Napoleon : Masters of Europe (MoE), a new mod by l'Aigle and Steph

[Prince of Essling]

Do you know how many Razees Britain actually had, so I could use a limit consistent with other ships?

Just a small number - six is all I can see:

HMS Magnanime (64-guns) Cut down to 38-gun frigate 1794-95.
HMS Indefatigable (64-guns) Cut down to 44-gun frigate 1794-95.
HMs Anson (64 guns) Cut down to 44-gun frigate 1794.
HMS Goliath (74-guns) Cut down to 58-gun frigate 1813.
HMS Saturn (74-guns) Cut down to 58-gun frigate 1813.
HMS Majestick (74-guns) Cut down to 58-gun frigate 1813.

[Architeuthis]

Glad to hear the razees are returning. I've always loved those heavy frigates. Prince of Essling, were France's razees decommissioned by the time of the Napoleonic wars? Personally, I would grant France the ability to recruit them anyway in order to flesh out their naval capabilities. Currently they lack medium sized ships. The gap between the revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars seems small enough to smuggle in a minor inaccuracy. Nonetheless, if you want to exclude them for historical accuracy, I won't protest.

Naval combat seems nice, although the bigger ships seem a bit too maneuverable. Perhaps their turn rate could be slightly slowed down? Ship durability is well balanced right now. Large ships of the line can spend significant time slugging it out with each other. However fires seem to occur rather frequently. That being said, I have no idea how commonplace on board fires were during naval combat. Just an observation and not something I would necessarily want to see changed.

Morale is another factor that perhaps could use some tweaks. While generally it seems realistic and promotes longer battles, I want to see the devastation of the heavier ships of the line when they engage frigates (or other smaller ships). Currently smaller vessels receive a full broadside in stride and continue on like nothing happened. I would like to see the heavies (first and second rates) receive some sort of 'scares enemies' trait if that is possible. Frigates would therefore have to tread very carefully when trying to engage theses behemoths.

Finally, one small bug report on the land side of things. The entire Austrian roster seems to be bugged. When on the battlemap, all units seem to suffer from a weird magenta glow when viewed from a afar. This gradually become less once you start to zoom in on the unit. I’m suspecting this has already been reported, but better safe than sorry

Also, could you incorporate significantly higher funds for custom battles in the mod? I am aware that I could do so myself, but I would rather have it in the mod by default.

[Prince of Essling]

Glad to hear the razees are returning. I've always loved those heavy frigates. Prince of Essling, were France's razees decommissioned by the time of the Napoleonic wars? Personally, I would grant France the ability to recruit them anyway in order to flesh out their naval capabilities. Currently they lack medium sized ships. The gap between the revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars seems small enough to smuggle in a minor inaccuracy. Nonetheless, if you want to exclude them for historical accuracy, I won't protest.

From a very quick glance at the French navy (I had expected to see captured by the Royal Navy ....):
Diadème (64 guns) renamed Brutus (1792) Razeed May 1794 to 42-gun frigate. Broken up in 1797
Hercule (74 guns) razéed in 1794. Renamed to Hydre (May 1795). Broken up in 1799.
Argonaute (74 guns), razeed (1793 - 1794), renamed Flibustier (1794), stricken 1795
Illustre (74 guns), razeed in 1793 to 44 gun figate, renamed Mucius Scaevola(1794), renamed Scevola(1794), wrecked 1796
Brave (74 guns) razeed in 1793 to 58 gun frigate, hulked 1798 (Toulon).
Borée (74 guns) , renamed Ca Ira (1794), renamed Agricola (1794) Razeed in 1794. Converted to a hospital ship in 1796. Hulked in 1800. Broken up in 1803.

[Steph]

Glad to hear the razees are returning. I've always loved those heavy frigates. Prince of Essling, were France's razees decommissioned by the time of the Napoleonic wars? Personally, I would grant France the ability to recruit them anyway in order to flesh out their naval capabilities. Currently they lack medium sized ships. The gap between the revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars seems small enough to smuggle in a minor inaccuracy. Nonetheless, if you want to exclude them for historical accuracy, I won't protest.

The Frnch don't have as many types of ships than other factions, but it's also a reflect of the huge standardization effort in the French navy, with only an handfull of successfull classes, with many ships for each. Compare for example to Portugal, where you basically have one class for each ship. So this lack of ships is actually quite normal. However, the French had "Frégate de 12" (32 guns), "Frégate de 18" (40 - 44 guns) and "Frégate de 24" (with 50 guns). Currently, in game I have only the 32 guns and 38 guns due to the engine limitation (it is not possible to change the number of guns). Although only a handfull were built (they were almost as expensive as a 74), I could the "Razee" as a base to introduce this larger Frigate (but name as "Frégate de 24" instead of Razees).

Naval combat seems nice, although the bigger ships seem a bit too maneuverable. Perhaps their turn rate could be slightly slowed down? Ship durability is well balanced right now. Large ships of the line can spend significant time slugging it out with each other. However fires seem to occur rather frequently. That being said, I have no idea how commonplace on board fires were during naval combat. Just an observation and not something I would necessarily want to see changed.

I could reduce a little the manoeuvaribility of the largest ship. But not too much or they became tedious to play. For fire, I need to remember how it can be parameter in game, and may be tweak it.

Morale is another factor that perhaps could use some tweaks. While generally it seems realistic and promotes longer battles, I want to see the devastation of the heavier ships of the line when they engage frigates (or other smaller ships). Currently smaller vessels receive a full broadside in stride and continue on like nothing happened. I would like to see the heavies (first and second rates) receive some sort of 'scares enemies' trait if that is possible. Frigates would therefore have to tread very carefully when trying to engage theses behemoths.

First, naval stats do not include thing such as "scare enemies", so no direct way to do what you suggest. I can only increase a little the morale difference between the ships, or with the morale effects (such as recent casualties, total casualties, nb of gun losts...) So the question is how to tweak this so in a Frigate- SOL battle, it produces the effect you suggest?

Finally, one small bug report on the land side of things. The entire Austrian roster seems to be bugged. When on the battlemap, all units seem to suffer from a weird magenta glow when viewed from a afar. This gradually become less once you start to zoom in on the unit. I’m suspecting this has already been reported, but better safe than sorry

Not aware of that. Do you have a screen? Does it happen only for Austria? Any type of units (cavalry, artillery, infantry?)

Also, could you incorporate significantly higher funds for custom battles in the mod? I am aware that I could do so myself, but I would rather have it in the mod by default.

Unfortunately no. I made a mistake and lost the source file for the recruitment UI in battle, I only have the compiled version. So modifying the cost would mean a lot of work to recreate this correctly, and it was difficult to do the first time.
So I'd rather keep it since it works.

[General LeRoux]

i wanted to download this mod but it says there is a infected file so it wont allow me to download? any help.

[Steph]

My antivirus also regularly tells me there is a virus, sine the page goes into Google "blacklist". But on my hard drive, the copy is virus free, and when I upload it again and ask Google to check it it disappear from the blacklist... Very annoying.
I think the files themselves are safe, it's only some of the pages which are infected by external attacks sometimes and the whole site goes to the blacklist...

[leoni]

hello mod creator, hope progress is going well....thumbs up

[Architeuthis]

Apologies for the late reply, but I did some additional testing to capture the magenta glow that seems to affect the Austrian roster. Unfortunately I can't seem to replicate the exact conditions under which this bug has occurred. All in all I suppose that's a good thing, but I'll continue the hunt nevertheless (there are a lot of variables to include unfortunately). In any case, I did find something else which struck my eye.





As you can see the cannons have a significantly different color tone compared to other artillery pieces. Was this done intentionally? Also you can sort of see the magenta effect in the first pic with the gunners in the back. The bug that was affecting me earlier on was much more pronounced however.

[Steph]

If you mean a different colour from other factions, then yes it is intentional. Austrian cannons were yellow.

[Carabinier]

Hi Steph.....my apprension is ever to adjust french units skins, have you changed those how I showed in my last previously post?

[Steph]

I have already edited a little the French units (for example to change the 1807 and 1812 shako) and I won't change anything else before a very long time...

[Architeuthis]

Oh I don't dispute the fact that they are yellow, it's just that the current hue (or levels) look a bit off. It's most obvious (and a bit jarring) from a distance. Perhaps you could tone the brightness down a bit?

In any case, I did some more testing with the Austrian roster and while I'm still not able to fully reproduce the bug, I have come across a variation.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

As you can see the units suffer from some kind of blue artifact. They were Austrian units from the 1807 period I believe on the Ligny map. Unfortunately the bug is very hard to reproduce, but it does happen occasionally (even if it changes slightly).

[Steph]

Problem is I don't know for sure what the engine is really doing when zooming out a lot, and it switches to low resolution / sprites.
I work on the detailed texture when zooming in.

So I don't know how to correct when zooming out.

for the brigthness of guns, I can check the gloss file of Austrian artillery.

Unfortunately, this period is very busy at work and it's difficult for me to find time to work on the mod before my next vacation, hopefully in March... If my boss let me have them

[yeongbin94]

Steph, You still make this mod?

Since the last update was 3 months ago, I wonder

If you are still making, is when will the next update?

[Steph]

I'm still working on the mod. I have finished Denmark, but not release it. I'll release an update after Sweden and Poland are done.

Unfortunately, this period is very busy at work and it's difficult for me to find time to work on the mod before my next vacation, hopefully in March... If my boss let me have them (copy from previous post)

[yeongbin94]

Giving thanks to answer. Steph.

And that you are still doing it, it is nice.
Your mode is the most amazing I've ever seen, because the mode of NTW,
If you give it up if you have a lot of fans are sad to be NTW.

And I want to work up as busy.
Lot of work to clean up as soon as possible and in time to come I hope to enjoy leisure time.

Best of luck.

[Carabinier]

I have already edited a little the French units (for example to change the 1807 and 1812 shako) and I won't change anything else before a very long time...

And have you correct the plume and skins colours of light infantry as we sayed many post ago...?

[Steph]

I had a nasty crash with a recent edition of the db for Sweden, and I couldn't find the problem... So...
I have developped a small verification tool: it checks all my TSV files for erroneous or missing reference.
It allowed me to correct the crash... But also discover many small errors (like a unit which was not assigned to any faction, or forgotten in the localisation file, etc). So the Swedish release should have virtually no error like that.

Here is a screen of this tool



It shows for example that for the Santissima Trinidad, I have used the wrong unit (the one for custom battle) instead of the one for the campaign in the Building_Unit_Allowed table

Of that I forgot the Westphalian 1805 guard du corps in this table... and so they won't be buildable (only the 1812 are in the table)

[Steph]

Artillery 1805


Artillery 1810


Normally, they should have crossed canon on the belts, but since the mesh is not symetrical it's not possible to do that.

I don't have 1810 illustration, just a comment under Knotel plate for early artillery saying that "after 1809 artillery was gradually given shako". So I'm not sure if the details are correct.

I will use this as a base, and make some variations (two belts, no belts, plumes, etc) to make differences between the 6lb, 12lber, Howizter and horse artillery.

[Prince of Essling]

[Good effort - the Swedish ArmeeMuseum book is silent on adoption of shakos by the artillery.

An article by M D Young for Tradition refers to shakos in 1813 for the artillery.
The Vendes Regiment with a French style shako, black fringe, yellow top band, yellow cockade & cords and tall white plume at the front. It appears to have been peakless. A drawing of 1814 shows a bell topped shako with black horsehair plume.
The Svea Regiment with a French style shako, black horse hair plumes.
The Gotha Regiment shako with buff leather bands.

Some illustrations from a slightly later period (circa 1825) - but gives you an idea: