[SUB MOD] Crackle of Musketry v0.3! 2.1 Final Compatible

[mikeCK]

Hey thanks! That was quick.

[PB&J]

What can I say, I felt bad for leaving you guys hanging last time.

[mikeCK]

Hey, had the game crash with .3 version and IS 2.1. went back to older .2 version designed for IS 2.1b2 and it seems to work. Just FYI. Could be something on my end of course..

[PB&J]

I had experienced it too, but was able to fix it simply by restarting my machine, or clearing the /appdata/roaming folder.

It may be a problem with my mod, but I doubt it -- ever since 1.5 I have been having all sorts of unexplained crashing and trouble. Maybe it is Empire's "time of the month"...

[mikeCK]

I tried that but no luck. I'm quite happy with version .2 which works. What is the difference between .2 and .3? Would I be missing something?

[PB&J]

You will be missing out on some of the stat changes made by the IS team, and I really reccomend you try to get .3 working. I think your problems are just the game being temperamental, because I am able to play a campaign with an identical file loaded.

[EgyptianNecrophiliac]

For what it's worth, v0.3 works for me.

[mikeCK]

Ok...got it. Problem was that there was an error during install where the new 2.1 build did not extract the IS2.1 text file, IS db file, and media pack into the data folder...I had to copy manually from new. IS folder to data folder.

Basically, I was runnin .3 with IS2.1b2.

[JaM]

PB&J: so you just enabled can skirmish for militia to make them fire same like light infantry?

[PB&J]

Militia, inferior line infantry, line infantry and dragoons. I found the game to be too mechanical and boring with mass_fire and rank_fire. Now there are no pauses when units are between volleys, or a whole unit waiting to fire because one guy hasn't finished reloading - they all just blaze away as fast as they can.

However, I left in platoon firing even for the line infantry in imperial splendour that can research it. I don't want to undermine the well thought out differentiated techs that IS has come up with.

[JaM]

I plan doing something similar for Empire Realism Mod, but instead i want to keep fire by rank for Late units. For early units i think i could use this fire drill. So just "can skirmish"? i always wanted to make militia operate like light infantry but couldn't figure it out... and answer is just that simple....


oh, and why fire by rank? British and Dutch used their own fire system where they divided regiment into 3 fire groups, and even if it was fired in mass, we cant divide regiment into three, so fire by rank is the only drill with appropriate volume of fire (1/3 of regiment)

[PB&J]

Let me just preface this by saying that I was going for atmosphere more so than historical accuracy:

The way the fire by rank is implemented in the game , it is way too boring. The first row fires in unison, there is a pause, the second row fires in unison, there is a pause and then the third rank fires... in unison. In reality the precision that is shown in the game would only happen in ideal circumstances, i.e. the parade ground. A battle should be a cacophony of shot and shell, muskets blazing away and men yelling and dying.

The way to best achieve that atmosphere, in my mind, is to throw out the rank_fire drill and keep platoon and fire volley. That way there is always going to be shooting and there will always be chaos.

If anyone is interested, while testing this mod I found that identical units, one using the rank_firing drill and one using no firing drill, just firing away like in this mod, that there is no clear advantage of one over the other. I found that it was a toss up to who would win, and that there may even be an advantage to not using the firing drill as you whittle away the enemies numbers between their salvos.

[JaM]

actually Platoon fire is the worst - with 1.5 patch - AI is too melee happy, so platoon fire will never cause enough of damage to charging enemy - most of the time only 1/3 of unit fire and enemy is at you... plus, platoon fire drill require fixed rank and file spacing, because if it is set below 1.1-1.2, then soldiers will spread out, which is even worse than any rank fire behavior.

that is why i like your system - it allow me to tighten the formations, so more men could fire + with tighter formation, i can give more men to the unit and it will still keep its ranks (in 18.century there were 3-5 ranks max, English, Prusians and Dutch used 3 ranks, French,Spanish used 4 ranks and Rusians 5 ranks), but with 1.1 rank spacing, unit can have 220 men max for 3 ranks...


BTW, what if unit has more than 3 ranks? will soldiers in 4th and 5th rank still fire with volley + skirmish ?

[mikeCK]

Plus, let me say, there is nothing quite like watching a line of my British infantry slowly march towards an enemy line while taking casualties here and there.....stop about 50 yards away, and let loose 200 muskets at one time. The whole front row of the enemy line drops and the sound is like canvas ripping. Multiply that by 10x and you have a whole line of battle eviscerating the enemy line. Makes fighting Native American tribes MUCH easier as well. Not much left of the charging "bear clan" after 200 militia men open fire at once from 50 yards away....as it should be.

[Liquidj]

I am using IS2.1, FX, and PB&S. I am using Denmark in custom game, it seems like Denmark grenadier is still using mass fire and other elite unit using platoon and line infantry using fired with rank. I don't know if I am right but it didn't really seems change much from the 2.1. Also one thing I don't like about is it seems no matter how many rank you make a formation, it will always only has first three ranks are shooting, the rest just making a post of shooting. base on what I saw. I saw there are no smoke coming out of the forth and fifth rank.

[EgyptianNecrophiliac]

I suggest you read the original post.
Especially this.

This should only affect militia and line infantry. Grenadiers, Guards and other elite infantry still use the firing drills. The rational is that they are the most well trained units and would have the discipline to stand under fire and wait for everyone to reload. Line infantry that have the ability to use platoon fire during the late game still have that ability, but the rank fire drill will not be used for them.

[pwf224]

I got a CTD when loading up IS today. I was able to play last night with your mod installed with no problems, but for some reason I can't even get to the intro vid's on loading up the game without running into any errors. I unchecked your mod from the mod manager and loaded up the game again, and it worked fine, so it is definitely related to your mod. I also tried deleting the user script and trying again, like you suggested above. Any ideas why this is happening to me all of the sudden after working without a hitch before?

[mikeCK]

I had the same problem. The name of the file is mod.o3 or something...mod manager kept changing it to mod.o. This caused a crash. Go to the file and change the name to whatever you want ..."Muskets" for example. Save it and go delete your usertext file. Now restart the game.

[EgyptianNecrophiliac]

It's probably a bad idea to put periods in the filename.

[strickland911]

Maybe perhaps you can work on making infantry fire by rank against cavalry?
Just a suggestion though