Forcepool/unit mod proposal/feedback

[grimjaw]

I am working on a smaller version of my mod that contains only unit defintion and forcepool changes. I need feedback, if you're so inclined.

Issue:

Existing unit definitions are unpopular for some because they are inflexible, are poor historical representations, and other reasons.

Goals:

1. Provide the user with units that allow more flexibility in division creation, without creating an unmanageable mess or a more cumbersome arrangement than the one that already exists.
2. As much as possible, maintain the original force pool for total elements.
3. Don't negatively affect the AI.

Details:

I will attempt to deliver a set of units that are more flexible to use than those that shipped with the original game. I will not change the base elements used to create the units. Costs, combat numbers, VP, police values, etc, will not change. Text descriptions used to describe the units will be updated in some cases, but hopefully only in a way that will make them less generic and add flavor for the player.

Instead of editing the original units, I will add additional versions with a tag that identifies them with the mod. The new units will draw on existing elements. This will allow me to use several of the original units, reducing the amount of work that has to be done.

The reasoning behind some of these changes follows, but if that doesn't interest you, you can skip to the details in the goals or the implementation process and details near the end. A copy of all of this information, especially the instructions, will eventually be included with the mod.

*****
JUSTIFICATION
*****

One of the common complaints of many players is that the brigade compositions are inflexible. I don't need to convince many of you that it could use some improvement.

The largest 9-element brigades can be useful, but only because of the limitations in the game design. If they are part of a division whose leader is KIA, they will still fight as the original combined unit. No unit in the vanilla game requires more than 4 command points (CP), so the 9-element Virginia brigades are like a division with an unkillable general. It's that unbreakable unit function that provides their biggest perk, and in my opinion their only one.

After that it isn't so good. One of those 9-element brigades that was part of an 18-element division is still FUBAR if it ends up leaderless in a stack with some stray infantry brigades and/or regiments. If a 9-element unit loses a single infantry element, and unless you happen to have an infantry element that fits the unit definition, you're tied up in a region replacing it while the other 8 elements mark time. The time to build these 9-element units is punishing considering that the qualifying build locations are on the front line of the war. Even if you somehow miraculously managed to steamroll your way through the DC defensive line and are entrenched all along the Maryland/Pennsylvania border in late 1864, when you recruit that huge Virginia unit for the push into Delaware it'll include a 6-pounder smoothbore. If that 9-elenent brigade was decimated in a battle and left with only the 6-pounder, it's still going to cost 4CP to run a single 6-pounder until the replacements kick in.

In the vanilla game, cavalry or artillery or both are part of many brigades. The unit definitions for these brigades doesn't change, so if you build a 4 inf + 1 cav + 1 art brigade in 1861, it's using the same 6-pounder smoothbore when you build it in 1865. They aren't all that way. Some brigades have 12-pounders, but I can't think of many that have rifled artillery. Granted, the CSA kept using 6-pdrs. The point is you don't have a choice.

Combined arms units are a compromise when it comes to abilities and movement. The sharpshooter battalions in combined units provide a bonus, but they are denied their ability to perform an ambush. Combined units only move as fast as their slowest member, which can be pathetic in some terrain/weather combinations. If only I could have shed that cavalry and artillery, my infantry could have marched to victory ...

CW2 doesn't simulate tactical combat, and as such game strategies often boil down to interrupting or controlling the supply of your opponent. The majority of standard units vary from 3-6 elements, but range from as few as 1 element to as high as 9 elements. The largest brigades present supply challenges. If you're headed into a supply crunch, you can't break these brigades down into smaller chunks and disperse them. Wherever that multi-element brigade goes, it's going to devour supply. That limits your options. Inconvenient. Inflexible. Annoying! It doesn't have to be this way.

*****
DETAILS
*****

1. Provide the user with units that allow more flexibility in division creation, without creating an unmanageable mess or a more cumbersome arrangement than the one that already exists.

It would have been easy enough to count every infantry and cavalry element in the game and present them to the user as individual regiments to recruit. That would provide maximum flexibility in division creation *only*. It would have added larger and more common CP penalties in the event of a division leader death. The stack and recruit panels would have been a mess. If there were no other improvements to the CW2 engine than an ability to create (or disassemble) a leaderless brigade unit, which could then be combined with a leader, or other brigades and a leader, it would be a huge improvement.

Instead of individual regiments, I decided to divvy up infantry, cavalry, and artillery elements. There will be no combined arms brigades in this mod, or exceedingly few of them. Infantry units will contain infantry only, are anywhere from 1-4 elements, and cost 1-3 CP. Cavalry or artillery units will contain only cavalry or artillery elements, respectively, are 1-2 elements and cost 1-2 CP. Cavalry might get some 3-element units.

With this arrangment, the largest unit facing supply challenges is a 4-element, 3CP infantry brigade. If the 4-element brigade is reduced to a single infantry element, it still costs 3CP and is the only unit definition requiring that many. Everything else is 1-2CP. The mod will present many more single element units. With more single element units there are more opportunities for combination, allowing you to fill gaps in units with missing elements rather than waiting on replacements.

With the new unit defintions, any time a combined arms unit is desired a division has to be created. Since more divisions are likely to be created, that represents more potential penalties for rank 1 leaders. To mitigate this, I could lower division costs but that would overpower army and corps stacks. Instead, I change CP provided to rank 1 and rank 2 leaders and change the modifier applied to stacks outside the chain-of-command.

Any standard brigadier should be able to command any standard brigade. That's what they're supposed to be trained for, right? That's another reason I will modify leader CP.

In the original game (henceforth called "vanilla"), commanders outside the chain-of-command (CoC) have their CP halved. Brigadiers who have 4CP inside CoC only have 2CP outside CoC. There are numerous cases where 3-element unit CP costs cause penalties for brigadiers outside CoC.

In the future mod, base CP for a rank 1 leader (brigadier general) is increased to 5CP. Base CP for a rank 2 leader (major general) is *decreased* to 7CP. Instead of a 50% modifier being applied to stacks outside CoC, it's 54%. I believe the modifier is applied to the stack, not the individual element CPs making up the stack. At least that's what my examination of the results has shown; I haven't seen the underlying code. The modifier makes the difference here. For this calculation, the game appears to round up values above .5, and discards fractional values .5 and lower. For example, 5.5000000 is 5, but 5.50000001 is 6. At least I think it is. I don't know what type of variable stores the number in this case, or how large a number it will hold. The end result is presented to the user as an integer. I've experimented with different values in the modifier field. Anything more than a two-digit number gives unexpected results, so I can't make the calculation more exact by using 0.536xxx. 54% approaches the original values without causing errors.

It is possible to tweak the CPs even more. In other AGE games the CP totals are much higher. The important thing here is the keeping close to the original ratios.

I have a spreadsheet that details all the various combinations of leaders and divisions, both instead and outside of command chains. I'll see if I can upload it. I'll give just a few examples here. Under vanilla, a single rank 1 general in a stack outside CoC had 2CP; in the mod the same leader provides 3CP. Vanilla: two rank 1s outside CoC, 4CP; mod, two rank 1s outside CoC = 5CP. Three ranks 1s, 6CP vanilla, 8CP in the mod. After that, the numbers are the same.

Rank 2/3 leaders provide the same CP outside CoC as before. Rank 2 base CPs were lowered by a point to balance out the change to rank 1 CPs.

End result, any standard rank 1 leader can command any standard brigade in the game, even outside CoC. A single rank 1 running a division in a stack outside CoC has the penalty lowered by 5%. A single rank 2 running a single division in a stack has no penalty. Lower quality rank 1s might get a penalty for the largest infantry brigades. There might be a few extra CPs (1-2) or slightly lower penalities (5-10%) for outside CoC stacks depending on the leaders used. Other characteristics of outside CoC stacks have not been changed, so they still won't MTSG, still have an 8CP cap, etc.

Corps stacks containing only one or two rank 2 leaders (and no other leaders at all) will be slightly nerfed with this setup. Otherwise there is no difference from vanilla.

2. As much as possible, maintain the original force pool for total elements.

The vanilla forcepool takes a little while to calculate for each scenario, but it's not difficult. Once that is determined, the number of each type of element is tallied, and the totals are used to determine how many new units are made available and when. If a 2-inf + 1-cav unit is placed on the board on 05/01/1863, I replace it with a 2-inf unit and a 1-cav unit. The largest original units would be replaced with combinations of the largest new units.

Again, not difficult but it is time-consuming.

3. Don't negatively affect the AI.

What will Athena make of all these new building blocks? It remains to be seen. This last part may be the one that dooms the mod. I am contemplating moving up the date that division creation is allowed, with a restriction on the maximum number of divisions until a later date. That would allow for some of the force concentration near the original 1st Bull Run date without causing a massive problem all over the map.

*****
IMPLEMENTATION
*****

The mod should be easier to install and not cause problems with existing installations. I hope to avoid editing the original values, instead adding new records to the existing element/unit definitions, and referencing new versions of the old scripts.

*****
FEEDBACK
*****

Now, I have already implemented the CP changes and have tested those. I am part of the way through the unit compositions. This is the initial feedback that I need. What are your thoughts on the following?

A. In vanilla, when light infantry is combined in unit definitions with standard infantry, it's probably supposed to represent skirmshers. It's poorly implemented. A better way to have represented skirmishers detached from an infantry regiment would have been by a mode, like the button to enable ambush function for sharpshooters. Push button, skirmishers detached from regiment: regiment now has some modifiers applied to it for combat for this turn.

I would personally like to get rid of most or all of the light infantry regiments and not include them in the new unit definitions, replacing them with infantry or sharpshooters or nothing.

B. Vanilla presents several unique brigades (Stonewall, Excelsior, etc) that exceed four elements. I would like to reconstitute them as standard infantry with perhaps lower CP costs and maybe an increased XP rate. They wouldn't start as elite. Instead their rate of level progression would be higher than other units. I'm open to ideas on this one.

C. Vanilla has a major exploit in the way that militia are defined. Most of you are aware of it. Let's say the forcepool for New York militia is capped at 12. You happen to have 12 individual NY militia regiments on the board. You can combine two militia regiments into a single two-regiment militia brigade, costing the same CP. If you do this, the game calculates that you only have 11 individual NY militia on the board, so you can build another NY militia regiment. If you combined all 12 regiments into six 2-element units, you'd get another 6 allowed under the forcepool. Those 6 can of course be combined again into three 2-element units, and so on. Separately, if your militia unit is upgraded to line infantry, that also frees up room in the forcepool. This allows militia to be spammed and abused in the worst way.

It's not part of the mod calculation, but I would like to do away with this exploit as part of the mod. It's very easy to change the unit definition for militia so they can't be combined, and instead change it so that some militia can be built already as a combined unit. I'd also prevent them from upgrading to line infantry.

I know this is probably an unpopular idea, but I thought I'd float it anyway. It's not a priority as part of this mod.

Let me know what you think.

[Durk]

You are ambitious and I do hope this works for you. For me, it takes the game into ahistorical grounds and becomes more of a techno game not a historical game. Unit variations in the game reflect some unique condition, not generic conditions. What you provide might allow someone who is a student of the OR or other detailed unit composition documents some access to more particular historical compositions. But I do not see the gain for gamers.
That is: if I play your mod, how does this enhance my understanding of the historical composition of units. This, as you say, not a tactical game. It would suffer from such detailed micromanagement.

My take, but then I do not like even needing to build divisions.

[grimjaw]

"For me, it takes the game into ahistorical grounds and becomes more of a techno game not a historical game."

The vanilla game, full campaign, assumes certain events happen on time, every time, even if they make no sense in the campaign you are playing because you did things differently. In my opinion, a full campaign should be open-ended, or at least there should be an option. If I'm starting in April, I shouldn't even have to fight the 1st Bull Run or have my forces locked down in the position to do so.

But this mod won't address that, at least not directly. When the vanilla forces would normally appear in Virginia at the beginning of the game, locked with their generals, the same number of total elements will appear in the mod, but in different unit compositions. The 9-element VA brigade would be replaced with two 3-element brigades, one cav, one sharpshooter, and one 2-element artillery unit, all as part of a division under the appropriate general. And so on for the rest of forces appearing in the game, either placed on the board or made available to recruit. When the Lightning Brigade appears in later years in vanilla, a corresponding set of elements matching or approaching the unit composition will appear in the mod, however illogical that might be in the scheme of things.

"Unit variations in the game reflect some unique condition, not generic conditions."

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Can you explain?

"... how does this enhance my understanding of the historical composition of units."

Enhancing an understanding of history is not one of my goals; wasn't listed as such. The vanilla game doesn't present strict historical unit compositions, and often not even loose ones. Regiment names used to fill units are picked in order from lists, and those compositions often don't match anything from any order of battle I've ever read. Brigade names often changed with the commanding officer, which isn't done in CW2. Regiment names often don't match any historical regiment at all, and can be as generic as "6lb pound cannon" or some such. Generic *and* redundant.

Reconstituting the units will allow me to more accurately create a list of real life regiment names and assign them more appropriately. Example: in vanilla when you want to recruit a brigade from New England, it gets assigned names from a pool with regiments from all over New England but it has to be built in CT. Maybe you'll get a regiment from RI in that unit and maybe you won't.

In the mod, if you want to recruit a brigade from Massachusetts, you build it in Massachusetts and it gets assigned regiments with names from real life MA regiments. The same goes for any other state. The number of regiments assigned to MA in the mod will match the number of named MA regiments that could be assigned in vanilla, except now you have more control over when they are created and where (so long as it's MA). You have more of a choice of combining them with other MA regiments or the ability to perhaps more accurately match a historical brigade/division. With this mod, I am trying to match the original vanilla force pools, i.e. numbers of each type of element, because I don't want to unbalance things and I want the player to be able to match the numbers, sizes and compositions of divisions available previously. They'd just use somewhat different units to achieve those combinations.

We aren't talking radically different unit compositions, not really. There are many 3-element all infantry brigades in the vanilla game, as well as 1, 2 and 4. So there will be with the mod, except they may or may not use regular infantry instead of the make-believe light infantry. Cavalry in vanilla is built in 1- or 2-element units, and is in the mod. Artillery is built in 1-element units in vanilla and the mod. The difference is that with the mod, as the Union you aren't forced to build 6-pounder smoothbores as part of infantry brigades in 1864, when the Union wasn't fielding new units with them anymore.

"... it would suffer from such detailed micromanagement."

The additional management involved in unit building and division creation doesn't amount to much. To build an 18-element division with the mod, with 1 ldr + 1 cav + 2 art + 1 shp + 13 inf could take as few as seven units plus the leader: three 4-element inf, one inf regiment, one 2-element artillery unit, one 1-element cav, and one sharpshooter regiment. In vanilla it can be done with as few as four units, but that's only the case with a big VA brigade and one or more of the elite brigades. You're usually getting into five or more units and making compromises you shouldn't have to make.

It's a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other. With the mod, I don't have to remember which buildable unit had the cavalry or which one had the sharpshooter. Which state was it that had the infantry brigade that included 12-pounders, wait wait, I don't have to give a crap about that any more. None of the infantry brigades have anything but infantry, and they are only 1, 2, 3 or 4 elements. If I wanted to match a vanilla combined arms brigade with the mod, it's easy to do but it requires a division. The fact that it's called a "division" and not a "brigade" is not something I can address in a way that makes the majority happy. A standard brigadier in the mod running a division outside the CoC only incurs a 5% command penalty, which is very close to what he'd have under vanilla with many combined arms brigades anyway.

My goal isn't to create a buildable unit composition that matches exactly any historical brigade. I don't care about having a unit composition that matches one from the first major battle of the war, and no other. In my opinion, that's one of the problems with the full campaign. The participants of battles and their exact marching order from 1865 will still most likely appear in their assigned seats in 1865, even if you as the player don't do anything from 1861-1864 that would have allowed those participants to exist, much less meet.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Can I mix regiments from various states to form a brigade? Say, 2 from Virginia and 2 from Georgia?

[grimjaw]

Can I mix regiments from various states to form a brigade? Say, 2 from Virginia and 2 from Georgia?

Probably not in the way I think you mean. There is a way under the existing engine to define a sort of template and leave it partially filled. The vanilla militia units are an example of this. Base militia are created as a single element, but the unit definition allows for another militia element to be added by combination, *not* by replacement. You could define any number of units that way. However, it becomes a problem the larger the unit definition gets. If you set up a 5-element infantry definition that required 4CP, but only created it with a single element at build time, that gives flexibility but a 4CP cost for a 1-element infantry unit, until you combine it. Replacements don't work the same way in those cases. The CP cost is the same, there's no way to have it vary for the same unit depending on number of elements. Also note that those militia units, once combined, cannot be split up.

It's possible to do what you asked with the mod just like in vanilla; your "brigade" would actually be a division, in game terms. I'm not creating a way to make new units on the fly. There is no way under the existing engine to create new non-division units from other non-division units, the exception being single elements added to other units to fill gaps in predefined slots. I cannot change that. In the mod there would be 1- and 2-element buildable units from both states, which can be combined in a division like any other. I've made division creation more affordable for rank 1 leaders, allowing more "brigades" to be created for lower penalties.

If you had a VA unit with a gap due to combat losses, it could be filled with a Georgia regiment. That's no different from vanilla; the difference will be that under the mod there are single regiment GA regular infantry units available to build. In vanilla the only way to get many single regiment units is to train up militia regiments.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

@grimjaw, When will this be ready, mate?

[grimjaw]

I wouldn't look for it soon. I did some work on units last night. Designing those is pretty easy. The more complicated work of deciding where to put them and when hasn't been examined in much detail. Plus I'm busier at this time of the year with work and other things. If we get all of our ground planted this month, I might have some free time in July to make some headway.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

No rush, mate. I'm pretty eager to give this a spin, however

I'm assuming that brigades once formed can then be folded into divisions?
And will those brigades take on historical names?

I hope you're well, my friend

[grimjaw]

I'm assuming that brigades once formed can then be folded into divisions?
And will those brigades take on historical names?

The new units can be used in the same ways as the vanilla units.

Re: brigade names, there are different ways to handle it, and finalizing that part of the design is a low priority. The vanilla way t handle it is to create a list of many of the historical brigade leaders, put them in rough order of historical creation, and let the game assign them as new units are recruited. Not very historically accurate at all, since the regiments that get assigned might not have been in that brigade. Plus, a brigade might get assigned the name of a general already leading a division or corps on the other side of the map. Brigade name never changes to reflect theoretical turnover.

Alternate method is to assign name like "1st NY brigade" and so on. Still useful in practice because unit can be identified distinctly from others.

Some of the brigades like Iron or Mississippi would be created and not recruited, and would retain their names.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Can it be modified so that player can change the name of the brigades at their leisure as the game is progressing?
Can a brigade once formed be then disbanded or have more regiments attached to or subtracted from it?

[grimjaw]

Can it be modified so that player can change the name of the brigades at their leisure as the game is progressing?
Can a brigade once formed be then disbanded or have more regiments attached to or subtracted from it?

The answer to both is no. I'm sure it's possible to do but it would require engine code changes, .something I can't do.

You can rename stacks, of course; that's a function from vanilla. The user can't change unit names. At least I dont think you can, honestly never tried it, but I doubt it.

I just want to make sure we're on the same page about terminology before I talk about brigades. The game has two things it uses to present the player with forces: models and units. Models are the files that make up the definitions and descriptions of the various elements. Number of hits, movement type and rate, long and short names, upgrade path, etc. Units are separate, and are made up of, among other things, one or more slots that contain references to models. A unit can hold multiple slots for various model references. So a unit can be a leader, a regiment, a couple of regiments, or what we think of as a brigade of several regiments plus artillery or cavalry or both. But the game doesn't (usually) draw a distinction between the various definitions of units. A leader is the same as a 9-element brigade or as a warship. They are all units. There is no "brigade" as far as the game is concerned, only units with descriptions that say such and such brigade. It could be willy wonka's chocolate factory for a description for all the game cares. But so far as I know there is no function at the user level to change certain unit description fields, which is what equals the brigade name you asked about. They are either assigned from a list in the unit file or as part of the code that creates the unit.

Further, a unit has a very rigid definition when it comes to the models and families that are assigned to it. A unit cannot be broken down into pieces. It can lose elements through combat, but the definition of the missing slot only allows for specific models/families to fill the gaps. You can define a unit and then create it on the map with some of the slots unfilled. This already happens in the vanilla game. The initial Bull Run forces are an example. Alternately you can define a unit in kind of a sneaky way that allows for additional elements to be added, but this isn't advertised to the user very well in vanilla. The militia regiments are examples. Once slots in a unit definition are filled the only way under vanilla to unfill that slot is destruction of the element in that slot. The only exception to this rule is when you join a leader with a brigade (unit). You can join a leader with many cavalry regiments (units) because the unit definition allows for it by defining a slot for a famleader type. This isn't true for all units. I haven't tried hacking the family part of the unit families that far. There is no family called famunit, which could then be applied to a unit definition and allow for permanent combination of units. But that's what the division is for?

The game wasn't really designed, or at least published, with brigade or regiment level combat in mind as the main feature. Just think of the incentives. Without a leader almost all units, even something as small as a sharpshooter battalion, has a command penalty. Ships are the major exception. A cavalry regiment shouldn't require a brigadier general to operate efficiently when operating independently. If one-element cav units don't require command points, you'd then be able to throw 100 of them in a stack that has no command penalty because of the way the game does math, with heavy reliance on integers.

Without major code changes, which I cannot and will never be able to do, CW2 will always be a game of regions, divisions or greater force combinations, and strategic supply rather than tactical considerations. I can try, am trying, to make things more interesting by adding flavor, within limits. Making division creation more user friendly without being historically unrealistic is one way. But you're still going to be stuck with divisions no matter what.

The other thing I should mention is that it's very easy to break Athena, the AI, by adding in things the player knows how to use intelligently or historically. Athena is still going to be wielding only a hammer and looking only for nails, no matter how many things I tweak.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Whatever the case I'm looking forward to trying it.

Another thing I'd like corrected is promotions; specifically how they're gained.
It strikes me as odd that a general commanding 7,000 men can attack a city/town and destroy a meagre garrison of 400 or so men and easily be promoted for doing so, but will find it much more difficult to gain that promotion in a pitched battle where the numbers are relatively even. I just don't understand how that works.

[grimjaw]

The promotion & seniority systems are irksome to me, but there is little I can do to change them. The changes I've envisioned aren't part of the force pool mod.

I can modify the values and rate of XP, which affects OFF/DEF numbers. I can change the seniority numbers for individual leaders. But I don't think the qualifying values for promotion can be edited by end users.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

It's no big deal. It's just one of those things I've always found irritating, though not so irritating that I won't exploit it on occasion when I want a particular general promoted

Regarding your mod; is the size of the regiments an even 600, or are they of variable size as are the currently existing brigades?

[grimjaw]

Regarding your mod; is the size of the regiments an even 600, or are they of variable size as are the currently existing brigades?

Forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know here.

The number of men represented by a hit is set individually in the models. Most regular infantry has 20 hits and a description is set of 30 men per hit. That's all the value represents: a description. It could be one man or a thousand.

The forcepool mod doesn't change those values. The only model values I'm planning on changing follow on the expanded names mod I've already posted in the mod forum.

[grimjaw]

This link from the mod forum has WIP screenshots of the forcepool mod.

viewtopic.php?f=340&t=53789

[Hero989]

I look forward to release of your Mod. It looks very detailed with vast improvements to the game.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I look forward to release of your Mod. It looks very detailed with vast improvements to the game.

There's a thread on here somewhere where you can add your support to a Civil War 3 being made. Look it up and add your signature

[grimjaw]

This mod is not dead.

I have some time now to spend on it and I've narrowed down the changes for a first full attempt. I chose to be more conservative than I originally planned. If the initial modifications work for the AI, I can try additional changes later.

I hoped to add several different brigade styles, but upon review the first attempt will be scaled back. I'll give an example.

VA has three different units defined for infantry brigades. In separating the infantry from these I am already adding more unit types in cavalry and artillery. I'm also adding single infantry regiments to each state. I do not want to further complicate things by doubling the number of infantry brigades as well. So for each state I have limited the number of recruitable infantry brigades to the original amount, or in a few cases maybe one more than originally available.

In the case of VA again, it originally had the big 9-element brigade, 2 infantry + 1 sharpshooter, and 2 infantry + 1 cavalry. Now it has 4 brigade types of infantry, plus the new cavalry, sharpshooter and arty units, plus some single element infantry regiments, and then the rest of the original units. The other states get the same treatment.

I had to tally up all the conscript and regular regiments separately so I could achieve the same totals as originally available. VA has 42 regular and 28 conscript infantry among its various recruitable brigades, as well as differing numbers of conscript and regular cavalry. All the states have to be accounted for this way, and then parceled out in new brigade definitions, which then have to be added piecemeal as the force pool increases by event as the game date changes. If you could see the spreadsheets I've worked up dealing with this, jeez ...

[Teatime]

I can imagine on the spreadsheets, though I wish I could get at the engine to make a couple of "adjustments".

I have totally toned back Infantry in my modding. But still have some way to go since I have only just restarted from scratch.

Basically I took out Sharpshooters, Volunteers, Conscripts, Marines

All infantry recruits with conscript level stats and has to earn their experience, still tuning that.

All infantry at the moment is $famLine

Some flavour get an experience star or 2 on recruitment and a couple of initial brigades also get a star (e.g Stonewall)

All brigades are recruited with 5 regiments (though I need to mix that up a touch) and are defined with space for
1x$famLeader|5x$famLine|1x$famCavalry|1x$famMedArt

For the CSA these are State brigades but for the Union I made them East/Mid West/West/USCT with the state regiments mixed up on the model custom names so you do get multi state brigades on recruitment

I do have a couple of special "event only" recruitments not available in the pool e.g Berdan's USSS and the US Regular brigades.

I need to still do some work on the far west, the late rifle upgrades and a couple of other specials but I am pretty happy with my progress to date.

My mod is basically orientated to my enjoyment of the game and clearly not as ambitious as yours but good to see you are still at it as I have borrowed from your work (e.g the 20 sub unit division which I thought was great work)

Keep at it as it is a game that is fun to tinker with, even though a touch frustrating at times

[pgr]

Good luck! I fiddled around with modding models. Attacking the unit rosters just seemed too huge.

I'm not sure I would have played too much with leader CP values, but it sounds like that was an easy change. 3-4 + single element units would seem to be the most flexible way of doing it.

You can modify the element cap in divisions btw, if you wanted to play with division size.

I would also encourage you to look at possible model modifications. I think an argument could be made that artillery could use a nerf. (The base hit chance is pretty high, and then arty gets leader bonus, supply wagon bonus, and fortification bonus.) You could also create some micro-elements. In particular, the far west could use elements that represent 2-3 companies, which were the typical unit sizes at far west forts. Give the micro elements smaller hit-pools, and smaller supply requirements, and that would give you the flexibility to make far west units that don't break the bank supply wise (and that would be very fragile if used back east.)

[grimjaw]

I uploaded a 20-element division mod some time back, with the idea of eventually lowering the number of guns represented by artillery units.

I will probably look at changing model values down the road. I suspect the unit composition changes will be the biggest hurdle for the AI, if it is affected at all. The AI selects units, not models, and as far as I know, I can't change the rules it goes by in making those selections. Right now 8 am trying to provide the same number and type of elements that were previously available at the original times. If that works and doesn't trip up Athena then I can look at other changes. This is the first step.

I have already created the new units. I'm almost finished editing the script that defines the new force pools. After that I have to locate previous versions of units created by event and replace them with new units. Then I will upload a version of the mod that contains most of the desired changes, minus elite, unique units and Kentucky.

The scripting for Kentucky force pools is more complex than the other states. It won't hurt to have those units running alongside the new versions in other states and may be useful as a control group when I start testing.