The American Civil War Mod: Revived! Full Release Version 2.5 file

If you have installed the mod before, you must delete any previous versions of the mod and start a new game. Never overwrite any files or try to play a saved game from a previous version of the mod.

1. Download the winrar package called, "The American Civil War Mod Revived v2.5", and save it to your desktop or another preferred destination that you can easily access.
2. Open the package and extract the folder inside called, "The American Civil War Mod Revived", to your modules folder (default location should be, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MountBlade Warband\Modules").
3. Start Mount & Blade: Warband, select the mod from the drop down menu, and play!

You can join the mod's discord server here: Discord.gg

If you are getting crashes: you need to enable load textures on demand and disable sound variation in your launcher settings. If that alone doesn't work, then you should lower your graphical settings. Don't put everything on max, avoid using resource intensive settings, and don't have more than 300 troops in a battle at once. If you still get crashes, then try loading the mod using Warband Script Enhancer (WSE2). When using WSE2, make sure to run Native once through the WSE2 launcher before trying to use it with the mod, and turn off FXAA and post processing, otherwise the screen will be black. Links to instructions for how to set up and use WSE2 are included under the mod's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Crashes in Mount & Blade mods are typically a result of the game's old and outdated engine, which is poorly optimized, full of bugs, and limits the amount of video memory the game can use. WSE2 is a new engine for Mount & Blade that not only resolves the issues the old engine has that result in crashes, but also dramatically improves the game's performance. Some players have even reported it making so much of a difference that they could fight with 500 - 1,000 troops in a battle at once!

Scenes and Map Locations:

• Vicksburg changed to a city, with new town center and siege scene.
• Fort Fisher added to the campaign map, with it's own custom scene.
• New siege scenes for the cities of Jackson, Montgomery, and Richmond.
• New forts: Fort Snelling and Fort Macon.
• Some forts changed to cities, with new town center scenes: Atlanta, Savannah, and Chicago.
• New city added: Houston, with custom scene.
• New villages added: St. Paul, Newark, Jackson OH, Camp Dick Robinson, Corpus Christi, and Sandy Springs.
• Harpers Ferry map in custom battles replaced with the Siege of Vicksburg.
• Racine renamed to Camp Randall, with a new custom scene.
• New village scenes for Munford, New London and Johnsonville.
• Replaced scenes for Buffalo and Fort Augusta.
• Replaced Native American scenes that were still medieval castles with new custom scenes.
• New interiors for all Native American forts, and most of their cities, replacing the old placeholder medieval interiors.
• New trench props added to some siege scenes, including Petersburg and Missionary Ridge (Chattanooga).
• Fort Madison renamed to Springfield, duplicate Springfield renamed to Hartford, and duplicate Hartford renamed to Concord.

Gameplay:

• New Union regiments: 21st Ohio Infantry, 79th New York Infantry "Cameron Highlanders", 58th New York Infantry "Polish Legion", Birge's Western Sharpshooters, United States Marine Corps, 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, 20th Massachusetts Infantry "Harvard Regiment", 35th Indiana Infantry "First Irish", and the Michigan Cavalry Brigade "Wolverines".
• New Confederate regiments: 2nd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters, 7th Louisiana Infantry "Pelican Regiment", and the 2nd Florida Cavalry.
• New weapons: Griswold & Gunnison revolver, shotgun, coach gun, sawed-off shotgun, Pattern 1856 Enfield Short Rifle, Beaumont-Adams Revolver, Colt Dragoon Revolver, Model 1860 Light Cavalry Saber, and Model 1850 Staff & Field Officer's Sword.
• New artillery piece: Model 1841 6-pounder field gun.
• Grenades added, including the Ketchum grenade and improvised artillery shell grenades.
• New area of recruitment system, vastly improving troop organization and making the need for a troop tree obsolete.
• Generals will now only use one unit type, instead of having a bunch of different units mixed together. This has the added benefit of improving performance by not having many different uniforms loading at once.
• New conscription system. Players can forcibly recruit troops, but will suffer a relations penalty with the location they conscripted from, as well as a morale penalty for their party.
• New system to bury the dead after battles, with each choice proving a bonus or penalty to morale and/or honor.
• Players now have the option to play as a faction leader when starting a new game.
• New Union faction added to balance the campaign: Army of the Cumberland. Existing generals have been transferred from the other Union armies to fill this one.
• New companion added, a Native American named Nathan Long Knife. (Completely fictional character)
• New scripted historical events added for the Lincoln assassination, and the death of Stonewall Jackson.
• Presidents will now give the player two new quests, which will be rewarded with money and experience. You can also betray the presidents by informing the opposing faction of their plans. Be aware that completing the first quest will result in the player becoming hostile with the opposing faction.
• New dynamic quests, which will give the player an objective to recapture any lost territory, or to capture an enemy controlled location that is nearby to player owned territory.
• Muskets/rifles without bayonets can now switch to their club version with the X key.
• Players can now bring all their available troops into battle when outnumbered, regardless of their tactics skill.
• New victory and defeat pictures for the Union and Native American factions.
• New uniforms for Wilder's Lightning Brigade. Also gave them a new hatchet.
• New reload animation and firing sound effect for carbines. Now they are quick to reload, since they no longer use the muzzle loading animation.
• New visual and sound effects for bullets impacting water.
• Salt Pork, corn bread, corn meal, and flour added as consumable food items.
• New pretender added for the Army of the Cumberland: William G. Brownlow
• Infantry groups in the command menu renamed from platoons to companies.
• Confederate bushwhackers and some Confederate cavalry units given sawed off shotguns mixed into their inventories.
• Union and Confederate state militia, as well as private militia, given shotguns mixed into their inventories.
• Stagecoach guards and Pinkerton agents given coach guns mixed into their inventories.
• Hired guns now ride horses.
• Artillery crew weapon changed from the Enfield musketoon to the Springfield artillery musketoon.
• Removed Confederate uniforms from home guards, instead equipping them with armed civilian outfits. Also removed the Lorenz rifle from their inventory, replacing it with the Springfield 1822 musket.
• New battle intro dialogue for when joining a battle against farmers, rescued prisoners, and escaped slaves.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug where player was invited to ball after winning a prizefight, but couldn't enter when they tried to.
• Fixed a bug where some bandit camps spawned the wrong troops when you attacked them.
• Fixed a bug where the opposing faction's troops appeared as village defenders after capturing an enemy village.
• Fixed some of the music tracks that were assigned to the wrong culture.
• Shortened some of the defeat songs to help prevent them overlapping with other music tracks.
• Fixed face codes for Native American villagers.
• Fixed weapons that were missing smoke and sound effects.
• Fixed wrong shader being used on some of the horses that caused them to appear covered in a white gloss in-game.
• Fixed bug where faction troops showed up in taverns as mercenaries.
• Fixed Union bummers sometimes missing shoes.
• Fixed the spawn points for when the player leaves the prison on the scenes where this was an issue.
• Fixed Pensacola and New Orleans prisons.
• Fixed nervous man entry point in St. Albans.
• Fixed battle intro dialogue when enlisted with an army.
• Script added that creates a cooldown so that if a town creates a merchant caravan, they can't immediately create another in the same town. This will prevent caravans spawning right on top of each other.
• Fixed cavalry spawn points in custom battles, and made some minor changes/fixes to a few of the scenes.
• Fixed lighting and shader bugs for many buildings.
• Fixed some glowing trees and plants.
• Fixed shader for colt army 1861 revolver.
• Fixed the texture of mugs that tavern patrons use.
• Fixed shader for cattle map icon.
• Fixed runaway slaves using incorrect clothes and missing hats.
• Fixed bug where female shoes didn't show up when worn inside headquarters.
• Fixed bug where some of the club versions of muskets showed up being carried on soldier's backs.
• The broken Spanish cavalry broadsword that appeared in shops has been removed.
• Riding mule removed from horse merchants because it's running animation was completely messed up.

Miscellaneous:

• Captured partisan leaders can now be sold to generals, since there is nobody within the partisan factions to ask you for a ransom. The general who you sell the partisan leader to will imprison them.
• Players can now join the partisan factions.
• AI opponents in prizefights can kick now, and will sometimes knock down the player, which will help prevent the player from exploiting the prizefights by holding block and kicking.
• Betting amounts in prizefights lowered so that the player can't become rich from one fight.
• Amount of AI participants that spawn in sparring matches lowered to 3.
• Outlaws and Native American Raiders party sizes lowered to be a minimum of 10 men per party and a maximum of 25.
• Economy adjusted to make business enterprises more viable, and balance the production of different goods.
• Blanket rolls replaced with new models that have significantly less faces than the old one's, which will improve performance. (New blankets have 160 faces vs. the old one's having 9,000+!)
• Some weapons replaced with new models that have fewer faces, which should help improve performance.
• The mod's BRF files optimized with many useless or duplicate models, materials and textures removed.
• Removed many unused junk scene files.
• Removed many junk textures, which will improve performance and loading times.
• New compass on the campaign map.
• New tavern posters.
• Native American trackers now have the option to upgrade to the mounted version of the troop.
• Player can now walk around their camp while using freelancer.
• Items are now faction specific.
• Added new forage caps for the Union and Confederacy.
• Added a few more music tracks, including two Union victory songs and one Confederate fight song.
• Removed the looted civilian top hats from Union bummers, because they were showing up too often and didn't look appropriate.
• Removed cartridge and percussion cap boxes from artillery crew uniforms.
• Improved texture of bayonets on some rifles/muskets where the texture appeared rusty or low quality.
• Henry rifle rear sight flipped down so the player can aim the weapon better in first person.
• Added a house to Olustee and moved the town mayor in front of it to make it easier for the player to find him.
• Farmland textures on the world map changed to be around cities rather than right on top of them.
• Texture of jugs and cups changed from pottery to metal.
• New higher quality preview picture for Missionary Ridge in custom battles menu.
• Many minor changes and fixes to dialogues and menus.

VoiceBot is a program that allows users to use a mic to give voice commands in a game. I created a profile for players of this mod to use the VoiceBot program, and although these instructions may seem like a lot, it's actually very easy. It only looks like a lot because I made sure to explain everything as clearly as possible. With this, you can feel like a real commander giving orders by actually using your voice to command your troops!

1. First, you will need to download and install a program called "VoiceBot" from here: Voicebot.net. This program is for free and will be fully functional for this purpose. It can also be used for other games as well. There are some limitations to the free version, but nothing that prevents you from using and enjoying the program with this mod.
2. After installing VoiceBot, you will need to import the voicebot profile that I included in the mod package. This can be done by clicking going to the profiles tab in the program, where you will see a button for importing and exporting profiles. Extract the voicebot profile folder to the desktop or your preferred destination, click import in the voicebot program, find where you extracted the voicebot profile and then import the profile inside of the folder.
3. After the profile is imported, I strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with the commands, and if you prefer to use a different voice command to execute an order, you can change it to another word by editing the macro.
4. You should also train your microphone to recognize your voice, if you haven't done so already, because VoiceBot relies on speech recognition software that is used for voice-to-text programs, so it may not always recognize your voice, especially if your computer has never heard your voice before.
5. When using the program, it is possible to use a built in microphone, however a headset or a separate mic is preferred because it picks up your voice more clearly. You should also make sure there is as little background noise as possible so that it does not interfere with the microphone recognizing your words.
6. You can press play to make the program start to listen and press pause to make it stop. You can easily alt+ tab in game to turn it off when you are not in combat or don't want to use it.

For more detailed instructions on how to use the VoiceBot program, please refer to their website.

Please be aware that you will need to go through the list of commands and make sure the sounds that are attached to some of them are being directed to the voicebot sounds folder I included in the mod package. To do this, simply put the sounds folder on your desktop (or any other preferred destination), select the profile and click edit from within the VoiceBot program, then edit the macro, and then edit the sound. Once you have selected the sound and clicked the edit button, a window will pop up where you can see the address for that sound. Select it and click edit one more time, and then select the appropriate sound from the voicebot sounds folder. Hit ok until you are back on the main page, and then click apply. That's it!

Be warned, the adjustments to troop sizes and the corpse limit, can cause your game to slow down and/or crash, especially on slower, lower end, or older systems.

• To increase battle size: If you would like to have larger battles than the maximum of 150 allowed by Mount & Blade: Warband, then you will need to download and install a program called Warband Battle Size Changer (The installer is now included in the mod package). You can experiment with larger battles, but anything more than 300 will usually cause crashes.
• To have infinite corpses: If you would like to have infinite bodies on the battlefields, you will need to download and install a program called Cheat Engine from here. When you start cheat engine, you will need to simultaneously run M&B: Warband. Select "open process" under file, or by clicking the button with a magnifying glass over a desktop screen, and choose M&B: Warband. Open the cheat table provided in the mod package, and then change the value (it will be 80 by default) to 300, or more, if your system can handle it.
• To instantly build an army: If you would like to instantly build an army, or even have hundreds or even thousands of men in your party, you can also use cheat engine, and follow these instructions. Having massive armies beyond your maximum capacity will, however, result in morale problems and desertions. It is good for when you want to just jump right in and play, or test out one of the new custom battlefields on your own without needing to rely on AI generals to support you to have a big battle.
• To use free camera in battles: You can use a free camera in battles by pressing Ctrl + E to use the editor camera. (You must have editor mode activated in your Warband launcher for this to work). Press H after the camera activates to go into the cinematic camera mode, and you can drag the editor panel into the corner of your screen so it is completely out of the way. Unfortunately you'll have to exit this mode with ctrl + E in order to use the order panel; the camera and the order panel can't be used simultaneously. The editor panel will remain in the corner of your screen until you move it again or restart the game. Please be aware that this will conflict with the new after death camera that has been added to the mod, so if you use this method and try to exit the camera, the camera will be messed up and only work again in the same battle by re-entering the editor camera.

• The sound effects for foot steps on grass and dirt were removed because they were hogging up all the sound channels and causing gunfire sound effects in battles to randomly cut out and go silent. This can potentially be fixed in the future.
• The way defenders spawn on sieges is a little wonky. The troops that spawn from the "archers" entry points only have about 3 - 5 men with them, when they should normally have around 10 or so. Also after taking a small number of casualties, reinforcements will spawn in, which is not supposed to happen until they lose a significant number of troops. This isn't too big of a problem, you can still play the sieges just fine and they are still fun, but it's not how it is really supposed to work, and would be better if it was fixed.
• Casualties in all battles tend to result in 80% - 90%+ KIA. This is not a bug, but rather a result of the fact that firearms in the game can not wound characters, only kill them. Because of this, the only way to take prisoners is to use blunt weapons. This is actually the same system that normal M&B uses, however since it is a medieval game, it was more likely that troops would use maces and clubs, which would allow the player to take a healthy amount of prisoners. Since this mod is focused around firearms, the opportunity to use blunt weapons is limited to troops who are not equipped with bayonets or other bladed weapons, and therefore deaths tend to be much more common than wounding. I have an idea of how to fix this by creating a new system for AI troops to surrender in battles after taking a certain amount of casualties, but without a proper coder on the team, this is not possible for me to create on my own.
• There is a bug with freelancer, where if you enlist with units that are armed with sharps or spencer rifles/carbines, you will not be given a weapon or ammo. I suspect this is because these weapons are marked as itp_type_musket rather than itp_type_crossbow, and the ammo is marked as itp_type_bullets rather than itp_type_bolts. Basically, the reason for this difference is that itp_type_musket is what allows for these weapons to have a new reloading animation and sound effect, and itp_type_bullets is what makes the ammo work with those weapons.
  
  For whatever reason though, freelancer is not recognizing this weapon and ammo type. If I had to guess, it's probably because itp_type_musket and itp_type_bullets is not normally used in M&B, so freelancer wasn't designed to recognize it, since it was originally made to be used with medieval stuff, not firearms. Unfortunately I have no idea how to fix the problem myself, so I would need the help of an experienced coder to resolve this issue.

Q: Help, my game keeps crashing!

A: If you are getting crashes, you need to enable load textures on demand and disable sound variation in your launcher settings. If that alone doesn't work, then you should lower your graphical settings. Don't put everything on max, avoid using resource intensive settings, and don't have more than 300 troops in a battle at once. If you still get crashes, then try loading the mod using warband script enhancer (WSE2).

When using WSE2, make sure to run Native once through the WSE2 launcher before trying to use it with the mod, and turn off FXAA and post processing, otherwise the screen will be black. Mount & Blade mods installed through the Steam Workshop are found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content. You can move the mod from there to the main M&B modules folder, and it'll show up in the WSE2 launcher. You'll probably also want to rename the mod's folder, because workshop just names it with a bunch of numbers rather than the mod's actual name.

Update 10/3/23: The most recent WSE2 update has made the above information obsolete; mods downloaded through the workshop will now appear in the WSE2 launcher without needing to manually move them to your main M&B modules folder.

Here is a link to a video tutorial explaining what WSE2 is and how to use it:

Youtube.com

If you are still getting crashes, then either you made a mistake during installation, your computer does not meet the system requirements, or you have too many other mods, games, programs, etc., installed, and need to free up space on your computer.

Q: Help, my save has become corrupted!

A: Whenever the mod is updated, old saves become corrupted and you will have to start a new game. I apologize for this inconvenience, but please be aware that this is an issue with how M&B itself works, and is therefore out of my control. I do my best to avoid making frequent updates that only change a few small things so that you don't have to constantly delete your progress and start over. For reference, you can always check the date and time of the last update to confirm if your save is outdated.

Q: How does artillery work?

A: You can recruit artillery from the foundry in the marketplace menu, and you must ensure that your artillery crews are always at the very top of your party list. Do not give them any orders, make sure they are assigned to the artillery group, and always check after battles if you have lost crews or guns. If you have lost any, you will need to recruit more crews/guns from the foundries in the cities.

Update 8/19/23: Although the above information remains true, after more thorough testing, it has been confirmed that the artillery does not work when assisting another general in battle, and after making a siege assault, the artillery will stop working for the player entirely. I did not create the artillery system or set it up in this mod, so I don't know how to fix it.

Q: Are there any language translations available for this mod?

A: Unfortunately there are no language translations for this mod currently. Someone would have to go through all of the mod's files and translate them by hand. It's not a quick, easy, or enjoyable task.

However, it is still possible create a translation to your language, if you want. It will just be tedious and you need to make sure that the game's font has all of your glyphs.

Forums.taleworlds.com

These instructions are of course for the Native version of Mount & Blade: Warband, so you would need to use a copy of the mod instead. Also keep in mind that your translations will become outdated with future updates if I have to make changes or fixes to the menus and dialogues.

Q: Can you add crouching to the mod?

A: No, soldiers in the American Civil War did not kneel when in line of battle. Skirmishers and dismounted cavalry would, but there is no way to have only those specific types of units kneel in the mod, nor to enable the ability to crouch exclusively for the player. You can only enable or disable crouching, and this will effect all troops in the mod.

Another issue with it is that because you are frequently moving your troops around the map, it slows down your troops to have the front rank constantly kneeling and standing up every time you issue a movement order. Every time a soldier is killed, the lines will also jumble around, with guys kneeling and standing up. Constantly having your troops changing stances between kneeling and standing ruins the cohesion of your lines, and doesn't look good in the game.

There is also the problem that on siege maps, you are often behind walls, fences, earthworks, trenches, etc., and if your troops are kneeling, they will not be able to see and shoot above the cover that they are behind. It simply makes more sense historically and from a technical standpoint to have troops remain standing in the mod.

Q: Will you be adding new units to the mod?

A: I may add a few more units, but I am reaching the limit of how many troops can fit in the area of recruitment system. Each location in the game can only have 5 special regiments available for recruitment, so I am limited in how many I can add. As of now, I am considering adding a new Confederate sharpshooter unit, and a new Union Pennsylvania regiment in a future update, since the Confederates can use one more dedicated sharpshooter unit to counter the Union sharpshooters, and the Pennsylvania area still has room for an additional unit.

Q: Can you add a troop tree to the mod?

A: With the new area of recruitment system, the need for a troop tree has become obsolete. However, there is a regimental organization table included in the mod package for you to see which units are assigned to which generals, so you can decide which general to enlist with if you play using the freelancer system. I will not be creating a table for which locations have which units available for recruitment, because it will be very disorganized and confusing due to the sheer number of locations in the mod, as well as the number of different units. Therefore I will leave it up to the player to explore and discover where the units are available. A good rule of thumb is that units will be available for recruitment in the states that they came from, with a few exceptions for troops that served in other theaters.

Q: Can you add a feature to the mod that I want?

A: I can't make any promises about that. Feel free to put your idea up for suggestion, but just keep in mind that I am not an experienced coder, so the more complex the feature you are asking for, the less likely it is to happen.

Q: Between Empires has a feature that I want in this mod. Why can't you do the same thing as them?

A: You shouldn't compare other mods to Between Empires. They have very skilled and experienced coders working on their team, and wrote most of their code themselves from scratch. There is no point of reference for it, and it is very complex. Many of the things Between Empires accomplished are unprecedented in the M&B modding sphere. One would have to be as skilled as them to figure it out, or have the developers walk you through it themselves.

Q: Will you be making a version of this mod for Bannerlord?

A: No, I know nothing about modding Bannerlord, and my computer can't run it anyway. I'm also not going to learn an entirely new system of modding; learning how to mod M&B: Warband was already an enormous enough task, and I still don't know everything. From what I can see in the Bannerlord modding sphere, the overwhelming majority of mods are small tweaks and fixes, which indicates to me that making overhaul mods, especially one's based around firearms, is not something easy or simple.

This mod works best on Warband because it is much more inexpensive and accessible to new players; the game itself doesn't cost that much, many people already own Warband due to it's age and popularity, and you don't need a good computer to run it. Likewise Warband had firearms already built into the game from the beginning, so it is much easier to create firearms based mods than it is in Bannerlord.