Brytenwalda Realism Mod 0.5

Thank you for your effort to make the mod to be more realistic and immersive, I haven't played your submod yet, in fact I just played Brytenwalda to day 200.

I am a Chinese player. From the guides on the Chinese M&B board, there are some bugs needed to be fixed.

First, defender won't reinforce if you assault a city from the sea. The guide author wrote, he brought 500 men and assaulted a city with 180 defenders from the sea. He seted the battle size to 400, 80 defenders were deployed on the field after finishing off all 80 defenders, there was no reinforcement form the defenders, he won the battle, captured 100 men without fighting them.
Not sure if it is fixed yet but really needed to be fixed if not fixed yet.

Second, there are different ways to keep the equipments gained during enlisting without deserting. Sell it than buy it back, give it to waggon.

Third, it is quite easy to make money by buying silver, minerals and stone from A, sell in B and buy salt and sell in A. Shown below.

But I guess you need to focus on balancing, testing, tweaking AI, etc before fixing other stuff.

Also, I am introducing your sub mod to the Chinese players. Hopefully it would enlarge the player base for testing your sub mod.

Hello there!
Now I'm not sure if this was posted, but today I installed your submod and made a new game and noticed something weird with NPCs that wield spears with shields. Often they would go in some breast muscle flexing position and when I attack them at this position they would block, but it sounds like a parry from something rather than blocking with their shields.. It happens just too much :S
Is it a feature?

I translated your post and posted to the Chinese M&B community, here are some feedback about the changes you made.

Feedback from the community
1. Briton swords needed to be buffed, no reason given but Ｉstill report this to you anyways
2. Villagers are tough back then, no need to change
3. Briton, Irish and Pictish troops, roughly in that increasing order, tend to have better agility, better athletics and better power throw. Britons are the best riders. Germanics and Picts are the worst. Why?
4. Cantabrian javelineers now have horses, which they inexplicably lacked before. Were they riders?
5. Some changes on skills should not be made, not specified.

My feedback
Bad
1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?
2. Trade moved to Intelligence and Persuasion moved to Charisma. Yes it is needed to be good at calculating to be good at trading but what about the persuading part to get a lower price and higher selling price? Same goes to Persuasion, it is needed to be logical to be  persuasive but what about the charming people to do things they don't intend to do part?

Others
Spotting, Tracking and Pathfinding moved to Agility. Understandable but some player may find it a bit hard to adapt.

Suggestion
I was surprised to see the amount of SC I can get from selling ragged crap when I first played the Brytenwalda, I want ragged crap are sold at crap price. Maybe you can make a alternates files for hardcore realism players, and change to numbers to whatever you feel like.

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Oh and sorry for the double-post but could you make it so when I involve in a battle of, say bandits vs caravan I can help whoever I like? At this point there are random battles where you can either help one side, both sides or none at all :/
I also found it weird that "noble lords", while waiting to siege a castle, instead of waiting properly always aggro on some villagers or caravans which are traveling around the area.  I understand it when they aggro on lords but seriously, my vassals the so called "lords" even with 100 relationship with me, instead of listening to orders and waiting to attack the castle while my engineer constructs the needed equipment go and attack those 13 harmless, innocent villagers that just wanted to buy some goods from the nearby farm 

aspirine101 said:

Hello there!
Now I'm not sure if this was posted, but today I installed your submod and made a new game and noticed something weird with NPCs that wield spears with shields. Often they would go in some breast muscle flexing position and when I attack them at this position they would block, but it sounds like a parry from something rather than blocking with their shields.. It happens just too much :S
Is it a feature?

Click to expand...

That would be TML's overhand spear animation...When I release the next version of this mod I'm probably going t remove it, as not everyone has it, and seems to be causing some people trouble. I simply much preferred the overhand thrust, to the up and down 'head bop' animation. You're probably getting a weird effect cause the game is referencing the animation and it doesn't exist in your files.

hko2006 said:

I translated your post and posted to the Chinese M&B community, here are some feedback about the changes you made.

Feedback from the community
1. Briton swords needed to be buffed, no reason given but Ｉstill report this to you anyways
2. Villagers are tough back then, no need to change
3. Briton, Irish and Pictish troops, roughly in that increasing order, tend to have better agility, better athletics and better power throw. Britons are the best riders. Germanics and Picts are the worst. Why?
4. Cantabrian javelineers now have horses, which they inexplicably lacked before. Were they riders?
5. Some changes on skills should not be made, not specified.

My feedback
Bad
1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?
2. Trade moved to Intelligence and Persuasion moved to Charisma. Yes it is needed to be good at calculating to be good at trading but what about the persuading part to get a lower price and higher selling price? Same goes to Persuasion, it is needed to be logical to be  persuasive but what about the charming people to do things they don't intend to do part?

Others
Spotting, Tracking and Pathfinding moved to Agility. Understandable but some player may find it a bit hard to adapt.

Suggestion
I was surprised to see the amount of SC I can get from selling ragged crap when I first played the Brytenwalda, I want ragged crap are sold at crap price. Maybe you can make a alternates files for hardcore realism players, and change to numbers to whatever you feel like.

Click to expand...

Hey! Thanks for taking the time and effort to translate my mod for our Chinese friends.

RE: Feedback

1) I'll check and see if Briton swords are out of whack with Saxon or Angle swords. I did intend for Saxons to have slightly better swords though, cause at this particular moment in history, they had somewhat superior swordsmithing techniques. Although this is judged solely on grave findings, and it might be that the sample is biased (i.e, perhaps the archaeologists just found a 'masterwork' saxon sword, and pretty much everyone in the area was using the same techniques). The effect isn't much more than one or two points in either direction.

2) Villagers were tough, but we're also comparing them to fighting men, and in many cases, the villagers had copy-pasted stats identical to or superior than fighting men (6 athletics, for example).

3) Simply as a measure of how they fought historically. The effect isn't that exaggerated, and it's more for flavor. But it's true that these cultures stressed certain types of warfare (the Irish, for example, stressed skirmishing for a variety of historical reasons) and the Britons as being better riders is more of a nod to the whole teulu = King Arthur's knights myth. Germans and Picts fought more on foot (Which makes sense, as Scotland is not ideal terrain for horse rearing, and the Saxons/Jutes/Angles came across the sea at a time when they almost certainly didn't have the innovations of horse transport that say, the Normans did, 500 years later).

4) Yes. A 'Cantabrian Circle' is one of the most famous military tactics in European history, and has given its name to a variety of similar formations (witness any Total War game), where riders ride in a circle, taking turns throwing javelins or firing arrows. It originated in the region of Cantabria in Northern Spain. If there are going to be Cantabrian mercenary javelin throwers in Britain, it only makes sense for them to have horses.

5) Open to all suggestions on Skills.

I'm totally down for making ragged crap even cheaper. They give much less profit than they currently do. However, you should note that the #1 cause of money inflation in Brytenwalda is using the supply wagon to hoover up every item after a battle. And then using it to sell to towns that ordinarily wouldn't have the vendor space or money to accept it. There is no way to balance the economy if a player uses the wagon. If the player does not use the wagon, the economy is mostly fine.

Trainer: Charisma is all about getting people to do what you want, stay committed, keep to the course. Not go slouching off or ducking responsibility, and building a martial spirit together.

Trade: In my opinion, judging by how the game itself treats Trade (such as using it to determine how long it takes you to exact taxes from a village), the 'haggling' aspect of it is actually quite tiny, and that in the macro sense, Trade is more used as your character's grasp of financial ledgers.

Agility: Yes, it's definitely a change, but it's nice to have at least some small reason to make a Companion go Agility (one of the Picts is a great candidate owing to their ritual armor) instead of everyone go Intelligence.

RE: Your Earlier Post

I am also not a big fan of the silver/salt circuit, and I did try to lower the abundance of silver and tweak various prices. But I didn't actually go in and start messing up trade routes, which would probably upset a lot of people. Ultimately, it's less of an issue if you don't use the wagon, and the silver takes a week to show up again in shops anyways.

How would people feel about potentially moving Athletics to Strength?

aspirine101 said:

Oh and sorry for the double-post but could you make it so when I involve in a battle of, say bandits vs caravan I can help whoever I like? At this point there are random battles where you can either help one side, both sides or none at all :/
I also found it weird that "noble lords", while waiting to siege a castle, instead of waiting properly always aggro on some villagers or caravans which are traveling around the area.  I understand it when they aggro on lords but seriously, my vassals the so called "lords" even with 100 relationship with me, instead of listening to orders and waiting to attack the castle while my engineer constructs the needed equipment go and attack those 13 harmless, innocent villagers that just wanted to buy some goods from the nearby farm 

Click to expand...

I've noticed this as well, and the reason for it is because the game doesn't allow you to join incredibly one-sided fights on the side of the guaranteed victor, unless they're an ally, or you have particularly atrocious relations with the one being attacked. That's why it seems random at times.

And yes, keeping AI lords on a tight leash when sieging is one of the biggest hassles in the game. The only way to really get around it is to make sure you're going in with a very high Engineer score (to cut down on the time to make ladders), and to give them orders right before hand to stick with you. In my experience, you usually got about 48 hours before they wander off.

ajaxjs said:

Redleg said:

I appreciate the work you put into this mod and the logic you used.  I did notice a small problem with the Britons troop tree.  There doesn't appear to be any way to get mounted troops now like in the original  Brytenwalda.

Click to expand...

Interesting. TML originally changed the troop tree around, and all I did was put it back to the way that the 'troop tree graphic' shows in the game. In my own games, I've trained Briton cavalry without issue. It was TML that made it so cavalry derived from uchewlr. Try going down the other path. I don't have the editor open with me at the moment, but its the skirmisher line that leads to their cavalry.


DaV:

As for Dena Raiders and Franks, they're not realistic at all, really. But the only solution would be to simply remove them, and I think too many people like that, for it to just be replaced with more bandits. It would probably be better to treat them like roaming bands of Angle, Saxon or Jutish warriors, and in my head, that's pretty much what they are to me. But it might be worth looking into, if renaming some things, would mess anything else up too much.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.  I'll have to check into it.  It's possible that I messed up something in my installation of your files since I have multiple versions of Brytenwalda, including the latest TML submod.

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Click to expand...

Your view of charisma is interesting but not in line with research on charisma in leadership.  Over the years there has been a great deal of debate about what charisma is and whether it's essential for leader effectiveness.  Many contemporary views of charisma discuss the importance of the leader's interpersonal skills in being able to effectively relate to, communicate with, and influence and inspire others.  While these can be important behaviors for leaders, they are not sufficient to make a person a effective (or a "good") leader.  Lay people often do associate charisma with interpersonal "charm."  Just my two cents worth.  It is a topic that is still under much debate in my field.

ajaxjs Thank you for the replies, I remember seeing something posted about the spear animation mod but forgot about it. Will definitely download it today (and if needed I will delete it in the next patch etc)
About being able or not able to join one's side to help it in battle, I remember a mod (I think it was Floris' Modpack that did it) which made it so you can join any side, so that's why I was asking if maybe it's possible to do it here too.

And thank you Redleg, I will note that

Redleg said:

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Click to expand...

Your view of charisma is interesting but not in line with research on charisma in leadership.  Over the years there has been a great deal of debate about what charisma is and whether it's essential for leader effectiveness.  Many contemporary views of charisma discuss the importance of the leader's interpersonal skills in being able to effectively relate to, communicate with, and influence and inspire others.  While these can be important behaviors for leaders, they are not sufficient to make a person a effective (or a "good") leader.  Lay people often do associate charisma with interpersonal "charm."  Just my two cents worth.  It is a topic that is still under much debate in my field.

Click to expand...

There are two options for the Trainer relation: Intelligence or Charisma.
... ajaxjs has chosen Charisma, and i can only agree.
I also agree with the thought that a trainer is something like a leader, but much more he is a teacher. In real armies those are sergeants etc. (grades), which train (and lead) a division, a corps, a brigade or something. And in our time of the mod we speak about "warbands", it's the dark age where this picture "warband" fits a lot, we have not a by institution organised army which we know nowadays.
So why suits charisma better and not so much intelligence?
Ie. until professional, from the state paid, armies were developed latest in modern times (standing armies), the personal soft skills of any warleader, or here trainer, was of extreme importance. The men had to look up to the trainer - a bit exagerated he, the trainer, was something like a god. It has mostly to do with transporting motivation from one man (the trainer) to many men, getting up men to listen and follow one person who tells them what's going on and how the preparation for the fight has to be, and certainly it's not an intellectual discussion. It's actually up to the charisma of this one man (even the 'aura' of this person), this much more, as the skill intelligence could ever be, to making an army (aka warband) out of a crowd of imcapable peasants or to make elite fighters out of medium fighters. For a good battle-trainer, the ability to transport all this is not enough, needed is of course as basic requirement the war-experience (mainly tactics; battle), ie. also the knowledge by the men (the warband), that the trainer has a lot experience, was successful in battles etc., so they can trust this trainer (and warband leader), giving their lives into his hands - but really, not so much intelligence is the point here (which fits more to the theme strategy; war/politics/diplomacy ... that is "seeing the big picture" ... but that's not for the warband).

Ajaxys, as for athletics to strength or agility: It can be both, imo.. I'm for agility, so we have not too much of these skills in the strength section, it's more balanced as it is, and the player keeps a challenge to bring up the agility values.

As for reported "technical" issues (animations etc.). I wondered already about the reports here ... i run Warband 1.160, on this the Brythenwalda 1.41 mod (with official/unofficial patches), plus the few Realism submod files, and everything seems alright.
Running not a clean, proper running base game aka here a (wild) mix of mods always or usually leads to a file/code chaos.

The only errors which happened in my case: Mission - Liberate a by bandits infested village, afterwards rows of error-messages pop-up for two seconds (script-wise), but seem to not harm anything, the game runs on as there were nothing.

Redleg said:

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Click to expand...

Your view of charisma is interesting but not in line with research on charisma in leadership.  Over the years there has been a great deal of debate about what charisma is and whether it's essential for leader effectiveness.  Many contemporary views of charisma discuss the importance of the leader's interpersonal skills in being able to effectively relate to, communicate with, and influence and inspire others.  While these can be important behaviors for leaders, they are not sufficient to make a person a effective (or a "good") leader.  Lay people often do associate charisma with interpersonal "charm."  Just my two cents worth.  It is a topic that is still under much debate in my field.

Click to expand...

Personally, in my view, where each character only has 4 stats, (Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Charisma), my take on Charisma essentially boils down to 'the ability to get other people to do or be what you want'.

There isn't enough additional stats to get more nuanced about it than that.

DaVincix said:

As for reported "technical" issues (animations etc.). I wondered already about the reports here ... i run Warband 1.160, on this the Brythenwalda 1.41 mod (with official/unofficial patches), plus the few Realism submod files, and everything seems alright.
Running not a clean, proper running base game aka here a (wild) mix of mods always or usually leads to a file/code chaos.

The only errors which happened in my case: Mission - Liberate a by bandits infested village, afterwards rows of error-messages pop-up for two seconds (script-wise), but seem to not harm anything, the game runs on as there were nothing.

Click to expand...

The red messages from liberating a village is from base Brytenwalda 1.41. I read an explanation for it once, but sadly forget the specifics. Fortunately, it seems harmless. And I think I agree with you, on Athletics.

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Click to expand...

Being inspiring is this a part of being a good leader, but he can still be in debts to his party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half his troops being wounded if he is bad at tactic, bad at commanding, bad at personal martial, even he is charismatic and inspiring.

Same goes to Trainer, an inspiring and charismatic leader/trainer is not necessary a good trainer if he has no idea what he is doing or what needed to be done. In Native, Lezalit is the best trainer initially but you can see he is pitiless from his dialogues, which no doubt is not welcomed among the troops which makes him not a good leader but it does not make him a bad trainer.

ajaxjs said:

That would be TML's overhand spear animation...When I release the next version of this mod I'm probably going t remove it, as not everyone has it, and seems to be causing some people trouble. I simply much preferred the overhand thrust, to the up and down 'head bop' animation. You're probably getting a weird effect cause the game is referencing the animation and it doesn't exist in your files.

Click to expand...

How about keeping it as an optional mod?

ajaxjs said:

And yes, keeping AI lords on a tight leash when sieging is one of the biggest hassles in the game. The only way to really get around it is to make sure you're going in with a very high Engineer score (to cut down on the time to make ladders), and to give them orders right before hand to stick with you. In my experience, you usually got about 48 hours before they wander off.

Click to expand...

I have played another mod Custom Commander Warband that, it modified CAI, lords don't wander off to cease villagers/caravans when following the marshal. They only flee if the whole warband is weaker than enemy's.

Redleg said:

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to Charisma, they train more because of a charming leader?

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed, but you only need to know strategy and "battle tactics", nothing else.  A good trainer needs to know to be a good leader too, I'll give an example:
If you're a bad leader, always in debts to your party, barely have enough food to keep up, rarely rest, and rush into a huge castle with half your troops being wounded, it wouldn't really inspire anyone to train to be a good warrior and soldier because they know that they're living in a crappy condition, led by an idiot and they could die any moment because of him, so why should they listen to his training?

Oh, and a note: A charismatic person is not a charming person... It's a person with the ability to lead, he doesn't cast a spell that makes his people fall in love with him, no. A good leader is simply someone who knows how to get his followers out of a bad situation. A good leader knows the "code" to lead his men in a good path, rather than drop them all in the abyss.

Click to expand...

Your view of charisma is interesting but not in line with research on charisma in leadership.  Over the years there has been a great deal of debate about what charisma is and whether it's essential for leader effectiveness.  Many contemporary views of charisma discuss the importance of the leader's interpersonal skills in being able to effectively relate to, communicate with, and influence and inspire others.  While these can be important behaviors for leaders, they are not sufficient to make a person a effective (or a "good") leader.  Lay people often do associate charisma with interpersonal "charm."  Just my two cents worth.  It is a topic that is still under much debate in my field.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

DaVincix said:

Redleg said:

aspirine101 said:

hko2006 said:

1. I don't see why move Trainer to...

Click to expand...

A trainer is a sort of a leader. Intellect is needed...

Click to expand...

Your view of charisma is interesting...

Click to expand...

There are two options for the Trainer relation: Intelligence or Charisma.
... ajaxjs has chosen Charisma, and i can only agree.
I also agree with the thought that a trainer is something like a leader, but much more he is a teacher. In real armies those are sergeants etc. (grades), which train (and lead) a division, a corps, a brigade or something. And in our time of the mod we speak about "warbands", it's the dark age where this picture "warband" fits a lot, we have not a by institution organised army which we know nowadays.
So why suits charisma better and not so much intelligence?
Ie. until professional, from the state paid, armies were developed latest in modern times (standing armies), the personal soft skills of any warleader, or here trainer, was of extreme importance. The men had to look up to the trainer - a bit exagerated he, the trainer, was something like a god. It has mostly to do with transporting motivation from one man (the trainer) to many men, getting up men to listen and follow one person who tells them what's going on and how the preparation for the fight has to be, and certainly it's not an intellectual discussion. It's actually up to the charisma of this one man (even the 'aura' of this person), this much more, as the skill intelligence could ever be, to making an army (aka warband) out of a crowd of imcapable peasants or to make elite fighters out of medium fighters.

Click to expand...

The red part is Charisma related and the blue part is Int related.

For a good battle-trainer, the ability to transport all this is not enough, needed is of course as basic requirement the war-experience (mainly tactics; battle), ie. also the knowledge by the men (the warband), that the trainer has a lot experience, was successful in battles etc., so they can trust this trainer (and warband leader), giving their lives into his hands - but really, not so much intelligence is the point here (which fits more to the theme strategy; war/politics/diplomacy ... that is "seeing the big picture" ... but that's not for the warband).

Click to expand...

If a leader is too low on Int to understand tactic, formations, he is not a good commander on field and not a good trainer because he has no related knowledge to teach. In Native, there is a book +1 Tactics, it requires a minimum of 9 Int, which shows the blue parts are Int related, and ajaxjs also didn't change it to Charm. Can you imagine a lv 50 player character with max Charm but 5 Int trains tier 4 troops to tier 5 troopers, troops gained the knowledge to survive on the field from nowhere, just because the PC is a charismatic and inspiring leader.

DaVincix said:

Ajaxys, as for athletics to strength or agility: It can be both, imo.. I'm for agility, so we have not too much of these skills in the strength section, it's more balanced as it is, and the player keeps a challenge to bring up the agility values.

Click to expand...

Whether athletics should be strength or agility is like duration vs speed. But with the fatigue system, I am for strength. With more strength, you can wear heavier armour, run longer without needing to catch your breath. With agility, you run faster but it still exhaust quickly.

Hey ajaxjs, i believe, overtyped did some right steps for the unit balancing here (gameplay-wise): http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,312079.0.html

Maybe, a kind of in-between solution (a compromise) for the realism mod would fit?

Thoughts:
- Spear/Shield; if it is actually so, that those units are really ineffective, then his approach is probably inevitable. Requires, that every trial to increase the spear damage doesn't help (AI ! not player is the point here).
- Slingers, Stone-throwers, also Bowmen; instead of a removal of those weapons, i suggest to decrease the ammo a lot, ie. slingers 5/10 (normal/large bag) or even only 4/8, stones 5 (no large bags) possibly only 4 stones, arrows 10/15 (normal/large) or even 8/12. Besides, javelins imo. could be decreased to 3/5 (normal/large).
- Axes, 2hand; i agree with him, that axes/2hand are too powerful ... we had that (and other weapon themes) already some posts above.
- Clubs and Sticks; ...for very low tier units, i agree with him, while the damage should be decreased.

DaVincix said:

Hey ajaxjs, i believe, overtyped did some right steps for the unit balancing here (gameplay-wise): http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,312079.0.html

Maybe, a kind of in-between solution (a compromise) for the realism mod would fit?

Thoughts:
- Spear/Shield; if it is actually so, that those units are really ineffective, then his approach is probably inevitable. Requires, that every trial to increase the spear damage doesn't help (AI ! not player is the point here).
- Slingers, Stone-throwers, also Bowmen; instead of a removal of those weapons, i suggest to decrease the ammo a lot, ie. slingers 5/10 (normal/large bag) or even only 4/8, stones 5 (no large bags) possibly only 4 stones, arrows 10/15 (normal/large) or even 8/12. Besides, javelins imo. could be decreased to 3/5 (normal/large).
- Axes, 2hand; i agree with him, that axes/2hand are too powerful ... we had that (and other weapon themes) already some posts above.
- Clubs and Sticks; ...for very low tier units, i agree with him, while the damage should be decreased.

Click to expand...

In my experience, the AI does poorly with shield and spear when it's one on one, like in tournaments. In tournaments, they'd be better off not having a shield. Although, the AI also has eagle-eye accuracy when it comes to thrusting at the exact perfect distance for maximum damage.

In mass combat, where there are enough spearmen to form a shield wall, and especially when they're mounted on horses, I've seen them do very well.

They also inflict piercing damage, which is much better than cutting.

It might also be that TML's overhand animation is more shield-wall friendly than the 'head bop' attack.

RE: 2-handers

There aren't a lot of AI units that use 2-handers. In fact, the Hearthweru used spears until I modded them to 2-handed axes. When the player uses 2-handed weapons, provided you're playing the game normally (standard damage, all the effects, etc), you're far more vulnerable than with a shield. I found myself disdaining 2-handed weapons in favor of a good sword or even a one-handed axe, and a nice reverse slash/chop to the head.

I did keep a 2-handed axe for dena pirates and franks, but since they're no longer decked in kingly chain mail, and in more realistic armor, it's not quite as required. Although, they're also useful as one of the few weapons that can quickly put down the tougher horses in the game (and which will have even more hitpoints in the next release).

RE: Slings/Stones

I did weaken slings/stones quite significantly, without removing them. I thought 20 blunt damage was excessive, given the way it ignores much of the armor.

And I changed arrow damage from piercing to cutting. So that it's actually much more effective against unarmored troops, and less effective against armored troops...which is how it should be. During the Crusades, the Franks had similar chainmail and the Arabs had better bows, and there are famous descriptions of Frankish foot soldiers marching with dozens of arrows sticking out of them.

Hey ajaxys, maybe one should save some modding breath for Bannerlord?

I'm very eager about the new M&B set, the pre-designed period 600-1100 AD would be even perfect for a realism supermod-trial, spanning from Dark Age to the starting phase of the High Middle Age.

I know, somewhat offtopic, sorry ... i just've read the latest developer blog, made me very excited, much more than before.

But when Bannerlord will be released? I think at least second half of 2015, and even after release, things needed to be patched and you need to familiar yourself with all the new stuff so when you really start modding, that would be near 2016. I have no experience in modding, just BSing lol. Also, the more you work on warband Brytenwalda (balancing, CAI or even new feature) the more you experience and asset you have for bannerlord.

Does this mod not work with Repolished? It crashes when I overwrite the three files once it loads the map when starting a new game.

Hey, I've seen this and I was in awe at how good some of the changes sound. I must have them!

However ~ having read that the spears are weak and that the animations are left unchanged, I was a bit discouraged.

Could you incorporate this mod into the game? http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=272406.0

It effectively makes the enemy spearmen a dangerous nuisance, debuffs cavalry, and gives momentum and satisfaction to the otherwise puny native stabs. The spearman become really dangerous to go against head long as their stabs are really hard to predict and any opening, no matter how good you are, might make you lose your life.

I think this is realistic and just boosts the game immensely.

I'd also love to to see this merged with Brytenwalda Repolished...once can dream, right?