SP Native [WB] Alternative Calradia Mod - Version 2 released!

@GunFred Yes I was referring to that, I remembered that portion of the script since it influences ai warfare decisions.
In my campaign I noticed that the new factions never attack their native half and vice versa, for example: the necromantic cult and the sarranid never attack eachother as well as the shogunate and the khanate and so on.

I have added a progress report for version 2 on the mainpage and here are the lords of the Vaegir Tsardom...

Theoren said:

@GunFred Yes I was referring to that, I remembered that portion of the script since it influences ai warfare decisions.
In my campaign I noticed that the new factions never attack their native half and vice versa, for example: the necromantic cult and the sarranid never attack eachother as well as the shogunate and the khanate and so on.

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This is pretty sweet as now I can, as you say, make the factions more likely to fight their intended rival. You have been very helpful Theoren and it is much appreciated. 

Nice work

Nice job with the vaegirs, looking forward to see how other lords turn out.

Thank you Remus and Theoren. I got some news...

1) I made it so each faction has claims on one of their rival faction's towns and claims on a non-rival castle.

2) I finished the nord lords yesterday but while they do not look bad, they do not look interesting in the same way the swadian, vaegir and rhodok lords do. So I will probably not post any nord lords unless requested, in which case I do not mind doing so.

3) I added a basic necromany script by simply copying and tweaking the recruit prisoners in camp script. Currently its effect is that you can trade the normally recruited prisoners for undead troops. It works well enough to give the undead troops actual purpose. It would mean rewriting the the current story behind the undead which is a pity but this works as well, though it is much less original. Hopefully I can also, with or without help, make the script more advanced in the future.

4) I am going to add an extra tier to cultist troops to replace their undead upgrades  and they will fight more evenly with other factions living troops. I made some new items for the Necromantic Cult and if I may say so myself, they turned out aweeeeeesoooooome. 
I am looking forward to showing them and hopefully I can provide some images today.

I was going to post pics of the necromancer lords at the same time but I am going to need some more time so I am posting these cultist troops now.

1) Interesting change adding claim to towns, I wonder how  it will impact diplomacy/warfare in the long run;

2) I'm sure the nord lords still look better than native, any chance you could post them as well as the swadians lords?

3) guspav author of the "Phantasy Calradia" mod has a fully working necromancy script, perhaps you could try contacting him for tips or knowledge on the matter;

4) These changes to the Necromantic Cult are welcome, specially the troop additions. They were the easiest faction to fight against so I'm looking forward to see how battles will roll in the next version.

What he said 

Necromancers
They took a lot of extra time to make because after being practically done with them, I remembered that the Spak OSP had been updated some time ago and I remade them like they are now.

Jarls
They are not very interesting or impressive but they will have to do for now.

Theoren said:

1) Interesting change adding claim to towns, I wonder how  it will impact diplomacy/warfare in the long run;

2) I'm sure the nord lords still look better than native, any chance you could post them as well as the swadians lords?

3) guspav author of the "Phantasy Calradia" mod has a fully working necromancy script, perhaps you could try contacting him for tips or knowledge on the matter;

4) These changes to the Necromantic Cult are welcome, specially the troop additions. They were the easiest faction to fight against so I'm looking forward to see how battles will roll in the next version.

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1) Yeah, I hope that, towns being harder to capture, will increase the wartime between rival factions. At the same time, if towns are higher priority, perhaps weaker factions will be destroyed faster.
2) I have no pictures of the swadians but perhaps I can just quickly copy their equipment to other troops like the custom battle heroes without too much effort.
3) I might take a look at it later. The very simply one currently used works but I would like to place some restrictions on it like, necromancers only and so that prisoners become the type of undead that reflects their original fighting style (cavalry = undead cavalry). Currently, anyone can raise undead soldiers from prisoners and you can choose wether they become cavalry, archers or infantry.
4) I assumed it would turn out that way when the undead would stay dead. Now the undead will have a different purpose in the form of extra reward troops if prisoners are taken.
5) I probably will not finish all lords before releasing version 2. I have been thinking of adding one or more new companions, claimants and banners to test it out as I have never done so before.

Swadian lords...

The necromantic lords look really good as well as the swadians, both are distinguished and unique. The jarls are fine, I imagine finding gear for them is harder and scarce as some of the OSP's have plenty of viking grade gear but not so much for nobles.

Regarding the new additions you're planning, the companions aren't difficult to implement so having new ones is appreciated, they just require some patience and a little planning for their personalities/backstories. There's an old but decent guide written by Malik Faris in the unofficial tutorials section at the Forge.
As for claimants and banners I honestly haven't dabbled with them but I suspect claimants aren't hard to do.

Two other things I remembered, first: is the "tavern mercenaries being replaced by faction troops" bug fixed?
Second: it would be good if the mercenary camps could remain visible in the map after being discovered.

Theoren said:

Regarding the new additions you're planning, the companions aren't difficult to implement so having new ones is appreciated, they just require some patience and a little planning for their personalities/backstories. There's an old but decent guide written by Malik Faris in the unofficial tutorials section at the Forge.
As for claimants and banners I honestly haven't dabbled with them but I suspect claimants aren't hard to do.

Two other things I remembered, first: is the "tavern mercenaries being replaced by faction troops" bug fixed?
Second: it would be good if the mercenary camps could remain visible in the map after being discovered.

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I successfully created my first functional companion (not with actual backstory) late yesterday thanks to Malik's very well made tutorial. But man, 40 unique strings per companion is going to take some serious time. Luckily, claimants do not appear to have even a third of that and hopefully there are not too many script complications for them. 
Version 2 will probably have only 1 companion and hopefully at least 1 claimant.

I know exactly which piece of code that creates the tavern mercenary bug. But if I fix it with my knowledge, the whole town recruiting script will stop working properly. Which is part of why I have sent the mercenaries over to the camps instead. Perhaps I will try to remove tavern mercenaries completely or try to replace them with town recruits (because town recruits have the fewest recruiting places).  And I should probably take a look at the invisible camp thingy. I bet I just need to replace/remove a single word or something simple like that.
I will probably have

EDIT: Claimants were indeed not hard to do at all (only 6 unique strings instead of 40). The People's Republic now has a claimant WITH a background story. He only lacks a face and equipment that does not belong to Kastor. I also very quickly made the camps visible from start.

What is left to do before you release version 2?

Theoren said:

What is left to do before you release version 2?

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Not much.
I need to do something with the companion I created. Either I write 40 unique pieces of dialogues for him or I temporarely disable him.
I made a banner but unfortunatly I have been unable to get it to work so that too will either have to be disabled, or I get it to work. A lack of step by step tutorials for banner implementing makes the "get it to work" option harder and more time consuming.
Other than that I do not think there is anything super important to do. I should probably not delay version 2 any further and it can probably be expected sometime within a week's time.

Please! do keep working on this mod, love the troop trees styles, you could always find inspiration for the Necromantic cult in Solid & Shade, N0ught can teach you a lot, about the People's republic, they're unique on their on, but.. they're the only ones holding firearms? does not make any sense, there should be a musketeer in every faction, to fill such void and add more tactical possibilities, to make the undead a bit more hardy, why you don't add iron skin 10 to them?

I'll be testing the mod futher, I always love to do so, tested several mods for a bunch of games already, not saying my input is good, but I think I know what I do.

Gryffindor said:

Please! do keep working on this mod, love the troop trees styles, you could always find inspiration for the Necromantic cult in Solid & Shade, N0ught can teach you a lot, about the People's republic, they're unique on their on, but.. they're the only ones holding firearms? does not make any sense, there should be a musketeer in every faction, to fill such void and add more tactical possibilities, to make the undead a bit more hardy, why you don't add iron skin 10 to them?

I'll be testing the mod futher, I always love to do so, tested several mods for a bunch of games already, not saying my input is good, but I think I know what I do.

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Thank you very much Slythe... I mean Gryffindor... 
Solid and Shade is a damn cool mod. I tried it once and the necro crafting system is amazing. I probably will never give firearms to other factions but if anyone would get firearms besides the revolutionaries it would probably be bandits of some sort. And I do hope in a final version to have that customizable player faction that some mods have and those troops could very well have firearms but with other troops very different from the Repuplic's. And I do not want to give the undead more HP but if people want them to be sturdier I can increase the armour value of their unique skeleton armours.

So, any news regarding the mod's progress?

Theoren said:

So, any news regarding the mod's progress?

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Sorry about the delay. I have been a little busier than usual the last several days and the free time (which I still got comparably much of) has been mostly devoured by Rome 2. But I did do a lot of the dialogues for the new companion some days ago and right now I was finally working on it again and am almost finished with the companion. I should post about him/her before going to bed tonight and hopefully I can release version 2 within 1-3 days. I would have released it already if not for blasted time devouring Total War games and 40 mood killing dialogues/strings...

Here is a picture of the new companion...
He will not have personality clashes or matches and I named him Anno (at least for now) as that was the name of the Teutonic grand master during the year 1257 which is the year that Warband starts in.
He is a teutonic manhunter companion and making him a lord will probably be the only way to enable the teutonic culture in version 2. I will also replace manhunters with teutonic crusaders.

Having Freelancer in this mod would be kind of nice.

But eh, I can live without it. I like it so far!