---> AACW Official Patch 1.09e

[Rafiki]

It is not enough to dump a big stack somewhere and pray it can live on its own

Interesting....

[SIZE="1"](Might explain why my amphibious invasions haven't had more success, though... )[/size]

[Clovis]

I stongly disgree with suppression of Army HQ ( and on the contrary, I would have liked to have corps HQ rather than division HQs).

Creating an army HQ is forcing players to plan their strategy in the game. Without, we would have armies created on the spot anywhere on the map with many side effects, not necessarly to the advantage of AI which is ever slower to think than the clever human player.

Investing ressources to get the HQ, planning time needed to be on the region needed force players to devise a plan and tht's an integral part of the AACW charm.

I strongly believe AI to be improved on this point , because aside the current dysfunctinality, there is now the relocation tool to remove for AI the burden of placing HQ where needed.

AI is currently almost ready to cope with organizational rules introduced by AACW. Moreover, the engine of AGEOD game will remain the same ( hence retroffiting easier). AACW is the most complex game produced by Ageod ( NCP hasn't really the strategical layer AACW got with production, recruitment, organization of armed forces from scratch). I understand time is lacking for Ageod to improve at once AI but as I said it before, I persist to think it's an essential component to Ageod success but once again, the AI is currently doing a great job. AI is able to create troops, send them in different theaters, move them operationally with regularly sound intentions and create divisions yet perfectible but not often totally unworkable.

[Clovis]

Clovis has actually come up with what seems to be a workable solution in that Army HQs come pre-attached with the specific General if that side is being controlled by the AI, and not pre-attached if controlled by a human. Now if I can just manage to incorporate this idea into the vanilla scenarios, we'll have a somewhat better AI, until the AI too can be tweaked.

Gray I'm testing them to see if they work as intended. Then I will do something for vanilla if needed ( Pocus stated it will work on AI this month) by making these events in XLS files to allow their integration in the vanilla scenarios.

[arsan]

Hi!

I also prefer to keep the Army HQ units and fix the AI on how to use them as well as helping her with some “only AI” events like the ones posted by Clovis.
I see the removal of Army HQ as only a last resort measure. And, hopefully, it seems that there are other options.

Another AI problem I think could be improved with a «AI only event» is Kentucky neutrality. On PBEM the vanilla events work Ok.
But Athena does not know that as the CSA, attacking that tempting lone militia of Paducah, or the one on Lexington as the USA, will cost her the whole KY state.
From my experience, she does it every time and she always lose KY giving the human player another advantage.
For play against the AI I think even a simple probability % event of KY seceding or not (like the Missouri one) will be fairer to Athena and more enjoyable to the player.
Regards!

[Evren]

Has anyone noticed (or experienced) that Athena doesn't invest in industry, build railroads or riverine transports (or depots in necessary places)? Is this WAD or doesn't Athena consider me as a good opponent worth putting so much effort into? I think she doesn't like me as much as i liked her . Would it help if i was better looking?

Seriously, has anyone ever noticed something like that? This causes supply problems for her, and she refuses to build anything, even if she has enough money and materials.

PS: I haven't tested 1.09e against Athena yet. Only been playing against humans.

[arsan]

Hi

Yesterday i checked from the AI side (CSA) the 1.09e campaign i was playing until i found the HQ porblem reported before on this thread.
I saw that Athena was in fact building industries on a couple of states at that moment. And her WS production was decent (68 per turn i think, with 40% blocade).
But you are right about her transport capacity: it was exteremly low both on river and train and she was not investing anythig in this. leure:
Don't know if this is her usual behaviour or just bad luck on my game.
She also don't seems to like to invest on blocade runners.
On the other side, she was very agressive on the use of the economic and conscription policies, including the print money option (her inflation was at 20% by april 62).
Probably she is right on this, as it seems to be the way good PBEM CSA players use to play

Regards!

[Clovis]

Hi!

I also prefer to keep the Army HQ units and fix the AI on how to use them as well as helping her with some “only AI” events like the ones posted by Clovis.
I see the removal of Army HQ as only a last resort measure. And, hopefully, it seems that there are other options.

Another AI problem I think could be improved with a «AI only event» is Kentucky neutrality. On PBEM the vanilla events work Ok.
But Athena does not know that as the CSA, attacking that tempting lone militia of Paducah, or the one on Lexington as the USA, will cost her the whole KY state.
From my experience, she does it every time and she always lose KY giving the human player another advantage.
For play against the AI I think even a simple probability % event of KY seceding or not (like the Missouri one) will be fairer to Athena and more enjoyable to the player.
Regards!

look my mod!

[Clovis]

Hi

Yesterday i checked from the AI side (CSA) the 1.09e campaign i was playing until i found the HQ porblem reported before on this thread.
I saw that Athena was in fact building industries on a couple of states at that moment. And her WS production was decent (68 per turn i think, with 40% blocade).
But you are right about her transport capacity: it was exteremly low both on river and train and she was not investing anythig in this. leure:
Don't know if this is her usual behaviour or just bad luck on my game.
She also don't seems to like to invest on blocade runners.
On the other side, she was very agressive on the use of the economic and conscription policies, including the print money option (her inflation was at 20% by april 62).
Probably she is right on this, as it seems to be the way good PBEM CSA players use to play

Regards!

AI is using industrial, recruitment options regularlY. AI doesn't indeed build blockade runners or forts or depots

[arsan]

I will! I have it "scheduled" for this weekend!
Will the new version be ready for then
Regards!

[Carnium]

Another AI problem I think could be improved with a «AI only event» is Kentucky neutrality. On PBEM the vanilla events work Ok.
But Athena does not know that as the CSA, attacking that tempting lone militia of Paducah, or the one on Lexington as the USA, will cost her the whole KY state.
From my experience, she does it every time and she always lose KY giving the human player another advantage.
Regards!

I can confirm that as she did the same thing in my campaign (playing as the Union). Hopefully something can be done about that.
Another problem that I am facing right now are the strange movements of the AI (playing CSA). Whenever my armies approach an important enemy city the AI sends almost all the army to intercept me and forgets about defense. Right now all CSA eastern army is heading west thus leaving Richmond undefended (at leasts it seems so)

[Clovis]

The best AI settings for CSA AI are for me low aggressiveness, small fog of war advantage. The first eliminates some risky moves, the second gives AI some indsight about enemy forces.

[Coregonas]

Hi

On the other side, she was very agressive on the use of the economic and conscription policies, including the print money option (her inflation was at 20% by april 62).


Regards!

I believe the best way for CSA to build up a decent army is to go for very high inflation --- 40% for example around OCT 61.

This allows you to build quality troops (ships / arty)... not just the standard tons of "militia"... Also, some extra money can be used for industrialize or transport purposes...

[Pocus]

a private beta patch is no available in the AACW Beta forum, for whose having the rights. It mainly feature a work on how attrition variables function now (can be tweaked by weather and kind of damages, ie cohesion or hits)

[Franciscus]

If it was a private beta patch with a new and improved AI, able to form and organize armies, I would seriously consider to become a hacker

[GShock]

I can confirm the impressments, drafts and inflation are correctly used. The no investment on rail/river and no use of blockade runners and fleets are also accurate reports as well as the kentucky issue.

I believe the most important thing would be to make the AI do the amphibious landings. Something that basically resembles (as strategy) what the historical strategy was, at least in its major events (who knows, maybe event scripting and logging would help a lot in this). As of the HQ, it would be nice to have HQs for army corps and divs but if this takes time to fix i would rather suppress all HQs and focus on this much more important issue.

[Rafiki]

GShock, seeing as div HQs were taken *out* of the game after much testing, long consideration and much discussion, I believe we'll never see them again.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[lodilefty]

Outstanding!

Trying to reverse engineer your work is usually very challenging due to the multitude of items that you change to make things work together so well. I'm still trying to figure out how to possibly integrate your Kentucky rework into the vanilla scenarios. (Part of the delay however was due to real life work).

At the moment, I would like to place more emphasis on finishing the RR MOD work, before devoting time to other work, but I can already see that some of my time is going to be diverted to testing the new Cohesion/Attrition Beta Patch. I could defintely use additional beta tester help there also.

Regards

If it helps, I have a version of Clovis' Kentucky 'system' that stands alone and is already in spreadsheet.

I'm at "real work" right now, I can send it when I get home. I suggest that Clovis review it, as I tweaked it a little and may have lost something......

[GShock]

GShock, seeing as div HQs were taken *out* of the game after much testing, long consideration and much discussion, I believe we'll never see them again.

It was a good choice according to me. Seeing how AI handles the Army HQs, and the adv/disadv for players in pbem and in SP, and also (don't forget) the fact the HQ costs so much and the economy values are upside down (if they were correct, probably the CSA would have no chance at all) I' d remove the Army HQ too. On the very detailed analysis pov, the conscript company count for replacement (on huge thread with maths somewhere in forums) with the HQs is one of the least appealing. In its case, the best thing to do would still to buy a new HQ from scrap rather than buy replacements for it.

Very easily it's possible to make the players (and AI) pay the price of forming corps or armies the same way they pay for DIVS and without the HQ. What prevents this choice to be taken? That would seriously save time much needed elsewhere. Surely the same concepts leading to removal of DIV HQ apply to Army HQ. So?

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Clovis]

If it helps, I have a version of Clovis' Kentucky 'system' that stands alone and is already in spreadsheet.

I'm at "real work" right now, I can send it when I get home. I suggest that Clovis review it, as I tweaked it a little and may have lost something......

Why not? But since I've made some light changes....

[Clovis]

Simply put, the Army HQs are not going to be removed for reasons stated above. Once the AI is reworked and hopefully Clovis' changes implemented, most of the AI problems with Army HQs should be reasonably addressed.

I hope AI to be improved to the point my stopgap measures can be deleted

[lodilefty]

Why not? But since I've made some light changes....

So have I!

Here 'tis.
It would need the event file name changed (line 3).

[INDENT]

• Game starts with KY unblocked, but it gets blocked turn 1 [I built this for April 61, so low likelyhood anybody can get into KY that quickly] This obviates need for recompiling scenarios, but makes it sort of useless for anything other than April 61. Easy to fix! Copy the blockstate=1 stuff into a setup or .inc file.....
• I put in some 'human vs. AI' logic so Athena doesn't get confused by the special units needed for the human interventions.
• I conslidated the 'redundant' commands [to unblock, pool sizes, etc.] so you can edit all at once.
• I put in logic to remove the 'intervention' units once KY is unblocked.
• I also fiddled with the units that can be purhased {pool sizes} and such....

[/INDENT]

Otherwise, I think it's shamelessly stolen from your work circa 1-2 months ago...

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Clovis]

So have I!

Here 'tis.
It would need the event file name changed (line 3).
[INDENT]

• Game starts with KY unblocked, but it gets blocked turn 1 [I built this for April 61, so low likelyhood anybody can get into KY that quickly] This obviates need for recompiling scenarios, but makes it sort of useless for anything other than April 61. Easy to fix! Copy the blockstate=1 stuff into a setup or .inc file.....
• I put in some 'human vs. AI' logic so Athena doesn't get confused by the special units needed for the human interventions.
• I conslidated the 'redundant' commands [to unblock, pool sizes, etc.] so you can edit all at once.
• I put in logic to remove the 'intervention' units once KY is unblocked.
• I also fiddled with the units that can be purhased {pool sizes} and such....

[/INDENT]Otherwise, I think it's shamelessly stolen from your work circa 1-2 months ago...

Ok...at the end of April I will post a XLS file reproducing my Kentucky events based on your file.

Regards,

Clovis

[bk6583]

In playing as the Union in two 1863 campaign games now Lee and several very powerful corps, instead of setting up a coordinated defense, contented themselves instead to ALL stack INSIDE Fredricksburg. I moved several also very powerful Union corps into Fredricksburg, besieged it, and after about five turns had Lee surrender! Bagged roughly 126,000 prisoners each time. Game over in the East fellows. If AGEOD is still working on a patch, I humbly ask that you do something about this. I naturally recognize the limitations of any AI, particularly in a game this complex, but can't you at least prevent the AI from doing "Stupid Pet Tricks"??

[Pocus]

there will be some work done on the AI in april yes. Do you have the game with Lee besieged? I would like to check the decision making process he did.

[Evren]

As far as i remember, there was a problem with leaders activation in one of the previous patches. When we merged a 1* leader with a brigade, an inactive leader was becoming active. Pocus fixed it afterwards.

I'm using 1.09e now. And i realized a similar problem. When i redeploy one of my active leaders to somewhere else on the map, their stats significantly fall. But when i merge them with a brigade, their stats are fully stored and they're ready to fight again. It is the same with all 1,2 and 3 star leaders, active or inactive. Although inactive leaders don't become active. Is this normal?

In the attachments, the first picture shows Edmund K. Smith right after redeployment. The second pic shows him attached with a brigade at the same turn.

Has anyone else experienced this? I've never seen that before this patch.

PS:If this has been posted here before, or it is a normal procedure, i'm sorry, just ignore this post.

[bk6583]

"Do you have the game with Lee besieged? I would like to check the decision making process he did."

Unfortunately, in the category of well, I started this game so I may as well finish it, I've advanced three turns beyond the surrender turn. Any way to retrieve that file so I could send it to you?

[Franciscus]

"Do you have the game with Lee besieged? I would like to check the decision making process he did."

Unfortunately, in the category of well, I started this game so I may as well finish it, I've advanced three turns beyond the surrender turn. Any way to retrieve that file so I could send it to you?

In your save folder you should have a folder with the name of your campaign game. Inside you will find several "backup" folders, that store your previous turns. I think that you could just zip your campaign game folder and send it to Pocus.