CW2 - Prepare To Cry Edition
I came across AACW a few years ago when I was laid up with some injuries and I played the heck out of it. I was excited when I learned a new version was planned, especially after I saw the map. I purchased it when it was released and have since played it often ...
... and have decided that I'm pretty frustrated with some things. When I play the full campaign starting in April, why am I still forced to accept events that will happen at the same time, every time, three or four years hence? For that matter, why I am still forced to fight Bull Run? Why do Ben Grierson's (or Abel Streight's, etc) raiders show up when they no longer have any relevance? I don't mind having the same strategic objectives, but I want more flexibility and randomness. Otherwise the full campaign ought to be individual major battles strung together and forget the rest.
The developers have seen fit to make knowledge and tools available to modify the game. Several forum members have contributed ideas and help. My formal education (post high school) has largely been in computer science. I figured I have half a chance to build up what I want. I cannot change the way the engine resolves combat, nor do I see any need to improve on it given the level of representation: it's not a tactical simulation. As much as I'd like to, I can't separate seniority from experience or change the way leaders are promoted. Since I have not learned to use ExMap, I can't change some of the more grievous issues I have with the map.
I am only focusing on the full April '61 campaign. I considered creating additional models rather than editing existing ones, but it's more time than I have. This mod will still most definitely break every other campaign in the game. Not much I can do about that, since the same models are used for almost every campaign, whether or not they are relevant.
Goals:
1. Make certain things about the game more closely resemble history, and others less so. Ulysses Grant should be able to become a major general; it should not be a sure thing. Robert E. Lee should be one of the first full generals; I should not have to wait X number of turns to decide to make him the leader of one of my armies. The state of West Virginia does not exist in 1861, nor should it ever if, as the CSA, I establish and hold extensive military control all the way to Ohio and Pennsylvania from '62 onward. Et cetera.
2. Add more randomness to the events in hopes of creating a more re-playable experience.
3. Do not negatively impact Athena.
List of changes (so far).
Leaders:
1. Leader models added and removed to both factions that are playable from the main menu (USA/CSA). Removals were based on if the leader never actually reached general officer rank or it was awarded posthumously; if they commanded in the field during the conflict; or if their field command and/or commission was particularly brief/insignificant. Additions were made based on field command of forces in battles.
2. Many leader appearances have had an element of chance added. In historical circumstances where a leader had at least colonel rank and brigade (or other significant) command for at least six months, leaders have had an event added to give them a 5% chance to appear before their historical promotion date to initial general officer rank. I usually start this 1-2 months after their historical promotion to colonel, and I try to avoid using back-dated ranks.
3. Attempting to make leader spawning at rank closer to historical date and location. Sometimes this was difficult because of the common practice of back-dating rank. I'm still working through the Union general ranks, made more confusing by the volunteer versus regular army ranking system. More leaders than previously now spawn with the highest number of command points in a theater rather than in a specific region, so hopefully less CSA generals spawning outside Richmond when the front has already moved to North Carolina ...
4. Army-Of-The-Creek-Behind-My-House (in other words, armies in name only) no longer a qualifier for LeaderRank = 3, and some of these models have been removed. CanBeGHQStack = 0 and/or CanBeHQStack = 0 implemented in some cases.
5. CSA: Attempted to make leader ranks more closely resemble historical, on the surface if not in fact. Most 2-star and 3-star generals no longer command corps/army, respectively. Initially, the original five full generals (Cooper, A. Johnston, Lee, J. Johnston and Beauregard) are the only army commanders available. A conditional event promotes the next general on the seniority list if one of the original five (actually four, since I never spawn Samuel Cooper) are removed from the game. If that general is dead (or locked), there's an event to cover that and the next two generals in line. I have finished with almost all of the CSA commanders.
6. More Union army commanders can suffer the same fate as McClellan. Just because Pope or Hooker or whoever made 3-star doesn't mean they're going to stay there.
7. It's a cosmetic change, but it makes the game much more enjoyable for me. No Union general is *displayed* with anything more than a 2-star ranking with the exception of Grant (I never spawn Winfield Scott). I changed the NATO symbol called by the model file, and blanked a file in the graphics directory. The only place I couldn't change this was the tooltip pop-up, and that's because the developers reused the graphics for the XP levels. I couldn't blank one without damaging the other. To make it easier to pick out generals that have 3-stars worth of command points, I'll probably create a 2-star NATO symbol with a slightly different color.
8. Some abilities were changed or modified. A couple of examples:
8a. *Zero* leaders now use fast or slow move.
8b. I feel some leaders are unfairly hit with command point penalities at lower ranks. Take Early as an example. He was not a completely incompetent brigadier, but because the same ability is applied at each rank, instead of becoming less competent he becomes more so. At 1-star rank he can't even effectively command stacks that require zero command points. Really? Instead, I modify the ability used at different ranks, increasing the penalty w/rank.
9. State militia generals are added, and state-specific models for existing generals added where applicable. State-specific NATO symbols for general ranks have been added and applied where appropriate. State militia generals are all LeaderRank/MaxRank = 1, have appropriate HomeArea and have lower seniority than all other rank 1 leaders. State militia brigadiers start at seniority 200 and state militia major generals start at seniority 166 (I'm playing with these numbers). All state militia generals have a higher progression rate (five to ten times more XP required). All are either promoted by event or, in the case of some Missouri State Guard generals, have no other model.
10. Progression rate for a general at his highest achievable rank has been raised anywhere from five to ten times (meaning it takes five to ten times more experience points to achieve the next level than previously). See Peter Principle.
Forces, with a caveat - I don't have much of this done, and I don't know how the AI is going to handle it; I may have to scale it back:
1. Roughly the first year's worth of historical brigades will be formed, and brigade sizes and composition are altered (usually reduced). Some elements from these brigades will disappear to coincide with early enlistment periods.
2. Buildable brigade sizes are two, three and four elements. Fewer brigades have attached artillery or cavalry. More single regiment units available.
3. No brigade will require more command points than its number of elements, and no brigade costs more than 4 CP.
4. Few elements start as elite, although some can upgrade to such. This include elements that are part of brigades.
5. Brigade units contain slightly more conscripts than previously.
6. I am struggling on what to do with sharpshooter regiments. I do not like them at all. My inclination is to remove them altogether and add their function back as an ability of certain regiments or brigades.
7. I want to introduce one of the hurdles that the factions had to deal with that isn't present in the game now (but used to be to some extent in AACW): enlistment expiration. Under consideration: total militia available per state remains the same, but less of it available to build. Instead, it will be created by event and would have a removal date. It would not be fixed. The number of elements to expire would be recreated by event and there would be a small overlap so that entrenched positions have a chance to be maintained, but the militia created by event would *not* be upgrade-able to line infantry.
8. Oh yeah, single militia elements can no longer be combined into a freebie single CP brigade, which can then be run through the McClellan Line-Infantry Factory and spammed ad nauseum. The majority of militia will not upgrade to line.
9. Pontoon bridges removed. Engineers now have the same ability.
10. Combat ships, to include brigs, gunboats and mortar boats, are built as one element and one element only. I might reduce the transport ships in the same way, but I'm not sure yet. Blockade squadrons may remain unchanged or only slightly altered, depending on Athena.
11. I'm focusing on unit files and combined element compositions. I don't see a reason to change most model file values, but there are a few things.
12. I am building on much of tripax's work WRT to element names. Hopefully the fact that I'm separating much of the artillery from brigades will mean less generic artillery company names.
Map:
1. Most structure display sizes reduced. Some structures relocated in their region. Sometimes this was done to more closely match where a city might be. Sometimes it was just to reduce crowding (e.g. the New York City area). I can't say a applied a consistent rule here, and it's just cosmetic.
2. Some harbor exit/entry regions changed.
3. In the case of a very few fort regions, I added rail. Why? Because it doesn't take eight days to travel from the city of Charleston to Fort Johnson, that's why. No, not even on foot and through the mud. Since I couldn't find a way to gracefully move the fort to another region, and since I couldn't redraw the map, adding rail was the least evil way I could think of to make a faster connection. It's not ideal and it's not historically accurate, but it plays better, IMHO.
4. Some fort regions have their structures relocated (see Structures section) and now have a permanent BlockState = 2 (can't enter nor see detail on region).
Cities and structures:
1. Many stockade changes. Some didn't exist at the start of the conflict. Some weren't more than a post with some barracks. They usually weren't equipped to support armies of thousands. I have lowered the supply and ammo wants for settlements, stockades and forts. I don't have the full list in front of me, but a significant number of them were changed to settlements, depots, redoubts, combinations of the aforementioned, and some were removed altogether. Some CSA camps were added as depots.
2. Hatteras, Ocracoke and Fisher were not coastal system forts. There are other examples of this. I have modified them to redoubts or stockades or removed them altogether.
3. That's not where Fort Knox is/was located. Fixed.
3a. Couldn't find a Fort James, TX, in my research. Redoubt now at Galveston (because I couldn't use ExMap to draw a new island region south of Galveston).
3b. Did find a Fort Livingston, LA, but it's not on the map (and there's no good way to add it w/o ExMap knowledge).
3c. ... and so on, the coastline of the map drives me bonkers.
4. Additional New England forts changed to represent their historical type and location.
5. Canadian forts added, removed or relocated.
6. Most fort harbors removed, and some other regions have had them added or removed. This would be easier to stomach if loading/unloading forces onto/off of ships didn't take an unrealistic standard five days, no matter the number of ships, number of men, terrain type, weather, health/cohesion of forces involved, etc, etc. I have a long gripe about this. Anyway, harbor changes. Don't expect to sail (or steam, I guess) your ocean-going transport up to Island 10 where it will miraculously take on experienced crew and effect repairs.
Gameplay changes:
1. 7-day turns. Still working this out but it is progressing. The way the game is coded right now, I do not see a quick way to go back and forth from 7-day to 15-day turns.
2. Regional decisions ...
2a. I see no reason why I can't build more than one redoubt per year, although maybe more than one at a time might unbalance things. This RGD will renew. I plan for it to work in regions w/o cities. Ideally I'd have it require engineers in the same region as well as troops, but so far I haven't been able to make that happen. I can make it require engineers. I can make it require troops. I can make it require either/or, but I can't make it require one element with *ConstEngineer* attribute AND three elements of type line/militia/etc. If I could, that would limit somewhat the Union ability to build redoubts ad infinitum. I also don't know if the AI would make sense of it. I don't even know if the AI uses that RGD.
2b. Stockades are not built of dead conscripts. Input cost now one fifth of redoubt (single element presence requirement remains the same). Stockades can be built in level one city areas (already exists in the game, look at a few of the fortified cities in Texas and New Mexico).
2c. Sea Mines RGD lasts more than one turn (right now I'm thinking four 7-day turns max), but is still only effective for one kaboom. There is a decay percentage added.
2d. I would like to implement some of the unused, developer-created RGDs, especially the one for disassembling industry. I haven't looked into it very far yet.
3. Abilities ...
3a. Slightly reduced penalty for Unpopular Leader.
3b. Since I modified the abilities of some of the leaders, I had to modify the description of some of the Genius abilities.
3c. Goal of adding new recruiting ability, producing fewer conscripts per turn but without requirement of being in the city. However, I might scrap this in favor of an event (see below).
4. Events ...
4a. Trying to add events specific to Price and Forrest to spawn raw units provided that those leaders fulfill certain conditions (Price in Missouri from April to September, unbesieged, minimal NM requirement, region control, etc).
4b. Adding in some small (1-2%) chances that leaders are removed from play. I'm not trying to recreate the political court martial of Porter, more along the lines of historical resignations. Code for resignations will be separate from other files so it can be compiled into a scenario or not with the change of a single line.
4c. Foreign intervention will be modified to allow for invasion of Mexico by CSA and/or Union, because why not?
4d. Athena gets free garrison units upon fort capture, human players do not.
5. Several events removed or probability significantly reduced. Lee's Lost Order is now Lee's Lost Event: I don't know what happened to it, it's just gone. Maybe I rolled it and smoked it.
6. Fewer fixed units. As the CSA, no longer will you be required to unavoidably spend heavy arty replacements on coastal fort units, which you can't defend and are there mainly to provide Union generals with easy promotion. Relocate it inland. Spike it before the Navy rolls in. Whatever, but now you can do what happened most often in history: abandon the forts without a fight.
Other factions:
1. Additional Indian factions added and existing forces parceled out. Reason: Sioux uprising should not affect southwest US forces.
2. Slightly modified faction relationships in the event of foreign intervention.
3. Considering adding event for Union to supply material ($ and WS cost) to Mexico during French intervention, with result of better faction relationship.
4. Added corps to GBR faction.
5. Altered TechUpg values on some models so that graphics don't break when they upgrade. Normally you wouldn't see it since you can't control non-US factions without the console, but it's still busted.
... and that's not all, but it is all I have on my plate for the moment. Currently I am drilling down through the Union generals and implementing changes.
Leaders:
The mod will end up giving more leaders than the vanilla game provides. However, the number of leaders in play will not be that much greater than the stock game. Events will determine if the initial leaders are KIA and then shuffle up and spawn others. I think the original game had something like 108 CSA land leaders and 214 USA land leaders. While I might have 128 CSA land leaders, only 112 (guessing) will be unconditionally spawned and persist.
[ATTACH]36052[/ATTACH]
Command radius and bonus:
Target: maintain corp formation and cooperation radius from army leader, while reducing the range of the bonus to the same or adjacent regions.
7-day turns:
I'm playing through games to test my changes, but I'm not doing much in the way of spending resources. So it's hard for me to tell right now if I've got the resource production values adjusted correctly to go along with the turns. It seems like I'm getting some pretty high numbers, but I don't have an unaltered game to test at present. I'll have to reinstall with a modpath soon.
The mod will end up giving more leaders than the vanilla game provides. However, the number of leaders in play will not be that much greater than the stock game. Events will determine if the initial leaders are KIA and then shuffle up and spawn others. I think the original game had something like 108 CSA land leaders and 214 USA land leaders. While I might have 128 CSA land leaders, only 112 (guessing) will be unconditionally spawned and persist.
[ATTACH]36052[/ATTACH]
Command radius and bonus:
Target: maintain corp formation and cooperation radius from army leader, while reducing the range of the bonus to the same or adjacent regions.
7-day turns:
I'm playing through games to test my changes, but I'm not doing much in the way of spending resources. So it's hard for me to tell right now if I've got the resource production values adjusted correctly to go along with the turns. It seems like I'm getting some pretty high numbers, but I don't have an unaltered game to test at present. I'll have to reinstall with a modpath soon.
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lukasberger
- AGEod Veteran
- Posts: 782
- Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 5:59 pm
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There might also be an issue with foreign intervention totals. I think they work on one point per turn, which could inflate the number if used with shorter turn periods.
Resource want of settlements and outposts significantly reduced. Southwest Texas before:
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Southwest Texas after:
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It's just for looks, no camel cavalry regiment for the CSA.
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Updated Texas coastal installations. Old Fort James region now in BlockState.
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Louisiana. Probably need to rename Amelia. So far as I can tell, there's nothing in the engine coded to deal with regions that have both settlements and stockades (and maybe redoubts/forts). What happens in that case is that it displays the graphic for a settlement, but hovering above the settlement won't produce the tooltip. Instead you have to hover above the flag.
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Florida panhandle. Old Gadsden region now in BlockState.
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Middle Florida. Moved Fort Clinch to more accurately represent its location; old region now in BlockState. Not pictured, but there are some inland stockades in southern Florida.
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North Carolina.
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NC Outer Banks changes.
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There might also be an issue with foreign intervention totals. I think they work on one point per turn, which could inflate the number if used with shorter turn periods.
Resource want of settlements and outposts significantly reduced. Southwest Texas before:
[ATTACH]36251[/ATTACH]
Southwest Texas after:
[ATTACH]36250[/ATTACH]
It's just for looks, no camel cavalry regiment for the CSA.
[ATTACH]36252[/ATTACH]
Updated Texas coastal installations. Old Fort James region now in BlockState.
[ATTACH]36253[/ATTACH]
Louisiana. Probably need to rename Amelia. So far as I can tell, there's nothing in the engine coded to deal with regions that have both settlements and stockades (and maybe redoubts/forts). What happens in that case is that it displays the graphic for a settlement, but hovering above the settlement won't produce the tooltip. Instead you have to hover above the flag.
[ATTACH]36254[/ATTACH]
Florida panhandle. Old Gadsden region now in BlockState.
[ATTACH]36255[/ATTACH]
Middle Florida. Moved Fort Clinch to more accurately represent its location; old region now in BlockState. Not pictured, but there are some inland stockades in southern Florida.
[ATTACH]36256[/ATTACH]
North Carolina.
[ATTACH]36257[/ATTACH]
NC Outer Banks changes.
[ATTACH]36258[/ATTACH]
1. The way units are named seems a little haphazard to me. Because the unit value doesn't always change when the model does, confusing artifacts from the unit file can show up. Artillery upgrades are one example. I have re-enabled 6-lb -> 12-lb artillery upgrade events. I have tested the events by giving both factions the same artillery models and filtering the faction selection (SelectSubUnits = Models $mdl_CMN_Art1;FactionTags ABC) to make sure I limit the upgrade scope. This seems to work as I intend, and I'll keep playing with it. The problem comes around when 6-lb units are pointing to 12-lb models. The unit file "name" field for 6-lb arty was, of course, "6 lb pounder". A battery might be uniquely named when it is created, e.g. "grimjaw's Motherhuge quarter-pounder", and that unit might be upgraded to 12-lb. That seems to work OK, and the correct types are shown in the unit description area. If Motherhuge is captured and combined with other units, the unique names are wiped out and it reverts to the unit file fields, meaning it will show up on tooltips as "6 lb pounder" when it fact it is a 12-lb. Since 6-lb batteries are the only ones being upgraded, they're the only ones with the problem. There were some old events that upgraded 12-lb smoothbore to rifled artillery but I have decided not to use those.
The artillery "name" field in the artillery unit and model files has been made more generic and standardized amongst the different files. "Customnames" are being fleshed out. It's a low priority right now. I considered creating an event to modify captured artillery to conform to the new crew and I did try a few tests, but it's also a low priority.
2. At the start of the campaign, I am going to lock Missouri. Missouri and Kentucky had enough similarities that I feel justified in doing so. MO & KY were both de jure Union-but-neutral states. KY was invaded by CSA forces; Claiborne's overthrow attempt started within, albeit with clandestine CSA support. If MO is not locked from the start, Camp Jackson, the Missouri State Guard formation and the Price-Harney truce don't make much sense. It will stay locked until the original date of the Camp Jackson affair. Here are some options, and I'd welcome feedback.
2a. MO unlocks the day after Camp Jackson, Lyon and Union forces spawn in Saint Louis and elsewhere, Price and company spawn where I've stated previously in this thread. After that it's open season.
2b. MO is set to unlock the day after Camp Jackson, but like in Kentucky you can choose to enter before then. Similar penalties/bonuses would apply for early entry.
2c. MO is set to unlock on 06/11/1861. Spawns would be similar to 2a, with slightly more CSA units (since they would have had a month to prepare).
2d. Same as 2b except the date is the one from 2c.
3. As you can see from the graphic, the resource totals are out of whack. Many of the structures in the vanilla game (henceforth abbr. to VG) are already at their lowest possible values of production. For teh sake of argument, let's say a level one city produces 1 money in the base game. That field only accepts integer values, so you can't type in 0.5 and expect it to work. The same applies to many other resource production rates: money, WSU, conscripts, supply, experience, foreign intervention, ammo. The workaround for this will be to increase consumption of everything that's being produced at increased rates since the turn change. It might lead to some numbers that will look oddly inflated to long-time players, but it should work out. There's not much alternative.
I don't think the CW2 engine was built with any serious contemplation of enabling 7-day turns. It's a shame. Now that I have play-tested it a few times, I can't abide playing two-week turns anymore.
4. Foreign intervention, the value, is handled differently by the engine than something like money or WSU. I can double the one-time FI changes from events (e.g. territorial concessions), but I don't think I can modify the rate of change. Even if it was in the user-editable code, the per-turn change is already at 1, and I assume like many other values it's stored as an integer. I think the foreign intervention value might top out at 150, so it won't scale for 7-day turns.
The problems with FI are not a big deal, though. FI, the value, is just that. If you reach it, it's not the engine that makes Britain and France go ballistic. It's an event that checks the FI, the current value, versus another number ("MAX"), plus a probability check, which if true then a cascading series of events happens. In the VG, there's a 1% chance that FI, the event, won't fire even if you hit MAX, and it's easy to change that probability value as well as add additional dice rolls or condtions. You can also set FI, the value, to HARD, which will help.
5. New replacement configuration, work in progress.
After the forcepool is increased in May, the cost of replacements for CSA light artillery goes up. If you aren't familiar with the way replacement costs are calculated (I wasn't), it takes the number of models using a family and averages. There's some rounding or discarding of fractional values, obviously.
Let's say costs for three units with family "light" are 2, 4 and 6 money. That means the replacement costs for any of those units is 4 money, so long as all those units are in the forcepool or on the board. There's no set replacement cost of a family. It *can* vary from turn to turn during a game, depending on the number of models using the it. This is why in the VG, the replacement cost for CSA fort artillery is 62, while the cost listed in the model file is only 40. The high $ value for CSA models using $famHvyArty is $90, and the low is $40. Three of the units using $famHvyArty are cheaper to build than replace. Same reason it costs more to replace a 6lb CSA battery than buy a new one.
Working as designed? I couldn't tell you, but I don't like it so I tried modifying it.
I retasked families that are in the engine code but are unused in the CW2 campaigns. These are things like famAirNukeBomber which obviously won't have any place in CW2, but still exist as aliases. I'd rename them to make more sense if I could, but it's not currently possible. I did have the option of altering their string descriptions and graphic, though, so you wouldn't have to translate "famAirFighter" into "Mounted Bty".
Horse arty, 6lb (and, maybe, 12lb howitzers), 12lb, 10lb (and 3-in. Ordnance, new model), 20lb, Columbiad, Rodman, Siege, fort batteries and coastal artillery each had their own families. The idea was to have your build cost equal your replacement cost, or at least stay really close to it. It may not bother you that you only had to pay $62 for CSA coastal arty or siege replacements, but you were getting ripped off for everything else (anywhere from $12-22/replacement for 20lb, Columbiad and fort). The same replacement cost calculation applies to conscripts and war supplies.
There were at least two problems with my solution. Problem one had to do with sharing supply. Some of the families I tried using didn't want to play nice when it came to sharing supply. Maybe they are grouped into subtypes (arty, inf, airplanes, ICBMs, etc). That would be merely annoying, but when this conflict happens it crashes the game. If that was the only problem, I could probably avoid using families that conflict.
Problem two is that the families have some kind of tag (maybe the same subtype mentioned in the previous paragraph, total speculation here) that is used by the Recruit Panel to decide if and how they are displayed. For example, Rodmans are one of the units that show up when you filter for artillery because $famHvyArty is, I suspect, one of the families listed as qualifying for that filter button. $famMedVehicle, however, shows up in the Recruit Panel under two other filters, neither of them arty. There are enough families unused to achieve my goal of having build cost = replacement cost, but unfortunately it screws up the Recruit Panel too much. I don't think this is something I can edit. I think the code relating to that part of a family is in the engine. Some of the code for the Recruit Panel display is available, but not enough to change which families qualify for which filters.
For the time being, I'm going to make a few small changes to families to reign in the cost of the worst offenders, but I'm disappointed that I can't do more. There are only three families of artillery used in the VG, and five different classes of artillery are using $famHvyArty. There is at least one additional artillery family available that works fine: $famSHvyArty. Why they included it and didn't use it, I have no idea. I have tested up to five families with only one issue. I *think* $famArmoredTrain falls under subtype artillery. It is working correctly in the Recruit Panel as such, anyway. The issue arises when the unit is manipulated individually. The sound of movement for those units is a train, rather than the sound of men or horses moving. Not too hard to live with.
6. Ship costs will increase.
In the VG, it costs $20, 2 conscripts and 5 WS to build an 8-HP 6lb battery. Each HP in that case represents a single gun. A 6lb has a ROF of 2 and range of 5. A single element brig (you're limited to building them in squadrons of two), costs $20, 1 conscript and 10 WS. For that you get an AllWater model with 100% MoveRatio, commerce ship + transport abilities, and very efficient supply/ammo usage. You also get 10-HP (representing 10 guns), ROF 3 and a range of 5. The hit probability for a brig is less than a 6lber, but the damage done before coefficients are applied is the same as a 6lb battery.
So it takes fewer men (half as many) to fight and move eight guns on land than it does to fight and move ten guns (with a higher ROF) at sea. Maybe the ship only has enough men to fight one side of the ship? Whatever. Most of the ships with combat capability are like this, very much underpriced (or arty is too high).
What makes this even worse is the "Land Sailors" and "Strip Guns" RGDs, AKA Union Navy freebies. "Land Sailors" has no direct money, WS or conscript costs. If you use the ships available from the start of the game, there are also no indirect costs. Two 1-conscript light warship elements can produce one 20-conscript sailor unit which is removed from the forcepool (big deal). There are no negative effects on the warships being used. "Strip Guns" at least costs 10 WSU to use, and advertises that it will also affect the ships ("Various: At least 4 heavy warships must be adjacent. They will be slightly weakened"). However, the ships are not affected nor is there any RGD mechanism I'm aware of to do so. There's nothing in an RGD that says where it's being played *from* other than adjacent regions. If you have three water regions that qualify for this RGD around a land region, which one is it supposed to pick to weaken ships? All this is to say that the Union player, already blessed with resource production wealth, is also getting unwarranted freebies that.
There are abstractions and there is bullsh*t. This is the latter. Yes, the Union is supposed to be more powerful than the CSA, but I think end result here is too much.
In addition to increasing ship costs, contemplating reducing sailor unit size. Reducing a 20-hit 600-man detachment (please, 600 men is practically the entire crew of a ship of the line of that time period) to more like a 4-hit 50- or 100-man landing party, modifying fighting effectiveness to be more like marines.
The artillery "name" field in the artillery unit and model files has been made more generic and standardized amongst the different files. "Customnames" are being fleshed out. It's a low priority right now. I considered creating an event to modify captured artillery to conform to the new crew and I did try a few tests, but it's also a low priority.
2. At the start of the campaign, I am going to lock Missouri. Missouri and Kentucky had enough similarities that I feel justified in doing so. MO & KY were both de jure Union-but-neutral states. KY was invaded by CSA forces; Claiborne's overthrow attempt started within, albeit with clandestine CSA support. If MO is not locked from the start, Camp Jackson, the Missouri State Guard formation and the Price-Harney truce don't make much sense. It will stay locked until the original date of the Camp Jackson affair. Here are some options, and I'd welcome feedback.
2a. MO unlocks the day after Camp Jackson, Lyon and Union forces spawn in Saint Louis and elsewhere, Price and company spawn where I've stated previously in this thread. After that it's open season.
2b. MO is set to unlock the day after Camp Jackson, but like in Kentucky you can choose to enter before then. Similar penalties/bonuses would apply for early entry.
2c. MO is set to unlock on 06/11/1861. Spawns would be similar to 2a, with slightly more CSA units (since they would have had a month to prepare).
2d. Same as 2b except the date is the one from 2c.
3. As you can see from the graphic, the resource totals are out of whack. Many of the structures in the vanilla game (henceforth abbr. to VG) are already at their lowest possible values of production. For teh sake of argument, let's say a level one city produces 1 money in the base game. That field only accepts integer values, so you can't type in 0.5 and expect it to work. The same applies to many other resource production rates: money, WSU, conscripts, supply, experience, foreign intervention, ammo. The workaround for this will be to increase consumption of everything that's being produced at increased rates since the turn change. It might lead to some numbers that will look oddly inflated to long-time players, but it should work out. There's not much alternative.
I don't think the CW2 engine was built with any serious contemplation of enabling 7-day turns. It's a shame. Now that I have play-tested it a few times, I can't abide playing two-week turns anymore.
4. Foreign intervention, the value, is handled differently by the engine than something like money or WSU. I can double the one-time FI changes from events (e.g. territorial concessions), but I don't think I can modify the rate of change. Even if it was in the user-editable code, the per-turn change is already at 1, and I assume like many other values it's stored as an integer. I think the foreign intervention value might top out at 150, so it won't scale for 7-day turns.
The problems with FI are not a big deal, though. FI, the value, is just that. If you reach it, it's not the engine that makes Britain and France go ballistic. It's an event that checks the FI, the current value, versus another number ("MAX"), plus a probability check, which if true then a cascading series of events happens. In the VG, there's a 1% chance that FI, the event, won't fire even if you hit MAX, and it's easy to change that probability value as well as add additional dice rolls or condtions. You can also set FI, the value, to HARD, which will help.
5. New replacement configuration, work in progress.
After the forcepool is increased in May, the cost of replacements for CSA light artillery goes up. If you aren't familiar with the way replacement costs are calculated (I wasn't), it takes the number of models using a family and averages. There's some rounding or discarding of fractional values, obviously.
Let's say costs for three units with family "light" are 2, 4 and 6 money. That means the replacement costs for any of those units is 4 money, so long as all those units are in the forcepool or on the board. There's no set replacement cost of a family. It *can* vary from turn to turn during a game, depending on the number of models using the it. This is why in the VG, the replacement cost for CSA fort artillery is 62, while the cost listed in the model file is only 40. The high $ value for CSA models using $famHvyArty is $90, and the low is $40. Three of the units using $famHvyArty are cheaper to build than replace. Same reason it costs more to replace a 6lb CSA battery than buy a new one.
Working as designed? I couldn't tell you, but I don't like it so I tried modifying it.
I retasked families that are in the engine code but are unused in the CW2 campaigns. These are things like famAirNukeBomber which obviously won't have any place in CW2, but still exist as aliases. I'd rename them to make more sense if I could, but it's not currently possible. I did have the option of altering their string descriptions and graphic, though, so you wouldn't have to translate "famAirFighter" into "Mounted Bty".
Horse arty, 6lb (and, maybe, 12lb howitzers), 12lb, 10lb (and 3-in. Ordnance, new model), 20lb, Columbiad, Rodman, Siege, fort batteries and coastal artillery each had their own families. The idea was to have your build cost equal your replacement cost, or at least stay really close to it. It may not bother you that you only had to pay $62 for CSA coastal arty or siege replacements, but you were getting ripped off for everything else (anywhere from $12-22/replacement for 20lb, Columbiad and fort). The same replacement cost calculation applies to conscripts and war supplies.
There were at least two problems with my solution. Problem one had to do with sharing supply. Some of the families I tried using didn't want to play nice when it came to sharing supply. Maybe they are grouped into subtypes (arty, inf, airplanes, ICBMs, etc). That would be merely annoying, but when this conflict happens it crashes the game. If that was the only problem, I could probably avoid using families that conflict.
Problem two is that the families have some kind of tag (maybe the same subtype mentioned in the previous paragraph, total speculation here) that is used by the Recruit Panel to decide if and how they are displayed. For example, Rodmans are one of the units that show up when you filter for artillery because $famHvyArty is, I suspect, one of the families listed as qualifying for that filter button. $famMedVehicle, however, shows up in the Recruit Panel under two other filters, neither of them arty. There are enough families unused to achieve my goal of having build cost = replacement cost, but unfortunately it screws up the Recruit Panel too much. I don't think this is something I can edit. I think the code relating to that part of a family is in the engine. Some of the code for the Recruit Panel display is available, but not enough to change which families qualify for which filters.
For the time being, I'm going to make a few small changes to families to reign in the cost of the worst offenders, but I'm disappointed that I can't do more. There are only three families of artillery used in the VG, and five different classes of artillery are using $famHvyArty. There is at least one additional artillery family available that works fine: $famSHvyArty. Why they included it and didn't use it, I have no idea. I have tested up to five families with only one issue. I *think* $famArmoredTrain falls under subtype artillery. It is working correctly in the Recruit Panel as such, anyway. The issue arises when the unit is manipulated individually. The sound of movement for those units is a train, rather than the sound of men or horses moving. Not too hard to live with.
6. Ship costs will increase.
In the VG, it costs $20, 2 conscripts and 5 WS to build an 8-HP 6lb battery. Each HP in that case represents a single gun. A 6lb has a ROF of 2 and range of 5. A single element brig (you're limited to building them in squadrons of two), costs $20, 1 conscript and 10 WS. For that you get an AllWater model with 100% MoveRatio, commerce ship + transport abilities, and very efficient supply/ammo usage. You also get 10-HP (representing 10 guns), ROF 3 and a range of 5. The hit probability for a brig is less than a 6lber, but the damage done before coefficients are applied is the same as a 6lb battery.
So it takes fewer men (half as many) to fight and move eight guns on land than it does to fight and move ten guns (with a higher ROF) at sea. Maybe the ship only has enough men to fight one side of the ship? Whatever. Most of the ships with combat capability are like this, very much underpriced (or arty is too high).
What makes this even worse is the "Land Sailors" and "Strip Guns" RGDs, AKA Union Navy freebies. "Land Sailors" has no direct money, WS or conscript costs. If you use the ships available from the start of the game, there are also no indirect costs. Two 1-conscript light warship elements can produce one 20-conscript sailor unit which is removed from the forcepool (big deal). There are no negative effects on the warships being used. "Strip Guns" at least costs 10 WSU to use, and advertises that it will also affect the ships ("Various: At least 4 heavy warships must be adjacent. They will be slightly weakened"). However, the ships are not affected nor is there any RGD mechanism I'm aware of to do so. There's nothing in an RGD that says where it's being played *from* other than adjacent regions. If you have three water regions that qualify for this RGD around a land region, which one is it supposed to pick to weaken ships? All this is to say that the Union player, already blessed with resource production wealth, is also getting unwarranted freebies that.
There are abstractions and there is bullsh*t. This is the latter. Yes, the Union is supposed to be more powerful than the CSA, but I think end result here is too much.
In addition to increasing ship costs, contemplating reducing sailor unit size. Reducing a 20-hit 600-man detachment (please, 600 men is practically the entire crew of a ship of the line of that time period) to more like a 4-hit 50- or 100-man landing party, modifying fighting effectiveness to be more like marines.
1. Attempting to simulate current direction of rivers via jumplinks. I would like to tack on a day to the existing movement rate. Initial testing is working as I hoped, but it has not been simple.
One area that caused problems was the Mississippi River near New Orleans. It's coastal water, and shallow water travel types move through it like it was molasses. Adding current direction made this worse. A new water terrain (deep draft river) was created to address it. Has the same movement, combat and weather details as non-freezing river, but allows deeper draft vessels to traverse at the same rates as the rest.
Since gunboats and other shallow-water-only units are slowpokes in coastal waters, it narrowed the regions to which I could apply a directional current. Otherwise moving from an estuary to a river region was like trying to swim up a waterfall.
Some regions have multiple harbor exits, and increasing travel time between adjacent water regions in a situation like that can lead to the engine doing odd things.
Regions A and B are coastal water and are adjacent. Region C is land, and adjacent to both A & B. Region C has harbor entrances/exits to A & B. If under normal circumstances it takes one day for a unit to legally travel from A -> B (or vice versa), CW2 engine will plot a course from A -> B. If same A -> B trip takes 3 days but rate does not increase to C from A or B, engine will plot a course from A -> C -> B, because to enter and exit the harbor is only 1 day for each operation.
This makes perfect sense to the engine but no sense in real life, unless the boats are being hurriedly disassembled and carted through Times Square. To deal with this issue, most (not all) harbors get only one entry/exit point. Places like NYC get nerfed and the situation is less historically accurate. There is no way I'm aware of currently to force a ship to use the same exit point as it used to enter. Adding that to the game would absolutely fantastic, btw.
Another potential problem is the use of the river pool. I never use the river pool except for leaders, and I don't recall the movement rate of forces traveling by that method. I don't know if applying a jumplink that affects water travel in a region will also apply to the forces traveling via the river pool. I will find out and work out something.
Anyway, end result is it takes twice as long for naval units to travel up the Mississippi River (et al rivers) as it does down. Where this gets dumb is for land regions with forts that border two or more adjacent water regions. Instead of getting one unrealistic shot at a ship traveling upstream, you get at least three.
2. Running aground. One of the problems that the Union faced in the Red River campaign was the fear of their ships being stranded up river due to falling water levels. It is easy enough for me to write an event that does the following: check date range, check probability, if both true, search list of regions and apply one-turn fix to qualifying units. Voila, a ship has run aground. Problem is, are there certain times of year that there are lower water levels, and where are they? Is it predictable? It's an idea, but it's a low priority.
One area that caused problems was the Mississippi River near New Orleans. It's coastal water, and shallow water travel types move through it like it was molasses. Adding current direction made this worse. A new water terrain (deep draft river) was created to address it. Has the same movement, combat and weather details as non-freezing river, but allows deeper draft vessels to traverse at the same rates as the rest.
Since gunboats and other shallow-water-only units are slowpokes in coastal waters, it narrowed the regions to which I could apply a directional current. Otherwise moving from an estuary to a river region was like trying to swim up a waterfall.
Some regions have multiple harbor exits, and increasing travel time between adjacent water regions in a situation like that can lead to the engine doing odd things.
Regions A and B are coastal water and are adjacent. Region C is land, and adjacent to both A & B. Region C has harbor entrances/exits to A & B. If under normal circumstances it takes one day for a unit to legally travel from A -> B (or vice versa), CW2 engine will plot a course from A -> B. If same A -> B trip takes 3 days but rate does not increase to C from A or B, engine will plot a course from A -> C -> B, because to enter and exit the harbor is only 1 day for each operation.
This makes perfect sense to the engine but no sense in real life, unless the boats are being hurriedly disassembled and carted through Times Square. To deal with this issue, most (not all) harbors get only one entry/exit point. Places like NYC get nerfed and the situation is less historically accurate. There is no way I'm aware of currently to force a ship to use the same exit point as it used to enter. Adding that to the game would absolutely fantastic, btw.
Another potential problem is the use of the river pool. I never use the river pool except for leaders, and I don't recall the movement rate of forces traveling by that method. I don't know if applying a jumplink that affects water travel in a region will also apply to the forces traveling via the river pool. I will find out and work out something.
Anyway, end result is it takes twice as long for naval units to travel up the Mississippi River (et al rivers) as it does down. Where this gets dumb is for land regions with forts that border two or more adjacent water regions. Instead of getting one unrealistic shot at a ship traveling upstream, you get at least three.
2. Running aground. One of the problems that the Union faced in the Red River campaign was the fear of their ships being stranded up river due to falling water levels. It is easy enough for me to write an event that does the following: check date range, check probability, if both true, search list of regions and apply one-turn fix to qualifying units. Voila, a ship has run aground. Problem is, are there certain times of year that there are lower water levels, and where are they? Is it predictable? It's an idea, but it's a low priority.
DrPostman, I wish I had better news for you. I'd have to say it's stalled, the biggest reason being my inability implement 7-day turns. If I cut that part out of it, everything else would probably work, but I really can't abide playing 15-day turns anymore.
I created the separate project for Sibley's campaign to focus solely on the 7-day turns, in hopes that I could implement changes faster and people would be more willing to try it out. I've seen almost no interest in that. I might at some point try to create a 7-day turns version of the full campaign, with that being the only change. But spring/summer are busier times for me (I help with a family farm), so it might be fall/winter before I pick CW2 up again.
I created the separate project for Sibley's campaign to focus solely on the 7-day turns, in hopes that I could implement changes faster and people would be more willing to try it out. I've seen almost no interest in that. I might at some point try to create a 7-day turns version of the full campaign, with that being the only change. But spring/summer are busier times for me (I help with a family farm), so it might be fall/winter before I pick CW2 up again.
Re: grimjaw's change everything mod
Hey grimjaw,
I know you obviously never finished this due to the issues around 7 day turns - that said I’d be really interested in the map and other changes that you made
Any chance you still have those files and would be willing to share?
Cheers
-deguerra
I know you obviously never finished this due to the issues around 7 day turns - that said I’d be really interested in the map and other changes that you made
Any chance you still have those files and would be willing to share?
Cheers
-deguerra
Re: grimjaw's change everything mod
I have the files I was working on. I dont know if I remember how they were put together. Some of it was work in progress, like the changes to rivers to try to simulate current direction, etc. I worked on end files instead of the databases, which in the case of CW2 makes versioning and distribution problematic. 
Give me a few days to look thru what I have and see if I can parse out some finite changes that will work with the last patch.
Give me a few days to look thru what I have and see if I can parse out some finite changes that will work with the last patch.
Re: grimjaw's change everything mod
Ok, the CRY mod that these posts reference is a hot mess. There are too many dependencies to produce any single part of it w/o knowing what specifically you want. Regions changes? Structure modifications? Leaders? Can you be more specific about what you were interested In?
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