[RELEASED] ACW 2.0 American Civil War for Napoleon Total War
*** NOTICE: YOU, anyone, does not have my permission to edit, reuse, or in any way change any content in this release package without my express permission. DO NOT edit and release any changes to the public. If you find bugs, contact me so that a common base can be maintained. There are over 1,000 hours of effort in this project on my part only, not to mention all of those who have contributed.
After three years, three months and 12 days... ACW 2.0 is HERE! A 15+ month long effort to overhaul, expand and improve every aspect of the original release.
Now featuring 43 Battle Maps representing all theaters of the war from Pea Ridge and Mansfield to Shiloh, Champion Hill and Chickamauga to the Valley Campaign fields of Cedar Creek and Cross Keys. 30 new maps added to the original 13, all supporting up to 6 players.
New Historical Scenarios, all accessible via the Multiplayer > Local Network (or Total War Online) > Host Battle > Historical Scenario buttons. You can play solo against the AI or against humans up to six total players!
3,700 unique Regiments, Artillery Batteries and Leaders make up the data base behind the Historical Scenarios where their on-field strength is either 35%, 40% or 50% of their actual reported strength on that day of battle. Every scenario's units, for both sides, are set at the same strength percentage. Starting locations as near as possible so you can recreate these battles in as near real-time historical accuracy as possible. And the round time has been extended to 3-hours for each scenario!!
The Custom Battle faction armies are bigger and better than every with the addition of the Union III Corps, Army of the Cumberland and the Coastal Forces army. For the Confederates they have the corresponding Coastal Forces featuring heavy artillery batteries along with the Army of Tennessee. The Cavalry faction armies are reworked into "Early", "Mid" and "Late" war units with varying arms and strength. Try them all out today and see the variety in new units/elites/special infantry and the broad range of Leaders you can use.
There is far more to see and enjoy! Check out the User Guide as well which has details on every last bit of this mod and its composition.
Additional Mod Background Information:
- This mod is SINGLE or MULTI-PLAYER ONLY. There is NO campaign.
- You can play historical scenarios as outlined below or play all battle maps in custom army mode.
- It is suggested that in single-player mode that you play the defending army.
- NOTE: Scenarios feature anywhere for 6,000 to nearly 20,000 troops combined. Up to 100 regiments per Army in Shiloh and Chickamauga. Your system will be stressed! And you will love it!
Historical Battle Scenarios for 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3: this is where you can play human vs. human or vs. any number of AI, or AI/humans... > Multiplayer > Local Network/Total War Online > host battle > Scenarios > select scenario from left menu.
Historical Scenario Army Information:
- All Regiments, Artillery Batteries, and Leaders have their accurate Order of Battle designations. Typically displayed as: Regiment No.- State - Brigade - Division - Corps etc.
- All units are graded A to F according to source material which was available. Unit Icons are generally assigned according to Unit "Quality". The “Quality” of each unit is displayed on the unit card/icon. You will notice that all units of similar quality (unless a "Special Named Unit/Iron Brigade") will share a similar Unit Icon. Special Units will have unique Icons. This should help you determine the quality of the units so that you align and/or use them most effectively.
- All units are assigned quality ratings on a standard scale. This normalizes all units according to their quality. This ties in closely with Moral and Fatigue tables.
- Battles are represented by major Regiments, Artillery Batteries, Army, Corps, Division and in some cases, Brigade Generals.
- Regimental strength are either 35% or 50% of actual reported strength at the time of battle. In some cases I have had to extrapolate units for multi-day battles. I have also set a 'floor' regiment size in many battles, an example being "50" men for most Antietam scenarios.
- Regiments, Batteries, and Leaders are all positioned in approximate positions according to the best source information that was available to me.
- Weapon assignments:
- Infantry: Units will have either Rifled muskets or Smoothbore. You will notice the smaller arch of fire for Smoothbore. Units with Smoothbore are firing "Buck & Ball" loads, deadly at close range. Pay attention as you position your regiments.
- Artillery: Units are generally represented accurately with the primary cannon type at time of battle. Many CSA batteries were combined gun types. The game restricts a battery to a single gun type, therefore I have assigned the most appropriate gun type to each battery.
KNOWN ISSUES:
There are a few known issues across various elements of this mod package. Foremost is the Main Menu. Due to compatibility issues within the prior version 1.0 release LUA and individual computer OS installs, I have chosen to remove the “acw_lua” files from release 2.0. Menu screen distortion was occurring across various test machines while some did not have an issue at all. This is the most noticeable impact, so realize that several Main Menu buttons are active and you CAN access the vanilla game from the mod Main Menu screen. Your vanilla game will be partially corrupted, missing textures, icons, and other UI items will be impacted. You cannot play custom battles with vanilla army units.
- Main Menu:
- as noted above, the base/vanilla NTW game can be accessed to start new or resume saved campaign games;
- It is advised that you DO NOT do this unless you have removed all “acw_” pack files from your \data folder and placed them in the suggested \data\acw folder.
- Map selection for Battles:
- The map list on the left of your Battle Selection screen will sort in reverse-alpha order;
- Clicking the map name header will resort the maps in A to Z order.
- Custom Army Build Screen:
- When selecting certain armies/corps to build from, particularly the Union Coastal and Confederate Coastal Corps, you will notice that selecting them does not necessarily switch the units section to their Corps;
- After selecting one of these Corps, click on the menu bar with their name a second time, you will see their respective units now appear in the bottom unit selection area.
- Graphics/Textures:
- Depending on your individual in-game graphic settings, you may notice ‘shadows’ on various unit components and faces. The primary issue is the appearance of a shadow on Confederate soldiers where the shadow runs from the right corner of the mouth down the chin. A second shadow may appear on the left side of the head, from top of the head to the base of the neck, passing through or behind the left ear.
- This issue varies across the various test systems used by my testing team. Some players see nothing, others a moderate variation.
- The removal of the “acw2_normal.dds” file corrects this issue but lowers the texture quality for all unit parts, uniforms, gear, etc. I have chosen to leave this file in.
- Confederate Major: frock coat collar shows a ‘normal’ imprint of the General officer’s cluster. This is a corruption in the “acw2_normal.atlas” file. I cannot clear this without manually rebuilding the atlas file and each build creates as many new issues as it fixes.
- Sound:
- Sound files have been cleaned up and partially reduced from version 1.0. Stability and performance are far superior. If you suffer sound drops or cut-out, consider tweaking your sound settings in the games “Options”.
- Maps:
- The Lordz Heightmap tool was used to create each map. This is not a problem unless a map features water near an edge. Fisher’s Hill and Fredericksburg are hideous examples of limited tools and skills to smooth out the ‘far map’/out-of-bounds areas into more natural looking terrain. Working with .dds files and L3D terrain editor only goes so far for me.
PERFORMANCE ISSUES:
- The historical scenarios are generally HUGE. Most are done with Regimental sizes of 50% actual strength, some such as Chickamauga and Shiloh are at 35%.
- Test and adjust your system settings to accommodate accordingly.
HISTORICAL SCENARIOS SUGGESTIONS:
- Generally it advised that if you play SOLO, you play the defending force. This not only provides the greatest challenge on most scenarios, but it also allows the AI to be more effective as the attacker.
- True challenges lay in playing 3v3 scenarios where the AI controls your other two army groups...good luck!
BUG REPORTING:
- Legitimate bugs reports are welcome and encouraged. There are many aspects that are core components of NTW and not this mod. Therefore I cannot always overcome certain issues.
- I will issues an update with fixes and corrections in a few months after LOTS of feedback is gathered.
- I would like to add content for a future patch, new battles, improved uniforms, etc., as possible.
- Please report ALL issues in THIS thread, not any other pertaining to prior versions of this mod.
Preparing Your System:
REMOVE ALL other mod files from your /data directory
DOWNLOAD and READ the User Guide including the detailed INSTALL instructions:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jKWdWDHjfP2xGONmAoffnM0eSkWKQxpr
===================================================================
GAME FILES:
Download all files that are "Changed" from the last date you got any. Check for "Updated" status, I will repost each set grouped by dates as "UPDATED...." and "UNCHANGED FROM..."
PLACE THE FOLLOWING FILES HERE:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\napoleon total war\data (or wherever your game is installed)
Mod Files... a .RAR file of all mod pack files (includes user_script and User Guide): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u56...ew?usp=sharing
==================================================================================
HOW TO INSTALL YOUTUBE VIDEO: Posted by Saris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpEhY3DtR8
Thank you to Saris for posting this, I just stumbled upon it
Originally Posted by Switz
I know, I know. I am open to tweaks for 2.1 but in my opinion ... and that's all it is... a Howitzer battery should not be in a shoot-out duel with infantry. It takes a while for infantry to cut down the gunners at 170 and if you've got a Howitzer battery in your front and they're unsupported, you're a fool to not charge them anyway.
