Plasquar's Let's Play with Dark Age Graphic Modpack and VC Balance Mod 8.0

Dirty Norseman said:

The more I learn about your mod the more I want to do a let's play.

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Sounds fun! If you do, I’ll of course gladly post the link on ModDB/steam/nexus. 

Dirty Norseman said:

sandbox play thru on realistic save setting.

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Just make a backup of the save after each play session, just in case. I don’t think VC has the save corruption problems of some other mods, but you never know what happens in a long playthrough.

Tingyun said:

The latter is part of an effort to create strategic tradeoffs for using mercs--increased upkeep but not increased hiring cost, intended to make mercs ideal to hire when currently in heavy fighting or raiding but very costly to keep long-term compared to regular soldiers, and make it a viable choice to potentially engage in a cycle of hire-fire-rehire as needed (especially with the high level ones like Frankish Cavalry, that have an especially high ratio of wages to hire cost). Also, for their power, mercs are often cheaper or similar cost to hire than a regular soldier is to upgrade up to a comparable unit, so we need to balance that instant cheap army aspect with long-term costs.

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That's something I noticed as well.
God these guys are expensive.

Hi Plasquar!

Enjoyed the 5th episode!

A few answers to some questions that came up in the video about VC stuff:

1) The Beda chronicle is just a sort of narrative device, of someone talking from the future. It isn’t the same guy but I think the VC devs were inspired by early English historians like this Beda: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede#Chronicles

2) You will be able to join a faction later in the storyline. Also, when the storyline completes, the game will transform into full sandbox play, with the old restrictions lifted.

3) Overseas caravan trips—you don’t have to carry the caravan, it has its own ships, you just have to have ships for your own men.

4) Place names—sometimes you can guess what the modern name might be, to get an idea of location. Canterburgh—-> Canterbury, Witan Ceaster —-> Winchester, Jorvik ——> York, Eriuland —-> Ireland (named after a goddess, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eriu), etc.  your guess was right—Dubh Lin is Dublin, a town with its origins in a Viking longphort.

5) You guessed right, Balance Mod did change arena fights a bit. Mostly replacing quarter staff/shield with quarter staff/javelins for increased opportunities to practice throwing, and introducing the 1 1/2 handed axe, so players have an option to train 2 handed weapon skill.

6) You were exactly right on the village name changes, and the new names are all thanks to Philippe at Bay, who generously allowed me to integrate his wonderful village name mod: https://steamcommunity.com/app/48700/discussions/0/517142253864366831/

7) Fort reaves, who stand outside the lord hall in castles, offer a limitied list of town guildmasters quests.

8 ) The best priests to donate to are the Gothi in Lord halls. Give them 1000 and your relations with pagans will go up. Only once a week though or it stop short working.

9) At this point in history, vikings have been raiding monasteries for the better part of a century. They aren’t the easy wealth they once were. And if you raid one, monks will tell the tale of your despicable acts across the Christian world...

10) Congrats on the Danish Elite Prisoner. If recruited, not only is it a top combat unit, but it is a “sailor”. Norse units lvl 23 and higher, any unit with vikingr in the name, and Ship Captains (added in Balance Mod) are sailor units, and the higher proportion you have of them in your party, the faster your ship goes.

11) Actual units called “sailor” count double for the sailing bonus, but are terrible in combat. If you are desperate for men or value speed, then talk to the “old captain” who hangs out by the docks in towns, he will find you some sailors for your party.

12) Trolls are for slaying, not paying.

The ambush battle with assassins was quite exciting!

Forgot to mention in the above list, on the reason you aren’t getting village quests, is it possible all the applicable ones are on cooldown?

I’ll go ahead and explain the Warband quest cooldown system, just in case anyone reading is unfamiliar with how it works. So if you complete deliver cattle quest, the cooldown is 20 days, and during that period no village in the entire world will offer the quest. I think VC cooldowns are mostly similar to native Warband, so you can check the wiki for the “refresh rate” http://mountandblade.wikia.com/wiki/Deliver_cattle

And of course the same cooldown behavior applies to guildmasters in town, lords, etc. There are just a few exceptions—letter delivery for lords for example. I think caravan escort from guildmasters might be exempted too, at least it is in TLD.

The only way you can get new village quests until the cooldown expires is by unlocking new quests. For example, a player who puts their first point into training skill will now have “train peasants” added to the pool (that reminds me, I sped up training in that quest to very fast but didn’t get around to changing the estimated time displayed in the menu text...basically I thought it silly that the player had to spend 3 days training and the farmers are still just farmers in battle, requiring the player army to fight the battle for them anyway).

Or, if you can find a village that has recently been looted or is otherwise low in prosperity, it will have the “deliver grain” quest added to its pool. I think that needs a prosperity lower than 40 to be available.

Thanks for your detailed ansawer Tingyun.

Tingyun said:

9) At this point in history, vikings have been raiding monasteries for the better part of a century. They aren’t the easy wealth they once were. And if you raid one, monks will tell the tale of your despicable acts across the Christian world...

10) Congrats on the Danish Elite Prisoner. If recruited, not only is it a top combat unit, but it is a “sailor”. Norse units lvl 23 and higher, any unit with vikingr in the name, and Ship Captains (added in Balance Mod) are sailor units, and the higher proportion you have of them in your party, the faster your ship goes.

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9) Luckily I decided not to raid the monastery.
10) I sold him for 15 peningas at the next quarry...  But good to know that these "sailors" exist, I'll make sure to keep those guys in the future.

Tingyun said:

Forgot to mention in the above list, on the reason you aren’t getting village quests, is it possible all the applicable ones are on cooldown?

I’ll go ahead and explain the Warband quest cooldown system, just in case anyone reading is unfamiliar with how it works. So if you complete deliver cattle quest, the cooldown is 20 days, and during that period no village in the entire world will offer the quest. I think VC cooldowns are mostly similar to native Warband, so you can check the wiki for the “refresh rate” http://mountandblade.wikia.com/wiki/Deliver_cattle

And of course the same cooldown behavior applies to guildmasters in town, lords, etc. There are just a few exceptions—letter delivery for lords for example. I think caravan escort from guildmasters might be exempted too, at least it is in TLD.

The only way you can get new village quests until the cooldown expires is by unlocking new quests. For example, a player who puts their first point into training skill will now have “train peasants” added to the pool (that reminds me, I sped up training in that quest to very fast but didn’t get around to changing the estimated time displayed in the menu text...basically I thought it silly that the player had to spend 3 days training and the farmers are still just farmers in battle, requiring the player army to fight the battle for them anyway).

Or, if you can find a village that has recently been looted or is otherwise low in prosperity, it will have the “deliver grain” quest added to its pool. I think that needs a prosperity lower than 40 to be available.

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Unlocking quest, I didn't know that exists. Good to know, thanks!

Plasquar, Viking Conquest for me is good but I am accustomed with Fierdsvain than Vikings from DLC, afterwards I says as playing pagan as Vikings create immersion, similar how must be Christian as Anglo-Saxons. My interest for DLC is moderate compared to Warband, but some features are cool, also storyline mode is so interesting but a royal campaign must considered, you begin as leader, eliminating challenges of early and mid-game, you prefer rise from no one to a leader

Quarries only pay 15 penningas? I’ll add drastically increasing that to the planning list.

There are Slave Traders that hang out near the docks in some port cities. Dubh Lin has one, I think Ribe too. They pay around 2/3 ransom broker price, if I remember correctly, and I increased prisoner sale prices in 8.0, so you might be able to get a couple hundred for the better prisoners.

@Tingyun

I considers Balance Mod for future but I wish to make back-up of VC and rename BalanceMod, will working mod independently

I imagine that will work, as long as you copy over all the VC files first before installing Balance Mod, but let me know if you run into any problems.

I have make a new folder and works flawless because I wish to keep vanilla intact, but I actually like Nords and Fierdsvain how look more than Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen, features are just awesome

Tingyun said:

10) Congrats on the Danish Elite Prisoner. If recruited, not only is it a top combat unit, but it is a “sailor”. Norse units lvl 23 and higher, any unit with vikingr in the name, and Ship Captains (added in Balance Mod) are sailor units, and the higher proportion you have of them in your party, the faster your ship goes.

11) Actual units called “sailor” count double for the sailing bonus, but are terrible in combat. If you are desperate for men or value speed, then talk to the “old captain” who hangs out by the docks in towns, he will find you some sailors for your party.

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That is really good to know, I always thought sailors were useless but who would have thought they are actually good at...sailing. Is there a limit to the speed bonus? For instance if I have a full group of vikingr units on my Skeid, would it make sense to have some sailors for the better speed boost or is the speed boost already maxed out with having 40+ vikingrs on board?

The sailing speed bonus percentage is displayed in one of the screens at sea, I think it is the “camp” screen. 40% is the max bonus. So check what you are currently getting, and if below 40%, you’ll benefit from adding more.

I think a full crew of vikings/Norse over lvl 23 would max it out. The special “sailor” unit’s double bonus is mainly useful if the rest of your troops are normal troops.

When Balance Mod added Ship Captains to the sailor list, now that I think about it I think I gave them the double bonus (reasoning they must be exceptionally skilled mariners). So if you are just below the bonus max it’s possible adding a few extra Ship Captains might top you off as well.

I not observing still differences compared to vanilla in Balance Mod

Do you mean you are not sure you installed it correctly? To check, assuming you started a new campaign, you can look up a Frisian lord in the notes (for example, Hrodulf Haraldsson), and see if they have father/son and brother relationships to the other Frisian lords. If Hrodulf Haraldsson, true to his name, is the son of Harald Hemmingsson, then Balance Mod is installed.

If you used a vanilla save, some changes won’t show up, including Lord families, so instead open the Tier 5 Angle Bodyguards in the camp troop menu, and look which swords they have. If they have plain, low damage swords, then you are in Vanilla, if they instead have Ulfbert swords and rich swords, same as Saxon bodyguards, Balance Mod is installed.

If you mean that you want to better understand exactly what Balance Mod does change, then you can read the complete changelogs here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,373658.0.html

Several hundred changes at this point, but they are all there and fully documented.

Mod is correctly installed but I must explore game mechanics to be familiarised with Viking Conquest and Balance Mod

Hi Plasquar!

Enjoyed the the latest episode. Some tips:

1) For prisoner recruiting, use the "recruit prisoners" button in the camp menu. That will give you a much better chance of recruiting prisoners, and it recruits entire stacks, compared to the dialogue option from talking to them. If you fail, just try again later. Note if it rolls a "success" for recruiting, it then randomly picks 1 troop stack to hire--meaning if you have, say, danish elites and ruffian prisoners, disband the ruffians before trying to recruit, because otherwise it makes your chance of recruiting the Danish Elite stack only 50% of the original chance (an odd behavior carried over from Native Warband)

2) When you have too many soldiers for your boats, but intend to later return to the same spot (in this case, Ribe), then use the Quarters button at the bottom of the screen to create a troop camp, and leave your men in that camp. They will dutifully wait for your return. You can have 2 troops camps at any one time. You can also build a refuge, sort of a permanent troop camp with tons of useful features, once you know where you want to base out of.

3) Don't disband Norse Companions, they are great troops. Instead you should disband hornmen (they aren't really useful outside of large armies) or generic spearmen (they are mercs, so more expensive, and at any rate are no match for Norse Companions)

Thanks for the tips!
Expect me to not make use of them in the near future since I'm already a few episodes ahead. 

Plasquar, I have redownloaded 1257, mod looks cool but you remember as Gorvex says about mod as is bugged, is one of my favourite mods, but AWOIAF is good and intriguing, unit rosters not are as in Pendor but every faction feel different, some get plate, some not. You because playing as female have winning my interest but I playing sometimes as male especially in 1257. My favourite Youtuber is ArcadeKnight, a good guy which give tp me passion to Mount & Blade Warband

Hi Plasquar!

Of course, I understand the time lag. I enjoyed the latest episode! Here’s some thoughts regarding the latest video:

1) Giving your companions (or later, vassal lords) rings and bracelets is just a means of increasing their relationship with you. It is based on an old tradition of the lord fostering loyalty by giving these things. Here’s an example of this kind of arm ring from the national museum of Denmark: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/power-and-aristocracy/magnates-and-kings/

2) Your companions will not leave you for the same reason they leave in ordinary Warband, instead they will make decisions at various points of the story, as well as have things happen to them. They can even decide to strike out on their own and form their own adventuring party, eventually swearing fealty to a kingdom if they become powerful enough.

3) To further develop relations with companions, try making a camp in the wilderness every once in a while. Each time you make a camp to wait on the overworld map screen in the wilderness, there is a 20% chance one of your companions will approach you for a scripted conversation, giving you a chance to respond in different ways to build your relationship with them (or sour it). There are even scripted romances with companions.

Arnulf Floyd said:

Plasquar, I have redownloaded 1257, mod looks cool but you remember as Gorvex says about mod as is bugged, is one of my favourite mods, but AWOIAF is good and intriguing, unit rosters not are as in Pendor but every faction feel different, some get plate, some not. You because playing as female have winning my interest but I playing sometimes as male especially in 1257. My favourite Youtuber is ArcadeKnight, a good guy which give tp me passion to Mount & Blade Warband

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My next mod will either be AWoIaF or something completly different...

Tingyun said:

Hi Plasquar!

Of course, I understand the time lag. I enjoyed the latest episode! Here’s some thoughts regarding the latest video:

1) Giving your companions (or later, vassal lords) rings and bracelets is just a means of increasing their relationship with you. It is based on an old tradition of the lord fostering loyalty by giving these things. Here’s an example of this kind of arm ring from the national museum of Denmark: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/power-and-aristocracy/magnates-and-kings/

2) Your companions will not leave you for the same reason they leave in ordinary Warband, instead they will make decisions at various points of the story, as well as have things happen to them. They can even decide to strike out on their own and form their own adventuring party, eventually swearing fealty to a kingdom if they become powerful enough.

3) To further develop relations with companions, try making a camp in the wilderness every once in a while. Each time you make a camp to wait on the overworld map screen in the wilderness, there is a 20% chance one of your companions will approach you for a scripted conversation, giving you a chance to respond in different ways to build your relationship with them (or sour it). There are even scripted romances with companions.

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Thanks! Good to know. Especially 3)
I set up a camp a few moments ago and saw the first dialogue. It's awesome!