Scourge of War Boards

Hey, I'm not sure if this will help anyone other than me, but it’s quite interesting.

I was trying to think of a way of getting the AI to attack better in an Open-Play game that didn't have any objectives on the map.

I don't like trying to steer the AI in a certain direction, I sort of like dividing my forces and searching for the AI units. Once I find them I like how the game allows for the player to send couriers to the other units to bring them into the fighting-area. You know the Gettysburg feeling.

I kept my units assigned in the OOB the same as everyone else, but changed the AI units structure a little bit.

The drills file allows for up to sixteen regiments to be assigned into it. So I removed some of the Brigade Generals and assigned the regiments under a single Brigade leader.

Basically, each enemy Brigade leader now has sixteen-regiments under their command. So when they attack they now have the force of four regular brigades.

The AI seems to perform a lot better with this and seems to keep the regiments distance from each other pretty good.

I’ve played three games using this and each one has had a five or six mile battle line once the fighting is under way. But, I’ve slowed down my game and assigned a lot more ammunition to each regiment and also increased the firing distance.

The only other changes that I can think of at the moment would be increasing the command-radius in the unitattributes file, and increasing the AI Cycles too 200 .

The higher AI Cycles seem to cause the AI to attack \ wait \ attack \ demonstrate \ flank – basically sort of unpredictable.

The only time that I have noticed that they will bunch-up is when they see a hole in your line and they will try to exploit it by rushing units into it.

Also, if the ground is hilly they will double stack their regiments which seem to cause a whole lot of casualties to my side.

I’m now trying to figure out a way of bringing down the casualties, I suffered around 6000 casualties in three hours of fighting.
davinci

Interesting... Tried the AI-cykel on the Fontanoy-mod by pom..it sems like the AI got better at not Walking their regiments trough each other during a firefight altough it's not perfect.

Is there anyway to get the AI to position their guns better, not right behind a forest or in a
depression?

Peter

Yes there is Peter, it's called a Scenario Editor.....
Sorry, I had to get that one in there.....
the reb,

Davinci,

I do wish to thank you for your interest in improving this game. Are these changes to a "Master File" that would affect all future play? Where do you find the file?

Also, I was going to start a post about "Meleeing" there is way too much. Thoughts?

the reb,

Interesting.....it seems like the AI got better at not walking their regiment’s trough each other during a firefight although it's not perfect.

Is there anyway to get the AI to position their guns better, not right behind a forest or in a
depression?
Peter

As far as I remember I think that the AI-Artillery was broken by one of the later patches.

They used to deploy a whole lot better than they do at the present time, and they also have a very bad habit of moving in-front of their regiments.

The AI \ Thinking \ Cycles works a lot better if you extend the musket-range a bit. This gives the AI time to react and move around each other without being too close to your line.

Are these changes to a "Master File" that would affect all future play? Where do you find the file?

Since you play Open Play a lot it is probably better to create a mod folder and place the OOB that you changed into it.

I never activate \ deactivate – any of the mods, I try to combine what ever mod that I’m playing into one of the five that I constantly have activated.

So, if you have a mod that is constantly activated you could place the edited OOB into it, this way you wouldn’t have to create a separate mod.

To put that another way, basically you are editing a regular OOB and instead of having four-brigades that don’t attack placing them under one-brigade-that-does-attack-together .

If I get some free time this weekend, I’ll try to edit which-ever OOB that you play the most and post it here. This way you can try it out to see if it works for you.

Also, I was going to start a post about "Meleeing" there is way too much. Thoughts? the reb,

In the hundreds of games that I play there is probably less than a 1% chance that the units will ever be involved in a melee fighting.

There are several different things that you can do, some of which you might not like.

I slow down the game so that the men take longer moving across the map.

I keep the fatigue level of all the men to the point of exhaustion.

But, the most important is that the drills.csv have a column in it that will prevent the men from getting within a certain distance of each other. This will cause one or both regiments to flee away from each other.

davinci

But, the most important is that the drills.csv have a column in it that will prevent the men from getting within a certain distance of each other. This will cause one or both regiments to flee away from each other.

Hey, DaV, sounds interesting. Which variable is this please?

Saddletank - it is the N column of the drills file.
You are probably going to have to experiment with the values.

I have mine set at 100 but I probably have a longer musket range then you have.

Also, you have to apply it to each formation to get it to work correctly.

davinci

Curious. This is the auto-charge range. How do you make it an auto-avoid?

The KS mod has various values in there, 100, 57, 69, etc for different formations and different trroop types.

No the N column is the min distance.

I'm at work typing this via mobile-phone so I am not sure of the auto charge.

I do remerber changing some values in the unitattributes pretaining to charging.

I will have a better answer later today when I can view the files

davinci

I must have an ambitious enemy. Started playing Salem Church Map using Fredericksburg OOB last night. My guys are advaancing east directly from the west. I may be wrong, but I always assumed the enemy advances directly opposite? I have learned to establish my front lines early and play defense until I can get my troops better organized.

Well here come the Boys in Blue, most stop, form line and fire, but I've had 4-5 melees in the first hour, all fronted by Union Troops. I noticed that the melees don't last long and the Union retreats very quickly after they start the melee.

I know AI is not perfect, but is the toughest in any game I ever played?

the reb...