CW2 and Cavalry raiding out of range

[Drakken]

Hi,

One of the things that most detracted of my enjoyment of AACW was Calvary units raiding up way out of range into Illinois or deep North in the Northern states. Was this fixed in ACW2 and if so, how?

[Bletchley_Geek]

Hi,

One of the things that most detracted of my enjoyment of AACW was Calvary units raiding up way out of range into Illinois or deep North in the Northern states. Was this fixed in ACW2 and if so, how?

Haven't spent yet much time with AACW2, but from what I've seen from the most recent releases (like AJE) the fact that now the engine 'spawns' garrison units from structures should help a lot about that raiding being much less of a pain. On the other hand, I'd hate to see Athena wasting too many resources on sending cavalry stacks to certain death.

Maybe someone from the Beta Testing team can comment on this.

[James D Burns]

Sadly I think the old AI issues may still be present. In my first game as the Union, the Army of the Shenandoah under Johnston dashed to Baltimore and beat my small division there. Instead of staying put to capture the city the next turn, he zoomed north along the coast to Philadelphia and kept going up through to New York. I thought he may be heading for Albany but this last turn he turned west a bit and took the unoccupied cities of Milford and Middletown.

The only thing of note he has achieved after beating my small division is tearing up some rail lines in PA and NJ. I have left him alone hoping he’d head back to his own lines but so far no such luck. I did have AI bonus’ set pretty high, so I’ve now turned down aggressiveness to low and taken away all detection bonus’ hoping it will curtail further crazy raids in the future.

It would be really nice if the AI was somehow forced to only operate in regions within 2 or 3 regions of friendly controlled regions with greater than 75% MC.

Jim

[Bletchley_Geek]

Sadly I think the old AI issues may still be present. In my first game as the Union, the Army of the Shenandoah under Johnston dashed to Baltimore and beat my small division there. Instead of staying put to capture the city the next turn, he zoomed north along the coast to Philadelphia and kept going up through to New York. I thought he may be heading for Albany but this last turn he turned west a bit and took the unoccupied cities of Milford and Middletown.

The only thing of note he has achieved after beating my small division is tearing up some rail lines in PA and NJ. I have left him alone hoping he’d head back to his own lines but so far no such luck. I did have AI bonus’ set pretty high, so I’ve now turned down aggressiveness to low and taken away all detection bonus’ hoping it will curtail further crazy raids in the future.

That doesn't sound good

I wonder what was the decision making behind that AI behaviour. Probably allowing Athena to see too much (Detection Bonus) was indeed part of what made it go away from the Union troops concentrations. And it seems that "aggressiveness" means basically cutting up supply lines: not inflicting NM losses (capturing Baltimore would have been quite a meaningful blow) or - here's some hoping - a concentric advance on Washington from the SW and the NE to destroy the Army of the Potomac and take Washington.

[Elmo]

There is an issue with AI aggressiveness in the 1.00 version of the game that has been corrected in the first patch. Not sure when the patch will be released but I'd say "soon".

[Prussian Konig]

The AI aggressiveness has been tweaked for the first patch. We are testing this now.

[Juliano]

I don't understand why those raider stacks (some of them very large) don't go out of supply when riding so far away from their friendly territory. This should be a key feature to preempt the AI to do so. They are really annoying and unrealistic.

[numdydar]

Just like Shermans march

[James D Burns]

I’ve decided to put playing this on hold till the patch comes out after trying my hand as the confederates hoping the deep raids would be less crazy. Two turns after the Saint Louis event, Lyons shows up in the central Indian territories and western Arkansas and captures Tahlequa (think it should be spelled Tahlequah), Fort Gibson and Fort Coffee. He completely bypassed any cities I controlled in Missouri. This is with aggression set to low and no bonuses to detection nor activation.

I do have the AI set to max for the additional replacements, so I may still try another game with that turned off too once my morale recovers a bit. I wish I could give the AI the extra replacements without having the other stacking help modifiers, in other words a totally equal game with just extra replacements given to the AI would be a nice setting to add sometime in the future.

I have no idea what is controlling the AI’s choices, but totally abandoning the defense of Missouri to attack some meaningless forts out in the plains really is bizarre even for an AI.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Just like Shermans march

No, not really.

[James D Burns]

OK to be fair I’ve now turned the AI ranking down to sergeant level and things seem a tad more manageable. I have played the April campaign as the Union and so far (late July) the AI seems to be making more logical moves and no deep raids have occurred. I guess the huge bonuses the AI got due to the highest setting made it feel invincible and helped cause it to set targets far into the rear.

In this game, the first offensive move the Army of the Shenandoah has made was a push towards Pittsburg. But as I had forces in Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Morgantown, it has grabbed a few small towns around Morgantown and appears to be heading back to Confederate lines. This is far more logical and a big improvement from what I was seeing on the highest setting of Colonel.

So for those looking for a more logical game basically I have all AI bonuses turned off (all sliders all the way to the left except ranking) and am playing at sergeant level. I guess it’s possible I could turn the detection and activation bonuses back on as it may have been the colonel rank level that was causing the deep raids I was seeing before.

Jim

I should probably note that there may have been a fight for Pittsburgh, but I moved my troops inside the city behind its forts and that may have been why the AI didn't push into the region. I pulled them back out of the city as more troops will arrive in the next move, so the AI may turn around and hit me still. Either way the AI decisions in this game make a lot more sense than what I was seeing before.

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[Bletchley_Geek]

I've been doing some tests on the Bull Run battle scenario and I'm surprised to say that the AI with the following settings:

AI Ranking: Set To Sergeant
Use All Behaviors: ON
Activation Bonus: +1
AI Detection Bonus: None
Aggressivenes: Normal
Give AI More Time: ON

plays much, much more better than with Detection Bonus set to to Low. And I mean better as in rather than wasting time chasing Patterson if I send him towards Staunton along the South Branch Potomac, it just gets together Beauregard and Joe Johnstons commands, and marches on to Washington right away, keeping Pattersonin check with a screen made up with some cavalry and a Division-sized stack.

[veji1]

Hmm. It seems that the AI has similar issues to what it had in AACW. my fear with this game was that it was a "super" retro feat of PON functionnalities in AACW, without dealing withe the AI. In AACW the problem wiht better AI settings was that it would get all unreasonable because it could "see" that you had a city 3 provinces away from the front ungarrisoned and would just go for it, without any sense.

[Pocus]

hear hear!

To compensate for the too aggressive AI, until the new patch is out, you can lower AI aggressivity to low in the Options.

As for the cavalry issue, there is a change underway that the beta will test tomorrow.

[Joe Wheeler]

I for one love the way this game evolves into a better and better simulation. I look forward to the upcoming patch and those in the future as well.

[vaalen]

Thank you Pocus, that is wonderful news! The cavalry issue was by far the worst flaw in ACW1, and if you fix it, that alone would justify the purchase of ACW2.

hear hear!

To compensate for the too aggressive AI, until the new patch is out, you can lower AI aggressivity to low in the Options.

As for the cavalry issue, there is a change underway that the beta will test tomorrow.