FLTT - Floris Less & Tougher Troops mod

Troop Viewer, 13 Troops per faction, tier 1-5 with 1 specialty tier 6 unit per faction. Overhauled equipment, names and upgrade system for all troops. All disabled troops marked with an X in game. Savegame compatible with 2.3 Floris. Should work with both basic and expanded, but I have only tested it on Expanded version so be aware! All unit spawns perfectly balanced for good even Autocalcs & Battles. High level lords will have a lot of high level troops with them, which should make for more challenging end-game gameplay. Also, I've made tons of changes to the item_kinds file, so you'll see quite a difference in the weapons probably

Features that require a new game - Skill display updates, new Lord gear, downsizing garrisons. Skills have been set the same since 1.0, Lord gear finalized since 1.0d. Fixed a bug that the mercenary Hobilar was not recruit-able in taverns. Tweaked some more equipment, added a little diversity. If horse archers are being stupid, try turning the HA fix off in options. Seems to have helped my game.

I have modified every Lord & tourney participant, everyone is tougher. Lords all have special gear and armour now. Will look into adding surgery/path finding for lords in the future, if it doesn't cause balance problems. Tweaked almost every item. Bastard weapons are now defined by being slower than normal weapons, not way lower damage when used in 1 hand. The troops rely heavily on the itemkinds file for both their look & feel and their damage balance. All lower end weapons are a little higher in damage.

Every single troop has a place in your army (except maybe the peasants, but even they can be handy for cheap fodder sometimes. No one is just pure fodder. Do not upgrade just because you can! A tier 3 poleaxe unit can be as dangerous as a tier 6 Teuton if used correctly and given the right situation.

I am posting some module.ini settings I have adjusted and am finding they help to balance quite well to fit more with history & my item_kinds changes. just copy and paste or change the values in your floris modules.ini file. I believe that editing here helps us obtain a much more realistic and balanced battlefield. I'm open to suggestions on this.

# You can modify the damage system by editing the following values:
# The first three values determine the amount which will be directly subtracted from damage due to armor.
# The next three values determine the percentage reduction from the damage.

armor_soak_factor_against_cut      = 0.75
armor_soak_factor_against_pierce    = 0.7
armor_soak_factor_against_blunt    = 0.5

armor_reduction_factor_against_cut      = 0.8
armor_reduction_factor_against_pierce    = 0.6
armor_reduction_factor_against_blunt    = 0.8

horse_charge_damage_multiplier        = 1.0
couched_lance_damage_multiplier      = 0.65
fall_damage_multiplier                = 1.0

optionally, you may wish to raise the first 3 rows values if you feel heavily armoured troops take too much damage from lower end weapons. I dont recommend this, but it's your game, and you can play it how you want For example, if you change the blunt soak value to 0.9 and the reduction value to 0.3 or 0.4, you will find basic maces do little to a teuton, but heavy weapons like a mallet will do even more damage. I set fall damage to 0.5 as a personal preference, simply because sometimes i get sick of being stuck behind my troops in a siege and would rather jump than run around the castle, this is purely a personal preference thing. I really dont think it affects gameplay balance that much, though it will affect NPC's too The charge damage multiplier I cut to 0.5 to make cavalry a little less overpowering. Again, your choice to stay with 1.0 or 0.5, but I find that the 0.5 definitely makes for more intense game play and less cavalry domination.

Troops now go through a distinct evolution of both skills and gear. My goal was to reduce Floris numbers, while maintaining slightly more troops and the flavour Floris creates over Native. In order to this, I have removed Floris tier 7 troops, but kept each faction with a tier 6 troop as an elite troop and all chains end in a tier 5 troop.

Troops will be distinguished more by equipment and weapons skills and I have implemented a new system to try and create a more dynamic, exciting & difficult battlefield.

I tried to simulate a medieval armies recruitment. A lord goes to a village, raises some peasants. He then trains them a little, equipping them with some basic stuff along the way. After a brief time the peasant evolves into a spear/melee type militia unit, or an archer/ranged archetype. So the lord may buy him some gear, and has trained him for a few days. After some more training and maybe a battle, the troop has increased in skills, and most likely acquired a small armour upgrade of some kind, and has been slotted into a semi niche position. This represents a Tier 3 Trooper.

By tier 4 the trooper has seen battle, has been trained more heavily, and it has been decided what kind of unit he will become, a knight, an archer or an infantry unit of some kind. He has most likely acquired some wealth and has been able to equip himself better since he has lived this long.

At Tier 5 the unit has seen many battles and has been trained heavily. He is a full time battle hardened veteran of many campaigns.

Tier 6 units represent minor lords, or the elite guard of that faction. He has the best assortment of gear, and weapons to deal with various kinds of enemies, or to best suit his skills.

One thing you will probably notice is that I have improved the starting gear of all the troops. I did this because it is bad enough a tier 2 unit sucks at aiming a bow, only to finally hit something with a 15p rated hunting bow. Weapons still scale, but not as much, and lower tier troops should now be more useful in combat.

All the troops should be much more useful in combat now. Tier 6 units may be elite, but a well swung bill or halberd may cut their career short at any time. Or maybe a Rhodok peasant will get lucky with his crossbow. In the middle ages it only took a week to train a crossbowman, and hence why knights feared and loathed them so much.

I have also edited the Lords to all have some trainer skills, increased their gear, and increased their weapons skills to match their level - Formula 10x level - I realize this may seem a bit excessive but my hope is too make lords more dangerous than regular troops on the field. I removed all horses from all of the rhodok lords and nord lords so they move as part of the army rather than being the lone horseman and easily targetable by the enemy army. The Kings are all a lot tougher, to reflect their status and their skill on the battlefield.

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Troops and factions themes

Swadians - Strong cavalry and good archers, weak infantry.

Vaegirs - Strong infantry and good archers, weaker cavalry.

Khergits - Strong horse archers and lancers, weaker 2 handed units. All mounted.

Nords - Strongest infantry.

Rhodoks - excellent xbows, strong sword/shield/pick infantry, good halberdiers, and dangerous 2 handed estocs.

Sarranids - Strong Cavalry,  a strong infantry/throwing weapon hybrid sword/shield unit, and mounted camel riders with bows that evolve into horse archers with a sword/shield at tier 5.

All troops upgrade more logically. Peasants become basic units with a decent weapons - especially the halberds, spears and billmen early on, as reflected by the medieval setting where troops where given polearms to fight better troops off in a formation.

As the troop upgrades they may gain a sword, a horse, etc, so a survivor becomes a veteran with more skills in the next tier, but not necessarily better gear. After some more campaigns the soldier can become a better geared unit with even more skills, until at tier 5 they reach their apex of gear & skills. The tier 6 unit, 1 for each faction, is the specialty unit of that faction, with some extra levels, somewhat better gear (reflecting status, loot from many campaigns).

The aim is that every tier of troop is now useful to some degree. Elite units will still be a significant threat, but lower tier units are now viable and useful troops rather than just total cannon fodder waiting for an upgrade.

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