Best Campaign Yet!!!

[aceofmace2020]

Fellow Tacticians - I just finished the best campaign I've had to date. The war lasted just past April 1865 (May 5). Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson took the helm. I have been working on mods to make the game more interesting for myself and I set campaign rules to make the challenge greater. Finally, I got what I wanted: a long campaign, very competitive, and fun!!! Posted links to screenshots of the end.

[aceofmace2020]

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199023563936/screenshot/2008090573136420923/

[aceofmace2020]

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199023563936/screenshot/2008090573136420297/

[Oubley]

Originally posted by aceofmace2020:

Fellow Tacticians - I just finished the best campaign I've had to date. The war lasted just past April 1865 (May 5). Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson took the helm. I have been working on mods to make the game more interesting for myself and I set campaign rules to make the challenge greater. Finally, I got what I wanted: a long campaign, very competitive, and fun!!! Posted links to screenshots of the end.

what were your rules?

I tend to heavily mod the raw files myself.

I still tend to lose interest though sometime after taking majority of Tennessee as the AI does such a bad job of having support armies in northern Georgia/Alabama when I'm Union.

As CSA for some reason lose interest even faster.

[Red]

What were these rules?

[aceofmace2020]

I set limits on how many rifles, artillery I can import from Europe each year, 25K rifles & 128 artillery pieces. Also, how many ships I can have in my navy - 50 to start, 25 additional each year. And I have to keep my credit rating above B. Those are self-imposed rules as CSA that keep a bit of realism in the game. And I won't go after DC until Summer of 1864.

[Balanced Integer]

Originally posted by aceofmace2020:

Fellow Tacticians - I just finished the best campaign I've had to date. The war lasted just past April 1865 (May 5). Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson took the helm. I have been working on mods to make the game more interesting for myself and I set campaign rules to make the challenge greater. Finally, I got what I wanted: a long campaign, very competitive, and fun!!! Posted links to screenshots of the end.

The only thing I've modded so far is the Readiness system. Base Readiness gain +1/3, and Readiness gain on friendly territory 30%. Still acts as brake to steamrolling the AI, but I spend a little less time with my thumb up it, yanno?

Can I ask you to describe some of the game file mods you made?

[aceofmace2020]

The only thing I've modded so far is the Readiness system. Base Readiness gain +1/3, and Readiness gain on friendly territory 30%. Still acts as brake to steamrolling the AI, but I spend a little less time with my thumb up it, yanno?

Can I ask you to describe some of the game file mods you made?

NGL, I haven't kept good track of the mods I've made. But, there haven't been many. I know I tweaked the number of men recruited and size of brigades when recruited. 3000 is a slightly larger number of men in a civil war brigade, so I made it 1800, 2100, 2400. Sea invasions increase; vanilla had very few invasions of the Southern coast. I altered the AI importance levels for cities, towns, and depots for offensive operations. And I put a great deal of influence on commander levels influencing lower commanders. Increased the number of researchable policies to 15. The big one that has made a really big difference was increasing importance of defending capital. Makes the North defend DC instead of leaving wide open for an easy 25pt decrease; vanilla made it very easy for a Southern attack on DC and victory.

[Balanced Integer]

Originally posted by aceofmace2020:

The only thing I've modded so far is the Readiness system. Base Readiness gain +1/3, and Readiness gain on friendly territory 30%. Still acts as brake to steamrolling the AI, but I spend a little less time with my thumb up it, yanno?

Can I ask you to describe some of the game file mods you made?

NGL, I haven't kept good track of the mods I've made. But, there haven't been many. I know I tweaked the number of men recruited and size of brigades when recruited. 3000 is a slightly larger number of men in a civil war brigade, so I made it 1800, 2100, 2400. Sea invasions increase; vanilla had very few invasions of the Southern coast. I altered the AI importance levels for cities, towns, and depots for offensive operations. And I put a great deal of influence on commander levels influencing lower commanders. Increased the number of researchable policies to 15. The big one that has made a really big difference was increasing importance of defending capital. Makes the North defend DC instead of leaving wide open for an easy 25pt decrease; vanilla made it very easy for a Southern attack on DC and victory.

Thanks for the input. I made another slight modification last night and tweaked the lethality of cannon fire. I think pretty soon I'll just be going with the AOM mod, I just don't like the fact that the pre-war scenario in that mod is supposedly a bit janky.

[crono900]

So it is a good Idea to keep records of your modded values, because they values could reset whenever a patch is released or if you need to do an integrity check.

Here are my current mods. Most of my battles have the defenders winning unless the attackers attack with 3-4 times as many men or use arty. Most of the values make the battles feel more accurate.

Parenthesis are the values I use.
__________________________________________________________
Artillery mod to make all guns visible;
_________________
Unitprefs lines;
_________________
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #2
0.13(0.53)

Guns per sprite to show up (used for stats)
0.5(0.124)

Size adjustment for horse artillery (factor to regular artillery)
0.435(.5)
__________________________________________________________
Infantry and Cavalry Sprite increase
_______________
Unitprefs Lines
_______________
Infantry
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #0
0.035(0.067)
Cavalry
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #1
0.035(0.067)
Skirmishers
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #1
0.035(0.067)
Scouts
How many men represent a unit, factor 0.1: 100 men = 10 sprites #1
0.035(0.067)

Number of sprites on one regiment block on side x - only for Infantry & Cavalry
4(5)
Number of sprites on one regiment block on side z - only for Infantry & Cavalry
2(4)
__________________________________________________________
Unitprefs Changes (Modded values)
__________________________________________________________

Morale effect factor of friendly unit behind cover (multiplied by the cover value, per hour)
0.15(0.3)
Morale effect factor of enemy unit in front behind cover (multiplied by the cover value, per hour)
-0.25(-0.5)

Permanent visibility of fallen sprites factor (how many of the fallen sprites do not disappear, should approx the reciprocal value of fallen to loss ratio)
0.125(0.25)
Time non permanent sprites are shown until they disappear (in game hrs)
0.05(0.75)

Dead ratio musket (standard)
0.15(0.1582)
Dead ratio artillery (solid)
0.5(0.75)
Dead ratio artillery (explosives)
0.2(0.35)
Dead ratio artillery (canister)
0.6(0.85)

Factor for losses behind cover (is multiplied by 1-cover value [0-1]), the higher the value, the more cover value reduces the losses for range fire
0.5(0.75)
Casualties modifier if enemy unit is layn down
0.4(0.25)

Min distance to own unit to allow overshooting with arty [>0]
35(15)
Min distance to own unit to allow overshooting with arty if own unit to front is layn down [>0]
20(5)

The probability of showing musket fire smoke and flash 0-1
0.33(1)

Fire Range color fire ready [rrr-ggg-bbb]
000-000-255
Fire Range color reloading [rrr-ggg-bbb]
255-100-000
Symbol color of left artillery guns [rrr-ggg-bbb-aaa]
100-100-255-200
__________________________________________________________
Battleprefs Changes; (Modded Values)
__________________________________________________________

Battlefield Minimum Camera Height
20(10)

The multiplicator for line of sight reduction, taking into account smoke and dust with remaining alpha and size (the higher the value, the shorter is line of sight if dust and smoke appears in front of view)
0.8(0.85)

Weighting of unit strength relation for micro ai charge decisions
1(1.1)

Strength relation to enemies nearby, trigger to switch to assault mode for single groups (micro behavior), exp, morale is taken into account; only executed if macro ai stance is attack or assault; 0=assault, 1=attack, 2=defend(not used), 3=retreat(not used)
1.1(1.4)
1.5
3
0

Trigger for ordering retreat of the whole army [0.01-1], also applicable for auto-retreat for player
0.10(0.05)
__________________________________________________________
Campaignprefs Changes; (Modded Values)
__________________________________________________________

Building duration in game years per resource, (set 0=default, 1=fleets, 2=construction by units, 3=buildings, 4=blank, 5=blank, 6=blank)
0.0002
0.0001
0.00025(0.000125)
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01

Standard readiness recovery per year
6.8(10)

project administration reform, policy speed increase per level [0.05 means 5% faster for each level]
0.05(0.15)

Break morale trigger level [<]
0.25(0.5)

[Additional] recruitment time in years if units are already under recruitment in same state (0=inf, 1=cav, 2=arty)
0.02(0.01)
0.035(0.0175)
0.03(0.015)

[Balanced Integer]

And all of that got saved to a text file for future use, although I already use crono's figures for artillery lethality.

One odd thing about the slight mod I made to the Readiness figures is that I'm suddenly running up against artillery ammo shortages. Go figure.