Empire Mod Questions & Recommendations

[BillyJohnson367]

Yeah, new to this thread. Wanted to know if anyone has recommendations on some mods.

I currently have the Empire: Total Factions mod and the Additional Units Mod (best mods, low-key).

I don't like Darthmod, the Civil War Mod, or any mod that's "big" and take over the whole game. I like my mods to work with other mods to improve the overall game experience. If anyone has some mods to work with my current mods above and to boost the game experience, then please tell me.

I'm active on this site and my notifs are on. I'll reply when I can.

Thanks :3

[Leonardo]

There is Bran Mac Born's ETW Campaign AI mod or the ETW Battle AI mod to add and both these are compatible with ETF, but only use one of Bran Mac Born's mods not both.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...re-Campaign-AI
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-BATTLE-AI-MOD

[Alwyn]

Welcome, BillyJohnson367! I enjoy using Empire: Total Factions and the Additional Units Mod too.

I agree with Leonardo's suggestion of Bran's Battle AI. (I prefer the Battle AI to the other version which includes modified Campaign AI - I like more aggressive AI factions, but prefer it if factions don't have the extra income which the campaign version of the mods provides, if I remember correctly. Of course, other players may well prefer the Campaign AI version.)

Here are some other low-key mods which I like, along with a brief explanation of why I use them:

Shokh Hates Sieges
Do you find sieges repetitive, or do you experience lag when the walls are breached on sieges in India? This mod prevents all factions from fortifying cities. (A few city forts exist at the campaign start and this mod doesn't remove them, so sieges aren't completely gone). For me, this is the one essential ETW mod. A download link is here.

Removed Gabionades
When the AI defends, they put cannon in gabionades (defensive emplacements with baskets of earth or stones) when they can. This restricts their field of fire. Battles become easier to win, provided the player spends the first part of the battle moving your entire army out of the field of fire of the enemy artillery, and then attacks them on the flank. This gets repetitive. One solution is this mod.

Removed Bomb Ketches, Rocket Ships and Steamships
To be fair, I can see where the game designers were 'coming from'. Naval artillery create a rock-paper-scissors dynamic (small fast ships beat naval artillery; naval artillery do heavy damage to ships of the line, or set them on fire; ships of the line destroy small fast ships). However, I see the use of bomb ketches and rocket ships in naval battles as unhistorical (I believe that their historical use was for bombarding forts and cities, not for firing at ships in sea battles. If artillery ships worked in real life as they do in ETW, then the historical tactic of forming your big warships in a line - which gave them the name 'ships of the line' - would have been disastrous.) Also, I see steamships as belonging to a later time period.

Weather
Ordinary rain is okay, and torrential rain is relatively rare; however, torrential rain means that I can't see my units and have no idea what's happening. This mod fixes that problem; for people who prefer to fight battles in dry conditions, there's a version for that.

Pikemen Animation Mod
I don't often use pikemen, but when I do, I like them to use pikes, not sabres.

Minor and Emergent Factions Unit Pack
The Additional Units Mod is amazing and it offers great units for some minor or emergent factions, such as the United States. When playing as small factions, I particularly enjoy the challenge of using improved militia and irregular units, and expanding my unit roster through capturing regions in different areas of the world - so sometimes I use this pack instead of the AUM.

Equal Navy
While I really enjoy playing sea battles in the Age of Sail, there are some things which seem odd to me. The firepower of galleys is staggeringly high, a few of them can wreck a Fifth Rate surprisingly quickly. Galleons are very powerful (a stronger hull and more firepower than a Fourth Rate ship of the line seems a big excessive to me, wouldn't one of those advantages be enough by itself?) Sixth Rates seem a bit underpowered, it seems a shame not to use them. It seems strange to me that smaller ships would have longer range guns than ships of the line. It also surprises me that ships of the line have such low accuracy scores. British and American ships have significant advantages in their scores (such as accuracy and reloading) even if the British or US crew are brand-new and their opponents are veterans - that seems odd to me too. Equal Navy improves the scores and hull strength of ships built by other countries to remove the in-built British and American advantage (French ships are still faster and have slightly weaker hulls), reduces the firepower of galleys and galleons, improves the top speed of Sixth Rates, increases the accuracy of ships of the line and removes the range advantage of smaller ships. It's not perfect - for example ships of the line, with better accuracy, are more likely to cause a brig or a sloop to blow up, which could do serious damage to the ship of the line if you're close.

Obviously, those mods simply reflect my preferences, other players will prefer different things.

[Jason Wolf]

Hi, I want to find mods that:
fix bugs
Give units to minor factions and major
improve AI
unlocks minor factions like First nations and Indians
Those are the type of mods that I'm looking for.
Are there any other small mods that you guy would recommend?
Thanks

[Leonardo]

Weather
Ordinary rain is okay, and torrential rain is relatively rare; however, torrential rain means that I can't see my units and have no idea what's happening. This mod fixes that problem; for people who prefer to fight battles in dry conditions, there's a version for that.

Personally, I prefer to play a battle with heavy rain as it adds more realistic difficulty for any general (us who like to play a modded ETW) and one thing that makes a lot harder is that artillery is more useless as it can hit anyone on the battle field.

Hi, I want to find mods that:
fix bugs
Give units to minor factions and major
improve AI
unlocks minor factions like First nations and Indians
Those are the type of mods that I'm looking for.
Are there any other small mods that you guy would recommend?
Thanks

The Empire Total Factions mod unlocks most factions including the Indians, provided you have the Warpath DLC installed otherwise the game will CTD without the Warpath DLC.

My previous post have links to Bran Mac Born's AI mods.

[Alwyn]

Leonardo mentioned that he prefers to play a battle in heavy rain. I agree, which is why the main version of my Weather mod doesn't remove 'heavy rain', it only removes 'torrential rain'. Of course, Leonardo might have meant that he enjoys the challenge of playing battles in torrential rain - it's certainly challenging! I find it frustrating when I can't see my units properly.

Hi, I want to find mods that:
fix bugs
Give units to minor factions and major
improve AI
unlocks minor factions like First nations and Indians
Those are the type of mods that I'm looking for.
Are there any other small mods that you guy would recommend?
Thanks

Which bugs would you like mods to fix, Jason Wolf?

If you'd like mods to give units to major and minor factions, I suggest the amazing Additional Units Mod (don't forget to use the UPC so that the names of units appear in-game). Whether or not you use the AUM, the AUM graphics pack adds great textures. An alternative option is the Minor and Emergent Factions Pack (which mainly unocks units to smaller factions but unlocks a few units for major factions as well.)

If you'd like to reduce bad AI decision-making, I enjoy using Empire Total Factions (for better campaign AI and to unlock minor and emergent factions) with Bran's Empire Battle AI. While no mod (as far as I know) can completely remove bad decisions by the AI, I'm impressed with the game-play on the battlefield which Bran's mod offers. (Bran also offers an Empire AI mod which includes Campaign AI. When I tried it, I found that my campaign became unplayable because of Ottoman turn lag. I could be wrong, but I believe that the increased income for factions might have contributed to this. That's why I use his Battle AI mod). Of course, there are many other options, you could consider overhaul mods such as DarthMod, Imperial Destroyer, Empire Realism and Imperial Splendour (I remember the Imperial Splendour team working on an add-on AI mod) - but they aren't 'small mods', they tend to make significant changes to game-play which you might or might not like.

[Leonardo]

While no mod (as far as I know) can completely remove bad decisions by the AI, I'm impressed with the game-play on the battlefield which Bran's mod offers. (Bran also offers an Empire AI mod which includes Campaign AI. When I tried it, I found that my campaign became unplayable because of Ottoman turn lag. I could be wrong, but I believe that the increased income for factions might have contributed to this.

I believe Bran Mac Born fixed the Ottoman turn bug.

[Alwyn]

I believe Bran Mac Born fixed the Ottoman turn bug.

You might be right - I know that he's well aware of the problem (and, to be fair, it's a problem in the original game, not one created by his mod). Bran posted on May 6, 2013 that he had fixed the problem (this is the post you linked to). I reported on July 14, 2014 that the Ottoman turning was taking 40 minutes. I know that Bran continued to work on the issue - his commitment to improving his mods is excellent. Unfortunately, in March 13, 2016, a player reported that the Ottoman turn lag still happened for them. Maybe the problem has been fixed since then - I hope so - I can't tell by looking at the mod thread. Part of the problem is that the Ottoman turn bug can start happening in the 1740s, 1750s or later - I can't just load up the mod, play a few turns and see how long Ottoman turns take, it's necessary to invest many hours in a campaign to see whether the bug will happen.

My guess - and it's simply a guess - is that mods which increase the income of AI factions tend to cause a higher chance of the Ottoman turn bug occurring. More money for AI factions means more money to spend on huge numbers of tiny armies, slowing down AI turns. The problem might be avoidable by using the Regional Development/Hard Economy version of Bran's Empire AI mod, in this post. As I said, I'm just guessing, it's possible that even with this version the bug will occur.

[Jason Wolf]

Okay thanks. I have been in the mood to play one of the first nations factions lately and want find something that made them playable. I like playing vanilla games so finding some mods that don't change the game too much would be good. I have heard that the game is buggy though so I wondered with there were any mods that would improve it. Are there any mods like DEI for Empire? While I do like playing vanilla I do like getting and playing mods that are based of history. Last thing. The 2 unit packs you mentioned, you would recommend 1 or the other? They won't work together, have same unit? Thanks for the help.

[Bran Mac Born]

I have a NEW version of Bran Empire Campaign AI that helps reduce the Ottoman bug a lot. See post # 7 on the Bran Empire Ai thread.

[Alwyn]

Okay thanks. I have been in the mood to play one of the first nations factions lately and want find something that made them playable. I like playing vanilla games so finding some mods that don't change the game too much would be good. I have heard that the game is buggy though so I wondered with there were any mods that would improve it. Are there any mods like DEI for Empire? While I do like playing vanilla I do like getting and playing mods that are based of history. Last thing. The 2 unit packs you mentioned, you would recommend 1 or the other? They won't work together, have same unit? Thanks for the help.

There is a mod by vadik_1st which adds the Warpath units to the Grand Campaign (if you have the Warpath DLC). You can play Native American factions in the Grand Campaign with Empire Total Factions or All Factions Unlocked, but there will be limits to what you can do (you cannot recruit any kind of ship; if I remember correctly, your technology tree will be limited in the Grand Campaign, making it impossible to recruit the technology needed to recruit the standard archer unit.) Alternatively, you could try The Great Spirit (hopefully the download links in this post will work, the ones in the mod's OP don't work anymore.)

You asked about the two unit packs:

- Swiss Halberdier's Additional Units Mod is far more advanced, it creates an impressive list of new units and ships (and unlocks units in the game's files which aren't playable without modding). If you use the optional graphics pack (which I also recommend), it includes great textures. If offers a fantastic experience and I'd recommend it to anyone. This mod allows factions to recruit more powerful units as technology develops and to recruit different units in different parts of the world.

- My Minor & Emergent Factions Unit Pack is a much more basic mod, it simply unlocks units which already exist in the game's files (and cannot be recruited without modding) and makes units which weren't worth recruiting a bit more useful. It is based on the enjoyment I have playing small factions, particularly in the Road to Independence campaign. One thing I especially like about the Road to Independence is the challenge of taking on professional soldiers with improved militia (such as Minutemen) and irregulars (such as Long Rifle Men). This mod allows other small factions to have a similar experience, using improved militia and irregular units. This means that its approach is different from the AUM. While the AUM tends to add units which are more powerful than standard Line Infantry, this mod tends to offer units which are less powerful, but which might have other advantages (such as the 'skirmish fire' ability of Minutemen, the ability to ambush or for shock infantry, a 'scare' effect). Like the AUM, this mod allows players to recruit different units in different parts of the world.

The two unit packs do include some of the same units. I haven't tried them together. Even if they do work together, I do not recommend combining two or more big unit packs. Unlike Rome II, Empire wasn't designed to cope with large numbers of units being recruitable from one region. In Empire, I believe that Swiss Halberdier reported that there is a hard-coded limit to the number of units which can be recruitable from a region. If we use unit packs to exceed this (which can happen after many turns, because building upgrades and new technology add more units which we can recruit) then the recruitment panel for that region goes blank, nothing can be recruited there.

You asked whether there is a mod like DEI for Empire. There are several overhaul mods which aim to improve historical realism in different ways, including Imperial Splendour, Empire Realism, Imperial Destroyer and DarthMod.

I have a NEW version of Bran Empire Campaign AI that helps reduce the Ottoman bug a lot. See post # 7 on the Bran Empire Ai thread.

Thanks, Bran, that's good news, I look forward to trying your new version!

[Jason Wolf]

Thank you for the recommendations. I have download a few and well need to give them a try. To bad there aren't to many mods for the First Nations.Does the Great spirit mod work?

[Alwyn]

You're welcome, Jason Wolf. Yes, it's a shame that there aren't more First Nation mods. While I could be wrong, I imagine that they would have more chance to compete if the player led a First Nation from 1700, rather than the start date of the Warpath campaign. I haven't tried the Great Spirit mod. If you try it, please let me know how you get on.

Previously, you asked about mods to fix bugs. The challenge here is that different things annoy different players. For me, a really helpful mod is Shokh Hates Sieges. I find sieges to be repetitive (I know some players see it differently) and buggy (I experience lag when the walls of a fort are breached, particularly on siege maps in India). Shokh Hates Sieges removes the ability to fortify cities. This doesn't eliminate sieges completely (some cities are fortified at the start, and the mod doesn't remove this) but it significantly reduces the number of siege battles.

[Jason Wolf]

It looks like the Great Spirit doesn't work.It just crashed on me.

[Alwyn]

I'm sorry to hear that, Jason Wolf, how disappointing! I wonder if you would prefer to play the Warpath DLC campaign, or to use the mod by vadik_1st which I suggested together with either Empire Total Factions or All Factions Unlocked, or try an overhaul mod which unlocks First Nations (I saw a comment on playing the Cree using Imperial Destroyer, for example, here), or even use the resources in the Empire Mod Workshop to create your own First Nation mod?

[Jason Wolf]

Right now now I have installed Empire Total Factions and have both your minor factions unit mod and the one that adds the First Natives from the Warpath campaign. I also installed the AI mod that you recommend and everything seems to work. I might look at those tutorials to make my own mod sometime. Thanks for the recommendations .

[Aelius28]

Why is it so common for modders to not include a list of all the changes their mod makes? Like, I'm trying to figure out what mod I'd like to try and time after time the mod's subforum has like ten sticky threads but none dedicated to listing ALL the changes made. They usually only have the latest version's changelog.

Take Darthmod, for example. I see sticky threads pertaining to:

• the latest version's changelog (not useful for people who haven't followed the mod before the current version),
• old versions' changelogs (not useful because the reader doesn't know which old changes are no longer present),
• "general information and FAQ", which is outdated by several versions
• other stuff like screenshots, forum rules, social media, etc.

The same is true for Imperial Splendour, Empire Realism, and Imperial Destroyer. These four are some of the biggest mods in all of E:TW and every single one of them lacks a thread that simply lists all the changes a mod makes.

It baffles me how people can spend thousands of man-hours on a mod and graciously release it for the world to enjoy but not bother spending a few more hours crafting a detailed list of all the changes made by the mod so that people can determine whether they even want the mod.

Is there some other resource I'm unaware of that lists all the changes a mod makes? Am I the one who's missing something here? I seem to be the only one perplexed by this, because I'd expect to see tons of threads over the years that are like "so, uhhh, what does this mod even DO, specifically?"

[PikeStance]

Why is it so common for modders to not include a list of all the changes their mod makes? Like, I'm trying to figure out what mod I'd like to try and time after time the mod's subforum has like ten sticky threads but none dedicated to listing ALL the changes made. They usually only have the latest version's changelog.

The same is true for Imperial Splendour, ...
Is there some other resource I'm unaware of that lists all the changes a mod makes? Am I the one who's missing something here? I seem to be the only one perplexed by this, because I'd expect to see tons of threads over the years that are like "so, uhhh, what does this mod even DO, specifically?"

I cannot speak for the other mods, but I can tell you about Imperial Splendour. The Last version of IS is v2. We are in the middle of developing the mod to v3. Unfortunately, because we focus on presenting three different time periods, the mod has not changed much. We are currently on v2.2.1b. We did release the Late era of the Mod called, Rise of the Republic. Like the main mod, we releasing it in bits. that is by factions. As we release each update we do tell our players what factions have been updated. Much of our campaign and battle changes are done through "submods" to be included as we developed each faction. Moreover, it is hard to say what we did because right now, there is not one active member that has been with the team before 2011. Plus, the main modders that created Rise of the Republic are no longer active. It makes it tough for us to say what they did and didn't do outside of the factions they had developed. I do know they made some changes to the battle mechanic, some AI campaign behavior, and made it increase the economic difficulty of the mod.

Sorry for the confusion.

Pike

[M.A.E]

Hello There !, i have not played Empire since few years and had forgotten any mods is best and why ?, can anyone suggests what mod is best for long campaign in SP and MP ?

[Leonardo]

Well it depends what you're looking for, is it more units or emergent factions or better AI, battle and/or campaign.

Alwyn's mods
Bran Mac Born's AI mods - Battle, Campaign
husserlTW's mods
DarthMod Empire
The American Revolution