Patch 1.08a file - American Civil War

AGEod's American Civil War Update 1.08a
December 27th, 2007.
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Fixes for the 1.08 patch:
- Ledger buttons work as before (reminder: the mouse wheel scrolls the units in the ledger)
- ROE buttons will default to standard when you create a new game.
- If historical attrition is enabled, you can only recover lost elements if on a depot, but you can still recover hits if in any structure.
- Patterson & McClellan events work again.

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AGEod's American Civil War Update 1.08
December 24th, 2007.
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This patch contains all changes since the start.
You can continue a saved game created before the patch. Most entry will apply, but not all.
This patch is the Christmas patch and IS compatible with previous saves, for most entries.

There are 9 entries for the Christmas patch.

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Gameplay changes or additions
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I - New ruleset: Rules of Engagement.
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ROE buttons are independent from posture. They define the combat rules under which your units fight, as dictated by the general in command, for each stack.

Before proceeding with the description of the ROE, some definitions. It is important to understand the difference between the will to retreat, the chance to retreat and a rout:

· Will to retreat: The commander in chief during battle, decide each round (2 hours) if your side should retreat or not. This depends on how many losses each side sustained, what is the current balance of power and some others factors. If the decision is taken, then your stacks try to retreat.
· Chance to retreat: If the decision to retreat is taken, each stack try to retreat, with a % roll depending of many factors, including the speed of the stack, the relative ratio of cavalry, and others factors like leaders abilities.
· Routing: A rout is an unwanted retreat, where retreat losses are much increased. Contrary to a willing retreat, rout always succeeds though.

In Assault or Offensive posture, the possible ROE are:

· All out attack: Your side will not try to retreat during the first two rounds of battle, then the retreat chance will be decreased for the rest of the day. The losses of both sides are increased, but more for your side.
· Sustained Attack: This is the default behavior. No changes to the combat resolution segment are done.
· Conservative Attack: Your side will want to call-off the attack starting with the third round (unless the defender is collapsing) and the chances to succeed in doing so are increased. Both sides have equally fewer losses.
· Feint/Probe Attack: Your side will want to call-off the attack starting with the second round (unless the defender is collapsing) and the chances to succeed in doing so are greatly increased. Both sides have losses much reduced

In Defensive posture, the possible ROE are:

· Hold at all Cost: Your side will never willingly try to retreat (Routing is possible!)
· Defend: No changes to the standard rules.
· Defend and Retreat: Your side will want to retreat starting with the third round (unless the attack is failing) and the chances to succeed in doing so are increased.
· Retreat if Engaged: Increased retreat chances including the retreat roll before actual combat.

Last, in Passive posture, you are always in Retreat if Engaged ROE. The other options are not active. According to the Passive Posture, you have combat penalties and suffer heavier losses. However you also have the non-combat bonuses of this Posture, especially a stronger cohesion and a better replacement ratio.

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II - Historical Attrition Option
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There is a new gameplay option, available thru the Options Window, called Historical Attrition (or 'Hardened' Attrition), the three possible levels are:

Standard: It means that non-moving troops won't lose men from desertions and sickness. (work as before)

Historical, for the player only: It means that non-moving player troops, will lose men from desertion and sickness every turn. The intensity will vary depending of the region they are in. Also, you can only get back men ('hits') in elements by being over a depot.

Historical, for AI too: Same as second option but the AI has it activated too, except for the troops on depot part.

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III - Morale losses and gains in battle
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There is much less randomness involved when a point of morale must be lost or gained in battle.

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Interface
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IV - ZIP handling of saves
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The turn files can be compressed in ZIP format. This allow a faster transfer in multiplayer games, protect them against data corruption (that can always happen during file transfer) and allow you to set a password for multiplayer games. See the Options Window for more details.

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V - Historical options feedback
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Now, when a side choose an historical option (Drafting troops, printing money, etc.), the other side get a notification.

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Scenario Updates & Bugs fixes
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Three scenarios have been added. They are mostly complete, but please bear in mind that errors can happen (and the volunteers will fix then in due time). They are the good work of Bigus (Jeff Licker), with background from Robert Osterlund aka Berto.

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VI - Trans Mississippi Scenario (61- 62)
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VII - Atlanta Scenario, 1864
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VIII - Vicksburg 1863 Scenario
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Bugs
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Music should play & restart correctly now