AI Settings

[GraniteStater]

Obviously, almost all of this discussion is pure preference. And I mistitled the thread - please feel free to discuss PbeM settings.

For me (right now):

* Been playing mostly Sgt level, with one Lt game started.

* Hist Attrit ON for Player Only

* Standard in Naval Boxes

* No Bonus for AI Leader Activation (just an idiosyncracy)

* Medium AI Detection (I goof around with Low & High, too - still experimenting with CW2)

* Normal Aggresiveness

Now this is mostly for me as the Union. My CSA settings are a little different, for some small reasons of my own. This Setting Group I think of as 'Level Playing Field'.

[ArmChairGeneral]

For AI games, I have been playing:

* Lieutenant
* Historical Attrition for both ON
* Naval Box assist ON, 50% setting
* Medium bonus for AI activation
* High AI detection bonus
* Normal Aggressiveness
* I buy my own replacements
* Historical Force Pools
* Extra processing time ON
* Medium inactivation penalties

I only play CSA (yeah, yeah, I know) and these settings give me a decent game, although I still win regularly.

Haven't played with CW2's Colonel yet, but my experience with other AGE games leads me to think that this slider is not as important as buffing Athena's detection and activation making the game harder.

I have observed that with high detection she becomes much less reckless, but conversely a bit timid about pressuring positions she thinks you hold too strongly.

As per other discussions, I am now experimenting with attrition-for-me-but-not-for-AI, the middle setting, which is theoretically the most difficult choice.

I want to play with high activation penalties, and have, but it tends to be a little more than I can handle. Lose a minor battle and then get fixed for two turns in bad terrain and watch your precious hits melt away. (You usually go inactive after a withdrawal, so this happens a lot. Just assume the weather will turn bad too). Then the counterattack completely shatters you; even against Athena, losing a division in the early going will take the wind right out of your sails (or the coal out of your boiler, if you can afford Steam Frigates).

Questions:

Do the replacements the assist purchases for you come out of cash-on-hand or are they "free?" I like to be in control of this aspect, but is the effect of using the setting to give the player a boost, or is it just a timesaver? If you pay the full cost no matter what, then I think the assist would actually make it harder for the player since it will spend too many of your resources on replacements.

Does Athena become fixed also when she loses activation rolls under the hard inactivation setting? If so, I may revisit this setting, I think I can handle that situation better than she can over the course of the game.

How do the larger force pools affect the outcome/difficulty of the game? Wouldn't larger pools eventually favor the CSA if they can get their economy up to snuff?

[GraniteStater]

Do the replacements the assist purchases for you come out of cash-on-hand or are they "free?" I like to be in control of this aspect, but is the effect of using the setting to give the player a boost, or is it just a timesaver? If you pay the full cost no matter what, then I think the assist would actually make it harder for the player since it will spend too many of your resources on replacements.

Does Athena become fixed also when she loses activation rolls under the hard inactivation setting? If so, I may revisit this setting, I think I can handle that situation better than she can over the course of the game.

* I've been playing with 5 and 10 %age settings - I think it comes out of Cash/Bodies/WS at the start of a Turn, but dunno for sure. The AutoBuy doesn't seem to crimp me unduly.

* This deserves a thread to itself. I went through a period in AACW where, as the Union, I was practically shackling my forces and I noticed that Inactive does not necessarily mean Locked, even when you had it on the toughest setting, although the UI tooltip language implied otherwise, IIRC. At any rate, I swear I experienced many, many instances of Inactive/Unlocked, Active/Locked and some other combos. Then again, I was crippling and hobbling on purpose. I couldn't predict who was gonna do what. I finally felt that vanilla Penalties but Can Move was best, at least for me. Try very restrictive rules - you might like it. I know I'll give it a whirl.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Inactive does not necessarily mean Locked, even when you had it on the toughest setting....

I experienced many, many instances of Inactive/Unlocked, Active/Locked and some other combos.

Locking is not automatic, it just feels like it! (Being funny here, it actually doesn't happen that often.) I have observed Active/Locked on the second turn of a lock, as if he passed the activation check that turn, but was still locked from the failure on the earlier turn.

I have also had one instance of a two-turn lock under Lee when I did not have the lock setting chosen, but this could have been due to something other than the inactivation setting that I don't know about. Maybe the setting just increases the likelihood of locking on inactivation?

All the locks I have experienced have been for two turns, not sure if that is the length they are designed for or if I just got locked twice in a row. Couldn't tell if the quality of the leader affects the lock check or not, I have only witnessed six or seven locks in total with the rule selected (although several of those were extremely costly).

[ArmChairGeneral]

After brief playtesting, locks occur for one turn. (Which it conveniently tells you in the tooltip. Doh!) You get the red stripe across the units to let you know.

[ArmChairGeneral]

After further playtesting with Hard Inactivity, I can report that a locked force is happening roughly every two or three turns for me as the CSA, that it happens for one turn only, that I have not yet observed two locks in a row (March 62), and that the worst leaders get it fairly regularly as you would expect. This makes the worst dogs in your pack even worse (Floyd for example). So far it has meant that independent division operations are constrained; predictably 3-1-1's tend to get fixed, which can be inconvenient if they are close to the enemy or in poor terrain. I don't have Corps yet, but I have been trying hard to keep my best leaders in charge of the divisions doing the fighting; now I really don't want to be stuck having to promote weak ones, they will be a real handicap in offensive operations. Properly managing leadership is much more important now, requiring planning ahead to make sure everyone is in the right spot when Divisions and Corps come online. I can see now why it is called the Division Generals Pool, I am going to be much more scrupulous about keeping 3-1-1 divisions within Corps and Armies, where they always should have been. I broke up the pools right away, since if the top one is fixed I can't move anyone else that turn either (units remain fixed even when moved out of the stack, unlike plain inactivity). On the defensive side, it has been easier to justify "wasting" 3-1-1's on strong garrisons, since I don't plan on moving them around anyway.