The American Revolution Mod
User Manual
YOU MUST USE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION MOD LAUNCHER OR THE MOD WILL NOT WORK!
MODMANAGERS ARE NOT SUPPORTED!
Summary Description of Campaigns:
First let’s look at the Empire Campaigns:
Grand Campaign, R.T.I. and Warpath Campaigns – These are the way CA released these campaigns without changes with the except for the ability to change the Turns per Year as set under Advanced Options. They include full T.A.R. Mod support.
Grand Campaign with Correct Colonies – Usually during the Grand Campaign, Britain, France and Spain had to capture several regions before their own colonies joined them. In the Corrected Colonies version, the player (if playing one of these three factions) gets them at the start of the game and the AI gets them on their first turn (between the player's first and second turn). Note that these acquired colonies do not have any armies so you will need to raise them to protect your new territory! It includes full T.A.R. Mod support.
Multiplayer – This option allow player to take their revolution online with some TAR mods in effect. For best compatibility, most selectable options are disabled.
Now let’s look at The American Revolution Campaigns:
The American Revolution Mod R.T.I. Episodes 3 and 4 – These are special versions of the Road to Independence Episodes 3 and 4 especially crafted for The American Revolution Mod.
The Thirteen Colonies 1700 Campaign – This is a modified version of the Grand Campaign focusing on Americas. The TAR the 13 Colonies Campaign is based on Alwyn’s “These United Colonies” Mod. It gives the player a chance to play as the American Colonial Powers, including the ability to engage in Queen Anne’s War, the French & Indian War and of course the American Revolutionary War with a chance to begin it at Bunker Hill. All possible if played properly. Or cut your own path through history. The choice is yours!
The American Revolution 1775 Campaign – This a campaign version of the Road to Independence Episodes 3 modified into a Grand Campaign focusing on America’s War for Independence. Choose to play as the American Rebels, Native Americans, European Powers or Pirates. One of the unique features of this campaign is that, like in history, France is loaning money to the American Rebels, but France's pockets are not bottomless. It will be up to the player to make the most of these loans before they run out...
The United States 1783 Campaign – This is a campaign version of the Road to Independence Episodes 3 modified into a Grand Campaign focusing on America’s years after the Revolutionary War. Play the United States, Native Americans, or the other Major World Powers.
The United States 1700 Campaign – This is a very special campaign originally designed by Alwyn. It allows the player to start as U.S. in the year 1700. The U.S. starts will practically nothing so it will be a challenge to say the least! Can the revolution survive a 75 year head start and meager means? Who’s to say? Note this is designed with playing the U.S. as the primary focus and is not intended to be played as other factions.
Now let’s look at “The American Revolution Liberty or Death Campaigns:
Liberty or Death Campaigns – These Campaigns are based on the campaigns mentioned above but all for much larger army stacks in game for select factions. Unlike the other campaigns, these campaigns are not started in the usual way. Instead they use a modded game save tweaked for larger armies. These campaigns are set for World Domination with hard campaigns and hard battles difficulty settings pre-configured. The Reduced unit sizes are for 2 purposes: One is for players on less powerful systems that still want to have large army support in a campaign. And secondly, to help mitigate the “leapfrog” bug that can happen in battles.
HOW TO START A LIBERTY or DEATH CAMPAIGN:
1. First you will be asked to select your preferred unit size. Half reduces units size by 50%.
2. Next you will be asked to select the Army Size you wish to use.
3. Then choose the Era and Faction you wish to play. The appropriate game save will be loaded into your ETW game saves folder.
4. After the game starts, click 'Single Player' at the main menu and then click 'Load Game'
5. Select the game save titled '- TAR Liberty or Death -' to start the Liberty or Death campaign you have configured in the steps above.
Please Note: You only have to do this to start a Liberty or Death Campaign. After you have started the campaign, game saving and loading is as per usual. However you will need to always need to use the "CONTINUE LIBERTY OR DEATH" button for continuing Liberty or Death Campaigns so that the required associated files will be loaded correctly.
Some Recommended Setting when playing Liberty or Death Campaigns:
Under Core Options, select one of the “Locked & Loaded” Reduced Core. If not playing as the Ottomans, the Ottoman Fix should be enabled as well. Lowering the Unit Cost will help the player and AI raise larger armies for truly Epic Battles!
Under Tactical Options, enable Enlarged Deployment Zones to allow more room for placing enlarged armies.
Set any other options as you wish.
Special Notes for the T.A.R. - R.T.I. Episodes and Warpath Campaigns:
This main difference in the TAR RTI Episodes and Warpath menus from the other campaign modes is that these campaigns must have the custom files enabled before you able to start these campaigns. Also, once in game you do not select Grand Campaign as you do with the other included campaigns. If you are playing RTI, you must choose the RTI campaign in game. If you are playing Warpath, you must choose the Warpath campaign in game.
(With the release of ETW Definitive Edition, everyone should own Warpath now)
The American Revolution Mod Launcher Features:
Main Menu:
The Main Menu is the first menu presented when you start the T.A.R. launcher.
The American Revolution – There are the T.A.R. Custom Campaigns:
Liberty or Death – These campaigns allow for greater Army stacks. They use modified game saves to start with support for up to 40 units per army!
Empire Campaigns – This allows you to play the original ETW campaigns with T.A.R. Mod Support.
Advanced Options – These options will allow you to configure T.A.R. to your liking.
Manual and Guides – Allows access to T.A.R. Documentation. Highly recommended reading to get the most out of the T.A.R. mod.
Library and Theatre – Hosted by Youtube, Liberty: The American Revolution is 6-part series covering the major events of America’s War for Independence. Originally produced by PBS. The library links are hosted by Wikipedia for historical overviews of the American Revolution conflict.
Credits – This will start the TAR Credit Viewer. Enjoy the show!
Close and Deactivate – This will close the T.A.R. Menu, disable all T.A.R. files and restore any temporarily removed files.
Starting a T.A.R. Campaign:
The Start Buttons – Use one of these buttons once you are ready to start the game with the required files for the campaign you are choosing with the options currently configured. Once in game and if you are starting a new campaign, select ‘Grand Campaign’ to play the modded campaign (with the exceptions being the R.T.I. Episodes, in that case, choose ‘Road to Independence’).
If you are just continuing a campaign (including Liberty or Death Campaigns) just load your current/latest game save as per usual after the game starts.
REMEMBER:
The T.A.R. Launcher MUST be running to start any T.A.R. game or continue an T.A.R. save!
Advanced Options Menu:
The Advanced Options are broken down into separate areas. They are as follows:
T.A.R. Core Options Menu:
**Changing the Core Mid-Campaign is NOT Recommended!**
The “Core” is the main set of data tables for the mod so changing the Core will affect both Battles and Campaigns. As such is it is listed under both the Strategic and Tactical Options Menus.
Normal Versions – All Normal based Cores have all normal unit combat stats.
Locked & Loaded Versions - All L&L Cores options have Larger Artillery Units (+2 cannons + crew) and all land units have faster re-load ability (+10) and more ammunition (+10) for more visceral battles! The infantry ranks increased by 2 to help prevent mobbing. Militias can skirmish and American militia units have improved hiding capabilities.
There are Normal versions and Locked & Loaded versions of the Core with the following modifiers:
Ottoman Turn Bug Fix – Empire Total War has had a long-standing issue known as the Ottoman Turn Bug. The short version is that Ottoman AI keep spawning little one-unit armies and rarely combines them. Over time the Ottoman turn keeps taking longer and longer until the campaign becomes unplayable. So T.A.R. has selectable option to help minimize the issue and is enabled by default. When enabled, the Ottoman Faction has increased cost and upkeep for most of Ottoman units as will recruitment limits on some units. However, if the player wants to play the Ottoman Faction, the player can turn off the fix to play the Ottoman Faction unimpeded.
Reduced Cost – This will reduce the cost of recruitment and upkeep cost modifier for all military units. This is useful for Liberty or Death campaigns to allow for raising larger armies for large scale and intense battles!
Game AI Type – This will allow the player to choose between Battle AI Types:
-DM: This is the original DarthMod AI settings across the board.
-Hybrid DM / BE: This is hybrid blend of Bran’s AI settings for DarthMod for a unique game experience.
Strategic Options Menu:
**Most Strategic Options are safe to change mid campaign**
Turns Per Year – This option allows the player to choose up to 4 turns per year. Note the option must be set before starting a new campaign! Note: This setting does not affect Liberty or Death Campaigns, they are preset to 4 turns per year.
Continental Recruitment – This will allow the player enable or disable the ability to recruit generic vanilla units in game for the continental theatre. Strict option only allows T.A.R. Continental Units to be recruited by the U.S. and Great Britain while the Relaxed option allows the recruitment of vanilla units.
Replenishment – This will allow the player enable or disable unit replenishment in the field.
Promotions – This will allow the player enable or disable promotions in the field.
AI Bonus – This will allow the player enable or disable the bonuses the AI receives in the campaign.
Tech Research Rate - This will allow the player to change how fast new technologies are researched. This is very handy when playing with increased turns per year. Or speed it up if you want to increase armies faster. The player can choose one of several options:
-Normal: All research rates are unchanged
-Slower x2: All research rates are increased by a factor of x2
-Slower x4: All research rates are increased by a factor of x4
-Slower x8: All research rates are increased by a factor of x8
-Faster x2: All research rates are decreased by a factor of x2
-Faster x4: All research rates are decreased by a factor of x4
Naval Mods: (This option is NOT SAFE to change mid-campaign!)
Supremacy - Naval Supremacy naval overhaul for ETW by Iutland.
- Completely reworked naval rosters and added many historical ships with original names to the major seafaring nations at the height of the enlightenment age. Named ships has UI icons with flags as in LME
- Changed the hull colors of Russian, British (default), French and Spanish ships loosely based on historical sources. The hulls also have less of a “Swiss-cheese” visual appearance due to cannonball impacts.
- Realistic naval gunnery and combat. Ships will more seldom sink but instead surrender due to being dismasted or losing its crew/cannons.
- Realistic sailing characteristics.
- Reworked naval jacks for the factions that was possible to research.
- Named ships and classes are available for recruitment at roughly the correct time (i.e. early or late) in the 18th century. This means that early ships are not available at higher tier buildings, but are available at lower tier buildings instead. An example is British 1st Rate Royal George that is only available in Dockyard and Dry dock buildings
Simple
- Based on the Simple Navy and Navy Recruitment mods and when enabled, it expands naval recruitment options for non-military ports. It also removes unrealistic features, improves game play balance and makes capturing ships more worthwhile. It aims bring better realism, better balance and more variety.
Tactical Options Menu:
**Most Tactical Options are safe to change mid campaign**
Formations – This allows the player what kind of troop formations are used in battles. You can select from the default Empire, DarthMod or Bran Mac Born Formations.
Forts Mods – This will allow the player to change whether how forts are constructed in game:
-All Fort Construction Enabled: This option allows for fort building as per usual. Note that Rope Climbing is disabled so wall will need to be breached with artillery.
-Stockades Only Construction Enabled: All fort construction is limited to small stockades and wooden forts only. Forts already on the map at the beginning of a campaign will still be there and work as per normal (game bugs and all).
Battlefield Borders - This allows the player to disable the Red Bounders that appear on battle maps. Great for more immersive game and for recording game play videos too!
Battle AI CPU Performance – This allows the player to force the game to use more CPU cores during battles. This is to help enhance the AI in game for a more challenging opponent on the battlefield.
PLEASE NOTE: To avoid any issues and for best AI Performance, you should NOT set the option any higher than your Processor’s actual number of PHYSICAL CPU Cores.
The term Physical means the actual cores of your processor, not counting any type of hyperthreading or the equivalent of it. It’s OK to set the option for less than your actual cores if you are unsure. Most modern systems today have at least a dual core CPU and many systems have Quad Core CPU processors. Hex Core or higher processors are relatively newer arrivals to CPU market. Actual mileage may vary so you should search online for the specification for your processor if you are uncertain.
Deployment Zones – This will allow the player to toggle setting for the Deployment Zones. It is disabled by default. Enabling it on will change how Deployment Zones work in battles. Selecting Enlarged Deployment Zones Option will increase the size of deployment zones. The Enlarged + Increased Distance Zones will increase the size of deployment zones and increase the distance between the opposing deployment zones.
Warpath Natives in GC – When enabled (default), this option will add Warpath Native Americans to the Grand Campaigns. (This option is NOT SAFE to change mid-campaign!)
Audio and Visual Options Menu:
**All Audio and Visual Options are safe to change mid campaign**
Language – The option allows you to change the language for the in-game text descriptions as supported by the UPC.
Font Size - This allows the player to adjust the size of text in-game. PLEASE NOTE: choosing the higher Font Sizes may cause some descriptions to go “beyond the edge” and thus be unreadable.
Sound Effects – This option allows the user to disable the TAR Sounds pack if they wish.
T.A.R. Music – This option allows the user to disable the TAR Music pack if they wish.
Army Audio Options – This option allows the user to choose what Drum & Fife is played in game as well as soldier chatter.
US Battle Flags – This will allow the player to choose what U.S. Battle Flag American Units will take into battle.
Campaign Markers - This allows the player to choose between have campaign markers visible on the campaign map or not.
Firearm Tracers – This option allows the player to choose to disable or enable tracers from soldier’s firearms on the battlefield.
Enhanced Smoke – This option allows the player to choose how much gun smoke is seen in game and how long it lingers. All Smoke Effects are disabled by default (recommended for slow PCs). Please note that the smoke setting can greatly affect game performance. You have the choice between Lite (older/slower PCs), Medium (mid ranged PCs) and Full (good gaming PCs)
Movement Arrows - This allows the player to choose between the default ETW Battlefield Green Movement Arrows or custom Blue ones.
ReShade (Post Processing) Effects – This will allow the player to enable/disable advanced graphic shaders in-game to improve visual quality with negligible impact on performance. Three presets (Basic, Enhanced and Ultimate) for the shaders are already configured and can be selected with the “F9” key. The use the “+” (plus) or “-“ (minus) keys to select between them. You can also disable/enable the ReShade effects on/off in-game with the “F10” key. Please note that this option stays active even when T.A.R. is closed and is compatible with vanilla ETW and other ETW Mods.
The ReShade Presets:
Level 1: This is light enhancement and has the least impact on performance (framerate).
Level 2: This option adds more post processing but impacts performance more.
Level 3: This option adds the most post processing but impacts performance most as well.
User Defined: This is ReShade blank slate.
This is for you, the player, to experiment with your own presets from scratch without having to edit the existing ones.
ReShade is developed by crosire and more information can be found here: https://reshade.me
Camera – This option allows the user to enforce what type of battlefield camera to use including Unlimited Camera mode. Unlimited Camera can be especially useful for filming and/or broadcasting game play action.
Back to Previous Menu – This will always take you back to the previous menu.
Diagnostics and Modding Menu:
Open Data Folder - For allowing quick and easy access for adding mods, troubleshooting, etc.
Check for Updates – This will open your web browser and take you to the TAR Moddb.com webpage.
Enable Diagnostics - A safety feature so to speak, to prevent accidental resets. Clicking it will enable Reset, Edit and Delete options listed below.
Edit T.A.R. User Script File - This option is for ADVANCED USERS ONLY! This option will open the user.empire_script.txt file in Notepad and allow the user to manually edit the script to add mods, troubleshoot, etc.
Reset T.A.R. User Script File - For the TAR to work properly, the TAR must use special custom user.empire_script.txt files included with the mod. For various reasons and/or errors, these files may get corrupted, deleted, mangled or whatever and may need to be RESET for the TAR to work properly. Selecting this option will delete all current TAR user script files and replace them with backups.
Edit Pref Script File - This option is for ADVANCED USERS ONLY! This option will open the preferences.empire_script.txt file in Notepad and allow the user to manually edit game setting.
Delete Pref Script File - Selecting this option will DELETE the preferences.empire_script.txt. Then start the game again and it will generate a new file. Note: at this point, all ETW game setting (display, audio, etc.) will be reset to default.
Edit Game Saves - This option will open ESF Editor to allow editing of a saved game file. See the Modding Guide for more details.
We hope you enjoy The American Revolution Mod and happy gaming!
The American Revolution Mod Tenth Anniversary Edition - User Manual
