Victory . . . a bit too soon for me

[PBBoeye]

I use house rules and certainly understand the need for them with any AI opponent.

However, I'd say house rules are what you break out and start to develop towards the end of development of a particular game (ie., when the developing team and community stop supporting/advancing it).

Until then, it is chopchopchop on code and other data.

[Clovis]

I agree with this observation. I have seen the same behavior many times. The weighting of Harpers Ferry and Winchester as strategic cities is evidently too high, which causes Confederate AI to value them too much. They deploy the armies there, rather than Fredericksburg, leaving the road to Richmond open to the Union.

IMHO Fredericksburg should be greatly increased in its VP/strategic city value to help the AI. This would also be historic as well. Keeping the Federals on the other side of the Rappahannock was a huge goal for the Rebels, who fought several battles there to do just that, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Brandy Station. The strategic goal of Lee in all of those battles was to throw the Union back across the other side of the Rappahannock. Lee knew once the Union was able to cross the Rappahannock in force and stay on the other side, it was only a matter of time before Richmond fell. Grant proved this in 1864, making one of the most critical decisions of the war to keep pushing forward after initial tactical defeat in the Wilderness, producing the strategic victory of the Forty Days.

I would respectfully petition the designers to consider making these changes of devaluing Winchester and Harpers Ferry and increasing the value of Fredericksburg greatly.

Suppressing Winchester VP and making Manassas a strategic region is giving very interesting results in AI behaviour...

[Winfield S. Hancock]

What kind of results are you observing from devaluing Winchester and adding importance to Manassas? I am interested in hearing if this is producing more historic results and better defensive CSA behavior.

[PBBoeye]

Could I get a reference file name or folder for region and city VPs?

[Clovis]

What kind of results are you observing from devaluing Winchester and adding importance to Manassas? I am interested in hearing if this is producing more historic results and better defensive CSA behavior.

For now ( Janv 62, low aggressiveness, small FOW help), CSA army is concentrated in MANASSAS, facing the POTOMAC army in ALEXANDRIA. HARPER'S FERRY is occupied by a US army corps under BANKS.

I suspect CSA AI will not leave Manassas without fighting. I'm going to try a peninsula campaign in order to see what reaction AI will have.

I'm trying to to transform Harrisonburg region into strategic region in order to see if AI will make campaign in the Shenandoah...

BTW, I've too modded further by prohibiting division formation until october 1861, in order to delay formation of organized armies until the winter 1861 (AACW being too lenient with the huge organizational problems at the start of the war). But this is certainly irrelevant to AI behaviour in objective choices.

[satisfaction]

You've hit on the problem I've been having. It looks like I need to look at 2 different values, what I have been tinkering with is what you have done to Manassas. That is adjusting the value the AI places on it. I want to combine that/these community ideas with reducing the moral hit/bonus for the other key cities on the border and put that on more interior/strategic cities. Any idea where this "second" file might be or if I'm even correct on this?