Question about artillery units with more than 12 guns

[drhanson]

While browsing the forums I've come across a few comments about how artillery units actually become less effective as the number of guns in the unit increases above 12.  According to those comments, a unit of 20 or so guns might actually perform worse than a 12-gun unit, while using up more ammunition.  I'm in my first campaign and have created some 23-gun 10 pdr. ordnance units, and I'm far enough into the campaign that those units have advanced to 1-star level.  So I have a 2-part question:

1.  The comments I saw about the declining effectiveness of large artillery units were from last year or earlier. Does that bug still exist?

2.   If so, what should I do with my 1-star 23-gun ordnance units?  Should I just keep using them as is, taking advantage of their increased experience and quality?  Or would I be farther ahead if I disbanded them and created 12-gun rookie units?

[Davek86]

1. The damage degradation curve are still in the game.

For some graphs take a look at this post: 

 

Incidentally that mod fixes the damage curves. It is a good mod, almost a unofficial patch. 

2.  Damage wise your 23 gun unit is equal to a 6 gun unit in killing power. However it has much more staying power since it is a much larger unit. Therefor I would arm them with something cheap, like a 6 pounder, and use it in extremely close range to support assaults on positions. During this close combat will the unit will likely lose man and guns, and thus become more effective ranged firepower. This way you preserve exp and stars. 

Disbanding your unit is a option since achieving one star is not too hard for a rookie unit. However there is better way. This depends on your manpower situation, if your manpower is zero and you then disband the one star units the newly available manpower retains the experience. When you than create a new artillery unit they will start with one star. 

To drain a large manpower pool create as many large infantry units as you can using weapons you have in stock or cheap ones. 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Davek86

[Byzantium]

1. Yes, batteries over 12 guns have diminished effectiveness - the exact size/damage curves are available courtesy of pandakraut here: 

2. You should be fine disbanding them and making new batteries, 1-star on artillery isn't a particularly huge amount of experience, even on the Union side (playing as the CSA, anything you form led by an officer of colonel or higher rank will begin at 1-star by default), and the penalty on large batteries is pretty severe, more than enough to swamp the benefits. 

[pandakraut]

1. It does still exist. There is a mod that fixes it along with some other issues if you want to go that route https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/25750-ui-and-ai-customizations-mod-v16/

2. The experience isn't going to make up for the penalties for a unit that size. The damage penalty on a unit that size makes it worse than a 6 gun unit. I would just disband them and make a new smaller unit. If you use an experienced colonel or BG the unit should start with the first star though it's stats will be lower than the original unit.

Your other option for disbanding is dependent on how many weapons and recruits you have. If you can use up your entire recruit pool and then disband your current units the men in the recruit pool will have the exact stats of the disbanded unit. You would then disband all of the extra units you created to clear the pool. This allows you to make new units without losing stats, but can be difficult to accomplish without spending a lot of money depending on your current situation. 

[drhanson]

43 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

1. It does still exist. There is a mod that fixes it along with some other issues if you want to go that route https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/25750-ui-and-ai-customizations-mod-v16/

Thank you very much for the very useful information.  There are several things in the mod that interest me, especially being able to see canister, shell, and shot ranges for artillery and the various effectiveness ranges for other weapons.  If I install this mod while in the middle of a campaign, will the changes take affect for that campaign without undoing my progress so far?  And are there instructions somewhere for installing the mod?

Edited January 15, 2019 by drhanson
Added question about installation

[pandakraut]

The main post for the mod has install instructions just above the links. Basically just find your ultimate general civil war_data folder and extract the files there. If you're not on windows or steam/gog it gets trickier though and not all versions of the game are supported unfortunately.

No issues with installing mid campaign. 

 

[drhanson]

4 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

The main post for the mod has install instructions just above the links. Basically just find your ultimate general civil war_data folder and extract the files there. If you're not on windows or steam/gog it gets trickier though and not all versions of the game are supported unfortunately.

No issues with installing mid campaign. 

 

Thank you very much.  Don't know why I didn't see the instructions myself; guess I was just too eager to click the link.