mod J & P Rebalance Mod by JonnyH13 and Pandakraut 05/06/2023 1.28.4

[killjoy1941]

28 minutes ago, madmatg said:

1. Skirmisher cav are much less useful, making their numbers big enough to actually hurt the morale of an infantry unit from the back or side is just way too expensive. 

2. Melee cav are God-like on any routing units. I have consistently been able to get melee cav units (500-700 men) up to 65 melee in one battle.

3. Artillery, while 200-300 men is the most efficient maybe they are really not having as big an impact at that size as I'm used to. (using 3-in-1, napolean, and small howitzers)

4. Those large infantry units are pretty much required as melee seems like it really is just a matter of numbers now and I'm often fleeing from charges

1/2. Level them as melee cav, but pick skirmisher cav traits. They get quite decent at 2-3 stars and high firearms. The high melee stat will help protect them if they get attacked, and you can use it to charge batteries in a pinch. Melee cav can obviously develop as normal.

3. I tend to split, having one Napoleon/24lb and one rifled battery per division. I still haven't gone over 12 guns per battery. Seems fine. Put your canister-capable guns right behind your infantry that are going to take charges, or behind a charge you intend to make. Also, it's really helpful for stats to have your guns firing throughout the entire battle regardless of how effective they are, so I often have as much as 50k supply per corps, sometimes as high as 70-80k (2nd Bull Run, looking at you). It's definitely worth it to pick the Horse Artillery trait for non-rifled guns just so they spend less time moving and more time firing from positions which are as close as possible. This also helps get them out if you have to abandon a position in a hurry.

4. Pick the active-aura charge damage perk for your corps commanders. The others are nice, but you're constantly attacking as the Confeds, so I've found it very useful. Also, if the enemy charges you, fall back until they stop, then counter-charge so you get the charge bonus.

I like to use double lines wherever possible, with the more experienced and better armed troops leading initially to shoot people up and lower morale. If you can charge, then you simply hold fire on your melee focused brigades as they march through the line, then charge while the good troops and howitzers fire into the melee. If you get charged, you just fall back with your good troops through the melee brigades, then counter-charge with the same results as above. Either way, usually you'll get a quick rout which lets you start a massacre that you can halt at any time to preserve condition or your line integrity.

Edited May 22, 2018 by killjoy1941

[madmatg]

One thing, I don't remember anyone mentioning the +1 Army Organization bonuses being purposefully taken away, but they don't appear to be being given, they show up on the rewards screen after the battle but then my Army Org level hasn't changed

[Gyrvendal]

I have just installed this mod and started a new union campaign. It seems my artillery units can go up to 240 guns (6000 men). Is that intended???

Also my cavalry can go to 5000 and my skirmishers to 1000. My infantry numbers are normal though.

Edited May 26, 2018 by Gyrvendal

[pandakraut]

Thanks for mentioning, that. I didn't think they'd been changed but I just noticed that the 5th corps is missing on a max AO save. We'll get it corrected.

Update for 1.10 is in testing. Should hopefully have it out soon.

Edit: apparently the 4 corps max is intended, didn't realize that change had gone in.

Edited May 26, 2018 by pandakraut

[limith]

Suggestions:

1) I enjoy how the AI will actually surrender in the mod, the surrender frequency could be raised a tad more. Given how weapons don't sell for anything and there's a max 1000 man cap, and the AI doesn't understand how to withdraw it's army after suiciding it to death or being surrounded in a pocket. Surrender is a better option. Also surrender is a tactical challenge as you have to babysit the captured units and/or can't abuse skirmisher detachments yourself.

2) I think artillery are much much better than melee cav at small unit sizes at eliminating enemy men. At least right now I'm able with a 50% vet napoleon (12 guns) rank 2 art brigade kill a 1200 strong enemy brigade who are in forest cover(60%) in 2 volleys with minimal casualties (20-30). Compared to Melee cav who I can lose up to 200 men while dealing the same amount of casualties (brigade size of 500 men). 200 cav cost an insane amount to reinforce while art is much cheaper (as long as you don't lose the gun). If cavalry are going to be made a bit worse, please consider lowering the cost of reinforcing them somewhat.

3) Can I at least sell the guns I capture for $1? So many $0 guns.

4) Resource starvation is a real challenge on the confederate side. Guns are much more expensive now which really makes the campaign more challenging. I'm suffering more from a weapons shortage as CSA rather than a manpower shortage (can't afford the more expensive guns and I have to use them since I don't have enough good cheap guns to buy that are range 400 for my non melee grenadiers). I enjoy the challenge.

5) The campaign intelligence screen continues to be a joke, says the AI has 61k troops by Gaine's Mill despite me wiping out 80% of their troops in each battle. I wiped out 100% of the Union troops in Gaine's Mill (66% killed, 33% captured) and the army report says the AI now has 75k troops for Malvern Hill. How do they have troops for Malvern Hill if I wiped their entire army?! A real campaign overhaul cannot come fast enough.

6) There should be a greater cost difference between rank 1/2 leaders and rank 3 leaders, since it requires quite a few battles now to rank from 3->4. The cost difference between 1->2->3 in money is negligible such that it's better to just recruit the rank 3 leaders in the armory whenever possible (no real incentive to train from captains up) as you quickly run into the command cap. Also division commanders could use an xp gain buff if they are rank 3.

7) There are quite a few high tier guns that are significantly more expensive than the CS Richmond but have arguably worse stats. Maybe this is realistic, but it's odd seeing the guns placed like that in the list.

Edited May 29, 2018 by limith

[JonnyH13]

You need some investment in economy to be able to sell weapons.

Melee cavalry are expected to take casualties, but are very deadly if you used them right.  Artillery is very safe and potentially high damaging but lacks initiative.  

Logistics increases shop weapon quantities by 25% each point.  

The Intelligence screen has always been a joke...  I usually ignore it.  

XP gain for troops and officers is much lower now.

Cost does not necessarily mean better stats.  The Lorenz and the Enfield are import weapons and such are expensive.  The CS Richmond is better but it is a late (ish) weapon and not available in large quantities without sufficient investment in logistics.  You will have to supplement your army with captured enemy weapons or import weapons if you are lacking cheaper guns to buy.  

[pandakraut]

The intelligence screen shows a very specific set of information that isn't especially helpful if you don't know what his happening behind the scenes. It can be very accurate or completely inaccurate depending on how the player changes their army. Training and Weapon percentages are accurate, as they go higher you will run into more experienced troops and better weapons. Certain battles can still be exceptions due to how they are defined. The size report just tells you what the current AISize value is. The ranges shown are for appearances only and don't actually mean anything beyond giving you an idea of what the actual value is.

The AISize value has a timeline minimum which is why it will often shoot up even if you destroy a large part of the enemy army in the prior battle. The more you kill the more reinforcements the enemy will receive to hit the minimum. Larger kill counts do impact the training and weapons values though. Auto sizing enemy armies is the price you pay for being able to play a campaign. If that was removed the campaign would always be over after Bull Run or the entire combat system would have to be completely reworked so that casualty rates were closer to historical.

The intelligence report size value does not update when you change your army, it gets set once at the end of the prior battle. If you add troops to your army the actual AI army size will increase. In the next version the soldiers and guns amounts will always display on the corps deploy screen so that you have a better idea what you are actually facing. 

 

[killjoy1941]

Currently, the intelligence messages are important for understanding when veterans and weapons become available to the enemy. That's literally it.

Recon however, is made important in the mod by increasing spotting range by +50% per two skill levels. It's absolutely worth it if you like larger amounts of cav/dedicated skirmishers than the normal 1-2 per corps.

[HKO2006]

In changelog, "- Cannon crew amount now varies by type. This has resulted in some bugs in the camp UI, make sure to top off crew for new artillery units."

What do you mean by "to top off crew"?

[pandakraut]

17 minutes ago, HKO2006 said:

What do you mean by "to top off crew"?

If you have an artillery unit that takes less than 25 casualties in a battle, once you are back in camp select the unit and click the arrow next to the number of men/guns slider. The first click will add enough men to bring the unit up to max, the next click will add an additional 25 men to add a new gun.

In the mod currently if you switch between cannon types with different crew sizes weird things happen. You can lose cannon, get more cannon that are in stock, or just end up with a unit with less than the full crew allotment. We're reverting back to all crew sizes being 25 in the next version to avoid these issues. It's being tested currently, so hopefully it will be out soon.

[JonnyH13]

Updated to 1.10.  Enjoy!

Also feedback is always appreciated!

EDIT:  Here is a teaser on what I am working on next.  Your thoughts?

[Louis_Davout]

WWI is coming to the US soil

[Gyrvendal]

1 hour ago, JonnyH13 said:

Updated to 1.10.  Enjoy!

Also feedback is always appreciated!

EDIT:  Here is a teaser on what I am working on next.  Your thoughts?

 

I tried installing the mod but I am a bit confused, the archive contains no Assembly-CSharp.dll, only a Assembly-CSharpReleaseV1.1.tmp which doesn't overwrite anything. Are the installation instructions outdated?

Also, why would you want a Second Bull's run with 10 times the historical number of troops? Especially since number of troops are just abstracted numbers in this game.

[madmatg]

I just loaded with the update and started a new campaign at Potomac fort but it looks like my units can all detach skirmishers still?

[JonnyH13]

3 hours ago, Gyrvendal said:

 

I tried installing the mod but I am a bit confused, the archive contains no Assembly-CSharp.dll, only a Assembly-CSharpReleaseV1.1.tmp which doesn't overwrite anything. Are the installation instructions outdated?

Also, why would you want a Second Bull's run with 10 times the historical number of troops? Especially since number of troops are just abstracted numbers in this game.

You must extract the zip file to be able to access its contents...

If you look at the mini map and the number of unit cards you should notice that there are a lot more brigades on the field than normal...  That also applies to the AI but I annihilated them already...

To clarify there will be more brigades than base game and of different sizes, quality, and unit types.  Instead of the normal 21 or so brigades for the historical battle I can increase it up to a very large number.  It also applies to the campaign.  Also the picture above is the 1st Bull Run, not the 2nd Bull Run...

[pandakraut]

3 hours ago, Gyrvendal said:

I tried installing the mod but I am a bit confused, the archive contains no Assembly-CSharp.dll, only a Assembly-CSharpReleaseV1.1.tmp which doesn't overwrite anything. Are the installation instructions outdated?

 

2 hours ago, madmatg said:

just loaded with the update and started a new campaign at Potomac fort but it looks like my units can all detach skirmishers still?

An update was missed when creating the release package. Assembly-CsharpReleaseV1.1.tmp needs to be renamed to Assembly-Csharp.dll. Overwrite or delete the existing Assembly-Csharp.dll. The package has also been updated now if you'd prefer to just download and extract again. Sorry for the mix up.

Edited May 31, 2018 by pandakraut

[aileycc]

45 minutes ago, JonnyH13 said:

If you look at the mini map and the number of unit cards you should notice that there are a lot more brigades on the field than normal...  That also applies to the AI but I annihilated them already...

To clarify there will be more brigades than base game and of different sizes, quality, and unit types.  Instead of the normal 21 or so brigades for the historical battle I can increase it up to a very large number.  It also applies to the campaign.  Also the picture above is the 1st Bull Run, not the 2nd Bull Run... 

So If I bring a few super-sized brigades, let's say +10k size, how exactely does scaling work? Does the ai bring more brigades? Or does ai brigade size scale? Or is it a bit of both? Judging by the victory screen of Bull run, it seems like it's both, though I can`t really tell because of the ridiculous sizes you were using.

[pandakraut]

1 minute ago, aileycc said:

So If I bring a few super-sized brigades, let's say +10k size, how exactely does scaling work? Does the ai bring more brigades? Or does ai brigade size scale? Or is it a bit of both? Judging by the victory screen of Bull run, it seems like it's both, though I can`t really tell because of the ridiculous sizes you were using.

The specific testing setup just increases the number of brigades on both sides by a certain amount. AI brigade size scales as normal, bring larger units, AI will have larger units. There is some flexibility in terms of adding brigades, but dynamic brigade number scaling is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

[pandakraut]

On 5/26/2018 at 6:03 PM, Gyrvendal said:

I have just installed this mod and started a new union campaign. It seems my artillery units can go up to 240 guns (6000 men). Is that intended???

Also my cavalry can go to 5000 and my skirmishers to 1000. My infantry numbers are normal though.

Cavalry, artillery, and skirmisher sizes default to 5k, 6k, and 1k in the mod. The infantry numbers can eventually go up to 30k depending on AO. Max sized units are only somewhat supported currently and are likely overpowered past a point. If that's fun to you feel free to use them, if not just stick to normal sizes. The campaign should scale to match either approach.

[aileycc]

3 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

but dynamic brigade number scaling is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Ah thanks, that's basically what I was refering to.

Also what would be the most optimal size for infantry brigades? This could save me some trial and error haha.

[pandakraut]

53 minutes ago, aileycc said:

Also what would be the most optimal size for infantry brigades?

That question now has a variety of answers depending on which criteria you are selecting for optimal. Infantry efficiency fall off starts somewhere between 1600 and 2k as far as I am aware. You start overcoming the efficiency falloff somewhere around 6k+. However in between those ranges larger brigades still can take much more punishment which can make them more effective at certain roles, particularly melee. I play with infantry units between 1k and 1.5k. Several other people push for 5k+ brigades, it really depends on what style you like.

[limith]

I was thinking rather than skirmisher detachments for infantry what about make it a split brigade thing? Have the skirmishers be half of your brigade strength, and function just like an infantry (with no special skirmisher behavior. Would that be possible? Would it be desirable? Or would the same exploits for skirmisher brigades still be in play? It would allow better tactical play due to limits on numbers of brigades you can bring to a map with low AO. An alternative would be to increase the default number of brigade in a corps caps at low AO. You could lower max number of men per brigade slightly at low AO to prevent too many people bring brought into battle. AI seems to value number of brigades in decisions, and smaller+more brigades makes it better at flanking afaik in vanilla.
___

"- All perks have been reworked again. These apply to both the player and the AI." - Uh......so are we supposed to start a new game? 
"- Skirmishers can now equip infantry weapons" - Did you link the weapons of skirmishers and infantry so the same gun can be used in both? In 1.0 some skirmisher guns had two versions with infantry so the armory would have different values for the same 'gun'

___

Edit: Why is the editor so buggy and won't allow me to fix quotes. Is there no raw BBcode editor?!
 

Quote

All unit stat gain experience rates decreased.  As a side effect officers will also promote slower (this is intended).

Did you cut the XP gain rate for the AI too then?

Edited June 1, 2018 by limith

[pandakraut]

6 hours ago, limith said:

Uh......so are we supposed to start a new game? 

Up to you. Nothing will break if you continue an old save. Most of the perk changes were number changes, though the general perks and artillery perks had some things moved around. You'll notice the xp gain changes more in a new game though.

6 hours ago, limith said:

Did you link the weapons of skirmishers and infantry so the same gun can be used in both?

Yes, any infantry rifle can now be assigned to a skirmisher unit. There shouldn't be any duplicates as a few weapons were changed.

6 hours ago, limith said:

Did you cut the XP gain rate for the AI too then?

This change applies to AI units as well. Though for the AI it's at most only relevant throughout the battle. The AI units starting XP for every battle is determined elsewhere.

6 hours ago, limith said:

I was thinking rather than skirmisher detachments for infantry what about make it a split brigade thing? Have the skirmishers be half of your brigade strength, and function just like an infantry (with no special skirmisher behavior.

I don't think I can change the type of the unit that gets detached, though maybe the behavior could be changed to be closer to an infantry unit. It would be possible to change the deploy and corps slots so the player could double up all their brigades, but this would be dependent on the player to create their army in a specific way and would be a fair amount of work. The exploits with skirmishers mostly involve the ability to make a unit appear and disappear instantly. So anything that allows detachment would be a problem.

[HKO2006]

Not sure if they are bugs:

Arty not auto targetting skirmishers, it's rare and maybe due to skirmishers disappearing too fast

Arty moving speed is slower if it is right click drag a line to move, in other words, right click each arty units will make them move faster. <- figured this out, one arty doesn't have horst arty perk so move slower, other two have so faster.

Edited June 1, 2018 by HKO2006

[chemical_art]

24 minutes ago, HKO2006 said:

Arty moving speed is slower if it is right click drag a line to move, in other words, right click each arty units will make them move faster. <- figured this out, one arty doesn't have horst arty perk so move slower, other two have so faster.

This is a quirk in general of units with different speeds. It also occurs if you have infantry with different perks and thus different speeds, but the horse perk with its massive speed increase is most noticeable.