pack War Ensemble

[EssArrBee]

[video=youtube]http-~~-//youtu.be/_54l8-9blxk

 

 

 

 

 

RIP Jeff Hanneman.

 

War Ensemble is a small pack centered around the Civil War using ApolloDown's Civil War Overhaul with some smaller mods to enhance it.

 

@Everyone:  I'm still looking for a few more mods to tweak the Civil War Questline, as long as they aren't full overhauls that will conflict with CWO, so please make suggestions.

 

REQUIRES A NEW GAME OR CIVIL WAR OVERHAUL WILL MAKE YOU SAD!!!

 

Modlist:

• STEP: Core
• Alternate Start - Lets you start as Legion or Stormcloak.
• Civil War Overhaul - Basis of the pack, adds in new elements to Civil War, like the ability to actually lose the war.
• Civil War Repairs - Repairs cities after a battle, so rubble and fire will disappear.
• Immersive Patrols - Battles and Civil War Plugin to add a bunch of war everywhere.
• Perfect Legionnaire - Former STEP mod for Legion troops, adds in some armor flair.
• aMidianBorn Stormcloak Officer Armor - This will be included until it is part of Book of Silence and STEP: Core.
• UltraHD Stormcloak and City Guards - Really good textures for Stormcloaks
• Bonus/Optional: Dragon Combat Overhaul - You will have to do at least one dragon fight to finish the Civil War Questline.
• War Ensemble Patch - Mostly done, need a finished STEP: Core patch to merge with.
• Secondary module: Collection of STEP: Extended mods to enhance gameplay (EBT, BSFE, DSI....)

Wiki Page

 

So far this has been tested without any causing any crashes, freezes, ILS, and corrupt saves through 20+ hours of testing. This was also before Safety Load released, so it should be even more stable with that. There are few small bugs that can pop up while using CWO, since it is so complex. The key is to save often and if you experience a bug just reload from you last save, usually one quest back and it should work the next time. The Civil War was extremely buggy to begin with and probably why it was so unfinished in the first place, so don't expect any miracles.

 

Using Alternate Start will allow you to jump right into the war if you just want to do a power run through the Civil War by choosing to start as Legion or Stormcloak. You will need to fight at least one dragon to advance the Whiterun part of the quest so Dragon Combat Overhaul is recommended, but definitely not essential.

 

I'm currently waiting for a few things to happen for the STEP: Core patch to come together, and then I will have a finished patch to distribute with this pack that will include the STEP: Core patch merged into a patch for this pack.

 

EDIT: Okay I added the links since the Nexus was being weird earlier for me.

 

EDIT: Apparently I don't have Pack permission on the wiki so I'll create the page when I do.

[torminater]

How about Immersive Patrols (various plugins)? It might be a whole lot more stable spawnwise with Safety Load?

[EssArrBee]

yeah I'm currently testing that with EBT, DSI, BFSE with the Safety Load plugin and everything is really good so far. I just want to do a couple more major city battles before adding anything else.

[z929669]

haha ... Slayer

 

(My fav is Angel of Death)

[Bundy714]

This pack looks very promising and interesting.  I'd be interested to know if you were able to complete the game running Civil War Overhaul? That mod sounds great to me, but I've been burned by Skyrim so many times.  It will run fine for a long time (100's of hours), then just get to a point where it suddenly becomes unplayable.

 

To tell the truth, I have NEVER completed Skyrim, I've never even done the vanilla Civil War stuff.  I put off choosing between Factions and do other quests and just enjoy the big open world with all the radiant quests and have a great time, until bam.....my game slowly becomes unplayable before I ever finish.  I've never been in a hurry to finish (I kinda take that open world stuff seriously).....maybe I should just start a new game and ignore the radiant quests just so that I can finish the game for once in my life.

 

Lately, I've noticed that common wisdom is for you to create a game with the mods you want and leave it alone.  This is most likely the reason I've never finished the game.  My setup will be running well, and some shiny new mod of the week, will tempt me, and I'll add it mid game because I can't leave well enough alone.  This is probably why I can run for over a hundred hours with no problem and then the game will slowly start getting more and more unstable. I am going to try.....very hard.....to set up a new game and actually leave it alone.  I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to try.  It's like an alcoholic putting down the bottle.....new mods tempt me soooo much. I tend to mod the game to the point of instability. I'm a mod addict. Maybe I need mod rehab.

 

Hmmmm, that makes me wonder. Is it only the fact that I add mods mid game? Or will Skyrim inherently become unstable after hundreds of hours regardless of if I leave it alone? Maybe I should just muscle through the main quest as fast as I can before the instability starts? Do any of you take your sweet time playing Skyrim and have no problems? I play to relax after work, to escape from the stress of real life, so I've never been in a hurry to finish at all. Maybe that is my issue.

[EssArrBee]

I suggest just using this pack for a Civil War run through then maybe starting a new game with a different setup. Civil War Overhaul is pretty intensive and does a ton of stuff behind the scenes. It can also be quite hard, so you can actually loose the Civil War. I did some Civil War only playthroughs by using Alternate Start and picking to be part of the Imperials or Stormcloacks so that I could go straight to the Jagged Crown quest. After that I just did Civil War stuff and tried to avoid everything else and I had three playthroughs without any really big issues, but I was testing this pack and didn't focus on a lot of other stuff.

 

I took a break from Skyrim after this pack and will get back into it after next when the semester is up. Maybe test a longer playthrough to see if it is more stable when a save is over 60 hours and level 20.

 

There are a few quirks with Civil War Overhaul so save often. They are not usually game breaking, but if you have a save to reload you won't have to go to far back and it usually doesn't repeatedly bug out.

 

I do tend to have Skyrim bug out on me after I get to high levels and have tons of mods installed. It can be hard to finish any questlines that way. My advice is to tone down the resolution of textures, only pick a few mods that are script intensive, and limit the amount of weapon and armor mods so leveled lists don't get to large.

[Bundy714]

Thanks for the answer EssArrBee. Looks like it's a little of both then, me adding mods mid game, AND me taking forever before finishing the main quest. I've deleted all my previous saves, but I'm pretty sure I was like level 50 or 60 something when I always seem to hit a wall.

 

And yeah, sounds like good advice on the Civil War Overhaul. I think I'll skip it this time, and actually finish the game for once, and try the Civil War Overhaul on another play through.

[james4832]

This pack looks very promising and interesting.  I'd be interested to know if you were able to complete the game running Civil War Overhaul? That mod sounds great to me, but I've been burned by Skyrim so many times.  It will run fine for a long time (100's of hours), then just get to a point where it suddenly becomes unplayable.

 

To tell the truth, I have NEVER completed Skyrim, I've never even done the vanilla Civil War stuff.  I put off choosing between Factions and do other quests and just enjoy the big open world with all the radiant quests and have a great time, until bam.....my game slowly becomes unplayable before I ever finish.  I've never been in a hurry to finish (I kinda take that open world stuff seriously).....maybe I should just start a new game and ignore the radiant quests just so that I can finish the game for once in my life.

 

Lately, I've noticed that common wisdom is for you to create a game with the mods you want and leave it alone.  This is most likely the reason I've never finished the game.  My setup will be running well, and some shiny new mod of the week, will tempt me, and I'll add it mid game because I can't leave well enough alone.  This is probably why I can run for over a hundred hours with no problem and then the game will slowly start getting more and more unstable. I am going to try.....very hard.....to set up a new game and actually leave it alone.  I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to try.  It's like an alcoholic putting down the bottle.....new mods tempt me soooo much. I tend to mod the game to the point of instability. I'm a mod addict. Maybe I need mod rehab.

 

Hmmmm, that makes me wonder. Is it only the fact that I add mods mid game? Or will Skyrim inherently become unstable after hundreds of hours regardless of if I leave it alone? Maybe I should just muscle through the main quest as fast as I can before the instability starts? Do any of you take your sweet time playing Skyrim and have no problems? I play to relax after work, to escape from the stress of real life, so I've never been in a hurry to finish at all. Maybe that is my issue.

What I recommend is not even looking at the nexus while you are making a play-through, it is hard, but worth is

[Bundy714]

What I recommend is not even looking at the nexus while you are making a play-through' date=' it is hard, but worth is [/quote']

Good advice.  Avoid temptation. There are so many awesome mods, but I have to keep telling myself, you can't have them all.....at least not all at once. I've got to make a modest mod list, play the game, and then do another play thru with some different mods, so each game has a different flavor.

[EssArrBee]

What I recommend is not even looking at the nexus while you are making a play-through' date=' it is hard' date=' but worth is [/quote'']

Good advice.  Avoid temptation. There are so many awesome mods, but I have to keep telling myself, you can't have them all.....at least not all at once. I've got to make a modest mod list, play the game, and then do another play thru with some different mods, so each game has a different flavor.

One thing I've been doing is setting up some mods I want to play and then just do a playthrough for a couple story lines. When I'm done I redo my mod list and start over. Trying to do every story line with character is just to hard and takes to much time.

[belthize]

My current mod list is very similar to this with a few addotopms (like Realistic Needs, Frostfall etc).

 

One mod I'm trying specifically for Civil War Overhaul is Mix Unit Tactics https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30578/. It effectively allows you to be a squad commander rather than grunt in the larger battles.

 

The mod is complicated but seems pretty clean,  it works with EFF, UFO, AFT companion mods and horse mods.  So far no troubles with it.

[Roberbond]

hi! is this pack compatible with the requiem pack?

thanks

[EssArrBee]

You should ask the requiem pack guys. They will know if civil war overhaul is compatible.

 

 

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[alexbeugelsdijk]

How about populated skyrim civil war: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49489/?

 

It adds patrols and battles similar to immersive patrols. I'm using both at the same without any problems. I haven't tested either to a large extent, but from what I've seen the troops added by immersive patrols are arranged so that the battles are close-combat, melee type, while the troops added by populated skyrim civil war are more ranged combat, so its a nice mixture.

[EssArrBee]

Yeah that would be compatible. The problem you run into with those mods is the among of actors on screen. That can bring down performance and cause crashes.

 

 

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