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

[JonnyH13]

Updated to 1.28.2

Another small bug fix patch.

Balance Changes
- Maximum academy officer xp is now capped by year.

Bug Fixes
- Fix crash at Pickett's charge.
- Fix displayed deploy slots at Rendezvous.
- Fix issue with horse artillery moves speed being higher than intended.
- Fix display of current army strength bar in recon tooltip. English language only.
- Fix bug with merging non-infantry units in camp.
 

[CCCP_Admiral]

nice mod ，but I need some advice.

I 'm not a top gun at this game , I have complete the vanilla CSA campaign on BG , this week I start playing the UNION MG legendary campaign , after I won the malvern hill I found this mod.

But it's too hard for me. I spend almost 4 hours to take the train station. My troops always be surrounding by the second wave of CSA counter attack.

It's not like the vanilla , you just need to back off a bit and the charging enemy will gave up,now they can charge a really long time and catch up my troops,they can't even outrun them.

So I need three or even more brigades fire power to stop A charging CSA brigade. My brigade always shatter as soon as it's get involve in to any melee fight. Some times troops in fortifications could hold a little longer with one brigade's attack , but if two brigade charging , they will shatter quickly.

I tried again and again , still can't hold the upper town until the reinforcement come .Some times reinforcement almost arrived the bridge ，but they stuck on the bridge and take a looooooong time to cross it . My brigade can't hold such a long time.

At last I have to use a classic Total war trick: bridge plug. I pulled out of the upper town and put the line  on south side of the bridge , shot CSA when they are crossing the bridge , quickly deplete the enemy's strength and get the upper town at the last minute till campaign failure. 

That was so hard , but I feel a sense of accomplishment so I'm continue playing this mod happily.

But , it's sounds very funny , I stuck at distress Call right after the first level.

This time there is no bridge , my troops are more than CSA ,but they can use devastating charge and wipe out any thing in their way .My troops were drawn into close combat quickly. I order them retreat  but they are slower than the charging enemy.So I need twice as many as CSA to stop the charge ,but obviously, there is no troops left.

 

I wonder if there is something wrong with my way of playing .  My usual tactic is draw a line to delay the enemy and put skirmishers，cavalry and elite troops on the side, then let enemy enjoy a revolving door. Is this tactic has less effective in this mod ? Or i need to play in a more classic way , put elite troops behind the line as a reserves to counter charging enemy?

[pandakraut]

8 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

But it's too hard for me. I spend almost 4 hours to take the train station. My troops always be surrounding by the second wave of CSA counter attack.

Are you trying out the mod on BG or MG? MG in the mod is generally harder than in the base game. Though there are also configuration options to adjust things.

8 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

It's not like the vanilla , you just need to back off a bit and the charging enemy will gave up,now they can charge a really long time and catch up my troops,they can't even outrun them.

Most of the charge cancel exploits in the base game have been fixed. The ai will still stop sometimes, but you usually need a strong concentration of multiple supporting units for this to happen.

Unit perks matter much more now, so if the AI has speed perks and your units don't running away will be difficult.

9 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

I wonder if there is something wrong with my way of playing .  My usual tactic is draw a line to delay the enemy and put skirmishers，cavalry and elite troops on the side, then let enemy enjoy a revolving door. Is this tactic has less effective in this mod ? Or i need to play in a more classic way , put elite troops behind the line as a reserves to counter charging enemy?

There are a lot of changes in the mod and it can take some time to adapt to. It may help to watch a more experienced player to see what they are doing. There aren't many battles available yet but this one might be helpful https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzAEAwFpGOR-YlpdTTs6BdChJ5DjKAylS

Good to hear you are enjoying it overall, and hopefully with some tips we can get you progressing further.

[LAVA]

On 7/26/2022 at 3:59 PM, CCCP_Admiral said:

But , it's sounds very funny , I stuck at distress Call right after the first level.

Actually, there is a bridge, and 2 brigades of Reb infantry and an artillery brigade cross there as reinforcements. It is on the far right bottom of the map and a skirmisher unit is deployed there. Immediately move 2 infantry brigades (you will need to run them most of the way) and your cavalry to the area and set up an ambush. If you catch the Rebs moving across the bridge you can wipe them out and this will give you the advantage in winning the battle.

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, LAVA said:

Actually, there is a bridge, and 2 brigades of Reb infantry and an artillery brigade cross there as reinforcements. It is on the far right bottom of the map and a skirmisher unit is deployed there. Immediately move 2 infantry brigades (you will need to run them most of the way) and your cavalry to the area and set up an ambush. If you catch the Rebs moving across the bridge you can wipe them out and this will give you the advantage in winning the battle.

In the latest version we added a random chance for AI units to spawn in different locations in that battle, so catching them on the bridge isn't always an option. So as long as you don't get that deployment the bridge still works, though the spawn times have also been adjusted so you usually have to fight them in the woods instead of on the bridge

[LAVA]

Better to fight them in the woods than in the open, no?

😉

[pandakraut]

29 minutes ago, LAVA said:

Better to fight them in the woods than in the open, no?

😉

Generally I'd agree, but in this case I prefer to keep the units I would need to send close to the forts to help defend them. I'll send some detached skirmishers to delay the eastern reinforcements so by the time they reach the forts I can re-orient to deal with them.

In some cases it can actually be better to fight with both units in the open rather than both units in the woods in my opinion. Yes your targeted unit will take more damage, but if you can rapidly position other units on the enemy flanks you can rout them much faster than if they were in the woods. Easier to chase them down with cav afterwards as well in the open.

I've been seeing players handle this in multiple different ways though, so probably mostly down to preference.

[CCCP_Admiral]

I tried another 4 hour and finally beaten the distress call .

I don't know what went wrong , maybe the difficulty is different ?(I 'm in legendary mode), my enemy is stronger than this video.In the video CSA has 2* troops as it's main force and 1* troops as it's support unit.And they seldom use wave attack(first brigade charge , take damage to protect the following brigade charging).

I tried to copy what he do in the video,put main force in the wood , but even six brigades in the wood still can't hold the depot under two or three 3*CSA brigades charging.The wave attack made up of 2* and 3* enemy overwhelms my troops.

I have to find another way .

On 7/27/2022 at 10:45 PM, LAVA said:

Actually, there is a bridge, and 2 brigades of Reb infantry and an artillery brigade cross there as reinforcements. It is on the far right bottom of the map and a skirmisher unit is deployed there. Immediately move 2 infantry brigades (you will need to run them most of the way) and your cavalry to the area and set up an ambush. If you catch the Rebs moving across the bridge you can wipe them out and this will give you the advantage in winning the battle.

Thx dude, It's true that ai won't spawn as same location every time ,but put an ambush in the right forest is a option. This will protect Union's right side . 

So at last I put main force on 1st depot to delay the enemy and draw the line at south forest , use fire power to reduce enemy number , take the depot back at the last 5 minutes . The battle result is not very good---5k loss and 9k kill .At least I won.

Now we came to 1st bull run , it's not as hard as before ----then I found I need use the exhausted troops wipe out the henry hill -----It'll take them 20 minutes just to walk there, let alone charge. So I have to order a bloody attack , take the vp at last 5 minutes (again). The result is not very good (again)---14k loss and 20k kill. At least I won(again).

I checked the video from Gonzo gamer about 1st bull run , he bypass the bridge and put all the force in the Matthew hill,it's nice tactic but I was tried not to make decision as I knew the history , or see the future and reload for a better result. So I accept the result and keep going on.

The next is river crossing .  I still don't have any good ideas in stop charging enemy , I can just put all the nearby fire power and artillery on the enemy and use cav strike to rout them as quickly as possible. It's worked but I take heavy loss every time . The result is not very good (oh god plz not again)---5k loss and 8k kill. At least I won.

At last we has arrive crossroads, but I can't take any step any more . After three consecutive bloody battles , my economics and logistics is crashed , the money reward can't even cover the loss in battle , 16k rookies has no weapons.

In crossroads CSA can easily push my troops out from the vp  , even if I win this time, it's no doubt that I can't win shiloh.Win the crossroads will cause another heavy loss and reward can't cover it . 

I checked some video about  legendary MG Union , only find two video in 2021 , and at that time something seems different from now. For example the deploy zone was different in crossroads . So those videos has very little reference value.

I began to think about giving up the legendary mode . Tomorrow I will retry the 1st bull run and try to get a better result ,maybe I can get more weapons by saving the friendly force this time ? If the weapon number has a big different it maybe save this campaign from restart.

Edited July 29, 2022 by CCCP_Admiral
Forget to write something

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

I don't know what went wrong , maybe the difficulty is different ?(I 'm in legendary mode), my enemy is stronger than this video.In the video CSA has 2* troops as it's main force and 1* troops as it's support unit.And they seldom use wave attack(first brigade charge , take damage to protect the following brigade charging).

If you're referring to the video I linked from Gonzo Gamer, that is on MG difficulty not legendary. If you want to see legendary videos this channel has a few https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIAbOKe584tVAmj0rUtLfvA/videos 

Forefall is trying to do ironman or variants on it, so he's lost that battle more often than not. You can also see a partial attempt of mine while discussing the battle with him here https://youtu.be/O3Icr9Zzbao

4 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

Now we came to 1st bull run , it's not as hard as before ----then I found I need use the exhausted troops wipe out the henry hill -----It'll take them 20 minutes just to walk there, let alone charge. So I have to order a bloody attack , take the vp at last 5 minutes (again). The result is not very good (again)---14k loss and 20k kill. At least I won(again).

You really want to try to manage your condition better. Exhausted units should be rotated out and rested whenever possible.

4 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

I checked some video about  legendary MG Union , only find two video in 2021 , and at that time something seems different from now. For example the deploy zone was different in crossroads . So those videos has very little reference value.

The latest patch changed up a lot of the battles so many of the old videos are no longer too useful unfortunately. Forefall's channel is the only one with Legendary videos up currently. He does have at least one crossroads attempt on there.

4 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

I began to think about giving up the legendary mode . Tomorrow I will retry the 1st bull run and try to get a better result ,maybe I can get more weapons by saving the friendly force this time ? If the weapon number has a big different it maybe save this campaign from restart.

Legendary Union as your first attempt at the mod is definitely quite the challenge. Depending on what level of frustration you're willing to put up with you might want to give MG a try instead until you are more comfortable with the mod.

Edited July 29, 2022 by pandakraut

[CCCP_Admiral]

retried the 1st bull run and got 6kloss and 18k kill , much better.   

by the way , I'm not sure how to train troops' skill  efficiently for a long time , any suggestion?

[pandakraut]

21 hours ago, CCCP_Admiral said:

retried the 1st bull run and got 6kloss and 18k kill , much better.   

by the way , I'm not sure how to train troops' skill  efficiently for a long time , any suggestion?

Good to hear you are making progress. 

Points in training to improve your recruit pool and in medicine to reduce losses and improve your rate of return of casualties will help. Overtime as your army grows and its average stats increase, this also leads to having more and better veterans available to keep up the stats of key units.

Good officers in charge of units for a bonus towards the next perk, with higher battles led will also help. In some cases you may also want to merge units that take too many casualties to refresh with veterans or recruits.

[Gregoriusalter]

Compared to the previous versions of the mod, which made the game much, much indeed, better than the ordinary version, my impression is that the latest update makes the game more difficult. That's fine, after all. The only issue imho is that even when I replace the lost men in a unit with veterans, the efficiency and the morale fall quickly, much more than in the previous versions, perhaps too much. Eg, an expert artillery unit with 12 pieces, reduced to 7 after a battle, shifts its capacity down to more than one half if brought back to 12 pieces, independently of being veterans or not the replacements. I like  that enemy reinforcements enter a battle at new places and also with little changes in their timing. But to be frank, in the whole,  I prefer the previous version to the last one. So if there were a chance to find also  the 1.27 again (in order to choose), it would be a good thing. Anyway, I greatly appreciate the quality of your mod (Sorry for my English.) Thanks.

[pandakraut]

On 8/11/2022 at 11:03 AM, Gregoriusalter said:

Compared to the previous versions of the mod, which made the game much, much indeed, better than the ordinary version, my impression is that the latest update makes the game more difficult. That's fine, after all. The only issue imho is that even when I replace the lost men in a unit with veterans, the efficiency and the morale fall quickly, much more than in the previous versions, perhaps too much. Eg, an expert artillery unit with 12 pieces, reduced to 7 after a battle, shifts its capacity down to more than one half if brought back to 12 pieces, independently of being veterans or not the replacements. I like  that enemy reinforcements enter a battle at new places and also with little changes in their timing. But to be frank, in the whole,  I prefer the previous version to the last one. So if there were a chance to find also  the 1.27 again (in order to choose), it would be a good thing. Anyway, I greatly appreciate the quality of your mod (Sorry for my English.) Thanks.

One of the goals of the new version was to make the game more difficult as all of the new features we had added resulted in the previous version easier than intended. I definitely recommend making use of the config options if you'd prefer to make the current version easier. Either by reducing the size and quality of AI units or increasing battle timers.

The new casualty and veteran systems will make mass replenishment of units less efficient than previous versions. In general we've found that it's easier to maintain 1* units now, but harder to maintain 2* and 3* units. Investment in medicine and training will help here, but overall to keep a units stats growing you'll need to keep the ratio of casualties to kills high. The goal is that even though replenishing reduces your stats, you have gained enough in battle that there is a net increase. As your army grows overall, the quality of your veterans will tend to increase which will also help.

If you are taking near 50% casualties on a unit, instead of replenishing with vets or recruits, sometimes it can be better to merge with another unit of similar experience. This can be done by moving units with the same weapons into the same division and dragging one unit on top of the other.

If you'd prefer to switch back to the previous version links are available below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w0neimnw0et3ebv/RebalanceModV1.27.4.3.zip?dl=0

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

[TFL117]

The experience of all reserves can be improved in the past by disbanding troops.
Now the reorganization after disbanding the veterans has to pay a huge price, which is very uncomfortable.

[pandakraut]

18 minutes ago, TFL117 said:

The experience of all reserves can be improved in the past by disbanding troops.
Now the reorganization after disbanding the veterans has to pay a huge price, which is very uncomfortable.

One of the goals of the new veteran and casualty system was to add a cost to breaking up experienced units into multiple smaller ones. The higher the stats of the veterans, the higher the cost. Investment in training still greatly reduces this cost though.

The new veteran system does make it much easier to do this since you don't need to clear out your recruit pool to transfer veterans anymore. This also makes it easier to add smaller amounts of veterans to multiple new units to raise their stats.

The goal is that there is a trade off for dividing up your veterans early on, and that higher investment in training is needed to regularly move around high stat veterans.

I've generally found that the veteran cost isn't a big concern early on, even with no training, since your average stats aren't high enough to drive the price up too much.

Is there something specific you are trying to do that isn't working anymore?

[Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau]

5 years since I last played Ultimate General... and I just remembered about the game. Went into it and surfed around, found this mod! Amazing, my will to send men into slaughter have been rekindled!

[TankHUnt3r]

So, I am truly enjoying the challenge this mod is giving, as I was so set in my gameplay rut that I repeated the first battle of bull run something like 7 times before I could win.( As confederates, for referance)

My Question here however is what is the relative time frame for the Joslyn to first appear in the armor (I know its likely only a Union weapon, but my curiosity is getting the better of me here...). I didn't realize there was a trapdoor rifle (carbines I knew of) that technically served in the war, and I can't figure out a more concrete time frame for its introduction during gameplay. It technically existed in 1863, but from research most units delivered were in 1865. I would assume it would show up during '64-'65 on the union side, mostly looking for confirmation here for future playthroughs.

[pandakraut]

14 hours ago, TankHUnt3r said:

So, I am truly enjoying the challenge this mod is giving, as I was so set in my gameplay rut that I repeated the first battle of bull run something like 7 times before I could win.( As confederates, for referance)

My Question here however is what is the relative time frame for the Joslyn to first appear in the armor (I know its likely only a Union weapon, but my curiosity is getting the better of me here...). I didn't realize there was a trapdoor rifle (carbines I knew of) that technically served in the war, and I can't figure out a more concrete time frame for its introduction during gameplay. It technically existed in 1863, but from research most units delivered were in 1865. I would assume it would show up during '64-'65 on the union side, mostly looking for confirmation here for future playthroughs.

The Joslyn only shows up in 1864-65 in the mod. The version in game is a later model variant so it doesn't show up as early as it could have potentially if we could add more weapons rather than just renaming existing ones.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the mod

[TankHUnt3r]

1 minute ago, pandakraut said:

The Joslyn only shows up in 1864-65 in the mod. The version in game is a later model variant so it doesn't show up as early as it could have potentially if we could add more weapons rather than just renaming existing ones.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the mod

I thought as much, mostly from research but I wanted to make sure. 

I will admit that I raged a bit when I got my ass wooped at Bull Run, but going through again, I realized it was because I was so set in my tactics I refused to adapt in the face of changes, so it was a kick in the pants I needed to truly enjoy what the mod has to offer. things I could get away with in vanilla won't fly here, and that is a good thing.

[ug_might]

Hey

getting my feet wet with Union Legendary on 1.28. Quite challenging version, made it to Shiloh in decent shape but i wasn't happy with in and decided to start over.

I still think charging is way overpowered and i'm no fan of unit splitting. Some variance and randomness is fine, but units tripling paired with random spawn locations more often than not tend to devolve the game into a you win/lose now because of good/bad roll situation, no matter what you achieved on the field. I don't like that.

Anyway. Whats the meta on career points? I didn't obesess with minmaxing before, but difficulty is definitely getting to a point where i need to play really close attention. I did a Politics/Training focussed build on my first attempt up to Shiloh but kinda run out of weapons. I still think Politics should be a main focus early on, so the POL pick at the beginning is a no brainer. Do i want any training at first? Looking at the numbers i'm not sure. I definitely want 3, ideally 4 points in Recon early on. But 2 in the first battle is also fine, so TAC/INF/POL with the first points going into REC and AO seems a good, balanced option. Something like TAC/CAV/POL seems too radical, since i still think playing as Union you just need to invest in getting your units into shape no matter what. LOG will definitely become a factor fairly quickly as well, but i dont feel the need to invest in it at the start of the game. 

 

 

 

[pandakraut]

5 hours ago, ug_might said:

I still think charging is way overpowered and i'm no fan of unit splitting. Some variance and randomness is fine, but units tripling paired with random spawn locations more often than not tend to devolve the game into a you win/lose now because of good/bad roll situation, no matter what you achieved on the field. I don't like that.

On legendary group charges are very dangerous, but individual charges tend to be an opportunity. Isolated charges give you a chance to focus fire on a units, particularly with flanking fire(cavalry excels at this) and with canister.

You want to take actions to prevent the AI from massing up to be able to make a group charge whenever possible. Detached skirmishers or other units can be used on the AI's flanks and in their rear to distract and slow down the advance of some units so that they don't hit you all at once.

The split mechanic is a 20% chance for an extra unit to be created, the new units will be smaller than the original. In some battles specific units auto splits and have the normal 20% chance of creating a third. This is the only case where a units can split twice.

In the aiConfigFile there is a duplicateProbability value which can be changed to 0 of you want to turn off or reduce the 20% chance for units to split. The system is intentionally designed to add variety and force the player to adapt. This can lead to can battles being much harder or easier. You may also want to consider an alternative of adjusting the aiScalingsizeMultiplier and/or the aiScalingexperienceMultiplier down a bit to maybe .85 for a slightly easier version of Legendary when getting used to it.

6 hours ago, ug_might said:

Anyway. Whats the meta on career points?

The patch is new enough that there isn't a clearly defined one yet. 1-2 points in logistics and 2 points in recon tend to be a fairly common default. Past that you need a way of getting weapons(pol, econ, or recon) along with the standard investment in AO to be able to field units. Points in training will make it easier to field more 1* units but as you've found does cut into you ability to get more weapons. For training you want to hit even numbers where possible to get that extra stat point for recruits.

The 7 training start that was popular in 1.27 has fallen off in popularity. Seems like an even split between people going recon and economy.

The discord is also a good place to get input from more players if that's something you are interested in.

Legendary is quite hard at the moment, but stick with it and you should make progress. And definitely feel free to adjust the config files to preference. Not everyone wants the same level of difficulty and better to keep the game fun

 

[ug_might]

It's not like i'm helpless and

don’t know how to counter charges. Individual units charging is always a great opportunity to remove them permanently and thanks to the AI charging like crazy an almost common occurrence.

But i do think they charge far too often at this point. It feels like the AI doesn’t even want to bother engaging in an actual firefight (which comprised what, 99% of infantry combat during the actual Civil War?), instead its units marching up, firing one volley if that and charging. Against well prepared positions with dug in infantry supported by Artillery. Who in their right mind would do that?

And after they get utterly broken at the first attempt, suffer 20, 30 even 40 percent casualties, they just retreat out of firing range and try again after a couple of ingame minutes. This is just not plausible, doesn't feal right IMHO and at least the early game its like all I’m doing is stopping charging units.

If I had to make an suggestion it would be that after a unit reaches to broken status it should take much, much longer for moral and condition to rebuild itself.

About splitting. I give you one example. I played 1^stBull Run. Some of the CSA reinforcements after you take Henry Hill spawned at the new locations in the Northeast. I wasn’t prepared for that, but fine. Legendary is not punishment enough, so some variety is appreciated. Only the two brigades in the north split – into five brigades. Yes, they were somewhat smaller but I couldn’t hold against 6-8k slamming into my rear. At least not with acceptable losses. So I lost and reloaded. No units in the north this time around and zero splits on the reinforcements. I wiped the enemy off the map as per usual. So one game ending loss and one decisive victory. Not because of anything I did. It could have played my best Bull Run effort or far below average, wouldn’t have mattered. It’s just win or loss based on a random roll. As said, not a fan of this approach.

I don’t plan on changing any settings unless I encounter a gamebreaking bug this time around. Suffering is what legendary mode is all about afterall.

Also I think I’m getting the hang of it. As you said, Cavalry used effectively can be quite devastating. Screens of BullRun and Crossroads today: https://imgur.com/a/eKG2y0P

I guess I lucked out on camp reinforcements, the enemy infantry was armed with Muskets and Rebored Muskets and did stupidly little damage.

[pandakraut]

52 minutes ago, ug_might said:

About splitting. I give you one example. I played 1^stBull Run. Some of the CSA reinforcements after you take Henry Hill spawned at the new locations in the Northeast. I wasn’t prepared for that, but fine. Legendary is not punishment enough, so some variety is appreciated. Only the two brigades in the north split – into five brigades. Yes, they were somewhat smaller but I couldn’t hold against 6-8k slamming into my rear. At least not with acceptable losses. So I lost and reloaded. No units in the north this time around and zero splits on the reinforcements. I wiped the enemy off the map as per usual. So one game ending loss and one decisive victory. Not because of anything I did. It could have played my best Bull Run effort or far below average, wouldn’t have mattered. It’s just win or loss based on a random roll. As said, not a fan of this approach.

This partially sounds like it was less an issue with the splits and more an issue with the new battle variants that have been added. Though both of these systems were added to address similar issues. In the base game most battles are completely solved, there are one or two optimal approaches and the player can reliably win the exact same way every time since the battles are always nearly the same. We also can't add new battles so variant system is the closest we can get.

Both the split system and the battle variant system mean there is a greater chance the player has to adapt mid battle to an unexpected occurrence. Splits mean sometimes the enemy strength is stronger in a specific area, and the extra units allow the AI to respond better to player movements. The variant system means that sometimes AI reinforcements will attack from different directions. Since we can't actually add new units to the battle, the variant spawn spawn locations do sometimes automatically split units so ensure that the local strength isn't too low.

In battles with variations, it's usually a coin flip when the phase starts if you get the default spawn location or an alternative. There are some where the chances are different since there are more than two options. Some variants are definitely easier than others. Both because the original versions are expected by experienced players and that some of the new locations can be easily defended if the player scouts them out in time. Eventually the player will know what the options are and be able to prepare for all of them again, but we can only do so much within the limits of modding and time 

1 hour ago, ug_might said:

But i do think they charge far too often at this point. It feels like the AI doesn’t even want to bother engaging in an actual firefight (which comprised what, 99% of infantry combat during the actual Civil War?), instead its units marching up, firing one volley if that and charging. Against well prepared positions with dug in infantry supported by Artillery. Who in their right mind would do that?

There are a few things going on here. Generally we view charging as what causes players to lose battles. If the AI successfully leverages its larger and more experienced units and pushes the player out of a good defensive position, that's the highest chance it has of winning. While sometimes the AI could sit back and grind out more total casualties by firing, it is also not very strong at positioning and maintaining cover. So if the player knows the AI is unlikely to charge they can easily manipulate the AI into bad firing positions and take the AI apart with long range fire and artillery. On the other hand, if the player knows the AI will charge 100% of the time then that also forces specific army setups to counter it, so we've tried to go with a balance.

The AI is also more likely to charge in certain scenarios that the player tends to setup on legendary. AI units on legendary will generally always have a stat and perk advantage early on, so it's very likely their melee strength is much higher than the players. The player also tends to setup in good cover, and many players primarily take accuracy perks and equipping units with rifled guns that have lower melee values.

While effective, this has the side effect of encouraging the AI to charge more. Because the AIs calculation looks at the situation, sees that it has worse cover than the player, that the players range damage is higher than its melee damage, and concludes that it should try to get into melee instead of sitting back and firing. If you take melee perks on your units or general and equip most of your units with muskets you'll generally find that the AI charges quite a bit less as it sees the situation as more favorable to sit back and shoot. There are certainly flaws in both approaches for the AI, but within the current limits of what we can do, I don't see a good way to improve the AIs performance.

I know you mentioned you didn't want to change configs, but in the AIConfigFile you can try changing advancedChargeLogic to false and see if that gets you a more firefight focused experience. That disables the chain charge logic which greatly increases the chances of nearby units to charge when another AI unit is charging. The goal being to get charges by groups instead of isolated units, but definitely has the side effect of making the AI more charge happy.

1 hour ago, ug_might said:

If I had to make an suggestion it would be that after a unit reaches to broken status it should take much, much longer for moral and condition to rebuild itself.

Broken just represents morale, so potentially a unit could still have fairly high condition in this state. As a player I generally feel that it takes forever for units to recover from exhausted and broken. For AI units, it will be faster due to their generally higher stats. CSA units also have less condition drain for actions, and union recruits stats start off lower, so this feels particularly bad at the union start.

I'm a little hesitant to make this take much longer as it enables chain routing units easier, but morale regen at low levels could probably use another look.

1 hour ago, ug_might said:

I guess I lucked out on camp reinforcements, the enemy infantry was armed with Muskets and Rebored Muskets and did stupidly little damage.

We're currently testing out a version where the reinforcement types will be a little more consistent. Test versions are available on discord if you want to take a look. If you're facing a lot of muskets that was probably also contributing to lots of charging. Once the AI has more rifled weapons it slows down a bit.

Hopefully the above context helps a bit. The first few battles can often be pretty rough and once you get past that it can get easier. Though Shiloh and Gaines Mill can be a bit of a beast at the moment. Good luck and if you have more questions or feedback please let us know.

[ug_might]

 

I guess the issue I have is going from one reload to the next and face 20, 30 up to 50% (feels like) stronger enemies just based on bad rolls is bad variance. Random spawn locations are fine but going from easily winning to basically losing without being able to do anything about it is not.

This approach may or may not work fine on lower difficulties (I don’t bother, so no idea), but if you’re not some uber player and are *just* able to play/enjoy legendary with average rolls (like me), you just find yourself reloading until you get lucky.

  I get what you are trying to do, but sometimes it feels a bit much. If had to make a suggestion I’d focus more on different spawn points and tone down the maximum increase of the enemy strength through splitting.

About charging, I think your approach has merit but it’s just not to my taste. I was playing Shiloh the last few days and I was basically facing more charges than volleys. This has no basis in reality IMHO and can be exploited to the point of ridiculousness if you know what you’re doing. I had two fresh brigades charging Skirmishers in full rout more or less in parallel to my main line straight into a stream. One shattered, the other surrendered.  The best part? Their main army is still miles away and those brigades just charged blindly ahead into the positions of the main union army to try to get some Skirmishers. Yeah. So guess what happened next. Those poor Skirmishers were sent right back out again and lured in the next brigade. They didn’t reach my lines.

So it is playable, sure. But less enjoyable in my book. If I could choose between this charging simulator and the more traditional - blast away until something gives - approach, I would choose the latter.

 

Anyway, Shiloh. This has been one of the most challenging fights at that scale i can remember. The new battle flow requires an even higher degree of micro management and that’s not really my strong suit. Definitely involved some reloading. But I tried a new (to me) army setup with significantly more Cavalry and Skirmishers and I figured out a very nice way to defend the Hornets Nest, so that was fun.

https://imgur.com/a/HXltRVG

 

 

[pandakraut]

5 hours ago, ug_might said:

I guess the issue I have is going from one reload to the next and face 20, 30 up to 50% (feels like) stronger enemies just based on bad rolls is bad variance. Random spawn locations are fine but going from easily winning to basically losing without being able to do anything about it is not.

 

This approach may or may not work fine on lower difficulties (I don’t bother, so no idea), but if you’re not some uber player and are *just* able to play/enjoy legendary with average rolls (like me), you just find yourself reloading until you get lucky.

 

  I get what you are trying to do, but sometimes it feels a bit much. If had to make a suggestion I’d focus more on different spawn points and tone down the maximum increase of the enemy strength through splitting.

In the aiConfigFile there is a duplicateProbability value that is defaulted to .2. This is the chance that a unit gets an extra split. Maybe try lowering it to .1 or 0 for a bit more consistency in difficulty?

Unfortunately we are relatively limited on what we can do with alternative spawn locations and what is possible tends to be fairly time intensive to implement. But as a general rule, as we make improvements, the base size and stat advantages the AI gets are lowered accordingly.

5 hours ago, ug_might said:

About charging, I think your approach has merit but it’s just not to my taste. I was playing Shiloh the last few days and I was basically facing more charges than volleys. This has no basis in reality IMHO and can be exploited to the point of ridiculousness if you know what you’re doing. I had two fresh brigades charging Skirmishers in full rout more or less in parallel to my main line straight into a stream. One shattered, the other surrendered.  The best part? Their main army is still miles away and those brigades just charged blindly ahead into the positions of the main union army to try to get some Skirmishers. Yeah. So guess what happened next. Those poor Skirmishers were sent right back out again and lured in the next brigade. They didn’t reach my lines.

 

So it is playable, sure. But less enjoyable in my book. If I could choose between this charging simulator and the more traditional - blast away until something gives - approach, I would choose the latter.

We tend to lean in favor of increased challenge over strict historical accuracy. Part of our thinking on the charges is also influenced by years of playing the base game where you can effectively force the AI to stop a charge whenever you want and build pure shooting armies, which is every bit as exploitable as the current state.

The running dedicated skirmishers across your line to drag chargers is a known exploit that unfortunately doesn't have a good solution at the moment. If we prevent the ai from charging them it allows for near indefinite delaying actions, and the player could simply replace them with a slightly less effective speed perked infantry units for the same purpose.

Attempts at making the ai stop if it won't catch the target or other similar logic improvements have met with failure so far.

It's high in the list of things we would fix if we had a solution. But past a point there will always be more exploits than we can patch, so it's somewhat up to the player to determine which they will use.

Glad to hear you figured out a method for Shiloh that worked for you. Those look line excellent results. As always there are more things we'd like to improve, no plans to stop trying to making changes yet.

Edited August 31, 2022 by pandakraut