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


JonnyH13

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6 hours ago, MarkShot said:

Thanks for your answer.  I know there are ways to manipulate the AI by holding back forces.  I was just looking for an easy single edit; not to have to repeatedly attempt to game the AI.

Depending on what you are looking for, if one value for the aiScalingsizeMultiplier doesn't do what you want there may be another option.

You can also set the maximum sizes for AI units in the aiconfigfile. If you're trying to keep their units about the same size as yours setting these to around what you plan on using could work.

A lot of the battles are fundamentally setup to be asymmetric in terms of force size, so there isn't an easy way to convert them all to have equally balanced forces.

Hopefully one of those options helps.

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Hey Pandakraut,

Can you confirm or correct this assumption regarding rate of fire. If one weapon has a fire rate of 125 and other has a fire rate of 100, with all other factors being equal, the 125 rate weapon will fire 5 times for every 4 shots taken with the 100 rate weapon.  Likewise, a weapon with a 150 rate of fire would get off 3 shots compared to every 2 shots of a 100 rate weapon.

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Limber/Unlimber & Mount/Dismount - just observations and a wish.

I don't know how many times I've told a battery to move across the screen a healthy distance and they decide to move unlimbered. Also, the yellow "limber" fill up (limber) and down (unlimber) doesn't always display what the unit is actually doing. This also happens with mount/unmount for CAV where I press mount/dismount and a minute later they still haven't done anything. Especially if they are dismounted, sometimes I have to press the icon to mount a few times to get them  moving.

Ideally, I would love to be able to set my Arty to ALWAYS limber unless I order them to move unlimbered. Right now I have to wait and check back  with them to see what they've decided to do on their own.  I'm sure the AI is supposed to limber for long distance and unlimber or short advances, but there are times when I've told them to move half way across a battlefield and the AI is trying to push the guns the whole way.

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9 hours ago, PaulD said:

Hey Pandakraut,

Can you confirm or correct this assumption regarding rate of fire. If one weapon has a fire rate of 125 and other has a fire rate of 100, with all other factors being equal, the 125 rate weapon will fire 5 times for every 4 shots taken with the 100 rate weapon.  Likewise, a weapon with a 150 rate of fire would get off 3 shots compared to every 2 shots of a 100 rate weapon.

Roughly yes, though in practice there are enough other factors at play that you won't usually bsee anything that exact.

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20 hours ago, PaulD said:

Ideally, I would love to be able to set my Arty to ALWAYS limber unless I order them to move unlimbered.

In the unitModifiers file, set limberingSwitchDistance to 1. That might effectively do what you want.

The limbering/mounting stuff is all kind of unreliable. Especially if you are paused when you issue the command. Presumably something along those lines is also what is affecting the AI.

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2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

In the unitModifiers file, set limberingSwitchDistance to 1. That might effectively do what you want.

The limbering/mounting stuff is all kind of unreliable. Especially if you are paused when you issue the command. Presumably something along those lines is also what is affecting the AI.

Thank you! Yes, I've noticed that you can't really issue limbering/mounting orders when paused and expect anything to happen.  Much appreciated.

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Hi Panda,

Quick question. On the campaign start menu MG says a 10% reduction in Gold and Recruits, 15% increase enemy strength, and 25% reputation reduction.

1) Does the Mod have the same percentages on MG?

2) What are the modifiers for LG since the campaign setup doesn't really say, or is the change more related to enemy stars/perks rather than unit size?

Thanks

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6 hours ago, PaulD said:

Hi Panda,

Quick question. On the campaign start menu MG says a 10% reduction in Gold and Recruits, 15% increase enemy strength, and 25% reputation reduction.

1) Does the Mod have the same percentages on MG?

2) What are the modifiers for LG since the campaign setup doesn't really say, or is the change more related to enemy stars/perks rather than unit size?

Thanks

Mod has not changed those values. Legendary is larger, more experienced, and better equipped AI units. I don't have an exact number but it's probably in the 10-15% range. The reputation penalties for losing might also be a bit, higher but I don't recall for sure.

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On 3/3/2022 at 12:21 PM, pandakraut said:

One of the more recent patches added a feature so that any captured cavalry units do give the player the cost of their captured horses. We considered adding horses to the recruits list but ended up deciding against going that far at the time. Perhaps we'll consider it again in the future.

Historically, Access to numbers & quality of horses (and mules) was a major issue at that time.

Here's my upvote for adding horses to the recruits list.

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Hi Panda,

I've started recording an MG campaign with the current version of the mod.  I want to confirm a few things before I record my audio comments.

Unit Stats: Command is based on a combination of corp/division/unit officer ranks.  Melee - increases from melee kills.  Firearms - increases from full load and firing cycle regardless of kills or accuracy. Stamina - increases from marching/moving.  Efficiency - I haven't been able to reverse engineer efficiency. Kills are a big part of it, unit size vs officer rank is a part, what else?

Career Perks: AO, ECON, and RECON most effects are immediate (resupply discount is next battle).  POL, MED,  TR, effects applied after next battle. LOG - Shop stock multipliers only apply after major/grand battles, additional ammo and resupply discount apply next battle, and max supply increase is immediate.

Training - stat increases only apply to new recruits gained after the next battle. Actual average recruit stats will be the mathematical average of the new recruits awarded from the battle and whatever recruits are already in the pool

Academy - Officers in the academy are generated randomly and only reset after grand battles, although there are an infinite number of captains available for hire. Wounded officers in barracks become available after the next grand battle,  but may be available sooner if wounded early during a multiple day grand battle.

Corp Commander - The first two perks apply to everyone in their corps, the third perk only applies to units within their aura.  Regardless of perks, units within their aura regen morale (and condition?) faster.

Unit Officers - COL gain XP slower than any other rank. Since rookie units have the largest room for growth and unit officer XP is based on unit XP gain, officers will gain XP faster when commanding less experienced units than they would very experienced units. Thus, if I wanted to fast track a COL to BG, I should give him a rookie unit rather than a 3-star unit.

Proposed Future Change - is it possible to tell the AI NOT to start a charge if unit morale is at "wavering"? My line of thinking is that wavering means I've already decided to withdraw, I just haven't given the order to do so yet.  But the AI will actually start a charge when wavering - which is just a waste because they basically last just long enough to take a volley or three, then they may stand there "white" and not moving while taking more damage. It just seems more realistic and unit preserving if the AI won't charge if their morale is that low. Especially since the AI morale recovers fairly quick anyway, if they waited a few minutes they would be ready to charge soon anyway.

Thank You

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8 hours ago, PaulD said:

Unit Stats: Command is based on a combination of corp/division/unit officer ranks.  Melee - increases from melee kills.  Firearms - increases from full load and firing cycle regardless of kills or accuracy. Stamina - increases from marching/moving.  Efficiency - I haven't been able to reverse engineer efficiency. Kills are a big part of it, unit size vs officer rank is a part, what else?

Command is just a combination of the xp of your division officer and brigade commander.

The mod also provides a small increase to stamina when completing a reload cycle.

Efficiency increases just from kills. If your officer's xp is not high enough or your total command is less than your efficiency, efficiency will be reduced.

8 hours ago, PaulD said:

Academy - Officers in the academy are generated randomly and only reset after grand battles, although there are an infinite number of captains available for hire. Wounded officers in barracks become available after the next grand battle,  but may be available sooner if wounded early during a multiple day grand battle.

New officers are added after grand battles, but the old pool is not cleared out. Unlike with the armory where the old stocks are lost after you finish a grand battle. Higher ranks can be generated somewhat infinitely, as long as you can keep adding a new corps/division respectively.

8 hours ago, PaulD said:

Regardless of perks, units within their aura regen morale (and condition?) faster.

Only applies to morale. The mod also added a feature where this morale regen is greatly increased for units the general is in melee contact with. So you can try to recover a routing unit faster, or trade general hp for keeping a fighting unit at higher morale for longer.

8 hours ago, PaulD said:

Unit Officers - COL gain XP slower than any other rank. Since rookie units have the largest room for growth and unit officer XP is based on unit XP gain, officers will gain XP faster when commanding less experienced units than they would very experienced units. Thus, if I wanted to fast track a COL to BG, I should give him a rookie unit rather than a 3-star unit.

The progress bars for each rank show the progress to the next rank. There is a hidden officer xp(0-100) which is what you are actually gaining. Colonel and BG require a much larger amount of hidden xp to be gained so they appear to level up slower. The higher an officers hidden xp, the slower they will gain more xp, so MG's gain xp the slowest.

Brigade Officer xp gain is based on the stat change of the unit they command. Unit stats are progressively harder to gain the higher the stat, so this is why putting an officer on a rookie unit can give high xp gain. Where exactly the line is on when to switch them off varies, because higher xp units tend to be able to do more damage, but 3*s generally will have pretty slow progression. The battles led mechanic also increases xp gain, so it can be worth it to keep an officer on a unit more consistently even as the stats go up.

Corps and division officer xp is a flat amount per battle type. This can make it an effective source of xp for higher ranking generals that are harder to justify risking on rookie units.

Looking forward to seeing your videos, please link when you're ready and I'll be sure to share it around.

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25 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Looking forward to seeing your videos, please link when you're ready and I'll be sure to share it around.

Thank you for the clarifications. I'll let you know when I start posting them.

You know what I wish this game had? The ability to remove troops from a unit without disbanding it, like Ultimate Admiral allows you to reduce your crew size and put them back into the recruit pool and put them on another ship.

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Question for @pandakraut and others with experience, trying to tailor my experience a bit:

I'm getting my ass handed to me on MG. I'm hopelessly outnumbered and out-experienced at Shiloh... it's all I can do to continually retreat and form solid double battle lines but confederate units charge marathon distances to wipe out my brigades, even when under fire from both flanks and getting smashed by napoleons at close range.

On BG, though, the game was far too easy... AI continually attacks my lines with one or two brigades and gets slaughtered (this actually happens on MG, too, but they have so many men that they actually grind out wins, taking 50-100% more casualties than me).

I see that there are config files I can tweak, though, and am looking for a nice middle ground. Specifically, I'd like to make the following two changes:

  1. Encourage the AI not to continually do piecemeal bonzai charges against my strong positions (maybe once or twice if they're being aggressive is fine, but preferably they'd do it in force so as to have a chance for success)
  2. Limit the extreme size/experience advantage of the confederates

I might be able to solve #2 with the following settings, wdyt?

AIscalingSizeMultiplier, 0.75
AIscalingExperienceMultiplier, 0.85

No idea what to do about #1 though - any tips appreciated, thanks!

And of course, thanks for this great mod! Love the UI improvements, game pace changes :)

Edited by mannyhams
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51 minutes ago, PaulD said:

Thank you for the clarifications. I'll let you know when I start posting them.

You know what I wish this game had? The ability to remove troops from a unit without disbanding it, like Ultimate Admiral allows you to reduce your crew size and put them back into the recruit pool and put them on another ship.

We've specifically not added that functionality. Enables way to many shenanigans with converting experienced units of one type into another type. Something similar can be done but it requires emptying your recruit pool so you can disband and rebuild units without any stat loss. This has been left in since there is a significant cost associated with being able to do it.

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15 hours ago, pandakraut said:

We've specifically not added that functionality. Enables way to many shenanigans with converting experienced units of one type into another type. Something similar can be done but it requires emptying your recruit pool so you can disband and rebuild units without any stat loss. This has been left in since there is a significant cost associated with being able to do it.

I can understand that, and people would do it.   The situations that I am think of are early game, maybe that first 10 battles when you are building your army, it would be nice to reduce unit size in order to match the numbers of weapons I have available, even if reducing caused the troops to be "dismissed" rather than go back into the recruit pool.   Since Logistics only resets after major battles, there are times when I may have 350 skirmishers with carbines or SP55's and I could upgrade to a sniper weapon but I only have 300 of them.  Same thing happens as you start to phase in heavy guns, my batteries all  have 10 or 12 guns, but there are only 6 to 8 of a given heavy gun.  It may be worth the cost to give up 50 artillery men vets in order to get the better weapon on the field.  The easy solution would be to make a new unit that fits the number of weapons available, but oft times that means somebody needs to sit on the bench since I can't deploy everyone.

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16 hours ago, mannyhams said:

Question for @pandakraut and others with experience, trying to tailor my experience a bit:

I'm getting my ass handed to me on MG. I'm hopelessly outnumbered and out-experienced at Shiloh... it's all I can do to continually retreat and form solid double battle lines but confederate units charge marathon distances to wipe out my brigades, even when under fire from both flanks and getting smashed by napoleons at close range.

On BG, though, the game was far too easy... AI continually attacks my lines with one or two brigades and gets slaughtered (this actually happens on MG, too, but they have so many men that they actually grind out wins, taking 50-100% more casualties than me).

I see that there are config files I can tweak, though, and am looking for a nice middle ground. Specifically, I'd like to make the following two changes:

  1. Encourage the AI not to continually do piecemeal bonzai charges against my strong positions (maybe once or twice if they're being aggressive is fine, but preferably they'd do it in force so as to have a chance for success)
  2. Limit the extreme size/experience advantage of the confederates

I might be able to solve #2 with the following settings, wdyt?


AIscalingSizeMultiplier, 0.75
AIscalingExperienceMultiplier, 0.85

No idea what to do about #1 though - any tips appreciated, thanks!

And of course, thanks for this great mod! Love the UI improvements, game pace changes :)

Panda can help you with any config suggestions.

Just a few ideas...  This is just how I do it. I'll be posting a video series in a week or so that will include this.  I'm  always envious of the guys that can fight this in a more traditional way, but when I do that I end up with 15k casualties.  This way is at least entertaining for me while reducing casualties.

In all the battles prior to Shiloh you pretty much have all of your units on the field before the heavy action starts.  Take 1st Bull Run as an example. Assuming that you wait for all of your units to be on the field prior to assaulting Matthews Hill, then you have 100% of your forces fighting about 30% of the CSA forces. When the CSA falls back to Henry Hill they get another 30%, but you still out man then 100% to 60%.  They don't get the last 40% of their forces until after you take Henry Hill - and you've probably eliminated nearly all of their troops by then, so it is never really a fair fight.

At Shiloh, everything is reversed. In overall number of troops, you probably have the bigger army (your army plus the allied units). However, you only get about 9 brigades to start while the CSA gets about 40% of their forces, then you get 4 brigades of reinforcements.  When phase two begins the remaining 60% of the CSA take the field and you get another 10 units followed by 4 or 5 reinforcements.  Phase three starts when you are told to fall back to the Hornet's nest - you'll pretty much get the rest of your army along with 3 or 4 allied units, but the balance of the allied force will not arrive until the next day.  So, only about 55% of your total combined force will be facing 100% of the CSA for a substantial time...   add in the fact that the CSA is much more experienced (more stars/perks) and has bigger units, and its a tough fight.

The AIscalingSizeMultiplier can give you some relief, but the AI is still going to deploy all of its forces before you.

I use a "mobile" force strategy here.  Have you noticed which units deploy in each phase?  With some testing you can identify which units are deploying at each phase so you can predict where your units take the field - I can tell you my best guess if it would help. 

I deploy mostly skirmishers and cavalry in the first two phases with infantry in the reinforcement spots. I end up disbanding some skirmishers after this battle because I don't need that many, but they are very useful here. Artillery are slow and unless you know how to micromanage them to get them out of harm, they are not worth having until phase three. CSA charges will run down your artillery with little difficulty.  I use hit and run tactics to slow the CSA down. I also snake my CAV deep into the south to raid enemy supply wagons and artillery - in phase one you can do this easily, but staying to the left of the screen helps. In phase two try to stay to the far right because the CSA force marching north is huge. The CSA infantry tends to get ahead of its arty, so you  will find targets of opportunity.  I do this in both phase one and phase two.  Many players outright refuse to fight phase two and they just immediately pull their units north and to the right to give up the VPs - fighting this phase puts about 60% of the total CSA forces up against 15 of your brigades, its very one sided.

I setup all of my artillery to deploy at the start of phase three, along with the rest of my infantry.  I do NOT, however, attempt to hold the hornet's nest - the CSA can have it and giving it to them will NOT end the phase early. Putting two units in the fortifications can help provide cover for your retreating units moving north. There is no benefit to trying to keep it once everyone is clear. So, I setup a defensive perimeter all along the northern boarder of the map in the wooded areas. Let the CSA come to you and ALL of your arty will be in place to support your infantry. The 3 or 4 allied units are a decent size but have no stars/perks. I use them to backup my infantry and to countercharge the CSA just before they reach my lines as a meat-shield so the CSA doesn't blow through and take out my guns.  

In the meantime, my CAV and most of my skirmishers should actually be behind enemy lines - the units from phase one coming in from the left, and the units from phase two coming in from the right.  Again, taking out targets of opportunity.  You can use skirmishers to bait CSA infantry units to come back south to engage your skirmishers - If you can get 4 or 5 (or more) skirmishers firing into one enemy infantry brigade you will cause morale damage even though you are not killing a lot.  Once you get them to route your CAV may be able to force a shatter or surrender before they need to disengage.  Basically, my southern force is just harassing the CSA main body because every brigade I cause to move back south is one less attacking my defensive perimeter and every gun I destroy is one less shooting at my guys.

Do not take back any of the VPs with your CAV and skirmishers during this phase because it may just prolong the timer.  Once this phase ends Pittsburgh landing will open up. Now, I have won the battle here without falling back to Pittsburgh Landing, but I don't advise it for two reasons. One, you'll likely take more casualties than if you strategically fall back to the landing - send back your most damaged units first, then get your arty moving, then your infantry. Once CSA realizes you are falling back the AI can get pretty "chargy" so once your arty is limbered and seems out of harms way you can get all of your infantry moving back at once.  Obviously, put your healthiest units into the fortifications and rotate in units as needed.  Two, if you end the battle early - so that the other allied forces never arrive - then you don't get any of their weapons after the battle.  They have to take the field for you to get a percentage of their weapons after the battle.

My last bit of advice - when running down arty and supply wagons with your CAV, keep an eye on the little strategic map in the lower right corner. I've found that very often enemy units will appear on the strategic map before you can see them on the battlefield.  It sucks when your CAV just get to a target only to get flanked by a force you couldn't see, then take a bunch of damage before you can get them to disengage. Sometimes the strategic map can save you some heartache.

Shiloh has actually gotten to be a pretty fun battle for me playing this way.  It's MG - you are going to take damage and may even lose some gun batteries or have units shatter - but it is manageable and the better you get at it the more fun it becomes. Good luck

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5 hours ago, PaulD said:

Since Logistics only resets after major battles, there are times when I may have 350 skirmishers with carbines or SP55's and I could upgrade to a sniper weapon but I only have 300 of them.  Same thing happens as you start to phase in heavy guns, my batteries all  have 10 or 12 guns, but there are only 6 to 8 of a given heavy gun.  It may be worth the cost to give up 50 artillery men vets in order to get the better weapon on the field.  The easy solution would be to make a new unit that fits the number of weapons available, but oft times that means somebody needs to sit on the bench since I can't deploy everyone.

This is something you want to specifically plan ahead for and is one of the reasons I stay at smaller artillery sizes for a while.

Disbanding will be a bit more convenient in the next patch since recruit and veteran pools will be separate.

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22 hours ago, mannyhams said:

Encourage the AI not to continually do piecemeal bonzai charges against my strong positions (maybe once or twice if they're being aggressive is fine, but preferably they'd do it in force so as to have a chance for success)

We've added some logic to encourage the AI to be more likely to charge multiple units when it does decide to charge. It doesn't always work, but it's a bit more consistent at least. This logic can also take some time to really get going, so it works better on higher difficulties where it's harder to quickly break the first charger.

Part of the issue here is that we can make it more common, but we want to avoid the early days of beta where the AI just always charged every time, which tends to enforce specific playstyles.

22 hours ago, mannyhams said:

Limit the extreme size/experience advantage of the confederates

The config modifiers you proposed are probably a good starting point, though .75 for size might be a bit much. But give it a try and you can always tweak the values as you go.

Here is another campaign you can check out for tips as well

 

Edited by pandakraut
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4 hours ago, PaulD said:

I deploy mostly skirmishers and cavalry in the first two phases with infantry in the reinforcement spots. I end up disbanding some skirmishers after this battle because I don't need that many, but they are very useful here. Artillery are slow and unless you know how to micromanage them to get them out of harm, they are not worth having until phase three.

This is a very different take on the battle than I've seen before. I look forward to seeing it.

Makes sense overall, there is a ton of value in distracting and delaying the AI in this battle.

My normal approach is definitely heavy smoothbore batteries + my best infantry in the first phase to be able to stop charges dead and then start falling back before I get overwhelmed. Cav come in with the reinforcements to get into their rear.

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@PaulD @pandakraut Thanks for your replies, very much appreciated!

7 hours ago, PaulD said:

Panda can help you with any config suggestions.

Just a few ideas...  This is just how I do it. I'll be posting a video series in a week or so that will include this.  I'm  always envious of the guys that can fight this in a more traditional way, but when I do that I end up with 15k casualties.  This way is at least entertaining for me while reducing casualties.

In all the battles prior to Shiloh you pretty much have all of your units on the field before the heavy action starts.  Take 1st Bull Run as an example. Assuming that you wait for all of your units to be on the field prior to assaulting Matthews Hill, then you have 100% of your forces fighting about 30% of the CSA forces. When the CSA falls back to Henry Hill they get another 30%, but you still out man then 100% to 60%.  They don't get the last 40% of their forces until after you take Henry Hill - and you've probably eliminated nearly all of their troops by then, so it is never really a fair fight.

At Shiloh, everything is reversed. In overall number of troops, you probably have the bigger army (your army plus the allied units). However, you only get about 9 brigades to start while the CSA gets about 40% of their forces, then you get 4 brigades of reinforcements.  When phase two begins the remaining 60% of the CSA take the field and you get another 10 units followed by 4 or 5 reinforcements.  Phase three starts when you are told to fall back to the Hornet's nest - you'll pretty much get the rest of your army along with 3 or 4 allied units, but the balance of the allied force will not arrive until the next day.  So, only about 55% of your total combined force will be facing 100% of the CSA for a substantial time...   add in the fact that the CSA is much more experienced (more stars/perks) and has bigger units, and its a tough fight.

The AIscalingSizeMultiplier can give you some relief, but the AI is still going to deploy all of its forces before you.

I use a "mobile" force strategy here.  Have you noticed which units deploy in each phase?  With some testing you can identify which units are deploying at each phase so you can predict where your units take the field - I can tell you my best guess if it would help. 

I deploy mostly skirmishers and cavalry in the first two phases with infantry in the reinforcement spots. I end up disbanding some skirmishers after this battle because I don't need that many, but they are very useful here. Artillery are slow and unless you know how to micromanage them to get them out of harm, they are not worth having until phase three. CSA charges will run down your artillery with little difficulty.  I use hit and run tactics to slow the CSA down. I also snake my CAV deep into the south to raid enemy supply wagons and artillery - in phase one you can do this easily, but staying to the left of the screen helps. In phase two try to stay to the far right because the CSA force marching north is huge. The CSA infantry tends to get ahead of its arty, so you  will find targets of opportunity.  I do this in both phase one and phase two.  Many players outright refuse to fight phase two and they just immediately pull their units north and to the right to give up the VPs - fighting this phase puts about 60% of the total CSA forces up against 15 of your brigades, its very one sided.

I setup all of my artillery to deploy at the start of phase three, along with the rest of my infantry.  I do NOT, however, attempt to hold the hornet's nest - the CSA can have it and giving it to them will NOT end the phase early. Putting two units in the fortifications can help provide cover for your retreating units moving north. There is no benefit to trying to keep it once everyone is clear. So, I setup a defensive perimeter all along the northern boarder of the map in the wooded areas. Let the CSA come to you and ALL of your arty will be in place to support your infantry. The 3 or 4 allied units are a decent size but have no stars/perks. I use them to backup my infantry and to countercharge the CSA just before they reach my lines as a meat-shield so the CSA doesn't blow through and take out my guns.  

In the meantime, my CAV and most of my skirmishers should actually be behind enemy lines - the units from phase one coming in from the left, and the units from phase two coming in from the right.  Again, taking out targets of opportunity.  You can use skirmishers to bait CSA infantry units to come back south to engage your skirmishers - If you can get 4 or 5 (or more) skirmishers firing into one enemy infantry brigade you will cause morale damage even though you are not killing a lot.  Once you get them to route your CAV may be able to force a shatter or surrender before they need to disengage.  Basically, my southern force is just harassing the CSA main body because every brigade I cause to move back south is one less attacking my defensive perimeter and every gun I destroy is one less shooting at my guys.

Do not take back any of the VPs with your CAV and skirmishers during this phase because it may just prolong the timer.  Once this phase ends Pittsburgh landing will open up. Now, I have won the battle here without falling back to Pittsburgh Landing, but I don't advise it for two reasons. One, you'll likely take more casualties than if you strategically fall back to the landing - send back your most damaged units first, then get your arty moving, then your infantry. Once CSA realizes you are falling back the AI can get pretty "chargy" so once your arty is limbered and seems out of harms way you can get all of your infantry moving back at once.  Obviously, put your healthiest units into the fortifications and rotate in units as needed.  Two, if you end the battle early - so that the other allied forces never arrive - then you don't get any of their weapons after the battle.  They have to take the field for you to get a percentage of their weapons after the battle.

My last bit of advice - when running down arty and supply wagons with your CAV, keep an eye on the little strategic map in the lower right corner. I've found that very often enemy units will appear on the strategic map before you can see them on the battlefield.  It sucks when your CAV just get to a target only to get flanked by a force you couldn't see, then take a bunch of damage before you can get them to disengage. Sometimes the strategic map can save you some heartache.

Shiloh has actually gotten to be a pretty fun battle for me playing this way.  It's MG - you are going to take damage and may even lose some gun batteries or have units shatter - but it is manageable and the better you get at it the more fun it becomes. Good luck

These are very sound tactical suggestions! Unfortunately they clash with my playstyle, since I try to avoid making decisions based on foreknowledge of the historical context. That precludes things like specializing the troop mix for particular phases of the upcoming battle - each of my divisions attempts to be relatively balanced (1 battery, 1 skirmisher/cav, the rest infantry). I also avoid "mopping up" AI troops trapped at map borders, etc, because that's just an artificial construct of the game (and isn't fun).

So in Shiloh, the most I allow myself to do is hold position until it's clear that the enemy force is overwhelming, then fall back to a more defensive position. Unfortunately the game limits this since the map is severely restricted for a number of hours - an engagement is forced where 3-star 4k brigades of confederates are able to charge a marathon distance through woods and streams and rout at least one brigade, even under double flanking fire and close range artillery - the followup attack is basically unmanageable. I feel like that initial effort is unrealistic, even for the best of troops. Can only imagine what Pickett's charge would be like later on...

 

3 hours ago, pandakraut said:

We've added some logic to encourage the AI to be more likely to charge multiple units when it does decide to charge. It doesn't always work, but it's a bit more consistent at least. This logic can also take some time to really get going, so it works better on higher difficulties where it's harder to quickly break the first charger.

Part of the issue here is that we can make it more common, but we want to avoid the early days of beta where the AI just always charged every time, which tends to enforce specific playstyles.

The config modifiers you proposed are probably a good starting point, though .75 for size might be a bit much. But give it a try and you can always tweak the values as you go.

Here is another campaign you can check out for tips as well

 

IIRC the main issue is when, IMO, the AI should know it can't win and should just stop attacking. E.G. in the very first battle, 2nd phase, once the confederates' fancy train is pushed back and the initial bonzai charge has failed, idk how it thinks a second attack in exactly the same manner has a chance of working since they've fewer soldiers and artillery. I saw the same issue at river crossing and logan's crossroads... repeated attacks in the same place and manner as the initial one, but with fewer troops, artillery, and cohesion. EDIT2: Some of these followup attacks are truly baffling, since only one or two brigades are sent forward, and slaughtered - this is what I was referring to in the original post.

Noted on the modifier, I'll start out with .85 for both size and experience scaling, I think. I guess that will land me somewhere between BG and MG? I'll also give that video a watch for tips, perhaps I'm putting my career points in the wrong places? I started out getting myself over the "basic" recon hump and then splitting points between medicine and army organization to slowly grow the army and retain veterans, but I've consistently got a lot of leftover manpower.

Thanks again!

EDIT: Maybe what I should be doing is playing on MG and increasing the scaling a bit?

Edited by mannyhams
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9 hours ago, mannyhams said:

These are very sound tactical suggestions! Unfortunately they clash with my playstyle, since I try to avoid making decisions based on foreknowledge of the historical context. That precludes things like specializing the troop mix for particular phases of the upcoming battle - each of my divisions attempts to be relatively balanced (1 battery, 1 skirmisher/cav, the rest infantry). I also avoid "mopping up" AI troops trapped at map borders, etc, because that's just an artificial construct of the game (and isn't fun).

In this case, I would definitely recommend using the configs to adjust the difficulty down a bit. The base difficulty in the mod is not tuned around that style of play, so this is exactly the type of situation the configs are great for. With some adjustments I think it will work out just fine though.

9 hours ago, mannyhams said:

IIRC the main issue is when, IMO, the AI should know it can't win and should just stop attacking. E.G. in the very first battle, 2nd phase, once the confederates' fancy train is pushed back and the initial bonzai charge has failed, idk how it thinks a second attack in exactly the same manner has a chance of working since they've fewer soldiers and artillery. I saw the same issue at river crossing and logan's crossroads... repeated attacks in the same place and manner as the initial one, but with fewer troops, artillery, and cohesion. EDIT2: Some of these followup attacks are truly baffling, since only one or two brigades are sent forward, and slaughtered - this is what I was referring to in the original post.

Determining when they can't win is very difficult to actually implement unfortunately. Especially combined with the AI not being to retreat off the map(seems like it should be easy to add, but I've gone in circles for months on it) and the way some of the battles are structured. For example, if the player inflicts very high casualties in the initial phase of a battle, should the AI give up even though once the phase ends they would outnumber the player? If you can write something that works in that case, will it work in every other case? This is part of why we added the surrender/shatter at 0 morale system. It's not quite the same, but it does tend to speed up the mop up process of battles quite a bit.

There is also only so much control over the AI decision making that I've been able to figure out. Something as seemingly simple as 'wait for multiple units to regroup before advancing towards the objective again' is completely beyond what I can change at the moment for example.

9 hours ago, mannyhams said:

Noted on the modifier, I'll start out with .85 for both size and experience scaling, I think. I guess that will land me somewhere between BG and MG? I'll also give that video a watch for tips, perhaps I'm putting my career points in the wrong places? I started out getting myself over the "basic" recon hump and then splitting points between medicine and army organization to slowly grow the army and retain veterans, but I've consistently got a lot of leftover manpower.

Early on, it tends to be better to invest in points that let you grow your army rather than preserve it. Politics, econ, or training usually while keeping AO as high as needed.

It's hard to say where exactly the line is between MG and BG with the configs. On BG you tend to need to use something like 1.5 or higher to try and get up to the MG values. BG scaling up will still be easier than MG scaling down either way though. On BG the battle rewards and weapon recovery rates are higher, the AIs weapons worse, and the AI uses a more less aggressive AI. Officers and veterans also cost less on that difficulty.

It sounds like you're doing decently, so I'd lean towards lowering MG a bit rather than scaling up BG.

Edited by pandakraut
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42 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

In this case, I would definitely recommend using the configs to adjust the difficulty down a bit. The base difficulty in the mod is not tuned around that style of play, so this is exactly the type of situation the configs are great for. With some adjustments I think it will work out just fine though.

Determining when they can't win is very difficult to actually implement unfortunately. Especially combined with the AI not being to retreat off the map(seems like it should be easy to add, but I've gone in circles for months on it) and the way some of the battles are structured. For example, if the player inflicts very high casualties in the initial phase of a battle, should the AI give up even though once the phase ends they would outnumber the player? If you can write something that works in that case, will it work in every other case? This is part of why we added the surrender/shatter at 0 morale system. It's not quite the same, but it does tend to speed up the mop up process of battles quite a bit.

There is also only so much control over the AI decision making that I've been able to figure out. Something as seemingly simple as 'wait for multiple units to regroup before advancing towards the objective again' is completely beyond what I can change at the moment for example.

Early on, it tends to be better to invest in points that let you grow your army rather than preserve it. Politics, econ, or training usually while keeping AO as high as needed.

It's hard to say where exactly the line is between MG and BG with the configs. On BG you tend to need to use something like 1.5 or higher to try and get up to the MG values. BG scaling up will still be easier than MG scaling down either way though. On BG the battle rewards and weapon recovery rates are higher, the AIs weapons worse, and the AI uses a more less aggressive AI. Officers and veterans also cost less on that difficulty.

It sounds like you're doing decently, so I'd lean towards lowering MG a bit rather than scaling up BG.

This all sounds reasonable! Hopefully my input didn't come off as complaining because I do really enjoy the mod, thanks very much for your effort with it :)

 

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Hello! Love the mod!

i have spent 2300 hours in vanilla and just started playing mod and it feels much better! The only question that i have- is experience working the same way as in vanilla? Meaning do i have to destroy all my units before every battle and reassemble them to have more experience? I love roleplaying and having brigades through the campain but this does not work in vanilla 

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On 4/1/2022 at 12:02 PM, Superbobrik said:

Hello! Love the mod!

i have spent 2300 hours in vanilla and just started playing mod and it feels much better! The only question that i have- is experience working the same way as in vanilla? Meaning do i have to destroy all my units before every battle and reassemble them to have more experience? I love roleplaying and having brigades through the campain but this does not work in vanilla 

A couple things:

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "destroy all my units".  I assume you are talking about disbanding units in camp. But on the chance that you meant killing off allies in battle, I'll include the a comment on that.

1) Vanilla gives you more weapons if you kill off your allied units, the mod gives you more weapons from allied units if they are not killed.

2) In the mod, brigade officers get a bonus from battles led.  If you hover the mouse arrow over the officer XP you'll see the bonus listed. At 3 battles led, you get a 15% bonus to Command, Officer XP gain, and Unit XP gain.  So, keeping units together with the same officer produces a greater return. New officers get a -7.5% penalty, 0 penalty with 1 battle led, 7.5% gain with 2 battles led, and 15% gain with 3 battles led. The bonus caps at 3.  Officers do keep the bonus if they are wounded and come back to the same unit, but if they go to a different unit they loose the bonus.

3) In vanilla and the mod, career points in Training gives recruits better starting stats. If you hover over the recruiting pool you can see the starting stats, which I'm sure you know.  So, in both the mod and vanilla, you can disband units to cause the stats in the recruit pool to increase since disbanded units go back into the pool - it is just a calculated average of the recruits in the pool and the unit(s) that you disband.  However, you loose the bonuses discussed above.  And, each time new recruits are added to the pool after completing future battles the average stats in the pool is recalculated, so it will go down since the new recruit stats added after each battle are based on your level of Training points.

Hope this helps.

Edited by PaulD
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Two questions:

1) Obviously you can name your brigades or corps whatever you want. Is there a way to reset brigade name to display whichever officer is in command after you've changed it once? Or, once you've changed it manually, you can only change it manually.

2) I've done searches for this but haven't been able to find it - how much damage is required to affect morale changes?  Is it a flat 10% or something like that, or is it more complicated?

Thanks

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