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Thread: Research & Techs Ideas

  1. #1
    Trig's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Research & Techs Ideas

    Ok y'all. Help us out with them big brains of yours.

    All vanilla techs are enabled in ETW by default. But for v3.7, not the v3.6 we're working on now, but once this is done, we'll likely be adding Civil War specific techs too. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. I dunno.

    Anyway. If you've got brilliant ideas, this is the time to post them. What should those techs be and how should they affect the game (if it's implementable).

    Things like:

    Research "Emancipation of the slaves", grants the chance to recruit afroamerican troops if you're US and grants British aid if you're CS.

    Research "Gatling gun", grants the recruitment of the, well, Gatling gun.

    Research "Repeating rifles", grants recruitment of units armed with repeating rifles.

    Research "Conscription", grants recruitment of conscripts units.

    ...

    Your ideas?

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  2. #2

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by Trig View Post
    Ok y'all. Help us out with them big brains of yours.

    All vanilla techs are enabled in ETW by default. But for v3.7, not the v3.6 we're working on now, but once this is done, we'll likely be adding Civil War specific techs too. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. I dunno.

    Anyway. If you've got brilliant ideas, this is the time to post them. What should those techs be and how should they affect the game (if it's implementable).

    Things like:

    Research "Emancipation of the slaves", grants the chance to recruit afroamerican troops if you're US and grants British aid if you're CS.

    Research "Gatling gun", grants the recruitment of the, well, Gatling gun.

    Research "Repeating rifles", grants recruitment of units armed with repeating rifles.

    Research "Conscription", grants recruitment of conscripts units.

    ...

    Your ideas?
    Seems legit, and naval techs, Like Improved Iron plating, Blockade Runners, etc.
    And how about for agriculture things like "improved cotton gin" , and for educational/intelligence how about King cotton diplomacy. I'm just brainstorming however.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Research "Battlefield Medicine", grants faster Unit recovery/resupply times.

    The civil war had a few breakthroughs in battlefield medicine. Anesthesia was used for the first time during the Civil War and it was during this time period the first emergency care and evacuation system of the wounded was put into play.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    By unit recovery I meant unit replenishment after a battle.

  5. #5
    Prince of Judah's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Allow the CS to recruit freed Blacks if they succeed in emancipation. It was a hot topic of debate during the brief history of the CSA whether to arm and free slaves. As the war turned sour and manpower was low the pro-voices got louder. They did start emancipating slaves and arming them in early 1865 but by then it was too late and the war was about to end.
    CSA: Automatic British Aid, More Manpower
    but gets Social Unrest from the planters.

    Also note that technically British aid was possible prior to Antietam. Everyday Lincoln woke up wondering if that was the day he would receive word that GB had recognized the CSA. Which is why he eventually issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation since it would keep GB from doing that.

    Trig,
    hmmmm.... I'm not sure it's a great idea to put military tech into the tech tree. The war lasted 4 years and the CSA had little chance of winning a long drawn out conflict.

    I think it would be bad for players (or AI) to just start recruiting repeating rifle units and then dominate the battlefield. The North's industrial capacity far exceeded that of the South.

    The South did have several 10's of thousands of Non-Muzzle loading rifles. There are 12,616 accounted for with incomplete records. the total was higher. if we give the CSA a total generous figure of 25k Breech Loading and Repeating Rifles it still pales in comparison to some 150k Union Breech and Repeaters. The CSA did manage to construct most of the military technology of the North. Ironclads, Submarines, they did manufactur breech loading rifles and carbines, but not repeaters (only captured repeaters). In fact, the CSS Virginia was constructed BEFORE the Union's Monitor. So tech was mostly comparible. The Union was just able to produce a lot more of it. Union regulars for the most part had to purchase there own non-Muzzle loading rifle until into the second half of the war when there was sufficient surplus to issue such weapons to them and even then it was only for a small number of men.
    Last edited by Prince of Judah; May 09, 2014 at 10:38 AM.

  6. #6
    Trig's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by Prince of Judah View Post
    Trig,
    hmmmm.... I'm not sure it's a great idea to put military tech into the tech tree. The war lasted 4 years and the CSA had little chance of winning a long drawn out conflict.

    I think it would be bad for players (or AI) to just start recruiting repeating rifle units and then dominate the battlefield. The North's industrial capacity far exceeded that of the South.

    The South did have several 10's of thousands of Non-Muzzle loading rifles. There are 12,616 accounted for with incomplete records. the total was higher. if we give the CSA a total generous figure of 25k Breech Loading and Repeating Rifles it still pales in comparison to some 150k Union Breech and Repeaters. The CSA did manage to construct most of the military technology of the North. Ironclads, Submarines, they did manufactur breech loading rifles and carbines, but not repeaters (only captured repeaters). In fact, the CSS Virginia was constructed BEFORE the Union's Monitor. So tech was mostly comparible. The Union was just able to produce a lot more of it. Union regulars for the most part had to purchase there own non-Muzzle loading rifle until into the second half of the war when there was sufficient surplus to issue such weapons to them and even then it was only for a small number of men.
    Your reasoning is very sensible, but you need not worry. Already we have every unit type capped, so it would only be a matter of when they're enabled to appear in game.
    As is now, you can for instance recruit about half a dozen US units armed with Spencers and Henrys. But now you can recruit them as soon as you've built the appropriate building, later you could only recruit them after the building AND the tech are in place. So to correspond, we'd keep same number of US repeaters units available and maybe 2 CS units and that's it.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 





    Same with colored troops. Currently you can recruit several units of black volunteers right from the start, if the building is available. Which is odd, as you then have black troops in 1861 already. By making it a later tech, you still get the same amount of them, only much later in the game, when the tech gets researched. Again, 6-10 for US and maybe 1 or 2 for CS.



    Ok guys. Good suggestions. Keep 'em coming!
    Last edited by Trig; May 10, 2014 at 05:58 PM.

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  7. #7
    Wismar's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    The thing is that the south didn't have segregated coloured units. They were mixed with the other regular line infantry unlike the north who just bunched them together into coloured regiments.

    What about the ability to research propaganda and it will give your cause better public support? Not sure if it's possible though.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by Prince of Judah View Post
    Allow the CS to recruit freed Blacks if they succeed in emancipation. It was a hot topic of debate during the brief history of the CSA whether to arm and free slaves. As the war turned sour and manpower was low the pro-voices got louder. They did start emancipating slaves and arming them in early 1865 but by then it was too late and the war was about to end.
    CSA: Automatic British Aid, More Manpower
    but gets Social Unrest from the planters.

    Also note that technically British aid was possible prior to Antietam. Everyday Lincoln woke up wondering if that was the day he would receive word that GB had recognized the CSA. Which is why he eventually issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation since it would keep GB from doing that.
    The British had no love for US during this time and they did aid the CSA with weapons and supplies. They never entered the war officially though. However, there were individuals who came to help the war effort on both sides.... mostly Confederates.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    My only quarrel with reading this thread is it seems the units are very heavily leaning in favor of the Union. I understand the CSA didn't have near the technology as the Union did, but where will the CSA have their competitive edge? Higher morale? Inspiring affects like that of a general? Higher melee stats?

    Just curious.

  10. #10
    TheRomanRuler's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by Wismar View Post
    The thing is that the south didn't have segregated coloured units. They were mixed with the other regular line infantry unlike the north who just bunched them together into coloured regiments.

    What about the ability to research propaganda and it will give your cause better public support? Not sure if it's possible though.
    Indeed, becouse North was just as racist as South, and had they needed slaves as much as South did, they would have kept it legal, but since they never needed them they got popular support for fighting for moral causes.

    It could just make people happier a little and increase amount of units you can train in province, both ways you get more men to the front.
    Apologies for anyone who's message i may miss or not be able to answer

  11. #11
    Prince of Judah's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Awesome. Good to know you've got it worked out Trigg!

    @Blue Falcon

    I'm not sure how to balance it. In many battles the CS troops seemed to have had exceptionally high morale even against a stronger foe. The actual firepower output by confederate troops exceeded that of the Union at Gettysburg and we know this because the CSA suffered only slightly higher casualties (tallied after the battle ended) against multiple fortified positions, elements of better weaponry, and that almost 6 thousand of the CS casualties came from Pickett's charge. The reason why Lee continued such a risky strategy almost certainly is because, (other than the fact that he had no real other option) he was aware of the high spirits of his men. During day 2 the CS troops inflicted more casualties than they had taken. Again, this is due to the fact that they were confident and the men managed to stay cool in battle, thus leading to a greater volume of output of firepower.

    To my knowledge morale in ETW engine cannot make units fire faster or slower. And I think that giving CS troops higher morale would imbalance the game. Currently the game gives CS units slightly higher stats in exchange for slightly higher numbers. I've done a lot of balance testing and work on several mods in the past few years and in my view, this is not a good idea. But others disagree with me. I would prefer equal numbers per unit, and very slightly better stats for CS troops. OR, you could make CS troops much more cost effective. Example, slightly lower unit cost and moderately lower unit upkeep. (or both)

    @ Trigg, I would be willing to spend many hours testing battle balance for you but I assume you've already got that covered. I did do some minor amounts of modelling several years ago under an assumed name. But It was very time consuming and difficult so the work I did do, (for A Rome TW Mod) I never ended up releasing. I do read history religiously and next year I'll have my BA in history. I do have access to academic resources for research. But I'm sure you need little research as well. I am however, willing to purchase another copy of ETW to use on another computer when the Summer Sale happens in order for me to use 2 PCs for completely objective unit testing, BYPASSING the AI.
    Last edited by Prince of Judah; May 10, 2014 at 10:17 AM.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    The advantage the CS had over the Union was they generally had better troops with superior training and experience. One could argue they were also were a bit more... "tougher" for lack of a better word (generally speaking of course). For example, The Confederacy had fewer deserters and their morale was for the most part higher as they were victorious in many of the crucial battles until later on. Their downfall ended up being their lack of resources and simply just being out numbered. Overall the Union had better weapons, equipment, and the manpower.

    Anyway.... I always thought it would be cool if you guys added the "Rebel Yell".

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLMroT2euQ
    (skip to about 2:30)

  13. #13
    Foederatus
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by The Blue Falcon View Post
    The advantage the CS had over the Union was they generally had better troops with superior training and experience. One could argue they were also were a bit more... "tougher" for lack of a better word (generally speaking of course). For example, The Confederacy had fewer deserters and their morale was for the most part higher as they were victorious in many of the crucial battles until later on. Their downfall ended up being their lack of resources and simply just being out numbered. Overall the Union had better weapons, equipment, and the manpower.

    Anyway.... I always thought it would be cool if you guys added the "Rebel Yell".

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLMroT2euQ
    (skip to about 2:30)
    I know someone was actually working on the ''rebel yell'' thing a while back, and they were close to getting it done I believe, but then nothing really came of it. I always just figured they ran into some kind of unsolvable problem, but I don't know.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Quote Originally Posted by Savathor View Post
    I know someone was actually working on the ''rebel yell'' thing a while back, and they were close to getting it done I believe, but then nothing really came of it. I always just figured they ran into some kind of unsolvable problem, but I don't know.
    Now that I think of it... unless they could have it effect the Unions morale somehow i don't see it really being all that practical as far as the game is concerned. Say that were possible to make it effect Union and scare them be decreasing accuracy or something that could be a bit overpowered. Unless of course they just throw it just for kicks... that would be cool too.

    @ Prince Judah

    Just to add to that I believe another reason why their casualties were so high is because the Union had the high ground for the majority of the battle (If memory serves). As far as balance I think keep it as is where the CS have slightly higher stats to reflect the fact they generally had better trained men despite the Union having better weapons and resources overall.

  15. #15
    Trig's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Errr guys, guys. Ye wanna debate who did what and why and why not and how it affected something or didn't, please go to the historical debates thread and knock yourself out there.

    This one here is for Techs, so try not to clutter it and keep it short and to the point with just the format I used in the first post.

    Research "Tech name", does what...

    Whether someting is doable or not will be for our glorious team of coders to decide (and by glorious team of coders I mean pappagoat), but you don't have to worry about it. If it's impossible to make, it just won't be in, simple. However, just drop me a bunch of ideas anyway, as crazy as you like (but neatly organised ) what various techs could be researched and what their effect should be, cause our minds are weary with overmodding, age and other convenient excuses, and also, because this here is the place where you can really make your input count in this stage of development.

    Many thankyous!
    Last edited by Trig; May 10, 2014 at 06:01 PM.

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  16. #16

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Sorry about that Trig

    So far these are my ideas as mentioned above in my walls of posts.

    Research "Battlefield Medicine", Faster unit replenishment times.

    Research "Rebel Yell", Improves morale of nearby Confederate troops while active and decreases morale/stats of nearby Union.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    How about a sort if "call to arms" that improves morale, allows Vol or Conscripts, or both. But also had negative effects.
    Or how 'bout "I wish I was in dixie"/"Battle hymn of the republic" and either nation gets a bonus to pop happiness, production, etc.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    A "draft" technology would allow to reduce the cost of buying new units. To make it more fun, when choosing to research that technology, it would anger your population.

    Another technology would be "footgear" and it would concern mainly the CSA because a lot of soldiers didn't wear shoes. By choosing to research it, you allow your units to move a little bit faster.

    A "raiding" technology could allow to unlock raiding units (Quantrill raiders, Shelbys raiders, Grierson raiders...) and allow the player to loot more money and supplies when raiding an enemy building.

    For the North, to unlock colored troops, you would need to research both the "emancipation proclamation" and the "underground railroad" technologies.
    Last edited by Gotreksek; May 11, 2014 at 02:46 AM.

  19. #19
    Wismar's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    Here's my tech ideas.

    Load, Aim, Fire - Allows your line infantry to use a 'volley fire' mode. Shooting in volleys has a moral impact on your foe but it's slower than fire at will when it comes to led spitting.

    Not one step back! - Allows your infantry to fire and reload while advancing. This mode is less accurate than standing still and slower than marching.

    We'll fight to the bitter end - Allows your regular infantry to dig trenches.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Research & Techs Ideas

    You could also have a "horse requisition" research ! It will allow to reduce the cost of cavalry units !
    I also found this on the internet, it could give ideas :



    Telegraph
    The telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse in 1844, and telegraph wires soon sprang up all along the East Coast. During the war, 15,000 miles of telegraph cable was laid purely for military purposes. Mobile telegraph wagons reported and received communications from just behind the frontline. President Lincoln would regularly visit the Telegraph Office to get the latest news. The telegraph also enabled news sources to report on the war in a timely fashion, leading to an entirely new headache for the government: how to handle the media.


    Aerial reconnaissance
    Both sides used hot air balloons for aerial reconnaissance of battlefields during the Civil War. A Balloon Corps was established by President Lincoln early on. The maiden voyage of the first official Union balloon occurred in late August, 1861. Balloon operators used another wartime innovation, the telegraph, to let commanders on the ground know of Confederates movements. This allowed Union guns to be repositioned and fired accurately at troops more than three miles away-a first in military history.


    Railroads
    The Civil War was the first war to use railroads, encouraged by President Lincoln — himself a former railroad lawyer — who understood how vital they were for moving men and supplies. The North had a distinct advantage, with superior infrastructure (20,000 miles of track), better equipment and their own locomotive factory. Whereas the South had just 9,000 miles of track and had converted its locomotive works into an armaments factory. The trains allowed generals to move their soldiers, supplies and armaments to where they were most needed. Rail centers and railroad infrastructure soon became targets for attack.
    While the South's rail system was weak, they were the first to use trains to their advantage, transporting supplies and soldiers to vital areas. The North was stymied by railroad owners more concerned with how much they could charge, than how quickly they could aid the cause. In fact, Secretary of War Simon Cameron was forced to resign when it was discovered he was trying to profit from War Department contracts for railroad shipping.


    Army ambulance corps
    Jonathan Letterman, Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, was responsible for creating the first organized transport of the wounded. Ambulance units usually consisted of a ragtag group of soldiers who were otherwise unfit for fighting. Letterman innovated and regimented the process. The ambulances of a division moved together under the direction of a line sergeant, with two stretcher-bearers and one driver per ambulance. They would go into the field, pick up the wounded, deliver them to dressing stations and then to field hospitals. To this day the military bases its ambulance system on Letterman's ideas.


    Weapons and Ships
    Long-Range Weapons and the Minie Bullet
    Prior to the Civil War, most combatants used smooth-bore muskets which had a maximum range of about 300 feet. However, shortly before the start of the war, the invention of rifling (grooves in the musket barrel) meant bullets could spin and travel up to 900 feet. This was an important defensive development and increased the range and accuracy of muskets.
    The Minie bullet made defense even safer. When used in the rifled musket it spun faster, traveled further and was five times more accurate than any single-man weapon. Able to kill at half a mile, it was the largest contributor to battle wounds (more than 90%).


    The Gatling Gun
    The ancestor of the modern machine gun, it was the most successful of several rapid-fire guns that were born before the war. Richard Gatling invented the gun in the hopes that a weapon so catastrophic in its damage would convince men to stop waging war. Unfortunately, its efficiency in killing only made war more deadly. It was not used extensively during the Civil War.


    Ironclad Warships
    At the start of the Civil War the North had a distinct naval advantage as the South didn't have a dedicated Navy. Both recognized the importance of armor-cladding their ships. The first engagement between two iron-clad ships was between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The first fight between iron clad ships of war, in Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862, in which the Monitor whipped the Merrimac and the whole school of Confederate steamers.


    Naval mines and torpedoes
    Naval mines were developed by the Confederates in the hopes of counteracting the Union's blockades of Southern ports. Mines and later, torpedoes, were very effective sinking 40 Union ships. The success of these mines led to the creation of land mines and grenades that would be used in later wars.
    Last edited by Gotreksek; May 12, 2014 at 09:35 AM.

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