Civil War Historical Accuracy Pre-Patch

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Bowman]

Gray,

Thanks for the help, I've uninstalled and re-installed the game and applied 1.12RC1. All now OK

Game running on XP.

[Gray_Lensman]

Historical Accuracy MOD 20081122 released

For those interested, the Historical Accuracy MOD has been updated.

For all the recent newcomers, the Historical Accuracy MOD is actually a pre-patch with upcoming data fixes included in it, along with some graphics changes as necessary.

Check it out in the 1st and 2nd post at the following link: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6249

[Gray_Lensman]

Historical Accuracy MOD 20081122(a) released

For those interested, the Historical Accuracy MOD has been updated.

It corrects an oversight in the 20081122 upload just this morning concerning the April 1861 scenario events. Sorry for any inconvenience.

For all the recent newcomers, the Historical Accuracy MOD is actually a pre-patch with upcoming data fixes included in it, along with some graphics changes as necessary.

Check it out in the 1st and 2nd post at the following link: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6249

[Franciscus]

Historical Accuracy MOD 20081122(a) released
(...)
It corrects an oversight in the 20081122 upload just this morning concerning the April 1861 scenario events. Sorry for any inconvenience.
(...)

I hope everybody realizes how big this apparent small change is. CSA loses two 2-stars "duds" (Holmes and Bonham, that had no historical reason to have this rank), and with this, the possibility to form 2 corps right from the start.
I love it . For more than a year I have done this "in-house".
Thanks

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Franciscus]

That would be good, although it might involve some coding...?

If I may sugest something else to you, it would be to do something as runyan (IIRC) did in his mod (and I also did in my so-called "simple" mod, known probably only by me ), that is, changing the locale of appearance of the several generals more in line with what was historical. With it, at least to me, AACW vanilla would lose the last big irritating anhistorical "peculiarity".

After all this is the "historical accuracy MOD", insn't it ?

[bigus]

I may eventually redefine all the promotion events as dependent on being CSA AI driven, meaning if you (as human) are playing a side, the auto promotion events will see this and not fire for the side you are playing. To expand on this, 2 humans playing PBEM would not receive any auto promotion events either. If this is implemented, gamers will definitely have to use their generals in combat here and there to gain the experience necessary for promotion instead of sitting back avoiding combat to build up defensive complexes.

I would prefer to see Leader events for the AI only. Having certain Events determine the course of gameplay for a human player takes away from playability IMHO and having leader events seems to do this. If you could get the Leader events working for the AI only this would add alot to playability.

As it stands now I can leave Jackson in Richmond until he gets promoted. Once he is promoted, I can unleash hell. See what I'm getting at?

[richfed]

Actually three 2-stars:

Thomas J. Jackson
Theophilus H. Holmes
and James Longstreet (who was missing)

For now they all do have new 2-star promotion events defined to occur sometime between 01/01/1862 and 03/01/1862 if they have not been already promoted prior to that time. (

Is this working, Gray? I am in July 1862 and all three of these guys are still at 1 star.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[bigus]

Is this working, Gray? I am in July 1862 and all three of these guys are still at 1 star.

Rich, I think Gray might be right that you might not have the correct update. These events should fire on the first date of the event....Unless their dead.

[Gray_Lensman]

obsolete

[Gray_Lensman]

Historical Accuracy MOD 20081124 released

For those interested, the Historical Accuracy MOD has been updated.

For all the recent newcomers, the Historical Accuracy MOD is actually a pre-patch with upcoming data fixes included in it, along with some graphics changes as necessary.

Check it out in the 1st and 2nd post at the following link: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=6249

[richfed]

Thanks, boys ... will re-download.

[Ian Coote]

Hi Gray,I'm having the same problem Zebedee had.Early April 61 start shows as July 61.Scenario discription for early April also says July 61 to Jan 66 114 turns.Other start dates for scenarios seem wrong also,some only showing Month and no year.Tried about three times doing a complete delete of game,patching to 1.12 and doing your update same result.Tried starting the game with just 1.12 before downloading your changes and everything was ok.Very strange.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Gray_Lensman]

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[Ian Coote]

Have 2 copies,one a digital download 1.00 and a box copy 1.03,tried both but got the same results.I'll just wait till Pocus makes it official.Thanks for all your work on AACW Gray,you have really made this game rock,best pc game out there.Have you tried WW1 yet? looks like another winner.

[Franciscus]

Franciscus:

If you would like to help, you could post your findings on the Generals different appearance locations for us to peruse and check out. Then if there's no longer a problem with the AI gathering in leaders it needs, I'll be more than happy to adjust for their new location(s).

Gray

What I have done, months ago, was essentially "borrow" one of the ideas of the leader mod by runyan and strictly using the generals that appear in AACW vanilla, changing their starting location according to runyan. I am no expert, and am not 100% sure of the correctedeness of this approach.
I have not this data in a table or other format, as I changed directly the events files. I attach here the modified events files for CSA and USA that I made accordingly. Mind you, these were made back in February 2008, and probably the current vanilla files have more modifications.

Sorry if I can not be of more help

[Gray_Lensman]

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[aryaman]

Hi
I have decided to post here my ideas about the historical issues I see in the game.
First of all, the question of recruiting large quantities of troops. Right now the penalties for raising taxes, ordering full mobilization, etc, are very light, in order to avoid gamey play (like building huge armies in 1861) those should be tweaked. This is hardly a new idea, and I think some mods already include them, is it difficult or unbalancing to do it in the vanilla scenarios.
Second, the question of divisions, this has been already done by Clovis in his mod, just prevent the formation of divisions early in the war and, as corps can´t be limited, start the game with no 2star generals, so they have to be promoted to create new corps.
Also, if possible, to limit the number of elements in Union divisions to 10 or 11, so that they are smaller than CSA divisions, as they were historically, and force the Union player to create a larger number of corps.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[aryaman]

For the moment I will try to test some of the ideas in the vanilla scenario, some of them can be tested as house rules in PBEM (or playing both sides without AI for testing).
As for the question on divisions and corps, the problem is that before reaching a more or less standard form, the one represented in the fgame system, there was a process with steps back and forth.
Early in the war, in Frist Mannassas, Union army was divided into divisions but with no intermediate corps, and that way was also organized Grant´s army in Ft Donelson. However, divisions grew too large, so they had to be splitted and become too numerous for a single command, so in the end Corps was created as an intermediate command.
In the CSA army the development was similar, but with different names. Beauregard commanded brigades with no intermediate divisions, but his command was rather small, corps size, and in the west a serie of independent commands were either named "divisions" or "Corps" but were no more than a serie of brigades.
It was not until mid 1862 that the regular structure of brigade-division-Corps-Army was fully developed because of improvisation and lack of command structure. It took half a year to train and organize armies, and another half to give them a proper command structure. Between First Mannassas and spring 1862 there were only small actions carried by small, poorly organized, forces. However in the vanilla GC scenario we have lots of battles with large forces before the end of 1861. I think that should be avoided, I agree with you in that the game should allow players freedom to do things historically were not done, but within an historically accurate context. There is a napoleonic game in which I can invade Russia with Spanish guerrillas, I no longer play it. We care about the differences between Napoleons and rifled guns, or if that railroad line crossed that region or not, we should care in the same spirit to have a game that does not allow a level of army size and organization that was simply beyond the historical posibilities of both sides at the time.

[tagwyn]

What good is all this if not incorporated into official mods by Pocus? t

[Gray_Lensman]

What good is all this if not incorporated into official mods by Pocus? t

Sorry tagwyn, if you haven't understood the purpose of this thread, which is now over a year old, I don't think I can explain it to you.

[Eugene Carr]

Well they can't be incorporated until they have been done and extra scenarios have been added when provided.

Is there a way of preventing formation of Corps too early that doesnt rely on restricting ** generals?

S!

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Eugene Carr]

My post kinda overlapped yours in that it was directed at Tags.

I just wondered about the corps thing.
In a way I'm glad because I already spend more time modding this game than I do playing it!

As regards some of the discussion above about division numbers I have stuck with the 60/30 ratio but based their availability on the number of * generals available 1 division for every 3 Union 1 for every 2 CSA which gives almost parity in the early years but gradually allows the Union to dominate ( CSA get all 30 divisions by Oct 62 but its May 64 before Union has 60).

S!

[aryaman]

IMO the best way to simulate the gradual organization of armies is starting the game with no command structure at all, the armies that fought at First Bull Run were just provisional commands that were dissolved a little later.
So, we could have the stacks named as Army of the Shenandoha, etc, but no army HQ. We would have just a serie of commands under senior commanders.
Then, by the start of 1862 we could have the first Army HQs, Corps could be organized as well, as there is no way to prevent it in the game, but with no 2star leaders to start with in the game you would have to use 3star leaders, that would be a limitation. Those early corps without divisions would portray early war commands, still not fully structured. Then by mid 1862 we could have divisions, in an increasing number. That way the player could experience the difficulties of command organization and the constrains of early war operations.

Regarding the number of divisions, I am a bit cautious about it if we can´t implement the limit in size for Union divisions, as they were on average about half the size of CSA divisions. If that can´t ve implemented I think we should not put a limit in the total number of divisions late in the war but for a limit in manpower available.

Another idea, could the CSA player receive a bonus for each turn he survives the historical date of surrender? so that even if the war is lost in terms of cities conquered, the player receives a reward for his performance, so that he can still win the match.

[lodilefty]

regarding 2-star generals:

I don't believe there is any way to prevent the formation of Corps other than to limit the 2-star generals available. Rest assured if a general was actually equivalent to a 2-star at some historic time, he is not going to be artificially reduced in rank just to prevent the formation of a corps. However, there were several generals recently discovered in the Bull Run and July 1861 scenarios that were in fact 1-Stars at that time, but those scenarios had incorrectly used the wrong unit for them. This has just recently been corrected as it should be and at the time of Bull Run (late July 1861), there were no Corps established yet.

For each of these generals I created a new auto-promotion event that kicks in around the start of 1862 if the player/gamer has not managed to promote them sooner during game play. This was a compromise of sorts. Some purists do not want any auto-promotion events at all, but there are others that don't want to see Jackson, Longstreet, or Holmes restricted to being a 1-star all the way into the 1862 Campaign season.

Only other way I know is no Army HQ [as USA starts April 61].

Play balance is an issue: CSA has to have some command and control advantage early in war, beyond simply 'better generals'