observations patch 1.01i

[yellow ribbon]

regarding:

QUOTE:

1 Hour Ago #6 Pocus

Lead Developer
Philippe Malacher

"Next patch (1.01i, now released) ask you to have a commercial agreement to deploy structures outside your country, to prevent such abuse (targeting all gem and gold mines of the world) "

***********

have you programmed it yet? Lord is Working In Mysterious Ways, just tested the first three turns of the patch, completely new GC, not a saved one:

build in Mexico, no problem, but no Com.-Agreement
build in Brasilia, no problem...
build in Bolivia, no problem...

EDIT: build even in Prussia, Nassau without it

PS: maybe just a random effect, but gem field in Prag i tried to build was "seized" by Austria instantly. every time i tried to build there, next turn i changed from American, to Austrian ownership / flag.

if this is no merely a divine coincidence, that i would figured a better and simple idea superior to the linked-to commercial agreement. Possibility to invest in foreign countries and afterwards to buy from.

my game today was certainly weird, i dont know how much is due to the patch. to contradict Einstein: "God" does play dice with the universe.



*********

minor issue:

mission "luxury / wine / rice / ..."

PS:

got some more time now, i have installed a new version of the game of an amazon version, patched for boxed version, then patched 1.01i via installer

and now, playing US, i get every missions from foreign countries as a read message and saying I would lead the mission...
wasnt that a problem two months ago?

see screenshot attached

*************

third entry:

F1 Referendum and Plebescites has now fired the FIFTH time in 26 months

also acknowledged something, i maybe just never realized before:

choose as many decrees as you want, they will be granted even if you cant pay
is anybody able to confirm, or this just something i acknowledge the first time, for it is now really necessary to use F4 due to influence of inflation

***********

[Generalisimo]

We will take a second look at the commercial agreement...

[von Sachsen]

Without starting a new thread, two things:

- The gain in Confederate loyalty seems really fast. In some areas it is 84% by late 1851. I would think it should only reach these levels in the last year or two before secession. In addition it is highest in the border states, which in the end didn't even secede.

- The "Largest Merchant Fleet" Mission still fails before 1852 (and I'm pretty sure I hade over the minimum 30 anyways.)

Anyways the patch is real improvement, and the game is great!

[Ironchancellor]

Hello just one question when you get round to completing this patch is there a chance to include Spain and possibly Holland as playable nations next time? Would enjoy playing Spain in this game thanks.

[Sir Garnet]

The gain in Confederate loyalty seems really fast. In some areas it is 84% by late 1851. I would think it should only reach these levels in the last year or two before secession. In addition it is highest in the border states, which in the end didn't even secede.

It depends on what Loyalty means and does in the context of the event chain. Peacetime tensions were highest in the border states where regional identities were divided (I'm thinking "bleeding Kansas"). People identified with their state first, the federation second, much as Europeans today.

[von Sachsen]

True, but either way it seems way too fast. There are still almost ten years to go for the war to start off on the historic date and the rebels already have a huge majority. And shouldn't the border states be at least somewhat closer to 50/50 anyway ( though I'll give you that they had popular support beyond that sometimes such as in Missouri.)

[Laruku]

Hello just one question when you get round to completing this patch is there a chance to include Spain and possibly Holland as playable nations next time? Would enjoy playing Spain in this game thanks.

You may play a "handcrafted" Spain using my mod:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?552478-Playing-as-Spain

[Ironchancellor]

Hello thanks for your help but it looks rather complicated and i feel i will only mess things up. I would rather wait till theres a more official one from the game designers later. If they dont do anything then i might try it later once ive got into the game thanks.

[Pocus]

Bring the console, type ChangeFaction SPA, run a turn. Voilà, you are playing Spain.

As for the OP topic, there was a glitch indeed, we did not synch well, Generalisimo and I on the features to amend and we left something not working in the patch (about commercial agreements)

[Sir Garnet]

Pocus, I thought ChangeFaction was the one not to host with, and SwitchFaction is the one to change and continue with the new faction starting next turn? That was the one I used to try Mexico.

[Generalisimo]

Pocus, I thought ChangeFaction was the one not to host with, and SwitchFaction is the one to change and continue with the new faction starting next turn? That was the one I used to try Mexico.

Yes...

[Ironchancellor]

Hello thanks i tried that Changefaction on the console when this game first came out and i couldnt get it to work. Made no difference. Plus i read there are no events for those countries etc. So i would rather it be properly set up by the designers like you have for Belgium and Ottoman Empire. I ll try it again and see if it works. Thanks anyway.

[Ironchancellor]

Anyway how do you bring up the Console to change the Faction you want to play?

[McNaughton]

Press the ~ key on your keyboard, then type ChangeFaction XXX (XXX being the three letter code of the faction) and press enter. The flag at the top left should change, and you are now in control of that faction.

[Ironchancellor]

Hello thanks for that i found like one of the previous messagers stated that typing in SwitchFaction then the XXX for the country seems to work. Well thats something for now until you improve on it later thanks.

[yellow ribbon]

not particular to the BETA patch but...

would someone just poke the fellow who programmed the railroad linking with a stick for a day or two!

another hiccup attached ouet:

EDIT:

sorry, my bad...

first:

have a RR in Florida Panhandle and Tampa Bay built, which are not connecting. And troops i moved will even start to "WALK" to Tampa Bay despite RR is built.

second:

instead a RR in Tampa Bay, there suddenly is one in Northeast Florida, where, as you can see, is NO RR built yet.
(Level is Track, RR option obviously still available, merely cant build it in that turn)

thus,my troops are moving by train to Florida Panhandle or Coastal Georgia instead of using RR directly to Tampa Bay, they walk the rest right through the swamp...

[SonOfAGhost]

not particular to the BETA patch but...

would someone just poke the fellow who programmed the railroad linking with a stick for a day or two!

another hiccup attached ouet:

Can't tell from the pic which is the issue:
Error displaying RR at Cinch when you don't have one there?
Or you have one there but it's still indicating you could build one if you had more resources?

[yellow ribbon]

well, just got the ACW in US GC...

(yeah, i know, its not a priority! DEVs dont start to explain me anything)

i would like to mention:

ACW now starts in May 1860

moral down to ELEVEN

garrisons still the old problem, garrison US besieging garrison CSA in one and the same forts

[yellow ribbon]

the strangest thing of the day...

my troops are besieging a PLANTATION and no enemy troops are in the area...

see pic!

one day, i promise, i will read a manual for something, and certainly it will be for this game

EDIT:

hum, anything goes... CSA just made a peace-offer... wanted to give me ONE province.
not having army in the field, everywhere military control by Union, Richmond, Atlanta, Vicksburg, New Orleans... all mine, but the three towns at the Atlantic Coast besieged from me for month, wont bow at all.

johnny reb really has a lame horse

missed all generals which were wrongly given to Union before the patch.
Johnston et al just never seen combat from 1860 to 1861

mainly fought against Jeff Davis or the Cherokee Chief....

since you want to make it more complicate for economy to mount numbers in few early years, and the DLC ACW is public...

darn it, you got me, I DO IT, i ´ll buy it...

[yellow ribbon]

new day, new strangest thing of the day...

playing the ACW in the GC gives me following end:

more than 140.000 prisoners taken from CSA (plus released ones over time)

343.000 men fallen in field for the Union,

this includes:

130.000 due to battles and lost garrisons like Fort Sumter and so on
maybe lower than 50.000 lost due to winter, diseases and so on (i just ignored it and played aggressively)

but over 155.000 killed during storming the forts of the CSA (New Orleans,Charleston, Savannah)

I used 300.000 Union with all good commanders, all cannons, all engineers, all marines and the whole fleet supporting with bombardment...

All that after i had, 14, 12 and 10 breaches and besieged them for months

against 20-30.000 CSA troops

and still lost men in an average ratio of 7:1 by attack, meanwhile they surrendered mainly trying to defend against any second attack...

only Vicksburg was a stroll in the park, for they were unsupplied within few weeks
****************************

I claim, whatever happens, would you check the system of besieging / replacement of besieged troops in a moment to spare

numberless messages of breaches and inflicted losses let the CSA completely cool, the units took no visible damage or were refilled instantly.
having more than 10 breaches also barely effects the power of fortification, entrenchment still over 200


with experience in this, and old knowledge from AACW, now i will take a try of the ACW DLC for PON

[SonOfAGhost]

numberless messages of breaches and inflicted losses let the CSA completely cool, the units took no visible damage or were refilled instantly.
having more than 10 breaches also barely effects the power of fortification, entrenchment still over 200

Odd, I hadn't found fortifications to make much difference at all, just extra troops. I've been assaulting either immediately, or after 1 turn if I forgot to change from attack stance when entering a new region.

Only issue I've seen with fortifications is garrisons don't always seem to muster when the AI attacks me. Unless I have another unit in the region, then the defenders always muster.

[yellow ribbon]

i have seen similar behavior with the garrisons for FORTS, but never with outposts.

it does appear that in WAR a Fort is either manned or not, meanwhile outposts will muster a county levy if necessary.
remembers me on the discussion in "THE LAST MOHICAN" (1992)

no seriously, sometimes my assaults were close to successful as I do know it of AACW (1.15) , havent change my strategy.

however in six month of besieging (the difference to your experience) i had so many messages of 5 hits inflicted but the combat power of CSA not decreasing, that i lost patience.

my SECOND assault to Charleston is attached. nearly 1/6 of all losses in one single assault, after breaking much of their fines China in the first assault.

used fresh troops from the next province (one turn delay though)

FOURTEEN breaches, but 218 for entrenchment ?!

combat result see pic, and judge about

PS:

New Orleans was even worse! And all my troops were there

[SonOfAGhost]

nearly 1/6 of all losses in one single assault

Assaulting a fortified urban area with a mostly regular force fighting to the death, your loses were only 2:1. Seems pretty good to me.

[McNaughton]

However, that was after 6 months of siege (I believe?).

I have seen fairly good sieges, with a lot of fortresses heavily guarded surrender after a few months. Possibly you just got very unlucky here? Most of my sieges were not in coastal cities though...

How was your control of the territory? I wonder if you actually managed to seal out supply somehow? Did you have a brown-water bockade happening as well?

I feel that supply slipped through which caused the forces to be at better stance.

Who was the commander of the attacking force?

There are still a lot of unknowns here before something can be dedicated as broken.

[yellow ribbon]

you dont get the point...

i lost less than 150.000 men in battles at all within two years. most Union corps are reserve corps of militia while CSA divisions are mostly line troops.

compare it to following:

for taking Charleston i needed TWO assaults, cost me more than 84.000 men, while CSA lost 33.000 at all, most of them were 28.000 lost in the second attack.

this pic IS THE SECOND assault, the 7:1 ratio was roughly given in the first attack with line troops, more than 700 guns and every engineer unit which can be build this early in 1860s

taking New Orleans cost me even more than 60.000, while CSA defended it with 8.000 men and remainder of their fleet and they had no general

again, a ratio about 7:1

taking Savannah cost me 3000, while this was the last strong-point CSA had left and they surrendered as soon i had 320.000 men running to their lines...

no Sir! cant agree,

after 6 month of siege, total naval blockade, no way to resupply, province pillaged, not any province under control of CSA but three to one sieged cities...
14 breaches and still additional 218 defense-bonus for trenches and 75 bonus for the city...

no Sir, not every battle about cities was a sit-in like Atlanta or a fatal copy of the Battle of the Crater

by assaulting three objective cities i got more than 140.000 losses of 343.000 in the whole war.
and i had luck that the last surrendered before battle.

this ratio would even not happen if this city would be named Sainte-Mère-Église

***************

BTW:

70.000 Union troops lost 2.972 men in a field battle, while 44.000 rebels lost 30.127 men, both armies just entered the same province day before the battle

do you understand my point. compare this losses, from open field to siege, and you get an not acceptable rate of losses in sieges.
especially not with a two-digit rate of breaches

thus, my educated guess remains:

defense bonus is unacceptable high

EDIT:

mid 1862, ACW is over, economy recovered, CSA offered my TWO further peace agreements, AFTER the war.
general Johnston is my best commander in Union Army and F6 is showing DIXIE population again, which was not given in war.

[yellow ribbon]

However, that was after 6 months of siege (I believe?).

I have seen fairly good sieges, with a lot of fortresses heavily guarded surrender after a few months. Possibly you just got very unlucky here? Most of my sieges were not in coastal cities though...

How was your control of the territory? I wonder if you actually managed to seal out supply somehow? Did you have a brown-water bockade happening as well?

I feel that supply slipped through which caused the forces to be at better stance.

Who was the commander of the attacking force?

There are still a lot of unknowns here before something can be dedicated as broken.

hello McNaughton,

its not broken, nor a bug, its unweighted!

i mourned about the same experience before the patch 1.01i , when i had a single last army of CSA fixed in Atlanta, wrote about it weeks ago in "my AAR" for the ACW

all u would advise was given.

Charleston was besieged for over 6 month,land and sea, RR destroyed, my Apache raiders had pillaged it, my whole fleet at sea, all techs of 1850s researched and mastered/learned but minewarfare which was given to me 4 month after ACW ended.
all troops fully refilled and upgraded to state of the art.

maybe thats the point, important techs are bound to date, meanwhile GCs ACW still miss-triggers 1859/1860
this would expalin why CSA has better guns than i, i got a model of bronze smoothbore , they have a model of rifled Parots or is this random (i am not talking about heavy coastal guns)

Military control was EVERYWHERE 100% but in New Orleans

Commander on my side, Scott and the two Generals i got, which had no single penalty (like illness or hothead).
Scott is easily angry, but he did not lead the first battle of Charleston i mentioned, not the attack against New Orleans
While Jeff Davis lead defense both times in Charleston.

however, the problem of many messages of breaches and inflicting losses of 5 hits, one single time of 10 hits, while besieged troops dont bother to decrease at all
i observed it for weeks in all three ACWs i played.

it works only with small garrisons of militia in forts (like in Florida and Texas), not with large stacks (city plus fort), where not the numbers, nor the combat power decreased or was refilled instantly

i strive to test it in the DLC ACW, for the moment i just shout into the woods.

I dont want any long discussion about it with DEVS, for if i want it historical correct i would play AACW and if i want to see your efforts in work...well, i already ordered the DLC

[yellow ribbon]

i guess i remember that this was already a problem in prior patches, however it happens...

....pics for cities are lost in the field for structures (blue placeholder given)

just a shoot into the air, but it might be related to tech-activation.

i now see, icons for forts on the map have changed too (to the kind of pentagon fort).
was this triggered by the advanced concrete-tech maybe?

[Generalisimo]

Well, we will have to see what happened in your game....
Compress you current turn and send it over to:
fernando.turi@ageod.net

[yellow ribbon]

another thing roles down the road...

as i read, u already take a look for the question whether militancy is even effected by reforms or if the effect is maybe just to small.

however, i do have another thing i observed in three different games:

playing US i get a certain point in the 1850s when i do have the NAVY APPRO. BILL firing again and again.

I click on it, it goes orange, i do have enough money and normally it works, but then it appears again and again and again...

it is not rejected, neither accepted, no message about that, nor do i get any effect in F3, my fleet or ressources...

does it suddenly "forget" to shut off ???

[yellow ribbon]

my dear devs,

as I pointed out, i dont want you to discuss about my observations regarding combat pattern in PONS ACW (not the DLC version), i am just talking straight about what i see and want it to be obvious for forum members:

Background:

I run an old save from me (patch 1.01i) and had the ACW starting again in 1859.

I had few troops build prior ACW, mainly guns, hospitals, labour regiments and engineers.

I also refilled my ranks over the years, especially the fleet, by setting them to passive mode, green mode.

*****

As I said, i rerun the ACW. In spring 1861 i had a situation as follows:

Atlanta is besieged and structure broken, 31 combat points of CSA militia holding the city.

Savannah is besieged, 182 combat points fortress and militia of the CSA, 290 combat points mixed by an enemy corps and garrison.

I took over 129.000 CSA troops as prisoners and lost 143.650 of my loyal union men.

one last army had been remained in field, 640 combat points of CSA in the everglades.
I starved them to death, what cost me more than one year of time, without having fleets in both harbor exit provinces. meanwhile besieging Savannah mainly.

thus, the harbor of Savannah is the very last external supply possibility for CSA. and totally blocked by nearly my whole eastern theater fleet for most of the time

it is now February 1862. the cities are besieged for about one year. Savannah even longer.

Atlanta is breached 31 times, Fort Pulaski is breached 19 times !!!

Again, i do have a situation i lamented about some weeks and some days ago.
I confirm, it was easy to seal Vicksburg, Richmond, Wilmington from every supply and to get the lads there to surrender...

It was easy to seal the Everglades even with an open harbor for them, was easy to starve 30.000 men to death after their two supply trains run out of stock...

but besieging this two cities, Atlanta, again, and Savannah, again, are a pain in the neck.

I am not willing to run with dark red / supreme aggressive orders against completely collapsed walls again, just to have half of all losses in one war due to two attacks..

I decided i am going to besiege them furthermore, till 1865 if necessary before i attack.

however, now the troops in Savannah even REFILL there casual (and very low) losses in 1862, three turns, they developed from about 290 to 304 combat point for the corps in barely TWO MONTHS

I read Clausewitz, i know expect the unexpected, but in this kind of siege i ponder if the CSA will overrun me one day... (sarcasm!)

EDIT:

Savannah has fallen in September 1862...

the 31 combat point strong militia in Atlanta has some relatives in a certain Gallic village and were fallen into a pot of magic potion made of mistletoes

they made it until early march 1863, for about two years of being cut off from everything, 39 breaches in an none existing, but breached fort, and about six months of being the last strongpoint of the CSA, the last troops of them...

Endresult:

Union lost: 144.450 men
union captured: 173.100 men plus released ones on their word of honor
rebels/tribes KIAs: 1000 plus maybe 300 - 400 which were also substracted from the slate, since they also gave me the word of honor not to fight me again

PS: why the heck is the north pole my next military objective? have you only revised the crisis-event...