AGE OF REASON MOD Version 2.0

[Lysimachos]

Having had the chance of playing so many wonderful battles set in the XVIII^ century, due to the outstanding work done by many modders, I still felt something was missing because I also wanted the possibility of creating my own skirmish encounters with the armies of this era. So, thanks to the kindness of Paul 59, who authorized me to use his “Extranations Campaign V2” as a starting base, I’ve tried to fill this void with this new mod, settled in the Age of Reason period, ranging from 1699 to 1783.

The mod, which presents a Campaign, Single Player and MultiPlayer section, is downloadable in game but, for the players that already own the first version, it will be necessary to move the current version out of their My Games folder in order for them to show up on the in-game download list.

This final version – based on references drawn from “The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough” by David Chandler, "Warfare in the Age of Reason", by Kershner and Wood, "Honours of war" of Keith Flint, some Osprey Campaign series book dedicated to the period and a lot of articles regarding the argument posted on the web – substantially includes all the European armies of the period, some of them multi-national, plus the Moroccan and Ottoman (in North Africa), which fought each other and also opposed some colonial expeditions made by Portugal and Spain.

Every army has been designed taking care of its relative strength and distinct characters (so, for example, the Austrians have no Guard units and much light infantry [Pandurs] and Hussars units than other nations, while the Bavarians, having a weaker army, deploy a lot of Militia units, etc.). The lists of the second and third period of the portrayed era line up less dragoons and militia and lighter infantry and light cavalry units than the previous ones, taking account of the new tactical doctrine meanwhile established.

There are also some new units (Militia, Grenadiers, Guards, Highlanders, Irish Brigade, Compagnie Franche de la Marine, Pandurs, Rangers, Minutemen, Dragoons [revisited], Native American Warriors, Archers and Raiders) that have been designed taking care of the weapons at their disposal (as bombs, axes, bows and arquebuses) and working on such parameters like action points (to represent more trained units and their superior tactical skill), cover ability and scouting range (especially for native American warriors and Rangers), morale and unit size. Moreover, each unit sports its distinct (very often historical) flags and uniform, and every texture has been accordingly redesigned to obtain the best aesthetic effect.

Artillery firepower has been enhanced to represent the growing importance of guns on the battlefield and the rout threshold has been put at 48%, so to better recreate the morale breaking point of an army of the period and avoid continuing a fruitless fight, when the outcome of the battle is already decided, while the combat capability of disrupted and fragmented units has also been modified, to make them a bit more resilient on the battlefield.
Finally, the campaign section has been updated with all the new armies and some new province names.

Overall, the 39 following armies are available:
Anglo-Dutch (2 lists),
Anglo-Hanoverian (2 lists),
Anglo-Portuguese (2 lists),
Austrian (3 lists),
Austro-Savoyard (2 lists),
Bavarian (3 lists),
Bourbon (1 list),
British (3 lists),
British (Colonial America) (2 lists),
Danish (3 lists),
Dutch (3 lists),
Franco-Bavarian (2 lists),
Franco-Savoyard (1 list),
French (3 lists),
French (Colonial America) (1 list),
Grand Alliance (1 list),
Holy Roman Empire (3 lists),
Jacobite (2 lists),
Moroccan (1 list),
Native American (Algonquin) (1 list),
Native American (Iroquois) (1 list),
Neapolitan (2 lists),
Ottoman (2 lists),
Ottoman (North Africa) (1 list),
Polish (3 lists),
Portuguese (2 lists),
Portuguese (North Africa) (1 list),
Pragmatic (1 list),
Prussian (3 lists),
Russian (3 lists),
Savoyard (3 lists),
Saxon (3 lists),
Spanish (3 lists),
Spanish (Colonial America) (1 list),
Spanish (North Africa) (1 list),
Swedish (3 lists),
Thirteen Colonies (1 list),
Venetian (2 lists),
Venetian (Colonial) (1 list).

The armies are divided between Pro-Imperial and Anti-Imperial, so remember to disable the filter present on the opening screen if you want to fight against every army you like.


Here are some screenshots of the game:
Anglo-Hanoverian army screen:

Anglo-Hanoverian.png (797.65 KiB) Viewed 1373 times

Bourbon army screen:

Bourbon.png (783.06 KiB) Viewed 1373 times

Sample Pragmatic units:

Sample Pragmatic Unit.png (1006.59 KiB) Viewed 1373 times

[Lysimachos]

British (Colonial America) screen:

British (Colonial America).png (788.38 KiB) Viewed 1370 times

[Lysimachos]

French army deployed:

French Army deployed.png (735.7 KiB) Viewed 1367 times

Pragmatic army deployed:

Pragmatic Army deployed.png (726.77 KiB) Viewed 1367 times

Sample Pragmatic units:

Sample Pragmatic Units.png (707.48 KiB) Viewed 1367 times

[Athos1660]

Sounds like a very interesting project. Congrats.
Will definitely look into this (I lack time right now unfortunately).
Thanks !

[SnuggleBunnies]

Excellent, will take a look. Some things to consider -
1) Making it an in-game download, when you feel it is ready
2) Adding 'Held Firm' etc messages
3) Adding 'Turn and Shoot' etc

Will come back with further suggestions after checking it out. Thanks.

[SnuggleBunnies]

Can you upload as a zip or rar? I'm unable to download it with its current setup.

Thanks, eager to check it out.

[Paul59]

Can you upload as a zip or rar? I'm unable to download it with its current setup.

Thanks, eager to check it out.

Yes, we need a Premium mediafire account to bulk download multiple folders and files. So a zip or rar would be far better.

[Lysimachos]

Can you upload as a zip or rar? I'm unable to download it with its current setup.

Thanks, eager to check it out.

The format of the file has been modified and now you'll be able to download from the link above a zipped version of the original folder.

[Lysimachos]

Excellent, will take a look. Some things to consider -
1) Making it an in-game download, when you feel it is ready
2) Adding 'Held Firm' etc messages
3) Adding 'Turn and Shoot' etc

Will come back with further suggestions after checking it out. Thanks.

Whit regard to your consideration, Snugglebunnies:
1) it would be really great but I don't know it is feasible at the moment or is better to wait until the mod is entirely completed. At the moment I have finished a bit less of half the armies I'd like to build
2) e 3) unfortunately I don't understand what you mean for "Held Firm" messages and "Turn and Shoot". I presume these are some other mods but I haven't found them. Maybe you can explain me in detail the issue.

In the next update, anyway, I'd like to add the "undo command" and "immediate score" patches.
Then I was also wondering if it could be possible, but this seems really difficult, to have different wheater conditions in battle, like rain or snow, even only for an aesthetic matter (I mean without any real effect on the unit capabilities) ...

[SnuggleBunnies]

Whit regard to your consideration, Snugglebunnies:
1) it would be really great but I don't know it is feasible at the moment or is better to wait until the mod is entirely completed. At the moment I have finished a bit less of half the armies I'd like to build
2) e 3) unfortunately I don't understand what you mean for "Held Firm" messages and "Turn and Shoot". I presume these are some other mods but I haven't found them. Maybe you can explain me in detail the issue.

In the next update, anyway, I'd like to add the "undo command" and "immediate score" patches.
Then I was also wondering if it could be possible, but this seems really difficult, to have different wheater conditions in battle, like rain or snow, even only for an aesthetic matter (I mean without any real effect on the unit capabilities) ...

Agreed that waiting until you feel satisfied that the mod is done could be good for an in game download.

Held Firm and Turn and Shoot are both in FoG II, and Cronos implemented them into my East vs West Mod for Sengoku Jidai. They are also in 'FoG Features Mod' for Pike and Shot - I'm sure he would be able to quickly show you how to implement, I may be able to slowly muddle around and remember how. The former shows when a cohesion test has been inflicted on a unit and it has held firm. The latter is to allow one click turn and shoot, instead of manually turning and then shooting. Neither are massively critical, but both are very nice to have.

Thanks for the download, will return with feedback/impressions

[Paul59]

Excellent, will take a look. Some things to consider -
1) Making it an in-game download, when you feel it is ready
2) Adding 'Held Firm' etc messages
3) Adding 'Turn and Shoot' etc

Will come back with further suggestions after checking it out. Thanks.

Whit regard to your consideration, Snugglebunnies:
1) it would be really great but I don't know it is feasible at the moment or is better to wait until the mod is entirely completed. At the moment I have finished a bit less of half the armies I'd like to build
2) e 3) unfortunately I don't understand what you mean for "Held Firm" messages and "Turn and Shoot". I presume these are some other mods but I haven't found them. Maybe you can explain me in detail the issue.

In the next update, anyway, I'd like to add the "undo command" and "immediate score" patches.
Then I was also wondering if it could be possible, but this seems really difficult, to have different wheater conditions in battle, like rain or snow, even only for an aesthetic matter (I mean without any real effect on the unit capabilities) ...

If you have used any copyrighted images in your mod that would be a problem for an in game download. When I was creating Pike and Shot scenarios and mods Slitherine always required me to blur any potentially copyrighted images to get around any legal issues.

[Athos1660]

Thanks for the download, will return with feedback/impressions

Watch the cruel life of a FoG2 beta tester experiencing withdrawal symptoms, begging for a download...

[Lysimachos]

If you have used any copyrighted images in your mod that would be a problem for an in game download. When I was creating Pike and Shot scenarios and mods Slitherine always required me to blur any potentially copyrighted images to get around any legal issues.

Well, substantially I used images freely found on internet and wasn't aware about copyright issues regarding them.
But I understand that Slitherine has the duty to avoid any potential claim, so I'm of course going to accept any decision on the matter taken by RBS

[Cronos09]

Interesting mod, good work!
I noticed a bug. The minimal routing level in skirmishes - 30% of breaking troops:

Age of Reason.jpg (317.23 KiB) Viewed 1203 times

That's the result of your VC change in Slith_RandomMap2.BSF:

Code: Select all

	// CAMPAIGN ADDITION
//  if (GetSkirmishState() != 2)
	if (GetScriptGlobal("CampaignDisplay", "gCampGame") == 0)
		{
	// END CAMPAIGN addition
			StandardVictoryConditions(70, 50, 70, 50, drawdecider, MPgame);
	// CAMPAIGN ADDITION
		}
	else
		{
			StandardCampaignVictoryConditions(60, 52, 60, 52, drawdecider, MPgame);
		}
	// END CAMPAIGN addition
}

According to this part of script the 1st function - StandardVictoryConditions(70, 50, 70, 50, drawdecider, MPgame) - refers to Skirmish games, the 2nd - StandardCampaignVictoryConditions(60, 52, 60, 52, drawdecider, MPgame) - to Campaign games. If that's how it was intended that you should change the VC description.

...
In the next update, anyway, I'd like to add the "undo command" and "immediate score" patches.
...

I think that my scripts of 2020 are out-dated a little. When I have time enough I will add these options to your mod (as well as 'Held firm' and 'Turn and Shoot'). It would be better to add Generals to your mod instead of 'Undo' option, but it's a large part of work (because of making the General lists to each Army list).

[SnuggleBunnies]

Okay, a few ideas/questions -

1) Highlanders seem to be musket, impact, sword. Does this mean they lack bayonet traits? Could create some oddities. Haven't tested it in the editor yet, so just asking

2) Some cavalry are Swordsmen instead of Melee Pistols, making them notably awful. Is that intended?

3) Grenadier units have 10-20% grenades. I know this might be a little bit of flavor, but they really dont seem to have been used in the field, with very rare exceptions, and instead were relegated largely to siege work. Grenades are also very effective in the game, inflicting a -1 to ranged CTs taken by enemy units that get hit by them. Really, I'm not sure that grenadiers/guards should be much different from one another. You could experiment with making such units Mixed Foot, which would give them additional CT bonuses at the cost of slight disorder and slower movement in rough - just an idea.

4) My main comment - I think the Indians are quite off. They are largely depicted as partial musket, partial heavy weapon Warriors. Not only is HW by default canceled by Bayonet, making them warriors with poor shooting forces them to stand and fight. This isn't right; they were quite often, man for man, the best fighters available to either side, good shots, and bows were largely relegated to hunting/sport/desperate situations with a lack of ammunition. They really should just be high quality light infantry marksmen, perhaps with Swordsmen skill added on. Although they were willing to close to melee if they were already winning, they did not engage volley for volley in European style, nor did they face regulars in the open. Their numbers should also be quite small - at their peak, whether as auxiliaries assisting the French, or in their greatest victory of the 18th century (St Clair's Defeat), they tended to field at most a little over a thousand warriors.

[Lysimachos]

Okay, a few ideas/questions -

1) Highlanders seem to be musket, impact, sword. Does this mean they lack bayonet traits? Could create some oddities. Haven't tested it in the editor yet, so just asking

2) Some cavalry are Swordsmen instead of Melee Pistols, making them notably awful. Is that intended?

3) Grenadier units have 10-20% grenades. I know this might be a little bit of flavor, but they really dont seem to have been used in the field, with very rare exceptions, and instead were relegated largely to siege work. Grenades are also very effective in the game, inflicting a -1 to ranged CTs taken by enemy units that get hit by them. Really, I'm not sure that grenadiers/guards should be much different from one another. You could experiment with making such units Mixed Foot, which would give them additional CT bonuses at the cost of slight disorder and slower movement in rough - just an idea.

4) My main comment - I think the Indians are quite off. They are largely depicted as partial musket, partial heavy weapon Warriors. Not only is HW by default canceled by Bayonet, making them warriors with poor shooting forces them to stand and fight. This isn't right; they were quite often, man for man, the best fighters available to either side, good shots, and bows were largely relegated to hunting/sport/desperate situations with a lack of ammunition. They really should just be high quality light infantry marksmen, perhaps with Swordsmen skill added on. Although they were willing to close to melee if they were already winning, they did not engage volley for volley in European style, nor did they face regulars in the open. Their numbers should also be quite small - at their peak, whether as auxiliaries assisting the French, or in their greatest victory of the 18th century (St Clair's Defeat), they tended to field at most a little over a thousand warriors.

Thank’s for your comments and ideas mate!
About them I’d like to note:

1) Highlanders have been designed this way to obtain much more melee capability, with a slight decrease in their firing power and seem to work effectively on the battlefield.

2) Cavalry units with the swordsmen trait are only the Carabiniers (armoured and unarmoured). I chose to represent them this way given that, if I correctly understood their tactics, Carabiniers, instead of other cavalry types, lost quite totally their impact elan in the firing phase. Anyway, they still seem to fight appropriately when I tested them.

3) On the issue I substantially agree with you, with a difference. In fact, though usually grenadiers didn’t use grenades on the battlefield, I’ve found some references about them doing so in the early stages of the XVIII^ century. This could be represented with the 20% of men (just the first ranks) using grenades until the 20’s or 30’ (also to have a little bit flavor, as you say). From them on it is surely more correct to eliminate this trait and I will do so in the next update.

4) On the issue I’m only partially with you.

Firstly, I think your remark mainly regards the presence of Indians in the British and French colonial armies (where, indeed, I represented them quite exclusively as warriors), because in the Native American army light infantry archers and raiders represent quite a bit less of half the total men. Probably this proportion isn’t totally correct, and it would be better to enhance it to 60% or 65% as should be done in the French and British Colonial armies where, now, no light infantry Indian units are present, except for the Algonquin archers (and I’ll take care of this in the next update).

Secondly, I don’t understand your comments about bayonet canceling the Heavy Weapon trait, given that warriors have not been given bayonets anyway.

Thirdly, about the warrior units, I think that once their number is lowered to a more feasible percentage (30-35%) of the entire Indian fighting force, they still have a decent chance of representing the fact that, in many situations, Indians closed in fearlessly with the enemy at quick speed (and in order to do so they’ve been awarded with 12 Aps while archers and raiders 14) to fight hand to hand (where they have a distinct advantage against militia unit an pair the melee power of the few ordinary musketeer units available to the European armies). Obviously Indian armies are not to be played in a usual field battle but, to represent the real nature of combat in the northern American theater, you should always play small or very small battles in wooded terrain where they excel, given their quickness and cover ability.

Fourthly, I disagree about the fact that Indians unit represented only a small part of the colonial forces. This may be true for open battles, but they occurred rarely in that landscape, where raids and skirmish encounters were the norm. And in these situations, Indian forces constituted an appreciable part of the fighting forces.

[Lysimachos]

Interesting mod, good work!
I noticed a bug. The minimal routing level in skirmishes - 30% of breaking troops:

You're right Cronos,
I wasn't aware that I only modified in the correct way the campaign battles victory condition.
The skirmish victory conditions were left as they were when I was still trying to understand how the percentage data worked in the file.
I'm going to quickly correct it in the next update, that I'm going to release today or, at least tomorrow, where I'd like to correct too the other inaccuracies evidenced by Snugglebunnies.

[SnuggleBunnies]

1) Highlanders have been designed this way to obtain much more melee capability, with a slight decrease in their firing power and seem to work effectively on the battlefield.

My question about this was does it effect how they interact with cavalry?

2) Cavalry units with the swordsmen trait are only the Carabiniers (armoured and unarmoured). I chose to represent them this way given that, if I correctly understood their tactics, Carabiniers, instead of other cavalry types, lost quite totally their impact elan in the firing phase. Anyway, they still seem to fight appropriately when I tested them.

Swordsmen is a Melee skill though - basically they are down 100POA against Melee Pistols that are Steady. If that's intended, that's fine, just curious.

3) On the issue I substantially agree with you, with a difference. In fact, though usually grenadiers didn’t use grenades on the battlefield, I’ve found some references about them doing so in the early stages of the XVIII^ century. This could be represented with the 20% of men (just the first ranks) using grenades until the 20’s or 30’ (also to have a little bit flavor, as you say). From them on it is surely more correct to eliminate this trait and I will do so in the next update.

This sounds good

Firstly, I think your remark mainly regards the presence of Indians in the British and French colonial armies (where, indeed, I represented them quite exclusively as warriors), because in the Native American army light infantry archers and raiders represent quite a bit less of half the total men. Probably this proportion isn’t totally correct, and it would be better to enhance it to 60% or 65% as should be done in the French and British Colonial armies where, now, no light infantry Indian units are present, except for the Algonquin archers (and I’ll take care of this in the next update).

Yes, my remark is about the Indians serving as auxiliaries, because Indian only forces of more than a few hundred men were rare, and those of more than 1500 basically didn't happen in New England during the century. In that context, they really should be good light infantry, as a single unit of 500 warriors exceeds the number they usually brought to the field in total.

Secondly, I don’t understand your comments about bayonet canceling the Heavy Weapon trait, given that warriors have not been given bayonets anyway.

The warriors have been given Heavy Weapon, whose Impact and Melee is fully canceled by Bayonet in vanilla coding - so unless you have modded it, the HW basically does nothing almost all of the time. Swordsmen is only fully canceled by Steady Bayonets, and at least unlocks against Unsteady Bayonet.

Thirdly, about the warrior units, I think that once their number is lowered to a more feasible percentage (30-35%) of the entire Indian fighting force, they still have a decent chance of representing the fact that, in many situations, Indians closed in fearlessly with the enemy at quick speed (and in order to do so they’ve been awarded with 12 Aps while archers and raiders 14) to fight hand to hand (where they have a distinct advantage against militia unit an pair the melee power of the few ordinary musketeer units available to the European armies). Obviously Indian armies are not to be played in a usual field battle but, to represent the real nature of combat in the northern American theater, you should always play small or very small battles in wooded terrain where they excel, given their quickness and cover ability.

As a small proportion of the essentially for flavor Indian list, that's fine, but again they relied on musketry as their primary means of fighting, so really should have 100% Musket.

Fourthly, I disagree about the fact that Indians unit represented only a small part of the colonial forces. This may be true for open battles, but they occurred rarely in that landscape, where raids and skirmish encounters were the norm. And in these situations, Indian forces constituted an appreciable part of the fighting forces.

My comment was about absolute numbers, not proportions. As you say, depending on the context Indians could make up a small scouting and skirmishing screen, or the majority of a force. However, they never seemed to have put more than around 1300 warriors together in one place, and that was with unwieldy coalitions of many peoples - the numbers were generally far smaller than that.

[Lysimachos]

The version 1.1 of the mod has been released in order to address the first and more striking flaws, trying to follow your suggestions whenever fit suitable.

The new version features:
- corrected victory conditions on skirmish battles, that were flawed in version 1.0,
- revisited grenadier units, without grenades after the late 20' or early 30' of the XVIII^ century,
- refined time line of the first list of each army in order to adapt them to the new grenadier units format,
- modified composition of the native american, british colonial and french colonial armies, with more light infantry indian units than warriors and a reduced presence of raw warrior units,
- corrected uniforms of british militia in America and thirteen colonies militia, that were mistakenly inverted,
- corrected grenadier units in Grand Alliance and Pragmatic armies, that were mistakenly inverted,
- completed and tested campaign section with the correct flags and province names.

Highlanders and native american warrior units will be tested again in order to verify their real behaviour on the battlefield and, if appropriate, will be modified in the next version of the mod.

By now many thanks to Snugglebunnies and Cronos09 for their advices and considerations.

[Lysimachos]

I was wondering if, to make the mod playable in multyplayer, is only needed to copy-paste the relative folder in the User/Documents/My Game/PSCAMP/Multiplayer folder or something else should be done to make it work properly ...