[BtS MOD] Wolfshanze 1850-1920 Enhancement Mod v2.0

[c0d5579]

In that case, we agree on the commerce raiders, though we disagree about the effects of pirates on the success of any given nation in the 1500s-1700s. Sorry about the confusion.

Part of the problem, though, as has been pointed out by Wodan, is that the only units that appear in-game are "naval" units - that is, shipping is done in the background. The question is whether a blockade in peacetime is feasible post-radio. I'm torn on the issue, as clearly during WW2 it benefited the Germans to keep U-boats just outside US territorial waters, which could be called a blockade, but the US knew they were there, and that they were German. Fun to play with? Yes. Realistic? I still don't know.

 

[Wolfshanze]

@Wolf, I think all the world's admiralties would have found your dreadnought conjuring abilities very useful Seriously though, where have the Cavour, Moltke, South Carolina and Ise been hiding out all this time?

You forgot the Borodino... I conjured five Dreadnoughts out of thin air!

I was attempting to get the point across, apparently poorly, that making them very weak disguised nationality raiders is the only way to go.

I concur... if they were to be added to the game at all (I still haven't decided) it would be the only way to go.

 

[Wolfshanze]

I cannot get this mod to load. I have had all the previous versions work, and I have had other mods work with 3.17. I keep getting an "Initialize Renderer failed. Check DirectX Installation, Latest Graphics Drivers and Graphics Settings Parameters: width = 1024 height = 768 flags =0xc hwnd = 0xf00e2 adaptrid = 0 deviceid = 1"

I have the current directx (Jun08) My graphics driver is a out of date but that I cant upgrade because I play on a laptop. System specs are P4 3.0g proc, Ati 9800 256Mb video, 2g of ram.

If any one has a suggestion I would really appreciate it.

Can't say what to tell you. I'll assume you deleted the old version before installing the new.

There should be no problems... obviously plenty of folks are able to play the current version (self included) so my guess is either there's something screwy with your setup, or perhaps you got a corrupted download and might want to try downloading again.

I'm at a loss as to what to say when you say it won't even start-up... by all indications that should be the least of your worries, getting it to start.

Just go-over all the installation steps... clean download?... removed previous Wolfshanze Mod?... unzipped to "use folders"... etc, etc... all basic stuff, but maybe something got missed.

 

[Healz]

I am not sure what the modern light bomber should be but I am fairly certain there should be one for the game. It seems sad that you have light bombers that can be based on carriers and you get jet aircraft and then suddenly you can no longer create any light bombers and are only stuck with jet bombers or fighters. I think something like the A-6 Intruder would be great in the late game...

 

[Berenthor]

I am not sure what the modern light bomber should be but I am fairly certain there should be one for the game. It seems sad that you have light bombers that can be based on carriers and you get jet aircraft and then suddenly you can no longer create any light bombers and are only stuck with jet bombers or fighters. I think something like the A-6 Intruder would be great in the late game...

For my own personal use I modified merged mod (which has wolfschanzes units) and included a more modern light bomer. I used A-7 Intruder and F4 skins for various nations among others as the modern replacement (called fighter-bomber). But I also added two other fighter classes (multirole fighter and advanced fighter) and pushed the original jet fighter a little forward in the tech tree (and adding different EDU skins to compensate for the loss of the skins of the fighter bomber). The fighter bomber upgrades to the multirole fighter as well as the normal jet fighter so at that point the distinction is gone. It seems to balance okay (but I like to play modern games so maybe that is why I get this far in the tech tree). Just a thought about how you could include it in your game. I don't think Wolfschanze was planning to change anything in the fighter upgrade tree because if I remember correctly it was suggested before (correct me if I am wrong, Wolfschanze).

 

[PaulusIII]

Have been playing the Wolfshanze mod for the first time today, and I must say I'm impressed by the quality work put in this mod.

There might be a small bug, though. I've noted that my horsemen do not deal flank attack damage to whatever siege weapons are in the enemy stack. Already fought three wars (one against Hitler, two against Hannibal) and in none of the three wars siege weapons got any flank damage - while my horsemen survived the battle.

Is this supposed to be that way or is it a glitch? Or have I done something wrong?

 

[Al Capwn]

Have been playing the Wolfshanze mod for the first time today, and I must say I'm impressed by the quality work put in this mod.

There might be a small bug, though. I've noted that my horsemen do not deal flank attack damage to whatever siege weapons are in the enemy stack. Already fought three wars (one against Hitler, two against Hannibal) and in none of the three wars siege weapons got any flank damage - while my horsemen survived the battle.

Is this supposed to be that way or is it a glitch? Or have I done something wrong?

I've run into the same issue. I've attacked an enemy stack that had catapults and rams with horseman and survived yet done NO damage to the siege units in the stack. I've also attacked catapults and trebs with knights and again NO flanking damage was done to the siege weapons.
???
Is there a new game mechanic involving flank attacks on siege weapons that I'm not aware of?

 

[Wolfshanze]

I am not sure what the modern light bomber should be but I am fairly certain there should be one for the game. It seems sad that you have light bombers that can be based on carriers and you get jet aircraft and then suddenly you can no longer create any light bombers and are only stuck with jet bombers or fighters. I think something like the A-6 Intruder would be great in the late game...

It's not "sad" it's just a reality. I think quite the opposite, that some folks are "forcing" light bombers into the modern era just so they can use more models or something... more is not always better. Simply put, the very term "Light Bomber" fell from use after WWII because the role of light bombers was-indeed taken-over by fighters and/or fighter/bombers. Todays modern strike fighters are multi-role... other then highly specialized aircraft (and even they are falling out of use/need), pretty much all light ground-strike roles in today's air forces fall to the fighter/bomber... F-15 Strike Eagles, F-16s, F-18s and more... all are very capable ground strike and air superiority fighters. You simply don't see ground-strike-only light bombers like you did in WWII... the term and role has pretty much evaporated.

As for Civ4 Wolf-mod purposes, Light Bombers upgrade into their modern-day replacement the modern jet strike fighter... the unit in-game is capable of destroying/killing ground targets to 100%... in fact, it's BETTER to have a single unit that is both anti-air and anti-ground instead of mixing them... think about this...

A WWII Carrier in the Wolf Mod can carry 3-units... any mix of fighters and/or light bombers... let's say you carry 1-fighter and 2-light bomber squadrons on each carrier... that means you have one fighter/one interceptor per carrier and two strike-bombers on each.

A modern supercarrier can carry four fighters... you don't get light bombers (boo hoo)... but now, since you carry all four of the same thing... guess what... you have the OPTION of having four fighter/interceptors and/or four strike-bombers on each.

This is not a drawback... quite the contrary... the merging of roles means you're more flexible and have greater abilities then forcing decisions between bombers and fighters... you have both... and if you're not using jet fighters in the modern age for anti-ground missions, you're missing out... they are far more effective against ground units then the light bombers of WWII ever were... that's how it is in real life, and that's how it is in the Wolfshanze Mod.

There might be a small bug, though. I've noted that my horsemen do not deal flank attack damage to whatever siege weapons are in the enemy stack. Already fought three wars (one against Hitler, two against Hannibal) and in none of the three wars siege weapons got any flank damage - while my horsemen survived the battle.

I noticed this problem myself the other day... I thought it odd... I changed nothing that would cause this to occur... I wonder if it's a bug in v3.17 or something else... I need to check this out... I see no reason why this ability would have magically ceased due to any changes on my end... it must be v3.17 related... I'm going to check on this.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Okay... I've done some preliminary research... ALL flanking attacks are broken in the Wolfshanze Mod (Knights to Catapults, Subs to Transports, etc)... I unloaded the mod and tried default BtS v3.17 and flanking attacks work there... so obviously something went screwy with the transfer of the mod over to v3.17 regarding flank attacks... weird, because I don't remember changing anything remotely relating to flanking... maybe Firaxis snuck in a new code or something for v3.17 that I didn't include in the mod, but I'm going to have to find out what... I'll get to the bottom of this and get a fix in.

 

[Xenomorph]

It probably has to do with the changes to the <iCollateralDamageLimit> and <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>. I noticed that you did not make the necessary changes to these values.
All mounted units have their <iCollateralDamageLimit> set to 100 and <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits> starts at 6 (for horse archers) then goes up to 7 for cavalry. The Cho-ko-nu has his two values at 60 and 5, as do tanks have 60. Gunships get 100 and 8, the highest in the game.
Artillery units start at 50/6 for catapults and trebuchets, goes to 60/7 for cannons, and finally 70/8 for artillery and mobile artillery. The same goes for ships, with Battleships the first to have any values in those fields with 60 and 5; the Missile Cruiser has the same value. The two bombers both have the first value at 50; the regular bomber has 5 for his <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits> and the Stealth Bomber increases that to 6. Obviously you need to set these values for your added units (like the Dreadnought and submarines) or they will likely not have any collateral damage either.

 

[mamba]

Okay... I've done some preliminary research... ALL flanking attacks are broken in the Wolfshanze Mod (Knights to Catapults, Subs to Transports, etc)...

Cavalry (and Cuirassier)

changed from

Spoiler :

			<FlankingStrikes>
				<FlankingStrike>
					<FlankingStrikeUnitClass>UNITCLASS_CANNON</FlankingStrikeUnitClass>
					<iFlankingStrength>100</iFlankingStrength>
				</FlankingStrike>
			</FlankingStrikes>

			<iCollateralDamageLimit>0</iCollateralDamageLimit>
			<iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>0</iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>

to

Spoiler :

			<FlankingStrikes>
				<FlankingStrike>
					<FlankingStrikeUnitClass>UNITCLASS_CATAPULT</FlankingStrikeUnitClass>
					<iFlankingStrength>100</iFlankingStrength>
				</FlankingStrike>
				<FlankingStrike>
					<FlankingStrikeUnitClass>UNITCLASS_TREBUCHET</FlankingStrikeUnitClass>
					<iFlankingStrength>100</iFlankingStrength>
				</FlankingStrike>
				<FlankingStrike>
					<FlankingStrikeUnitClass>UNITCLASS_CANNON</FlankingStrikeUnitClass>
					<iFlankingStrength>100</iFlankingStrength>
				</FlankingStrike>
			</FlankingStrikes>

			<iCollateralDamageLimit>100</iCollateralDamageLimit>
			<iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>6</iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>

For Knight and HorseArcher at least the CollateralDamage tags were changed.

For the subs no such adjustment was made, but maybe that is a custom change in your mod ?

 

[Xenomorph]

For the subs no such adjustment was made, but maybe that is a custom change in your mod ?

Wolf edited the subs to get flanking bonuses against Transports, so he would need to make those changes to them as well.

 

[Wolfshanze]

So the tags were there before in v3.13 but never used, and now are used in v3.17? Weird. Anyways, simple enough fix... I'll get on it.

 

[Wolfshanze]

It probably has to do with the changes to the <iCollateralDamageLimit> and <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>. I noticed that you did not make the necessary changes to these values.
All mounted units have their <iCollateralDamageLimit> set to 100 and <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits> starts at 6 (for horse archers) then goes up to 7 for cavalry. The Cho-ko-nu has his two values at 60 and 5, as do tanks have 60. Gunships get 100 and 8, the highest in the game.
Artillery units start at 50/6 for catapults and trebuchets, goes to 60/7 for cannons, and finally 70/8 for artillery and mobile artillery. The same goes for ships, with Battleships the first to have any values in those fields with 60 and 5; the Missile Cruiser has the same value. The two bombers both have the first value at 50; the regular bomber has 5 for his <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits> and the Stealth Bomber increases that to 6. Obviously you need to set these values for your added units (like the Dreadnought and submarines) or they will likely not have any collateral damage either.

Did some looking... all the "normal" collateral damage units in-game already had most of those values in there (bombers, catapults, battleships, etc)... the ONLY change from v3.13 to v3.17 in regards to adding those collateral damage values where none were there before was with the units that did flanking damage. Flanking attack units such as horse-based-units and gunships all had those values set to "0" in v3.13 and had the values you mentioned in v3.17.

So the Wolfshanze Mod as-of v2.80, "normal" collateral damage attacks by catapults and bombers (including my added units like dreadnoughts and early bombers) all function as they should... the ONLY units that aren't working as-advertised in the Wolf Mod are the "flanking" units such as horsemen, knights, cuirassiers, cavalry, gunships and subs... because Firaxis changed the requirements for flanking between v3.13 and v3.17 and I didn't catch that change.

I've already fixed it on my end... I'll get v2.81 with the fix up soon for everyone else.

 

[Healz]

Any chance of allowing bombardment from further out? Ie. a battleship can bombard from 2-3 squares away from the city with a potential increase in the chance of missing. Certain types of artillery like the modern radar artillery should be able to hit the target from 2-3 squares away. Also why shouldn't a unit like the battleship be able to shell units in fortifications as in reality? Gallipoli and most actions there was naval fire support before the units went in with a corresponding chance of failing. Still would be potentially useful in a naval invasion... Use the battleships and destroyers for shore shelling and then take over a fort near the shore and use it as a secure landing base for your troops...

 

[Xenomorph]

That would require Dale's Ranged Bombardment mod. Wolf has said that he wants to keep in simple; Ninja's Merged Mod combines Wolf's mod with the DCM.

 

[Wolfshanze]

That would require Dale's Ranged Bombardment mod. Wolf has said that he wants to keep in simple; Ninja's Merged Mod combines Wolf's mod with the DCM.

What he said... there's already a "Wolfshanze Mod" with DCM included... no need to reinvent the wheel.

I still envision the Wolf Mod as a little closer to the default game, just prettier and makes a little more sense (like navally). For more significant gameplay changes, try some other mods like Merged Mod.

I'm working right now on wrapping up v2.81... I was going to wait longer for a new release, but I really want to get the flanking bug (and a couple of other minor fixes) taken care of. Plus, I still have managed to accumulate a significant number of new models, including about eight more new naval ship models that haven't been seen in the BtS community (more secret stuff I'm ready to unleash).

For those that started a new game, have no fear... v2.81 will be fully save-game compatible with v2.80 saves. I just want to release it to fix the flanking bug and a few other issues.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Available for download now... Wolfshanze Mod v2.81...
as usual, see page-1 for the new download

Continuing to strive for total stability, v2.80 took a small step back from v2.73 on that front... the switch to support of v3.17 of BtS kind-of made something like that inevitable. Anyways, I've squashed a few minor bugs... no CTD problems found as of yet (thankfully). The main reason for the release of 2.81 this soon was to squash the flanking bug, which effects gameplay a bit, and I wanted that squashed.

...If you're playing a v2.80 Wolfshanze Mod save, you're in luck... v2.81 is fully compatible with v2.80 saves... if you're playing a previous version to 2.8x... well, then you're out of luck! You'll just have to start a new game!

There's a few minor gameplay changes here... by default Swordsmen always required iron only and maceman could be made with copper... seems a bit backwards to me... making copper useless for all but axemen early, but a savior to iron-less civs in the middle ages by being able to build the strongest medieval foot soldier with bronze weapons! I've reversed this... you can now build bronze swords (never thought swordsmen were all that great anyways) and now you MUST have iron in the medieval ages, or you're hosed. This makes copper more useful early and iron more needed later (as it should be).

Galleons have been given a speed of three... making them faster then ancient ships, as-fast as caravels, but slower then frigates and pirate sloops... as they should be. Anyways, lots of little fixes and a good mix of new models... though not as long a list as I wanted for a new release, but the broken flanking attacks really forced my hand on putting out a new release to fix the problem(s).


************
New in v2.81
************
Fixed flanking attacks for horse-units, gunships and subs
Fixed combat animation for Ancient Celtic and Ancient German Spearmen
Galleass animation fixed
Galley animation fixed
Asian Junk animations fixed
Corrected Ancient Norse and Russian city walls
Galleons now have a base movement of "3"
Base War Weariness Changed to "3" (BtS v3.13 was "5", v3.17 was "2")
Macemen now require Iron only (not choice of Iron or Copper)
Swordsman now requires Iron or Copper

New models/skins for:
Default Pre-Dreadnought (Charlemagne reskin)
Default Protected Cruiser (Olympia reskin)
Default Submarine
Asian Galley (Atakebune)
Asian Trireme (Dragon Ship)
Asian Galleass (Kobukson)
European Merchantman (replaces Galleon)
American Destroyer Escort
American Dreadnought (South Carolina reskin)
English Destroyer Escort
French Destroyer Escort
German Galleon
German Destroyer Escort
German Dreadnought (Helgoland reskin)
German Battleship (Bismarck reskin)
Japanese Destroyer Escort
Roman Destroyer Escort
Russian Destroyer Escort


************


Just a sneak peak... here's the WWI Destroyer Escorts of the Wolfshanze Mod... which are all new to v2.81. Figured you needed them to go with all the new Dreadnoughts from v2.80! New combat animations, including gunfire and animated torpedo attacks!

 

[Ninja2]

It probably has to do with the changes to the <iCollateralDamageLimit> and <iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>.

I actually noticed this change when 3.17 came out, and posted a question in the 3.17 release thread. But noone seemed to notice my question! It appears that the flanking mechanism has indeed been changed for 3.17, then.

 

[Wolfshanze]

I actually noticed this change when 3.17 came out, and posted a question in the 3.17 release thread. But noone seemed to notice my question! It appears that the flanking mechanism has indeed been changed for 3.17, then.

I thought it was an internal gamecore change... I couldn't fathom those fields needed to be changed in XML for flanking to work... oh well, I was wrong... fairly confident I'm fully compliant with v3.17 now though.