DrunkenSailor
Recruit
I didn't find a thread dedicated to bugreports and reviews, so I'll start a new one.
I'm an avid fan of the fantastic 1866 mod for the original M&B, and since the team behind it is not going to port it to warband, I thought this 1860 mod will be 1866's warband counterpart. While downloading, I expected an enhanced version of 1866 at best, a complete ripoff at worst. But what I got is, well, a strange thing that is not even a mod in it's proper sense.
Let's quickly outline the good things of this mod, since they are so few.
[*]Pros:
Soundtrack.
The choice and variety of tracks is great and really helps you to immerse yourself in the game. It could use a few more songs, but it is still good.
Town scenes.
These are also great. Towns, villages, forts, indian camps, all of them are stunning and authentic. Although there isn't a lot of scenes, and many locations share the same scenes, the low quantity is compensated by good quality.
Items (visual-wise)
Rifles and pistols are fairly detailed, there is a big variety of outfits for nearly every type of character, and most of them look decent. The gun selection is wide, almost all of the well-known gun of the period are included in the mod.
[*]Cons:
This is gonna be a long list
Items (gameplay-wise)
The gunplay in this mod is completely broken. First, many guns are completely obsolete since they are worse than the gun that you start with, and there is no reason to use them. Sure, you could arm lowly looters and rascals with those trash guns, but there is just too many of them. Some guns are completely outmatched by other guns of the same class, again making them obsolete. Why would you want to use a Hawken rifle if a Snider rifle has almost the same price but is much better in every single aspect? Also, the whole class of shotguns is broken and useless, they only shoot a single projectile but still have abysmal accuracy as if they were shooting buckshot.
Second, guns in this mod are pinpoint accurate (all rifles have accuracy 100, most pistols and revolvers are ~90), damage is also very high (~200 for muskets, ~100 for pistols). To compensate for that, the developer set extreme friction value for bullets (the bigger the value, the faster the projectile loses its speed). Because of this friction value, bullets in this mod behave like arrows - they are slow, lose their speed (and subsequently damage) very quickly, and damage dropoff over distance is insane. The aforementioned Hawken rifle does 255 damage pointblank, but falls to 90 in just ten meters. Seriously, bows from native have better range than firearms in this mod. So, every shot at close distance is a guaranteed one shot kill no matter what, every hit at long distance barely even scratches the enemy (that is, if you actually manage to hit something before your bullet falls down to the ground because of that extreme friction value).
Third, there are items like "2xRemington Six-shot revolvers" which are actually just one remington revolver with 12 shots. Why not make a pistol model for shieldarm so that the character actually wields two pistols? Or better yet, remove these weapons altogether, since akimbo shooting is a hollywood cliche and was never extensively used in real life.
Fourth, there are gunsmith traders in this mod that sell unique, high-end guns and equipment, like Henry repeater (which is OP by the way) and such. Not only those enhanced guns are extremely cheap and easily affordable, the trader also sells "GABRILDURO armored poncho (cheat)" and "Hand cannon (cheat)" items. Yes, they literally have (CHEAT) in their names, and indeed they are overpowered, the poncho has 999 armor rating and the rifle shoots exploding cannonballs. And they are cheaper than some of the normal guns and outfits. This is absolutely unacceptable, items like these should not exist, and even if they do, the player must never have access to them without cheatmenus, let alone buy them for a fistful of dollars from a merchant. There is also a joke weapon - a throwable powder keg twice the size of the character, it costs 300 dollars (you start with 350), it can be thrown further than bullets travel in this mod and it instakills anything in blast zone. Nuff said.
SOLUTION:
Remove cheat items. Reduce accuracy of all guns and friction value of all projectiles - guns should be slightly inaccurate but deadly, not the other way around. Increase prices of enhanced weapons, or make them harder to get (add quests for unique weapons, for example). Rewrite all stats completely so that every gun has its own use, not just 255 damage and 100 accuracy for everything. Some guns have blunt damage type, change them to piercing.
Economy
Economy is broken as well. Dollars are incredibly easy to make and maintain. After every battle you get huge loads of items which sell for a high price. Enterprises are useless because a single battle with a bunch of looters yields more money than the enterprise would make in a month. Items are very cheap, with the most expensive weapon pricing at 2000 dollars (2000 dollars is one battle with indian raiders). I doubt there is a gun or an outfit in this mod that costs more than 3000 dollars. Every town has exactly same items for sell. Whether its a CSA town, a Mexican town or an Indian camp, they all sell the same stuff. Trade is also nonexistent because of this, since all towns have the same shortages of commodities, every trading item has the same price everywhere, making trading routes pointless. Also, I don't know whether this is a bug or intended, but no town sells revolvers. The only way to get a revolver is to loot it in battle or start the game with it.
SOLUTION:
Increase prices. All prices. Adjust the assortment of towns, so that Indian towns sell Indian items, USA towns sell USA items etc. Buff the enterprises, also restrict them from Indian towns because I'm pretty sure indians didn't have dyeworks in their camps to make velvet from silk and dye.
Factions
First, there is no way to look at the troop trees without upgrading the troops. Second, all troops use the same equipment and weaponry (for example, the only difference between CSA Volunteer (bottom tier, recruited from villages) and CSA Best Shooter (the final upgrade) is their level). Proficiency also get better with upgraded troops, but since guns are pinpoint accurate, that isn't much of a deal. In addition, there are no anti-cavalry units (musketmen don't even have bayonets for some reason, they surely did IRL) and cavalry carbines are almost as powerful as infantry rifles, so there is no reason to use any unit that is not cavalry.
SOLUTION:
Add more variety in troop armaments, add a "View Troop trees" menu, nerf cavalry.
Self-insertion
A very rare and odd issue, I've never encountered it before. The problem is, the developer thinks that the player absolutely must know the author of this mod, so he put his name literally everywhere. There is a "by GABRILDURO" in launcher, "GABRILDURO" in loading screen, "GABRILDURO" in main menu, "GABRILDURO" in character creation, "GABRILDURO" in game, there is a "GABRILDURO" poncho (yes, the one with 999 armor) and GABRILDURO character, and all companions have no other line than "Hi I'm GABRILDURO's friend!". Yes GABRILDURO, yes, I got it already, yes, you made this mod, yes, no need to tell me that all the damn time. Also, remove lines like "Remember to rate this mod on moddb" on loading screens, they really break immersion.
SOLUTION:
It says "by GABRILDURO" in the launcher. That's enough.
SHOOTOUTS and SHOWDOWNS
Yes, like that, in all caps. These were probably the most advertised features of the mod, everywhere from moddb to TW forums the author bragged about new unique fascinating SHOOTOUTS and SHOWDOWNS! Well, okay, I found a town with a Showdown in progress and joined it. Since it was advertised so much, I expected something truly unique, something I've never seen before. Needless to say I was utterly disappointed. The "famous" SHOWDOWN is actually an exact copy of native tournament, but with revolvers instead of lances. No, its actually is even worse than native, because native had dedicated scenes for tournaments. Here, showdowns take place in the regular town scene, which doesn't fit this purpose at all. Fighters get stuck all the time, sometimes an enemy spawns right behind you and instakills you, and when there is one enemy left you can spend ages looking for him because he got stuck in some wall or building (remember that scenes are really big).
Shootouts (arena in native) are also bad and unfinished. A shootout takes place in a small building or on a ferry, the player spawns with a pistol and other fighters spawn with no weapons at all (bare fists). Shooting unarmed people is of course easy, but quickly gets boring. Occasionally, an NPC fighter spawns with a pistol, so that you could kill him and replenish ammo.
Map
Map is also very bad. It's just a big barren wasteland with towns and villages scattered around it. There are no forests, no custom objects, no bridges, no mountains, nothing. Not only it's aesthetically bad, it's also inaccurate. Many town's locations are wrong, there are towns that haven't yet existed in 1866, and rivers and mountains (the lack of them) are also wrong.
Misc
This mod doesn't have widely-used OSP mods like Diplomacy, Battle Continuation, Freelancer, PreBattle Orders and Deployment etc - all those little mods which are so widely used that they are expected to always be there. Seriously, when was the last time you've played a big total-conversion mod without at least Diplomacy incorporated in it? Enjoy losing an already won battle because some stray bullet hit you and the game autoresolved the battle in enemy's favor.
Player starts with a small arsenal of different weapons and multiple stacks of pretty expensive trade items (I got velvet, linen, tools and three stacks of silver). If you want the player to start off rich, why not directly increase the starting money instead?
Companions are OP, they start with very high skills and stats and are free. They are also named after the author's friends, thus breaking immersion.
Indian's red skin is actually a part of their armor. When you talk to an Indian companion, he takes off his helmet (his "head"), and appears as a red-skinned indian with a white european head.
Bullets have no effects when they hit the ground or walls or anything.
Pathfinding is broken, NPC's get stuck in walls and fences all the time.
Headshots are not lethal.
Seafaring skill is useless, although there is a possibility to buy a ship and set sail, there is no reason to do so.
Banners (flags) are broken.
Many words are written in ALL CAPS for no reason.
The merchant's starting quest (gather five men and rescue merchant's brother) is completely unchanged from native.
Characters such as town mayors and village elders are named after the author's forum friends nicknames, thus breaking immersion.
General Napoleon III exists in the game for some reason, you lose relations with him every week.
There are MP-only pseudofactions that do not exist anywhere on the map and get "eliminated" in the first week of the game yet still keep cluttering the factions tab. Why would someone import MP factions into SP to get rid of them a week later is beyond me.
The player character creation is unchanged from native. You can be born in an impoverished noble's family, spend your youth as a squire etc - all in 1860 year.
Overall, this mod is one big disappointment. Everything except the visual resources (scenes, models) is either broken, unfinished or simply bad. I expected a 1866 upgrade at best, or a simple remake at worst, but what I got is a mash-up of assets with barely any work in the actual gameplay department. I would give this 4/10 for visuals and music alone, but since the author didn't make those (took them from 1866 and various OSPs), I can't. My final score is 3/10.
I'm an avid fan of the fantastic 1866 mod for the original M&B, and since the team behind it is not going to port it to warband, I thought this 1860 mod will be 1866's warband counterpart. While downloading, I expected an enhanced version of 1866 at best, a complete ripoff at worst. But what I got is, well, a strange thing that is not even a mod in it's proper sense.
Let's quickly outline the good things of this mod, since they are so few.
[*]Pros:
Soundtrack.
The choice and variety of tracks is great and really helps you to immerse yourself in the game. It could use a few more songs, but it is still good.
Town scenes.
These are also great. Towns, villages, forts, indian camps, all of them are stunning and authentic. Although there isn't a lot of scenes, and many locations share the same scenes, the low quantity is compensated by good quality.
Items (visual-wise)
Rifles and pistols are fairly detailed, there is a big variety of outfits for nearly every type of character, and most of them look decent. The gun selection is wide, almost all of the well-known gun of the period are included in the mod.
[*]Cons:
This is gonna be a long list
Items (gameplay-wise)
The gunplay in this mod is completely broken. First, many guns are completely obsolete since they are worse than the gun that you start with, and there is no reason to use them. Sure, you could arm lowly looters and rascals with those trash guns, but there is just too many of them. Some guns are completely outmatched by other guns of the same class, again making them obsolete. Why would you want to use a Hawken rifle if a Snider rifle has almost the same price but is much better in every single aspect? Also, the whole class of shotguns is broken and useless, they only shoot a single projectile but still have abysmal accuracy as if they were shooting buckshot.
Second, guns in this mod are pinpoint accurate (all rifles have accuracy 100, most pistols and revolvers are ~90), damage is also very high (~200 for muskets, ~100 for pistols). To compensate for that, the developer set extreme friction value for bullets (the bigger the value, the faster the projectile loses its speed). Because of this friction value, bullets in this mod behave like arrows - they are slow, lose their speed (and subsequently damage) very quickly, and damage dropoff over distance is insane. The aforementioned Hawken rifle does 255 damage pointblank, but falls to 90 in just ten meters. Seriously, bows from native have better range than firearms in this mod. So, every shot at close distance is a guaranteed one shot kill no matter what, every hit at long distance barely even scratches the enemy (that is, if you actually manage to hit something before your bullet falls down to the ground because of that extreme friction value).
Third, there are items like "2xRemington Six-shot revolvers" which are actually just one remington revolver with 12 shots. Why not make a pistol model for shieldarm so that the character actually wields two pistols? Or better yet, remove these weapons altogether, since akimbo shooting is a hollywood cliche and was never extensively used in real life.
Fourth, there are gunsmith traders in this mod that sell unique, high-end guns and equipment, like Henry repeater (which is OP by the way) and such. Not only those enhanced guns are extremely cheap and easily affordable, the trader also sells "GABRILDURO armored poncho (cheat)" and "Hand cannon (cheat)" items. Yes, they literally have (CHEAT) in their names, and indeed they are overpowered, the poncho has 999 armor rating and the rifle shoots exploding cannonballs. And they are cheaper than some of the normal guns and outfits. This is absolutely unacceptable, items like these should not exist, and even if they do, the player must never have access to them without cheatmenus, let alone buy them for a fistful of dollars from a merchant. There is also a joke weapon - a throwable powder keg twice the size of the character, it costs 300 dollars (you start with 350), it can be thrown further than bullets travel in this mod and it instakills anything in blast zone. Nuff said.
SOLUTION:
Remove cheat items. Reduce accuracy of all guns and friction value of all projectiles - guns should be slightly inaccurate but deadly, not the other way around. Increase prices of enhanced weapons, or make them harder to get (add quests for unique weapons, for example). Rewrite all stats completely so that every gun has its own use, not just 255 damage and 100 accuracy for everything. Some guns have blunt damage type, change them to piercing.
Economy
Economy is broken as well. Dollars are incredibly easy to make and maintain. After every battle you get huge loads of items which sell for a high price. Enterprises are useless because a single battle with a bunch of looters yields more money than the enterprise would make in a month. Items are very cheap, with the most expensive weapon pricing at 2000 dollars (2000 dollars is one battle with indian raiders). I doubt there is a gun or an outfit in this mod that costs more than 3000 dollars. Every town has exactly same items for sell. Whether its a CSA town, a Mexican town or an Indian camp, they all sell the same stuff. Trade is also nonexistent because of this, since all towns have the same shortages of commodities, every trading item has the same price everywhere, making trading routes pointless. Also, I don't know whether this is a bug or intended, but no town sells revolvers. The only way to get a revolver is to loot it in battle or start the game with it.
SOLUTION:
Increase prices. All prices. Adjust the assortment of towns, so that Indian towns sell Indian items, USA towns sell USA items etc. Buff the enterprises, also restrict them from Indian towns because I'm pretty sure indians didn't have dyeworks in their camps to make velvet from silk and dye.
Factions
First, there is no way to look at the troop trees without upgrading the troops. Second, all troops use the same equipment and weaponry (for example, the only difference between CSA Volunteer (bottom tier, recruited from villages) and CSA Best Shooter (the final upgrade) is their level). Proficiency also get better with upgraded troops, but since guns are pinpoint accurate, that isn't much of a deal. In addition, there are no anti-cavalry units (musketmen don't even have bayonets for some reason, they surely did IRL) and cavalry carbines are almost as powerful as infantry rifles, so there is no reason to use any unit that is not cavalry.
SOLUTION:
Add more variety in troop armaments, add a "View Troop trees" menu, nerf cavalry.
Self-insertion
A very rare and odd issue, I've never encountered it before. The problem is, the developer thinks that the player absolutely must know the author of this mod, so he put his name literally everywhere. There is a "by GABRILDURO" in launcher, "GABRILDURO" in loading screen, "GABRILDURO" in main menu, "GABRILDURO" in character creation, "GABRILDURO" in game, there is a "GABRILDURO" poncho (yes, the one with 999 armor) and GABRILDURO character, and all companions have no other line than "Hi I'm GABRILDURO's friend!". Yes GABRILDURO, yes, I got it already, yes, you made this mod, yes, no need to tell me that all the damn time. Also, remove lines like "Remember to rate this mod on moddb" on loading screens, they really break immersion.
SOLUTION:
It says "by GABRILDURO" in the launcher. That's enough.
SHOOTOUTS and SHOWDOWNS
Yes, like that, in all caps. These were probably the most advertised features of the mod, everywhere from moddb to TW forums the author bragged about new unique fascinating SHOOTOUTS and SHOWDOWNS! Well, okay, I found a town with a Showdown in progress and joined it. Since it was advertised so much, I expected something truly unique, something I've never seen before. Needless to say I was utterly disappointed. The "famous" SHOWDOWN is actually an exact copy of native tournament, but with revolvers instead of lances. No, its actually is even worse than native, because native had dedicated scenes for tournaments. Here, showdowns take place in the regular town scene, which doesn't fit this purpose at all. Fighters get stuck all the time, sometimes an enemy spawns right behind you and instakills you, and when there is one enemy left you can spend ages looking for him because he got stuck in some wall or building (remember that scenes are really big).
Shootouts (arena in native) are also bad and unfinished. A shootout takes place in a small building or on a ferry, the player spawns with a pistol and other fighters spawn with no weapons at all (bare fists). Shooting unarmed people is of course easy, but quickly gets boring. Occasionally, an NPC fighter spawns with a pistol, so that you could kill him and replenish ammo.
Map
Map is also very bad. It's just a big barren wasteland with towns and villages scattered around it. There are no forests, no custom objects, no bridges, no mountains, nothing. Not only it's aesthetically bad, it's also inaccurate. Many town's locations are wrong, there are towns that haven't yet existed in 1866, and rivers and mountains (the lack of them) are also wrong.
Misc
This mod doesn't have widely-used OSP mods like Diplomacy, Battle Continuation, Freelancer, PreBattle Orders and Deployment etc - all those little mods which are so widely used that they are expected to always be there. Seriously, when was the last time you've played a big total-conversion mod without at least Diplomacy incorporated in it? Enjoy losing an already won battle because some stray bullet hit you and the game autoresolved the battle in enemy's favor.
Player starts with a small arsenal of different weapons and multiple stacks of pretty expensive trade items (I got velvet, linen, tools and three stacks of silver). If you want the player to start off rich, why not directly increase the starting money instead?
Companions are OP, they start with very high skills and stats and are free. They are also named after the author's friends, thus breaking immersion.
Indian's red skin is actually a part of their armor. When you talk to an Indian companion, he takes off his helmet (his "head"), and appears as a red-skinned indian with a white european head.
Bullets have no effects when they hit the ground or walls or anything.
Pathfinding is broken, NPC's get stuck in walls and fences all the time.
Headshots are not lethal.
Seafaring skill is useless, although there is a possibility to buy a ship and set sail, there is no reason to do so.
Banners (flags) are broken.
Many words are written in ALL CAPS for no reason.
The merchant's starting quest (gather five men and rescue merchant's brother) is completely unchanged from native.
Characters such as town mayors and village elders are named after the author's forum friends nicknames, thus breaking immersion.
General Napoleon III exists in the game for some reason, you lose relations with him every week.
There are MP-only pseudofactions that do not exist anywhere on the map and get "eliminated" in the first week of the game yet still keep cluttering the factions tab. Why would someone import MP factions into SP to get rid of them a week later is beyond me.
The player character creation is unchanged from native. You can be born in an impoverished noble's family, spend your youth as a squire etc - all in 1860 year.
Overall, this mod is one big disappointment. Everything except the visual resources (scenes, models) is either broken, unfinished or simply bad. I expected a 1866 upgrade at best, or a simple remake at worst, but what I got is a mash-up of assets with barely any work in the actual gameplay department. I would give this 4/10 for visuals and music alone, but since the author didn't make those (took them from 1866 and various OSPs), I can't. My final score is 3/10.
