Patch 1.17 Problems.

[cankre]

Ok...after getting the game (which shipped v1.07) I decided to patch it to 1.17.

I noticed a bunch of problems. First I started playing the 1862 2 theatre scenario...The generals pictures are not displaying correctly. When the stack is empty, The correct picture is displayed on the icon...as soon as I drop a brigade into the stack, the first unit dropped in the stack is now displayed on the icon...Can you say annoying! LOL. Just wanted to let you guys know. Basically it was a bit unplayable. So I reinstalled back to 1.07 for now.

Is the another update I need to install first?

[Ethan]

Hi cranke,

Perhaps the installation of your game has become corrupt. Why don't you try a complete uninstall and reinstall the game in other different directory?

The latest patch of the game is 1.17a, not the 1.17. Give it another chance. If finally it doesn't work, try to download and install some previous patch to check if it works properly.

From here:

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/ageods_american_civil_war.php

The 1.07 version is very old and if you don't install the latest patch you'll miss the many improvements that have been implemented over the years. In fact they seem different games. Trust in me, it is worth.

Let us know how is it going.

Good luck!

[cankre]

Thanks guys! All fixed, running 1.17a!

[Ethan]

That's great!

Have fun playing.

[cankre]

Well...made it to Sept 1863. My union forces were doing great, moved up to richmond, but then in a very dumb move...it was 2:30 in the morning, I accidentally assaulted Richmond, without laying siege to it! Grrrrr.... I got slaughtered! Well learned a whole lot! Really enjoying this game. So...Time for a new game! Got the whole weekend to relax and play! THis game is so addicting!

[Ethan]

Beware of the "just one more turn" syndrome...

[cankre]

I already know about just one more turn! My Girlfriend, was like...aren't you ever coming to bed???? LOL

[Stauffenberg]

Has anyone else noticed a radically reduced incidence of CSA promotions and notices of seniority adjustments in 1.17a?
In a current pbem into mid '64 the CSA has received a total of 4 promotions in the entire war. A recent battle at Richmond had Lee's army losing 7000 to Hooker's Union losses of 19,000, and giving the South +8 NM; once again however, not one promotion or notice of seniority adjustments. Something does seem to be off.

This pbem is a mod that makes a number of changes to leader stats and special characteristics, as well as only allowing Confederate print money every 5 turns, but certainly no attempted changes to the basic game engine as such. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed a more difficult promotion dynamic for the CSA--the north in this game seems to be normal.

[Laernius]

Has anyone else noticed a radically reduced incidence of CSA promotions and notices of seniority adjustments in 1.17a?
In a current pbem into mid '64 the CSA has received a total of 4 promotions in the entire war. A recent battle at Richmond had Lee's army losing 7000 to Hooker's Union losses of 19,000, and giving the South +8 NM; once again however, not one promotion or notice of seniority adjustments. Something does seem to be off.

This pbem is a mod that makes a number of changes to leader stats and special characteristics, as well as only allowing Confederate print money every 5 turns, but certainly no attempted changes to the basic game engine as such. I'm curious if anyone else has noticed a more difficult promotion dynamic for the CSA--the north in this game seems to be normal.

I actually have noticed that it's difficult just to get Bragg and Van Dorn promoted out of whiny little bitch mode at the beginning of the game; took me 2 years just to get Bragg up and Tennessee saw some heavy skirmishing. Van Dorn, sadly, never graduated Teabag 101. On the other hand, lesser known entities (read: all those goddamned nameless ones you get every year) easily attain 2 or 3 jumps in senority.

[exar83]

Now that you mention it I have noticed that I'm having a slightly more difficult time getting my good generals to advance and the generals that aren't meant to be promoted are sucking up the seniority. It could be just a fluke or me but that had never happened before in all the years I've been playing until last week. I was CSA and had a battle. The 2 generals involved were something like 25 and 92 seniority. The 25 was the only commander in charge of a stack and saw action. The 92 seniority general just happened to be there and had nothing in his stack, just all by his lonesome. He didn't even fight and somehow got the seniority point advance!

[Ol' Choctaw]

Okay, so I am assuming that this is not a new feature.

On my third turn I built the Missouri units as I normally would, only this time they show up in Louisiana. What the heck is going on here?

[Captain_Orso]

1. You're playing the South.

2. You have no location in Missouri producing WSU in which you can also produce an artillery unit.

Therefore your artillery is produced in the "Alternative Region". Have a look here Purchasing Artillery with and without WarSupply.

All the trans-Mississippi states suffer this issue, also Union-Controlled Missouri, because although Saint Louis produces more than enough WSU, usually Union Loyalty is so low that they cannot build any units at all .

PS Don't forget to read the Update.pdf file

[Ethan]

Yes, Captain_Orso is right. You can find the explanation to this at the Update.pdf file

If I remember correctly, this new feature was introduced in 1.16a patch.

[Ol' Choctaw]

Thanks guys. But I didn't build any artillery. Just infanty, cavalry, and militia. I will go and read the file but not being able to build militia in the west would seem to make the game impossible.

[Ethan]

Take a look at this:

Effective with patch 1.16 [RC5 and later]

Explanation of the “Raise Rule” applied when buying new units or when the annual Militia muster occurs:

• $recWSU: Only raise in a region that is producing War Supply.
• All field Artillery (separate units) Units with “imbedded artillery” do not require WSU in region.
• This is WAD: KS, TX, MS, MO, AR require Industrialization to build artillery
• $recTown and $recCity use different probability on which city the unit gets built in Area (recCity squares the size of city) , so
a bigger city is more likely to be chosen as build site.
• $recHarbor and $recHarborWSU add to these the requirment of a port
• $recHarborWSU: Coastal and Fort Batteries, Ironclads, Monitors, Steam Frigates, Armored Frigates
• $RecCap will only allow build in your Capital
• Army HQ Units
• $RecObj will only allow build in a controlled Objective
• Signal, Medical, Engineer, Naval Engineer, Baloons
• For all cases you need >=50% Miltary Control to build (and note that MC increases slowly with only small units in a newly
captured region)
• For all cases you need >=25% loyalty to build in a region
• All units that require WSU to build have an Alternate Area defined that allows unit build outside the Home Area if no
controlled Region that generates WSU is in the Home Area.

Example: if you are raising a unit in Missouri, you'll need at least 1 city with >50% MC and >25% Loyalty for the unit to appear in MO.
Additionally, you'll need a region with these values that produces WSU to build Artillery. Otherwise, you'll need to meet the
requirement in the Alternate Area (South West for CSA MO) to build.

[Ol' Choctaw]

I see a problem with this rule. Several in fact.

The Missouri State Guard already had at least 2 artillery batteries from prewar stocks and likewise Arkansas had like units. I would also guess that there were similar units in Texas too. There were even some artillery units raised from the Indian Territory, which cannot generate war supply.

There were quite a few units that existed pre-war. In the game they do not show up but have to be recruited. I may be able to see this taking effect in 1862 or so but not at the beginning. Otherwise the units should be provided not later than May 1861 in their cities of origin or in Springfield, Mo.

There were early battles in Missouri which can not take place under these restrictions. Lyon was killed in Aug at the battle of Wilson’s Creek. McCulloch has to be moved from Va and Price doesn’t show up until Sep in Arkansas.

Further, early units in Missouri would have had the benefit of the arms seized at the Liberty Arsenal. That was around 1000 muskets, some ammunition, and a battery of 6 lbers.

I think if it were researched you would find that those batteries originating west of the Mississippi were already existent pre 1861. Some of the guns, no doubt came from the Mexican American War. Small arms should not be an issue for units being raised requiring war supply as they could have been of local manufacture or from existing stocks.

Overall, I would say the rule is an over-complication and serves little real purpose other than that.

As I said before, all I raised was infantry, cavalry, and militia. The only unit build in Missouri was one militia, the second did not build. The infantry and the cavalry unit showed up in New Orleans. Why not Memphis? That was poorly planed. By Dec. 1861 most of those units were in Memphis reequipping and reorganizing. Western TN and MS were also part of the Western Department. Any city on either side of the river should potentially be home to displaced units. But then again, there should not be any.

I think maybe this is a case where someone had a good idea that seemed to make sense but was in fact in error.

Cheers!

[Ol' Choctaw]

Has anyone else been playing this in SP against Athena?

I have to say She is doing much better in several regards. The AI is much improved.

Now on the down side, some things may have been changed but they seem broken to me.

As the CS I kept trying to build MO troops on the first available turn. Of the two militia units got built each and every time. All other MO troops showed up in NOLA and none was Artillery. Several turns later it worked as designed. It was the early and most critical turns that it failed. The militia unit did not show back up in the pool, however.

On the Union side, I also had trouble with MO. I tried building river transports several times but they never showed up. Is there a time frame when these are buildable or is it something else?

With both I assume that the costs were re-added to the pool, but I can not say positively that they were.

I figure most of it is working as designed. I would just like to be clear about it and know why these things are happening.

[Captain_Orso]

About the Union building transports in Mo; no riverien transports have an Alternate Build Region, so they can only be build in their state of origin. If you are ordering them after the Saint Louis Massacre™, then the loyalty in Saint Louis and all other towns other than Saint Joseph is often down to about 10 to 15% with about 65% in Saint Joseph. Since you need at least 25% loyalty in a region to build units there and all towns in Mo with a harbor have <25% loyalty, you can order the transports to be built, but their build will be canceled during turn execution because of a lack of a valid build location.

It's been a long time since I've played the South, but IIRC right at the beginning of the April '61 campaigns Southern loyalty can be pretty low in most regions until the Saint Louis Massacre™. You need to be sure that you have at least one region with a town with both =>50% MC and =>25% loyalty. Also, in towns with <=50% MC that town must have at least a militia in it for it to be controlled by your side. Irregular units and early war cavalry do not count for this. This is what I suspect since you say, after several turns your Southern builds in MO are working as expected.

If the militia units were built, of course their numbers will not be returned to the build-pool as unbuilt; they will however be listed as being in-game in the build-pool.

Hope this helps.

[Ol' Choctaw]

yep, that helps.

Thanks

[Pocus]

Has anyone else been playing this in SP against Athena?

I have to say She is doing much better in several regards. The AI is much improved.

namely, examples?

[Ol' Choctaw]

The Confederates no longer go on a deep raid, suicide mission to the Canadian border. After cutting a few rail links they retired back to the Shenandoah Valley. They seem to be responding better to being out flanked and responding better.

As the Union they seem to be making better use of fleets. Their amphibious operations were a real threat, not just harassment. Its blockade forces also had a stronger effect. It did not leave Washington vulnerable

These are just first impressions and I have not actually finished any Campaigns. But so far so good.