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

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

My favorite preference would be as you posted above, to have a controllable separate unit just like the Corps Commander. If this isn't possible, can his picture be shown on the Army Icon Bar at the bottom of the screen when you click on the Division Line or bar? If you can make or create a separate unit representing the Divisions Commanders can you make more than one supply Wagon?

[TechnoSarge]

The game has never informed you that the officer casualty you're receiving notice of is a Division commander.  IMO, Division commanders are almost a waste in Ultimate General. You're penalized on Efficiency on brigades if he isn't ranked high enough, but he doesn't appear on the battlefield, has no perks, doesn't gain XP at anything like the rate the brigade commanders do, and is still subject to being shot.

(edit) Gosh! If they do make another Ultimate General game, I HOPE they read some of the commentary in these fora and learn what their customers think works and what doesn't work!

Edited November 13, 2018 by TechnoSarge

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

My favorite preference would be as you posted above, to have a controllable separate unit just like the Corps Commander. If this isn't possible, can his picture be shown on the Army Icon Bar at the bottom of the screen when you click on the Division Line or bar? If you can make or create a separate unit representing the Divisions Commanders can you make more than one supply Wagon?

The closest I think I could get would involve copying the corps commander and renaming him. Same with the supply wagons. Would have to think about possible side effects and benefits to doing anything like that though. Adding new elements into the UI is beyond me at the moment.

1 hour ago, TechnoSarge said:

The game has never informed you that the officer casualty you're receiving notice of is a Division commander.  IMO, Division commanders are almost a waste in Ultimate General. You're penalized on Efficiency on brigades if he isn't ranked high enough, but he doesn't appear on the battlefield, has no perks, doesn't gain XP at anything like the rate the brigade commanders do, and is still subject to being shot.

I might be able to change the message text to indicate it was a division commander. Likely issue is how many characters are displayable, will look into it.

Division commanders gain xp based on a percentage of all of the units they command. So if you put them in charge of several units likely to do very well you can speed it up a bit. Honestly in the mod I largely ignore them though, it's worth more to have the better officers doing other things until fairly late in the campaign. 

I have a long term project to try and make all officers a little more interesting, but my last attempt failed rather spectacularly so it's on hold at the moment. Will see if I ever get it working.

Edited November 13, 2018 by pandakraut

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

That's all anyone can ever expect, I for one hope that your endeavors meet with success, as that would be the pinnacle of the Officer Replacement part of your mod. One that not only would equal but surpass that achieved back then in Sid Meier's Gettysburg

[Wakelessrex]

Really enjoying your mod!!

As a fellow modder I appreciate the effort that has been put it. You guys are killin it. As usual, vanilla is uplayable now XD

 

As Napoleonics is my fave, and I here thats up next for Darth I hope you take that on as well :)

[i64man]

Guys, i started a new game with the latest version of the mod, and notice that my units move extremely slow, including my cavalry units. Is this normal?

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, i64man said:

Guys, i started a new game with the latest version of the mod, and notice that my units move extremely slow, including my cavalry units. Is this normal?

Probably, depending on what the last version that you played was. We reduced the base game speed a while back so the default speed is a little less than half as fast as the base game. A lot of the speed perks got reduced as well. Making frequent use of the fast forward and double fast forward buttons helps until you get more used to it.

The gamespeed can also be changed in the configuration files Mod/Rebalance/ConfigFile if you try it out and don't care for it.

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

Thanks pandakraut, if one was wanting to reset this speed setting, and it's at 2 now I think, does one make that number higher or lower? Do we use whole numbers or decimals? Is there also a setting to revert back the Reputation or Experience values for Officers? Halfway through the War and I got all colonels leading my Divisions.

[pandakraut]

35 minutes ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Thanks pandakraut, if one was wanting to reset this speed setting, and it's at 2 now I think, does one make that number higher or lower? Do we use whole numbers or decimals?

Base game value is 5. I've never tried decimals, unsure if they would work.

36 minutes ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Is there also a setting to revert back the Reputation or Experience values for Officers? Halfway through the War and I got all colonels leading my Divisions.

There is not, this is stored in the assets file. Midway through having mostly colonels is about right for the mod's intended balance. This will vary a bit depending on difficulty(more men to kill to gain xp) and player ability to kill everything available. The closest you can get is changing the xp gain which will have the side effect of increasing officer xp gain.

unitModifiers.csv

modded values: 

killsPerEffectivity,350
killsPerMelee,125
movePerStamina,1700
shootPerFirearms,700
timePerMorale,4000

base game values:

killsPerEffectivity, 150
killsPerMelee, 25 
movePerStamina, 1000 
shootPerFirearms, 5 
timePerMorale, 1800

[philip79]

Don't you think, that will be a good idea take same gameplay configuration from Sid's Meyer Gettysburg, especialy about units morale cofigurations,

- in civil war most of units was green and its morale was very low.

- artillery flanking fire, is a devastating for morale, esspecialy when regiment dont have covered flank

- flanking charge of cavalry can do a panic for a whole green regiments like domino effect.

- regiments with a full covered flanks and rear has a big buff of morale

- regiment without covered flank are very vurunerable for morale drop, not only from enemy fire, but even enemy movements on their flank.

I think this will be a more historically. In battles green regiment can flee even 2-3 salvo of fire from more experienced units in small distances, and can flee only when units starting a bayonet charge. Morale in green units was a very big problem.

What do u think about that?

 

ps. sry for my poor eng. :(

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

Thank You once again, I believe I understand all this.

Firstly, the Base Game speed, the larger the number the faster the game!

Secondly the deploySizeMultiplier, 1.2 this I also presume gets bigger the higher it goes, yet it doesn't seem to have much effect. Is it that it increases the number of units you can deploy to a scenario (doesn't seen to change this)? Or it does allow more, just does not show the change visually on the screen?

Third, the numbers for the experience fields get smaller, so again, I presume that means they need less XP to get more rep or rank?

[pandakraut]

51 minutes ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Secondly the deploySizeMultiplier, 1.2 this I also presume gets bigger the higher it goes, yet it doesn't seem to have much effect. Is it that it increases the number of units you can deploy to a scenario (doesn't seen to change this)? Or it does allow more, just does not show the change visually on the screen?

This config is really more for ease of testing. It does control the numbers of units that can deploy in each battle but it's a bit of a mess behind the scenes for various technical reasons. A lot of smaller deployment numbers are hard coded so not all battles will show changes.

56 minutes ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Third, the numbers for the experience fields get smaller, so again, I presume that means they need less XP to get more rep or rank?

killsPerEffectivity = number of kills to gain 1 point of the Effectiveness stat. The others use the same format. Reducing the numbers will result in units leveling faster. Officers level based on stats gained by their units so this will affect them as a by product.

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

8 minutes ago, philip79 said:

- in civil war most of units was green and its morale was very low.

Although I agree with you on the context of most of your statement, it's not quite as simple as that. In fact, the best charging and melee troops were often green troops who didn't understand the ramifications of their undertaking. In fact, the more troops gained experience in the War, the more reluctant they were to charge knowing the results that were being asked. The majority of the men of Pickett's Charge knew what was being asked of them, and were generally "Sobered" by it. They did it as they were too veteran and proud to do otherwise what was asked by R.E. Lee who they would never think of letting down. This is, of course, an extreme example as even Kemper, Armistead, and Longstreet all superb Generals and well experienced knew what a ghastly thing that was being asked of them because the distance was far too great.

A much better example was of the Georgia Militia at Milledgeville, where around 3500 Old Men and Young Boys charged at least three times uphill, against stout fortifications against Veterans Troops under Sherman. Leaving their casualties they finally retired. Upon the Union men coming out onto the field to acquire the spoils and booty, they were all horrified to find at least 600 dead, the majority of Georgia Military Institute Cadets. Its discovery lasted a long time in the memory of those hardened Veterans, who didn't see this as War, more like Instituted Murder. The bottom line is that Green Troops had usually way more Morale then Veterans who knew what was waiting for them!

[pandakraut]

3 hours ago, philip79 said:

Don't you think, that will be a good idea take same gameplay configuration from Sid's Meyer Gettysburg, especialy about units morale cofigurations,

- in civil war most of units was green and its morale was very low.

- artillery flanking fire, is a devastating for morale, esspecialy when regiment dont have covered flank

- flanking charge of cavalry can do a panic for a whole green regiments like domino effect.

- regiments with a full covered flanks and rear has a big buff of morale

- regiment without covered flank are very vurunerable for morale drop, not only from enemy fire, but even enemy movements on their flank.

I think this will be a more historically. In battles green regiment can flee even 2-3 salvo of fire from more experienced units in small distances, and can flee only when units starting a bayonet charge. Morale in green units was a very big problem.

What do u think about that?

 

ps. sry for my poor eng.

We are testing out some higher morale damage changes as well as systems to increase morale while flanked by nearby friendly units and reduce it when nearby friendly units are fleeing. Will be a while before anything is ready though.

Potentially also looking at higher experience gain with a much higher cost of veterans.

Edited November 18, 2018 by pandakraut

[philip79]

15 hours ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Although I agree with you on the context of most of your statement, it's not quite as simple as that. In fact, the best charging and melee troops were often green troops who didn't understand the ramifications of their undertaking. In fact, the more troops gained experience in the War, the more reluctant they were to charge knowing the results that were being asked. The majority of the men of Pickett's Charge knew what was being asked of them, and were generally "Sobered" by it. They did it as they were too veteran and proud to do otherwise what was asked by R.E. Lee who they would never think of letting down. This is, of course, an extreme example as even Kemper, Armistead, and Longstreet all superb Generals and well experienced knew what a ghastly thing that was being asked of them because the distance was far too great.

A much better example was of the Georgia Militia at Milledgeville, where around 3500 Old Men and Young Boys charged at least three times uphill, against stout fortifications against Veterans Troops under Sherman. Leaving their casualties they finally retired. Upon the Union men coming out onto the field to acquire the spoils and booty, they were all horrified to find at least 600 dead, the majority of Georgia Military Institute Cadets. Its discovery lasted a long time in the memory of those hardened Veterans, who didn't see this as War, more like Instituted Murder. The bottom line is that Green Troops had usually way more Morale then Veterans who knew what was waiting for them!

Yes, You have right.

About green units - I think, historically greater role to morale has a officers who can do a great things with morale of green soldiers on battlefields. Maybe, its a good idea try to raise a morale buffs when officers is in range, and the other side, bigger morale drop when green units its out of range, or when they dont have a flank cover, or have flanking fire, or close range fire, or ambush fire. They dont need a big losses to turn a whole regiment to a mass panic and retreat. Losses was a secondary problem, firsth is a morale. Sometimes whole regiments turn a panic without big losses, beacouse enemy open suprise fire in cover, on close distance, or small unit of cavalry do a raid on their flank.

Thats not all... the more tragically was a morale drop on the other regiments only when they see panic of regiment on their flank. And we have a "panic morale domino effect", when whole regiments, one by one in panic, when see retreating regiments on their flank. Thats why, I think the role of officers must be greater to hold and raise morale of units (mostly green). And the gameplay will by more interested :) ... Good planed raid of cavalry on enemy flank, or well planned ambush, can turn the battle result.

In Sid  Meyer Gettysbur was a similiar things.

What do You think about that?

 

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

Oh pandakraut, I think I'm going to cry!! I set those last 5 entries back to default in my "unitModifiers" (version 1.21) and after my next battle, the few Generals I had left got promoted to Colonels. I think I shall just give up, it is a real mess now. Remember way back, I said although I wanted a challenge I did not want so many frustrations, well I got it anyway. If I play vanilla I won't get anything else other then experience gains by my Generals, and after using the different versions of the mod, It just doesn't play anywhere near the same. Yet I can't get any experience ranks with any of the other versions (I really tried too) nor can I get the junior promotions with any other version other than 1.23a. Although I successfully modded or made other versions, including the UI and Customization mod, work better, and got good results, the lack of either the Junior Promotions or Rank experience gain eluded all my attempts to achieve together in the same version.

Quote

 

unit

[pandakraut]

Changing the unit modifier settings only affects the experience gain of units. This will result in your officers ranking up again sooner, but officers that end the battle under the modded xp caps will still get demoted if you are using old saves. The mod is designed to work by starting a new campaign so unfortunately there is no way to get around this when using old saves.

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

Thanks! There is still hope then, what was the first version that had the Junior Officers temporarily taking command from casualties of battle?

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet said:

Thanks! There is still hope then, what was the first version that had the Junior Officers temporarily taking command from casualties of battle?

That feature was added in 1.21.

[Lt. Gen. James Longstreet]

OK, Restarting again, 1.21I hope, thanks once again for all your help

 

[TechnoSarge]

I agree, Longstreet - the devolution of command to the next-ranking officer was prototypical and pretty automatic. Officers knew where they stood in seniority and news of a higher-level incapacitation led to the next in line stepping up.

The sudden and nearly complete loss of Efficiency in vanilla when an officer gets winged is a problem I'm glad the modders have solved.

[Smartg]

I wonder if another Mac user can help me figure out how to correctly install the mod.

The game version I have from Mac App Store is "Mac v 1.09 rev21399" (which is the most current on the Mac side) and the files from this mod (Assembly-CSharp.dll and resources.assets) are located on Mac versions within the actual application file.  And although I know how to access and copy those using right click and then selecting "Show Packages Contents" and then replacing the mod files, the app will always just crash as loading with the mod files added.

So if any Mac users of this mod could help me out I'd certainly appreciate it.

[pandakraut]

I don't have a Mac so my ability to help is rather limited. Here are the instructions I've gotten from other users in the past

1. In Steam, right click UGCW and select Properties.

2. Click local files, then select browse local files

3. right click 'Ultimate General Civil War' and select 'show package contents'

4. navigate (relative path) to /Contents/
   a) Place the 'Mod' folder in Contents/

5. navigate (relative path) to /Contents/Resources/Data/
   a) Copy the resources.assets file into /Data/
   b) Copy the /Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll file from the mod release into the /Managed/ folder, overwriting the existing file

[Smartg]

2 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I don't have a Mac so my ability to help is rather limited. Here are the instructions I've gotten from other users in the past

1. In Steam, right click UGCW and select Properties.

2. Click local files, then select browse local files

3. right click 'Ultimate General Civil War' and select 'show package contents'

4. navigate (relative path) to /Contents/
   a) Place the 'Mod' folder in Contents/

5. navigate (relative path) to /Contents/Resources/Data/
   a) Copy the resources.assets file into /Data/
   b) Copy the /Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll file from the mod release into the /Managed/ folder, overwriting the existing file

I appreciate the response.  I am basically doing 3 thru 5, unfortunately mine was purchased thru Apple's app store, not via Steam.  But, technically I am placing the files within the same place within the app (that's the part where you select 'show package contents'). 

The only thing I can think of is that for some reason the actual app is different on the Steam app store version than the Apple app store version and how it interacts with the modified files.  Again I'm using the latest version available on the Mac app store since like Steam it auto updates for me.

[pandakraut]

22 hours ago, Smartg said:

The only thing I can think of is that for some reason the actual app is different on the Steam app store version than the Apple app store version and how it interacts with the modified files.  Again I'm using the latest version available on the Mac app store since like Steam it auto updates for me.

There have been problems in the past with modded files not working with older versions of the game(steam is on 1.11). Hard to say if it's the version difference or something else with the file structure of the App Store install.

One thing you can try is downloading the GoG version and installing that instead. The steam dll has some steam specific code that fails if you don't have it installed, so it might work for you.