Semi-Realistic Battles mini-mod (v1.0, August 28, 2015)
with optional unit unlock for minor and emergent factions
"All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guessing what was at the other side of the hill.'"
- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and British general, statement in conversation with John Crocker and Crocker's wife (4 September 1852), as quoted in The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.Dm F.R.S, Secretary of the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830 (1884), edited by Louis J. Jennings, Vol.III, p. 276, found here.
Why semi-realistic battles?
You might prefer 'full' realism. Imperial Splendour and Empire Realism are advanced mods which improve the game in many ways to offer a more fully realistic experience. You will find them in the Hosted Mods section. This mod does not claim to offer anything like the realism provided by those advanced mods. Compared to the vanilla (unmodified) game, this mod aims to offer a slightly more realistic and more challenging experience. This mod is based on the following observations about the vanilla (unmodified) game - and the following thoughts about 18th-century battles:-
- You usually know where the enemy armies are on the campaign map and where enemy units are on the battle-field. As the quote from Arthur Wellesley (above) shows, real campaigns and real battles were not like that.
- Enemy cavalry tend to stand still while your artillery shoots at them. Enemy artillery can devastate your cavalry. Real cavalry would avoid this by tactics such as using the terrain to avoid being visible or being in the direct line of fire.
- Fighting Native American armies is fun (you do not always know where they are) but it is usually not very challenging because their units are not very powerful.
- When I play major factions, minor factions are usually easy to defeat. Minor factions (such as Denmark, Hanover and the Thirteen Colonies) and emergent factions (such as Ireland and the United States) are fun to play because they have less powerful starting positions than major factions. But they tend to lack access to a good range of units, which puts them at a disadvantage. If you have the DLCs, the major factions have access to elite units, while minor factions do not usually have access to similar units to match them. Having said that, many of the units unlocked for minor and emergent factions are not very powerful (providing a challenge for players, to win battles using these units), although some are (Superior Line Infantry). Also, being able to recruit different units when you capture regions in different parts of the world is something I enjoy.
- Battles in summer and winter look different and there are some differences (on the battlefield, units recover from exhaustion more slowly in winter). But the differences are not significant enough to cause me to act differently in winter battles.
What does this mod do?
- More units have the 'paths seldom trod' ability. Armies composed of units with this ability can hide on the campaign map, if they remain still for three turns (without being observed by enemies). Light infantry, light cavalry, irregular units, provincial units (such as Provincial Line Infantry and African Native Infantry) and some horse artillery units have this ability. This allows you to surprise your enemy with ambushes - it also creates uncertainty for players because enemy units might surprise you.
- More units have the 'hide while walking' ability. Units with this ability can walk on the battlefield without being seen until they get fairly close to their enemies (or until they run or engage in combat). Light cavalry, light infantry and irregular units have this ability. This allows you to ambush enemies on the battlefield. It also gives light cavalry limited protection from artillery (if the artillery cannot see light cavalry, they cannot deliberately aim at them.)
- Native American infantry and cavalry can all 'hide while walking', they all have the 'paths seldom trod' ability and the 'scare enemies' ability. 'Scare enemies' won't cause units to rout unless they have low morale (like artillery) or unless they are close to routing, for example because they have suffered heavy losses. They also have the 'impetuous' trait, which (I believe) encourages them to attack. These changes should make fighting Native American armies more challenging.
- Heavy cavalry have the impetuous trait which (I believe) encourages them to attack. (The idea is that light cavalry tend to avoid artillery by hiding, while heavy cavalry avoid artillery by charging into melee with enemy units.)
- Revised fatigue system. Fatigue works normally for fresh, active and winded units. When units are winded, they will reach the later stages of fatigue (tired, very tired and exhausted) more quickly than in vanilla. In rain or snow, they recover less quickly (especially in snow). In dry conditions, they recover at the same speed as in vanilla. The aim is to encourage players to think differently about winter battles, for example keeping fresh units in reserve.
The changes to units apply to all units except for (a) units which belong to the Road to Independence campaign and (b) units which belong to DLC packs. They are not affected by this mod.
Does this mod unlock minor or emergent factions for play?
Please note that this mod does not unlock minor or emergent factions - you would need to use another mod to do that. You could use the Empire Total Factions mod by husserlTW, available from the StartPos Mods section of the Hosted Mods forum, or the All Factions Unlocked mod, available from pages 26 to 30 of the 'All Factions Unlocked No FoW Bug' thread in the 'Miscellaneous' section of the Mod Threads forum, or a mod such as my Early American Revolution, which unlocks the United States, or These United Colonies, which unlocks the Thirteen Colonies, New Spain and Louisiana - there are links to those mods in my signature.)
Units unlocked
If you use the optional unit unlocker, major factions can recruit Provincial Line Infantry (but not other extra units. This mod aims to make minor factions more challenging to defeat, when you play a major faction, and to make minor factions more playable, when you play a minor faction). Most minor and emergent factions can recruit the following units in the following regions:-
Africa, West Indies, the Middle East and the Americas:
Marine 12-pounder Artillery Independent Company (a 12-pounder horse artillery unit)
Africa, India and the Americas:
Colonial Pikemen
Americas - inland:
Colonial 12-pounder Howitzer
Provincial Militia
Americas:
Rangers (except for factions which can already recruit the French version of rangers, such as Louisiana)
Balkans:
Pandours (irregular light infantry)
Europe:
Expatriate Line Infantry
Guerillas (available with the civilian buildings- the red buildings, not the blue ones)
Finland:
Hakkapeliita (light cavalry)
Global:
Superior Line Infantry (only with a Staff College or Army Board)
Holland Home Regions:
Scots (expatriate Scottish infantry, only with a Military Academy or higher barracks)
Italian Alps:-
Barbets (light infantry)
Middle East:
Hillmen
North Africa:
African Native Infantry (most factions can recruit them already; the main mod gives them more of the abilities of line infantry and the 'paths seldom trod' ability)
Riskers of Souls (berserker swordsmen)
North Africa, Middle East and North West India:
Desert Warriors
Deli Cavalry
Norway:
Mountain Troops
Russian home regions:-
Cossack Cavalry
Cossack Infantry
Scotland:
Highland Clansmen
Western Europe and North America: (some regions only)
Irish Brigade (a few regions, such as Acadia and Spain, with a military barracks)
Provincial Line Infantry
West Indies:
African Musketeers (with the civilian buildings - the red ones, not the blue ones)
Maroon Rebels
Which factions are these units unlocked for? Afghanistan, Barbary States, Crimean Khanate, Courland, Dagestan, Denmark, Genoa, Georgia, Gran Colombia, Greece, Hanover, Ireland, Italian States (Papal States), Knights of St John (Malta), Louisiana, Mexico, Morocco, Mughal Empire, Mysore, Naples & Sicily, New Spain, Norway, Punjab, Quebec, Savoy, Scotland, Thirteen Colonies, United States, Venice, Westphalia and Wurttemberg.
Known issues
None
Compatibility
This mod works with vanilla and my other mini-mods.
This mod is compatible with the '80' version of the Stronger Garrisons mod (see the previous post on this thread). If you use a different version of Stronger Garrisons, the size of Invalid Garrison Infantry may be changed by the Semi-Realistic Battles mod. When I played an unreleased beta version of Semi Realistic Battles, together with my Stronger Garrisons mini-mod, I was using the '80' version of Stronger Garrisons. With the '80' version, Invalid Garrison Infantry units should be half of the size of Line Infantry. However, at one point in my campaign, full-size Invalid Garrison Infantry started appearing. The Semi-Realistic Battles mod includes a line for Invalid Garrison Infantry, so this mod was probably over-riding the Stronger Garrisons mod. I can think of three possible ways to fix this: (1) to adjust the unit size for Invalid Garrison Infantry in this mod, (2) to remove the line referring to Invalid Garrison Infantry in this mod, (3) to make 'mod' versions of these files (not 'movie' versions) so that they need to be activated with a user script file, which allows players to decide the order in which mods are loaded. I chose option (1) and made Invalid Garrison Infantry half of the size of line infantry in this mod. However, I will experiment with the other options - I believe that option (2) would give more choice for players. Any feedback is welcome.
I do not know whether it is compatible with other mods; any feedback would be welcome. This mod contains a unit_stats_land table containing most units in the game (not DLCs) so it would probably clash with most large mods, causing the game to crash or producing other bad effects.
How to install (and uninstall) this mod
Download the file(s). Unzip the file(s) (they were zipped with the free software 7zip). Copy and paste the file(s) in your C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War/data folder. That's it - you do not need to activate the mod using a user.empire_script file.
If you want to uninstall it, just remove the file(s) from your data folder.
Credits
Thanks to erasmus777, daniu and husserlTW for modding tools and tutorials and to everyone in the modding community for your tutorials and help.
Permissions
If anyone would like to incorporate this into your mod using the information in this mini-mod, please do. If the link stops working, if anyone wants this mod and if I have not posted on this forum for a month, then anyone who has the mod has permission to re-upload it for others to use.
Feedback
Feedback and suggestions are welcome; you can post on this thread or send me a private message. My modding abilities are limited - I am sorry if I cannot produce the effect which you would like to see.
My other mods
You can find a list here.
Download Links
You can download the this mod using the links below. Alternatively, in case the links below disappear, you can also download the mod from a mediafire folder, here.