MOD Idea: American Civil War

Hello, it occurred to me that there wasn't any American civil war mods out there, although I found a few great skins, and small components around, but no full mod with a scenario. So I started checking out a few things to make civilizations, leaders, UU's, ect. and I got a few things going fairly easily...

Here's a few screenies of some of what I have done so far..







I didn't want to make things too complicated, probably only add a few more, non-playable civs, their leaders of the era, probably 5-6 UU's for America and Confederacy, maybe 1 for other non-playables.

Also change the Civics and Religions, the calander (to make game go from 1861 - 1865, probably in weeks), nearly all new units, and tech tree near complete overhaul.

It obviously is going to be completely focused on the mainland North America, but I want to include England, Mexico, possibly Spain and France as small role players, that are non-playable by player. I'm gonna try to retain historical accuracy, but allow for good balanced game play. I'm aiming to get the best of both worlds.

I've got tons of research to sift though still but here is a list of possible units, or at least the technologies they will be using;

Mounted: Cavalry
Mounted Infantry
Dragoons
Partison Rangers
Guerillas

Infantry: Union Infantry w/ Smoothbore Musket
Union Infantry w/ Springfield Rifle
Confederate Infantry w/ Smoothbore Musket
Confederate Infantry w/ Springfield Rifle
Marksman

Artillery: M1857 12lb Napoleon (smoothbore, bronze)
12lb Howitzer (bronze)
24lb Howitzer (bronze)
10lb Parrott Rifle (iron)
20lb Parrott Rifle (iron)
3 inch Ordinance Rifle (iron) most used artillery of civil war
12lb Whitworth Breachloading Rifle (iron)

Supply: Limber (two wheeled horse carriage that carried a war chest, along
with a gun and sometimes a caisson)
Caisson (two wheeled horse carriage that carried ammunition and a spare wheel)
Field Surgeon

Naval: Early Ironclad
Frigate
Early Submarine


I want to make the supply units very important, and have them give bonuses to artillery and infantry while they are stacked together.

Also want to include a couple mod components including Dales ranged bombardment, and maybe a few others.

Any thoughts, input or help would be apprieciated

I could probably use some help with skinning units, sdk, and possibly creating the map more than anything. Thanks

Ok I just merged Dales Ranged Bombardment and Porges Attitude Mod...

Both work great... again I'm open to some suggestions, ideas, and help

1 more screenie



I'll probably only give 1 or 2 units the 2 square bombardment feature... and make them very expensive so they are rare... but wanted to get the better bombardment feature in there.

The attitude mod basically just displays the leaders attitude towards you, as can been seen in the screen shot.

Many thanks to Dale and Porges

I love the idea; May I suggest the use of the (geographically; you'd have to re-do the cities, roads, etc.) American Revolution map? The Eastern US was where most of the war was fought, and I think that would be the most dynamic to have.

PLEASE PM ME THE MOMENT THIS IS DONE! I AM A BIG CIVIL WAR BUFF!!!

BTW, there is a civil war mod, but it is very primitive; I respect the guys efforts, but the units haven't changed and the map is WAY too big. But I am really looking forward to this; PLEASE DON'T ABANDON IT!!!!!!

Thinking about this more and more, I think I will remake the tech tree, but it wont be a really big one, I'll probably just make them about 5x more expensive and make the tech tree only 1 era. That way the techs are kinda slow, while everything else is going at normal rate. Really major inventions did not occur that frequently in the short span of the war anyways. Also will add some buildings and such, but again not in large numbers. I'll probably remove everything completely, then add back in some of the buildings, units, and techs from the era along with all the new stuff.

The main goal of this is to get the civil war flavor and a few simple features added, mostly cosmetic stuff, adding era specific units/techs/buildings...

One thing I really need help with is combining two DLL's of mod components I want to include. If anyone can work this out, please PM me, that would be fantastic

Emperor2 - yes that sounds like a good idea, I need to check that out again but I was considering that map

Oh and any research/knowledge about things I haven't included yet, or made a mistake on would be great!

Fixed a few small things in civlopedia and added new main menuBG.



Please help with DLL someone!

Wow, I'd love to see a Civil War scenario!

I once had some ideas for an Civil War scenario, but as I'm not able to program xml and stuff like that, all of this remained ideas. I started with a collection of great people who somehow had to do something with the Civil War, I'll contribute it here, use it, if you want.
As a unit you could also add a reskinned form of the machinegunner, renamed into "gatling gun" or something.

If you want maps for this scenario, tell me, it would be a pleasure for me to make them!

Will there only be Union and Confederacy or will there also be other civs, that where in this region during the time (British-Canada, Mexico, Native Tribes)?

Ok, here ist the list:

Iuvavus, thanks

I'm very open to ideas and help, thanks for the GP list, that will be very helpful, keeping me from having to do all the research. And yes I was planning on adding the other civs around this area at the time, its still kinda open for discussion but will probably include Brits, Mexico, vauge native alliance, possibly even a France or Spain, but I haven't done all the research yet to see if their even worth having in. More than likely I would make them lean to where they would only have an economic effect through trading, with slim to none chance of directly fighting in the war.

And yes I could use some help with the map, although most things are on hold until BtS comes out. I dont know exactly how much work it is to convert it to the various versions, but more than likely only release a warlords and bts version.

What GGs are you planing on having?


P.S
If you want I can do formations.

The GG's will be an interesting bit... Tons of famous and infamous generals from this period. Here's the shortlist thanks to Iuvavus, although I'm up for suggestions if you have others in mind.

Robert E. Lee
Ulysses S. Grant
William T. Sherman
Stonewall Jackson
J.E.B. Stuart
Winfield Scott
George B. McClellan
Albert S. Johnston
William J. Hardee
Joseph E. Johnston
P.G.T. Beaugredard
Irivin McDowell
Franz Sigel
Earl Van Dorn
Braxton Bragg
Nathan B. Forrest
Ambrose E. Burnside
Joe Hooker
George G. Meade
James Longstreet
Philip Sheridan
Richard H. Anderson

And yea custom formations would be great!

Hey there, I am happy to help with suggestions for this Mod, I'm a huge American Civil War buff. I have long wanted to see a really good Civ4 Mod for the conflict.

Unique units skins should be made for...
1. Confederate General (Based on Robert E. Lee)
2. Union General (Based on Ulysses S. Grant)
3. Confederate Infantry (Reskin for the Rifleman unit)
4. Union Infantry (Reskin for the Rifleman unit)
5. 12lb Artillery Piece (Reskin for the Cannon unit)
6. 6lb Artillery Piece (New stats for this)
7. Confederate Cavalry (Maybe just reskin current cavalry unit?)
8. Union Sharpshooters (New unit with new stats)
9. Confederate Sharpshooters (New unit with new stats)
10. 3 Inch Ordinance Rifle (New unit with new stats)

Union Cavalry could just be represented by the current Cavalry unit and there could be a difference in quality between regular army units (ie. 1st U.S Infantry Regiment) and volunteer units (ie. 1st New York Volunteer Regiment) though this would just be in name and stats. Three artillery/siege pieces should be enough, I also don't think there is a big enough distinction between infantry rifles to make a differance at this scale.

Twenty 'Great' Generals to start us off for each side...

Confederate
Robert E. Lee
James Longstreet
Thomas J. Jackson
J.E.B Stuart
A.P Hill
Joseph E. Johnston
D. H. Hill
Jubal Anderson Early
P. G. T. Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Henry Heth
Earl Van Dorn
Albert Sidney Johnston
John Bell Hood
William J. Hardee
Patrick Cleburne
John C. Breckinridge
Lafayette McLaws
John B. Magruder

Union
Ulysses S. Grant
George B. McClellan
William T. Sherman
Winfield Scott Hancock
Irivin McDowell
John Pope
Don Carlos Buell
Franz Sigel
Benjamin Franklin Butler
Ambrose E. Burnside
Joe Hooker
George G. Meade
Philip Sheridan
Nathaniel P. Banks
William Rosecrans
John Sedgwick
John F. Reynolds
Edwin V. Sumner
Henry W. Halleck
David Hunter

It would be good if a game mechanic could be made whereby a General attached to an army aided its performance in the long term, as opposed to merely giving some extra experiance, and some generals were better than others.

Oh, if you need some unit icons for use in game, 'General Banshee' has a heap he kindly lets us wargamers use.

Here is his site - http://www.geocities.com/general_banshee/

Plenty for both U.S.A and C.S.A, examples...



If you like I could even make ones which aren't on those pages, using those as templates, I can't reskin units so thats something practical I could do.

thanks G.B. McClellan I will take those into consideration, although I was planning on more unique skins (and units) already (see post #1). Thanks for the addition of great gens. I may possibly use some of the unit icons from General Banshee as well, although I normally just use wiki or google and search the entire internet for such pictures and icons, I'm sure some of them will be useful.

The buttons are really easy (maybe a 1 minute job) so i'm not too worried about that, more the skins and the sdk. thanks for your support, and if you have any more good info on anything else relevant please feel free to share

PS the reason I want to have more than a couple infantry, cavalry unit types ect. is cause its gonna be a game which could stretch every bit as long as a normal game, just the increments will be weeks instead of years... No ground breaking tech will be discovered such as modern infantry or tanks (obviously) and to keep things interesting and to keep technology somewhat important, there should be at least a few upgrades and new (slightly improved) technologies achieved during game play, in order to succeed. Again thanks for suggestions and support.

Some more unit-suggestions:

National Guard infantry: this could be the basic infantry unit in the game (like the warrior in standard civ), graphic like rifleman. There could also be something like a National Guard Cavalry. The first battles have been fought by state-armies, Union and confederate armies where built later in the war.

As a scout unit there can be a Native American Scout or something like that. There could also be another Native unit, (like special cavalry, weak but fast)Native Americans fougth in the war on both sides.

There could also be something like a balloon for exploring the territory

As the Gatling gun was invented and used during the war, there should also be something like a machine-gunner.

Coloured units: Slaves in the south (replaces Worker) oder Coloured infantry or Buffalo Soldiers (as black cavalry unit) both for north only, could come with a tech called "Emancipation" or something like that.

What level of historical accuracy are you thinking about for this scenario by the way - everything as accurate as possible or just a scenario with a Civil War theme?

For example, the units in your first screenshots don't look much like infantrymen in the American civil war, with the knee high boots and the gloves.

I'm not entirely sure if Agg/Imp fits Jefferson Davis very well. Mechanics-wise, it works out okay, but I'm wondering if it might be better to just do away with the traits entirely and replace them with unique traits for each leader.

How about victory conditions? Bear in mind, the South was essentially fighting a defensive war: To win, it only needed to repel the North, while the North could only win by conquering the South. One possibility would be to include Rise of Rome-eque Victory Points, but scatter them throughout the South. Grant additional Victory Points for capturing cities, and you've got a scenario in which the South wins if it stays on the defensive.

Your right Mewtarthio, the traits and favorite civics aren't done yet really... Just copied other leaders and replaced certain things... I wasn't planning on having Davis be Agg./Imp.

For the victory conditions, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, but it certainly wasn't gonna be just the same o' normal ones. I like your idea about making it similar to Rise of Rome. Hopefully we keep getting good fresh ideas and come up with the best solution. I may even just straight copy exactly how rise of rome is, but I'd like to hear some other propositions first... It'll still be at least a few weeks before a working version is released.

Thanks for more suggestions guys , and yes I wanted to include a simple balloon and a gatlin gun of some sort.

As far as historical accuracy, I'd like to keep it as historical accurate as possible, without doing a ridiculous amount of work. Making 20 or more units from scratch would be a major ordeal for me, so some unit skins aren't going to be perfect, at least not for the first release, however I'd at least like to get the units represented, and the skins are kinda a second order priority. I'll do my best, but I'm not going to spend countless hours doing a simple reskin, cause I'm really not that great reskinning units.

Like the union rifleman and confederate rifleman skins I borrowed, there are many units in the downloads area that could be used, if they are pretty close, I'm not gonna be too worried about it, if someone wants to volunteer to get the best historically accurate skins, that would be great, but yea, its kinda a low priority for the moment.

PS the button for the union infantry (see above) is a real picture of a union officer, scaled down and cropped. I really want everything to look and feel like the real civil war, but making everything function is the #1 priority, after things get going, we could replace some of the skins for more realistic ones.

Also what do you guys think of the "Stars and Bars" vs the "Southern Cross" flag for the confederates? I'm using the 34 star flag for sure for the union, but was kinda torn between the two confederate flags. In no way do I want to promote slavery or the rebel flag, but it is part of history, so it was a consideration.

Both flags were almost equally important, I may even try my hand at changing flags with python somehow, but that could be tough. Thoughts?

I like using the Stars and Bars for the Confederacy as it was the official flag of government, the Southern Cross was a battle flag. The Confederacy had three national flags, of which the Stars and Bars is most famous (I think we should use it for this mod),


The Stars and Bars (March 1861 to May 1863)


The Stainless Banner (May 1963 to March 1865)


The Blood Dipped Banner (March 1865 until the fall of the C.S.A)