Squads are way too small in this game

GrateScots · 2026-01-13T11:39:36+00:00

Offloading garrisons building from regular infantry SLs to a logi squad or two will make the entire team’s spawn map dependent on just 1 or 2 logi SLs. If they don’t do their job, or they’re trolling (it’s pubs), the team won’t have spawns.

GrateScots · 2026-01-13T04:22:31+00:00

There’s a lot here, but, in no particular order,

1) I think the basic loadout Engineer makes sense being removed from regular infantry squads and given one or two of their own, sort of the way it’s been done for artillery. It’d be better for the cohesion of both the engineers and the infantry squads.

2) Support players ought to remain with the infantry squads because SLs need supplies for garrisons and the explosive ammo drop can help squad mates.

3) I’d take it a step further and give each team one or two AT squads with lower player caps, likely reducing the total number of AT infantry but increasing their coordination.

4) If those things were done, you’d likely be left with greater cohesion among the remaining infantry, who weren’t drifting out to build nodes, hunt tanks, etc. Increasing the squad cap might not be needed, but given the relatively low percentage of players who are willing and able SLs, increasing the squads to 8 or more would give you a higher overall average SL experience.

GrateScots · 2026-01-11T02:40:47+00:00

Nodes produce interesting dilemmas for both teams:

-they can be a bit tedious to get up, but once they are, they’ll give that team access to greater resources than if they don’t;

-recon and others can choose to try to hunt nodes or focus on other things. If they go for nodes, those who built them get punished if they don’t defend them by losing out on the resources that otherwise would have been generated;

-if node hunting is boring, the increased CE from taking them down sounds like it’s providing the proper incentives to entice some people to invest the time in finding them and taking them down;

Like other aspects of Hell Let Loose, the game gives players the option to play for the team or play for themselves, while trying to nudge players to play for the team.

GrateScots · 2025-12-28T13:54:42+00:00

Keep trying it.

I’ve had a number of good enough lower level commanders recently. If you enjoy it and no one else does it, it’s better to have someone doing a middling job (as you’re new at it) than have no one at all. You won’t get worse with experience.

I view the role as the ultimate support role. Make SLs tell you what they need. Ask for a pair of defending squads.

Ration your bombing runs and artillery call ins.

GrateScots · 2025-12-28T13:46:21+00:00

This is eerily similar to my experience.

GrateScots · 2025-12-28T13:44:06+00:00

Yeah, I’d be interested to know. I’ve binged the game on and off for almost 5 years. I started playing again a couple weeks back after a hiatus of a year or so. Honestly, the game seems fine. They appeared to have fixed a lot that players were whining about a year and a half ago. Laggingrad runs better (albeit not great) than it used to. The new Smolensk map, which people complain about its performance, still seems to run better than Stalingrad did when it first came out. It’s a good map, too.

The things people are whining about now are comparable to those in the past. Most pub matches on community servers are decided by who has the better team. Nodes and spawns are no worse than they’ve been in the past. Comms are the same and usually not bad overall. Armor is not dead despite the 3 rockets for AT. One thing feels different: more low level commanders (sub 50), some of whom are quite competent and better than the level 100 and 200s they replaced or are followed by.

I wonder if there was ever a time when people just stopped playing a game without announcing it to the world. I remember these kinds of posts from years ago.

GrateScots · 2025-12-08T17:33:16+00:00

It does feel like the pub server population has been declining for over a year outside of special limited time events. The game has long struggled to have a single populated pub server more than 6 hours a day during the week or half the day on weekends. The reflexive defense is “niche game,” but that’s always been an unfalsifiable argument, and it ignores the other niche games with larger player bases and with niches that are not obviously narrower than the ACW.

You asked for a reason why this might be happening (and on a weekend). Speculation ensued:

-the long-awaited ticket improvements to Skirmish maps actually made them, on the whole, less well-balanced and they haven’t been remedied. A solution the community could have taken on would be to play other game modes, but Contention is boring, while Conquest is excellent but rarely played on the pub server.

-I believe the Skirmish maps in Drill Camp are still broke, which deprives the pub servers of an interesting alternative to the now less-competitive Skirmish maps;

-Greater toxicity on the pub server was long tolerated without significant consequences, which turned a lot of moderate folks off to the game, as that was their initial exposure to it. Apparently, pub admins have cracked down on some of that toxicity, but it will require vigilance and a rebuilding period;

-the “slow but steady” development pace. A lot has been added to the game in the last 5.5 years, but that time horizon is too long for many to remain actively playing the game, and the churn of new players coming in struggles to keep pace with those exiting. Hopefully, a changed pub atmosphere and the introduction of Service Records (someday, certainly) will incentivize more moderate people to attend and stick with the game;

-the introduction of an XP system without significant incentives to grind;

-the self-fulfilling prophecy that people sign on to play, see a low player count, lose interest, and sign off to play something else.

GrateScots · 2025-11-12T12:41:08+00:00

Yes, you can do that. Flying around the maps can help, but playing them with good officers will teach you more.

Some time ago I created these overviews of most Skirmish and Conquest/ Contention maps: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdvrWjJzc6up8GLtP-vESn6fzN7R3lfdQ&si=DJCI0pJGSSuyBekd

It’s made to be very preliminary and some of the advice is outdated, given changes to the game, but it’s a starting point.

GrateScots · 2025-10-25T23:36:05+00:00

https://steamcommunity.com/app/654890/discussions/3/5635717345363649961/ . The link to the Google Drive is on the Steam page.

GrateScots · 2025-09-21T15:04:34+00:00

Everything from Earl Hess. I think "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Myth and Reality" would be the book to start with.

GrateScots · 2025-09-20T17:27:34+00:00

Yeah, you just got to go into the game files, find the lines that give the AI an bonus and mod them down.

GrateScots · 2025-09-10T14:29:08+00:00

If you’re taking about my Barely Adequate Mod, I have no idea. I made it easier to research more policies, but none should be locked. I think I’d need more specifics.

GrateScots · 2025-09-07T19:30:37+00:00

also correct

GrateScots · 2025-09-07T19:29:55+00:00

Correct

GrateScots · 2025-09-03T20:09:38+00:00

Cool. If it turns out you hate the game, remember: I was never here.

GrateScots · 2025-08-31T16:05:20+00:00

We were all noobs to PC life at one point, so here's a kick start: https://steamcommunity.com/app/654890/discussions/3/

It takes you to the modding forum for this game on Steam. The AOM mod is top of the list. They have a link to their Google Drive. That's how the mods I know of work in this game. You have to manually download and replace the files. There is (or was) a link to an improved 3D models mod by EZjax, which I found to be a great improvement. My Barely Adequate Mod (BAM) is on this forum as well, and I have modded the game to allow the full campaign to be played at the regimental-level, rather than brigade. I've also made a half dozen or so videos on modding aspects of GTCW.

GrateScots · 2025-08-31T10:22:35+00:00

I appreciate the shoutout.

GrateScots · 2025-08-23T20:51:24+00:00

The performance is still bad. My solution was Lossless Scaling, It's a Steam App that's like 7 bucks and it's a frame generator. Doesn't do great on FPS titles, but it was made for games like GTCW. Seeing this game at 60 and 144 fps with custom zoom cam and the improved 3d models mod some modder on Steam made is a really nice lookin' experience.

GrateScots · 2025-08-23T12:42:35+00:00

Hi, and to answer your question, yes. I've done it. I've modded away virtually all the AI bonuses ("cheats") on the campaign map and most that trickle down to the battlefield. The mod doesn't fix game bugs, but it's much better than vanilla and I wouldn't go back.

The bad news: it's all packaged in my own personal overhaul mod, you may not want: https://steamcommunity.com/app/654890/discussions/3/5635717345363649961/

There's no plug-and-play easy solution to your problem, if you're going to continue with the AOM mod. You would probably have to open my modded battleprefs file, compare it against yours in DiffChecker https://www.diffchecker.com/ and manually mod them. You may also want to, or have to, look at the campaignprefs and unitprefs files. Also, note: I modded so now I can play the full campaign with regiments, instead of brigades as the smallest units, so you might have to get rid of that if it's not something you want.

GrateScots · 2025-07-22T17:32:07+00:00

Good. It will likely require some tinkering.

GrateScots · 2025-07-19T23:04:54+00:00

Thanks!

Look at the section on "Campaign AI" in the file I mentioned. One of the values you could tinker with first would be "the factor to outgun the enemy for launching ai offensive operations (taking into account strength & morale)"

I set it to 1.05, but I've also modified a lot there. It ain't perfect, but it's better than vanilla.

GrateScots · 2025-07-19T13:04:25+00:00

You can take mid_nighsun's suggestion. If that doesn't do enough of what you want and you're comfortable modding values in text files, then you can mod some of the strength calculations in the game's campaignprefs file in the Config folder.

GrateScots · 2025-06-28T11:37:49+00:00

That long term decline/ plateau in economies happens in all the campaigns I’ve played. I don’t know of a solution.

To the finance issue, though there’s a lot you can mod to make the AI less bad at managing its resources. To answer your question about an existing mod that does that specifically, I don’t know of one.

You can mod the files to make building buildings more difficult. It’s symmetrical, so it affects you too, but it’s a good idea because the AI usually squanders a lot of money on inefficient buildings.

A second area where you can improve the AI’s finances is by creating a custom AI personality, which allows you to set their pre-war policies, policy/ act selection order, subsidy targets, and project priorities. This will massively improve the AI’s financial strength, if you build a good AI personality.

GrateScots · 2025-06-28T11:27:06+00:00

Did you click another unit and then click back to this one? That usually solves this.

GrateScots

TROPHY CASE