Forcepool mod, WIP screenshots

[grimjaw]

12/20/2020 CORRECTION: THE BETA VERSION IS READY, READ ON TO THE BOTTOM OF THE COMMENTS.

This mod is not ready yet. I've listed details of this mod elsewhere on the forum

viewtopic.php?f=331&t=53755

but I can't post screenshots there, which is why I'm posting them here.

These are four examples of the changes in the forcepool mod. This is a work in progress and these might not be final examples.

recruit comparison

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The first is an example of the new units available in the recruit panel. The screenshot is divided into before and after sections. Top is the original, highlighting the large 9-element unit available in Virginia. I believe it was originally intended to have two regular and three conscripts, but the 1.06 database has it full of regulars. It is made up of five regular infantry elements, one zouave, one regular cav, one 6-pdr and one 12-pdr. The cost is enormous. The time to build is logical but excessive, especially considering this is the main way to get VA's manpower on the board.

The bottom half of this image represents the maximum size of a new VA infantry brigade, 4 elements: two regular and two conscript. The cost in money and conscripts compared to the vanilla brigade is about half, while war supply is about a quarter. It takes half as much time to build and doesn't require as much supply to maintain or ammo to fight. It can be used just like any other unit. The rest of the elements that would have made up a 9-element VA unit are available to build separately. You can see the zouaves off to the left, and there's also a single element conscript unit. In the screenshot I've got the filter set for infantry, but the cav and arty elements are also available to build. So all nine elements from the original unit are still there, but they're put together in a way that's more flexible for the player.

beauregard comparison

comparisonbullruncsabeauregard.jpg (313.1 KiB) Viewed 20045 times

The next image is Beauregard's Army of the Potomac at Manassas. In both examples Bonham is highlighted. The top half is vanilla. At this point divisions are not enabled and Bonham is combined with a unit that shares his name. The listed composition of the combination in the highlight is not particularly useful but it results from the way that individual leaders are combined with other non-leader individual units. Also note the line for seniority.

The bottom half is the new setup, and at this point a limited number of divisions are enabled for both sides. For practical purposes and to help some people wrap their mind around the concepts I am trying to introduce, think of divisions (or unit combinations) in CW2 as just combinations of two or more units that include at least one leader. A leader plus four brigades and some cavalry is a "division." A leader plus a single sharpshooter battalion is also a "division." My Bonham's "brigade" is actually a "division" in game terms, but the presentation to the user still contains "brigade" for some lip service to historical accuracy.

The composition of the combination listed in the highlight is more useful, in my opinion, but that's more of a function of the way divisions are listed than anything I've done. It took five units plus Bonham to build that brigade. Underneath, the infantry, cavalry and artillery are separate from each other. If you'll notice, the list of units and combinations in the stack panel are very similar to what it's like in vanilla. I have a couple of extra leaders that I included because they had achieved that rank by the time of Bull Run. I used historical battle order lists to build the combinations, which is why my Bonham's brigade is larger (and hopefully more accurate) than vanilla. The real life 30th VA Cav was divided up into companies and dispersed to some of the brigades. The game has converted all the companies into regiments. I scratched that and reduced the cavalry available.

One last thing I hope you'll note on this screenshot is that instead of "seniority", that value is called "leader position in current rank". Military seniority doesn't work like the game works, and "seniority" is a poor description for the game system. I think my description corresponds more accurately with the way the game works without adding confusion.

johnston comparison

comparisonbullruncsajohnston.jpg (273.36 KiB) Viewed 20045 times

Third screenshot is Johnston's command, and highlighted is Stonewall. The vanilla Stonewall brigade unit is five elite elements and costs four CP. Pictured in the stack panel are two artillery batteries with 20-pdr Parrotts, which were't present on the CSA side at Bull Run.

Bottom half is the new Stonewall brigade unit, and Jackson is set up much like he was at Bull Run, with the Rockbridge artillery attached. The new Stonewall brigade is only four elements, all regular, and costs three CP. I'll go into a long description of why I nerfed it if anyone is interested, but I give all the other elite brigades the same treatment. No unit (with the exception of ships) has more than four elements or costs more than 3 CP. The number of 3CP units is lower than the number of 2CP units. A lower number of 3CP units means fewer occasions when you have a unit costing 3CP but due to combat losses it's only down to one or two elements.

union comparison

comparisonbullrununion.jpg (340.02 KiB) Viewed 20045 times

The last screenshot is McDowell's army. The vanilla top half contains generals that weren't even there, or generals who were actually colonels. The brigade names for the units you're stuck with long after they've stopped making sense. I've highlighted Daniel Tyler, combined with "I/1st Bde". I'm pretty sure that unit de facto stops being the 1st brigade of the 1st division for everybody, including Athena, within seconds of it being unlocked on the board.

New bottom half has divisions enabled, of course, and the division composition should more closely match the historical battle orders I've been able to find. There is a large percentage of volunteers and conscripts. I'm considering knocking McDowell down to a rank 1, removing the army function so as to nerf his stack of divisions.

In my more perfect game world I wouldn't even be fighting Bull Run or locking the player into doing so. It would also include enlistment expirations for many of these early units. But those are separate, longer term projects and I'm trying to eat this elephant one bite at a time.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Looks really good, mate. I'm loving the artillery!

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

How's it all progressing, mate?

[grimjaw]

I have been busy with work & a garden & haven't had much time to work on it except a little at a time. The new units are all built but they are untested with the AI. I have been going through the events and replacing old units with new while simultaneously trying to use historical regiment names that make sense for the situation. I may ditch the last part for now and come back to it later. It will be fall season before I have time off from normal work, but by then I hope to be busy with a different job. So it may be next year. Just the way it goes.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Does it include cavalry & artillery units from states which in CW2 there are currently none? I think of Michigan and Indiana with no cavalry regiments, or New Hampshire & Vermont with nothing to really offer besides militia, or Florida with a few undersized infantry brigades. Does the mod address that or is it not possible to remedy?

[grimjaw]

The emphasis with this mod is to change the units compositions without making many changes to overall element numbers. I want the player and/or the AI to have as many total elements as available previously. I am limiting the changes in the mod to this for a few reasons.

Just these few changes are enough to potentially turn some players off. They don't like changes or what they view as additional complications, or because it's too 'gamey" or ahistorical. I don't fault these reasons. I have posted updates and RFC here because I hope people will be interested in the changes. If it was just a question of things I wanted, I could have avoided the forum altogether.

Also, I still don't know how the AI will handle these units. Until I know it can adapt to them successfully there's no reason to include these changes as part of any other mod.

To the specifics of your question: it is very possible to add in new units to represent historical ones. The mod addresses that partially. An example is New England units. To get most of the regiments from New England they have to be recruited in CT, and then depending on which element name is next up the unit will perhaps get assigned a name from Vermont or wherever.

The mod changes this. Vermont units are recruited in Vermont, and so on for the other New England states. I still use the number of original elements (in the game) available to each state, but the player will have more control over their recruitment.

I will probably try to make the naming of elements make more sense, with fewer duplicates, but that is tertiary to the goal.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

To the specifics of your question: it is very possible to add in new units to represent historical ones. The mod addresses that partially. An example is New England units. To get most of the regiments from New England they have to be recruited in CT, and then depending on which element name is next up the unit will perhaps get assigned a name from Vermont or wherever.

The mod changes this. Vermont units are recruited in Vermont, and so on for the other New England states. I still use the number of original elements (in the game) available to each state, but the player will have more control over their recruitment.

I will probably try to make the naming of elements make more sense, with fewer duplicates, but that is tertiary to the goal.

I particularly love the sound of this. I've noticed that a lot of New England regiments seem to be part of those elite Union brigades, and I'm guessing that's why we don't see them as recruitable brigades from a state. I still don't understand why we have no Michigan cavalry regiments though, or Indiana cavalry being recruited in Iowa?

[grimjaw]

In the vanilla game, there are cavalry regiments built as part of brigades recruitable in both Indiana and Michigan. In the mod they are separated from the brigades and recruitable as individual cavalry regiments.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

In the vanilla game, there are cavalry regiments built as part of brigades recruitable in both Indiana and Michigan. In the mod they are separated from the brigades and recruitable as individual cavalry regiments.

Excellent! That's a vast improvement in my opinion

[graydingo]

No matter how long this mod takes to complete it will be amazing. Excellent job so far. Just started playing again. I thought it’s a shame the brigades are automatically mixed with artillery and cavalry. Lo and behold, I discovered your posts. Most excellent.

[grimjaw]

The initial, beta, release of the forcepool is ready, and I planned to upload it today. However, I forgot to put the file on my laptop, so it will be tomorrow before I get back to a place with internet access. I can post the release notes now, though.

12/20/2020 version 0.1

The following is a list of changes made by the mod to the April 1861 full campaign scenario and other files. I believe the list is comprehensive, but I may have missed documenting one or more items. I have tried to make sure the changes do not affect the regular, unmodified game, but there are limits to what I can do given the way the game is built. The safest and best way to use this mod is in its own mod directory, separate from the main game install.

There are many errors in the original game even after the last patch from May 2015, as well as odd or incorrect naming conventions for elements and units, etc. Those are not addressed in this mod, although I did tweak a few things. This mod's primary focus is new units and force pools only, with some collateral changes to enable that goal.

Changes:

1. Many more units defined, as of this point about 152. The original units were not altered, with a caveat. This mod builds on the Full General Names mod I created some time back, and it includes those changes (see the CW2 MOD forum for details). I started at the end of the original (1.06) unit list and added from there, so the mod units should be easy to find and examine.

There are no combined arms in new unit definitions. Infantry, artillery and cavalry are all separate from each other. In consequence of this, the recruit panel will be more crowded than before and you'll find the filters to be more useful (and maybe necessary). The stack panels might also become more cumbersome to manage but I hope not so much that the game is unplayable.

I haven't done it yet comprehensively, but I will probably replace some zouave elements with regular infantry.

2. Force pools for the original full campaign have been completely rebuilt using the new units, with the exception of Kentucky and non-US units (British, French, etc). Provided this mod does not negatively affect the AI, Kentucky will be added. Non-US forces are a very low priority.

3. Units placed on the board by event were replaced with the new units. An example would be the initial Bull Run forces, where the vanilla brigades were removed and new units totalling the same number and type of elements were used. Additional exceptions to this besides KY are the elite/unique brigades (e.g. Stonewall, Excelsior).

4. In a few cases, I altered the composition and/or description of units deployed by event. The change depends on the circumstance.

- To correct a bug in the game, such as the Missouri units created by the St. Louis Massacre. Even after the last patch, that event had an incorrect definition for a unit resulting in fewer forces available to Price.
- To update an imbalance, again using the event listed above. CSA Missouri/Arkansas militia units created by the event were replaced with the same basic types, but without a HomeArea.
- To more properly represent a unit's historical location, such as the regular U.S. army and cavalry units. This is a work in progress, but the some of the most annoying instances I went ahead and replaced where I was editing anyway.

5. The new units have a maximum of four elements, and the most common units have two. Any combined arms units require division creation, and that plus the smaller average element total of units means a higher probability of command penalties. To compensate for this, command points for rank one and two leaders have been modified. This change will affect any other campaigns you use this mod with. However, it is easy to keep a copy of your original gamelogic.opt file and restore it if you want to employ the vanilla values.

6. In the vanilla game there is a 3-element volunteer brigade that includes 2 militia and one light infantry element, costing 3CP. Both sides use it, and it is created by event. It isn't available to recruit. The new version has replaced the light infantry element with an addition militia element and reduced the CP cost to 2. I have tried to remove any light infantry elements from the game, with the exception of the CSA partisan units.

7. Some description strings in LocalStrings_CW2.csv & LocalStrings__AGE.csv have been changed. These are cosmetic changes only.

- LocalStrings_CW2.csv: the following regions were updated as shown below.

region
00469 - changed display name of region to "Amelia Island, FL"
00099 - changed display name of region to "Governors Island, NY"
00349 - changed display name of region to "Oak Island, NC"
00413 - changed display name of region to "Cockspur & Tybee Islands, GA"
00146 - changed display name of region to "Pea Patch Island, NJ"
00387 - changed display name of region to "Sullivan's Island, SC"
00395 - changed display name of region to "James & Morris Islands, SC"
00009 - changed display name of region to "Fox Islands, ME"
00063 - changed display name of region to "Aquidneck Island, RI"

- LocalStrings__AGE.csv:

strSeniority was changed from "Seniority" to "Leader position in current rank"
strIsLandLdr was changed from "General" to "Army"
strIsNavLdr was changed from "Admiral" to "Navy"
strLandAndNav was changed from "General/Admiral" to "Army/Navy"

9. With the mod, combined arms units can usually only be achieved by division formation. This presents an issue with force structure at this point of development. The forces for Bull Run still show up on time, and division formation is still off until 10/1/61. That means that there are many more single element artillery units in the force structure for that event. The engine doesn't provide a way to break up a unit definition, so the only way to simulate force structure changes over time is to change the unit defitions in the forcepool over time. This is a crappy way to do things. It also still leaves the original units on the board. It's possible to define a set of Bull Run units, I suppose, that are only placed on the board for that event. There is at least one unit on the US side like that anyway. I'll consider it.

Other solutions I've tried involve restricting the number of subunits to six or seven instead of eighteen. This also does not work very well. I tried enabling divisions but restricting their number, also not very effective.

It doesn't matter much anyway. The AI doesn't care at all about simulating Bull Run, and personally I don't either. The forces there usually get scattered and scrambled by the AI, regardless of faction, with oddball generals leading the charge (e.g. M.J. Thompson running divisions in Virginia).

So right now (12/20/2020) the forces in the Bull Run event are a mess, and organization of them into an effective fighting force is even less possible than before. Don't get stuck on that point, because this mod is still under development.

10. Names for the new units are going to be redundant and/or very generic. I will rectify this as development proceeds but it's a cosmetic and thus low priority for now.

//**

I have plans for other changes, but this one has to come first. If these changes don't work, I have to alter the designs I have for everything else. The breaking point will be the AI. You can help speed this process along by trying this mod out and seeing what's broken. Any help is greatly appreciated and I'll give credit where it's due.

[Teatime]

looks interesting ..

playing with the force pools can cause Athena some issues especially breaking artillery out. I am wondering if you may need to play with the affinities of the leader types in the AI.opt file to keep the balance right

I know when I played around early on with inf brigade makeup with no art that I felt Athena was running around with big stacks that were light (or no!) artillery. Upping the arty infinity seemed to help that out.

[grimjaw]

The initial release should be attached. Instructions for installing it are included, as well as the release notes, the model and unit spreadsheets I used to generate the new files, and a spreadsheet detailing all the possible CP combinations resulting from the CP changes I made.

playing with the force pools can cause Athena some issues especially breaking artillery out.

I felt Athena was running around with big stacks that were light (or no!) artillery.

I have seen that in unmodified games. You know, at this point I'm kind of done with Athena, and this is from somebody who never PBEM.

Using the unmodified game, all on the same full campaign, I have seen Athena run a division of CSA regulars (and no native units) under Stand Watie, a division of CSA regulars with cavalry and artillery under "General" Quantrill, and all the while the "army", consisting of a single native unit, was with general Van Dorn was off in the backwoods of Arkansas. And that wasn't the worst of the weirdness, which included a stack full of generals sitting idle somewhere behind the front lines, all of them I guess arguing which one should give orders to the only thing resembling a combat force in the stack: an observation balloon.

There's seemingly little I can do to break Athena, because she is already broken in some ways and she isn't going to get fixed without retooling the engine. For that I'd need source code, and I doubt I could personally do any better than the original developers. That's a level of software development I never reached.

As you say, affinities might go some way towards getting generals to behave a little more like what you expect from a historical simulation. I had already planned to look at those even without unit changes. But that's a project I'm going to tackle after this mod has either broken things irreparably, or it manages to muddle through no worse off than before.

What I'm looking for, the end result of this mod test, is that throughout a campaign, divisions that Athena is running look pretty much (but not exactly) like they did without the mod. The force structure it adopts, even non-division forces, should not radically differ from what was created previously. If it is somewhat different, that's OK.

Since divisions aren't normally available for 12 turns from the start of an April campaign game, those forces during that time will look and operate a little differently than they did before. If you don't change the Bull Run event, that normally locks up major developments until mid-June 1861, so that's only about seven turns left until divisions are available. Afterward, will Athena buy and employ the cavalry and artillery pieces that it isn't getting anymore through infantry brigades? If not, *why*?

That's the biggest questions that need to be answered. I am playing a test game now and will have to play several more in the next couple of weeks before I proceed with additional forcepool changes. If you have the time and inclination to try this mod out, it will really help speed along development of it or convince me that what was delivered with the final patch five years ago can't or won't be improved upon with regard to unit composition and force pools. If it can't, there are any number of other things I can address.

jm

[grimjaw]

I already know about the stacks out of CoC getting 9CP instead of 8. I didn't consider the command chain modifier was being applied to ldrCommandCap. I'll see what I can do about it.

[grimjaw]

I guess athena has heard some of the unkind things I've been saying. So far I can get it to use *any* of the new units.

Testing continues ...

[grimjaw]

... and I find some answers. Maybe everyone else but me knew this, or maybe I'm the only one experiencing it.

To check how often the AI in the unmodified game was buying standard units, I started up a new game and played until about mid '62. Not a single standard unit has been purchased. The only iforces the AI had on the board were placed there by event, I think.

I dug around and tried to find the setting or script the instructed the AI what to buy and how much of it. Can't find it, mostly I think because it's not there. This is the kind of thing that is apparently set with AI pool ratios AI.SetPoolRatio, ChgUnitPoolInfos and SetUnitPoolInfos. I can't find those command invoked anywhere in the full campaign scripts. I even went to the trouble to break out a hex editor and examine the main binary on the off chance that the units were referred to by name there, and perhaps it was hard coded for the game to buy certain units. It's possible I just can't see them, hex editing being what it is, but they aren't referenced that I can find.

So I dont think the AI has been buying units at all, ever. I think it has had forces spawned by script as reaction forces. Thus, without changes to the AI pool ratios, it doesn't matter what kind of units I put in the pool, b/c the AI will never use them.

The commands to set AI pool ratios are referenced in the binary, so unless they are bugged or somehow disabled, it is possible to instruct the AI to purchase the new units. According to the instructions for the commands, you can give the AI a ratio and percentage of units to buy. I'll look at the options and see what I can do.

[Majorc28]

Do you think this mod would currently work for PBEM since the issue is getting Athena to buy the new units?

[grimjaw]

It can be installed and used for PBEM provided both players install it. But keep in mind that the initial release is not at all what I'd call complete. I missed several units and at least a couple force pool changes. The end result is extra units from Tennessee and New England, as well as maybe other units. The names for new units are way off.

I've addressed some things in updates I am compiling. I'm almost done with a game using it the mod, and so far it hasn't broken anything worse than it was already. It does present me with more and better choices for recruitment. If I've been headed into a money/WS shortage, I've still been able to recruit in VA because I had more units available at lower cost, rather than having a huge brigade I can't afford. I also can skip having to buy so many 6lbers and can spend the resources on rifled arty or 12lbers.

I was wrong about Athena not buying any units, but it doesn't buy many. It doesn't really have to as the Union, I suppose. Next game I'll play thru the Union and see how much difference it makes. I should have an update ready to roll out no later than this weekend, but it won't contain name fixes.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Grimjaw, I'm really looking forward to trying this. Thank you

[grimjaw]

You're welcome. It's going to be later in the week before I can upload the updates. I'm in quarantine for possible COVID exposure, and only have limited internet access on my phone.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

You're welcome. It's going to be later in the week before I can upload the updates. I'm in quarantine for possible COVID exposure, and only have limited internet access on my phone.

No worries! At your leisure

Stay safe, my friend.

[grimjaw]

I can tell you what I've worked on, at least.

I've continued to adjust and correct the force pool totals and structure. In some cases where there were militia that weren't permanently fixed I've changed them to use units that weren't state specific. That way they can't be combined and spammed, and when they upgrade to line you don't get militia back in the force pool. I went ahead and changed all the rest of militia so they can't be combined, but they still all upgrade to line eventually.

The 1st release converted light infantry as part of militia brigades to militia. The next update is radically different. All the non-recruitable volunteer brigade with light infantry were totalled. A modifier was applied, about 2/3, and they were replaced with that many conscripts, singly or in brigades. We'll see how that works.

Artillery on the board is being altered for better historical representation. More initial CSA artillery is now 6lb smoothbores, especially out west. Since there are many more single artillery units, there are more possibilities to capture it now, which usually isn't possible when the arty is part of a unit.

I'ce changed spawn times for several early leaders and created a couple of CSA leaders to compensate for ones I've removed
Robert Garnett and Sam Jones replace MJ Thompsom and Quantrill. Jo Shelby is still there, but he spawns much later.

In the next update I will start to address some of the unit naming issues, but it's not always straightforward.

Take the Gamecock brigade as an example. Those regiments are on the board in Cocke's brigade in the Bull Run event. They aren't replaced by the elite Gamecock brigade when it's placed on the board with Pickett, so there are two sets of the same regiments running around. There are many examples of that.

If you care about historical unit representation, which one do you remove? I say the latter one, since I also want to model the regiment's original formation time. OK, but now that means, to the *game*, there are fewer forces on the board than previously. Does that affect gameplay adversely? The AI wouldn't care if all the regiments were named 1st Moon Infantry, but did it rely on those kinds of elements to give it an edge?

I before I mention the other changes I'll give you another example of a possible AI cheat, and that's leader abilities. There's often references to Stonewall's "foot cavalry" in literature, and often just as many tales of men left on the side of the road who couldn't keep up.

In t game the forced march option for movement smulates the men who couldn't keep up. Then why give a fast move option to Stonewall? Why not just give him an improved chance to succeed at forced marches and leave it at that? Because then you have to write a set of conditions for the AI under which Stonewall employs that ability, which is much more difficult. Much easier to just make Stonewall et al move faster all the time, or whatever ability you need. Rather give an option for forces to be put on reduced rations, some commanders get supply buffs, that kind of thing. Several abilities are actually just AI buffs, kind of like a cone you put on a dog after surgery. Except dogs are generally smarter than computers, I don't want to single out this game.

Honestly I'd say the human race will be lucky if computers remain that kind of stupid, otherwise many more of us will be without jobs.

[grimjaw]

I thought you'd like to see some of the homework I've done previously on leaders. Attached should be a spreadsheet that has six worksheets. One each for Union and CSA generals, one each for militia generals, one with a rough timeline of battles, and one scribbling sheet for working out a new rank/seniority setup. The generals sheets can be sorted easily by Excel or something like Open Office. I use the latter. Don't pay attention to the row shading; it was useful for reading purposes before I started sorting the rows, has no significance now.

I've tried to include the year of birth, the ranks attained for each general, both appointment and official date-of, as well as first date I could find of brigade, division, corps and/or army command. Three columns deal with if the leader had a formal military education, if they were a Mexican-American war veteran, and whether they could be considered a 'political' general. Some of them have additional notes that should be self-explanatory. Row K was being used to decide if the general was going to be in the game, and under what conditions. It has a key in the notes if that interests you.

As you can see I haven't just been thrashing around in the scripts. I won't guarantee all that info is right, but most of it was at least pulled from reliable sources.

[Teatime]

I

In the next update I will start to address some of the unit naming issues, but it's not always straightforward.

Take the Gamecock brigade as an example. Those regiments are on the board in Cocke's brigade in the Bull Run event. They aren't replaced by the elite Gamecock brigade when it's placed on the board with Pickett, so there are two sets of the same regiments running around. There are many examples of that.

Some assistance on that one since i didn't like that either (And I actually have the 3 month enlistment regiments in my initial armies and remove them late July)

A small event to remove the regiment from it's current brigade

SelectFaction = USA
SelectRegion = $Prince_George_MD
StartEvent = evt_nam_USA_3MVols1stNJM|1|1|NULL|NULL|$Prince_George_MD|94

Conditions
MinDate = 1861/07/31
MaxDate = 1861/09/01
SelUnqSubUnit = 1st NJ Militia

Actions
RemoveCuSubUnit = 1st NJ Militia
EndEvent

I haven't managed to get it to work for multiple regiments, so an event per regiment. Just place prior to and with the same date check for the flavour brigade for each regiment you want to place in the brigade.

Will result in a white chevron in the old brigade which should get filled with a replacement

[grimjaw]

I had already worked out a solution for enlistment expiration simulation via attributes. You can set an attribute on an element and then select subunits with that attribute. So you can do something like set a group of elements with a *6monthGAmilitia* attribute. You'd have all the units using those elements spawn at the same time, then select them via attrib, and remove them. You can define any number of attributes. I don't know the upper limit.

You have to create events to let the user know they're about to lose regimenta. You need to try to avoid removing the elements in the presence of or adjacent to an enemy. Also have to find a graceful way for the AI to handle it.

I'm not implementing this yet b/c I'm working on other things. In the interim if I find a regiment like 6th Indiana which had a 3 month and 3 year volunteer version that didn't serve simultaneously, I spawn the 3 month version near the original date and just pretend they decided to reenlist instead of mustering out. Some did IRL, and there's no reason to try to simulate the downtime.

The attribute option I hope to employ for captured artillery. I've tested it once before but moved on. If the CSS captures a battery, the captured battery performs just like the US version, and it shouldn't. It also raises the price of all replacement artillery using the same family because replacement cost is averaged from units on the board. It shouldn't do that either.

So I select any arty with a certain model type that's specific to Union but that has a CSA faction then I convert the list to the same class of arty but the CSA version. You can also give it a new name at that time, so the CSA isn't running around with Battery C, NY light arty. I can do the same kind of thing using attributes, but that takes more work setting up b/c they have to be added to the models.

[Teatime]

I am now off researching attributes .... didn't know about that one .. possibilities are interesting there

[AACW3Plz]

Is there a graphic missing? Your mod appears as a 5 star scenario at the bottom of the list but is not selectable for me and has no associated picture so it appears an unselectable text.

[grimjaw]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll check the mod disto. It will appear at the bottom of the scenarios list but should have a set of custom graphics as well as text descriptions. I'll.have an updated version to upload tomorrow, so I would wait until then and use that one.

[grimjaw]

The latest beta version of the mod should be attached to this post. I've removed the initial release.

The installation instructions are included but they haven't changed. The release notes contain more detailed information about exactly what has been changed in the various files. The naming of units is still all over the place and wrong, I will address that when I get the force pool numbers to a point that's balanced. I have to run through a vanilla playthrough to about mid-summer '63 and then count the units on the board for both sides, compare that to the mod's count by the same time and see how much difference there is. Takes awhile, and I can't research and edit scripts while I'm doing all that.

Thanks again AACW3Plz for letting me know about the missing images. I forgot those and another file in the initial upload, should be there in this one. I following my own instructions this time with the release to make sure.

[AACW3Plz]

I'm having a fair number of errors with this, although both the game and the mod ultimately load. Not sure what here is a known WIP and what is unknown, so I'll just mention what jumped out at me:

I get a few "TUID.ObjectList.Is.Redundant" errors upon starting the game.

The mod does load, although I get a "Full Debug: ScriptEngineErrors line 1691 player null" and a line 45418 USACoE4thCampMonroe when I play as CSA.

One thing I thought odd was that Garnett spawns as a 3 star with an erroneous ability. I thought perhaps he spawned in lieu of Beau in VA for some reason but Beau respawned from SC on the following turn. When I looked briefly I thought I saw Garnett as a 3-1-1 brigadier in your mod file so I'm not sure what happened but he's 5-5-2 for me.

I like the additional CSA spawns out west. It looks like MO and Arkansas will get interesting pretty quickly. It's also nice that Colonel Shelby isn't an unstoppable division leader 10 turns in

I also like that Texas is a bit under siege from the start. I always thought it was pretty easy to steamroll NM as the CSA vs Athena. Giving the US a bit more local power was a nice touch imho

Stand Watie did spawn with 3 153 power elite mountain fighter units in my game.

To note: I have Bloody Road South and I verified my Steam files before installing your mod.