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Thread: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

  1. #21

    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    BTW, I think I figured out why were getting so many mortars earlier. I'd previously put the activation for the mod into the user.empire_script.txt file. This was 'activating' the mod twice, which was applying its effect 2x, resulting in several more mortars than expected.

  2. #22
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Ah, that explains it, thank you.

    I didn't realise that it was possible to activate a mod twice. Would you prefer if this mod was a 'mod' file (which would need to be activated by a user script file) rather than a 'Movie' file (which activates automatically).

  3. #23

    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Don't think it really matters either way. As for my own tastes, the reason I like having mod files be deliberately activable is so I can turn stuff on and off in the user.empire_script.txt file rather than trying to pull individual files in and out of the data directory. Frankly, I DO wish CA had add COMMENT lines to the script file. That would make it even easier by just commenting out the mods you didn't want to work with atm.

  4. #24
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    That makes sense, thank you.

  5. #25

    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Err, I don't really think giving some (is it some?) of the defenders extra units the same stats as line infantry is a good idea. Rather, I'd have them have similar stats to militia. One thing that makes taking out the Pirates faction challenging is that their version of armed citizenry is effectively the same as militia. You need to bring a bigger force, and casualties were heavier than I was expecting (one or two regiments got badly mauled). Perhaps no extra units, but instead armed citizenry have stats halfway between armed citizenry and militia?

    Also, instead of making Naval Hospitals able to recruit first rates, how about making the steam engine technology not required for the steam drydock? (Historically there's no connection between steam engines and dockyards, and historically First Rates were build built decades before the what the steam engine technology represents became available. Also change the lower class industrial happiness modifier to -1, and make it dependant on a technology in the naval tech tree instead. (And rename it so "steam" isn't in the game.) I made a mod doing this, and due to my limited abilities based it on the existing Reformed Naval Administration tech, (although making it a new tech above that would be better). I also ran into issues, and currently I settled on directly modding the CA .pack files. Although I got a PM a few days ago suggesting a change that would enable actually turning it into a normal mod. Currently it's 1732-ish in my British campaign, the Spanish researched the tech first by a large margin, and built a Steam Drydock only a turn or two before I did, France just finished one, and mine was finished 3 turns ago. The Spanish show no signs of actually using the dock to build bigger ships yet through.

    On a related note, 6th rates are terribile. If you can, I would always recommend taking the prize money from a captured one and putting it toward building a 5th rate rather then adding it to your navy. They just aren't powerful enough, and more importantly their hull is just too weak. Perhaps that just compared to sloops and brigs? And historically, the smaller minor nations didn't have frigates in the first place, or at most less than half dozen. (Which would be about 1 ship in Empires scale.)

    Also complicating things is that the "5th rate" is actually a small two-decked ship of the line, not a frigate (although considered too small to actually be in the line of battle by this period). While in reality they were often used as squadron flagships in a sort of frigate role during much of the period (except toward the end), and were significantly more powerful than an actual frigate, reportedly their sailing qualities were poor, actually worse than 4th and 3rd rates. Notice how much higher out of the water the 5th rate is, much more than a 4th rate.)

  6. #26
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Fair enough, you don't have to use the stronger garrisons mod if you don't like the idea! In my imagination, the garrison infantry in this mod are not militia or armed citizenry. They are a mixture of drill instructors, wounded soldiers who were recovering and soldiers in training (like the soldiers who replace battle casualties when we replenish units after battles.)

    It's good to hear that you were able to make a mod to allow the creation of steam drydocks without the steam engine technology. Yes, First (and Second and Third) rates were historically built in the 17th century as well as the 18th century. I provided some information on big line-of-battle ships in the late 17th century British navy here. Having said that, a 17th century or early 18th century First Rates (and other ships of the line) were not as large or as powerful as the First Rates of the Napoleonic era. As I commented (see the link), the British navy were shocked by the capabilities of a French 74-gun ship which they captured in 1747. In his book Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy (Phoenix 2014), Ben Wilson comments on the French 74-gun 3rd rate Invincible, captured by the British at the First Battle of Finisterre, 1747:-

    "[British] experts flocked to study her. Their findings sent shockwaves through naval circles. She was 50 per cent larger than her British counterparts in terms of tonnage; she was much longer and, although she carried the same number of guns, fired a broadside 75 per cent heavier. And despite her greater size, Invincible was faster and more seaworthy than the Royal Navy's third rates." (Wilson 2014, pp. 318 to 319). Wilson adds that the new generation of French warships was expensive to build, did not withstand fire very well and required continual maintenance. The British navy responded by building a new generation of warships of their own, a new type of third rates which "borrowed freely from Invincible" and, after some time, new ships were built which "had the speed and firepower of the French 74s and the the robustness of traditional British warships", according to Wilson (2014, p. 323). There seems to be a historical basis for 'early' and 'late' period warships - for larger factions, at least, to be able to recruit 'early' versions of ships of the line from the start of the game, which are inferior to 'later' versions. Similar developments happened with frigates, of course, as meme_engine explains on the A Guide to the Age of Sail thread.

    I agree that Sixth Rates were disappointing in the vanilla game. I agree that, to make them worth using, they would need to be improved. You could improve their hull strength. My Equal Navy mini-mod improves their speed (while removing the longer-range guns which sloops, brigs and frigates have, since it seems very unlikely that smaller vessels with lower-calibre guns would have had a longer range than ships of the line). I also agree that a 5th rate looks like it should be a ship of the line, not a frigate - you might want to have a look at the discussion on the Guide to the Age of Sail thread. On that thread, I suggested that 5th rates could have been based on late-17th century frigates which had 48 guns. However, meme_engine's view that the 5th rate is based on the 42-gun frigate of the 1706 British Navy establishment, which had 48 gun ports, may well be more accurate than my suggestion.
    Last edited by Alwyn; December 06, 2015 at 02:30 AM.

  7. #27

    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Does stronger garrison mod affect the battles between two AIs? I mean, will it be harder for AI factions to expand against other AI factions?
    aga

  8. #28

    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Yes. In fact, it can slow things down so much that the Martha and Mughals spend the whole game fighting instead of the Maratha overrunning the Mughals completely by about 1734 as per Vanilla.

  9. #29

    Default Re: Stronger Garrisons mini-mod (v10, August 16, 2015)

    Does it work with Imperial Splendour?

  10. #30
    Alwyn's Avatar Frothy Goodness
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    Default Re: More challenging battles: Removed Gabionades, Stronger Garrisons, Navy Recruitment & Semi-Realistic Battles (2015)

    Thanks for the comments!

    iporto9393, I haven't tried this mod with Imperial Splendour, so I don't know whether it would work. If it doesn't, it might crash your game. If it does, then the units in this mod won't use the same balance as Imperial Splendour units, which could have a distorting effect on your campaign.

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