You can download Native Expansion .621 from the topic post of this thread. It is currently only available as a .zip.
Native Expansion v0.621 Release Notes:
* All changes from DEV snapshots included
Bugfixes:
* Autoresolve battle divide by zero script error fixed (By Lav, I think)
* Player-built winery would only build ale fixed
* Wineries and Breweries can now be built and produce correctly. A series of bugs preventing Wineries from being built or operating correctly have been fixed, letting the player sell or even stockpile wine for feasts or quests as desired.
* Breweries now consume grain instead of grapes, and have had the same bugfixes applied as to wineries, allowing them to function normally again
* A major bugfix with Cattle and Cattle Ranches. A Native bug meant the slot for cattle count in villages also overlapped the production slot for certain products. This caused weird issues with cattle in native. After an NE refactor that fixed the overlap, cattle were completely broken, and wouldn't respawn in villages nor be purchaseable. Additionally, the cattle ranch has done nothing, at least for a long time. Both of these bugs have been fixed. The Cattle Ranch will always add a small amount of cattle each week to a village, no matter what, and cattle will spawn normally once again.
Balance Changes:
* Villages will no longer raise a militia spontaneously if they are being looted or raided, or are recovering from being looted or raided.
* Villages will no longer raise a militia spontaneously unless they have at least 30 prosperity (so very unlikely after prolonged war, simulating losses)
* Villages with surplus cattle and sheep, in native, would always slaughter 10% of the herd silently. This still happens, but now, the village will gain a small amount of prosperity from this. This makes the cattle ranch a very solid investment, since with a high amount of cattle, it will ensure the village can engage in slaughter more frequently.
* Dark Knights can no longer invade before day 120 (day is randomly chosen from 120-200)
* Most Guild Master quests will offer substantially more denars as a reward, anywhere from x2 to more than x10 the former reward amount, to reflect the difficulty of the quests involved. Generally speaking, quests which have much tougher opponents (merc warband fights) or consume a large amount of time (escort cattle, escort caravan) will offer a reward substantial enough to make it worth the player's time.
* Mercenaries are now 2x more expensive than kingdom troops to upkeep, instead of 3x (Making Mercenaries cheaper). The high cost of Mercenaries wasn't justified by their fighting prowess. This should make fielding larger Merc armies more viable in the early game, but when you want truly huge armies, you will want to convert to kingdom regular troops.
* Manhunters are much better equipped now. See the "new stuff" below.
* Bandits have been somewhat rebalanced. See below.
* Village elder quest "Hunt down runaway bridge" now has a peaceful option. With at least 5 persuasion, you can persuade the village elder to let the woman go, without having to massacre the wedding party. You get a smaller reward, but you don't have to kill innocent serfs.
* Khergit forces have been nerfed a small amount. The Kharash and Archer lines can no longer receive warhorses, and are less likely to received armored variants of the courser or hunter. Lancers no longer are guaranteed a warhorse.
* Dark Knights soldiers have been *completely* rebalanced, from the ground up, with new stats, equipment, names and trees. Their troop tree is now fixed and follows other kingdom guidelines, starting from the "Converted Fanatic" unit. Their infantry line, the "Heretics", focus on two-handed weaponry, and carry javelins to help our during sieges. Their archer line, the "Merciless Slayers", are still very deadly at range, but much easier to kill if you can get close up. Their cavalary is now split into the non-noble (Chattel Knights) line and the noble (Silent Widows) line. The former are strictly heavy cav, and unhorsing them makes them much weaker. The latter are both heavy cav and use javelins as a backup, so don't think you can kite them. The Dark Knight elite units, the "Silent Priestess" and the "Chattel Blackguard", are still extremely tough to kill. The former is both top-tier heavy cav and has deadly aim with her javelins, and the Chattel Blackguard is unique amongst cav in that it becomes much *more* powerful if you manage to unhorse it, with a fast-swinging 2-handed blade and fast movement speed.
Overall, you will find the Dark Knights still fare about the same against the AI, but are quite a bit easier to fight against on the field. Their equipment is still top-notch and their soldiers are still top-notch, but they no longer now break any of the game's rules, and more traditional tactics will be *somewhat* more effective against them. Again, don't expect you can steamroll them or fight them completely in a traditional fashion. They are still very tough, and you WILL need to be ready to compensate for heavy losses when fighting them. It's just biiiit easier now.
* Forest Bandits, Sea Raiders, Mountain Bandits & Taiga Bandits have been rebalanced. They were too weak or too strong in a variety of ways. Forest Bandits, for instance, had no missile weapons at all, didn't carry shields or helmets, and were worth 200XP each. On top of that, they only carried a high-quality volgue. This mean a ranged army or a kiting player could kill hundreds of them without taking a single loss, but even an elite cav unit could easily get unhorsed and killed by a small pack. All of that and more has been corrected, with most bandits having at least some (weak) missile weapon, along with different tiers of bandits, and all bandits, just like all other troop trees, starting at a single unit. The "Looter" (now the 'Destitute Looter') can be upgraded to Forest, Sea, Taiga or Mountain Bandits, and each of those have 3 ranks, with the middle of the 3 representing about where the vanilla bandits were in terms of power. Overall, bandits are worth far less XP than before, but will still drop the same types of loot, and be a more balanced fight, but still one that any mid-level party or above should have no problem dealing with.
New Stuff:
* Manhunters, Village Militia and Caravan Guards have all been merged into a unified troop tree, and are available to hire or recruit. Similar to Mercenaries, they start from a peasant unit - the Militia unit - which villages can generate after they have a militia. Unlike Mercenaries, who abandoned their serf life for a life of combat, Militia and Manhunters fight with what little equipment and pay they receive, and as a result, tend to be weaker and very cheap to recruit (a mere 10% of the cost to hire vs mercs, and 65% of the cost to maintain compared to kingdom troops). Manhunters specialize in capturing prisoners alive, with maces, clubs, and joustin lances, Caravan Guards offer some light cavalary for skirmishing, and militia members provide infantry and ranged offense. You can find any or all of these soldiers mixed with Village Farmers, Manhunter patrols, Caravans, or even available for hire in taverns. Don't expect these guys to impress you - they aren't professional soldiers, they are fresh from the fields. However, they are extremely cheap, and are a very low-cost way to bring up an army for sheer numbers or for capturing prisoners alive, which Mahunters can now do very well. All top-end manhunters carry jousting lances as well, making capturing with them much easier. If you field Manhunter Cavalry now, expect them to actually survive more than being sneezed on.
* Villages with a militia that have their farmers ambushed will send militia protection along with their next supply run. This will only take effect if the village farmers are all captured or killed at some point, so you may not see militia escorts for villages in safe areas. In areas with a lot of bandit activitiy or areas subject to frequent raiding, expect to see many militia-equipped villages making an effort to protect their farmers. The number of escorts is kept small, to keep their land speed high, as the best fight is one they can avoid, and they will still always avoid a fight. But if they are forced to engage, especially against smaller bandit groups, they might actually have a chance of escaping alive to continue their trade run.
* With high enough persuasion, you can talk down the angry drunks in taverns without a fight (or requiring high renown)
Brutality Mode changes:
* Wage penalty for regular troops decreased from 50% to 25% (this means when in Brutality mode, your troops will be slightly cheaper than before)
* Companions know how important they are to you, and will command much higher wages now (3x)
* You may now join a kingdom as a vassal in brutality mode, but you cannot take territory as an independent and than ask to become a vassal (no more get out of war free card)
* There is no longer a skill check penalty to surgery or trainer in brutality mode
* Renown decays twice as fast compared to vanilla (1% per week)
