Close order line infantry will no longer bump into each other as much while running. While the hitboxes are now wider than they are deep, this has no effect on gameplay as they are just as wide as they were before.

The techs for Suppression Fire and Kneel Fire now grant minor buffs.

@ImperialForce9 The slope can make the units more weaker to artillery, but it also seems to make rifle fire stronger for the unit on said slope. This is just from my campaign experience though, haven't tested it much.

I tried to balance the mod so that most of the units were useful + the different types were different in effect (although perhaps not strictly in use), but melee and cav were hard to fit into the gameplay without breaking everything (hence why they were so slow).

Close order infantry is also pretty hard to fit in the balance, although forming a column of them can sometimes be useful for the maneuverability and staying power (requires too many units to be practical in MP I think, and you might be better off with melee infantry). In a Nagaoka campaign, I was able to shoehorn in a reinforcing army of 8 veteran levy infantry that way, and they were very decisive after I rolled up a flank. If you can figure out how to use them in MP, I'll tip my hat off to you.

Sharpshooters and bow+gun kachi will no longer be invisible in the open at ranges of 150m and above; they will be spotted at 300m instead. Hopefully this will allow them to project their presence more (important when playing against an AI) while also reducing the silly looking sniping. I'm considering removing guerrilla deployment from them and the bow and matchlock kachi.

Gatling guns are interesting as they can still decimate enemies but that depends on distance/enemy position relative to yours. But with their large ammo count, can keep laying on a morale debuff on whatever unit it shoot at while you add to that with your own infantry's guns and such.
If you'd humour me for another question, what did make you want to make this mod?

I fought against a friend in mp who went 'max experience, fewest units army' with Tosa Riflemen, he decimated my ally but lo' and behold, He ran out of ammo and thus his reign of bullets ended. A gun unit actually running low ammo is rare in vanilla, let alone being spent dry entirely. It's not like his bullets did nothing, but he was at the mercy of having to dash into melee with his spent elite units against what was still alive.
You've changed FotS cannons to no longer be a low effort, high kills unit. With the mod, if you get the right angle (say firing on a reverse slope, what'd miss would hit right behind them, nullying the inherent inaccuracy to a certain degree), thus turning highground against the enemy (this happend in multiplayer and I was the victim ).
I like Shogun 2 matchlocks because it's a unit that can do well if you put in effort, and disappointed by FotS vanilla cannons requiring such little effort and micro and still getting 400 kills easy.

Sorry if I've been demanding. This mod simulates line warfare better some games I'd reckon.
Just very confused by my units and enemy units breaking for little reason.
Managed to convince some friends to do mp and I wish I had the replay of one particular battle that shows what this mod is capable of

You've managed to make a distinction between line infantry and breechloader infantry mean more than just 'unit better because bigger number'. I'm still miffed how they went from the different use cases of Yari, Samurai, Monk, No-dachi, Bow, Fire rockets/guns dynamic to FotS having no difference use case for Line Infantry and Shogunate Guard. (we don't talk about Mangonels, Euro/Wooden Cannons)

Ok I give up, besides certain changes, I reverted the mod to April patch. Cav is slightly faster but still slow. Blame the other guy who sucked with cav.

And by reduced I mean decreased the fear effect by 5. So it should be a minor effect.

@Asuka Yes, bayonets are integrated into the mod by default (as seen in the description that I wrote).

@ImperialForce9 I have reduced fear effect. It never had an effect on causing units to shatter instead of rout, however.

Before this most recent update, Id consider 'infantry .vs.infantry' fights rather balanced, rather impressed for an overhaul mod, with the minor caveat of cavalry being a pain to use.
Line Infantry would lose against Yari Kachi but if you had them on 'Hold Fire', they'd be able to route them.

But this 'frightening nearby units' thing ends up causing most units to shatter instead of route (like in my earlier message) without that much fighting even taking place. Before the update, I had a cool fight I wish I could have sent the replau to you, 3 levies of mine routed but I managed to use 'Rally' on all of them and they all came back 1 at a time within a minute.

Forgot to mention, they sallied out every single turn until starvation. I would have lost a disproportionate amount of men from a siege attack as they'd route while in the fort and get decimated by units that happen to be in the way.

Units frightening enemy units is far too overtuned. They break far too quickly in even fights.
During a siege battle where I had a spear levy route in a siege battle ( as attacker) even though they werent even fighting nor being shot at, too many enemy units spread around the castle causing that most likely. Enemy units werent even close to attack that unit in particular.

In a battle against AI they had 2000 levies (over half were guns), my army was half levies with some katana kachi and Line Infantry. I set up on a hill and with a few volleys they all shattered within less than 2 minutes, enemy general didn't die, units that could have almost got into melee broke due to frightening enemy even though they took less than 1/4 casualties, they weren't even in 'Hold Fire' range.
At the end of the battle, they barely took any casualties and it was a sally out, so a battle that didn't really decide much.

Siege battles have become much more harder while land battles have become trivial.

do we have bayonets?

The mod is still in semi-active development though, so any attempts to localize will probably be for naught

@Asuka I'm pretty sure it does. I don't know how much of it is game breaking/crash causing, but at least the Hold Fire ability will be untranslated

does this mod need localization?

Also infantry reserves might be more important, although as this is Total War, I doubt anything can make that true.

Updated 9.20.25. See change notes. tldr: morale is slightly more volatile, melee units and cavalry are slightly better. While the changes themselves are significant, the core of the gameplay seems to mostly be unaffected, if you are worried; the long-duration firefights are essentially unchanged. However, I hope maneuvering to close range (to shoot or to charge) is slightly more useful with these changes.

@ImperialForce9 that is a vanilla bug, has nothing to do with the models being close to each other.

Also you probably already know this but infantry still 'moving' ie some dudes crouching, uncrouching which means the whole unit doesn't fire. Is it due to the models being too close to each other? Sometimes there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the unit other than the option of 'Halting' them with actually allows them to form up and actually fire.

From thinking more about it, their slower speed means they traverse the map slower which their vanilla stamina can't cope with. Thus cavalry become slower from exhaustion which equates to being less effective at getting effective flanking charges since flanking means the traverse more ground.
In short, Im fine with them being bad to use for frontal charges, but since they have slower base speed, tire more quicker and become slower as a result, flanking with them is more of a pain since further engagements tire them further thus making them even slower.
Maybe just a simple increase in their stamina would fix that.

From some distance running with melee cavalry (Hatamoto/Saber Cavalry/YariCavalry) their slower base speed from the mod ends up exacerbating their further reduced speed from stamina depleting.

Rice Fields map
WITH MOD:
From just testing with Hatamoto/Saber Cavalry/Yari Cavalry, they all end up in the
'Winded' state before even traversing half themap.
'Tired' from traversing 3/4 of the map.
'Very Tired' from traversing 1 + 1/2 lengths of said map.

Hatamoto end up 'Exhausted' from shortly after starting their 3rd lap
Sabers 'Exhausted' midway through their 3rd lap
Yari's get 'Exhausted' right before ending their 3rd lap.

WITHOUT MOD:
Yari Ki can finish 1 lap before becoming 'Winded', the other 2 at 3/4 of 1 lap.
Sabers/Hatamoto 'Tired' from 1 + 1/2 laps
Yari's 'Tired' from 2 + 1/4 laps

For horses running away, that always happened, but it makes sense. Dismount them behind a hill to protect the horses, or expect the horses to get lost. If you want to be able to run away, keep them mounted; if you want them to effectively shoot at the enemy's flank, dismount them.

The +5 bonus against cavalry only offsets the bonus cav naturally has against infantry. Cav is useful for swinging behind the enemy and taking out their guns. It is also useful for dealing with enemy cav and skirmishers. It is not really useful for charging head on at a line, nor do I really want it to be.

Because the guns are inaccurate, and it's pretty much impossible to model morale well, my only choice would be to increase their mounted hitbox, so that I can make them run faster, so that if they can charge at a close distance they will be devastating, while also being killed if they decide to charge on open ground all through the range of the riflemen. I think I will attempt that.

@ImeperialForce9
I have not changed how fast cav fatigues. Having just tested this, they are not in a "tired" state when the charge reaches the enemy lines. They are not even "active". In fact, only when I run them across the map are they "active", and they don't even end the fight in a tired state. Not sure what you are seeing.

I want to dissuade the player from using cavalry in frontal charges against infantry. Gun units are intended to be able to fend off cavalry 1v1. However, this is also even a vanilla behavior. SIR Infantry in Vanilla can defeat cav in the melee, without shooting at all, for example. In fact, Sabre cav only barely beats line infantry in Vanilla even when the line infantry does not shoot. That is not possible in my mod. I think you are overestimating vanilla FotS cavalry.

Gun units can oddly fend off cavalry in a 1v1 with very minimal losses and even if I flank with them, they end up taking considerable losses where every subsequent fight feels risks the likelyhood of them being wiped out in comparison to gun/melee infantry. Would potentially removing all gun units +5 bonus against cavalry be a potential meaningful change or no? Even against Levy Infantry, Saber cavalry lose almost half their men before routing them.

With how quickly cavalry die, there is little reason to use Yari Cavalry or even Saber Cavalry

For gun cavalry, would it be possible to remove the thing that makes the horses run away if they're not mounted? Due to the sheer spread of bullets of this mod, they spread so far and so wide that it's near impossible to use them as dragoons (dismount to shoot, then remount as the enemy get closer) since the horses run away due to a singular stray shot across the map hit them (Even though bullets don't do damage beyond their range)

From the mod description, there's nothing that talks about changes to cavalry. (I'm focusing on Melee cavalry)

It seems that you have made them slower and exhaust much quicker. even when running is only turned on when in Line Infantry range. They'll be in the 'Tired' state as they hit the charge thus being much more slower/ less effective charge. Thus due to the losses they take during the charge, they can't even put up a decent fight against Line Infantry. Even if they do win the initial fight and still have adequate numbers, they'll be too slow from being 'Tired'/'Exhausted' that trying to use them in any further engagements becomes a slow and painful task to even maneuver them.

Would it be possible to up Cavalry numbers up to 120 or so? Upping their stamina and speed would make cavalry better to use. Generals unit size is fine as is mainly being used in desperation/convenience than as dedicated cavalry.

@C4nn0nF0dd3r_ Hahaha

@Griffinton itll take tons of balance. aint gonna get help from me there!

@C4nn0nF0dd3r_ However, if you are willing to answer another question. What would it take to make EvilSpleen1213's FOTS Unit Pack mod compatible with yours? I know it requires some bayonet fixes and what else do you think?

@C4nn0nF0dd3r_ Uhuh, that's the weird part. I'm going to look into it later. Has to have misspelt something or something similiar to that. Thanks for all the help, I'll try to fix things on my own now.

@Griffinton did you remove kneel_fire_ability_disable?

@C4nn0nF0dd3r_ Just finished doing the tweak/patch and sent it to friend, but for some odd reason kneel_fire_ability in specific doesn't works for them. Square Formation and Ranked Fire does.

P.S Thanks again for all the help!

@Griffinton i believe in theory, yes. make sure "skirm_2_unit_stats_land" as well as the unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions shares the same name.

you could just save it as another copy, and dont try to deal with overriding stuff. that is what i think you should do.

Oh and the 'unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions'

@C4nn0nF0dd3r_ Thank you so much! Will take me a little to learn and to execute but with this instructions there will be no problem. One more question, how do I go about making this a patch so my friends easily can use it? Is it as simple as make my own .pack mod with only the skirm_2_unit_stats_land table and then loading it first in the load order? Or is it more complicated?

Compare with skirm_1_unit_stats_land, which is for the close order line infantry.

Lastly, you will edit unit_to_unit_abilities_junctions. Remove the "suppression fire disable" and "kneel fire disable" from only the units you are changing (make sure not to change the skirmishers, like the Tosa Riflemen). You could also just edit them and remove "_disable" from the line. You might also want to give them "square_formation" (not pike square formation).

Do not touch the animation files, cuz they can easily cause crashes and the sharpshooter infantry relies on the same dependencies essentially. If you haven't done it before, this might look like a lot but it's honestly not.

I think that is everything, but I might have missed some things. Editing minor things in the packfile mid campaign playthrough if you realized you missed something should not mess anything up from my experience.

@Griffinton Have you used Rusted Pack File Manager before? It should be pretty simple, since I did a pretty good job with organization. The big things are:

Go to packfile in the top left, open packfile, fine where "Skirmish_Line.pack" is and open it.

Go into unit_stats_land_tables, go into skirm_2_unit_stats_land (these are all the open order line infantry, but not including the actual skirmishers), and edit:

-unit count (there is a non skirmisher version of the same; you should be able to just delete "skirmisher" or "skirm" from the line)
-standard bearer (there is a non skirmisher version of the same)
-man entity (there is a non skirmisher version of the same)
-man animation (there is a non skirmisher version of the same: ("boshin_man_rifle_trained_bayonet")
-rank depth (change it to 3)
-close formation spacing horizontal and vertical
-melee bonus vs cav
-toggle off Loose Formation
-close formation spacing variation

I know this mod is literally called 'Skirmish Line' but is it possible for a version where specifically the SIR Guard/Infantry are vanilla formation and size? Maybe with Fire by Rank, not that important. Is there away for me to go on about potentially doing that myself? I love the changes this mod does, and I like the skirmish order, just wish SIR Guard/Infantry stayed as a normal upgrade. Thanks.

@Sir Markson I edited the animation files

One last thing, how did you get the infantry to constantly kneel when stationary?

@Sir Markson Increase distance between ranks, remove all ranks can fire (or whatever that firing drill is in that game that allows all ranks to shoot). Once you figure out how much space a single soldier can take for a single rank to consist of half the unit, you then go in and change the distance between the files accordingly. Unfortunately, the Great War mod has trenches that are too tall for men to kneel and shoot in, and I believe the unit sizes are too large for a very loose line.

Also, how were you able add the skirmish line to the units? I would like to make this for the Napoleon Total War Great War mod.

I've been dreaming for this kind of mod for years, thank you

would love a 2x unit size version, game would go crazy

great, thanks for the reply. Fun mod that changes the same old gameplay we're all used to by now, appreciate modders like you keeping the scene active.

@Fruitshops Thank you! Unfortunately, both of those things are known issues in vanilla. I personally have not seen the AI do nothing but march face to face even with artillery though; they usually will engage in a firefight from my experience (even if they will take so many casualties slowly marching to their range).

I adore the changes to infantry in this. FOTS always felt wrong in how it played. One thing i've noticed on the campaign after 3 or so campaigns. AI tends to march in slow order to your lines when you have artillery in your army. Even after entering in range with their guns they'll keep walking to point blank and often die easily this way. AI artillery tends to pick one target in a battle, fire at it until its destroyed or leaves its range, and then joins the rest of the army in slow walking to your lines, never setting up or firing again.

This was on hard difficulty. No idea if this is how the AI behaves in vanilla FOTS since I haven't played it in a while. I know this is likely out of the scope of this mod, but I figure i'd put in some comments since I love everything else about the way this turns FOTS into real late Victorian era warfare.

@SFgev Yes. Loose formation is kind of silly from a gameplay perspective. In the description I say only the breechloader infantry have loose formation, repurposed to close the distance between the two lines.

@Americaissupior Both unit packs clash with my philosophy (I do not like roster bloat). I would also need to basically edit every single unit, and I would need to balance them, which takes a lot of time and effort for something I think actively harms the gameplay.