Actual co-op or spectating mod for the multiplayer coalition setting.

[Dreamhawk]

Good evening, TWcenter!

Just recently got hooked on the Total War games! They had for some reason illuded me for so many years, but alas, Steam sales are dangerous, I daresay. What I in particular got hooked onto was the towing hook of one of Napoleon's artillery units, and after playing the game vigorously for weeks, I got a tip about this most excellent modding community. Seriously, there is some brilliant work done here!

What did however strike me after I bought Napoleon: Total War was the lack of any actual cooperative multiplayer (save for regular drop-in battles and whatnot, naturally), particular as the game was advertised as having the co-op features that Empire lacked. A friend and I are desperately trying to play the game cooperatively in the coalition setting, with world domination in mind, but it's damn hard seeing we have brought all difficulty up to max to get some challenge out of the game, particularly the AI during land battles - rendering the notion of auto-resolving impossible as you lose the fight horribly, pretty much no matter what units you field and no matter how superior you are in force when compared to the AI. The idea of towing a unit along with the allies' main armies, a couple of isolated Jägers for me, some horses of him, to be close enough to the battles to reinforce (and thus get the option to actually go to battle, as you may imagine) works more or less, but is obnoxiously annoying to keep doing.

TL: DR - Considering we really want to play the game cooperatively the idea of spectating is much more interesting than taking control of the enemy units. We're supposed to play as allies, me attempting to inflict maximum losses against his forces with the AI units just seems dumb in this case. Auto resolving doesn't work when on higher difficulty settings. I'm asking if it's possible to create a mod that allows spectating on your friend's battles during the coalition competitive europe map (Thus letting the players dictate the remaining rules themselves), and perhaps even allow the Insert function on enemy and allied units? A simple spectator function would solve the co-op problem, but perhaps it's not simple to create? :S

Regardlessly, thanks for reading! I'm going to browse the sweet mods you guys have made and try some of them out meanwhile!

[TheRoyalGuard1]

that is actually a good idea but as far as i know impossible..... CA and Steam would have to do that as they control the network and i don't think they are going to do that as they have already started on Shogun 2.... the only hope we have as far as i know is if they release it in a future patch.....

[Glicknork]

I have exactly the same hope as Dreamhawk to find a mod that does this, and am absolutely amazed that more people in the TW modding community aren't interested in this (this is the only post about this topic I could find).
After waiting over a decade for TW to bring out co-op campaign multiplayer, Creative have gone and taunted us with multiplayer which ALMOST ticks all the boxes. You're right Dreamhawk - it must be so simple to create an observation mode for friends, at least as an option, so that they don't have to play campaigns head-on-head but can simply watch. Me and my friend have been waiting to play TW coopertively for literally 10 years. It's so frustrating that Creative have put in all the hard work to make the interfacing and balancing of campaign multiplayer work, and yet leave out such a simple yet vital option to the player. What they've given us is fine if you want to fight each other, but half the time you don't (even if it's only for the duration of a peace treaty) and would rather just watch them fight AI.

Far better, though, would be an option to actually take control of some of your allies army (with their consent of course), so for instance in one of my battles I could make a friend my general and give him command of, say, the cavalry, while I focused on commanding my infantry. This would mean your ally could actually help, even if they didn't have their own units there.

Is everyone absolutely certain that neither of these mods would be possible to make? I think it would make Napoleon and/or Empire campaign multiplayer 100 times better, giving a hugely expanded array of choice and tactics and making 'co-op' finally a reality for TW. If anyone thinks they can make a mod to do either of these things then feel free to get in contact with me - though I don't program I'd be willing to help as much as I can.