Recent content by Gnostic_Monk

Finished the Feudal Japanese tree. It took a while. I got caught up planting my vegetable garden and so it took forever to get this one done. I was fortunate that because Japan was an insular island nation it made finding information on their military traditions very easy to dig up. Most of their history was just a large civil war and the rules of engagement for that were usually predetermined by the bushido code and internal imperial military policy. Unfortunately the next tree which is the North-West African tree will take some time. I have very little research done for any tree based on this area and I have a stong feeling this tree will most likely turn into two or three separate trees which I would like to power through in one attempt. I'm obviously going to stick along cultural and geographical lines. In other words Even though the Romans, Vandals and the Carthaginian Phoenicians controlled parts of North Africa each of those conquering militaries belong to different military traditions and not to the native populations of the area. Two more big factors in completing these trees is that I'm learning a new program for creating these flow charts. Also when I have my affairs in order I'm going to go on my (wherever I'm not being worked and to death) somewhat annual two-week long camping trip. Depending upon where I am on these trees prior to my camping trip I will pick up or order books pertaining to which ever tree(s) I'm working on at the time and continue my work with good ol' pen and paper.

It used to be in Warband that if the king awarded a castle you captured to another vassal you could renounce your lordship and take your lands with you to create a faction. In fact that was one of the few ways of creating your own faction. Actually it was one of the safer options as well. It must not be that way in Bannerlord.

So is this mod basically a main story line for native Warband because if that's so sign me up man!

Yeah. That is going to be the next step. Which is re-learning what I attempted the first time in Morgphs editor and implementing it into native Warband. I would also like to mod the Pre-battle deployment and formations AI into native as well. That's what all of this originally started as. Like most modders I wanted to re-do units based on historic tactics and to enhance the strategy elements of the base game. If I'm doing native though that really only allows me to use 6 troops tree due to the items in game. I couldn't just throw the Chinese troop tree in game for example because I would need to mod in items to be able to use that tree. I know there are item packs so I might go down that road. I don't think I'll add factions into my mod. I tried making a faction in my original try and the more I read and attempted to do it just left me with confusion. I personally would prefer to just re-do the original troop trees in native though I like how they're a brief summery of the military traditions of a historical cultural block at an indistinct period in time and not a specific army from one commander. The rest of the troop trees would just be for public consumption. For me though this is more than anything an armchair history research project. I've always loved history and social studies when I was in school so it's a way to be the anthropologist I've always wanted to be but never had the money to be allowed to. Lastly I want to contribute something to the community. I know doing research and modding simultaneously is a time consuming venture so I kind of wanted to provide a set of basic reference troop trees and documentation that modders could use as a cheat sheet to expidite mod creation though imagine most modders enjoy doing the research themselves. Also thank you for your vote and feedback.

Yeah. I'm new to the whole forum thing. The pacing of it is alien to me. Oh, also, I need to clear some stuff up for the record. Most of this stuff will make sense when I release the supplemental guide but some of it is just plain game mechanics related. Lemme know if I should place this next section in the OP.

1. Everything on these troop trees can be divided into nine sections. That's how many troop divisions Warband gives you so that's what I'm building the trees around. The historical divisions and the tactics utilized will be elaborated on in the supplemental guide.
2. Again this will also be expanded on in the guide but a general rule of thumb for these trees is the the MILITIA section are supposed to be the basic level soldiers. Either they don't get exceptional equipment or their skills are mediocre at best but they are recruited from villages so they are plentiful and varied in usefulness. The FIELD ARMY units are specialists that are either expensive to maintain but are effective in almost all situation or they are only slightly more expensive than miltia units BUT are (like the camels) only usable in a hand full of battlefield situations. Lastly the STANDING ARMY category are your elites which either allow you to change up your strategy (like in the Persian tree) or to enhance your existing tactics (in the case of the Greek tree). Skill and equipment wise they should worth the high cost of keeping them on indefinitely in at least small, usable, numbers. This tree should only be available if you are a member of the faction they're from and you personally control either a town and/or a castle.
3. I WILL cover this in the supplement guide but repetition is the best way to learn. I'm basing this off of Warband and specifically the "Pre-battle deployment mod" that is found in many Warband mods as well as the mod that adds formations into the game. I find both of these mods to be very touchy. If you even add one unit of a different type (an archer in an infantry division) then it renders about half the formations in these mods useless. This makes unit classification important when making these trees. For the Persian tree I would make the archers in the militia tree count as infantry. If you do not this will render one whole divisions of units unuse-able. This is also the reason that the Greek tree has so many levels of hoplite or why the Persian tree has a mix archer and spearman at the lower level. This allows you to pool them into a division and to use the "Ranks" or "Shield Wall" features from the better formations and pre-deployment mods. If you were to use any of these these for a Bannerlord mod I would get rid of the unnecessarily tired units such as the one of the hoplites or one the Persian spearmen.
4. Now for some tree specific stuff. I personally would not allow the war elephants (who's riders should be armed with bows) to be recruited from taverns. They are giant hulking (but gentle ones you get to know them) beasts and access to them early in the game could break things. There are a few way around that. Those would be to either make them prohibitively expensive to new players or to only have them be recruit-able from taverns on a certain part of the map. I did the math with the mercenaries and currently if you were to put all the troop trees I've released into your mod there's only a 6% chance they will spawn in a tavern. So, essentially, adding more troop trees to lower the chance of an elephant spawning early in game would theoretically work.
5. Some of the units and trees are subject to being changed. For example on the Celtic tree the "Border Reivers" carried EITHER a longbow OR a crossbow. I decided to change them to a mounted crossbowmen from a mounted longbowman because I felt the tree and what ever mods (if any) these make it into would benefit from the balancing. This is also the kind of thing that will be explained in the supplemental guide. Everyone makes mistakes and I sure make them when I do trees. On top of this as I learn about one military tradition or structure I invariably learn more about another. Some times that requires changes. Usually it doesn't.

Romanized German troop tree is done. I'm like the only person who's vote on my poll :/

Well... I like the idea but as Ra'Jiska said it's a technically challenging feat to be sure. I've always kind of viewed the MMO style mods like Persistent World or whatever as the closest that is achievable to a multiplayer campagin. On those mods it kind of relies on your ability to RP or be compelling enough to get enough people on the server join along with you. Not a Leadership or persuasion skill. Even then that has it's limitations. If I'm not mistaken on those Persistent World mods I think a map has to be created and scripted and then you have to get people on the server by advertising it on endless forums. The server population maximum is also fairly low compared to MMO standards.

I should be able to roll out the Romanized German, Scandinavian and Macedonian troop trees all within the next 2 days. Most of the research has been done on those. I have the most information on the Romanized Germans (because of messing up my original Celtic tree), Macedonians and then the Scandinavians in that order. So most likely the Romanized Germans will be posted first. After those trees are done I will work on the Japanese tree which will most likely take two days by itself due to the absolute lack of research.

Has anyone said chariots yet? There's so many different military traditions who used them and I have yet to see them.

I'm creating the new poll right now. Thank you. I bow to your generosity.

How about that for a re-done and fully finished troop tree @Eärendil the Mariner?

I saved the results. I'm also going to switch the order of the lists to reflect which ones will get worked on. Also I have all my re-research done on the Celtic AND Persian trees PLUS I'm beginning to continue my research on the Viking tree! That means those will be re-posted within the day (in my time zone) if not by tonight! I separated the troop trees out differently as well. Instead of doing one big tree I now have different trees for a single faction which a modder can place in villages, towns and faction owned castles respectively to simulate the difference in feel of a milita as opposed to a standing, professional, army.

For sure man! Lemme see... Well honestly the research is the fun part for me. It's the paperwork that comes with making the flow charts that's kind of a *****.