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


JonnyH13

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On the topic of skirmishers and damage output, I'm wondering why repeating rifles' reload rates are so low? The Henry for example is 130. I would expect these revolutionary weapons to pour down a continuous stream of fire. I'm toying with figuring out how to do it myself and changing it to about 300. (And on the broader topic, I find it annoying that weapons' descriptions sometimes specify if they are single shot, cylinder, whatever, but in fact they all fire just one shot without any exception. Shouldn't a revolver fire six shots and then reload? Is there a way to effect this?)

Also, is it possible to change the fire pattern of skirmishers -- or any unit -- to a kind of "fire at will" firing style? I think you can see this when routing troops are falling back, they fire without cohesion unless I'm mistaken (and if I understand correctly, in J&P this fire is very ineffective?). Would there be a way to select this fire pattern for units? It seems to me (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that skirmishers would have been likely to fight in this sporadic way.

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2 minutes ago, adishee said:

On the topic of skirmishers and damage output, I'm wondering why repeating rifles' reload rates are so low? The Henry for example is 130. I would expect these revolutionary weapons to pour down a continuous stream of fire. I'm toying with figuring out how to do it myself and changing it to about 300. (And on the broader topic, I find it annoying that weapons' descriptions sometimes specify if they are single shot, cylinder, whatever, but in fact they all fire just one shot without any exception. Shouldn't a revolver fire six shots and then reload? Is there a way to effect this?)

Also, is it possible to change the fire pattern of skirmishers -- or any unit -- to a kind of "fire at will" firing style? I think you can see this when routing troops are falling back, they fire without cohesion unless I'm mistaken (and if I understand correctly, in J&P this fire is very ineffective?). Would there be a way to select this fire pattern for units? It seems to me (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that skirmishers would have been likely to fight in this sporadic way.

Repeater fire rate is relatively low because the damage is quite high. Each volley represents multiple shots fired. It's not a great solution but it's what we went with in the current implementation. It's possible we go with something else in the future.

The issue here is the game is designed to have all weapon types fire in volleys. In the base game high fire rated were used to represent revolvers or repeaters, but all weapons still reloaded in the same way.

A guide to weapon modding is available on the forum if you want to try your own changes. The mod will pick up all the new numbers for you. Reload speed is particularly annoying to change since it's not a linear change like the other values.

Waivering fire at will was removed in the mod because it was pretty easy to get a unit stuck in that state and then inflict large amount of casualties before they ran. In the mod the unit will fire off a single volley and then rout.

Switching skirmishers to always fire this way is an interesting idea. Not sure if it's possible from the technical side, but I'll look into it.

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On 9/6/2019 at 9:51 PM, pandakraut said:

 

Melee cav drops off really hard in bad terrain and is quite expensive to field and maintain. Numbers and stats have a very large impact on melee damage, so AI cav can be very dangerous early on. If you're using very large units are you having trouble with the more experienced AI cav units?

Absolutely, on Major General. Below that the scaling doesn’t seem to be enough to deter the tactic. 

I played large numbers of melee cav mostly to see if it breaks the game. It makes things very weird. The AI cav units can be a problem, but depending on the mission all the cavalry might be carbine, or there might not be any. The AI also seems to have a lot more problems employing cavalry than a player does; it tends to make bad decisions about terrain, and it’s fairly easy to exploit the bugs where units get frozen if they waiver in water or at a map’s edge. A player can also metagame to use their cav before enemy cav will arrive on the field, or to intercept enemy cav at its spawn points (with cavalry being particularly prone to freezing if it gets fired on near a map’s edge). The base game AI is not really very good at handling cavalry (it won’t even dismount carbine units), so a player can often outplay or exploit it more than other unit types.

Large cav units tend to lead to very one-side battles, but if the player wins they are likely to completely destroy the enemy, and they can cover their losses.

I wouldn’t do it in a serious campaign more because it’s so unrealistic and cheesy.

I didn’t really mention it because it needs an urgent fix though; I mostly mean that if carbines need smaller units to be balanced, it wouldn’t hurt that melee cav also has smaller units. The way the game plays gets very weird with big melee cav units.

On 9/6/2019 at 9:51 PM, pandakraut said:

Infantry and carbine damage has in general gone down in the mod. The damage is also much more stat and perk dependent than in the base game. If you were firing at a 2-3* unit with 1* units it is very possible that their morale wouldn't drop enough to prevent a charge.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was because of the experience difference. I don’t think my 1* units had anything that improved damage either. 

I can deal with it on the CSA campaign because they get a lot of free units on the early missions and have an overall easier early campaign. On the Union side I haven’t gotten past Distress Call on Major General though, because I’m used to delaying two of the CSA advances there while I destroy the third. I’ll probably need to watch some videos to see different tactics there. 

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On 9/4/2019 at 3:18 PM, pandakraut said:

Is there any other functionality you can think of that would help?

Unlikely that you can finetune it, but:

The structural nav is poor:  Too many levels of redundant and unnecessary clicking.  The menu structure is pretty bad, but I on't go into particulars since I doubt you can fiddle it.

A basic rule-of-thumb: "stickiness is good".  i.e. If I just did something, then it's entirely likely that I want to do it again.  This can apply to many settings.  An obvious one in an epic series of campaigns like ugcw is to have a [most recent game] button right at the beginning that automatically returns me to where I left off. One click / no-brainer.

Perks

Currently the ongoing necessary task of re-fitting your troops between battles is a Guessing Game:  When I get a 2-star rating (huzzah), I want to maintain that level of fighting power as I re-fit with replacements. I choose some Veterans and some Rookies, press the [Apply] button, and hope I win the lottery.  If I did - and I still have 2-stars, then goody.  If I didn't, - and I drop to 1-star, then I have to start over and guess again (assuming that I saved my last 'camp', before guessing wrong. This = much unnecessary time-wastage.

In Commonsense Land, as commander I'd say to my brigadiers "I want to refit your unit to 2500 men.  How many Veterans do I need to give you in order to maintain your current 2-star level of combat value?"  It's a sensible question.  Let the computer do what it's good at:  number crunching.  Don't waste my time.

  1. A simple checkbox "[ x ] Maintain current Unit Rating" should be the default. 
  2. I drag the troop slider to "2500" and ugcw re-fits the brigade with the appropriate number of Vets & Rookies and computes the cost. 
  3. If I choose to make that investment, then I click [Apply].

Presto:  I've outfitted a unit quickly and maintained its 2-star combat rating  - without a headache. Of course I should also be able to override that (Maybe I don't have enough money to maintain the current unit rating).  Simple:  Just un-check the box.

Framing question: 

  • Is the rating (star) level absolute or merely indicative? i.e. Do I get the bonus value ONLY if I have 2-stars.  If my rating is 1.999999 stars, do I get any perks at all?

Nice-to-have:

  • Shouldn't my brigade commander also give me a heads-up if he thinks that his 1-star unit will be rated as 2-stars if I re-fit with more Veterans than Rookies?

If all of this is too complex, then here's a radical concept:  Just give me an [ UnDo ] button.  I'll still be guessing.  But it won't be quite as painful.

Short Answer:  I have many recommendations

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Artillery

The range indicators for artillery are an excellent addition.

When I researched civil war weapon effectiveness back when I designing my own board game, I was left with the impression that artillery was far more effective than musket and even rifle fire.  I feel that I don't really see that in ugcw.  Am I missing something?

 

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Hello PandaKraut,

I've been playing your rebalance mod for a week or two and wanted to thank you for your work.  The mod greatly improves on an already outstanding game, thank you.  I had a question about damage calculation. Rifle damage breaks out by percentage at four different ranges.  I think it is short, medium, long and extreme, but I may be mistaken as I don't have the game in front of me right now.  Is damage calculated by that percentage of the base damage range?  Does each point corresponde to a causalty? And finally, what distances do the different range damages represent?  

Again, thank you for your wonderful mod.

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5 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Currently the ongoing necessary task of re-fitting your troops between battles is a Guessing Game:  When I get a 2-star rating (huzzah), I want to maintain that level of fighting power as I re-fit with replacements. I choose some Veterans and some Rookies, press the [Apply] button, and hope I win the lottery.  If I did - and I still have 2-stars, then goody.  If I didn't, - and I drop to 1-star, then I have to start over and guess again (assuming that I saved my last 'camp', before guessing wrong. This = much unnecessary time-wastage.

 

The experience slider adjusts with the add-manpower slider, so you can clearly see when you will lose a perk by adding too many recruits. What is the problem? PK can't change any core mechanics of the game, and this sounds like just the sort of interface mechanic he wouldn't be able to change.

A little trick: add recruits until just before it takes a star, and then add nothing but veterans.

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5 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Artillery

The range indicators for artillery are an excellent addition.

When I researched civil war weapon effectiveness back when I designing my own board game, I was left with the impression that artillery was far more effective than musket and even rifle fire.  I feel that I don't really see that in ugcw.  Am I missing something?

 

Have you tried using decent guns with experienced gun crews? It can be very effective. 

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9 hours ago, inktomi19d said:

Absolutely, on Major General. Below that the scaling doesn’t seem to be enough to deter the tactic. 

For some context, I wouldn't really consider the mod balanced on any difficulty below MG. You just get to many resources and the AI's units are so bad that you can get away with just about anything. However, the mod does need to be playable by a wide variety of players, so what is too easy for some will be too hard for others.

The very large units definitely do lead to some odd gameplay at times. We may lower the player sizes a bit across the board in the future so that the AI units can always be larger and make up for the poor usage.

10 hours ago, inktomi19d said:

I can deal with it on the CSA campaign because they get a lot of free units on the early missions and have an overall easier early campaign. On the Union side I haven’t gotten past Distress Call on Major General though, because I’m used to delaying two of the CSA advances there while I destroy the third. I’ll probably need to watch some videos to see different tactics there. 

I had to completely relearn distress call in the mod. It's fairly easy in the base game, but the experience disadvantage on MG and above requires a different approach to keep your army intact. This came up recently on the discord and here are the basics:

There are two key points for supply depot and two basic options off of that. You want to give up one fort as early as possible to trigger your reinforcements sooner. You also want to send the skirmishers to the right side of the map to guard the fords and delay those reinforcements as long as possible.  Depending on if you send units to both ford, or only the north or south one you get different AI responses, so may want to experiment there.

Past that you can either choose to hold the north or south fort. If you abandon the north fort, put most of your units into the tree line to the left of the southern fort and bait the AI into charges. Tricky part is you need one or two units to the right of the southern fort to try and get flanking shots to keep the fort clear. Retaking the north fort sucks since most of the interior gives 100% cover.

If you abandon the south fort, you want to either cram everything into the forts interior cover and try to survive the charges, or you put a few units inside the fort along the right side, and the rest outside of the fort to the right of it. The second option is fairly complicated but can get really good results. I'd recommend checking out my video of the battle as it'll probably make more sense than a description if you want to try that option.

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9 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Is the rating (star) level absolute or merely indicative? i.e. Do I get the bonus value ONLY if I have 2-stars.  If my rating is 1.999999 stars, do I get any perks at all?

The perk bonus only applies when the unit has 2*s. Good camp management can drastically alter a campaign. In many cases I spent as much or more time in camp than I do on the battle screen when figuring out how to optimize my setup. Additional options would definitely be nice. Things like being able to type in the number of recruits or set number of veterans, in addition to what you mentioned. Nothing I can really do to improve the UI experience in this way though.

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3 hours ago, adishee said:
9 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Artillery

The range indicators for artillery are an excellent addition.

When I researched civil war weapon effectiveness back when I designing my own board game, I was left with the impression that artillery was far more effective than musket and even rifle fire.  I feel that I don't really see that in ugcw.  Am I missing something?

 

Have you tried using decent guns with experienced gun crews? It can be very effective. 

As mentioned, unit perform improves considerably as the units gain experience. Also make sure to check the range damage multiplier section of the tooltip to know which ranges the artillery is particularly effective at.

In general the mod has increased artillery damage and decreased rifle damage. This does create some problems on high end units which we would like to solve with a more morale focused damage system, but overall it means that it is much harder to just mass infantry and shoot/melee your way through everything in your way. It can certainly be done, but compared to the base game where a volley or two will rout an artillery unit, it's going to be more difficult.

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7 hours ago, ToddT said:

Hello PandaKraut,

I've been playing your rebalance mod for a week or two and wanted to thank you for your work.  The mod greatly improves on an already outstanding game, thank you.  I had a question about damage calculation. Rifle damage breaks out by percentage at four different ranges.  I think it is short, medium, long and extreme, but I may be mistaken as I don't have the game in front of me right now.  Is damage calculated by that percentage of the base damage range?  Does each point corresponde to a causalty? And finally, what distances do the different range damages represent?  

Again, thank you for your wonderful mod.

Happy to hear that you're enjoying the mod :)

Part of the damage calculation is base damage * range damage multiplier. The range damage multiplier is actually a full curve that covers a weapon's entire range. Based on how far away the units' target is, the given multiplier applies to the unit's damage. The tooltip will give you a decent indication of how well a weapon will do in a given range, but you won't see a 1:1 relationship with casualties inflicted because there are lots of other things going on behind the scenes(morale, condition, cover, etc).

I can't display the full curve in the tooltip as space is very limited, so I'm showing what the multiplier is at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and max range. Artillery also displays at 100 range since they tend to have spikes at close range. While not perfect it gives at least a decent idea of what the curve looks like.

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3 hours ago, adishee said:

A little trick: add recruits until just before it takes a star, and then add nothing but veterans.

This works as a quick solution, but if you want to optimize you actually want to adding the veterans first. You'll be paying the same amount for veterans whether you add recruits first or second, so it's better to save the higher stats by adding them first and then diluting the stats with recruits. Requires more trial and error to find the right balance though.

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2 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Happy to hear that you're enjoying the mod :)

Part of the damage calculation is base damage * range damage multiplier. The range damage multiplier is actually a full curve that covers a weapon's entire range. Based on how far away the units' target is, the given multiplier applies to the unit's damage. The tooltip will give you a decent indication of how well a weapon will do in a given range, but you won't see a 1:1 relationship with casualties inflicted because there are lots of other things going on behind the scenes(morale, condition, cover, etc).

I can't display the full curve in the tooltip as space is very limited, so I'm showing what the multiplier is at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and max range. Artillery also displays at 100 range since they tend to have spikes at close range. While not perfect it gives at least a decent idea of what the curve looks like.

So the damage curve is in fact a smooth gradient? I had been wondering about that.

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1 minute ago, pandakraut said:

This works as a quick solution, but if you want to optimize you actually want to adding the veterans first. You'll be paying the same amount for veterans whether you add recruits first or second, so it's better to save the higher stats by adding them first and then diluting the stats with recruits. Requires more trial and error to find the right balance though.

Oh I see, I hadn't considered that. Thank you. I mostly do the $5k trickle method as described by you and Fiasco.

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Thanks for the insight on the experience slider, adishee  I hadn't noticed it before now.

  • from a UI perspective, making the experience bar red would tie it visually and conceptually to the unit size slider ... since the two are related

Design solution

  • Place the 2-star 'experience' rating ON the unit size slider.  A vertical black line (or some other visual indicator) moves the stars along the experience bar as you add troops: to the left (weakening) when you add Rookies, to the right (strengthening) when you add Veterans.  Now you have all the relevant info - and its implications - in one place, unambiguously.
4 hours ago, pandakraut said:

As mentioned, unit perform improves considerably as the units gain experience. Also make sure to check the range damage multiplier section of the tooltip to know which ranges the artillery is particularly effective at.

In general the mod has increased artillery damage and decreased rifle damage. This does create some problems on high end units which we would like to solve with a more morale focused damage system, but overall it means that it is much harder to just mass infantry and shoot/melee your way through everything in your way. It can certainly be done, but compared to the base game where a volley or two will rout an artillery unit, it's going to be more difficult.

 

8 hours ago, adishee said:

Have you tried using decent guns with experienced gun crews? It can be very effective. 

I tend to use 12-pounder napoleons, when possible, for their effectiveness - yet remain underwhelmed with the result - even at close/canister range and with 2-star crews.

Here's what I remember from my research, which was using older military manuals and texts focusing on Civil War tactics/weapons/casualties:  The library was the USMC War College in Quantico (my dad was career, and I had access to the library) - so the documents and info were fairly straightforward and credible. My takeAway - and it was a long time ago - was that artillery was THE primary casualty-maker. Overwhelmingly.

Footnote: Aside from the fact that muskets and even rifles of that time were marginally effective weapons (particularly at range), very few infantrymen were excellent - or even competent - marksmen.  Casualty and medical records of the time were definitive:  The vast majority of wounds were from artillery (for some reason, the figure of 80% sticks in my mind, even tho my research was a looooong time ago).  But I'll stick with it.

Also consider:

Poor infantry marksmanship was a real issue:  "Union Army records for the Civil War indicate that its troops fired about 1,000 rifle shots for each Confederate hit, causing General Burnside to lament his recruits: "Out of ten soldiers who are perfect in drill and the manual of arms, only one knows the purpose of the sights on his gun or can hit the broad side of a barn."[21][22][23] The generals attributed this to the use of volley tactics, devised for earlier, less accurate smoothbore muskets" .  It's the reason why the NRA came into existence in the first place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association

Artillery units tended to be better trained and 'more professional'.  Period.

Smoke and obscurity made infantry even less effective. Fire a thousand rifles and you've got a shitload of smoke (in 1862) between you and your target.  Especially when they're firing, too.  Troops for the most part were only firing 'in the direction of' the enemy.

Net/net:  I believe you may want to revisit your 'fire effectiveness' assumptions with some research using military records of the times.  Artillery will become a far more significant factor.  As it should.

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1 hour ago, dixiePig said:

I tend to use 12-pounder napoleons, when possible, for their effectiveness - yet remain underwhelmed with the result - even at close/canister range and with 2-star crews.

What perk choices did you have? Napoleons can be used to great effect in the mod.

1 hour ago, dixiePig said:

Net/net:  I believe you may want to revisit your 'fire effectiveness' assumptions with some research using military records of the times.  Artillery will become a far more significant factor.  As it should.

More work is definitely needed to balance artillery, but I don't think making them strong is the direction they need to go in. Here is an example of how utterly ridiculous artillery can be currently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5WWMUvsE0

 

 

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Commander Advancement

Granted, legacy ugcw was kinda profligate in dispensing promotions (to virtually everyone), but I believe you've erred in the other direction.  I'm about 10 engagements in - as confederate - but am pretty much out of Colonels and have to buy BG-level commanders because there are so few promotions within the ranks.

My troops have acquitted themselves well in earning tough victories against superior forces, yet ... no AI-generated advancements, particularly at senior level. This is a serious and unnecessary limitation, imo.  And it doesn't really make sense.

Which brings to mind:  I am an Army commander - Yet I have no discretion in rewarding my best commanders with advancement?

Design suggestion:

  • Increase the AI willingness to automatically promote commanders (at least a little)
  • Allow me - as Army Commander - the ability to assign promotion to at least one sub-commander after every battle.

In a related vein:

  • I see only modest growth in the ability of commanders to handle larger-sized units after each battle.  Perhaps it will accelerate later, but it seems a little slow.

Divisional Command

Corps Commanders have a well-defined set of perks.  Divisional commanders seem to be little more than an afterthought.  Can you provide a thumbnail on their value?  What do they provide to the troops they command?  Do they matter?

Given the dearth of senior commanders (BG's or MG's), my current tendency is to assign Colonels to divisional command just as placeholders, so that I can have a few BG-level brigade commanders who can handle larger, more powerful line combat units.

I haven't followed the arc of promotion or capability, but it seems to me that a Colonel who's commanded a division of multiple brigades for a while should be able to handle a larger brigade, if given command of it.

If I haven't said it enough, I really enjoy your improvements to the game.

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41 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

What perk choices did you have? Napoleons can be used to great effect in the mod.

Horse Artillery, of course.  Still early in the game - haven't received that many perks so far.

Which brings to mind another question:  Horse Artillery seems to be THE level-1 perk option.  If that's the obvious & overwhelming preference pattern among players, then maybe re-think what you're offering.

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The ranks of officers in the barracks is semi randomized. Depending on the campaign you may not see to many officers of a specific rank. Training up lower ranked officers is often necessary.

Officer promotions are based on the officer's xp. Officer xp is gained based on the increase in stats of the unit they command. Corps and division officers gain a flat amount of xp per battle. Since units gain stats slower the higher those stats are if you want to train up a specific officer faster it is often better to place them in command of a unit of recruits and then place that unit in a position to gain lots of stats.

Division commanders apply a larger percentage of a units command stat than in the base game. If you put higher xp/rank officers into divisional command you should see a significant jump. A good division commander will allow lower ranked officers to command larger units.

The xp necessary for an officer to gain a specific rank has been changed in the mod because of the strength of corps commander perks. Colonels now take up a much larger section of the xp spread, so you will find that you will end up with a lot of colonels. But high xp colonels will be just as effective at commanding units as a BG would be in the base game.

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5 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

Horse Artillery, of course.  Still early in the game - haven't received that many perks so far.

Which brings to mind another question:  Horse Artillery seems to be THE level-1 perk option.  If that's the obvious & overwhelming preference pattern among players, then maybe re-think what you're offering.

I would greatly suggest you try out the other level 1 perks and get 2 or 3 star artillery with heavier guns.  You will find that the damage they put out is quite high.  Watch Panda's 2nd Bull Run Video to see why.

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3 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

Horse Artillery, of course.  Still early in the game - haven't received that many perks so far.

Which brings to mind another question:  Horse Artillery seems to be THE level-1 perk option.  If that's the obvious & overwhelming preference pattern among players, then maybe re-think what you're offering.

HA is actually my least used perk for artillery. I have it on a few napoleon units but the majority of my artillery uses the other perks. While convenient, taking that perk will definitely slow down your damage progression until you get high enough firearms/efficiency. Getting to 2*s is also essential for a unit with that perk to deal effective damage. Units with horse artillery really need to be getting in close and preferably hitting units in the flanks or in concert with several other units until they level up a bit.

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1 minute ago, pandakraut said:

HA is actually my least used perk for artillery. I have it on a few napoleon units but the majority of my artillery uses the other perks. While convenient, taking that perk will definitely slow down your damage progression until you get high enough firearms/efficiency. Getting to 2*s is also essential for a unit with that perk to deal effective damage. Units with horse artillery really need to be getting in close and preferably hitting units in the flanks or in concert with several other units until they level up a bit.

My beloved tactical batteries.

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1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Here is an example of how utterly ridiculous artillery can be currently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5WWMUvsE0

Thanks.  Think I get it re the effectiveness of artillery.  I use it a lot as an equalizer in fighting when outnumbered against the Union.  I'll stick with my observations re the actual, documented effectiveness of artillery-as-compared-to-infantry-fire.  It definitely does need to be tuned.

The US Civil War was a proving ground for the emergence of artillery (technology) as the battlefield difference-maker, a trend which had been evolving since Napoleon. A lesson not really truly learned until WW1...

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