mod UI and AI Customizations Mod V1.9.2

[TechnoSarge]

I'm not sure they do... but at any rate, I find myself noticing a message and reaching for it with my mouse when it goes away.  [Situational Awareness!]

[grenadier98]

Hi there. If I'm not mistaken the artillerie's Logistic perk seems not to work in the mod. I've done some two tests where I had brigades of the same guns and the same number of guns fire on targetes and their ammo dropped equally fast. One brigade had the perk the other had none. I've tested it twice, the result was the same. I guess I'll go with the stamina perk for my artillery for now on. The perk seemed to work without the mod where I had done the same test.

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, grenadier98 said:

Hi there. If I'm not mistaken the artillerie's Logistic perk seems not to work in the mod. I've done some two tests where I had brigades of the same guns and the same number of guns fire on targetes and their ammo dropped equally fast. One brigade had the perk the other had none. I've tested it twice, the result was the same. I guess I'll go with the stamina perk for my artillery for now on. The perk seemed to work without the mod where I had done the same test.

This is an issue from the base game that I'm unable to fix. The perk works if you create a new unit and immediately start a battle. It stops working as soon as you restart a battle, go back to camp, load a save, etc. I considered replacing the perk entirely since it's not reliable, but there isn't an obvious bonus to replace it with, so I left it as is. Unfortunately just not picking the perk is the solution at the moment.

Maybe I should just update the description with a big does not work warning message...

Edited August 2, 2019 by pandakraut

[pandakraut]

Added a screenshot of what the resulting damage curves look like as units grow larger with the mod changes .

Edited August 6, 2019 by pandakraut

[grenadier98]

On 8/2/2019 at 6:22 PM, pandakraut said:

This is an issue from the base game that I'm unable to fix. The perk works if you create a new unit and immediately start a battle. It stops working as soon as you restart a battle, go back to camp, load a save, etc. I considered replacing the perk entirely since it's not reliable, but there isn't an obvious bonus to replace it with, so I left it as is. Unfortunately just not picking the perk is the solution at the moment.

Maybe I should just update the description with a big does not work warning message...

Thanks, do you have any more advice which perks to take? I took endurance Endurance/Physical Training on all my units as the first perk and Marksman on my two star infantry so far. Not sure if Firearms might be better.

[pandakraut]

20 minutes ago, grenadier98 said:

Thanks, do you have any more advice which perks to take? I took endurance Endurance/Physical Training on all my units as the first perk and Marksman on my two star infantry so far. Not sure if Firearms might be better.

For infantry, I basically always take the speed perk at t1 and the accuracy bonus at t2. Some players prefer the reloading bonus at t2. My goal is to never be in a situation where I am firing at one target long enough for the faster reload time to be useful. I'd rather have the higher up front damage from the +accuracy.

[Percon]

Doesn't work for me, first ever try, it launches from Steam, I see the icon pop up on the bar, black screen in game mouse curor, and that's it. 

 

It works, just had to close the Steam, and start it again.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Percon

[gimli]

Hi Pandakraut. I am persistently following your CSA campaign on youtube . I'd say I am impressed by your smaller brigade sizes and tactics you use them. I could not replicate your impressive results yet but I am on it! 

Just written to support your cause. Thanks and go for it. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by gimli

[TechnoSarge]

Of vanilla/surrender/rebalance/UI&AI modes, I like UI&AI best, at least at present. I choose to play BG because I'm not trying to be best Ultimate General player ever - I just want to have a generally victorious time with a few close calls along the way. I do very little to exploit the AI except to raid its rear, since I like fighting in a generally period style.

For my present campaign, I've hit on this to try: I'm not going to allow any infantry brigades to exceed 1-star. I'm a small-unit, skirmisher & artillery-minded guy, like PK, and I'll let them grow experience as much as possible.  My cavalry generally is disposable (and if I lose a whole unit, it's always my cavalry!)

Restricting my infantry's experience should really make the battles more iffy for me. I just won Shiloh as Union on Day 1 and got 15 of my 24 brigades promoted to their first star in the battle. Off and running!

Edited August 29, 2019 by TechnoSarge
clarification

[pandakraut]

An interesting limitation, hope you have fun with it.

[TechnoSarge]

Update to my intentions above to run a campaign with low-experience infantry....

The campaign has been surprisingly easy! Until recently, scaling kept the other side in packages that could be handled. Limiting myself in experience means that re-equipping after a fight is not nearly so expensive. In fact, until Chickamauga (as Union) I did not spend a single point on Training! I also limited myself to 1,000 man brigades until recently.

When I finish the campaign, I'll give some stats about what I saw from the AI.

[pandakraut]

Updates for V1.8:

I decided to deviate a bit from the core focus of this mod and address some of the more notable balance issues in the game. The majority of these can all be disabled if you prefer the quality of life features along with the original balance.

Optional Balance Changes

- Reattaching skirmishers is now on a cooldown. When skirmishers are detached, the reattach button will be disabled for approximately 10 in game minutes. Unfortunately I am unable to add a visual cooldown indicator beyond graying out the icon.
- Shattered units return to camp. Configurable using returnShatteredUnits.
- Infantry units no longer have a damage penalty in fortifications(now matches all other unit types). Configurable using removeInfantryFortificationPenalty.
- Artillery counter battery logic now configurable using improveArtilleryTargetting.
- Artillery counter battery will now only activate if nearest target is not within 700 range.
- Allied units will now return a percentage(varies by difficulty) of weapons for men alive at the end of the battle. 
- Allied units will now return a lower percentage(varies by difficulty) of weapons for men killed.
- Allied unit weapon recovery changes are configurable using enableSurvivingAlliesWeaponReturn.
- Weapon return rate from captured units reduced slightly for all difficulties.
- Skirmisher melee strength reduced slightly.
- AI Charge logic updated to better account for efficiency, firearms, and accuracy perks when determining melee and fire power.
- Surrender chance now increases when an officer is wounded or the unit has low condition. 
- Units can now make surrender checks when allied units are nearby.
- Surrender logic changes are configurable using enableSurrenderLogicUpdates.
- Fire at will volley time when a unit is wavering has been significantly shortened. This will result in units spending less time standing in place firing sporadically. This is configurable using fireAtWillMin and fireAtWillMax.
- Melee damage penalty when engaging multiple units has been changed from 25% to 45%. Setting up 2v1 melee engagements is still beneficial but it should be less possible for two smaller units to beat a larger unit under normal circumstances. This is configurable using meleeMultiplePenalty.
- Melee penalty when routing or wavering increased. Routing units will now inflict less damage in melee. This is configurable using moraleMeleeRouting and moraleMeleeWavering.

Edited October 2, 2019 by pandakraut

[TechnoSarge]

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

- Melee damage penalty when engaging multiple units has been changed from 25% to 45%. Setting up 2v1 melee engagements is still beneficial but it should be less possible for two smaller units to beat a larger unit under normal circumstances. This is configurable using meleeMultiplePenalty.

This is counterintuitive... so is it right? The large unit engaged with 2 smaller gets a larger penalty, so should crack easier, not harder.

[pandakraut]

6 minutes ago, TechnoSarge said:

This is counterintuitive... so is it right? The large unit engaged with 2 smaller gets a larger penalty, so should crack easier, not harder.

So in the base game if any unit is engaged with multiple units it deals 25% of its normal damage to all units it is in contact with. This means that two very small units will usually win a melee with a unit that is considerably larger than them. You can basically ensure that you will win any melee by detaching skirmishers as the units collide to trigger the bonus. This mechanic also lets units with much less experience consistently beat 3* units in melee.

Because of the above I changed the modifier so that a unit engaged with multiple units will deal 45% of it's normal damage to both units. From what I've seen in testing this allows a larger more experienced unit to beat two smaller less experienced units, but as the strength of the units involved becomes more equal the advantage will swing towards the multiple units.

[TechnoSarge]

Never knew about the exploit - and don't use it. I'll run detached skirmishers into artillery I catch unaware, but I expect skirmishers to have lousy melee numbers so I don't generally launch attacks with them.

I understand the mechanic now, and I agree on the outcome.

[pandakraut]

Updates for V1.8.1:

Adjusted infantry damage modifier for fortifications so that early and mid game fortifications are improved but late game fortification damage is unchanged. removeInfantryFortificationPenalty still allows turning off this change entirely.

[TechnoSarge]

Pandakraut, I've been thinking about revisiting my spreadsheets on weapon effectiveness. The mouse tool tips for the weapons were changed by you to provide better information some time ago...   Please tell me:

1) Are the degradation curves the same as formerly? (My impression was that you couldn't modify them.)

2) Formerly, some of the rifles were listed with ranges > 300 yds; now, only certain skirmisher weapons do. I seem to remember that the game actually limited them, although the curves showed nonzero data out further. Please clarify for me. 

3) Your UI tool tips now list Short, Medium, Long, and Max "Damage Multipliers" (which I believe is same as Degradation). What are the breakpoints for these? And are cannons rated the same way?

[pandakraut]

4 hours ago, TechnoSarge said:

Pandakraut, I've been thinking about revisiting my spreadsheets on weapon effectiveness. The mouse tool tips for the weapons were changed by you to provide better information some time ago...   Please tell me:

1) Are the degradation curves the same as formerly? (My impression was that you couldn't modify them.)

2) Formerly, some of the rifles were listed with ranges > 300 yds; now, only certain skirmisher weapons do. I seem to remember that the game actually limited them, although the curves showed nonzero data out further. Please clarify for me. 

3) Your UI tool tips now list Short, Medium, Long, and Max "Damage Multipliers" (which I believe is same as Degradation). What are the breakpoints for these? And are cannons rated the same way?

1) Weapon curves are unchanged in this mod. I can replace the base game curves entirely or modify the values pulled out of them, but that's only done in the Rebalance mod.

2) All ranges showed in the tooltips should now be accurate to the weapons actual range. This means that most muskets/rifles have range 300. Whitworths, sharps, JF Browns, and hunters have > 300 and most carbines have < 300.

3) These display the value on the curve at .25x, .5x, .75x, and 1x weapons range. Especially in the case of artillery the specific range will vary by cannon since the effective ranges differ. Artillery also display the value at range 100 to help show canister performance.

[TechnoSarge]

Thanks!

[Gerard]

Hi Pandakraut,

Is there a way to alter how scaling works? I would like to increase scaling on BG difficulty so that the player consistently is facing larger AI armies than you are able to field.

 

[pandakraut]

13 hours ago, Gerard said:

Hi Pandakraut,

Is there a way to alter how scaling works? I would like to increase scaling on BG difficulty so that the player consistently is facing larger AI armies than you are able to field.

 

Here is a test version which adds two config options.

enableAISizeMultiplier: set to true to enable

AISizeMultiplier: set to the value you want to multiply all AI unit sizes by. This will override scaling. Max unit size is still the normal caps.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/14xfaxgemw15mzm/CustomizationsModV1.8.2Test.zip?dl=0

[Gerard]

Wow thats great, quick question, will that override the enemy force pool?  I've set the enableAIsizemultiplier to true and the value to 3 but I'm not seeing any diference to the size of the units I'm facing.

timerMultiplier, 1
endOfDayMultiplier, 1
replaceSizeDegradationCurves, true
improveArtilleryTargetting, true
fireAtWillMin, 5
fireAtWillMax, 30
meleeMultiplePenalty, .45
removeInfantryFortificationPenalty, true
enableSurvivingAlliesWeaponReturn, true
enableSurrenderLogicUpdates, true
enableChargelLogicUpdates, true
enableAttachSkirmisherCooldown, true
returnShatteredUnits, true
moraleMeleeRouting, .5
moraleMeleeWavering, .65
enableAISizeMultiplier, true
AISizeMultiplier, 3

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, Gerard said:

Wow thats great, quick question, will that override the enemy force pool?  I've set the enableAIsizemultiplier to true and the value to 3 but I'm not seeing any diference to the size of the units I'm facing.

timerMultiplier, 1
endOfDayMultiplier, 1
replaceSizeDegradationCurves, true
improveArtilleryTargetting, true
fireAtWillMin, 5
fireAtWillMax, 30
meleeMultiplePenalty, .45
removeInfantryFortificationPenalty, true
enableSurvivingAlliesWeaponReturn, true
enableSurrenderLogicUpdates, true
enableChargelLogicUpdates, true
enableAttachSkirmisherCooldown, true
returnShatteredUnits, true
moraleMeleeRouting, .5
moraleMeleeWavering, .65
enableAISizeMultiplier, true
AISizeMultiplier, 3

It will ignore the force pool. It's a straight multiplier to the number of men in each unit. Can you try a larger number or something like 0.1 to make sure the size changes? If it's not there's either a package or an install issue.

[Gerard]

It was open office doing wierd formatting things.

Ok that works like a charm now, I'm now facing units of 2950 instead of 1000 at Fredericksberg, thanks so much!

[pandakraut]

7 hours ago, Gerard said:

It was open office doing wierd formatting things.

Ok that works like a charm now, I'm now facing units of 2950 instead of 1000 at Fredericksberg, thanks so much!

Great! If you run into any issues let me know, otherwise I'll fold it into the released version in a week or two.