Enhanced Diplomacy Mod - Beta Version

[oho]

thanks for looking into this.

[Kev_uk]

Hi vicberg, is your latest update compatible with the April 11th beta patch? TY.

[vicberg]

Not yet. This weekend I'll post a new release, but I do want to make sure there's no further issues with April 11th Patch before integrating.

[vicberg]

I need to open this to discussion from those playing this mod.

I'm getting very tempted to change the number of turns per month from 4 to 2. The motivation behind this is 1) the game is 500 turns long, 2) 1/2 of those turns are in winter when very little is happening, 3) It's difficult at best to keep 6-7 players together for years when sometimes the best that anyone can do is 1 turn a day. Game will last almost 2 years.

Thoughts?

Another thing I can do is something similar to what Altaris did. Have 4 turns a month in June through August. 1 Turn a month (lasting 30 days) in December, January, February and 2 turns a month during all other months. So total turns is cut down by 1/2, but you can still get the 4 turns a month benefit during the campaign months.

[Kev_uk]

I am not presently doing PBEM, but I am using your mod for the fixes. But no, that just makes the game less challenging in the winter months. I mean, I usually can clear up Austria by late 1805, and it sometimes is a pain to try and pull back all my forces to the Rhine - that is a challenge. Likewise Prussia - the winter months for France are quite hard if you are long into a war, having to re-organise, build depots and find cities for winter quarters when sometimes you are over-extended. As I said, not doing PBEM, but if you are going for quick kill mid-summer, then the challenge is to get that victory before winter - and if winter happens mid-campaign...so I say no.

[oho]

Please don't change it. The 1 week is the reason why WON is the best AGEOD game because it simulates the decision making of a national leader in these days and that's what the games are all about. I think the couriers coming in and sent to the corps and the decisions in war cabinetts are more propably done within one week and not within 2 weeks or a month.

[oho]

When hostile troops are close to each other, even 1 or 2 day moves would be better. While in winter 1 or 2 weeks are better. Could you perhaps give us a choice, to choose which time we want to play, that would be a dream come true. Perhaps by creating different ED mod folders for different turnsrates.: Let's say 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks. Or 3 files that can be chosen and changed in one mod folder. What do you think? Is that possible?

[bodierich]

I have to agree with oho. I like the flexibility that 4 turns a month gives the player even if the winter months do get a little long.

[vicberg]

I've decided not to change it.

[RebelYell]

I've decided not to change it.

I have not yet tried your mod, as I want to know where I am comparing it, but I like that you will keep the turns as they are.

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

I am playing your Mod. I started the Grand Campain. On the February 21-28 turn, I finally saved 100 Engagement points. The game automatically annexed the "Kingdom of Italy". I thought it was annexed on the first turn. There was not even an "Annex Italy" in the "Laws and Decrees" screen. The big problem is by annexing the Kingdom of Italy, I lost 20 Diplomatic Points with every county.

Is this supposed to happen. Is it going to happen with Switzerland too?

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

I am playing your Mod. I started the Grand Campain. On the February 21-28 turn, I finally saved 100 Engagement points. The game automatically annexed the "Kingdom of Italy". I thought it was annexed on the first turn. There was not even an "Annex Italy" in the "Laws and Decrees" screen. The big problem is by annexing the Kingdom of Italy, I lost 20 Diplomatic Points with every county.

Is this supposed to happen. Is it going to happen with Switzerland too?

I started a new game to check. On the first turn, message 4/18 France has annexed Kingdom of Italy. I have undone the turn and won't let my engagement points get over 99 so it does not happen again. I have made a copy of the ED folder if you would like to look at some of the files.

[vicberg]

Yep. Fixed one problem and created another. Good catch.

The original problem fixed was the annexation was looking for enemy troops to determine if it should fire. Then we found out that you could have French units in a minor ready to annex, Austria was at war with minor at same time, both are enemies to the minor so Austria (because it comes prior to France in the order of event firing) would get the minor country event though it had no troops. In other words, looking for "enemies" in the minor country wasn't enough. So changed it to look for the specific Major Power Troops and introduced this error. France has 30 element in the capital of Italy. Italy doesn't own it's capital and boom that fires the event.

What I'll be adding is a EvalIsAtWar to the event. This will prevent the Italy Satellite from firing off against France.

I'll be fixing and deploying a new release tomorrow morning.

[vicberg]

Hold tight with your game for a bit so you don't lose what you've done so far and I'll get this fixed. Rollback 1 turn and rerun and you should be good to go

[vicberg]

A new version is going up as I type this. I'll post instructions (they haven't changed) when it's done.

[oho]

Do you think, it's possible to slow round down to let's say 2 or three days easily or is there a lot to change? Do you have an idea, where the period is triggered?

[vicberg]

New release is uploaded.

Changes
- Fixed nasty annexation issue

Release can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1VBqPyH7SaJclNLYzVILUR4Sjg

Full Installation
- Download ED.ZIP into Wars of Napoleon Folder (where the NGC.EXE exists)
- Delete ED directory
- Unzip ED.ZIP
- Open MODPATH.INI and enter ED (it will be empty). Save file and Engine will point at mod game files
- To play base game, open MODPATH.INI and remove ED. Save file and Engine will point at base game files

Partial Install
- Download EDSMALL.ZIP into Wars of Napoleon Folder (where the NGC.EXE exists)
- Unzip EDSMALL.ZIP, replacing all files that are already there

[vicberg]

Do you think, it's possible to slow round down to let's say 2 or three days easily or is there a lot to change? Do you have an idea, where the period is triggered?

The engine is based on 7 day increments. Though I probably could, I don't think the engine is setup to handle it.

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

Yep. Fixed one problem and created another. Good catch.

The original problem fixed was the annexation was looking for enemy troops to determine if it should fire. Then we found out that you could have French units in a minor ready to annex, Austria was at war with minor at same time, both are enemies to the minor so Austria (because it comes prior to France in the order of event firing) would get the minor country event though it had no troops. In other words, looking for "enemies" in the minor country wasn't enough. So changed it to look for the specific Major Power Troops and introduced this error. France has 30 element in the capital of Italy. Italy doesn't own it's capital and boom that fires the event.

What I'll be adding is a EvalIsAtWar to the event. This will prevent the Italy Satellite from firing off against France.

I'll be fixing and deploying a new release tomorrow morning.

Thank you for you Mod. I have played the Grand Campian as the Frech up to 10/1/1805. I enjoy it much more than the original game.

Good Job.

[RebelYell]

More than cosmetic, though I don't know exactly how it works. There's 140 battle scripts that impact the overall combat. How they interchange is beyond me, but there's some meat behind it.

Are these scripts active in PbeM even if the selection is not?
Commit the guard comes to mind, are the abilities part of the same system?
Would be nice to see in the combat report what the commanders did.

[vicberg]

No. Battle scripts are for single player only

[RebelYell]

No. Battle scripts are for single player only

And cant be linked to abilities by modding?

[vicberg]

A great idea for an expansion of the engine. However, the part of engine that processes the battle scripts isn't linked to my knowledge with any scripting

[RebelYell]

A great idea for an expansion of the engine. However, the part of engine that processes the battle scripts isn't linked to my knowledge with any scripting

Basically they could give more ROE buttons for standing orders, you could choose for a stack from the basic categories you have in the menu.

Abilities and modifiers would effect the rolls what the commanders choose from the menu in battle.

[RebelYell]

In you AAR you commented on the flavor numbers of the units, have you tried lowering them to 600 from 800?

This is what was done in Civil War games to balance to numbers in combat.

Btw, did you check this site? It has also info on the average numbers of infantry and cavalry units.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/c_organization.html

[vicberg]

Yep, I cheated so to speak. The number of men/horses/guns per "hit" is purely for display only. What matters is the cohesion level and number of hits a unit has. I'm happy with both hits and cohesion, yet the # of casualties on the battle reports were beyond historical numbers because of the 800 per hit setting. So I lowered to an average 660 per hit. Cavalry was adjusted down also.

Yes, I viewed the website in question and a couple of others. The approx. sizes of the "brigades" (since it's a brigade level game in lieu of regiments), ranged from 500-1000 on average, with Austrians being towards the larger size and France towards the smaller. All major powers in this game use the same "common" models, within these models are common men/horse/guns per hit settings, and then these common models are adjusted by major power to reflect better (or poorer) cohesion, troop quality, etc.. If I was a historical nut, I could adjust men/horse/guns per hit by each major power, but I haven't taken it that far. It would probably show a bit more historical accuracy since France generally took far fewer losses until 1812 in these battles, with a few notable exceptions.

[RebelYell]

Yep, I cheated so to speak. The number of men/horses/guns per "hit" is purely for display only. What matters is the cohesion level and number of hits a unit has. I'm happy with both hits and cohesion, yet the # of casualties on the battle reports were beyond historical numbers because of the 800 per hit setting. So I lowered to an average 660 per hit. Cavalry was adjusted down also.

Yes, I viewed the website in question and a couple of others. The approx. sizes of the "brigades" (since it's a brigade level game in lieu of regiments), ranged from 500-1000 on average, with Austrians being towards the larger size and France towards the smaller. All major powers in this game use the same "common" models, within these models are common men/horse/guns per hit settings, and then these common models are adjusted by major power to reflect better (or poorer) cohesion, troop quality, etc.. If I was a historical nut, I could adjust men/horse/guns per hit by each major power, but I haven't taken it that far. It would probably show a bit more historical accuracy since France generally took far fewer losses until 1812 in these battles, with a few notable exceptions.

It is not cheating IMO, the units are just more realistic under their TOE.
The units are still considered functional and retain the number of companies/squadrons, the hits represent those companies/squadrons.

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

Thank you for you Mod. I have played the Grand Campian as the Frech up to 10/1/1805. I enjoy it much more than the original game.

Good Job.

I think there may be an issue with the Art replacments.

I played the original game for 138 turns. During the 138 turns, I built 191 Art Replacments and had over 3 months where I had bulit up to 20 replacements while building 2 units a turn if needed.

In your mod, I have played 40 turns and built 291 Art replacments. This is ~5.25 times as many Art Replacements in your mod verus the original game.

In your mod, I have a lot more money and war supplies and I am constrained on conscripts. Because the Art Replacements have a low conscript cost, I have been building 10 Art Replacements for at least the last 3 months. Almost ever turn all of the Art Replacements get used up. Every 3rd or 4th turn or so I may have 1 to 3 Art replacments left but it is usually 0. Most of the turns, the game reports that I have less than 10 elements missing in units that use Art replacments. Most turns I do get a message that 1 or 2 Art replacments were delieverd but not always. With the low number of Art replacements required and the low number of Replacements stated in the logs, I don't under stand how I can use up 10 art replacments a turn. any ideas?

[RebelYell]

Btw, did you change the numbers for artillery also?

[vicberg]

Everything. The base game is going for shorter battle times. I reduced to hit/cohesion done, assault, for everything. Naval was also revamped