Napoleonic Wars Mod Third Pack Release

[ProfTournesol 956]

Hello,

I'm very happy to present my third release, featuring :

CIVILIANS :

- Armed and unarmed civilians of each sides

- Weapons : pikes, swords, forks, stones, axes, fists

CIVILIAN VEHICLES :

- Transport wagons (covered and uncovered)

- Supply wagon

- Calash

- Stretcher

- Transport ship with animated mast simulating wind direction changes

ARTILLERY VEHICLES :

- Artillery caissons for the main countries

- Artillery limbers for the main countries, that can be deployed or repacked by player or AI

OBJECTS :

- Tent, gunstack, drum with playcard on it, camp fire, torch, candle, gallows

HOUSES :

- Several BIS retextured houses and tower, castle walls, bridge

- Those objects can be WRP placed objects

MAP :

- Napoleonic Nogova island, with no modern stuff and using Napoleonic style houses and objects

SCRIPTS :

- a scripts pbo is included, but scripts are also available in a separate folder for mission edition

- various scripts : chimney smoke script, surrender script, wounded script, picking wounded with stretcher

script, burying dead script, formation scripts...

CAMPAIGN :

- A 30 missions campaign, featuring the story of a French officer in 1814/15 on a British occupied island

- It features most of the scripts and objects of the new release

- Special attention was paid on the realism and variety of the missions

OTHER FEATURES :

- As requested, a baker riffle with no bayonet and corresponding 95th soldiers

- New dead anims using DMA UNIGEN dead anims, getting rid of former ones

- New music tracks (thanks to SPQR)

- New GUI

           

Temporary Download Link (Rapidshare) (36,6 Mo)

Ofp info download link

Previous packs needed :

First Pack (58,7 Mo)

Second Pack (42,3 Mo)

To New Comers : Please install the two first packs before the third one.

And finally,  a BIG THANK to the community members that kindly supported this mod and encouraged me to go on  

[ALYGATOR 0]

Yes!!!

[Connors 0]

I love you!!!! (not to be taken literally for legal reasons)

Seriously though, thanks particuarly for your perseverence as far as I know you've been working on your own for a while, I know a lot of people who said this wouldn't work/get completed.

[jackx 0]

alternative download link (right click, save as...)

Thanks a lot, Professor... I'll check this out asap, particularly looking forward to the campaign... once again, I can't stress enough how much I appreciate all the work you put into these addons, giving the napoleonic enthusiasts here something to play with.

[sanctuary 19]

- New dead anims using DMA UNIGEN dead anims, getting rid of former ones

On that point, those death animations are not the result of my work, and are not a part of the DMA unigen pack (or any of my packs).

I don't know where these come from, and so unfortunately can't help in finding the author name.

Edit : i know someone named Dezoom created new death anims (i believe the FFUR mod used some of them in some older release), but i don't know if these are the ones in your mod.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Quote[/b] ]On that point, those death animations are not the result of my work, and are not a part of the DMA unigen pack (or any of my packs).

I don't know where these come from, and so unfortunately can't help in finding the author name

Sorry, i got them in an anim.pbo which was said, in the readme, that it was UNIGEN one... (IOE mod).

I quote the IOE readme :

Quote[/b] ]Sanctuary DMA UNIGEN animation pack used along with dma pistol animations

If the author does recognize his anims, i'll give him credits...

[SeppSchrot 0]

Wonderful mod.

[Snuffy 0]

Sweet i've been waiting for this.

Downloading now, cant wait to try your campaign.

Good work.

[Connors 0]

Campaign is nice, I like the way you start before hostilities break out, nice atmosphere. On the rescue mission there does need to be an indicator as to where we go though.

[Vestalon 0]

Thank you very much Prof. Tournesol for your hard work and a wonderful mod.

[Sepe 1]

Good work! Had quite some fun with the Governor's office, a line of royalist musketeers and a bunch of rock-tossing civilians! I actually managed to get in through the line and stab the governor with a stolen musket.

The campaign is also nice, although yeah, there certainly needs to be some direction in the rescue mission. A marked area on the map (not the exact position but boundaries inside which the prisoners are held)

[ProfTournesol 956]

Thanks everyone for your support, it's warming my heart  

About the campaign, anybody but me did perform a beta test, so there may be some bugs and some of the missions may not be "perfectly understandable". Don't hesitate to report here your troubles. See the "notes" page in the briefing where i give you some tips or explain how things work.

About the prisoners mission, it's on purpose that i did not give any indications where the prisoners are, but maybe i should have. It shouldn't be that hard to find them, they are not very far from the Royalist camp. Looking at the map may help.

[jackx 0]

I actually went straight for the royalist camp in that mission, which is why by the time I finally rescued the prisoners, more than 30 royalist troops had already been killed.

And that's pretty much the biggest problem I have with the campaign - even when I'm in command of ~90 men (though my own squad has lately refused to open fire on the enemy), I still feel like a one-man army. The AI just can't handle the weapons, and that makes it way too easy to take them out in large numbers... unless, of course, there are tents. It's great that they don't stop bullets, but not so great that the AI can see through them...

Other, minor problems so far: extremely lengthy cut-scenes, and long phases of just following an AI as it struggles with its waypoints... the command menu in the "Assault" mission should be changed to that of later missions (i.e. only shows those squads that are in command range), and during the night assault on the Hannoverians, you might want to reduce the amount of them in the ruins... I found it almost impossible to get my men to follow me in there, and while taking them all out on your own is again perfectly possible (though quite hard, due to the tents and few spots that offer cover), it's not much fun.

Also, in the mission where you are taken prisoner, the lack of map would make it quite hard to find your way back to your camp unless you of course know the geography of nogova by heart from years of playing...

[ProfTournesol 956]

@ Jackx : thank you for the fair and detailed review, i do agree with much of what you're saying, i just don't understand the following sentence :

Quote[/b] ]The AI just can't handle the weapons, and that makes it way too easy to take them out in large numbers...

[jackx 0]

In short: The closer you are to the AI, the more likely they are to miss. If you're moving, they're extremely likely to miss anyways. After shooting, they will almost invariably reload, no matter how close to them you are. After reloading, they will take aim for several seconds before firing.

This results in a player being able to tear through a squad of AI troops with melee in no time, and with little risk.

Granted, the way some of the missions played out so far, I found that rather helpful, as I'd probably have had some trouble completing them otherwise (particularly the nighttime assault already mentioned in my last post, since I couldn't get the AI into the ruins, I had to kill all the enemies there on my own), but it doesn't feel "right"...

(I've managed to solve the problem of my squad not opening fire btw, I just had to order them to reload first, which is a bit of a nuisance, but can be done at mission start, and sure beats 9 soldiers not opening fire)

Another suggestion I have would be to add a bit of a "resistance" or guerrilla feel in by allowing to capture and keep weapons... I could have a squad of riflemen by now, which would help a lot, but alas, in every mission, it's back to the good old useless muskets.

[ProfTournesol 956]

True, the reloading action of the AI cannot be delayed after firing, which is quite annoying, but there is no break through. Units not firing at very short distance was done so that AI may use close combat ability at that range, but it do not use it as often as i'd like. But the overall inaccuracy, reload time and aiming time are quite fun and realistic, even though accuracy remains much higher than in these old times, where firing in formation was the only way to reach some efficiency (many of the soldiers died for other reasons than being shot). I know these features do not fit to every Ofp players, but i frankly don't care.

But it's true that all these intentional or not intentional features of this mod give some kind of advantage to the player, which could be avoided with an efficient close combat system, but the only other one is a scripted close combat which i dislike and which is laggy.

Quote[/b] ]Another suggestion I have would be to add a bit of a "resistance" or guerrilla feel in by allowing to capture and keep weapons... I could have a squad of riflemen by now, which would help a lot, but alas, in every mission, it's back to the good old useless muskets.

Good point, did not even thought of it despite the fact i know how to handle it...sorry, no beta test was performed before the release. Thank you for testing it !

[jackx 0]

Overall weapon accuracy is fine, IMHO... not too accurate, but if you line up your shots properly(which is something the soldier historically hardly ever did for a variety of reasons), it's somewhat dependable at close range, up to about 40-50m.

My observation was more concerned with how the AI aims, though - i.e. too high. They overshoot at close ranges, and as a result, end up being more effective at longer ranges (100m or more) because their aim is about right for that range.

As for the campaign - haven't gotten to play it much further, still at the raid on the cavalry camp... the mission with the supply wagons was a bit tricky, because I had to rely on my own squad mostly, to keep the AI squad from destroying the wagons... but that just makes it a bit more challenging.

So far, I've greatly enjoyed the campaign, and I'm convinced I'll continue to enjoy it, but I also think that posting some constructive criticism doesn't hurt - it's in no way meant to demean the effort you put into it, and the overall atmosphere of the campaign is great. The large numbers of units, the beautiful island and the story-driven missions all combine to really give a feeling of "being there".

Now, I need to find more free time to continue playing, and drive these British bastards off the island...

[ProfTournesol 956]

Quote[/b] ]So far, I've greatly enjoyed the campaign, and I'm convinced I'll continue to enjoy it, but I also think that posting some constructive criticism doesn't hurt

It doesn't, not matter to be afraid about that.

[lesbille 7]

Hello Prof  (sorry for my bad english, I am french)

Thank you for the wonderful napoleonic mod

I hope again and again.

I create a mission for your addon.

The cavalry attack artillery, but it's not possible.

artillery =  canon with crew

could you help me for this problem.

bye  

[SAURON 0]

Hi, just want to say: Thanks a lot for this nice mod!

i really like the athmosphere in the campaign, but the greates thing

is seabattles! gunning down a ship and then rowing over and fighting the crew is fun!

keep up the good work

btw, any chances this mod ports over to Arma?

[ag bo-- 0]

The link for the second addon pack isn't working, could you fix it?

Tried it for the 50th time and ironicly it worked...

[ProfTournesol 956]

@ Lesbille : PM me, i'm French too so we'd better speak in our mother language !!! But basically, cavalry cannot attack artillery, which is quite a bug of the cavalry close combat script.

@ SAURON : thank you. I don't intend so far to port this mod to ArmA, which is far from being a playable game.

@ ag bo$$ :  

[Sennacherib 0]

hi, actually i play at a napoleonic mod for AOE3, and i want to play with yours. i have a question:

i need to dl also the precedent releases?

btw: that seems really great

[ProfTournesol 956]

@ D@nte : yes, you've got to download the 3 packs, which are three parts of the same mod :

first pack : mod config + early Napoleonic units,

second pack : Late Napoleonic units

third pack : object, island, vehicles, civilians, campaign etc.

But you need to install the two first packs before the third one, which corrects a few things (GUI, death anims etc.).

[jackx 0]

The second pack is also still available here, and I guess I could put the first one up too if there's a need for it.