New Command: SetFacMaxEntrench

[Jagger]

Hi!

Playing as the CSA against the AI, my understrength coastal forts with just one naval guns unit at half strength and a full strength fort guns unit are dealing 25-35 hits to passing big union fleets while receiving just 1 or 2 hits in return.

Regards!

In the game, the big guns are inflicting the damage-the coastal artillery, Rodmans and Columbiads. The smaller fort battery guns do not inflict very much damage on ships.

At least that is true in my PBEM mod. I think it is basically true in the stock scenarios as well.

You can adjust the naval and land bombardment efficiency values to produce a better balance between naval and fort combat. Although for best results you need to adjust ship and battery values as well.

[Clovis]

I've made a little search on the Saint Charles example: Confedrate batteries were made of 6 field artillery pieces...and 3 heavy siege guns. They sank one of the eight Northern vessels before being stormed by land assault.

[Franciscus]

Just to add my 2 cents, I quote from page 616, Shelby Foote, 2nd Volume:
"Tom Green, with his own and major's brigade of mounted Texans, had been having a fine time disrupting traffic on the Mississipi with the guns he had established on its right bank, ten miles below the town (Donaldsonville). Though they could do no real damage to the Essex (...) they did succeed in driving the ironclad off and puncturing the steam-drums of several less heavily armored vessels".

They left their earthworks on a levee only because of the arrival of Banks forces (which they ambushed, by the way).

So, if we are to believe this, a couple of well placed light artillery guns could indeed stop the Mississipi traffic, and even draw back the mighty Essex...

[Jagger]

The point is what type of guns was used. And Farragut was able to pass...thanks to a superior armament which was made of naval guns...maybe naval guns against field artillery?

About supply boats, I remember it was this kind of vessels Grant sent past Vicksburg in the 1863 campaign; It was terribly dangerous given the strengh of Confederate artillery present, but it worked....

I think even a 6 pdr gun can hurt a supply barge or a tramp steamer. Those are unarmored vessels not meant for battle and easily sunk or seriously damaged.

Yes, Grant did run supply boats past Vicksburg at night while an entire fleet exchanged fire with the batteries. It was a major operation with covering fire and the cover of night.

I am assuming generic river supply represents unescorted vulnerable vessels of all types providing large quantities of supply requiring regular trips down the river. I just have a difficult time seeing those types of vessels running past entrenched gun batteries on a routine basis by themselves.

Within the game, we can still supply troops even if generic river supply is blocked simply by running regular supply transports past the guns. In game terms, we would provide gunboat/ironclad escorts and we would have Grant's operation running the Vicksburg defenses.

Entrenched guns only guarantee supply cannot be provided by generic river supply.

[Clovis]

Just to add my 2 cents, I quote from page 616, Shelby Foote, 2nd Volume:
"Tom Green, with his own and major's brigade of mounted Texans, had been having a fine time disrupting traffic on the Mississipi with the guns he had established on its right bank, ten miles below the town (Donaldsonville). Though they could do no real damage to the Essex (...) they did succeed in driving the ironclad off and puncturing the steam-drums of several less heavily armored vessels".

They left their earthworks on a levee only because of the arrival of Banks forces (which they ambushed, by the way).

So, if we are to believe this, a couple of well placed light artillery guns could indeed stop the Mississipi traffic, and even draw back the mighty Essex...

I would like too to know waht gun types were in use. Were's discussing here about field artillery naval interdiction ability. Any example until now is showing use at least partial of heavy guns ( in game term siege artillery, coastal artillery) and I suspect "big guns" to have been the real backbone of this interdiction power...

From your example, I guess guns they manned to be of heavier caliber as it seems they abandoned them when they retreated, when field artillery could be moved rather easily.

[Jagger]

I've made a little search on the Saint Charles example: Confedrate batteries were made of 6 field artillery pieces...and 3 heavy siege guns. They sank one of the eight Northern vessels before being stormed by land assault.

It all depends on the ships.

Ironclads and warships such as frigates are designed for war and thus extremely well protected. They are specialized vessels which require very heavy guns such as the Columbiads, Rodmans and coastal artillery to damage them.

But then, barges and steamers are not well protected. When built, unlike the ironclad, the frame was designed to keep water and rain out but not artillery balls fired from a couple hundred yards range.

And I assume that generic river supply represents barges and boats that are very vulnerable to fire from any sort of artillery-even 6 pdrs.

[Jabberwock]

Drewry's Bluff : The eight cannons in the fort, including field artillery pieces and five naval guns, some salvaged from the Virginia, commanded the river for miles in both directions. (Source Wikipedia)

Naval guns are certainly not coastal artillery.

Port Hudson and others: I never said they weren't any shore bombardments. But they were consisting only in attack of fortified positions like harbours. What never existed was a battle between a fleet and a field army whose best protection was to hide some kilometers away from coast at a period where indirect fire was almost unknown.

Going back to previous threads: Malvern Hill and Baton Rouge.

And field artillery was designed to damage unprotected units. Howewer a wooden boat is by itself a sort a protection for his crew. I highly doubt field artillery had the power to seriously damage a wooden vessel.

I suppose you are entitled to doubt that. I don't however, concede that point in any way at all.

Interestingly, no naval units were armed with small caliber guns but resorted to very large smoothbore types and some preety monstruous rifles one, in short numbers, as rifle guns were hopeless against armored units and for patent reasons not so accurate on sea than on land...

That is interesting, I thought monstrous rifled guns were used in short numbers because most ships couldn't take the strain of using them in broadside. I don't recall any attack by ships on fortifications being made in anything over 2-3' swells. Below that, the reasons are not so patent.

The CSA had naval artillery, largely thanks to the capture of Norfolk in 1861 and some guns bought in Great Britain.

Not coastal artillery in significant numbers. Almost all CSA coastal artillery was field artillery. Please don't confuse coastal artillery with naval artillery. In some cases, guns similar to coastal artillery were used as pivot-guns for ships, but they are not the same thing.

You will fing here and there fire exchange between a gunboat and some troops ashore. What's missing is both the ability of boats to do substantial damages to a mobile field unit and on the contrary a mobile field unit able to block naval movement with field artillery.

You've made the argument that the most effective defense against gunboats was avoidance. That is correct. Now you are making the argument that gunboats lacked the ability to damage field units. When they interacted, which did happen, as I have provided several links now in different threads giving evidence for (I could provide more, but it gets frustrating when I realize that those debating the other side will just dismiss those as insignificant as well), there was usually a significant amount of damage to the field units. When those units were in permanent fortifications, there was usually a significant amount of damage to the gunboats, and less damage to the shore force. When the fortifications had elevation or effective localized obstructions, that is when the situation was totally unbalanced in favor of the shore force.

Fortification, elevation, obstructions and torpedoes, and concealment/suprise, were all force multipliers. The less you had of them, the more the advantage went to the naval force. AACW only has one of those variables, fortification, with not enough values, and therefore doesn't model ship-to-shore interaction well.

[Jagger]

Limiting the Artillery entrenchment can be a bit of a game changer: all those places on the rivers that were blowing away the roving fleets won't even fire until the unit gets to level 5. [the pre-war forts like Island #10 will still shoot].

I found that even setting a unit at level 5 in the scenario startup, the level of entrench will immediately drop to the level set by an event....

Do we need yet another variable to 'setFacMaxEntrenchNoArt' ????

I made the request to Pocus. He said he would try to do it but I don't think he has had the time. Or if it is available, I haven't heard.

I manually change the values to get a max entrenchment value with and without artillery on certain dates. It is very easy to do although I suspect a lot of players are leary of changing their files.

[Clovis]

I think even a 6 pdr gun can hurt a supply barge or a tramp steamer. Those are unarmored vessels not meant for battle and easily sunk or seriously damaged.

Yes, Grant did run supply boats past Vicksburg at night while an entire fleet exchanged fire with the batteries. It was a major operation with covering fire and the cover of night.

I am assuming generic river supply represents unescorted vulnerable vessels of all types providing large quantities of supply requiring regular trips down the river. I just have a difficult time seeing those types of vessels running past entrenched gun batteries on a routine basis by themselves.

Within the game, we can still supply troops even if generic river supply is blocked simply by running regular supply transports past the guns. In game terms, we would provide gunboat/ironclad escorts and we would have Grant's operation running the Vicksburg defenses.

Entrenched guns only guarantee supply cannot be provided by generic river supply.

You're underestimating IMHO the capacity of any boat tosustain several shots even if unarmed. What Grant made at Vicksburg against a very heavily fortified position could be done by unarmed boats against much weaker opposition. If not, Rather than build forts, Confederates should have relied on skirmishing artillery batteries all along their rivers...

And in game term, this ability is just that: rendering less useful fort buildings...as entrenching a few batteries with an escort division can do the same...

[Franciscus]

I would like too to know waht gun types were in use. Were's discussing here about field artillery naval interdiction ability. Any example until now is showing use at least partial of heavy guns ( in game term siege artillery, coastal artillery) and I suspect "big guns" to have been the real backbone of this interdiction power...

From your example, I guess guns they manned to be of heavier caliber as it seems they abandoned them when they retreated, when field artillery could be moved rather easily.

Clovis, if I read correctly the whole description of the action, the guns were their own light artillery field pieces, and they did not abandon them. They just abandoned the positions where they had placed the guns, on a levee.

[Jagger]

And in game term, this ability is just that: rendering less useful fort buildings...as entrenching a few batteries with an escort division can do the same...

I haven't found field artillery to cause much damage to my ships.

Although we may be talking apples and oranges. My PBEM experience is with heavy modifications to ship values and land/sea bombardment efficiency. Field artillery is not a problem to warships but they stop generic river supply. I just run my ships past entrenched armies without much concern. However, it is a different story if the entrenched artillery are Columbiads, Rodmans or coastal artillery.

Although my primary point is that any field artillery should be able to prevent generic river supply.

[Clovis]

Naval guns are certainly not coastal artillery.



Going back to previous threads: Malvern Hill and Baton Rouge.



I suppose you are entitled to doubt that. I don't however, concede that point in any way at all.



That is interesting, I thought monstrous rifled guns were used in short numbers because most ships couldn't take the strain of using them in broadside. I don't recall any attack by ships on fortifications being made in anything over 2-3' swells. Below that, the reasons are not so patent.



Not coastal artillery in significant numbers. Almost all CSA coastal artillery was field artillery. Please don't confuse coastal artillery with naval artillery. In some cases, guns similar to coastal artillery were used as pivot-guns for ships, but they are not the same thing.



You've made the argument that the most effective defense against gunboats was avoidance. That is correct. Now you are making the argument that gunboats lacked the ability damage field units. When they interacted, which did happen, as I have provided several links now in different threads giving evidence for (I could provide more, but it gets frustrating when I realize that those debating the other side will just dismiss those as insignificant as well), there was usually a significant amount of damage to the field units. When those units were in permanent fortifications, there was usually a significant amount of damage to the gunboats, and less damage to the shore force. When the fortifications had elevation or effective localized obstructions, that is when the situation was totally unbalanced in favor of the shore force.

Fortification, elevation, obstructions and torpedoes, and concealment/suprise, were all force multipliers. The less you had of them, the more the advantage went to the naval force. AACW only has one variable, fortification, with not enough values, and therefore doesn't model ship-to-shore interaction well.

Naval guns are just guns designed to sink enemy ships...as coastal artillery does.

Give me your source about composition of CSA coastal artillery. Let' begin tonight by Fort Fisher:



The fort lay at the end of a sandy peninsula and was L-shaped, with the short side facing north to prevent the longer seaface from being outflanked by an invasion force. The landface batteries held twenty seacoast guns supported by three mortars and four field pieces. Between each battery was a mound of earth thirty feet high and twenty-five feet thick. The protection offered by these "traverses" was further enhanced by "bombproofs" - underground bunkers for the crew of each gun.

Along the outer wall stood a palisade of nine-foot high pine logs and a clear field of fire gave the defenders an edge on any attackers. This edge was further sharpened by a sally-port which would allow field guns to enfilade invaders. The fort's gate, which lay behind a swamp, was also protected by a fence and field guns. Should all this fail to deter attackers, the Rebels would blow up the very ground across which an assault would have to come. Twenty-four metal "torpedoes" were buried in the sandy approaches to the landface wall ready to be set off by an electric charge.

A massive earthwork called the Northeast Bastion connected the landface with the seaface, from where the fortifications snaked south towards the crowning glory of Fort Fisher, the Mound Battery. This stronghold towered sixty feet above sea level in order to deliver plunging fire on any warships foolish enough to try to force an entry into the Cape Fear. Among the twenty-four heavy guns marshalled along the seaface was a mighty 150 pound Armstrong-rifled cannon.

Although it was accepted that the fort would not be attacked from the rear, Colonel Lamb, its commander, ordered a series of ditches and rifle pits built to face the river enclosing the barracks and magazines. In order to give even more security to the rear, the Rebels completed Battery Buchanan, manned by the Confederate Navy and housing four heavy guns. This bulwark was also made of Southern soil.

Impressive though all these preparations were, the stout walls and menacing gun barrels hid serious deficiencies in the Rebel defenses. Only some 600 men were available to man the bulwarks and ammunition was seriously limited. The vaunted Armstrong rifle had only thirteen rounds to beat off an attack.

Gunboats: they have in AACW the function of prohibiting crossing by land force. In game term, it suffices to me. For the rest, I just don't want the retrun of Iwo Jima syndrom AACW suffered in its first iterations or the impossibility to pass against a small land force

[Clovis]

Clovis, if I read correctly the whole description of the action, the guns were their own light artillery field pieces, and they did not abandon them. They just abandoned the positions where they had placed the guns, on a levee.

If so, it would be interesting to investigate.

[Jabberwock]

Naval guns are just guns designed to sink enemy ships...as coastal artillery does.

No.

Give me your source about composition of CSA naval artillery.

Multiple sources. Will take some time to compile. I will get back to you on this.

EDIT: Let's begin tonight with the American Ft. Malakov and call it typical. If I recall correctly, the naval bombardment disabled almost all the guns on the north face before the assault. That will not happen in AACW with the rules as they currently stand, even with a fleet twice the size of that which bombarded Fisher. You could have three fleets that size, and rotate them through the area in shifts. In six weeks, you won't accomplish what in real life took three days.

[Jabberwock]

Gunboats: they have in AACW the function of prohibiting crossing by land force. In game term, it suffices to me. For the rest, I just don't want the retrun of Iwo Jima syndrom AACW suffered in its first iterations.

These, I'm afraid, are the causes of the whole debate. Some players find interdiction sufficient. The IJ syndrome caused a massive backlash, and nobody wants to go back to that.

[Clovis]

No.

yes

Regards,

Clovis

[Clovis]

Fort Macon 1862:

The Confederates worked feverishly to prepare the fort for battle over the next few months. A total of 54 guns were mounted for its defense (consisting of 10- and 8-inch Columbiads, also rifled and smoothbore 32- and 24-pounders).

[Jabberwock]

Those 32 and 24 pounders are naval artillery, not coastal artillery. Columbiads are coastal artillery. Rodmans are coastal artillery. The CSA did not have Rodmans as you stated earlier. Rodmans were built during the war for the defense of major northern harbors.

I will concede that I shouldn't have stated it was nearly all converted field artillery. It was nearly all converted field and naval artillery.

At the time of its capture, Ft Macon had 8 Columbiads, and 46 converted naval and field artillery pieces.

[arsan]

I haven't found field artillery to cause much damage to my ships.

Although we may be talking apples and oranges. My PBEM experience is with heavy modifications to ship values and land/sea bombardment efficiency. Field artillery is not a problem to warships but they stop generic river supply. I just run my ships past entrenched armies without much concern. However, it is a different story if the entrenched artillery are Columbiads, Rodmans or coastal artillery.

Although my primary point is that any field artillery should be able to prevent generic river supply.

That's exactly how i feel it should work!
IMHO the interdiction by entrenched guns is a fine game feature.
If it works too well, it makes no sense to remove it... it is only needed to tweak the arty values so they simulate the historic reality:

small guns should be able to prevent transports and riverine supply and movement. Big field gun should be able to make some damage to combat ships and coastal guns should be dangerous even to ironclads (but not as much of the 35 hits against 1 i get on coastal forts with just a half strength coastal battery).
It seems your values work pretty right... have you thought about making them available as a mod?? I would be pleased to try them.
If they work OK maybe Gray could take a look at them for inclusion on a future patch...

Regards!

[Clovis]

I will concede that I shouldn't have stated it was nearly all converted field artillery. It was nearly all converted field and naval artillery.

At the time of its capture, Ft Macon had 8 Columbiads, and 46 converted naval and field artillery pieces.

They aren't field artillery. Naval and coastal artilleries share more points than any of both with field artillery. And in game term, we're talking about Napoleon , 10 and 20 lb Parrots and 3 inch ordnance ability to deal with ships. Once again, converted naval artillery is made of heavier calibers than those...like coastal artillery.

[Jabberwock]

yes

Regards,

Clovis

By your logic anything up to a 20 pounder couldn't do any significant damage to any ships, anything from a 24 pounder up could. I can't see drawing a hard line there. I can maybe see drawing a line between a 32 pounder and an 8-inch columbiad, but they could all do damage.

On the other hand, you say anything up to a 20 pounder could do damage to field forces, anything more than that couldn't ... Tom Green would disagree; he was eventually killed by cannister while attacking a gunboat.

[Jabberwock]

I think much more thought should be given to how to incorporate obstructions and elevation into the game, than how to classify artillery.

Obstructions made the difference at Charleston. They kept the Union navy out of the Georgia rivers. They failed at New Orleans, leading to the fall of that city.

Elevation made the difference at Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Donelson. (the ship-to-shore parts). It was a major piece in the tactics the Confederates used along the Red River, when they successfully attacked Porter's fleet with field artillery .

Fts Hatteras and Clark lacked either. Having coastal artillery (they didn't) would not have made the difference there. Fts Walker and Beauregard lacked either. They had some coastal and naval artillery. It didn't make a difference.

[Jagger]

That's exactly how i feel it should work!
IMHO the interdiction by entrenched guns is a fine game feature.
If it works too well, it makes no sense to remove it... it is only needed to tweak the arty values so they simulate the historic reality:

small guns should be able to prevent transports and riverine supply and movement. Big field gun should be able to make some damage to combat ships and coastal guns should be dangerous even to ironclads (but not as much of the 35 hits against 1 i get on coastal forts with just a half strength coastal battery).
It seems your values work pretty right... have you thought about making them available as a mod?? I would be pleased to try them.
If they work OK maybe Gray could take a look at them for inclusion on a future patch...

Regards!

Actually they are available in the PBEM mod.

See here: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7599

The entire naval system has been extensively reworked.

The navy game has been completely redone. Many of the ship statistics have been adjusted producing new build times,combat power and speeds. The most obvious change is that many ships take longer to build. Combat is more deadly. Ship speeds vary substantially. Monitors/Ironclads are now ocean going ships. Finally the numbers of ships required to blockade have been significantly reduced making blockades a worthwhile objective. The reinforcement pools reduce the number of certain ship types substantially. The naval campaign should be a significant part of both Union and CSA strategies.

I didn't mention the redo of Rodman, Colombiad and Coastal artillery plus the land/sea efficiency but they have been redone.

However single ships will always have a problem with forts and coastal guns. All the hits are concentrated on one ship. Even an ironclad can be sunk by a fort with coastal guns-although rarely.

Here is an example as I remember it. A few games back, I had a CSA ironclad attack three Union frigates outside Fort Pickens. The ironclad trounced the three frigates which retreated one region east of Fort Pickens. Since my ironclad was still strong and frigates were in bad shape, I sent the ironclad after the three frigates the next turn. Unfortunately, I forget about the coastal artillery in Fort Pickens. My ironclad was hit by the artillery when it left the Fort Pickens region. The ironclad then trounced the three frigates again and then returned back to the Fort Pickens region. Unfortunately it was hit again as it returned to Fort Pickens and was sunk. Although none of the frigates were sunk, their total power was down to 0.

Another example in an ongoing game. This time I was the Union and had two coastal artillery batteries and one Rodman in Fort Pickens. Basically I had a temporary force at Fort Pickens including the additional two large naval artillery batteries plus the inherent Fort Pickens coastal Artillery. My large fleet including two monitors was in the harbor. My opponent moved two ironclads offshore Fort Pickens. The CSA ironclads bombarded Fort Pickens in two separate bombardments in the same turn. My three batteries counter fired and inflicted 20 hits on the two ironclads while suffering two hits in return. The CSA ironclads were forced to retreat into Santa Rosa harbor before my fleet engaged them. I don't think I sank either one but damaged both extensively using three coastal batteries. Normally forts only contain one coastal artillery battery.

The best tactic against large coastal guns in a fort is to run them with large fleets. The hits are distributed amonst your ships rather than concentrated on a single ship. Although one full strength/cohesion ironclad can usually run a fort and survive dependent on the number of coastal artillery batteries in the fort. I tend to put two, three or even four coastal/Rodman/Columbiad batteries into an important location.

Ideally CSA ironclads are best used in a harbor in conjunction with fort coastal guns. For example, a single ironclad in Charleston can usually keep Charleson unblockaded as long as the Union fleet doesn't have several ironclads of their own. The Union fleet moves into the Charleston harbor to blockade by running the coastal guns and suffering some damage. Wait a few turns for further cohesion loss amonst the Union ships and then sortie your full strength/cohesion ironclad against the fleet. A single CSA ironclad will usually defeat a 5-6-8 Union ships, without ironclads, and force a retreat. Then the Union fleet is hit a second time by the coastal artillery as they retreat. When all is done the Union fleet is usually in very bad shape and has lost a couple of ships. Typically the blockade is broken until another fleet is sent out with monitors/ironclads. Although even they can be beat if you wait for their cohesion to drop as the blockade lengthens. Low cohesion fleets can't face even a single full strength/cohesion CSA ironclad.

Although one drawback with CSA Ironclads is that they take seven months to build and in the mod, the CSA can't build a lot of them. The confederate player has to carefully pick and chose the best use for their limited number of ironclads. I know as the CSA, I build every one I can as they are very valuable for protecting harbors and breaking up invasion fleets. Of course, the Union has large numbers of ships but the disadvantage of cohesion loss the longer they are on station which makes their fleets vulnerable.

[Jagger]

I think much more thought should be given to how to incorporate obstructions and elevation into the game, than how to classify artillery.

The terrain matrix for AGEOD games really should be a mix of elevation type and terrain vegetation type.

Currently the system does not mix elevation with terrain type.

So we can have forest terrain but can not differentiate whether the forest is on flat, hilly or mountainous terrain.

We can have hilly terrain but can not differentiate whether the hills are woods, forest or wilderness.

Perhaps in the future we could have that.

The terrain matrix does include modifiers for various different combat arms including ships. So it may be possible to modify the terrain matrix to adjust ship fire against artillery on hills. Although I don't think you could modify artillery effectiveness against ships as the modifier would affect all combat by artillery including against other land troops.

[Jagger]

I think much more thought should be given to how to incorporate obstructions and elevation into the game, than how to classify artillery.

The terrain matrix for AGEOD games really should be a mix of elevation type and terrain vegetation type.

Currently the system does not mix elevation with terrain type.

So we can have forest terrain but can not differentiate whether the forest is on flat, hilly or mountainous terrain.

We can have hilly terrain but can not differentiate whether the hills are woods, forest or wilderness.

Perhaps in the future we could have something like that but would involve a lot of work.

The terrain matrix does include modifiers for various different combat arms including ships. So it may be possible to modify the terrain matrix to adjust ship fire against artillery on hills. Although I don't think you could modify artillery effectiveness against ships as the modifier would affect all combat by artillery including against other land troops. A separate category for land artillery vs ships would be nice.

[Jabberwock]

Clovis & Jagger - Thank you. I may have a partial solution to one problem. A new model could be created for naval artillery (or light coastal artillery, or obsolete artillery:niark , differentiating it from what I think of as coastal artillery. It would include 24-lb, 32-lb, and 42-lb naval/seacoast guns. It could be used in places like Ft Clark instead of the standard coastal artillery. Either of you could include it in your mods as a test. Jagger, since you've added lots of new locations, you could put some in Port Royal as well. Throw some in at Port Hudson and a few other locations. How does that sound?

It may not accomplish what I really want, but it would eliminate one cause of "yes-no-yes-no" exchanges.

[arsan]

Jagger,
Your mod look great... but as i play only against the AI, i dont know if i should install a "PBEM mod"
Maybe you could make an independent "Naval mod"...
Will just tweaking the naval and land bombardement values be enough to improve somewhat the results??
Do you have any tip on possible values??
Which files should be edited??

Regards!

[Pocus]

you have a wood hill terrain (#15)

[Jagger]

Jagger,
Your mod look great... but as i play only against the AI, i dont know if i should install a "PBEM mod"
Maybe you could make an independent "Naval mod"...
Will just tweaking the naval and land bombardement values be enough to improve somewhat the results??
Do you have any tip on possible values??
Which files should be edited??

Regards!

I can pull out the models and the bombard/blockade files. The problem is artillery is integrated into the other parts of the game. Their values aren't really going to match with other artillery in the stock scenario. Although probably not a big deal. Give me a day or two and I will see if I can post the files.

Although someone mentioned playing the PBEM Mod against the AI and said it was working well. Myself, I have never tried to playing a full game of the mod against the AI. So I can't guarantee how well it would play out. But you may want to try it out. If you think it plays well against the AI, I would change the mod name to PBEM/AI mod.

[Jagger]

Clovis & Jagger - Thank you. I may have a partial solution to one problem. A new model could be created for naval artillery (or light coastal artillery, or obsolete artillery:niark , differentiating it from what I think of as coastal artillery. It would include 24-lb, 32-lb, and 42-lb naval/seacoast guns. It could be used in places like Ft Clark instead of the standard coastal artillery. Either of you could include it in your mods as a test. Jagger, since you've added lots of new locations, you could put some in Port Royal as well. Throw some in at Port Hudson and a few other locations. How does that sound?

It may not accomplish what I really want, but it would eliminate one cause of "yes-no-yes-no" exchanges.

To be honest, it is a fair amount of work. I have a spent a lot of time on my mod but now, time is a little short. I don't think it is something I can do in the near future.