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

[adishee]

Hi @Keith68.

I have got this complaint many times about the first CSA battle, but honestly I still have no idea how to fix it or why it is even coming up. I never modded anything different into the tutorial battle specifically that I can recall, that may be causing it.

In all seriousness my recommendation is to turn on God Mode (found in the config) and just blast through the first CSA level, annihilating the gun crews, until I can figure out what is causing it. I'm afraid I'm quite busy in June otherwise I'd dedicate some time to try and fix it more quickly, but I don't know what the problem is so it's not a quick fix.

Edited June 7, 2020 by adishee

[Keith68]

Thanks Adishee didn't know about god mode will give it a try.

[Earthane]

On 6/7/2020 at 10:23 AM, Keith68 said:

Hi Adshee, I'm giving the mod another try this morning and it's come on a lot since I first tried it.  It's looking very good 👌.  However there is still something wrong with Potomac Fort on a CSA game.  I've started a new game 3 times and each time have over run the fort, captured or killed the union infantry and skirmishers, and have the artillery routing and surrounded between the sea and the fort, and just as I am about to kill or capture them either one or both magically disappear, and I can't win the battle.

In relationship to the Potomac Fort battle, it is possible to defeat the artillery. In order to do so one has to defeat both batteries through melee, or if you prefer, hand-to-hand combat. So switch the automatic firing off your close regiments to prevent them shooting them by mistake, fix bayonets and charge them. Do this and it will register them with a green tick and grant you victory. If you shoot them, even if they break and fracture, they will not award you with a green tick.

Hope this might some other users here that are trying the Confederates and getting stuck on this small glitch. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Earthane
Type

[adishee]

22 hours ago, Earthane said:

In relationship to the Potomac Fort battle, it is possible to defeat the artillery. In order to do so one has to defeat both batteries through melee, or if you prefer, hand-to-hand combat. So switch the automatic firing off your close regiments to prevent them shooting them by mistake, fix bayonets and charge them. Do this and it will register them with a green tick and grant you victory. If you shoot them, even if they break and fracture, they will not award you with a green tick.

Hope this might some other users here that are trying the Confederates and getting stuck on this small glitch. 

Thank you @Earthane, I had no idea that that was the precise requirement. @Keith68

[Earthane]

You are very welcome Adishee. I played this scenario of your mod a few times before working it out. It is not the same in vanilla or the J&P mod if I recall, but it is not an issue providing you know about it because they are best charged once they are weak or broken anyway. The difficulty is the batteries are very small, so by the time players might have spent a while shooting the troops on the walls the collateral damage can take the batteries down to two or three guns in BG mode, which is what I am using on my first test. So by the time a player orders regiments to  enter the fort, one shot could result in a fracture and a failure. This is why I order all brigades to stop firing, fix bayonets and do a full charge on both batteries once they enter what should be a clear fort. It works quite well for me on a Mac, but it might be different on Windows. 

[adishee]

@Earthane @Keith68 Panda very kindly shared with me some code that completely negates the CSA cannon capture issue on the first mission. It's already integrated into the 127 dev build. fyi

[papervel]

first of all, Good day adishee, and thank you for such an incredible mod.

I love the changes you´ve made to the game and the original mod, can´t go back, truly.

However, although I like the idea of the ironman mode, could you please not make it obligatory until all(or most) the bugs are eliminated?, yesterday got the "game freezes the moment a artillery battery is charged" and I´l have to start all over again with the campaing.

just to be clear, i like all changes(or what i have been capable of seeing, at least, since the bug trapped me before shiloh), just please wait until the mod is stable before making ironman obligatory.

[adishee]

9 hours ago, papervel said:

first of all, Good day adishee, and thank you for such an incredible mod.

I love the changes you´ve made to the game and the original mod, can´t go back, truly.

However, although I like the idea of the ironman mode, could you please not make it obligatory until all(or most) the bugs are eliminated?, yesterday got the "game freezes the moment a artillery battery is charged" and I´l have to start all over again with the campaing.

just to be clear, i like all changes(or what i have been capable of seeing, at least, since the bug trapped me before shiloh), just please wait until the mod is stable before making ironman obligatory.

Hi @papervel, thanks for your kind words and feedback.

Alright, fair point. I'll make it optional in 127. Also I'm happy to tell you that the charging bug is fixed in 127, along with many others.

Edited June 16, 2020 by adishee

[PrimusPilus123]

Hey @adishee Great work on this historical submod.

I am having trouble installing the submod and I can't seem to find clear instructions on installation in the OP.

I have tried placing the zip file in the UGCW_Data folder and unzipping it there; however, I noticed that the historical_submod does not get created after unzipping the files. Any help would be appreciated with this issue.

[adishee]

18 hours ago, PrimusPilus123 said:

Hey @adishee Great work on this historical submod.

I am having trouble installing the submod and I can't seem to find clear instructions on installation in the OP.

I have tried placing the zip file in the UGCW_Data folder and unzipping it there; however, I noticed that the historical_submod does not get created after unzipping the files. Any help would be appreciated with this issue.

Hi @PrimusPilus123. Are you sure the mod isn't working? There is no submod folder that actually gets created, it all happens in the Mod folder that is part of the J&P rebal mod. In addition, the resources.assets file gets replaced, and the Managed/Assembly-CSharp.dll is replaced. The Mod folder contains all the config files, which I just borrowed and added to from the J&P base mod. Repeat, there is no submod folder that is created.

Please let me know if you get it working or don't.

[PrimusPilus123]

Hey @adishee thanks so much for the response.

I got it to work now. Not sure what I was doing wrong previously.

Question regarding time frame of battles. I tried the Battle of Phillipi on MG Legendary as the Union and I captured both Philippi and waited for the timer to run down to 0; however, the battle didn't finish or give me the option to proceed to the next phase of the battle. Could you please clarify if and how your mod changes how time works in the game in regard to battle end states and phase switching.

Edited June 26, 2020 by PrimusPilus123

[Dauntless07]

This is an amazing mod, and I want to stress it’s far more than I’ll ever contribute to this game. I’d love to do a proper review, but there are a couple of oddities I don’t think were intended as part of the experience, and I’d like to ask about some of them.

 

-Battle smoke is immersive... when it works. Sometimes, I only get vanilla smoke, other times the entire battlefield is saturated with it, and I can’t even see the terrain. Are the smoke effects intended to be played at 1x speed? I gather you’ve already put a lot of time into it, so smoke at other speeds may not be possible.

-The current melee with arty freezing the battle bug, I’ve experienced a few times now, and with Ironman mode, it’s a major issue. I understand you got a patch for the next update though, so I’ll put this lower on the list.

-I must say that skirmisher sharpshooters are unbelievably overpowered. When I prefer to field one skirmisher regiment over 2 artillery batteries, I know they’re crazy good. Their default reload is lightning fast compared to line infantry, I legitimately wonder if this is a bug. At their current strength, regiments numbering greater than 150 aren’t warranted IMO.

-Why is the artillery so expensive to shoot when it gets barely any kills? All it makes me want to do is turn off resupply for artillery entirely, and that doesn’t seem historical.

-The J&P perks don’t suit your mod very well. Take Infantry for example. Bayonet charges are (as historically) no longer death incarnate, but it makes the charge bonus perks far less powerful. Movement and rotation speed perks were useful for J&P players fielding cumbersome brigades of 4000 men, but they too are pointless now that we’re at the Regimental level. Accuracy then is the only tree worth going down, which hurts replay ability. Maybe if the melee and speed perks were merged into one, I would consider taking it, but that’s just an idea I haven’t thought through.

 

I eagerly await your next version, so I hope you aren’t turned off by the criticism.

-I love what you did with the cosmetics, (more sprites and smaller + proper smoke.)

-The vision mechanics, (I felt like a general riding back and fourth across the battle line to see the things I needed to see, when my general was often forgotten far in the rear before.)

-The armory (Not sure how much of this was J&P, but some of the stats seemed different from when I last played through that mod, so I thought maybe you tweaked some of it, and I am impressed by the historical accuracy of weapon performance.)

-And of course, the Regimental-level redesign of Army Organization, (more historical army sizes, no more superhero brigades that charge in, best 2 enemy brigades, and charge on to wipe the artillery as well.) I only wish everything on the camp screen was renamed to match it.

[adishee]

Hi @Dauntless07, thank you for your kind words and feedback. I am not at all turned off by the criticism, indeed I welcome it. I will respond to your comments one by one.

 

• Smoke --- I know the smoke effects are still far from perfect, and I'm still tweaking them to try and get more consistency. I've poured countless hours into getting them to where they are already, and I can assure you that I really had to do some "movie magic" to even get them to look good sometimes. 
• Arty freezing bug is fixed, yes. Trying to get 1.2.7 out, it is basically done too but there are just some cosmetic issues that I can't figure out how to fix which is getting pretty irritating (perk names). I am actually considering just releasing it with the faulty perk names because I'm really stumped with it.
• On that subject, skirmishers have been completely overhauled in 1.2.7, and have completely new and -- I should hope -- more authentic perks. This will hopefully address your complaint that they are OP: I've attempted to reduce their lethality in this way and make them a bit more interesting. And also, you mentioned the reload time of skirmishers but no that is not a bug: my idea about them was that they should not fire volley like line troops, but sporadically and rather constantly. But they have the exact same stats when firing, and they are not doing more damage than they were in J&P; rather, they are just doing it constantly.
• On the general perks not fitting my submod, while that may be the case, I believe that the next J&P will see a lot of changes to perks in general so I'm waiting to see what those guys are cooking up first. Also, I find myself that fast turning infantry regiments are useful on the flanks (this has been reduced in the next version, also). 
• "I only wish everything on the camp screen was renamed to match it." Me too, but some of these labels are baked into the assets file. Likely that I'll never be able to change all of the labels in the camp screen.

 

Thanks for the feedback again and keep an eye open for the next version soon.

Edited June 27, 2020 by adishee

[PrimusPilus123]

How does time work in the historical mod?

I understand that time has slowed down even further compared to the rebalance mod, but when do battles get cut off or end? What are the conditions to end a battle?

I played the Union Battle of Phillipi on Legendary and captured the town before the timer ran out, and I also waited for the timer to run out, but the battle didn't finish. Im wondering if anyone could clarify when do battles end. Do all scenarios end at 9:30 PM in-game or until the last enemy unit shatters or are there conditions?

[adishee]

1 hour ago, PrimusPilus123 said:

How does time work in the historical mod?

I understand that time has slowed down even further compared to the rebalance mod, but when do battles get cut off or end? What are the conditions to end a battle?

I played the Union Battle of Phillipi on Legendary and captured the town before the timer ran out, and I also waited for the timer to run out, but the battle didn't finish. Im wondering if anyone could clarify when do battles end. Do all scenarios end at 9:30 PM in-game or until the last enemy unit shatters or are there conditions?

Hi @PrimusPilus123. Sorry for not replying earlier.

That is a bug. I think I've seen it before, but that shouldn't be happening. Just restart the battle and try again. I'll try to look at it and see if I can make it easier for the 127 release, like I did for the CSA tutorial battle.

[PrimusPilus123]

14 hours ago, adishee said:

Hi @PrimusPilus123. Sorry for not replying earlier.

That is a bug. I think I've seen it before, but that shouldn't be happening. Just restart the battle and try again. I'll try to look at it and see if I can make it easier for the 127 release, like I did for the CSA tutorial battle.

Hey thanks for responding and understood.

Keep up the good work on the submod

[adishee]

v 1.2.7 release bump, check first post

[Dauntless07]

Thank you for reverting Ironman by the way. While it’s an interesting idea, I think it’s only viable for the most hardcore players.

I was unable to get past Antietam, because I had built a big 65K Union Army, and with how much slower this gameplay is, I just don’t have time to kill 45k Rebels in one sitting. Saving between phases is much more do-able.

Also, I haven’t memorized the order of battle in every engagement, so moments like the initial Rebel onslaught at 2nd Bull Run went poorly for me, simply because I didn’t know I’d only get my first 2 brigades, and had made one of them an artillery brigade. (Mercifully, the charging bug actually saved me this time from an utter rout, lol.)

[Gazza]

First thoughts on ‘Historical’ submod

UGCW sits atop my list of games by hours played, the majority of those hours have used the J&P Rebalance mod (thanks guys, great mod). However I’ve been in the ‘comfort zone’ with the game for some time, with just an occasional visit to an old familiar favourite.

 

Your ‘Historical’ submod seems to me to be a significant improvement, really impressive. The layers you have added onto the substantial base of the J&P mod and the changes you have made have improved the game tremendously. I’ve just given the campaign a run through as a Union BG (v1.26+). I had to rethink my standard strategies and tactics on many occasions to adapt, survive and progress, I can see many more fun hours ahead with this submod, great work, thanks.

[Gazza]

Likes - ‘Historical’ submod

I like these submod features;

• visuals – the smaller and more numerous sprites

• regiment sizing – 1025 infantry, 6 guns etc.

• regiment naming

• the increased number of brigades

• the reduced number of regiments per brigade (3)

• ironman mode optional

• chain charge (think this is base J&P)

• Generals targeted by AI

• fallback

• combine regiments in Camp

• plenty of officers available

• officer promotion (seems quicker) – had enough BG’s coming through the ranks for each of the new brigades

• ammo reloading slowed

• pace

 

I like these features that have reduced exploits / gaming

• no save on first battle (despite my best intentions, it is easy to become a serial offender!)

• scaling – seems to be much better – this is a biggie for me – opposing battle forces often seemed to be better balanced (in the past, to counter the inappropriate scaling you had to get as many minimum size regiments as possible into your army – effectively dummy regiments solely to sway the scaling algorithm – gaming, but it was absolutely necessary to have a decent game – this never felt right and was quite time consuming – I had no need to do this with the submod)

• nerfed over powered, over sized skirmisher regiments (this stops the use of huge skirmisher regiments being used in certain battles instead of infantry)

• limited sniper rifles (this stops the use of large over powered sniper regiments becoming the focus and critical factor of every battle)

• less surrenders (now there is minimal advantage to be gained by chasing down those retreating regiments into the map corners to finish them off, if you do they often rout and flee so you don’t get the prisoners and discarded weapons. Often the only prisoners I managed to get were the crews of supply wagons)

• friendly fire (no more firing into melees with every available adjacent regiment)

• no combining regiments during battles (not available to AI so fair to disable for player)

[Gazza]

Observations - ‘Historical’ submod

Difficulties

• LOS – your General – in the early campaign you have to use him to spot enemy regiments, however he can be targeted and picked off

• LOS – the option of using skirmishers out in front of infantry regiments for improved LOS is negated by the fact that the skirmishers block the infantry behind them from firing, when the skirmishers are pulled back the enemy regiments get hidden again, so you end up advancing your infantry from cover into fire just to be able to return fire

• LOS – counter artillery fire – difficult / impossible during early campaign – your artillery regiments can be picked off by the AI before you’ve even located theirs

• skittish Generals – he’s gone again, oh no, killed? No just run off into the distance far far away from the action – have to use hold to keep him in position

• manoeuvring skirmisher regiments – long regiment footprint often gets them caught up and wiped out in melees – need to retreat them quite some way to enable any safe lateral movement (could they get a smaller footprint when moving?)

• Charge! - in the early campaign confederate regiments seem to charge on sight almost the instant they encounter USA troops?

 

Potential issues / bugs?

• Recruitment - recruiting new soldiers into a regiment – in J&P to retain a regiment’s stats / experience you needed to buy veterans while recruiting rookies degrades a regiment’s stats / experience (I assume this is your intention too having disabled veteran recruitment and provided the ability to combine veteran regiments in Camp?) However I’ve noticed that when you add recruits (rookies) to a regiment in the ‘Historical’ submod the regiment’s stats / experience do not visibly deteriorate at all? Might be worth checking behind the scenes to ensure that the new recruits being added are indeed tagged as rookies as against veterans.

• Battles using pre-supplied regiments (Union - Supply Depot & Salem Church) – both of these battles were impossible to win because of the scaling – in the Supply Depot battle I counted at least 20 infantry regiments - odds of at least 20:1 against for each battle. Is it the same for these types of battles in the confederate campaign? I recollect that prior versions of the J&P mod had negated this scaling issue somewhat and made these battles more manageable?

• Supply wagons don't rout even when their armies are long gone – they stay on the field, available for capture.

• Supply wagons - often seem to be full with supplies after capture (is the AI consuming supplies like the player?)

• Overabundance of cannons in armoury? (maybe also muskets / rifles?). Caveat: Not played UGCW, USA or as BG for a while so may have just forgotten how it is for the USA as against the CSA (my previous campaign). As the CSA part of the fun is scrabbling together ad hoc regiments with whatever weapons you have managed to obtain. In the submod, very early in the campaign it was similar as the USA. However it soon became clear that there were way more cannons than I could ever use. Given the lower regiment sizes (e.g. 6 gun artillery) have the availability of weapons in the armoury been scaled back appropriately?

 

N/A – no screen shot or specific save file

• Gettysburg – part way through the battle Ironman mode kicked in?

• seem to remember one regiment being named the 0^th rather than 1^st ?

 

N/A - already reported

• First battle – regiment numbers changing between scenarios

• Smoke – sometimes blacks out whole screen – easily sorted with save and load

 

Note1: Loads of save files available if you need them for analysis.

Note2: Some of the above may relate to the J&P mod rather than the ‘Historical’ submod.

[Gazza]

Questions / requests

• With supply wagons there is a supply area (circle) displayed when they are selected. Is it possible to add this feature to the fixed supply depots on the maps? I’d like to be able to see visually the extent of their range for positioning regiments?

• Could you please provide a table (spreadsheet?) cross referencing the ‘Historical’ submod’s career choices (politics, economy etc.) against the benefits accrued at each of the levels 1 through 10? A quick look up guide would much improve the career choices element of the game. I often felt I was guessing a little rather than making informed choices when assigning career points.

• LOS – I wonder if this could be extended to include the division’s second in command? Maybe the 1^st brigade officer (or the 1^st brigade as his proxy) could be assigned a LOS level perk too? Less than the Generals but more than the rest of the brigades? I feel this second pair of eyes would improve gameplay somewhat as the early game LOS limitations are quite frustrating. Maybe the 6^th brigade could also get this LOS so there are 3 pairs of eyes per division?

• Here’s one for you. How about a complimentary skirmisher and cavalry regiment for the player?

  • To make it through the campaign I often end up using just infantry and artillery.

  • Whilst I always like having skirmishers and cavalry available in the intermediate battles, I cannot afford to release the slots for these weaker regiments, in the grand battles they are often sidelined.

  • What about an extra brigade containing a skirmisher and cavalry regiment for the player?

    • Or they could be attached to the General as staff?

    • Or part of the army like supply wagons?

    • In the army but not counted against the players slots.

  • My thinking on this is;

    • that it would make the intermediate battles more interesting (fun) by having all types of regiment included in all battles

    • LOS historically cavalry were the eyes of the army

    • They could be limited to the LOS perks only

  • I guess the AI would also need the same forces for equality. Losses could be made up from the players recruitment pool automatically in Camp.

  • The third regiment slot could be defined as a sniper regiment?

[adishee]

11 hours ago, Dauntless07 said:

Thank you for reverting Ironman by the way. While it’s an interesting idea, I think it’s only viable for the most hardcore players.

I was unable to get past Antietam, because I had built a big 65K Union Army, and with how much slower this gameplay is, I just don’t have time to kill 45k Rebels in one sitting. Saving between phases is much more do-able.

Also, I haven’t memorized the order of battle in every engagement, so moments like the initial Rebel onslaught at 2nd Bull Run went poorly for me, simply because I didn’t know I’d only get my first 2 brigades, and had made one of them an artillery brigade. (Mercifully, the charging bug actually saved me this time from an utter rout, lol.)

@Dauntless07 I would still encourage you to try Ironman even if you don't think you have time -- but do it on a less difficult setting. I just started a MG (medium diff) Federal campaign, and I definitely don't have a lot of time to play it. But I'm finding that it's a lot of fun. Even if you sometimes think that it's too easy, it's not: you make mistakes, you lose your general, you can't see anything, you lose important units by mistake, you find yourself out of position -- it's a mess. You can't assume anything playing that way, and I personally find it a whole new level of play. And playing on an easier difficulty means you can afford to throw some battles -- which is more authentic, if that's what you're into. (I tried on BG but it's just brutal when you can't reload after making any mistake.)

[Gazza]

Edit: The Historical screenshots below were taken at the very end of a campaign, I'm guessing that the Training level was high enough to make the recruits behave like veterans when added to regiments. Tried this out with a new campaign and the functionality is working correctly, high investment in Training will get you recruits with good stats.

Edit: Ignore the post below, invalid.

Hi Adishee, I've grabbed some screenshots to assist in explaining one of my previous comments posted (shown below in quotes). Hopefully this will demonstrate what I was trying to get across with the words.

"Recruitment - recruiting new soldiers into a regiment – in J&P to retain a regiment’s stats / experience you needed to buy veterans while recruiting rookies degrades a regiment’s stats / experience (I assume this is your intention too having disabled veteran recruitment and provided the ability to combine veteran regiments in Camp?) However I’ve noticed that when you add recruits (rookies) to a regiment in the ‘Historical’ submod the regiment’s stats / experience do not visibly deteriorate at all? Might be worth checking behind the scenes to ensure that the new recruits being added are indeed tagged as rookies as against veterans."

 

J&P rebalance mod - regiment to upgrade - pre upgrade

 

J&P rebalance mod - regiment upgraded with veterans - post upgrade

Experience, efficiency, morale, stamina, firearms and melee values all retained at pre upgrade levels, no change to values, when unit filled with veterans. Easier / quicker to obtain next regiment perk. If you recruit veterans all of the time you will have more starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. they have obtained perks). 

 

J&P rebalance mod - same regiment upgraded with rookies - post upgrade

Experience (-40), efficiency (-2), morale (-28), stamina (-15), firearms (-14) and melee (+2) values all changed from pre upgrade levels when unit filled with rookies. Harder / longer to obtain next regiment perk. If you recruit rookies all of the time you will have very few starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. not many will obtain perks). 

 

Historical submod - same regiment to upgrade - pre upgrade

 

Historical submod - regiment upgraded with recruits - post upgrade

Experience, efficiency, morale, stamina, firearms and melee values all retained at pre upgrade levels, no change to values, when unit filled with recruits. Easier / quicker to obtain next regiment perk. In the historical submod recruits are the equivalent of J&P rebalance mod veterans. So in the historical submod you will have more starred regiments (*, **, ***) in your army (i.e. they have obtained perks).

Tthe historical submod has disabled the veterans / rookies selection so that all new recruits are rookies (a good feature), however in practice it seems that the recruits are actually being added as veterans. I believe that this is the opposite to the desired effect.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Gazza

[gimli]

Hi , I can't remember how many times I finished this game but your mod actually made me download the game again and gave it shot! Everything looks in line with what I have been looking for before, thanks a lot will definitely try and give feedback!