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

[Drizzo]

On 8/10/2023 at 3:03 PM, Raymond Sebastien said:

 

I would like to know what statistical qualities you select at the start as a player. I made a chart which summarizes all the possibilities of choice.

Have a good day to all and take care. 🙂

I would say the good thing about this mode is possibility to adopt your choices to your playstyle and your build. It also depends on the side you are playing. As CSA I usually pick L.C.P or T.C.P from your chart, because you really need to focus on politics first as CSA. 2 in logi helps buying more heavy arty, sniper rifles and colts/sabers early on. Recon is always nice to have because of spotting and loot increase. Besides, training and medicine will not help you that much during early game. I usually start increasing those around 2nd Bull Run.

But Union is another story I guess (not sure since I prefer playing as CSA mostly). I want to try logi/economy based build for USA some day.

I also watched a nice video of Gonzo gamer maxing training first as Union. Those +5 stats per battle  for not deployed units looks pretty attractive because of crappy rookies you get as USA. And in several battles allows you to have recruits with almost 30 in each stat  (meaning you can create one star rookie units with majors or even captains). Of course this comes with a price of not getting much money, poor shop assortment and bad loot.

Focusing on recon early game is an option for both sides as well since spoils of wat will be great with 10 in recon. But it is more like an investment, first few battles won't provide that valuable loot anyway.

So, once again, it depends on your style and preferences mostly, considering you have a plan.

P. S. What should I do to be promoted and not waiting for my posts to be approved? How many replies does it take?

Edited August 14, 2023 by Drizzo

[pandakraut]

22 hours ago, Drizzo said:

. What should I do to be promoted and not waiting for my posts to be approved? How many replies does it take?

I think it's a relatively small number of likes? So hopefully resolved soon

[Drizzo]

12 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I think it's a relatively small number of likes? So hopefully resolved soon

Looks like it finally happened. Thank you for your likes Pandakraut

[PersonMcPerson]

Is there a way to stop the Union from charging at every opportunity? There's nothing I can do against it.

[pandakraut]

On 9/23/2023 at 9:59 AM, PersonMcPerson said:

Is there a way to stop the Union from charging at every opportunity? There's nothing I can do against it.

The AI is more likely to charge when it has a size and xp advantage. If you are in better cover than the AI, lower condition, have shooting perks and the ai has melee, or your unit is isolated that also contributes to the chance that they charge. We have also added logic that if one enemy unit is charging, then other nearby units are more likely to charge.  

In general you want to keep your units close enough to support each other. Preferably when an enemy unit charges you can focus it with 3-4 infantry units, their detached skirmishers, and hopefully some artillery supporting with canister and/or cavalry running in to get close flank shots. Falling back the charged unit a bit to buy some time and expose the enemy units flanks to fire can also help, but isn't going to stop charges or delay a second charge nearly as effectively as it does in the base game.

Things get harder when multiple units charge at once since it's harder to focus them each down in time. So you want to try to prevent the AI from getting too many units into position to charge. Cavalry and skirmishers on their flanks to distract and slow them down can help with this. Having cavalry to fire at routing units flanks so they take longer to return to the line, or kill them entirely also helps.

It's also possible to adjust the difficulty as well. In the /mod/rebalance/AIConfigFile you can adjust their size and xp, cap the maximum size of specific unit types, and turn off the advanced charge logic.

Can you share what difficulty you are playing on and what battle you are getting stuck on?

Gonzo also has a very useful series of videos

 

[PersonMcPerson]

On 9/26/2023 at 5:36 PM, pandakraut said:

The AI is more likely to charge when it has a size and xp advantage. If you are in better cover than the AI, lower condition, have shooting perks and the ai has melee, or your unit is isolated that also contributes to the chance that they charge. We have also added logic that if one enemy unit is charging, then other nearby units are more likely to charge.  

In general you want to keep your units close enough to support each other. Preferably when an enemy unit charges you can focus it with 3-4 infantry units, their detached skirmishers, and hopefully some artillery supporting with canister and/or cavalry running in to get close flank shots. Falling back the charged unit a bit to buy some time and expose the enemy units flanks to fire can also help, but isn't going to stop charges or delay a second charge nearly as effectively as it does in the base game.

Things get harder when multiple units charge at once since it's harder to focus them each down in time. So you want to try to prevent the AI from getting too many units into position to charge. Cavalry and skirmishers on their flanks to distract and slow them down can help with this. Having cavalry to fire at routing units flanks so they take longer to return to the line, or kill them entirely also helps.

It's also possible to adjust the difficulty as well. In the /mod/rebalance/AIConfigFile you can adjust their size and xp, cap the maximum size of specific unit types, and turn off the advanced charge logic.

Can you share what difficulty you are playing on and what battle you are getting stuck on?

Gonzo also has a very useful series of videos

 

That's probably it - I think the problem is my army is just too small. Two regular corps, 4 divisions each, as well as a 5 extra infantry brigades, four artillery regiments, and eight cavalry brigades. I'll load back a fair bit and put more into army organization and training.

 

Difficulty is brigadier general, battles are 2nd Bull Run(found a workaround), Antietam(retreated from, ruined my reputation), and Fredericksburg(finally loading back in the campaign).

 

Thank you for the help!

[Chieftan]

On MG difficulty, does the AI get a massive boost to condition recovery? I've seen enemy brigades do up to five charges in a row without seeming to slow down in the slightest. This makes it difficult as my troops are all quite asthmatic and struggle to keep pace.

[pandakraut]

On 9/30/2023 at 12:32 AM, Chieftan said:

On MG difficulty, does the AI get a massive boost to condition recovery? I've seen enemy brigades do up to five charges in a row without seeming to slow down in the slightest. This makes it difficult as my troops are all quite asthmatic and struggle to keep pace.

There are no difficulty specific bonuses to stats for the AI. However, on higher difficulties the AIs units will often have very good stats and when combined with the right perks it can lead to a major gap in quality between the players units and the AI's units early on.

For example, if the AI has a 3* unit with 100 in all stats, it won't be any better than a player unit with those stats, it's just that the player will be starting off with much worse units.

CSA units do use a bit less condition than union units, so that won't be helping the situation if you're playing the union. But this is a side specific difference, not an AI vs player difference.

If a unit is doing that many charges in a row, usually it means that the charges are of pretty short duration, which means not all that much condition is used up(especially if the unit has good stats and perks that give movespeed.) One of  the changes in the mod is that instead of a 5 minute cooldown whenever you end a charge, only the time spent charging is added as a cooldown. So if the charge ends quickly the unit will be able to charge again quickly.  

If you want to provide some more details on the battle and such that you're having trouble with I can try to help with that. Otherwise gonzo gamer's videos on youtube are a very good resource for learning how to deal with charges and it may also be worth considering MG light as a slight step down from MG.

[dixiePig]

"Union brigades averaged 1,000 to 1,500 men, while on the Confederate side they averaged 1,500 to 1,800. ...  Divisions were formed of two or more brigades." -- data from the Web

UGCW allows you to build huuuuuuuge brigades from fairly early on. 

• In the interests of playability and 'historicity' I generally cap my MaxSize for INF, ARTY and CAV during '61 and '62 to reflect historical troop formations. 

I find that MaxSize 2000 is a playable number.  I generally keep my own INF troops in the 1200-1800 range.  This seems do-able within the game dynamics of casualties/replacements/perks/costs/etc.

Just finished Antietam with 'historical' unit sizes: INF max 2000, CAV max 350, ART max 250 (10guns), RANGERS (they aren't 'skirmishers') max 400.  Excellent gameplay. Tough. Down to the wire.

Armies/Casualties
USA : 100,000/52,000   CSA 50,000/26/000

I had 3 full Corps and one half-Corps in Reserve: 

• Mostly INF and ARTY in the north, with Corps Command perks emphasizing firepower.  
• INF and ARTY, but heavier on CAV and RANGERS at Burnsides Bridge in the south, with Corps Command perks emphasizing speed and firepower. 
• Reserve/Reinforcements is all CAV and RANGERS, with Corps Command perks emphasizing speed and attack. 

My 'reinforcement units late in the game are almost all fast-moving ARTY, CAV and RANGERS with Corps Command perks which emphasize speed & attack.  At Antietam I have a total of 18 CAV (350) and 9 RANGER (400).

I used up all my weapons building this relatively small, strong army. RANGERS and CAV are an efficient way to build lots of small hard-hitting, quickly recovering, nimble units for the 'final act'.

RANGERS and CAV are exceptionally valuable in the late game by providing flanking fire, distraction, counter-punching enemy assaults, and finishing off weary enemy troops.

STRATEGY & TACTICS

1. MY 'best' troops with heavy ARTY fortified in trenches in the north and at Sunken Road.
2. Detached skirmishers provide useful diversions in northwest - especially in keeping hyper-strong Union Iron Brigade occupied.
3. Primarily defensive battle, with some counter-punching.
4. Dunker Church is an exercise in 'active defense'.
5. When first wave of reinforcements arrive, use to bolster trench defenses at Dunker Church.
6. Maintain some troops in reserve and rotate them in to relieve fatigued front-liners. Place fatigued units in rear trenches to recover.
7. Monitoring the fatigue/health of frontline units is essential.  [Pause] the game often to do so.
8. Detached skirmishers and supporting units in line supply valuable flanking fire on enemy assaults. But be sure to re-merge (or withdraw) detached skirmishers before they get overwhelmed.  They don't survive close assaults.
9. Mass artillery fire on enemy INF in assault.  Hit them early. Use lulls in fighting to move ARTY back to less exposed positions.
10. If isolated USA troops 'break through' and head south in the early stage, you can polish them off when reinforcements arrive at Sunken Road.
11. After first reinforcements arrive at Sunken Road, start using available massed CAV (I have 5 units) to counterpunch at Sunken Road and then raid behind enemy lines. Diversion draws off enemy troops, destroys enemy ARTY, disrupts assaults.
12. Also engage and destroy USA Farnsworth's CAV, which arrives at about same time as your Sunken Road reinforcements.
13. It's a holding action as more USA troops arrive.  Play 'smart defense' rope-a-dope from entrenchments at Dunker Church (for as long as you can) and Sunken Road.

I will stop here, because the game changes when Burnside's Bridge phase begins ...

PK> There are no USA troops at Burnside's Bridge now. I've played the endgame scenario 3x with same result. Why is this?  Is it an artifact of my smaller unit profile - or something else?

• Apparently, the USA troops appear farther north, which makes things tougher there. I am obliged to move all of my Burnside's Bridge reinforcements north - and quickly.  Fortunately, many of them are CAV, ARTY, and RANGERS
• Artifact:  When my Burside's Bridge reinforcements spawned, some of them appeared right on top of USA troops which had flanked me at the south of Sunken Road. Unfortunate ... and kind of stupid. Any solution to this?

PK> Does the game AI 'adjust' the number of AI units in order to reflect the desired Army Total Size? (i.e. more smaller units / fewer large units?) 

PK> When I direct my ARTY to fire at enemy units, my ARTY units continue to occasionally move into the enemy units, rather than firing at them.  Annoying.  Anything you can do? I am tempted to simply leave it to 'the game logic' and hope that my ARTY will shoot at the desired enemy units without my direction.

That's it.  Thanks again to PandaKraut and Johny for a great mod.

Edited October 14, 2023 by dixiePig
clarity

[dixiePig]

Just started FREDERICKSBURG as CSA.

• PK> The initial mini-battle at the bridges used to include a brigade from the Corps which is on the CSA left Flank.  Now it is only allied skirmish units (which seems more historically accurate). Is this intentional - or an artifact?

 

Just finished FREDERICKSBURG as CSA.

ArmySize / Casualties

US : 88,400 / 44,200   CSA: 42,000 / 12,000

Edited October 14, 2023 by dixiePig

[pandakraut]

On 10/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, dixiePig said:

There are no USA troops at Burnside's Bridge now. I've played the endgame scenario 3x with same result. Why is this?  Is it an artifact of my smaller unit profile - or something else?

This is one of the randomized deployments. Just a dice roll when the phase begins, nothing to do with the player army.

On 10/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, dixiePig said:

Artifact:  When my Burside's Bridge reinforcements spawned, some of them appeared right on top of USA troops which had flanked me at the south of Sunken Road. Unfortunate ... and kind of stupid. Any solution to this?

Any chance you can get me a screenshot showing where your units were when units spawned on top of them? There is only so much I can do about this kind of thing unfortunately. I try to put the spawns where the player is unlikely to be though.

On 10/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, dixiePig said:

Does the game AI 'adjust' the number of AI units in order to reflect the desired Army Total Size? (i.e. more smaller units / fewer large units?) 

No, the number of units in battles is static other than the random chance for splits that the mod has added.

On 10/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, dixiePig said:

When I direct my ARTY to fire at enemy units, my ARTY units continue to occasionally move into the enemy units, rather than firing at them.  Annoying.  Anything you can do? I am tempted to simply leave it to 'the game logic' and hope that my ARTY will shoot at the desired enemy units without my direction.

The only time this should happen is if there is a terrain feature blocking the artillery's line of sight. You should get a notification in the top right that your unit needs to move to be able to fire. Antietam does have a ridge around the sunken road that can cause this behavior.

On 10/14/2023 at 10:52 AM, dixiePig said:

The initial mini-battle at the bridges used to include a brigade from the Corps which is on the CSA left Flank.  Now it is only allied skirmish units (which seems more historically accurate). Is this intentional - or an artifact?

This is intended. Helps limit the amount of damage the player can deal in that phase.

[dixiePig]

 

  On 10/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, dixiePig said:

When I direct my ARTY to fire at enemy units, my ARTY units continue to occasionally move into the enemy units, rather than firing at them.  Annoying.  Anything you can do? I am tempted to simply leave it to 'the game logic' and hope that my ARTY will shoot at the desired enemy units without my direction.

PK> The only time this should happen is if there is a terrain feature blocking the artillery's line of sight. You should get a notification in the top right that your unit needs to move to be able to fire. Antietam does have a ridge around the sunken road that can cause this behavior.

• Anything you can easily do re this poor interface behavior? When I'm focused on the battle in the middle of the map, I'm not likely to notice text at the upper corner. I don't believe there is a sound cue when this message alert happens. Perhaps hover the system warning message over the offending ARTY unit (so its's Right There In Your Face). Or change the color on the "fire-at" arrow when firing is compromised.  At the very least provide a noticeable warning sound.
• We all know that legacy UGCW doesn't handle terrain or roads gracefully, but this is really a problem.  For me, at least. PS:  It makes no logical sense that an ARTY unit which is blocked from firing at an enemy unit will then move on top of it...
• In terms of continuity (and common sense) : INF units that can't fire at an enemy will popup a "BLOCKED" message - right on the unit itself (i.e "Exactly where you're looking").  The warning appears in the right place.  Makes sense to me. I realize that many UGCW legacy behaviors are 'baked in', but it would be nice to have a good, sensible, consistent behavior - especially for when-you-can-shoot and when-you're-blocked..

  On 10/14/2023 at 10:52 AM, dixiePig said:

The initial mini-battle at the bridges used to include a brigade from the Corps which is on the CSA left Flank.  Now it is only allied skirmish units (which seems more historically accurate). Is this intentional - or an artifact?

PK>This is intended. Helps limit the amount of damage the player can deal in that phase.

• I've often wondered - Why bother with the Skirmish at the Bridge in Fredericksburg?  In so many ways, It just doesn't seem to matter.  Does "the amount of damage the player can deal in that phase" actually affect the game dynamics?  i.e "so what?"

 

Here is the Antietam Spawn Problem

I had trapped 2 USA infantry units to the south of Sunken Road and Taliaferro INF and skirmishers were holding them there.  As you can see, 2 of my ARTY reinforcements spawned right on top of the USA troops. 

Got out of it okay, as the USA troops were weakened and I had lots of CAV nearby, but still ...

Note:  The red dots in the north on the Inset Map show my CAV messing 'behind enemy lines'.

I look forward to trying Antietam again in order to experience Burnside's Bridge.  It's really one of the best battles.

Thanks again, guys.

 

[Rolow]

Hey Panda.  I've always been a huge fan of your mods..until now...sort of.  I just started to get back into UGCW and saw that since I last played the mod was updated to 1.28.4.  I started a new campaign as the Union on BG difficulty and was having a pretty tough time. 

I switched to Colonel difficulty(yeah I know), and restarted.  The beginning battles weren't too bad but when I got to Shiloh, no matter what I did, I would just get steam rolled over and over again.  The Confederates outnumbered me 3 to 1.  It was just a grey tide of charges over and over by a seemingly fatigueless foe and being surrounded on all sides from detached skirmishers like angry gnats.  My brigades would just get too tired and weren't able to recover or were just overwhelmed by sheer numbers.  The several times I've tried the battle I was just annihilated every time.

I don't remember the previous versions of your mod this difficult.  They mainly just added new features and quality of life improvements as far as I can remember.  I don't want to say that it's "unplayable" in its current state for me, but it's just frustrating. 

P.S.  Are the old versions of your mod available anywhere?

Edited October 18, 2023 by Rolow

[dixiePig]

JV>There are no USA troops at Burnside's Bridge now. I've played the endgame scenario 3x with same result. Why is this?  Is it an artifact of my smaller unit profile - or something else?

PK>This is one of the randomized deployments. Just a dice roll when the phase begins, nothing to do with the player army.

• Is the randomization of the spawn deployment determined at the beginning of that phase of the battle (Burnside's Bridge) - or do I need to restart the battle entirely?
• i.e. If I re-load a previous 'save' of the battle, will I get a new diceroll on the placement of troops when I get to Burnside's Bridge phase?

JV>  I've just re-loaded a 'save' of Antietam at 0:09 before the Burnside's Bridge phase several times.  Same result each time:  No union troops in the south. It appears that the diceroll occurs before Burnside's Bridge phase.

JV> Just loaded a 'save' of Antietam at 1:19 before the Burnside's Bridge phase and the USA reinforcements appeared at the bridge. FWIW

Great game

Edited October 18, 2023 by dixiePig

[pandakraut]

13 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Anything you can easily do re this poor interface behavior? When I'm focused on the battle in the middle of the map, I'm not likely to notice text at the upper corner. I don't believe there is a sound cue when this message alert happens. Perhaps hover the system warning message over the offending ARTY unit (so its's Right There In Your Face). Or change the color on the "fire-at" arrow when firing is compromised.  At the very least provide a noticeable warning sound.

There is a sound when that message displays for me. Kind of sounds like a drum being banged on, there are a couple different sounds that play if you spam the command repeatedly.

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

We all know that legacy UGCW doesn't handle terrain or roads gracefully, but this is really a problem.  For me, at least. PS:  It makes no logical sense that an ARTY unit which is blocked from firing at an enemy unit will then move on top of it...

The unit is trying to follow the orders you are giving it. Any unit when given an order to fire at another unit that is out of range will try to move to the point where it can hit the target and then fire. Changing the behavior like was done with blocked skirmishers or infantry units is a lot more work, so the notification was added instead.

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

In terms of continuity (and common sense) : INF units that can't fire at an enemy will popup a "BLOCKED" message - right on the unit itself (i.e "Exactly where you're looking").  The warning appears in the right place.  Makes sense to me. I realize that many UGCW legacy behaviors are 'baked in', but it would be nice to have a good, sensible, consistent behavior - especially for when-you-can-shoot and when-you're-blocked..

It's been too long so I don't remember why anymore, but there was some technical issue with using the blocked popup which is why I ended up with the notification option.

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

I've often wondered - Why bother with the Skirmish at the Bridge in Fredericksburg?  In so many ways, It just doesn't seem to matter.  Does "the amount of damage the player can deal in that phase" actually affect the game dynamics?  i.e "so what?"

Yes, the union units that show up in that phase take part in later phases of the battle. So the more damage you can do, the better off you'll be.

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

I had trapped 2 USA infantry units to the south of Sunken Road and Taliaferro INF and skirmishers were holding them there.  As you can see, 2 of my ARTY reinforcements spawned right on top of the USA troops. 

Not much I can really do about this. Those units are way outside of the expected locations of the union line of attack. The only option would be to move the player spawns much further back which puts them at a larger disadvantage to solve an edge case.

2 hours ago, dixiePig said:

I've just re-loaded a 'save' of Antietam at 0:09 before the Burnside's Bridge phase several times.  Same result each time:  No union troops in the south. It appears that the diceroll occurs before Burnside's Bridge phase.

Looks like it's determined in an earlier phase, I thought it was at phase start. 

[pandakraut]

8 hours ago, Rolow said:

Hey Panda.  I've always been a huge fan of your mods..until now...sort of.  I just started to get back into UGCW and saw that since I last played the mod was updated to 1.28.4.  I started a new campaign as the Union on BG difficulty and was having a pretty tough time. 

I switched to Colonel difficulty(yeah I know), and restarted.  The beginning battles weren't too bad but when I got to Shiloh, no matter what I did, I would just get steam rolled over and over again.  The Confederates outnumbered me 3 to 1.  It was just a grey tide of charges over and over by a seemingly fatigueless foe and being surrounded on all sides from detached skirmishers like angry gnats.  My brigades would just get too tired and weren't able to recover or were just overwhelmed by sheer numbers.  The several times I've tried the battle I was just annihilated every time.

I don't remember the previous versions of your mod this difficult.  They mainly just added new features and quality of life improvements as far as I can remember.  I don't want to say that it's "unplayable" in its current state for me, but it's just frustrating. 

P.S.  Are the old versions of your mod available anywhere?

Here are the links to the last major release

Steam: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w0neimnw0et3ebv/RebalanceModV1.27.4.3.zip?dl=0
GoG: https://www.dropbox.com/s/690b1qv2k2v56wj/RebalanceModGoGV1.27.4.3.zip?dl=0

With all the changes we had made, it had gotten to the point that the mod was easier than we wanted to be. 1.28 returned the difficulties closer to where we wanted them, so basically bump them all up one level from where they were in 1.27. There are a bunch of options to keep the improvements in 1.28 while reducing the difficulty down to something that is more fun for you though.

In the /mod/rebalance/AIConfigFile you can reduce the size and experience of enemy brigades, AIscalingSizeMultiplier and AIscalingExperienceMultiplier. You can reduce the chance that AI units charge as a group with AdvancedChargeLogic. You can turn off ai detached skirmishers with aiCanDetachSkirmishers, there are also options to reduce how many they can have at one time if preferred.

For Shiloh are you bringing a full 40 units? Have you seen Gonzo's videos? He has a lot of good advice on how to get an army built up in the new version https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzAEAwFpGOR9BmxNONTWVgJ4GTXhQjrns

[dixiePig]

JV>

JV> I had trapped 2 USA infantry units to the south of Sunken Road and Taliaferro INF and skirmishers were holding them there.  As you can see, 2 of my ARTY reinforcements spawned right on top of the USA troops. 

PK> Not much I can really do about this. Those units are way outside of the expected locations of the union line of attack. The only option would be to move the player spawns much further back which puts them at a larger disadvantage to solve an edge case.

• No biggie.  I will simply take the hardwired positioning of the spawns into account going forward.  Ditto with the arrival of USA reinforcements at Gaines Mill which step on my troops if I've advanced too far or am raiding with CAV. Just wondering if there was any logic which said "don't spawn too close to enemy units on the map".

JV> Anything you can easily do re this poor interface behavior? When I'm focused on the battle in the middle of the map, I'm not likely to notice text at the upper corner. I don't believe there is a sound cue when this message alert happens. Perhaps hover the system warning message over the offending ARTY unit (so its's Right There In Your Face). Or change the color on the "fire-at" arrow when firing is compromised.  At the very least provide a noticeable warning sound.

PK> There is a sound when that message displays for me. Kind of sounds like a drum being banged on, there are a couple different sounds that play if you spam the command repeatedly.

• JV> hmmmm... a drumroll in the midst of the ambient battle sounds (gunshots, yelling, artillery) may be 'historically accurate', but isn't really noticeable.  Not to me. I have to assume that the purpose of the warning message is to be noticed: a honk or beep says 'error' more clearly than a drumroll, in that environment.

PK> The unit is trying to follow the orders you are giving it. Any unit when given an order to fire at another unit that is out of range will try to move to the point where it can hit the target and then fire. Changing the behavior like was done with blocked skirmishers or infantry units is a lot more work, so the notification was added instead.

• We can agree that the current solution is a technical compromise - but it's not a very good one. The ARTY unit doesn't really move to a sensible point where it can fire at the target (That would involve a lot of complex decision-making).  Instead, it moves directly on top of the target. Which is  ... well ... really kinda stupid.

PK> It's been too long so I don't remember why anymore, but there was some technical issue with using the blocked popup which is why I ended up with the notification option.

• Let's face it, implementing the [blocked] popup is the consistent and sensible solution.  Because it works.  Whereas the current technique doesn't. Hope it can get fixed.

Thanks again

[pandakraut]

18 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

No biggie.  I will simply take the hardwired positioning of the spawns into account going forward.  Ditto with the arrival of USA reinforcements at Gaines Mill which step on my troops if I've advanced too far or am raiding with CAV. Just wondering if there was any logic which said "don't spawn too close to enemy units on the map".

1.28.4 should have moved those union units further right at CSA Gaines Mill. I don't have a way to check for the position of units already in the battle unfortunately.

Edited October 18, 2023 by pandakraut

[dixiePig]

Does the alignment of a unit affect its firepower? If an INF unit is firing 'directly' at another unit (i.e. They are facing them at a 90 degree angle), are they more effective than if the enemy unit is at severe angle?

• Units in a line can supply supporting fire to a adjacent unit in the line, but are they more efffective if they change their facing?

In a related vein:  Much of Napoleonic warfare was based on facing the enemy and blasting away.  But effective tactics often  depended on 'enfilade' or 'flanking' fire: catching the enemy from the side.  A bullet or cannon shot across the enemy formation was far likelier to hit one (or several) enemy troops - aside from the substantial negative impact on morale.

Edited October 21, 2023 by dixiePig
clarification & follow-up

[dixiePig]

Here's an annoying artifact:  When I choose to create a new INF unit in the CAMP, UGCW automatically assumes that I want the strongest available officer in the Barracks (sort of smart) and the cheapest guns (inconsistent and not so smart).  If I don't have any officers in the Barracks, then UGCW assumes that I want the weakest officer from the Reserve.

• An interface should be consistent and also sensible.

As a result of the above artifact, if I accidentally choose an Officer that I don't really want or purchase the default Muskets, then I have to sell off the Muskets and dismiss the officer at a loss.  An [UNDO] feature when Army-building is obvious and sorely needed. 

There are a few different things that could be done:

• Allow me to set the default weapon of choice
• Make the default weapon of choice the cheapest weapon that I have enough of in stock in order to build the unit (i.e no penalty for accidentally choosing it)
• Make the default weapon of choice the last one I chose
• An [UNDO] button allows any unintentional choice to be easily corrected

Thanks

Edited October 21, 2023 by dixiePig

[dixiePig]

PK>  Just  loaded most recent update 1.11-J&P 1.28.4 onto my new Win 11 desktop and am now bombarded with annoyingly helpful 'info popups' during the battle which I must close.  

• How do I make these go away?  I see no controls in [OPTIONS]

Edited November 1, 2023 by dixiePig

[pandakraut]

On 11/1/2023 at 2:32 PM, dixiePig said:

PK>  Just  loaded most recent update 1.11-J&P 1.28.4 onto my new Win 11 desktop and am now bombarded with annoyingly helpful 'info popups' during the battle which I must close.  

• How do I make these go away?  I see no controls in [OPTIONS]

That sounds like you enabled the tutorial options from the base game at the start of the campaign. I don't think those can be turned off once selected. Either have to restart or wait them out.

[dixiePig]

On 11/3/2023 at 7:32 PM, pandakraut said:

That sounds like you enabled the tutorial options from the base game at the start of the campaign. I don't think those can be turned off once selected. Either have to restart or wait them out.

It has gone away.  Thanks.

[dixiePig]

Malvern Hill

My CSA CAV and Rangers in the 1st reinforcement phase swept down around the USA right flank.  You can see my ARTY and INF following them down the eastern road.  The AI left the USA ARTY unsupported on the river and my CAV quickly wiped them out.

My CAV is now in a position to sweep further south and west, but the Map doesn't expand until later.

I imagine that this is a Big Ask, but is it possible to expand the map to the larger format at an appropriate moment, like this one?

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by dixiePig

[pandakraut]

19 hours ago, dixiePig said:

I imagine that this is a Big Ask, but is it possible to expand the map to the larger format at an appropriate moment, like this one?

I don't know how to add the zones that expand the map based on unit presence. I can only modify the ones that the game already provides. So in this case you are stuck with waiting for the timer to countdown.