Way to reduce AI recruitment?

[Davekhps]

Okay, I see ways to modify the enemy AI in the options, I see ways to adjust *my* supply rules, I see ways to increase *my* recruitment/conscripts in the options... is there any way to nerf the enemy when it comes to *its* recruitment and/or supply?

I ask because every game I've played so far the enemy outproduces me with doom stacks.

Every. Game.

Doesn't matter if I'm Union *or* Confederate. I can sorta understand being outnumbered as the South ("sorta", only because I shouldn't be THIS outnumbered historically). But even as the Union, I'm facing down CSA doom stacks in every theater, regardless of supply.

My Union games have been the worst. I have to be strong *everywhere*, in ahistorical amounts (50K CSA armies routinely west of the Mississippi? 2000+ pwr CSA stacks as far as the eye can see across Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi?)

As someone who never encountered this problem in all my years of playing the first ACW, it's annoying that I've yet to play a single game that's felt remotely historical on account of this overproduction.

I don't want to nerf how the AI *fights*-- I just want to be able to give the AI fewer resources, or fewer conscripts.

Any option to select for this?

[Ace1_slith]

I don't want to nerf how the AI *fights*-- I just want to be able to give the AI fewer resources, or fewer conscripts.

Try changing AI difficulty setting. It does not effects how units fight. It affects recourses significantly and unit speed (slightly).

[Jim D Burns]

Is your game patched? There was a bug in the initial release that gave both sides endless conscripts.

As the Union pay $2.00 for every volunteer callup in the opening years of the game, it gives you 750 conscripts at a cost of $1,500.00 so make sure you have the money saved before you play the event. You have to get the extra conscripts to get an initial leg up on numbers vs. the south. Then build tons of militia and you'll soon outstrip the south in the numbers game. If you build trained units you'll barley manage to stay even with the south, so it's kind of mandatory to build militia early in game.

In my current PBEM game the south is 80% of my combat power after the builds from the first callup, it will go down further each time I do a callup and I'll stop building militia after I get a good 3-2 or better advantage in the numbers game. Once I reach that level I'll build trained troops exclusively.

Jim

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: Ace1

I don't want to nerf how the AI *fights*-- I just want to be able to give the AI fewer resources, or fewer conscripts.

Try changing AI difficulty setting. It does not effects how units fight. It affects recourses significantly and unit speed (slightly).

Thanks, I'll try that. The in-game tips aren't clear about what exactly AI settings mean, it made it sound like it affected unit speed and maybe path-calculations, but none of the AI options mention changes to resources. I'm assuming this is the "AI Ranking" setting? If so, I've got it just at Sgt, and again, the AI resources are out of control.

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Is your game patched? There was a bug in the initial release that gave both sides endless conscripts.

As the Union pay $2.00 for every volunteer callup in the opening years of the game, it gives you 750 conscripts at a cost of $1,500.00 so make sure you have the money saved before you play the event. You have to get the extra conscripts to get an initial leg up on numbers vs. the south. Then build tons of militia and you'll soon outstrip the south in the numbers game. If you build trained units you'll barley manage to stay even with the south, so it's kind of mandatory to build militia early in game.

In my current PBEM game the south is 80% of my combat power after the builds from the first callup, it will go down further each time I do a callup and I'll stop building militia after I get a good 3-2 or better advantage in the numbers game. Once I reach that level I'll build trained troops exclusively.

Jim

Yup, game patched, that's not the issue.

Issue isn't what I build-- it's what the AI builds. Meaning, the *AI* already builds ahistorical numbers, I don't want the solution to be that *I* build EVEN MORE ahistorical numbers to compensate. That would already "break" the game in terms of my supportable units/divisions/corps, i.e. as Union I've already got massive (but in line with historical sizes) stacks in play, the solution shouldn't be to make mine TWICE as massive.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Davekhps
builds ahistorical numbers,

This is due more too game mechanics than over-building. Historically regiments started out strong, but usually operated at much reduced strengths throughout the war, many with less than 200 men. Yet they fought at those levels in many battles and were rarely destroyed. Very few regiments were actually wiped out in the war, probably less than a dozen or two total for both sides.

But in game units at those levels would simply die as soon as they saw one battle. The game mechanics need units to be at near perfect strength for things to behave realistically because of the abstract nature of combats. The game doesn’t track killed/wounded /missing on a percentage basis, it simply causes hits to your units and tiny 200 man units would be dead after a single battle.

So the thing you need to compare is the number of regiments being built vs. the number historically built. In that regards the game vastly under-represents historical numbers. Originally I don’t think they even tracked the numbers of men in the units, I believe it was added as a player requested feature.

Asking them to reverse engineer their game model because the numbers of men shown suddenly doesn't add up because the engine is built around a system requiring units to be whole wouldn’t be feasible.

Jim

[bstarr]

Oh wow. This is interesting. I'm having the opposite problem with my hth game. You mentioned being able to build ahistorically large armies, how are you doing this? I inevitably end up with much smaller historic armies. My Peninsular Campaign was fought with about 45,000 vs 55,000 and that's with only skeleton forces on the coast and small 15 to 20,000 armies in the west. What in the world am I doing wrong? I haven't been going hog wild with militia like people say you should because I'm a weird stickler for detail and I don't like having all those militia named units in my main armies, but I can't see where that would make a massive difference.

Maybe they'll eventually make it where the militia units change thier name when they're trained up. That would be nice.

[Jim D Burns]

It’s simple math really. If you look at the cost of a 2 element brigade with 2 regular line infantry, it will cost you 40 money, 20 conscripts and 4 war supply. 2 militia elements will cost you 30 money 14 conscripts and 4 war supply.

So a callup of 750 conscripts can build 37 brigades of line troops at a cost of 1480 money. The same callup of 750 conscripts can produce 53 two element brigades of militia troops at a cost of 1590 money. So you build an extra 16 brigades if you build militia only for a cost of 110 extra money, not a bad deal. That’s at least an extra Corps worth of troops each time you do it. Two or three callups means you can field an extra army.

Jim

[Toro12]

I'm also not sure we should stick to a close definition of "militia." Many of the units in the early part of the ACW (most, even) were in fact militia, and even later "regular" units performed much like militia until trained (and even then...). Militia in this game, when trained, convert to line troops (albeit the naming convention doesn't shift). To my thinking, the game performs more historically while perhaps not adhering to strict naming conventions.

[bstarr]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

It’s simple math really. If you look at the cost of a 2 element brigade with 2 regular line infantry, it will cost you 40 money, 20 conscripts and 4 war supply. 2 militia elements will cost you 30 money 14 conscripts and 4 war supply.

So a callup of 750 conscripts can build 37 brigades of line troops at a cost of 1480 money. The same callup of 750 conscripts can produce 53 two element brigades of militia troops at a cost of 1590 money. So you build an extra 16 brigades if you build militia only for a cost of 110 extra money, not a bad deal. That’s at least an extra Corps worth of troops each time you do it. Two or three callups means you can field an extra army.

Jim

But I'm talking about raw numbers, not numbers of battalions. A militia unit only holds 450 men while a regular unit holds 600. Actually, paying 10 points for 600 men versus paying 7 points for 450 is a very small difference.

edit added: in fact, it just dawned on me that with militia you're getting screwed in War Supplies

[Gilmer]

I've gone the militia route early and routed them up to Cleveland where I had placed McClellan and let him train up a lot of them. I'm not necessarily seeing the stacks you guys are seeing. At one point it seemed like they outnumbered me, but recently I've been chewing them up pretty good throughout 1863. I did a couple of things Jim Burns did -

As Union ->>>
1. Built a lot of militia and trained them up.
2. Invested in a lot of industry.
3. Built several blockade fleets - not sure as many as Jim Burns, but the blockade boxes both say 50%.

I'm doing pretty well right now with money and hellacious amount of war supply. I just enacted premium of $2 for conscripts because I can afford it.

The AI is REALLY good in this game (if you ask me) and really trips me up at time and sneaks stacks in behind my troops. He almost got Baltimore like that, but my garrison held out long enough for relief, just barely.

[bstarr]

I think my problem may be financial. I tend to have too much ws and not enough $. How often do y'all upgrade transportation. It seems I'm bumping that every other turn. Also I'm playing the July start, if that makes a difference.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: bstarr

But I'm talking about raw numbers, not numbers of battalions. A militia unit only holds 450 men while a regular unit holds 600. Actually, paying 10 points for 600 men versus paying 7 points for 450 is a very small difference.

edit added: in fact, it just dawned on me that with militia you're getting screwed in War Supplies

37 * 1200 men = a total of 44,400 men when you build regular line troops.

53 * 900 men = a total of 47,700 men when you build militia troops.

After the militia upgrades 53 * 1200 men = a total of 63,600 men.

So in the end you are far better off building militia than you are building line troops as the Union. You just have to get around the mindset of thinking you are stuck with militia for the entire war. Train them up for the first year or two and you will have a much larger and much stronger army from 1863 onward than you would have just building regular troops.

Another way to look at it is if you just build 37 militia brigades it only costs 1110 money and 518 conscripts, vs. the cost of 37 regular brigades which cost 1480 money and 740 conscripts. So building the militia gives you the luxury of buying additional stuff with the extra 370 money and 222 conscripts that you couldn’t build at all if you just build regular line troops. The trade off is the temporarily reduced combat efficiency of your army as you wait for it to train up.

With 3 trainers each training one 2 element brigade each turn, you can have the 37 militia trained up to regular in just over 12 turns. So basically you are trading 6 months game time for the extra builds.

Jim

[bstarr]

Didn't think of the upgrades

I still think part of my problem is financial. I've never been able to afford 2 dollars per recruit. And I've never seen 750 recruits come in. The most I've seen is 360 by paying 1.5 and that almost broke me. How often do you upgrade rail and river supply lines.

Btw, I'm playing the July start. Does that make a difference?

[Jim D Burns]

Don't play the callup event until you have $1,500 money saved up. I generally play the 3 money ledger events and sit on the cash until the callup event. So show a little discipline with your spending and you'll get the 750 conscripts. Without the full callup, you will never be able to grow a Union army large enough to take on the south, $2.00 is a must for the first 2 callups I'd say. After that drafts can replace callups for your big conscription incomes and pay 0 for any future callups.

July shouldn't matter, as I think there is only one callup event in 1861. After that I think it's two per year but I could be wrong.

Jim

[Gilmer]

ORIGINAL: bstarr

Didn't think of the upgrades

I still think part of my problem is financial. I've never been able to afford 2 dollars per recruit. And I've never seen 750 recruits come in. The most I've seen is 360 by paying 1.5 and that almost broke me. How often do you upgrade rail and river supply lines.

Btw, I'm playing the July start. Does that make a difference?

I got the timeout Anyway. I had 2000 money the last time I did the $2 callup. I have had enough money to buy all the brigades from NY and CT that were 103 power listed. I always get the rail capacity option because my armies are so big they eat through rail capacity.

I have been where you are where I have said "This guy (the AI) has limitless men!!!" Because he had about 4-5 1000-2000power stacks roaming around and two armies 4000power+.

I suppose it is gamey to plan this, but I didn't. When the AI took Cairo I was mad and was one of the times I said he has too many men. But, then I got creative and created two fleets to blockade the access to Cairo from the South and positioned Grant 1 region North of Cairo. The 4300+ power enemy army was blocked!! This freed numerous stacks to flow through Tennessee and into Georgia and Alabama. The Cairo army was entrenched and I didn't want to chance it, so I waited and he eventually attacked Grant's army in his trenches and was so weakened, I moved Grant's army to Cairo and had 3-4 battles over 3-4 turns and netted about 40 NM points. Now, that enemy army has finally surrendered and Grant is free to roam.

[Gilmer]

I was real happy about beating the game, playing Union, and using defaults on AI and game play, and realized the defaults are easy settings. [:(]

I'll have to retry on harder normal type settings.

So, my tips about what I was doing just went out the window.

[Pocus]

Yes, we thought it would be better for new players to be on easy settings by default. That's cool on the other hand, because when people say that the game is too easy, we can tell them to change the settings to normal difficulty, and then to hard [;)]

[Gilmer]

That's fine. It got my confidence up, anyway, even knowing it was on easier settings. I'm starting a new one with harder supply, harder blockade box settings, and harder activation settings.