!!! 3.6 Open Beta - Released !!!

[Trig]

Dear friends, fellow gamers, ACW fans.

This is a release of something. Maybe not everything we’ve hoped for and you anticipated, but it is something. We had hoped we could fix all the bugs and get an auto installer for this relatively functioning version of ACW v3.6 Beta, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be and we didn’t want to wait a few more months, so you will have to do a manual install.


I. INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:

Perhaps a clean re-install of Empire:Total War (Warpath) is the best way to go. Remove your Empire and all the old ACW files that may be left in its folder after the un-installation.

Then follow the existing install instructions up to version v3.5 (ZoR)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...n-Instructions

The current form of v3.6 only overwrites the existing files in the ACW/Submods folder, particularly the Scripts and the ZoR files, so same rules apply as for launching v3.5 (ZoR).

You can download the current v3.6 Beta here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/7s...oR+3.6+Beta.7z

(unzip it with 7zip and copy the ACW folder found inside into C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Empire Total War, overwriting existing files there)

If you do not wish to do a clean install, then start the SubsPower ACW launcher, and exit it choosing “Vanilla Ready”, then overwrite the respective files in ACW folder, then start the ACW launcher again, choose “Warpath”, and “Zone of Recruitment” in Submods and launch US or CS.

How will you know 3.6 is installed? The game launching screen should be the one you see above and units should have all new square icons. And there should be tons of them.

WARNING: Due to some startpos bugs introduced in the past by previous modders, the Campaign will eventually crash some 15-30 turns in. We will have to do a new startpos from scratch, but since this will take long, we decided to release this, so you can at least have something to play now. Version 3.6 is intended for Warpath, as RTI campaign does not have the same detailed map of North America. But, you could experiment with campaigns, keep reading…


II. BETA TESTING CAMPAIGN SELECTION for experienced users that want to experiment:

Due to bugs with the present campaign files (startpos) we have provided several versions of the campaign files for you to choose from. The latest versions are more immersive and enjoyable, including some starting armies and forts (3.6 Starting Armies), but will have campaign crashes at certain point. The older campaign files are probably more stable but have several inaccuracies and are likely less fun (3.4 and 3.5)

Due to the lack of a new launcher you will have to manually select which version of the campaign you want to play.

Different campaign files are available in Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Empire Total War\ACW\SubMods\ZoR\WPATH\CS or US.
Copy the files from any of the 3.4, 3.5 or 3.6 subfolders that you wish to use into
Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Empire Total War\ACW\SubMods\ZoR\WPATH\CS or US
and into
Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Empire Total War\data\campaigns\ACW_WPATH\CS or US

Don't worry, it only looks scary, but it really isn't.


III. KNOWN BUGS, ISSUES AND NEW FEATURES

This is here so that you know what to expect and that you know what we already know is wrong with the mod and you don't have to report over and over again.

1. Campaign crash. OK, we’ve mentioned the campaign crash already. We hope to fix this eventually or try playing with older Campaign files, see above.

2. Battle crashes. We hope we have reduced them by completely reworking the model/texture files use, which should reduce the load on the computer, thus reducing the chance of crashes. But just in case, lower your settings if you’re getting them to the values suggested here: http://i.imgur.com/mN3FCmv.jpg Turning Steam overlay off also reportedly helps.

3. Game launch crashes. You’ll get one for sure if you didn’t manually launch Steam before running the ACW launcher. Make sure Steam is already running, before you launch the mod! Also, sometimes the launcher fizzles when you run it and crashes and you need to start it again. When this happens sometimes the bg_art.pack file (in ETW/data) can get corrupted, crashing the game on load or when launching a battle or campaign. If your ACW launcher ever fizzles, go to ACW/Packs, copy the 83MB file from there, and copy it to ETW/data, then start the launcher again.

4. Immobile armies. With the “Starting Armies on” Campaign files, you will start the campaign with several pre-war units available. They’re immobile only on turn 1 and regain full mobility on the next turn.

5. Recruiting ships. Only in standard ports. The Fishing and Military ports don’t offer anything extra and will likely be removed in later versions.

6. Generals. We removed the generals recruiting script. It was more historic (if a general was killed he was gone from the game), but also somewhat bugged. Now all generals are recruitable and immortal. If “killed” in battle, they’re actually just wounded and you can recruit them again, but will lose all bonuses.

7. The forts are a massive pain in the butt to take. Prepare accordingly. You’ve been warned.

8. Diplomacy. It’s messed up, still looking for ways to fix it. If Holland buys Virginia from CSA for a handful of beads for instance, deal with it, it was gotten from the natives pretty much the same way. Also several portraits are still messed up. Oh, and dont deal with the enemy. If Davies or Lincoln offer you a deal, always ignore them, or just declare war. It's American Civil War after all, not American Civil Trade...

9. Rebellions. Minors should “rebel” with own armies, so if British rebels beat British army, the province remains British. In US and CS however bandits and bushwhackers as well as restless natives will appear. We found it unrealistic that in an occupied or mismanaged rebelling state, a US or CS regular army would suddenly appear. But sometimes this will result in your enemy losing a province to bandits and sometimes not taking it back from them.

10. Some buildings and trade items are still a bit messy. Shouldn’t be game-breaking, but we know some cleaning up is still needed.

11. Units behaviour in battle. This isn’t ETW with ACW uniforms. This is ACW! Remember this. 100 years later. Muskets are more deadly, cavalry was not used for charges, but for scouting and flanking/dismounted shooting, artillery can be very nasty, ship combat will be short and explosive. Units will not suffer 80% casualities and keep fighting but will rout at 10 or 20%. They will also rally faster and come back to fight. Snow, bad weather and running will exhaust them much quicker. Walk units around the battlefield, only run them when charging or for very short distances. It is harder to keep battle order than in vanilla ETW.

12. Each unit type has a purpose. Line infantry, skirmishers, sharpshooters, cavalry, raider cavalry, various types of artillery. Use their specific functions to your advantage. And pay attention to gun type they use. Class 1 (C1) are best, Class 3 (C3) are worst. Weapon types DO matter!

13. Don’t ask us “Why is XYZ regiment not in game?” Those that are in, are in for a reason. Usually for some unique trait, like a specific uniform, famous history or commander, etc. If you want to see your favourite unit in game, recruit a volunteer unit from that state and rename it. Problem solved.

14. The ACW music pack and Smoke packs will not work with this version. Will have to be re-incorporated for next release. Do not enable them in the launcher. In campaign only Warband music will play. If you want Civil War tunes while you play, turn the music in game off, launch YouTube before starting the game and put on this playlist.

15. Technology and Research are still disabled. All upgrades are active on units from start, don’t waste time trading for them if they appear in Diplomacy as they won’t do anything. We’re hoping to implement a tech tree eventually.


IV. OTHER STUFF

1. Mexico should have its own civil war going on between the Republic and the Empire. You can play with all their units in Quick Battles too.

2. All Minors are available for play in Quick Battles but not in Campaign and will likely never be. Don’t bother asking us about this.

3. Don't sack and replace ministers, play with the hand you were dealt!

4. If you want to play a Quick Battle with a friend, make sure both start the game the same. So both as US or both as CS, and then only select proper sides in the Quick Battle menu. Won ‘t work otherwise.

5. Warpath/RTI? v3.6 is for Warpath Campaign. RTI will work too, but not as much fun. Quick Battles are not affected by either choice.

6. Enjoy. Maybe. Dunno. If you wanna help fix some issues, if you have the knowledge and will to do it, join the team.

[Trig]

TIPS, BUG SOLUTIONS, MISC


1. Launcher Crash

Occasionally your SubsPower ACW launcher will crash without an apparent reason:


a) if you had the ACW mod loaded, this shouldn't cause any trouble, just restart the launcher and off you go...
b) but if you were Vanilla ready before, when the ACW launcher starts it automatically starts copying core mod files into Empire Total War/data folder from Empire Total War/ACW/Packs. If it crashes during this procedure, it could mess up the file bg_art.pack, which it starts copying first. In this case it only copies a part of the file, therefore placing an incomplete file in the data folder. When you then relaunch it, it will copy the other files, but not this one. So a corrupted file is left there and when you launch the game it will eventually cause a crash. This file contains a lot of the UI backgrounds, flags, etc, so your game might crashe before finishing loading, or when you wanna start a campaign or whenever the game needs some resource from the corrupted file.

How to fix? After crash, run the launcher again. It will finish copying files. Then go to Empire Total War/ACW/Packs and copy bg_art.pack from there toEmpire Total War/data manually. The uncorupted bg_art.pack should have 83MB, the corrupted one is usually smaller... Note: If you do not do this and then exit the launcher with "Vanilla ready" the corrupted file will be copied over the good file and you will get crashes on all subsequent tries. Only a reinstall of ACW will help you then.


2. Playing vanilla after playing ACW

ACW mod basically copies files it needs to run from Empire Total War/ACW folder into Empire Total War/data folder. That's what the SubsPower launcher is for. When you exit the game and want to close the launcher, you wil get two choices "Vanilla ready" and "ACW ready". This tells the launcher whether to leave the ACW files there for playing next time or remove them for you to play Vanilla game. But the launcher is flawed and it doesn't remove all the files (should be updated for 3.6, but the modder that made it no longer mods ETW, unfortunately). So, when you click "Vanilla ready", the launcher removes all files except either bg_boot.pack or bg_boot_zor.pack. Just go to Empire Total War/data folder and delete any files starting with bg_ (stands for Blue and Grey). Vanilla should work normally then.


If anyone is a good enough programmer to make a launcher for ACW without these flaws, please step forward.

[tikijoetots37]

WAY TO GO!!! Brovo gentlemen! Just to let you know, I love you. This is the best Christmas present ever!

[pappagoat]

What we want to hear:

IF you are testing the different versions of the campaign startpos, we would like to hear from you. We are interested in hearing about which versions you have used and if / when / how you had a campaign crash. What turn? What event / action seemed to trigger it, which minor move turn was it?

We would really appreciate feedback on this so that we can identify the most stable version of the startpos campaign files from which to base any future rework off of.

[Railin12]

Absolutley amazing. I have been following this ACW mod since 2010, when it was a startpos mod... As explained in pappgoat post could people who experience a crash please upload their save..I would be interested to see what went wrong

[tikijoetots37]

Just wanted to report, I played through 20 turns today with Zero crashes on any end of turn. I was playing with the regular startpos that was uploaded today with 3.6. The mod is AWESOME and a great improvement over 3.5. I'll play some more tomorrow and let you know a little more, but so far so good concerning the turn crash for me.
The one thing that has not changed for me is battle crashes. I am still getting them at about the same rate as 3.5. Some battles still are unplayable for me and I have to auto resolve them. Just like before, it could be a battle with hardly any units 4 stacks for each army and it crashes every time I try and play that particular battle. Then I'll have a battle with 40 stacks vs. 40 stacks with 10,000 men per each army and it will play smooth through the whole battle while other times it will ctd. I turn down the graphical settings to the graphical settings Trig has recommended. That limited the crashes, but I still get them every 3-4 battles.
My specs are as follows.

Core I7- 5960x CPU
Ram 16 GB
SLI Nvida 980 gtx 2x SLI
64 bit Windows 8

[Railin12]

tikijoetots37 are you playing with the steam overlay activated? try disabling it, its helps at times..

[tikijoetots37]

Thanks for the hint, I'll give it a shot!

[hergeneral]

thank you very much to all of you !!!!!

[delmat]

thank you for your hard work guys!!! been playing ACW since its first release but this is the most beautiful and detailed version so far..can't find a bad thing in it, everything is just as it should be and what one ACW fan can want..don't mind the small bugs and annoying crashes, you guys've done everything in your power to make this available for us to play and enjoy..thank you once more!

[nordherogaming]

For some reason the music that plays is Native American music. I'm using warpath. Please help, and thanks for the release.

[pappagoat]

There have been many, many changes to the mod, but here are some of the unit model changes to look for:

Redone forts! (Fort Quick Battles Enabled)

New artillery gun models.
New siege artillery (very essential for taking a fort).

Unit models:
Most Union units are different in one way or another between the weapons, uniform or equipment, while every single CSA unit has a completely different uniform type and colour pattern, ontop of equipment and weapon differences.

Accurately modeled weapons (many different muskets, repeaters, pistols, bayonets, carbines, sharpshooter rifles, swords etc)
Accurately modeled equipment (pouches, packs, holsters, spurs, blanket rolls, sacks, canteens etc per unit type - infantry, zouaves, cavalry, artillery)
Accurately modeled uniforms (jacket types (frock coats, sack coats, shell jackets) colour patterns accurate to local depot. Shoes, boots, puttees. Hats (kepis, forage caps, slouch hats, hardees hats and many many many more)
Plus unit insignia and belt buckles, rank insignia etc...

[nordherogaming]

Ok but can you help me please.

[pappagoat]

For some reason the music that plays is Native American music. I'm using warpath. Please help, and thanks for the release.

One of the bugs that needs fixing with symphony. We are aware of this.

[psouthjr]

Havent played for more than ten minutes. However, i found the manual install instructions to be easy and perfectly written. I explored the new units in through the database. I literally can not believe how many new units there are. I dont care how many crashes i get, im an fan for life. I thank all you guys for the best mod of any game ive ever played. Hopefully ill have constructive feedback soon...

[tikijoetots37]

Daily update: I played for about 4 hours yesterday. I am thoroughly enjoying this iteration of ACW. I love the new models, units and forts. I posted in a previous thread that I was still getting battle crashes.

Railin12

helped me out big time and suggested that I turned off steam overlay. It worked like a charm. I only experienced one battle crash and that was because I messed with the graphics settings while in battle. I've been able to play on ultra with most settings and I don't see a problem. Lol, i've been struggle with battle crashes for the past two years with this mod. I've tried everything. If all I had to do was disable steam overlay, I'm going to be pissed > Anyways, I have yet to run into any turn based crash yet. I'm up to turn 32. I did experience one problem. I made a wrong move last night and the union attacked Richmond. After losing the battle on the after battle load screen I got a ctd. This happened three times until I back tracked and had to start from an earlier save. It seems that Richmond cannot fall with out crashing the game. Lol, maybe Its just trying to tell me that I automatically lost the game.

[tikijoetots37]

The A.I seems to be working a lot better, I am enjoying not having to transverse the field killing off the few remaining units hiding behind walls facing the opposite direction. I've had a couple of close calls during battles and am astonished at how the A.I have been holding units back in reserve and plugging them in as needed. The fort battles, like you said, are extremely hard for the attacker. I held off 6,000 men with an garrison of little more than a thousand. It was a slaughter for the A.I. I think they walked away with an 85-90% casualty rate. I don't know if I like this feature yet. It really means that you should lay siege and wait it out as it was historically done most the time. The only problem is that the A.I. refuses to siege anything, instead they always send their men into the meat grinder. I know its not a problem with your mod, this has always been a problem with the total-war series. The new cannon that have been added in the game is freaking beyond cool. I love the mortars. My only problem with them is that they seem way too accurate for the amount of causalities inflicted. The siege mortars take out one fourth of a unit when they hit. Poor buggers. I just feel that it happens way too often. Multiple times, I've seen the mortars lay down accurate fire on one unit and decimate it within 2-3 volleys. The campaign has also been a great improvement. I love that the union fields a huge Navy and blockaids confederate ports. Very historically accurate. Thats something I never saw in 3.5. The new generals are beautiful, and the recruitment of them makes a lot more sense. I'll keep on playing and let you know what other surprises I run into. Just a quick question, what do you all use to record your gameplay. I'd love to make a video/trailer to promote this glorious MOD.

[TheSargematthew]

After a few turns my campaign on 3.6 with armies doesn't crash but the screen will go black on the campaign map and then it will go to a load screen and try to load the campaign map again. It does this every second or so after the initial time and makes it impossible to play...any Ideas?

[WAR monger]

Nevermind.

[Trig]

It seems that Richmond cannot fall with out crashing the game. Lol, maybe Its just trying to tell me that I automatically lost the game.

I won a Richmond siege and still got a ctd at battle end. Must be something else there...

After a few turns my campaign on 3.6 with armies doesn't crash but the screen will go black on the campaign map and then it will go to a load screen and try to load the campaign map again. It does this every second or so after the initial time and makes it impossible to play...any Ideas?

Weird. Try a complete reinstall.