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

[pandakraut]

Some of those suggestions are probably beyond what we can manage, but there are some interesting ones in there that we might be able to accommodate in the future. The deploy stuff is unfortunately probably not one of them.

There is no way to disband a division. You can dump a lt colonel in one that isn't being used at least.

There also isn't a way to select an officer and see which unit they have led, but you can select a unit and see which officers have led the unit. When you select a unit in the box of information that displays on the right side of the screen, click on the button in the top left of the box that has an upward graph icon. This brings up a list of battles that can be hovered over to show the commanding officer name.

I might be able to store a list of units on the officer, though that gets tricky because units can be renamed or moved around. Will look into it.

There is no way to unmerge unfortunately. I've tried to add a confirm prompt for the merge but it didn't work out. This is something I want to look into further though.

[dixiePig]

Thanks for even considering the suggestions. As a professional 'usabilityGuy' for interactive systems for some decades, I realize that often superficial cosmetic stuff can often be tougher to implement...  '

If some of  the 'interesting ones' can be implemented without too much trouble, then I believe that they offer big playability bang-per-buck by implementing variety, rather than attempting to improve functionality 

• Dumping a weak colonel in command of  the dummyDivision is a classic kluge.  Hey, it works.
• Thanks for the hint re 'hidden info' on brigade commanders: It's awkward, but vaguely useful
• Un-merge is the most painful.  "lack-of-undo" is a classic unusability Feature.   https://tcscraft.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/legacy-problems-the-usual-suspects/

Edited December 30, 2021 by dixiePig
clarification & follow-up

[dixiePig]

1. Is there any particular point or advantage in attacking the enemy commanding general/s?
2. Is it unwise to place your commanding general/s at risk?

Edited January 2, 2022 by dixiePig
clarification & follow-up

[pandakraut]

9 hours ago, dixiePig said:

1. Is there any particular point or advantage in attacking the enemy commanding general/s?
2. Is it unwise to place your commanding general/s at risk?

When a general unit is destroyed the benefit of its auras are no longer applied. This includes the morale regen bonus and if it was a LT General the tier 3 perk bonus.  

 So if you can get rid of them it'll make breaking and capturing units easier.

Similarly for your own units you don't want to lose them, but you can definitely use their hp to tank a few volleys in desperate situations.

The next version will add a much larger morale regen bonus for units the general is in melee contact with, so you will be able to put your general at risk of collateral damage to try to stabilize a critical unit. 

If a general unit dies, nothing happens to the officer. We would change this if we could but the corps officer UI isn't setup to support it at all, so the only workaround that has been found is exceedingly clunky(delevel the officer so they are no longer valid to lead a corps) 

[dixiePig]

Thanks for clarification. Related questions: 

• Is there any 'aura' effect even if friendly units are not within the CG's sphere-of-influence?
• Is it possible to direct the CG's aura towards specific units 'at risk'?
• My CG sometimes 'takes off/flees' in the middle of battle (proximity of enemies, I guess).  Any way to deal with this?

In a related vein:

Even when the situation is hopeless, enemy units continue to fight - suicidally - until destroyed. Is there no "Bull Run Effect" (enemy flees the field en masse)?

• What's the trade-off between fighting to destroy the enemy (possible spoils of war) and the cost of losing your own troops?
• Is there any way (technique) to increase the spoils of war?  Capturing enemy units doesn't seem to offer the return on weapons that you might expect.

Edited January 5, 2022 by dixiePig
clarity

[pandakraut]

On 1/4/2022 at 7:06 PM, dixiePig said:

• Is there any 'aura' effect even if friendly units are not within the CG's sphere-of-influence?
• Is it possible to direct the CG's aura towards specific units 'at risk'?
• My CG sometimes 'takes off/flees' in the middle of battle (proximity of enemies, I guess).  Any way to deal with this?

If no units are inside the generals aura radius then no benefits from the aura are applied to any unit.

Any at risk units should be moved, or the general moved, so that they are inside the aura radius.

Hold position on the general is the only option here. Sometimes generals don't seem to properly break out of the 'fall back from nearby enemy units logic'. Very annoying on the large maps.

On 1/4/2022 at 7:06 PM, dixiePig said:

Even when the situation is hopeless, enemy units continue to fight - suicidally - until destroyed. Is there no "Bull Run Effect" (enemy flees the field en masse)?

• What's the trade-off between fighting to destroy the enemy (possible spoils of war) and the cost of losing your own troops?
• Is there any way (technique) to increase the spoils of war?  Capturing enemy units doesn't seem to offer the return on weapons that you might expect.

While the mod does add negative morale regen from nearby routing units to somewhat simulate mass routs, implementing anything more direct comes with pretty bad side effects. For example, if the negative morale regen is too high, then any sufficiently large clump of units will end up indefinitely routing into a corner.

Getting them to route off the map is a technical problem I have not been able to solve. Combine this with the way that maps slowly open up and add more units and a lot of battles would turn into routing a few initial units, driving them into other nearby units and quickly chain routing the enemy into a clump that can never recover. Thematically perhaps this sounds good, but in testing we have found it to be extremely exploitable within the limitations of the game engine.

Limiting your own casualties while inflicting maximum casualties in return is always going to be a balance. There isn't always a firm answer here because sometimes more of your own casualties are acceptable if they are on newer and more poorly equipped units. In general on higher difficulties you want to aim for a 3:1 or higher K:D ratio and full clearing maps as much as possible. Sometimes I'll pull up instead of trying to push for the full clear, but that's very situation dependent on when I think I can finish up cleanly vs the cleanup being too inefficient to be worth it. More experimentation and experience based on your own playstyle is really the answer here.

Capturing units more than doubles the recovery rate of weapons, so that is always a priority when possible. The mod does include a weaponRecoveryPercentage value that lets you adjust the recovery rate of killed or shattered enemy units. For example, the default value on MG difficulty would be .1. If you set it to .2 you would double the amount of weapons recovered from killed enemy troops. When the config value is 0 the default values are used. Config options for the various other cases where weapons are recovered are currently not available.

While the default values may seem low, I would recommend small steps if increasing them. A seemingly small increase can very easily break the economy of the campaign after a few battles.

 

[dixiePig]

Cannot find " weaponRecoveryPercentage" among config files of v.1.27.3d

Where is it?

              

Edited January 7, 2022 by dixiePig

[dixiePig]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:11 PM, pandakraut said:

The mod does include a weaponRecoveryPercentage value that lets you adjust the recovery rate of killed or shattered enemy units. For example, the default value on MG difficulty would be .1. If you set it to .2 you would double the amount of weapons recovered from killed enemy troops. When the config value is 0 the default values are used.

value is where?

[pandakraut]

On 1/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, dixiePig said:

Cannot find " weaponRecoveryPercentage" among config files of v.1.27.3d

Where is it?

              

This value was added in 1.27.4. I'd recommend grabbing the latest version 1.27.4.3

[Drunteroffizier]

Hello!

I started a CSA Campaign (BG Difficulty) with this mod and have a little problem with the unit/brigade number you can use in the second Battle (Newport News)!

The Battle screen says 4 Brigades but the actually deploy screen allows me only 3 Brigades ?!

I always got the feeling "if I could just have one more unit at the start..." in Battles like this ore 1.st Bull Run and after watching elder videos from Fiasco games where he did that I wanted to do it as well but as written it seems not to work!

I have the newest mod version and I tried to reload the Battle but it stayed on 3 starting core units!

Thanx in advance for an answer... Otto

[dixiePig]

On 1/9/2022 at 1:54 AM, pandakraut said:

This value was added in 1.27.4. I'd recommend grabbing the latest version 1.27.4.3

Thanks.  The dynamics of new version are an excellent improvement:

• Slower speed encourages more 'considered' play
• Units don't rout quite so quickly
• Less battle attrition (both you and enemy) = more realistic : more infantry-centric
• Game seems to value units supporting each other 'in line'
• Takes longer to wear them down, but more captured enemy units as a result
• Greater variety in 'spoils of war'
• Cycling units in order to rest those who are stressed is wise (good feature)

Enemy acts more 'reasonably'- In previous versions they just attacked suicidally aggressively.

• Suggestion:  Perhaps toss in more variety in enemy behavior - i.e. Some commanders are more aggressive (or passive/defensive) than others. This will add much more liveliness & challenge to the game.  It's already happening to some degree.

The weaponRecoveryPercentage feature is nice.  Interestingly, not now quite as necessary as in previous versions, as I am capturing more enemy units.  After a little trial&error, I find that ".13" is quite comfortable, and I will probably reduce it even more.

All in all, v.1.27.4 is a tremendous improvement.  KUDOS on great work

[PaulD]

On 1/11/2022 at 12:45 PM, Drunteroffizier said:

Hello!

I started a CSA Campaign (BG Difficulty) with this mod and have a little problem with the unit/brigade number you can use in the second Battle (Newport News)!

The Battle screen says 4 Brigades but the actually deploy screen allows me only 3 Brigades ?!

I always got the feeling "if I could just have one more unit at the start..." in Battles like this ore 1.st Bull Run and after watching elder videos from Fiasco games where he did that I wanted to do it as well but as written it seems not to work!

I have the newest mod version and I tried to reload the Battle but it stayed on 3 starting core units!

Thanx in advance for an answer... Otto

Hi Otto,

I've tried to verify this and I'm unable. Are you on version v1.27.4.3?  For Newport News I am getting 4 units on the load screen and 4 units on the deploy screen.

 

[pandakraut]

On 1/11/2022 at 12:45 PM, Drunteroffizier said:

Hello!

I started a CSA Campaign (BG Difficulty) with this mod and have a little problem with the unit/brigade number you can use in the second Battle (Newport News)!

The Battle screen says 4 Brigades but the actually deploy screen allows me only 3 Brigades ?!

I always got the feeling "if I could just have one more unit at the start..." in Battles like this ore 1.st Bull Run and after watching elder videos from Fiasco games where he did that I wanted to do it as well but as written it seems not to work!

I have the newest mod version and I tried to reload the Battle but it stayed on 3 starting core units!

Thanx in advance for an answer... Otto

Sorry for overlooking this. As @PaulDnoted this sounds like an install issue. If you aren't seeing the mod name referenced in the version displayed on the bottom left of the main menu then you'll want to double check where your field ended up. They should be in Ultimate General Civil War/Ultimate General Civil War_DATA

[Drunteroffizier]

Hello and thank you for the answer(s)!

I've reinstalled mod and game and now it works fine (The bug in front of the monitor...)!!!

Johnny and you did an Excellent Job with this mod, I always thought the basic game is something special but rebalanced it's just fantastic - So thanx for all the work (and passion) you put into creating this!!!

Greetings from Germany...Otto

Edit: Sorry for the confusion but unfortunally the issue is Back! I've started a new CSA campaign on MG Difficulty and can deploy only 3 Brigades at Newport News (again) instead of the 4 offered in the Battle/Corps screen!

I have done a complete new installation of game and mod (downloaded it again to make sure I have the correct version) ! On the 1st Bull Run Battle everything works fine and I could deploy 5 Brigades as intended so I guess the version/installation is correct!?

Unfortunally I've deleted all saves so I cannot recall the one situation where I got the 4 Brigades once (as mentioned above...)!

Sorry again for the mix-up but it would be nice if you could check it again!

Thank you... Otto

Edited January 23, 2022 by Drunteroffizier
attached screenshots as example

[beldon]

Great mod. In a previous post I read that csa recruits have 1.5 stars at training 7. After the first csa mission I have 3 training which gives infantry recruits with 0 stars 77exp, I then upgrade to 5 training but it´s still 77exp.

I then finished the 2nd mission as I thought it might fix it. The recruits now get 0 stars 80exp.(this seems to be because of captains exp difference)

Is the training stat working correctly?

Edited January 23, 2022 by beldon
extra fluff

[pandakraut]

5 hours ago, beldon said:

Great mod. In a previous post I read that csa recruits have 1.5 stars at training 7. After the first csa mission I have 3 training which gives infantry recruits with 0 stars 77exp, I then upgrade to 5 training but it´s still 77exp.

I then finished the 2nd mission as I thought it might fix it. The recruits now get 0 stars 80exp.(this seems to be because of captains exp difference)

Is the training stat working correctly?

Yes, this is working as expected. The training benefit applies when recruits are added to your army after battles. So you won't see any change to your existing recruit pool when you add to your training until you finish the next battle and new recruits with higher stats are added to your pool.

The experience of the officer provides a bonus towards a unit getting a perk. Colonels and BGs are very useful for getting units to 1* due to this. Later on with more points in training you can use lower ranking officers to still get the 1*.

[dixiePig]

So I've used v.1.27.4 from the get-go as CSA at MG.  I adjusted weaponRecoveryPercentage to .13, which improves the rate slightly. 

Worked well up until Bull Run, which is always tough as CSA, with the see-saw nature of Union forces arriving in East and West. But it now appears to be almost impossible; the tougher mod rules re 'fatique' mean that my Allied units at Matthews Hill are easily overrun and totally routed by the huge Union force before the first wave of CSA reinforcements arrive. 

I like the improved play attributes of the new version, but it seems a little out of balance on Bull Run.  

Am now adjusting AIscalingSizeMultiplier in effort to even it out a little.

[dixiePig]

On 1/21/2022 at 1:34 PM, Drunteroffizier said:

I've started a new CSA campaign on MG Difficulty and can deploy only 3 Brigades at Newport News (again) instead of the 4 offered in the Battle/Corps screen!

Thank you... Otto

Otto

Your Battle screenShot shows that you actually DO have your fourth Bde (Cabell/Artillery), but it is just not  visible on the Battle Map because you double-clicked on it.  It's now stored as the Artillery Icon at the lower center of the screen.   Double-click inside the Battle placement box and your artillery unit will reappear on the battle map.

I do not know why the originators of UGCW engineered in this feature.  It's annoying.

Edited January 30, 2022 by dixiePig
clarity

[pandakraut]

19 hours ago, dixiePig said:

So I've used v.1.27.4 from the get-go as CSA at MG.  I adjusted weaponRecoveryPercentage to .13, which improves the rate slightly. 

Worked well up until Bull Run, which is always tough as CSA, with the see-saw nature of Union forces arriving in East and West. But it now appears to be almost impossible; the tougher mod rules re 'fatique' mean that my Allied units at Matthews Hill are easily overrun and totally routed by the huge Union force before the first wave of CSA reinforcements arrive. 

I like the improved play attributes of the new version, but it seems a little out of balance on Bull Run.  

Am now adjusting AIscalingSizeMultiplier in effort to even it out a little.

Bull run was adjusted so that the player can deploy more units initially, at the downside of the allied units arriving later. Various changes were made AI spawn timings to prevent the player from just being able to overwhelm each individual spawn at a time.

Defending Matthew's Hill is going to be very hard to do on higher difficulties. The terrain there is bad and unless you strip your defenses to the east you won't have enough units to hold it for any extended period of time. Delaying actions are possible though.

[pandakraut]

On 1/21/2022 at 1:34 PM, Drunteroffizier said:

Edit: Sorry for the confusion but unfortunally the issue is Back! I've started a new CSA campaign on MG Difficulty and can deploy only 3 Brigades at Newport News (again) instead of the 4 offered in the Battle/Corps screen!

Turns out this is a bug when any language but English is selected. For some side battles I am using the battle name to determine which battle is being started. This name changes when switching languages, so my overrides no longer apply. The corps deploy screen number is set a different way that can't be used in battle which is why that works correctly for you.

I will see if I can fix this in the next version, but for now you can get around it by changing your language to English, starting the battle, and then changing your language back to German. Rio Hill, 2nd Winchester, and Distress Call(second Union battle) are probably the only other battles where this would be necessary.

[PaulD]

21 hours ago, dixiePig said:

So I've used v.1.27.4 from the get-go as CSA at MG.  I adjusted weaponRecoveryPercentage to .13, which improves the rate slightly. 

Worked well up until Bull Run, which is always tough as CSA, with the see-saw nature of Union forces arriving in East and West. But it now appears to be almost impossible; the tougher mod rules re 'fatique' mean that my Allied units at Matthews Hill are easily overrun and totally routed by the huge Union force before the first wave of CSA reinforcements arrive. 

I like the improved play attributes of the new version, but it seems a little out of balance on Bull Run.  

Am now adjusting AIscalingSizeMultiplier in effort to even it out a little.

Just my 2 cents...

I also find BR to be a difficult CSA battle. I find it best to just avoid Matthews Hill completely. If you focus on the right side of the battlefield, you can nearly eliminate Sherman, Keyes, and all the other units that come from the right before you need to focus on the left side. Ignoring Matthews Hill usually results in the AI funneling most of the Union troops south and down the road that runs along the wheat fields to the left of Henry Hill.  Setting up a perimeter in the woods all along Henry Hill to the right and south of those wheat fields sets the Union up for failure as your reinforcements come in.

Regarding weapons recovery. When playing as Union I wanted to have 2-star units at Shiloh, so I used a max training build and to overcome the lack of weapons while grinding experience I cranked the AIscalingSizeMultplier way up - as high as I could handle it from battle to battle, then when I hit Shiloh I dropped it back to the base level of 1. Worked like a charm. I never touched the weaponrecoverypercentage. It can be a bit of a grind at times, but you may find the net results of weapons farmed is betterr than just turning up the weaponrecoverypercentage.  

[dixiePig]

5 hours ago, PaulD said:

Just my 2 cents...

I also find BR to be a difficult CSA battle. I find it best to just avoid Matthews Hill completely. If you focus on the right side of the battlefield, you can nearly eliminate Sherman, Keyes, and all the other units that come from the right before you need to focus on the left side. Ignoring Matthews Hill usually results in the AI funneling most of the Union troops south and down the road that runs along the wheat fields to the left of Henry Hill.  Setting up a perimeter in the woods all along Henry Hill to the right and south of those wheat fields sets the Union up for failure as your reinforcements come in.

Regarding weapons recovery. When playing as Union I wanted to have 2-star units at Shiloh, so I used a max training build and to overcome the lack of weapons while grinding experience I cranked the AIscalingSizeMultplier way up - as high as I could handle it from battle to battle, then when I hit Shiloh I dropped it back to the base level of 1. Worked like a charm. I never touched the weaponrecoverypercentage. It can be a bit of a grind at times, but you may find the net results of weapons farmed is betterr than just turning up the weaponrecoverypercentage.  

I was considering something along the same strategic line for BR myself, PaulD:

•  It is now difficult-if-not-impossible to deploy early CSA units on Matthews for a holding/delaying action - they just get slaughtered
• the CSA reinforcements arrive at Henry Hill 'just in time' and the AI tends to deal with flanking situations like that poorly
• But the only way to establish a viable CSA defensive presence on Henry Hill is to withdraw there immediately from Matthews Hill

Also considered customizing individual adjustments to the configFiles for each battle, tho that seems like excessive 'gaming the game'.

Would prefer to see more variety in enemy command behavior (aggressive/timid/careful/foolish) : Knowing who you're fighting informs the type of battle you can expect.

Achieving that gameplay balance is the challenge.  Probably not within the scope of these mods, but it would be interesting to have some - usually defensive - situations in which you 'lose the field' but still 'win the battle' because you've achieved strategic objectives.  CSA/Cross Keys and CSA/Antietam probably come closest

 

[OhioJack]

Awesome mod pandakraut!  Question on the config files though.

Does that AIscalingExperienceMultiplier still work in the latest version 1.27.4.3?  I experimented by modding it to .1 in a current campaign and then restarted Shiloh, but I didn't see much of an effect.  AIScalingSizeMultiplier set to .1 definitely had a drastic effect in the same test though.  

To test the AI experience stats, I simply captured some Confederate AI units, but the stats didn't seem to change much.  Melee was still 80+ points for example.  The number of stars in the units didn't seem to change either.  

Playing on MG difficulty for reference.   

[Drunteroffizier]

On 1/31/2022 at 3:35 PM, pandakraut said:

 

I will see if I can fix this in the next version, but for now you can get around it by changing your language to English, starting the battle, and then changing your language back to German. Rio Hill, 2nd Winchester, and Distress Call(second Union battle) are probably the only other battles where this would be necessary.

Hello and thank you for the answer!

I just wanna confirm that your suggestion/solution works (with loaded camp game save!) and it's more bad news now at newport for the Union as intended 😃 !

Sidenote: I tried it with 3 Brigades and it forced me to re-think and change my strategy totally ! Deploying a melee cavalry unit (500men) that  early in the campaign combined with some luck (AI Stuart split in two cav brigades !) and an offensive defense was the key - the difference between BG and MG Difficulty is (for me ) quite a challenge so thumbs up to everybody who is playing this on legendary !!!

Thanx again for creating this mod and Cheers.... Otto

 

[pandakraut]

10 hours ago, Drunteroffizier said:

I just wanna confirm that your suggestion/solution works (with loaded camp game save!) and it's more bad news now at newport for the Union as intended 😃 !

Should work, though I can't think of any battles where it would be an issue between days. Maybe Gettysburg or cold harbor.