SP Musket Era 1631: The Thirty Years' War - A near-complete overhaul of WFAS (UPDATED 29/12/2024)

[Frossa]

Version 0.3.1 is out. Mostly containing bug fixes and some rebalancings (the latter only take effect on new saves).
Edit: I just had to release 0.3.2 to fix a bug. Oops.

Spoiler: Changelog v0.3.2

- Dates now also show the day of the week, to make it easier to plan for church attendance.
- Fixed a glitch where no Towns would ever accept Protestants for church service, even if they were majority Protestant.

0.3.1:
- You can now recruit troops remotely as long as you are in a Faction, and not just if you own a fief.
- Travellers in Taverns now tell you if there are Ransom Brokers or Booksellers in nearby Towns.
- Wallenstein and Tilly now have increased Renown and start the game with more troops in their parties, to buff to the Habsburgs Faction.
- Significantly raised the gold reward for plundering a Village.
- Swedish Mounted Infantry now count as cavalry instead of marksmen (for real this time).
- Nerfed Hilde and Pierre. Finding and hiring Hilde as soon as possible was too much of a no-brainer.
- Buffed Dutch militia troops, including giving better muskets. They are now markedly better than other Factions' militias.
- Ladies that you are courting can now not switch their location while they are waiting for you to meet them in a particular Town.
- Fixed the player being able to attend church service in Protestant Castles as a Catholic.
- Fixed a glitch where Towns would abolish tolls despite not having any tolls.
- Fixed a glitch where the menu to repay loans would repay *all* your active loans, instead of only those that are due.
- Fixed a glitch where characters' opinion of the player could exceed 100 due to high Piety, breaking part of the dialogue interface.

 

[Frossa]

Version 0.3.3 is now out. Now the glitch where Quests would have no instructions is fixed, however belatedly. The reason I couldn't do it as soon as I realised it was a thing is because I was in the middle of working on (more) advanced diplomacy, and didn't want to release a patch with an extremely unbalanced and chaotic feature. I'm very open to knowing what people think of the diplomatic landscape now.

Spoiler: Changelog v0.3.3

- Improved diplomacy: War and peace is now dictated by the will of individual Lords in Factions, who may be for or against war with a specific Faction. When the combined Renown of the pro-war Lords outnumbers the Renown of the anti-war Lords, the Faction will declare war. The player can persuade individual Lords for or against hostilities.
- There are now field preachers in army camps and barracks on Sunday mornings, so you can still boost your Piety while unable to go to church in a Town.
- Added parties of travellers on the map, that go between locations. These can either be robbed for money, or joined when you are weak for some extra protection against bandits.
- You can now join Caravans or Metayers on their journey between Towns and Villages for some protection from bandits.
- Tweaked AI priority slightly, so Lords should be more likely to siege Towns and Castles that originally belonged to their Faction.
- You now get an XP boost when escaping as a prisoner of a party.
- Fixed an issue where dying against Bandits occupying a Village counted as a defeat, even if your troops win the battle.
- Fixed a glitch where the season would incorrectly be identified as winter, causing the player to be freezing.
- Fixed a glitch where Quests would only get the day of the week written in its description, instead of instructions.
- Fixed a glitch where Bandits in Towns would still be using their normal weapons, even if the Town has a policy of disarmament.
- Fixed a dialogue glitch when asking if player can have peace with a Faction you have attacked.

 

[BoDiddleyEnjoyer]

Wow, fantastic mod. I've been playing Mount & Blade since 2014; over 1000 hours in Warband and 120 in WFAS, and this is finally the mod that's made me sign up to the Taleworlds forum.

Firstly, a few things I'd like to commend:

-Great sense of immersion. All the little things like the church bells ringing on Sundays, the cold weather affecting you in winter, all the new minor settlements, the town scenes, etc. Finding the claimant in the hidden palace in the Netherlands made me smile. Very well implemented. Good outfit models and weapon changes. I would honestly of the most authentic and immersive feeling mod in M&B history, and I've played a lot.

-Diplomacy seems to work very well - a significant improvement over vanilla WFAS. I played with the Random diplomatic relations to keep it interesting. As a mercenary for the Swedes I saw very tangible territorial gains in just a single campaign. Seems like wars last long enough and the AI is competent enough at maintaining a siege for you to see significant territorial changes with every war, which is more than can be said for the standard game.

-Despite the removal of Poland, there's a lot of polish. 8 hours into a save now and I haven't had a single crash. One bug I will detail below. Only seen a single script error popup in the console upon completion of a mayoral 'forge a peace' quest, and it seemed to complete with no problems anyway.



Few points of feedback:
-Not sure if this is fixable due to the way the mechanic works, but staying in a Monastery (ie when you ask a monk for rest and healing) doesn't keep you warm in winter. I found this out the hard way at a particularly tense point in my save. I'd finally lost a battle, had most of my army wiped, and was deep behind enemy lines with only 12 men left. I'd had the cold sickness quest for a couple of days at this point. Habsburg Patrols were EVERYWHERE, and my party was too wounded to fight. Just as 3 Patrols were converging on me from different directions, I mercifully came across a monastery and begged for refuge. A super cool and atmospheric bit of the campaign but it was a little frustrating that even after 2 or 3 days resting in the monastery I didn't get any warmer.

-The only bug I encountered was related to the Travellers you added in the last patch. I came across a party of them being attacked by bandits and swooped in to help. Won the battle, and afterwards something very strange happened. It wont let me post links as a new member, but have a look at this: imgur DOT com/a/WkKEMMu
It seemed like post-battle, the game considered the Travellers party as a settlement - and when I clicked Talk to the elder I got a spooky headless figure called Barbara. Worse yet, when I clicked "Leave..." it seemed to think I wanted to work at this village, and removed my 17,500+ thalers! Thankfully it kept me in the menu, so I managed to ALT F4 before it autosaved and reloaded with no issues.

-The lord relation penalty for different religions is maybe a *little* high. I might have just gimped myself by picking Catholic and mainly interacting with Proddies to be fair, but it was very difficult and time consuming to repair my relationship with Swedish lords. But maybe this is intentional to stop you drifting around so much. Keeps you rooting for a couple factions from the get-go which is nice.

-The only bows you can seemingly get are the crafted ones - or have I just not looked hard enough? It makes Power Draw and archery on the character screen feel a little vestigial. I completely understand this is to serve the setting though. Just a personal one from someone who loved archery in WFAS.

That's all I have for now, but will keep this save going. Eagerly awaiting any updates. I super appreciate you putting the work into this even with how small the WFAS community is - I really do mean it when I say this is one of the best mods for M&B I've seen to date. I wish this wasn't so overlooked.

Thanks again!

 

[Frossa]

Wow, fantastic mod. I've been playing Mount & Blade since 2014; over 1000 hours in Warband and 120 in WFAS, and this is finally the mod that's made me sign up to the Taleworlds forum.

Firstly, a few things I'd like to commend:

-Great sense of immersion. All the little things like the church bells ringing on Sundays, the cold weather affecting you in winter, all the new minor settlements, the town scenes, etc. Finding the claimant in the hidden palace in the Netherlands made me smile. Very well implemented. Good outfit models and weapon changes. I would honestly of the most authentic and immersive feeling mod in M&B history, and I've played a lot.

-Diplomacy seems to work very well - a significant improvement over vanilla WFAS. I played with the Random diplomatic relations to keep it interesting. As a mercenary for the Swedes I saw very tangible territorial gains in just a single campaign. Seems like wars last long enough and the AI is competent enough at maintaining a siege for you to see significant territorial changes with every war, which is more than can be said for the standard game.

-Despite the removal of Poland, there's a lot of polish. 8 hours into a save now and I haven't had a single crash. One bug I will detail below. Only seen a single script error popup in the console upon completion of a mayoral 'forge a peace' quest, and it seemed to complete with no problems anyway.



Few points of feedback:
-Not sure if this is fixable due to the way the mechanic works, but staying in a Monastery (ie when you ask a monk for rest and healing) doesn't keep you warm in winter. I found this out the hard way at a particularly tense point in my save. I'd finally lost a battle, had most of my army wiped, and was deep behind enemy lines with only 12 men left. I'd had the cold sickness quest for a couple of days at this point. Habsburg Patrols were EVERYWHERE, and my party was too wounded to fight. Just as 3 Patrols were converging on me from different directions, I mercifully came across a monastery and begged for refuge. A super cool and atmospheric bit of the campaign but it was a little frustrating that even after 2 or 3 days resting in the monastery I didn't get any warmer.

-The only bug I encountered was related to the Travellers you added in the last patch. I came across a party of them being attacked by bandits and swooped in to help. Won the battle, and afterwards something very strange happened. It wont let me post links as a new member, but have a look at this: imgur DOT com/a/WkKEMMu
It seemed like post-battle, the game considered the Travellers party as a settlement - and when I clicked Talk to the elder I got a spooky headless figure called Barbara. Worse yet, when I clicked "Leave..." it seemed to think I wanted to work at this village, and removed my 17,500+ thalers! Thankfully it kept me in the menu, so I managed to ALT F4 before it autosaved and reloaded with no issues.

-The lord relation penalty for different religions is maybe a *little* high. I might have just gimped myself by picking Catholic and mainly interacting with Proddies to be fair, but it was very difficult and time consuming to repair my relationship with Swedish lords. But maybe this is intentional to stop you drifting around so much. Keeps you rooting for a couple factions from the get-go which is nice.

-The only bows you can seemingly get are the crafted ones - or have I just not looked hard enough? It makes Power Draw and archery on the character screen feel a little vestigial. I completely understand this is to serve the setting though. Just a personal one from someone who loved archery in WFAS.

That's all I have for now, but will keep this save going. Eagerly awaiting any updates. I super appreciate you putting the work into this even with how small the WFAS community is - I really do mean it when I say this is one of the best mods for M&B I've seen to date. I wish this wasn't so overlooked.

Thanks again!

Thank you greatly for the kind words, they are very motivating! I have a few big ideas for the next patch which I think you'll love.

I will look at the Mayors' peace Quest, I have a few suspicions what may be causing the errors.

Freezing while in Monastery care is absolutely an oversight, and a fairly easy one to fix too. Thank you for reminding me of it.

And I actually just a few days ago thought about the potential scenario of Travellers bringing up some buggy dialogue in some circumstances, considering they are "heroes", which technically puts them in the same category as Lords. What you showed in the screenshot is a little unexpected however. I will identify what may be causing this.

It's not a penalty for being of a different Religion, but most likely from having low Piety from not going to church. The intention is, as you identified, to keep the player from drifting around too much, and actually investing time doing Quests for Towns or Villages so you can go to church there. I'm personally pretty happy with the numbers, but I'm not opposed to tweaking it to make it slightly less oppressive.

And yes, the only way to get a bow is to order a crafted one. Power Draw is indeed an unnecessary skill, but I was unable to remove it without the character interface getting glitched. Might look into other solutions in the future.

 

[Frossa]

Version 0.3.5 is now out. The biggest new feature is that the winter months will make a visual impact on the game, affecting every scene you visit. Several small fixes and polishes here and there as well.

Spoiler: Changelog v0.3.5

- Scenes will periodically be snow-covered during the winter.
- You can now earn promotions after time spent enlisted in a Lord's party while having high Leadership.
- Added a new short storyline Quest for Sweden.
- Buffed the Cravats by giving them proper armour. They should also be more common in Habsburg armies now.
- Food now no longer rots in January and February.
- Disabled the vanilla wagon fort function due to poor AI performance.
- Some cosmetic changes to the game map, among other things to make it clearer where there is impassable terrain.
- Fixed broken AI performances on Antwerpen's demolished wall scene.
- Fixed the softlock that occurs when your Caravan reaches its destination, and prompts you to buy a trade license.
- Fixed the broken dialogue that starts if you help Traveller Parties defeat Bandits.
- Fixed a bug where you could go to church or to your house in a Town even if held prisoner.
- All types of Bandits are now hostile to everything.
- Visual changes to the unclothed character model's legs.
- Added an option to recruit troops remotely also while enlisted if you are part of a Faction (and of at least Lieutenant rank).
- You now need either at least 40 Renown or 15 Renown from equipped clothing in order to interact with Merchant Guilds.
- New banners for French Lords, many of whom up to this point have been using Tatar ones.
- Fixed a spelling error in General Philippe de la Mothe-Houdancourt's name.
- Osnaburg (English name) has been renamed Osnabruck.
- Removed the option for "historical diplomacy" as system has been replaced by more dynamic and rational wars.

 

[gabe_90]

Awesome, gonna try it out. I have been enjoying this mod a lot!