NTW: Kaunitz Project

[Splenyi]

Hey FilipVonZietek, can you please talk to me about all the unit models? I'm kinda in charge of that ^^

[Kaunitz]

Soo. I’m kind of loosing the thread. A split up in subboards would be nice indeed. One for models, one for mechanics and mechanics “research”, one for game reports, one for further research on other stuff (military culture, etc.). I will catch up on what's required for a WIP hosted mod.

@ mAIOR

video: Thanks for the video. I know how much work a video means.

Some remarks:

The best part of it was you explaining in detail that your attack columns will not get hit by my arty because of the small bump… Anyway, I think it’s nice that columns get more disorganised by artillery fire than lines, because of the (admittedly very silly looking) cannonball-men-bowling.

You light cav was not killed by my btns’ musket fire (other instances have proven how ineffective musketry is against cavalry…). It was because my grenzers were still fighting for 2-3 seconds while your cav has already been routed. Thus my grenzers managed to strike at your routed cav, leading to lots and lots of casualties. L

I didn’t know that all troops were visible while crossing the river. Should have known though. My interest in river maps is waning. L If we (mAIOR? J ) will ever be able to create some maps, we might try to find a way around that.

Your line battalions are not supposed to fire “through” your skirmishers, and you also see 1 (=4) skirmishers die because you do it. I don’t know what kind of CA-whizz kid came up with that strange idea in the first place…

Judging from the video, skirmishers seem to be a little too accurate right now, especially versus artillery? I do want them to hit, but not “that” quickly.

light infantry: Phew, so my short text on the tasks of light troops in post 139 was not enough for you? Anything you’d like to know in particular?

@ Splenyi

banners: Thanks for the banners! They look great but they’re a bit too big for my taste. Certainly they’re great for PR exactly “because” of their size.

hussars: Except for the very cold white (instead of the beige-brown-white), the hussars’ uniforms look very good! Great job! But they still lack some hazardous air in my opinion. Probably its because of the face expression, their very pale skin, and the un-hussary hair cut. Is it possible to give them the typical hussar-hair-bunches, dangling in front of the ears, instead of the oversized curls? (Honestly, I can’t assess how difficult that is, so don’t take me seriously if I’m asking for the impossible) And perhaps some “rouge” on the nose or cheeks would give them a bit more drunken and … well… freakish look? J I wouldn’t go for powdered hair for hussars. To be exact I wouldn’t go for powdered hair, not even to speak of whigs, for any unit on campaign. However, thehabsburg regulaments required the regular soldiers to powder their hair at least twice a week (not for fashion reasons, but for health care (according to the knowledge of the time). I have no clue if soldiers really did what they were supposed to do, I really doubt they did. And if, we wouldn't see the snow-white hair, but rather a little bit of grey added to the natural hair colour.

credits: Very cool. Hopefully we will need to add some more names to it before release. I still want to keep the credits on the loading screen as well. The credits-button depends on the players’ will. But noone can ever escape the loading screen!

@ Filip von Zietek
Welcome back to the forum! Hm. We will not have the Kur-Saxon army in the upcoming pack yet. I know you want to see some Polish, right? I’m afraid you might have to wait a bit longer… but you could try to beseech and convince Splenyi. J

@ megasalexandros
Thanks once more for your tricorns. J I’m totally happy with them. I just kept wondering about which hat would be more authentic for the 1750s in the other thread. I didn’t mean to produce any kind of trouble of quarrel and I won’t touch that topic anymore.

@ Ziuk
Have you tried out the mod in a multiplayer battle yet? Honestly, for me personally there’s more than enough chaos in it, and even more chaos than in any mod I’ve played so far.

By the way, from a realism-perspective, a time-scale is also very problematic. For example, you can’t make artillery reload fast enough because of the animation-limits. This means that there are unrealistic long intervals between each shot that can be exploited by other troops. The game only gets more hectic and exploitable.

General notes

I will be a bit less active in the boards the next time. That’s mainly because I want to spend less time on writing and more time on modding. Here’s my to do list from which you can judge that the next version will still take some time, and I guess that I will come up with yet another beta. Anyway, we’re not a company that tries to sell stuff, we’re a bunch of modders and players :

- test small hussar skirmisher units with carbines (the normal sized hussars will get a tidier formation for splenyi J )
- decrease artillery accuracy for longer and medium distances
- tweak musketry (especially versus cavalry)
- reduce cohesion loss for movement
- check if there’s a way to get rid of riderless horses (first place to look at: animations; thanks for the tip, mAIOR)
- draw unit cards for all units
- get rid of voices
- overwork sounds, add some new for melees
- make an ordinary unit available as the always visible “general” and the general available as a hideable unit, if possible
- determine cavalry and light infantry unit sizes
- think about point costs
- loading screen, ev. intro video
- credits (the last thing before release, in order not to forget any potential late beta-testers)
- find correct coar of arms for all factions
- re-calibrate experience
- boost light infantry’s morale (same as grenadiers)
- give artillery a mixture of light and heavy canister (more punch for artillery at shorter ranges)

I was just working on some unit cards when I wondered how old the average soldier in mid 18th century would be. I guess that there’s been quite a variance amongst oridnary privates, but still I might actually be painting unrepresentative and old veterans …

[FilipVonZietek]

Kaunitz actually roundshot creating chaos among columns can be used in interesting way. Unit under heavy art fire loses its formation which reduces its firepower and make it hard to maneouver. This effect can represent supression that can be exploited by the enemy, for example charging cavalry.

[mAIOR]

Soo. I’m kind of loosing the thread. A split up in subboards would be nice indeed. One for models, one for mechanics and mechanics “research”, one for game reports, one for further research on other stuff (military culture, etc.). I will catch up on what's required for a WIP hosted mod.

Well, iirc, your mod is potentially workable into that since you now have new skins, new mechanics and hopefully soon, new maps (haven't had the time to examine this further. My thesis overviewer is keeping me busy...) the mod is pretty much a complete overall. Which is good because that way I don't need to keep erasing all those uniform bits people are so keen on :p

@ mAIOR

video: Thanks for the video. I know how much work a video means.

Not at all. I enjoy doing these videos and your mod deserves it.

Some remarks:

The best part of it was you explaining in detail that your attack columns will not get hit by my arty because of the small bump… Anyway, I think it’s nice that columns get more disorganised by artillery fire than lines, because of the (admittedly very silly looking) cannonball-men-bowling.

I agree that was one of the best parts and me and Filip have been discussing the bowling effect and Filip correctly noted that albeit the silliness of the effect, it's actually a good representation of suppression caused by artillery. Which is something to think about. I still think that pretty much an entire battalion being struck down looks silly (especially since it killed only 2 game models or so) but it might be the only way to represent suppression.

You light cav was not killed by my btns’ musket fire (other instances have proven how ineffective musketry is against cavalry…). It was because my grenzers were still fighting for 2-3 seconds while your cav has already been routed. Thus my grenzers managed to strike at your routed cav, leading to lots and lots of casualties. L

hum... Your view on it is probably correct after closer inspection of the video.

I didn’t know that all troops were visible while crossing the river. Should have known though. My interest in river maps is waning. L If we (mAIOR? J ) will ever be able to create some maps, we might try to find a way around that.

There is a way around this. You just take out the submerged bridges and replace them with overwater land bridges. Like a break in the river. Borodino has a lot of non grassed areas. In a battle I had yesterday vs Filip both our armies got visible at a point. Now, that I can easilly change I think. Once I can pick up the maps I'll see what I can do.

Your line battalions are not supposed to fire “through” your skirmishers, and you also see 1 (=4) skirmishers die because you do it. I don’t know what kind of CA-whizz kid came up with that strange idea in the first place…

well, I was referring to the fact that skirmishers in open order were probably seeking cover lying down or doing something to get out of the way of an incoming volley. I know my skirmishers died but I was left with no option. It was an emergency measure.

Judging from the video, skirmishers seem to be a little too accurate right now, especially versus artillery? I do want them to hit, but not “that” quickly.

Well, I don't know if they are too accurate. They do fire quite slowly. And if you allow marksman to get in range of your artillery, that's your fault :p i think increasing their size to two coys and reducing accuracy a bit might be a workaround for this. I want light infantry to be a force to be reckoned with. As they are now, they influence too little of the battle.

Now, as far as my videos go, i try to focus on tactics and what is going on but I move around too much and I think I get a bit sidetracked sometimes. Trying to improve but I need more experience.

light infantry: Phew, so my short text on the tasks of light troops in post 139 was not enough for you? Anything you’d like to know in particular?

Well, I'm more interested in the organisation aspects of light infantry particularly in the Austrian front. The Austrians, as far as i could find, had two kinds of light infantry formations. The Grenzers and something similar to the Prussian's Freikorps. Now, other than this information, I could find nothing else on the organisation and tactics and employment of these troops.

General notes


- decrease artillery accuracy for longer and medium distances
- tweak musketry (especially versus cavalry)
- reduce cohesion loss for movement
- check if there’s a way to get rid of riderless horses (first place to look at: animations; thanks for the tip, mAIOR)
- make an ordinary unit available as the always visible “general” and the general available as a hideable unit, if possible
- determine cavalry and light infantry unit sizes
- re-calibrate experience
- boost light infantry’s morale (same as grenadiers)
- give artillery a mixture of light and heavy canister (more punch for artillery at shorter ranges)

I took the liberty to take out those objectives I find less important. the mod is very good but sometimes you suffer some gameplay mechanics malus and it just breaks the spell. I had a battle vs Filip last night in which I lost. Now, loosing in itself is not an issue but the fact that my guns got stuck in a forest and Filip's artillery continuously broke my concentration attempts was annoying. I think this should happen as artillery was supposed to do it but the effect is too strong. That's why right now, I think artillery balance so far is the most important thing. That and probably cavalry morale a bit higher or rather, tweaking the bonus/malus they're exposed to is probably enough. The cavalry size for 1vs1 engagements for me is perfect. Cavalry is dangerous and in a realistic proportion.
Also, we noticed light units in skirmishing order don't recover cohesion. This should be changed or rather, they shouldn't suffer the effects of organisation as other troops. They are not used in the same way so, Skirmishing should probably lock their cohesion on high so they don't suffer morale and accuracy malus from exhaustion.

so all in all, things are shaping up =). I'll try next week to post the battle between me and Filip but it was a rather long affair. Roughly 1:30h of actual battle. I think you'll like it Kaunitz for it was a battle of manoeuvre and deceit more than actual firefights.



Cheers...

[FilipVonZietek]

Kaunitz try increasing spaceing betwean ranks for cavalry, it may help to lower casulties from artillery.

[Megasalexandros]

Kaunitz are you an artist? I mean are those your own drawings cause they are simply amazing!

As for the tricorns no problem, i was only worrying if you would be "insulted' with my re-arrangements of their shape that why i was trying to explain why i did them.

And for the Austrians, splenyi and the others who are interested, if you want particular models for particular Austrians i can make them ,in a while, if you can point to me with pictures for eg , this and this regiment

[Kaunitz]

@mAIOR:

Thanks for pointing out that skirmishers don't recover cohesion. I will definitively look at that.

Concerning terrain: I think we need to check which terrain-types count as "wood", "scrub" and "long" grass (so that troops can hide in them) and then only stick to them. I fear that it's not possible to change the terrain-classes, so that, for example, you can make a river crossing count as "wood" for hiding-purposes while still using the "water" movement penalty...

And, yes, the mechanics are on top of my list anyway. So I guess the next preview version will contain the reworked mechanics and some new unit models and skins. That's the priority. Polishing and additional "fluff" and "candy" can come later.

@Filip von Zietek
Increasing the rank spacing? Well, it could help a bit, but I think it just looks very silly and gives a "double-squadron" even more depth than it should have if we think of the squadrons being drawn up in a single line with each in 2 ranks.

As for the Poles in the Kur-Saxon army, it seems as if the biggest part of the soldiers were indeed Saxon "Landeskinder" (Marcus von Salisch speaks of 90%). The exception were two pulks of Ulans ("Wilczewski" later "Schiebel", and "Rudnicki"; on Kronoskaf you find these two: Graf Renard and Rudnicki) which seem to have primarily consisted of Poles. Together with a cuirassier and three chevauxlegers-regiments, they served in the Saxon cavalry corps that joined the operations of the habsburg army. The Uhlans were primariliy and very successfully used for petit guerre, also forming avantgardes together with hussars and "croats"/Grenzer. Marcus von Salisch mentions a few incidences in which the Ulans seem to have overtrumped the Prussian (or also: protestant hungarian) hussars and taken many of them prisoners. The Ulans' indispensability for small war is also underlined by the fact that their size has been increased in 1758 and 1760.

Really, the closer you look at warfare during the Seven Years war, the more you will find that it was focused around small war, with big battles being the exception.

@megasalexandros
No, I'm not an artist. I'm just interested in the history of art. And I need to come up with better stuff than that already posted. I'm quite unsatisfied with it. It looks very disproporional, and the soldiers lack individuality, character and the 18th century air (I mean look how much character my new avatar has!). It all needs to be developed slowly.
I will do my best to support your modding of the habsburg army. Because of all the hungarian infantry, grenzer and hussars, I consider it to be one of the most interesting and multifaceted army in terms of uniforms (if you can use that term at all ... ).

---------------------------

I've just found some interesting paintings:

http://www.auction.de/_scripts/aucti...817&language=e
(Trenck Pandours)

http://www.auction.de/_scripts/aucti...817&language=e
They show a scene of entertainment and a recruitment-scene, early 1760s. These soldiers and girls look cute with their big shiny eyes, don't they? In the second painting, not only the mother, but also the dog is mourning. Allegedly the paintings stem from the "Laudon" room in Schloss Hainfeld in Styria.

This Laudon-room must be a little treasure box for anyone interested in the Seven Years War, because it contains a series of (very big!) paintings from 1762/1763 that show the battles of Kundersdorf, Hochkirch, and Domstettl. You can't find them anywhere on the internet, and the Schloss/castle itself is private property and not open for the public (and not exactly close to Vienna ). I only stumbled over this info when I was reading an article by Hans Bleckwenn, where he refered to one of the paintings which allegedly shows Grenzer-infantry acting in close order, keeping up platoon fire while advancing.

[FilipVonZietek]

Kaunitz i i have nowhere said that i want to see polish troops. Polish uhlans were composed of tatars so they werent even polish. Mainly i want to see saxons and their fearsome cuirasers.

Saxon-Polish cavalry corps (raised and payed by polish crown) commanded by general Nostitz

3 chevauleger regiments

Prinz Karl
Prinz Albrecht
Graf Brühl (catpured 9 banners at Kolin)

1 heavy cavalry regiment (dragoons probably)

2 uhlan regiments

Graf Rudnicki
Graf Renard

[mAIOR]

@mAIOR:

Thanks for pointing out that skirmishers don't recover cohesion. I will definitively look at that.

Concerning terrain: I think we need to check which terrain-types count as "wood", "scrub" and "long" grass (so that troops can hide in them) and then only stick to them. I fear that it's not possible to change the terrain-classes, so that, for example, you can make a river crossing count as "wood" for hiding-purposes while still using the "water" movement penalty...

Concerning the terrain, Filling the terrain with long grass is as easy as opening the corresponding file with GIMP and paint it red or green.

woods are another matter. As for river corssings, I was suggesting creating a sirfaced land bridge and cover it in grass so troops can remain hidden.



Cheers...

Cheers...

[Kaunitz]

Hm but the question remains if one can cover it in grass and still give it a high movement malus? So: are the grass/wood/scrub categories (as "hiding" categories) seperate from the light wood/shallow water/road/ etc etc. categories (the "movement penalty" categories)? I guess not...

If we wanted to give river crossings a movement penalty, we would need to cover them in woods. And then different unit-types (cavalry, artillery, horse artillery, and infantry are differentiated here) will all be affected in their movement speed as if they were walking through a wood, not as if they were fording a river.

Anyway, let's cross the bridge when we're there.

@Splenyi:

If you have finished a faction yet, could you send it to me? I'd love to work on the mod looking at proper 7YW models. I can't stand the ugly vanilla pale Napoleonics anymore. If not, no problem. Haste makes waste.

ps. More grenzers: http://katalog.auktionshaus-wendl.co...87/auk/72/p/1/

[FilipVonZietek]

I have uploaded some screens from my battle vs Maior.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...shots/?tab=all

This particular photo shows both our armies engaged in combat, its pretty similiar to the painting of Kolin Kaunitz posted earlier.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7558294...9158/lightbox/

Enjoy

[Splenyi]

I could send the mod to you as it is now, the units I have finished are:

PRUSSIA
Chasseurs
Line Infantry
Grenadiers

Hussars
Dragoons
Cuirassiers

12-pdr Cannons

FRANCE
Line Infantry
Grenadiers

Hussars

12-pdr Cannons

Hesse-Kassel
Chasseurs
Line Infantry
Grenadiers

12-pdr Cannons

SWEDEN
Line Infantry

Hussars

As you can see, only Prussia has been finished. I can't finished France (no cavalry models) or Hesse (no Cuirassier model). I can nearly finish the Swedes, but I need a new Grenadier model (French model, with the Prussian Grenadier cap). So I don't know how I will finish another nation unless Megasalexandros or Wangrin can put the Prussian Grenadier cap on the French model???

[FilipVonZietek]

I suggest you just assemble lacking unit using model parts you currently have at your disposal.
Wrong kind of tricorn will surely blend in better than shakos.

[Splenyi]

I suggest you just assemble lacking unit using model parts you currently have at your disposal.
Wrong kind of tricorn will surely blend in better than shakos.

I have no unit parts, just whole unit models.

And it's not the wrong tricorns I'm worried about, it's the wrong coats.

The units I haven't created are:

French Chasseurs (NPI are developing this unit)
French Dragoons (NPI are developing this unit)
French Cuirassiers (NPI are developing this unit)
Hessen Dragoons (I will start development in this unit tonight)
Hessen Cuirassiers (I will start developing this unit tonight)
Swedish Chasseurs (Will start on this later)
Swedish Grenadiers (No model to work with this)
Swedish Dragoons (No model to work with this)
Swedish Cuirassiers (No model to work with this)
Swedish Artillery (will work on these much later)

I haven't work on the mod for a few days, mainly because of the lack of feedback and assistance. But I'm back now.

The rest of the French models are being made by NPI. Unfortunately their whole team is working on IS at the moment, so these wont come anytime soon. France will be a while I think.

I started work on the Hessians again, and have already finished their hussar. Now I just have to make the dragoons (simple recolouring of the Prussian model) and the cuirassiers (much harder; will need to heavily re-textrure the dragoon mesh). So the Hessians are the closest to being finished.

All the swedes, except the Hussars, have the exact same coat. The only difference between the infantry and cavalry uniforms are a slight difference in coat colour, and the cavlary wear boots instead of gaiters. So I wont be able to make the rest of the Swedish cavalry until I get the French Infantry mesh with cavalry boots. And I wont be able to do the Swedish Grenadiers until I can get the Prussian Grenadier cap on the french infantry mesh.

I think that's it. Just letting everyone know what's going on.

EDIT: KAUNITZ, I will send you the mod soon with Hesse and Prussia done, and then you can make a list of changes you want for the textures. I think that will be the easiest. And then you can also make your own changes to them if you want to. Would you also be able to have a look at my Workshop Folder here on TWC and tell me which option of the Prussian coat colour you like the most?

[Prince of Essling]

ps. More grenzers: http://katalog.auktionshaus-wendl.co...87/auk/72/p/1/

Attached are a mix of Austrian Grenzer from 1756 & 1742

[Prince of Essling]

Grenzer from 1762.

[FilipVonZietek]

Maby than give french cuirasers prussian cuiraser model, colour it properly (do the same with other missing units) and it will do for now. With time you can replace those borrowed models with proper ones.

[Whaler99]

Hey Slpenyi, keep up the good work, we all cant wait to see the final units.

[Kaunitz]

Hey everyone. Sorry I can't be as responsive as I'd like to be, but in my spare time I try to concentrate on DB-modding. Making cavalry more "resistant" versus artillery fire is not as easy as it sounds. The champions league semi finals are not very helpful either. (Go, Barcelona, go!)

Sorry Splenyi, I've kind of lost the grip of all the units and detailed questions. "Just do it!" You don't need my okay for every detail. Indeed I think that the best solution would be if you could send me the pack every now and then so that I can be the "beta-tester" and point out if there's something that could be improved in my personal opinion/taste. It's easier for me to tell you the few things that I don't like than the many things that I like. I will then also be able to better judge what's missing and we can go through the factions step by step and at once. I get confused if we try to find models for 10 regiments of 4 factions simultaneously. The Prussian coat colour: are 1,2,3 really different coat colours? For me all the blues are fine. But I'd make the waistcoats a bit lighter (only Nr. 3 is a bit brownish, but still very dark). So please just send me the pack with the Prussians and Hessians and then we can polish and finalize these two factions and find solutions for the missing Hesse cavalry. I propose to discuss these things via PM or even via steam, since I'm always loosing track quite quickly in the current chaotic KP-thread.

Thanks for the Grenzer-material, Prince. I've got quite a small collection of contemporary uniform plates showing members of Grenzinfantryregiments (including some grenadiers) and Grenz-hussars already. I can send it to you, Splenyi and megasalexandros once he's starting to work on the Habsburg army.

[mAIOR]

Hey all, I've started work on the battle of Lobositz. Thatnks to Desaix pointers, I now have a way to place my professional skills at the service of making NTW maps. basically, I have a tool now that extracts DEMs from Google Earth directly so that I have a precise (for our scale at least) georreferenced model of the battlefield. Probably won't be able to show you some results tonight but tomorrow I'll have at least the height data sorted out.



Cheers...