Does the AI ever stop attacking?

[.]

I am not much of a modder so I don't know how to mod the game but do the AI armies ever stop attacking?

For context: I want to do a sort of ironman game that involves -
-All railroads built
-All subsidies upgraded
-All or most territory conquered
-100% of the Union or CSA volunteers and draftees killed
-All enemy officers killed
-All enemy forts captured.
-All enemy ships sunk

In every campaign I have played, the AI attacks non stop and it causes their national morale to drop way too fast. So it ends up with the war being over in 1 or 2 years and I never get to experience a lot of features this game has to offer with how suicidally aggressive the AI is.

[Oubley]

W&L or vanilla? With vanilla a lot of times turn down the aggressivness and can get a a semi decent start for '61 to '62 where the CSA is almost too passive.

I think it also depends on what towns/cities end up taking.

[.]

Originally posted by Oubley:

W&L or vanilla? With vanilla a lot of times turn down the aggressivness and can get a a semi decent start for '61 to '62 where the CSA is almost too passive.

I think it also depends on what towns/cities end up taking.

Vanilla, I turn the difficulty down to it's lowest setting. Yet the AI is fielding these 10-30k plus armies and constantly attacking me in the west and in the DC area. This goes for both the Union and the CSA. Auto resolve makes me lose every time and so 90% of my campaigns are these exhausting battles.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by .:

Originally posted by Oubley:

W&L or vanilla? With vanilla a lot of times turn down the aggressivness and can get a a semi decent start for '61 to '62 where the CSA is almost too passive.

I think it also depends on what towns/cities end up taking.

Vanilla, I turn the difficulty down to it's lowest setting. Yet the AI is fielding these 10-30k plus armies and constantly attacking me in the west and in the DC area. This goes for both the Union and the CSA. Auto resolve makes me lose every time and so 90% of my campaigns are these exhausting battles.

medium/medium I find the best in terms of not modding.

if modding there is a number in the campaignpref files i think is like 0.75 for the second chapter that I tend to turn down sometimes.

I've played mostly the beta version, west attacks haven't been too bad.

[BookishBread]

In my last CSA campaign I changed the files to essentially eliminate the loss of national morale for losing a battle. This drug the campaign on forever and even after I conquered literally the whole union there national morale was still at like 70 which was a bit ridiculous. I should also note that this really lowers the increase in military ecxperiance gain (mine was 10 at the end) which makes invading much more difficult to do. I also changed the loss of national morale for losing your capital to -5 instead of -20.

[.]

Originally posted by BookishBread:

In my last CSA campaign I changed the files to essentially eliminate the loss of national morale for losing a battle. This drug the campaign on forever and even after I conquered literally the whole union there national morale was still at like 70 which was a bit ridiculous. I should also note that this really lowers the increase in military ecxperiance gain (mine was 10 at the end) which makes invading much more difficult to do. I also changed the loss of national morale for losing your capital to -5 instead of -20.

Is there a guide on how to change the files because that sounds really interesting. Can you fully destroy enemy armies to the point they disappear from the map? I saw there was a guide that said to go into the text files and change the numbers around. I tried that but nothing seems to have changed.

[Jerzul]

I second this. I'd like to know how to mod some of these files too.

I also would like a better understanding of the aggressiveness setting. I've been using Mediocre, which seems okay, but the CS Navy keeps trying to run up and blockade Connecticut, which leads me to destroying their entire navy in June of 61. Then again, maybe I shouldn't worry about the naval side of the game too much?

[BookishBread]

I don't know if there is an actual guide for this you would have to look int he guides section on this forum. You should have a downloaded folder somewhere with all the files for this game. In that folder you want to into the config file, there is all sorts of files in there but the ones that I have edited are battleprefs, campaign prefs and unit prefs. There are other files that you can edit if you want but these are the ones I have personally messed with. Off the top of my head campaign and battle prefs are probably going to be the most relevant to what you are looking for. I would love to tell you which lines to edit exactly but I have messed with these files for some time so I don't know every change I have made and I also always play of the hardest difficulty with the highest aggresivness so that may also be a factor. It can be a bit time consuming to look through them but I encourage you to do so and change the lines that seem relavent to you.

Also a very important side note, if you verify your game files it will unedit your changes back to what they originally where.

[.]

Originally posted by Jerzul:

I second this. I'd like to know how to mod some of these files too.

I also would like a better understanding of the aggressiveness setting. I've been using Mediocre, which seems okay, but the CS Navy keeps trying to run up and blockade Connecticut, which leads me to destroying their entire navy in June of 61. Then again, maybe I shouldn't worry about the naval side of the game too much?

I figured it out through trial and error on how to mod the game files and am currently working on a steam guide for the game.

[.]

Originally posted by Jerzul:

I second this. I'd like to know how to mod some of these files too.

I also would like a better understanding of the aggressiveness setting. I've been using Mediocre, which seems okay, but the CS Navy keeps trying to run up and blockade Connecticut, which leads me to destroying their entire navy in June of 61. Then again, maybe I shouldn't worry about the naval side of the game too much?

I just created a guide on how to edit the files. Hope it helps with your question

[stgarrettjr]

This vexed me through several campaigns, I once turned AI aggressiveness in Chapter 2 to zero, set the starting AI aggression rating to "Calm", and I still had the Confederate army advancing every few weeks to try and expel my troops from Alexandria or WInchester. Since armies can move on owned state territory regardless of readiness it feels like the AI hurls armies forwaard the moment their morale allows for a combat to be started. Auto-resolve is very random and honestly feels weighted a bit towards the CSA (though that may be how it calculates various officer skills and I just don't change the roster the right way) so you end up fighting multiple battles on theWinchester or Bull Run map, and I'm kinda sick to death of it now as I think I've fought over almost every corner of those maps (and the Murfreesboro/Stones River map since the AI really hates losing Nashville too). Sometimes the CSA AI gets sneaky and tries to slip up the Bay to hit Baltimore or DC directly, or tries to go through the valley between Winchester and Leesburg to enter Maryland, and you get the DC or Antietam map instead.

But yeah, the end result is the player constantly fights them, inflicts more and more casualties on them, the Confederate national morale tanks, then their support takes hits as the desperate CSA AI rushes to conscription before '61 is out and mass drafts suck that stat down, causing more on-map surrenders and more casualties to further worsen national Confederate morale. Then the Union wins in 1862.

I've never had a war last beyond September 1863, and that was when I went into the configs file and set the victory morale to 10. I had to take every Confederate city on the map and get thheir support to 0 for it to drag their morale down below surrender. TBH it was kinda fun compared to the Rebs surrendering before I even complete Anaconda...

[Oubley]

Originally posted by stgarrettjr:

This vexed me through several campaigns, I once turned AI aggressiveness in Chapter 2 to zero, set the starting AI aggression rating to "Calm", and I still had the Confederate army advancing every few weeks to try and expel my troops from Alexandria or WInchester. Since armies can move on owned state territory regardless of readiness it feels like the AI hurls armies forwaard the moment their morale allows for a combat to be started. Auto-resolve is very random and honestly feels weighted a bit towards the CSA (though that may be how it calculates various officer skills and I just don't change the roster the right way) so you end up fighting multiple battles on theWinchester or Bull Run map, and I'm kinda sick to death of it now as I think I've fought over almost every corner of those maps (and the Murfreesboro/Stones River map since the AI really hates losing Nashville too). Sometimes the CSA AI gets sneaky and tries to slip up the Bay to hit Baltimore or DC directly, or tries to go through the valley between Winchester and Leesburg to enter Maryland, and you get the DC or Antietam map instead.

But yeah, the end result is the player constantly fights them, inflicts more and more casualties on them, the Confederate national morale tanks, then their support takes hits as the desperate CSA AI rushes to conscription before '61 is out and mass drafts suck that stat down, causing more on-map surrenders and more casualties to further worsen national Confederate morale. Then the Union wins in 1862.

I've never had a war last beyond September 1863, and that was when I went into the configs file and set the victory morale to 10. I had to take every Confederate city on the map and get thheir support to 0 for it to drag their morale down below surrender. TBH it was kinda fun compared to the Rebs surrendering before I even complete Anaconda...

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My own TLDR essentially being it's a constant struggle to get the AI to defend towns properly even if have decent settings to prolong the war.
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I think putting a squadron 3-4 of those cheap gunboats in the potomac river from just south of Alexandria out towards the bay (where there inner circles overlap) tends to help pacify the AI.

I tend to take Alexndria around may and pullback to washington. This seems to help with the constant assaults too.

Taking Winchester at this point (july/August) the AI a lot of times goes numb.

In my recent modded game had like 550k troops and they had like 450k and there wasn't a ton of fighting but I think I overdid it with the projects as the AI kept shooting out recruitment offices.

Modding the draft so it's not the .000016 state support loss to like 0.000004 or whatever the values are probably helps with the draft state support/loyalty loss.

I tend to put my morale breakpoint to 0.05, drop capital to 0.08 to 0.10 (down from the 20), set casaulty influence on state support to something like 0.00002 from the 0.00004, turn off all those -0.01 march north/south things to 0, set the trigger for battles/forts/cities to like 15 instead of the 3 or 5 it is set at.

Is there wilderness map or is that the same thing as Chancellorsville? I hear ya on the bull run, they need some more random generic maps.

The problem with trying to stretch out the campaign is the AI will do something dumb, like ya they'll fight like heck at times to protect nashville, but then they'll essentially leave the deeper south open and pretty much have nothing on Atlanta.

I tried another CSA campaign, got to about late may 61/early June and the AI took 20k of its 40k troops on washington and moved them north of winchester where it started doing this walk back and forth thing...

So I tapped out cause there was only like 20k worth of troops on Washington and i could have easily brought ~35k to bear.

[stgarrettjr]

THe map issue is more that since the game always checks for maps that conform to a specific location, it means I'm always fighting the same map. I suppose you could crank down the setting for matching map locations so it doesn't look as far, i.e. you'd need to be right on top of Winchester or Manassas to get those maps, or Murfreesboro for that map, etc.

I've been taking a break from playing but I may just do a fresh campaign where I turn down that support loss from drafts. Still, what I'd love nothing more is to haave the AI actually not be crazy aggro so early. I wish there was a way to match, say, military experience to the AI aggressiveness, ergo the AI only starts to get feisty when the armies are more skilled.

I suppose another thing to do might be to crank up morale loss for less experience, so early battles more often are less bloody.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by stgarrettjr:

THe map issue is more that since the game always checks for maps that conform to a specific location, it means I'm always fighting the same map. I suppose you could crank down the setting for matching map locations so it doesn't look as far, i.e. you'd need to be right on top of Winchester or Manassas to get those maps, or Murfreesboro for that map, etc.

I've been taking a break from playing but I may just do a fresh campaign where I turn down that support loss from drafts. Still, what I'd love nothing more is to haave the AI actually not be crazy aggro so early. I wish there was a way to match, say, military experience to the AI aggressiveness, ergo the AI only starts to get feisty when the armies are more skilled.

I suppose another thing to do might be to crank up morale loss for less experience, so early battles more often are less bloody.

In the main campaign file there is a setting for construction speed.
this seems to do wonders just upping it by 0.05 for the middle values for units and buildings.
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
0.00030
0.015
0.01
0.01
0.01

I think because the early campaigns the AI is concentrating those extra 7-15 days still building things. (And if you knock them back towards the end of their building, a lot of times they'll start over somewhere else so end up getting yet another extra 15+ days of peace and quite)

I typically only end up with 1 main battle in Mizzu (Missouri), 1 at alexandria if you count taking out 2k of troops a battle, 1 around Louisville and then 2-3 naval battles.

I maybe have 1 more battle out east, maybe if I feel aggressive a counter attack in mizzu where I try and widdle down the AI.

Maybe 2 more "main" battles in July and August.

I tend to not do the Indian territory thing as Union and do Go West, so maybe the docileness is from the lost Military experience for the Go West policy?

These days tends to no be so much getting through 1861, it's 1862 after 1 or 2 main battles the enemy parts like the red sea and I sort of lose interest there.

I think my dream game would be the AGEOD strategy map combined with the gunfighting/environment/audio of this game and the unit controls of Take Command. While Take command has better unit and officer commands, the fighting to me in this game feels more engaging from an eye candy sound standpoint

The 1st time I tend to take troops is 1 year contracts, and for Union it only tends to be an additional 40k or there abouts.

2 year is where more where run the recruitment barrel a tad more dry but even then dont go too crazy.

More times then not if you slow play troop builds, the AI will relatively slow play too (relatively) though I knock down the time for 2nd unit builds from a state by .1 and 1st unit builds by 0.05 too.

[LCcmdr]

To the original question: YES, the AI attacks way too often, tying me up in hours of battle. I enjoy it, but have to take breaks from the game, too.

[klunick924]

I've noticed the same thing. Historically, in a theater you might have several big battles in a season. In this game, I'm having one every freaking week. About 500 hours on vanilla so far and today I thought, okay, let's play hard. War starts and boom, Union is in Richmond. Typically I have found that the pundits online are correct. As the CSA, I have ended the war by August 61 for god's sake. Only once have I gotten to August 62. The AI and the union just attack themselves into oblivion. Much of the time I simply sit back like Lee and set traps leading to at least 2-1 victories. After the disaster of the hard game, I thought, okay, lets play as the union. Forget that, I was way too prepared and was mopping the CSA off the floor by the 2nd month of the war. Yep, take your army of 10k and try crossing into DC to take out 30k of the union. That makes zero sense. One counter attack after that failure and the 10k army is south of Petersburg at about 3500 troops. Sure there were examples of say Brandy station and then Gettysburg very close, but that was rare. Usually, especially on the Rapidan line, one side would move forward, attack, get whipped, pull back and everyone would regroup. Couple months later wash/rinse/repeat..