'Historical' Submod of J&P Rebalance mod, release thread

[adishee]

FILES IN SECOND POST

** Current Version: 1.3.6 **

This is the release thread of my 'Historical' mod for UGCW, a submod of the J&P Rebalance mod. I would like to first and foremost thank Pandakraut and Jonny for their (unduely) generous help in the beginning. Without their patience and help, this would have been completely impossible.

Synopsis:

The poorly-named 'Historical Submod' is, by now, a complete overhaul both of the base game but also of the J&P Rebalance Mod upon which it was originally based. It overhauls many perks, balance, mechanics, visuals and perhaps especially the command and control of units. The general idea of the mod is to make battles look and act more authentic; that is, slower, grinding shooting battles that are chaotic and difficult to manage. In this mod, the player has a greatly reduced amount of information about the status of both his own and the AI units, and a vastly reduced ability to control what is going on, especially in the early game. It also looks more like the ACW: the base unit size is the regiment, and regiments move in long lines of infantry. The field is filled with smoke, and there are more soldier sprites to give the game a denser feel. All officers have fairly detailed personalities which you will have to manage, and which affect units under their command.

Much of the changes are meant to return a sense of challenge to experienced players -- and to do it without just throwing more AI troops at the player. The difficulty in controlling your army, which I have tried to make historically authentic per my understanding, makes it so that even if you see a tactic which will defeat the AI, it can be very difficult to execute it. This command and control handicap can be ameliorated with general and career perks; but career points are precious, as manpower and funds are greatly reduced versus J&P and vanilla.

As the mod is now basically complete -- meaning, I will not be adding major new features anymore -- I can concentrate on writing a detailed play guide which is sorely needed. I hope you enjoy the mod.

Edited August 22, 2021 by adishee

[adishee]

Download Link (v1.3.6): download

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Major Feature Updates
-----------
- The submod now has a novel cover system which differs sharply from vanilla and J&P mod. The spirit of this new system is to decrease the player's advantage over the AI by exploiting cover in such a way that the AI is not able to follow. It works as such: when an infantry unit is attacked by another infantry unit, if the attacking unit has a lower cover value than the attacked unit, the attacked unit's cover will slowly be eaten away during the attack consonant with how much damage the attacking unit is actually inflicting. So if the attacking unit or units are in good order and strong, the unit in cover will lose most of its cover advantage during a volley. This applies to both AI and player units, and it is easier to see in action than to understand from this description. Does not apply to fortified units.
- Completely new visual mode for controlling units, 'macro mode', or 'brigade mode', whatever you like: When the player zooms out a certain distance (this value can be changed in config), all units on the field are expressed within their brigade structure rather than as regiments. The location of unit badges becomes centered in between all the units in that brigade, and clicking on the badge will select the entire brigade (all the units that can currently be controlled). And in this mode, mousing over the badge gives the brigade info report. This greatly aids clarity during large battles with a lot going on at once. In addition, units can be DETACHED from brigades and from this visualization/selection by using the y key on selected units. 

Software
-----------
- Officer saved file now automatically backs itself up after every edit; in case you accidentally delete your current list, you can right away go back and retrieve that file before the next change. In addition, the officer prompt can be turned off in the config file.
- Large rewrite of many pieces of code using unit experience value which was found to be implemented wrong.
- MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS TO PERFORMANCE.
- Tons of bugs fixed.
- Smoke should no longer go bonkers at 2x speed!
- Macro hud mode cannot function in deployment mode.
- Fixed historical battles so that the correct amount of soldier sprites (correct for the submod) are displayed. Basically this means that they are now playable!

Mechanics
-----------
- Tweaks to skirmisher behavior so that they skirmish more. (Zouaves retain older skirmisher behavior, act more like infantry.)
- Experimental cautious AI from previous version disabled.
- Smoke blindness tweaks: smoke blindness incurred at a general higher rate, but also reduced as a factor of a unit's xp. Result is that newer units suffer much worse blindness faster, while experienced units feel it far less.
- Friendly flank check distance doubled; more generous min distance for flanks to be considered exposed if no friendly unit.
- Brigade officers with horseman perk will receive orders 2x as fast.
- Corps officers with horseman perk will move 30% faster.
- Extra damage is now inflicted as a function of a unit's morale; each point of morale less than 100% translates to a point multiplied against damage dealt to a unit. So if a unit has 90% morale, 10% extra damage is inflicted; if a unit has 10% morale, 90% extra damage is inflicted. Therefore it becomes much more important to manage your units' morale.
- General movement speed affected by loss of hp; movement speed is lost at the same percentage that hp is down from the max hp, for up to 50% speed loss (at 50% hp loss).
- Units near generals now get faster out-of-order cooldown, unless they are falling back or charging.
- Units now generally move in column formation if not immediately near AI units. Skirms now always move in the tighther column formation which helps them not be overexposed to flank fire (since skirm formations in the submod can be quite large).
- Player group morale engine now excludes morale of detached skirms from calculation.
- Player units return from Out-of-Order faster if taking damage.
- Player can give target orders to any unit <400 distance even if out of immediate control range.
- In order to combine regiments, both units must have an officer with at least one battle experience with that unit.
- After combine event, unused officer sent to barracks instead of lost.
- Reworked repeater logic when being fired by skirmishers. Skirmishers still fire a constant volley with repeaters, but now they fire much faster depending on the mag cap of the weapon. So with a sixshooter for example they will fire six times faster than normal, until the ammo runs out at which point they will fire at a 'normal' rate. This makes repeater troops scarily effective (as they were) but they burn through ammo very quickly.
- When skirmishers or cav are given move orders, the order initiates a reload at about 80% completion. This has the effect of letting those troops break off contact which they previously would not.
- Narc officers only charge if within 300 distance of enemy, otherwise they merey pursue at their own discretion.
- Increased risk to lose generals if they come under direct fire.

Control
-----------
- New selection scheme: mousing over units now reveals their basic stats WITHOUT CLICKING, whereas clicking reveals the full stats. No more need to click the info button.
- Consolidated hud modes: I've got rid of all the hud modes and packed it all into one; mousing over a unit now reveals its officer stats, and with the previous condensations there is no more need for different hud modes which I have a feeling nobody used anyway.
- Enemy unit stars now visible (or not visible) with the same logic as enemy hp is visible.
- Much more complexity in mass movement orders: all units now have individual chances for orders to fail, and slight randomness for timings, as well as individual distance calculations. The result is mass movement orders that feel much more spotty, chaotic and, I would say, authentic.
- Total overhaul of how unit info is presented when mousing over the badge. Almost all extra submod info is hidden until the mouseover.
- Many control refinements for delayed-order system.
- Added blinking red indicator to enemy units after player sends attack order; if the order is a delayed order, blinking will continue on enemy unit badge until attack order has reached (or failed to reach), after which the typical red arrow will be displayed representing a received attack order.
- Granted more control to units under fire: now they can be given slow movement orders and immediate fire orders even if no orders can be sent by general.
- Commanders no longer 'run out' of power to issue orders, orders can always be issued to a unit if the unit is not currently in the middle of an order. This previous restriction was a bit overzealous and clunky.
- Bookmarking units (Y key) has new effects: A) bookmarked units are excluded from the badge-centering mechanism when the player is in macro mode. This mechanism averages the positions of all the regiments in a brigade and sticks the badge there; but this can be annoying if units are very spread out across the map for whatever reason. Thus by bookmarking units, they are sort of 'detached' from the brigade and no longer accounted for in that mechanism and thus the brigade badge will appear at a more appropriate place. In addition, bookmarked units will no longer be selected with the select-brigade command (which is used in macro mode and by double-clicking, and indeed by clicking on the brigade buttons in the OOB area), again taking the effect of being 'detached' from the brigade. These functions make it much easier to re-organize brigades on the fly mid battle.
- Units taking fire no longer appear in unit tray, it was too confusing.
- Supply wagon controls improved.
- Player can give delayed orders using single right mouse button click now. The effect is a little weird sometimes, especially for ordering large groups of infantry, so for that case I recommend a line-drag order. Not going to get fixed, I tried.
- Restored 'Retreat' button and function, with submod twist (the effect is instant).
- Units can be given orders to change holdfire status when out of immediate control with a delay.
- Units will now move obliquely if given an order to move away from the enemy from distance, if there are enemies nearby. What this means is that the player can safely withdraw troops from the line without exposing them to flank fire, and without using the 'fallback' function which is a very different animal in the submod.
- Player can now set artillery pieces to target other artillery ONLY. A graphic will show next to the unit's badge (taken from supply wagon) if mode is on. This is activated with the 'm' key. Very useful for counterbat missions.

Balance
-----------
- Slight buff to CSA average stats.
- AI units will no longer scale against the player in non-grand battles.
- General cover buff for all skirmishers.
- AO points no longer give extra supply to player supply trucks, only logistics points do.
- Each point of logistics now adds 5 points of bonus morale to each player unit. 
- Standard general move speed reduced by 25%.
- Colt.RR damage reduced to a level comparable to average carbine damage. This corrects a major exploit as they had been previously more powerful than Spencers!
- Doubled morale penalty effect of AI units routing. This means that when an AI unit routes it will lower the morale of friendly units around it more aggressively.
- Reduced efficiency bonus that units in the same brigade get by over half. This bonus activates when the brigade members are in close proximity, based on how skilled all the brigade's officers are.
- Max unit speed reduced to a non-comical level (about +30% past its base speed).
- Based rotation speed for cav increased; bonus for horseman officer type reduced to 2x on top of new base.

Visual
-----------
- Many small edits to unit formations.
- Improved smoke effects.
- Shadow and highlight effects removed from units, couldn't get it to work well.
- When unit is selected, if it has an enemy targeted, the enemy badge will have a red border.

.

Edited August 23, 2021 by adishee

[adishee]

Some footage of latest version: 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by adishee

[KeithD]

Awesome. I try to play as historically as I can and not game the game, so this sounds like the mod for me

[Warbacon]

The mod does not seem to be working for me.

I unzipped it into the correct folder just as I did with the J&P mod and it has changed nothing in the game. 

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, Warbacon said:

The mod does not seem to be working for me.

I unzipped it into the correct folder just as I did with the J&P mod and it has changed nothing in the game. 

Do you have a historical submod folder under /Mod/Rebalance after unzipping? Full default path below.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data\Mod\Rebalance\historical submod

[Keith68]

First impressions spotting is really harsh, my troops can't see the cannon on the walls of the Potomac fort even when they have stormed the fort walls and are in the fort!

[Warbacon]

1 hour ago, pandakraut said:

Do you have a historical submod folder under /Mod/Rebalance after unzipping? Full default path below.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Ultimate General Civil War\Ultimate General Civil War_Data\Mod\Rebalance\historical submod

I got it to work by moving the zip file into the Ultimate General Civil War_Data and then unzipping it there. 

[adishee]

@Keith68 , glad you got the submod working.

That's intentional, your troops' spotting range decreases if you move your general away from them. I did this simulating the concept that information is more useful to the general than the troops, sort for the player to role-play as the general.

So try moving your general close to them to restore their vision. If you put points into Army Organization, this effect will diminish and your troops will be able to spot longer distances without the general. I did that to simulate a delegation of command.

Also, try detaching some skirmishers because they have longer spotting range.

Hope that helps!

Edited March 19, 2020 by adishee

[Warbacon]

1 hour ago, Keith68 said:

First impressions spotting is really harsh, my troops can't see the cannon on the walls of the Potomac fort even when they have stormed the fort walls and are in the fort!

I also have a bit of an issue with the sight distance of troops.

I currently have 3 points in Army Org and 4 in Recon however even with skirmishers I can not see infantry or cannon that is directly in front of me across a creek. 

Their infantry and cannon are able to hit any unit I currently have deployed all the way back to the 627 (Tyler) 1st Ohio.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Warbacon

[adishee]

Hi @Warbacon.
 

Okay, this is a tiny problem with First Manassas, because on that first stage there is no general. That means those initial reinforcements are quite vulnerable.

I suggest that you wait for the full force to arrive and then try to link them up with your general. Obviously not ideal, but in all honesty you can't take that bridge anyway with that force.

[Warbacon]

4 minutes ago, adishee said:

Hi @Warbacon.
 

Okay, this is a tiny problem with First Manassas, because on that first stage there is no general. That means those initial reinforcements are quite vulnerable.

I suggest that you wait for the full force to arrive and then try to link them up with your general. Obviously not ideal, but in all honesty you can't take that bridge anyway with that force.

Allow me to preface any further communications by saying I really do appreciate the sub mod, the work put into it and for the most part I am really enjoying the slower more thought out approach to the battles. I only want to put in my two cents to things I think may need a look see and do not mean to put down or degrade any part of the sub mod or work done. 

I hear ya, did not expect to take the bridge with such low numbers and the higher ground taken by the enemy. However not being able to see anything that close just seems a bit extreme in making the point of needing a general to see further and operate at a higher level. 

One other thing I may add about the effectiveness of the cannon. I understand that not having the general close by and being overseen by captains will put a bite into the abilities of the cannon crews but both cannon in the screenshot went through all their ammo and got a combined 49 kills. Not sure if this is something from the original mod or if it can even be remedied but wow that seems really low. Seeing how we have a time limit on taking points during any battle having them do such low damage does little for us being able to pressure the enemy. Perhaps there is a learning curve I have yet to make it over, it's just a tough one to work around trying to make best use of the cannon in a time limited senario.  

[Keith68]

58 minutes ago, adishee said:

@Keith68 , glad you got the submod working.

That's intentional, your troops' spotting range decreases if you move your general away from them. I did this simulating the concept that information is more useful to the general than the troops, sort for the player to role-play as the general.

So try moving your general close to them to restore their vision. If you put points into Army Organization, this effect will diminish and your troops will be able to spot longer distances without the general. I did that to simulate a delegation of command.

Also, try detaching some skirmishers because they have longer spotting range.

Hope that helps!

Is it configurable in any way?  By distance perhaps?  The idea makes sense, but in real life troops without a general nearby would still understand 'something' was in front of them even if they didn't know exactly what it was or could see the big picture.

[adishee]

1 hour ago, Warbacon said:

Allow me to preface any further communications by saying I really do appreciate the sub mod, the work put into it and for the most part I am really enjoying the slower more thought out approach to the battles. I only want to put in my two cents to things I think may need a look see and do not mean to put down or degrade any part of the sub mod or work done. 

I hear ya, did not expect to take the bridge with such low numbers and the higher ground taken by the enemy. However not being able to see anything that close just seems a bit extreme in making the point of needing a general to see further and operate at a higher level. 

One other thing I may add about the effectiveness of the cannon. I understand that not having the general close by and being overseen by captains will put a bite into the abilities of the cannon crews but both cannon in the screenshot went through all their ammo and got a combined 49 kills. Not sure if this is something from the original mod or if it can even be remedied but wow that seems really low. Seeing how we have a time limit on taking points during any battle having them do such low damage does little for us being able to pressure the enemy. Perhaps there is a learning curve I have yet to make it over, it's just a tough one to work around trying to make best use of the cannon in a time limited senario.  

Thanks @Warbacon, I welcome criticism.

Honestly, the allied cannon in that battle are basically useless. They're 6-pounders and only effective if you're firing canister in close. I didn't do anything to change that from J&P, and the morale damage in the submod is a bit higher for cannon, esp for canister shot.

I usually mass all five or six batteries you get for that battle and perch them on that hill, eventually they will do  little damage. 

[adishee]

1 hour ago, Keith68 said:

Is it configurable in any way?  By distance perhaps?  The idea makes sense, but in real life troops without a general nearby would still understand 'something' was in front of them even if they didn't know exactly what it was or could see the big picture.

I didn't put any option in to configure that, no. I see what you mean, it was a risky design decision, but I was / am trying to make the game much harder without simply adding more AI troops to slaughter. I had to get creative. This function makes your general(s) much more in demand and requires them to keep the armies running in good order ... like how I perceived it might have been.

Ultimately, you can deploy skirmishers forward if you really want to see what's there. 

[pandakraut]

2 hours ago, Warbacon said:

One other thing I may add about the effectiveness of the cannon. I understand that not having the general close by and being overseen by captains will put a bite into the abilities of the cannon crews but both cannon in the screenshot went through all their ammo and got a combined 49 kills. Not sure if this is something from the original mod or if it can even be remedied but wow that seems really low. Seeing how we have a time limit on taking points during any battle having them do such low damage does little for us being able to pressure the enemy. Perhaps there is a learning curve I have yet to make it over, it's just a tough one to work around trying to make best use of the cannon in a time limited senario.  

This is mostly base mod stuff. A lot of damage is tied up in having good stats, officers, and weapons and these allied units have none of those. If you let 6pdrs blast away at anything more than half range they do very little. You can see why in the updated weapon tooltips that show the range damage multiplier. The 6pdrs can do well at canister as Adishee mentioned though. I usually park them up by the middle ford and let them gain stats by shooting the unit there until the rest of the army shows up.

Rest assured, experienced artillery crews with better cannon can be incredibly strong. The 6pdr is basically just for that lead up to Shiloh when you are scrambling to field anything you can.

[i64man]

@adishee Thanks for the hard work.... I have been playing this game for a while because I loved the fact that this game covers a period in history not given some gaming love. I have played the campaigned at all levels and from both camps as well as the rebalance mod Jonny and Pandakraut. Now, I just started a new Union campaign after the latest update to the rebalance mod, does your mod overwrites theirs or can it be used in conjuction with theirs?

thanks

[adishee]

1 hour ago, i64man said:

@adishee Thanks for the hard work.... I have been playing this game for a while because I loved the fact that this game covers a period in history not given some gaming love. I have played the campaigned at all levels and from both camps as well as the rebalance mod Jonny and Pandakraut. Now, I just started a new Union campaign after the latest update to the rebalance mod, does your mod overwrites theirs or can it be used in conjuction with theirs?

thanks

Hey @i64man, thanks for your kind words.

This mod it is not compatible with any other, unfortunately. If you try to continue your J&P campaign after installing the submod, things will probably get very weird because many things are different. Basically starting a new campaign is required -- but of course you can switch back and forth between campaigns if you want, all you have to do is install whichever mod you want at the time and they should match to each campaign. I think. 

[i64man]

21 hours ago, adishee said:

Hey @i64man, thanks for your kind words.

This mod it is not compatible with any other, unfortunately. If you try to continue your J&P campaign after installing the submod, things will probably get very weird because many things are different. Basically starting a new campaign is required -- but of course you can switch back and forth between campaigns if you want, all you have to do is install whichever mod you want at the time and they should match to each campaign. I think. 

@adishee, Thanks for the explanation. I will give it a try. Lucky for me on my new campaign is still early enough that I can start new 

[Schonhult]

I like the concept but I am having ghosting problems, all units, mine and AI, seem not to be were they are visually everytime they move. The units seem to move substantially faster than the visual representation of them. 

[i64man]

@adishee when starting a new campaign as the union,  do you start with the same units as usual or do you get units based on the state? I.e. 10th Pennsylvania?

[adishee]

2 hours ago, Schonhult said:

I like the concept but I am having ghosting problems, all units, mine and AI, seem not to be were they are visually everytime they move. The units seem to move substantially faster than the visual representation of them. 

@Schonhult, can you say more about the effect? I used to have some mechanic that was kind of like that, but I took it out because it wasn't what I wanted.

Being closer to the general makes all of your units move faster, and units being near other units in their brigade makes them more efficient and thus faster as well. You need to keep that in mind when playing in the submod.

 

*Edit*, Okay I do see what you mean, I am seeing it on my current Union playtest campaign. This is a remnant of the old effect that used to be much more pronounced, which I reduced. I made it to simulate units getting outside of an effective command and control coordination, so that they kind of get lost.

Two ways to reduce this debuff: keep your general near your units; and invest in Army Organization points, which double in the submod as command and control points. This will let your units operate more independently of your generals, like a command delegation.

Edited March 21, 2020 by adishee

[adishee]

22 minutes ago, i64man said:

@adishee when starting a new campaign as the union,  do you start with the same units as usual or do you get units based on the state? I.e. 10th Pennsylvania?

@i64man, you start out with units that are named the same as in vanilla, but after that your units get auto-named (at least inf and cav do) by state. In 1.2, I've changed it to abbreviated state names by popular demand. (10th PA.)

[i64man]

@adishee thanks for the answer

[i64man]

@ adishee, I think something is not quite right.I see the limit on the new brigades is 1025, but the names are only base on the officer incharge... see the screenhsot attached... I downloaded the file and extracted the files using 7zip... once open, I copied the files into the respective folder