Comments - Turtler7

Very interesting approach, and I think it works a lot.

However, I'd suggest adding these to the tech trees of (at least) Britain and Italy as well. Maybe even Russia.

Historically, US troops were committed in division sized forces to the Western Front and Italy during the War, and retained fiercely independent of both French and British command short of Joffie. So I think it makes more sense if they "straddle the line" by being recruitable by all the major Western Allies.

Oh God Oh God oh God. This is fantastic. I had feared this thing was dead, which was a shame since it was my favorite mod. And now it's coming back!!!

I love it. But question: any idea on when it will be around?

But a few pointers.

1: If I had to pick one Baltic emergent, I'd pick Estonia, not Latvia. Simply because it was *by far* the strongest of the Three during WWI and the interbellum, bar none. It alone retained its territory more or less intact throughout WWI and the Bolshevik attacks, it sent troops East and South to pursue its policies, and generally was a notable local player.

In contrast Latvia was torn in half by the Reds and subject to first a civil war between Whites and Reds and then occupation by Freikorps, and Lithuania was almost completely overrun by the Reds, then partially by the Poles, and had a long time clawing itself back.

Perhaps one could make different variants of it like the "United Baltic Duchy" (Germany's possible puppet state in the East for this territory) if it is an Absolute Monarchy, or the Iskolat Republic if Communist (Latvian rather than Estonian, but the youngest and longest lived of the Red statelets in the Baltics and the most independent from Petrograd in terms of resources).

2. In terms of religion, I feel like it should be used for political ideology instead, much like it is used (very well) for the Peninsular War expansion.

I'm just not sure about how this would work. But I think it would better model the important concerns of the day and what actually caused political dissidence. IDK how it would work though. Simply "Absolutist" (ala the Imperial dictatorships in Russia, Germany, the KuK, the Ottomans), "Communists" (to represent Lenin, the Spartakists, etc,...maybe Kemal if really pushed? while replacing Communism) and "Democrats/Constitutionalists" strikes me as too easy.

Though I figure modeling things like "German Absolutism", "German Republicanism," "British Constitutionalism v. Irish Republicanism", and the like might get to be too complicated real fast. But I think it would better model political and ethnic tensions than religion would.

Particularly since religious cleavages often fueled political ones (for instance, Irish Catholics flocked to first Home Rule and then republicanism, the Jews' long experience suffering under Tsarism led them to support Social Democrats, the Poles were uppity as Poles are, and so on) without actually being exclusive to them (you saw a fair number of Catholic Unionists, Dimirijevic and Hoetzendorff may have agreed on an autocratic monarchy but they clearly did not agree on which monarchy should control the Slavic lands of the Balkans, etc).

Ultimately it's easy for me to criticize on the sidelines when I'm not one of those trying to code for this. But I do feel an ideological orientation rather than a religious one would work better for this mod.

But in any case, I know it's gonna be good!

Eagerly awaiting 5.2!

Right, I decided to override the Exe and Shortcut extracted from the zip with the one I backed up, and that fixed the problem, so I can now play my game again. Including this mod. So for future reference, I would *Remove the Exe override from the ZIP*

So far, I'm still dipping my feet in but I'm impressed. In particular, I really love the reworked sound. The added bits in the town are very, very good.

I'll have more feedback when I can get more time to play, but so far I must give my kudos.

Edit: After backing up my game and copy/pasting the entire directory in, it turns out the situation was far worse than I thought.

Put it simply, doing this led to M&B being locked in to Trial Version. That's Bad enough, particularly if there wasn't the old "Enter your Warband Serial" exploit. But not particularly uncommon when dealing with original M&B mods.

No, what REALLY set this apart is that after doing this, the game restarted.... and then threw up ANOTHER Trial notification thing. So in other words, I literally *cannot* play this mod with any kind of coherence, even if I did what the author suggested. And moreover, doing so has locked me into a pattern where- had I not taken precautions- I'd be unable to play the original.

So to whoever downvoted me, I suggest you realize that this is a very real concern. And unfortunately, it's the main one I have to focus on.

I don't like having to obsess over this instead of someone's labor of love, but the situation doesn't give me a choice.

I admire the purpose of this project, I truly do. 1866 is one of my favorites and it is good to see it get more love.

BUT.

Would it be murder to make a version of the mod for people who do *not* want to immediately rip out and replace most of the stuff in the game, especially stuff not isolated to a mod?

I tried to transmit the mod alone and when I try to read it, no text appears.

Some of us are fine tolerating the Medieval-y text because we also play other mods. So could this be addressed?

Awesome scenario and flavor, but there's a few BIG FREAKING PROBLEMS.

For starters, if the Whites go on the offensive in the Far Eastern Republic, they're apparently at war with everybody. Not just the Bolsheviks as is appropos, but also the Western Allies/Entente, and the Japanese. The latter of which I can at least see given Japanese ambitions to tear off the Russian Far East, but the Entente...should at least get an explanation.

But that is small potatos compared to the bigger problem if you play as the Bolsheviks, because the game DOES NOT get things.

So I start up my first Bolshevik campaign. I get told that I can use espionage missions (and they are used awesomely) but that I have to make peace with Germany , even if I must sacrifice something.

So I go "Ok." And being an experienced RON grognard, I decide to start hitting both the espionage missions and the minor powers religiously, starting with a strike on Berlin on my first turn. I prevail, overthrowing the Empire and turning the Reich into a client state of mine. And presumably ending the war.

I then go on to continue doing this with the tribute flowing in, turning Central Asia, Finland, Hungary, and Germany red (the last one again, because scripting).

And that turns into a PROBLEM. After a while, I get a three turns notice that I haven't made peace with the Central Powers yet. In spite of both Germany and Hungary having been toppled Central Europe growing redder by the day.

Then as I open up a campaign against the Caucasus and Balkans, and things go smoothly...

I JUUUST finish off Turkey- the very last of the Central Powers- when I get hit with a six month insta death event that even though I have heads of the Kaiser, Ludendorff, Horthy, and the Pashas on my desk in a neat little line and Muh Workers' Unity stretching across Central Europe, *THE FACT THAT I HAVE NOT MADE PEACE WITH THESE DEAD BODIES* apparently turns the public into a tizzy and overthrows me. (Where's the Cheka when you need them?)

This is a game breaking bug, and it BADLY needs fixing.

But other than that, it looks like it has a great deal of promise. I just wish there were some way to adjust the colors of the playable faction so aren't found playing as Red Whites. And in particular the Espionage missions are REALLY, REALLY well used. *FAR* better than in the Cold War game that began them IMHO.

If anything I'd suggest another one for interventions in Mongolia and Romania to simulate the Communist agitation there0 first in the Mongolian underground and then the corss border raids in Transylvania and Moldavia, especially by Moldavian communists. Some ones for the Whites would not go amiss either, especially with the resoruces of the Western Allies.

But I'm glad I have this installed on my computer.

Can we KINDLY have something to avoid the imprisonment?

There is nothing enjoyable about being railroaded through a minute or so of watching the screen go by, and I can easily manhandle three Russian troops.

The Launcher is absolutely impossible to work with; I'm having the EXACT same problem as VonGazza and bell117. At first the launcher was stable enough to update to 5.2 and launch the game, but now it is flat out impossible to play or adjust.

The game- from what I saw- seemed to work fie. But now it won't automatically remove again. What am I supposed to do?

I'd highly suggest placing 5.2 and all future patches as downloadables here. So we are not shackled to this corpse of a Launcher.