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Thread: The Great War 5.1 | General Suggestions and Questions Thread

  1. #1

    Default The Great War 5.1 | General Suggestions and Questions Thread

    Hello. I have downloaded this mod and its quite good. The modding folks have done a good job with the artwork, the new units, the economy, etc. However, I'd like to propose some enhancements.

    1. Start the game earlier, e.g. January 16, 1914 with everyone at peace. All the great and lesser powers should be trading with each other and not hate each other yet. Belguim in particular should be absolutely neutral. Force the major powers to declare war on Belguim if that's what they are going to do.
    2. Increase the navies. Britain had 21 dreadnoughts and 10 battle cruisers. Germany had 13 dreadnoughts and 9 or so battle cruisers. The other powers less of course. Pre-dreadnoughts should be in the game but not recruitable as they were obsolete by 1914.
    3. Only basic forces to begin the game.
    4. Structure an event, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand using LUA scripts to force the major powers into war by the end of July, 1914.
    5. Once war is declared, mobilize the armies using LUA scripts.
    6. This next item is bit long so bear with me. In 1914, Germany mobilized 25 active infantry corps and 13 reserve corps. Each corp consisted of (basically, there were a few exceptions like the Guard corps) 2 infantry divisions. Each infantry division had two infantry brigades, a field artillery brigade and a cavalry regiment. Each infantry brigade consisted of 3 infantry battalions, while the artillery brigade had two artillery regiments.

    So for the active corps, 25 corps = 50 infantry divisions = 100 infantry brigades = 300 infantry battalions PLUS 2 artillery brigades = 100 artillery regiments PLUS 50 cavalry regiments.

    Reserve corps were similarly structured, no cavalry though. They had jagers and pioneer battalions though.

    Battalions match the scale of the game.

    So altogether, when the Germans complete mobilization (over several turns of course), they should have something like 658 units:

    456 infantry battalions, 126 artillery, 50 cavalry, 13 jager and 13 pioneer.

    So you could build that many units with LUA scripts. The maintenance costs would have to be basically zero though. And you could not recruit new units (why would you need to?). The 1914 armies simply did not last. They adapted.

    So, for example, let's look at the BEF. These guys are good, very good. But once they're killed off, they're not replaceable. I mean you can fill the ranks of course but they're not the same quality nor do they have the same elan or training. Ditto the French Colonial Corps. Ditto the Prussian Guard corps.

    So I think these troops ought to be mobilized by script but once they're on the map, they have basically zero maintenance (live off the land?) and once they're dead, they're dead. Like the pre-dreadnoughts. Only new units could be recruited.

    So what does everyone think?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    658 units is far too many...I have 5 full stacks at the moment with another 3 stacks cumulatively throughout my empire (its 1916) and that enough for me. Nobody needs, wants or could manage 658 units
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  3. #3
    B-DizL's Avatar TGW Lead Modeller
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Because of the insane amount of work it takes to make the mod and the complex scripting required to pull off what we already have we arent looking to heavily modify the core game mechanics. We decided the most important thing was to provide a core historical scenario that best represents the way the war played out.

    Many of these things may be addressed somewhere down the road but mostly these type of game changes should be done as a sub mod as many people arent really interested in playing the game this way.

    My mini mod has increased the navy and starting armies quite a bit and if you look at the scripting its pretty easy to change these to your particular liking.

    And yeah 658 units is too much. Remember many things need to be changed for the sake of gameplay.

  4. #4
    duerker von eden's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    yes but i man had 9000 russian malitia

  5. #5
    Vighardur's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    One other thing, though, that might be interesting...just watched a documentary on WWI Tech and perhaps one of the deployable defenses could be Barbed Wire! It was seen as a fairly important development and is supposed to be esp. great against cavalry, but, of course, also slowed infantry down. Don't know if it is doable, but an idea to think about (unless you thought of it and rejected it already).

  6. #6

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    1. Ship models.

    2. Ship models.

    3. Give Warsaw to Russia (why on Earth is it owned by Germany at the start of the campaign?)

    4. Ship models.

    5. If possible, mod the Egypt campaign of Napoleon to show the battle between the British, Ottomans and Arabs *cue Lawrence of Arabia theme tune*

    6. More machine guns at the start of the campaign. These things were used in the 1860s, you know! A submod could fix this, though. Don't mention "gameplay reasons" to me, my idea of good gameplay is mowing down men with machine guns. There is a reason that both armies soon dug in in the West.

    Did I mention ship models? At present I auto-resolve all naval battles to avoid collapsing in laughter at Napoleonic navies fighting in the First World War, and I believe that unlike the campaign map, they can indeed be changed. Steamships already exist in NTW, and if a land unit model can be changed, why not a naval one?
    Last edited by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov; December 12, 2013 at 04:00 PM.
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  7. #7

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    WWI warships had the huge advantage over their age of sail predecessors with steel hulls and giant rotatable guns. But that's the problem. The ships would have to have giant turrets on them but Napoleon's engine or whatever doesn't have any way for those to be pulled off. The guns in Napoleon are fixed to broadside and that's how they have to stay. Not to mention the naval battles are next to useless anyway.

  8. #8
    B-DizL's Avatar TGW Lead Modeller
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    1. Not possible yet

    2. Not possible yet

    3. For balancing reasons.

    4. Not possible yet

    5.

    6. Id like them to be available earlier aswell but currently they are very OP in auto resolves so to prevent steamrolling they take some tech to become available. This is very easy to mod tho so by all means mod this for yourself.

    Did I mention ship models? At present I auto-resolve all naval battles to avoid collapsing in laughter at Napoleonic navies fighting in the First World War, and I believe that unlike the campaign map, they can indeed be changed. Steamships already exist in NTW, and if a land unit model can be changed, why not a naval one?
    If you actually tried playing them you would see they are modded quite a bit and play just like a WW1 naval battle does, fast paced, extremely brutal and unforgiving. I personally love playing them along with many others who play this mod.

    You act as if we havent even considered trying to get ship models in, which is easy to think when you dont know how to mod and have never worked on a mod before. We have considered at least 3 different ways of getting them in game and have always concluded there are much more constructive uses of our time. Its not worth putting all the hours to make and texture the models if we cant get the ships to work any better and the modded version of them we have now.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Actually, no. World War 1 naval battles involved ships firing at each other at very long distances (over 2km) and often not doing a great deal of damage. Most shells fired missed. The ships had turrets, were heavily armoured and did not break apart in a few seconds of battle. Less "extremely brutal" than a long, slow terror, with crew praying that a shell would not land on top of them. At present, battles seem like a hectic, annihilating mess, with far too many ships being lost and far too many shells hitting their targets fired from guns with far too short range. I don't know where you got the idea that a World War 1 naval engagement was "fast paced". If naval battles were anywhere near that grisly, being a sailor would have been a death sentence. Admirals would have refused to enter the range of the enemy's guns.

    I suppose part of the problem is that NTW is not suited to this time period. World War 1 was not fought as a series of open field battles after 1914 in the West. Even in the East, battles were not fought as in Napoleonic times. This is also true for naval warfare.

    "Balancing reasons"? Russia was...well...bigger than Germany. The Germans called France and Russia the "ring of steel" for a reason. Wars are usually "unbalanced". The Central Powers are a harder game - so what? Better players can play them for more challenge, while beginners can play the Russians themselves.

    Implementing naval models would be a much better use of your time than the Lawrence of Arabia campaign.

    Also, poison gas clears far too quickly.
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  10. #10
    B-DizL's Avatar TGW Lead Modeller
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    So making naval battles, which you dont even enjoying playing, look a bit better is more important than adding an entirely new campaign the gives the mod a much needed global feel?

    You realize there was only 1 major naval battle fought in the enitre war right? The battle of jutland. Which was fought over the course of about a day. During that time about 9,000 sailors died between the 2 forces, 25 ships were destroyed coming to about 175,000 tons being sunk. Thats fast paced and brutal if you ask me.

    Also even though they had turrets they still used line tactics almost exactly the same as the NTW engine uses, see this map...
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    I'd say we've gotten about as close to the real thing as possible with our mod.

    As for Warsaw, if we didnt give it to Germany they wouldnt have any large cities on the eastern front making Russia much more likely to steamroll Germany at the beginning of the game.

    EDIT: Plus there isnt a model converter for naval models and we cant get rid of the cannons and sails anyway so its pointless even discussing this at this point.
    Last edited by B-DizL; December 13, 2013 at 11:32 AM.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    That diagram shows the ships opening fire at 14km! The British ships fired for 9 minutes at Jutland without hitting anything. The battle was fought completely differently from Trafalgar, or any Napoleonic naval engagement. Though ships still fought in lines, the distances were massively greater. I do now understand that implementing models is very difficult, but at the moment naval battles suffer from the same problems as land battles in vanilla NTW: weapons are far too accurate and deadly. An entire fleet would not explode after 5 minutes of battle if engaging at long range! No modern dreadnoughts were sunk at Jutland, though some were badly damaged. The Germans lost a pre-dreadnought, but it was obsolete.
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  12. #12
    Aanker's Avatar Concordant
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    A real battle would have gone on for months. The engagements we try to depict would have lasted for a day or so. Neither engine nor player can manage that, so we had to condense battles and work from their "feel".

    Naval battles during World War I were unpleasant affairs with high stakes involved. Following the condensation principle, we have to take into account that we need to shorten the battle time (from two days to an hour or so at most), and we also need to keep in mind that N:TW are termination fights, unless you make a conscious effort to flee the battlefield, which you can. Nothing forces you to stay in battle and fight the enemy to the last ship. The Germans didn't do that at Jutland, for the reason that it would probably have been a bad idea. As you mentioned some dreadnoughts were heavily damaged and a few notable larger ships, such as Invincible, went down. But these were the results of long-range engagements where visibility was not always working in the favour of the combatants. You forgot to mention the battles where the two sides actually came close to each other, such as the night-time engagements during the German withdrawal from Jutland. The reason the German navy stayed in port for the remainder of the war was not because the German sailors were seasick, it was because an ultimate all-out engagement between the two navies would have been extremely costly.

    Additionally, I usually have very long naval battles. The key is to hold distance and carefully pick the engagements.

    Land battles work according to the same principles. They are already longer than vanilla N:TW battles, provided the AI is not in command and decides to commit glorious suicide by launching an unsupported bayonet charge into well-defended lines... But in reality that would have yielded a quick, gruesome result, too. When the AI actually fights properly, or when fighting a human player, you can expect battles to last a very long time and turn into the kind of grinding fight we are familiar with from World War I. Again, we tried to capture the essence of the battles, so the earlier eras more or less force the player into using a combination of defence and grinding offense, whereas the later era is more suited to attacking thanks to tanks, more precise artillery, more specialized infantry etc.
    Last edited by Aanker; December 14, 2013 at 11:07 AM.

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  13. #13
    B-DizL's Avatar TGW Lead Modeller
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    ^^ Cant be said any better than that

  14. #14

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    If I may, I have a suggestion. My machine guns have a habit of not shooting if I give them an order so how about having machine guns limber and unlimber but have it take like a second?

  15. #15

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Quote Originally Posted by Aanker View Post
    A real battle would have gone on for months. The engagements we try to depict would have lasted for a day or so. Neither engine nor player can manage that, so we had to condense battles and work from their "feel".

    Naval battles during World War I were unpleasant affairs with high stakes involved. Following the condensation principle, we have to take into account that we need to shorten the battle time (from two days to an hour or so at most), and we also need to keep in mind that N:TW are termination fights, unless you make a conscious effort to flee the battlefield, which you can. Nothing forces you to stay in battle and fight the enemy to the last ship. The Germans didn't do that at Jutland, for the reason that it would probably have been a bad idea. As you mentioned some dreadnoughts were heavily damaged and a few notable larger ships, such as Invincible, went down. But these were the results of long-range engagements where visibility was not always working in the favour of the combatants. You forgot to mention the battles where the two sides actually came close to each other, such as the night-time engagements during the German withdrawal from Jutland. The reason the German navy stayed in port for the remainder of the war was not because the German sailors were seasick, it was because an ultimate all-out engagement between the two navies would have been extremely costly.

    Additionally, I usually have very long naval battles. The key is to hold distance and carefully pick the engagements.

    Land battles work according to the same principles. They are already longer than vanilla N:TW battles, provided the AI is not in command and decides to commit glorious suicide by launching an unsupported bayonet charge into well-defended lines... But in reality that would have yielded a quick, gruesome result, too. When the AI actually fights properly, or when fighting a human player, you can expect battles to last a very long time and turn into the kind of grinding fight we are familiar with from World War I. Again, we tried to capture the essence of the battles, so the earlier eras more or less force the player into using a combination of defence and grinding offense, whereas the later era is more suited to attacking thanks to tanks, more precise artillery, more specialized infantry etc.
    I thought that the German fleet stayed in port because engaging the British fleet directly would have meant defeat, while remaining a "fleet in being" would force the British to maintain a large blockade.

    The absence of machine guns in the early game makes early battles far too Napoleonic for me, but I have now modded my game to fix that.

    Why exactly is removing masts and general man-o-war design impossible? It's a shame that FOTS cannot be modded this way; the ships there are far more appropriate. And why are there ship models in the models thread?

    The Germans planned to knock out France before the "Russian steamroller" mobilised. Russia should be in a stronger position in the east - and that includes owning Warsaw. I have also altered by game to reflect this.
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  16. #16
    Aanker's Avatar Concordant
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov View Post
    I thought that the German fleet stayed in port because engaging the British fleet directly would have meant defeat, while remaining a "fleet in being" would force the British to maintain a large blockade.
    It was because the Germans could not have sustained a naval war of attrition, and so keeping the fleet proved a more viable alternative. The idea was to pluck away British elements one by one (and not engage the entire Royal Navy in one major battle) but even then, the costs would have proven unsustainable for the Germans who had fewer ships to begin with and could not build them as fast as the British could.

    The absence of machine guns in the early game makes early battles far too Napoleonic for me, but I have now modded my game to fix that.
    Most nations should have machineguns researched but if not then that's something to take up with Sama of course.

    Why exactly is removing masts and general man-o-war design impossible? It's a shame that FOTS cannot be modded this way; the ships there are far more appropriate. And why are there ship models in the models thread?
    Models are quite simply very complex things. It's hard to explain this, because I'm personally not too familiar with the details, but the animation rigging (e.g. not the masts and sails and such, those belong to known files which can be altered by plain text edits) and deeper 3D data (damage model, collision model, cannon placement, cannon behaviour etc.) are completely unexplored and incompletely understood. We know that some files do some things, but we don't know the specifics or how to alter those files, let alone what to put into them should we be able to alter them. Additionally, we do not know how far the boundaries of hard coded game mechanics reach, so investing time in naval battle remodelling - at least for now - could turn into a huge waste.

    The Germans planned to knock out France before the "Russian steamroller" mobilised. Russia should be in a stronger position in the east - and that includes owning Warsaw. I have also altered by game to reflect this.
    In a sense this is true but we also have to remember that whenever you are not playing as Germany, Germany needs to be strong and entirely capable of dealing with Russia. With Warsaw in its hands (and thus the entire associated province) the Russians would have an extremely potent stack-producing city right at the gates of Germany.

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  17. #17

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    I still think that finding the boundaries of hard coded game mechanics would be a very good idea, just to see if it is possible to change those preposterous ship models.

    I meant having machine guns in starting armies.

    How about reducing Russia's income and starting armies? Russia was quite backward and demobilised. Implementing unrest and the Revolution may be impossible, but that could also weaken them. Giving Warsaw to the Germans just messes up the map.
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  18. #18

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Quote Originally Posted by Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov View Post
    I still think that finding the boundaries of hard coded game mechanics would be a very good idea, just to see if it is possible to change those preposterous ship models.
    Consider the perspective of our team, the modders. It's not a question of good idea or not, it's a question of limited time and how to best allocate that time.

    My personal opinion? Naval battles models will take several people and a great deal of time to implement, and there's a large amount of uncertainty involved. If we did get naval models, the only real difference it would make is some nice screenshots and shifting the complaints from "why no naval models" to "why are the naval battles so unrealistic". People rarely play naval battles in TGW, and that won't change with or without models. The basic gameplay of TGW naval battles could probably be improved if we figured out some more advanced techniques, but they won't be to the level where you'd want them - say FOTS level. And frankly, the naval battles are a lot of fun right now, more fun than vanilla.

    How about reducing Russia's income and starting armies? Russia was quite backward and demobilised. Implementing unrest and the Revolution may be impossible, but that could also weaken them. Giving Warsaw to the Germans just messes up the map.
    The point is to bolstor Germany, not weaken Russia. We want Germany to have the resources necessary to fight off not just Russia, but France. Depriving them of Warsaw deprives them of a major asset. This really isn't up for discussion, but that's the sort of thing submods are made for.
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  19. #19

    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Germany isn't being deprived of Warsaw. It's being served it with some fine wine and breadsticks. "Deprived" implies that it actually had it in the first place (in 1914). I understand why this has been done, though.

    If you did implement naval models, I would be impressed enough not to complain about lack of realism for at least 6 weeks.
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  20. #20
    B-DizL's Avatar TGW Lead Modeller
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    Default Re: Some proposed enhancements

    Hmm, 6 weeks is a long time.... but it would probably take at least that long to get the models done and in game

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