why are enemy troops so beefed up

[william1993]

So, I played a Reb campaign, and then before Antietam it said stuff like- you defeated the enemy at 2nd manassas= -5% army size.  You have captured Harpers Ferry= -5% army size

and then the enemy army comes chock full of 3 star brigades? and I kill them all and then at Fredericksburg they are right back again.

What's the point of winning if they just regenerate 3 star men like a flock of roaches?

[Hitorishizuka]

3 minutes ago, william1993 said:

So, I played a Reb campaign, and then before Antietam it said stuff like- you defeated the enemy at 2nd manassas= -5% army size.  You have captured Harpers Ferry= -5% army size

and then the enemy army comes chock full of 3 star brigades? and I kill them all and then at Fredericksburg they are right back again.

What's the point of winning if they just regenerate 3 star men like a flock of roaches?

Yes, as currently implemented you are not actually playing against an enemy, only a set of challenges that adapt to you. Winning saves your reputation. Killing more of the enemy gives your troops experience and lets you capture their (typically) better equipment, letting you perform better later, provided you didn't destroy your army to do so.

[william1993]

oh. so it's as if the enemy has an unlimited herd of studs and it's my job to kill them up and improve my OWN army, rather than diminish the quality of theirs

[Wandering1]

Well. Wouldn't be much of a campaign if you annihilated the enemy army on the first major battle, and they only bring half size armies the next major battle.

There ARE limits to the scalings; but new players wouldn't know what those limits are to game the system.

[Redmarkus4]

I'm OK with the concept of scaling to maintain a challenge, but the spamming of 3-star enemy units annoys me too. It's same regardless of which side you choose to play. Perhaps the AI should only receive 2-star units by default, with 3-stars requiring the unit to gain experience the normal way?

[Koro]

The Union doesn't spam 3 star brigades at Antietam or any battle really. It's only the iron brigade "regiments" that are 3 stars. They do arrive first though. 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

7 hours ago, william1993 said:

oh. so it's as if the enemy has an unlimited herd of studs and it's my job to kill them up and improve my OWN army, rather than diminish the quality of theirs

Welcome to the game. I don't think it will be that way when the game is finally released, but that's pretty much the gist of it today until everything is balanced and perfect. 

But, here's the thing. If you break the enemy over your knee in one battle, do you want to just roller skate through the rest of the campaign? Or do you want a fresh set of challenges with every set of campaigns? 

Look at it like they have a steady stream of first round draft picks and free agents that keep them competitive at all times. 

 

 

 

[Hitorishizuka]

7 minutes ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

But, here's the thing. If you break the enemy over your knee in one battle, do you want to just roller skate through the rest of the campaign? Or do you want a fresh set of challenges with every set of campaigns?

In an ideal scenario, fast forward instantly to final ahistorical battle of war where tattered remnants of Confederate army struggle to defend Richmond.

And then win that and turn difficulty up 4 notches until this no longer happens.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

11 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

In an ideal scenario, fast forward instantly to final ahistorical battle of war where tattered remnants of Confederate army struggle to defend Richmond.

And then win that and turn difficulty up 4 notches until this no longer happens.

I'll do you one better: 

If you win an epic victory that will live in song like the day Achilles slew Hector, a Strategic Victory of overwhelming proportions, you are given a choice to go for the 'final battle' or move to the next campaign. 

You keep your army. The opponent has a full blown, fully upgraded AO and plenty of troops. When you think your army is big and bad enough to go for the jugular, you can. After each campaign, the enemy's percentage of troops at the final battle stair steps down. After Shiloh it's absolutely impossible. Incredibly hard after Antietam. Very difficult after Gettysburg. Etc. etc. etc. until you run the whole campaign and find yourself at the last battle on your own. 

Oh, if you lose the final battle, you are removed from command and lose the game. A disgrace of history.

If you win, you can expect 8 years in the White House of the Newly Forged Nation and a place next to Alexander and Caesar in the ranks of military geniuses. 

[Powderhorn]

For me, I just imagine that the British and French are waging a proxy war through the Secesh.

[Col_Kelly]

Just now, Powderhorn said:

For me, I just imagine that the British and French are waging a proxy war through the Secesh.

Sacrebleu, he found out . We just badly need that cotton to support our fashion industry, yankees left us no choice. As for the Brits I just assume they do it for revenge. Throwing tea away is not something they easily forget, even decades after the fact.

[A. P. Hill]

14 hours ago, william1993 said:

oh. so it's as if the enemy has an unlimited herd of studs and it's my job to kill them up and improve my OWN army, rather than diminish the quality of theirs

Yep, some people think it would be rather boring and against the player's interests if the AI was actually limited in some way.  They also feel that for a game to actually replicate history as it happened would also be a bit disappointing. 

[Fred Sanford]

I'm ok with the AI regenerating a more-or-less fixed size army for each campaign, but it should stay above a certain size so that the player always has the incentive to keep and grow his army as large as possible.  I think gaming the scaling mechanics with a minimum size is a gamey approach.

 

6 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

You keep your army. The opponent has a full blown, fully upgraded AO and plenty of troops. When you think your army is big and bad enough to go for the jugular, you can. After each campaign, the enemy's percentage of troops at the final battle stair steps down. After Shiloh it's absolutely impossible. Incredibly hard after Antietam. Very difficult after Gettysburg. Etc. etc. etc. until you run the whole campaign and find yourself at the last battle on your own. 

I like this approach.  Anyone ever play Master of Orion?  The final battle is against the "Guardian"- a super-duper alien ships that you need a powerful fleet to take on.  So kind of like that.

[Karri]

I am banking that this is still 0.75 early access and the devs have not paid any attention to the campaign yet other than getting the battles there. I honestly don't think the campaign is even a campaign at this point, it's just linked battles. 

[veji1]

22 hours ago, Karri said:

I am banking that this is still 0.75 early access and the devs have not paid any attention to the campaign yet other than getting the battles there. I honestly don't think the campaign is even a campaign at this point, it's just linked battles. 

Not that I am criticizing the devs in any way by saying this, but of course the campaign is just linked battles ! There is no campaign game, ie it's just a menu to choose your next battles and you unlock new battles regularly. That's all.

The game is a battle game, not a campaign game, asking it to actually be a campaign game at this stage is unfair. Now that does not mean that the devs won't be able to use the current battle simulator into a more operational/campaign game in the future, but that would mean developing a new game.

This game is modern real time great fun Robert Lee : Civil war general like game : series of battles seamed together into a campaign like narrative. But there is not campaign game, just a fun campaignish menu and the camp aspect of the game.

[jimcarrel]

However you want to class this thing called Ultilmate General, Civil War, it has me captivated. My impression is that we are just seeing hints as to how the Dev intends to finish it. We are just looking at the pieces, as the bits begin to come on line, we may be pleasantly surprised. Right now we are just along for the ride in Early Access.  

[Nicolas I]

On 18 février 2017 at 7:15 PM, Hitorishizuka said:

Yes, as currently implemented you are not actually playing against an enemy, only a set of challenges that adapt to you. Winning saves your reputation. Killing more of the enemy gives your troops experience and lets you capture their (typically) better equipment, letting you perform better later, provided you didn't destroy your army to do so.

But then the AI also gets better troops and equipment based on yours...

A player made a test of this with Rio Hill battle playing confederates. If only one brigade of his skirmishers in his army had snipers guns (Withworths), ALL the AI brigades (more numerous) would have JF Brown's. When he removed his snipers guns, the AI "only" got Spencer's or Burnside's instead.
 

Edited February 26, 2017 by Nicolas I

[Hitorishizuka]

12 hours ago, Nicolas I said:

But then the AI also gets better troops and equipment based on yours...

A player made a test of this with Rio Hill battle playing confederates. If only one brigade of his skirmishers in his army had snipers guns (Withworths), ALL the AI brigades (more numerous) would have JF Brown's. When he removed his snipers guns, the AI "only" got Spencer's or Burnside's instead.
 

While I"m not sure I 100% believe that, even if it's true it doesn't really affect things. The AI is too stupid to really use its weapons properly outside of 24pdr Napoleons, which conveniently it will skip past into Parrotts which are bad.

[Nicolas I]

5 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

While I"m not sure I 100% believe that...

Before (JF Brown's for everyone).
After (Spencer's for everyone)

Follow this link for the screenshots (I don't known why, but I was unable to post the screenshots).
http://steamcommunity.com/app/502520/discussions/0/133257324796878125/

At Rio Hill, even without the cannons, the swarms of top notch skirmishers and skirmishers cavalry the Union gets make this battle unwinnable unless you use unrealistic/gamey tactics. It's not challenging, it's highly annoying.

Notably leaving the depot to kill the enemy units one by one, in reality they could have set the depot on fire and withdraw as their missions would have been completed.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Nicolas I

[A. P. Hill]

There is no such thing as a 24pdr Napoleon.

The gun that was given that name only came in the 12lb variety.

The 24lb guns are Howitzers.

[Hitorishizuka]

I'll have to check when my next campaign gets to Rio to see what I experience.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Hitorishizuka

[Wandering1]

You don't have to leave the vp; it's just that the 100% cover on the VP is not well advertised because it involves people to squeeze into the barns right below the VP. 

Even then though, stealing JF Browns is usually better than stealing Spencers; parking sniper skirmishers on the flank and ignoring them is simple compared to micromanaging a lot of carbine skirmishers.

[Jamesk2]

On 2/27/2017 at 0:01 AM, Hitorishizuka said:

While I"m not sure I 100% believe that, even if it's true it doesn't really affect things. The AI is too stupid to really use its weapons properly outside of 24pdr Napoleons, which conveniently it will skip past into Parrotts which are bad.

Duh duh. Today I captured 24lb Howitzers during Port Republic...

[Hitorishizuka]

5 hours ago, Jamesk2 said:

Duh duh. Today I captured 24lb Howitzers during Port Republic...

I should have caveated that by saying there are a few battles where it will not. Nansemond River it gets 24pdrs and is why that battle can be quite murderous if you don't get to the fort in time.

[Ultra_Tovarisch]

Yeah, this is extremely frustrating. I'm playing for the Union, and the enemy suffers a disaster after a disaster. In total (just crushed them at Frederiksburg) they lost 3 times more soldiers than I did and I don't even mention guns. They haven't won me a single time, and yet, they have the insane amount of elite troops while I have to deal with rookies because veterans are too damn expensive. The battle outcome does a very little influence on the situation.

Upd: I'm done with this stupid game. I've won at Stones River, but I had to face the army of 3 star units only. I mean literally each one of their brigades were elite. This is a deal breaker since I've been doing great and the game does not reward me for that. I only get frustration instead of joy, so screw this game.

Upd: Just kidding, it's too addictive. I'm going to eat this cactus despite of all the tears I'll shed.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Ultra_Tovarisch