Improved Artillery Fire and Enfilade Fire Mod

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Little Powell wrote:

There's probably going to be a quick fix patch coming out to address a scoring problem with the historic scenarios.

If there is going to be another patch, I would strongly recommend that the problem of a modded Battledef.ini not being read be fixed.

GShock wrote:

I am posting about it in the thread "problem with moving the artillery".

That problem is the result of there being no distinct artillery AI. The game treats a division of arty the same way it does a division of infantry. You will never see reasonable behavior as long as you keep the artillery as a seperate division. The way around that issue is to mod your oobs so that infantry division commanders have direct control of arty batteries. Then the artillery will behave much better.

[Little Powell]

Little Powell wrote:

There's probably going to be a quick fix patch coming out to address a scoring problem with the historic scenarios.

If there is going to be another patch, I would strongly recommend that the problem of a modded Battledef.ini not being read be fixed.

GShock wrote:

I am posting about it in the thread "problem with moving the artillery".

That problem is the result of there being no distinct artillery AI. The game treats a division of arty the same way it does a division of infantry. You will never see reasonable behavior as long as you keep the artillery as a seperate division. The way around that issue is to mod your oobs so that infantry division commanders have direct control of arty batteries. Then the artillery will behave much better.

I wasn't aware of the battledef.ini issue. I'll look into it.

Ah yes, you hit the nail on the head about the artillery AI. This is something that is definitely on the table to be addressed (Jim has written up a proposal about it and everything). It's not something we can put in a quick fix patch but it will be looked at for a future release. Until then, it's best to use the SB_Brig_Div OOB's in sandbox or create your own.

[GShock]

If the historical breakdown was with Arty DIV being on its own rather than endorsed into an Infantry DIV so be it.
The player may still attach the individual batteries (down to the single gun) manually to each DIV/BDE so it's a non issue.

It's the management of the AI of guns in relation with the strategic orders that makes them move too much (I am talking about major move decisions taken by the Arty DIV Leader and not the problem of minor arty movements up and down to acquire targets that wastes their fatigue).

My late test shows that you can move arty even when under fire as long as the DIV leader is set (and by chain of command all his AI subordinates follow) on no order. However, once the spot is chosen the PROBLEM I reported about the Arty tutorial with inability of moving the arty becomes an advantage: the Hold to the last order will pin the arty and it will keep shooting in place even when under wild bombardment.

As it should be.
Anyway, it's in the other thread. Explained a bit more in detail.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

This mod has been updated for game version 1.40. You can find the link in the first post.

[Trilogy]

This looks interesting! Does it conflict with other popular mods?

(I'm still not sure I understand how mods interact in SOW.)

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Trilogy wrote:

Does it conflict with other popular mods? (I'm still not sure I understand how mods interact in SOW.)

As far as I know, no other mod address arty fire. No other mod attempts to make make fire into the flank or rear more realistic. So there should not be any conflict.

The mod system is designed such that the the mods are implemented in the order they are listed. So if two mods change the same line(s) in the same csv file, the mod that is lower in the list will override the one listed above it. You can move the mods up or down in the list whenever you need.

[mkeogh76]

This is a pretty old mod, but after trying it out then I don't think I'll ever go back to vanilla artillery.

It's been a common complaint for all of Norb's games from TC2M to SOW Gettysburg to SOW Waterloo that long range artillery fire is too ineffective. (One player has remarked that shell fire had all the effectiveness of being hit by Cocoa Puffs.)

For the most part, I've accepted while playing these games that non-canister artillery munitions are pretty much useless and that most long-range battery fire is just a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

However, I was playing an Antietam scenario- a battle that was described as "artillery hell"- and watched two full batteries fire without pause for 20-30 minutes and did not inflict one single casualty. That's when I said there's got to be a mod that can improve artillery to make it somewhat effective.

And this is the mod. It's apparently the only stand-alone artillery mod in town and it's old. However, it still works with the 1.61 version of the game.

I tried it out in the six hour Union full-battle Antietam scenario. Its effects were quickly noticeable. My batteries were finally able to inflict damage from long range as shown by virtually everyone of my batteries having a positive score. Meanwhile, Rebel artillery wreaked havoc on my infantry especially with the longer canister range. Artillery actually mattered!

However, this mod doesn't turn Civil War artillery into WW1 or WW2 killers, but it just makes it somewhat more effective and increases the importance of trying to get guns into the fight which I think made the game more fun.

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks for the mod and to bump its thread for it to get some attention.

[Saddletank]

Yes, 5 years old, but Gettysburg wasn't patched after that so we didn't update the mod. It can be downloaded here:

http://kriegsspiel.forumotion.net/t370- ... piel-style

(Login needed).

The mod changes infantry morale and fire effects as well, making battles a little bloodier but shorter.

I'd like the KS team to return to Gettysburg one day to review this mod and bring it up to date in areas we've learned new things about while modding Waterloo.