COW: Beginning of End Times GUNPOWDER UNITS

**Amavett** · December 06, 2016, 04:06 AM

Hello Brothers,
I have a question according to Beginning of End Times - is there a way to remove "gunpowder_unit" behavior from gunpowder units like it was possible in Rage of Dark Gods? Gunpowder_unit makes all thunderers and other riflemen pretty much useless in my opinion.

I tried but it CTDs when trying to load saved game or custom battle.

**WhiffOfGrapeshot** · December 06, 2016, 04:26 AM

Yes, it works exactly the same, making Gunpowder units incredibly OP and all other ranged and skirmisher units worthless in comparison (and even bothering to take melee infantry a waste of space for more guns), as they have high damage and AP, so they'll shred everything in the game in a few volleys. Try making your edits to export_descr_unit with Notepad++ instead of regular Notepad if you have issues.

I'd recommend you learn how to get line of sight and protect your gunners instead, but it's up to you how you want to play.

**Amavett** · December 06, 2016, 04:38 AM

Thanks a lot, I'll try it.

**WhiffOfGrapeshot** · December 06, 2016, 04:59 AM

The team has experimented a few times with balancing the game with gunpowder_unit removed, but you either end up with essentially bows that can't arc fire, or WWI era rifles, with no real in between.

With that one trait removed, the units are able to have every man fire, even when tightly boxed up, no longer need to perform a long reload animation as if they have bolt action rifles instead of muskets, fire even when their line of sight is blocked, move and shoot much faster like skirmishers, and gain weapon upgrades from buildings meant for upgrading bows.

All that combined with high damage, armor piercing shots, comparably large number of men per unit, and low price, and you effectively turn Empire and Dwarfs into late 19th-early 20th century armies if you take mostly Handgunners or Thunderers.

Making sure that people understand that it doesn't just make gunpowder units a little better, it makes them able to mow down Chaos Knights like the Charge of the Light Brigade.

**Julianus Flavius** · December 06, 2016, 06:01 AM

So there's no way to get it to be in-between borderline-useless and monstrously OP? Guess it can't be helped then, M2 does have it's limitations. If only there was a way to keep the firing by rank thing they do but removing the "one dude 100 meters away is punching on with a Bretonnian peasant, I guess we all better stop firing and watch him do it" bug. But I know that's a thing in vanilla M2 and every other mod I've played so it probably can't be helped.

**Amavett** · December 06, 2016, 08:19 AM

I'm more of an artilery guy cus "there are no problems in this world that cannot be solved with cannons" so never thought about mostly thuderers army... I'll try using Notepad++ to edit text files. Btw. why regular notepad doesn't work in this mod?

**WhiffOfGrapeshot** · December 06, 2016, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Julianus Flavius

So there's no way to get it to be in-between borderline-useless and monstrously OP? Guess it can't be helped then, M2 does have it's limitations. If only there was a way to keep the firing by rank thing they do but removing the "one dude 100 meters away is punching on with a Bretonnian peasant, I guess we all better stop firing and watch him do it" bug. But I know that's a thing in vanilla M2 and every other mod I've played so it probably can't be helped.

Not really. We can try making some small adjustments, but you basically just need to practice and learn how to use them. They're very useful if you spend a couple custom battles figuring out that they are not to be treated like archers.

Originally Posted by Amavett

I'm more of an artilery guy cus "there are no problems in this world that cannot be solved with cannons" so never thought about mostly thuderers army... I'll try using Notepad++ to edit text files. Btw. why regular notepad doesn't work in this mod?

Nothing with the mod specifically is changed not to work with regular Notepad, it's just better in general for Medieval 2.

**♔atthias♔** · December 06, 2016, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by Amavett

I'm more of an artilery guy cus "there are no problems in this world that cannot be solved with cannons" so never thought about mostly thuderers army... I'll try using Notepad++ to edit text files. Btw. why regular notepad doesn't work in this mod?

since the mods files are encoded whit Notepad++normal notepad does not work

**Amavett** · December 06, 2016, 12:38 PM

Problem solved - apparently both Notepads work but it just doesn't work with previous save games. I should have tried new campagin first before posting this thread.

Anyway - thank you for quick response and for all good people out there for this amazing mod.

**Lugie** · December 06, 2016, 06:18 PM

Well, first of all, you could try removing the Armour/Body piercing stat, as muskets and other early firearms did not actually penetrate through multiple targets, as most of the time the musket-ball got stuck or lodged in a bone or large organ. They were also actually not that effective against heavy Armour, as unless it was at point blank, the ball would just bounce off and leave a large dent, and with the Armour some of the units wear in Warhammer, muskets would at most give them a small concussion. It wasn't until higher muzzle velocity and better aerodynamics/ the Minie' ball came about that they were finally able to go through most body-Armour and maybe even multiple targets.

So, you could increase the damage a heck-of-a-lot to where they insta-kill units with low health and/or Armour, maybe even lower the accuracy, and get rid of the gunpowder_unit attribute. This could balance the unit while also making it less buggy, and would even produce a effect similar to mass_fire in EmpireTW, except with fewer kills. On the off side, it would make veterancy a bit more valuable, as if this is the case, reload-speed and accuracy is key to actually killing the enemy.

(BTW, the reload animation for handgunners and other line infantry in the Warhammer mod is buggy, as it causes the other ranks of men to just stand there and do nothing while the units in front have a fancy reload for 10 seconds straight. There is a reason rank-fire is called rank fire chaps. Looks nice, but basically makes them useless.)

**♔atthias♔** · December 07, 2016, 07:17 AM

Originally Posted by Lugie

Well, first of all, you could try removing the Armour/Body piercing stat, as muskets and other early firearms did not actually penetrate through multiple targets, as most of the time the musket-ball got stuck or lodged in a bone or large organ. They were also actually not that effective against heavy Armour, as unless it was at point blank, the ball would just bounce off and leave a large dent, and with the Armour some of the units wear in Warhammer, muskets would at most give them a small concussion. It wasn't until higher muzzle velocity and better aerodynamics/ the Minie' ball came about that they were finally able to go through most body-Armour and maybe even multiple targets.

So, you could increase the damage a heck-of-a-lot to where they insta-kill units with low health and/or Armour, maybe even lower the accuracy, and get rid of the gunpowder_unit attribute. This could balance the unit while also making it less buggy, and would even produce a effect similar to mass_fire in EmpireTW, except with fewer kills. On the off side, it would make veterancy a bit more valuable, as if this is the case, reload-speed and accuracy is key to actually killing the enemy.

(BTW, the reload animation for handgunners and other line infantry in the Warhammer mod is buggy, as it causes the other ranks of men to just stand there and do nothing while the units in front have a fancy reload for 10 seconds straight. There is a reason rank-fire is called rank fire chaps. Looks nice, but basically makes them useless.)

re the reload animation vanila MTW2 bug
not much we can do about it

**Lugie** · December 08, 2016, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by atthias

re the reload animation vanila MTW2 bug
not much we can do about it

Well, units like the Hochland Long-rifle men work fine. Its cause' you chaps decided to add a new reload animation thats plays before the old one. The Hochland line infantry don't have that animation, so they fire much faster and completely annihilate most other infantry. To fix that, you could just modify the vanilla reload animation (the one where they crouch and reload) like the chaps at Stainless Steel did. They just made it longer, but if you want to make it more intricate (maybe even port some anims from Empire? XD), you can do that.

**CrayonVonCaesar** · December 14, 2016, 11:53 AM

Gun units have been fixed in next version, seems there was a problem with the animations but it's been figured out and resolved by the splendid devs. Now all troops fire in line volleys without the huge wait.

See here:

**Lugie** · December 16, 2016, 12:38 AM

Originally Posted by CrayonVonCaesar

Gun units have been fixed in next version, seems there was a problem with the animations but it's been figured out and resolved by the splendid devs. Now all troops fire in line volleys without the huge wait.

Now that is byoutiful. Finally, I can annihilate the armies of chaos with good ol' shot. Nothing can stand up to hundreds, if not thousands of volleys of musket-fire.

**icenii** · December 16, 2016, 02:16 AM

I changed the description for the College of Gold it now reads "No this is not where Wizards store their gold that is done at Gringotts Bank" got some good ideas foe the College of Ice Mages.

**Julianus Flavius** · December 16, 2016, 04:29 AM

Glad to see the devs have fixed the gunpowder units. Makes you wonder why the people at CA couldn't be stuffed doing it though...

**MatousL** · December 18, 2016, 02:24 PM

Is the fix difficult to implement? The same problem is in CoW as well, if I am not mistaken, so I would very much appreciate if I knew how to put things right.

**WhiffOfGrapeshot** · December 19, 2016, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by MatousL

Is the fix difficult to implement? The same problem is in CoW as well, if I am not mistaken, so I would very much appreciate if I knew how to put things right.

It is to do it manually, yes. I had to modify the Thunderer attack_missile_release animation, and all animation work is a little tricky. Fortunately, it's possible to just drop the BoTET animation files into CoW 1.6 and have all the fixes work. There's a very good chance the CoW 1.6 final release will use our animations by default, as well.

**Julianus Flavius** · December 19, 2016, 05:08 AM

I assume it would work for any other mod with gunpowder units too?

**WhiffOfGrapeshot** · December 19, 2016, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by Julianus Flavius

I assume it would work for any other mod with gunpowder units too?

No, other mods with their own custom animations wouldn't be able to use it. Because BoTET is based on CoW, and Hardcore Fantasy Campaign based on BoTET, there's more interchangeability there. That said, most other mods with gunner problems have them because of other factors in export_descr_unit and descr_projectile, not animation issues.