Hiya, partners! I've played 1866 to death for years and -of course- I added my touches to this great mod; over those years these touches amassed and transformed the mod, little by little. Now, while the thread is labeled as Sub-mod, I will not yet upload the file, for these reasons: a)I sent a PM to yellowmosquito to ask if he allows sub-mods to be available publicly, b)I need to contact authors of some items I used in my personal module, mainly Docm for some L'Aigle hair and beards and c)my Internet is crap and even with all permissions received, it will be agonizing to upload the file. Still, I can share my changes with you, in depth analyzing them and posting screenshots of what is changed. Hope you like them and I'd be happy to receive suggestions/ideas/criticism/whatever you want to say. Most of what I mention can be seen in screenshots in the Media Section. Without further ado:
Changelog
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Changelog
- Music and Sounds: The horse sounds have been revamped with more realistic ones and also, a bit louder. All the songs of the mod have been changed; I refrained from using Sound tracks from famous movies, instead preferring to use instrumental music with guitars and all that western feeling.
- User Interface: The font is changed, to a more "typical western" one. Completely new, hand-crafted, screens for the Inventory, Party Menu, all Character menus(Face gen menu included), new buttons, you name it. The focus of the new interface was wood, leather and old paper.
- Faces: Some of the American male faces changed, all the American female faces replaced with other, higher quality ones. Same goes with Mexican faces, male and female. As for the Indians, it bothered me from the start that all Indian male faces were old and their eyes seemed to be really dark, black allover, even, making them look like demons. Now, there are old AND young face choices and faces with paint on them to chose from(I made them with historical paint patterns, not the Halloween-y ones). As for indian female faces, they were red in the original mod; red as the red women from Mars, in the John Carter novels. So, completely new faces for them, too.
- New Beards and hair styles: Well, self-explanatory, really.
- Environments: Many textures of the environment were added, many were re-made and many were discared and replaced by more appropriate ones. Shop signs re-textured, whiskey bottles of the period replaced the more humorous ones of the original mod and each model and texture of anything related to environment(buildings, trees, particles, whatever) carefully examined and when needed, improved.
- Horses: Now, horses received a make-over in appearance as well as in quality. Now, they are completely without armor value, more balanced and realistic speed and maneuver values and new prices, I hope quite historically accurate. As for their appearance, most of the horses have now, besides the saddle, a blanket(folded in the back of the saddle), an ammo pouch, a canteen and such. Also, 4 new horses and a couple of retextured ones. Finally, in many of the mod's horses there was a black spot visible under their belly, on their hind legs; now, that is fixed.
- Hats: A lot of new things going on here. Most hats retextured, with a couple of hat textures up-scaled, as I found that 256x256 was a bit of a low resolution, even by M&B standards. A lot of new hats present(more than 30 new models), not only from the "Old West", but also English, Canadian, Chinese, you name it. Also, a couple of pipes, a pair of glasses, a monocle and a nun's hood and a couple of bandanas.
- Clothes: A lot of new things going on here as well. Every US army uniform re-textured to a more vibrant color and according to historical standards. Also, for infantry privates, rucksacks, blankets added, as well as canteen for anyone up to the rank of major. New uniforms for a number of real regiments and units added for both the US and the CS, such as Berdan's sharpshooters, Clynch rifles, US marines(the 1865 uniform), Lynchburg rifles, Alabama Dragoons, Tennessee Infantry, Zouaves etc. A lot of 'cowboy' shirts added and a couple of shirts with vests. A priest cassock, a priest frock, a nun's habit and a couple of mid-19th century Chinese costumes added. New, better dresses for women, new overcoats, a whole new selection of French uniforms of the Expeditioary force sent to Mexico, new ponchos. All the Mexican army uniforms re-textured or entirely replaced by better quality and historically more accurate uniforms. New coats and shirts for sheriffs, complete with the star, new vests. Some(I am amazed to say really few, actually) typos of the original mod fixed and all the values for the clothes fixed. Armor values that make more sense, for clothing, re-balanced prices. The Indian clothes follow in the same logic; new costumes, re-textured ones.
- Melee weapons: Now, here a lot of changes have taken place. A lot of new melee weapons added, knives, machetes, swords, a sword-cane, axes, hammers, tools, whatever. From the old models, those I decided to keep, I re-textured. There was a problem with the original textures, that is also located with the firearms; most, since I guess the authors used parts of photos from original weapons, were rusty, dark, with heavy patinas on them, which is natural for 150 years-old weapons. But since the mod takes places in 1866, the weapons should be new! I've taken care of that. All the weapons are nice and shiny, where they should be, with normal maps and specular maps added to each accordingly. Reach fixed for many of them, as well as damage values, weight and speed. The two native Indian shields were re-textured, as well, with more items added to the shield category, mainly off-hand knives.
- Ranged weapons: Since we are talking about a western, a lot of work has been done in this category, specifically. The same texture problem with old-looking, rusty and patina-ridden handguns persisted. Now, all the guns look new, each one re-textured. In this point, I ask for your forgiveness, because I took the liberty and added a couple of firearms later manufactured, like the S&W Model 3 and the Colt SAA of 1873. I just couldn't resist. A couple of firearms added to ranged weapons, mainly chassepot musketoons and carbines, a Berdan rifle, a grenadoe, some knock-offs and conversions, like the Sisterdale revolver. ALL the firearms names changed to their official name and model. A couple of new models were added, made by me; namely, the Barnes Pepperbox and the Continental Arms Pepperbox. Also, the damage system is completely changed. I found it annoying that the 'cool' factor was taken into account, making some Colt and Remington models have way more damage and speed than any other weapon. Now, the damage value is the caliber of the weapon for handguns(like 44, 36, 31, 22 etc.) and for rifles, the caliber times 2. Liberties have been taken for reasons of balance and sanity. Reload speed adjusted accordingly. I found my system to work really good and produce a more enjoyable experience. Now, anyone can die by a bullet and health is important, but not to the point of receiving 3 bullet wounds to the head and surviving.
- Troops: Since the troop trees for every faction were overhauled, I will explain each of them in detail. Generally, I tried to have a lot of different troops, historically accurate in their armament and clothing, but I did not want to be 'trapped' to dry historical surroundings.
[list type=decimal] - United States: The army of the US is based on the historical regiments found in Texas about the same time as the mod, the start of the Indian Wars. Now, your troops can advancy only up to lance corporals, as it didn't have much sense to see an army of sergeants, as in the original mod. All units, cavalry and infantry, use historically accurate weapons. The volunteer units of this faction include the famed Berdan's sharpshooters, the Zouaves and a detached regiment of the Canadian army.
- Mexico:A thing that bothered me in the original mod is that the Mexicans used the uniforms from the 1840s, were Imperial units and had Juarista commanders. In the sub-mod, the army is the imperial army of the 1860s, with the uniforms to match, new units and most importantly, Imperial Officers, also with the correct uniforms.
- Apaches:For the Apaches, I wanted to have a troop tree that would reflect the tribes present to the Southwest, mostly. So, they have a diverse ranged of troops with Chiricahua Apaches, Mescalero and Navajo Apaches.
- Comanches: As for the Coanches, I also wanted variety, but in terms of units. You have bowmen, mounted and unmounted, riflemen and very competent tomahawk and mace fighters.
- Confederate Renegades:For the Confederates, I added some units to each roaming party, making them not just bandits, but in later game, a considerable force. The Infantry and Cavalry branches are fleshed out, with units like the Alabama dragoons, the Virginia Cavalry, Lynchburg rifles etc. and not just generic Infantry or Cavalry. The standard infantry units have their kepis, too, and not just white stetsons.
- French Expeditionary Force:Now, as I mentioned, the army of the Mexican faction had Imperial troops and the roaming 'Imperial' patrols, which were opposed to all, Mexico included, were also Imperial units, which didn't make much sense. Now, the roaming patrols belong to the French expeditionary force, sent to Mexico(see here for more info). These patrols include one Officer each, standard French Infantry and Cavalry units and also, Foreign Legion Infantry and Cavalry. As always, with the correct equipment, all of those units.
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