OUT OF DATE Darthmod 2.1 Campaign Tweaks

[DaVinci]

EDIT
See post # 8.

"Darthmod 2.1 More Realism"

********************************

Update: Added the Darthmod CAI (Ch. I) as compatible/separate file (see post #6). This is for the ones who don't wanna miss the new CAI within this submod. Install that in the same way as you would install his original file, but add "..._dv" to the mod pack line in the user script file*.
Attention: I named this file first darthmodCAI_#1.pack (3 downloads: Remove that file, because the file name doesn't work). It's re-uploaded with a working file name now: darthmodCAI_dv.pack.

------

Submod optional for: Empire Darthmod Commander edition or for Empire Darthmod Non-Commander edition.

------

This is my personal submod for the Empire TW mod by Darth Vader and his team.

A longtime-friendship exists between Darth and me (since 2005). Even one of my first modding efforts were customised Darth AI formations versions for my own RTR sitemod and other projects where i participated in 2005. Now here i'm again to make a little custom modding on Darth' excellent work.
Darth, i was not very much surprised that you would make a come back sooner or later after your retirement, as it was certain: Nobody can resist against the dark side, especially not Darth Vader

------

Short submod description

The additional provided work is campaign balancing and adding slightly more historical realism reflection to it, and i just thought to share it with the Empire Darthmod fans, as the even great gameplay is just improved for realism campaign fans.
The changes are not drastical, rather pretty moderate imo., still it is Empire Darthmod, but with certain differences for the campaign gameplay.

------

Info file structure

It contains the entire darthmod.pack of v2.1:
For the non-commander edition (default ETW vanilla troop numbers)
and for the commander edition (darthmod troop numbers).

The submod file is always a .pack in mod format with its own filename:
-> No danger to overwrite the original darthmod.pack files or other ETW vanilla files.
File name non-commander edition: nc_darthmod_dv.pack
File name commander edition: c_darthmod_dv.pack

File location for the .pack files (install path):
C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\empire total war\data

Info mod activation

To disable or enable the mod you only need to change slightly the user.empire_script file,
for this mod here it is like following: (the semicolon in front of the mod line disables the mod)

user.empire_script: non-commander edition

mod nc_darthmod_dv.pack;

;mod darthmod.pack;

or

user.empire_script: commander edition

mod c_darthmod_dv.pack;

;mod darthmod.pack;

[note: the active mod should be on the upper position in this script file, just above the disabled one - alternative to the manual activation use the mod manager (forum tools section)]

The respective user.empire_script file is of course in the attachments, but not in the case of the *CAI file, here just add the needed line as described above.
For the CAI activation, it should look like the following example: (example commander edition)

mod c_darthmod_dv.pack;
mod darthmodCAI_dv.pack;

;mod darthmod.pack;

File location for the user.empire_script file (install path):
XP: C:\Documents and Settings\(Your User Name Here)\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts
Vista: C:\Users\(Your User Name Here)\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts

------

Some more details in the following readme (this readme file is also included in the attached zip file)
*non-commander edition*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sitemod-Project for Empire TW 1.3: "Non-Commander Darthmod 2.1 More Realism" version 0.1
or short: "NC-DM-MR" / A Darth-Submod by DaVinci
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Non-Commander" stays for: Normal unit size (vanilla ETW troop numbers).
Credits for the diligent work to give the darthmod.pack the default
vanilla troop numbers go to crazyman fromrussia (his submod: non-commander editionfor Empire Darthmod 2.1).
Else, all credits belong Darth Vader and his team for the Empire Darthmod.

File-name: (that means you cannot overwrite the darthmod.pack)
nc_darthmod_dv.pack (non-commander edition)

Purpose
Adding some small tweaks, which shall enhance the realism
and challenge in the campaign mode, this to the already excellent
modification by Darth Vader and his contributors, which is completely
untouched in the battle/combat files. The initial motivation for the
modification is, that i actually was annoyed by the design of the american
theater in the else wonderful Empire TW.

Design Summery
In the whole the speed of the development and the conquests will be
slightly decreased. The design will render the gameplay especially in the
american theater more realistic, ie. the Cherokee won't be a steam roller
anymore.


Content description (short)

1) Added 2 db tables to the darthmod.pack
- building_level_required_technology_junctions
- building_levels
These additions provide that improved-, paved roads (condition changed),
improved fortifications and the starfort must be researched.
Further on costs and construction times for a few buildings increased.

2) Recruitment/training times
- Nearly all cavalry units need 2 turns
- All artillery units need 2 turns
- All elite units need 2 turns
- Differences between the theaters (ie. Colonial
Line needs 2 turns, while euro Line needs 1 turn)
- Vastly changed the native american training times
(ie. native artillery needs 6 turns to render the tribes
much more realistic)

3) Recruitment costs/upkeep
- Land units, quite a lot changes done, increased or decreased
- Naval units, here only increased slightly the
Galleon/Fleute ships (the preferred Carribean Pirate ship) to
hinder a bit the mass production.

4) Naval units
- Galleon/Fleute ships (the preferred Carribean Pirate ship)
slightly decreased the fire power to make them a bit
less overpowered vs. medium Frigates.


Recommendations
Difficulty: Hard Campaign / Normal Battle
Unit Size: Ultra (for non-commander edition)

I n s t a l l a t i o n
a) Paiste the extracted nc_darthmod_dv.pack file into the Empire data folder,
where the other pack files live.
b) Provide the following change to your user script file:
Add the line " mod nc_darthmod_dv.pack; "
Change the darthmod line to " ;mod darthmod.pack; "
without the "..." types though! To disable or
enable the packs, simply add or remove the semicolon in front of the " mod ... "

Hint
This submod won't get an active support by me in the respective
thread, means i won't discuss about things. Just try it out if the
description interests you. Maybe i'll work a bit more on files
in future, or will update the pack by the darthmod.pack follow-up
versions.

I wish fun /DaVinci, 1st of July 2009

Some more details in the following readme (this readme file is also included in the attached zip file)
*commander edition*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Update: The commander edition
Sitemod-Project for Empire TW: "Commander Darthmod 2.1 More Realism" version 0.1
or short: "C-DM-MR" / A Darth-Submod by DaVinci
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Commander" stays for: Darthmod unit size.
All credits belong Darth Vader and his team for the Empire Darthmod.

File-name: c_darthmod_dv.pack
(that means you cannot overwrite the darthmod.pack)

Purpose
Adding some small tweaks, which shall enhance the realism
and challenge in the campaign mode, this to the already excellent
modification by Darth Vader and his contributors, which is completely
untouched in the battle/combat files. The initial motivation for the
modification is, that i actually was annoyed by the design of the american
theater in the else wonderful Empire TW.

Design Summery
In the whole the speed of the development and the conquests will be
slightly decreased. The design will render the gameplay especially in the
american theater more realistic, ie. the Cherokee won't be a steam roller
anymore.

Content description (short)

1) Added 2 db tables to the darthmod.pack
- building_level_required_technology_junctions
- building_levels
These additions provide that improved-, paved roads (condition changed),
improved fortifications and the starfort must be researched.
Further on costs and construction times for a few buildings increased.

2) Recruitment/training times
- Nearly all cavalry units need 2 turns
- All artillery units need 2 turns
- All elite units need 2 turns
- Differences between the theaters (ie. Colonial
Line needs 2 turns, while euro Line needs 1 turn)
- Vastly changed the native american training times
(ie. native artillery needs 6 turns to render the tribes
much more realistic)

3) Recruitment costs/upkeep
- Land units, quite a lot changes done, increased or decreased
- Naval units, here only increased slightly the
Galleon/Fleute ships (the preferred Carribean Pirate ship) to
hinder a bit the mass production.

4) Naval units
- Galleon/Fleute ships (the preferred Carribean Pirate ship)
slightly decreased the fire power to make them a bit
less overpowered vs. medium Frigates.

Recommendations
Difficulty: Hard Campaign / Normal Battle
Unit Size: depends on your cpu

I n s t a l l a t i o n
a) Paiste the extracted c_darthmod_dv.pack file into the Empire data folder,
where the other pack files live.
b) Provide the following change to your user script file:
Add the line " mod c_darthmod_dv.pack; "
Change the darthmod line to " ;mod darthmod.pack; "
without the "..." types though! To disable or
enable the packs, simply add or remove the semicolon in front of the " mod ... "

Hint
This submod won't get an active support by me in the respective
thread, means i won't discuss about things. Just try it out if the
description interests you. Maybe i'll work a bit more on files
in future, or will update the pack by the darthmod.pack follow-up
versions.

I wish fun /DaVinci, 3rd of July 2009

------

Comments are welcome. I'm open for little suggestions which fit to the provided design, but i have no time to discuss about things in detail (while i'll keep this post here uptodate).

I wish you a challenging game experience, i at least have currently one of the hardest and most interesting ETW campaigns ever so far with the English faction compared to ETW vanilla. Of course this is due to the ETW 1.3 plus Darthmod 2.1 - what appeals me still a tad more are my added/changed gameplay tweaks on that already excellent base.

Cheers / DaVinci

EDIT
Attachments removed

[Dogmeat]

Good stuff, its great to see good mods evolving.

where would we be if some1 had copyrighted the wheel

[Marku]

nice changes mate!

you have done a great service to the dark side ;-)

[DaVinci]

Well thanks so far.

I'll wait a bit until the new Darth CAI is playtested a while and then adjusted by Darth, and afterwards i will most probably make a compatible version of that CAI for this submod here.

Also i still think about to make a Darthmod Empire Commander version. I still haven't playtested the Commander version, although my pc is absolute capable enough.

[JaM]

DaVInci: you should consider completly remove native artilery... there isnt one historical mention where natives used such weapons... its not that easy to use artilery, and its extremly hard to hit something, if you dont have any idea about geometry or mathematics....

[DaVinci]

DaVInci: you should consider completly remove native artilery... there isnt one historical mention where natives used such weapons... its not that easy to use artilery, and its extremly hard to hit something, if you dont have any idea about geometry or mathematics....

Yeah, i think it in the same lines, but now they need 6 turns, and i made it ridiculous expensive. In all my playtesting they never deployed a canon. So i'll let it in, because if they deploy one i find it rather a nice appearence, interesting AI move so to say. And, i intend to make in future some changes in which building which unit can be recruited (for all factions then some slight changes for balancing reasons), so maybe i can make this thing with the native american canon a bit more reasonable, ie. if it is possible to let them recruit one if they have conquered a "white" settlement with canon-production and have forced the "white man" to educate them to use the canon ... lol.

---

Btw., i just changed my mind and have quick made a compatible Darthmod CAI - i'll add it to the first post.
The only difference to Darth' is the religion db file, where i wanna keep the values of the submod.

[DaVinci]

Added the commander edition submod version (1st post).

[DaVinci]

This thread is going to die. No support here anymore by me.

I've just decided to go solely with the full darthmod commander version for any submodding on Empire TW by me.
No single CAI files or non-commander versions will be offered.

A new thread will be created with my submod, based on Darthmod Empire 2.2.

Darth, or any moderator, you can close this thread.

EDIT

New mod thread: Darthmod Empire Realism+