campaign AI

[Saddletank]

I have attempted to play the variant where you must control a majority of the towns on the map but in every game I play the AI keeps its army in one massive force and marches around the map. I am wasting hours and hours waiting for an enemy to disperse its forces and attempt to control several towns.

Can the campaign AI be tweaked please to disperse it's forces? Is there a .dll file or other file mods can access to make such changes?

Thanks.

[mitra76]

It depends from how many corps you have for side; in this kind of campaign the AI leaves always a manoveur mass as prioritary sufficiently big in order to force the player to be not too much confident to leave little units as garrisons behind and move around freely with the big units. If the AI simply split up and the player too and the troops in the field are not big, the contest will be a simply match of who split more with the risk of a passive campaign.

Can the campaign AI be tweaked please to disperse it's forces? Is there a .dll file or other file mods can access to make such changes?

Yes the Campaign AI is moddable, in the SDK document there're the details.

[Saddletank]

Thanks for the reply. What I am seeing is the AI 9 times out of 10 doesn't split off ANY units to secure towns and marches around in one huge army, making the game worthless. I have created two armies with 14 or so small corps per side, some are just a single division.

My concern is this happens repeatedly and doesn't seem to be related to corps size or how many corps the army has.

[mitra76]

I should have to check your OOB in order to see why they don't split the corps, but standard AI is calibrated in order to use the structure of historical oob. The max number of split done from the AI for a army or corps are controlled for campaign type from the code in order to avoid officers without units or units too little (in this campaign type every army or corps will split at max 3 subunits conserving at least 1 under him (not counted the artillery divisions)); you can see using one of campaign oob taking the british that the french full oob will split and gradually can take many towns. A different structure of oob with many little corps need a rearrangement of AI numerical criterias

[Saddletank]

Thanks Mitra; almost every corps has 3 divisions, a few have 2. I have only 1 which is on the player-controlled side that has a single division.

I was more concerned though not with the corps commanders splitting off divisions but the army commander not splitting off corps.

[Saddletank]

What does the setting

UnitPerYard=1

Control in WLCampaign.ini ?

Is there a way to make the road encounter battles begin with the sides further apart?

[mitra76]

UnitPerYard=1

Not sure but it should be the ratio between internal UM of map (those used for the coordinates) and the yards. 1 map point = 1 yards. On the battle map are necessary many map point for make a yards.

Is there a way to make the road encounter battles begin with the sides further apart?

No is hardcoded and trigger the event eSBCEnemySeen , which is where the AI decide if engage or retreat.

[Capt Saucier]

I am not sure how far line of sight is, but those battles seem to start much closer than line of sight. They do not give much time for maneuver.

When choosing an army commander (as opposed to a corps commander) does the system randomly choose 1 or 2 corps to be under that commander? Other then through modding, is it possible to choose the corps to fight?

Thanks

[con20or]

We increased the LOS distance to 1500 for just this reason in the last patch, the road battles are designed this way to be meeting engagements but the old LOS distance was too close. The battles when one unit is stationary and waiting for the other usually will default to attack, hunt them down, etc giving more time to deploy.

[Capt Saucier]

I tried this "control the most towns" option using the sandbox campaign mod that came with my game using all 9 corps as Napoleon. Moving around the campaign map seemed to work fine. There were advances and retreats by Wellington. I saw no Prussians. Then, as Napoleon advanced to Mont St. Jean, a Brit cavalry division decided to fight about 6 French corps. I was surprised but accepted battle. The corps deployed spread from one side of the battle map to the other in columns. I ordered an advance but only could control Napoleon and part of the infantry in the Guard Corps. Even when TC individual battalions, most just did not allow the yellow TC button to light up.

When I checked the option to use the 9 corps, I also had checked the new grog toolbar, which I have been using without any problems. However, the old original toolbar is what the mod used. Did checking the new grog toolbar cause the problem? Does this mod work with the new grog toolbar? Does the Waterloo battle mod that has all of the corps work with the new grog toolbar?

Thanks!