American Civil War Mod by BNC [RELEASED!]

[Alan Sharif]

Just downloading, thanks for all your hard work. I am looking forward to playing this.

[Mithrilotter]

The Union Kentucky Divisions can't be upgraded or controlled by a Union HQ. Was this intentional or an oversight. I send them over to Missouri for anti-partisan garrisons.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

ORIGINAL: MarechalJoffre

Holy, this is truly a hidden gem. Not much feedback to give or anything to complain about, but I'm enjoying it. Thanks BNC.

ORIGINAL: Alan Sharif

Just downloading, thanks for all your hard work. I am looking forward to playing this.

Thanks for the support guys!

ORIGINAL: TangSooDo

This is an excellent mod. Kudos to BNC. I would love to see a Napoleonic mod using this system. Even a small Waterloo campaign with division and brigade level units would be great.

Personally I don't have any plans to do Napoleon at this stage (though it would be cool no doubt!). If anyone else would like to do one though, I've basically used the base WWI system but deleted a bunch of the unit classes and kept build limits low enough to ensure that long frontlines aren't physically possible (or that if they are, that the player using them is being foolish by dispersing their forces too much). If anyone would like to use the mod as a base for that, or any other project, you're welcome to as long as you drop me a credit

ORIGINAL: Mithrilotter

The Union Kentucky Divisions can't be upgraded or controlled by a Union HQ. Was this intentional or an oversight. I send them over to Missouri for anti-partisan garrisons.

Having that occur wasn't my original plan, but it doesn't have much of an impact gamewise and makes sense historically so I don't mind leaving it in. I think of those units as reserve militia type formations more than actual battle units anyway (seeing as they spawn when the state is invaded), where more regular Kentuckian formations (which existed in both the US and CS armies) are part of the USA and CSA divisions/corps. Sending them to Missouri is certainly an interesting idea though!

- BNC

[Mithrilotter]

I sea invaded at low cost with regular divisions. I built marines when I ran out of other units to build.I used them mostly as garrison units.

[tkershner]

Hi, I have the Matrix edition and I installed the ACW files as per the readme and the folders and files are in the campaigns folder but when I load the game and hit new game the ACW campaigns are not listed. Please help. Thanks, Tod K

[BiteNibbleChomp]

@tkershner

Are you sure you put them in the correct campaigns folder (there's a separate one for the default WWI campaigns to the mod ones)? The correct one should be as below

C:\Users\BiteNibbleChomp\Documents\My Games\Strategic Command Classic WWI - Breakthrough\Campaigns (although replace "BiteNibbleChomp" with your own username).

- BNC

[Dazo]

Thanks for the mod, BNC, very fun to play.

As for the 1864 campaign in hard mode, the only way to win as CSA I found was to amphib a bunch of divisions.
If at least one gets through the blockade and manage to grab an Union eastern coast objective, it's an automatic victory (quite the cheat I agree).

The first try I just went the normal way and lost in December 1864 with CSA NM falling to 0 though I managed to hold the lines in front of Richmond and Atlanta.
Recapturing several locations and targeting Union units in low supply (around a dozen for something like +2500 NM) didn't slow CSA NM free fall at all.

I tried some others in hotseat and it was automatic victory for Indiana and Pittsburgh.
The objectives in the Mississippi Valley seem to only lower Union NM by 25%.
Speaking of the Mississippi Valley, I don't remember seeing any Union ship there in 1861 or 1864 wich makes amphib and naval movement quite easy there for CSA (as long as you unlock Union controlled straits with some land units).


Some other things about that 1864 start:

I was surprised to see the Yanks able to deploy new units in captured territory, shouldn't deploying new units be limited to starting territory ?
The mobility tech at level 2 for CSA is such a big MPP eater when reinforcing/operating units that I prefer to kill/let some badly damaged units be destroyed so I can buy them back cheaper (just with infantry tech).
CSA artillery was so useless in 1864 that I decided to disband it just to get some 50 MPPs instead. Did the same with the industry chit for 75 MPPs.

Infantry tech level 2 is much needed since Union having it makes for heavy Rebs casualties even in favorable conditions, meaning even less NM left. Also trench tech since it's cheaper.
1 basic corp step lost is 23 NM, 1 corps step with infantry 1 and mobility 2 is 34 NM or nearly 50% more...
I also wonder if it should be possible to put 5 chits (max) in one tech field, I tried once with the 1861 start and got infantry 2 by march-april 1862.

CSA loses 435 NM per turn at the start of this campaign (from locations lost to Union) and it seems each Union turn with a full blockade add to that one turn out of two.
I got something like: - 435/492/435/610/435/637 so I guess CSA MPPs lost to blockade also become a NM loss or maybe it's some kind of cumulative effect ?
Add the combat NM losses and as CSA it's somehow better not to attack in most cases to preserve NM...

That's all, thanks again for your time/work on that mod.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Hi Dazo, glad you enjoyed the mod

Re Hard Mode, it's not really supposed to be possible to win it 'properly' (that is, no amphibs) as the Confederates. I calculated the starting NM so that if everything goes exactly as history, then it should fall to zero around the time Atlanta fell - by that point the CSA was written off by the Europeans and had lost all their good armies. (My preferred tactic is to spam a bunch of cavalry through the Shenandoah and just rampage through unoccupied Pennsylvania). 0% NM doesn't represent "surrender" so much as "we are definitely going to die very soon".

The NM values for the cities on the Ohio are correct - if Kentucky is Confederate, which was a reasonably possible thing in both 1861 and 1862, then those cities are only a short hop away from the new border. Losing a border city, while it would hurt, wouldn't necessarily be war-ending the way a CS capture of Philadelphia might be. IIRC Washington is 50%, because while that would hurt the cause a whole lot, instant-game-over because you get pushed back 2 tiles is pretty harsh (NY and Boston are another story though).

Deployment in captured territory can be argued either way - the Union certainly raised units out of officially Confederate states and I'm pretty sure the Confederates did the same, although on a smaller scale. It's also less 'occupied territory' and more 'the rebellion has been crushed' - from the Union's perspective Tennessee is not a different country. From a game perspective, perhaps it isn't the most conventional setup, but it has enough basis in reality that I have no problem with it.

- BNC

[Dazo]

ORIGINAL: BiteNibbleChomp

Deployment in captured territory can be argued either way - the Union certainly raised units out of officially Confederate states and I'm pretty sure the Confederates did the same, although on a smaller scale. It's also less 'occupied territory' and more 'the rebellion has been crushed' - from the Union's perspective Tennessee is not a different country. From a game perspective, perhaps it isn't the most conventional setup, but it has enough basis in reality that I have no problem with it.

- BNC

Thanks for the answers and details BNC.

I can definitely see your point about unit deployment. It was a civil war after all so there were people for both sides in those areas. Makes sense they would enlist if/when given the chance. Plus Union clearly had good logistics.

[tkershner]

Hi, I have downloaded the ACW mod and put them in the breakthrough/campaigns folder as directed but when I load up breakthrough they are not listed. Please help. Thanks, T

[BiteNibbleChomp]

ORIGINAL: tkershner

Hi, I have downloaded the ACW mod and put them in the breakthrough/campaigns folder as directed but when I load up breakthrough they are not listed. Please help. Thanks, T

Did you unzip the files and copy in both the folder and the cgn file? When done right your campaigns folder should look like mine in post #38 (except the blacked out bits, those aren't part of ACW)

- BNC

[tkershner]

Thanks for responding quickly. I don't know how to take a picture of the campaigns folder but it certainly looks to me like the one in post 38. Any suggestions? Thanks, TK

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Is your game running the latest 1.2 update?

- BNC

[tkershner]

Figured out how to make a screenshot. Here is my Breakthrough Campaigns folder. Like I said the ACW ones don't show up. See anything wrong? Thanks. TK

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Yeah I see it now - the game has two "Campaigns" folders, one is used for the official scenarios and another is for custom content. Normally the first one is somewhere through C:/Program Files but I think in your case it has installed to the My Games folder instead, causing the confusion.

Go to Documents/My Games/Strategic Command WWI - Breakthrough/Campaigns (if this directory doesn't exist, create the last folder), and paste the ACW files in there. This is where the game will look for custom scenarios.

Let me know if that works

- BNC

[kevwad1]

Hey, I remember playing this campaign a while ago and thought it was amazing. Had some snafu recently and need to re-download the campaign, but your download link doesn't seem to be working? I managed to download your napoleonic wars campaign, but can't seem to download the file for this one.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

G'day kevwad1,
I took the link down a while ago, needed the space on the server for other things.
However I did develop the newly-released SC:ACW using the SC3 game engine, which can be considered a sort of unofficial successor to this mod
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/strate ... -civil-war

- BNC