Hello and Quick Question

Greetings all,
Our group just recently started to get more serious about Scourge of War and we are using your great mod but I have a question concerning re-attaching units once they are detached.

Im sure there must be a way to do it with your toolbar but I cannot find it for the life of me. This is in reference to the first French scenario at Hougoumont where the 3 units are detached to form skirmishers to probe the woods. I want to re-attach them but don't see a way to do that with your toolbar.

Thanks for the help and thanks for the great mod.

Hi TGarner and welcome on forum.
KS mod has got skirmishers detaching removed.
KS OOBs are constructed with usually one unit per brigade having capability of going into skirmish formation (this simulates skirmishing detached from all battalions and grouped together).
There are pros and cons of this solution.
I personally don't like it too much.. but on the other hand it's better than any battalion being able to detach any number of soldiers and putting in skirmish formation.

if you really want to play original scenarios you'd have to tweak them a bit to make more sense. But probably the best way to learn is to join our MP battles.

Miko,
Hmm ok thank you for the info.
Not to be dense but just so I understand what you are saying, when I play the the default first French scenario and those 3 units are broken off from the battalion that technically should not be taking place per the KS mod's OOB?
Is the whole battalion supposed to be in skirmish mode then? And I guess there is no way to re-attach those 3 units back to the battalion?

Sorry for the what I am sure are noob questions for everyone here

If the default scenarios are not a good choice to play single player while learning the game with the KS mod what would be the recommendation for those of us who want to play single player initially?

Thanks for helping, it is very much appreciated.

Hi TGarner and welcome to the forum. Thank you for trying out the KS Mod.

The KS toolbar has no button to recombine skirmish split units because the mod doesn't use them at all.

As Miko said, the default game uses skirmish units split from each battalion while our mod uses a single unit within each brigade that represents all the skirmish-capable troops of the brigade formed as a single battalion-sized unit. We found that the split-off skirmish units were too small to have any great tactical effect, were much too detailed to control from the perspective of a division commander (our usual command level) and the stock game also had problems sometimes getting them to recombine. They tended just to become cavalry stomping fodder and had no useful effect. Every stock battalion can detach skirmishers in far greater numbers than was historical (even say, Dutch militia battalions which had no effective trained skirmish companies) and all these factors combined led us to simply abandon the stock game appraoch and use our preferred method which we find is so very much simpler, more effective and from a higher-level command perspective, more realistic as well.

However, the fact you have units capable of splitting off from each battalion leads me to wonder if you're using the mod correctly. The stock scenarios DO NOT work with the KS Mod unless you make a separate mod containing them dragged from the scenario files in the SDK. There are notes on how to do this elsewhere on our forum.

The stock scenarios have also been written to be balanced with the stock combat systems and since artillery and skirmishers are almost totally ineffective in the stock game, playing these scenarios with the much more potent KS Modded artillery and skirmishers may give unbalanced battles.

I would suggest playing either the scenarios that come with the mod, or playing sandbox battles in 'hunt them down mode' with a corps vs corps game and you taking a division on one side.

And as Miko says, joining us for an MP game using HITS and couriers settings will get you learning the differences our mod has faster

Mr Digby,
Thank you for the very well laid out explanation. I am in fact using the default scenarios made into their own mod as the instructions for your mod suggests but even with that being the case I see now why the default scenarios are a problem even if being used as you suggested.

I am certainly not invested in playing the default scenarios, I was just really looking for the best scenarios to play in single player while I learn the game with your mod installed.
Thank you for the recommendation. I will try what you suggest.

Mr Digby just to clarify what you are saying about the stock scenarios being unbalanced when playing them with the KS mod do you mean they will be unbalanced even if you go through the steps you mentioned to turn them into their own mod?

Thanks

TGarner wrote:Mr Digby just to clarify what you are saying about the stock scenarios being unbalanced when playing them with the KS mod do you mean they will be unbalanced even if you go through the steps you mentioned to turn them into their own mod?

Mr Digby will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I can say yes to your question - they will be unbalanced because they use stock/vanilla OOBs - the steps that turn stock scenarios into separate mod are only making them "work" in technical sense.

Thank you sir. I appreciate the info.

The stock scenarios should be playable, but what may differ is the outcome. In NSD-land, the final numerical score solely determines the level of defeat or victory. This number was arrived at by averaging the scores of the people who tested the scenario using the vanilla game. Given the large number of changes made by the KS mod, that number may be ridiculously easy to achieve or impossible.

However, if you play the scenarios with a view that a real life commander would take; have I achieved my objective and do I still have a fighting force left, then the scenarios may still hold a lot of entertainment value.

Thank you sir!