The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta + UPDATE released

shokh · Jan 28, 2011

As you know we continuous patch up our 2.5 base.
But the next patch have interventions into core files so you get not an patch, you get an new full version.
Keep in mind this is a open beta, you can help to make it better with feedback. Basics testings are down by me (crash issues) but for balancing i need more info from users.
The beta means not that you get an half finished game. You have all in there like in 2.5 and some changes.
The base version 2.6 from this beta is tested. Additional updates need some testing but are available.

The goal was to minimize possible crashes and to improve the AI.
In this new version also the BAI is improved, we use for this darthmod`s BAI with his permission.
Killing rates are lowered for testing, because the damage now fall down on max range. This effect most milita units and others with low accuracy.
If it will be too low it will be raised again to a higher level.

For testing all forts and city fortifications are back in game. Therefore the artillery damage against buildings is raised significant to effective destroy them.

CAI changes are now not that drastic, i prefer the slower way to improve it now step by step.

- Full changelist from 2.5 to 2.6 open beta:

Possible mod based ctd´s in campaign should be now fixed
CAI develop now bigger army sizes
CAI research now army tech with high priority
CAI recruitment priority now stronger in this way infantry > artillery > cavalry
BAI complete overhaul
Multiplayerfix included
Some changes in startpos for balance issues
Britain should now not that aggressive against Union States
Dutch should now not terror the world, but still a bit *grin*
Base income for major factions raised

CSA & Union are now at War from beginning (update 1)
CSA & Union starts now with bigger starting armies (update 1)
Many regions starts now with upgraded buildings (update 1)
Starting treasure for CSA & Union raised (update 1)
Better units available at campaign start (update 1)
CAI develop now more land units and lesser naval units (update 1)

Fine tuning diplomacy and, aggressive level of CAI (upcoming)
Fine tuning CAI development (armies, buildings) (upcoming)
CAI raid behavior changes (upcoming)
Unit re-balance to fit the new BAI (upcoming)

- Recommend game settings:

Campaign difficulty - hard
Battle difficulty - hard
Unitsize - medium

-
Prepare for install:
(You must uninstall ACW before you install 2.6 open beta, follow this steps)

Delete the folders "...\data\ACW" and "...\data\campaigns\ACW" and the shortcut to ACW
Additional delete the folder "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire"
Check if your data folder now look like this: data folder vanilla ETW
Verify now your local ETW cache with steam (instructions in 2nd post), it will load some files new
Start ETW vanilla and ensure that all is working

Install 2.6 open beta:

download Open beta 2.6
extract it (use 7.zip for this download 7-zip), in there is a folder named "data"
Place this folder into your "...\Steam\steamapps\common\empire total war" folder and click yes if you be asked to integrate it in the existing one
Go into "...\data\ACW" and create then an shortcut on your desktop leading to the file "ACW 2.6 Launcher.exe"

If the launcher ask in the CMD field for F or D, chose D.

If your empire is not installed on C:\ or on a partition of it you must change some settings.
In this case:

Do all like explained above
Download then this fix: 2.6 HDD fixhttp://bitshare.com/files/pg6quu9d/2.6-HDD-fix.zip.html
Replace your existing files with the fixed files in "...\data\ACW"
Copy the user.empire_script from "...\data\ACW" into "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts"

- Next improvements:

War declarations between CSA & Union still not appear every time. The chance will be now step by step raised. Therefore you will get later a new optimized startpos. But as stated above i will do this changes carefully and need some testing time for fine tuning.

Dutch terror still a bit but the are now less powerful. Will be also step by step fixed.

Some adjustments to relationships overall.

Force the AI to build even more land units and less navy.

Download base version:
( 724 MB )

The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta (Megaupload)
or
The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta (Bitshare)

and
(if you want the newest changes)

Update 1 - Download update 1
( 17 MB)
Install:

Unzip the update with 7-zip
Place ACW_campaign.pack into "...\data\ACW"
Place startpos.esf into "..data\campaigns\ACW"

Be sure you will get all possible help i can give. If you have any questions please post in this thread.
Please take care that you read the full post here and the mainpost in the technical help thread before you ask for help.
There you can also ask for technical support.

Feedback is everytime welcome!

Cheers, shokh

shokh · Jan 28, 2011

Re: ACW 2.6 open beta

Reserved

airborne guy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

EXCELLENT MOD! Just took some time away from Napoleon and downloaded this and it is freakin awesome. Its a little too easy though, + rep dude

Primergy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

You will have to explain why it's too easy thats the sense of an open beta

But thanks for the Comment.

airborne guy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Primergy said:
You will have to explain why it's too easy thats the sense of an open beta

But thanks for the Comment.

Sorry. I posted this in the wrong thread lol. I downloaded 2.5 and its too easy. The union army never raised a big enough Army and I steam rolled them with a full stack, lol. I love the skins, especially the mounted soldiers. Very nice!

Atcman123 · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Downloading now!

airborne guy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Nice, just downloaded the Beta . I will keep you posted

Dynamo11 · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Can someone upload this somewhere else? For some reason NONE of my 3 browsers (Firefox, Chrome and IE) are letting me download the flippin' thing

Ardir · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

First of all thanks for the great mod! i just stumbled upon this mod a few days ago and had problems with CTDs in the campaign with 2.5, so i tried out 2.6 beta. most important: it seems the crashes are fixed now! thanks for that :thumbsup2

i am playing a campaign as CSA right now. after like 12 rounds i declared war and attacked the union at washington. that was a great battle against a fully stacked army from the union. but now it seems they gave up defending. every of their settlements is undefended except for st. louis. so, if i wanted it, i could just walk in there with a few units and destroy the whole union in like 5 rounds. they are stacking a lot of naval units though.. mostly brigs and sloops. im playing in hard/hard with unitsize ultra.. if that matters. should i try campaing difficulty very hard?

just wanted to give you some feedback on the 2.6 version.

Flavious · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Anybody tried this in multiplayer battles yet? I'm afraid to install if everyone else in Steam is still on 2.5 or 2.51 (version incompatibilities).

Primergy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

If you want MP, i would stick with the old ones, because those definitly are working.

shokh · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Ardir said:
First of all thanks for the great mod! i just stumbled upon this mod a few days ago and had problems with CTDs in the campaign with 2.5, so i tried out 2.6 beta. most important: it seems the crashes are fixed now! thanks for that

i am playing a campaign as CSA right now. after like 12 rounds i declared war and attacked the union at washington. that was a great battle against a fully stacked army from the union. but now it seems they gave up defending. every of their settlements is undefended except for st. louis. so, if i wanted it, i could just walk in there with a few units and destroy the whole union in like 5 rounds. they are stacking a lot of naval units though.. mostly brigs and sloops. im playing in hard/hard with unitsize ultra.. if that matters. should i try campaing difficulty very hard?

just wanted to give you some feedback on the 2.6 version.

Yes i did a small rollback on the CAI changes. It makes no sense to change in each step 10 things. In this beta i will reduce again naval recruitment step by step while keeping in eye that the version should stay stable.
When this beta is finished you should not see this anymore, all of the points i stated in the first post as "next improvements" will be done.

Baineblade · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Oh god...a download cap of 200kbs?! This is gonna be painful...I mean at least megaupload let me download at 1mbs...

shokh · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Baineblade said:
Oh god...a download cap of 200kbs?! This is gonna be painful...I mean at least megaupload let me download at 1mbs...

Hm i got 650 yesterday, but i will upload it too on megaupload. I did it not till now because some one said in 2.5 the can´t download there.

captcruch · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Nice im on 2.6 now easy install with good explanation thx Shokh .

Turn 36 : the game run really fine + the general Lee are dead :laughter:

+ i have sound in intro movie now . But the Gatling gun bug persists (yeah i play the yankee i know it bad :paperbag:

)
only in campaingn the MP run fine .

I tried every possible way with regiments/alone the same battle without GG .
The only thing i can do it autoresolve the battle .

I was finally time to try Empire
after 2 battle i realized that i needed the 2.6 right now for recover my fire power and my fun .

ToonTotalWar · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Good to see 2.6 is out lads!!

will try out and report back

airborne guy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

2.6... The other factions still rely too much on their Navy. The BAI is still weak sauce, guess I need to play VH/VH. Im paying as the Confederates so the Union still hasnt raised an Army and I just took Philly. I could steam roll the union right now and end them but... The Mexicans just declared war on me cuz I wouldnt give themn Texas. Now it is starting to get a little challenging. A two front war wasnt what I was looking for considering my economy is still weak at turn 30. Overall, it doesnt seem like the old issues have been fixed. I havent had any problems with any crash issues, so thats a +.

shokh · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

You will notice a much more aggressive CAI in the next update and more armies build from the it.
The problem for the BAI is our 2-3 rank system, i will try around with it. We use DM 6.2-6.8 BAI now and maybe 6.9 soon with our settings too and some adjustment to see if i can help the AI work probably with our 2-3 ranks.

airborne guy · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

sounds good

shokh · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Here is the second Mirror (megaupload) for the 2.6 base version: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YG008GE6
I will add it into the first post also.

♔DARTH LEGO♔ · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

downloading now and will leave some hopefully helpful feed back for you guys.

thanks for all your hard work gents..... :smile:

shokh · Jan 29, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Again to avoid disappointed users. The CAI in this version is not tuned.
I fixed first the ctd issues. But really soon is coming the big CAI update.
This will be a small update from about 50 MB. So, 2.6 open beta + update will be then 2.6 official release.

Edit:

More changes for the next update

CSA & Union are now at War from beginning
CSA & Union starts now with bigger starting armies
Many regions starts now with upgraded buildings
Starting treasure for CSA & Union raised
Better Units available at campaign start

airborne guy · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Weird... I am playing as the Confederates and I have taken Philly, and a few other territories and I am bankrupt. All my territories are built up and I have 3/4 a stackThats odd, cuz none of my trade routes ae being raided. Maybe its a bug or something. You may want to look into that. Besides that I have United Kingdom invading Florida every few turns, and Mexico wants Texas pretty bad, lol. The CAI is good, just the BAI needs alittle more tweaking. Oh Yeah, and the Union States has about 30 ships just sitting outside of New England. I havent seen them move the whole game. I will keep you updated, Great sounds though. I love the musket sounds! :thumbsup2

shokh · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

airborne guy said:
Weird... I am playing as the Confederates and I have taken Philly, and a few other territories and I am bankrupt. All my territories are built up and I have 3/4 a stackThats odd, cuz none of my trade routes ae being raided. Maybe its a bug or something. You may want to look into that. Besides that I have United Kingdom invading Florida every few turns, and Mexico wants Texas pretty bad, lol. The CAI is good, just the BAI needs alittle more tweaking.

The BAI cannot handle this 2-3 rank system in B&G, thats the problem - to long lines.
If i would change this to 4 ranks you will notice an complete different behavior, but then i get here some protests :tongue:

CAI is far away from his limits, but here is an big step forward.
Notice that i only tested it alone and just a few test-turns so please backup what you replace.

Changelist:
(up from 2.6)

CSA & Union are now at War from beginning
CSA & Union starts now with bigger starting armies
Many regions starts now with upgraded buildings
Starting treasure for CSA & Union raised
Better Units available at campaign start
AI build now again much lesser naval units
Base income raised

Install:

Unzip with 7-zip
Place ACW_campaign.pack into "...\data\ACW"
Place startpos.esf into "..data\campaigns\ACW"

Download:

Attached below - Filesize 17MB

Dynamo11 · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

shokh said:
Here is the second Mirror (megaupload) for the 2.6 base version: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YG008GE6
I will add it into the first post also.

Cheers shokh

warboy · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

I was just wondering if we could have more man in each rank, for example union regiments have 400 men 4 ranks deep so 100 in each row, is their anyway to make say 150 men for each rank, so i can make the unit sizes 600 men with 4 ranks of 150 men in each, vice versa as well for CSA. right now if i make the units 600 in size, it adds two more ranks(6 ranks total-100 men in each), i want to make the unit line longer not deeper.

airborne guy · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

Thanks Shokh, I will try it out right now

warboy · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

I want to increase the unit sizes because i believe my computer can handle up to 100,000 troops on screen.

CPU- intel core i7 950 3.06 GHz
motherboard- Asus P6T i7 SLi Crossfire X58
graphics card- sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5970 2GB
memory- 12 gb Kingston HyperX DDR3 ram 1600 MHz
software- Windows 7 home premium 64-bit
power supply- 850watt coolmax
processor cooler- V8 dual heatpipe AMD/INTEL processor cooler
Graphics card cooler- Zalman VF900-CU dual heatpipe

shokh · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

warboy said:
I was just wondering if we could have more man in each rank, for example union regiments have 400 men 4 ranks deep so 100 in each row, is their anyway to make say 150 men for each rank, so i can make the unit sizes 600 men with 4 ranks of 150 men in each, vice versa as well for CSA. right now if i make the units 600 in size, it adds two more ranks(6 ranks total-100 men in each), i want to make the unit line longer not deeper.

When you edit unit_stats_land table try to set deployment rank to 4 if you didn´t done.
But i don´t know if there is a unitlimit for one line.

warboy · Jan 30, 2011

Re: The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta released

see i've noticed that there always set to 3 ranks in db table, and i always but them to 2 ranks thinking it would make the unit rows longer. your saying i should increase ranks and not decrease ranks to make the lines longer?

The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta + UPDATE released

The Blue & The Gray 2.6 open beta + UPDATE released

.

.

Show me the money!

Protector of the Union

Show me the money!

Here's looking at you, kid!

Show me the money!

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Here's looking at you, kid!

You can't handle the truth!

Protector of the Union

.

Here's looking at you, kid!

.

I'll be back!

Indefinitely Banned

Show me the money!

.

Show me the money!

.

We'll always have Paris.

.

Show me the money!

.

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

May the Force be with you.

Show me the money!

May the Force be with you.

.

May the Force be with you.

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