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

[lunario]

Finally finished my legendary CSA campaign on 1.25.

This mod makes the game much more fun and challenging.

However the late game is a little bit boring and waiting game. Most of the I wait for destroying enemy guns and routing the fortified infantries with artillery.

In my opinion the attacking battles(minor or major) are easier especially mid to late game since the AI is more passive.

Most of my late game wins I rely on snipers(probably overpowered), siege guns and 20p parrotts, 24p howitzer has no use as when they came into range they get destroyed very quickly.

And an advice to people who struggle in battle of Washington, do move extra units to south border before timer runs out on the first scene of defense, southern part of Washington is much more difficult to defend.

Over all, great mod and big thanks for J&P to create this.

I guess I'll try a legendary union run soon:) 

[pandakraut]

7 hours ago, lunario said:

Most of my late game wins I rely on snipers(probably overpowered), siege guns and 20p parrotts, 24p howitzer has no use as when they came into range they get destroyed very quickly.

Did you end up capturing many siege guns throughout the campaign? 

The 24pdrs are rather difficulty to use offensively currently unless you are screening them with some cheap cannon or clearing out enemy artillery ahead of time. I've had decent luck with them on defense though.

Agreed on the CSA sniper weapons being a bit too good.

Glad you liked it overall, several of the issues you described are ones we're looking at and will try to fix if we can.

[lunario]

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Did you end up capturing many siege guns throughout the campaign? 

The 24pdrs are rather difficulty to use offensively currently unless you are screening them with some cheap cannon or clearing out enemy artillery ahead of time. I've had decent luck with them on defense though.

Agreed on the CSA sniper weapons being a bit too good.

Glad you liked it overall, several of the issues you described are ones we're looking at and will try to fix if we can.

No I hadn't captured any siege guns nor have the chance of buying one, just had one 8 gun group bought by reputation. But only this one unit gave me great advantage. They can pick out AI arty at long range or scare off AI infantry at mid range, best gun without doubt.

I found 24pdrs hard to use both on defense and offense late game, mostly because of the many 20pdrs parrott AI has, they're so many that my guns can't finish them off before 24pdrs are wiped out. Mid or early game 24pdrs and 12pdrs napoleon are great at defending.

[adishee]

I've found success with 24#ers with horse arty perk during mid-/late-game, as a specialized unit for assault support for highly trained assault troops. But the gun crews must also have very high stats. Def not a unit for most battles.

Edited November 18, 2019 by adishee

[Jorlaan]

I have never taken any of the arty speed perks, I've felt that they need to be as effective as possible in combat so ignored them. There are really only a few battles where I've very much considered it, like Shiloh for the union in particular, that retreat from the church has caused me many arty losses in the past although in my current MG run I did quite well.

I've had a bit of a hard time finding good use for the 24lb Howitzer. It is of course amazing in canister range but in just so many battles I can't get it positioned somewhere decent to do this. Very often they need to be quite close behind my infantry to be close enough to do proper canister shots, yet at this close they tend to be either arty bait for the enemy, or they simply take too many casualties from stray shots. I thought about increasing the range a bit more but then it would be TOO powerful. The 12lb Howitzer I don't use unless I have no other choice. It's range is just too short to be of much use in almost any battle.

The Napoleon is great for mid/close range right through a good half the game (I'll use em probably through 2/3 of both campaigns, especially CSA) and along with 10lbers make up the bulk of my preferred arty forces in the early/mid game. The 10lb Parrot is good at range and I use for mostly counter battery, with the 20lb being an amazing upgrade.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Jorlaan
Adding

[lunario]

16 hours ago, adishee said:

I've found success with 24#ers with horse arty perk during mid-/late-game, as a specialized unit for assault support for highly trained assault troops. But the gun crews must also have very high stats. Def not a unit for most battles.

Hasn't tried this before. When attacking I knock out AI arty first then fortified infantry one by one, one break through two infantry unit move in to cover flanks then main line move in to roll over.

Assaulting maybe quicker but cost too much especially fighting late game three star infantry in a 60% melee bonus fort and supported with other troops.

Maybe 24p can be useful after AI arty is knocked out, I'll try it on my Union run.

[Jebber1597]

I just applied this mod. Does it slow down troop movement to a very slow pace? The cannon and rifle rounds appear to be slower when fired and watching them go towards the enemy as well.

[FarflameX]

I don't know if the mod is working correctly. I unzipped it in the folder as described on the first few pages of this thread. Problem is, I can't get past Potomac Fort on CSA Legendary. I've done it a couple of times in the past but most of the time I fail. I've followed countless Youtube video advice and read up articles but it's borderline impossible without a lot of luck. I was under the impression that this mod made this battle a bit easier but I see no difference. The Union still has countless snipers and outnumbers me about 6 to 1 in the 2nd part.

I just want to get on with the campaign. I WANT it to be difficult but I don't want to be stuck on this annoying battle forever. But if I play on a lower level then some of the next battles are a tad easy and boring.

Is there some way to see if the mod is working?

[pandakraut]

12 hours ago, Jebber1597 said:

I just applied this mod. Does it slow down troop movement to a very slow pace? The cannon and rifle rounds appear to be slower when fired and watching them go towards the enemy as well.

Base game speed has been reduced to about half what the base game uses. It takes a bit of getting used to and you may want to use the 2x and 3x speeds more than you might in the base game(I use them for the majority of battles). If after a few battles it's still bothering you it is possible to change these settings in the config files.

[pandakraut]

12 hours ago, FarflameX said:

I don't know if the mod is working correctly. I unzipped it in the folder as described on the first few pages of this thread. Problem is, I can't get past Potomac Fort on CSA Legendary. I've done it a couple of times in the past but most of the time I fail. I've followed countless Youtube video advice and read up articles but it's borderline impossible without a lot of luck. I was under the impression that this mod made this battle a bit easier but I see no difference. The Union still has countless snipers and outnumbers me about 6 to 1 in the 2nd part.

I just want to get on with the campaign. I WANT it to be difficult but I don't want to be stuck on this annoying battle forever. But if I play on a lower level then some of the next battles are a tad easy and boring.

Is there some way to see if the mod is working?

The main check to see if the mod is working is to look at the version number in the bottom left on the main menu. The end of the version number should have J&P Rebalance V1.25.2 listed. A secondary check is to look at weapon tooltips and see if most infantry weapons are now range 400. All of the units in the first battle should be larger than what you would see in the base game as well if everything is working correctly.

The larger units in the starting battles generally make them a bit easier than in the base game despite facing larger enemy units as well. There is an exploit to make the starting battles easier which is save the battle immediately and then load that save. This will cause all of your reinforcements that come in to be around double the normal size. Legendary is currently quite difficult, so don't be surprised if it takes some restarts to get past Shiloh, especially if you are still learning the mod's changes.

[FarflameX]

Ok thanks. So it turns out that it's not working as I don't see that on the version number, so I'll try to install it again.

As it happens, I tried again, thinking that 'maybe' it's installed and I managed to get past the fort anyway, but I lost everything but 4 guns, so I had to rebuild my entire army from scratch, meaning that the next battle was equally impossible.

I realise that Legendary is extremely difficult. I'm happy to get my butt kicked, but I'd like to have it kicked on different maps     I might try the exploit just to get past the fort, but I'll try to get the mod installed first.

[FarflameX]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong with the install. I'm unzipping the rebalancemodv1.25.2.zip into my  Steam/......./UGCW/UGCW War_Data folder as instructed. I have 'Managed' and 'Mod' folders as well as the resources.assets in the folder now. But I don't see any update to the version number on the front screen.

[Jebber1597]

5 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Base game speed has been reduced to about half what the base game uses. It takes a bit of getting used to and you may want to use the 2x and 3x speeds more than you might in the base game(I use them for the majority of battles). If after a few battles it's still bothering you it is possible to change these settings in the config files.

Ok thank. I use the 2x quite a bit. The battles drag on so long. I have been on mg level. Playing through antietam without the mod I won but had 33k to their 58 k casualties. I'm not sure how to duke it out and hold positions without losing so many yet. Once I installed the mod it was like a hurricane that just lingered. Haha. Ended antietam with 44k to their 78k on mg level. Will be spending alot of time reading and redoing levels. Thanks again for the reply.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Jebber1597

[pandakraut]

5 hours ago, Jebber1597 said:

Ok thank. I use the 2x quite a bit. The battles drag on so long. I have been on mg level. Playing through antietam without the mod I won but had 33k to their 58 k casualties. I'm not sure how to duke it out and hold positions without losing so many yet. Once I installed the mod it was like a hurricane that just lingered. Haha. Ended antietam with 44k to their 78k on mg level. Will be spending alot of time reading and redoing levels. Thanks again for the reply.

I would definitely recommend starting a new campaign after installing the mod. While technically existing saves can be used, a lot of features don't really kick in properly unless you start fresh. It'll definitely be a play style adjustment, but if you have questions there is plenty of help available here or on the discord.

[pandakraut]

10 hours ago, FarflameX said:

Not sure what I'm doing wrong with the install. I'm unzipping the rebalancemodv1.25.2.zip into my  Steam/......./UGCW/UGCW War_Data folder as instructed. I have 'Managed' and 'Mod' folders as well as the resources.assets in the folder now. But I don't see any update to the version number on the front screen.

Here are the exact locations of all the files the mod uses.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data\Managed\assembly-csharp.dll

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data\resources.assets

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data\Mod\Rebalance\(all the config files live here)

If you're not seeing the version number change that usually means that the assembly-csharp.dll is not in the right place. Let me know if this helps.

[lunario]

Got through legendary Shiloh on the Union side, finally.

Literally I have to restart the campaign twice to get better generals and troops.

Watched panda's video several times, adopted the tactic with some adjustment.

I do believe Shiloh is much harder on the Union side, mostly because it's a defensive battle and the AI is more aggressive.

On 1.25 Shiloh of Union side on legendary is somewhat "impossible" in my opinion. I have to use the "save&reload" method to cancel charges dozens of times.

What makes the battle so hard, after spent a week trying to beat it, I recon the following:

1. Enemy number and scaling. I brought only four infantry brigades, one 3* 2000 men(I reload on tutorial map to get this), two 2* 1500 men and one 1* 1500 men. All my other foot soldiers are skirmishes. I'm still facing 62k CSA with 60-68% training. 

2. Enemy artillery and counter artillery AI. After the battle I captured 5 14pd james. That means AI got 50 of those deadly guns. Because of their counter artillery fire I was never able to hold a position when they got into range. And most other batteries of the AI is 12pd howitzers(mostly 25 guns squad), which make my troop "vanish" quite quickly even 100% covered and my skirmishes will rout in two rounds of their fire.

3. Their's not enough good terrain to defend. The only good defend terrain of Shiloh is the right flank of Shiloh church, left flank of map of spanish field(which is normally not useful, AI takes a lot of time to get there), south open field of hornets nest(which is only good when you can destroy AI left flank on phase one so you can cover the tree line left of that open field, that is impossible I believe), west of the landing(AI never goes there sadly). 

4. The long timer of phase three. There's a two hour timer of defend hornets nest even the VP is took by AI, no phase change. Most of my losses are at this phase.

To counter these, I adopted Panda's tactic with some adjustment:

1. First two phase, I put all my infantry on the church and abandoned the left flank, I simply don't have enough to defend there(since building up more infantry will make enemy number more big and skirmishes won't last two rounds of fire even in 100% cover), put two horse artillery on the church one 13 guns napoleon and one 13 guns 24p howitzer(which I lost 7 during the whole battle). This went OK, my troop on the church killed about 5k enemy before phase change. I got unlucky as the AI artillery has move perk so I have to retreat early. 

2. I built up five cavalry unit, trying to catch AI artillery and wagons. Two on the church reinforcement and three on Spanish field(They wasn't able to sneak past enemy line, not until the landing phase).  This is the key of my final win on the map I guess. I use them aggressively(use them charging batteries even enemy infantry is nearby) and destroyed all but two artillery unit and none of AI artillery is able to move into range in the final phase. All my cavalry unit are 400 men unit, most of them are around 200 men after the battle. I don't believe I can win if enemy guns got into range in the landing phase(they'll smash my line or arty really quick).

3. The hornets nest phase is a painful bloody hold out. I use Panda's defending position mostly. 

4. The landing phase is again mostly a redo of Panda's approach. Got to day 2 and killed another 15k of enemy.

My losses and kills are like this:

Of which about 3-4k is from my core infantry unit, the 23 guns lost is very painful.

I believe I can do better but after a week of fighting this I'm done and are not willing to do this again.

I do believe this map is too rough on legendary and I have some idea making this a little bit easier and not too easy:

1. Reduce the number of friendly AI reinforcement on the landing phase a little(like reducing 2-3k), this'll reduce enemy number a little or make some room for your own infantry.

2. Make the timer of hornets nest shorter, this opens the map up quicker and there'll be more room for your cavalry and infiltrating skirmishes. 

3. Reduce the quality or quantity of AI arty units a little. Pounding by a 775 men 3* arty surrounded by infantry'll make any none infantry line shatter in seconds(and due to scaling most of your line will not be infantry).

Nevertheless, I make it through. Hopefully later battles will be easier.

Thanks for Panda's video of 1.25, from which I learned a lot about how to manage officers and the tactics of this map.

[pandakraut]

8 minutes ago, lunario said:

2. Enemy artillery and counter artillery AI. After the battle I captured 5 14pd james. That means AI got 50 of those deadly guns. Because of their counter artillery fire I was never able to hold a position when they got into range. And most other batteries of the AI is 12pd howitzers(mostly 25 guns squad), which make my troop "vanish" quite quickly even 100% covered and my skirmishes will rout in two rounds of their fire.

That's some terrible luck on facing that many James. I think in the version I recorded I only faced two 3" units which limited how much counter battery I had to worry about.

11 minutes ago, lunario said:

1. Enemy number and scaling. I brought only four infantry brigades, one 3* 2000 men(I reload on tutorial map to get this), two 2* 1500 men and one 1* 1500 men. All my other foot soldiers are skirmishes. I'm still facing 62k CSA with 60-68% training. 

Lowering the size of those units would help a bit with scaling, comparing to my numbers you brought an extra 10k men and faced an additional 25k because of it. Either way, you are correct that the ratio is probably a bit too harsh. It'll probably get lowered slightly in the next version. I also plan on including a config option that lets the player adjust scaling on a per battle basis. This should help even things out a bit for players on a wider spectrum of skill/desired challenge.

13 minutes ago, lunario said:

2. I built up five cavalry unit, trying to catch AI artillery and wagons. Two on the church reinforcement and three on Spanish field(They wasn't able to sneak past enemy line, not until the landing phase).  This is the key of my final win on the map I guess. I use them aggressively(use them charging batteries even enemy infantry is nearby) and destroyed all but two artillery unit and none of AI artillery is able to move into range in the final phase. All my cavalry unit are 400 men unit, most of them are around 200 men after the battle. I don't believe I can win if enemy guns got into range in the landing phase(they'll smash my line or arty really quick).

Very interesting innovation here. I would have thought the AI cav would have scaled up enough to smash you, but definitely has promise if you got it to work. Expensive to lose that cav, but if you can trade them for keeping the rest of your army more intact that seems like a good deal.

 

18 minutes ago, lunario said:

1. Reduce the number of friendly AI reinforcement on the landing phase a little(like reducing 2-3k), this'll reduce enemy number a little or make some room for your own infantry.

About 20% of the size of these units is added post scaling so they are not as big of an impact as it might seem. The scaling ratios on this battle are just extremely harsh for the union(with the unit size caps increased). Additional comments mentioned above.

19 minutes ago, lunario said:

2. Make the timer of hornets nest shorter, this opens the map up quicker and there'll be more room for your cavalry and infiltrating skirmishes. 

I'm not quite sure why this phase works the way it does, but several of the timers have been reduced considerably from the mod defaults for this battle. I'll take another look at it though.

20 minutes ago, lunario said:

3. Reduce the quality or quantity of AI arty units a little. Pounding by a 775 men 3* arty surrounded by infantry'll make any none infantry line shatter in seconds(and due to scaling most of your line will not be infantry).

Skirmishers will actually take less damage from the artillery than infantry will. Though they also need to be tuned down a bit which will mess with the battle balance so will have to see how things go. As I mentioned above I think you got extremely unlucky with variance giving the AI multiple James units. Working as intended for the variance part, but the James is a bit over tuned as well and will be getting looked at.

Thanks for the detailed feedback and good work getting through the battle. It's extremely challenging at the moment, which while fun for me is probably a bit much. You should be in fine shape to proceed through the campaign though.

[lunario]

36 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

That's some terrible luck on facing that many James. I think in the version I recorded I only faced two 3" units which limited how much counter battery I had to worry about.

Lowering the size of those units would help a bit with scaling, comparing to my numbers you brought an extra 10k men and faced an additional 25k because of it. Either way, you are correct that the ratio is probably a bit too harsh. It'll probably get lowered slightly in the next version. I also plan on including a config option that lets the player adjust scaling on a per battle basis. This should help even things out a bit for players on a wider spectrum of skill/desired challenge.

Yes that many james just ruined my church defense plan.

My initial plan was to use focused strengthened veteran infantry force to destroy enemy left and hold the church VP. Apparently it didn't work out but my loss is not great so I continued the battle. I used 1k men brigades several times, they just lose too many men to be of any use too quickly due to my poor micromanagement. I believe the extra number is due to my battle lasted to the second day. My initial number is about the same compare to what you're facing in the video(62-63k in the first day).

Regarding to enemy cav scaling, the Jenkkins is 1.2k and the other 3* is a 0.7k unit(fortunately both are melee cav). I can manage that as I have 5 units and AI usage of cav is not good(plus Jenkkins got stuck on NE corner of hornets nest and get destroyed by my skirmishes).

[pandakraut]

7 hours ago, lunario said:

I believe the extra number is due to my battle lasted to the second day. My initial number is about the same compare to what you're facing in the video(62-63k in the first day).

Union Shiloh always goes to the second day, it's not possible to skip. Forrest is the only extra CSA unit that spawns on day 2. The AI had 27k left for me on day 2. One issue that does mess with the numbers is that 2nd Brigade units from splits do not get added up correctly in multiday battles. I'll have to see if I can find a way to fix that.

[gomurr]

Just finished Stones River and all the officers that were injured in the battle are not in my barracks anymore.  I think this happened before, too, after Fredericksburg, so maybe it has something to do with multi-day battles interacting with the officer replacement function of the mod?  Not sure if this WID and injured officers have a chance of dying and I just had bad luck, a vanilla bug or a mod bug, but just thought I'd note it here in case it was the last one.

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, gomurr said:

Just finished Stones River and all the officers that were injured in the battle are not in my barracks anymore.  I think this happened before, too, after Fredericksburg, so maybe it has something to do with multi-day battles interacting with the officer replacement function of the mod?  Not sure if this WID and injured officers have a chance of dying and I just had bad luck, a vanilla bug or a mod bug, but just thought I'd note it here in case it was the last one.

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

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

[Ancient Warrior]

On 11/26/2019 at 8:27 AM, pandakraut said:

Base game speed has been reduced to about half what the base game uses. It takes a bit of getting used to and you may want to use the 2x and 3x speeds more than you might in the base game(I use them for the majority of battles). If after a few battles it's still bothering you it is possible to change these settings in the config files.

Why did you reduce the base game speed so much if you counter it anyway by using 2x and 3x speed for the majority of battles? Just curious.

Edited December 2, 2019 by Ancient Warrior

[pandakraut]

6 hours ago, Ancient Warrior said:

Why did you reduce the base game speed so much if you counter it anyway by using 2x and 3x speed for the majority of battles? Just curious.

It has some positive side effects in terms of overall game flow and makes it easier to manage larger armies in real time for players that don't use pause. I'm mostly just impatient and spend so much more time testing than actually playing that the faster I can get through the battle the better. I'll frequently set the 3x fast forward to somewhere between 30x to 80x speed. Gets me in trouble sometimes, but when you're waiting to drive off the unit guarding the bridge at Phillipi for the 100th time...

[Leisen]

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

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

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

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

Edited December 5, 2019 by Leisen

[Ratman]

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

enableAISizeMultiplier, true
AISizeMultiplier

 

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

AIInfantryMaxSize

 

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

 

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

 

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