POP 3.7 troop trees - first impressions and discussion thread

sher said:

You forgot main and most natural way: compose garison with autougrade in mind. It will not autoupgrade units if certain ratio is achieved and this ratio is pretty reasonable and good for fighting garrisons. Unless you want to have something really exotic and strange, autoupgrade is not your enemy at all. I don't know, maybe your desired composition is not so good as you think?

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First, we don't know that ratio and we don't even know for sure if it exists.
Second, I'm fine with Pendor Bladesmen in my garrison, but personally I don't want to have Highlanders there.

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Anyway, here is a small tweak to disable the training effect of training grounds for good:
1) Open simple_triggers.txt
2) Find a line of code "521 3 1224979098644774925 1224979098644774920 274 2112 3 1224979098644774925 0 2".
3) Replace 2 with 0.
Your garrisons should be safe now.

sher said:

You forgot main and most natural way: compose garison with autougrade in mind. It will not autoupgrade units if certain ratio is achieved and this ratio is pretty reasonable and good for fighting garrisons. Unless you want to have something really exotic and strange, autoupgrade is not your enemy at all. I don't know, maybe your desired composition is not so good as you think?

For example, pure 400 PHB garrison is much worse in any sombat aspect than 100 PAB + 300 PHB you'll get with autoupgrade. If you insist on 400 PHB no matter what then autoupgrade is your enemy. Kinda. Because it does what is best here but you want something that is worse. Because you're human and original.

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Do you really expect the average players to foretell a garrison's composition based on obscure mechanics? Seriously?

A pure 400PHB garrison is CHEAPER than a 100PAB + 300PHB garrison. Don't forget the cost factor here please. To achieve the same cost factor with upgraded troops, you'll need to reduce the total number. A PHB isn't all that much worse than a PAB in sieges and the numbers will tip the balance in favor of the defenders. This is a common gameplay choice where the player opted to economize garrison upkeep. Is there a reason should it be limited?

@Leonion - thank you for the tip on the tweak. Godsend.

Shoganai said:

Do you really expect the average players to foretell a garrison's composition based on obscure mechanics? Seriously?

A pure 400PHB garrison is CHEAPER than a 100PAB + 300PHB garrison. Don't forget the cost factor here please. To achieve the same cost factor with upgraded troops, you'll need to reduce the total number. A PHB isn't all that much worse than a PAB in sieges and the numbers will tip the balance in favor of the defenders. This is a common gameplay choice where the player opted to economize garrison upkeep. Is there a reason should it be limited?

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Well, PoP is supposed to be a challenge mod, it's designed to make things harder and more management intensive than vanilla. An average player for this mod should be able to deal with just fine.

WolfWitness said:

Well, PoP is supposed to be a challenge mod, it's designed to make things harder and more management intensive than vanilla. An average player for this mod should be able to deal with just fine.

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Oh, come on!
First, PoP only presents itself as the most challenging mod, but I personally didn't notice any difference between PoP and, say, Floris or TLD.
PoP is surely one of, if not the best mod, but the most difficult one? Nope.
Only the Chinese in their sub-mods to PoP managed to make it truly difficult. I'm not gonna advocate what they did to other aspects of the mod (like adding Spider Man suit or Aragorn or Rohan riders to D'Shar Army), but they definitely succeeded in the difficulty department.

Second, there is like a huuuuge difference between a challenge and a pain in the ass. When you have a big army to defeat, it's a challenge. When you have a big pile of things to tediously micromanage, it's a pain in the ass.

Why do the Mercenary Highlander upgrade into Ravenstern Kierguards if the Highlanders are stronger (both lore wise and in previous versions)?
I see that their upkeep is 1 gold less than the Kierguards, so have they been nerfed to be weaker? Especially the part about them being mercenaries should give them a higher upkeep per "efficiency" than regular troops, which means that they should be quite a bit worse than the Kierguards.

I will look at their stats next time I find some Mercenary Highlanders, since I didn't do it last time :/

Leonion said:

WolfWitness said:

Well, PoP is supposed to be a challenge mod, it's designed to make things harder and more management intensive than vanilla. An average player for this mod should be able to deal with just fine.

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Oh, come on!
First, PoP only presents itself as the most challenging mod, but I personally didn't notice any difference between PoP and, say, Floris or TLD.
PoP is surely one of, if not the best mod, but the most difficult one? Nope.
Only the Chinese in their sub-mods to PoP managed to make it truly difficult. I'm not gonna advocate what they did to other aspects of the mod (like adding Spider Man suit or Aragorn or Rohan riders to D'Shar Army), but they definitely succeeded in the difficulty department.

Second, there is like a huuuuge difference between a challenge and a pain in the ass. When you have a big army to defeat, it's a challenge. When you have a big pile of things to tediously micromanage, it's a pain in the ass.

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We only stated that this mod is more difficult than the Native Warband and is for experienced players, which it pretty much is. In terms of how it compares to other mods, yes it's more difficult. When you play the mod for years like I have, the difficulty threshold lowers since you have experience and it becomes the new steeple for which one plays Mount and Blade. Comparing mods like you did: Floris to PoP, TLD to PoP,  they sre simply different modules with a difficulty set to their standard. PoP does not coddle the player and throughout the game, is challenged.

Making the mod ridiculously hard and challenging is not going to engage players to play and have fun. Making something beyond difficult like those Chinese thieves is pretty much simple: stupid.

I don't see how people can be so frustrated with micro-managing. I'm day 600+ in and I have no issue with how management works. I upgrade things how I want and I don't stress about missing a week or two in making sure some of my fiefs are doing what they're supposed to do.

Could some simpler things be implemented? Sure, maybe in time like auto-sheriffs, but that comes in time and it isn't going to drive people up a wall if it never gets touched on. If it does then sucks to be those people, unfortunately.

We are all entitled to what we believe, but it's easy to say it's easy when one has played it enough; even then enemies find a way to put us in place.

Noromiz said:

Why do the Mercenary Highlander upgrade into Ravenstern Kierguards if the Highlanders are stronger (both lore wise and in previous versions)?
I see that their upkeep is 1 gold less than the Kierguards, so have they been nerfed to be weaker? Especially the part about them being mercenaries should give them a higher upkeep per "efficiency" than regular troops, which means that they should be quite a bit worse than the Kierguards.

I will look at their stats next time I find some Mercenary Highlanders, since I didn't do it last time :/

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Mercenary Highlanders (lvl 20) upgrade to Ravenstern Kierguards (lvl 30) which upgrade to Ravenstern Highlanders (lvl 40).

Interestingly enough (and this might be a bug), Ravenstern Highlanders have one WP less than Ravenstern Kierguards.

Moridin said:

Noromiz said:

Why do the Mercenary Highlander upgrade into Ravenstern Kierguards if the Highlanders are stronger (both lore wise and in previous versions)?
I see that their upkeep is 1 gold less than the Kierguards, so have they been nerfed to be weaker? Especially the part about them being mercenaries should give them a higher upkeep per "efficiency" than regular troops, which means that they should be quite a bit worse than the Kierguards.

I will look at their stats next time I find some Mercenary Highlanders, since I didn't do it last time :/

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Mercenary Highlanders (lvl 20) upgrade to Ravenstern Kierguards (lvl 30) which upgrade to Ravenstern Highlanders (lvl 40).

Interestingly enough (and this might be a bug), Ravenstern Highlanders have one WP less than Ravenstern Kierguards.

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But aren't Mercenary Highlanders merely Ravenstern Highlanders, who have chosen another way to go after they had finished their time in the army?
Or did I misread their lore?

I don't know what the lore is, but if they've chosen another way to go, it's an exceedingly bad one, lol.

Edit: You can actually have the troops reflect the lore, by making Ravenstern Highlanders upgrade to Mercenary Highlanders. That sounds like fun 

MitchyMatt said:

When you play the mod for years

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Of course, it's just my personal experience but when I played PoP for the first time, I was probably one of the most noobiest noods one could find in M&B. By that time I only played Native once half a time for like... 300-400 days. I could barely hit people with a sword from a horseback, I always missed with a bow, I didn't know how to use a lance etc. I didn't know anything about game mechanics (like economic stuff or types of lords). But I still managed to do fine in PoP for like 700 days. I became a vassal of D'Shar, then left them, joined Empire, then started my own kingdom and somehow conquered half of the map. Then I stopped but only because my lack of knowledge about kinds of lords and kingdom management led me to having lots of "bad" lords in my kingdom who were very dissatisfied with me and kept leaving.
I really didn't think PoP was a lot more difficult than Native. A little bit? Sure, but not a lot.
On the other hand, I played Floris and TLD for the first times as a rather experienced player who already completed PoP twice. And yet they posed a serious challenge to me. Even playing as an elf in TLD was difficult enough. And I don't even want to think about the times when I attempted to play TLD as Sauron's servant.
I still remember my first big fight in PoP against Empire as a D'Shar lord (2 marshal armies collided, that was huge). Oh, how many times I replayed it because I just kept dying. But that experience never remained the only one of a kind. Similar difficult battles happened to me in TLD and Floris a lot later.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that PoP is bad in any way just because it isn't as difficult as it is presented. Nor do I mean that Chinese sub-mod is better just because it is more difficult. I know people who believe it the best thing that was ever created for M&B, but for me it's just like Chinese clothes. It's beautiful at first glance but when you get to washing it, the colors go away. The Chinese added a lot of things, but they didn't connect them. PoP gained a little in gameplay, but lost a lot in immersion.
Also I must say for the record (just in case you don't know), there are several Chinese sub-mods. Not all of them use stolen stuff (well, unless you consider using PoP as a base mod as stealing, but then our Russian fans who made another sub-mod by adding multiple OSPs can be called thieves too). Actually the first version the Chinese created seems to use only OSPs. It's that Era of Splendor which was released by a different person a lot later (but managed to get all the attention) that used some non-OSP stuff.

As for micromanagement, I don't mind it either, generally. When it is addictive and interesting, it is cool. I can spend weeks dragging unique spawns back and forth across the map, "feeding" them with lords and then emptying their prisoner trains into patrols or farmers or caravans.
But garrisons is something I want to fill once and forget. Training grounds is a feature that is meant to help, not to create obstacles. I am simply pointing out that having them in your fiefs sometimes has negative side effects that a player is unable to eliminate within the game which is basically an oversight. I'm also pointing out that these side effects got worse after a couple of troops became upgradeable. I don't really think that a person who came up with the idea to add a couple of upgrades (which by itself is a good idea) thought about these side effects. So... just pointing out.

Moridin said:

I don't know what the lore is, but if they've chosen another way to go, it's an exceedingly bad one, lol.

Edit: You can actually have the troops reflect the lore, by making Ravenstern Highlanders upgrade to Mercenary Highlanders. That sounds like fun 

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And lose half of their experience in the process 

My last save must have been the most strange ever;there was a Empire Immortal chapter in Senderfall and second Eventide chapter in Avendor.I found that to be quite lore breaking so I started a second game this time there's Silvermist in Senderfall and Ebony gauntlet in Avendor but,weren't the silvermist supposed to be fringe and not have many followers because now they rock hundreds of troops?

There's a random chance for the KotEG/Silvermist Rangers to be on Senderfall(10% each) and another 10% for the KotEG to be on Avendor as well. The Immortal chapter is probably a bug, though.


@the garrison discussion: OCD aside, you're supposed to plan your strategy around the game mechanics, not keep your mind set on something then complain when said game mechanic make it harder than it should. Adapt.

My garrisons are at least 750 strong with much weaker units, cost less, and all the maintenance I have to do is telling my steward to recruit more by himself while I give ~200 troops to a friendly lord every few months. The auto-upgrade feature has never been a problem, and my current save has passed the 2500 day mark.

I don't even use trap fortresses, but again, my style of playing involves conquering the map in 3-4 quick wars. I beat their armies on the field, and the amount of troops I leave in my fiefs discourage sieges.

Shoganai said:

A pure 400PHB garrison is CHEAPER than a 100PAB + 300PHB garrison. Don't forget the cost factor here please.

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Cost factor is irrelevant when garrison fails to serve its purpuse. 400 PHB is much weaker in AI eyes, in real combat, in longetivity when AI fighting them without you and so on. The only case when it's ok if you'll be able to arrive with few hundreds elite troops before actual battle. But such party will be much slower and will cost you money that you are trying to save in the first place. It's simply ineffective strategy. PHB without actual combat units are just a lamb to slaughter. Autoupgrade works with this "in mind" and you don't like it. Well, it's sad.

Neither a 400 phb nor a 300 phb+100pab force is going to save your fief from a 1500+ marshal doomstack. You are going to have to bring your main army to defend it regardless.

And your argument about "losing the money you are trying to save" is totally disingenuous. Are you seriously suggesting to not have a main army? The reason you economize your garrisons is so you can more readily afford your main army and have positive cash flow for lordly gear from quigfen and ko upgrades.

Regardless, this is not a game breaking bug or anything. It's merely annoying, and enough players consider it annoying enough for devs in other mods to give the player the OPTION of disabling it. There is no need to look down on players asking for this option.

Really at marshal doomstack level it's important to have a plan. 5000-10000 Pendor Recruits helps a little, but before long hopefully you can have something else to distract them.

It's funny to see a doomstack take a detour to burn some villages, while individual lords take a break and then get ganked out of sight, joining the new PLAYER_KINGOM_NAME

thermocline said:

Neither a 400 phb nor a 300 phb+100pab force is going to save your fief from a 1500+ marshal doomstack.

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+100-150 player party and you are good to go. Without PAB it's maybe impossible. Actually this is my standard garrison for distant castles and I travel only with 50 CKO knights. I can always take some 100 elite units in nearby to sieged settlement city if I think I'll need reinforcements to repel attack.

This was actually part of one plan to spam pendor, to stack AI lord garrisons with hundreds of berserkers each.

The main reason not to is that it's not really high-payoff for the effort (but those units in the lords themselves and use them)

A big army wont always win, I have defeated a Rebel Army with the units I got from the Order of the Ebony Gauntlet's "Challenge Quest" with less than zero problems, though a few of my Hammer got knocked out by the Hero Adventures.

I have no troubles up-keeping my garrisons and army after I got a Town, but I was in troubles when I only had 2 Castles and a Village. I have one garrison composed of 400-500 random Fierdsvain troops (most of them in the low tiers), another garrison composed of Vaccanian, Mettleheim, Random spare units from Ravenstern and a 100 filler units. My Town is guarded by whatever remains of the faction prisoners I have saved, some fillers units, whatever leftover units I have from the Ebony Gauntlet and my "elite" army (all in all it gives around 750 units). My main army is currently consisting purely of freed mercenaries and counting between 75 and 120 units (depending on my Auto-Calc luck), and is only used to to me being so cheap that I wont dismiss them (might as well use them to free the units I want). The number of units I have in my army rarely makes a difference when I help a friendly lord, especially since I only assist in battles I am certain I can win

- And yes, I am a bit of an ******* to be allied with, but currently the Fierds are the strongest in my game and I need to beat them later (when I found Pendor).

Then again, a high number of units in a garrison is rather annoying (looking at you Snake Cult castle with 1000 men/women).

Raviollius said:

you're supposed to plan your strategy around the game mechanics, not keep your mind set on something then complain when said game mechanic make it harder than it should. Adapt.

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Again. I am 99% sure that this is not game mechanics, this is an oversight in it.
Features that provide bonuses are not supposed to make gameplay more tedious.
Also a positive feature that is given to a player with the words "Oh, you don't want it? HAVE IT ANYWAY!" is kinda strange. 

sher said:

Cost factor is irrelevant when garrison fails to serve its purpuse. 400 PHB is much weaker in AI eyes, in real combat, in longetivity when AI fighting them without you and so on. The only case when it's ok if you'll be able to arrive with few hundreds elite troops before actual battle. But such party will be much slower and will cost you money that you are trying to save in the first place. It's simply ineffective strategy. PHB without actual combat units are just a lamb to slaughter. Autoupgrade works with this "in mind" and you don't like it. Well, it's sad.

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Cost factor is always relevant. Garrisons should be both cheap and effective.
So if someone really wants to stick with Pendor archers, and 100 PAB is a mandatory part, then a number of PHB should be smaller.
Statements like "100 PAB + 300 HAB is better than 400 HAB" are only true in a magic cost-free world. In real game world one should compare 400 HAB vs 100 PAB + ... o, well, it's actually 71 PAB + 2 HAB. Now let's think about which party will do better in autocalc.