CSA cavalry late / early stats changed?

[Coregonas]

hi all

Some months ago I noticed CSA early CAVALRY had several better stats (initiative, move ratio, cohesion damage...) than late, except Offensive value 9 instead of 8.

I assumed it was something WAD. I.e. early cav was more "impetuous" but a bit less powerful on the attack.

However, now, looking deep into the values, I believe these are not ok, as Early Cavalry has really a BEST value on average.

Perhaps I am totally wrong of course, but I believe:

either LATE cavalry stats are EARLY and the other way... or
some stats should be adjusted a little bit...

[Dixicrat]

I checked the AACW_DB_Models44g.xls file, and it would appear that you're correct: almost everything about the "early" CSA Cav is superior to the "late". I'm wondering whether one should be the other, as you said, or whether this is to model the fact that in the later war, the South lost the Cav superiority that it enjoyed early. I don't think this is the case, however; USA "late" Cav improves in almost every significant way, and as it stands now, this apparent discrepancy that you've pointed out would widen the gulf even more.

Perhaps a historian and game expert could shed more light on this. Jabberwock...? Gray...? What do you think? And how difficult would it be to mod the substitution of one for the other?

[Eugene Carr]

I assumed that it was to represent the improvement of the union Cavalry in terms of ability and equipment versus the crippling of the CSA through shortage of remounts and fodder and inability to counter breechloaders and repeaters.

The Souths Cav generals keep their edge I think.

S!

[Jabberwock]

This is meant to model the fact that most southern cavalry horses were seriously undernourished by mid-war. Substitution would be fairly easy.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Jabberwock]

Just realized this is the 'How to improve AACW' forum. By saying substitution would be fairly easy, I did NOT mean to imply that I think it SHOULD be changed.

[Coregonas]

Ok I can understand the reasons behind this "anti-improvement", as said in a perhaps easy form
-> "more impetuous" in my original question...

But if really horse-undernourishment is the cause under these "late CAV" low stats, then... the same should apply to infantry, artillery and in fact all other CSA "late" units.

All of them were under-supplied. (i.e. no boots in Gettysburg Lee army?)

I believed late units reflected changes in "weapon & tactics", and yes horses are part of this... but...

Just I believed feeding the army was a different affair than this one.

If not enough supply -> my armies start to die... so less power
If not enough assets for replacements -> my armies dont get to the max 1000 men so less power

As a conclusion, I Even (partially) really agree with designer´s reason to model it, but assumes the war is going to be historical.

Im just questioning I´d prefer some best form to model this. Although I have some difficulties to solve it. Some idea for AACW2 ->

a)
CHANGE late cavalry to perform best than early (of course if fully replaced & fed), AND
LIMIT in some way cavalry replacements (by some kind of event, depending on determined values for instance to 1 / turn once 1863 begins), representing problems on horse care.

b)
Forbid change to LATE cavalry until 63 for instance

As a final question:
If I have 60 cavalry elements in July 61, and 50% of them are LATE, WHY those UNDER-perform EARLY, if still fully feed?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Eugene Carr]

looking at the unit DB some cavalry gets recruited as conscript others as early war I suspect to cater for the later war scenarios.
For the Grand Campaign ideally cav. units would progress conscript-early-late (exception reg regts) CSA should start higher and peak at early war while USA start lower and peak at late.

[Coregonas]

a) I suspect UPGRADING due to EXPERIENCE is also bypasing UPGRADING by "scripted" events.

In my current game, around OCT 61, aproximately half of my CAVALRY is LATE.

I ve bought most of it as CONSCRIPT in the very first turns, upgraded surely by scripted event (i.e. 5% / turn chance?) but... once fighted a bit against those pesky feds, a lot of them earned the 5 exp points needed to get his

1st EXP STAR -> so extra random chance to upgrade

Some of them have 2 or 3 stars, so extra chances and most of those multi EXP cavalry are now LATE.

b) However, I have even a few LATE cavalry, bought as CONSCRIPT, with 0 EXP points. -> so there is a chance to upgade to LATE by event, not by EXP.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Eugene Carr]

looking at "AACW_inc_CMN_EventsVarious24" it appears the upgrade event kicks in from june 61 with a probability of 25 thats conscripts to early ( cav3 to cav1). Its pretty likely that a unit can be raised, ugraded and upgraded again if they see some action.

Both Jagger and McNaughton moved these dates and altered probabilities to reduce this in their mods.

S!

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Ayeshteni]

Here's an additional idea for thought, but it would take me awhile to make it work:

Kentucky was a prime source of good horses throughout the war. This is somewhat reflected in the fact that except for Bragg's brief foray into eastern Kentucky, it was exclusively held by Union forces for most of the Civil War. Since the possibility exists that a CSA player would actually be successful in holding Kentucky for themselves, it may be possible to reflect this game fact by preventing the events above from firing if a predefined specific area of Kentucky is under CSA control.

More comments?

A good idea.

In this manner it will bring another level of strategic decision to both the Union and the CSA in regards to Kentucky. The Union player may want to deny the CSA Kentucky to reduce their cavalry capability, the CSA may decide to secure Kentucky early to secure dominant cavalry resources overall.

It certainly gets my support.

Ayeshteni

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Coregonas]

06/01/1861 to 12/31/1862 = 15% chance for Early war Cav Units to convert to Late war Cav units.
...

Other than eliminating the TechUpg for Early war Cav units to Late war Cav units, my next thought is to reduce the 15% chance to just 1% and change the date to start 01/01/1862 instead of 06/01/1861. CSA horse quality would not hardly have gone down at all the first year (1861) and would have been low the second year. 1% may still be high (giving a statistical 24% chance for all of 1862), so I may even adjust the event to fire in even numbered turns only giving an effective 12% chance for all of 1862). The 1863 and 1864 events will need to be adjusted down somewhat also.

Thats seems to me a good solution, reducing to a 1% either even starting on 61 (perhaps more reallistic 62)

It'll be a lot harder to check for the possibility of Late war Cav units being embedded as starting elements in the various combination units used for initial setup of the earlier scenarios.

Yes, I agree the effort to change this is perhaps too hard to dedicate too much time, seems secondary to me.

I believe the only units than start as LATE in the first year are some of the Laurel Brigade elements, and perhaps a very few of the starting cavalry units.

I remember some of the "REACTION" CAVALRY units (i.e. due to enemy incursions) appear as LATE, but not sure if this is due to REALLY scripted as being LATE, or really as a random improvement the same turn of appearance.

All of the newly units built as REINFORCEMENTS are either CONSCRIPT or EARLY, AFAIK.

It does appear to be rather illogical to have a unit upgraded for experience to end up with the lower stat Late war Cav units, (which as stated previously are meant to simulate the deterioration of the CSA horse quality.)
Comments?

Yes. That is not logical. I see no easy solution


I believe that 7% (I count on 5%) you say about EXP upgrading is per EXP STAR, so a 3 STAR should be a 21% every turn.

In fact, it would be pretty going the other way, so going back from late to early ... However I fear this can be not a good solution, finishing in a NEVER-ENDING story EARLY - LATE - EARLY .

And Remember Every TRAINUPG reduces a bit EXP points. With a 75% chance to turn again to late, in a few turns the unit would lose all EXP points and finally end as LATE-No EXP.

As another posibility, if you can ELIMINATE totally the TRAINUPG EARLY-LATE
AND also you can change the TECHUPG routine to something like:

CAVALRY -> NO EXP "Normal chance to upgrade (downgrade)"
1 EXP -> "Normal chance" - 7%
2 EXP -> "Normal chance" -14%
...
N EXP -> "Normal chance" - 7%* EXP

---------
Your Kentucky idea seems very interesting.... but really difficult to seize all those cities for CSA .

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Coregonas]

Perhaps some cavalry-CSA-history-expert can add some extra hints here, but seems this "easy" change solves most of the question .