Spring RTS Engine

Hey, my friend and I are working on an American Civil War based mod. That is, using pretty much the same technology of that time period. Doesn't necessarily mean its during the AMCW, but you get the point. Working title, might just call it Spring 1864 to keep it ambiguous. Uh............. We're looking for anyone who is interested in working on it, modeling, skinning, etc.

So here is a basic rundown of the setup, not going into too many details. If you'd like to know more, i guess just ask.

You start with a General. He's mounted. He can call 3 different types of underlings.
Colonel (Mounted)
Major
Captain

All four of the major units can build large flags on metal deposit areas which supply the resources for the troops.

The Captain, in addition to the flags, can build tents which can build the infantry units.
Reg. Volunteers
Reg. Infantrymen
Snipers
Zouave (slightly heavier infantry)

These infantry units can all build small flags in battle that also help with resources.

The Major, in addition to the flags, can build defenses and batteries.
Light Def.
Heavy Def.
Howitzer
Mortar
Siege Rifle

The batteries (red) need supply wagons for ammunition. (Built by the Colonel)

The Colonel, in addition to the flags, can build a heavy tent or some sort of camp (to be decided) which provides supplies and cavalry.
Supply Wagon
Scout Cavalry
Reg Cavalry
Adv Cavalry

We have the costs and other specs pretty much figured out. Just decided to bring it to the table.

reminds me of WZ's dead american revolution mod for OTA

Good luck. Anybody skilled at making units? That is a fairly essential part of making a mod >_>

If not, push your idea to the side and get everyone up to a decent level. Don't be like me and redo 20 units twice because your skills are still growing while modding.

We got people. They are making models. They are model makers. We don't have dudes. Dudes make scripts. We don't have cheetahs. Cheetahs make lua's. :.o)

gunhamster wrote:We got people. They are making models. They are model makers. We don't have dudes. Dudes make scripts. We don't have cheetahs. Cheetahs make lua's. :.o)

FUCK. DAMN YOU I AM NOTHING BUT A MAN.

Men play games, then whine that something is unballanced.

This strikes me as very... gettysburg ^_^

It will be pretty much the best mod ever. Who doesn't want to send a bunch of troops to battle with inaccurate old guns?

This is gonna be basically s44 with horses instead of tanks?

Zpock wrote:This is gonna be basically s44 with horses instead of tanks?

Just like s44 is basically TA with rifles instead of lazors?

I didn't say it's a bad thing.

zpock: it sounds like it although the models will be differently textured.. and the big AT guns will be cannons instead :D

BaNa wrote:

Zpock wrote:This is gonna be basically s44 with horses instead of tanks?

Just like s44 is basically TA with rifles instead of lazors?

Never played S44, have you?

gunhamster wrote:It will be pretty much the best mod ever.

Stop all work here folks, no point in going any further. Muskets > then lasers

nm

SpikedHelmet wrote:

BaNa wrote:

Zpock wrote:This is gonna be basically s44 with horses instead of tanks?

Just like s44 is basically TA with rifles instead of lazors?

Never played S44, have you?

I musta left out the [sarcasm] tags, my bad.

Edit: Fanger, are you sure those things (area control, units in big groups) cant be made with LUA? /note: the author of this post does not have any knowledge of LUA/

Fang, I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with your points here.

Main combat unit during this war was the Infantry man, spring does not currently have very good methods for animating organic complicated models.. Infantry tend to look terrible, no matter how much effort is put into them.

It would be more accurate to describe combat during the war as infantry being used to force other infantry into a position where it could be killed efficiently by artillery, tbh.

Which is why, as the war ground onwards, trench-warfare tactics became prevalent, to neutralize the North's growing advantages in overall artillery. The Civil War was the last major "pre-modern" conflict- fought mainly with one-shot rifles, no machineguns, and fairly lousy artillery. The improvements in rifles over previous conflicts, both in terms of rate of fire (about 3 per minute) range (about 500 yards, effective) and accuracy (about 500 yards, firing on a mass, about 200 yards, individual targets) made a huge difference over previous pre-modern conflicts, because they were finally accurate enough for massed fire to be effective at hundreds of meters, as opposed to slightly over a hundred meters, at the time of the Napoleonic wars.

But it was artillery's vastly improved reliability, accuracy, and deadliness that really made the biggest difference. It simply wasn't possible to have infantry sit out artillery fire, even if it wasn't massed. Despite what the movies often show, Civil War artillery was almost always firing fuse-timed explosives, contact-fused explosives... or cannister. You can't just sit around, when your opponent can put an airbursting shell full of shot overhead every minute or two.

The infantry either had to retreat, dig trenches, or advance. This wasn't such a big factor during the first two years of the war, but as of about 1863 onwards, more modern artillery made a giant difference. Moreover, most of that advantage was on the North's side.

Many battles were won almost entirely on the power of artillery against infantry, especially on bad ground, such the main battle in Gettysburg, where the South pretty much destroyed themselves trying to dig artillery out of high positions that overlooked their only real axis of retreat. See Picket's Charge

Lastly... infantry can look pretty good in Spring. SWS has good-looking infantry, for example. They're just hard to achieve. And there's the pre-animated mesh approach, which nobody has actually tried yet... it works for tank-tracks, and might look good for infantry, too...

Scope of the civil war was not small battles.. we are talking HUGE numbers of men involved in large battles.

Not true at all! There were dozens and dozens of small battles, skirmishes, etc., in addition to the large, set-piece battles that we normally associate with the war. You're thinking of WWI. There were lots of small battles in the Civil War, determined by hundreds, not thousands.

Moreover, from a game-design POV, scale is relative. One guy may represent 10. Nobody said they were building a simulation.

both the Union and Confederate infantry basically all had the same equipment.. a rifled musket, (this was different for north and south) and clothing.. The only thing that seperated the men out, was training, and leadership..

While it wasn't WWII, there was considerable variety of weapons used , and very large differences in quality. Moreover, as this points out, technological advances during the war made a major difference in the effectiveness of arms during the war.

All the gameplay is going to then have to focus on manuvering around the map, and out thinking the enemy.. which will require large maps, with some sort of take and hold point system, ala either world in conflict, or something else.. essentially following the sid meiers game Gettysburg..

This is now quite possible. With LUA, we can easily define "cities" on a map, that are the sole source of resources.

With no radar, and a large map, combat could very well be defined in terms of finding, holding and ultimately either capturing or destroying cities in order to win the war. Without radar, even with a fairly realistic sight distance you could have very realistic battles, where horsemen might have to <gasp> actually serve as scouts.

As for formations... line-move adequately depicts how real maneuvers went. It's not like everybody moved in perfect blocks all of the time- in fact, that only happened during set-piece combat, and then only before tactical maneuvering began in earnest. So what, if players have to set up their lines manually, to have set-piece combat? If they design their units well, then using lines will actually make sense, for the same reasons it did IRL- if, for example, the guns fire in ballistic arcs with high velocities and range, putting collide / avoidFriendly on 1 will cause players to not use clumps, because then only the front of the clump can fire, whereas the entire line of the other guy can fire. Making people stop to aim, like they have to IRL (even with modern rifles, pretty much, unless you're just spraying) will mean that clumps running up on lines will just get owned, and advancing in lines will make complete sense to the tactical player.

Why make the engine the blocking point, when it really isn't?

BaNa wrote:Edit: Fanger, are you sure those things (area control, units in big groups) cant be made with LUA? /note: the author of this post does not have any knowledge of LUA/

I plan on putting hours into this for the benefit of UA.

Edit: i meant days/weeks

nm

The new lua formations are better than the old style were.

I don't see why obsessive formations are a necessity anyways. Players should be designing their own formations, not harking back to formations the devs give them to use. If formations work players will put time/effort into making them.

This doesn't have to be hyperrealistic simulation after all.

nm