Ways to change recruitment speed?

[stgarrettjr]

So I know there are values to make more recruits available per militia act tier, but I wonder if there's a way to slow how quickly theyy're available? I just finished my first playthrough of the game, as the Union, and it consisted of the CSA speedrunning the Militia line, then after I trimmed their army down in battles, going on into both bounties and conscription, such that at end-game I had just pulled ahead of them again in army size (I only got up to Militia IV and did not do conscription or bounties) before capturing Richmond in June '62.

It feels to me like this reduced my campaign length, however, because having such quick surges of manpower repeatedly prompted the CSA to get very aggressive. I waged almost 50 battles, the great majority of them in northern Virgiinia as the CSA would rush a fresh army up every time its readiness/morale state allowed, I'd fight it, I'd win, repeat every 2-3 weeks until Jan-Feb '62 when poor weather and their losses finally seemed to make the AI temporairily cool down. For one thing, I admit I'm sort of sick of the Bull Run map after a dozen battles on it (:-D), but more to the point, the AI constantly rushing for battles it loses contribbuted to wearing away its morale to the point just capturing Richmond (albeit after my largest fight with them) brought them below defeat threshold., though I'd not split the Confed in half yet or even accomplished the ten forts morale boost (I'd only done the consecutive victories, taking West Virginia, and invading the CSA).

Now I get I can always just mod the game to reduce the morale threshold to be even lower, but I also wonder if it's help if it took longer for the player or the AI to actually build up armies between militia acts? Hence my question. Which I could've just asked but I wanted to explain my reasoning. :-D

(My apologies for any missed double-letter typoes, Bluetooth keyboard acts up).

[awindsor89]

If you find a fix post it i play CSA and i steam roll the union every time DC is captured by 62 and i hold NYC by 63

[crono900]

These lines in campaignprefs might be helpful

[Additional] recruitment time in years if units are already under recruitment in same state (0=inf, 1=cav, 2=arty)
0.02
0.035
0.03
Minimum recruitment time in years per unit type (0=inf, 1=cav, 2=arty)
0.025
0.04
0.035

These control the time it takes for new units to arrive at their army. There are quite a few other lines that might help as well in campaingprefs. Here are some that determines the number units in an army and type.

the relative composition of new armies to be recruited (totals need to be 1), inf/cav/art
0.65
0.10
0.25

the maximum number of corps below an army for ai recruiting in 61
3
the maximum number of corps below an army for ai recruiting in 70
10
the maximum number of divisions below a corps for ai recruiting
3
the maximum number of brigades below a division for ai recruiting
4

Hope this helps.

[stgarrettjr]

Looks like they'd slow arrival of units being recruited, which could help, yeah. Thanks. I'll tinker with those lines in the next campaign.

I've also tried to reduce aggression in said file, though even at low aggression the ai gets feisty. I think it is being less feisty in my current campaign though, doesn't bumrush Winchester and Alexandria nearly as often.

[Vepil]

could this work in the players favor? and where can i find those recruitment time lines in the files?

[crono900]

Originally posted by Vepil:

could this work in the players favor? and where can i find those recruitment time lines in the files?

In the game folder, look in the 'config' folder, there you will find the 'campaignprefs' notepad.

As for working in the players favor...You can try decreasing the number of brigades/divisions below a division/corps should make more AI armies on the map but they will have less units and longer order delay... Though this will NOT be historically accurate army composition.

[Vepil]

thanks