Manhunters Overview with Screenshots (moore on page 2)

Anyone who has played M&B for any length of time has acquired manhunters from prisoners or recruited them directly in SOD.  The first thing you notice is that even their most powerful unit, the slave chief, is a pushover and hardly worthy of the title.  I plan to change all that in SOD V5. 

First thing first, I need to thank Maw for publishing his weapon, armor, horse, and helmet pack.  They have some excellent models for making some scary looking units that intend to capture you and sell you into slavery. 

Now I’m torn on how to balance this.  On one hand, I want a unit that will last a few battles and make me a profit before dying.  On the other, they are easily available in cities and if made to powerful, would defeat the purpose of making your own units.  While they are not killing and capturing machines, they will be worth their weight in denars. 

I want to point out the difference in levels between units (which stayed the same as native).  These guys have a long way to go between upgrades because for the first three tiers, there is not much improvement.  Their base skills do not increase and only their weapon proficiency goes up only slightly.  That guarantees that you will not have many reach the ranks of chief, and even if they do, a standard knight from any civilization will still outperform.  While they are much better than before, by design, they cannot replace your rank and file units.  They are supplementary or saved for when you need to capture some bad guys…





Manhunter - lvl 10
Nothing changed here.  Notice the blank stare.  They are still the same worthless peasants fresh out of the village wanting to increase their standing in life by capturing bandits and / or protecting their homeland.  While some manhunters are motivated by honor, some are motivated by greed and will blindly follow any leader that pays weekly.  Some ride sumpter horses while many cannot even afford the most basic of life’s essentials.  Life on the bottom is hard.
Notice the new thrown hammers in the second picture




Slave Driver - lvl 14
Not much changed here either except added the possibility of leather gloves spawning and sometimes a 2 handed polehammer.  If I make the upward path to strong, then the player will have easy access to nice units messing up the balance of the game.  Many Slave Driver’s die before even one reaches the rank of Slave Hunter.  They are still dirt poor and forced to come to battle without the most basic of essentials such as a helmet but will now always have boots (although crappy). 




Slave Hunter - lvl 18
This is the tier where the manhunters start to become worthwhile.  Once a manhunter has achieved the rank of hunter, they have proven themselves in battle and made enough money for better gear. 

While their equipment is not top notch, they are now guaranteed to be mounted (saddle horse) and will no longer come to battle bare foot (guaranteed to spawn armor, boots, helmet, and horse).  I removed rawhide coat and added possibility of leather vest instead and removed the nomad and coarse tunic and replaced with some OSP padded leather and other leather armors.  The helmet is now either a leather or metal skull cap and sometimes a mail coif (armor = 20) and got rid of the woolen cap.  At this level I also removed possibility of clubs spawning (replaced with a few old and new maces).  I also added level 1 powerstrike and riding. 






Slave Crusher - lvl 22
From countless number of battles, the slave crusher has accidentally killed a few of his potential “inventory”.  They wear decorative padded leather armor and some customarily wear the skulls and skins of fallen victims to strike fear into the enemy and hope for an easy surrender.  When an enemy surrenders to a manhunter, it means good pay without working.  Most of the time, prisoners are well treated until sold.  Although some manhunters have been known to worship the Void in which sacrifice will shortly follow. 

Slave Crushers now wear mail armor and are guaranteed hunter horses (randomly spawns shields and gloves, all else is guaranteed).  I gave them level 3 riding.  There are three different OSP helms and 3 different armors there.  While they look similar on the battlefield, they are not clones. 
Notice the iron staffs in the third picture





Slave Chief - lvl 26
The leader in the manhunter “trade” business.  By the time they achieve this rank, many households in Calradia have missing family members.  Their helmets and dark attire strike fear into the enemy.  They are trained riders and use their charger horses as weapons.  The long maces they wield are unique to the land and can be used in one hand or two and uniquely balanced for cavalry usage.

Slave Chiefs now wear full helms, breast plate with chain mail (occasional full plate), and mail boots / gloves.  They are guaranteed charger horses but randomly spawn shields and gloves.  I added 1 to their riding skill (level 4) and gave them level 2 athletics and shield.  There are three different OSP helms and 3 different armors there.  They can also spawn a couple different types of steel shields.  While they look similar on the battlefield, they are not clones. 

The horse looked good in the .brf editor but in game I think it may be a little too extravagant.  I think I’ll replace them with the standard charger instead.  Thoughts?

On a side note, I do not mind if you give the great hammer to the faithless engineers to add more variety to thier arsenal


MORE STUFF
A while back I made the suggestion to allow prisoners to be ransomed automatically at the end of the week and included in your weekly tribute.  In order to do this, you must have a prisoner tower built in that castle (or city) and then speak with the Marshall to command him to start or stop selling the rank and file prisoners (lords would necessarily be ignored).  He will then automatically sell prisoners at their standard rate minus a 25% handling fee (or more if this seems to low). 

This will save you the time and micromanagement of the human trade business but will cost you a prisoner tower, many trips to this tower, and of course more profitable if you make the trade yourself.  However, I hate micromanaging and it would be nice to put in some prisoners and have them disappear at the end of the week giving me more time to focus on other things. 

Any hope of getting this included in V5?  While I can mod units and items, this is above my skill level but think it would be yet one more unique feature of SOD to take the monotony out of game play.  Ever had a hundred prisoners in your city waiting for a random broker to come along and only had 1 point in prisoner management making it take ages to sell them all?  I have, it’s not exactly fun. 

RESERVED

If you think that any of them are too strong then simply increase the level gap. If you noticed in SoD it was very easy to get troops. That is why we increased levels for pretty much every troop by 10.

As long as they look cool and are not more powerful than the highest tier homeland troops they are fine. It would be pretty hard to make them stronger than Antarian Elites, who by having giant 2-handers mow down troops.
I do suggest giving the third tier troops leather armor, I do not like the look of fur or that other leather armor. I mean the hard leather armor that actually looks like armor. Because right now tier 2 and 3 look the same. And tier 3 needs real helmets. And they need real leather boots. Tier 2 should be guaranteed boots but they should be the ****ty fur boots.

I don't know what their WPs are, but I am assuming by the last tier they are at ~200?
I was thinking somewhere around 100, 130, 160, 180, 200?
I need to ask Mordachai what the WPs are right now in 4.1, because I changed WPs and levels but I am not sure if he used them or if he did how much he changed them.

jasonxfri13th said:

If you think that any of them are too strong then simply increase the level gap. If you noticed in SoD it was very easy to get troops. That is why we increased levels for pretty much every troop by 10.

As long as they look cool and are not more powerful than the highest tier homeland troops they are fine. It would be pretty hard to make them stronger than Antarian Elites, who by having giant 2-handers mow down troops.
I do suggest giving the third tier troops leather armor, I do not like the look of fur or that other leather armor. I mean the hard leather armor that actually looks like armor. Because right now tier 2 and 3 look the same. And tier 3 needs real helmets. And they need real leather boots. Tier 2 should be guaranteed boots but they should be the ****ty fur boots.

I don't know what their WPs are, but I am assuming by the last tier they are at ~200?
I was thinking somewhere around 100, 130, 160, 180, 200?
I need to ask Mordachai what the WPs are right now in 4.1, because I changed WPs and levels but I am not sure if he used them or if he did how much he changed them.

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Agreed.  I applied all of your suggestions and updated with screenshots (and text below in original message).  The WP are approximatley 80, 112, 144, 176, 208.  I left all of that alone. 

Frodo LOVE'S these new manhunters.
and Frodo also loves your idea for an auto-sell on prisoners.
it's just to darn irritating to hunt everywhere for a ransom broker every time you need one.
Frodo really hopes that these new manhunters make it into the next version.

Nice!
I was going to say add the engineer's hammer to them, but then I thought they wouldn't work on a horse.

I sent a message to Mordachai about what the WPs and levels are around, because I am not sure how much he changed them.

jasonxfri13th said:

Nice!
I was going to say add the engineer's hammer to them, but then I thought they wouldn't work on a horse.

I sent a message to Mordachai about what the WPs and levels are around, because I am not sure how much he changed them.

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It is easy to set the tags to make them work on a horse.  Wether or not they should is another story.  I'll need to do some play testing.  If I decide to keep it as a usable item on horse them I'll probably keep it out of the merchant shop and make it unique only to slave chiefs.  The problem you run into if you make if unusable on horseback but keep it on list of possible items to spawn, is that the unit spawns with the weapon but cannot use it so they run around with thier fists. 

I like polehammers and it would be cool if you could make them use them in sieges and not on horse but that seems to be a hardcode issue unless someone can tell me otherwise.  I already lowered the damage on it so it is mostly a visual weapon and not overpowered (I think at least). 

Must love that ridiculously oversized hammer

SanDiego said:

Must love that ridiculously oversized hammer

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I don't like the hammer, but other than that it looks good.

The quarterstaff and iron staff are good weapons for the lower tier units. It works couched from horseback and excellent in two hands with the only problem of having the chance of spawning with a shield and on foot (very poor combination). I wish the game allowed random equipment sets instead of random equipment pieces.

Another thing I used for custom manhunters is hammer throwers. Set up the hammer like the thrown axes, but with the hammer graphics and blunt damage. I also lowered the stack size to 3 and made it random equipment (no guarantee missile). Gives them some short ranged missile weapon.

mouthnhoof said:

The quarterstaff and iron staff are good weapons for the lower tier units. It works couched from horseback and excellent in two hands with the only problem of having the chance of spawning with a shield and on foot (very poor combination). I wish the game allowed random equipment sets instead of random equipment pieces.

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That is the main reason I left it out.  They way spears are used with shields on foot is a horrible design issue.  I wonder if I can fix this by making a new item (not available in merchants) with the same stats and graphics but changing the item tag to a two handed weapon only.  That way it will never spawn with a shield (like the guys with the giant pole hammers) and if a shield does spawn, it will be on their back.  I need to do some in-game testing to verify this first.  If I can get it to work, I will add staffs to the low tiers also because the variety in weapons will be nice and give you the feel of a rag-tag army thrown together.  On a side note, pole hammers were used historically to smash armor when they could not be cut into easily.  It is not farfetched, and the picture is just one example, I added in a 3 variations of pole hammers for variety. 

I want to give polehammers to the high tiers but I am having trouble because they spawn but since they cannot be used on horseback, the slave chiefs charging into battle with thier fists!  Anyone know the tags I need to activate to prevent this.  I would like it to spawn occasionally on foot (on a siege for example or when dismounted) but never on horseback. 

I already made a version of the jousting lance for blunt couch damage on the on the Zerrikanian Oprichniks but decided not to include it for manhunters.  The main reason is I hate the way they perform on foot and wanted something more unique.  I may take it away from the Oprichniks to if I find it to be a problem in sieges (this unit is really always on horseback so not as much an issue). 

mouthnhoof said:

Another thing I used for custom manhunters is hammer throwers. Set up the hammer like the thrown axes, but with the hammer graphics and blunt damage. I also lowered the stack size to 3 and made it random equipment (no guarantee missile). Gives them some short ranged missile weapon.

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The idea for hammer throwing is brilliant and I will definitely add it in as a randomly spawned weapon (same way I treated javelins  on the new Zerrikanian nobles).  I had not thought about throwing hammers.  I thought about adding hammer head arrows but that would require a new class bow for it to work since missile speed is based on the bow, and not the arrows.  It would not make since to get a bow that does blunt damage and have the ability to use any arrow.  The game is just not setup for that.  I may use two versions of hammers with different damage and missile speed for the low tier and high tier troops.  I think 3 may be a little to low, but 5 sounds about right.  I'm going to do some weight comparrisons of one handed weapons with the throwing version (daggers, javelins, and axes) and come up with something logical and not over powered.  I may include the more powerful version on the elite Zerrikanian cavalry as well since they also use blunt weapons and I did not want to use javelins.  Great suggestion!


Thanks for comments everyone and keep them coming.  Don't forget to check out the new Zerrikanians as well (link above).  I am surprised to this thread getting more response.  I am guessing it is because people may think that it is the same old thread.  Maybe I need to change the title. 

Update (FEEDBACK ON QUESTIONS BELOW NEEDED):

I took some hammers from native and shrunk them down in size to look like they can be thrown and rotated them around so the blunt end is facing forward.  Originally the pointed end was out when thrown which looked like piercing damage. 

I decided to give all manhunters these hammers:

• I made 2 throwing hammer variations for tiers 1 to 3 and gave tier 3 level 1 powerthrow. 
• I made 1 military throwing hammer (larger) for tiers 4 and 5 which does more damage but slower to throw.  Their stack size is larger but it weighs more as well.  I gave tier 4 level 2 powerthrow and tier 5 level 3 powerthrow.  I adjusted throwing WP accordingly as well. 

As far as staffs go, I created a new item line for manhunter only staffs and added the tag "two handed" and removed the ability to purchase in merchant shop.  This will prevent manhunters from spawning with a staff and a shield (horrible combo).  Unfortunately, they will not be able to spawn on horseback with shield and staff either.  The other option is to use the special staffs on tier 1 and 2, then the standard staffs for tier 3, 4, & 5 so when horses are guaranteed, they can have a staff / shield combo. 


I need feedback here (1 thru 5):

1.) Should I leave the staffs like they are and deal with crappy performance as a staff / shield combo on foot or make it so you cannot use a staff + shield together (better on foot, worse on horseback). 

2.) What do you guys think of just taking away sumpter horses for tiers 1 and 2 and making them pure infantry at those levels?  I really like this idea and it simplifies things while adding more weapon variety and ensures no one will ever run around punching things with no weapon.

3.) Another question:  In Native, you used to be able to swing a two handed maul, sledgehammer, or warhammer from horseback but in SOD, this feature was removed.  Consider this: 

•   You get a penalty to damage for using two handed weapons on horseback
•   There are 2 handed swords that do as much if not more damage
•   The maul class of weapons is much slower than swords
• This “feature” denies you the ability to give this weapon to any mounted troop.  The reason why is because if it spawns when you are on horseback, the troop cannot use it so he runs around punching everything instead.  The odds of it spawning on a siege only and never on horseback is slim. 

4.) I got rid of that giant pole hammer on Slave Chiefs because it does not look real on horseback.  I’d like to see it on the infantry only engineers.  Despite me removing this item, I would love to give Slave Chiefs a chance to spawn a maul.  Do you guys really think that a maul on a slave chief would be OP?  I do not think it is any worse than a knight wielding a 2 handed sword or lance on a horse. 

I could either change the mauls back to the way Native had them or create a slave chief only maul that can be used on horseback and not sold at merchants.  How fun would it be to watch the new slave chiefs running around with giant mauls knocking guys out!  But if I made this a troop only item, why limit the player from using this weapon if they decided to?  I remember in Native I used a maul for awhile but then decided it was to slow and couldn’t compare to a sword.  Does this really make the game to easy? 

5.) Currently manhunters belong to the faction “Manhunters” while tier 2 thru 5 (Slave Driver to Slave Chief) belong to the faction “Slavers”.  This is why you never see manhunters spawn with anything stronger than manhunters in their party.  I recommend setting a spawn point for Slavers and have them act independently of manhunters and actually attack you like deserters do or add the advanced troops to the manhunter faction.  This will add more variety on the map.  It will also require some language dialog to be written with the new slavers running around trying to sell you into slavery.  Thoughts?


6.) Side note here:

Do not give pierce damage to throwing daggers/knives as they really rahter cut than pierce. As you may or may not know, thrown knife/dagger rotates during flight. That's why cutting.

SanDiego said:

Do not give pierce damage to throwing daggers/knives as they really rahter cut than pierce. As you may or may not know, thrown knife/dagger rotates during flight. That's why cutting.

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But if the knife comes at an angle that cuts the person it would do barely any damage. The knife has to actually pierce the person to do any real damage.

I would stick with pierce.

I would say pierce. It does Indeed rotate during flight, but there's no way to base damage on the location of the knife/dagger hitting the target. Cutting would be the most probable damage it would do, but what if the hilt hits someone? That would do blunt damage. So piercing is good, Knives need to get some usage in em.

Well, but throwing knives would be terribly inefficient even against leather armour. I think even quilted armour could stop a thrown knife as they are designed purely against non armored personel.

I will leave knifes and daggers alone.  That was a side note anyway.  I really want some feedback to the other questions I had. 

In other news, I was up late last night tinkering with the manhunter helms.  I was just not very happy with the slave crushers skull masks and retexturized them to make them match the armor.  I figured out how to place a mask on invisible (transparent) textures in the GIMP so I can see them.  I can now edit any .dds file.  There were some that were giving me trouble because you could not see them to edit them but I got all that figured out now. 

I'll post some more screens of the new helms shortly. 

Do not give staffs with 1H option to troops that have good chance to have a shield. A 2H staff from horseback without a shield is good enough option especially for lower/mid tiers.

Big 2H weapons were excluded from horseback use because they tend to be over powering and not slowed enough when used 1H to compensate. 2H swords were the biggest offenders but some other weapons as well. If you wish, you could edit these weapons but make them very slow. On short 2H weapons like hammers this will not disturb the balance, since they troops that use them need to get very close. However, a really heavy blunt weapon from horseback is a silly option in reality - the strike from a regular 1H mace with a long shaft, combined with horse speed is devastating. I would much prefer if you can produce cavalry versions of 1H blunts - longer reach (90-110) but slower than their short version. Make the 1H war hammer into a polo stick . Damage does not need to be significantly higher as it is all about the speed bonus from the horse.

Do not give polearms to mounted troops unless they are they are allowed to be used mounted (that is lances and spears, but no pikes, halberds and the likes).

Looks great. Especially the helmets. More please ^^

mouthnhoof said:

Do not give staffs with 1H option to troops that have good chance to have a shield. A 2H staff from horseback without a shield is good enough option especially for lower/mid tiers.

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Done.  I made a special staff that is a 2-handed weapon only so if spawn with shield, it will apear on back.  This cannot be purchased in merchant shops and just a special line item for manhunters.  The stats are the exact same. 

mouthnhoof said:

Big 2H weapons were excluded from horseback use because they tend to be over powering and not slowed enough when used 1H to compensate. 2H swords were the biggest offenders but some other weapons as well. If you wish, you could edit these weapons but make them very slow. On short 2H weapons like hammers this will not disturb the balance, since they troops that use them need to get very close. However, a really heavy blunt weapon from horseback is a silly option in reality - the strike from a regular 1H mace with a long shaft, combined with horse speed is devastating. I would much prefer if you can produce cavalry versions of 1H blunts - longer reach (90-110) but slower than their short version. Make the 1H war hammer into a polo stick . Damage does not need to be significantly higher as it is all about the speed bonus from the horse.

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I made a special maul line item on slave chiefs for mainly the graphics.  Watching them swing those giant hammers is awesome.  It is two handed and can be used on horseback but not sold in merchants.  I did  slow it down some. 

I have quite a few more one handed maces (around 4) and about four 2-handed polearms.  I also made a one or two handed mace modeled directly after a bastard sword.  It does less damage and slower, but the range is the same.  I think I did a good job balancing them out.  I mean, I definitely tried to not make them over powered.  I hope they are not to weak.  Once I finish editing and start compiling, I will do some significant in-game testing and get the SOD team involved. 

Tekvorian said:

Looks great. Especially the helmets. More please ^^

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I actually just spent this entire evening re-texturing the slave chiefs and slave crusher helms.  They look so much more realistic now and match the armor of the unit as well.  Here is a few more screenshots.  I spent a lot of time getting the skull graphic on the helm with the strips.  I also got rid of that armor he is wearing for one that matches a lot better.  It looks awesome, you are not going to want to upgrade them!  My next step is making some unique shields.  Here are some screenshots to hold you over till I finish: 

Almost forgot.  What good are slave troops without slaves?  Here is my idea, and will one of the developers let me know if it can be done. 

Use the already exsiting "Slavers" troop ID to make a new type of unit spawn on the map.  This group is much more powerful than manhunters but they go after everyone.  They spawn with a small random group of slaves as prisoners (0 to 5).  Slaves can be rescued and have the same upgrade path as manhunters.  In other words, if you keep your naked slave alive long enough, he will become a manhunter.  All slaver packs will have at least one slave chief and random amounts of the other troops (no manhunters to keep them separate). 

New dialogs will need to be written but I think it will add some spice to the game.