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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, BCH said:

I also have concerns about using the 26 gun battery of Napoleons after Phillipi in regards to effectiveness

26? It should be 13. Even that is arguably a bit large for that stage of the campaign. There is a very rare bug where the starting units sizes are larger than they should be, maybe you encountered it?

Especially if the starting perks aren't desirable, disbanding can be the right choice. I disbanded scales, but I think I kept the other units intact. Good luck on the battle :)

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18 hours ago, pandakraut said:

26? It should be 13. Even that is arguably a bit large for that stage of the campaign. There is a very rare bug where the starting units sizes are larger than they should be, maybe you encountered it?

Might indeed be the bug.. Had one brigade at around 3,000 (2,800 or so)

one of the play throughs at MG level
Train Station : Union vs CSA - Victory for the Union

Started with

14,023 vs 21,066
82 guns vs 24 guns

Losses

4,237 vs 13,206
2 guns vs 11 guns

Distress Call - kept all units intact from Train Station includes one 2 * Brigade (Draw)
Start

12,128 vs15,014
0 cav vs 566 cav (I know the Union had 1 small mounted infantry unit, but it does not show up as being present as cavalry in the after action report)
37 guns vs 57 guns

Losses

2,722 vs 3,640
4 guns vs 16 guns
0 cav vs 32 cav

Bull Run (accidentally started the wrong save last night, decided to play it anyway) Victory

Started

16,941 vs 22,458
217 cav vs 633 cav
65 guns vs 71 guns

Losses

12,144 vs 14,372
153 cav vs 431 cav
29 guns vs 35 guns
120 missing vs 429 missing

At this point I am about to go back to the save I intended to play for Distress call when I notice I now have three 2 star brigades and one 2 star battery. I topped off the units to a moderate amount and started River Crossing

River Crossing - Victory (took and held the southern most victory point)

Started

7,700 vs 10,566
0 cav vs 599 cav
36 guns vs 28 guns

Losses

1,288 vs 3,818
0 cav vs 15 cav
0 guns vs 15 guns

I am now sitting with the following:

Before refit
$121,746, reserve recruits = 23,014

I Corp, 1st Div. three 2* Brigades, one 2* Battery, one 0* skirmisher battalion

I Corp, 2nd Div. two 1* Brigades, one 0* Brigade, one 1* Battery, one 0* Battery

II Corp, created but no units deployed.


 

 

Edited by BCH
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2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Yeah, that's definitely the bug. You're supposed to have around 10k at the train station. Enjoy the extra men and material, but be aware if you use all of it you're going to trigger scaling :)

sort of figures that my first go around at the MG level would trigger the bug..

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13 hours ago, echelbergere said:

You can actually trigger the bug on the Confederate opening mission by saving before the reinforcements arrive and then loading.  Each of the units will be between ~2800 & ~3200 for Canfield, Allen, and Birney.

Thanks for the bug report. I have no idea why that would be the case, but I will look into it. For Phillipi it might be at least a partially different cause. I have a save at the start of phase 2 that I have used multiple times and the reinforcements there come in normal size. I've never tried saving and reloading before the player units come in there though.

Edit: that was it, increases the sizes if you save and reload immediately at Phillipi at well. Now to find out why...

Edited by pandakraut
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3 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Edit: that was it, increases the sizes if you save and reload immediately at Phillipi at well. Now to find out why... 

Did you get that result for both Union and CSA; if so, my case is different, I saved at the start of Phillipi but did not reload.

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49 minutes ago, BCH said:

Did you get that result for both Union and CSA; if so, my case is different, I saved at the start of Phillipi but did not reload.

For Phillipi if you save and reload before the first set of reinforcements arrive those reinforcements will more than double in size. Doesn't occur in the base game, still occurs with only the assets file modified. Why I have no clue. I assume Potomac Fort will be the same given the report by @echelbergere but I have not yet checked.

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Did some testing on the bug with varied Career selections each time.

First Union units for Phillipi were always two skirmisher units at 360 each, and Zook at 1224.

Saved immediately, and did not engage the CSA units. What I assume to be normal reinforcements were always as follows:

Bristow w/ 17 Napoleons
Woods w/ 13 Napoleons
Scales w/ 1610
Walton w/ 1162
Loomis w 1287

Save immediately, and go back to main menu, load saved game and avoid engagement

Each time the reinforcements look like this:

Bristow w/ 40 Napoleons
Woods w/ 28 Napoleons
Scales w/ 3800
Walton w/ 2100
Loomis w/ 2800

And while this may look attractive for the Union commander, subsequent scaling in futures battles is nasty.

 

Note this test was at the MG level


 

Edited by BCH
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That matches the expected unit sizes and the bugged unit sizes I was seeing. Our best guess is that one of the hidden size modifiers in the assets has something to do with it. No idea how to fix it, but at least its effectively optional for the player to activate. Easy mode would be getting the extra units and weapons and then disbanding and only reforming all the troops later.

Edited by pandakraut
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4 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Easy mode would be getting the extra units and weapons and then disbanding and reforming nearly everyone.

I have a saved game where I am trying that strategy.. still seem to be facing a lot more CSA units than in a normal (non-bug) campaign. Does scaling count the non-deployed recruit pool?

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2 minutes ago, BCH said:

I have a saved game where I am trying that strategy.. still seem to be facing a lot more CSA units than in a normal (non-bug) campaign. Does scaling count the non-deployed recruit pool?

It does not. It's really easy to push up scaling in the first few battles depending on how big and numerous the units you put together are. The other possibility is that the reinforcement rolls were worse than the non-bugged campaign. I would recommend checking the intelligence report to see what the listed AI size is between the campaigns.

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Looks like if you keep the extra troops, etc. the payback comes at Shiloh.  I fielded 16,099 with Brigade size held to 1000 max (cost was a factor), and the CSA fielded 51,311 with Brigade sizes of 3209, 3151, 3850, 3337, etc. Even joining Brigades within a Division did little to slow the slaughter.

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[..listed AI size is between the campaigns.]

With the bug.. and it does not matter if you dismiss and redeploy troops and weapons.. the AI size is as follows:

Before Distress Call - 30 to 35K

Before Bull Run - 37 to 42K

Before Cross Roads - 40- 45K

Before Shiloh - 44 to 49K

 

Contrasted with a non-bug campaign

Before Distress Call - 28 to 36K

And another Distress Call - 29 to 34K

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The intelligence value won't change based on your army. You would need to use recon to see the effects of dismissing your units. Those AISize values are actually pretty close between the bugged and nonbugged versions. All of them are around 30k(the upper end of the range is largely misleading) which indicates that the doubling of your troops had little impact, but the reinforcement results and randomization did have some impact.

50k at Shiloh on MG is actually about normal in the mod. Since the last patch changed bull run, it's basically the only battle left in the game where units are defined at the max size by default. With the size caps removed scaling results in the values you are seeing. It's one of the harder battles in the mod and in many ways the last real hump of the Union early game, though maybe Malvern Hill still deserves a mention. 

For comparison on Legendary with a 50-55k report I am fielding about 16k men and am facing 60k. That's probably a bit low on average as most of my units are around 1k and I'm using some other scaling tricks to keep things down. Because of the allied units there isn't all that much you can do to lower it though. Winning the battle cost me about 50% casualties, but once I was past that battle the rest of the campaign was comparably easy.

Joining brigades in the mod is basically never the right choice unless they are 0 star units. Individual units with perks will be much better in nearly every scenario. I've tried to mod in support for perks in combined units with no success unfortunately. If you aren't using dedicated skirmisher units I would suggest bringing several. They can be extremely effective at harassing flanks and slowing down the AI's attack. I would definitely recommend a fighting retreat. You can inflict heavy casualties in the first two phases, but once the enemy brigades start stacking up you have to pull back or you will get overrun. You also want to be very careful about letting units get exhausted as it will be very difficult for them to retreat. The Landings fortifications can be very helpful for breaking charges but be careful about depending on them entirely as they allow focus fire on your units. If you can manage to capture supply wagons or take out isolated artillery with cavalry it will save you hundreds of casualties as the battle drags on. It's a tough battle, you may need multiple reloads to figure out a way through. Good luck :)

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14 hours ago, pandakraut said:

It's a tough battle, you may need multiple reloads to figure out a way through. Good luck :)

Surprisingly, the battle in which I saw those CSA troop figures; I had only deployed one Full Corp, the  second Corp only had one brigade. I just wanted to see the scaling.

The surprising part: that Full Corp did a fighting withdrawal  (or as attributed to Chesty Puller "Retreat Hell, we're attacking in a different direction.") to the Landing and arrived mostly intact. It might not have been a slaughter if II Corp had been filled out.

A joined unit of two brigades was left behind in the woods east of the church with a battery of 10pdr. Ord.,  They drove off every passing CSA unit that decided to attack on their way to the Landing itself..

On skirmisher units.. absolutely. I try to have at least one per division

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21 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I've tried to mod in support for perks in combined units with no success unfortunately.

It would be reasonable to get a small morale boost with combined units.. the 'strength in numbers' thing.

 

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15 minutes ago, BCH said:

It would be reasonable to get a small morale boost with combined units.. the 'strength in numbers' thing.

The numbers boost is about the only real bonus. Get a big enough unit and the melee power will overcome the lack of perks.

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The new variance mode can be disabled by changing varianceMode to false in Mod/AIConfigFile. It's probably a bit much for a newer players or on legendary, but I hope people have fun with it. Also thanks to @General WVPM for his input and some of the coding improvements for this mode.

Edited by pandakraut
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