Tests on 1.1b

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Little Powell wrote:

We were playing an MP game the other night. I had a battery setup at least 800 yards away from the enemy and it racked up close to 100 points in about 15 minutes.

That's very different than my results. I even had a number of misses when the arty was firing cannister. With the stock csv files, I had another battery of 6 napoleons, firing almost exclusively at infantry for a 1.5 hr battle at ranges from ~250-700 yds with good fields of fire. It had a score of 23.6. Granted, it's been a while since I used the stock values, but by any measure this was a poor performance. One of those guns, completely in the open, was targeted by an entire enemy battery for ~20-30 min. It received 0 casualties.

[ADukes]

We have a semi-serious interface UI problem with the difficulty levels and what is being displayed on the map along with other things.

To make the statement clear, it looks like the first thing to be selected is the difficulty level and, afterwards, you can select custom and override the difficulty chosen. While this is good, as you set for example grognard, you have no visualization of the AI aids because the values don't change. Similarly (and it's EXACTLY the point of my very first statement as thread starter) if you select the "Show all in sight" (map icons) and then hit grognard (or historical) the menu will STILL list the "Show all in sight" but once you are in the game, of course, you don't see a damn.

So it's an UI problem... I think it's better and less confusing if according to the difficulty you choose the menu CHANGES to show the limits (another limit that changes but is not visualized is the Courier Level which is the hardest and most challenging part of the high difficulty games).

Looks like you don't understand how it works. It is called "Custom Difficulty Settings" to adjust the difficulty level for the "Custom" preset and has nothing to do with the other preset levels.

The game changed dramatically for the better and in these 2 last tests on the BDE tutorial I started wondering what the real levels of the AI become when you select the different difficulty options. Again, I think they should come written in the menu (and then you can customize them but what can you customize if you don't know what each level means?).

Page 42/43 of the manual?

[GShock]

You don't go fumbling for the manual nowadays, you change the difficulty levels and what happens with that change goes WRITTEN into the entries. Here you can change what you like and those values won't change. Get the example, set on grognard and you will read Map Icons "All in sight" but then you go and you don't see jack.

That's what I was meaning. It's a UI glitch.

[ADukes]

As told above, the difficulty setting (except Custom) on the left has nothing to do with the "Custom Difficulty Settings" on the right. NO glitch.

[Willard]

Gents -

Just a few thoughts on the patch reference artillery.
Played a quick co-op MP game with Harmon last night.
Game was Corps v Corps game, with us as Union I Corps.

First, the AI in SP still leads with their artillery - thought this was at the top of the list to get fixed? I can't imagine how you guys that excluslively play SP deal with that.

Regarding the other issues...

-Counter-battery is MUCH MUCH improved with this patch. Granted, I did have three 3-inch batteries to use which I exclusively fired counter-battery, so that may have skewed my informal results. However, the bottom line is that IF you now roll guns out in the open at less than 500 yards you will get pummelled very quickly - like in less than 7-10 minutes game time.

-Long range support fire was much improved. This was actually more noticable in Garnier's Campaign Mod as I believe all the guns in that game are now 10pders. The 10pd long range effectiveness was pretty good in the stock game. With all the guns in the GCM as 10pders, the results were more skewed in favor of the those guns than would be normal due to the higher than historical percentage of 10pders in the OOB. In the stock game, I had two batteries of 12pd guns that were very effective targeting infantry at less than 500 yards but outside canister range. IMO, that is the most important gap in the game.

-Although I didnt get a chance to test rebel guns yet, they were scoring hits in counter-battery fire against my union guns. I don't know if the AI lets the guns choose targets or switches to target artillery, so it is hard to tell efficiency of the fire until I get a chance to track it myself.

-Arty damage on units in column has been much improved. This will necessitate a change in tactics of players - especially for units attempting to manuever on open ground. It will also prevent last minute changes in the battle plan where units attempt to disengage and march in column in front of enemy guns. We saw that last night and those troops took some punishment.

-I did not get a chance to see if arty is much more vulnerable to to infantry fire. In the GCM game, I had a battery take fire from infantry between 200-250 yards away and it appeared to me that the battery was taking higher than usual casaulties. This will be a problem in MP until the 200-250 yard gap is reduced as infantry will be able to inflict a higher proportion of casaulties on guns than they will receive. Not sure if a 200 yard rifle is in this patch, but if it is that will fix it.

For those interested, I will open a seperate thread to document my tests.

My guess is that initiatially there will be alot of complaints that the arty is now too overpowered. However that will last only until everyone adopts more historical tactics and not try to do things they shouldn't be able to do without paying a heavy price (such as manuevering in column in an open field right in front of enemy guns).

As for GCM games, there will be some imbalance until Garnier looks at getting the right mix of guns.
If you are looking at reasonable and historical (1863-1864) mix for guns, I would suggest something along the lines of at least 40-50% 12 pd guns for both armies, with the remaining percentage split evenly between 3inch and 10pd guns.

[SouthernSteel]

The current mix of guns in the GCM setup was done pre-patch to try and have more effective artillery all around. Now that we know the new strengths of the artillery post-patch, I'm sure Garnier will re-evaluate and make changes as he has time.

In other news, our Shenandoah Campaign has just gotten underway again, and so should provide some different tests for the patch than some may encounter here. We will be building more scenarios, for sure.

[Garnier]

I'm going to change the guns back to use their normal weapons and stats, in the next 20 min. Edit: Done.

[GShock]

Going to look forward to Willard's tests. Give me some time... I'm still digging into the tutorials and I am on the max possible difficulty.

Granted, I wish new players knew what exactly is done with each default setting along with the things that can be changed with the custom settings and their effect on such defaults. Unfortunately, as Dukes said this is WaD and that's fair enough. Hope to tackle the Art and DIV tutorials tomorrow. With the art i'm sure I'll notice the changes immediately.

[Willard]

I'm going to change the guns back to use their normal weapons and stats, in the next 20 min. Edit: Done.

G -

You may want to consider increasing gun crew numbers back up to the 15 man stock crew.
The 12 man crew's are going to rout really really fast if someone pushes their guns up out in the open.
This will especially happen if they are being subjected to CB fire from 3 inch guns - especially if they are Yank 3-inch guns.

I would suggest this be done in the interim until we get some more data and people re-adjust tactics. From what I could tell last night, guns were routing approximately 5 times faster than they normally would pre-patch. I was able to knock the first reb gun which was deployed at less than 500 yards in just over 5 minutes of fire time. Pre-patch would take at least over 20-25 minutes of fire to accomplish that in similar situations.

-Willard

[KG_Soldier]

There's no difference between Yank and Reb guns in the GCM.