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

[Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau]

I ain't no history buff, had to start over 1st bull run 5 times as Union on MG.

Didn't win until tried to just let my troops march south and join the army coming from west. Pushed and took the hill. Was however completely surprised by Ewells divisions coming from North East where Ohioans came. Had to turn around and fight bloody battle. I won, I tried to use my allied AI armies as cannon fodder to preservere my own troops. Still my army got a little battered. One infantry brigade went from 1200 to 453 men.

A sweet victory nevertheless!

[ug_might]

I played up to Thoroughfare Gap before 2nd Bull Run on Union Legendary.

It all went decently enough but frequently timers were too tight for me to wipe out the enemy. As a result at TG he's at 59k in the overview screen and 32k and 56 guns at the battle itself. At this point my divisions are simply to small, i can field 20k and 12 guns or thereabouts. I dont think this will be sustainable even if i win TG.

Going 3 into training at first probably was a mistake. I did end up with an not insignifcant amount of veterans, but to use them you end up with rather small brigades, less than 1.8k. If i had to do it again i'd focus entirely on Politics and start out with TAC/CAV/POL.

 

 

[pandakraut]

13 hours ago, ug_might said:

I played up to Thoroughfare Gap before 2nd Bull Run on Union Legendary.

It all went decently enough but frequently timers were too tight for me to wipe out the enemy. As a result at TG he's at 59k in the overview screen and 32k and 56 guns at the battle itself. At this point my divisions are simply to small, i can field 20k and 12 guns or thereabouts. I dont think this will be sustainable even if i win TG.

Going 3 into training at first probably was a mistake. I did end up with an not insignifcant amount of veterans, but to use them you end up with rather small brigades, less than 1.8k. If i had to do it again i'd focus entirely on Politics and start out with TAC/CAV/POL.

 

 

On my test run I made it through 2nd Bull Run with a split training and politics setup. Has its benefits, especially once you hit 6-8 training, but definite downsides as well. I had trouble fielding enough weapons eventually, though that was as much casualties as anything. If you want to go bigger than that, politics and recon seems to be the way to go.

I got nonstop veteran reinforcements so I was at 100k on the overview screen. My infantry was all at around 1750. 

You may want to check out Forefall's videos he's got two attempts, the second on an experimental mode that may help with some tactics suggestions. His second attempt went politics and recon heavy so that will probably be of more benefit if you decide to restart https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9w8nYzOAnwdUwbUnCY1iEkP4dRBlu4W

 

[Simpkin]

I just started playing this game again and found your mod. And I love it the new extreme difficulty it is a blast. I play the south on legendary and had to rest start a lot of battels and can’t make it past Shiloh. Had to restart the campaign again with a heavy focus on melee and range kav and spent 2 points on each perk so far.

Now I stomped some battles. And encounter 3 bugs. At the supply raid you lose when you kill all enemy before their reinforcements arrive and you did not have all 3 supply wagons. At Shiloh the battle does not end even when you killed the 2 ships you have to wait until the time runs out. And when you save and load a game the enemies sometimes stop charges, stop for a few seconds, or be somehow out of sight etc.

 

I guess Iron man will be hardcore 😊

[pandakraut]

On 9/16/2022 at 4:01 PM, Simpkin said:

Now I stomped some battles. And encounter 3 bugs. At the supply raid you lose when you kill all enemy before their reinforcements arrive and you did not have all 3 supply wagons. At Shiloh the battle does not end even when you killed the 2 ships you have to wait until the time runs out. And when you save and load a game the enemies sometimes stop charges, stop for a few seconds, or be somehow out of sight etc.

Battles are not always consistent about when they allow you to end early and what outcome you get if you do. Generally if you kill everything you'll either win immediately, or win as soon as the timer expires.

Updating the victory conditions is unfortunately not very easy to do with modding, so there isn't much we can do here.

Saving and loading is another case where there is relatively little we can do. I tend to use in battle saves as little as possible due to all the odd things that can happen. Though at least the impact of most of those is fairly minor.

Your Shiloh result looks pretty good, so seems like your restart has gone well. Happy to hear that you're enjoying the mod overall

[ug_might]

New attempt, teaser:

 

 

I'll write down some thoughts tomorrow.

[ug_might]

So, I decided to start over, playing again Union Legendary, this time with TAC/CAV/POL. 4 points in recon, then going for max politics. A clearer emphasis on Cavalry this time around (without going overboard though) and aiming for a wipeout wherever possible, even if it means taking heavier casualties than it should.

I’m much happier with this run, mostly because I now know what works and what doesn’t. Screens and some thoughts on battles up to and including Shiloh below.

 

Train Station:  https://imgur.com/N2IgTcV

I had a good start at first, with capturing the CSA brigade north of the city and another one in the woods southwest. But I almost failed to bring in my reinforcements from the west quickly enough to hold against the counter offensive from the east, since I didn’t mange to clean up the CSA elements on the left in time.

Time is pretty much the only challenge in this battle if you know what you’re doing.

There is an interesting thing you can do if you get the horse artillery perk on the reinforcements from the West – deploy an artillery brigade on the lookout hill to the southeast. It’ll confuse the AI and delay their storming of the city noticeably.

I wish this battle was longer tbh. You’d suffer more casualties defending the town, but you also would have the opportunity of routing the final attack from the east. Would make it more interesting.

 

Distress Call: https://imgur.com/QAiFz5X

During my first run I defended the southern fort and pushed up later. Works well enough if the AI is attacking you in the south. This time I defended the northern fort and managed to delay the eastern force with the split skirmisher unit for the majority of the battle until I generated enough cavalry forces to wipe them.

Cavalry is king on this map, if you know what you are doing you can easily annihilate charging individual units with flanking fire and counter charges. Complete wipe with a minute of playtime to spare.

If you have issues with this one, just restart for a more favorable unit split.

 

1^st Bull Run: https://imgur.com/k3hwHb2

Very fun battle and very stupid AI. I managed to cut of and destroy the CSA element defending Matthews Hill by first clearing Farm Ford with cavalry from the rear and then setting them up as a blocking force a couple of minutes before the timer expires. If you understand how the phase change is triggered, its pretty easy to do. The enemy had a triple split and his units were very small, so they shattered quickly.

Warrenton Pike was only very lightly defended and was cleared with minimal losses. Not really sure what happened there, for some reason the AI redeployed its infantry in the direction of Matthews Hill and only some Skirmishers guarding Artillery remained.

Nonetheless, the AI then decided it was necessary to relentlessly attack the steep hills at Warrenton with like 75% of its remaining combat power. No issues holding of course. As a result of this attack and me destroying the Matthew Hill contingent, the enemies left was basically undefended and my whole ring wing basically swept in unopposed. I charged the Artillery always hanging out far south (what’s up with that?) supported by my cavalry coming in from the southeast in a beautiful pincer movement. Took Herny Hill from the south in a big cauldron and wiped everything with 30 minutes to spare on the timer.

I do like the positioning of the computer-generated Corps in the west, but I think the original version is more challenging since you couldn’t just create a center of gravity on his left basically immediately, or block him all along the river.

Anyway, the next enemy wave spawned in the south only and I had no issues holding, outflanking and counter attacking since he was very focused on my center and didn’t try to outflank my lines.  Complete wipe just as the timer reached zero (would have had lots of bonus time too though).

 

Crossroads: https://imgur.com/sptE8bQ

I got a pretty good result there. I set up the Corps in a tight, two-edged knife formation with the houses east of the farm as the point. The bulk of my forces was oriented northward to stop the first waves out of the woods but essentially the formation was so tight, the infantry brigades could just turn around to cover the other side.

The key was for my four Cavalry brigades crush the flank of the southern CSA brigades once they were charging my thin right wing infantry screen. Timing was everything but I managed to annihilate the southern flank by destroying everything infantry and skirmisher unit. A very beautiful sight.

After that redeployment to face the reinforcements in the east and mopping up the units in the North was a trivial exercise. Complete wipeout with 35ish minutes left.

 

Rivers Crossing: https://imgur.com/PwNicVX

I played this battle a couple of times between my two runs in 1.28 and I still have no good idea on how to approach this. I got a wipeout within the extended time limit and the result is decent enough, but there was no finesse to it. Just meeting the enemy head on, blasting him away with artillery, breaking up charges with cavalry and pushing once he is exhausted. Blunt and boring.

I really wanted to do some flanking action with 3ish infantry brigades supported by Cavalry but even with multiple attempts I couldn’t get anything to work. The eastern flank is luring but terrible, since their artillery commands the thin woodline on their left flank. You just get shot to pieces there. The western flank doesn’t offer you anything with the river and the steep hill to climb. What you can do there is play defensive in the swampy river area. I did that but meh.

The AI is playing pretty smart here by always rotating infantry back, never leaving the artillery uncovered.

 

Assessment before Shiloh:

https://imgur.com/YKAGIRO

https://imgur.com/bxBXHKH

https://imgur.com/Th7dj65

https://imgur.com/bXYJlvB

https://imgur.com/BZTJ8L7

I went into Shiloh with 45k / 103 guns vs 39k / 128 guns with the CSA at just 36k – 41k on the overview screen. My previous run I faced 48-53k with translated to 44k/128g against my meager 41k/89g.

My overall approach is definitely working out fine. I’d like to have two more two-star infantry units but besides that I’m in very decent shape. I could have fielded even more troops but decided to buy some sharpshooter rifles and heavy artillery instead. I have had zero issues with weapons for my guys, the four points in recon are a good investment.

But the greater factor to my success so far is the enemy reinforcement RNG. Even with my campaign going well so far, 36-41k is a very low number to be at from my experience.

 

Shiloh:  https://imgur.com/tjungEz

The battle went very well. I played pretty much the same as last time, but as already hinted at the enemy was considerable weaker. 200 rifles more on my side and 200 less on the enemy’s side makes a huge difference. I also got the impression that the AI played a little less aggressive than during my last attempt, maybe because he couldn’t field really overwhelming numbers.

In any case, the first phase holding the Church was a cakewalk this time around. I was able to field two Cavalry units there (one for breaking charges the other for artillery hunting) and hold them off with few casualties and multiple broken brigades. Easy when the AI pushes individual units forwards and isn’t able to do generate a mass charge. I briefly toyed with the idea of holding at the Church for an immediate flanking maneuver, cutting them of at the Nest. I even attempted to do it, but while it works, the position just isn’t worth the additional casualties compared to retreating north.

Which is the key to battle. Retreat and trade ground for time whenever and wherever possible. In my mind there is no use defending the Nest itself. I set up my temporary line well north of it at the very edge of the map and to the west in the dense woods. This works well since a) the ground is quite favorable, b) the line is very small, allowing for massed musket and artillery fire against individual units and c) reinforcements spawn directly at the front line.

Timers aren’t an issue since you can always take the Church victory point with cavalry. Which is the other major factor to achieve a good result at Shiloh. The massed small front in the north only worked because the enemy only managed to bring up one whole artillery brigade in 2 hours. The rest was taken out or delayed by some 3000 Cavalry operating in the rear. You also need Cavalry to disrupt and confuse the AI. Merely delaying individual infantry brigades might not seem important and costly, but is vital to prevent the AI from setting up mass charges. It’s a pain to do it right, the majority of actual play time is spent directing individual Cavalry units.

In my game the enemy attacks had essentially passed its culmination point when the map opens up to the final lines at Shiloh. I retreated nonetheless since again more favorable ground and forcing the enemy to set up entirely new attacks is always hugely beneficial. Anyway, the battle was essentially over at that point and I completely wiped the enemy on day two with some 30 minutes left on the timer.

Edited September 21, 2022 by ug_might

[Andrew Milnes]

Hi guys, I'm struggling to make the mod work ... i've loaded the unzipped file into local file

Ultimate General Civil War_Data - i can see the RebalanceModV1.28.2 and inside that file is 

Managed

Mod

Resoursces.assets

But if wont run with the mods 

I've tried uninstalling and verifying the file and doing it again but same result, I'm sure I'm doing something basic wrong? Can you help  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pandakraut]

52 minutes ago, Andrew Milnes said:

Hi guys, I'm struggling to make the mod work ... i've loaded the unzipped file into local file

Ultimate General Civil War_Data - i can see the RebalanceModV1.28.2 and inside that file is 

Managed

Mod

Resoursces.assets

But if wont run with the mods 

I've tried uninstalling and verifying the file and doing it again but same result, I'm sure I'm doing something basic wrong? Can you help  

The contents of the RebalanceModV1.28.2 folder need to be copied into the Ultimate General Civil War_DATA folder. You don't want them inside the RebalanceModV1.28.2 after you extract from the zip.

The resources.assets file and the managed/assembly-csharp.dll file will overwrite existing files when you do this copy.

If you're still having trouble please let me know.

[Andrew Milnes]

12 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

The contents of the RebalanceModV1.28.2 folder need to be copied into the Ultimate General Civil War_DATA folder. You don't want them inside the RebalanceModV1.28.2 after you extract from the zip.

The resources.assets file and the managed/assembly-csharp.dll file will overwrite existing files when you do this copy.

If you're still having trouble please let me know.

that worked thanks ... could you help with how they should look on my Mac ? I follows the Mac instructions for steam but again could not get it to run

 

The mod file is in the contents folder and rebalance shows up in the mod folder is that right?

[pandakraut]

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

There is an interesting thing you can do if you get the horse artillery perk on the reinforcements from the West – deploy an artillery brigade on the lookout hill to the southeast. It’ll confuse the AI and delay their storming of the city noticeably.

I wish this battle was longer tbh. You’d suffer more casualties defending the town, but you also would have the opportunity of routing the final attack from the east. Would make it more interesting.

I've generally found that by the end of the timer the AI attack has completely fizzled out and only the cleanup is left. More time would just allow for an easy full clear which is something we were trying to avoid as a general rule going forward.

Since it was the first battle its intended to be relatively easy. It does turn into a fairly interesting challenge if the AI sizes are boosted, just not one really appropriate for the first battle.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

Very fun battle and very stupid AI. I managed to cut of and destroy the CSA element defending Matthews Hill by first clearing Farm Ford with cavalry from the rear and then setting them up as a blocking force a couple of minutes before the timer expires. If you understand how the phase change is triggered, its pretty easy to do. The enemy had a triple split and his units were very small, so they shattered quickly.

I didn't think you could clear the blocking unit at the ford and get the Ohio units across without triggering the phase change. Was this with carbine or melee cav? Did you only try it once or is it consistent across multiple tries?

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

I do like the positioning of the computer-generated Corps in the west, but I think the original version is more challenging since you couldn’t just create a center of gravity on his left basically immediately, or block him all along the river.

Anyway, the next enemy wave spawned in the south only and I had no issues holding, outflanking and counter attacking since he was very focused on my center and didn’t try to outflank my lines.  Complete wipe just as the timer reached zero (would have had lots of bonus time too though).

Some improvements to the alternate deploy will be added in the next version. I do agree that this alternate deploy is generally easier to handle, especially once you know it can happen.

Overall this battle seems to have a rather wide range of difficulty depending on what the AI does. If things go well early and you end up in good position on the Hill before the counter attack arrives, it's easy. If you're a little slower and you aren't in control of the hill before the counterattack arrives it can be quite difficult. I think I had a bit of bad luck when I was testing this so the battle is a bit easier than it needs to be.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

The key was for my four Cavalry brigades crush the flank of the southern CSA brigades once they were charging my thin right wing infantry screen. Timing was everything but I managed to annihilate the southern flank by destroying everything infantry and skirmisher unit. A very beautiful sight.

The heavy cavalry setups will be taking a bit of a hit in the next version. As they are clearly being proven too strong at the moment.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

But the greater factor to my success so far is the enemy reinforcement RNG. Even with my campaign going well so far, 36-41k is a very low number to be at from my experience.

I recently discovered a flaw in the reinforcement selection logic where basically if you get lucky early you're more likely to continue to get lucky. But if you get unlucky early you are more likely to continue being unlucky. Will be getting changed for hopefully a bit more consistent experience. This ended up being a bit of a componding problem later on in my testing since it turns out I was hitting the top end of what the AI could have as opposed to something more in the middle.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

Which is the key to battle. Retreat and trade ground for time whenever and wherever possible. In my mind there is no use defending the Nest itself. I set up my temporary line well north of it at the very edge of the map and to the west in the dense woods. This works well since a) the ground is quite favorable, b) the line is very small, allowing for massed musket and artillery fire against individual units and c) reinforcements spawn directly at the front line.

I've gone both ways with this, but when facing larger numbers I've generally preferred to hold the nest for a bit. Gives me one more line to retreat back to once my line eventually collapses. With your conditions I agree it's probably unnecessary.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

The massed small front in the north only worked because the enemy only managed to bring up one whole artillery brigade in 2 hours. The rest was taken out or delayed by some 3000 Cavalry operating in the rear. You also need Cavalry to disrupt and confuse the AI. Merely delaying individual infantry brigades might not seem important and costly, but is vital to prevent the AI from setting up mass charges. It’s a pain to do it right, the majority of actual play time is spent directing individual Cavalry units.

This aspect is crucial and in many cases the difference between a battle that looks easy and one that is a disaster.

On 9/21/2022 at 12:54 PM, ug_might said:

In my game the enemy attacks had essentially passed its culmination point when the map opens up to the final lines at Shiloh. I retreated nonetheless since again more favorable ground and forcing the enemy to set up entirely new attacks is always hugely beneficial. Anyway, the battle was essentially over at that point and I completely wiped the enemy on day two with some 30 minutes left on the timer.

There are some changes coming that will limit the ability to depress the AI numbers this low through the use of mass skirmishers and cav, which should hopefully get the intended difficulty a bit more on track. Feature creep has ballooned a bit while I've been putting off the hard work of updating CSA Fredericksburg, so waiting to get some more testing done on those before a full release.

Sounds like things are going well overall though. Hope you continue to enjoy the campaign and thanks for the detailed feedback.

[PatriotASR]

Iam also enjoying the mod. It's a whole different beast to the old one and I am still trying out new ways to win. I am just after 2nd Bull Run with the Union and I am stuck at Crampton's Gap. The reduced time you are given is a challenge (on top of the arty not being as affective as it used to be) and the enemy skirmishers don't give you any room to maneuver. But I have another problem - fatigue. I had a good start in one of my runs (first 20 minutes, way before you get reinforcements) since the enemy decided to charge me and all but one of his skirmishers are in the woods to the left, so I decided to make that my starting point to try different things. Now the problem is that my units get tired and just don't regenerate, even my sniper unit is exhausted after moving a short distance and even if I let them stand still for a while they don't get above tired. I have the upper hand on numbers and are in a good position, but I can't get up the hill because my troops can barely move and morale is waivering on all units all the time. Is that a product of me reloading a game to one point or is there something I am missing?

[pandakraut]

9 hours ago, PatriotASR said:

Iam also enjoying the mod. It's a whole different beast to the old one and I am still trying out new ways to win. I am just after 2nd Bull Run with the Union and I am stuck at Crampton's Gap. The reduced time you are given is a challenge (on top of the arty not being as affective as it used to be) and the enemy skirmishers don't give you any room to maneuver. But I have another problem - fatigue. I had a good start in one of my runs (first 20 minutes, way before you get reinforcements) since the enemy decided to charge me and all but one of his skirmishers are in the woods to the left, so I decided to make that my starting point to try different things. Now the problem is that my units get tired and just don't regenerate, even my sniper unit is exhausted after moving a short distance and even if I let them stand still for a while they don't get above tired. I have the upper hand on numbers and are in a good position, but I can't get up the hill because my troops can barely move and morale is waivering on all units all the time. Is that a product of me reloading a game to one point or is there something I am missing?

If a unit is exhausted, morale is capped at 50%(steady). If you have a negative penalty to morale from reputation, this reduces your morale stat and also your morale cap in battle. This can result in a unit being stuck at wavering for an extended period. 

Are you sure your condition isn't going up at all over time? Are you continuing to fire and reload while you wait? Or is the unit actually resting? Especially for snipers with long reload time weapons you can wear them out relatively quickly if you are firing and moving constantly.

Multiple players have commented on crampton's gap, so an extra 30 minutes is getting added to that battle in the next patch. You can increase the timerRecommendedMultiplier to 1.2 to replicate this until the patch comes out. I'm not sure what you'd need to set the endofDayMultiplier to exactly, but maybe try 1.05.

[ug_might]

[quote]I didn't think you could clear the blocking unit at the ford and get the Ohio units across without triggering the phase change. Was this with carbine or melee cav? Did you only try it once or is it consistent across multiple tries? […]

[/quote] You can clear the blocking unit with Cav from behind. Getting the Ohios across trickers the phase change as does crossing the road with any unit. This is how it looked, consistent with multiple tries:

https://imgur.com/a/42HoNIr

 

[quote] Overall this battle seems to have a rather wide range of difficulty depending on what the AI does. If things go well early and you end up in good position on the Hill before the counter attack arrives, it's easy. If you're a little slower and you aren't in control of the hill before the counterattack arrives it can be quite difficult. I think I had a bit of bad luck when I was testing this so the battle is a bit easier than it needs to be. [/quote]

You can choose to not be in control of the Hill when the counter attack starts? I never tried it, might be even worth it staying behind the river.  

Bull Run is always an easy battle in my mind since it doesn’t really matter how many computer-generated units you lose. It’s definitely the easiest main battle I have played so far (stuck at TG again lol and no real time atm).

 

[quote] I recently discovered a flaw in the reinforcement selection logic where basically if you get lucky early you're more likely to continue to get lucky. But if you get unlucky early you are more likely to continue being unlucky. Will be getting changed for hopefully a bit more consistent experience. This ended up being a bit of a componding problem later on in my testing since it turns out I was hitting the top end of what the AI could have as opposed to something more in the middle. [/quote]

Interesting. How is the reinforcement determined anyway? This is after Malvern Hill, forefalls first attempt compared to mine: https://imgur.com/a/cvMvLH1

The enemy forcer was pretty similar on both sides and it did better than him on this run. He got a very good reinforcement draw with just 33.8k men. I tried multiple times to get a somewhat similar result but the best I can get is the one listed – 39.6k men.

Am I being punished for getting a better result?

 

[pandakraut]

4 minutes ago, ug_might said:

You can clear the blocking unit with Cav from behind. Getting the Ohios across trickers the phase change as does crossing the road with any unit. This is how it looked, consistent with multiple tries:

Ok, clearing with cav seems fine. Getting the Ohio units across would not have been, so all good there.

1 hour ago, ug_might said:

You can choose to not be in control of the Hill when the counter attack starts? I never tried it, might be even worth it staying behind the river.

Yes, don't lose immediately if you end the phase without it. But I think you only have until the contested timer to take it back(not 100% certain on this.) 

1 hour ago, ug_might said:

How is the reinforcement determined anyway? This is after Malvern Hill, forefalls first attempt compared to mine: https://imgur.com/a/cvMvLH1

 

The enemy forcer was pretty similar on both sides and it did better than him on this run. He got a very good reinforcement draw with just 33.8k men. I tried multiple times to get a somewhat similar result but the best I can get is the one listed – 39.6k men.

 

Am I being punished for getting a better result?

After the battle the level of the AI size, AI training, and AI weapons are checked against expected timeline values. This affects the chances of which type of reinforcement will be generated. Recruits will always be generated, but there is also a chance that either officers, weapons, or veterans get selected.

There is randomization involved in the troop amounts, and if you kill enough to push the Ai size below the minimum, the reinforcement amount will be boosted to bring it back up to the minimum. But in this case you're still keeping them at the minimum, so the size of the reinforcement number doesn't matter.

Also in general the AI size only has a relatively small effect on scaling. A change of 5k is so small that it might as well be 0. It's when it starts to build up by 30-40k+ over the minimum that it starts having noticeable affects.

[PatriotASR]

2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

If a unit is exhausted, morale is capped at 50%(steady). If you have a negative penalty to morale from reputation, this reduces your morale stat and also your morale cap in battle. This can result in a unit being stuck at wavering for an extended period. 

Are you sure your condition isn't going up at all over time? Are you continuing to fire and reload while you wait? Or is the unit actually resting? Especially for snipers with long reload time weapons you can wear them out relatively quickly if you are firing and moving constantly.

Multiple players have commented on crampton's gap, so an extra 30 minutes is getting added to that battle in the next patch. You can increase the timerRecommendedMultiplier to 1.2 to replicate this until the patch comes out. I'm not sure what you'd need to set the endofDayMultiplier to exactly, but maybe try 1.05.

The things you describe make sense. I probably did all that. I managed to win today, but the casulaties were 3000 v 8000, a little too much for my taste. The 30 minutes will help so we don't need to rush as much and keep the losses down.

 

EDIT: One more question for you. Wouldn't it make more sense that in exchange for captured troops you get veterans? Even if some are wounded or badly wounded? That would make it feel more like a prisoner exchange...

Edited September 29, 2022 by PatriotASR

[pandakraut]

7 hours ago, PatriotASR said:

EDIT: One more question for you. Wouldn't it make more sense that in exchange for captured troops you get veterans? Even if some are wounded or badly wounded? That would make it feel more like a prisoner exchange...

Potentially yes, but the follow-up there would be that the stats would need to come from your veterans, which requires you to actually lose units to captures before you can have an exchange.

Other options do exist, but at the moment the veteran pool seems pretty healthy as is from what I've seen. But it's something that we'll keep in mind in the future.

[PatriotASR]

13 hours ago, pandakraut said:

Potentially yes, but the follow-up there would be that the stats would need to come from your veterans, which requires you to actually lose units to captures before you can have an exchange.

Other options do exist, but at the moment the veteran pool seems pretty healthy as is from what I've seen. But it's something that we'll keep in mind in the future.

Couldn't those stats be taken from the men gone missing during battles? I know you get some of them back, but it wouldn't it make sense that (at least some of) the rest become prisoners?

Just an idea. I agree with you that the veteran situation is much better dealt with then in the vanilla, althou I miss creting dozens of 3* from a few really got veterans - but that was cheesy.

 

[PatriotASR]

I thought I was supposed to be the attacker at Antietam. Every single CSA unit split and the rebel horde is overrunning my positions.

[pandakraut]

17 minutes ago, PatriotASR said:

I thought I was supposed to be the attacker at Antietam. Every single CSA unit split and the rebel horde is overrunning my positions.

Looks like the AI took advantage of some insufficiently supported artillery  

May have to adapt prior approaches to this battle a bit.

Edited September 30, 2022 by pandakraut

[PatriotASR]

6 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

Looks like the AI took advantage of some insufficiently supported artillery  

May have to adapt prior approaches to this battle a bit.

I did that and it helped. Then I went for a flaking move and discovered he deployed his skirmisher in just the right spot to stop me.

Before the Ai stopped me by sheer numbers. In 1.28 they have somehow become smarter. Credit to you guys, you made one hell of a mod.

[ws7]

I don't remember how it was in vanilla, but I'm worried about the automatic increase of the enemy army .... 40k in the forecast, turn into 100k on the field ... this is in the second boss battle ... (+Anti-ballast evil rule )

as I understand it, AIscaling-multipliers directly increase the enemy's army according to the formula: divide the player's army by the base for the current battle and multiply by a AIscaling? so as your army grows, better weapon quality and more experience... AI gets the same bonuses... which completely loses the meaning of progress for me...

it is more convenient to have the formula enemy army = base + player's army multiply AIscaling ... then for those like me who want to fight with their formations against a predetermined army of the enemy, it will be convenient to set the AIscaling 0 and the game will work ... because now at 0 - the army of AI is destroyed

thanks for your mod, I played previous versions a few years ago, now it's much better, but auto-leveling annoys me

[pandakraut]

17 hours ago, ws7 said:

I don't remember how it was in vanilla, but I'm worried about the automatic increase of the enemy army .... 40k in the forecast, turn into 100k on the field ... this is in the second boss battle ... (+Anti-ballast evil rule )

Not quite sure which numbers you are referring to here. By forecast do you mean the army size listed on the campaign screen recon report? Or on the pre-battle corps deploy screen? The recon report number is basically a snowball factor, it's not an actual indicator or limiter of how many men the AI will deploy in a given battle.

The pre-battle corps deploy numbers should be roughly accurate. They don't factor in potential splits, but even with very bad luck that shouldn't result in more than a 10% change most of the time. 

By second boss battle do you mean Shiloh? 100k is significantly more than is normal on legendary unless you are doing something to massively scale up the AI units.

What is your average infantry unit size? What is your largest infantry unit? What difficulty are you on? If you built a 4k unit or something like that it could explain these numbers.

17 hours ago, ws7 said:

as I understand it, AIscaling-multipliers directly increase the enemy's army according to the formula: divide the player's army by the base for the current battle and multiply by a AIscaling? so as your army grows, better weapon quality and more experience... AI gets the same bonuses... which completely loses the meaning of progress for me...

The scaling algorithm is considerably more complex than what you are describing. Turning it off entirely results in wildly unbalanced battles, some harder and some easier because the default sizes were entered with the expectation that they would be modified.

What the AIscalingSizeMultiplier config option does is apply a multiplier to whatever the final size of a unit would be as determined by scaling. So for example if scaling determines a unit should be 3,000 and you have changed the config value to be .8, then the resulting unit size would be 2,400. 

My general recommendation is build the army you want to build, if the difficulty is too much just adjust the multiplier down a bit to what feels reasonable. Also, unit size is rarely the highest priority. Stats and perks are far more important, size just tends to give you more durability.

Enemy weapons and experience do not scale off the player army in any way.

17 hours ago, ws7 said:

it is more convenient to have the formula enemy army = base + player's army multiply AIscaling ... then for those like me who want to fight with their formations against a predetermined army of the enemy, it will be convenient to set the AIscaling 0 and the game will work ... because now at 0 - the army of AI is destroyed

thanks for your mod, I played previous versions a few years ago, now it's much better, but auto-leveling annoys me

The mod tries to support players who like to play with a variety of unit sizes. Some players like to play with 1k infantry, some like 6k. This only works if the AI units adjust somewhat against what the player is using. Because of this, the scaling has been modified to try to keep the AI roughly in the same size range as the player. So if you build only 1k units you normally won't face units larger than 2-3k(some battles can be exceptions on higher difficulties.) If you are building 3k units you'll probably be facing 4-5k units depending on difficulty.

The anti-ballast change was designed to prevent players from exploiting this and building a few 6k units while the rest of their army was 1k. As long as you aren't building units more than 2k bigger than your average unit size this won't have any affect.

We are also working on an experimental mode where the AI actually doesn't scale and instead has its sizes determined by campaign date. Player units are limited to the same sizes. This system has significant flaws and ends up being harder than the scaling system in many cases, but if you have trouble disconnecting the idea that changing your army can change the AI's then it seems to be the solution. A test version that includes this mode is available on the discord, full release is probably still a few weeks away at best.

[ws7]

staticMode? Yes! you are geniuses (both) this is what I needed. Briefly tested 1.28.3t8, now the enemies are of adequate size, thank you very much!

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Enemy weapons and experience do not scale off the player army in any way.

AIscalingExperienceMultiplier, =0 AIscalingWeaponMultiplier, =0 - with the staticMode ON  will it mean that the game uses the base/on date parameters, or will it reset the values to (0 exp level units/commander and only cheap muskets and 6 pdr)?

and lastly, I will not take up your time anymore (I will look into your discord more often):

is there any way to make the guns fire only the canister (ban on waste shell-fire)? it is probably difficult to remake the interface like this, but then may be a way to make duplicates for some guns, with a limited firing radius? Or is it also divided by an internal game-engine algorithm into shell and canister?

thanks for your answers and good luck!

 

 

[PatriotASR]

I have 2 questions for you who play 1.28

1. What 3* do you pick for your general? I usually go for cover, but the exp add seems good as well, how does that work? Does every unit in the range of the general get a 25% boost to exp?

2. Anyone have any good tips for Parker's crossing and Stones river? Parker's crossing was a pain before, but now it's just a drain on manpower with his 3* skirmishers firing on me from all angles. I get a 1.5 or 2:1 kill ratio, but lossing 4k men in a battle like this is a pain. At Stones river I allways manged to hold the right flank and drain the enemy, then counter and sweep them off the field. Now the Cav is outflaking me and even their rifle cav is charging my skirmishers in the woods. I will try some other things, but if anyone has any good ideas Iam open.