The Cavalry Swarm

[runyan99]

I'd like to talk about a broken game mechanic in AACW as of 1.13b.

The cavalry swarm is a tactic by which a player can raise say 20 cavalry regiments and set them all loose independently on the enemy rear. In just a few turns, the swarm spreads like locusts all over the map, every state. All rail lines are thus cut and several unoccupied cities taken. With the supply from the captures cities, the cavalry then continues on to other locations indefinately. The swarm is unstoppable because the chance of intercepting the cavalry is so low, often 4-8%, even for pursuing cavalry. Even if caught, the combat is generally undecisive and the raiding cavalry moves on. More ludicrously, the cavalry can even combine their movement with river movement, magically procuring boats from ENEMY regions and using rivers and the coast lines to move into or out of danger.

The only defense is to put regiments in every valuable region on offensive posture, to chase off the cavalry as they arrive. However, the CSA certainly does not have the capability to deploy manpower in this way, which leaves the Confederacy totally open to plunder, strangulation, and defeat at an early date.

To my knowledge, cavalry were not historically used in this way effectively, or not to this degree. It simply should not be possible to have cavalry able to run from Maryland to North Carolina without much of a problem. Confederate cavalry can raid in this way all the way up to Milwaukee in many games.

The next patch will disallow early war cavalry from taking cities. That should help some, as it will impose a limited food supply on the raiders and possibly cause them to return to friendly regions sooner. It would not be my preferred solution to the issue however, because it disallows cavalry from destroying enemy depots. Also, it still means the cavalry swarm will still start in 1863 to the same degree.

My suggestion, which I have offered in the past, is to take a new look at cavalry cohesion loss in enemy territory. It should be much faster. Horses pushed hard break down fast. After a while movement has to stop or the horses drop dead.

The limit for maximum cavalry movement should be about two turns or 30 days. Two turns allows for one turn of movement into enemy territory, and one turn back out. This is maybe 4-6 regions, say from the Shenandoah to Gettysburg or from Tennessee to Kentucky. If the cavalry can go from Tennessee to Michigan, there is a problem.

Cohesion loss rates need to be retweaked to enforce realistic capabilities on cavalry movement. As is, the horses run around like motorized recon or the Long Range Desert Group of North Africa in WW2.

Also, the ability to use river movement from regions with less than 100% military control needs to be looked at.

EDIT - It might also me a good idea to reevaluate the ability of cavalry to intercept cavalry. It makes sense for cavalry to be good at evading infantry, but cavalry catching cavalry should be closer to a 50-50% proposition, not 8%. Perhaps this could be achieved by raising the patrol values of cavalry units, I'm not sure of the exact mechanics on this point.

[PhilThib]

Good points here

[MrT]

Would it be possible also to increase the chances of the cav routing while in a unit with less than say 25% cohesion to also hinder the raider?

Regards

Tim.

[GraniteStater]

Your remarks seem to be addressed to PBEM. With the new patch, the new rule does address this to some degree - I have experienced much less raiding by the AI.

Historically, there were some deep raids - Morgan and Grierson come to mind. Grierson did it twice, as a matter of fact.

One shouldn't be able to use river transpo at a certain point in enemy territory, I agree. You should at least have some kinda connection to friendly resources/capabilities, etc. The boats don't come from nowhere and are not just barges.

Using militia to defend in conjunction with the new rule should alleviate 'supply flipping' by raiders.

[arsan]

Interesting ideas!

Not sure if easily doable, but IMHO, riverine transport should be only allowed between regions where you had total or a high MC.
I see it as a way to reduce transport micromanagement in your own territory.
For amphibious raids or invasions into enemy controlled regions should be mandatory the use "real" transport units to simulate the logistical difficulties it supposed.

[Rafiki]

How about that you can't use administrative riverine transport to move from a region where you have less then 25% MC, nor can you use it to move to a region where you have less than 25% MC?

This would somewhat reflect the 25% MC-rule for railroads

[arsan]

Yes, something like that.
But i guess the code used would be different as on riverine you don't actually pass by regions with or without MC, You move by neutral river areas.
What matters is that you should not be able to embark/disembark from/to regions with no/low MC.

Hopefully, the cav cohesion loss/patrol values tweaks Runyan mentions would be easier to tweak and try without programming (ie Pocus ) time.

Cheers!

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Manstein]

I´m agree with the regular cavalry should not use it as irregular forces. Moreover, the cavalry needs transport food for his horses, so, they only should transport food for one turn and not two and the irregular cavalry could have more forage capabilities

[W.Barksdale]

First off I'd like to say that reworking cavalry units cohesion loss in different situations is a much better solution. Anyway, here's an idea:

Any chance the adept raider trait could be tweaked so as to allow early cavalry units attached inside to capture cities?

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[W.Barksdale]

Ahh I see! I am sold on this change then!

It is only effective for stand-alone early and regular cavalry units or stacks consisting of ONLY early and regular cavalry units and/or other horse movement type raider units.

Oh ...This is how I envisioned it at first

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[runyan99]

We are open to suggestions of a database change nature and if anyone should step forward and present a MOD of some sort that makes this type of change via database changes only, we would be quite receptive and open minded about checking it out.

Regarding cavalry movement in enemy territory, this is a database issue, changable by tweaking the CohMove values for the unit models in the DB. I'm already familiar with this some from the time we redid the marching values for all units. I think what happened was the infantry marching got adjusted, but the cavalry got proportionally more mobile also, which I never really wanted but wasn't able to re-tweak at the time.

I'd take this on but I need access back to the AACW beta forum so I can consult the earlier work. I was trimmed from the beta in the recent purges.

As for the MC% and river movement, I don't know what files control that.

[berto]

With the release of AACW v1.14, this is as far as new changes in game function/design is probably going to go. By that, I mean AACW is close to being declared a legacy game that will no longer have changes made to the AACW executable... We are just not going to burden AGEod with AACW executable changes going forward except to correct any surprise game crash issues.

It's been my impression that with each new game version, with almost every new executable release, earlier comprehensive game mods and scenarios needed to be revised or even substantially overhauled. It's hard to mod a constantly moving target, the upkeep is so expensive in terms of time and effort, which is one reason why this game has seen so few all-encompassing grand campaign mods and so-called battle scenarios.

No?

So maybe if AACW v1.14 is final, if AACW is declared a "legacy game," "serious" modding of the game might pick up in earnest?

Maybe a modder might be able, say, to develop and release a "battle scenario" (really mini-campaign scenario), then walk away from it, without the constant worry of having to tweak and revise it months and months on end far into the future? Develop it, and be done with it?

Maybe it's a good thing, then, that this game finally settles down, and modders can assume full responsibility for carrying it forward?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Franciscus]

Theoretically I agree with runyan's suggestions. Specifically, cavalry interception capability could be tweaked. Nevertheless, I presume (and this is just that, a presumption) that this problem was raised now because probably in a PBEM game someone used this "tactic" of cavalry swarm against him. I play only against AI, and have never seen this "swarm" used by the AI - which is both a good and a bad thing, OC - and would never thought of using it against her - because it would just be not fun, to me
But I think that 2 points should be raised:
- This is a problem that should have been spotted eons ago, preferably even during the beta, pre-release phase of AACW - and t was not probably because no one had yet thought of using this "tactic".
- Even if it is corrected, inevitably some other "gamey" tactic will be found and used by some other "inventive" PBEM player. Inevitably, this will happen, when someone plays just to win at all costs, which is of course understandable - but just not my cup of tea (and that's the main reason why I stay clear of PBEM playing ), but should be expected by everyone who plays against other humans.

[johnnycai]

This topic has been around since the beginning.
Runyon's suggestions are a good start, also suggested before was making enemy cav/recon units more easily countered by reducing their evasion abilities in enemy territories. Historically, local populations fought and helped their troops flush-out and defeat raiders. CSA cav should not be able to evade contact/combat in NewYork or Illinois as they would in reb-friendly regions down south. Same for Union raiders doing their hit'n'runs in Ark. or N.Carolina.
I believe the calculated evasion values while in enemy territories needs to be adjusted is all, using region loyalty, region MC and maybe cohesion? to adjust how probable it is to engage.

[bigus]

Increase the cohesion/attrition costs for Cavalry moving in enemy territory.

[Manstein]

I think that the solution could be increase the cohesion/attrition costs and the movement costs for all the units with command penalty that move for enemy territory. So, all the units without leaders (cavalry raids) will be penalized. If somebody wants to do some cavalry raids, he will have to place a leader at the force, and the leader can be inactived or not.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[W.Barksdale]

Two options:

First, keep the current rule where early war cavalry cannot take cities. Unfortunate, yes, but if people don't want to put resources into preventing cavalry raids, I can only shake my head at them, and we are left with this illogical rule.

Second, just lower cohesion costs for cavalry in any territory. Replacement horses are hard to find anywhere in war time. I prefer this solution.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jarkko]

I like the suggestions from runyan99. With militia spamming gone and forts getting a chance vs forts the cavalry swarming is in my opinion the last major poo-poo in the game. Any competetive player will still in 1.14 turn AACW into a Vietnam war, where he who avoids major combats but burn more hostile land and blow up more railroads wins in the end.

[runyan99]

For those interested, I have done a rework for the cavalry. Lensman would like some more testing and feedback before incorporating these changes into an official patch. This new file set increases cohesion loss for moving cavalry, and roughly doubles patrol values and interception chances for horse units. Cavalry on the move for 3 or 4 turns in enemy territory will be out of cohesion and incapable of combat.

Zipped up below are 2 files.

The rework is converted into an installer formatted file. AACW_v1.14_Cavalry_Rework_Test_Files.exe. Run the exe to install the new files.

To Revert back to the current Models/Aliases in use by the v1.14 beta patch just run the AACW_v1.14_Revert_Files.exe

Obviously it is meant for the 1.14 beta patch only.

[MrT]

okay dokey jiggley pokey.

Anything special to be on the look out for?

Regards Mr T

[WhoCares]

Just tossing an idea in the discussion:
I am not into all the numbers and such, but couldn't you put some irregular troops into ambush on the most juicy targets behind your main line, hoping to catch the raiding cavalry? What's the success probability for such an ambush against cavalry?
It seems to me like the Ambush feature is almost never used.

[aryaman]

One problem with cavalry raids in the game is that they are way too efective, historically they managed to interdict rail traffic for no more than a few days, in the game they do it for at least one turn (15 days) and if there is no unit to rebuild the railway in the region inmediately after being destroyed, for another 15 days. In the Western Campaign 1862 scenario the entire CSA rail net can be destroyed in few turns.
However for PBEM some House rules can be implemented to avoid that, and it could be the easiest solution.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[bigus]

For those interested, I have done a rework for the cavalry. Lensman would like some more testing and feedback before incorporating these changes into an official patch. This new file set increases cohesion loss for moving cavalry, and roughly doubles patrol values and interception chances for horse units. Cavalry on the move for 3 or 4 turns in enemy territory will be out of cohesion and incapable of combat.

I won't be installing 1.14 just yet so I can't use your new models file.
I'll try my own set first by increasing CohMove or base cohesion loss.
Why do you want to make it so hard for cavalry to evade?
Have you tried just cohesion loss first?