New Colonial & Revolutionary Units Pack, inspired by a mod by Cipher* [v1.1, July 2016]

[Alwyn]

New Colonial & Revolutionary Units Pack
[v1.1, July 20, 2016]

Previously, Cipher* made a Colonial & Revolutionary Units Pack. The download link has gone, a player has requested this mod and I know how to unlock units, so here is my version.

This mod uses some region unit codes from which are also used by the Elite Units of the Americas DLC in the units_table. This might mean that this mod won't work unless you have the Elite Units of the Americas DLC. I did this to limit recruitment of some units to individual regions such as Virginia and New England, partly to make the game more interesting/challenging and partly to avoid regions being able to recruit too many units. Of course, this mod does not unlock any DLC units - it only unlocks units belonging to the Road to Independence campaign for the Grand Campaign and adds some cancelled units.

What this mod does

This mod unlocks the following units (the location where they are recruitable is in brackets):-

For France:-

Marines (Americas) [with v1.1 of this mod, you have the option of using versions of the mod which unlock Marines for all major factions]

For Britain and the United States:-

African Musketeers (West Indies)

Colonial Militia (American coasts)

Colonial Pikeman (Americas and India)

Expatriate Infantry (Europe)

Highland Infantry (Scotland)

Irish Brigade (a few regions in the Americas - such as Acadia - and Europe, such as Spain and Portugal)

Jamestown Settlers (Virginia)

Native American Musket Auxiliaries (New York)

Mountain Troops (Norway)

Provincial Line Infantry (most American and some European regions)

For the United States:-

John Smith's Band (Virginia)

George Washington Infantry (Virginia)

George Washington general unit (New England)

New features of v1.1

New versions of the mod are available: one version allows all major factions (not just France) to recruit Marines. The other new version allows all major factions to recruit Marines and removes unit limits (the maximum numbers of unit which can be recruited) for all units except for the George Washington infantry and general units.

In all versions of the mod, the unlocked units are now available in custom battles. (In 'early' custom battles, you can use all units except for the Highland Infantry and Mountain Troops. In 'late' custom battles, you can use all units.

Compatibility with other mods

I have tested this using:-
- Empire Total Factions to play as the United States
- An 'all factions unlocked' startpos to play as France
- My Early American Revolution startpos, to play as the United States
This unit pack worked correctly in all of these tests. I have not tested this unit pack with other mods (apart from a few of my other mods, such as Equal Navy).

Known issues

The George Washington Infantry unit has only 8 men! This might be useful for anyone using this mod to write an After Action Report (AAR), but apart from that, this unit is useless. [Edit] I have made an add-on patch which allows you to recruit the George Washington Infantry as a full-size infantry regiment. It is available below as a separate file to download, called colonial_revolutionary_george_washington_submod.

After the first building upgrade in Boston, you lose the ability to recruit Colonial Militia there (you will be able to recruit them in other regions).

If you recruit the George Washington general unit (in Boston), the game will assign this unit a general's name - because the game treats 'George Washington' as the type of unit (like 'Line Infantry' or 'Provincial Cavalry') and knows it is a general. (This is similar to the named ships in the unit DLC, such as USS Constitution - if you recruit them, the game will assign them a name because USS Constitution is treated as the unit type.) Of course, you can ignore the general's name, or treat this general as the equivalent of George Washington in the world in which your campaign happens.

This unit unlocks two types of units - (1) cancelled units such as Provincial Line Infantry and African Musketeers and (2) units from the Road to Independence campaign. If you use this mod, parts 1 to 3 of the Road to Independence campaign will not work properly - units unlocked by this mod will not be recruitable! (The Grand Campaign and the Road to Independence campaign use different region codes in the units_table, so a unit will either be recruitable in the Road to Independence parts 1 to 3 or the Grand Campaign, not both.

This mod allows the United States to recruit very cheap militia (Jamestown Settlers and African Militia), some of which which are not very effective in combat. Obviously, players could use the less well-trained units as a way to increase the difficulty level, by increasing the proportion of these units in your army.

Obviously, by unlocking units such as Jamestown Settlers and John Smiths' Band, this mod is not at all historical. Perhaps these units are militia who maintained their heritage from the earlier years of colonial settlement. There is a historical basis for some of the choices. For example, a Highland Regiment - the 42nd Regiment - was in the British army at the Battle of Long Island in 1776. If you look (using the link in the previous sentence) at the list of US units at the Battle of Long Island, many militia units were represented, which could be used to justify allowing the US to recruit more types of militia.

This mod only unlocks units - it does not unlock the United States as a faction to play in the Grand Campaign. To play as the United States, you can either play through parts 1 to 3 of the Road to Independence campaign without this mod, then (when starting part 4, to to play as the US from 1783) add this mod, or use a different mod such as Empire Total Factions or a startpos from my Early American Revolution collection to unlock the United States.

If you use more than one mod which adds units, then it is possible to exceed the maximum number of units which can be recruited in Philadelphia. If that happens, then the recruitment panel for Philadelphia will go blank and you will be unable to recruit units there. If you use this mod together with another mod which adds units, then that problem could happen in your campaign. For example, I do not recommend using the mini-mods (which unlock units) from Early American Revolution together with this mod - I suggest choosing either this mod or the mini-mods from Early American Revolution, not both. Other great options for unlocking units for the United States include md1453's US units mod, Swiss Halberdier's Additional Units Mod, The American Revolution mod and the Regiments of the American Revolutionary War 1775 - 1783 mod.

How to use this mod

1. Download the file(s) using the links below. When installing the mod, you will need to choose one of the following mod files:-

colonial_revolutionary_units_mod (this is the 'regular' version)

colonial_revolutionary_units_unlimited_mod (this removes the unit limits, the maximum numbers of units which can be recruited, for all types except for the George Washington infantry and general units)

colonial_revolutionary_units_marines_mod (this is the regular version, with an additional feature: all major factions can recruit Marines).

colonial_revolutionary_units_marines_unlimited_mod (this removes the unit limits and allows all major factions to recruit Marines)

colonial_revolutionary_units_marines_minors_mod (this has the features of the marines_unlimited version, with three additional changes: (i) Marines can be recruited globally, which also allows any faction which can recruit them in the campaign to use them in custom battles, (ii) The recruitment cost is increased by 200 (otherwise Marines were cheaper than Militia) and (iii) as well as major factions, most minor and emergent factions can recruit Marines. (If you would like to see a list of which factions can recruit Marines with this version, it is the same list of factions which I used for my Minor & Emergent Factions Unit Pack, so if you look at the description of that mod and scroll down to 'Which factions?', you will find the list).

2. Decide whether you want to use either or both of the optional submods (and download them, if you want them):-

- If you would like to use the submod which makes the George Washington Infantry regiment into a full-size infantry unit, then you will also need the colonial_revolutionary_george_washington_mod.pack file.

- If you would like the Marines (which France can recruit) to have the same abilities as regular Line Infantry (such as Fire by Rank, when France has researched that technology), then you will also need the colonial_revolutionary_french_marines_mod.pack file.

3. Unzip the file(s) (they were zipped with the free software 7zip which you can find online)

3. Put a copy of the file(s) in your C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data folder

That's it - you do not need to use a user script file to make the mod work, as it is a 'movie' type mod.

How to remove this mod

Simply delete (or cut and paste to another location) the mod files (listed above, in the installation instructions) which will be in your C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data folder.

Thanks, acknowledgements and permission

Obviously, credit for the idea of making a Colonial & Revolutionary Units Pack goes to Cipher*. If you rep anyone, rep Cipher*, not me.

I made this new Colonial & Revolutionary Units Pack using Pack File Manager 1.5.9 (to extract files from copies of the game's pack files) and Pack File Manager 1.5.3 (which is a feature of husserlTW's EasyDB tool, to edit the files.) I am very grateful to the creators of these tools and to everyone in the ETW modding community for your encouragement, help and tutorials.

If anyone would like to edit this mod o make your own mod and release it, you have my permission to do that. Please acknowledge my work, if you use one or more of these mod files.

Thanks to 8907654738 for feedback on the beta version of this mod. Thanks to your feedback, I have fixed the problem which prevented France from recruiting Marines in small cities, if the player chose the barracks line of building upgrades. In response to your suggestions, I also added an optional version of this mod which allows unlimited recruitment of most of the units and an optional patch which gives Marines the same abilities as regular Line Infantry. In response to your further suggestions, I made new versions which allow the major factions to recruit Marines and allowed France to use the unlocked units in custom battles. I also added the version which allows major factions (and most minor and emergent factions) to recruit Marines in the campaign and to use them in custom battles.

My other mods

A list of my other mods is available here.

Downloads

To download the mod, use the links below. In case those links stop working, you can also download the files from a mediafire folder, here. If, in the future, all download links have failed and if I have not posted on TWC for two weeks, then anyone who has this mod has my permission to make it available with a new download link.