Muskets and Bows
muskets were not good in hitting the enemy if he is too far (in reality). (bad english

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the bows were better in these days if you want to hit enemies, who are far.
the advantage of muskets should be, that they are shooting many projectiles like in "China World War II" (or so) Mod for M&B.
if the enemy is near to you, he should lose many hp. AND reload time is too short, these weapons were reloaded longer.
to balance it with bows, in my opinion you should weaken the imperial bow to max 30. and you cannot carry so many arrows. weaken it to 15!
in conclusion: muskets and bows are weakened. because both are weakened, there are no problems with the balance!
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SAMURAI
i want to suggest, that you should copy the samurai armours from "The Chaos War"- there is something like a asian faction, they are called "the northern" and they have awesome armours. i only play this game because of his samurai armours.
it would be better, if you ask the modders of "Onin No Ran", a very unkown mod for m&b, if they can you give their models of katanas, armours (not so good like in the chaos war), helmets (good) and other asian things. i'm sure you will be surprised.
it looks very nice and would give your mod a special atmossphere, not only the same thing like the other mods.
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,82452.0.html
i have another point: in your mod, there are nearly no shields, which can protect more than 70. can you add some bigger shields? i dont know. make the shields you already have in the mod bigger, multiplicate with 1,2 or something like that and you need not to work on new shields^^
Skills:
prisonmanagement not +5, make it +10
leadership +10, not 5
were can i find the narratu litte shields? can you implement the little shields, which you can use even with bow and 2hand weapons?
all weapons and armours should be "buyable"
every group should be multiplicate. lords, bandits, castles and towns. 40 looters makes fun. a lot of more fun =80 looters^^
(but do not forget to make leadership +10^^)
new buildings for villages and towns. maybe add
some function of "Custom Settlements". that you can bring prisoners to work or that you can loot other villages to make yours better^^
lamellar armours are not so heavy like plate armours. that was the sense. you cannot make them both 33 kg!
and very important:
if you are going to fight with a bandit group, they should work together if there are some bandits in the near!!
its funny to fight against hundreds of bandits^^
if you make that, you need not to make that one bandit group is bigger (like i wrote some lines before)
in my opinion the tournaments are to good. its makes us to easy if you can bet more than 200!
more suggestions coming soon, i always forget^^