Hello everyone! Today marks the release of Battle Cry of Freedom's most ambitious and largest update yet. After almost a month without updates, today's patch will include hundreds of changes, fixes, and features.
Besides all the additions and tweaks to the base game, we have been working together with the community to bring to you Age of Napoleon, a full conversion mod featuring the Napoleonic Wars at the height of Napoleon's reign over Europe.
Age of Napoleon has been completely integrated into the base game, meaning anyone owning Battle Cry of Freedom will download the mod by simply updating their game.
Battle Cry of Freedom - Important Changes
As usual, we will go over some of the more important changes and additions in detail. You can read the full changelog at the bottom of the Blog Post.
The Zouaves have arrived on the Battlefield!
Although our character artist is still in Ukraine and can not spend a whole lot of time on creating new uniforms, we have managed to implement the first Zouave unit into the game.
Based on the 146th New York Infantry Regiment, these Zouaves are dressed in the typical baggy Zouave attire, reminiscent of the French Zouave regiments from North Africa. This particular unit is dressed in Sky-Blue pants and coats, with yellow facings and a red sash. Their headgear is of similar North African origin and is either a red fez with a large yellow tassel or a red and white turban.
The 146th New York was equipped with a unique mix of weapons. While the majority of their companies carried regular Springfield and Enfield Rifled Muskets, the skirmisher company was equipped with a mix of Sharps Carbines and Rifles.
Iron Brigade themed update to the US Infantry
Due to the unfortunate circumstances, our character artist sees himself in at the moment, we have decided that instead of focusing on a single regiment, his time would be better spent implementing various new uniform pieces and gear into the game, so that players can construct their own Regiments out of the gear included in the game.
As such, this update will include a major upgrade to the "US Infantry". We have added several new Hardee Hats and updated the insignia selection for all existing Hardee Hats. Players will now be able to choose from a number of different horns, badges, and cords to dress their Hardee accordingly.
In addition to the Hardee Hats and insignia, we have added a large number of new gaiters and gaitered trousers to the US Infantry, making it possible to truly re-create the look of the various regiments of the Iron Brigade. We have even added the option to choose Navy-Blue trousers, making it possible to re-create the Iron Brigade as it looked mid-1862.
Boom Boom tubes, i.e. Hale Rockets
Hale Rockets were used in the early stages of the war and saw combat in several battles in 1861 and 1862. Although entirely abandoned by 1863 (The Year the game is loosely based on), we have decided to include them in the game anyway. With the addition of the Hale Rocket Launcher, the total number of unique artillery pieces in the game has now risen to 29.
The Hale Rocket was a rocket designed by British Inventor William Hale and was based on the popular Congreve Rocket design. Hale managed to stabilize the rocket in flight by removing the long guide stick of the Congreve Rocket and replacing it with a number of small exhaust holes at the rear of the rocket. Paired with an intricate design of fins at the rear of the rocket, the rocket would spin midflight and therefore stabilize itself, significantly increasing the accuracy of the rocket.
The US-Government recognized the distinct advantages of the Hale Rocket early on and started adopting it in large numbers. The US Rocket launcher was of a simple tripod design, with a launcher tube and counterweight on a lever arm, which could be used to modify the burn time of the rocket, and therefore the distance it will travel.
In the game, the Hale Rocket launcher can be carried by a single person and is capable of firing both 6-pound fused shell as well as 6-pound case shot. Although not very accurate compared to even a regular smoothbore cannon, the Hale Rocket Launcher has the distinct advantage that it can be fired up to 3 times faster than most other artillery pieces and does not require swabbing.
Let there be light! - The M1861 Coston Flare Pistol
The M1861 Coston Flare Pistol was a unique little pistol capable of holding flares of various colors. It was adopted in relatively large numbers by the US-Navy and although it likely did not see service on Land, we have decided to include it in the game regardless.
Just like in reality, players will be able to pick from 3 distinct colors. Red, Green and White.
Each of the flares produces a clear and distinct color, easily distinguishable even from a distance. Flares can be used both for long-distance communication and for temporary illumination of the surrounding area. As such they will be a very handy tool for any officer who will find himself leading a company in the dark of night.
Work for me, you useless bot!
In Commander Battles, AI-Soldiers will now not only assist you with rolling your cannon to a new position; but will also help sponge, ram, prime and push the cannon. To claim a cannon for your AI-Soldiers, simply interact with it. Players will still have to grab and load the ammunition themselves, and AI-Soldiers will not aim or fire the cannon for the player.
Server Quick-Select buttons!
To make it faster and easier to join public servers, we have added quick select buttons to the game.
Clicking on "Play" from the Main Menu will now put you into the Quick Select UI, allowing you to choose from either Player vs Player or Commander Game modes.
Once a game mode has been chosen and selected, the game will automatically put you on the most populated server of the type. The regular server browser is still available via an extra button at the bottom of the menu.
New Maps on the Official Servers!
Talking about servers, we have added a large number of new maps to the official Servers, bringing the total number of maps in rotation to 29.
Most of these maps were made by our awesome community, so I would just like to express my heartfelt appreciation. Thank you for all your help, you are awesome!
New Servers
To celebrate the release of the Age of Napoleon mod, we will be running several official Commander Battle Servers dedicated to the Age of Napoleon mod. In addition, the Official All Modes Servers will be running a mix of Civil War and Napoleonic-themed maps.
Camera Improvements to Aiming
We have completely rewritten the camera code for First, Third and AIm-Down sights camera modes.
The new camera system will smoothly blend between the different modes and will automatically offset the camera to the right when aiming in the third person. This will prevent the reticule being obstructed by, for example, a French Grenadier Bearskin.
We have massively improved the Aim-Down sights camera. Instead of being glued to the back of the gun, the camera now slightly swivels behind the gun, just like a human head would. This also means that rapid camera movements mean that you will have to wait for a short time for the sights to come back in line again. Overall the new system feels much more realistic and greatly improves the enjoyability of aiming down sights.
I will get my revenge! - New Death ScreenWe have added a death screen to the game, giving you useful information about whoever has killed you. The screen will show you his name, kill distance, weapon and projectile used to kill you, as well as his banner, current health, stamina, and bonuses.
New Faction System
To support the Age of Napoleon mod, we have programmed a new faction system. The new system is currently still rudimentary, but in practice, this new System will allow us to add as many Factions to the game as we want.
New Steam Achievements
We have added 17 new Steam Achievements to the game. Here is the full list:
- Lazy git - Sit down on a Chair or Bench
- Gatling go brrrrrrrr - Use a Gatling Gun
- Surrender - Surrender to the enemy
- This is my country! - Play as Militia
- Long Shot - Kill someone with a pistol at 75 meters or more
- They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance - Kill someone with a rifle at 150 meters or more
- Rifled Artillery - Kill someone with a cannon ball at 300 meters or more
- Beat 'em up - Kill someone with your fists
- Over the cliff and far away - Kill someone by pushing them
- Ol' Sawbones - Heal for 1000 hitpoints
- Grand Campaign - Win 100 rounds/maps
- Gunner - Kill 100 enemies with cannon balls
- Sniper - Kill 100 enemies with a gun
- Give them the bayonet! - Kill 100 enemies in melee
- Modding Support - Play as a Modded Troop
- Puppet Master - Get 2000 kills in commander battle game modes
- One Man Army - Kill 500 enemies
Performance improvements
We have upgraded to the latest Unity Engine version and have also implemented various performance improvements. On top of that, we have programmed our own custom occlusion culling solution that should work dynamically on all pre-made and all custom-made maps. The feature is still WIP, so expect a few smaller issues. You can turn it off in the settings.
Other Important Quality of Life Improvements
We added a small hit direction icon to the game. Whenever you get hit, it will show you where you got hit from, making it easier to identify that you A.) Got hit and B.) Where you got hit from. The UI will also show you how much damage you have received, by being more or less opaque depending on damage received.
Players can now crouch walk and aim for 1 second before aiming is canceled entirely. This should make it significantly easier to shift aim while being crouched. Holding sprint while crouched will now automatically make the player stand up and sprint.
If reload while moving is enabled in Server Settings, players will now much much slower. They will also no longer be able to sprint while reloading. In addition, when bumping a gun into an object, such as a wall or a fence, the player will now recover faster.
Players who find themselves in melee mode but willing to reload their gun or go to right shoulder shift will now no longer have to switch to fire mode manually. Pressing RMB or Y will automatically put them into fire mode.
Player names will now be colored in Company/Officer/NCO colors, the colored circle around their banner is now also much larger and easier to see. The scoreboard will also show these colors. This should make it much easier to recognize who is in which company and who is the officer.
Age of Napoleon is a full conversion modification for Battle Cry of Freedom. The Modification is set in the year 1810, during the height of Napoleon's reign, and will feature two fully modeled Factions: France and Great Britain.
The Mod uses assets from the popular L'Aigle modification made by Docm30 (Jackson) for Mount & Blade: Warband. Age of Napoleon has been completely integrated into the base game, meaning anyone owning Battle Cry of Freedom will download the mod by simply updating their game.
Age of Napoleon features 2 Factions. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Empire Français. Both Factions have a large number of selectable regiments, uniforms, weapons, and troops.
The Factions are fully voiced and even have their own musicians that play historically accurate tunes.
All Uniforms in the Mod are customizable, although the customization options are not as extensive as in the base game.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The following regiments will be included:
- 1st (Royal) Regiment of Foot
- 42nd (The Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot
- 43rd (Monmouthshire Light Infantry) Regiment of Foot
- 95th (Rifles) Regiment of Foot
- 1st Regiment of Foot Guards
- 8th Battery of Royal Artillery
- Engineers
- Medical Staff
Empire Français
The following regiments will be included:
- 1er Regiment de Infanterie de Ligne
- Fusilier-Grenadier de la Garde Imperiale
- 1er Grenadiers a Pied de la Garde Imperiale
- 5e Regiment de Artillerie a pied
- Engineers
- Medical Staff
Artillery in Age of Napoleon
Age of Napoleon will also feature 3 unique artillery pieces. A 12 Pounder Gribeauval Cannon, a 6 Inch Gribeauval Howitzer and a 12 Pound Congreve Rocket Launcher.
Battle Cry of Freedom - Full Changelog
New Features:
- Added the “Age of Napoleon” mod to the game files, featuring British and French Napoleonic troops. (Made by Aztir, DaMonkey, Valk, Docm30)
- Added the following new Cannons and Ammunition:
- Added Gibreuval 12 Pounder Artillery Piece.
- Added Gibreuval 6 Inch Pounder Howitzer.
- Added Gibreuval 6 Inch Pounder Howitzer Ammunition Chest.
- Added Gibreuval 12 Pounder Artillery Ammunition Chest.
- Added 12 Pounder Congreve Rocket Launcher.
- Added 12 Pounder Congreve Rocket Shell Shot.
- Added 6 Pounder Hale Rocket Launcher.
- Added 6 Pounder Hale Rocket Launcher Ammunition Crate.
- Added 6 Pounder Hale Rocket Case Shot.
- Added 6 Pounder Hale Rocket Shell Shot.
- Added the following new weapons and ammunition:
- US Navy M1861 Coston Flare Pistol
- White, Green and Red Flare Ammunition.
- Whitworth Rifle without Scope.
- Baker Rifle.
- Baker Rifle Sword Bayonet.
- Sabre Briquet.
- Spyglass.
- Bagpipe.
- Updated to newer Unity Engine version.
- Added new Server Quick Connect UI and replaced Server Browser with it. Server Browser is still available, but players can now quick connect to Servers by pressing a single button.
- Added several gaitered trousers and gaiter variations to the US Infantry.
- Added hat brass and cords to all selectable hardee hats.
- Added new hardee hats to the US Infantry.
- Added the 42 Springfield to the US Infantry.
- Added Lorenz .54 Cal. Rifle to US Infantry.
- Added Grey trousers to the Generic CS NCOs.
- Added a new first person and aim down sights camera system.
- When aiming your gun in 3rd person, the camera zooms a little bit and moves a bit to the right so you can see better what you are shooting at.
- Added a death screen with killer information.
- Bots now help sponge, ram, prime, and move cannons back after firing.
- Added server setting to turn off the ability of giving orders.
- Added notification for firing out of line and hitting someone if the auto admin is turned on.
- Added notifications when your bots are healed and get ammunition.
- Added notification for when your bot is respawned and how many are left.
- Cap letters are now done automatically.
- AI-Soldiers in Commander game-modes now help you sponge, ram, prime and push cannons.
- Added a hit direction UI. Added an option to turn this on and off.
- Added an Era setting in the change map screen for random maps.
- Added a Napoleonic Era toggle in the meta data for custom maps.
- Added several new Steam Achievements.
- Added US and CS General Staff.
- Added Zouave Infantry to the Union.
- Added 12 new community requested banners.
- Added new Occlusion culling system + settings.
- Added an option in Scene editor to turn off Occlusion Culling on certain objects, so that they can freely move about. (For example for ships)
Changes and fixes:
- Worked on threading, made it detect the correct core count on the player machine and set the correct amount of job threads, should increase FPS slightly.
- Bandages now only hit other players, not the scene geometry, making it easier to heal someone.
- You can now crouch walk a bit without canceling aim.
- When Moving while reloading is enabled you will now move much slower than normal walk speed.
- When bumping your weapon into scenery while aiming you will go back to aim again faster once you clear the obstacle.
- Fixed that Bots would not get slowed down by telegraph wire.
- Made Company and other Icons around the Banner much thicker and therefore easier to see.
- Changed coloring of peoples names and their scoreboard names to help make the various ranks stand out more.
- Changed the color of player names and scoreboard names based on their relation to you.
- Changed cap point letters to be automatically selected.
- Added militia to possible bot selection for non-Commander Battle game modes.
- Engineers are now immune to Auto Admin.
- Artillery and Explosives don't apply to Auto Admin anymore.
- Non-Commander Battle Bots no longer make the scoreboard score act funny.
- Fixed a bug with Commander Conquest and spawning as officer if the respawn timers are too low.
- Changed “Hide Banners” filter to “Hide Empty Servers” in the Server Browser.
- Changed some pathfinding when new sapper props are spawned
- Orders using the commander battle UI will also give orders in non CB modes.
- Made it so chat UI doesn't close when you spawn.
- Changed dropdown text in options menu to scale with size.
- No Flag variant of the capture points no longer have collision.
- Reduced damage output of Buckshot slightly.
- Slightly reduced accuracy of all Smoothbore Guns.
- Reduced down stab damage of all bayonetted muskets and rifles by 20%.
- Reduced heavy hit melee stun length from 0.9 to 0.7 seconds.
- Reduced getting pushed melee hit stun length from 1.1 to 0.9 seconds.
- Increased push distance for heavy hit and pushes by 30%.
- Added more Death Zones to Canyon map to prevent players from climbing out of it.
- Fixed that Players were able to drive cannons outside of the map.
- Fixed that you can fall through the tracks on Mountain Pass.
- Fixed that bots would struggle to destroy unfinished or low sitting Sapper constructibels.
- Reduced damage of Case Shot slightly.
- Fixed issue with Commander Battle UI not scaling correct on 16:10 Aspect Ratio.
- Flags now stay alive longer after being dropped.
- UI for respawn timer now goes to 300 seconds.
- Changed damage from out of line hitting someone if auto slay is on to 20% reflective
- Non Commander Battle bots should no longer destroy their own teams stuff.
- Fixed bug with sprinting while reloading and walking.
- You can now go straight from melee to reloading.
- You can now go straight to melee from right shoulder shift arms and back.
- Holding sprint and move forward while crouching will make you stand, assuming you can stand up.
- Fixed NaN in UI when your bots never had ammo.
- Fixed an error with help UI.
- Changed officer beacons distance to 5 meters.
- Changed notification for timer on king/battle/CB key cap.
- Fixed bug with hitting quick build as sapper while in inventory.
- Changed some security for building props on the server.
- Added more security for spawns.
- Added more security in case server loads bad maps.
- Cutting ropes of the usable balloon will now credit you for the kill(s).
- Fixed that the window destruction on some large windows would be offset and not in the correct spot.
- Fixed that pressing RMB while going to Parade Rest would break musket animations and allow you to do invisible melee stabs.
- Fixed that when walk while reloading is enabled, and players start reloading while crouch moving, the reload animation would not play.
- Fixed a bug when using int objs when destroyed.
- Maybe fixed that trees sometimes do not fall over when destroyed.
- Fixed a bug where bots would run across the map if there was only 1 bot per rank.
- Added some security in case background music jumps volume.
- Child props no longer destroy the other props they are linked too.
- Environmental damage now ignores the Commander Battle distance check.
- Fixed a bug where destroying a rope on a balloon meant you couldnt use it anymore.
- Fixed a bug with max number of bots and admin commands.
- Fixed an issue with scene props on reset that were children of each other.
- The troop menu will now open the correct tab of troops depending on what troop you were assigned from the server.
- Added modded troop tab in troop menu.
- Fixed that players could sprint while reloading.
- Build points and cannon points are now attacker and defender, rather than Union and Confederate.
- Fixed a bug with planting crates and sapper props.
- Changed default shell fuse time to 4 seconds.
- Fixed a bug on start up with allowed companies and modded troops.
- Fixed seed text.
- Fixed auto balance bug when set to unlimited.
- Changed text for auto swapping players for balance.
- Updated credits for those that helped us :)
- The following cannons are now loaded at start of the map, saving defenders time to load.
- 32 Pounder Naval Gun
- 24 Pounder Barbette on Front Pintle Carriage
- Maschienengewehr 08
- QF 13-Pounder Gun
- Removed 1841 US-Missippi Rifle from CS and US Infantry.
Are you interested in attending huge organized Linebattles with hundreds of players? Then join our Discord and enlist with one of the Regiments (Clans) hosting organized events!
Thank you!
/Flying Squirrel Entertainment
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