Cavalry fault found?

[mcaryf]

Hi Capt. Saucier

The general cavalry mod that I produced and published does not specifically benefit Lancers but rather makes all cavalry melee resolution relate more closely to higher ratings in areas like Experience.

I have also produced a much more extensive mod system that changes a lot of factors including giving a significant benefit to Lancers on first hit. Unfortunately if you want to try that you will also have to play with my enhanced but historically accurate ranges for canister and other changes which do alter the game dynamic.

I should also say that historically the situation was more complex because Lancers also carried swords so, after their first strike, they could drop their lance and continue to melee with their sword, the more experienced and skilled could have their swords attached by a loop to their wrists to reduce the delay in drawing a sword from a scabbard. The French also had a shortage of lances for their troops at Waterloo so in some regiments only those in the front rank of a charge might have lances. Thus if historical accuracy is your main worry you might decide not to do the work but if you want to create your own version of my mod system just for Lancers the following explains how it works.

The game has two mechanisms that determine the outcome of a cavalry melee - there is a chance out of 1000 for a successful first hit and then there is the time interval between hits. It is therefore possible to do what you want i.e. give Lancers an initial hit benefit but then make them slower for a second hit. The mod also requires you to change the Lancer entries in OOB files.

An attribute rating, e.g. Experience, given in the OOB file is used to influence a unit's performance in a number of different activities with the actions related to melee being just 2 out of 30 or so. These relationships are shown in the file called UnitAttributes. In the standard game "Experience" influences the most actions, about 20, but most attributes might influence 6 or so. There are several different unit attributes that impact the melee ratings for initial hits and the interval between hits. I could not easily change the existing attribute values that related to melee for Lancers as those attributes also regulated other actions for those units and the relationship between attributes and actions applies to all units. What I did find was that, surprisingly, the horsemanship attribute in the standard game does not change either of the values for melee. In my latest mods I have therefore changed horsemanship so that it does effect the melee ratings and given Lancers some benefit for initial hit and some penalty for time interval for subsequent hits. I have done this by using horsemanship attribute ratings of 1 for experienced lancers and 2 for elite lancers. Normally 1 and 2 ratings would indicate very poor units and in fact in the Waterloo series no unit had these values for horsemanship so I did not have to change any other units only Lancers. I therefore changed the OOB files for Lancer units so that experienced Lancer units had horsemanship attribute 1 and elite units had attribute 2. I left Prussian Landwehr unchanged. I changed the values in the UnitAttributes files so that Horsemanship with rating 1 added 300 to the chances out of a 1000 for a hit but extended the interval between hits by 4 seconds whilst rating 2 added 400 to the chances out of 1000 of a hit but extended the time between hits by 2 seconds. Please just consider these values as examples because my major mod changed other attribute values as well for reasons too complicated to go into here. If you do try this you will need to experiment to get appropriate values for the results you want.

I am sorry if this seems quite complicated – SOW is a marvelous game with great facilities for mods but obviously the further you move from the standard mechanisms the more you have to be careful about unexpected consequences.

By the way if you do try my major mod I would be very interested in feedback.

Good luck

Mike

[Capt Saucier]

Mike

Thanks for the detailed reply. Where do I find your comprehensive mod and do you have any particular instructions as to how to install it? Where do you place it in the mods folder? I am assuming the steps I must follow are:

1) upgrade base game to 3.0
2) delete grog tool bar mod
3) install new grog tool bar to go with new version 3.0
4) install your new comprehensive mod with artillery and cavalry change

In what order should the grog tool bar and your comprehensive mod be in the mods folder. I always seem to have trouble with these installs. For some reason, I cannot even install the regular game patches from the game, where it says look for updates. I get an error message. So I have to down load patches and then extract them. Any advice would be appreciated!

Saucier

[Capt Saucier]

Reb,

Also thanks for your response. I am now confused as to what version I am playing. When I go to patch notes, the notes are from version 2.0 August 10 of 2017. When I go to multiplayer, it says version 1.01. Is there a way to confirm what version I currently have?

Also, when I go to "Check for new version" on the main screen, it says there is a new version. So I click on that and it leads me to the installer pop up. When I proceed with this, it appears to start working but then I always get an error message "Download Error. Unable to download file. An error occurred while trying to open an FTP file." This always happens. It seems I can download the patch directly from the Slitherine/Matrix site, then fiddle with moving it to the right file or folder, but it would be great if I could use the automated downloader.

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Saucier

[mcaryf]

Hi Capt. Saucier

I call the mod my Experimental Optimised version and I have published it together with versions of Waterloo, QB and Ligny with which it work here:
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterl ... d-waterloo

it is in the Mods section of this forum and the post explains the sequence for loading it.

Regards

Mike

[RebBugler]

Reb,

Also thanks for your response. I am now confused as to what version I am playing. When I go to patch notes, the notes are from version 2.0 August 10 of 2017. When I go to multiplayer, it says version 1.01. Is there a way to confirm what version I currently have?

Also, when I go to "Check for new version" on the main screen, it says there is a new version. So I click on that and it leads me to the installer pop up. When I proceed with this, it appears to start working but then I always get an error message "Download Error. Unable to download file. An error occurred while trying to open an FTP file." This always happens. It seems I can download the patch directly from the Slitherine/Matrix site, then fiddle with moving it to the right file or folder, but it would be great if I could use the automated downloader.

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Saucier

When I installed the latest patch I also got the 1.01 version readout. However, the patch install was successful. I confirmed this through the Grog Toolbar by checking the new functions that were added by the patch...You can do the same. Make sure you have the latest update of the toolbar and test the new 'Attach All' button/command next to the 'Zoom' button. Select an officer and detach some of his subordinates. Then select the officer and initiate the 'Attach All' command. If they attach automatically by the 'Attach All' command then the patch install was successful.

To answer another question, the Grog Toolbar should always be prioritized below all other enabled mods for all it's functions to work correctly. Just remember, the mods are read from top to bottom, and the last one to be read overrides all the previous 'same file' readouts.

For any further Grog Toolbar discussion and patch install questions please post via the Grog Toolbar thread, we've skewed Mike's cavalry thread enough...Thanks

[Capt Saucier]

Mike

I wanted to let you know that I have begun using your mod. I decided to play both QB and Ligny, starting with QB and then starting Ligny an hour (in game time) later, so both are sort of going on at the same game time.

Not much play time yet, but will give you a report after I am able to play for a while.

Saucier

[mcaryf]

That is the way they were designed to be played so you can decide where your reinforcements, e.g. D'Erlon, should be deployed.

I hope you enjoy it.

Mike