Baby Steps into Modding

[Anthropoid]

I've got the SDK installed and have been reading the manual (Wow! What an incredible job on that manual!).

Seems like it will take me quite a few hours of going back and forth between reading the manual and fiddling in game.

For my first effort, what I'm trying to do is to make a slight modification of RebBuglers

C:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Anniversary Edition\Mods\Bugles and Flags XII\Scenarios\GB3D-July1-3 Gettysburg Three Days (C-Army) DRF SR10

I want to play all of Gettysburg in SP HITS mode and I'm finding that, only two hours in-game time per day just isn't enough time (for me) to do anything effective in HITS mode. In Normal difficulty I have found the 2hour per day is well-balanced, but for me I can handle it playing from the saddle.

So what I'm trying to do, is to change the duration of each day in the scenario from two hours to twelve hours.

I made a coy of the scenario folder:
C:\Matrix Games\Scourge of War - Anniversary Edition\Mods\Bugles and Flags XII\Scenarios\GB3D-July1-3 12hDays Gettysburg Three Days (C-Army) DRF SR10

Located the column in the Battlescript.csv and changed columns A150 thorugh A159 to "7:20:00 PM" I also changed all the subsequent columns so that the nighttime is two hours and each subsequent day would (I thought) be 12 hours.

However, when I play it, nighttime still occurs at 9:30AM just as in the original scenario.

I imagine this is something really simple that I'm missing?

I notice that there are commands for sunrise and sunset in the SDK command list and RedBugler is using those commands in the C column, so I expected that changing those times in the A column would take care of it. I'm not seeing anything else in any of the other files that would seem to control the day length.

I would've guessed that I needed to represent PM times in military convention (13:00 for 1PM etc.) but there was one case in the command examples that had something like 6:20:00 PM. I'll try switching them to 24-hour time and see if that fixes it.

[Anthropoid]

Seems like using the military time convention has fixed it!

[Little Powell]

Great, glad you got it figured out. As you see, even with good instructions there will always be some trial in error in the world of modding.

[Ged Cade]

I was just trying a similar extend the time per day thing myself with the same scenario-I set each game day to 8 hrs just in case the game engine could not handle more than 24 hrs continuous play.
Is that correct or can we just "keep the clock running" and run say 3 lots of 12 hours?

(Fantastic scenario work by the way Reb!)

thanks

PS to Anthropoid - don't know if this'd affect what you are doing but in the scenario.ini there is a start time for the scenario - I adjusted mine to allow "more hours" in the game day..htmh

[Anthropoid]

I have yet to play it all the way through. I keep getting distracted, and/or restarting. Agree it is a fantastic scenario!

I have my "12hDay" version presently set to be 12-hour days and it seems to run fine. It certainly does not bring on darkness at 9:30 clock time as in the default so I believe it works fine.

I am an old strategy gamer and while I enjoy tactical stuff, I just never have been much of a fan of the smaller scenarios where you are plopped right into the situation that a relatively low level commander found himself in at the last moment before battle ensued. Much prefer a bit of 'leeway' in approaching things my own way if I want. Obviously a scenario that allows you to fight the entire GB 3 days is just that sort of thing! Even better to me would be a two week or one month "GB Campaign" that required you to martial your forces as you saw fit, etc. . . . but I digress. I can understand it is VERY hard to strike a good balance between these things and remain sufficiently "true to history" while allowing the player strategic flexibility. A game like Forge of Freedom, which I always loved, being a good example of this. Excellent game, gives you all the toys you need to play how you see fit. But even if you TRY to make it work out historically it usually will not. Pretty far from the sort of "battle simulator" that NSD represents. But if I myself were to actually get active in modding of designing, it would definitely be in that grey area between those two games, an effort to strike the perfect balance between historical simulation and alternate historical exploration.

In the interest of tweaking it a bit more, I actually examined what was (probably) the time of sunset and sunrise at GB in early July 1963. Both times of day change by about one minute every couple days, but picking a number in the middle for that three days span:

Sunrise: 5:45
Sunset: 20:45

As such, I was contemplating going back and revising it so that the day start and day end are at those times.

However, the other thing I've noticed about the scenario is: I'm not sure it is 'balanced' for such long days, which would make perfect sense given RedBugler designed it for short days!

I have only played it as Rebs so that is all that applies here.

12hDay scenario starts, I move Walker's arty reserve forward 300 or 400 yards and move Archers and Davis brigades off to one side. The arty starts to pounding on the Union cavalry.

Union cavalry just stand there and take it. I can move my arty to within ~220 yards and they never do anything but sit there. I can move my infantry a long way off where they are in no position to protect the artillery and cav never take advantage of it. This same point is true of the Union forces that are to the east of Oak Hill when Ewell's corp arrives there/

Generally these Reb forces suffer a few casualties because they spawn a bit within Union arty range. However, move Ewells corp (actually just Carters arty batt and Rodes Division) NW ~400 yards and move Brown's arty a bit back and spread it out and leave them to engage in an arty duel with the AI. Even on 2-hour day length, by the end of the day, the Union forces here will have taken enough casualties that they just withdraw. I did notice the infantry there advance once but I think it is because I moved the rebs a bit closer.

Taking advantage of this, I've managed to inflict ~500 casualties on the Union and suffered zero during Day 1, and driven back the Union front positions without ever firing a single musket

This problem is not as pronounced with Reb's original shorter version, but it is still there. First time I played it this is exactly what I did. Even though I hadn't advanced much beyond the initial starting points at Oak Hill and Herr Ridge at the end of Day 1, it didn't matter because I made up for those ahistorical advances just fine on Day 2.

I guess I need to learn how to give the Union defenders some additional orders that are contigent on Reb actions?

[RebBugler]

The length of the sunrise and sunset is set in the scenario.ini file...length=60 (1 hour).

Hmm, thought I had the cavalry fixed to advance at enemy within 200 yards to prevent that canister devastation, I'll look into it.

Certainly appreciate the kudos for my 7Day scenario. It's forever a work in progress, as new ideas and techniques come along all the time, making for even better ways to depict this epic battle as historic as possible.

[Anthropoid]

The length of the sunrise and sunset is set in the scenario.ini file...length=60 (1 hour).

Hmm, thought I had the cavalry fixed to advance at enemy within 200 yards to prevent that canister devastation, I'll look into it.

Certainly appreciate the kudos for my 7Day scenario. It's forever a work in progress, as new ideas and techniques come along all the time, making for even better ways to depict this epic battle as historic as possible.

There is a seven day scenario!? Oh that sounds interesting!

Here I'm talking about a very minor modification I made to your GB3D - July 1-3 - Gettysburg Three Day (C Army) scenario, Reb.

I just basically made the day (time between sunrise and sunset) about 12 hours each day instead of only the 2 or 3 you had it for originally.

Any suggestions on what I might do to make the Union AI a bit more unpredictable?

[RebBugler]

Oops, I meant 3Day scenario, sorry I got ya so excited for nothing.

The Union is predictable because they are scripted to follow historical movements. Wipe out the Union movement scripting and they'll be all over the place.