2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

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kennonlightfoot
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2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

As a little exercise to see if I could figure out the mod system I made the attached scenario for 2nd Manassas. It covers Sigel's morning attack against A. P. Hill between 8 AM and 12 noon on August 29th. This version does not have the AI defined so use it just in hot seat or PBEM.

Create a folder in your game's Scenario folder with the name "2nd_Manassas_(Sigels_Attack)" or whatever you want to call it in unzip the attached files into it.

Since mods are limited to using existing maps (since we don't know how to edit a map) the scenario covers the portion of the field from 1st Manassas that is fought over in 2nd Manassas. Mainly Jackson's line from Ewell (Lawton) division in the center to his extreme left around Sudley Ford.

There are some problems showing up in how the game system handles casualties when both sides have higher quality troops and they are armed with Rifles. I will go into that in later posts.

Let me know if it works.[:D]
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2nd_Manass.._Attack.zip
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zakblood
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by zakblood »

thanks for the work and share
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kennonlightfoot
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

Now for some negative things I see happening. In this 2nd Manassas scenario we are seeing troops well armed (Rifles), higher morale, and better lead than in the 1861 battles. This is resulting in some very high casualty rates. Specifically I am seeing single volleys from regiments decimate attacking regiment causing them to route before they can event get close. It will take more playing to establish a pattern but it appears that infantry has become over powered like artillery was in beta. This is partly due to the Springfield rifle having fire values of 187-156-62-31-31 making it deadly even at long ranges. And, partly due to morale having very little effect on fire values. Green troops fire almost as effectively as veterans.

This turns the morning battle where Gregg's brigade almost single handily fought off three division into a rather short engagement where Schurz's six regiment decimate Gregg in a few volleys.
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Gil R.
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by Gil R. »

It's great to see this -- I mean the thread announcing the existence of the first 2nd Manassas mod, since I still need to fire up the game and take a look at the scenario, which I'll do later tonight.

I'm making sure that Eric sees your post, since he'll have a better idea than I might regarding this issue.

Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I torment eager potential customers by not sharing screenshots of "Brother Against Brother." Everyone has a talent.
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ericbabe
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by ericbabe »

Thanks for the mod. It looks fantastic. Do you have any specific changes you'd like to see for morale/quality effect on attack damage, or on changes to the gun values?
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zakblood
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by zakblood »

plays good for me, ty
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

I am seeing some problems with high casualty rates and very large morale effects. The high casualties are due to Rifles but seem high even taking that into account.

For example while testing playing the AI the Union's 74th Penn (550 men) fired on the adjacent 7th NC (300 men). The battle report was 78 casualties with a 34.32 morale change.

First, when a single fire can cause 78 casualties you are going to have serious problems. This wasn't an exception. There were enough such results during the turn that the Rebs suffered 540 total casualties in spite of only about a half dozen Union regiments being engaged. I don't know why I am seeing these high numbers in this scenario and not in 1st Manassas scenarios (muskets actually have higher factors than Rifles for adjacent units). Unless their is a hidden effect for quality since all the units have much higher quality than in 1st Manassas.

The second problem was how did it cause a 34.32 morale decrease on a unit with 5.0 morale?
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ericbabe
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by ericbabe »

Was the unit below breaking strength? Units lose huge amounts of morale when they are below breaking strength.

Which rifles are you using?
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Was the unit below breaking strength? Units lose huge amounts of morale when they are below breaking strength.

Which rifles are you using?

Many of these units break just from the single fire so odds are hit took the hit and broke. Almost everyone in the 2nd Manassas scenario is armed with Enfields or Springfields. I was playing vs the AI so I couldn't get details on the referenced combat. Just what the history file said. Also it may be a result of melee (Charge) since I noticed fire effects are reported differently from melee effects. Fire always causes a negative morale. Melee (Charge) is usually reported as a positive morale effect.

My main concern in all this is that casualty number are to high across the board with these better troops and weapons. I suspect they need to be toned down some like artillery was.

Also, the 34.32 morale effect seems out of line. More like the casualty number got plugged into an equation that was not designed for using numbers that high.
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

New Version of Scenario

Really not all that new but now its "Sigel's Attack" covering the four hours of the morning (8-12) in which Sigel feed his Corps into the battle on Jackson's left.

The scenario has new VP hex locations since I am trying to reproduce where the attacks occurred and force the Union to attack.

It also has new releases since Pope also had Heintzelman's Corps near by but didn't use it and Sigel feed his Corps into the fight one division at a time.

(I may not have put an "_S" on the end of the folder name. If missing please add since that is how the BaB program recognizes that the folder contains a scenario.)
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zakblood
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by zakblood »

thanks
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Gil R.
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by Gil R. »

Cool. Have downloaded.
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by ericbabe »

Thanks! Are the problems with the higher morale / better guns and combat results still there?
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RE: 2nd Manassas Sigel's Morning Attack

Post by kennonlightfoot »

I haven't tested jumping the morale up to 6 again yet. I didn't notice a lack of effect for morale; that is, very little difference between a unit having 4 versus 6. This being the result of a number of factors. First, it didn't appear that high quality troops had any significant advantage in combat over low quality troops. The quality factor adjustments for fire weren't significant. The fire power of rifles tended to smother other effects due to their size. Gregg's high quality regiments were usually shot to pieces before they could even reach Sigel's low quality regiments.

This sort of lead me to a general observation that small arms fire was dominating the battlefield and quality was only a minor component. In Beta we saw a similar problem with artillery and it got nerfed significantly.

I did identify the cause of the unusually large casualty numbers and associated huge morale effect. These were melee results. They caused the strange looking 78 casualty with 34.32 morale effect. I haven't seen enough of these where I could call up the battle detail screen to get a pattern but right now it looks like numbers are more important than morale. Since even Union poor troops have quality rating of around 3 they still were more likely because of their larger strengths to initiate the melee. It looked like having 400-500 men was much more important than having 200-300 men with high quality resulting in these big kill and morale numbers. How the oversize morale effects is derived I can't tell but it has the immediate affect of destroying the losing regiment for all practical purposes. Unless we are going to assign regiments from the Stonewall and Iron brigades quality ratings over 50 they aren't going to last long in combat.

Which leads to another general observation: Probably need to take a good look at how the melee numbers are generated. Quality and morale should be more important than numbers. Also, these higher quality regiments should be able to absorb more loses without breaking. And, whatever equation is generating the abnormally high morale reduction should be redone to keep it in a more logical range. The game already appears to render any unit that ends up with a morale of less than -1 as permanently lost. High quality units should be able to recover from negative morale and shouldn't been subject to impossible numbers.
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