hand, because there were battles where I managed to win strictly because some of my brigades were large. It makes the the AI less charge-happy and even if it charges - they don't fold as quickly as standard 1500-men brigades. Also there were battles like Cross Keys where I was outnumbered on the intelligence screen but managed to field a comparable force via adding men to my 1500-men brigades and forming some 850 men dummy units in the second Corps. Still took me 10+ restarts to win. Well, foot skirmishers seem more annoying to me than skirmish cavalry on horseback. Horses usually hide in the rear or stand foolishly in the front line and take severe losses from volleys since they don't have that foot skirmisher resistance. I do, although I probably missed this once due to lack of funds. I also had only one point in Logistics and also buffed up Cabell to 15 guns fairly early while he was still relatively inexperienced. Switching perks seems like a reasonable advice, as well as reserving some veterans for cannons (they don't require many) thank you. In this version of the mod canons move faster without the horse artillery perk than in the previous version. Or it just seems so? I usually try to preserve condition but random moments still happen. I tried the "7 in training" build, replaying the Potomac Fort when I got into problems at Newport News. But unlike the previous version of the mod, where I successfully used it as the Union, I got no improvement in the default recruit stats. Hiring a limited number of veterans with 20-30 stats didn't seem very expensive so I chose not to play down this path and stayed with 3 in Politics, 1 in Economy, 4 in Recon and something build. Didn't touch training after this. From the description I understood that it can increase stats of units that don't take part in battles, but couldn't understand how noticeable this buff would be. As for the officers, I did and do move the existing high-ranked officers to those units that are close to geting a perk. But I didn't buy any high-ranked ones during the last run since 20k for a brigadier general is way to expensive and the colonels offered weren't much better than those promoted from my captains. I also got free general Ruggles from Shiloh as well as Albert Johnston and two Tomas Jacksons. I'll probably need more officers should I wish to field more smaller units during the next run. Thank you. I'll probably try the Vanilla values and see if this improves the gameplay for me. As for the lowering the enemy numbers or XP, it's just more fun for me to fight against larger and more experienced armies, just need my army to be up to the challenge. I see. So probably no reason to buy them more than enough to field the initial few brigades. It certainly does, thanks a lot! As for the questions, I got a few new ones: 1.If the corps commander "dies" in battle and disappears from the field, will the units of the corps lose the buffs given by the first two commander's perks (they definitely lost the third in the previous version of the mod since it was command aura-based)? 2.Do the first two corps commander's perks (the third one used to work this way in the previous version of the mod) apply only to the units within the commander's aura radius? Asking because someone from outside of this forum mentioned this.
  3. Had previous experience with the mod, beating both campaigns on Legendary. Decided to try the new version and started a new Confederate campaign on Legendary. I managed to reach the 2nd Bull Run winning all battles one way or another. But ran into an obstacle that my forces don't seem to level up at all and none of my brigades were close enough to 2 stars. Having such brigades is crucial for holding the line at Bull Run and later - Antietam, at least from my previous experience. I could field around 35k in 1-star units and around 20k - as freshly formed 0-stars and perhaps even more if willing to spend some on obsolete smoothbore weapons. Now, I could jump over the 2nd Bull Run, accepting a loss with like 4 reputation remaining, only to be obliterated at Antietam by 170k+ of enemy against my 45k, number of enemies further increasing if I tried to increase my own army. There are some nice new things that I appreciate a lot, like: 1.Random enemy spawns/reinforcement routes 2.Increased government rewards based on Politics stat 3.Increased weapon recovery (does it apply to the captured weapons as well, including guns from prisoners or only to your own weapons recovered after battle?) depending on Recon 4.Enemy detachable skirmishers - because if the player can use a certain game mechanic, the AI should have an opportunity to do this as well. Any chances to teach the enemy skirmish cavalry to mount-dismount? 5.Limited veteran pool and it's stats depending on your own unit skill. There are things I can adapt to and live with like: 1.Nerfed artillery - because the enemy's guns got nerfed too, allowing more freedom of movement on the battlefield. And increased government rewards allow getting more decent weapons for a more infantry and cavalry-focused game. However, rifled artillery seems useless now - during one of my attempts to win at Cedar Mountain, Cabell's battery (the one from the Potomac Fort with a Horse artillery perk, Ordnance guns and still one star fired at the enemy cannons, inflicting 1 casualty per shot (that's for 100$ from my general's salary). I can't obtain any better cannons until the 2nd Bull Run (with 10 in Politics you can get 12 Blakelys for reputation) and there isn't much incentive to field this battery during previous battles. Low-skilled smoothbore guns still have some use at canister range. 2.Limited timers - at least I don't have to wage battles with the manual open on an adjacent screen to know how much time remains. 3.All of my men turning into lazy bums being constantly tired and running away in panic for like 3-4 minutes, further reducing condition to exhausted (no, I don't have 30 minutes to let you to recover because of the aforementioned reduced timers). But since my forces almost don't level-up and the enemy constantly gets 2 and 3-star brigades for free sacrificing, overcoming such difficulties is beyond me. So I have a question if there is a way to adjust the config file modifiers to return the old experience level-up speed multipliers so my forces would level up like in the previous version? And another broader question to everyone familiar with the mod - is there any use in investing in low-tier rifles (that would be the Re-Bored Musket, Springfield M1855, Mississippi M1841 and MJ&G)? I can't get to use them to achieve profitable volley trade-offs with the enemy. My Mississippi-equipped units may enjoy some limited success until after Shiloh, but as soon as the enemy switches to Springfield M1861 they just can't kill enough and when I pass these rifles to rookies, they perform even worse. But even my rookie performance jumps up drastically when equipped with Springfield M1861 (the closest upgrade from the Union's shop) or Harpers Ferry M1855 (same from the Confederate shop). I'm interesting to know this because with low economy stat it is better to invest only in stuff you can successfully use later on. So if these rifles have no future use, better to buy the least amount possible and save money. On Economy 1 Mississippi M1841 costs 33$, on Economy 9 you can buy an Enfield 1853 for the same price.
  4. Hello! Finally managed to beat the Union campaign on Legendary. Took like 3 tries and a run on Hard to learn more about ins and outs. Had to accept defeat at Shiloh (ran away from the map without fighting) since I couldn't find a solution, how to stop 3000+ men 3-star charging enemy brigades with useless cannon fodder my army is at the beginning. So chose to take a reputation hit and forfeit 2 (or 3 career points). I know there is a way to beat this battle, but just chose not to waste my time and spend more money buying all the 6 and 12 pounder scrap, than the 100.000$ 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. And the 2nd Winchester - that was winnable by beefing up my units, but wanted to avoid this before Gettysburg to keep the Confederate army smaller - it's much easier to canister 2000 charging clown packs than 3500. 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. 6.Fort Stevens – usually send the rookie corps there so they could level-up while shooting the enemy from the fort, but faced a 75000 non-scalable force against my 42000 coming in piecemeal. So had to abandon my plan, replay Cold Harbor and reshuffle my army to include units with Spencers and Henries, as well as some more support with captured Whitworth rifles (infantry and sniper versions). Still had to abandon the fort, but my artillery saved the day at the end. During the campaign I tried to stick with 1500-men brigades, 14-cannon batteries, horse and skirmisher count depended on the weapons available and officer rank. The most widespread weapon was the Lorenz as the Union gets a lot of these through rep points, allied units (got some 2200 at 7 Pines and 5000+ at Salem Church) and captures as the Confederates usually carry Lorenzes until Chancellorsville. Although I find it somewhat funny that the side considered a powerful industrial nation had to rely on imports on such a scale. The other notable rifles were: Harpers Ferry – actually the only reasonable rookie option for me when I had to by the weapon, as the muskets are crap, Springfield 55 is useless at long range, Springfield 61 is good but the production stops after Chancellorsville. Also it wasn’t rare that a regiment levelled up with these guns up to 2 solid stars and I didn’t see the need to change the weapon. So these rifles make a good investment. Tyler Texas – got 20000+ of these from the 2nd tier Confederate units. Used for placeholder rookies. Joslyn – broke the bank right before Richmond and fielded 17 brigades with them. Was worth it, but the rifle appears late and is a bit pricey. Whitworth – captured enough to field 15 brigades for Richmond. The funny thing is that I’ll be probably lucky to field 3-4 in the Confederate playthrough. Colt55, Spencer and Henry – ended up fielding 2 regiments with each, were the killing machines in defence – both on foot and from the trench, especially Henries. As for the artillery, started with 3 Inch and Napoleons, but aimed for the high-tier guns, obtained 20 PDR Parrots for reputation, so ended up with 4 14-gun Siege Batteries, 3 – 12 PDR Whitworths, 9 – 20PDR Parrotts. James, captured Blakelies and some remaining 3Inch were relegated to rookie batteries. Napoleon batteries got eventually rearmed to 24 PDR since I captured a number of these, although the rearmament worth was questionable. Horses got the cheapest carbines possible, although I kept bying Spencer and Colt55 carbine and eventually rearmed a regiment with each. Skirmishers got JFB and Sharps, later rearmed a regiment with captured Withworth TS – also a killing machine. For the infantry, cavalry, skirmisher and corps commander perks I went with those giving accuracy, since I saw no reason for my regiments with 34 in melee after formation to try to melee 2000 men 3 star brigades with 100 melee and usually at least 1 perk in it. Cannons got the 1st horse artillery perk and the later depended if they were smoothbore or rifled. Had to consent to weaker cannons since without the speed perk they are painfully slow and get stuck in the woods. Also I was able to move my cannons with infantry on offensive missions just like in Vanilla. I haven’t encountered any major bugs related to the mod. However, there were issues. 1.At times my unit would stop firing from the defensive position despite the enemy being firmly in the range (not at the tip). Manual aiming stopped working as well. To fix it, had to unseat the unit, manually aim it and place it back (and get my share of whatever crap the enemy was sending towards it in the process, sometimes ending in a rout.). Happened frequently enough to notice, namely at Fort Stevens, Georgia Railroad and a number of earlier missions. Maybe 1-3 times during the battle, but if I failed to notice it, my unit just kept sitting under fire doing nothing. 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. P.S. Since the guns have all that close, long, max range effectiveness, maybe it would be possible to rearrange the distance cones into 5 sections instead of 3? Same with infantry. P.S.S. All it all, I'm happy with the mod, although it has some frustrating moments at the beginning and at the end. Thanks for the creator (or creators)!
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