Epic Battles Mod
V0.6 is up.
A number of changes to battles and campaigns. Time Scale now equals 2:1. That is, troops move and fire as if 2 minutes are elapsed for each minute in the game.
http://www.filefront.com/17248104/EBMB2.zip
Installation instructions:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Make sure you are running vanilla to avoid conflicts with other mods. Download the zip file and unzip somewhere. Place the two pack files in your data directory wherever your game is running.
You need to update your user script to include the lines shown in the preferences file.
I have included a batch file which needs to be in the NTW directory and fires up the game using my mod.
Changelog for v0.6
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
- Redo French based on the Regiment being the 'basic unit' with some Battalion formations still allowed (for example, some minor country light battalions. This makes the 'starting armies' in Regiments). Cavalry in Brigades, not Regiments, making the units larger and more expensive (but allowing for all to be represented in 1805 armies of reasonable numbers of units).
- Base 1805 French on 8 Company Battalions of 120 = 960 man Battalions (assumes that Grenadiers are hived off into specialist Grenadier Battalions / Regiments).
- Britain is still done in Battalions, making their armies smaller on the whole. Later, allow Brigades for British and Allies (only with highest two levels of Barracks)
- Ottomans – No info but Regimental Level Attempted
- Austrians, Prussians and Russians all based on Regimental level
- Spain – Regimental Level
- Portugal – Regimental Level based on Battalions of 770 (best info I have).
- Minors – Tend to be done in Battalions, making Minor Countries much weaker than the majors. Some Minors should have Regiments / Brigades added
- Rehash of Recruitment centres. Reduce number of recruitment slots
- Startpos.esf edited to add some experience to starting troops
- Altered movement speeds to show 2:1 factor
- Altered firing rates of all weapons.
- Did not alter velocity of weapons. Not sure if it is necessary.
- Did not alter timings of other morale factors and so on. Not sure if necessary.
- Lowered melee factors to reduce melee casualties all round. Idea is that the threat of melee should cause one side to rout or the other. Casualties should be light, up to a point of breaking.
- Eliminated Grenades
- Eliminated stakes except for some Spanish irregulars and some Ottoman lights.
- Changed ammo to 30 rounds (practical maximum). Still less for columnar formations, but now 10 rounds for French.
Changelog for v0.4
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
- Changed unit experience tables. 0 is Conscript, and very shaky troops. 1 is Green, 2 is Regular. Troops should be trained to Regular level by a good barracks, otherwise the troops will be shaky performers. 3 is Experienced and a good level. 4 is Veteran, an incremental improvement. Levels above 4 (5-9) are very slightly improved.
- Tweaked fatigue so artillery become tired
- Removed Gabions for Horse Arty
- Removed Fire and Advance
- Adjusted casualties required to reach different experience levels. Experimented. Changed it back.
- Added -10 Morale Base to Combat. Later changed to -5. Then to zero again
I like a slightly negative setting, which makes morale much dicier.
- Slowed down cavalry fast move (but not charge)
- Added Generals fix (harder to kill, 1 rank, avoid combat)
- Changed the cost for 'tight formation' to -1 fatigue
- Reduced the number of particles in Canister (as cheapest fix to reduce overall casualties it causes). Still quite handy.
- Reduced the speed of running infantry, and the fatigue penalty involved. Needed to balance the BAIs tendency to have people running over kilometres of terrain.
- Set Cavalry to try and avoid early unsupported cavalry charges (still testing if it works)
- Increased the levels in Entity Training Levels, and reduced the values for Elite (still testing)
- Changed artillery and musketry shooting rates to better reflect field performance
Changelog for v0.3
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
French Infantry that operates in Column (most of it) now moves faster than other infantry. This is based on their faster marching rates or 'pas de charge' laid out in various manuals. Line infantry (and columns of other countries like Russia) move at the slower pace.
More tweaking of fatigue to reduce movement fatigue and increase combat fatigue. What I really need is a way to make the AI rest its troops :-(
Added in French Brigade strength unit as well as Regimental level for Light troops. That means Line can be bought as Battalion, Regiment or Brigade.
Added in changes to the recruitment buildings. This probably only works properly for the French at the moment, but it is something I am trying to get right. Level 1 is Battalion only, Level 2 is Regimental and Level 3 is Brigade strength. Beyond that, the number of slots increases, but the experience of units decreases. To get this working in the campaign, I am going to need to do a lot more work with how you get recruitment slots, and limit that a lot more.
Thanks to those who have been willing to give it a go and give me feedback. I am trying to 'nail' the correct settings to then go through and do a complete overhaul of everything.
Changelog for v0.2:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:Fatigue changed to de-emphasise movement fatigue and emphasize combat fatigue. Some compromise required because the BAI will not manage fatigue well (won't rest its troops).
Distance between squadrons of cavalry increased to reflect squadrons in column at half distance (24m = 8 scale meters between lines).
Artillery ammo increased from 30 to 60
Dragoons ammo increased from 10 to 20
Ammo of most infantry increased from 10-15 to 60
Ammo of column based infantry (most French, Russian Musketeers) reduced to 5
Small arms ranges increased by 50%. Essentially I am saying that the ranges in vanilla are understated by 50% (and then scale them down by 3:1 as before).
Increased speed on roads
Artillery ranges changed in accordance with these ranges from
http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/ar...racy_artillery
According to French officer Gassendi's artillery manual
the effective range for French field artillery was:
*- for 12pdr 900 m*
*- for 8pdr 800 m
*- for 4pdr 700 m
At the limit of gun elevation the ranges increased to
1800 , 1500 and 1200 m for 12, 8 and 4pdr.
Brigade / Regimental Level Units
The point of these new units is to simulate larger formations than Battalions. Above Battalions, most armies had a Regimental level, often consisting of 3 Battalions. The British had only two Battalions typically, and one of those always remained in Britain, so on campaign they effectively had 'Brigades' of between 2 and 6 Battalions as their next level of unit.
Note that Cavalry do also have higher level formations as well. The units are already big, and there are generally not that many regiments in a whole national army. For example, In 1805, The Austrians had 35 Regiments of Cavalry in total, Russians 48, British 35, Prussians 38 and French 78. Hmm, maybe we do have to do Cavalry Brigades?
Artillery will now have a number of larger structures as well. Generally Batteries were amalgamated into groups, although the next structure (Regiments) is too large, often consisting of perhaps 22 Batteries.
Bear in mind that guns tend to be a little over-represented in vanilla. The ratio of guns to men was always discussed. The ratio in major battles fell between 1 (British at Salamanca) to 5 (Russians at Borodino). Taking an average battle in NTW as containing say, 10 Battalions of infantry at, say, 100 figures (1000 men), gives a total of between 1 and 5 guns (10 and 50 at our 1:10 scale).
So far, I have only added a French Fusilier Regiment. They have 3 Battalions so total 312 men.
Next version I might add about 50 units to the various factions at the Regiment / Brigade level. That should allow simulation of armies / corps up to about 50,000 men per side (in the 20 units).
Changelog for v0.1:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:Changes for Epic Battles Mod (Battalion)
Figure Scale: 1 figure = 10 men
Ground scale: 1m on the map is equal to 3 in real life (therefore the standard map is 3km x 3km or 9 square kilometers).
Time scale: unchanged (for now!).
Files affected:
kv_fatigue
kv_morale
battle_entities
fatigue_effects
projectiles
unit_movement_modifiers
unit_stats_land
units
Changes made:
unit_movement_modifiers divided by 3 (based on ground scale of 3:1)
Fatigue modifiers altered. Cavalry become more fatigued when running. All units recover fatigue much more slowly.
Projectile damage distance multiplier changed to 80 and then back to the default of 20 (80 meant cannonballs would hit men and knock them over, and then they would get up again!)
Unit_Stats_Land:
Unit sizes matched to historical sizes (at 1:10 figure scale)
British:
Line Inf 700 men in a Battalion, 1 rank
Guard and Highland 1000 men, 1 rank
Lines extended by 50% to show the impact of having 2 ranks, not three. As compensation, accuracy is increased by 50% compared to 3 rank troops. This gives the historically correct size of a line (700 men in 2 ranks is 189 scale meters, which compares well to the historical plan according to Dundas, where each man occupies 56 cm. Therefore a 700 man battalion drawn up in 2 ranks would take up 196 meters).
British cavalry are in regiments of 4 squadrons, each of about 140 men (14 figures).
Batteries are represented by 1 gun figure.
French:
Revolutionary Infantry is pre 1805 structure. These troops line up in column and I could do some more to discourage them from forming line.
Fusiliers are the 1805-1808 structure, 9 companies of 120 in 4 rank column
Line Infantry are the post 1808 structure, 6 companies of 140 in 3 rank column
Ideally I would combine these troops with a set of 'reforms' at the campaign level, since the army moved from one type to another over the period 1792 to 1815.
Old Guard are in smaller battalions of 8 companies of 80 men, or 64 figures per Battalion.
French cavalry is in regiments of 4 squadrons of 160 men, giving 64 figures per regiment. Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde have 5 squadrons plus one extra representing the attached mamelukes.
Austrian:
All infantry and cavalry units set to historical numbers.
Fusiliers are in 6 companies of 160, or 960 men per Battalion. Jager regiments are weaker.
The cavalry was in big regiments. Heavy cavalry had 8 squadrons of 120 men, so 96 figures, and light cavalry has ten squadrons.
Prussian:
All infantry and cavalry units set to historical numbers as far as possible.
The hussar regiments had 10 squadrons per regiment and Uhlans 15! Most of the Uhlan regiments should really be set to unique, because they never had more than 1.
Russian:
All infantry and cavalry units set to historical numbers where possible. Like some of the early french line, Russian musketeers are set to use column by default.
Because of their larger Batteries in general, Russian batteries are represented by 2 gun figures.
For larger gun structures, for all nationalities, it is simply a matter of dividing the number of guns in an organisation by 10, and that gives the appropriate number of figures.
British Allies:
Dutch, Portugese and Brit/Spanish as British. Brunswick too.
French Allies:
Same as French
Ottomans:
Left alone since I have not got the research to go on. Maybe somebody can help with this.
All prices and upkeep changed to match the change in numbers. I might like to fiddle with these numbers a bit, but I haven't yet done so.
kvmorale:
Recent Casualties affects morale much more. Total casualties affects morale more (such that over 50-60% should see most units off the board).
Units more concerned about fatigue and most negative morale effects increased.
battle_entities:
Charge distance set to 0,30,0 for cavalry to see if I can keep generals from killing themselves. I have not yet done the Luntik trick of introducing a new general battle type and treating them special. Any good BAI mod should do that I think.
Where to from here?
Please download it and give it a go. I have already had a blast playing with it, and see the AI doing some good things.
I know this is not going to be for everyone. For me, a Napoleonic buff for a long time, it helps me to get closer to the history and a realistic depiction of the period. If the troops move too slow for you to enjoy it, I understand, this may not be for you
This mod does not simply make the units huge. It SCALES everything according to history using a Figure scale of 1:10 and a Ground scale to match (1:3).
I would like to be able to have units moving around in column and then forming lines when close to the enemy. Is this possible?
I am off to play with these settings, and do some more campaigns using Epic Battles.
I look forward to feedback and suggestions.
My next move is probably to wreak these changes on top of a mod that has done some other 'realism' changes. EIC maybe.
Other things I would like to include are:
- More Brigade / Regimental level units
- Revise the experience and recruitment model totally. It is mad that you can recruit veterans, and recruited troops always get better over time
- Make column infantry faster. This will take a little bit of work, but should be do-able (Edit: Done, in v0.3)
- Borrow all the realism changes from somewhere (get rid of stakes, add smoke, 3 and 4 pdr artillery, firing arcs fixed, AOR system if possible, etc)
----------------
Older explanation of the intent:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:I will be developing a mini-mod that changes significantly the battles component of N:TW. Because I am interested in better simulating the epic nature of napoleonic battles, I will probably start with one of the realism mods as a starting point. EIC looks like the most committed to realism and the best for my purposes, and TopCat over there has agreed to let me use EIC as a start point.
The basic idea
Napoleonic Battles involved tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers on each side. Waterloo was not fought by a few hundred men over a battlefield 1km square, as vanilla N:TW tries to depict. As good as the simulation of a few hundred men may be, it gives a totally wrong picture of how a large battle would play out to only use so few troops.
About as accurate as this attempt to model the battle of Pearl Harbour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMqSmiC_xHg
I intend to produce a mod / modmod /mini-mod / whatever that adopts a SCALE for the depictions, so that the formations, distances and times involved in a battle can be accurately modeled on the historical facts.
Some details
There are a number of scales that can be adopted, but I intend to use the following for the moment:
Figure scale = 10:1. That is, each FIGURE on the battlefield represents 10 actual men. Specifically, for most european armies, a block of 3x3 men, with 1 other man outside the formation proper (NCOs, Officers, Musicians, etc). Because we know quite well how many men there were in historical units, we can model them exactly in the game.
Some examples:
British Line infantry Battalions were about 700 men strong. We therefore model them as 70 figures. Foot Guard and Highland units were kept at about 1000 strong, hence 100 figures. Further, we know when they were marching into battle, they would be in Battalion Column by Companies, at quarter, half or full distance. There were 10 companies in each Battalion (including a Grenadier and Light Company). Roughly a formation like this:
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In my mod, that's exactly what they will look like (the above model assumes the 10:1 scaling).
A British cavalry regiment by contrast, was made up of 4 squadrons of about 150 men. They would typically move around the battlefield in column of squadrons, hence:
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
Of course, they can be shaken out into a single line if desired.
A French Battalion (pre 1807) by contrast had roughly 900 men, in 9 companies (7 Fusilier, 1 Grenadier, 1 Voltiguer). Roughly 90 figures at our scale. They would often attack the enemy in column of divisions (a division in this case being two companies - not to be confused with the larger army structure also called a division). Something like this:
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Yes, that's what a column looks like. Of course, there are other kinds of assault column, but this is typical.
Because I like the history, I want the armies to reflect it. Everything should be scaled equally.
While I have mainly talked about Battalions of infantry and Regiments of Cavalry, we can also scale up to using Regiments (European) or Brigades (British) of troops. A French Regiment was 3 field battalions, hence 270 figures all up.
Ground Scale:
By adopting a similar ground scale (3:1 representing our 3 men in each direction), we see movement speeds and weapon ranges scaled appropriately. This means a longer thinner line, with shorter engagement ranges, and much more strategic decisions needing to be made about where things move and are positioned.
I have no wish to play multiplayer N:TW where the main skill is to click faster than your opponent. Have you seen the Korean Starcraft players?
http://kotaku.com/5580080/korean-gam...peeding-bullet
Sorry but that isn't what I enjoy
Using a 3:1 ground scale, your units move at a moderate pace, and you have the appropriate amount of time to survey the battlefield and make decisions about where to commit, attack, withdraw, whatever. Roads become important to speed movement for key units. You have to think ahead about where to position reserves, guns, etc.
Anyway, that's the basic idea and some elaboration. Realistic troop numbers by using a figure and ground scale in combination. Epic battles representing tens of thousands of troops moving across large battlefields (Waterloo was 8km wide, Austerlitz and Leipzig much bigger).
Be interested in any comments or thoughts?
Cheers,
Southern Hunter
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ♔Pdguru♔
), that being to change the current "Broken" and "Shattered" statuses to "Retreating/Withdrawing" and "Routing" where Retreating/Withdrawing is more easily triggered and recovered from than the current rout and Routing is terminal.
Version 1.5.3 I think.
