[Version 3.0] The Daily Secession Informer

[DaVinci]

I don't know shokh...I prefer to concentrate my forces fighting the Yankees...
Maybe other factions could act differently after the end of war.

Exactly. And as Union it should be vice versa. It's ACW

Thats right, france and dutch covers only a single region. They will not be able to raid you anymore.
Was i wanted to say, we have to make factions more friendly together then they where at this time, this is the only way to ensure that they aren´t attacking you. But i will not here then any comments like "but but but britain wasn´t in that good relationship with union" - there is no other way to do this, we can´t say dislike them but don´t declare war.
I don´t want to say this in a offending way, just that you understand how the engine is working, which we cannot change.

However, i know how the engine works, and therefor my question above. Okay, i see it concerns majorily Mexico and British-Canada, but they are also the focus in my fear to get a pretty ahistorical war in ACW.

If we would have the modding abilities which we have with the M2TW (or RTW) engine, one could make a historical accurate ACW mod regarding AI interacting simply with map-design (ie. impassable areas and/or immobile/mobile (traits, script) armies and/or drastic recruitment limitations), while the AI-diplomacy/CAI behaviour-modding would be limited though in this older engine.
For the latter case (diplomacy, strategical AI aka CAI), ETW engine is far more advanced ... but indeed, this might not be enough to make "idle" AI there, it could also need limiting building and recruitment capabilities to keep the 'sidenations' really idle (towards CSA and Union). But ie. what is, if Union declares (idiotically as the AI is) war to British-Canada while it fights CSA and therefor has a loosing two-front-war (or just CSA vs. Mexico)?
Next issue is the victory conditions, and playable factions question ... .

Whatsoever, as you can see, i personally would prefer a mod design here, that offers an ACW conflict alone, in principle a combi of M2TW map-modding with a huge detailled NA map extract with only Confederates and Union - plus the advanced ETW engine would be needed for this what i would like to create as ACW. But that's me, i'm just against the TW-What-If approach, and in all my modding efforts, i tried to limit ahistorical chaos (game/immersion-breaking for me) through campaign balancing. Of course AI never plays historically (if the mod is not a complete script-steered one), but the player can, and therefor steers the game at least to a degree, the ahistorical ways it gets then inevitably are not so immanent with a world map and huge timescale, but for the ACW conflict i have just bigger issues to experience the game-breaker-effect.

EDIT

Perhaps a suggestion:
a) ACW campaign 1, ETW vanilla map - offers a What-if ACW design.
b) ACW campaign 2, ETW/Warpath map - offers a (as far as possible) die-hard ACW conflict focused design.

[Jokern]

I wonder if it is possible to add a special building that is similar to the foreign trade ports in FotS, a building that can only be constructed after an event. It could be a "French Trading Port" or a "British Trading Port" that allows you to recruit French or British units.

[WarOfAges1776]

I can't wait to hear the sound track to this game. I loved it last time, all be it it was leaning more to the rebs side, it was still great.

[Minas Moth]

it could also need limiting building and recruitment capabilities to keep the 'sidenations' really idle (towards CSA and Union). But ie. what is, if Union declares (idiotically as the AI is) war to British-Canada while it fights CSA and therefor has a loosing two-front-war (or just CSA vs. Mexico)?

this will poise a problem of situation that player could easily overrun such entities (British-Canada & Mexico) if their power is to feeble. Mexico province is extremely rich, with income well over 3,000 gold on medium level of development. so, making them weak isn't solution. i9f we abandon naval aspect of the game, then all threats are gone, except the one from Mexico and British Canada. Also, if nations are weakened, then even if Union or CSA would declare war on them, they would soon be destroyed by Union or Confederacy.

however, as you said it yourself. the ETW engine is hard to force to play by historical rules. so, having that in mind how can we accomplish something like this when there is no direct way of influencing CAI to be idle.

if the victory conditions do have such a great influence on CAI then we can make them (maybe) such that in Grand Campaign mod, other countries (especially European) are occupied with goals in Europe and/or India and effectively make America Theatre only a side show for them...

I wonder if it is possible to add a special building that is similar to the foreign trade ports in FotS, a building that can only be constructed after an event. It could be a "French Trading Port" or a "British Trading Port" that allows you to recruit French or British units.

Even if possible it won't be used as British or French units didn't fight in ACW. There were immigrants of French, German, Irish, British, Pole, Austro-Hungarian origin, but not a single regular army unit of those nations participated in ACW in any way. Even the British navy was idle and by stander for most of the time (even in Trent Affair). The only European country that entered conflict in any form was Russian Empire which was allied with Union and sent some ships over Pacific, but their part isn't worth mentioning. So, answer is no.

I can't wait to hear the sound track to this game. I loved it last time, all be it it was leaning more to the rebs side, it was still great.

thnx, it will be great, no doubt about that...

[shokh]

Have to say again, please don´t send me pn´s asking for the release date. All info´s are and will be here at first. I will not answer them anymore, so please come here if you have any questions. We take the time and answer every posting when possible.

Thanks mates.

[Minas Moth]

Have to say again, please don´t send me pn´s asking for the release date. All info´s are and will be here at first. I will not answer them anymore, so please come here if you have any questions. We take the time and answer every posting when possible.

Thanks mates.

you ought to give me a list of those people asking for release date... I'll put them on our black list

seriously guys... every weekend I ask shokh how progress is going on and based on that I give you the weekly estimate...

I was even thinking on giving you some nice preview... but now I'm just plainly disappointed, disturbing our team members by sending them PM's

In the future all of you who aren't satisfied by this send PM-s to me... we don't want to make Shokh angry and force him to postpone release date...

cheers guys...

W.I.P. (Work In Peace) Shokh

[Gotreksek]

Ohhh... can't you at least give us the previews ? That would be awesome ;-)

[Minas Moth]

ARTILLERY OF ACW 3.0

This is small preview of artillery system adopted in ACW 3.0 version
First of all we have following types of ammunition* available to batteries:



This icon represents solid shot¹ and percussive shell² ammunition
¹basic non-exploding round; effective counter-battery ammunition
²explodes when hitting the ground; effective against infantry at distance but doesn't bounce off




This icon represents canister³ shot
³short range (shotgun style); effective against masses of infantry



This icon represents either shrapnel⁴ or grapeshot⁵ ammunition
⁴explodes over enemy at ranges shorter than percussive shell
⁵similar to canister; larger but fewer pellets over greater distance than canister

Different guns will feature different ammunition types, so you will have to strike good balance to achieve greatest effect!

_______________________________________________
^* due to engine limitations, different types of ammunition (i.e. percussive shell and solid shot) share the same icon. this is something we can't influence on so have that in mind

So these are basic types of ammunition; when it comes to gun-pieces, 3.0 will feature some of the already known participants on the Civil War battlefields, such as:



Model 1857 Napoleon 12-pounder gun-howitzer



Horse drawn light battery composed of various types of 6-pounder pieces



24-pounder and 32-pounder howitzers



Model 1861 Parrott 10-pounder



Model 1861 3-inch Wrought Iron Rifle; aka 3-inch Ordnance Rifle

and, few surprises...

This preview was made due to courtesy and work of OneEyeMick...
pay your respects to him

thnx, man!

regards,

ACW Team & MM

[shokh]

I´m not be angry. No worry.
Can also understand it somewhere, but the newest infos are everytime here mates.

[|||Wolves|||Well]

Hey guys,
First of all thank you shokh for providing the link. And second thank you to all who helped out with the game. Im in northern virginia and i visited the Manasas and Fredericksburg battlefields and i was hoping there was a MOD out so i could play where i was at but this is way more than i expected. good work mates.

[DaVinci]

this will poise a problem of situation that player could easily overrun such entities (British-Canada & Mexico) if their power is to feeble. Mexico province is extremely rich, with income well over 3,000 gold on medium level of development. so, making them weak isn't solution. i9f we abandon naval aspect of the game, then all threats are gone, except the one from Mexico and British Canada. Also, if nations are weakened, then even if Union or CSA would declare war on them, they would soon be destroyed by Union or Confederacy.

however, as you said it yourself. the ETW engine is hard to force to play by historical rules. so, having that in mind how can we accomplish something like this when there is no direct way of influencing CAI to be idle.

if the victory conditions do have such a great influence on CAI then we can make them (maybe) such that in Grand Campaign mod, other countries (especially European) are occupied with goals in Europe and/or India and effectively make America Theatre only a side show for them...

snip

Bold part:
Ok, possible solution - one could adress that (the weakened sidenations, and btw. i speak preferably for the by me suggested 'die-hard' ACW design with the Warpath camp-map), in the way, that a scripting (.lua) replies to war condition "CSA vs. Mexico + CSA vs. Brit.Canada" and "Union vs. Brit.Canada + Union vs. Mexico" with heavy unit-spawns for the defending sidenations Mexiko and Brit.Canada (of course must not be limited to these factions), which would be at least a great risk for the player to commit the attack (perhaps suicidal), plus perhaps other scripted disadvantages. At best the scripting is turn-frame related, so an attack after the estimated civil war timeframe is then easier, just without that much heavy spawns, but still spawns, which will make the conquest of sidenations still a (moderate) risk.
And i'm pretty much confident, if the sidenations are weakened by default, that the engine (AI) will indeed steer these then minor (idle) factions calm vs. the major factions CSA and Union. The experience with ETW and NTW campaign coding shows that, even with vanilla, under certain circumstances, that the minors are likely to avoid war with the superpowers. As for victory conditions, as they are inevitable also for the sidenations, best solution would be indeed unreachable regions (ie. the impassable regions, if possible overall, not sure here ... still speaking here of the Warpath map), or, as you suggested, putting out the naval aspect (the ship-building), and using an isle or a few as vic con for the sidenations - as we know, the naval aspect is anyway not feasable, to create something that is in the slightest way historically properly, for the period with the ETW engine.

As already suggested above, one could use the ACW-Warpath campaign to create an as far as possible historical proper ACW campaign design, and keep the (inevitable) What-if campaign with the vanilla campaign map (or the RtI campaign, well, i just forgot that campaign option ... so in the whole, there are 3 campaign options).

however, as you said it yourself. the ETW engine is hard to force to play by historical rules. so, having that in mind how can we accomplish something like this when there is no direct way of influencing CAI to be idle.

So in summary, the modder can do something: That's balancing (usual coding) of all campaign-related files plus scripting. This is not to produce a complete simulation, but a quite frame-work for more historicity in the campaign-flow, a design which supports at least some historicity.

[Minas Moth]

At best the scripting is turn-frame related, so an attack after the estimated civil war timeframe is then easier, just without that much heavy spawns, but still spawns, which will make the conquest of sidenations still a (moderate) risk.

but, does the same logic apply to AI also? or is it (when playing CSA or Union) indeed going to attack those side-nations even though CW is still ongoing?

also, I'm not sure how the Warpath Campaign is set but how does the AI even determine who is and who isn't superpower? by current points (strength of military and economics) or certain nations are set as that by default in the engine itself (england, france etc)? so if in warpath Mexico is Mexico and CSA is for example Cherokee or Pueblo nations will that influence CAI decision to attack or not? there are so many things that do come in consideration when you set your mind on finding them as I have now done. but solutions seem hard to get.

As already suggested above, one could use the ACW-Warpath campaign to create an as far as possible historical proper ACW campaign design, and keep the (inevitable) What-if campaign with the vanilla campaign map (or the RtI campaign, well, i just forgot that campaign option ... so in the whole, there are 3 campaign options).

from my understanding of Team's work, both campaigns will get equal dose of attention when it comes to this. Ofc, warpath campaign has greater focus on conflict itself by default (fewer nations, more regions in map etc). However, what the end look will be, i cannot say, only shokh and husserl know this...

yes, influencing AI doesn't mean he will always do as influenced... from my experience (mainly in M2TW) you could really make him do something only via script... everything else was in a matter of: probably, but not 100% sure...

I certainly do hope that shokh and others who are committed to this specific task are indeed paying this one as much attention as we do here.

[DaVinci]

Well no, to the first point of AI acting/interacting, that is all a question of the setup, i see no problem there, as the code decides. In other words, the minor and major factions can be designed to some degree, and then, those minors "know" also that they are minor, just due to counting values ... "living" the program, ie. if the minor faction example Mexiko cannot produce a nearly capable army to win the slightest border-war, then it won't declare war, because it sees what the enemy can do (its capability), besides of course, that quite some other basic CAI coding is needed in accordance (there are certain files of that sort), also the economical aspect plays a role here. As you speak of M2TW engine, especially in this regard, ETW engine is far advanced regarding CAI modding, two worlds.

Generally, of course, it is with TW engines always only framework, even with scripting, not accurate historical simulation ... what perhaps can be done with historical battle setups, but just not for whole campaigns, as a) the player usually plays not historically (but commits historical chaos), and b) the AI will always weigh out its chances per turn ... but the latter along the framework which the modder has created, based on the engine, and that's from what i speak. The only alternative for a real kind of historical simulation and 'Roleplaying' though would be a complete scripted campaign, in every turn ... just a complete other approach then.

Edit: Wait, you meant, if CSA or Union AI invades Mexiko or Brit.Canada would go into a suicidal slaughter vs. the scripted spawns. Well indeed, this case is a special issue. In this case, eventually, only a forced diplomacy script can avoid it. Or the border-way to invade is very much limited geographically, and plus with extreme strong immobile defending armies at those choking points, which are of course viewable by the two majors ... lol, pretty complicated all that. Just one simple response is then additionally a very friendly diplomacy by default CSA/Union vs. Mexiko/Brit.Canada, perhaps capped later by event, so post civil war, the advanced war can begin.

[Minas Moth]

I understand now... I mentioned M2TW because there were usually two ways:
1) leave the AI as it was which is satisfactory to some degree
2) or influence it to a point where you have monkey says monkey does (completely scripted campaign; as you mentioned entirely new approach)
but that's oversimplified statement by me...

before saying anything else, i have to admit that we are close to venture into the field of my utter incompetence... I'm really a newbie when it comes to AI (no matter what TW Engine we are talking about)...

if you haven't done so already, maybe you could discuss this with shokh via pm's, especially if you have some ideas on how to really put to life things you have mentioned here. I wish I could be of more help, but this is way over my league. sorry...

[DaVinci]

Yes, i wish i could dive into it for the gem that ACW is (already), but my free time is not prepared anymore to go into the deep world of ETW mod designing. I'm here now only to express my rough thoughts, thanks for the nice conversation ... and i'll enjoy certainly the upcoming ACW result, even if it is not really for what i aim in our discussion, i remember that v2.6 offered already quite some historical accordance, also for the campaign-flow. As for Shokh, i pretty much believe, he knows exactly from what i speak (he mentioned some corresponding points already), and Husserl knows accurately the technical backgrounds - but that it is not for what they are going, and i can understand that very good.

[Minas Moth]

I'm here now only to express my rough thoughts, thanks for the nice conversation

and your thoughts and words that were written shall be remembered. the pleasure is all mine...

servus Herr DaVinci

[dennizjoon]

Hello, I've been following this mod since 1.90 something, and it has come a far way to what it is now, I thank the ACW Team for developing this mod!, and giving us some info on the progress every now and then! ^_^ I will stay tuned in info of 3.0 release this week, and next if it does come out wich isn't 100% ^_^ since some union or confederate spies could sabotage the development, but don't worry them spies will be !
Kind Regards, Dennizjoon!
____________________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=430508 - North & South NTW modification.

[KamilW]

I have a proposition about the turn time. I don't remember how much a turn was in real time in the previous version. I only remember that moving an army from South Carolina to Virginia didn't last all that long. Maybe I'm wrong, then tell me, but I think the distance that an army can travel should be shortened. Or the turn time should be shortened. I think it's a good idea, given the fact that ACW 'only' lasted 4 years. So maybe you could make one turn equal to a couple of days? So we'll have a long campaign, like we have a long campaign in say MTWII or vanilla ETW, where the timeframe is 100 years or more. That could be more fun and it would perhaps let players play more strategically. You'd really have to plan something then. Not simply recruiting a whole army in Charleston, marching it into Virginia, battle and finished... It would take time, planning. And because the armies would move slowly, a mistake in moving your armies could have big consequences. Otherwise it's simply "oh, another army is attacking my cities and I'm stuck here besieging this city... Damn, I'll just quit my siege and go protect my city. It'll only take one turn to get there...".

What do you think?

[Hinkel]

I have a proposition about the turn time. I don't remember how much a turn was in real time in the previous version. I only remember that moving an army from South Carolina to Virginia didn't last all that long. Maybe I'm wrong, then tell me, but I think the distance that an army can travel should be shortened. Or the turn time should be shortened. I think it's a good idea, given the fact that ACW 'only' lasted 4 years. So maybe you could make one turn equal to a couple of days? So we'll have a long campaign, like we have a long campaign in say MTWII or vanilla ETW, where the timeframe is 100 years or more. That could be more fun and it would perhaps let players play more strategically. You'd really have to plan something then. Not simply recruiting a whole army in Charleston, marching it into Virginia, battle and finished... It would take time, planning. And because the armies would move slowly, a mistake in moving your armies could have big consequences. Otherwise it's simply "oh, another army is attacking my cities and I'm stuck here besieging this city... Damn, I'll just quit my siege and go protect my city. It'll only take one turn to get there...".

What do you think?

As far as I know, each turn represents 15 or 30 days now. So 12 / 24 turns per year. The moving distances for armies are shorter, so you can reach richmond from washington in 2-4 turns, not in 1 turn as before.

[Minas Moth]

Sunday, 29 April

As release date of ACW 3.0 is closing I'm glad to inform you that good progress has been made past week

Team has managed to complete following tasks:

1) Implemented 99% of units
2) Tweaks to campaign values

There are more things to do, but I'm glad to say that version 3.0 is now on the same level as present 2.6; minus the bugs which is very important.
Now, most of the stuff just need to be implemented and tested before we make the release.

Until you receive further info I present you with some in-game pictures from ACW 3.0 Private Beta

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

regards,

ACW Team & Minas Moth