Blockades, other thoughts for 1.16 patch

[Ol' Choctaw]

And in case it hasn't been said...

glad to see you're feeling better, LL. And also back, and not just for the code pushing.

On the original topic - I've been playing rc4a forever now and I have seen ammo consumption, I would swear. Not a lot, to be sure, but I would say that the algorithm is there.

same here.. I think I also had ammo consumption in my pbems vs GS, but I didn't want to load all those turns up just to prove it!

There is no ammo consumption. I have seen ammo at less than 100% but it was not due to combat.

It must have been a random event that reduced it but it was not due to a fight.

I have also noticed that the blockade % does not change when ships are added or even removed.

In an AI game as the Union, despite adding 8 blockade squadrons my blockade % remained at 35% even when I removed the gulf blockade squadron to resupply. It increased by 5% in 1863 as effectiveness increased.

I don’t want to start a laundry list of glitches in the patch but there are some.

Overall I like the feel of it better and it seems as though it is a bit more of a challenge over 1.15 but it is not ready for prime time yet.

[Ol' Choctaw]

As the patch is the main topic of discussion here. I will repost what I wrote in the patch thread in hopes of seeing a little more feedback about it.

If this is to be the final patch I think all of us would want it to be done very well…

Maybe more people will see it here!


I have seen very little on what has changed in 1.16rc4c.

To go from beta to official it needs some testing and not just no feedback other than “When Will it be Official”.

Until my hard drive went south I had been playing with 1.15. I have yet to complete my first game in 1.16rc4c but I have seen quite a few changes.

The flashing depots was the first thing I noticed. It is a visual aid into your supply network.

Second was that names of units do not work the same as before. I still have a unit named “USMC” but that element has been out of that formation for almost two years. Adding leaders does not mean that the names change to the senior leader’s name. I added an admiral to the 3rd fleet and it changed the name to Fleet.

Most of us who have been on the board much lately know that the ammo is not used in combat. It remains at 100%. It can drop below that level but not due to combat.

Weather is also changed at some level. I have noticed it more over water than one land (with lots more frozen areas) but it has been tweaked. I had most of the Atlantic frozen at one point. There was no frozen icon but the weather said it was and the only way out of the shipping boxes was into the St. Lawrence.

I saw some discussion early on about the Union AI concentration in the Shenandoah. I am playing against the CSA AI and early on it threatened most through the Shenandoah also. But can I say it is offering up a much stronger challenge than I have seen in the past. It is making good use of supporting corps and dose its best to try to hit you where you are not looking. They also found it prudent to move their capital long before I could manage to threaten Richmond.

Even so, it dose not seem to be bent on sending suicide raiders to the Canadian border. I had a small crossing into Illinois by a few units with a leader but they backed out and went south. The only raids on my railroads have come from the remnants of the Sioux when they were booted out of the Planes and retreated into Wisconsin.

Events seem a bit more random in some regards. I don’t know if they are moved or more random but Stand Wait didn’t show up until Oct. in this game and some of the other happenings were different too. Schultz’s Cavalry showed up a turn later than I expected it to.

Movement seems to have been slowed down, at least at the start of the game, with units needing as much as 7 or 8 days for clear fair terrain.

Ship building has been speeded up greatly. Transports build as short as 3 days! The same with gunboats, and even Ironclads seem to get built in only a couple of turns rather than the 60 odd to 99 days it was taking.

A troubling part to the naval game seems to be than adding ships (primarily blockade squadrons) is not altering the blockade %. Perhaps there is something more I need to be doing but that is how it appears.

The only other thing I can think of at the moment is that when some units have arrived the may list one location but be some place else. Example: when the Choctaw arrived the even listed it being a Cairo but it was in Chicago.

I know I must be forgetting some things and likely didn’t notice others but that is what I have seen that has not had in-depth discussion already.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I'm pretty sure the blockade boxes still work. It's based on the power of the ships in the boxes isn't it? Maybe combat or weather lowered your power to offset the new ships?

I like the new naming rules too. If you know what you're doing, you can keep stack names without regular stacks reverting to CSA detachment XX all the time.

The only real bug I've noticed and want fixed is the ammo bug, which is already known.

[knowmad62]

I haven't had a problem with the blockade box %.
Are you balancing between the Atlantic and Gulf
boxes?

[Fingolfin]

I also was able to attain 50% by adding a few squads in each in my last Pbem, it seemed to work fine to me

[Ol' Choctaw]

Well, my naval forces were not exactly balanced between the east coast and gulf.

I would try that but they took my fort and it is a long trip. LOL

I will give it a try. That balance would be another change, wouldn’t it?

[knowmad62]

Forts Jefferson and Zachary are only 4 days further than Pickens
if you're thinking in terms of resupply.

And, I don't think that the need for balance is any different than 1.15 and before, but I could be wrong.

In 1.16, I've been able to get the percentage as high as 75, so it works
for me.

[greenalien]

There seems to be too much of war supply available for both sides of the conflict. The CSA is able to build tons of monitors and ironclads (in my latest game CSA built about four river ironclads and two seaborne monitors) and the union is able to (with only marginal investments) have surplus stockpile of some 2500 war supplies by mid-1862. It seems rather ahistorical to me.

[charlesonmission]

Regarding the number of ironclads, someone recently posted that the CSA had way too many ironclads. There was a post out there, which I can't find now, that listed all the CSA ironclads during the actual war that were started or finished. It was about 20 I think. Now, in actual history, the CSA didn't fully use them as well as they could have. As we are at 1.16, I don't think the WS will be changed in the official patch, but the SFV mod will lower WS production and increase production time for clads.

Charles

There seems to be too much of war supply available for both sides of the conflict. The CSA is able to build tons of monitors and ironclads (in my latest game CSA built about four river ironclads and two seaborne monitors) and the union is able to (with only marginal investments) have surplus stockpile of some 2500 war supplies by mid-1862. It seems rather ahistorical to me.