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


JonnyH13

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1 hour ago, killjoy1941 said:

though it might prove invalid on Legendary since the AI artillery would be just that much more effective

Add some heavy cannon to snipe the enemy artillery and it would probably work just fine. I'm using almost nothing but long range artillery and leaving battles with barely any casualties. Requires a 2 star skirmisher to scout though.

We made some major breakthroughs in terms of modding the weapon damage on so we should be able to get some better results in the next major version. I think this means that accuracy perks will be able to be toned down without affecting giant units ability to reliably damage each other.

Probably will have a hotfix for 1.11 before that with only minor changes, though that's all dependent on real life schedules.

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I'm by no means an accomplished player, but one thing I'd like to do is decide on a set of 'builds' for different units, so that I can put a marker in the unit names and get a better instant sense of what a unit is best at.

One thing I'm wondering; do you guys think it's better to stack one type of bonus (all accuracy, all melee, all speed, etc), or mix up bonuses? 

One thing I'm wondering I guess is if there's some type of diminishing return to stacking accuracy? Stacking all movement/maneuvering seems not very valuable, but having at least one movement-related skill seems valuable.

For artillery, a couple of builds stand out to me as mostly obvious:

Attacking arty (for chasing down and routing the field):

  • horse artillery, mid range focus, rapid fire specialist
  • The idea here is you're moving the arty up alot with the infantry, helping to more quickly rout fleeing units, or trapping them into a corner of the map and destroying them.

Defensive Arty (close range)

  • A little less obvious, many skills could work
  • Short Range focus, mid range focus, rapid fire specialist

Sniper Arty (anti-arty)

  • For destroying enemy arty
  • long range focus, extreme range focus, bombardment specialist

 

Would love to hear some thoughts on 2-3 infantry builds that people have in mind. They're a little less obvious to me. It seems to me like it's generally better to have infantry be 'pretty good' at everything, otherwise the micro needed might get in the way of fun for me.

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Accuracy does not have diminishing returns which is partially why it's causing problems. For Infantry I use a mix. I have some full accuracy units, some full melee, and some lvl1 accuracy/lvl 2 melee units. The full melee units usually back up the full accuracy units since they will get overrun if a movement speed brigade charges them.

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7 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Accuracy does not have diminishing returns which is partially why it's causing problems. For Infantry I use a mix. I have some full accuracy units, some full melee, and some lvl1 accuracy/lvl 2 melee units. The full melee units usually back up the full accuracy units since they will get overrun if a movement speed brigade charges them.

That was kind of my thought too. It's extra micro, but it does add interesting gameplay (outfitting them differently in camp, making sure they're positioned well as reserves, etc.)

From my understanding, effectively all you can do in the mod currently is change constants (at least as it relates to things like accuracy)?

Edited by drhay53
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Side question only somewhat mod related; do you know how to estimate the canister damage of an arty piece with just the stats available for each cannon? I keep a spreadsheet where I estimate how good each weapon is via a weighted average, and the 24 PDR Howitzer is always underestimated, which leads me to believe I'm missing something (probably related to the size/weight of the ammo).

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1 minute ago, drhay53 said:

From my understanding, effectively all you can do in the mod currently is change constants (at least as it relates to things like accuracy)?

We can do quite a bit more than that. I could rewrite the entire damage algorithm and add diminishing returns to accuracy if I wanted to for example. I think any benefit from doing so is outweighed by the downsides though. Adding new mechanics is tricky because there is no UI support for them and they would largely have to be hardcoded as there is no space in the assets file. There are other limits but I don't have any concise way of describing them currently.

Maps, UI elements(other than text), objectives, timers, mission order are the types of things we definitely can't change so far.

 

 

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1 hour ago, drhay53 said:

Would love to hear some thoughts on 2-3 infantry builds that people have in mind. They're a little less obvious to me. It seems to me like it's generally better to have infantry be 'pretty good' at everything, otherwise the micro needed might get in the way of fun for me.

Two kinds of infantry for me:

Charging infantry:

-Stacks speed and charging bonus combined with weapons that have high melee values. The objective is land control in pushing enemy units away with a single grand charge. 1v1 they will come out on top despite long odds, and if two or three charge from two directions they can overrun several artillery batteries at once.

-They start with muskets and so are cheap and plentiful, but by mid game they have to move on to rifles to at least give some fire aid which in turns makes them much more difficult to maintain the high melee values.

-They move from being 1:1 ratio to 1:2 ratio due to this.

 

Fire infantry:

-Stacks accuracy to the extreme, at two stars they can fire outside of effective range (425ish) and still deliver grievous damage. In cover they can only be removed by charging units.

-Rifles aim for either high damage or high reload speeds at the cost of melee strength. Vulnerable to a charge since they lack speed bonuses although a general with lives in the saddle can mitigate a lot of this.

-They start difficult to form but by mid game are easy to maintain and form a larger portion of forces.

 

These two classes can be mixed and matched in pairs and complement each other well, so it isn't absolutely necessary to micro them. Pairs of charging infantry can still do the fire role using their speed to flank and pairs of fire groups can hold ground with one counter charging will the other fires into the scrum. One of each class naturally allows fire infantry to soften up the enemy with the charging unit securing terrain advantage.

Maneuver infantry:

This is a theorycraft unit. If accuracy perks get nerfed then reload speed can become more important for smaller units. If this happens then maneuver focus can become more important at 2 stars. These units would thus become hybrid units, able to move and shoot fast, kind of like meatier skirmishers. One caveat of this class is that the units would need to stay small because as units get larger reload speed falls off due to longer volleys. With the current meta it is often better to just pick up some skirmishers and shove the saved men and guns to beef up proper infantry. However if a unit is planned on being three stars as a commando 750ish unit then this concept might shine.

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I have the following types of Infantry:
Elites - Focus on Accuracy, Reload
Assault - Focus on Melee and Charge
Reserves->Line - Same as Elites but lower stats, for soaking up damage, I rename them to Line infantry after they get enough XP and I want to add another new brigade as the reserve.
Variants:
Reserves R (Rapid) - Fire L1 and Maneuver L2 - for shoring up areas as needed
Rearguard - Assault with Accuracy and Charge - Basically Elites but they have charge in case they get meleed so they can countercharge.

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I've found non sniper skirmishers (small brigades 250 men) lose their leader way too easily (KIA almost all the time), like 49 men die and I get a KIA notification. This means I can only put very low rank leaders in charge of them. I don't know if you guys could change the formula. It does mean that I can't easily replace the previous detach skirmisher option (where I would get brigades of ~250 men), and I've found rather than skirmishers just having another infantry brigade is more effective for stalling tactics. I had 8 leaders die on me in 2nd Battle of Bull Run when I deployed 6 skirmisher brigades with 250 men, and all of them basically lost 50 men (replaced midway through the battle). All of them have the +Cover perk and they were fighting from fortifications with 100% cover or in buildings.
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2nd Battle of Bull Run the number of brigades you can deploy in the first battle is too low with the removal of skirmishers. I holed up on the VP and didn't bother to advance since I could not deploy enough units. AI never attacked me.
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2nd Battle of Bull Run Day 1 ought to include an option to just end the battle (skip day 2) if you wipe the Union army as CSA (80% casualties or higher), actually if there's a way to add that as a victory condition to other battles (enemy took 80% casualties or higher, and you took 40% or less) that just ends multi-day battles would be more realistic.
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2nd Battle of Bull Run the AI brings WAAAAY to many supply wagons. I captured like 8 supply wagons on day 1 or something, and 4 on day 2.
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I've used nothing but Napoleons and 3 Inch Ordnance myself, and often not at canister range, so please don't nerf those too much. ;) Actually on paper imho the higher tier art weapons are worse than Napoleons (including 24 inch Howitzer) unless I'm misunderstanding something about the stats...?

Edited by limith
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54 minutes ago, limith said:

I've found non sniper skirmishers (small brigades 250 men) lose their leader way too easily (KIA almost all the time), like 49 men die and I get a KIA notification. This means I can only put very low rank leaders in charge of them. I don't know if you guys could change the formula.

I think this is just really bad luck. At a quick glance the formula doesn't care about unit sizes or cover. If a unit takes damage, roll a dice to see if an officer gets wounded. If they are wounded roll a second dice to see if they are killed. I'll add it to my list to check on what the actual rates are, though fair warning I think Jonny would rather those rates go up than down :P

I've lost almost no officers on skirmishers, I usually just drop captains or majors on 250 man units, ignore any efficiency penalties and let them rank up.

1 hour ago, limith said:

I've found rather than skirmishers just having another infantry brigade is more effective for stalling tactics

I think if you're switching to infantry I would consider it as just holding a forward position rather than delaying like skirmishers would. I've found that infantry have a far harder time disengaging than the skirmishers will and will take more casualties performing the same delaying action. With skirmishers I basically just force the enemy to stay out of column and waste condition on reloading while continually falling back. There are probably a few to many places where it's just more convenient to use maybe half or 2/3 the extra slots on skirmishers and just bring more of other unit types instead though. Feedback on the positives or negatives of this aspect is appreciated.

55 minutes ago, limith said:

2nd Battle of Bull Run the number of brigades you can deploy in the first battle is too low with the removal of skirmishers. I holed up on the VP and didn't bother to advance since I could not deploy enough units. AI never attacked me.

Which side? I mostly updated the low number(<6) of deployment slots based on memory so I'm sure I missed a few. Union Cold Harbor was definitely missed. Getting through that with only 5 units and no skirmishers is likely no fun. Probably have to hold off the point and try and retake it or something.

58 minutes ago, limith said:

2nd Battle of Bull Run Day 1 ought to include an option to just end the battle (skip day 2) if you wipe the Union army as CSA (80% casualties or higher), actually if there's a way to add that as a victory condition to other battles (enemy took 80% casualties or higher, and you took 40% or less) that just ends multi-day battles would be more realistic.

If you completely destroy all enemy units you will always immediately win most battles. There may be some exceptions, but you can skip part 2 of Phillipi for example. Adding or significantly changing objectives is still out of reach unfortunately. It's probably possible but I haven't figured it out yet.

1 hour ago, limith said:

2nd Battle of Bull Run the AI brings WAAAAY to many supply wagons. I captured like 8 supply wagons on day 1 or something, and 4 on day 2

2nd bull run and Antietam have issues with this on both sides. Given that it's only 5k max for a capture I'm not to worried about it given the comparative effort to remove them.

1 hour ago, limith said:

I've used nothing but Napoleons and 3 Inch Ordnance myself, and often not at canister range, so please don't nerf those too much. ;) Actually on paper imho the higher tier art weapons are worse than Napoleons (including 24 inch Howitzer) unless I'm misunderstanding something about the stats...?

Base damage values Ignoring cost, ammo, reload, collateral radius, etc

20p: 110 30-50 = 33 - 55dmg
3in: 70 45-60 = 31.5 - 42dmg
nap: 80 42.5-65 = 34 - 52dmg
24p: 100 25-55 = 25 - 55dmg

So the 20p will deal more damage per shot and has longer range. However the main difference is how much damage they do at various ranges. I'm working on getting those damage curves available for viewing, but all I can say for now is that the 20p and 24p have performed significantly better at the same roles as the 3in and the Nap for me. The other thing to note is that in general we attempt to present trade offs with the weapons. You should be able to go super heavy siege batteries and eat the extra cost and reload times. But you can also go with light to medium artillery that is cheap, reloads quickly, and still deals decent damage in comparison.

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Quote

Which side? I mostly updated the low number(<6) of deployment slots based on memory so I'm sure I missed a few. Union Cold Harbor was definitely missed. Getting through that with only 5 units and no skirmishers is likely no fun. Probably have to hold off the point and try and retake it or something.

CSA in 2nd battle of Bull Run, it's the pre-day 1 skirmish. If you bring skirmishers and 3 Inf you won't have enough Inf to hold the forested position, it's better to just hide in the VP area (which the AI won't attack if you are hiding and never trigger their aggro). The AI also has an art, so if you bring Art + 3 Inf + Skirmishers that's even worse since the AI has 5+ Inf + Art + 2+ Skirmishers and you can't hold the forest position at all since you will get flank fire from all directions

Quote

If you completely destroy all enemy units you will always immediately win most battles. There may be some exceptions, but you can skip part 2 of Phillipi for example. Adding or significantly changing objectives is still out of reach unfortunately. It's probably possible but I haven't figured it out yet.

The problem is the AI cavalry leaders are nearly impossible to chase down in some maps, and the battle doesn't end if they are still alive (at least 2nd Battle of Bull Run day 1 goes to day 2 even after I wipe their entire army), the AI was instant gifted 17k troops for day 2 (I think probably the min strength for day 2).
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Bug report: I've seen the AI use artillery (and infantry) to fire upon my units that were stealthed (and never revealed since the start of the game). Maybe it's a bug with the in game stealth icon and the change you made to spotting range based on campaign recon?

Edited by limith
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1 hour ago, limith said:

CSA in 2nd battle of Bull Run, it's the pre-day 1 skirmish.

Should get 6 units instead of 5 there, will get it changed in the hotfix patch.

1 hour ago, limith said:

The problem is the AI cavalry leaders are nearly impossible to chase down in some maps, and the battle doesn't end if they are still alive

I'm not sure that matches what I've seen. If only generals or supply units are left it should trigger the no units remaining flags. Did you have recon 4 to see what the remaining strength was? My recommendation for clearing generals is park an arty unit near them and don't chase them around. Don't directly target them as that can cause them to fall back.

1 hour ago, limith said:

Bug report: I've seen the AI use artillery (and infantry) to fire upon my units that were stealthed (and never revealed since the start of the game). Maybe it's a bug with the in game stealth icon and the change you made to spotting range based on campaign recon?

Spotting changes in the mod are only for the player. Sometimes you can get in a scenario where a unit will flip in and out of cover. If a unit triggers its firing animation that will continue even if you immediately stealth again.

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1 minute ago, pandakraut said:

Spotting changes in the mod are only for the player. Sometimes you can get in a scenario where a unit will flip in and out of cover. If a unit triggers its firing animation that will continue even if you immediately stealth again.

I have had situations where players units will fire into the shroud because they autotargeted the nearest unit. I don't think it is the mod in particular, just the nature of the AI autotargeting logic.

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Oddly confused could be from the base game could be from the mod.

Does the Army intelligence screen even matter?

On a painful run of CSA (fuck arty) on MG and got to Shiloh.

Army Intelligence says they have 40-45k Men - normal. Click into The Battle screen for Shiloh - They have 75K where did the AI somehow pull 30K out of its ass? 

May have to put a Major general run on hold. Speaking of generals - Jesus the artillery just minces men and thus officers are flying off their horses - I wouldn't mind buying more colonels if there were any left ._.

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Yes the intelligence numbers regarding army size on the battle select screen are mostly meaningless, although the concepts behind the scenes are still valid. The equipment and training values are still valid though. The value given after you select a battle is correct, but only for an early phase of the battle. Recon 4 naturally gives you the exact number on the field.

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8 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Add some heavy cannon to snipe the enemy artillery and it would probably work just fine. I'm using almost nothing but long range artillery and leaving battles with barely any casualties. Requires a 2 star skirmisher to scout though.

We made some major breakthroughs in terms of modding the weapon damage on so we should be able to get some better results in the next major version. I think this means that accuracy perks will be able to be toned down without affecting giant units ability to reliably damage each other.

Probably will have a hotfix for 1.11 before that with only minor changes, though that's all dependent on real life schedules.

I'd really have to test it, but my gut tells me I wouldn't need, say, 20lb Parrots or the like. I would expect once the rout gets started the AI artillery would nearly constantly be moving, nullifying most of its effectiveness. That's what happens now. The question would be whether or not the AI infantry could stand and/or rally fast and often enough to allow its artillery to contribute more than token fire.

Now, whether or not I manage to try it out depends upon which of us ends up with more free time over the next few months... :D

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5 minutes ago, chemical_art said:

Yes the intelligence numbers regarding army size on the battle select screen are mostly meaningless, although the concepts behind the scenes are still valid. The equipment and training values are still valid though. The value given after you select a battle is correct, but only for an early phase of the battle. Recon 4 naturally gives you the exact number on the field.

Recon 4 also makes your skirmishers and cav that much more effective. I'm kind of addicted to it.

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22 minutes ago, Zenneh said:

Does the Army intelligence screen even matter?

The size shown on the intelligence screen gives you the starting point of the AI army. Scaling from various factors can raise and lower the actual number you face. I would probably just look at the prebattle amount. I enabled it for all values of recon specifically so you get some warning before heading into a battle.

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You can start with 7 training. This gives the union nearly 1 star recruits and the CSA ~1.5 star recruits. Though currently starting with econ and logistics and just buying cannon and fielding 24p and 20p as soon as possible is probably better :P

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It seems that reinforcing a brigade (that is 100% green) costs money when veteran is selected even when the brigade is 100% green and rookies won't change the stats at all. Not sure if this is a bug you can fix. Might be due to how your Training stat is implemented.

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1 hour ago, limith said:

It seems that reinforcing a brigade (that is 100% green) costs money when veteran is selected even when the brigade is 100% green and rookies won't change the stats at all. Not sure if this is a bug you can fix. Might be due to how your Training stat is implemented.

This is an existing issue from the base game. When you have veterans selected the game calculates how much a veteran for that unit would cost based on the unit's experience and charges you for that cost. No comparison is made against whether or not you could achieve the same result with rookies.

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18 hours ago, pandakraut said:

You can start with 7 training. This gives the union nearly 1 star recruits and the CSA ~1.5 star recruits. Though currently starting with econ and logistics and just buying cannon and fielding 24p and 20p as soon as possible is probably better :P

Ah...

It's great for a heavy infantry focus, so I might try to break the mod with it later since infantry is my thing, but I'm still trying to see what I can break with artillery. :)

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3 hours ago, killjoy1941 said:

Ah...

It's great for a heavy infantry focus, so I might try to break the mod with it later since infantry is my thing, but I'm still trying to see what I can break with artillery. :)

It actually is cool for more then just heavy infantry. Being able to create and shred 1 star units at will makes for easier strategic shuffling. It has been said that the life expectancy for officers skirmishers are low and I agree. But when majors are cheap and plentiful and I can create (and disband) adequate skirmishers at will the result is that I can still recreate the disposable nature of detached skirmishers. This principle could even be extended to any unit: Being able to reorganize units on the fly as slot conditions change eases many problems.

Edited by chemical_art
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12 hours ago, chemical_art said:

It actually is cool for more then just heavy infantry. Being able to create and shred 1 star units at will makes for easier strategic shuffling. It has been said that the life expectancy for officers skirmishers are low and I agree. But when majors are cheap and plentiful and I can create (and disband) adequate skirmishers at will the result is that I can still recreate the disposable nature of detached skirmishers. This principle could even be extended to any unit: Being able to reorganize units on the fly as slot conditions change eases many problems.

Sorry, I should've said infantry-heavy focus, as in using a lot of infantry brigades. I think the organizational aspect is probably only valid through Fredericksburg, since after that I nearly always have a significant recruit surplus. That discourages disbanding. Instead, I usually keep an open corps with one or two incidental division commanders for brigade and division shuffling.

Good point about the skirmishers, though. I hadn't thought of that.

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