F&IW Problem: Chevalier de Rigaud and Capt Charles Deschamps

[Chief Rudiger]

I have been playing the French and Indian Wars Grand Campaign and am thoroughly enjoying the advancements made to the engine over BOA1, particularly cohesion. I have found the A.I. to be smarter and the addition of the EP controlled recruitment a good balance between the original's scriptedness and AACW's tedious micromanagement (IMHO).

The only problems i have come across so far are as follows:

1) Still some missing text on some events screens, while using the latest patch. A notification to the British Player that the Southern Indian tribes distrust the British, and, notifications of new EP options becoming available.

2) Eventually, freshly raised Canadian Militia get poor names like "10. Canadian Militia", just as in BOA1, while the British Colonials now appear with nifty new names like "III B. NY Regt." although I noticed these were sometimes duplicated (with a previous patch at least). (FYI I nearly always train all available Can. Mil to Continental status w/ Levis so they don't disband)

3) A Problem with some leaders getting CP penalties for troops they should be able to command normally, the two offenders I've noticed are Chevalier de Rigaud and Capt Charles Deschamps commanding any type of French/Canadian units (happens every time I load up the GC).

4) I also notice an "Anglo-French Commander" Attribute that i don't see having an effect.

Regarding the latter two:

In the screens attached you can see that when Rigaud is a subordinate commander in a stack he add's 4 CP's as a 2 star general would normally. However, When he or Deschamps are in sole command the units under them each seem to require more CP's; as if they were indian or hessian units being commanded by someone of the wrong nationality or without the necessary command attribute.

CP inflation happens (i think) whatever sub-nationality of units these two commanders lead, it is illogical and is surely an error. In BOA1, as far as i remember, all "Blue" or "Red" aligned units, be they French/British Militia, Continentals, Light, Regulars or Irregular, cost the same amount of CP regardless of what sub-nationality their leader was (excluding Indians and Hessians). Governor Lawrence (orange/colonial) leading British Regulars (red/british) in Halifax for example.

The new "Anglo-French Commander" attribute suggests to me that another layer of depth is supposed to be present whereby Militia and/or Colonials need a commander of their own branch to avoid CP inflation in a stack lead by a French Regular general, and vice versa.

Is this the case for the French side only? I have not noticed any British Commander with a corresponding Anglo-American attribute. Is it intended to represent factionalism within New France (do i remember this being the case, historically, or am I imagining it) or hinder the French rushing South with an army swelled by Militia?

Regardless, I don't see this attribute having an effect in the F&IW scenario as no other French commander (AFAIK) suffers CP inflation; suggesting to me that Rigaud and Deschamps are bugged and that this attribute was planned but never implemented.

What's with the attribute and is it possible to open a file and change some values myself to get Rigaud and Deschamps back to normal?

[lodilefty]

Than you for the detailed feedback!

<snip>
1) Still some missing text on some events screens, while using the latest patch. A notification to the British Player that the Southern Indian tribes distrust the British, and, notifications of new EP options becoming available.

What version are you running?
We've been adding missing text in every patch.. with many more in for the next one
....and we'll keep chasing them down

2) Eventually, freshly raised Canadian Militia get poor names like "10. Canadian Militia", just as in BOA1, while the British Colonials now appear with nifty new names like "III B. NY Regt." although I noticed these were sometimes duplicated (with a previous patch at least). (FYI I nearly always train all available Can. Mil to Continental status w/ Levis so they don't disband)

It's a function of how many we input to the units... It will happen when you exceed the quantity we input... We'll look at it.

3) A Problem with some leaders getting CP penalties for troops they should be able to command normally, the two offenders I've noticed are Chevalier de Rigaud and Capt Charles Deschamps commanding any type of French/Canadian units (happens every time I load up the GC).

This is WAD. Not all Canadian leaders are Franco-Canadian capable. If you don't see the little ability icon on their unit, or the tooltip indication, they're not!

Franco-Canadian leaders are:
[INDENT]Michel Chartier de Lotbinière
Gaspard Chaussegros de Léry
Pierre Pouchot de Maupas
Guillaume Plantavit de Lapause
Marchant de la Houlière
Marquis de Vaudreuil
Louis Coulon de Villiers[/INDENT]

4) I also notice an "Anglo-French Commander" Attribute that i don't see having an effect.

Huh? Who?
There should exist only:
[INDENT]Franco-American
Franco-Canadian
Franco-Indian
Franco-Spanish
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-German
Anglo-Canadian[/INDENT]

Anglo-French should only occur sometime in 1914...

Regarding the latter two:

In the screens attached you can see that when Rigaud is a subordinate commander in a stack he add's 4 CP's as a 2 star general would normally. However, When he or Deschamps are in sole command the units under them each seem to require more CP's; as if they were indian or hessian units being commanded by someone of the wrong nationality or without the necessary command attribute.

Correct. French troops commanded by Canadian leader. Your CAN militia are training to Troupes de Marine, still Canadian. The Artillery are FRA faction...

CP inflation happens (i think) whatever sub-nationality of units these two commanders lead, it is illogical and is surely an error. In BOA1, as far as i remember, all "Blue" or "Red" aligned units, be they French/British Militia, Continentals, Light, Regulars or Irregular, cost the same amount of CP regardless of what sub-nationality their leader was (excluding Indians and Hessians). Governor Lawrence (orange/colonial) leading British Regulars (red/british) in Halifax for example.

The new "Anglo-French Commander" attribute suggests to me that another layer of depth is supposed to be present whereby Militia and/or Colonials need a commander of their own branch to avoid CP inflation in a stack lead by a French Regular general, and vice versa.

This is WAD for The French and Indian War setups, representing FRA and CAN units and leaders as separate 'factions'. This is the 'multinational design' [AFAIK first seen in Napoleon's Campaigns game]

Is this the case for the French side only? I have not noticed any British Commander with a corresponding Anglo-American attribute. Is it intended to represent factionalism within New France (do i remember this being the case, historically, or am I imagining it) or hinder the French rushing South with an army swelled by Militia?

Yes. There is no political conflict between British Regulars and American Colonials... at least until 1775

The same effect will be seen in the American Revolution set between British and German units, and with Natives in all scenarios..

In these cases, multinational unit stacks must either have a leader with the appropriateattribute, or have at least one leader from each 'faction' to avoid the CP penalty.

Regardless, I don't see this attribute having an effect in the F&IW scenario as no other French commander (AFAIK) suffers CP inflation; suggesting to me that Rigaud and Deschamps are bugged and that this attribute was planned but never implemented.

See the list above for who will 'suffer' and who won't. No bug.

What's with the attribute and is it possible to open a file and change some values myself to get Rigaud and Deschamps back to normal?

Of course you can mod this. That's for the modders forum: adding 'Abilities'.

I hope this answers your questions!
Again, thank you for the complete and concise feedback...

Now, I've got to find those strings...

[Chief Rudiger]

Thanks for the quick feedback, Ageod has grown but hasn't lost touch!

1) 1.01b

2) Also spotted a British Colonial Regt named GBRland: mistake?

3)

Correct. French troops commanded by Canadian leader. Your CAN militia are training to Troupes de Marine, still Canadian. The Artillery are FRA faction...

But Rigaud is faction CAN, so are the 5 Troupes de Marine and the 1 Militia. Only the 2 units of FRA Artillery should have their CP inflated, surely.


CP Wise,

Logically,

CAN General
6 x CAN Inf = 6 CP
2 x FRA Art = 2 CP x 4 (inflation) = 8 CP
Total = 14

In the screenshot

"NON-CAN" General
6 x CAN Inf = 6 CP x 4 (inflation) = 24 CP
2 x FRA Art = 2 CP
Total = 26

Thus, Rigaud, although marked CAN on his stats screen and having the same portrait colour as the CAN Mil unit, is not actually CAN, but something else! He is incurring a penalty for the wrong units!

But even that doesn't make sense to me, because in the screenshot attached to this post is now shows Rigaud commanding a unit of FRA regulars and still being charged 4CP for a 1 CP unit.

He doesn't seem to be happy commanding anything, even his own logic! Is there a "difficult b***ard" attribute!

4) Franco-Canadian, my mistake!

[lodilefty]

2) Typo, will fix

3) Can you upload a saved game showing this?
Just most recent turn is enough...

[color="Red"]EDIT: Stop! I found it! The CAN militia were upgrading to FRA units, not CAN units!!![/color]
Will fix!

Thanks!

[Chief Rudiger]

Bump,

Would it be possible to include upgraded militia in the autoraise unit cap so that either French militia upgraded to Troupes de Marine or their British equivalent would not free a space for more militia to be raised.

As is, I figure you have access to an infinite supply of militia or GBR (disbandable) continentals if you manage to train them out of the pool as fast as you raise them.

I find this particularly noticable in the French campaigns because most of their Militia are raised in either Quebec or Montreal and then stay there to act as a garrison or reserve to the L. Champlain or Great Lakes theatre. All it takes is to "camp" a leader with the Trainer ability for a year a conversion rate of 2 sub-units per month to "convert" 3-4 units between the time they are generated in Spring and are disbandable in October.

This creates are unrealistic situation whereby New France isn't really short of manpower and can almost manage, in the defensive, local numerical parity with any British invasion force.

The same is true of Britain's Colonials. Historically, AFAIK, these men weren't keen to serve far from home nor over the winter, hence their abscense from the Louisbourg expedition (until some of them garrisonned the place). In game, it is fairly easy to convert some of your Continentals to a permenant, non-disbandable, status if you stack them with Washington or later, with the other one with the trainer ability(Loudon?).

Although I find it is a slower process with the British because of the dispersement of their "spawn" points and the offensive nature of their war, I still find it possible to train the Southern/Central Continentals to Garrison the tail of Braddock's expedition (if successful) and/or to camp at Albany and collect a permanent reserve of NY and Ma troops to reinforce the eventual push by Regulars up the Mowhawk/Champlain axes.

Again, freeing spaces for in the Continental autoraise pool allows the British to raise genericly named units such as "19. NY Continentals" that subsequently, as far as i can tell, increase the chances of units being autoraised in the wilderness when the logical recruitment centres have already spawned several unit (do i remeber correctly that the engine checks each controlled region until a die roll is passed?).

If there were population cap for total Militia/Troupe and Continental/"Upgraded Continentals" then it might have the knock on effect that units would keep spawning in more reasonable places.

I don't know if it is just me and my slowly but surely style of play that finds this an issue but i would imagine it was an issue in PBEM games (although not probably for SP against the A.I.)

Still, it brings me onto another issue, and since this is already a long post i'll make it longer...

IMHO, Washington should not have the Trainer ability and should perhaps even be removed with Braddock by the scripted event if Ft Duquesne is not taken in time. Other than what i have read on Wikipedia I do not know much about Washington's involvement in the F&I War after Braddock's Expedition but i am dubious whether he is worthy of inclusion as a "Leader" at all.

Considering his claim to fame occured in 1754, before any of the F&I War scenarios are set, and was afterwards only an ADC in Braddock's campaign (and had no significant impact), never gained a Regular commision nor rose above the rank of Colonel in the Continental service (when the only other Colonial leaders represented in the game are Major Generals (correct?)), is this not enough to warrant his removal from the very beginning?

Granted, from the marketing POV it is probably wise to represent one of America's heroes in both AWI and F&IW but, should he not be removed with Braddock, could he either be represented, from the start, with the Virginia Ranger attached (as Indian leaders or Butler's rangers are) as part of Braddock Expedition, encourgaing the player to use him in a frontier defence (as was) role until the 60th Royal Ameican is activated to resume the Ohio campaign.

Either way, i see no reason for him to have the trainer ability.

End of Rant

[Chief Rudiger]

As a follow-up to the above post,

In my present game the A.I. has turtled in Montreal and has itself trained up about half the named militia to Troupes de la Marine and consequently has a few "X. Canadian Militia" units.

For my part, once Earl Loudon arrives i can't really stop my Provincials becoming un-disbandable. While i like the idea of having better, permanent, Provincials at this mid-point in the GC i think it’s a bit of a cheat, regardless of the "xx. NY Continentals" spaming .

Another problem i have found is that when provincials do respawn it takes them forever to get back "up country" to the front line. AFAIK, the war in the Champlain and Ontario theatres was historically fought with a mix of Regulars and Colonials.

Right now, given the cost in time/cohesion/strength in returning them to the fight it is not possible, IMO, to spare the thousands of Regulars required for an expedition against Louisbourg, from the main fight in the interior, as was historically the case. The British player cannot take advantage of his larger numbers of regulars and the massive relative population of the colonies to follow the historic mulit-pronged strategy.

The game i have been playing has demonstrated to me that a turling/reactive A.I can sit tight in Montreal and wait for the player to come to him. Once you've lost your provincials in October your season's gains are maintained only by what regulars remain. This makes you vulnerable to an early spring counter attack from the Canadian heart land. No units spawned, even at Albany can reach the N. end of L. Champlain in time or strength to be of any good.

While, yes, this is the classic problem of over-extension vs. internal lines of communication i feel the problem of returning provincials to the front is too frustrating. My thoughts would be either to reduce "disbanding" provincial units in-situ to 1 element, a cadre, to be refilled in the spring or to respawn the unit in a better locations; say the closest strategic lvl 2 city to where they disbanded, such as Albany.

In the case of the cadre system, granted, units probably would have disbanded entirely but if individuals were ordered to return to the colours in the spring then those individuals could be considered to move the in-game distances rather faster. The 60-90 day in-game march from Albany to Montreal only abstracts the speed of formed units with all their logistical complications.

This system would also allow cities or forts garrisoned by provincials to be maintained, not abandoned as is now often the case. Perhaps these cadres could only be quickly fleshed-out in the same was as lost elements are usually returned (i.e. there being a greater chance of receiving replacements at a depot). This would also simulate returning men not being able to rejoin an army still deep in enemy territory and represent the historic race to bring winter garrisons of wilderness forts back up to effective strength before the attacker arrive.

As for my alterative suggestion, re-spawning at closest lvl 2 city, would this not be an improvement over what we have now?

Developers/players, what do you think of this mechanic? Is it too radical a change? If it is, what about for certain games set in the same period currently in development?

[PhilThib]

Technically it sound feasible as it involves some tweaking in the units and models and may be no major code change (even may be not at all)... I suggest you make a try on your own, like a mod, to check your idea. Lodilefty and Hok can give you a hand here

[Chief Rudiger]

Technically it sound feasible as it involves some tweaking in the units and models and may be no major code change (even may be not at all)... I suggest you make a try on your own, like a mod, to check your idea. Lodilefty and Hok can give you a hand here

I will!

However, I am not familiar with any existing facility that removes elements from units, only events which remove leaders (and whole units?). Can you, Lodilefty or Hok point me in the right direction?

[lodilefty]

I will!

However, I am not familiar with any existing facility that removes elements from units, only events which remove leaders (and whole units?). Can you, Lodilefty or Hok point me in the right direction?

I'm not sure how to remove an element from existing unit on map...

I've been testing the entire AutoRaise thingie [albeit for 1778], and am concluding that the disband rates may be too high, and the 'new units raised' may also be too high [again I've only tested in 1778]

Maybe we could do something like "Winter Quarters" events [similar to Natives], that would move the Provos to a city and lock them for winter...
{see indians55.sct for examples. They grab specific units, but we may be able to grab unit types...} I'll have to resaech the event scripting for method...

Part of this command could even be modified to 'eliminate' the unit, then recreate it with fewer elements. In spring, we'd need to create a large quantity of replacements for them, though.....

Militia should still disband....

Tricky part would be 'finding' the nearest good location. We could put in a priority list [Albany if owned, then New York, then....] by unit type [they are regionally defined]....

Hi ho,hi ho, it's off to mod I go...

Um, what was the question?

[Chief Rudiger]

Maybe we could do something like "Winter Quarters" events ... Part of this command could even be modified to 'eliminate' the unit, then recreate it with fewer elements

Good idea. I was struggling to think what existing feature could be contorted.

Tricky part would be 'finding' the nearest good location. We could put in a priority list [Albany if owned, then New York, then....] by unit type [they are regionally defined]....

I was originally thinking that the 1 element cadre unit would stay in place, rather than being moved somewhere. This would leave it open for players to take Provincial's to Nova Scotia, Louisbourg or into the wildresness with Braddock and then use them as garrisons (particularly Braddock who has a number of forts to garrison but few separate units to do so with).

Returning "disbanding" cadre units to rear areas wouldn't offer great savings in time over the current system as once reformed the unit would still have to spend a few turns getting back to the front, albeit less than if they repawned in Boston or NYC.

Thoughts?

[lodilefty]

Hmm, there are immense possibilities.....

Compromise:
We'll adjust the disband rates [and raise quantities] of these units on both sides, to reduce the impact. Then modding community can work on these alternatives. [Yes, I'll gladly help you learn modding ]

Teaser: I may have found a command that can remove elements - need to test it to be sure....

[Chief Rudiger]

Any help is appreciated!