janh
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Joined: 6/12/2007
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Unfortunately same for the Union. Also the "superaggressivity" of AI at the strategic level, often depleting itself in short time, is a bit of a bugger. It also is slow in feeding reserve brigades into the depleted containers in the western theaters, while always completely trying to fill out the containers in the east. It would be better if AI had a decreasing probability with number of brigades in container (1: 100%, 2: 100%, 3: 85%, 4:50, 5: 25%, 1.st artillery on top: 100%, 2nd art: 0%).
Tweaking down AI importance factors in ACWConstants.txt helps a bit, but not much. I redid the provinces.txt files, making each state its own province, and Washington and Richmond (James) again a separate province. That helped both problems substantially, but a real hardcode fix is still necessary.
Another thing I would like to see moddable would be separate minimum unit strengths for Artillery, and the routing limits in detailed combat (to <250). I would like it to me more realistic in strength, i.e. battalion sized (max 640 men). I did change this with a hex editor, it required a few edits of the routing strength threshold, the "upgrade threshold" (AI won't upgrade art with less than 2500 men it seems) etc. It would be nice if all this could be put in the moddable txt files. Correspondingly I scaled up art efficiency to make up for the smaller crews, but now I can give every of my divisions an artillery battalion without having a 2 million man army (yes, I allowed more units per divisions and div per corps and army as well to allow for a real formation "Army of Potomac"; I tuned down max infantry strength to 2500 men, which is way closer to average brigades in the CW; I also disabled all those unrealistic unit attributes and special leader abilities, which usually work badly against AI and make the game feel like science fiction; and I tuned weapon, unit and building costs, times, etc to adapt them to the other changes and result in historic equipment and building rates).
Finally I also allowed all art to use indirect fire without the upgrade (more realistic), and tuned down rifle and carabine ranges to typically 2 fields, and max 3 fields for the expensive sharpshooter rifles. This makes battlefields seem bigger, i.e. more maneuvering space and fun. Also AI artillery doesn't get slaughtered so easily if the rifles are weaker and have shorter ranges. I would say AI needs to be tuned to use artillery from longer ranges, and keep it safer in the back.
One more crucial fix I would hope to see would be the promotion system. I have modified the Commanders.txt to get all the famous names already right at the beginning and kind of assign them as brigade commanders. It would be nice to be able to correctly assign them, but that is not what bothers me. AI usually get also way more commanders, and then begins filling up all the containers East with dozens of leaders, while the Western armies and divisions barely get a head. Leaders should be limited ideally to the number of brigades in the container, plus one for the container leader itself (that goes onto the supply wagon in detailed combat). And AI should really assign them proper same way.
Finally, since AI only uses a 20% random in assigning leaders, it doesn't go through a "learning curve" like Lincoln in the CW: McDowell, McClellan, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, Meade&Grant, to give one example. It would be nice if (A) the "uncover general ability" parameter were moddable, and I would tune it down a lot. Then, I would like AI to take into account only known attributes, duty age and present rank, and not right at the start of 1861 put Grant at the head of AoP because he has the best factors. He should slowly climb up the ladder one rank by one, and only once AI knows his true strengths, put him into promotion. Maybe one way would be to also allow generals to learn "leadership experience" in battle like units do: say max of +0.25 gain/loss for the "leadership" category per won/lost battle. And have all generals start out with similar values except the ones that in 1861 were really of rank:
0-3: can only be brigade generals
4-6: division capable
7-8: corps
9-10: can be promoted to Army or higher.
Then only allow AI to use this leadership category (plus Cavalry) to assign leaders. That kind of could mimic the duty age and promotions succession in a simple way and probably is a small enough chance to be modded!
Anything else, like increase the possible number of provinces and subdivision into smaller areas (especially Shenandoah, Fredericksburg, James, Rappahanock or the much contest areas of Chattanoogha) would be awesome, but maybe not as easy to do.
I would really love another patch for this great game, that could be with little effort even much greater! Or an FOF2!
< Message edited by janh -- 6/30/2010 2:10:16 PM >
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The CSA Turtling Problem - 
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