Empire Realism | Feedback + General Discussion (until incl. 3.7, defunct thread)

[DaVinci]

I see your point. Should minor nations not start with a barracks then perhaps? Surely all armies could recruit basic infantry? I'm also a little annoyed how nations like Netherlands and Portugal don't have access to naval units - these were world naval powers at the time. Are there any plans to change ship recruitment? Perhaps it would be a good idea to recruit ships from any port uo to say the third rate and above? I get tired of fighting against ships that would never have featured in a naval battle of the period.

I've downloaded 0.66 - I was using 0.6 when I made my observations. Looking forward to 0.7

Ok, you'll see that 0.66 is quite different to 0.60. And 0.70 will be as well quite different to 0.66

[Shaggy1973]

Hmm yes, I see that light infantry appears right at the bottom of the tech tree. Is this more historical? If they arrive very near rifle units will they have a very limited window of use?

I also thought it may be a good idea to recruit guard units (inf/cavalry) from the two highest tiers of the government buildings. This means you could only recruit them in your homeland/capital.

P.S. let me know if these ideas are pissing you off

[DaVinci]

Hmm yes, I see that light infantry appears right at the bottom of the tech tree. Is this more historical? If they arrive very near rifle units will they have a very limited window of use?

I also thought it may be a good idea to recruit guard units (inf/cavalry) from the two highest tiers of the government buildings. This means you could only recruit them in your homeland/capital.

P.S. let me know if these ideas are pissing you off

Light inf needs the light-inf-research, they aren't available before that.
Certain elite units will be enabled with v0.70 earlier via gov-buildings and barracks, yes (i thought i wrote that in the preview-list, hmm). Anyway those are restricted to home-regions, mainly.
Why should your comment piss me off

[Rsty Bloodnok]

Fantastic mod.

I have used it in conjunction with my own Hornblower mod and it is fantastic

The fact that a couple of lucky hits will now take out your masts it much more than I anticipated!

Keep up the good work.


On the other side I would like to ask that you would be able to reduce the upkeep cost of the militia (if possible) for two turns to recruit makes it a little superfluous when you can get standard infantry in one.

Also if you are wanting to increase realism, you could Introduce a more expensive version of the standard infantry, that takes two or more turns to produce but has greater experience. For Extra training should really be allowed (and the prussian army was well trained at the begginning of the 7 years war and did not have any real advantages apart from extra experiences from continual conflict.

Just a mention.

Tell me what you think.

Best of Luck

Rusty.

[DaVinci]

Also if you are wanting to increase realism, you could Introduce a more expensive version of the standard infantry, that takes two or more turns to produce but has greater experience. For Extra training should really be allowed (and the prussian army was well trained at the begginning of the 7 years war and did not have any real advantages apart from extra experiences from continual conflict.

It is planned to have a kind of reform for the Line Inf, that will divide the recruitment (different skins and stats) into early (1700-1740/50) and late (1740/50-1800) units.

[Shaggy1973]

Well I must say this is developing into my favourite mod. I'm not sure what it is that is tipping the balance, but it just has a great feel. The naval warfare is great, it really does feel very real and I'm loving the fact that my heavy ships have weaknesses. With the turn rate, accelaration and speed, unsupported heavy ships are really quite vulnerable. I took a single 2nd rate against a fourth rate and the battle was very close. The AI does a good job trying to get behind your slow heavy ship. Perhaps a fifth rate could have succeeded, or a couple of frigates and my 2nd rate would have been toast - well done. I love the campaign movement differences too, could these be exagerrated? 1st and 2nd rates being really very hard to move away from European waters etc. Frigates have a real purpose even late game with their range and speed. Perhaps increase merchants range too to match?

Are there any limits of naval recruitment locations? Would it be historical to only have warships built from home regions (not necessarily your starting regions, but Europe for Europeans, India for Indian countries etc)? Would certainly feel wrong if I could build a 2nd rate in the leeward islands.

The land battles built on top of darth's work is great. Playing on VH is a real chellenge. I'm loving the Americas now. Playing as GB, the thirteen colonies are now worth helping. The Indians feel pretty good, although it would be good to exagerrate the need for unconventional tactics and units to beat them. Once the Indians close onto my lines (which is very tough for them to do) I would hope they have a little more lethality and scare my lines. They are perhaps a little toothless - although without Indian scouts their archers are great. With regards unit's abilities, I think line infantry hiding in tall grass is perhaps something for light infantry. It also seems wierd that my Indian scouts and Rangers can't adopt light infantry tactics until very late.

Have you noticed any problems with the tighter formations? I think they are perhaps a little too tight. You will notice that when you move your line, they line up very tightly, but then they increase their width slightly. This causes the units to overlap slightly . When they fire, I then suffer causualties from friendly fire. It looks like this could be avoided by increasing the spacing slightly?

Anhyway, loving the mod guys - great stuff.

[DaVinci]

I'm not sure what it is that is tipping the balance, but it just has a great feel.

All mods where i'm working on (or have worked on) have a special feeling* ... ... though in case of the naval battles its JaM's work.

Shaggy, i know you now since years and i invite you to join the dev team.

You can help in several things (testing, advice, coding details like unit spacing etc. for things where we have met an agreement; i know you have coding abilities). What do you say? Just in case, browse to our MR forum, and sign into the according thread.

Else, keep up to write your comments, thanks.

*whereas of course here for ER the base-work by Darth helped a looot.

Anhyway, loving the mod guys - great stuff.

I assure you, the mod will get better with every release.

[Shaggy1973]

Cool, although I haven't modded since R:TW, I can certainly help out testing etc, until I get to grips with a few of the easier mod files. I have to admit I haven't even unpacked any of the files, or checked out the modding tools yet. Been having more fun playing (although since 1.3 my game crashed every other battle). Got less time than I used to (career getting interesting) but I would to love to help out.

I'll go and apply on the MR forums

EDIT: I wanted to report a strange moral issue - had a great battle vs the Huron with even odds, no general. My Hessian line units kept routing quite easily, but often rallying and returning. It was really close all the way, several times thinking I'd lost, only for one of their units to rout. I finally won a decisive fight and their general ran off as two of his units routed. I chased the units and killed most of them, but as my men got tired they suddenly routed and I lost the battle. Have you increased the effects of fatigue on moral? I won't be chasing routing units with infantry again that's for sure

[DaVinci]

Well, then i say welcome already

Edit

I chased the units and killed most of them, but as my men got tired they suddenly routed and I lost the battle. Have you increased the effects of fatigue on moral?

Well, this is the revenge, when the human player treats his units and the enemy units without mercy

Edit2

I'll go and apply on the MR forums

See my reply there.

[Lord Zimoa]

Very nice guys, Darth BAI as a base is rock solid, enjoying the challenge. Altered the campaign to 4 turns, fits the slower pace of the game in my opinion. Looking forward to the next version.

[aus-rotten]

Hi guys,
first of all: it seems a great piece of work. and great great great, that you using the dark lords battle AI... may he mod forever .
I just have a few question, which will decide if its really a mod for me:
most important: the fire drills:
Did you removed the "fire and Advance" drill for the AI only? ( I was quiet happy, that darth removed it, because with fire and davance the AI can´t handle their troops). I´m ok to have it for my troops, but its very important for me that AI don´t have it
platoon firing: in my test battle with early and late troops it seemed that nearly all troops using "platoon firing", and it was a little odd to see all the line infantry batttling in platoon fire. there was no ability to switch it off for my troops, so that only my first rank was firing. I´m a litle confused wich troops using which firing drills and how much the player can change between the firing drills.

could you exactly exlpain how the tech tree and the firing drills work? are there any new inventions on the tech tree? I looked up the tech tree in the grand campaign and I saw some changes in the order of the techs, but there were no "new inventions" like written in the changelog.

I hope it sounds not too negativ, and I really like the direction in which this mod is going.

Keep up the great work!

[DaVinci]

I'll quick reply to the main things of your points.

All things are wip, incl. fire-drills. We try currently to enhance these parts of the game, to support the historical-realism and as well under AI consideration.
There are no fire-drill-buttons available for those contents, also not in vanilla.
In the changelog isn't something written about "new inventions", there aren't new inventions integrated (as of yet, might get a point in future), but just changes to the research-tree incl. its inventions.

Thanks for your comments, it doesn't sound negative.

[pditty8811]

I have this mod and darth mod, but I increased my line infantry to around 400 depending on the country. I was wondering how to stretch the line formations so they are three deep, the farthest I can go with these large unit sizes is four deep?

I was also wondering with these large unit sizes if during platoon fire all the soldiers raising there muskets are in fact firing? During platoon fire I only see smoke from the first two or three rows.

[RomanGuy]

So I have a couple of questions.

How much of the original Darthmod are you using?

Is it compatible wth many other submods for Darthmod?

So far I like the changes though.

[Gorrrrrn]

Will DL and try this mod out.

looks very good and addressed some of the issues I have with game.

couple of thoughts for maybe the future:

Pirates - currently in vanilla they cannot trade but often end up with huge numbers of trade ships they have captured on trade nodes.
can they be given the ability to trade - or - perhaps more historically - can they be forced to sell any trade ships they capture for the prize money?

Fishing fleets - I don't know if CA originally planned this but would it be possible to add some fishing grounds (like trade nodes) where fishing fleets can go?
makes having fishing ports properly useful? They could be placed off Iceland, Newfoundland etc.
maybe even (boo hiss) whaling ships in artic waters?

[Gorrrrrn]

OK have up and running - no loading screen yet?

anyway playing as Spain - I'm at war with loads of factions within three years.
no way of recruiting in naples until I build a guvnor place, so that's several turns when italian states can run riot over me.
when they're not besieging Milan. (!)

(Luckily my French allies have already saved my skin there - saw off the besiegers but only with help of several French units.)

No wonder they keep demanding Flanders off me.

pirates sank my carib fleet on turn 1 - and I need to build ships to defend against constant attack from barbary pirates and It Sts.
oh and now we're at war with GB and P-L.

OK haven't lost anything yet but I can see this going to be a challenge (no bad thing!!!!)

Query: Early SoL have the trade symbol and the description says they can carry cargo, but when I stick three of them on a trade node -
no trade route generated.

(and should it be 58 or 60 guns?) - campaign map says one, battle map says the other.

[DaVinci]

So I have a couple of questions.

How much of the original Darthmod are you using?

Is it compatible wth many other submods for Darthmod?

So far I like the changes though.

It's not possible to give you a percentage value of how much Darthmod is still included, with every release version more files are modified and added - so as you can read in the descriptions, it will change in this way the Darthmod content quite a lot.

# Darth Vader for Darthmod Empire 2.4 files: battle_entities, battle_movement_modifiers. Implemented with internal 0.6x pack.

These two files are unmodified from the Darthmod 2.4 version, means there it is 1:1 Darthmod.

It makes no sense to apply Darthmod submods, content-wise nor technically. Our project Empire Realism has the approach to provide its own major mod appearence and style, just along the main post and our changelog descriptions: campaign gameplay change is the main goal in regard of historical-realism contents. This concerns though all files we have in the mod or that will be added in future, and of course it concerns also the combat-system and AI behaviour.

OK have up and running - no loading screen yet?

anyway playing as Spain - I'm at war with loads of factions within three years.
no way of recruiting in naples until I build a guvnor place, so that's several turns when italian states can run riot over me.
when they're not besieging Milan. (!)

(Luckily my French allies have already saved my skin there - saw off the besiegers but only with help of several French units.)

No wonder they keep demanding Flanders off me.

pirates sank my carib fleet on turn 1 - and I need to build ships to defend against constant attack from barbary pirates and It Sts.
oh and now we're at war with GB and P-L.

OK haven't lost anything yet but I can see this going to be a challenge (no bad thing!!!!)

Query: Early SoL have the trade symbol and the description says they can carry cargo, but when I stick three of them on a trade node -
no trade route generated.

(and should it be 58 or 60 guns?) - campaign map says one, battle map says the other.

The 0.66 version appearence in these regards you have above pointed out, especially the naval things, will be changed a lot. Ie. pirates won't be able to recruit the big warships anymore, but will be reflected historically with merely small ships and we try to provide their main task: to enter your ships.

[JaM]

Rozanov: Regarding the gun numbers - currently we are not able to add more guns to the ships. That is why name says 60 guns, but ship only has 58... anyway, i kinda increased numbers of gunners, so 60 gun ship might have only 58 guns, but ship will have 120 gunners, so if some of them are killed, free gunners will replace them.. (later we will just add more guns).

Anyway, ships are based on gun types more than just gun numbers - 4-rate 60gun ship had 24pdrs on lower deck and 12 pdrs on upper deck, 50 gun ship had 24 pdrs on lower and 9 pdrs on upper deck.

Here is also why 5-rate was renamed to 50 gun 4-rate Ship of the Line - in the begining of 18.century only ships with at least 24pdr guns were considered big enough for battle line. Later, they found those 4-rate ships too small, and standard SOL was 70-74gun 2-decker.


Because CA decided how they did, we dont have for example 80 gun 2-decker - which was used as Admiral Flagship by French. That is why French 3-rate will simulate 80gun 2-decker and will have much stronger hull, heavier guns, bigger crew, etc... but it will just still have only 74guns....




And last, campaign map need a huge rework. For example Cuba was a naval centre for Spain - they built their whole fleet there, only very little number of ships was built in Spain... Spain was present in that area for hundred years, so they should be well developped and fortified... so there wouldnt be a chance of snowball in hell that cherokee would steal a starfort in florida....

and there is a tons of similar things (like for example Gibraltar with shipyard...) that needs to be corrected. And they will be, in future releases.

[Gorrrrrn]

Thanks for response guys

very much WiP - happy to play test for you, let me know if there's anything you want me to look out for.

apologies for any statements of the obvious - I can only comment on what I see.

campaign map changes - understand currently no map editor, how much can be changed?

(talking of Spain, I'm sure Madrid is in the wrong place, and an extra region or two (also France) wouldn't go amiss.)

if the wikipedia enetry is correct a region made up of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia might be viable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Spain

(looks like Spain should start with a civil war (well 1702) - shades of 1936)

[Gorrrrrn]

Herewith a loading screen at 1440 width.

battle of Poltava




I've got a couple of other paintings I can also use.

here's Rubens turks and poles at 1200 width



and a different view of the Battle of Poltava at 1020 width



feel free to resize

let me know of any text changes you want