As the title says.

Ugh, I tried most recommended mods Gentlemen of Fortune 2.1.5 and GOF ERAS2 — both are the same and didn't change gameplay at all! Simply adding sounds, shit ton of items and ship's designs. Also that horrible SCREAMING sounds of bosun and drums whenewer you meet ships on the 3d map. So I sadly must say that there is no actually good mods, only half-assed assets put toghether in one mod. I think it's the engine — even in Russian community there is only rebalance and graphic mods, nothing extraordinary.

Personal, I like simple fix mod, with littlle bit more add as if need to be, but those two major mod just not add but change whole game, no longer close to stock game. Too much for my taste.

Could you kindly provide a link to the two mods you mentioned, please? Google is failing me.

2.0 + later mod 1.5 (alltogether 2.1.5)
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/gentlemen-of-fortune-2-1-5-mod-development.25240/

Eras is harder to find because author of this mod went full sperg and deleted it from everywhere except one crappy site, but I'm uploading a mirror for you.

As it only ended up costing me €0.59 I've just bought this game on a whim. It was €2.59 in the current sale on GOG and I already had €2.00 in my wallet after some other purchases recently, so I couldn't resist...

I too am interested in views from anyone who has played modded versions of CoAS. In the GOG store page, I noted that some reviewers referred to two mod packages in particular: Combined Mod 3.2 and Gentlemen of Fortune, although there are actually two versions of the latter.

Below is a very basic idea of what information I could glean:

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Combined Mod 3.2

- This is the older of the two mods, but 3.2 is considered the final and finished version of the mod.

Gentlemen of Fortune 1

- This is the newer of the two mods that came afterwards, but apparently includes Combined Mod 3.2 as part of the package. However, there are different versions of this mod (1.0, 1.1, 1.2) and from what limited information I could gather trawling through the PiratesAhoy! forums, 1.1 is considered the most stable version, whilst the final 1.2 version had problems with bugs, however...

Gentlemen of Fortune 2

- This appears to be a second and fresher GoF mod built on the more stable 1.1 of the original GoF 1 mod. According to the PiratesAhoy! forum I've linked to (with download links on the first page), GoF 2 v1.4 is the most recent version, however, reading through the forum thread would suggest v1.4 is very buggy and using v1.3 is recommended.

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NOTE: Just to confuse things even more whilst I was looking for information on these mods in particular, it seems there's also some update patches for each. Also, GoF 1 seems to add a plethora of new ships in some versions, which apparently caused problems with game stability. GoF 2 seemingly addressed this by starting off with improvements to vanilla ships in CoAS, but then gradually added more and reading through the forums, that has brought back stability issues with crashes and all kinds of other problems in later versions.

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Sadly, the PiratesAhoy! forum threads for these mods aren't very active, which is understandable given the age CoAS, plus modders and contributors there are more focused on newer projects.

Hopefully the information and links above will prove useful starting points for others interested in these mods, although I've yet to try any of them myself. Hence why I'm posting here, because although I've done a little research on them, it would be great if anyone who has actually tried any of these mods could provide more feedback.

For example, experiences regarding the overall stability of mod versions used, or whether they make genuine improvements to the game's UI and controls, graphics etc...

I have to admit, I played the first Sea Dogs game and just couldn't get into it. Played it for a few days and quite liked the battles at sea, but little else. The UI menus and controls were frustratingly bad, gameplay in general just felt bland and uninspiring, and even acknowledging that it was an older game, I didn't like the graphical presentation when visiting towns.

However, I'd love to give CoAS a genuine chance and with the aid of mods that unlock the potential of what this game has to offer., which address many of the things I didn't like about the first Sea Dogs game.

Thank you. I am as confused as the poster after you, about what to get and where. So thx for giving me a start.

Well, after spending an inordinate amount of time delving through forum threads at PiratesAhoy! (and elsewhere) about the various mods, the impression I get is that the following combination is the most stable:

GoF 1.2 Full Release + GoF 1.2 Full Release Patch 1.0

Also, this mod and the patch is just under 2.9gb in download size, compared to others which add stupidly massive amounts of additional content to the game and looking at feedback across different forums, more content only ends up causing more problems and bugs.

For example, the GOF ERAS2 mod I've seen mentioned is a download size of over 16gb, apparently containing over 600 ships and a vast array of other complete changes, almost to the extent that it's a completely different game. I've also observed that the creator of this mod appears to have gone out of his way to trash-talk all previous mods, even if they're fine, at various forums and sites, trying to drum up interest for his own mod. Likewise, he also seems prone to throwing tantrums at his own site, threatening to quit, if people dare to even provide constructive criticism, instead of showering him with the kind of fawning and sycophantic praise he wants.

GoF 2.1.5 mentioned here at PiratesAhoy! is the most recent of their offerings, but is effectively dead in the water and incomplete after several contributors dropped out or lost interest, leaving the impression that it's a bug-riddled mess that's not worth bothering with. It too has tried to incorporate lots of additional content, leading to stability problems that have never been resolved, proving the age old adage that more isn't always better.

I suppose it all depends on what you want from any mods, but I have an idea that what I've chosen will fix many broken elements of the vanilla game, with a sensible amount of additional content for a little extra flavour. As I've often found when applying mods to games over the years, keeping things as simple as possible is usually the best bet.

Eras 2.8.2 (02 january 2018) official site:
https://buccaneersreef.com/forums/topic/gof-eras-mod-2-latest-download/
https://mega.nz/#F!jl1zjSaC!CdBYterMnYkhdEbQy9rQKg
If you have problems downloading from mega (as I had) you can torrent 2.7.0 (07 october 2017) from me.
>>The order to ensure lates, correct files is: first the multi-part .7z files, then Update.zip, then EngineUpdate.zip.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:f2eea2270144a081cd2256c5ecbab81d62665714&dn=ERAS%202.7.0
https://mixtape.moe/pmklwg.torrent

Well, even the mods don't help this turd to float, because the core game is sunken by such bad design, no amount of modding expertise can salvage any potentially redeeming qualities.

Needless to say, this turd of a game has now been flushed from my system.

As HeathGCF pointed out above you MOST likely want GOF 1.1 + patch:
Install the core GOF v1.0 and then the update GOF v1.1 and finally the GOF v1.1.2 patch. If it's the same as in Combined Mod after starting the game go to options and click the Reinit button. After that you should be able to just start playing but do check the key bindings beforehand.

I am personally using Combined Mod 3.2 + fixed patch BUT there's still a lot of problems in it (ships missing icons, wrong cannon amount and positions and so on). I've fixed them myself on my own installation as I come across them but it's a lot of work and not really worth it.

I can say that without any community/fan mods the game is absolutely attrocious to play. It crashes on save, on load and between transitions WAY too often to be able to play. With the Combined Mod it's a LOT more stable.

I went for the gentlemen of fortune mod 2.0(the patch cused the game to crash). It has a bunch of tweaks u can turn on and off and new/improved textures etc.. But gameplay wise the main improvements are a much better choice of starting characters this time male and female and includes some from the potc films if that's of any interest to anyone. Also it gives u some cash to start the game with so with this mod you can actually fix your beginner ship and hire a few crew for it.

If you want the game I'd say on of the mods are the way to go as they make a terrible game slightly less terrible.

Gentlemen, I'd want to inform you that many of your technical misfortunes (if not all) derive from the fact that CoAS doesn't work good on any system besides WinXP (despite the standard GOG false sysreqs on the game page).

So if you really want to enjoy this amazing game, you should have an old-school XP machine (though it's strongly recommended to have it not only for CoAS but also for many other GOG games).

Good i am actually using a pc with win xp, only have to install the game and mods some day.
Hopefully i can do that on D: drive since that one has 110 gb free and C: only has 36 gb free