Imperial Splendour: the Grand Coalition

[Bongfu]

The Imperial Splendour Team, with the TWC Modding Community proudly presents

Mod overview

• Fire Drills brought back
• Projectile Spread by Quixote
• Unit stats reworked to make battles even more intense
• New units(For both Major and Minor factions)
• Music work by Brigadier Graham
• Area of Recruitment system
• All standard buildings buildable in any city(tier 5 is no longer limited to the capital)
• New building effects

Fire Drills

While historically Fire by Rank with three ranks was difficult to pull off in battle by even the most disciplined troops, it does have some significance in the game. The British army often resorted to fire by rank as a way to stop advancing French columns. This was sometimes the ONLY way to beat the French infantry.

Fire by rank will not be for all factions or even all units within those factions.

Projectile Spread

Quixote, in his genius, helped pioneer the ETW modding community with one great work. Projectile spreads mean that not every projectile (from cannon, musket and rifles) will hit its target if aimed. Accuracy is based on the unit's ability to aim at a target, then spread will take the effect after the unit aims.

Reworking the Stats

With the inclusion of new features like Fire by Rank and new units, it will be a good idea for us to rework the stats of existing units in order to balance gameplay.

New Units

Lets face it, CA still only provides uniqueness to a certain extent in factions. This time that uniqueness stayed to maybe five or six factions. In IS:tGC we hope to achieve uniqueness in many more, if not all, factions. That will come from adding units that are missing from the game.

For example, Britain will be supplied with Grenadiers, the Black Watch, and possibly other units that are missing from a historical roster. We will do this all while maintaining balance.

The Fife, drum and bagpipes

Imagine the beating of French kettle drums, the serenading Irish fife, and the blast from hell blaring from the Scottish bagpipes.

Brigadier Graham has offered to work with us and provide us with his amazing work in the music side of things.

AoR

With new units and existing units there will exist an Area of Recruitment system in order to provide some gameplay challenges and uniqueness for different factions. Moscow Musketeers should not be recruitable in Kiev, Highlanders in London, or 1st East Prussian Grenadiers in Berlin.

New building effects

In one of the early developer videos I heard a dev at CA talking about certain regions with certain buildings and resources having an effect on unit quality. While the feature is absent in the "Grand Campaign", we aim to feature buildings not only effecting cost, but stats of units. You breed better horses your cavalry from that region will be better. The hardier your population, the better infantry they generally produce. This will make your home regions more valuable for producing units, as units on the edges of your empire may not be as reliable.

Team and contributors

Team

• the Vicar
  
• Ahiga
• Bongfu

Contributors

• Brigadier Graham - Music mod
• Dogmeat - Fire Drills, Minor AI
• Quixote - Projectile Spread

Recruitment

If you would like to help out, please send a PM to Bongfu. The team mostly needs people who are familiar with the various editors (ie PFM, ESF, and DBEditor) so we can work with the tables we have. Another texture artist would be nice, but the texture structure is different that ETW.

[Sigurdur]

Rock on!

[Ancient Hunter]

I cant mod or prog for dung, but if I can help out in anyway let me know, the sooner we get this stuff the better. Vanilla is too arcade like.

[leopold 1]

i want to help but i dont now how to mod
i can be a rechearcher

[Bongfu]

I cant mod or prog for dung, but if I can help out in anyway let me know, the sooner we get this stuff the better. Vanilla is too arcade like.

i want to help but i dont now how to mod
i can be a rechearcher

If you would both like to research, start by PMing me information on populations during this time period all around Europe. I do not need numbers, I need quality of life, how people felt about their government, and all round cultural background.

I also need information on where the best horses were bred in Europe. As regions in the game will now effect unit quality.

[The Vicar]

I also need information on where the best horses were bred in Europe. As regions in the game will now effect unit quality.

Oh, good idea. I had that idea towards the end of ETW, but never got around to implementing it.

I've heard that Hannover had some incredible stables, as did Frisia/Friesland (Oldenburg in the game). The Frisian horse being the closest contemporary to old-world medieval warhorses still being bred.

And the latest news is that I THINK Ahiga is in. His words: "although I'm not sure I'd help much with there only being this Ottoman faction." (paraphrase)

[Ahiga]

Yeah, I'm in although my expertise is more limited this time around with all but one Eastern Faction. Which is not too much of an issue - all it means is I hold onto the vain hope that we'll be able to modify maps in the future. But I took over French and Austria back in IS, so I can easily adopt and research for another faction - probably Spain.

For run of the mill infantry (not those with Rank fire), I would recommend PB&J's approach of giving Skirmish mode to those troops once we've been able to do more testing. What this does is apply the fire-volley system (Every soldier fires on his own tempo) to roughly the entire unit. This does not apply the ability to spread out and crouch (That's light infantry doctrine). If a unit has Square-formation (as most line infantry besides irregulars & militia do), then they are unable to select the "run away if approached" option that Skirmishing enables. Militia and Irregulars who do not have square formation would be able to do that, but that seems fitting for them.

It does require testing to verify that the AI does not inherently do "Run away if approached" even if they have square formation, however. It does mean that if you had a massively deep column hypothetically a lot more men could fire then should, but this would only be an exploit for the player to worry about (And simply not use). It's application in IS with PB&J's popular sub-mod for it, along with our official use of this system for our Eastern Irregulars with Quixote's spread dynamic easily balanced the lethality of having a lot more of your unit being able to fire at once.

Above all, it gives regular infantry much more firepower without resorting to the silliness of only the first rank firing & CA's giving of excessively fast reloading skill to compensate for the limited number of men firing. Unlike Mass fire it doesn't require the entire unit be in formation to fire, thereby allowing the player to keep the fluidity which we've experienced in NTW.

[Bongfu]

Yeah, I'm in although my expertise is more limited this time around with all but one Eastern Faction. Which is not too much of an issue - all it means is I hold onto the vain hope that we'll be able to modify maps in the future. But I took over French and Austria back in IS, so I can easily adopt and research for another faction - probably Spain.

For run of the mill infantry (not those with Rank fire), I would recommend PB&J's approach of giving Skirmish mode to those troops once we've been able to do more testing. What this does is apply the fire-volley system (Every soldier fires on his own tempo) to roughly the entire unit. This does not apply the ability to spread out and crouch (That's light infantry doctrine). If a unit has Square-formation (as most line infantry besides irregulars & militia do), then they are unable to select the "run away if approached" option that Skirmishing enables. Militia and Irregulars who do not have square formation would be able to do that, but that seems fitting for them.

It does require testing to verify that the AI does not inherently do "Run away if approached" even if they have square formation, however. It does mean that if you had a massively deep column hypothetically a lot more men could fire then should, but this would only be an exploit for the player to worry about (And simply not use). It's application in IS with PB&J's popular sub-mod for it, along with our official use of this system for our Eastern Irregulars with Quixote's spread dynamic easily balanced the lethality of having a lot more of your unit being able to fire at once.

Above all, it gives regular infantry much more firepower without resorting to the silliness of only the first rank firing & CA's giving of excessively fast reloading skill to compensate for the limited number of men firing. Unlike Mass fire it doesn't require the entire unit be in formation to fire, thereby allowing the player to keep the fluidity which we've experienced in NTW.

We will defiantly have to test this further. In the alpha right now, line, grens and guards have mass fire, which gives them tons more firepower, but takes away that "fluid" nature of NTW you mentioned.

[Ahiga]

What we could do, if the research supports it, is have Mass Fire for some of the more antiquated factions or antiquated units within those factions, and as they modernize transition into the "Fluid french style", or a disciplined British style (Rank fire).

[Bongfu]

What we could do, if the research supports it, is have Mass Fire for some of the more antiquated factions or antiquated units within those factions, and as they modernize transition into the "Fluid french style", or a disciplined British style (Rank fire).

My thoughts exactly, not everyone (even in ETW's time period) used the same firing drills. So for NTW we should really look into different factions and how their infantry fought. British are the best known (probably all that British propaganda) for their rank firing to stop advancing French. The Russians just used the age old mob "I have more men than you!" tactic. Prussians were strict discipline, one instance was when French light infantry fired repeatedly into a Prussian battalion, the Prussians stood there until only a few of them remained before they withdrew.

[Ancient Hunter]

IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(I think I just came)

Just leaving work now so I'll plug an hour or 2 into research. Love reading up on history.

[Daergar]

Whatever took you guys so long?

Excellent news, looking forward to this.

[Fenwayb]

i have 2 questions

a. this is for the napoleonic times right?

2. is the shuvolov secret howitzer back?

[Bongfu]

i have 2 questions

a. this is for the napoleonic times right?

2. is the shuvolov secret howitzer back?

Yes, this is set roughly during the same period of the Coalition Campaign in vanilla NTW.

The Russians are one of the first, if not the first, faction I will be looking at to improve and release units for. Who is to say that I won't slip in that awesome unit (although I can't find it in use during the Napoleonic Wars)

[Cinnead]

Once again, you can count on my support (be it betatesting or something else)

[Fenwayb]

i can also beta test when i get my steam account back (dumb hackers)

[JayMac]

Bongfu,
Did you switch your name? I liked the old one.

[britishballer]

excellent news!

[Lucan]

Awwww yeah. Back in business.

[Dogmeat]

the name just gives me goosebumps

Wicked Banner Bonfu !