Napoleon: Brutal War
Blood & gore from direct cannon shots
My goal for this mod was to create a more atmospheric, brutal gameplay while keeping as close to the 'vanilla' flavour of the game as possible.
It now looks like a war
Better smoke courtesy of the Whiff of Sulphur mod. The battlefield now looks like a battlefield, quickly filling up with gunpowder smoke choking your little soldiers. I've tweaked/improved the explosions a little (I think). I've added blood for both muskets and cannons, battles look brutal. I know there's a blood & smoke mod but the blood is pretty weak and you hardly ever see it and the smoke doesn't linger long enough, also they always forget to add blood for cannons for some reason? I want to see some gore with my cannon balls! Now when your men get hurt, they get really, really hurt.
And sounds like a war
New death screams. The screams of agony and anguish will bellow across the battlefield as cannons tear limbs off and musketballs get lodged in ribcages. No more petty whimpers or psuedo-orgasm sounds of the vanilla game (or the echoey/low bitrate poltergeist type sounds of other sound mods I tried)
New musket sounds courtesy of Battle Chaos mod. These were left untouched as they're pretty much perfect as is; Muskets will rattle the battlefield and sound like real muskets, not cap guns you get at a 99p shop like in vanilla. Although I have added new cannon fire sounds courtesy of Diggy's ETW cannons.
Improved/normalized volume for BC mod's marching sounds, you can hear the corporals and sergeants shouting and bellowing in the background.
Small update April, 2019:
Sorry I just disappeared if anyone was a fan of this. I got busy at University then didn't have a PC for a long while. Anyway I'm back and started playing NTW again so thought I'd retake a look at this. More updates will be coming as I re-familiarize myself with modding as I've practically forgotten how to do most of it lol. About the original plans to mess with AI: I've noticed Bran has updated his CAI/BAI so this may not even be necessary anymore. However I've not played a campaign yet I'm starting a new one tonight. If there's something I dislike, or like and want more of, or if something can be tweaked to my tastes then I'll play around and think about incorporating.
-Tweaked volume of some sound files. Some sounds were still a little too low or high so I've tweaked a little, notably the death screams as I feel they were way too low during ship battles for example. I can't turn them too high or they'll be too high in land battles and sound out of place. I'll tweak further as I play myself.
-Tweaked cannon blood. While excessive blood & gore looks real cool in land battles, it looked a little ridiculous during ship battles. Unfortunately I can't see a way to differentiate between ship cannons and land cannons when it comes to blood, the game seems to use the same instructions for both. So I've halved the values. This'll be tweaked further again as I play until I get a nice balance for both land and ship cannon blood.
Small update 2, April 2019
-Further tweaked cannon blood. I *think* I have a nice balance now between land & ship cannons. Play a ship battle and let me know if it's still a little excessive or not I'll try and fine-tune it further. I have to be careful because the game uses the same instructions for both ship and land cannons.
-Normalized some more sounds (footsteps etc), amplified musket and cannon hit sound files by 2db. Let me know if they're too loud I'll dial it back by a db
DOWNLOAD
https://mega.nz/#!n6YiWI4a!1LU_YiFrp...Qx7LCzc15sTo2g
To do:
Decrease time it takes for blood spray to dissipate. I've noticed sometimes in musket impacts the blood spray lingers just a tad too long and it can sometimes look a bit funky, like the blood is defying laws of gravity. I can't remember which lines were used to get that spray so I've gotta play around with the numbers until I hit the right ones so may take me a little while to update again. I'll try for once every couple of weeks.
CAI
Installation
MOD format. Drop in your NTW Data folder and add:
mod "NTWBWv1.pack";
To your user.script text or use mod manager.
If it's a redownload/update remember to backup the old file first so you can revert back if need be.
Recommended mods to play alongside N:BW
Bran's BAI & sirloin's battleterrain
Only use his standalone BAI. His CAI suffers from that annoying soundbug where your horses shout "militia" and line infantry shout "revolutionary guard". I'll be looking at tweaking CAI myself once relearning everything.
Compatibility
The mod should play nicely with other mods since it's mostly audio & visual. If you play an overhaul mod just give this mod priority in loading order if you want the muskets, cannons, cannon blood, battle smoke etc. It won't override stats, campaign changes, unit sizes, uniforms etc or anything like that but it may replace battle flags.
Credits & Special Thanks
These are some elements and mods I've incorporated to use as a base
-Whiff of Sulphur - the best, most realistic battle smoke I've seen. WoS did an amazing job
-Battle Chaos - without a doubt the best sounding muskets in any game or mod alike; also an amazing idea from Sirloin for the ambient noise during fighting and the clanging of canteens while marching. Seriously great job!
-Realistic flags for more zoomed-in immersion
-Extra Blood Mod - Without this I couldn't have figured out how to add cannon blood that other mods seem to lack
-Diggy's ETW Cannons - for some awesome battlefield wrath and thunder
Awards
Gameplay, audio & visual - 2016