Q: I am experiencing frequent crashes, freezes, glitches, and/or runtime errors.

A: Install Warband Script Enhancer 2 (WSE2) and run the mod through it's launcher.
The reason why mods for this game have so much trouble is because Mount & Blade:
Warband's engine is outdated and fundamentally flawed, and therefore is not capable
of handling what large mods like this one are adding to the game. WSE2 is a program
that enhances the Warband engine by adding operations, scripts, triggers, changing
hardcoded game mechanics, and fixes some engine bugs. WSE2 also allows for
optimized and more efficient rendering along with maximizing the graphics card's
advanced graphical settings and power with the outdated Warband engine. WSE2 makes
a massive difference and is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for
eliminating crashes, memory leak issues and runtime errors.

Here is a link to the WSE2 forum:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/warband-script-enhancer-2-v1-0-8-
2.384882/

Here is a YouTube tutorial on how to install WSE2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=jXZhUDIw-1E

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.

Additional solutions:

- You must use a legitimate copy of the game that is bought through Steam,
TaleWorlds, etc. PIRATED COPIES WILL NOT WORK AND ARE NOT SUPPORTED.

- You must have the latest version of M&B: Warband.

- Enable "Load textures on demand" in the launcher options.

- Disable "Sound variation" in the game's settings.

- Ensure cheat mode is disabled.

- Ensure Edit mode is disabled in the game's settings.

- Decrease the graphical options you are running the game at, especially decreasing
texture details, lowering the shadow quality, shader quality, anti-aliasing, etc.

- Decrease battle size to 150 - 250. Anything more than 300 max can cause
instability. (Note: Native Warband's battle size is limited to 150.)

- Lower the number of corpses and ragdolls. Ragdolls especially can be a big drain
on performance.

- Do not run any unnecessary background programs while playing the mod. You can go
into your task manager and end any other programs that are running. (Optionally,
you can use a program like Smart Game Booster to do this for you every time you
start the game, and this program also includes a function for cleaning junk files.)

- Make sure the graphics card driver is fully up to date with the latest version.

- Clean up junk files, and don't have a lot of other big mods, games, programs,
files, etc. on your computer. M&B is notoriously memory hungry, so you will want to
give it as much available resources as you can.
- Make sure your computer is not overheating.

- Quit Warband and exit to the desktop, then restart Warband and load your saved
game. Optimally do this every 1 - 3 hours. This helps to reset memory leak issues
by clearing your memory being used by the game.

- I do not suggest anyone run out to buy a new computer just to use this mod,
however having a good quality computer that is built for gaming will certainly help
you to run this as well as other M&B mods in general. Outdated or low quality
systems, as well as laptops, will struggle to run this game, if they can even run
it at all. If you decide for yourself that you want to purchase a new computer or
upgrade your current system's components, make sure you are doing good research and
making choices that are optimized for gaming. That being said, even with a fully
optimized computer, there are inherent issues with bottle necking and limitations
of the outdated, fickle Warband engine.

- In light of this issue with crashes, it is STRONGLY recommended that you save
your game often.

Q: The mod crashes when trying to load into the main menu.

A: This is usually a result of a mistake made during the installation process,

whether for the mod, or the game itself. You should verify the integrity of your
game's files through Steam to see if there are any missing or corrupted files. If
you still fail to load into the main menu, then you should delete all of the game's
files and make a fresh installation. Make sure to follow all of the instructions
carefully, do not skip anything or attempt to make your own changes.

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.
A potential workaround for this issue is to disband your artillery crews before
participating in any siege battles, and then use cheats to give yourself the money
to recruit new crews afterwards. The artillery system will only break after sieges,
you don't have to worry about this when assisting generals in battles, it will
still work afterwards in the battles you fight on your own.

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.

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/translating-game-to-my-own-
language-is-possible.289451/#post-6887246

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 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: No, there is no more room in the recruitment system to be adding new units, and
the game is already pretty much at the limit of what it can handle without
constantly crashing.
Q: Can you add a troop tree to the mod?

A: With the current area of recruitment system, the need for a troop tree has
become obsolete. You can refer to the troop guides under the articles tab here on
the Moddb page to see all of the units available in the mod, their recruitment
locations, and which general(s) they are assigned to.

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

A: I can't make any promises about that. I'm open to hearing your suggestions, but
I'm pretty much done adding things to the mod at this point.

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. Another big issue is that Bannerlord is continuously being updated, so
any mods for it are constantly becoming outdated and will only function on the
specific version of the game that it was built on.

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.

Q: How do I know what type of ammunition each weapon uses?

A: All of the ammunition is interchangeable, except for carbines and pistols. They
do different amounts of damage, and use different bullet models that can be seen
flying through the air in battles, but that's it.

If you want to use the correct ammo for fun, then Minie balls go with rifle
muskets, round balls go with smoothbore muskets, and buck & ball is used with the
smoothbore muskets that are scripted to fire buck & ball (The weapon's name will
tell you if it fires buck & ball or not). The carbines use ringtails (be mindful
that there is a rifle version and a carbine version of this ammo type), and the
revolvers use conical ball. All of the ammo tells you in it's name whether it is
meant to be used with rifles, muskets, carbines, or revolvers. For example, ".58
Caliber Minie Ball Rifle Cartridges", ".69 Caliber Round Ball Musket Cartridges",
".52 Caliber Ringtail Carbine Cartridges", ".44 Caliber Conical Ball Revolver
Cartridges", etc.

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

A: No, this would be an absolutely enormous amount of work and it would present a
number of technical and balancing issues. There is so much content and room to
explore within the American Civil War theme of the mod, there is no need for extra
factions anyway. Also as I mentioned earlier, the game is pretty much at the limit
of what it can handle, so adding entirely new factions would definitely cause
further instability.