UPDATED 04/02/17 - Uploaded to Steam! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=856639010 This mod's been around for a while, but after a few requests has its own thread. Its aim is to add realistic bullet physics, army composition and tactics into the game. While there are many things yet to be done, at present it is very much playable, and possibly more enjoyable to those who prefer a slower game pace. What it does: - New realistic firing system, where units cannot fire over the top of friendly ones (unless they have an arc of fire). You must now position regiments carefully to achieve maximum firepower, and as such forming line is now important, as it means more men will be able to fire per volley. Volleys are now also far more devastating. -Reload times are much longer across the board. These are not perfectly realistic at present; without upgrades a musket shot may take 20 seconds, but this of course increases with upgrades. This is to combat the ai's natural predilection for masses of pikes, and the fact that musketeers must finish reloading before attacking with their bayonet (this is an engine flaw, as far as I can tell). -All musketeers have a melee attack, but will still flee if they can. New graphics for Spanish, Austrian and Russian 17th Century Musketeers have been added to allow this. -Ranges are far greater than in vanilla (including on towers), and the damage done by muskets is far greater, but accuracy has now been added, meaning most shots miss their target (but can hit others nearby). All Musketeers do between 120-140 damage un-upgraded, with Prussian musketeers reloading slightly faster. Grenadiers are roughly the same but have more hp and bayonet damage. Dragoons have a quicker rate of fire but far shorter range, meaning they're best used to quickly attack units already engaged before retreating. -Unit costs have been standardised (thanks to Ftoomsh for info from Clauswitz' Art of War). Going by the standard that during the English Civil War an infantryman was commonly paid around 8 shillings a day, a cavalryman 3-4 times that amount and that 8 cannons cost the same amount as 800 men by Clauswitz time, each unit has a relative gold cost, with Cavalry costing an additional 3-400 food each to reflect the issues of supporting Cavalry Regiments. -Cannon and Cavalry build times have been massively increased, and only 2 guns of each type are allowed per depot. The ai now no longer spams huge amounts of artillery or cuirassiers, and these units are more valuable on the battlefield. -17th Century Musketeers are now much quicker to train, reflecting the fact that, during the English Civil War, a ratio of 2 muskets to 1 pike was considered ideal. -Square and column formation now grant a large bonus to defence and melee attack. Hussars, Croats and Winged Hussars can now also form formations. Winged Hussars are also treated as heavy cavalry by the ai, so that it will use them to attack formations correctly, rather than skirting around cities in small groups. -Nation colours are now largely more muted, realistic, and look better. More colours will continue to be added (suggestions welcome). -Pandurs and Chasseurs use a new skirmish formation, and don't need officers -France now have a unique musketeer. Britain, Russia Sweden and Austria will follow VANILLA FIXES: -Grenadiers and Dragoons from the diplomatic centre now require the 18th Century upgrade. -The Blockhouse now plays musket sounds when shooting. Next: Drum sounds attached to the drummer rather than being played as a UI sound. If anyone has already worked on this do let me know! MOD IS NOW TOO LARGE TO ATTACH - Download from the link below! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=856639010 To install, drop into your steamapps/common Folder, overwriting the files already present.
Good to see this getting it's own thread. I do highly recommend the use the official mod manager instead of replacing vanilla stuff.
I'll take a look - I had a try with the unofficial one but changing so much got a bit unwieldy, especially when experimenting with functions
I really like the sound of this and may be exactly what I'm looking for. Just a few questions and suggestions. Why do I need the days of Brilliance DLC to play with the mod? And, would it be possible for you to add standard bearers to each nation's formations. I would do it myself but I'm still waiting on the texture mods from Furious Peasant but perhaps with your more realistic colors that won't be needed anymore, and in general I just want to see how it works out with them. Another suggestion I had was for you and General WVPM to collaborate on a range system which he developed and showed me. That's all, cheers.
Sorry that was my mistake - I thought you needed the dlc to have the Dutch and Danes. I'll have a look at the standard bearers as I think I've sussed out how to make them part of formations. My only grioe is the model - I'd quite like a big regimental flag as in AC but not sure I can swap the flag model with one from say the Diplomatic Centre. General and I have been in touch, the system's a great idea and probably works better than mine, but I'm quite keen on running the one I have until I've perfected it (absolute removal of friendly fire, etc). I've just done some work on unit collision properties in the objects folder that's working fantastically well in terms of realistic mortality rates over various distances, next I'm trying to make units unable to fire over other friendly formations
Thank you for at least considering my suggestions and yes, I would like nothing more than to bring back those big flags from AC as well. Cheers, oh and do give me a headsup when and if you do this on Steam, I'll play it ASAP.
So I've just managed to add (more)realistic lines of sight for firing, finally! I'm going to test it a little more before release, but the next version will prohibit firing through friendly/enemy formations in front of the target. This means: 1. An end to ranged units aiming for an enemy miles away while another one gets much closer. 2. Blobs of men are now entirely ineffective. 200 unorganised shooters will now get hacked down incredibly easily as they struggle to get a decent line of sight to fire. Formations must be carefully placed to allow for maximum firepower. 3. Formation is now important. While Column is the best for a melee assault, not all the soldiers will be able to fire, as those infront block their view (unless looking down a steep hill). Forming line is now imperative to effective fire. 4. All friendly fire from previous versions is eliminated, as is the Vanilla bug where friendly units at the base of towers are killed when the tower shoots. 5. Musket lethality will be drastically increased to compensate fo the loss of mass volleys. With a bit of fiddling I might be able to introduce caracole fire, where the front line retreats after shooting to allow the one behind to fire...
I agree, this sounds like fantastic work; by creating the same physical conditions faced by troops in reality play will become much more historically accurate as commanders look to use space and formations to maximise firepower and melee attack. Great suff.
This sounds like brilliant work and far more advanced than anything I can do yet. I am still stuck with changing very basic unit and building parameters. I also fully endorse Stu's statement: "by creating the same physical conditions faced by troops in reality play will become much more historically accurate as commanders look to use space and formations to maximise firepower and melee attack." Some people might think that adding morale and fatigue (alone) will make play more historically accurate. On their own they will not do so. The modder also has to add realistic physics and we have to remember realistic physics is about space AND time. With these factors it is also about line of sight, arc of fire (for plunging fire), enfilade, defilade and friendly as well as hostile fire. Enfilade - a volley of gunfire or cannon shot directed along a line from end to end. Defilade - the protection of forces against enemy gunfire by cover or against enemy observation by camouflage. Accurate artillery physics would be good too. Cannon fire follows a relatively flat parabola path (except maybe at extreme range) and howitzers and mortars fire elevated parabolas. It would be good if these trajectories could be modelled accurately with speed, kinetic energy, momentum, gravity and air resistance effects all taken into account. Then artillery will become realistic if it also has realistic re-load times and point or area damage. Point for balls and area for shells. If I recall correctly it takes a good, fresh crew about 3 minutes to reload a 12-pounder cannon with the ammunition actually to hand. It takes an average fusilier (musket) about 20 seconds to reload and fire again. Thus, fusiliers could get off about 9 shots while a cannon is reloading. Those cannon better have supporting troops and be in a line that can lay a field of canister fire before enemy troops get in musket range. This raises the issue of range relativities. The mod must get these right. Canister fire has a considerably longer effective range than musket fire. Charging a line of cannon on foot? Very bad idea. Though if the cannon are few and the troops can lie down when they see taper go to cannon wick then they might, just might, make it if they are enough of them left after the volley. But with clouds of gunpowder smoke around can anyone see anything? That's another thought is it not? And why not enable the commander to order troops to lie prone for cover if the circumstances require it? With accurate physics, enfilading troops with cannon (along a line from a flank or down the files in a column while firing from front) should be devastating at optimum range. On hard ground, or along stone battlements in enfilade, cannon balls bounce and skittle rows of men like nine-pins.
No, not just like C2 but like OC Mod Balanced plus C2 all raised to a further power of excellence. Now, if only I could build it. It is heavy going at the moment I can tell you.
I'm delighted with all of your changes, and thank you for opening its own thread. I also appreciate that you blended your balance mod with the colours one. In any case, if I may suggest changing the cavalry a bit: 1. I believe cavalry attack should be changed, it makes really no sense at all that their upgraded damage is so low compared to the musketeers. A sabre should be much deadlier than a bayonet I think. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's what I feel. 2. Cavalry seems a bit too slow imho, cuirassiers have a ridiculous speed, hussars are ok, but the gap between the two units is enormous. The heavy cavalry seems to be trotting or at best cantering, too slow! My suggestions about cavalry are only because of a greater realism, I don't think they are balanced or at least I don't expect them to be so. Also, if I get this right, unique musketeers are now decisively weakened and kind of pointless compared to regular ones, as their previously high firepower (only matched by power musks such as the prussians) is now largely surpassed by regular ones. I don't know how can we possibly make them distinct and balance them, perhaps give them an even greater range and accuracy? It would make sense for sharpshooter units, which fits for both the Pandur and the Chasseur. These special units used rifles at times that were such as the Baker Rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_rifle This type of firearm allowed for greater accuracy at long ranges, while being slower to fire. We could mod the pandur and the chasseur and highlander to be similar to that, much slower firing, but greater accuracy and range to regular musketeers. In any case as for these Unique musks thanks for giving them melee, I really like using chasseurs and felt stupid they didn't have any defence.* Thanks again for the mod in any case, going to try it out in the following days. *Edit: I tried out both the pandur and the chasseur and neither has a melee attack. It appears to be activated but in fact the units do not attack at all. Check it out yourself and see what turns up. Also even if they have a melee attack it's really a small value, and it doesn't benefit from the upgrades for all bayoneted units like the grenadiers and musketeers do, that should be edited in order for the unique musketeers to benefit from these bonuses. One is in the blacksmith and I think there are 2 more in the academy. It would also be necessary as the musketeers gain the same generic upgrades the unique ones do with the firepower. Chasseur melee: 6, musket 200 Musketeer melee: 67, musket 165. Also I did notice the special musketeers still gain their firepower bonuses and thus have a higher firepower than the regular musketeers, but I still think they should be changed to fire slower and get a higher range and accuracy. Currently all 3 unique musks have even slower ranges compared to regular musketeers (in vanilla 850 vs 900 of regular ones, chasseurs even have 800.)
Today I started documenting myself a bit more on the period and found this interesting content. http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/9919 The treated firearm is a late 18th century musket, and it is said to be capable of firing at least 4 times a minute. The non-professional man in the video has also been able to fire it in less than 10 seconds, which testifies in-game a rate of fire of 6+ shots a minute would be realistic for musketeers. The current rate of fire makes sense to me, so perhaps you could leave it like that. hope people find this interesting.
Thank you, that was an interesting video and read. The topic of rates and accuracy of fire compared to damage inflicted was an issue that exercised the minds of the generals of the late 18C and early 19C as well as Cossacks 3 modders. The current rate of fire in the game results in the mutual destruction of two opposing formations in moments; yet we know that in historical battles formations exchanged fire for lengthy periods of time without mass casualties. How so given the rate of fire? There is an excellent assessment of the reason why in the book “The Battle: A History of the Battle of Waterloo” by Alessandro Barbero which is an absolute gem of a work and I thoroughly recommend it. At pg 178 to 180 he discusses this topic with reference to the tests that were carried out by generals at the time. He says: "In English tests carried out on the firing range of the Tower of London, three-quarters of the balls fired in a volley from a hundred yards away hit the target, which was fifty yards long. Based on these numbers two battalions of between four and five hundred men each, shooting at one another across a space of a hundred yards, could have achieved mutual annihilation in the course of a minute.” So why didn’t they? Barbero concludes: "Apparently the results obtained from tests conducted on parade grounds and firing ranges had little to do with reality and during a real battle, operating under severe stress and completely enveloped and blinded by the smoke of their own muskets, the majority of soldiers fired without hitting anyone." He supports this assessment by the fact that battalions did not manage to achieve mutual destruction and cites that at Quatre Bras and Waterloo Perponcher’s division used over 500,000 cartridges and suffered around 2,200 casualties. For arguments sake if it is assumed that the casualties were only sustained through musket fire that is a rate of 1 casualty for every 227 shots the division fired. Factor in artillery and cavalry and the low casualty rate to shot fired ratio increases. Barbero uses some other interesting examples and references historians and generals from the time as concluding that a battalion lost 3 or 4 men a minute. Given that at Waterloo formations stayed in constant contact with the enemy for the course of the majority of the day this casualty rate would seem about right. All interesting stuff so wherever the balance lies and whatever the method used to represent it, it would seem that a realism mod needs to reflect the fact that formations could engage in fire fights at close range for lengthy periods of time without being completely destoyed.
Another update: I tested out the mod today on multiplayer, with a friend who had it installed too. Sadly after some 20-25 minutes we got a disconnect error (me first, and I was hosting). It seems the problem could be the mod, of 43 hours I played almost 40 online and I never had lag, disconnection errors, etc. I'm not sure it was the mod but the odds are not in its favour, of course it's not anybody's fault. Until proper mod support comes these issues will be present. Just signalling to others my experience.
Thanks for your tests, Milo - in my latest version I'm avtually dropping cav hp in a tradeoff with some speed - this way they'll be quicker but no overpowered. At the moment I'm also planning on making Prussia's muskets reload even faster but that's about it. I can think if no historical reason why Denmark's musketeers should be so strong, for instance. As the damage will be above 120 for each unit in the next update I'll make the differences more to do with range and reload. I can also make the chasseur's collision radius smaller so that more men can fire at one time. I believe the pandur problem is that I forgot to include a file in the download! I too have had crashes (though not so early) and believe it's to do with old test code when trying to fix friendly fire - when I release the next version I'll tidy it up and see what happens. Did you spot any conditions in particular, say lots of musket fire? I'm quite excited about my latest changes - the new firing system really changes how battles play out and makes manouvering very important which is quite fun. I've also drastically slowed pike-pike combat to make manouvers incredibly important in swaying the tide in hand to hand combat.
Is unit speed based on the walkinterval function? Can you tell me where the speeds of units get defined? Which file, and maybe a line number for the general area?
Oh no the disconnect was totally random and very early game, with a long PT so no there was absolutely 0 combat. No musket fired. Again I'm not 100% sure the disconnect was caused by the mod but it seemed very odd to me that after 40 hours on MP and 20 minutes into a game after putting up the realism mod it disconnected. I also immediately checked my pc connection and I was still online and steam (which usually takes a round of seconds to reconnect if it loses signal) was still on. I convinced my mate to test the mod again in multiplayer and see if it causes any issue. In single player I have tested it maybe... 40 minutes, and nothing occurred really. But for my experience modded games have a tendency in multiplayer matches to cause frequent disconnects, desyncs beween host and invited players etc. If, the mod has an issue or some incompatibility that is. It occurred to me with Age of Empires II as well, which works very similarly in many regards. Removing a mod in that case, fixed the desynchronisations. As I said I'll test it again and see if I get another disconnect, the biggest pain is that there is no restoring option so any progress in that game is gone forever. I'll let you know if I have any news.
I have spent some time fiddling with the new unit costs, training time etc. I took a look at the basics of both the Pandur and Chasseur, but this time I compared their stats rather than testing their effectiveness on the battlefield. This is it: PANDUR costs 25 F, 6 G, 5 I CHASSEUR costs 30 F, 8 G, 5 I same training time same melee attack same hp PANDUR basic firepower 70 CHASSEUR basic firepower 90 Could I ask you if this is balanced on your liking or if it was just random/improvised? I think the principle behind the stats of the pandur was quite realistic actually. Pandur were shooters from the mountainous ranges of Austria, most of which were men from the non-ethnic part of the Empire such as Croatia. Cheap because they were volounteers and often had some sort of their own equipment, came from less wealthy areas where men expected smaller wages etc. Slow training because as being volounteers from remote areas of the empire they require time to be raised and rallied, and were not too many on the battlefield High stats comparable or even superior to other skirmishing units due to their experience with rifles, muskets, both through army training and lifestyle (hunting with rifle-muskets) as well as the patrolling of the borders of the empires So, personally, I would change the Pandurs to have a firepower of 85 or 90 since if I recall correctly musketeers have a basic 85 firepower. Honestly I would advice 90 because in Vanilla pandur have only 1 attack point less compared to the french shooters. The training speed should increase, from 6.25 to I don't know, 9 seconds? And lastly the lower price should be, I think, more incisive such as 15/20 F, 4 G, 3 I. This is roughly based on the fact the training time is almost 50% superior to the chasseur's so the cost could drop by 50%. It's just a suggestion, I don't know whether you like the idea, but I believe a longer training time traded for a lower cost should be kept, with attack being the same as the chasseur's. EDIT: Did also some testing with the Prussian musketeers. A formation of 120 v 120, the first prussian 18th c musks, the others polish ones. The battle lasted 9 minutes and 40 seconds, of which about the last 3 were just to kill the last 12 of the polish ones. Since the spread is huge, the remaining prussians took a long time to kill the dozen. As the sentence above suggests the polish musks lost, the remaining prussians were 47. Interesting result, especially as for the duratio of the firefight - impressive! EDIT 2: For the first time I have noticed shooters now actually kill each other. I had 2 formations of grenadiers and highlanders and they simply halved each other by shooting at spearmen from the top of a defensive position. Even after moving away the grenadiers the 30 men strong (So like, 2 ranks?) group of highlanders murdered each other to about 15 men by shooting at each other accidentally. ouch, did you have the same problem? I believe I have not noticed this during my tests with the prussians because well, the 2 formations facing each other were both shooters.
