I am Blown Away by Napoleonic: Total War III!

[klesh]

Hello,

I wanted to write you Lordz a message; I just spent the weekend with my first go at Napoleonic: Total War.

I am not a multiplayer type of guy, so I downloaded this explicitly to try the Historical Battles, as that really is my fav part of the game. I almost died when I fired up the Waterloo 4x4 map and saw what you gentlemen have created. I have never felt in command of a Napoleonic Army until this weekend.

I am in awe of what you have done. I am shocked and amazed at how thorough this mod is. So many units, names, alternative uniforms; it is simply jaw-dropping. This is what I have always wanted this Napoleon game to be! The gameplay, with smaller groups of 100-130 for line (I usually play at 400) is a dream come true. This adds so much flexibility to how you move and position your men. I LOVE the different sizes of artillery pieces (obsiously historically correct to the OOB), I get such a kick ordering so-and-so's guns forward... knowing each division they belong to. The attention to detail in everything is astounding. I couldn't believe you even offer alternative versions of the scenarios based on regimental or battalion sized cavalry groups.

I cannot say enough about how impressed by your collective work here. Why I have waited this long to try this is beyond me. This is the greatest single videogaming experience I have had in my 33 years on this planet.

Last evening, I assumed command of Davout's III Corps defending Hassenhausen. Guys, seriously. This scenario, played 1 vs 1 against the computer, took me 4 hours to play! I was so exhausted at the end, I felt like I had fought the real battle. I went and did some reading afterward, and found that much of what happened irl, happened in my battle. I was just blown away. Looking at maps of the rl battle, I know all these locations! I've just been there for the last 4 hours!

Also, I have never seen the Prussians look so cool!!! I have always thought their uniforms in vanilla are very very boring. I must've looked at 40+ uniform variations in this battle and they all looked really cool and nice. Great textures! There are more unit skins in this mod than practically all other mods put together. Again, I am awestruck at how much work you guys have done.

And your towns and buildings! I had a quick look at Aspern-Essling, and am really looking forward to it! Wow! I just cannot praise this mod enough. The maps themselves are pieces of art; masterpieces! They are so realistic... what, are they like 4x+ the size of the vanilla maps? Within the first 3 seconds of seeing Waterloo's map alone, I knew this was going to be an incredible experience.

If anyone is reading this, and not tried this mod... please, take it from me, it is more worth it than my words can describe.

Gentlemen, you have outdone yourselves! You have brought so much joy to me, I can only say thank you over and over. Amazing.

[NEDKIL Speedmeister General]

He he another converted i see,You sir have seen the light.

[[N]Fullin]

Thank you Sir. You have make me happy as well, by your extremely considerate praise of our work.

I hope to see you in the MP battlefields soon.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Thank you Sir. We really appreciate your words, a true reward of a neverending work.

If I don't give up, after the ridicolous behavior of CA refusing to fix square and column, keeping on developing historical scenarios is because of true napoleonic fan like you.

Let me suggest to try this HBs in multiplayer, only then you will enjoy the best experience facing an human brain.

[Liberalis Bellatricus]

Rep these men to death (Desaix, The Fenix, Fullin, Avon Ulysses, Von Clausewitz, Legless Lannes). They are the main modders on the Lordz team.

If you liked the unit names in MP, send me a bottle of "Donskaya Kazatchia Konnaia Artilleriskaya Vodka".

And thank you indeed Sir !

[Von_Clausewitz]

Thank you for you kind words.

VC

[Legless Lannes]

The cheque is in the post.

[Stilgar CG]

He he another converted i see,You sir have seen the light.

lol, another converted indeed. Welcome to the club, Klesh!

[[N]Tac]

Good to see another "Nap head" who like myself stumbled across a lordz mod and never looked back.
Everything you describe is what we feel playing a Hb on mp every day and with voice chat its the best Nap experience youl get.
Bravo sir,i think posts like yours is why modders mod.

[klesh]

Thank you Sir. You have make me happy as well, by your extremely considerate praise of our work.

Thank you Sir. We really appreciate your words, a true reward of a neverending work.

Thank you for you kind words.

The cheque is in the post.

Gentlemen, you are truly, truly welcome. I tinker a little bit with modding and I know exactly what went into creating all of this; that is half the reason I am so thankful to you all. I have even seen the mod tools you've created yourselves to take some of the tedium out of modmaking; sometimes I wish I paid more attention in my TurboPascal class. This is modding on a whole other level, I am so impressed.

Indeed. This has inspired me to take my first foray into multiplayer. I tried the other night to join a game, but since I went with a manual install of NTW3 (after having some bad experiences with installer-based mods), it is telling me my game version differs from others and won't let me join. I wonder if something like the startpos.esf file would cause that [I didn't alter that]). My biggest fear of MP is my reliance on the Pause button to ensure all my men have appropriate orders. I have having a battle only to see a few guys standing around because I was too busy to notice them. How do you handle that in an MP game with so much going on!?! A steep learning curve is ahead, I can tell. As I mentioned, it took me 4 hours to play Auerstadt, and I know these MP games do not take 4 hours...


Some questions:
Can any files be different in your \data directory? For instance a gradd mod or perhaps an equipment mod? I'm wondering if I have to have everything the same. What about the preferences file? Things like unit multiplier or debug camera... how should I have those set?

Also, in single player HB's, am I to adjust the unit size (it usually defaults to small)? What about in MP?
I will try joining the STEAM group and maybe can spectate a battle or two to see how things work. Colour me excited, gentlemen.

Rep to you all!

[Stilgar CG]

Some questions:
Can any files be different in your \data directory? For instance a gradd mod or perhaps an equipment mod? I'm wondering if I have to have everything the same. What about the preferences file? Things like unit multiplier or debug camera... how should I have those set?

Also, in single player HB's, am I to adjust the unit size (it usually defaults to small)? What about in MP?
I will try joining the STEAM group and maybe can spectate a battle or two to see how things work. Colour me excited, gentlemen.

Rep to you all!

Stay on medium in HBs and bring graphics down to medium/high settings, unless you have a high-end PC. There could be literally hundreds of units on the battlefield there. So, it could lag badly. Same applies to MP.

As for compatibility, you just need to have same game version. Launcher will load the right files. Compatible games will be in white in MP lobby.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

HBs are set by external xml file, they are not affected by changing unit size. No matter how small or huge you set them you'll get the same fixed amount of troops.

To have a full compatibility you should make a clean NTW installation and then install the mod with its autoinstaller. If you have some other mod set to "movie" they can overwrite our files thus leading to incompatibility issue. Usually graphic mods can run along our mod but they must not duplicate any file changed by us.
Keep in mind that casual game with 20 slots is not the same of playing 80 units against an easy predictable AI. Playing a large HB in 1vs1 MP is not for everyone and beside that in 1vs1 morale is too fragile imho leading to too easy chain rout. Better 2vs2 providing people have decent connection and rigs.

[Andre J. Jassoch]

Good evening gentleman.

Well i can only agree with all the compliment´s to you from klesh.The most what i like from your work are the historical scenarios.Today i have joined your steam group.But i´m still not able to join a scenario battle.I must admit that this discussion has awake the passion for mp in me.I have played mp looong time ago but now i´m little bit rusty.How to join a scenario battle is a big mystery for me and i like to try it.Any help?(oh and sorry for the annoying question i know you must by sick of it hearing it over and over again but im desperate)

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Well, I'm too busy developing new scenarios to find enough time to play them

I think that Lord Somerset opened a Steam group for my scenarios, that would be great to find opponents there and to find a way to arrange them in advance. Playing a scenario does involve a sort of preparation of the team. For what I know HBs are only played MP in clan like N, NBC (english people) or Legio (italian people) where people can book a battle and team up before the battle.
Even in my clan we struggle to find 4 players truly involved in dealing with 40 or 50 units and accept the natural house rules that HB requires. Of course the rewarding is far behond the casual game, I still can remember each historical battle I've played so far.

[Andre J. Jassoch]

Hehehe...dont feel interrupt just go ahead and work on the scenarios.But if there be enough time and interest one day im 100% in.The scenarios are absolut genial.I have played them over and over again.Its the highest time to try them in mp.

[LEGIO_Desaix]

Pushed by you we managed to make a Jena test yesterday. Let me say...what a battle. I've set stats for a very slow game and that kept us busy for more than two hours (playing time is 80 minutes). It has been a prussian marginal victory but five minutes more and Vierzehgeligen would have succumbed conceding a victory to french. In effect french players were new to this battle so they wasted 5 minutes getting used to troops and corps delays. My prussian ally crashed at minute 77 and when time expired french could not carry on the building in the village even though they were about to storm it. On the right Isserstedt was still in prussian hands, Augerau retreating to the woods after having almost gained the village outskirt.

We had some lag but nothing serious, I'd say a nice calm pace which let us manage well all the troops. High degree of fatigue forces players to act slowly. Column to square rule and no embedded artillery (but 3lber) worked perfectly and nobody abused. This is why this HB must be played with well known people who you can trust on. I cannot imagine plying Jena with the last second crappy square CA gave us. To be honest I'm still undecided whether to let prussian line to form square or not: they did not form any during the battle, they only fought in line.

What an amazing show watching replay at high settings with smoke and satellite view.

Some screenshots in my steam account

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...972?tab=public

[bloody bill]

WOW, wonderful job. I cannot wait to fight this battle. As always amazing job!!!!

[gord96]

sounds like alot of fun. i don't really like MP but am interested to try some of these historical battles. what about the single player campaign? is it playable?

edit: i see there is an alpha campaign! right on. I will give it a go tonight!

[gord96]

WOW!!

I have to add my praise now. I started a campaign as the Dutch Republic. Had a small battle against the Prussians and WOW!

Crazy. Very satisfying battle. Just 4 regiments and some artillery banging away on each side but very well done! Even my wife came down and said "sounds like a real battle."

Great job. I will have to rep you all!

Quick question. Any recommended difficulty for your single player campaign?

Thanks again!

[Andre J. Jassoch]

Pushed by you we managed to make a Jena test yesterday. Let me say...what a battle. I've set stats for a very slow game and that kept us busy for more than two hours (playing time is 80 minutes). It has been a prussian marginal victory but five minutes more and Vierzehgeligen would have succumbed conceding a victory to french. In effect french players were new to this battle so they wasted 5 minutes getting used to troops and corps delays. My prussian ally crashed at minute 77 and when time expired french could not carry on the building in the village even though they were about to storm it. On the right Isserstedt was still in prussian hands, Augerau retreating to the woods after having almost gained the village outskirt.

We had some lag but nothing serious, I'd say a nice calm pace which let us manage well all the troops. High degree of fatigue forces players to act slowly. Column to square rule and no embedded artillery (but 3lber) worked perfectly and nobody abused. This is why this HB must be played with well known people who you can trust on. I cannot imagine plying Jena with the last second crappy square CA gave us. To be honest I'm still undecided whether to let prussian line to form square or not: they did not form any during the battle, they only fought in line.

What an amazing show watching replay at high settings with smoke and satellite view.

Some screenshots in my steam account

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...972?tab=public

I envy you this fantastic experience.The screens are beautiful.I hope that one day i get to play this with somebody.