After many months of work, I have completed a beta version for a huge overhaul of EAW, with the end goal of making the war as close to a WW1 simulation as the AGEOD engine can manage. The mod can be downloaded at the link below. Extract the contents of the RAR file into your "End All Wars" folder (typically located under C:\Games\End All Wars on Windows 7/8 machines). You will be prompted on whether to overwrite the ModPath.ini file, say Yes when prompted (the ModPath.ini file can be opened at any time in a Text editor like NotePad, simply switch the text in the file back to EAW to revert to vanilla; you can later change it to EAW_ULT to play the mod). Also pay attention to the fact you have a separate EXE called EAW_ULT.exe, this is the EXE you will need to launch the game with to play this mod (continue using the standard EAW.exe if you go back to vanilla).
Download Mod Here! (Current Beta Version 2.12 - July 6th, 2015)
Key features:
- There are now 8 playable factions: Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Russia, Great Britain, Italy, Ottoman Empire, and USA. Each faction has its own units, resources, etc. Theoretically the game can support up to 8 players, though some factions are likely to come into the war quite late (i.e., USA) and/or have minimal orders to manage per turn, so it's likely to be more fun playing with 4-6 players, and some players submitting orders for multiple factions (i.e., France player might submit orders for France and Italy, and maybe USA late in the war).
- Minors are handled by the Alliance "leader". Central Powers allies join Germany's "faction" upon entering war, most Entente allies join Great Britain (even if Great Britain is not at war, they will belong to this faction), and a few go to Russia (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania)
- Victory Points (VP) for winning the game are still handled at an alliance level (Entente vs Central Powers). Each turn, the VP accumulated by the members of the alliance are "rolled up" into the alliance and used at the end of the scenario to determine the winner (and margin of victory). Below screenshot shows the Alliance VP amounts at the bottom (Entente on left with French flag roundel, and Central Powers on right with German flag roundel).
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- Turns are now 7-days (rather than 15), with a system in place to make turn time frames variable. 7-day turns allow for greater flexibility to react to enemy attacks (such as reinforcing an attacked position). The months of May-September will have the full 4 turns a month. October, November, and April will be 2 turns a month. December, January, February, and March will all only be 1 turn a month. This means a full year of turns is only 30 turns, keeping the number of turns only slightly higher than vanilla (which had 24 turns a year at 2 per month/15 days each).
- Trenches are represented as structures on the map, which can be built from October 1914 onwards on the Western Front via Regional Decisions (RGD). Trenches change the terrain where they are built to severely curtail frontage (meaning fewer units engage in combat each turn), making battles more drawn out and less likely to result in a breakthrough. They also grant an entrenchment bonus to all friendly units (the level of bonus increases as the level of trench increases). Trenches give a fort-like bonus too, meaning enemy units cannot pass through them until the trench is destroyed.
- Leaders are now always considered "active" (due to a variety of issues we found while testing which caused combats not to be initiated in sensible spots due to inactivity). To keep the importance of Strategic Rating in place, MTSG will now be driven primarily by the stack leader's Strat rating. The base chance to MTSG to an adjacent combat is 20%, modified by +20% per Strat rating of the leader of the stack doing the MTSG. There is an additional +25% if the stack is adjacent to the GHQ, and a +60% if the stack is the GHQ itself. What this means in practice is MTSG is very unreliable when away from the GHQ and with low Strategic rating leaders. We found this worked really well in practice, and helped avoid issues of commanders not participating in combat like they were supposed to.
- Movement for large formations of troops is now limited to moving along the roads represented on the map. In game terms, this is done by limiting anything with "wheels" on it (including supply and munitions trains) to only be able to travel between regions where there is a road or a rail line. Units without wheels can pass through these areas, but won't be able to stay supplied without establishing a road path to it in the near future. This helps keep somewhat sensible supply lines in place, as WW1 was very much fought along road lines to keep massive armies fed. In the example below, you'll see blue lines where supply units can traverse, and red lines where they can't.
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- Resources have been expanded to represent the variety of materials needed to run a modern war in WW1. The screenshot below shows the expanded resource menu at the top of the player's screen. The left side of the resources screen show resources on hand, the right side (with the blue and green numbers) are research progress in various fields.
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The resources (numbers in white) from left to right are as follows:
VP - Victory Points accumulated per turn. These get rolled into the Alliance's VP pool, and also help counteract war weariness (more on this later)
Rail Pool - The amount of railroad points available to rail units around
Naval Pool - The amount of transport points available to transport units over ocean/coastal zones
Hunger Points - The amount of hunger in your faction. This goes up based on the Blockade for the Central Powers, or lack of Overseas Shipping for the Entente. More on this later, but as the Hunger Points go up, the more negative impact it has on morale.
Munitions - The amount of shells in stock for utilizing heavy artillery
Inflation - The amount of inflation accrued. Standard AGEOD inflation mechanics are in place
National Resiliency - This number fluctuates through the game, but basically represents the faction's resiliency to negative National Morale effects. For each 500 points of National Resiliency, your faction has +1 National Resiliency modifier to its National Morale. Each +1 National Resiliency means you get a check every 3 months (not turn!) of (100 - Current NM) as a percentage chance of gaining +1 morale. So for example, if you have 500 National Resiliency, this is a +8 Resiliency modifier, and if your current National Morale was 30, you would get 8 attempts a quarter (every 3 months) at 70% chance of success to gain +1 NM.
War Weariness - The inverse of National Resiliency, for each 500 points of War Weariness you gain a +1 War Weariness modifier to National Morale, which means -1 NM per modifier each time the check is made. War Weariness goes up as the war progresses, at a much higher rate the longer the war goes on!
Money (first resource on bottom left) - Money available. This income comes from standard sources, and from printing money.
Conscripts - Number of men available for basic troop recruitment
WSU - War supply, mainly used for building artillery, tanks, planes, and ships
Officers - These are professional officers, needed to build officer elements in corps (more on these later). This pool is also used for building trained professionals like medical units and engineers. They are generated by Officer Training Facilities (a type of factory, which can have more built as the war progresses)
Artillery - Used to build artillery guns, they are generated by Artillery Factories
Planes - Used to build plane units, they are generated by Plane Factories
Tanks - Used to build tanks, they are generated by Tank Factories
Chemical Points - Generated by Chemical Factories, these are the points needed to utilize Chemical Warfare attacks
The numbers to the right (in green and blue) are the research progress levels. There are 7 types of research, Infantry, Artillery, Planes, Tanks, Chemical Warfare, Submarine (CP only), and ASW (Entente only). The blue number on top is your current progress, and the number in green on bottom is the target to advance to next level of research in this category. Research points come from building factories corresponding to the research category (i.e. Planes Research increases by building Planes Factories), which grant you a bonus of +3 points per turn per facility, your "major" allies +2 (for the Entente this is GBR, FRA, and USA, for the Central Powers GER and AUS), and everyone else +1. So in this way, Russia, Italy, and Ottomans will trail in research gain.
Factories become available to build in October 1914, when it becomes apparent the war won't be over by Christmas. Building a factory requires a city of city size 8 or greater, and each time a factory is built it reduces the city size by 5. So large cities are required to build lots of factories, again limiting less industrialized nations such as Russia, Italy, Ottomans, etc. in their ability to build up big wartime economies. This also makes taking of large economic centers from the enemy, as it limits their ability to ramp up their war material.
- Grand Offensives must be conducted by major powers from 1915 onwards. At the beginning of each year, each faction gets a Grand Offensive RGD which can be played against a City, Fort, or Trench (Western Front only). Between May-September, if the Grand Offensive target hasn't been selected yet, there is a 35% chance per turn of getting -1 NM immediately, and +25 War Weariness. Playing the RGD makes the region it is played on become a 10 point objective, but each turn the region is still in enemy possession, you will gain -1 NM. The offensive lasts for 12 turns, so there's a potential of -12 NM if the objective is not taken.
- Sea Control is represented in game, and is important for launching amphibious operations. If a friendly nation has a port of at least level 2 within 2 regions of a sea zone, it's alliance has "Sea Control". Any enemy land (amphibious assault) troops passing through this zone will suffer a -30% cohesion loss, meaning they will quickly become useless if passing through several enemy controlled zones. This can be counteracted by moving warships into the zone, and enacting a "Sea Control" RGD, which will protect your troops but also alerts the enemy to your presence there and exposes your navy to counter-attack. So, for example, in the screenshot below, if the Germans decided to launch an amphibious invasion of England, they would have to pass through Dogger Bank, meaning they would suffer -30% cohesion. If the Germans didn't want to have this penalty, they could move warships into the Dogger Bank region 1 turn prior to the troops coming in, and play the "Sea Control" RGD, but doing so alerts the Royal Navy that the German Navy is up to something on its coastline!
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