Empire Realism Reloaded II - Download and Installation Instructions - Patch update

[JaM]

Empire Realism: Reloaded II
is a major mod that focuses on vastly changing and improving various features of the Vanilla game, not only upgrading gameplay but also adding a historical reflection to the game, making this version of E:TW not only more balanced and technologically better, but also increasing playability and generally making the game more enjoyable, for hard-core strategy gamers and casual players alike.



So, if you want a more realistic E:TW experience and vastly improved gameplay, I highly recommend you read on for a full breakdown of features, changelogs, and installation instructions.

Major Features of Empire Realism: Reloaded II

-Realistic combat - all fire drills removed as they caused a lot of bugs to AI which prevented it from being effective on battlefield. Instead (almost) all units are using 2-rank volley fire. Only exceptions are Eastern nations and natives who are still using less effective single rank fire with scattered mob formations which actually allows them to fire with more men than with line formed single rank. All soldiers are firing at will and will not wait for others to reload.

- Experience is the main telling point of unit effectiveness. more experience points unit has more effective it becomes. more experienced troops reload faster, fight better in melee, have higher morale. This is very important feat with Fire at will 2 rank fire as experienced units are able to deliver salvos much faster,out-shooting the less experienced enemy.

- Realistic weapon ballistics - musket fire is very effective at short ranges,while less effective at max range. This allows realistic 18.century tactics to be used to attract enemy fire at max range, then close up to short range, fire the volley and charge with bayonets. This tactics will break less experienced troops, but must be used with caution against more experienced troops as they will deliver second salvo faster which may cause terrible damage in your closing unit.

- Realistic artillery units - there is a wide variety of guns available - from heavy 24-18pdrs batteries that are not movable on battlefield to small light 3-6pdrs horse arty. heavier guns have higher range and better accuracy, but they took much longer to reload. Heavy guns are also reducing the army movement points so they are not ideal for attacking army. 12 pdr heavy arty is more mobile but is only available later in game after some development. Overally, while heavy arty is more accurate and has more range, light arty can fire 2-3 shots in the same time, so it is viable tactics to move light arty closer to deal great damage.

- Realistic cavalry - cavalry now is well suited for melee against scattered infantry, especially heavy cavalry which has high melee defense now. Cavalry is now capable to destroy infantry,so infantry needs to use squares to protect themself, or it can defeat cavalry by firepower where high defense values are not taken into account at all. There is also clear distinction between east and western cavalry tactics. western cavalry is not firing from horse anymore, and instead can fire like skirmishers on foot.

- Realistic military technology - Eastern nations no longer have Western type of equipment. Indian factions, Persians,Berbers and Ottomans (to some degree) no longer have copycat western units and instead their units are unique. They don't have bayonets and flintlocks,instead they use matchlocks, sabres and swords. Only units that are armed with western weapons are units that got western training like Ottoman Nizaam units. This will force you to use appropriate tactics with those factions and battles against those factions will be different experience.

- Realistic Naval Combat - complete overhaul - realistic wind,where ships are not able to sail directly against the wind, sailing speed is based on ship model and technology level, so late ships can outrun older models easilly. Maximum speed is based on real historical data. Naval gunnery overhaul with new types of ammo - standard solid roundshots which deal highest damage based on caliber. (damage formula is linear, so 12pdr will deal 2x more damage than 6pdr!) Short range ammo, where heavy guns (18pdr and heavier) fire short ranged doubleshots and light guns fire grapeshots. Doubleshots have slightly lower penetration than standard roundshots,but will cause more havoc due to 2 rounds fired. Also accuracy of doubleshot is very limited. Last ammo type is antisail ammo - again depends on gun type - heavy guns fire solid shots with higher angle, so they have longer range, but with lesser effect on sails. light guns fire chainshots which are very inacurate, have limited range but cause more damage to sails. Special category are long range chasing guns which have very high accuracy (using solidshots) and increased sail damage (to represent better aimed "critical shots")
(will be updated further)

Changelog for ER Reloaded II version:

[Base mod design is from the former ER 1.0 version and recently mere the ER Revision version, eventually check out the former changelogs to get the whole overview]

1. European Citizen units are replaced by Town Garrison Troops with stats similar to average Line Infantry. Now the will be vital help in City defense scenarios and not just a cannon fodder. Western Militia units now also have same uniform as Line Regiments.

2. Cavalry costs overhaul - Fielding the Cavalry regiment was very costly. For example fielding a Cuirassiers Regiment costs as much as building 100 gun Ship of the line with full weapons and crew. Because of that costs are much higher than before, which also means AI will field cavalry less often and infantry will be the mainstay of armies. Even then,Cavalry is very capable, if used properly it can destroy any unit. Just be careful and don't charge head on against prepared infantry with loaded muskets. high melee defense cavalry has, will not help against musket bullets...

3. Unit stats now reflect the unit training, not the weapon used. every weapon will now have its own accuracy modifiers. So now, skirmishers armed with muskets will have same accuracy and reload stats as those who have rifles, but Rifle armed skirmishers will be more accurate on battlefield. Same aproach is used with artillery and cavalry too.

4. recruitment times adjusted based on unit training - normal Infantry will take 2 turns to recruit, Specialists like Grenadiers or Skirmishers 3 turns, Elite units 4 turns. Light and Medium Cavalry 4 turns, heavy cavalry 5-6 turns. Artillery will take 4-6 turns. Spawning stack after stack every turn now will be not possible, loosing an army will hurt (a lot), battles will be more decisive.

5. Bayonet technology update - Western infantry starts without bayonets with melee stats reflecting the use of muskets as "clubs". Plug bayonet (when attached) will add +4 melee and +2 charge after developed, with Ring and Socket bayonets adding another +2 to charge. Together with New Bayonet Drill unit can get totally +8 to charge. Having bayonets and not having them is now difference between Life and death.

6. Improved naval guns - horizontal bore drilling technology (replaces rifled guns) - adds more range, accuracy,rate of fire and lowers the cost of ships.

7. Ships will have more movement points. Ships of the Line will have 180-250 points, Frigates and auxiliary ships will have 300-350 points,which means they will be able to sail practically everywhere on the map. This will mean AI can send ships to your ports within his turn,therefore you will HAVE TO have a protecting fleet that would protect your shore - with more movement points it also means your zone of control would remain large even when you sail somewhere, so this will add a lot of strategy to naval game - you can place a fleet and block the access to certain areas - Baltic or Mediterranean by placing fleet near Gibraltar... Zone of Control will be very important thing now!

8. Eastern navies will get a boost in their capabilities with new Dhow ship based on Xebec model (armed with 6 and 9 pdr guns). This will be the only ship Indian factions will have,but it will be able to fight and trade. This ship will be quite a match vs European Trade Ships or Privateer ships, but any Frigate or Ship of the Line will shred it to pieces (as it happened every time such vessels had to fight against advanced European Military ships). Improved Dhow will cost much more, will have similar movement radius as Trade Ships but will take longer to build (6 turns)

9. Fire Drills research now adds marksmanship to units - Fire and Advance adds +5, "Rank fire" now named Live fire Training adds another +5 to marksmanship. Having both drills researched makes infantry much more effective with muskets or rifles.

and lots of other tweaks to improve historical feeling of 18.century combat.

Installation instructions:

Delete all previous ER files (they were with ER_ prefix so should be easy to find). Copy files from archive into your Data Folder. There is no need to modify user script as ER files will always load last.

ER is recommended to play with multiplier x2:

[Path: users/(your computer name)/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire/Scripts]
- ER-default unit multiplier is x2 (means the default ER mod is optimized with this setting in the line campaign_unit_multiplier of the preferences.script.txt file - same folder as user.script.txt). Replace the current number with the number 2. This setting is successful done, if you have for example 320 men per line infantry.

Be aware that if you alter your graphic settings in game, multiplier will be set to weird number which will result in unit size of 1 man... so you will have to exit the game and change multiplier back to 2 to fix it.

While multiplier x2 is recommended for better 18-19.century feel, it is perfectly fine to play the game with original multiplier 1 and ultra setting (standard infantry unit will have 160 men).

Credits:

JaM - developer of Reloaded versions
DaVinci - ER developer
Didz - thank you for your very useful posts which helped me a lot

thanks also to former ER/NER team who were working with us over all this time.

[JaM]

Reloaded II patch released


Change-log:

- Increased size of cavalry model, so it wont occupy same space. cavalry charges will now look more realistic.
- French Lancers removed and replaced by Guard Musketeers or "Mousketiers de la Garde" (elite heavy cavalry of Luis XIV)
- turning speed of ships overhauled
- reload speed for naval guns increased
- Natives have new entity model, similar to skirmishers which makes them faster to move, and smaller target to musket fire (considering they always use terrain for protection). They also are reduced in numbers to 80 men
- Campaign AI behavior regarding defending ports improved, AI will protect its ports more often.
- CAI priority changed from defending City to border protection - AI will engage enemy more actively.
- units turning speed increased
- fatigue effects modified - very tired or exhausted units will be much less accurate, and less effective in melee. (remember always having some reserves at hand)

Installation instructions:

Just copy all files from rar archive into ETW data directory and overwrite older files.