Erik Rutins
Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline
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Thought this would make for good reading while we work on getting the update ready to download. Please read this carefully, there are a number of changes that very significantly change gameplay (for the better).
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Forge of Freedom
Compiled Rules Changes for V1.9.4
NOTE: Does not include list of any fixes, just changes to the interface/rules.
== Economy
Reduced the costs of some units.
Modified costs of some buildings.
Victory points for capturing the enemy national capital have been raised to 3.
When state capital is captured, CSA loses 1 national will, USA loses 2 national will.
CSA can no longer buy new plantations after it emancipates.
Training grounds now provide +.2 quality to all newly built units in the same state.
Banks now yield 1% income per turn (rather than per month.)
Counterfeiting upgrade now only 33% loss to bank income (instead of -50%).
When the "Upgrade Weapons" option is off, Runners no longer get Gun resources.
Winning/losing a decisive battle has a 20% to raise/lower diplomatic support with each European power.
Cost per each diplomatic spending level is reduced from 10 Money to 8 Money.
England/France now require 9 diplomatic levels before they will enter the war. The values that control this rule have been added to the Data/AcwConstants.txt file, so that players can mod them if they wish.
Legendary units now appear for muster/conscript.
Human players no longer begin the game with garrison units in the following states:
o Connecticut
o Lousiana
o Maine
o Massacheusetts
o Michigan
o Minnesota
o New Hampshire
o Rhode Island
o Vermont
o Wisconsin
Governors now have a chance to request a building that represents historical development in that state. Each state now has a list of building-types that will not be requested in that state. (Special thanks to Artmiser for compiling this table.)
Mustering/conscripting in a high-population province is attempted once for every 6 population levels of the province.
The Espionage II upgrade now allows the USA to see where CSA blockade runner goods are located whenever the USA player has a fleet selected. If the CSA has Espionage II, then the USA may no longer see CSA blockade runner goods.
Emancipation criteria. The USA can now only emancipate when (a) the South has a total European diplomatic levels of 12 or more, and (b) the USA has a positive victory score for Battles won. The CSA can now only emancipate when (a) the CSA has a total victory score of -6 or less and (b) the CSA has a negative Battles victory score. Emancipation criteria are dropped after 1863.
Made changes to the weapons data. Added several new types of guns.
Added "Heavy Dahlgren Guns" Naval upgrade, a pre-requisite for getting the XX-inch Dahlgren Guns.
Added "Naval Infrastructure I" and "Naval Infrastructure II" upgrades. Each of these decreases the cost of new Ships, Gunboats, and Frigates by 15 Labor.
== Game Options
New game options:
"Greater Population", "Doubles the population levels of cities."
"No Time Limit", "The CSA does not receive time-limit related victory points."
"No European War", "European powers do not declare war."
"Total Victory", "Doubles the victory requirements required to win the game."
"Always Instant Combat", "Every battle in the game will be resolved as an instant battle."
"Randomize Start Dates", "Generals can appear up to 6-months before or after their regular starting date."
== Generals
Detailed Combat: Units with strength below 1,000 now cannot be rallied by the generals special rally.
Added promotion button to generals' Command Box. Any number of generals may be promoted in a turn this way.
Demoted generals now have a 50% chance to resign in protest.
Generals always compacted into stacks even if the "No Compact Stacks" preference is selected.
On the Military screen we now show number of generals of each rank player currently has.
In non-remote games, promoting or demoting a general when the "Random Stats" game option is on gives a chance that one or two of the general's stats will randomly increase or decrease by a small amount.
Now reveals generals' special abilities whenever a general teaches them.
Fixed bug involving generals starting dates and the starting date of the scenario.
Reduced generals' chance of teaching a special ability from 5%+Leadership Rating^2%/2 to 1%+Leadership Rating^2%/3.
In Detailed Combat, reduced bonus damage from generals by 50%. Group generals' bonus now applies to all units in group, not just units with generals directly attached.
Academies no longer determine the number of ranks of generals, except for 5-stars, which now requires 6 Academies. Ranks are now determined by the number of military groups a player has. Academies now train the ratings of a player's military groups; each Academy trains one military group in each of the May turns. Groups with lower ratings are trained before groups with higher ratings. No rating may be trained to be higher than Good.
Generals can now die more easily in quick battle
Improved AI assignment of generals
Added the first 100+ bios from the ongoing project of including a volunteer-written biographical sketch of each Civil War general
Added historically-based start dates for all generals in database
Added historically-based teachable special abilities for all 100-percenters and 25-percenters
Added historically-based teachable special abilities and Leadership/Tactics/Initiative/Command/Cavalry ratings for all generals for whom bios have been written
Have changed database so that only generals who actually commanded cavalry at the rank of brigadier general or higher have cavalry ratings
In the November scenarios now have some generals starting in the province that corresponds to their actual locations in November 1861
Generals all now come in as 1-stars, unless specially designated to hold their historical rank at the beginning of a scenario.
Have added a small group of 18-percenters, who show up twice as frequently as 9-percenters
Generals can now increase a subordinate unit's quality, based on their Leadership
== Sieges
Units cannot besiege if they are below 1/3rd their maximum strength. Such units neither deal damage nor receive damage in siege combat.
Siege artillery now properly filtered on Military Advisor.
Players can now only have one siegeworks per province.
Now can deal damage to attacking siege artillery in siege combat.
Units that are damaged during a siege gain Quality as if they had fought in a battle.
Players can now choose type of siege when creating a siegeworks.
Now easier to besiege cities: besieging units do twice as much damage as they did previously and the defenders no longer get any defensive bonus. Furthermore, besiegers do an additional 0-30% damage to a besieged city's defenses each turn.
Siege artillery can no longer initiate battles
Siege artillery no longer takes up space within military groups.
Increased siege damage and rates of all sieges. Fixed siege damage display bug.
Gunboats now participate in bombard attacks (according to rules as if they were artillery.)
== Naval
Increased chance that ships sink blockade runners.
Amphibious invasions that are defeated will now retreat to the nearest friendly port as long as there is a friendly fleet adjacent to them when they are defeated
== Disease
Added disease-related variables to the Data/AcwConstants.txt file.
A brigade with a Medical Attribute now lowers disease losses by 20% for all units directly attached to the same military group or fort; brigades with two Medical Attributes lower disease losses by 40%. This supercedes the old rule under which the Medical Attribute reduced disease losses by 50% only for the brigade with the attribute.
Strategic supply now reduces losses from disease; every level of strategic supply reduces base disease casualties by 5%. Units at zero strategic supply, however, take 50% more casualties from disease.
Disease casualties penalty from swamps increased from 10% to 25%.
Base disease casualties reduced from a Gaussian distribution around 15% to a Gaussian distribution around 11%.
March Attrition
March attrition, chance of lowering disposition has been increased from 5% to 6.25%; this chance is now doubled while force-marching to 13%.
Loss from march attrition is now dependent on disposition:
o Rebellious: Loss is 10%
o Disorganized: Loss is 5%
o Low: Loss is 2.5%
o Normal: Loss is 1.25%
o Inspired: Loss is .83%
o Zealous: Loss is .5%
== Attributes
Can now purchase scouts for cavalry
Can now purchase medical for cavalry and artillery.
== Strength
A disbanded brigade will spread its men to all brigades in the same military group, both when voluntarily disbanded and when below minimum strength. Quality of units receiving strength is modified using the same formula given in the Technical
Appendix for units receiving reinforcements from Camps. Artillery and Cavalry receive only 1/3 the regular number of strength factors.
== Reinforcements (Replacements)
When "Advanced Buildings" option is off, USA now gets base 8,000 reinforcements per turn, CSA gets 4,000.
Reinforcement rate from camps is now 300+15*Men in Province. If the advanced population rules are on, then this would be the average of the current Men and maximum Men, otherwise it would just be the maximum Men for the province.
Camps now have a 10% chance to reduce the province's Men by 1 in the Early April turn.
Cost of camps has been modified: now costs fewer horses and more money.
== Interface
Added filters on the City List for Ironworks and Universities.
Can now click on names of cities in Cities List to open City Details for the clicked city.
Added options to show attributes/specials for units in the Attachment Box.
Added "no choice now" option to upgrade selection screen
Added battle history and battle animation replay to statistics screen.
Added report on total casualties/kills of all units from the Overview screen.
Upon winning/losing the game the player now has a chance to review the Overview screen.
If player clicks on a province that is different than the province of any currently selected unit(s), clear all selection and select new unit.
Show places in city list that can't muster/conscript with dashed line.
F2-F8 Keys now open the advisor screens from the Strategic Map.
Reasons for failed movements are now recorded in units' history reports. Added history report to military groups.
The gun purchasing menu now has a column that shows the quick combat value for guns, where appropriate.
Added new can't-put-into-container mouse cursor for strategic map.
== Military Groups
Increase the value of randomly generated US military group Logistical Staff ratings.
== Quality
Brigades now always receive some Quality increase after battle (unless their quality is too high). If they fail to receive
the Quality increase specified in the manual, then they will still receive 1/4 of that amount.
Brigades that have a total combat/siege casualties caused/sustained of 5,000 now qualify for one randomly selected special
ability. Brigades with a total of 8,000 casualties qualify for an additional ability.
Legendary units created at the start of the game now receive a +1.0 Quality boost.
== Detailed/Quick Battles
Military groups set to "Avoid Battle" will no longer be called by Instant Battle and PBEM Quick Battle as reinforcements.
Added an After Battle Report showing damages, quality gain, effects of generals, and so forth.
Combat retreat prefer to retreat to city if possible
Naval evacuations. If a player loses a battle in a province adjacent to a friendly fleet, and there are no other valid retreat locations by land, then the player's units will retreat to the nearest friendly unblockaded port province. Brigades evacuating lose all strategic supply and have their disposition reduced to Disorganized.
Detailed combat preferences are now saved/loaded between games.
Units now receive quality increases after small battles, though at 1/4 of the normal rate.
== Quick Battle
Reduced damage cap and lowered pursuit losses.
Defender now has slightly higher morale check bonus in quick combat.
Forts now only provide defensive bonuses for quick battle for players who own both the province containing the fort and the fort itself.
Increased the defenders morale check advantage.
Now displays battle location and size at the top of quick combat.
Added attribute/special ability information to unit popup information.
Decreased artillery damage modifier in Quick Combat.
== Detailed Combat
Restore to command now does not consume a use when clicking on a unit already in-command.
Moved starting positions of supply caissons back
Sound effects should be less repetitious now
Added Detailed Combat option always to show blinking star for out-of-command units.
Now no AI bonus field fortifications in detailed combat below the difficulty level of Major. At the difficulty level of Major, the chance of the AI getting bonus field fortifications is 15%; this increases by 12% per difficulty level above Major. AI still has a chance for bonus field fortifications after it has developed the Hasty Entrenchment upgrades.
Changed the key to cancel "quickly resolve detailed combat" from spacebar to 'x'.
Disordered/routed units now do less damage in return-fire.
The modifiers to a unit's morale in detailed combat (such as Disposition, Home Territory bonus, game difficulty level, etc.) now can neither reduce a unit's starting detailed combat morale below 50% of its level of Quality nor raise it above 1.0+150% of its level of Quality. For instance, a unit with a base Quality of 4.0 cannot have a detailed combat morale modified below 2.0 nor above 7.0.
Units in detailed battle can now only be rallied by the "special rally" only once.
Units in detailed battle can lose no more than 2.0 levels of Morale due to being in threat zones.
Decreased the frequency with which commanders perform the "special rally"
Artillery can now only spend up to 4 movement points while still being allowed to fire in the same move; that is, artillery that spend more than 4 points cannot move after firing.
Failure to deploy skirmishers now only results in the ending of the unit's turn and the loss of the unit's Fresh status instead of making the unit disordered.
== PBEM Replay
PBEM Replay. In PBEM games, after the Movement Phase has been completed, a replay file will be created in the PBEM directory with the following nomenclature: <GAMENAME>_Replay_<TurnNumber>.<sve|rep>. The USA player may load this file, view the replay, and then take his turn in lieu of loading his normal turn file, if he wishes; the CSA player may view this file, but cannot take his turn immediately after viewing this file as the USA player can. When the replay file is loaded, the player will be prompted to choose either the USA or the CSA as the "viewing" player -- a password check will be initiated if players have chosen passwords. Note that the replay file is a PBEM game file, and as such must be loaded from the "Load PBEM" option from the main-screen; attempting to load it in-game will result in an attempt to convert the file to a single-player game format.
Should now be able to load PBEM replays from within the game (*please test*). Loading PBEM replay during an m-player game will fail with an error message.
In PBEM games, the AI now has to pick options for partisans and raiders in order for the replay file to work properly.
< Message edited by Erik Rutins -- 3/17/2007 3:22:39 AM >
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