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

[dixiePig]

34 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

HA is actually my least used perk for artillery.

hmmm.  Don't know that this actually comports with historical effectiveness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canister_shot  "It was particularly effective during the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War, where massed troops at close range (usually less than 400 yards) could be broken up by artillery batteries firing canister. At times, particularly at very close range, artillery crews would fire extremely lethal "double canister," where two rounds were loaded into the gun tube and fired simultaneously using a single charge."

I'll take +25% canister impact (HA) any day of the week.  Not to dis other perks, but historically ... Does your engine actually reflect that "massed troops at close range (usually less than 400 yards) could be broken up by artillery batteries firing canister"?  It should.

Suggestion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_artillery_in_the_American_Civil_War

 

[pandakraut]

3 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

I'll take +25% canister impact (HA) any day of the week.  Not to dis other perks, but historically ... Does your engine actually reflect that "massed troops at close range (usually less than 400 yards) could be broken up by artillery batteries firing canister"?  It should.

By HA I meant that I don't take the horse artillery perk very often. I tend to field a lot of rifled artillery, but I use the t1 canister damage perk on my 24pdr howitzers. In general you will find that infantry units do not stand up to close range canister fire. If the artillery is unsupported the infantry can drive it off, but they will usually take more losses than they would doing so in the base game.

[dixiePig]

33 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

By HA I meant that I don't take the horse artillery perk very often. I tend to field a lot of rifled artillery, but I use the t1 canister damage perk on my 24pdr howitzers. In general you will find that infantry units do not stand up to close range canister fire. If the artillery is unsupported the infantry can drive it off, but they will usually take more losses than they would doing so in the base game.

Sounds reasonable. The howitzers are bears, tho a little slow compared to the napoleons.  I tend to use my rapid-firing short-range artillery in close tactical support of infantry units.  Longer range Parrotts and Ordnance for more strategic bombardment.  BTW:  You've got Parrots and Ordnance now firing at about 2x the rate they did in the base game, which was only about 33. Rationale?

Note:  Haven't tracked it that closely, but infantry in-line within 500 yds does not seem to take the losses I'd expect from a battery of 12 napoleons firing (I assume) canister.  I also expect heavier losses (and shock) when artillery takes an infantry unit in flank.  Or at least that's my impression. I'll keep an eye on it.

Edited September 9, 2019 by dixiePig
clarification & follow-up

[dixiePig]

Correction.  I misspoke myself when referring to "horse artillery'

I meant "Short Range Focus", which has the canister advantage.

I like very much your speed/short-range/long-range perks for artillery.  Appropriate groupings and labeling is obvious.

[dixiePig]

A not-so-wonderful artifact of the legacy version of ucgw is the confining attribute of the mapEdge, which allows troops to be 'pinned'. 

• On the one hand, it's a feature which can often be 'gamed' to advantage
• on the other hand, it's kinda cheap and false

It deserves some consideration. Perhaps:

• If a unit is in a severe 'routed' state and is pushed 'off the board', it cannot return, though not all of the troops are casualties
• If it is not routed , then it might return - but with a time/ strength / exhaustion penalty

In a related vein

I find it kind of exasperating when I've beaten the enemy fairly decisively, but individual isolated enemy units still continue to fight steadfastly.  Although history tells us that this COULD happen (in rare instances) - it was far likelier that you would have a historical First Bull Run result, where  panic and flight could spread to many units.

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by dixiePig
clarity

[pandakraut]

13 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

If a unit is in a severe 'routed' state and is pushed 'off the board', it cannot return, though not all of the troops are casualties

I've tried multiple times to allow units to rout off the map with no success. The engine definitely supports it, but I can't figure out how to make the pathing happen.

A workaround we are exploring is having units shatter or surrender at 0 morale. This requires a rework of morale damage as it would occur far to often currently and finding the right balance has been difficult.

[dixiePig]

 

26 minutes ago, pandakraut said:

I've tried multiple times to allow units to rout off the map with no success. The engine definitely supports it, but I can't figure out how to make the pathing happen.

A workaround we are exploring is having units shatter or surrender at 0 morale. This requires a rework of morale damage as it would occur far to often currently and finding the right balance has been difficult.

Thanks.  Good luck in getting the machine to behave 

[dixiePig]

RE:  Promotion

https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-promotion-system-operate-in-the-confederate-army-during-the-civil-war

"... if the colonel of an infantry regiment was killed or forced to retire due to wounds, the lieutenant colonel would usually be promoted to take his place as colonel." (i.e. battlefield promotion)  Seems to imply that - if a commander is killed or wounded - his replacement would likely be of the same rank.  If implemented, This makes the current situation - re promotions & commander casualties - slightly less painful.

Quora is an excellent resource for well-researched crowdsourced  insights

• including me : https://www.quora.com/profile/John-Vaughan

[pandakraut]

31 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

"... if the colonel of an infantry regiment was killed or forced to retire due to wounds, the lieutenant colonel would usually be promoted to take his place as colonel." (i.e. battlefield promotion)  Seems to imply that - if a commander is killed or wounded - his replacement would likely be of the same rank.  If implemented, This makes the current situation - re promotions & commander casualties - slightly less painful.

This system has been added in the mod, after a fashion. If a colonel or higher is killed/wounded a lt colonel takes over command of the unit. If that officer is killed/wounded a major takes over, and so on. If a captain is killed/wounded then no replacement officer is given. While not assured a promotion, those ranks level up pretty quick so they will hit colonel fairly quickly.

[adishee]

11 hours ago, pandakraut said:

I've tried multiple times to allow units to rout off the map with no success. The engine definitely supports it, but I can't figure out how to make the pathing happen.

A workaround we are exploring is having units shatter or surrender at 0 morale. This requires a rework of morale damage as it would occur far to often currently and finding the right balance has been difficult.

I'm excited to see where this mod goes in future, PK. I wish I had the know-how to help.

[adishee]

@pandakraut Is there any way to disable the battlefield visual effects, eg shell craters and bodies? For performance issues.

[pandakraut]

47 minutes ago, adishee said:

@pandakraut Is there any way to disable the battlefield visual effects, eg shell craters and bodies? For performance issues.

Not that I'm aware of unfortunately.

[dixiePig]

On 9/6/2019 at 9:51 PM, pandakraut said:

Long term we would like to try a more morale damage focused system that lowers the overall casualty rates more towards historical levels.

Good call : esp re canister

[dixiePig]

 

On 9/9/2019 at 8:09 PM, dixiePig said:

Correction.  I misspoke myself when referring to "horse artillery'

I meant "Short Range Focus", which has the canister advantage.

I like very much your speed/short-range/long-range perks for artillery.  Appropriate groupings and labeling is obvious.

* grouping & labeling are obvious, though the icons are still legacy (i.e. "not obvious" and sometimes confusing ... because of  legacy usage).  It may seem minor, but is there anything you can do w/ UI icons?

https://tcscraft.wordpress.com/2017/12/19/branding-icons/

[dixiePig]

On 9/9/2019 at 10:42 PM, pandakraut said:

If a captain is killed/wounded then no replacement officer is given.

Although I don't obsess a lot over junior officers - Why not simply use the same method for battlefield replacement at that level?  Common sense says that there are probably a few Captains around ... If not, then a competent Lieutenant or two

[dixiePig]

Don't know if you can implement, but seems to me that a reasonable functional feature is that

• when you detach Skirmishers from an infantry brigade
• the Skirmishers automatically deploy in the direction of the host unit movement

This would save some extraneous/redundant clicking.

i.e. IF brigade x is heading northeast for a distance of 600 yds

THEN the detached Skirmishers will automatically deploy in a northeast direction for a distance of 700-800 yds

By the same token

IF brigade x is engaged with the enemy (i.e. firing)

THEN Skirmishers deploy in the opposite direction at a distance of 100 yds

 

imo These are both reasonable defaults for detached Skirmishers.  As a player I can, of course, override them.  But probably not. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by dixiePig
clarification & follow-up

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, dixiePig said:

 

* grouping & labeling are obvious, though the icons are still legacy (i.e. "not obvious" and sometimes confusing ... because of  legacy usage).  It may seem minor, but is there anything you can do w/ UI icons?

https://tcscraft.wordpress.com/2017/12/19/branding-icons/

Changing the perk icons doesn't work for some reason.

[pandakraut]

57 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

Although I don't obsess a lot over junior officers - Why not simply use the same method for battlefield replacement at that level?  Common sense says that there are probably a few Captains around ... If not, then a competent Lieutenant or two

Needed a cutoff somewhere and getting any kind of replacement is already a large benefit to the player. It's also generally not going to come up all that often.

[pandakraut]

15 minutes ago, dixiePig said:

Don't know if you can implement, but seems to me that a reasonable functional feature is that

• when you detach Skirmishers from an infantry brigade
• the Skirmishers automatically deploy in the direction of the host unit movement

This would save some extraneous/redundant clicking.

Unit movement orders is not something we can really make changes to. Skirmishers just pop into existence and then will start to move so that they are not overlapping the parent unit.

[Jpburns]

@pandakraut Do the confederates ever get the 4.5" siege gun in the armory during the campaign?  I just finished a union campaign on major general, and found the siege gun to be extremely effective.  I'm a little worried how to counter it at confederates when the AI has it.

[JonnyH13]

39 minutes ago, Jpburns said:

@pandakraut Do the confederates ever get the 4.5" siege gun in the armory during the campaign?  I just finished a union campaign on major general, and found the siege gun to be extremely effective.  I'm a little worried how to counter it at confederates when the AI has it.

The CSA gets some from the Reputation Shop, but nothing in the shop.  They do have the Whitworth Cannons though and those are good for counterbattery.

 

Edit: The CSA do not get Whitworth cannons in the shop.  They should though... 

[pandakraut]

11 minutes ago, JonnyH13 said:

The CSA gets some from the Reputation Shop, but nothing in the shop.  They do have the Whitworth Cannons though and those are good for counterbattery.

Whitworth are going to be the same situation where you can only get them from one Rep buy and otherwise have to capture them. The CSA do also get significantly better scoped rifles than the union which should also help.

It should also be pretty rare that you encounter whitworth or 4.5" artillery during the campaign as the CSA, though it is possible.

Edited September 14, 2019 by pandakraut

[dixiePig]

I get the sense that this happens sometimes:

Playing the Confederates

• Port Republic : says that I have 13 Brigades for the engagement
• I form my attacking corps with a total of 16 brigades
• ugcw starts battle by giving me 3 brigades
• but my reinforcements bring my troop total to 15 brigades

I don't really mind having a bigger force, but ... ?

[pandakraut]

1 hour ago, dixiePig said:

I get the sense that this happens sometimes:

Playing the Confederates

• Port Republic : says that I have 13 Brigades for the engagement
• I form my attacking corps with a total of 16 brigades
• ugcw starts battle by giving me 3 brigades
• but my reinforcements bring my troop total to 15 brigades

I don't really mind having a bigger force, but ... ?

This was an issue in the base game that I corrected the numbers for in the UI mod for the CSA campaign(Union campaign work still needs to be done). The Rebalance mod also has those number corrections, but they break once the deployment sizes are increased to account for detached skirmishers being disabled. 

While not ideal, the player should at least always be getting at least as many units as the battle displays. Getting the numbers to line up exactly would basically require hard coding dozens of values instead of using a generic solution, so it's not something I'm likely to do anytime soon.

[dixiePig]

4 hours ago, pandakraut said:

While not ideal, the player should at least always be getting at least as many units as the battle displays. Getting the numbers to line up exactly would basically require hard coding dozens of values instead of using a generic solution, so it's not something I'm likely to do anytime soon.

Thanks.  Makes sense to me - and I like the little 'gift'.

I enjoy playing now with detached Skirmishers on. Will be interested to see what happens with next phases of rebalance, so that they can be seamless part of the default mode:  I feel that they're an integral part of the history and the game.