Observations of a Finished Career

[We@ponized Virginity]

I started this campaign a few days before the first pair of hotfixes released. With the release of the third hotfix, I continued playing the same campaign to get a long term feel of the new DLC. Note that I did a clean install before Whiskey & Lemons released. I also did a summer '61 campaign with King Cotton, Industrialization & Southern Railroads, with difficulty on mediocre/mediocre. Make what you want of that. These are the issues that I found.

Strategic Level
The Confederate AI grabbed Rebored Muskets in August, 1861. They then produced nothing else until October, 1862. Every possible naval project was grabbed by then, but they threw the army British Artillery. November of that year they got Austrian Rifles. December of the next year, they finally picked the 200 yard carbine project. It took 2 1/2 years for every branch to have some type of weapon. March of 1864 the AI grabbed Confederate Rifles, Legacy Rifles, Cavalry Reform I & II, Sharps Rifles and every artillery option within 2 months. Way too late to make a difference in the war. Around the time the breech loading artillery arrived, I noticed you can prestige buy weapons on order even when the stock is zero. It puts the current stock into the negatives, with the void being filled with new builds. I also spent almost 600 prestige to outfit a full division with Sharps rifles, only for the AI to downgrade them with Mississippis. This is unacceptable. The last year of the game I constantly had to check that same division and randomly give brigades back their guns. With the AI's decision making at this level, I thought they got a weird "personality," since if you pick random policies this can happen. But that only applies to enemy AI (which had historical), the CSA stopped with diplomacy after level 2, and other policies were spread out well enough to dispel this. So why the stockpiling of military subsides, just to blow it within 2 months? And why so late in the war?

Operational Level
What can be said here that hasn't been said already...
With 2 failed Eastern Theater games and a failed Union summer '61 game, I noticed the weird AI decisions were patterned around the army the player was in. I had a theory that if I was in the West, the Eastern Theater would stalemate due to incompetence, with the deciding factor in the war being me in another theater. I started in the Italy of the CS Army, the Missouri State Guard. The eastern armies immediately went to West Virginia and began starving, as per tradition. They also became obsessed with sending single forces to suicide raid along the great lakes. Since the enemy AI responds to troop presence, 2/3 of the Union Army gravitated to West Virginia as well. Nothing between Washington and Richmond except a recruitment division the AI left behind. Tennessee was placid the entire war. In Missouri, McCulloch had 25,000 men in the Western Army camped just down the road from us. He did literally nothing until P̶r̶i̶c̶e I cleared out the 2 corps bearing down on Arkansas. Before the MSG could recover, McCulloch decided to beeline it straight for St. Louis. Due to me carrying the MSG on my back, Price's AI got surprisingly bold and began attacking much larger forces. This made me want to punch him. When St. Louis fell, McCulloch decided to force march his men all the way to Chicago. When the Union countered him with about 3 times the troops, he boarded naval transports and sat in Lake Michigan. I reloaded a save from just before he captured St. Louis and prestige convinced him to stay and help deal with the 40,000 yankees in the state. He suffered several defeats against smaller armies and eventually retreated next to us. Around that time I noticed Albert Sydney Johnston was sitting in a brigade command while McColluch was embarrassing himself. He never left brigade command despite the endless defeats West Virginia was producing. Summer of '62 the AI grabbed Organizational Reform. They then transferred literally every army to West Virginia for a 2 pronged fist ♥♥♥♥ into Ohio and Harpers Ferry. Everything between St. Louis to Grafton was taken. The only forces left behind were the MSG now commanded by me, a brand new cavalry division in Arkansas, and a single infantry brigade in Texas. The new assault went... surprisingly well at first. The AI fulfilled their dream of reaching the great lakes, Washington fell and the Union went down to 30 morale. However, the Ohio raid was done with about 10+ independent corps, who had no morale due to being in Ohio. So many defeats followed the Union moral went back to the mid 40's. As far as the actual army commands go, Barksdale's army had no less than 8 (count EIGHT) corps in it totaling 266,666 men, an army with 3 corps was dedicated to protecting Grafton only, in the final months of the war a 1 corps army formed to train the remaining draftees the South had. Everything else was kept independent despite the fact we had Command Reform. So why no army groups? Well the overall commander was Beauregard who only held a brigadier general rank. He was a corps commander under Barksdale, so only a new army HQ with an auto picked commander could go past him in rank. I sat eligible for promotion for about 2 years but never got it due to my boss being the same rank. Once the Union AI realized Kentucky was empty, they tried invading. The AI auto picked Bushwhackers and Partisan Brigades for corps perks so I did a little trolling in Illinois to distract them. They never went past Louisville for the rest of the war. By 1864, the Western Theater got their act together and pinned me down while 6 independent corps broke out in Arkansas. Just as they were about to overrun the state, Lincoln lost the election and the war ended. In a way, my theory worked out. The E̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶n̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶a̶t̶e̶r West Virginia became a deadlocked disaster where most of our guns and every single good officer went to die. Morale for both sides was within 10 points until the end, with Missouri being the deciding factor keeping us ahead. Was not a fan of the AI abandoning me when there were still 40,000 enemies nearby. This level is the weakest of the new DLC by far.

Tactical Level
Even with initiative turned off, brigades have a chance to auto charge an enemy if they get too close. If a melee is happening close enough, other brigades will magnetize into the melee. They then refuse to retreat as long as they're in melee. This was an issue before Whiskey & Lemons but is 10 times worse in career mode due to the limited resources you have to work with. Broken units also have a chance to retreat though enemy units, resulting in half the brigade being captured. Again, an issue before Whiskey & Lemons but more damaging in the limited scope of career mode. The enemy reacts almost exclusively around the career objectives placed during battles. An example is a battle I was defending and the AI told me to attack with my corps. The enemy then dug into their own spawn and had time to wait for me. In other battles I was able to cheese objectives due to the AI being told to hit the same box as you, knocking out single divisions in depth. Speaking of objectives, if my command is the only friendly force in a battle, with me having overall command, I should not be giving myself command objectives. If they were based on stats or personality I would understand, but after save scumming a battle I found out they were randomized (see previous ex.). Regarding save scumming, there's an interesting bug related to it. I noticed feuds were happening during rerolled battles, even with the option turned off. The icon wouldn't appear, but all the negatives of feuds would happen. As a division commander, my brigades would always turn off long range orders at will. At corps level, I had a division abandon a bridge defense, right as a Union division showed up. This was present before the DLC but I finally pinpointed it to reloading a save before exiting to the main menu. Only noticeable during sweaty games. One last thing is if you replace a staff member to give him a commission, he moves with speed penalties like a player, which is a big handicap to his HQ. Issues with battles are largely old issues carrying over.

Character Stuff
Prestige gain was cripplingly low until I got a division command. At the division level, I was spending prestige at almost the income rate due to the "player" corps being passive. Passive behavior with the player might not be the cause, but It was the only constant with it. Traits are based at least in some sense on RNG. An example is on the religious question, if you pick the fedora option you can still get Devout and vice versa. I also started the game with Reliable, it disappeared while I was in winter quarters without a popup, then I got contrarian events without Contrarian as a trait. Reconcile as an action somehow made people hate me more with a solid -20 from actions. With the ranking to other officers, I kept flip flopping between 49-50 back to 51. Sometimes if I started the game fresh and loaded the save, it would drop just because. Once I got my nickname to activate, I stayed between 47-48 for the rest of the game. Speaking of nicknames, I was at 4 stars for about 5 months, winning several major victories until it activated. When it did, "Inquisitor" appeared in front of my actual nickname. I assume it's from my character having Devout and max leadership at the same time. If nicknames have an auto generated one, then why can we set a custom one to begin with? Also on the Career Highlights screen at the end of the game, the picture bugged out and showed a portrait of Sherman:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029468070

On a more lighthearted note, I completely forgot about the avatar system until I started looking for corps level staff:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027931249

Notice how avatar picture frames are still bugged. Also notice the run-on nickname my character now has. Overall, career mode consisted of watching the AI turn West Virginia into a clown show, while I single-handedly carried the entire state of Missouri on my back. The end of the campaign was the first time I ever had replacements run dry, so that was an interesting challenge. The biggest gimp for us was watching good officers either die, stay as brigade colonels or not be used because they were lieutenants. Probably the biggest challenge game I had due to depending on the AI to run things. Will probably not start a Union game until the listed issues get hammered out. Was fun role playing the Missouri State Guard though.




...So remember the reserve army I said appeared late in the war?:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029467854
That's the first time I saw the AI use an avatar officer.