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CSA Career Points help needed


LAVA

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7 hours ago, Ouwe Knar said:

I looked this game up in steam .

Interesting it is*

is the date for available on steam somehow set or ?

I started playing UG back in April in this year on Apple iMac.

It is the best ACW game out there.

To win you have to be as good in the Barracks as a General in a battle or Campaign.

It is very addictive. Good graphics and very well thought out. A few unexpected surprises along the way. Makes it even better!

But don’t necessarily expect to win a Campaign  at the first attempt. The Barrack’s side of the game is very important. If you don’t get it right you will find the Campaign impossible to win.

The time spent in the Barracks will pay off when on the battlefield.

As I say it’s the best ACW game.

All credit to those involved in its development.

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The campaigns are a grind as well. The difference is that you don't always go forward. Sometimes you suffer setbacks.

With my history of playing ACW games going back to Sid Meier's Gettysburg and and including the Scourge of War Civil War engine (I was a tester for their first game Take Command 1861 The Battle of 1st Bull Run) that this game is by far the best I have ever played. Incredibly addictive.

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Given the fact that I was able to not only recover my army after Antietam but actually increase it before the next Grand Battle at Fredericksburg has given my the confidence that I am on the right track.

I will soon start a new thread and posting videos of this campaign. Like to thank ya'll for your recommendations, especially pandakraut. You've been a great help, mate.

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On 10/27/2018 at 5:13 AM, LAVA said:

Just fought Fredericksburg. My Army of 43 brigades had 38,396 men and 128 guns... which is larger than the one I brought to Antietam (40 brigades with 36,505 men and 106 guns). The Union army had 95,178 men and 254 guns. I lost 10,138 men and 3 guns. The Yanks lost 47,978 men and 46 guns. 

 

This is a great illustration of my aggresion problem... :) At Fredericksburg I had 32,000 soldiers versus 105000 union army. I won, Union lost 65000 soldiers, but... i lost 15000.

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On 10/27/2018 at 4:13 AM, LAVA said:

One of the points most folks still won't accept is that by destroying whole units and armies, you reduce the quality of your enemy. At Weapons Factory I not only completely destroyed the entire Union army, I captured 5 2 star brigades. You will notice that the AI will always focus on your better units, and the player must do the same. Because of the battle at Antietam and Weapons Factory, at Fredericksburg the great majority of the Union infantry was 1 star. Yep, there were a handful of 3 stars, but I believe those are hard coded into the battle (and I obliterated a number of them). There was also a few 2 star artillery brigades but a lot of 1 star brigades as well. If you get to the point where your adversary is putting lots of 3 star units on the battlefield... you're going to have a hard time.

As an aside, I won my Legendary Union Campaign with a K/D ratio of around 3.1 to 1. My feeling is that to win the Legendary Confederate Campaign I am going to need at least 4 to 1. That fits historically with demographics of the time.

Just fought Fredericksburg. My Army of 43 brigades had 38,396 men and 128 guns... which is larger than the one I brought to Antietam (40 brigades with 36,505 men and 106 guns). The Union army had 95,178 men and 254 guns. I lost 10,138 men and 3 guns. The Yanks lost 47,978 men and 46 guns. Because of medicine (which is at 10) when I returned to Camp, my army was not 27,000 men (38,000 - 10,000), but 29,126 men and 126 guns. Medicine not only saved me 2,000 men, but their experience and weapons as well. I have close to 33,000 recruits in reserve. I have 9,000 rifles in my armory and the reputation to buy another 3,500. Wouldn't be surprised to see my army at 40,000 for the next Grand Battle at Stones River. So, yes, Career Points do make a difference.. a critical one. So at this point, without having spent my 2 points from Fredericksburg, I have Politics 3, Economy 6, Medicine 10, Training 5, AO 9 and Logistics 2. I never spend points on recon. At present I view Economy and Training as both equally important so I will be splitting my Career Points equally between them until they both hit 10.

Hi,

I definitely get it. Re destroying as much of the enemy as possible.

I used your advice when winning the Campaign on BG as the CSA.

Now using it, playing as the Union. On BG.

Thanks for the advice. It works 👍

 

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On 10/26/2018 at 11:13 PM, LAVA said:

One of the points most folks still won't accept is that by destroying whole units and armies, you reduce the quality of your enemy. At Weapons Factory I not only completely destroyed the entire Union army, I captured 5 2 star brigades. You will notice that the AI will always focus on your better units, and the player must do the same. Because of the battle at Antietam and Weapons Factory, at Fredericksburg the great majority of the Union infantry was 1 star. Yep, there were a handful of 3 stars, but I believe those are hard coded into the battle (and I obliterated a number of them). There was also a few 2 star artillery brigades but a lot of 1 star brigades as well. If you get to the point where your adversary is putting lots of 3 star units on the battlefield... you're going to have a hard time.

Missed this post when it first came out, but it's definitely worth highlighting. Kill counts to the point of wiping out the enemy army in battles will noticeably impact the three intelligence report values if you compare to a campaign with a lower kill count one. This is why you can find people facing 80-90k at CSA Antietam vs 150k+. I haven't found anything to suggest that killing higher experience units or completely destroying units has any particular bonus, though it could certainly be there and I just haven't found it. In practical terms I don't think it matters a lot since the goal is usually to clear the map whenever possible anyways.

Unit stats frequently end up well over 100 when the hardcoded battle values are combined with the legendary difficulty. Dropping a unit to 2 stars requires getting their stat average down below 70 so as you noticed sometimes you're just going to face 3 stars no matter what you do.

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Unfortunately, this is not a linear kinda thing, so it is hard to point to firm evidence that wiping out units really has an effect. The waters are muddied by 3 other factors which are not in control of the player... that is first, there are hard coded units which are going to appear, no matter what you do (the Iron Brigade for example), second, troops who survive shattering return to the recruit pool with their experience and third, there are resets when you are doing too well. That is why you might read a captured message which reads "We are sending you 15,000 of the most advanced weapons." Or "We are sending you one of our best Corps from the West."

If you watched my Union Legendary Campaign, in which I slaughtered the Rebs at every turn, you will notice that by the time I get to Richmond, though there are tons of Confederate troops,  however, the majority of them are one stars.

This is much more difficult to do as the Confederacy. For example, when I fought the Battle of Shiloh, I concentrated on preserving my own force and attempting to use my AI NPC troops to do most of the hard work. I caused the Yanks 21,000 casualties, but they had an Army of 73,000 men, the majority of whom were 1 star units. That means that over 50,0000 Union troops (plus who knows how many that survived shattering) walked away from the battle with lots of experience and sure enough during the next 3 minor battles before Gaines Mill, every single Yankee unit was 2 stars. So I wipe them out at 1st Winchester and Port Republic. At Cross Keys I destroy 14,000 of their 20,000 troops. So even though I kill off 34,000 men in those battles, when I show up for Gaines Mill, sure enough, there are all 2 star units.

To achieve the results I am talking about I had a 3.1 to 1 kill death ratio playing the Yanks. To do the same thing as the Confederates I believe you must have something like 4 if not 5 to 1. 

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As best I can tell from the code the reinforcement types are random. The troop numbers just go up the more you kill. I also haven't found anything to suggest AI units actually retain experience between battles. But regardless of how it actually works, the end result is definitely as you describe.

The CSA campaign is definitely interesting in that it's significantly harder to full clear every map. I've contemplated going to day 2 on Shiloh to try it, but it just never seemed worth the cost. I'll probably try it next time with the goal of sacrificing all allied troops to get through the fortifications. Or maybe there is a way to setup a defensive line, will have to see. Same thing for Chickamauga and day 3.

While the side battles can all generally be cleared, the grand battles present some issues. Stones River, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Cold Harbor all seem like battles were achieving that result is prohibitively expensive. If not in casualties, certainly in time. The terrain and timers are just frequently very unfavorable. I guess in some ways this is a positive, as the Union campaign kind of falls apart at the end in terms of difficulty.

You may be interested in this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/502520/discussions/0/1735468693702520499/ and specifically this spreadsheet where someone was tracking k/d in legendary campaigns. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1svjXFym5Yw2k8Vhf38g1lqHkVuwnvV8k-GUZ0GtUZ44/edit#gid=148388156

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2 minutes ago, LAVA said:

Those spreedsheets were pretty eye opening. 

Back to rethinking again...

Just make sure you aren't comparing against the MG numbers as there are several tabs for that difficulty as well. Also frequently only infantry casualties are listed rather than total casualties so the results look better than they actually are in some cases.

Edited by pandakraut
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Notice how at Gaines Mill all the Yankees are 2 stars. At the next battle (Mulvern Hill), the Union has a couple 3 star infantry, the majority are 2 star, but there a few 1 star infantry and a bunch of 1 star artillery... which I go out of my way to destroy.

The problem as you say, is that there are certain battles where you just can't get the result you want... but I believe if you hammer them when you can, you will see a difference.

I would also think that though folks from shattered units may not return into the recruit pool, given the AI is playing using the same system as us, then there is a certain percentage of troops being returned to their brigades via medicine.

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2 hours ago, LAVA said:

I would also think that though folks from shattered units may not return into the recruit pool, given the AI is playing using the same system as us, then there is a certain percentage of troops being returned to their brigades via medicine.

I can definitely confirm that shattered troops do stay in the AI's pool. Getting a unit to surrender is the only way to subtract the entire unit size from the pool. That section of code is pretty clear.

The AI is definitely playing by different rules in this case, it doesn't use the career point system or any of its bonuses. Basically each battle has predefined troop sizes and attributes. These all get adjusted by a number of variables with the end result being that high kill counts will result in fewer and less experienced AI units.

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1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

I can definitely confirm that shattered troops do stay in the AI's pool. Getting a unit to surrender is the only way to subtract the entire unit size from the pool. That section of code is pretty clear.

The AI is definitely playing by different rules in this case, it doesn't use the career point system or any of its bonuses. Basically each battle has predefined troop sizes and attributes. These all get adjusted by a number of variables with the end result being that high kill counts will result in fewer and less experienced AI units.

That's what I thought. Thanks!

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  • 1 year later...

I am having trouble with economy (and medicine) career points. It seems that they are not working. I am not receiving any discount on armory. With 10% discount, e.g. a basic Springfield gun should cost 9$ instead of 10$ when buying but it costs 10$ as without discount. It is strange since other career attributes (army organization, recon, etc.) are working. Is there something that I do not understand properly about economy career points system or is there some issue in the game?

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32 minutes ago, Mitja said:

I am having trouble with economy (and medicine) career points. It seems that they are not working. I am not receiving any discount on armory. With 10% discount, e.g. a basic Springfield gun should cost 9$ instead of 10$ when buying but it costs 10$ as without discount. It is strange since other career attributes (army organization, recon, etc.) are working. Is there something that I do not understand properly about economy career points system or is there some issue in the game?

Just to confirm, you are applying the career points prior to checking the prices? If the points aren't locked in no bonus is assigned. Otherwise, the bonuses definitely work though rounding does sometimes make it seem like the addition of one point isn't doing anything for certain weapons.

The only way to see the return from medicine is to compare your post battle results casualties with the number of men in your units in camp. 

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