Ancient Battlefield Mod for SC3 WIE - Ready to download

[welk]

And when you will see how plays the AI in the mod configuration... (full supply and 100% rail/road connected by invisible files I made). It's a perfect, hard and vicious opponent . You would think Hubert has programmed it specifically for this kind of battle.

I have collected lot of graphs and this battle system would be adaptable to all times : ancient times, medieval times, 16th/17th/18th times, 19th century (include Civil war and 1870 war), 1900-1914 times (first fightings in August 1914)

I will do for each campaign generic battles, to allow players to build themselve and quickly the historical battles they want to do (they will juste have to use editor to adapt some details : names, placement, historical reliefs and grounds, etc)

[welk]

The 2 sides have now their 3D units

Red side color, at this step, does not entirely satisfy me, I will probably rework that later, after diffusion of the mod (and depending of advices about this red color, perhaps too dark)

Some little things will also probably be modified (yellow star for blue side should be blues, etc)

The next step in the to do list will be : to definitively calibrate all units parameters in editor

The AI work very good, because what you do not see in game is : large cities+rail+road on each hex : 100% full supply for the both sides, AI is very agressive and hard opponent. The used files in the mod are "invisible" files, they give a false apperance of "clear ground" and I modified in consequence the localization file to display the word "clear" for each hex of battlefield in place or cities, rails, roads, etc

Sides 3D.jpg (1023.97 KiB) Viewed 1002 times

[Rosseau]

Thanks for your work, OP. And it is surely not in vain. A thousand games, but this one has one of the best AI's out of the box.

Best wishes to you,

Mike

[welk]

Thanks, and yes : the AI of Hubert is really good, and more when it has full supply (that is always the case in the mod with tips I used)

[welk]

African elefants (large and high) will be very dangerous
Too bad Hubert has forgotten to add "elefants panic function" in his WW2 game...

elefants.png (1.31 MiB) Viewed 916 times

[Taxman66]

FYI African elephants used in ancient warfare were not those of current day. Either a smaller barient/pop or a different type. The IAsian elephants used by Mauyra were larger, better trained than the African ones. Look ot up.

[welk]

Thanks, you are entirely right. I don't have any idea why I did this enormous mistake (I know this difference in the past, but for strange unknow reason, I inversed completly the situation of the african/asian elefants) : in reality, asian elefants were more larger than african elefants. No pb, I will rectify names of units in the localization file, africans elefants of the mod will be now asiant and reverse.

EDIT : I am a little bit in confusion, because after verification, actually (modern times) African elefants are more larger/higher than Asian elefants (It's why I did the mistake, I did not know the situation was perhaps different in ancient times).

So, I am in doubt for the mod : how can I do to distinguish the 2 kind ? Should I set African elefants more powerfull (in terme of military use) than asian elefants, or reverse ? And is it right for all the ancient times, or did intervene an evolution on this point ?

EDIT: I will finally do that : To use generic appelations, (not african/asian elefants", just that : "Heavy elefant" and "light elefant". Due to the fact the mod will be a tool that will allow players interested by ancient battles to build quick and fast/easely their orvn historical ancien battles, generic terms will be better.

[welk]

A test battle : work in progress, waiting my chirurgical death



One thing that is perfect in the game is the possibility to change AI settings after you have started a campaign : each time you load the save, you may change difficulty of game

EDIT : Work will stop from 4/10 approx. to 15/11, because of heart chirurgical intervention. It will re-start end November.

battle test.jpg (894.58 KiB) Viewed 824 times

[welk]

Hi all command strategist... My heart chirugical operation was a success and I will continue the work in some days (at this time, I am a little weak, and I have to re-study all my past work to re-take contact with modding subtilities

[Magpius]

Get well soon.
Recovery is something not to be rushed.

[BillRunacre]

Good to hear your op went well, and hope you're feeling much better soon.

[welk]

Thanks a lot, I am gradually recovering.

Before to re-take work on my ancient battle mod, I will soon begin to study AI Scripts to create a learning document, as I did for Event script. I noticed that scripts will be very usefull for battles (to create reinforcements, unforeseeable events, etc that will generate some "suspense" during battles)

[welk]

I recover slowly, but I work again


I have some things to calibrate before to update the first pre-relase version : it will be coming soon.
The harderst is not to mod, it's to reorganize the complete mess of my files I am a high disorganized modder, and when I do not work about a project during a long time, I forget where are my files, tips, etc

I'm a bit like squirrels that hide seeds everywhere and then can't find them again.

[welk]

Special victory conditions of the battle mod (levels of "losses" and "Army moral") may now be displayed by players during game, to help them to calculate that when a popum message ask them to do.

These conditions can not be modelized by scripts because I did not found any script that allows to subordinate victory to the level of losses or to the level of "Army moral" ( Army moral =National moral I renamed)

These victory conditions are provisary (in test) and may be adjusted depending of necessity

In global view :
* the more you inflict losses (in number of units and in gold value : that is not the same)
* the more you force ennemy army to retreat on battlefield (that will gives to ennemy a low army moral)
* the more you keep lot of units alive in your army

= the more you will get victory points

VICTORY CONDITIONS SCREEN.jpg (702.9 KiB) Viewed 444 times

[welk]

Same with definitive deco

The more I work on the mod, the more I think that "battle scale" could be the last step for Strategic Command serie.

Base of the logic I follow is that : The way that Hubert is following with ACW and the last extension (Concert of Europe) does orientate the serie to "operationnal/campaign scale (1866 war, 1870 war, etc)

https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=414047

The next step would be logically be the "tactic battle scale" : the AI of Hubert works absolutly perfectly in this "battle scale", and adapted games for this specific scale could be really very interessant to produce, I think (sample : "SC Waterloo", "SC Borodino", SC Marignan 1515", etc)

That's also what I will try to demonstrate with the mod. But I am sure that Hubert would do something more higher in quality than a simple mod if he would orientate the serie to the "battle scale" : he would have a infinite field² of possibilities, because individual battles are numerous in history.

DECO.jpg (747.12 KiB) Viewed 399 times

[BillRunacre]

Special victory conditions of the battle mod (levels of "losses" and "Army moral") may now be displayed by players during game, to help them to calculate that when a popum message ask them to do.

These conditions can not be modelized by scripts because I did not found any script that allows to subordinate victory to the level of losses or to the level of "Army moral" ( Army moral =National moral I renamed)

These victory conditions are provisary (in test) and may be adjusted depending of necessity

In global view :
* the more you inflict losses (in number of units and in gold value : that is not the same)
* the more you force ennemy army to retreat on battlefield (that will gives to ennemy a low army moral)
* the more you keep lot of units alive in your army

= the more you will get victory points

VICTORY CONDITIONS SCREEN.jpg

You can have a Victory script triggered by a dummy Decision, and the Decision itself can be triggered when Army Morale (it does need an e on the end) goes below a certain %.

[welk]

Thanks, really a great suggestion

I tried these 2 scripts to test, and they work perfect

I will be able to combinate "house rule victory" and automatic victory : In some cases, game will calculate itself automatic victory (with scripts), and if scripts conditions are not satisfied, victory conditions will have to be calculated by player.

The 2 test scripts are that : I set the values to be sure they fire, and it's the case, all works perfect

; RED SIDE ARMY VICTORY
{
#NAME= RED SIDE ARMY VICTORY
#POPUP= <<TAG_1>>
#IMAGE= yamamoto.png
#SOUND= victory_march.ogg
#FLAG= 1
#TYPE= 1
#AI= 0
#LEVEL= 0
#GV= 1[1,100]
#LINK= 0[0]
#TRIGGER= 100
#ALIGNMENT= 1
#VICTORY_PERCENTAGE= 100
#DATE= 0001/05/01
#MAP_POSITION= 50,10
#NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 59 [90] [1]
#NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 112 [100] [0]
}
;
; BLUE SIDE ARMY VICTORY
{
#NAME= BLUE SIDE ARMY VICTORY
#POPUP= <<TAG_2>>
#IMAGE= yamamoto.png
#SOUND= victory_march.ogg
#FLAG= 1
#TYPE= 1
#AI= 0
#LEVEL= 0
#GV= 1[1,100]
#LINK= 0[0]
#TRIGGER= 100
#ALIGNMENT= 1
#VICTORY_PERCENTAGE= 100
#DATE= 0001/05/01
#MAP_POSITION= 50,10
#NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 59 [100] [0]
#NATIONAL_MORALE_TRIGGER= 112 [90] [1]
}

[welk]

Those who don't like blue armies will have now an option in game (setting options), between blue and green army

There is also an independant option in game, between green ground or "arid" ground (the 2 options are separated and may be combined as you like). Here (in the image, I selected green opponent army and green ground, but I could have selected green army and aride ground

Green-red.jpg (973.93 KiB) Viewed 320 times

[welk]

Some terrains have been adapted or changed, to give a better little false 3D look to the game
I will also add fortress 3D, etc

For forests, I use forests of SC American civil war, that have in my opinion a better look than forest of vanilla SC war in Europe

And I did not resist to the tentation to add a flamed pig for the fire bowmen unit (very efficient vs elefant, even if not really historical, perhaps (see near the word "plateau" on image)

SCREEN_TERRAINS.jpg (825.12 KiB) Viewed 287 times

[welk]

Hubert had forgotten to add bridges : I implemented them in 3D look (woodbridges and stonebridges).

These bridges graphs come from a very old battle tactic game that was a great success in the past, tons of scenarios of battle were made by PC wargamers in 1990 years (it worked under DOS and it works now with DOSBOX. I think only vey old specialists will recognize this great game... (Houses-villages of the mod come also from this same game)

Roads of the mod are dirt roads of vanilla game (in addition of principal roads, that are everywhere on the map but masked (invisible file), to allow good supply for all units (supply is named "orders" in the mod).

"Strengh" will also be replaced by "size", that is more appropriated for battles (number of mens)

BRIDGES.jpg (736.69 KiB) Viewed 261 times