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

[pandakraut]

On 12/5/2019 at 2:06 AM, Leisen said:

I'm playing CSA campaign in BG and just finished Chancellorsville and here's some questions and thoughts:

1. Seems that on paper HF1855 is superior to many expensive weapons such as Enfield, Lorenz or SF1861. Similar damage, accuracy and high melee, reload speed. Do I interpret the weapon state correctly?

2. Not sure if it's intended but seems that wiping out enemy army won't end the battle immediately sometimes. For example in Chancellorsville I wiped out enemy army in 3rd phase including the reinforcement and it said that I failed to take the objective and move to next phase, although it ended the battle quickly in the beginning of next phase and I still got the victory.

3. I feel the battle is too long compare to vanilla.I always have more than enough time to encircle and wipe out the enemy army. This is not quite easy in vanilla.

1) Weapon quality is currently not always directly reflected in price. The Lorenz and the Enfield have higher prices due to being imported weapons. 

2) Some battles/phases don't have the wipe out enemy army for a win enabled. This isn't an area we can really make changes so we're kind of stuck with whatever is currently in the game.

3) The battle timers have been generically increased due to slower unit movespeeds, harsher condition penalties and such. In some cases this probably gives the player too much time.

Part of this is also that on harder difficulties more of that time is going to be necessary. I assume you've built up a pretty strong experience advantage over enemy units by that point and are going to be able to roll over the quite quickly.

[pandakraut]

18 hours ago, Ratman said:

Looking through this thread I can't find what I'm looking for, or maybe I'm just missing it - is there a way to mod the mod so that the AI consistently gets more troops than you do? I looked at the UI/AI mod thread, and found  the suggestion to add

enableAISizeMultiplier, true
AISizeMultiplier

 

to the config file, but it doesn't seem to be giving the AI any more troops no matter how high I set the AISizeMultipler. The best I could do was when I added

AIInfantryMaxSize

 

and set that pretty high, some Confederate brigades in Shiloh went over 6000 men, but not too much - Cleburne at 6500 was about the highest I saw, I think.

 

The problem I've been having I think is that I kill or shatter too many of the enemy and over time even on Legendary the best the AI can do is roughly equal my army (yes, I am using a cheat engine to set my army pretty high at the start, I just like playing with bigger units)

 

Any way to do this or do the inherent game limitations prevent it?

 

 

enableAISizeMultiplier is something that I want to add to this mod as well but have not had time to implement yet.

AIInfantryMaxSize just controls the size cap on infantry so if a battle doesn't already scale that hard there won't be any difference. FYI, I think the infantry size curve starts to break when units go over 6k so I wouldn't recommend it.

A huge part of the challenge in the game is getting the resources to get a large army going in the face of superior AI units. Once the player can field Max size units the scaling isn't really designed to keep up properly. 

Until I can add the modifier in I don't see a good solution for you other than playing with self imposed restrictions on how large your units can be. I'll try to get something available before the new year.

[gomurr]

On 12/1/2019 at 1:48 PM, pandakraut said:

Just to confirm, the wounded officers are they in your barracks in a non-wounded state? Or are they missing entirely?

There is no chance to die mechanic for wounded officers, but multiday battles count as time passes so wounded officers can recover without having to wait for the next grand battle.

Sorry for the delayed reply.  The officers get reported as wounded during the battle.  When the battle has ended, they are missing entirely.

Also, I just had it happen with a minor battle, so doesn't seem to be specifically tied to multi-day battles.  I did save after the officer was wounded, and then later loaded that save.  So now I'm wondering if the process of loading from a save file is somehow causing the wounded officers to not show up in the barracks.

Edited December 15, 2019 by gomurr

[Julius Caesar]

Perks descriptions are different than icons. Is this normal? Which one is correct: icon or description?

Thanks.

 

[pandakraut]

14 hours ago, gomurr said:

Sorry for the delayed reply.  The officers get reported as wounded during the battle.  When the battle has ended, they are missing entirely.

Also, I just had it happen with a minor battle, so doesn't seem to be specifically tied to multi-day battles.  I did save after the officer was wounded, and then later loaded that save.  So now I'm wondering if the process of loading from a save file is somehow causing the wounded officers to not show up in the barracks.

Saving and loading after the officer is wounded is likely the issue. The save is probably not holding onto the custom wounded officer information. I'll take a look, but the saves are pretty much a black box to me so not sure if I can do anything about it. I basically never use mid battle saves myself(outside of multiday battle camps) so that's probably why I missed this.

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, Julius Caesar said:

Perks descriptions are different than icons. Is this normal? Which one is correct: icon or description?

Thanks.

 

Descriptions are correct. We aren't able to swap the icons or the amount of bonuses assigned to each perk so the visuals will not match up with several of them.

[gomurr]

22 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Saving and loading after the officer is wounded is likely the issue. The save is probably not holding onto the custom wounded officer information. I'll take a look, but the saves are pretty much a black box to me so not sure if I can do anything about it. I basically never use mid battle saves myself(outside of multiday battle camps) so that's probably why I missed this.

Fair enough.  Thanks for all your work on the mod!

[tech22]

Panda, any timeline on your next release?  merry christmas and thanks for your work

[pandakraut]

10 hours ago, tech22 said:

Panda, any timeline on your next release?  merry christmas and thanks for your work

Working on some changes currently, if all goes well maybe a small path within the next month. Merry Christmas to you as well

[Jaroslav80]

Hi Pandakraut. 
Are you capable to slow down the base speed also in Ultimate General Gettysburg? 
Do you have access to Unity source code of both UG games? 

I bought GOG versions of both games. Is your mod working also on GOG version, or only on STEAM version? 
 

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, Jaroslav80 said:

Hi Pandakraut. 
Are you capable to slow down the base speed also in Ultimate General Gettysburg? 
Do you have access to Unity source code of both UG games? 

I bought GOG versions of both games. Is your mod working also on GOG version, or only on STEAM version? 
 

A GoG version of the mod is available, it's listed in the first post in the thread under the link to the steam version.

UGG is also made in unity and can also be modded in the same way as UGCW. Jonny has done some looking into modding UGG but nothing has been released at this point.

[Jaroslav80]

Thank you for answer. 
I am surprised there isn't multiplayer in UGCW. At least for LAN. 
I played mostly UGG in the past and liked it. But I am interested in more small scenarios with less as 10 units under command. To be able play without a lot of pausing. 
There is just "Battle for two hills" and "Corner your enemy". Also first part of the original battle could be considered this type of scenario. Other scenarios are too huge for my taste. 

Unfortunately, it seems every map needs detailed scripted AI to be interesting - so it wouldn't be easy to create some new small scenarios. To use existing map and putting there just some units. 

About the Nick Thomadis - did he made also some mods also for MTW1? Or only for RTW and MTW2?? 
My most favorite of TW series is MTW1. But actually I have troubles to run it under Win10. So I need to keep two old laptops with WinXP for MTW1 LAN battle.  
Excuse offtopic please. 

[MishaTX]

Is it just me, or is it damn well nearly impossible to rank up your officers now? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the mod, it's made the game so much more interesting (not that it wasn't interesting to begin with, it's one of my favorite games), It's just that it seems almost impossibly hard to get officers ranked up compared to vanilla which was, I'll be the first to admit, too easy. I was swimming in Brig. Generals before Shiloh (usually playing CSA because I love the underdog in my games, and I'm from the south).

But here I am, post 1st Winchester, and I haven't a single officer rank up from Colonel to Brig. General. As an example, the most wildly successful officer in 1st Winchester scored a ten to one kill ratio with about 2300 kills, and his progression from Colonel to Brig. General went from 59 to 65. He's been in the campaign since Potomac, by the way. At this rate, he'll have to murder most of the Union Army and still be lucky to reach General by Sharpsburg. Which, with the increased cost of officers, makes it hard for me to have enough corps to even fight that battle.

I realize that you can command units with lower rank in the mod than you could in vanilla but still. Getting halfway decent officers for my units seems quite a bit harder now, even on BG difficulty level with the vastly increased cost of them in the mod.

Am I doing something wrong? Because it's quite possible. I know my own limitations, after all.

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, MishaTX said:

Is it just me, or is it damn well nearly impossible to rank up your officers now? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the mod, it's made the game so much more interesting (not that it wasn't interesting to begin with, it's one of my favorite games), It's just that it seems almost impossibly hard to get officers ranked up compared to vanilla which was, I'll be the first to admit, too easy. I was swimming in Brig. Generals before Shiloh (usually playing CSA because I love the underdog in my games, and I'm from the south).

But here I am, post 1st Winchester, and I haven't a single officer rank up from Colonel to Brig. General. As an example, the most wildly successful officer in 1st Winchester scored a ten to one kill ratio with about 2300 kills, and his progression from Colonel to Brig. General went from 59 to 65. He's been in the campaign since Potomac, by the way. At this rate, he'll have to murder most of the Union Army and still be lucky to reach General by Sharpsburg. Which, with the increased cost of officers, makes it hard for me to have enough corps to even fight that battle.

I realize that you can command units with lower rank in the mod than you could in vanilla but still. Getting halfway decent officers for my units seems quite a bit harder now, even on BG difficulty level with the vastly increased cost of them in the mod.

Am I doing something wrong? Because it's quite possible. I know my own limitations, after all.

Part of this is that officer xp gain was reduced and that unit stat gain(what officer xp gain is based on) was also reduced. Another part of this is that officers will stay at colonel rank for much longer while their command continues to increase. 

In terms of getting access to new corps commanders, the fastest way is to buy the highest xp BG or colonel you can, then put them on a new unit with low stats. This unit will gain stats faster in battle than if they were commanding a more experienced unit leading to officers ranking up fairly quickly. It's possible to have a MG by Shiloh and a LTG somewhere around Gaines or Malvern Hill.

An officer will stop gaining xp if the unit they command has 100 in all stats. Division and Corps command gives a flat xp amount per battle. 

There is a new version in testing that will smooth out the Colonel/BG leveling a bit, still working on testing the Union campaign though.

[MishaTX]

6 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Part of this is that officer xp gain was reduced and that unit stat gain(what officer xp gain is based on) was also reduced. Another part of this is that officers will stay at colonel rank for much longer while their command continues to increase. 

In terms of getting access to new corps commanders, the fastest way is to buy the highest xp BG or colonel you can, then put them on a new unit with low stats. This unit will gain stats faster in battle than if they were commanding a more experienced unit leading to officers ranking up fairly quickly. It's possible to have a MG by Shiloh and a LTG somewhere around Gaines or Malvern Hill.

An officer will stop gaining xp if the unit they command has 100 in all stats. Division and Corps command gives a flat xp amount per battle. 

There is a new version in testing that will smooth out the Colonel/BG leveling a bit, still working on testing the Union campaign though.

Thanks so much for the quick and detailed response! 

Makes more sense to me now. Also, another example of how this mod forces me to approach the game in new ways, which is excellent. Now I just have to overcome my fear of putting high ranking leaders in charge of front line brigades 😁. 

Thanks again for this awesome mod! 

[pandakraut]

27 minutes ago, MishaTX said:

Makes more sense to me now. Also, another example of how this mod forces me to approach the game in new ways, which is excellent. Now I just have to overcome my fear of putting high ranking leaders in charge of front line brigades 😁. 

Putting them on new artillery units can also be quite effective and much safer.

[MishaTX]

If it wasn't for the fact that Artillery has been nerfed into the ground now. Granted, it was way op in vanilla, but as the CSA, the only guns that made sense in the past (that you could actually get), the Napoleons and the 3inchers,are now next to useless compared to the Union guns which you can't get. 

Question : I absolutely love the fact that you can capture enemy batteries now, but it seems like you're not actually getting the guns after the battle if you do, as opposed to just shattering them. 

Thanks for the tips, though. I restarted and bought a brigadier general right off the bat, ouch, but now he's a major general after 1st Manassas. My only problem now is that he's actually better than my avatar, so I may have to command a front line unit myself, which will certainly increase the tension. 😊

 

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, MishaTX said:

If it wasn't for the fact that Artillery has been nerfed into the ground now. Granted, it was way op in vanilla, but as the CSA, the only guns that made sense in the past (that you could actually get), the Napoleons and the 3inchers,are now next to useless compared to the Union guns which you can't get. 

I think you should give artillery a second look. Properly perked and deployed you can win battles with them by themselves. It's a bit harder as the CSA, but the 3" and the blakely still do pretty well. 14pdr James can also usually be captured from the Union frequently enough to deploy a few units and those are a bit ridiculous at the moment. Maybe my perspective is a bit skewed since artillery is basically my specialty at this point, but there are some minor nerfs coming in the version which is in testing. Mostly just adjusting some outliers and addressing the supply situation that allows just fast forwarding while artillery kills everything.

2 hours ago, MishaTX said:

Question : I absolutely love the fact that you can capture enemy batteries now, but it seems like you're not actually getting the guns after the battle if you do, as opposed to just shattering them. 

Capturing the unit still doesn't get you 100% cannon return, at least on MG and legendary. But you move from 10% to around 30% return. This was definitely working at one point, but I can take another look to make sure it didn't break.

2 hours ago, MishaTX said:

Thanks for the tips, though. I restarted and bought a brigadier general right off the bat, ouch, but now he's a major general after 1st Manassas. My only problem now is that he's actually better than my avatar, so I may have to command a front line unit myself, which will certainly increase the tension. 😊

I'm definitely the type of player who just moves officers around to maximize xp gain instead of following any kind of role play. While this route does move your avatar out of command for a bit, they still usually make it back up there.

[sirwaldi]

3 hours ago, pandakraut said:

 

Capturing the unit still doesn't get you 100% cannon return, at least on MG and legendary. But you move from 10% to around 30% return. This was definitely working at one point, but I can take another look to make sure it didn't break.

 

 

Did i understand correctly

when I capture an artelery unit, I get 30% of the captured guns???

I thought the pay out for the captured rifles and cannons was much lower?

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, sirwaldi said:

Did i understand correctly

when I capture an artelery unit, I get 30% of the captured guns???

I thought the pay out for the captured rifles and cannons was much lower?

This value varies by difficulty level, but the weapon recovery percentage will be higher for captured men than for men killed.

[sirwaldi]

I play Union legendary

do we have a table where we can check this for the different difficulty level

i mean one that is actual

 

[pandakraut]

15 hours ago, sirwaldi said:

I play Union legendary

do we have a table where we can check this for the different difficulty level

i mean one that is actual

 

This post has the base game values: https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/26142-hidden-mechanics-and-weapon-damage-degradation/

In the mod the return from captured units has been cut roughly in half. Allied unit weapon recovery rates have also been modified, but basically if you keep them alive instead of getting them killed you'll get more weapons.

 

[MishaTX]

On 1/3/2020 at 9:14 AM, pandakraut said:

I think you should give artillery a second look. Properly perked and deployed you can win battles with them by themselves. It's a bit harder as the CSA, but the 3" and the blakely still do pretty well.

I did. Looks like my information was a bit outdated, must have been from a previous version of the mod. In that version, there was pretty much no apparent reason for not swapping all of the 3inchers out with 6lb pea shooters (what I used to call them in vanilla), which is both cheap and easy to do as they're lying around in piles in the armory.

In 1.25, however, they're quite a bit better compared to the 6lb'ers. Not up close, they're about equal there, but that's both right and proper.

[dixiePig]

Been a while, but it's 2020 now, so I'll chime back in with my favorite rants:

The 'colonels-take-forever-to-advance-to-BG" issue continues to be a topic.  Here's hoping that gets solved in the new year.

Pandakraut's advice as to 'how to improve the odds of advancement' is sound (I use some of the same techniques - esp. of 'musical chairs' commanders - to power-up borderline units).  But it still involves gaming the system rather than playing the game.  While I enjoy the ability to manage my army, the dynamics are sometimes obsessive and artificial.  Aside:  Mightn't there be also some positive value to a unit in having the continuity of a trusted commander in place for a while?

Speaking of 'unique qualities' of command officers:  Wouldn't it be nice if officers actually had 'leadership qualities'? i.e. "Attack +1" or "Defense +2" ?  Currently, purchasable and recruit-able officers have an abstract value (based on price), but that's about it.  For example:  When I am prepping for a tough defensive battle, I would like to put appropriate commanders in place.  Historically, of course, we know that certain commanders had particular strengths - and weaknesses.  Wouldn't it be nice to echo that?

Currently, the only way you can influence an officer's capabilities is at the level of Corps Commander, through the investment of the occasional advancement perk. 

Ranger/Snipers continue to be an annoyance:  They're historically/realistically just not that significant, yet they now dominate the mod gameplay - on both sides: Ranger/Snipers have  clearly become a predominant tactical 'method' for a player and the AI almost always has a disproportionate number of those units, as well, which affects gameplay.  Not in a good way.  It just wasn't so. Perhaps some folks will argue that it makes for a better game (I don't).  But the name of that game is not "Civil War".  Don't want to be a naggy historical stickler, but I hope you can come up with a mod version that returns UGCW to a game that more accurately reflects the strategy and tactics of that time.

Spoils of War (recovered and captured weapons) continues to be problematic.  The 30-20-10% recovery rate is awkwardly disproportionate : 20% is 1/3 less than 30%, but 10% is 1/2 less than 20%  (btw:  Does anyone ever play the easiest level of UGCW?)  A 50% hit in recovered resources is pretty heavy.  It means a totally different strategy for dealing with Career advancements - You  now need to buy lots more weapons, even after destroying an entire army.

Battle to the Death :  The enemy army remains in the field until the bitter end - even when it has been totally decimated.  I know that you're working on routing and shattering behaviors and hope you come up with solutions soon.

Campaign play:  Early battles provide major disproportionate Spoils of War (SOW) perks:  Bull Run and Shiloh both give you SOW for allied armies that are more than twice the size of your army.  Ditto for River Fort, Newport News, and even Ambush. I agree that the battles in the Final Campaign tend to be less challenging and  interesting, but that's an issue with the base game.

I enjoy the mod for the many improvements you've engineered into it.  Good luck in the new year.

Edited January 9, 2020 by dixiePig
clarity

[pandakraut]

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Mightn't there be also some positive value to a unit in having the continuity of a trusted commander in place for a while?

 

14 hours ago, dixiePig said:

Historically, of course, we know that certain commanders had particular strengths - and weaknesses.  Wouldn't it be nice to echo that?

I've tried implementing both of these in the past but was unsuccessful. Just can't figure out how to make it work on the technical side.

Many of these issues are at least partially being addressed in the new version that is currently in testing. Hoping to have it ready for release in another week or two.