Mod Mechanics

Between Empires has a number of unique mechanics, both in battle and on the campaign map, in order to represent the 19th century.

Company System

Between Empires completely replaces Warband's native division system, instead using a new company system that allows players to split infantry units into multiple line, guard, or light infantry companies. Artillery and cavalry also utilize this system, with differentiated company types existing for both. You can access the company set-up in the pre-battle deployment menu.

In battle, discipline and stamina. Discipline is an abstraction of morale and affects accuracy. Casualties, enemy fire, and exhaustion negatively affect discipline, and should discipline fall below a certain threshold (15% by default, this threshold can be further improved by skills) the company will break and retreat. Other skills can make units hold for a brief moment despite being broken, allowing you to hold the line or plug gaps.

Stamina is drained when your units fight in melee or run (which can be toggled with the ~ tilde key [left of 1]). Low stamina negatively impacts discipline, accuracy, and movement speed.

Furthermore, you can (and have to) access a new aerial view in order to command your troops. Use the “U” key to access it, left click either the company banner in the bottom left, or the company itself on the battlefield to select it (hold down shift to select multiple at the same time), and click and hold right click to move a selected company.

Formations

Again, utilize the “U” menu to access the aerial view command feature.

  • Units no longer automatically face the enemy as is case in native, instead facing and moving the way you tell them to.

  • Infantry utilizes different formations based on their company type. Line and guard infantry uses lines at game start, while light infantry utilize skirmish tactics.

  • Soldiers don't fire while moving, negating the need to tell units to hold fire when you move them. This doesn't apply to the “Charge!” order.

Time and Technology

Players and AI factions have access to a technology tree, which dynamically changes weaponry, munitions, army sizes and effectiveness in battle. Most of these technologies are tied to a certain year. The mod, set between 1860 and 1895, includes dynamic time progression, the speed of which can be changed at the players digression. Some factions start off with certain technologies researched to represent their armies state at game start, such as Prussia having access to breech-loaders in 1860.

Artillery

Between Empire includes a unique artillery system, with both howitzers and field guns being present. Artillery can be recruited in any fort on the campaign map, via the armoury menu. A maximum of 5 - 7 guns can be used in battle, with technologies increasing the limit. Artillery is available in both siege and field battles, and can be controlled as any other company.

At game start, howitzers are inaccurate, slow firing, and are prone to firing shells without them exploding, while field guns are more accurate, but fire in a straight line, and use archaic round shot.

Technologies fundamentally change the effectiveness and increase rate of fire of both howitzers and field guns.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy Unique diplomacy features has been added, including alliances, expanded peace negotiations menu and improved diplomatic AI. Most of it's features are avaiable in dialog with your faction minister.

Alliances work as offensive and defensive pacts, ensuring support of allied faction in case of war. They require work on improving relations with faction you to make alliance with.

New peace menu now allows to exchange centers between opponents, taking war damage they caused to each other into account of AI peace negotiations desicions. It also allows to sign peace with multiple warring allies and enemies at once.

New Infamy mechanics now will make factions react to countries that act too expanisve, or untrustworthy. Nations that act too harsh - declaring wars, claiming others' territory and breaking alliances too often - will meet foreign pressure, and be turned down diplomatically by other governments. Some faction leaders will be more and less agressive, and more and less reliable.

Economics

Native economics system was replaced by a new unique system, in which 11 resources are being produced by villages and town factories from other resources, and then are consumed by population, factories and armies.

Each region in world map has various characteristics, such as population amount, literacy and urbanisation values etc. They affect economy, as well as military and politics.

Factories various characteristics as well, such as workers amount, product quality, development mode, machine tools deteriortion and other.

Player is free to buy part all full stock of factory share to get part of it's income, as well as control of the factory development.

Some resources, such as weaponry and ammunition, are used by the military, so to have strong army, one has to have strong industry as well. Some military resources not being available to faction will lead to their armies have low supply level, which willl lead to debuffs in battle or auto-resolve.

Politics

New internal politics system was implemented. Population now will react to economical and political situation in country.

State laws, such as tax and expenses sliders, social welfare and suffrage laws has been added, with their change being available to faction leader, as well as to parliament, depending on government type - absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic and soviet republic governments are avilable in this mod. Laws affect economy and elections process.

Political parties have been added, with most factions having unique parties. Parliament and executive branch consists of multiple parties members that affect laws and administration efficiency.

Politican movements such as liberal and socialist will appear in country if population doesn't like current economical or political situation and can lead to protests, riots, rebellions and civil war.

Hotkeys

In battle:

U – Opens the aerial view

While in aerial view:

Q and E – Turns the camera (you will have to disable quest menu hotkey that is "Q" by default)

Space and Ctrl - Increases and decreases camera height respectively

~ (Tilde, button left of “1”) - Toggles the selected companies between running and marching

Middle mouse button - hold it to rotate camera vertically while in aerial view.


Q – If you have a revolver or pistol selected, you will fire a shot form your hip, fanning the revolver. This is more accurate when delivering rapid fire at short range than “spamming” left click would be.

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New content in v0.7

News 27 comments

New content in v0.7.

In v0.7, covered time period is extended up to 1918, adding new game mechanics and graphical content, representing early 20th century period as well as other things.

Game start date, historical or random AI behaviour, lord/garrisons parties size are now optional and being chosen at game start.

Technologies

Technology tree has been overhauled and now has 1890-1918 tactics and weaponry, including stationary machine guns, light machine guns, shock troops, gas attacks, grenades and Great War era artillery.

Heavy machine guns become available as artillery unit after researching "Machine Guns" technology, and then, after researching "Infantry MG Tactics", can be included in infantry units or separate MG crew.

"Modern Defence Tactics" technology allows to dig trenches in any position in battle. Trenches make troops less vulnerable to small arms firing and reduce damage from explosions.

Rapid-firing artillery becomes available by 1900's technology, changing artillery models to recoilless ones and increasing cannons limit in two times. Same technology also makes heavy howitzers available to be purchased. Heavy howitzers reload slower but deal more damage.

Light machine guns become available by 1900's technology, arming 10% of infantry with LMGs, model of which depends on country.

Gas attacks become available by 1910's technology, allowing artillery to fire gas shells. Gas shells create poison gas cloud that deals AOE damage. Same technology also make gas masks available, which prevent soldiers from getting gas damage, but drain energy and decrease accuracy.

Shock troops company type becomes available by 1910's technology, and can be formed from any infantry troops. They use carbines (less accuracy, faster firing), special melee weapons, run much faster and have access to "Grenade attack" ability, which is effective against entrenched enemy at close range.

Major nations now have multi level uniform progression, with some technologies changing troops uniforms according to their time period.

Dig In FeatureHeavy Artillery

Economics

New economical system has been implemented to the mod. It is based on production and consuming 11 resources, which are being produced rural areas, processed in factories and then purchased by population and national governments. Military supplies, ammunition and weapons also need to be produced to feed the army, so for your army to be strong, your country needs to also have strong industry.

Politics

New internal politics system has been implemented as well:

Tax and expenses (military, healthcare, infrastructure and educational expenses) sliders form national budget and country development in different aspects;

In parliamentary countries, laws are affected by parliament, which is formed with elections, which depend on population characteristics - political views, political activity, satisfaction with needs and wealth of different population estates (aristocracy, bourgeoisie, middle class, urban lower class and rural lower class), which depend on economical and political situation in country. Pacifist ruling party in parliamentary country won't allow you have big military spendings, which will negatively affect your military.

Each country has 2-4 political parties, each having their own political views and influence level. Influence level is based on party popularity that is affected by different factors. Population estates with low political activity level will support influential party even if they dont correspond with their political views. Some parties, such as socialist parties, appear later in the game.

Executive branch of government is formed by people of different political views, where composition is also being dependent on state laws and influence of political parties. Having executive branch be too much dissenting with government (i. e., liberals in country with protectionist politics) will lead to high levels of corruption, which will decrease efficiency of taxes and government spendings.

Various political movements appear as reaction to various political and economical situations. For example, in traditionalist absolute monarchies, liberal movement will appear since bourgeoisie gains influence, i. e. having better wealth than aristocracy. In countries with well developed industry, socialist movements will appear, and aggressive unsuccessful war can lead to pacifist movement. Not following political movements demands will lead to decrease of influence of ruling party, revolts and change of government.

Region industrialisation menu

Work in progress - resource information menu


War

World map war gameplay was optimized - with lords AI code being rewritten, all medieval behaviour like feasts, patrolling deep into their country and pillaging villages were removed from lords. Now they will patrol borders as well as join campaigns sieging enemy cities, which now happen much more often.

Number of lords in factions now depends on faction population and army size setting that can be set in reports menu. High army size setting will increase number of lords but will negatively impact economy and national budget.

Vassal and mercenary quest mechanics were replaced by mechanic of enlisting in faction army. You will start as regular soldier and have possibility to make up a military career and become an NCO (commanding one company within your commander party), then become independent commander (similar to Native vassal), and then to reach the top rank, becoming the faction marshall. If you start game as aristocrat, you will start career with officer rank. There are 10 ranks (each having different name depending on country), they also affect your paycheck and party size.

Major historical events, such as unification of Italy (now done by AI too), Balkan Wars and WW1 has been implemented in new historical AI behaviour mode.

Combat

New features has been added in combat gameplay:

New pinning down mechanic now decreases rate of fire of companies with low discipline levels. This way, suppression fire is now more effective for attackers, allowing to decrease density of fire on your troops. "Covering fire" ability available in late game increases discipline damage done to enemy while decreasing their own accuracy;

AI now attacks more effective, using running and firing more;

New optional realistic iron sight aiming animation has been added;

Added in-battle voicing for 8 languages. NCOs will react to orders and battle situations. Player can choose their custom troops language in custom troops menu.

50+ weapons of 1890-1918 time period has been added.

Performance improvement hasa been done, making crashes less frequent.

German Uniform Progression: 1900's, early 1910's and mid 1910's respectivelyBritish uniform progression - late 1910's

Between Empires v0.4 - BETA Released

Between Empires v0.4 - BETA Released

News 5 comments

Between Empires 0.4 has been released, featuring new diplomacy features, new events, unification questlines, and massive map optimization.

War, Peace, and Infamy

War, Peace, and Infamy

News 1 comment

An explanation and introduction to a number of new diplomatic mechanics in Between Empires.

Between Empires Version 0.3 released!

Between Empires Version 0.3 released!

News 3 comments

Version 0.3 released, featuring Romanians, Belgians, Dutch, new siege features, bug fixes, code optimization, and ballance changes.

Between Empires Version 0.2 released!

Between Empires Version 0.2 released!

News

The second version of our mod has been released! Find it in the files section.

RSS Files
Between Empires v1.0 Release

Between Empires v1.0 Release

Full Version 102 comments

Between Empires v1.0 - bugfixes and new mechanics.

Between Empires v0.72 Beta (Patch for v0.7)

Between Empires v0.72 Beta (Patch for v0.7)

Patch 15 comments

Between Empires v0.72 Beta - fixes bugs of v0.7. Save compatible. You don't need to install v0.71.

Between Empires v0.71 Beta (Patch for v0.7)

Between Empires v0.71 Beta (Patch for v0.7)

Patch 10 comments

Between Empires v0.71 Beta - fixes bugs of v0.7. Save compatible.

Between Empires v0.7 Beta

Between Empires v0.7 Beta

Full Version 45 comments

Between Empires v0.7 - bugfixes, loads of new mechanics and 1890-1918 content.

Between Empires v0.6 Beta

Between Empires v0.6 Beta

Full Version 51 comments

Between Empires v0.6 - NEW GAME REQUIRED! Featuring Greece, Portugal, Middle Asia, new combat game mechanics and numerous bugfixes.

Between Empires v0.51 Beta (Patch for v0.5)

Between Empires v0.51 Beta (Patch for v0.5)

Patch 17 comments

This patch fixes the most common siege crash, which used to occur when multiple lords were present at the same time.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 1,359)
Guest
Guest - - 693,908 comments

Glad this mod died out; this is what happens when you betray Kawoos, Eldar

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n7zx1998
n7zx1998 - - 6 comments

To anyone that sees this, the mod development has stopped if you joined the discord server

Reasons why I have stopped developing the mod:
Personal life - now I have much less free time than I had in 2021 when I developed previous versions of BE.
Gameplay/genre limitations - mod significantly changes gameplay mechanics of the game to the point it has changed it's genre from roleplay 3rd person game to real-time strategy. I'm interested in further genre shift but that would require throwing RPG aspect out of the game, which is barely possible in M&B mod.
Technical limitations - while WSE2 solves most techincal issues vanilla mod version had, it still has a problem of RAM maximum memory allocation being around 3.5 GB (usual for 32 bit applications), while mod usually needs a little bit more. This results in "EXCEPTION_OUT_OF_MEMORY" crashes during battles even in WSE2 mod version, and the more uniforms I add, the more crashes I experience in battles.

The message above was from the dev a year ago, the mod is open source so adding in anything is possible and joining the discord is also a good idea

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Guest
Guest - - 693,908 comments

Glad this mod died out; this is what happens when you betray Kawoos, Eldar

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
lokochon
lokochon - - 197 comments

Where can I find the module system ? I want to add sniper rifles so bad, in the fiels for downloading it doesnt show

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lokochon
lokochon - - 197 comments

Please add sniper rifles

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Guest
Guest - - 693,908 comments

Crashes When Big Numbers Of Soldiers In Siege :(

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HurinThalion
HurinThalion - - 69 comments

Is the mod still in process? Has it been 3 years since the last update or is it dead?

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n7zx1998
n7zx1998 - - 6 comments

development has stopped, as the creator has zero time, as well as gameplay and engine limitations

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Guest
Guest - - 693,908 comments

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Guest
Guest - - 693,908 comments

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