New Leader Mod for 1.07

[runyan99]

Here is a leader mod compatible with 1.08. It is for the April 1861 long campaign, but will affect other scenarios as well. The mod reevaluates all leaders in the game, using new ranks, stats and traits for many leaders, and adds new leaders as well. Generally speaking, the mod tends to reduce leader stats and add traits compared to the basic game.

I have decided to do without a blow by blow list of all changes in the mod from the basic game, but the following are the most significant changes to gameplay:

First is the McClellan paradox. With McDowell in command of the army, and with better stats than McClellan, most players are not sending McClellan to the east at all because they don't need him. So, McClellan has been getting sent to Kentucky or Missouri most of the time by most players.

In this version of the mod McDowell, Butler, Banks and Fremont have been reduced to two star rank. Thus, there are only two Union generals eligible to command armies in 1861, and they are Halleck and McClellan.

What this means is that now when the Union player forms his first army, he will NEED McClellan to come east and take command of the eastern army, and McDowell can assume his historical role as a corps commander in McClellan's army. McClellan becomes The Indispensable Man that he should be in 1861.

On the Confederate side, theirs is an army of brigades at first. The Confederates are not allowed to form their divisions until October '61. To partially compensate for this, the Confederate player has early access to 4 important leaders from Bull Run - DR Jones, Early, Ewell and Longstreet.

Many important corps commanders will automatically be promoted to ** rank on an appropriate date.

NEW The radius for army HQs has been reduced. Most armies will have a 2 region radius, and the best leaders like Grant or Lee will have a 3 region radius. The reason for this change is to encourage the use of more three star leaders as army commanders, and to reduce overlap between army radii. With this change, the player should need two armies in places like east and west Tennessee (Buell/Grant or Beuaregard/Johnston) as was the case historically.

Misspelled names corrected, and all generals now have full names instead of only first initials.

Coefficient for leader casualties is now 1/100.

Installation instructions for the mod are as follows.

Patch the game to the latest version. Then go into ACW/Gamedata and delete the Units and Models folders. Replace them with the modded Units and Models folders. Then copy and overwrite the modded events files into ACW/Events, the Alias files into ACW/Aliases, and the settings folder into ACW/Settings.

P.S. I do not recommend updating the mod during an ongoing PBEM, as leader stats may change from update to update, as well as the alias files. In the worst case scenario, this could possibly cause a crash or corrupt your PBEM. I recommend finishing the game, then updating before starting a new game.

[McNaughton]

Here is an updated leader mod created with 1.07f. I suspect it would be compatible with any updated versions of 1.07 as well.

This is mostly Hancock's leader mod, but I did make a few changes. The major changes are for the eastern theatre in 1861.

First is the McClellan paradox. With McDowell in command of the army, and with better stats than McClellan, most players are not sending McClellan to the east at all because they don't need him. So, McClellan has been getting sent to Kentucky or Missouri most of the time by most players.

In this version of the mod, McDowell has been reduced to two star rank. In game terms, McDowell is just a Major General in charge of 4 or 5 poorly organized divisions.

Technically, McDowell was just a Brigadier General in 1861, so if you are going to reduce rank, reduce him to a brigadier general.

CSA Changes

Joe Johnston's strategic rating reduced to 2-2-4. Much was expected of Old Joe, which he never delivered. His tactics were always retreating and delaying, and the problem with Johnston was he never seemed able or willing to make a counterattack when necessary.

Hmmm. I don't aggree that he 'did not deliver'. He was probably the best defensive general in the Confederacy. His operations as commander of the Army of the Tennessee, as well as the Army of the West were very successful. His delaying tactics were working, as he was winning the battles, at tremendous odds and inflicting substantial casualties without experiencing many of his own. To me, that's what you do when you are outnumbered 2-3 to 1. I would not call the battles of the Penninsula a 'defeat' for Johnston either. Frankly, he performed better than Lee did, when you calculate the state of the army after their term as field commander during this campaign. The battle Johnston was wounded in was the critical battle that stopped McClellan's advance. Johnston gained the initiative for Lee, who took it and lost 20 000 Confederate lives during the seven days battle (we will never know what Johnston would have accomplished).

He didn't meet Davis' impression on how the war should be fought, but, Davis also kept Hood and Bragg in command of the Army of the Tennessee which effectively destroyed that formation, and whittled away any chance of military success out West. Frankly, the only person who really had a good picture of the proper strategy out west was Johnston!

To rate his strategic rating to sub-average makes one of the potentially 'best' Confederate generals, the worst 3-star general. Nobody will give him a job anywhere, he will be the 'new McClellan' who gets shuttled off to Arkansas.

A low strategic rating means that he is inactive in both offense and defence, and it would be next to impossible to have him replicate the historic successes he accomplished. If you are to do anything, it would be to increase his defensive rating, keep his offensive rating at two (remember Bentonville, against all odds he nearly crushed a massively superior force), and his strategic rating at above average (meaning he will be active more than not).

A low strategic rating symbolizes a general who is 'slow to act', or who has 'little control' over their command, resulting in poor reaction of the forces under their command. This does not reflect Johnston's lack of offensive aggression, but creates a Johnston who has a lack of competence, and ability to command. Johnston reacted quickly, and performed more than capably, meaning that his strategic rating should be above average.

It was Johnston who wanted Pemberton to leave Vicksburg, unite with Johnston and then outnumber and crush Grant, but since Johnston wasn't given 'official command' over Pemberton, his requests and advice were ignored (resulting in the loss of the Army of Mississippi).

Frankly, I view Johnston as a very capable strategic commander, who was well aware of the situation but was always hampered by Davis who didn't give him enough official power to do anything until it was too late. In my opinion, he should be second in ability to Lee, and in some cases, much more of a 'balanced' military commander. Johnston didn't take the same risks as Lee, which meant he didn't have the same spectacular victories, but, he also didn't have the same crushing defeats (indeed, Johnston kept his army in better condition than Lee did in 1865, even though they were both up against relentless and overwhelming force).

I personally believe that Johnston should be the antithesis of Bragg. Both should have a high strategic rating, but one is designed to attack at all costs (Bragg) while one is to rely on defensive actions (Johnston). I personally think that Bragg is rated too high in stats over Johnston as is (strategic ratings should be the same), and that Johnston is not rated as well as he should be. Johnston's problem wasn't ability, but political connections, he simply didn't have any!

[McNaughton]

I have done a few 'what if' promotions in my brigade mod based on what if a standing general had survived past their historic death date.

For example, P. Kearny and B. Bee both had 'potential' to be promoted above their death-rank. Kearny was one of those considered for replacing McClellan, but was killed after 2nd Bull Run. Kearny was also beloved by his men, and was very visible at the front lines (causing his death), so he probably deserves the trait of Charismatic (ontop of his to other abilities). Bee, like about half of the brigadiers serving at 1st Bull Run, had the potential to become a higher ranking general (virtually every surviving Brigadier at 1st Bull Run was promoted to Major General in October 1861). Had Bee survived he would most likely have been one of those promoted. He also possibly deserves the trait 'charismatic' too, as he led his men well, and was the one (positively or negatively) who created the myth of 'Stonewall Jackson'.

So, a 3-star version of Kearny, and a 2-star version of Bee are viable in game, if players start in 1861/62 (prior to their deaths), as both were energetic.

[Korrigan]

Mc Naughton completly expresses my feeling toward Johnston

[runyan99]

Technically, McDowell was just a Brigadier General in 1861, so if you are going to reduce rank, reduce him to a brigadier general.

I never care what the leader's historical rank was. I don't care if he was a colonel. For the game, I only care what kind of force the leader commanded, or what I want him to be able to do in the game. I approach the question from a game perspective first. Mostly, McDowell was a corps commander, and I could make the argument that his army at Bull Run was more or less a big corps of 4 divisions, at least in the context of AACW. (I think of Pemberton's force at Vicksburg the same way). In any case, I want McDowell to be a corps commander, and I want him to be ineligible to command an army HQ in 1861. So, I give him ** rank.


As for Johnston, I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I however concur with Davis' opinion of Johnston which was that, left to his own devices, Johnston would have abandoned Atlanta and retreated down the Florida peninsula to the Florida Keys, and then he would have asked for transport to Cuba.

A low strategic rating symbolizes a general who is 'slow to act', or who has 'little control' over their command, resulting in poor reaction of the forces under their command. This does not reflect Johnston's lack of offensive aggression, but creates a Johnston who has a lack of competence, and ability to command.

We disagree about what the strategic rating represents. Being inactive doen't affect defensive performance, so a general with a low rating can still be a good defender. On the other hand, since a leader really does need to be active to conduct a successful attack, the strategic rating is THE key metric to measure a general's aggressiveness and willingness to commit to offensive battle. Thus McClellan is low, Bedford Forrest is high. Johnston never thought the time was right for offesive action, but always preferred to defend or give ground. Thus I believe he was very much below average among his peers in aggressiveness.


As for the mod, I have discovered a few doubled leaders and some promotions that do not fire, and I am going to work those out and post an updated version of the mod soon.

[tremy]

moving troops by rail and fighting bull run.attacking at seven pines,plus bentonville?
ordering Pemberton to move re Vicksburg
many of his contemporaries saw him as the greatest southern general ,while Grant and sherman cited him as their toughest opponent.
But he certainly lost the battle of the books after the war
O.K. so as a brit maybe I should keep quiet,but after 40 years of civil war study I cant help thinking that the recieved wisdom regarding Joe is flawed.

[runyan99]

File in first post updated to fix some bugs.

[Jabberwock]

Technically, McDowell was just a Brigadier General in 1861, so if you are going to reduce rank, reduce him to a brigadier general.

Has anyone seen an ACW game yet that makes a distinction between regular army and volunteer ranks for the union? A regular army brigadier was much more likely to command large forces of troops. For officers with ranks on both sides of the organization, it seems that there was usually about a two rank difference in equivalance. (i.e. volunteer brigadier = regular Major, Lt. Colonel, or brevet Colonel). So a regular army brigadier rated as a *** or ** leading an army or corps wouldn't be out of line, IMO. I do like the idea of making the AotP an army in name only until Little Mac took over.

Hmmm. I don't aggree that he 'did not deliver'. He was probably the best defensive general in the Confederacy. His operations as commander of the Army of the Tennessee, as well as the Army of the West were very successful. His delaying tactics were working, as he was winning the battles, at tremendous odds and inflicting substantial casualties without experiencing many of his own. To me, that's what you do when you are outnumbered 2-3 to 1. I would not call the battles of the Penninsula a 'defeat' for Johnston either. Frankly, he performed better than Lee did, when you calculate the state of the army after their term as field commander during this campaign. The battle Johnston was wounded in was the critical battle that stopped McClellan's advance. Johnston gained the initiative for Lee, who took it and lost 20 000 Confederate lives during the seven days battle (we will never know what Johnston would have accomplished).

He didn't meet Davis' impression on how the war should be fought, but, Davis also kept Hood and Bragg in command of the Army of the Tennessee which effectively destroyed that formation, and whittled away any chance of military success out West. Frankly, the only person who really had a good picture of the proper strategy out west was Johnston!

To rate his strategic rating to sub-average makes one of the potentially 'best' Confederate generals, the worst 3-star general. Nobody will give him a job anywhere, he will be the 'new McClellan' who gets shuttled off to Arkansas.

A low strategic rating means that he is inactive in both offense and defence, and it would be next to impossible to have him replicate the historic successes he accomplished. If you are to do anything, it would be to increase his defensive rating, keep his offensive rating at two (remember Bentonville, against all odds he nearly crushed a massively superior force), and his strategic rating at above average (meaning he will be active more than not).

A low strategic rating symbolizes a general who is 'slow to act', or who has 'little control' over their command, resulting in poor reaction of the forces under their command. This does not reflect Johnston's lack of offensive aggression, but creates a Johnston who has a lack of competence, and ability to command. Johnston reacted quickly, and performed more than capably, meaning that his strategic rating should be above average.

It was Johnston who wanted Pemberton to leave Vicksburg, unite with Johnston and then outnumber and crush Grant, but since Johnston wasn't given 'official command' over Pemberton, his requests and advice were ignored (resulting in the loss of the Army of Mississippi).

Frankly, I view Johnston as a very capable strategic commander, who was well aware of the situation but was always hampered by Davis who didn't give him enough official power to do anything until it was too late. In my opinion, he should be second in ability to Lee, and in some cases, much more of a 'balanced' military commander. Johnston didn't take the same risks as Lee, which meant he didn't have the same spectacular victories, but, he also didn't have the same crushing defeats (indeed, Johnston kept his army in better condition than Lee did in 1865, even though they were both up against relentless and overwhelming force).

I personally believe that Johnston should be the antithesis of Bragg. Both should have a high strategic rating, but one is designed to attack at all costs (Bragg) while one is to rely on defensive actions (Johnston). I personally think that Bragg is rated too high in stats over Johnston as is (strategic ratings should be the same), and that Johnston is not rated as well as he should be. Johnston's problem wasn't ability, but political connections, he simply didn't have any!

I have to say I think Phil got it right with Joe Johnston's ratings. If his defensive attribute were increased or strategic attribute decreased, he'd be more likely to try holding positions than falling back 'Jominian' style. He was likely the best overall strategist the South had, but that doesn't translate well into game terms or political popularity.

[Brochgale]

It was not unusual during the American Civil War for some less than able Generals to rise through the ranks on both sides - good at the politics game but hopeless war and battlefield commanders! I hope that a what if Scenarios will be incorporated into future updates of the game and will become more than just mods! Johnstone would never have fought Gettysburg - of that I am sure?
Ultimately it could be argued that it was the hash the CSA made of things in the west that led to Gettysburg in the first place! So I guess I am hinting at a what if it had been Johnstone in overall command of Confederates both East and west - what would have happened? Give Johstone a role that Lincoln eventually gave to Grant!

[drake]

When running the Mod, clicking on the Reinforcements button causes a CTD. The game log shows:

Code: Select all

8:50:34 PM  [Error    ]  TUnitDef.GetFirstModel                859 L. Rousseau has no models registered, check if alias parsing was done correctly for the models of this unit.
8:50:34 PM  [Critical ]  TGameSim.ExportLedger1 - Units Game A Exception caught Violation d'accès à l'adresse 004A9A5E dans le module 'AACW.exe'. Lecture de l'adresse 000000BC ExportStep: 0

[runyan99]

Well, that's no good. I'll look into it.

[runyan99]

Okay, looks like that was an easy fix.

Mod updated on first post. Reinstall all files.

[drake]

Bravo. Thank you for the quick update! Works like a charm now.

[runyan99]

Mod updated today.

[BreckInridge]

You can almost see the opposing views on the Western war being fought here.

In my opinion, (which counts for little, I know

Johnson knew what he was doing and was progressive and visionary. Davis et al had a WWI trench mentality. Men ultimately have proven more valuable than territory in any war of attrition.

Napoleon took Moscow. I am sure Davis would be pleased with Napoleon. But like the Russians, Johnson would have won the war, not the battles and the war of Newspaper headlines.

How do you know how good an attacker he would have been had it been suitable to attack? There is a saying: "a Good General knows how to win a battle; a Great General knows what battles he cannot win."


And thanks for the hard work on the mod. Keep it up, it is much appreciated.

[runyan99]

Mod updated today. I now have full names for all leaders from '61 to the start of '64. Numerous other small changes and fixes.

[runyan99]

Mod updated today for 1.07h

[gbs]

Will this Mod be compatable with 1.08?

[runyan99]

Mod updated today and checked for compatibility with 1.08.

Added a handful of new leaders, and numerous other small changes and fixes. Probability for leader loss increased again.

[Pdubya64]

Thanks for the quick test and posting Runyan. Happy Holidays!
pw

[AndrewKurtz]

Any help you be appreciated. I tried to install the MOD over 1.08. I copied to events to ACW\Events, two alias files to ACW\Alias and the OPT file to settings. I then deleted GameData\Models and GameData\Units and copied the mod directories.

When I run, I get a critical error. Here is the log. Any advice?

8:02:45 PM (Reporting) User: kurt2143 Computer: PAADK-VISTA IP: 10.10.10.106
8:02:45 PM (Reporting) Loading general settings
8:02:45 PM (Reporting) USettings.LoadSettings 290 settings loaded, out of 9 settings files.
8:02:45 PM (Reporting) Loading Localized Strings
8:02:45 PM [Warning ] ULocalize.LoadLocalStrings: Alias too short at line 952 need at least 3 chars (ignored): 3 Cavalry in file: C:\AGEOD\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\Settings\LocalStrings_ACW.csv Can be a key parsed in alias itself! ($Cavalry = Cavalerie would be 3 = Cavalerie ...
8:02:45 PM [Warning ] ULocalize.LoadLocalStrings: Alias too short at line 1071 need at least 3 chars (ignored): 1 Rebels in file: C:\AGEOD\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\Settings\LocalStrings_ACW.csv Can be a key parsed in alias itself! ($Cavalry = Cavalerie would be 3 = Cavalerie ...
8:02:45 PM [Warning ] ULocalize.LoadLocalStrings: Alias too short at line 1141 need at least 3 chars (ignored): 3 Cavalry in file: C:\AGEOD\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\Settings\LocalStrings_ACW.csv Can be a key parsed in alias itself! ($Cavalry = Cavalerie would be 3 = Cavalerie ...
8:02:49 PM (Reporting) ULocalize.LoadLocalStrings: System local strings loaded from C:\AGEOD\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\Settings\LocalStrings__AGE.csv
8:02:49 PM (Reporting) Loading Display Options
8:02:49 PM (Reporting) Entering DirectX Initializations
8:03:57 PM (Reporting) Loading Terrains Definitions
8:03:57 PM (Reporting) TTerrainDefs.Create 35 Terrains definitions loaded, out of 335 terrains files.
8:03:57 PM (Reporting) TAbiDefs.Create 76 Abilities loaded, out of 76 abilities files.
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 198 William W. Loring has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 217 Robert E. Rodes has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 251 Benjamin F. Butler has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 252 Nathaniel P. Banks has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 304 John Schofield has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 484 Barnard E. Bee has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 558 S. Hurlburt has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 560 Thomas Wood has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 566 Andrew Humphreys has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 572 John Geary has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 583 A.J. Smith has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 590 Horatio Wright has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 624 David Stanley has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 627 Peter Osterhaus has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 644 William Emory has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM [Warning ] TModel.Create The model 652 Alfred Terry has a TechUpg value of -2147483648 Check if the alias is correct, corrected to -1
8:03:57 PM (Reporting) TListModels.Create 1038 models loaded, out of 1038 models files in 2897 ms
8:03:57 PM [Critical ] TListModels.Get Data container for models definitions has some discrepancies, for UID 993

[runyan99]

Ah, there is a problem I will fix very shortly.

[runyan99]

A thousand pardons. Sometime it is tricky to keep all these files straight.

Please redownload and reinstall, and let me know if you have any other problems.

[AndrewKurtz]

Seems to have worked. At least I was able to load the game and start a new April 1861 scenario without an errors. Thanks!

[runyan99]

Ok great. If the mod does not crash on startup, then all should work fine after that.

Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho!

[GShock]

I wanted to ask, if the leader mod is historical, why doesn't Ageod consider auto-implementing into next versions?

At present time, in Xmas patch, are there any leader mod features inside (coming from past versions) ?

[Pdubya64]

I wanted to ask, if the leader mod is historical, why doesn't Ageod consider auto-implementing into next versions?

At present time, in Xmas patch, are there any leader mod features inside (coming from past versions) ?

I think initially there was sentiment to include the leader mod, but as we all know, how each leader gets "rated" is a very divisive subject. It leads me to believe they ended up deciding to just leave it as a separate mod to try and please the most people.
If you like it, use it. If not, no worries. Much easier for AGEOD that way.

[richfed]

Using 1.08, I just installed the RR Mod along with this Leader Mod ...

Seems to be working well, but I noticed just a couple of things and I'm not sure if they are by design or not; or even if they are caused by this Mod. Perhaps you can assist?

• A doubled 1st Tennessee Cavalry unit appears in Knoxville early in the game. I thought this had been fixed sometime earlier by Ageod.
• Playing as the CSA, I see that certain units do not appear in the reinforment panel until Oct. '61, the same turn as divisions are allowed. i.e. - only 2 Marines [used to be 4], 3 Columbiad artillery [used to be 4], no big river guns in Georgia, one less Cavalry regiment, etc. Everything becomes "normal" in October ...

[runyan99]

• A doubled 1st Tennessee Cavalry unit appears in Knoxville early in the game. I thought this had been fixed sometime earlier by Ageod.
• Playing as the CSA, I see that certain units do not appear in the reinforment panel until Oct. '61, the same turn as divisions are allowed. i.e. - only 2 Marines [used to be 4], 3 Columbiad artillery [used to be 4], no big river guns in Georgia, one less Cavalry regiment, etc. Everything becomes "normal" in October ...

I'm not sure about the Tennessee Cavalry, but the delayed CSA unit pool is simply a by product of the event which controls the divisions. The CSA player just has a smaller force pool until October, which is perfectly fine in my judgement.

[AndrewKurtz]

I think initially there was sentiment to include the leader mod, but as we all know, how each leader gets "rated" is a very divisive subject. It leads me to believe they ended up deciding to just leave it as a separate mod to try and please the most people.
If you like it, use it. If not, no worries. Much easier for AGEOD that way.

For my money, this mod adds realism on many fronts, not just the ratings.

One is increasing leader casualties, which are almost non-existent in the normal game in my experience. And after having just read Footes accounts of Gettysburg, I would say many more casualties are called for, especially in bloody battles.

The other is how it impacts the importance of certain leaders, such as McClellan. As the Union, I simply try to get him out of the way early, which is not where historically he was needed. Yes, I said needed

So I'd love to see it integrated into the release.