Download Link (v1.3.6):download
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Major Feature Updates
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- The submod now has a novel cover system which differs sharply from vanilla and J&P mod. The spirit of this new system is to decrease the player's advantage over the AI by exploiting cover in such a way that the AI is not able to follow. It works as such: when an infantry unit is attacked by another infantry unit, if the attacking unit has a lower cover value than the attacked unit, the attacked unit's cover will slowly be eaten away during the attack consonant with how much damage the attacking unit is actually inflicting. So if the attacking unit or units are in good order and strong, the unit in cover will lose most of its cover advantage during a volley. This applies to both AI and player units, and it is easier to see in action than to understand from this description. Does not apply to fortified units.
- Completely new visual mode for controlling units, 'macro mode', or 'brigade mode', whatever you like: When the player zooms out a certain distance (this value can be changed in config), all units on the field are expressed within their brigade structure rather than as regiments. The location of unit badges becomes centered in between all the units in that brigade, and clicking on the badge will select the entire brigade (all the units that can currently be controlled). And in this mode, mousing over the badge gives the brigade info report. This greatly aids clarity during large battles with a lot going on at once. In addition, units can be DETACHED from brigades and from this visualization/selection by using the y key on selected units.
Software
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- Officer saved file now automatically backs itself up after every edit; in case you accidentally delete your current list, you can right away go back and retrieve that file before the next change. In addition, the officer prompt can be turned off in the config file.
- Large rewrite of many pieces of code using unit experience value which was found to be implemented wrong.
- MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS TO PERFORMANCE.
- Tons of bugs fixed.
- Smoke should no longer go bonkers at 2x speed!
- Macro hud mode cannot function in deployment mode.
- Fixed historical battles so that the correct amount of soldier sprites (correct for the submod) are displayed. Basically this means that they are now playable!
Mechanics
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- Tweaks to skirmisher behavior so that they skirmish more. (Zouaves retain older skirmisher behavior, act more like infantry.)
- Experimental cautious AI from previous version disabled.
- Smoke blindness tweaks: smoke blindness incurred at a general higher rate, but also reduced as a factor of a unit's xp. Result is that newer units suffer much worse blindness faster, while experienced units feel it far less.
- Friendly flank check distance doubled; more generous min distance for flanks to be considered exposed if no friendly unit.
- Brigade officers with horseman perk will receive orders 2x as fast.
- Corps officers with horseman perk will move 30% faster.
- Extra damage is now inflicted as a function of a unit's morale; each point of morale less than 100% translates to a point multiplied against damage dealt to a unit. So if a unit has 90% morale, 10% extra damage is inflicted; if a unit has 10% morale, 90% extra damage is inflicted. Therefore it becomes much more important to manage your units' morale.
- General movement speed affected by loss of hp; movement speed is lost at the same percentage that hp is down from the max hp, for up to 50% speed loss (at 50% hp loss).
- Units near generals now get faster out-of-order cooldown, unless they are falling back or charging.
- Units now generally move in column formation if not immediately near AI units. Skirms now always move in the tighther column formation which helps them not be overexposed to flank fire (since skirm formations in the submod can be quite large).
- Player group morale engine now excludes morale of detached skirms from calculation.
- Player units return from Out-of-Order faster if taking damage.
- Player can give target orders to any unit <400 distance even if out of immediate control range.
- In order to combine regiments, both units must have an officer with at least one battle experience with that unit.
- After combine event, unused officer sent to barracks instead of lost.
- Reworked repeater logic when being fired by skirmishers. Skirmishers still fire a constant volley with repeaters, but now they fire much faster depending on the mag cap of the weapon. So with a sixshooter for example they will fire six times faster than normal, until the ammo runs out at which point they will fire at a 'normal' rate. This makes repeater troops scarily effective (as they were) but they burn through ammo very quickly.
- When skirmishers or cav are given move orders, the order initiates a reload at about 80% completion. This has the effect of letting those troops break off contact which they previously would not.
- Narc officers only charge if within 300 distance of enemy, otherwise they merey pursue at their own discretion.
- Increased risk to lose generals if they come under direct fire.
Control
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- New selection scheme: mousing over units now reveals their basic stats WITHOUT CLICKING, whereas clicking reveals the full stats. No more need to click the info button.
- Consolidated hud modes: I've got rid of all the hud modes and packed it all into one; mousing over a unit now reveals its officer stats, and with the previous condensations there is no more need for different hud modes which I have a feeling nobody used anyway.
- Enemy unit stars now visible (or not visible) with the same logic as enemy hp is visible.
- Much more complexity in mass movement orders: all units now have individual chances for orders to fail, and slight randomness for timings, as well as individual distance calculations. The result is mass movement orders that feel much more spotty, chaotic and, I would say, authentic.
- Total overhaul of how unit info is presented when mousing over the badge. Almost all extra submod info is hidden until the mouseover.
- Many control refinements for delayed-order system.
- Added blinking red indicator to enemy units after player sends attack order; if the order is a delayed order, blinking will continue on enemy unit badge until attack order has reached (or failed to reach), after which the typical red arrow will be displayed representing a received attack order.
- Granted more control to units under fire: now they can be given slow movement orders and immediate fire orders even if no orders can be sent by general.
- Commanders no longer 'run out' of power to issue orders, orders can always be issued to a unit if the unit is not currently in the middle of an order. This previous restriction was a bit overzealous and clunky.
- Bookmarking units (Y key) has new effects: A) bookmarked units are excluded from the badge-centering mechanism when the player is in macro mode. This mechanism averages the positions of all the regiments in a brigade and sticks the badge there; but this can be annoying if units are very spread out across the map for whatever reason. Thus by bookmarking units, they are sort of 'detached' from the brigade and no longer accounted for in that mechanism and thus the brigade badge will appear at a more appropriate place. 
In addition, bookmarked units will no longer be selected with the select-brigade command (which is used in macro mode and by double-clicking, and indeed by clicking on the brigade buttons in the OOB area), again taking the effect of being 'detached' from the brigade. These functions make it much easier to re-organize brigades on the fly mid battle.
- Units taking fire no longer appear in unit tray, it was too confusing.
- Supply wagon controls improved.
- Player can give delayed orders using single right mouse button click now. The effect is a little weird sometimes, especially for ordering large groups of infantry, so for that case I recommend a line-drag order. Not going to get fixed, I tried.
- Restored 'Retreat' button and function, with submod twist (the effect is instant).
- Units can be given orders to change holdfire status when out of immediate control with a delay.
- Units will now move obliquely if given an order to move away from the enemy from distance, if there are enemies nearby. What this means is that the player can safely withdraw troops from the line without exposing them to flank fire, and without using the 'fallback' function which is a very different animal in the submod.
- Player can now set artillery pieces to target other artillery ONLY. A graphic will show next to the unit's badge (taken from supply wagon) if mode is on. This is activated with the 'm' key. Very useful for counterbat missions.
Balance
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- Slight buff to CSA average stats.
- AI units will no longer scale against the player in non-grand battles.
- General cover buff for all skirmishers.
- AO points no longer give extra supply to player supply trucks, only logistics points do.
- Each point of logistics now adds 5 points of bonus morale to each player unit.
- Standard general move speed reduced by 25%.
- Colt.RR damage reduced to a level comparable to average carbine damage. This corrects a major exploit as they had been previously more powerful than Spencers!
- Doubled morale penalty effect of AI units routing. This means that when an AI unit routes it will lower the morale of friendly units around it more aggressively.
- Reduced efficiency bonus that units in the same brigade get by over half. This bonus activates when the brigade members are in close proximity, based on how skilled all the brigade's officers are.
- Max unit speed reduced to a non-comical level (about +30% past its base speed).
- Based rotation speed for cav increased; bonus for horseman officer type reduced to 2x on top of new base.
Visual
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- Many small edits to unit formations.
- Improved smoke effects.
- Shadow and highlight effects removed from units, couldn't get it to work well.
- When unit is selected, if it has an enemy targeted, the enemy badge will have a red border.
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Edited by adishee
