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DungeonMaster125
09-05-2002, 11:26
My post got wiped out when I hit the back button, so I'm going to make this short. Has anyone made a nice GUI program that I can use to change values for the units in MTW? All I really want to do is increase the damage that aquebusiers do (or accuracy, if that is what causes them to be so ineffective). Also, only a few of them fire at a time, then the whole row moves back for the next to come up. Is there anyway to fix this? Archers and xbow men have no problem firing THEIR whole first rows. All I really want to do is play "gunpowder wars" with custom games, but I want them to be good in single player too. I would raise the cost to become appropriate to their effectiveness, cause right now, they don't even seem to scare the enemy at all. They maybe take out a feudal man-at-arms with each salvo. Big frickin' deal. I don't care if this would make it historically inaccurate, I want THE PATRIOT damnit http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks in advance.

[This message has been edited by DungeonMaster125 (edited 09-05-2002).]

barocca
09-05-2002, 12:31
No Troop Stats Program written yet,

I know you don't want to hear the historical part of it, but owing to europeans dependence on chain and plate armour, muskets at this time were not terribly effective.
fire them at unarmoured targets, (peasant or similar) and watch them drop like flies...

Unlike shogun, muskets are support troops and not truly offensive units.
(ie:- all musket troops are issued with deodorant)
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

DungeonMaster125
09-05-2002, 13:11
I know the historical background ("make it historically accurate" was a typo, fixed now), I read all the interesting articles comparing the first matchlock weapons with bows and such. I know that it would make the game less realistic, but I think that they are pretty much useless in the single player right now. I think that bowmen and other "normal" missile units are much more effective against weenies. Besides, I just throw my chivalric men-at-arms at em, and watch them die as I lose MAYBE 4 guys for 200 peasants. I just want to play out revolutionary war battles in custom mode, as I found that the computer goes along with it, lining the men up, using the cannons, etc. It's pretty sweet, even with the "stock" aquebusiers. You should try it. Make sure it is an arid, snow, or desert map, otherwise it'll rain, and it will be really lame. I want them to have more bite, as I just had 480 of them firing on a group of chivalric men-at-arms, and they killed about 18, TOTAL. Not in one salvo, in the entire battle. Are all my guys absorbing the balls or something?

Thanks for replying barocca. I read somewhere on another post that someone was going to have some sort of program out this weekend, though whether it was just to view or whatnot I do not know.

barocca
09-05-2002, 13:52
Please,
if you fiddle with the stats, bundle them into a zip along with a text file explaining everything you changed and what impact it has on the game, and upload it to the org,
:-)
The more mods people can play with, the more ideas they'll get
:-)

DungeonMaster125
09-05-2002, 14:57
I just played a custom game, all aquebusiers and cannons again. It is hella cool except for the partial firing thing, and the fact that about 1 guy dies a minute. Lots of pretty fireworks though, the cannons are certainly effective against the riflemen as they get into position. My suggestion, 10 aquebusier units on the defense, along with six cannons. Attacker should have 12 aquebusier units, and 3 guns. Attacker, if he is human, will need to buy one peasant unit, or other small, wussy unit. Send this guy straight at the big guns, and this will signal to the computer that it needs to use the artillery pieces. Once that's done and the peasants are dead, have at them! I am going to try and see if weapon upgrades affect the killing power, or if it is only melee that is affected. I'll post my custom setup if that works well (read: guys die a lot more from rifles), or a copy of my unitdef.txt once I get that figured out. I never thought I'd be the one getting this to work, lol.

Oh, and here's a vote for a revolutionary/napoleonic/civilwar/whathaveyou Total War!

I've got to work on my D&D campaign the next few days, or else my players will have me drawn and quartered, so I probably won't get around to really diving into this until Monday, but I have the feeling that it will be a really simple thing to make them more deadly. In the mean time, try the above scenario, my favorite maps are the flatplains maps in arid, desert, or winter. You'll see what I mean by ineffective firearms.

Oda Matsu
09-05-2002, 15:34
Muskets were "ineffectual", compared with HTH weapons, until well into the 18th century. Until barrels are rifled, hitting anything past 50 yards or so was a simple matter of blind luck. Standard tactics for musket-armed troops was to get up as close as they dared, fire a volley at point-blank range, fix bayonets and charge in to melee. (That's why, incidentally, that American Civil War troops were in for such a shock...)

Firearms in the 14th century were a nuisance weapon. Like Hale rockets, they were used more to shake enemy morale than for their lethal effectiveness. If you really want to simulate later periods, provide musket troops with higher melee ratings (bayonets) rather than upping their volley damage overmuch, although a really short-range (point-blank) volley ought to cause quite a few casualties. Also, if you can manage the old Spanish tercio tactics (pikemen provide cover for muskets, while the musketeers deliver point-blank volley after point-blank volley), you might find those muskets are a bit more useful after all.

Kingmaker
09-06-2002, 02:11
Actually, musket units of the 17th century WERE effective units. They needed pikemen to protect them from cavalry, but they were the deciding factor in battle on more than one occasion.

Kingmaker

Oda Matsu
09-06-2002, 03:14
IF you could keep the enemy away from your musketeers long enough, and IF you could keep them well stocked with ammo, then they would eventually pepper their enemy into submission. But a decent group of bayonet-armed troops would simply press past your pikewall, engage the pikemen at close quarters, and rout the whole force.

The Spanish could pull off this pike/musket dance well enough, with their tercios. But that didn't last, and soon (with the bayonet) pike-armed troops gave way to musket-armed troops with bayonets. With those guys, more battles than not were decided by crossing cold steel, not long exchanges of musket fire (although Gustavus Adolphus was adroit at using horse guns, to REALLY mow his opponents down at close quarters).

That's my understanding, anyways. Don't mind if I'm proven wrong, but from what I know of the period, this is how battles played out.

DungeonMaster125
09-06-2002, 05:34
Like I said, I want fun, not realism. If I want to use them in the role they were intended for, I wouldn't have posted this message. So, I say again, before this becomes another historical debate (as I said, I'm well aware of the tactics, virtues and vices surrounding early firearms), I would like to know how to make their shots more powerful. There is a catagory in the txt file called strength, but it seems to be an arbitrary number.

+DOC+
09-06-2002, 17:55
apparently at the moment the projectiles.txt file is still hardcoded.... this is supposed to be being changed in the patch. Then you'll be able to change the power of gun weapons. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Whitey
09-06-2002, 23:51
not much can really be done until then. However when they are released, I will look foward to playing with the elevations and accuracy of the artillery - with these bigger maps, it might be possible to have something better going on.

PS - Another way to speed up the killing in gun v gun is to take all their armour away and pump their honour a bit. well...its a start...if thats your thing http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Del
09-07-2002, 00:20
Your view on muskets is skewed, Oda. While prolonged exchanges of musket fire were not the rule, they were not uncommon. While massed, sledgehammer charges were common, they were only the Yin to the Yang of a more stable battle plan.

If all of the infantry truly behaved in the way you speak, then it would have totally destroyed its purpose as infantry, the sturdy backbone of an order of battle.

Charges were a very important part of the tactics manual up until through the American Civil War, but were only the flip side to standing off and firing. Granted, before gunfire became much more accurate in the early and mid 19th Century they were more feasible and were used to greater effect (though Amer Civil War commanders still used them alot). But imagine this-- if charging was the primary infantry tactic, how the hell are you ever going to mount a passive defense?? The argument destroys itself.

But you are in my opinion 75% right. Of course I maybe be totally wrong. Just my thoughts on it.

Del

barocca
09-07-2002, 01:14
you have to remember guys, this game ends in 1453,
guns were still a nuisance weapon,
they did not come into their own until the 1700's

As the game stands, it seems to me they do have a heavy morale hit on their target unit, even if they don't do much damage

dclare4
09-07-2002, 19:58
Napoleonic total war for me - most everything else has already been done (Cossacks covers pretty much the other periods) - but I wouldn't complain any if someone came up with an Age of Elegance total war!

Gilbert de Clare

Lord Krazy
09-08-2002, 00:54
Quote Originally posted by dclare4:
Napoleonic total war for me - most everything else has already been done (Cossacks covers pretty much the other periods) - but I wouldn't complain any if someone came up with an Age of Elegance total war!

Gilbert de Clare[/QUOTE]

---------------------------------------------
I'm working on it .I have a system for
musket with bayonet and cavalire with pistol
As I working on a large project for a
roman mod I simply can't do both at the same
time.So if any one is up for it I will help
implament the weapons and draw a couple
of animations but until rome is built thats all I can do realisticly.

LK