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


JonnyH13

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I find aslong as the bad guys dont have one of the rotation perks and my cav has bonus speed from perks + the general perk its not too hard to kite infantry and arty with circling. Clear ground only of course, if theres any bush or swamp or steep ground its no bueno.
Little bit of a lottery, but ill try get the bad guys to rotate first so I can see how fast they spin around before hand. 

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9 hours ago, Edward Reynolds said:

I find aslong as the bad guys dont have one of the rotation perks and my cav has bonus speed from perks + the general perk its not too hard to kite infantry and arty with circling. Clear ground only of course, if theres any bush or swamp or steep ground its no bueno.
Little bit of a lottery, but ill try get the bad guys to rotate first so I can see how fast they spin around before hand. 

This is on 1.27.4.3? That added a change to allow the ai to rotate as if running like the player would. Maybe with enough speed perks it's still possible?

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Yeah latest version, requires stacked speed perks (at least 2 + general speed boost. 3+ and general is better.), perfect terrain, for the AI unit to not have a rotation buff (seems that way to me, maybe based on your comment all AI units turbo rotate which might explain why i can never out maneuver the bad guys with my infantry), and you have to appear out of concealment from a nice angle. 

edit: I reckon you can get 1 full rotation if youre close enough without them being able to shoot you doing this. As long as the ground and perks are there however its relatively easy to pull off - however given how crap the six shooters are for actually shooting and you cant really use this to get a flank or rear charge its not that usefull currently in practice other then to
1) Prevent shooting for a little bit as theyre rotating instead
2) In theory you could use this to rotate the bad guy so you can charge or shoot flank/rear with a different unit. Havent tried this yet but now im gonna. 

 

Edited by Edward Reynolds
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11 hours ago, Edward Reynolds said:

Yeah latest version, requires stacked speed perks (at least 2 + general speed boost. 3+ and general is better.), perfect terrain, for the AI unit to not have a rotation buff (seems that way to me, maybe based on your comment all AI units turbo rotate which might explain why i can never out maneuver the bad guys with my infantry), and you have to appear out of concealment from a nice angle. 

If you are devoting that much to making it work then I'm actually ok with it. The problem was that it could be done with 0* units for a flank shot every time previously.

The revolvers can deal pretty decent damage, but you have to have the accuracy perks to support it. Which is mostly incompatible with being able to pull off the rotation apparently.

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Yeah they have nothing prioritised to accuracy otherwise theyre not fast enough and get blasted to pieces - Its all speedy gonzales all day long. 

And given you could just march a block of infantry directly at the bad guys and get a better result if direct damage is the mission, cant say I reccomend it. Using them as a distraction worked nicely, but if you dont micro the cav they end up running way the heck away from where you want them if they stop moving and start the auto retreat cav and skirmishers have.

 

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7 hours ago, Edward Reynolds said:

Yeah they have nothing prioritised to accuracy otherwise theyre not fast enough and get blasted to pieces - Its all speedy gonzales all day long. 

And given you could just march a block of infantry directly at the bad guys and get a better result if direct damage is the mission, cant say I reccomend it. Using them as a distraction worked nicely, but if you dont micro the cav they end up running way the heck away from where you want them if they stop moving and start the auto retreat cav and skirmishers have.

 

You can turn the skirmish logic off with r

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Hey Pandakraut,

Just a couple general questions.

1) Are there any controls to tell your unit to prioritize enemy charging units, especially when the unit is charging them directly? I think most people would agree that on MG and LG managing enemy charges may be the most important skill you need to learn to win without insane casualties. It's not an issue when you are dealing with a few at one time. However, when you get those situations when 5 or 6 enemy units are coming and you are trying to manage the chaos, I always seem to end up with a unit or two who either: A)  have turned and are firing to support their buddy - completely oblivious to the unit that is 2x their size and just 2 seconds away, or B ) an enemy unit is routing - a charging unit approaches from behind the routing unit and passes them - so they are now in front of the routing unit - but when I click on my unit and it reveals the "orange glow" of who they are targeting - they are still focused on the routing unit even though they should be technically blocked from targeting them by the charging unit that is now right in front of them. Either way I face palm and say "idiots, shoot the angry mob in front of you"

2) Ghost CAV - how is it even possible that a game that is 100% installed on your local hard drive and is only single player can lose sync with cavalry units to cause ghost cav? If we were playing over the internet on a server, it would make sense if we lost sync now and then, but on the local hard drive? I don't get it. It doesn't happen with any other unit type.

3) My understanding is that when the little "eye closed" symbol is over your units, then the AI shouldn't know where I am located... yet enemy ART seems to know where to shell and enemy CAV knows exactly where to go to find any units susceptible to melee attack. I mean, I've literally watched enemy CAV move across the screen in one direction, change direction 90 degrees and charge a unit that supposedly can't be seen by the AI. Almost like there is a delay between when the AI can see you and when the closed eye icon disappears.

4) Enemy ART - I've taken advantage of surrender mechanics quite a bit in the mod. In early game the enemy ART is always 6pdr field guns when they surrender during the battle. Yet, in the battle summary where it shows equipment recovered and captured there can be artillery listed as captured (not recovered) that I know was not deployed by the enemy. 

4a) I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the enemy AI is limited to the same perks as the player. Playing MG a ton lately and I ran into a variance at River Crossing that I'd never ran into before. Typically, my Ordnance rifles, even with just one star, have more range than anything the AI has in a battle as early as River Crossing. But in this variance the AI was significantly out-ranging my guns - it wasn't even close. At first, I thought maybe the AI guns were deployed closer to the river crossing - but once I had skirmishers in place to locate the AI units, they were in the same place that they nearly always start - just behind the farmhouses on the right side of the river - but they were hitting units much further away than I've ever seen. You're familiar with the "eye" lookout point on the left (union side of the river) - typically that is about max range for the AI guns from their starting location - but in this variance they were hitting all the way back to the edge of the wood line (the wooded area where your units start the game). Later in the game I found that the AI guns were 1-star. Do you think this was just some one-off glitch? Or, are there multiple ranged perks at the corp level that the AI could get to fire that far? I mean, generally speaking, the AI's most common rifled guns are Ordnance rifles and 10P Parrots and only rarely deploys longer rifles in certain battles - but nothing that early in the game.

Thank you

Edited by PaulD
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3 hours ago, PaulD said:

1) Are there any controls to tell your unit to prioritize enemy charging units, especially when the unit is charging them directly?

There is not, player micro is required here. There might be some minor improvements that could be made, but a generic solution that covers optimal player targeting would be difficult to implement and likely would differ by situation and player anyways.

4 hours ago, PaulD said:

2) Ghost CAV - how is it even possible that a game that is 100% installed on your local hard drive and is only single player can lose sync with cavalry units to cause ghost cav? If we were playing over the internet on a server, it would make sense if we lost sync now and then, but on the local hard drive? I don't get it. It doesn't happen with any other unit type.

Sync in this case has nothing to do with networking. It's just a handy term to describe the end effect in the game, which is that something goes wrong and the visual display no longer matches the actual unit location. Add in the whole part where the unit location now covers a quarter of the visible screen, doesn't trigger melee, etc. Saving and reloading, or managing to rout the unit to break it out of its charge resolves the bug. This bug can also very rarely occur with infantry though it tends to look at little different and might well have a completely different root cause.

4 hours ago, PaulD said:

3) My understanding is that when the little "eye closed" symbol is over your units, then the AI shouldn't know where I am located... yet enemy ART seems to know where to shell and enemy CAV knows exactly where to go to find any units susceptible to melee attack. I mean, I've literally watched enemy CAV move across the screen in one direction, change direction 90 degrees and charge a unit that supposedly can't be seen by the AI. Almost like there is a delay between when the AI can see you and when the closed eye icon disappears.

There are a few things going on here. You may have noticed that sometimes you can see individual sprites of an enemy unit and fire at the unit even though it's unit flag is not visible. This is most likely what is happening to the player when the unit shows as hidden but is still taking fire. Annoying but at least relatively equally so, I'd change it if I could figure out what bit of code was wrong.

The AI generally has no idea that enemy units exist when they are truly hidden, excluding the situation described above. This can be seen in a variety of maps and scenarios where as long as the player stays hidden they can shoot or move around as much as they want without the AI responding. There are some exceptions like where the AI general is set to search for and find the player(they won't head straight for you, but the options of where to go reduce quickly), sometimes the AI seems to get stuck on a certain path even if you get hidden(could be a bug, could be something else), various other battle specific triggers that cause the AI to change how it is responding to the given battle.

We've played around with the AI being able to see the player virtually all the time in the past, rest assured it would be very noticeable if it always knew where player units were.

4 hours ago, PaulD said:

4) Enemy ART - I've taken advantage of surrender mechanics quite a bit in the mod. In early game the enemy ART is always 6pdr field guns when they surrender during the battle. Yet, in the battle summary where it shows equipment recovered and captured there can be artillery listed as captured (not recovered) that I know was not deployed by the enemy. 

I'm very confident that the captured equipment reflects the enemy units on the field. Are you certain that you captured every single enemy artillery unit that was on the field in this scenario? If you think you can reproduce this with an in battle save prior to the battle ending feel free to send the save to me and I can take a look.

4 hours ago, PaulD said:

4a) I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the enemy AI is limited to the same perks as the player. Playing MG a ton lately and I ran into a variance at River Crossing that I'd never ran into before. Typically, my Ordnance rifles, even with just one star, have more range than anything the AI has in a battle as early as River Crossing. But in this variance the AI was significantly out-ranging my guns - it wasn't even close. At first, I thought maybe the AI guns were deployed closer to the river crossing - but once I had skirmishers in place to locate the AI units, they were in the same place that they nearly always start - just behind the farmhouses on the right side of the river - but they were hitting units much further away than I've ever seen. You're familiar with the "eye" lookout point on the left (union side of the river) - typically that is about max range for the AI guns from their starting location - but in this variance they were hitting all the way back to the edge of the wood line (the wooded area where your units start the game). Later in the game I found that the AI guns were 1-star. Do you think this was just some one-off glitch? Or, are there multiple ranged perks at the corp level that the AI could get to fire that far? I mean, generally speaking, the AI's most common rifled guns are Ordnance rifles and 10P Parrots and only rarely deploys longer rifles in certain battles - but nothing that early in the game.

AI perks are identical to the players. Did you manage to kill them to see what cannon they were equipped with?

Depending on the difficulty and random chance they could potentially have access to the James, blakely, or 20pdr which outrange the 3" by a good amount. You'd have to get a bit unlucky, but is not impossible to show up that early. Happens semi-frequently on legendary. Another option could be the unit finding an angle that lets them fire at a target that is visually beyond the end of your firing arc. If you aren't already familiar with this technique, you can somewhat consistently hit targets with the same range as you without them being able to fire back with some practice. It doesn't get you much extra range, but it can be just enough if you set it up just right. If you are just giving direct move attack orders, then units will move closer than they need to.

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6 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I'm very confident that the captured equipment reflects the enemy units on the field. Are you certain that you captured every single enemy artillery unit that was on the field in this scenario? If you think you can reproduce this with an in battle save prior to the battle ending feel free to send the save to me and I can take a look.

AI perks are identical to the players. Did you manage to kill them to see what cannon they were equipped with?

I will pay attention to this in the future and see if I can send you a file.

As for the cannon perks, unfortunately, I took enough casualties about 1/3rd of the way through that I knew I would replay the mission before moving the campaign forward, so I hit restart and the next time the AI artillery range was what I had expected.

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@pandakraut

Bug: You may know this already and I don't know if there is a public bug log to look up bugs already reported. I love the addition to setup command groups with hotkeys 1-9, the feature is pretty much a given in most RTS games. I've noticed that if you need to do a reload for any reason, after a group has been setup, something gets disconnected when the game reloads. The unit icons will still highlight (usually) when the hotkey is pressed, but they don't take any commands until you reset the command group.

Question 1: Are the default weapon recovery rates for victory on MG/LG still as follows: 10% of enemy units killed, 25% of enemy units captured, 30% of players unit casualties recovered, and 42.5% of allied unit survivor weapons award?

Question 2: In MG Union Campaign, you come out of Philippi with a fair number of M1841 Mississippi small arms, especially if you can get the phase 1 units to surrender because many of them have that weapon - whether that is hard coded or random assignment, I have no idea, but in my testing it seems that all of the skirmishers have them and maybe half of the infantry - obviously it is a great early game weapon that is only available to the Union via capture/recovery. However, in Distress Call and 1st Bull Run the CSA weapon quality is very poor.

I've noticed that by winning Distress Call there is an effect of -30% weapons quality for the 1st Bull Run battle - so CSA has a ton of muskets, 1842s and re-bores at 1st BR.  In theory, let's say that I decide to destroy most of the CSA units at distress call for the XP, but then withdraw to give them the supply depots and the victory, so there are better weapons to harvest at 1st BR. Honestly, the only weapons I really want out of distress call are the '59 carbines from my allied skirmishers and cav so I can economically start building carbine cav units. What MIGHT a 30% improvement of CSA weapons quality at 1st BR entail?

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2 hours ago, PaulD said:

Bug: You may know this already and I don't know if there is a public bug log to look up bugs already reported. I love the addition to setup command groups with hotkeys 1-9, the feature is pretty much a given in most RTS games. I've noticed that if you need to do a reload for any reason, after a group has been setup, something gets disconnected when the game reloads. The unit icons will still highlight (usually) when the hotkey is pressed, but they don't take any commands until you reset the command group.

Thanks for the report, will look into this.

2 hours ago, PaulD said:

Question 1: Are the default weapon recovery rates for victory on MG/LG still as follows: 10% of enemy units killed, 25% of enemy units captured, 30% of players unit casualties recovered, and 42.5% of allied unit survivor weapons award?

Roughly yes, except for the allied units where if the alive men give ~25% and the dead give ~15%.

2 hours ago, PaulD said:

I've noticed that by winning Distress Call there is an effect of -30% weapons quality for the 1st Bull Run battle - so CSA has a ton of muskets, 1842s and re-bores at 1st BR.  In theory, let's say that I decide to destroy most of the CSA units at distress call for the XP, but then withdraw to give them the supply depots and the victory, so there are better weapons to harvest at 1st BR. Honestly, the only weapons I really want out of distress call are the '59 carbines from my allied skirmishers and cav so I can economically start building carbine cav units. What MIGHT a 30% improvement of CSA weapons quality at 1st BR entail?

I ran a quick test on MG and by not winning distress call, but still playing the battle you'll likely see more reboreds instead of muskets and 12pdr howitzers instead of 6pdrs. Up to you if that is worth the trade off. Personally I'd rather have the career point and increased rewards from distress call rather than slightly better weapons from bull run.

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30 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

I ran a quick test on MG and by not winning distress call, but still playing the battle you'll likely see more reboreds instead of muskets and 12pdr howitzers instead of 6pdrs. Up to you if that is worth the trade off. Personally I'd rather have the career point and increased rewards from distress call rather than slightly better weapons from bull run.

Thank you. I forgot about the career point loss! I appreciate you testing it and saving me the effort.

I had been considering that it carries a -12 on reputation, which is actually a 16-point swing since you do not get the +4 for the victory either. Up to Gaines' Mill I tend to spend a lot of my reputation points, plus the reduced recovery rates for distress call itself. Not knowing the potential rewards is what kept me from trying it. If it was Ordnance or Napoleons and Mississippi's I might be inclined to play it out a couple times and look at the numbers, but definitely not for rebores and 12p How.

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1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Thanks for the report, will look into this.

I know that reloading a game in the middle of battle doesn't truly restore the game as it was when you saved it.  All charges are immediately cancelled and put into cooldown. Any "hold fire" on units will be cancelled so they can fire. Units that were moving will load in a "stopped" mode and take a minute to start moving again - moving artillery may even load stopped and deployed and go into "remounting" before they can move again. It made me wonder if losing the group commands had something with those things. 

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Hi,

I'm loving the mod, but I'm getting frustrated about the difficulty. What I can't decide is whether I just need to be better/try new tactics, or whether I simply haven't done the camp phase right.

Background = I found confederate BG to be too "easy" (quotes in that I replayed many lost battles), to the point that I quit before Gettysburg (less replaying by this point). But,  MJ Union is significantly harder -- I'm replaying a lot more and I've hit a wall at Shiloh.

I'm outnumbered 3:1 (does this seem right? I have 24 brigades in one corps, most perks in training, some in economy. No money, but lots of recruits left over in camp upon starting Shiloh. Each division has at least 1 brigade of "nice" rifles ('61s, HFs, Lorenz), an I've spent rep on everything but the money and recruits.

Casualty counts in previous battles have ranged from 18/19% at best to maybe 30% at worst (I felt like I did well?) 

I'm getting better by being more offensive, but can never hold the church -- they all charge and i can't fall back fast enough. Do I need to keep cracking at this, or rethink my army building?

Thanks in advance!

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On 9/8/2021 at 10:05 PM, MarpusBrigby said:

Hi,

I'm loving the mod, but I'm getting frustrated about the difficulty. What I can't decide is whether I just need to be better/try new tactics, or whether I simply haven't done the camp phase right.

Background = I found confederate BG to be too "easy" (quotes in that I replayed many lost battles), to the point that I quit before Gettysburg (less replaying by this point). But,  MJ Union is significantly harder -- I'm replaying a lot more and I've hit a wall at Shiloh.

I'm outnumbered 3:1 (does this seem right? I have 24 brigades in one corps, most perks in training, some in economy. No money, but lots of recruits left over in camp upon starting Shiloh. Each division has at least 1 brigade of "nice" rifles ('61s, HFs, Lorenz), an I've spent rep on everything but the money and recruits.

 

Casualty counts in previous battles have ranged from 18/19% at best to maybe 30% at worst (I felt like I did well?) 

I'm getting better by being more offensive, but can never hold the church -- they all charge and i can't fall back fast enough. Do I need to keep cracking at this, or rethink my army building?

Thanks in advance!

It sounds like this is partially an army org issue. You really want to be aiming for at least 30-35 units going into Shiloh. A bunch of those can be just 4-6 gun artillery or skirmishers armed with whatever you have left over. It can also be better to have more smaller infantry(1k-1.5k) units as long as you can manage to get them a perk than a few large(2k+) infantry units. 

Even on legendary you usually aren't outnumbered even 2:1 normally. At least for the first day overall. In the opening phases you will be severely outnumbered until the rest of your corps are on the field.

Usually, in the initial phase you want to try to hold the river line briefly but will most likely have to fall back behind the church before the phase ends. While this is good defensive terrain and you want to inflict casualties to start to wear down the CSA, they get far more units than you do. So before too many of them stack up against your line and overwhelm you, you'll want to start falling back. In the second phase it can be better to just give up the VPs almost immediately to get into a later phase where you have access to more units.

It is also possible to adjust the AI's size and experience using the config files to give yourself a smaller step up between BG and MG. This series on a fairly recent patch does this to create a legendary lite option https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf-5UH5bavljKJnuCIRk_aY0sQbXjiXT9

While that series doesn't use a training heavy start, you can probably still get some decent comparisons and tips there.

Getting through Shiloh can be a big jump that sometimes requires a full campaign restart, so don't get discouraged. Let me know if you have more questions and good luck :)

 

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1. Question regarding scaling

Everybody has various preferences regarding both the config and aiconfig files. The only percentage value I changed was making the chance to surrender equal to the chance to shatter, at .19. The other thing I did was put a cap on max unit sizes. I started with the player values and set them to the values I normally play.  Something like 1500 for INF, 1000 for CAV, 500 for SKM and 350 for ART.  I then set the AI max unit sizes to 3900 for INF, 1500 for CAV, 700 for ART, and 900 for SKM. I was tired for having Trabue at Shiloh roll up with 5k+ in a brigade when I don't have more than 1250. 

My question is this; will the AI add more units with smaller values?  That's what I'd like it to do. I don't want to down scale the CSA Army size, I just don't want colossal units coming onto the field. If it wants to bring 2 units of 2500 rather than 1 unit with 5000, I am ok with it, but I don't know if the AI calculations work this way.

2. Cover vs Concealment

As a prior service member, I wish the game would use the terms cover and concealment and apply them the way that the military teaches them in basic training. Concealment hides your location but does NOT provide any level of protection against receiving damage. A sniper wearing a ghillie suit provides concealment (stealth) but doesn't stop bullets. Once the enemy knows your location you beat feet out of there because you have no protection. Most of the combat operations I was involved in were at night because the darkness provides concealment. Cover provides both concealment and protection.  When I see perks like "% to cover" I start thinking - are we putting on body armor - how exactly do we have mobile cover bonuses in the civil war era? From my view, the game tends to provide cover (protection from fire, or reduction in damage taken) when it should only provide a modifier to stealth. Once the enemy can see you, you are no longer concealed - like in a wheat field - you should still receive 100% of the damage coming your way.  It happens a lot with enemy skirmishers - once they can be seen, they should not be getting damage reduction cover bonuses when they are out in the open. I shouldn't need 3 full INF brigades and 3+ ART batteries firing multiple volleys at one skirmisher unit to get it to take enough damage to rout.

 

Edited by PaulD
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21 hours ago, PaulD said:

I was tired for having Trabue at Shiloh roll up with 5k+ in a brigade when I don't have more than 1250. 

Remember the AI scales off your allied units as well. So it is factoring in the dozen or so additional infantry brigades and their men. But otherwise, glad the config options are working for you.

21 hours ago, PaulD said:

My question is this; will the AI add more units with smaller values?  That's what I'd like it to do. I don't want to down scale the CSA Army size, I just don't want colossal units coming onto the field. If it wants to bring 2 units of 2500 rather than 1 unit with 5000, I am ok with it, but I don't know if the AI calculations work this way.

Scaling does not affect the number of enemy units. duplicateRandomProbability in the AIConfigFile controls the chance for any given AI or allied unit to split into two. So the chance could be increased to do what you want. However, on larger battles 100% duplication will result in breaking the unit cap and crashing the battle so you would need to adjust it up and down to have full duplication on smaller battles but less on larger ones.

The historical submod has implemented a scaling system sort of like you described though it is more hardcoded to avoid crashes as far as I'm aware.

21 hours ago, PaulD said:

2. Cover vs Concealment

The game does mostly work the way you describe. Stealth increases concealment, which provides no bonuses once revealed. Cover reduces damage taken with no impact on visibility.

Skirmisher's higher base cover represents the increased difficulty of scoring a hit against the unit due to their spread out order and greater ability to take advantage of the local terrain. The cover perks further represent this through some combination of keeping more distance between members of the unit, taking advantage of nearby trees, rocks, rolling ground, etc to put something between them and enemy fire. You could also look at this as the unit being more experienced at generating their own cover through digging in, stacking rocks/trees and such.

A cornfield isn't going to provide much cover, but there is certainly more in the way than if you were standing in an open field.

Cover and skirmishers bonuses to it are getting adjusted a bit in the future.

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13 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Remember the AI scales off your allied units as well. So it is factoring in the dozen or so additional infantry brigades and their men. But otherwise, glad the config options are working for you.

Scaling does not affect the number of enemy units. duplicateRandomProbability in the AIConfigFile controls the chance for any given AI or allied unit to split into two. So the chance could be increased to do what you want. However, on larger battles 100% duplication will result in breaking the unit cap and crashing the battle so you would need to adjust it up and down to have full duplication on smaller battles but less on larger ones.

The historical submod has implemented a scaling system sort of like you described though it is more hardcoded to avoid crashes as far as I'm aware.

The game does mostly work the way you describe. Stealth increases concealment, which provides no bonuses once revealed. Cover reduces damage taken with no impact on visibility.

Skirmisher's higher base cover represents the increased difficulty of scoring a hit against the unit due to their spread out order and greater ability to take advantage of the local terrain. The cover perks further represent this through some combination of keeping more distance between members of the unit, taking advantage of nearby trees, rocks, rolling ground, etc to put something between them and enemy fire. You could also look at this as the unit being more experienced at generating their own cover through digging in, stacking rocks/trees and such.

A cornfield isn't going to provide much cover, but there is certainly more in the way than if you were standing in an open field.

Cover and skirmishers bonuses to it are getting adjusted a bit in the future.

Thanks Panda

One other question. Do the CSA SS Palmettos (like at Seven Pines) have set perks, or are they random like most of the other units based on CSA training and arms quality percentage listed in pre-battle stats? No matter how fast I eliminate that unit it always finishes the battle having done serious damage to my units. I've never been able to get them to surrender to find out what they have, they always eventually shatter instead. I know they are using firearms with over 400 range because they easily out distance my INF units. I assume they are using +cover rather than +stealth (maybe a combo since they are 3-stars). They seem to be very consistent in performance on multiple play throughs, so made me wonder if that is a special unit with set perks and weapons.

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39 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Remember the AI scales off your allied units as well. So it is factoring in the dozen or so additional infantry brigades and their men. But otherwise, glad the config options are working for you.

Before I changed any settings, I was playing around with forcing the scaling UP, on MG while working on Training emphasis builds. Obviously, if you go all in on Training in the early game you don't have any, or much, in logistics and even if you did you can't afford to buy stuff. So, the idea was to push scaling as high as I could to boost weapons taken in all the battles up to Shiloh, then de-escalate the scaling there, having let them bleed down to my intended size.  I mean, I got the AI to send close to 20k troops into distress call - it got so out of hand I started laughing - it was like some Hollywood barroom brawl where there was fierce fighting going on everywhere - but it had the intended effect on getting more weapons.

I don't have any issues with any other battle except Shiloh - like everyone else I guess. I may decide to only reduce the max unit sizes for that battle and keep them at the default for everything else. I can get through Shiloh and win, but it is always with 15k+ casualties. Fortunately, the three side battles are before Gaines' Mill are great for rebuilding everything and I do great at Gaines's and Malvern anyway. 

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Hello! Finally managed to beat the Union campaign on Legendary. Took like 3 tries and a run on Hard to learn more about ins and outs. Had to accept defeat at Shiloh (ran away from the map without fighting) since I couldn't find a solution, how to stop 3000+ men 3-star charging enemy brigades with useless cannon fodder my army is at the beginning. So chose to take a reputation hit and forfeit 2 (or 3 career points). I know there is a way to beat this battle, but just chose not to waste my time and spend more money buying all the 6 and 12 pounder scrap, than the 100.000$ reward difference between the victory and defeat. 

Also skipped 2 minor battles - Siege of Suffolk, because the allied 1 star units break under 200+cannons firing and 2000 Lemat-equipped cavalry charging at them and 89000$ is not enough to cover the losses in my artillery. 

And the 2nd Winchester - that was winnable by beefing up my units, but wanted to avoid this before Gettysburg to keep the Confederate army smaller - it's much easier to canister 2000 charging clown packs than 3500. 

The other problematic battles were:

1.Secure River - outnumbered 2 to 1 and on the offence, needed the right timing to put the unit on the objective right at the end of the timer so the enemy couldn't countercharge.

2.Malvern Hill - got pummeled repeatedly until I managed to find a spot where the enemy had to cross the bridge to get to me and just evaporated them with canister while they were at 0 cover. 

3.Thoroughfare Gap - defended in the northern woods with my line along the stream, outnumbered 2 to 1 and with a limited number of units. Had to make several restarts to get lucky when the enemy sent most of it's army in the clearing near the flag. Purely lucky win. Also had to disband almost all of my skirmishers so to avoid 1000 men enemy skirmisher packs. 

4.Salem Church - got completely wrecked by the enemy reinforcements but managed to hold onto the objective with a routing unit. Technically - a loss. 

5.Chickamauga – day 1 in particular. The allied units were only useful at shooting the enemy on the bridges at 0 cover. Once out of their favorite spots, their battle value was reduced to 0. Also the enemy had 3 2000 LeMat horse packs that kept killing and capturing everyone in their sight. Had to disband all of my 5 units of 2-star cavalry to make their sizes more manageable and capture supply wagons on foot. Later in the campaign managed to resurrect 2 horse units and even level them up to 2 stars in the remaining battles.

6.Fort Stevens – usually send the rookie corps there so they could level-up while shooting the enemy from the fort, but faced a 75000 non-scalable force against my 42000 coming in piecemeal. So had to abandon my plan, replay Cold Harbor and reshuffle my army to include units with Spencers and Henries, as well as some more support with captured Whitworth rifles (infantry and sniper versions). Still had to abandon the fort, but my artillery saved the day at the end.

During the campaign I tried to stick with 1500-men brigades, 14-cannon batteries, horse and skirmisher count depended on the weapons available and officer rank.

The most widespread weapon was the Lorenz as the Union gets a lot of these through rep points, allied units (got some 2200 at 7 Pines and 5000+ at Salem Church) and captures as the Confederates usually carry Lorenzes until Chancellorsville. Although I find it somewhat funny that the side considered a powerful industrial nation had to rely on imports on such a scale.

The other notable rifles were:

Harpers Ferry – actually the only reasonable rookie option for me when I had to by the weapon, as the muskets are crap, Springfield 55 is useless at long range, Springfield 61 is good but the production stops after Chancellorsville. Also it wasn’t rare that a regiment levelled up with these guns up to 2 solid stars and I didn’t see the need to change the weapon. So these rifles make a good investment.

Tyler Texas – got 20000+ of these from the 2nd tier Confederate units. Used for placeholder rookies.

Joslyn – broke the bank right before Richmond and fielded 17 brigades with them. Was worth it, but the rifle appears late and is a bit pricey.

Whitworth – captured enough to field 15 brigades for Richmond. The funny thing is that I’ll be probably lucky to field 3-4 in the Confederate playthrough.

Colt55, Spencer and Henry – ended up fielding 2 regiments with each, were the killing machines in defence – both on foot and from the trench, especially Henries.

As for the artillery, started with 3 Inch and Napoleons, but aimed for the high-tier guns, obtained 20 PDR Parrots for reputation, so ended up with 4 14-gun Siege Batteries, 3 – 12 PDR Whitworths, 9 – 20PDR Parrotts. James, captured Blakelies and some remaining 3Inch were relegated to rookie batteries. Napoleon batteries got eventually rearmed to 24 PDR since I captured a number of these, although the rearmament worth was questionable.

Horses got the cheapest carbines possible, although I kept bying Spencer and Colt55 carbine and eventually rearmed a regiment with each. Skirmishers got JFB and Sharps, later rearmed a regiment with captured Withworth TS – also a killing machine.

For the infantry, cavalry, skirmisher and corps commander perks I went with those giving accuracy, since I saw no reason for my regiments with 34 in melee after formation to try to melee 2000 men 3 star brigades with 100 melee and usually at least 1 perk in it. Cannons got the 1st horse artillery perk and the later depended if they were smoothbore or rifled. Had to consent to weaker cannons since without the speed perk they are painfully slow and get stuck in the woods. Also I was able to move my cannons with infantry on offensive missions just like in Vanilla.

I haven’t encountered any major bugs related to the mod. However, there were issues.

1.At times my unit would stop firing from the defensive position despite the enemy being firmly in the range (not at the tip). Manual aiming stopped working as well. To fix it, had to unseat the unit, manually aim it and place it back (and get my share of whatever crap the enemy was sending towards it in the process, sometimes ending in a rout.). Happened frequently enough to notice, namely at Fort Stevens, Georgia Railroad and a number of earlier missions. Maybe 1-3 times during the battle, but if I failed to notice it, my unit just kept sitting under fire doing nothing.

2.Sometimes cannons refused to fire even when the target was clearly in range and kept telling they need to get closer. This either ended in the cannon driving towards the enemy (and getting shot if I failed to notice) or idling until I notice (sometimes with the Reload bar half-filled and stuck). Frequently happened during Harrisson Creek (failed an attempt because of this), but also sometimes at Gettysburg and a number of smaller battles.  

In conclusion I have a couple of questions, that more experienced players might have answers for

1.Second Tier Artillery perks – Fire direction drills gives +25% accuracy and +50% spotting. Does the accuracy buff make the gun 25% more efficient on all ranges? It might be worth to sacrifice the cover or stealth bonus then.

2.How does this 25% accuracy buff work? If a gun has 37% effectiveness on medium range, then with a perk will it get 46,25% or 62%? Do perks stack or each new is calculated from a default value?

3.I have maybe two detached skirmishers, a horse and a dedicated skirmisher regiment nearby. But they still can’t spot a nasty pack of enemy skirmishers firing at me. I detach one more pack from a random unit and the enemy goes out of stealth mode right in front of my nose. Magic or the spotting parameter stacks somehow?

4.Is it actually worth swapping Napoleons for 24PDR in the smoothbore artillery? Got an impression that the Napoleons kill better but the 24PDR more scare the enemy off forcing to rout.

5.What is the most effective number of cannons in the battery? I tried 20+ 30+ but haven’t noticed much difference with a 12-14 gun battery, except for the costs skyrocketing.

P.S. Since the guns have all that close, long, max range effectiveness, maybe it would be possible to rearrange the distance cones into 5 sections instead of 3? Same with infantry.

P.S.S. All it all, I'm happy with the mod, although it has some frustrating moments at the beginning and at the end. Thanks for the creator (or creators)!

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20 hours ago, Rubinfan said:

Hello! Finally managed to beat the Union campaign on Legendary. Took like 3 tries and a run on Hard to learn more about ins and outs. Had to accept defeat at Shiloh (ran away from the map without fighting) since I couldn't find a solution, how to stop 3000+ men 3-star charging enemy brigades with useless cannon fodder my army is at the beginning. So chose to take a reputation hit and forfeit 2 (or 3 career points). I know there is a way to beat this battle, but just chose not to waste my time and spend more money buying all the 6 and 12 pounder scrap, than the 100.000$ reward difference between the victory and defeat. 

Also skipped 2 minor battles - Siege of Suffolk, because the allied 1 star units break under 200+cannons firing and 2000 Lemat-equipped cavalry charging at them and 89000$ is not enough to cover the losses in my artillery. 

The other problematic battles were:

1.Secure River - outnumbered 2 to 1 and on the offence, needed the right timing to put the unit on the objective right at the end of the timer so the enemy couldn't countercharge.

2.Malvern Hill - got pummeled repeatedly until I managed to find a spot where the enemy had to cross the bridge to get to me and just evaporated them with canister while they were at 0 cover. 

3.Thoroughfare Gap - defended in the northern woods with my line along the stream, outnumbered 2 to 1 and with a limited number of units. Had to make several restarts to get lucky when the enemy sent most of it's army in the clearing near the flag. Purely lucky win. Also had to disband almost all of my skirmishers so to avoid 1000 men enemy skirmisher packs. 

4.Salem Church - got completely wrecked by the enemy reinforcements but managed to hold onto the objective with a routing unit. Technically - a loss. 

5.Chickamauga – day 1 in particular. The allied units were only useful at shooting the enemy on the bridges at 0 cover. Once out of their favorite spots, their battle value was reduced to 0. Also the enemy had 3 2000 LeMat horse packs that kept killing and capturing everyone in their sight. Had to disband all of my 5 units of 2-star cavalry to make their sizes more manageable and capture supply wagons on foot. Later in the campaign managed to resurrect 2 horse units and even level them up to 2 stars in the remaining battles.

2.Sometimes cannons refused to fire even when the target was clearly in range and kept telling they need to get closer. This either ended in the cannon driving towards the enemy (and getting shot if I failed to notice) or idling until I notice (sometimes with the Reload bar half-filled and stuck). Frequently happened during Harrisson Creek (failed an attempt because of this), but also sometimes at Gettysburg and a number of smaller battles.  

In conclusion I have a couple of questions, that more experienced players might have answers for

1.Second Tier Artillery perks – Fire direction drills gives +25% accuracy and +50% spotting. Does the accuracy buff make the gun 25% more efficient on all ranges? It might be worth to sacrifice the cover or stealth bonus then.

2.How does this 25% accuracy buff work? If a gun has 37% effectiveness on medium range, then with a perk will it get 46,25% or 62%? Do perks stack or each new is calculated from a default value?

3.I have maybe two detached skirmishers, a horse and a dedicated skirmisher regiment nearby. But they still can’t spot a nasty pack of enemy skirmishers firing at me. I detach one more pack from a random unit and the enemy goes out of stealth mode right in front of my nose. Magic or the spotting parameter stacks somehow?

4.Is it actually worth swapping Napoleons for 24PDR in the smoothbore artillery? Got an impression that the Napoleons kill better but the 24PDR more scare the enemy off forcing to rout.

5.What is the most effective number of cannons in the battery? I tried 20+ 30+ but haven’t noticed much difference with a 12-14 gun battery, except for the costs skyrocketing.

Congrats on finishing Legendary difficulty. I'm definitely not an expert, but can provide some feedback based on my experience.

Shiloh - The scourge of every Union player. On MG and below I find I am much better off just holding my lines and finishing it on Day 1. On LG I think you have to play it as designed with falling back to Pittsburgh Landing and going into Day 2. However, there is a balance there - if you fall back too quickly and don't whittle down some of the CSA they will just bulldoze you at Pittsburgh Landing before you can get to Day 2. On the other hand, it is hard to know how long to hold the line to inflict damage before it is "too late" and you get decimated trying to fallback. For this reason I avoid taking any heavy artillery to Shiloh because they are so damn slow and either get caught by the CSA, or my infantry takes excessive casualties trying to protect them. 

Siege of Suffolk - Can be incredibly tedious. On the north end of the map I don't bother using the fortifications. I find that I am better off keeping everyone in the woods. The south end never seems to be as bad, and I flank from that side once my reinforcements show up.

Secure River - Most people try to go straight up the right side and try to push the CSA to the left/north. On MG and LG if you run right out and do that half the CSA forces will be sitting in the woods firing at you while you are out in the open and trying to go up hill. What I've found to work best here is to slightly feign an attack to the left/center to lure the CSA forces into charging. I don't actually attack the left/center, I just move a unit or three in that direction until the CSA can see me and when they move forward to engage I fallback or move into cover. I usually take 2 smoothbores and 3 rifles to this battle. Between the 5 of them and the 2 gunboats you can manage any CSA units that engage. CSA usually has 2 artillery batteries here (unless they roll as duplicates). By feigning attack to the left/center, one battery to the north usually comes out into the open and the battery in the woods to the south will pull all the way up to the wood line and sometimes out into the open. This puts both batteries in range for my rifled guns. I spend the first 2 game-time hours killing off charging units and taking out the CSA guns without every moving any units to the right side. With an hour left, THEN I flank to the right to push the CSA to the left/north and by that time there isn't much resistance left in the woods there. This battle is difficult to fully clear because it ends as soon as the timer is finished but using this strategy I've finished with less than 3 CSA units left on the field.

Malvern Hill - Most people withdrawal for phase 1 and phase 2 then set up along the back wood line at the start of phase 3 while your reinforcements come in. I also do this but with the following adjustment. At the start of phase 1 I move 3 INF and 1 or 2 CAV into the woods on the far left and let them sit there. Move the rest of my units to the bottom of the screen to give CSA the VP and trigger phase 2.  At the start of phase 2, I setup those 3 INF units I left on the left side down to down to the bridge area just south of them but keep them in cover in a semi-circle because CSA will be attempting to come through that way to flank you on the left.  I move the CAV north to start picking off supply wagons and straggler artillery units once the CSA infantry has passed.  On the right side of the screen, I move one INF unit to the far right because CSA usually sends a unit or two down the far right passage. I also set up 1 smoothbore and 3 INF units in the woods near the bridge on the right side - this becomes a massive killing ground with CSA constantly trying to charge across the bridge. You will need to micromanage quite a bit here.  The rest of my units fall back to the south.  Phase 2 ends very quickly once the VP timer expires and you have not taken it back from CSA. Phase 3 is just setting up units in the southern wood line. Since all the CSA is in the open your artillery should be racking up huge casualties. Also, if things start to get out of hand at the left bridge, your rifled guns can support from the southern wood line. Toward the end of phase 3 I start moving my units north because the CSA is usually just milling around in the center and have stopped attacking.  I also move the three units I had at the left bridge up and around to come in from the north, along with any CAV, to take the VP in the last few minutes. You may be able to fully clear CSA from the field but it is difficult on legendary.

Thoroughfare Gap - Always a nail biter. My general strategy is 3 INF units, a smoothbore, and a rifled gun in the woods north of the VP and repeat the same setup in the woods to the south of the VP. I then park one heavy rifle battery right on the VP or in the woods just behind it. I also have 1 melee CAV that I put all the way in the south woods just because CSA will go straight there if you don't have any units there. Once fighting starts I use the melee CAV to backup INF that gets into melee, so the fighting doesn't rout into my artillery batteries. I also occasionally send them to take out CSA artillery or routing units when it is safe enough to do so. The two smoothbores pretty much spend the battle engaged with the closest enemy. The range of the 3 rifles allow them to support wherever the action is heaviest. This strategy works for me as long as the AI sends units both north and south, but sometimes it gets tunnel vision and wants to send all of its forces in either direction - I then try to shift some idle INF units but more often find myself overrun and need to restart.

Salem Church - Generally strategy, I send all my forces south to engage the CSA reinforcements that will come from that direction, then move north to engage CSA guarding the VP. Depending on how it goes, I may send my fastest moving units to sweep around south and come into the VP from the west at the end of the phase if I feel that I won't be able to fight my way up there. In most battles the AI will commit nearly all of its forces to wherever it can see your units, leaving the back door open to take VPs.

Phase 1 Chickamauga is just a pain and you don't need to hold any of those VPs to move the battle forward. I usually abandon the far right bridge immediately and use those units to fight at the southern bridge until the phase ends. Knowing that CSA reinforcements will come in from the right side (below the bridge area), sometimes I move those forces to cut them off, or at least engage enough to delay them. Once my forces come in to defend the fords, I try to move as many of the allied units to the left as possible, but like you said the enemy CAV is brutal. Sometimes I will send my CAV north to support or at least cover the survivors during their withdrawal.

Terrain Issues - It is very hard to see and sometimes indistinguishable, but if ART says it is moving to fire while the target is in the range cone, then the issue is related to an elevation difference between the artillery battery and the target. It can be frustrating, especially when it looks like there shouldn't be an issue.

NAP vs 24HOW - It depends. If you want MAX damage at cannister/short range, then 24How is the best. Just like MAX damage at long range is going to be your heavy rifles.  The heavy guns are all the best at a specific range while being weak at the opposite range, as well as being slow to move, slow to load, and the most expensive to feed. Medium guns are the most versatile. Light guns are cheap and fast. Every gun has a purpose based on the situation. If you want versatility throughout the full range of the gun then Napoleons, James, and to a lesser degree, Ordnance rifles are your best bet. Napoleon smoothbores and James rifles paired with the tier 1 range perk and the tier 2 accuracy perk make them useful for most anything and since they are medium duty guns they can be moved at a decent speed and the ammo price won't break the bank. They will never be the best at anything, but they will get the job done. 

Accuracy - The perks do stack. Mathematically a 25% accuracy perk and a 25% increased damage perk are the same (looking at the tier 2 artillery perks). However, the accuracy perk works in all ranges and the damage perks are limited to either cannister or shell/shot. This ties into the paragraph above, pick accuracy for versatility or range/damage perks for MAX damage at a particular range. Personally, I tend to take reload and accuracy for my medium guns and increased range and damage for my heavy rifles. By mid-game you have enough extra units and corps that you can pick which type of gun you want to deploy for each type of battle and let the others sit on the bench.

 Spotting - I feel your pain. I find it ridiculous that, at times, my scouts with spotting perks can't see an enemy unit until I am right on top of it taking fire, especially when they are out in the open and not in a field or wooded area. These guys are wearing either blue or gray uniforms. Napoleon had his snipers wear green back in the day, but nobody here is wearing camo. The only real way to manage it that I've found is detaching skirmishers because they can spot +200 further than their parent infantry unit. That extra 200 is often enough to see where the enemy dedicated skirmishers are for the moment so I can hit them with my artillery.

Efficient vs Effective ART battery size - In the mod the more guns you have, the more damage your battery will do in total. So, if by effective you mean most damaging, then more guns equals more damage. As you've noticed, more guns is not more efficient. I believe in the mod 14 is the most efficient for a veteran unit as far as dollars invested per kill (12 guns in the base game) Efficiency is relative to unit stats and command level. So, for rookie units in the early game smaller artillery sizes can be more efficient (4 to 9 guns) depending on their starting stats and the rank of the officer.  Often the AI will have some 700+ battery of 6pd Field guns (3 inch) that hit my units hard, but when I've tried to use the same numbers with a bunch of spare 6pds gun I never have close to the same effect on the enemy so I just avoid oversized artillery.

Edited by PaulD
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On 9/14/2021 at 1:23 PM, PaulD said:

One other question. Do the CSA SS Palmettos (like at Seven Pines) have set perks, or are they random like most of the other units based on CSA training and arms quality percentage listed in pre-battle stats? No matter how fast I eliminate that unit it always finishes the battle having done serious damage to my units. I've never been able to get them to surrender to find out what they have, they always eventually shatter instead. I know they are using firearms with over 400 range because they easily out distance my INF units. I assume they are using +cover rather than +stealth (maybe a combo since they are 3-stars). They seem to be very consistent in performance on multiple play throughs, so made me wonder if that is a special unit with set perks and weapons.

No preset perks are used at this time. Named skirmisher units(anything other than skirmisher) do receive a boost to their weapons quality, so they probably equipped with something decent.

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On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

1.At times my unit would stop firing from the defensive position despite the enemy being firmly in the range (not at the tip). Manual aiming stopped working as well. To fix it, had to unseat the unit, manually aim it and place it back (and get my share of whatever crap the enemy was sending towards it in the process, sometimes ending in a rout.). Happened frequently enough to notice, namely at Fort Stevens, Georgia Railroad and a number of earlier missions. Maybe 1-3 times during the battle, but if I failed to notice it, my unit just kept sitting under fire doing nothing.

I've seen this reported a few times but haven't managed to recreate or find a cause. Will take a look at the battles mentioned.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

2.Sometimes cannons refused to fire even when the target was clearly in range and kept telling they need to get closer. This either ended in the cannon driving towards the enemy (and getting shot if I failed to notice) or idling until I notice (sometimes with the Reload bar half-filled and stuck). Frequently happened during Harrisson Creek (failed an attempt because of this), but also sometimes at Gettysburg and a number of smaller battles.  

This sounds like a known issue where sometimes when you give an attack order that forces the artillery to move forward they get stuck. I tend to try to avoid issuing orders like this and will usually give new orders or keep a close eye on them if the moving to target notification appears. Not sure what causes this unfortunately.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

.Second Tier Artillery perks – Fire direction drills gives +25% accuracy and +50% spotting. Does the accuracy buff make the gun 25% more efficient on all ranges? It might be worth to sacrifice the cover or stealth bonus then

Yes, accuracy affects all 3 shot types as opposed to only the specific ones.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

2.How does this 25% accuracy buff work? If a gun has 37% effectiveness on medium range, then with a perk will it get 46,25% or 62%? Do perks stack or each new is calculated from a default value?

Accuracy should really just be called a damage multiplier. The specifics are more complex than this, but it's effectively just base damage * 1.25 * .37. Perks stack additively.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

3.I have maybe two detached skirmishers, a horse and a dedicated skirmisher regiment nearby. But they still can’t spot a nasty pack of enemy skirmishers firing at me. I detach one more pack from a random unit and the enemy goes out of stealth mode right in front of my nose. Magic or the spotting parameter stacks somehow?

Likely had more to do with the positioning of the last skirmisher unit. Or the AI unit had fired enough times for the stacking stealth penalty on firing to reveal it.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

4.Is it actually worth swapping Napoleons for 24PDR in the smoothbore artillery? Got an impression that the Napoleons kill better but the 24PDR more scare the enemy off forcing to rout.

24pdr does far more damage but is more expensive and slower. I tend to use the 24pdrs when available, but others prefer the speed over the damage.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

5.What is the most effective number of cannons in the battery? I tried 20+ 30+ but haven’t noticed much difference with a 12-14 gun battery, except for the costs skyrocketing.

I would recommend fitting the size to your other unit types. So if you are using 1500 man units I probably would stop at 12-14. The much larger sizes are intended to be used with equally large infantry units.

On 9/14/2021 at 2:50 PM, Rubinfan said:

P.S. Since the guns have all that close, long, max range effectiveness, maybe it would be possible to rearrange the distance cones into 5 sections instead of 3? Same with infantry.

close/long/etc all correspond to 100 range, 1/4 of max range, 1/2 of max range, 3/4 of max range, and max range. So the specific range that long denotes will be different for each weapon. The distance bands displayed for artillery are the canister and shell cutoffs.

We've considered adding more bands, but drawing them is not the most inexpensive task and I generally feel that the distances can be eyeballed sufficiently well as is.

Thanks for the feedback and glad you've enjoyed the mod overall. There are various solutions to the battles you mentioned, but my initial recommendation would be to look into the AIConfigFile options. You can use those to limit the max size of AI units as well as directly affect size and experience scaling. So if you'd prefer certain battles to be a little more even, or just to hard limit certain sizes these are all options available.

There are some overall adjustments coming to battles, but progress has been very slow.

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@pandakraut

In the configuration files, does "sizeIncrease" stack with "AIscalingSizeMultiplier"?

In trying to farm as much XP and as many weapons as I can in the early game, I reset the AIconfig and Config files back to the default current version and changed sizeincrease and AIscalingSizeMultiplier to 1.2. Also changed duplicateRandomProbability to 1.3.

I played Distress Call and 1st Bull Run and the total CSA size at each battle was close to a 50% increase. I looked back at several of my previous MG playthroughs and around 24k CSA INF is normal at 1st BR, but I'm seeing 37K+ CSA infantry, 1700 CAV, and 115 guns.  Some very fun battles to be sure, so it has worked out as I wanted, I was just curious as to correlations between those two size related settings.

I am also going to assume that Philippi is a set amount based on difficulty level since playing around with any increases in the configuration files makes no change on CSA army size.

Thanks! 

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