[B] Blood and Steel 1.05

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xenoargh

Grandmaster Knight
blood_and_steel_logo.jpg


GAMEPLAY VIDEO CLICK HERE

This Mod assumes that Warband is updated, and at least for now, is being updated on a regular basis.  If you are not sure that Warband is up to date, click on this link to see if there is a new update available, it will save you from crashes :wink:
DOWNLOAD FULL INSTALLER (133 MB) CLICK HERE.


Please note: if updating from earlier versions, it may not be savegame compatible, so export your character before updating!

Screenies.
blood_and_steel_screen01.jpg
blood_and_steel_screen02.jpg
blood_and_steel_screen03.jpg
blood_and_steel_screen04.jpg
blood_and_steel_screen05.jpg

Non-Spoiler Short Description:

New and reworked sieges for every castle and town.
Better-looking landscapes and terrain.
Hundreds of new items.
Completely rebalanced faction armies.
Dozens of major gameplay changes.
New game balance.
You can ride camels into war.
Generally, it's like a whole new Warband.

Non-Spoiler Wall o' Text Mod Description
Introduction
Hello everybody, this is xenoargh.  This will take you through most of the things you need to know about Blood and Steel, including a lot of details about gameplay.  Please bear with me for the next few minutes of your time, and you will learn a lot about Blood and Steel.

But before I get into these details, I would like to thank (in no particular order) the following people:

Narf of Picklestink
RR_Razor
Amade
Dthehun
Luigi
James
Dejawolf
Llew
POP
GetAssista
Somebody
Checkmaty
Adorno

...and the very helpful people who have answered my questions at the Forge.  Without your kind assistance and Open Source content, building a mod like this in less than 3 months would have been impossible, and I wanted to thank all of you for your support for mods on this engine.

Before I begin, I want to say something unusual.  I want to let people know what this mod is not.

Usually, mods just give you feature lists.  I wanted to do a little more, because of the way that this mod works.

Basically, this mod is *not* two things:

1.  It is not a historically-accurate mod, in the sense of pretending that Calradia is Europe.  As we all know, Taleworld's conception of Calradia is a lot different than historical Europe, and I wanted to continue this tradition, instead of trying to make Mount and Blade something it's not.

While I have drawn very heavily on historical sources for most of the factions, you will find that some of them are pure fantasy.  This was done in the interest of fun.  However, players aren't required to use the fantasy troop types or equipment, and you can very well ignore these elements- it's up to you.

2.  While I use the term 'fantasy' in terms of the looks of some of the equipment and some of the troops... this is not a 'fantasy' mod.  Instead, it's a very hardcore tactical combat simulation with a lot of 'what-if' scenarios in it- for example, we get to find out what it might have been like if the Roman Empire had continued to exist, and continued to use heavy infantry tactics versus medieval shock-cavalry forces.  And the treatment of sieges and assault scenarios is a huge change from Native's approach- there is plenty of scope for serious tactical consideration of the problems you need to solve. 

There is no magic, there aren't any pointy-eared elves or dwarves, etc., and you will not be asked to do anything about a ring.  In general, once you remove the surface gloss, you will find that this mod is about combat and tactics.  So, for those of you who've seen the Day-Glo female armors in the first video... I'd appreciate your patience, because you will find that the actual gameplay is very hardcore in terms of realism and I think that most people who like the military aspects of Mount and Blade will enjoy it immensely.

So, those are the things that this mod is not.  I figured it would save time and avoid silly comments from people to let them know from the outset.




Without further ado, let's discuss the gameplay of the mod.  This is broken into several major sub-sections, and goes into some detail, so I would appreciate your patience whilst we move through the sections.

1.  Character Creation
Character creation is fundamentally different than Warband's Native design.  Whereas Native has only two major choices that really matter (whether to be male, and whether to start as a Noble), Blood and Steel has a completely different system for character creation- an explicit class system.

What is a class?  A class is a set of skills, starting equipment and resources, and starting relationships with the outside world.  It can also have long-term effects on gameplay, both helpful and detrimental.  This system means that picking a new class isn't just a minor choice- it means that the game will feel considerably different. 

I prefer to play a game where I know what I'm getting, and how hard the game is likely to be, during the start especially, so I have taken great pains to make how it works clear to players.  Try each of the classes out to have a new experience of the same old game!

2.  Global Difficulty Settings
There are three global difficulty settings, that operate above and beyond the Taleworlds settings.  These have a dramatic effect on how difficult the game is, both at the beginning and, more importantly, as you move up in the world and begin to conquer Calradia.  If you have never beaten the game before, you should give Casual Gamer mode a try- it's specifically designed to be easier than Native, especially at the end. 

If you've beaten the game once, or quit when you knew you could win, give Normal a try- it's a little harder in some ways, and a little easier in others. 

If you need a really challenging experience, pick "mommy"! 

And, if you're a masochist, try playing a Peasant Revolutionary on "mommy"- it is not impossible to win, but it's pretty close.

3.  New gameplay changes
The overall goal of Blood and Steel is not just to put new skins on old units.  The overall goal was to explore medieval combat and command problems.  Therefore, I have built a totally new game-balance system that is a lot more mechanically and historically accurate than Native.  Here are some of the details.

A.  No more "magic" skills
There are four skills that really distort game-balance in Native, because they make equipment values an unreliable guide in terms of effectiveness, and also give extreme buffs to AI troops. 

These skills are:  Power Draw, Power Strike, Power Throw and Shield.

Because I could not reconcile their effects with my desire to create a more accurate combat simulation, these skills have been totally removed.  If you are importing a character from Native, you may want to alter your character's stats and re-allocate some points to other skills to compensate.

B.  Totally reworked equipment
Every single item has been changed, from the ground up.  For people used to Native's numbers, it will be a bit of a change.  It would literally take me an hour to go through all of the alterations that have been made- everything from re-balanced horses to new shield concepts to all the weapon changes, so, with some regret, I will simply say this:  things are different, and you will need to read the descriptions and stats closely.

One major change requires some explanation, however, and I have decided that people ought to know about it before they begin playing the mod.  That is the changes to missile weapons, and missile combat in general.

I spent many hours researching the effectiveness of medieval weapon systems and applying this research to the resulting balance.  The biggest change that people will notice, though, is that missile weapons are considerably more effective, especially against lightly-armored troops, and that there is a much larger difference between bows of various types, crossbows, and the various primitive firearms that are simulated. 

In general, you will find that bows and arrows are good versus troops that aren't armored well, and can be devastating to unarmored troops when fired by a mass of archers.  Crossbows are very realistically depicted, and are very dangerous, albeit slow-firing weapons, and early firearms are somewhat like early crossbows, but aren't as accurate, but have a slightly higher rate of fire.  In general, you will want to acquire missile-armed troops of some kind, and there are many valid choices available.

For even more details about archery, here's a wall-within-a-wall-of-text:

When I was doing research on the topic of combat archery to determine where to set the numbers for accuracy, range, rate of fire and damage of medieval combat archery, I was struck very much by the vast difference in practice and technique between combat archery and target archery.

And there are other issues that most people aren't aware of, such as the fact that archers in the Middle Ages didn't have arrows of uniform stiffness, etc., which probably made sharpshooting over 50 meters pretty much a target-practice event, not something that was possible under combat conditions. 

And we also have to keep in mind that warbows and war-arrows weren't like target arrows, and weren't developed so much for accuracy or range, but to transmit killing levels of power to a reasonable distance- the classic tradeoffs between rate of fire, pull weight and drag.

But the real clincher for me was when I looked at the ways that combat archers draw, such as this example from a very traditionally-minded group in England,  which can be seen in this video.  It's obviously impossible to be enormously accurate when shooting that way, which is why English longbowmen typically trained to hit a clout, not a perpendicular target.

More to your specific point, there really aren't that many "famous archers" renowned for their accuracy.  In fact, most of that perception is modern, created by Hollywood and Tolkien (the Black Arrow vs. Smaug, Legolas, etc., which has spawned a million mythical Elven archers of amazing accuracy).

For example, Wikipedia's list of famous archers is mainly people from the 20th Century, or people whose real skills as archers (or lack thereof) are shrouded in mythology and whose accomplishments should be taken with huge grains of salt.  After all, one of those Japanese guys supposedly sank a ship with a single shot...

But, lest you think I'm picking on you archer folks arbitrarily (really, I'm not- archery was one of the things I did a fair amount of homework on when developing the game balance), I dug a bit deeper with the aid of Google, and found that... nope, there just aren't a huge amount of famous archers from any earlier than the 19th Century.  Famous shots are a bit easier to find... but that was just somebody getting lucky, or a medieval historian adding a bit of drama (they weren't exactly interested in what we'd consider history nowadays, their accounts were mainly entertainment for the ruling elite).

Lastly (since I've gone all long-winded here)... I have a number of relatives and friends who bowhunt.  I've shot bows of various kinds myself, but I am nowhere near expert, so my personal experience doesn't count.

They're shooting from a sniper's position, concealed and camouflaged, their target is ideally not moving... and they still rarely get a hit from more than about 30 meters, let alone a clean kill.  And that's a deer without any armor, who isn't actively avoiding the arrows and has no idea that they're being shot at... vs. guys with modern compound bows with sights.  I'm pretty sure that vs. people who are quite aware of what's going on that you can't achieve anywhere near that kind of accuracy.


Lastly, there are early cannons that are simulated.  These are done with specific troops that are armed with cannon-type firearms, which have special effects.  Players may also use these cannons as personal weapons, and may also use early shotguns (known as "dragons", hence "dragoons" of later ages).  These use special simulation code to accurately depict their effects, although I regret that their physical appearance is not what I would prefer.

And one last thing, that's somewhat important, in terms of realism changes.  You will find that Spear weapons have a new overhand strike, in addition to their underhand strike.  This means that using a spear with a shield is far more practical than it was in Native.

C.  Totally reworked sieges
This mod actually was started because of the siege assault scenarios.  I felt that they could be improved in various ways, and started off by modifying every single one of them- all 70, including all of the towns.  Again, it would, unfortunately, take too long to walk through all of these changes, so here is a very short description:

1.  You generally start much farther from the castle or town's walls.
2.  You generally have protection in place that can be used by your archers or to shelter your infantry from missile weapons.
3.  The Belfry scenarios have been eliminated, because the Belfry code was frequently buggy and it overrode the commander's control over the battles.
4.  In general, you will want to pick your troops for siege assaults very carefully, and change the way you conduct sieges.
5.  The Siege of Ichamur is the ultimate; I built a totally new level design and it's really cool.

D.  New battle system
The system for random battles has seen big changes.  The biggest is that different areas have a very different size.  This simulates how the terrain would have affected the ability to scout accurately and other things.  There are other major changes, though:

1.  You will take considerable numbers of prisoners, regardless of the weapon types your troops employ.
2.  You will find that on Normal and Mommy that enemies run away far less frequently.
3.  You will find that there is more variety of battlefield obstacles and other factors make battlefields less predictable than they were in Native.

E.  New ways to make money
There are many new ways to make money.  The chief new way is by ransoming prisoners.  This happened a lot less often in Native, due to the way that taking prisoners was implemented.  Now it is a regular part of warfare.  You will find, just like Native, that Ransom Brokers are not always available.  However, players may use the "black market", and sell their prisoners via the Tavern Keepers, if you have the cash in hand to pay a bribe.  In addition, the price of prisoners varies widely, depending on their level, so taking high-level prisoners can be very lucrative.

In addition, you may invest in towns, creating new enterprises that will earn you money weekly.  For long-term games, it is important to set up as many of these businesses as possible, as late-game armies are hideously expensive, and you will find it somewhat difficult to support them only on the gains from captives.

F.  New trade system
There is a new trade system, that is part of the new economy.  Trader characters will find that, with a bit of patience, they can amass a considerable fortune by buying products where they're manufactured and selling them where they're scarce.

G.  Inflation
Players will note that prices are a lot higher than they used to be.  This is not a bug; Calradia has seen a great deal of inflation since 1257. 

H.  Taxes
The fundamental economy of the game has been rebuilt, from the ground up.  This means that there is a totally-new system for determining how much tax money you can earn from fiefs- population.  There is no longer the dreaded "tax inefficiency" code that served as a way to make the end-game much more difficult; however, you will still need to make as many improvements as possible, and protect your fiefs in order to generate enough revenue to support your field forces and garrisons.

I.  Smarter Tactical AI
You will notice that fighting against Lords is very different than fighting bandits.  This is because the Lords use a new tactical AI, which makes them less-prone to do the "wrong thing" and they will frequently prefer to fight defensively, or may do something very unpredictable.  You will want to scout enemy movements and positions carefully to avoid defeat- charging straight in will frequently result in considerable casualties of troops that are hard to replace.

J.  Promotion of troops
In general, this system has been overhauled.  Troops now get promoted in quality, but not in kind.  There aren't "trees"- instead, a system of "lines" has been used. 

This can mean that troops that are very marginal when freshly-recruited can become very valuable at the high end, so players should experiment with all of the different cultures and troop types to find a mix that works for them.

In addition, you can make Companions into Lords whenever you have one or more Fiefs to give them.  They are more reliable and supportive than other cultures' Lords, so you will want to do this, especially early on.  However, you will find that the Companions aren't nearly numerous enough to protect all of your holdings, so you will want to recruit Lords to your cause whenever possible.

4.  Technical Notes
This mod uses larger battle sizes than Native, and generally expects people's computers to be able to handle battles of 150+ troops.  If this is not the case for you, you may not be able to play this mod.  I am not Taleworlds tech support; do not report that you can't play it, or that it crashes, because other than telling you to turn your graphics settings down to minimum, there's little else I can do.

In terms of gameplay bugs, I will say this.  There will be numerous gameplay bugs.  I've tried to stomp most of them out, and I'm happy with how it's playing now, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any bugs- in particular, some of the Native bugs are still present, unfortunately.  I may or may not have time to fix them later, so feel free to report them, preferably with details about *exactly* what went wrong, or a screenshot.

Spoiler'ish Stuff:
5.  Hints and Tips (and spoilers)
This section contains some serious spoilers, in terms of specific hints. If you don't like spoilers, please skip this section.

A.  The difficulty settings are meaningful
I can't emphasize this enough.  The difficulty settings really matter, a lot.  If you are frustrated while playing on Normal, try Casual Gamer mode, it was made to be easier for newbies and people who lack a lot of free time, so that they could have fun. 

Conversely, Mommy has been deliberately made much harder than Normal, and should provide a real challenge to most players.  The difficulty settings affect things like how much troops cost to hire and keep, how much money you can earn, and many other things, so it's very hard to summarize, other than to say that they're in the mod for a reason.

B.  You will capture a lot of enemies regardless of army composition
You do not need Manhunters in this mod, or troops with clubs.  The Manhunters are cooler and more useful in combat than they used to be, but basically you no longer have to build an army around them to earn money this way.

C.  You will want to set up long-term earning
This is seriously important, if you want to conquer the world.  Set up businesses early, and the total earnings will eventually more than equal a few towns.  And there is another factor, as well.  Populations aren't static- they can change a huge amount over the course of a long game.  Maximizing population growth by building Mills in villages and protecting Towns from being besieged or sacked can have giant implications in terms of long-term earnings.

D.  Being "Rambo" is not a good idea
To some extent, Native was a fairly heroic game, especially once a character maxed out one of the Power skills.  This is much less true in Blood and Steel, unless you are playing a Barbarian class character (which is what you saw heroically chopping through hordes in the first video). 

Your proper role is as a commander of troops; forget that at your peril.  Leveling is much faster than it was in Native, so you do not have to kill hordes to get up to the level 15 mark or so.

E.  Use tactical commands and scout the enemy
The enemy Lords will often do unpredictable things, and attempt to lay traps for your forces, or will refuse to charge blindly.  During the first 30 seconds of a battle, it is essential to place your troops well and to determine the enemy's position and intent.  You will find that sometimes you will get blindsided by the enemy making a better choice than you; this is just par for the course.  The AI is by no means "smart", it simply does the wrong thing less often.

Stuff Modders Should Know
6.  Open Source, Open Content, and Making Mods
The mod's graphical content and source code is Open Source.  This means that other mods may use it, provided they credit the original authors.  In the case of the code, you may use any of it, including making a variant mod based on the entire source.

7.  Q&A and Name Policy
A.  In general, other than this FAQ, I will not be answering questions regarding the content or source code.  The code is heavily commented, and you are expected to read it and figure it out yourselves.  All PMs etc. regarding the code will be ignored.

B.  While I do not have any problems with people making variations of this mod using the source and content, I do not want anybody else to use the name, "Blood and Steel".

This is the only restriction I am putting on the use; please honor my wishes on this topic.

Changelog:  1.01
1.  All parties and garrisons now use correct troop types.
2.  Bandits no longer have to sneak into towns.  Penalty for villages remains; players must quest to improve relations, because your player is "obvious scum"- perhaps he / she has a thief brand, etc.- maybe I should explore / explain that in the opening.
3.  Fixed bad shirt BRF reference.
4.  Fixed game not working well with people who can't support huge battle sizes.
5.  Added a lot of stat variety, using the base balance for the items as the starting point.  Please let me know about any serious typos or anything that became useless or massively OP as a result.
6.  Made throwing weapons have equivalent accuracy as bows.  Neither ever gets pinpoint accuracy.
7.  Nerfed the Charger a bit.
8.  Changed Looter, Forest Bandit and Sea Raider balance by adding new troops to their mix.  Looters will be *slightly* less of a speed-bump.  But not too much for new players, hopefully.
9.  Fixed Condottieres having wrong faction alliance.  This was a bug that was in some of the Taleworlds troops as well, strangely enough.
10.  Fixed various goofy things with the starting characters' clothing, etc.
11.  Added some bread to all starting characters, so that you don't insta-lose Morale at start.
12.  Fixed all weapon lengths (I hope they're all right now).
13.  Fixed a weapon that was in the wrong category (I hope that's the last time that happens, short of adding new weapons, as that screws up savegames a bit).
14.  Fixed installer including an ancient backup that wasn't even slightly relevant.
15.  Hopefully fixed Tournaments.
16.  Added a bunch of placeholders so that I can expand the Mercenaries in the future without causing havoc to savegames.  Not that I'm promising to never break them again, but I'll try.
17.  Fixed the Caravans.
18.  Hopefully fixed the conversation problems with visit_lady.
19.  Fixed polearms that can't be used on horse, so that they can't be used on horse at all.
20.  Other little fixes, tweaks and so forth.
Changelog:  1.02
Updated headers / process to version 1.126 of Module System.  No other changes, only of interest to modders.
Changelog: 1.03
1.  Fixed item crash issues related to Taleworlds BRF updates.
2.  Fixed looping condition with raids on villages.
3.  Fixed /Data directory not included with mod; the ground / plants will look considerably different.
4.  Added Checkmaty's sound mod, with various changes.  Credits have been updated.
5.  Changed spear strikes and re-installed overhand strikes for some swords.
6.  Various tweaks to tactical AI; should do some new things now.
7.  Fixed Khergit Lamellar Leather w/ Breastplate display in shops.
8.  Fixed budget report; now reports income from all enterprises and correctly displays.
9.  Included latest game_variables.txt.
10. Sneaking into a castle / town no longer means you get crappy equipment.
11. Tweaked looting system; may need to pare it back a bit, I'll await comments, but players will see a lot more loot than before.
12. Fixed Peasant Revolutionaries being able to change relations with Lords and Factions.
13. Added further tweaks for different character types.
14.  Updated towns that use new Swadian house models.
15.  Fixes for female faces.  Requires restart to see.
16.  Added Adorno's awesome Arena improvement mod.
17. Other various minor fixes and improvements.
Changelog: 1.04
1.  Integrated new Taleworlds warhorses.  Expect Khergit Lancers to be considerably more dangerous, and Rhodok Condottieri are even scarier.  And Mamlukes got their horses back, because the new horses are cool.
2.  Added some new music, for the few people who haven't turned off the default soundtrack, including some of Adorno's Ambient Sounds mod, for music-less battles with natural sounds.
3.  Fixed a bunch of weapons that had goofy settings (they were both two-hand and polearm types, and Warband doesn't know what to do with that).  Please let me know if you find any buggy weapons or crashes due to bad BRF references, etc.
4.  Changed a bunch of stats (more variation for spears, halberds etc.- basically everything that hadn't gotten changed in 1.01).
4. Added knockdown for certain weapons.  The biggie is that the Dragon gets knockdown, which should make it more effective in siege fights (i.e. the Dragoons will be more useful).
5. Allowed the short halberds to be used on horseback.
6.  Certain polearms have been differentiated more, such as a distinct Polehammer class.
7.  Dragoons got better horses, to make them a bit more useful as cavalry.
8.  Those poor Manhunters got a much-needed upgrade in stats and equipment.  Meant to get this done with 1.01, but forgot about it.
9.  The Lords no longer have crappy horses.
10.  You may now build an Improvement for Villages, Castles and Towns that will set the local troop type to whatever you wish, if you own it.  I.E., if you want to play just Swadians, you can convert your towns to Swadian, etc.  It takes about 1 game month and around 15,000 dinars (Engineering skill affects this).
Changelog: 1.05
1.  Improvements for most of the Town sieges, giving a wider ramp for assaulting troops to use.  This change favors the attacker.
2.  Fixed Lords not following the player's orders and "just standing there"- Lords will follow your instructions (for now).
3.  Fixed bug in Taxes quest that gave players far too much money.
4.  Fixed certain weapons not having overhand swings.
5.  Added the start of a new battlefield-generation system.  Some battlefields have unique requirements (atm, that means that there's one where troops must find a ford to cross a stream / pond).
6.  Archers now have Piercing attacks, in the lower range for crossbows.  This makes them somewhat useful against all armor types, but they are not anything like as powerful as heavy crossbows or firearms.
7.  Huge changes to new characters:  the Mercenary Archer, Man-at-Arms and Brigand all start with a (small) army of troops.  Brigands get the unique ability to hire various scummy NPCs and have a motley army of thieves, as well as the regular mercenaries.  Makes them a lot more interesting to play.
8.  Fixed army-for-free bugs with Brigand and Peasant Revolutionary.
9.  Adjusted payoffs for most quests, to reflect inflation.
10.  Hopefully fixed the last of the content bugs- set certain BRF flags to Taleworlds values, which may be causing instability on some hardware.
11. Fixed Enterprise bug.
12.  Fixed cross-dressing Man at Arms bug.
13.  Various other fixes and improvements.
 
Financial problems sucketh.  Anyhow, having to wait gives me a chance to fix more bugs, right?

Peasant Revolutionary on Mommy is really painful.  I only recommend that to people who are into dying a lot.  Saying more would spoil it.
 
I think I found your first bug:
Choosing a Male, Peasant Revolutionary, started off with a sarranid dress
Other than that nothing so far, unless 49 mercs are out of the ordinary...

Looking really good though :grin:

 
D'oh!  Dress bad.  You get somewhat random equipment, but making you a cross-dresser is a little much, lol.  I will fix that one immediately.
 
New upload posted, fixes the random starting clothing for men and women who are Brigands or Peasant Revolutionaries.  If you've already downloaded the game, see the post above, that is a quick fix for that particular bug.
 
Looks interesting.. :wink: One remark: what are you wearing in the video?!
That armor is a 'bit' ugly, with all the pink and just plain weird. :wink:
But I like those features.

Regards
 
Ah it's such a relieve there's still normal armors.. :wink:
Also, I must congratulate you because of the installer, people who don't know how to install
a mod would appreciate this.

Regards
 
The only fantasy stuff is for girls, pretty much.  Guys wear pretty traditional-looking gear.  I figured that that way, people who hate fantasy elements can just ignore the girls and call it a day :wink:

Uploading again... this version has the source, in the /Source directory.
 
Ok, so I started a game, and decided to take the caravan to Swadia.
What I noticed was that Praven had a garrison of 165, and it was Desert Bandits and Thieves.
King Harlaus had a party of 65, and it was made up of Taiga Bandits.
Is this a bug or intended?
Also, when I start as the peasant revolutionary, my character is a floating head with boots and hands, because it can't find the linen shirt mesh.
 
this mod is a joke, I'm lvl 20 after 30 min in-game, lol. (played on normal)

1) Capital cities (with the king living in them) have bandits as garrisons
2) Charge damage is way TOO high - I was able to knock looters unconcious with the very first horse (played as archer guy from the menu) with like 80 dmg
3) Prisoner price is too high - 150 as a looter - I was rich in 10 min
4) Too strong leather armor - 80 for padded leather and 120 for some heavy armor - not too big difference, isnt it?

Good things
1) I like the new role for the archers - good vs light armor, useless vs plate ( cRPG mod seriously should do the same)
2) population thing
3) economy features.
 
First of all, it's nice to see that you've finally released your mod. Not sure how I contributed, but whatever.
Anyways, I've downloaded the installer, which does include the source, so it should be the latest version. I have 1.125 installed, and I assume this mod is for the same version.

A couple of things I've noticed, after starting as female sergeant on hard:
  • Starting menu string has a couple of errors: man-at-arms for female character (not sure what female form would be though). Native uses {reg3?man:woman}, although this might not be necessary for the player, in which case relocating all the reg3 assignment to one the top would be a better idea. Also, "Calrad Empire" in the same intro string
  • You should change the first set_show_messages to 0 under begin_adventuring.
  • As one poster noted already, lord parties and garrisons start off with bandit troops. Later reinforcements work properly. I suspect this has to do with the party_template assignment at game start (not working properly) or cf_reinforce_party being confused - the individual difficulty checks should be else_tries instead.
  • Recruiting from villages is a bit unorthodox - should I really get to recruit Condotteris (which, btw, are marked as Swadians in troops.py) right at game start? Btw I recommend using (store_random_in_range, ":random_slot", slot_faction_tier_1_troop, slot_faction_deserter_troop), as opposed to the random_quality check.
    (faction_get_slot, ":volunteer_troop", ":center_culture", ":random_slot"),
  • Some troop singular-plural title disagreements - peasant levy vs. recruits, especially for Rhodoks
  • Multi-mesh items don't show up in shops - especially with the lamellar leather w/breastplate items - and the native Khergit Armor model has neither lamellar nor leather to it as far as I know.
  • Tournament item setup is a bit buggy, since it reverts to the default override items in mission_templates. It's probably not ported to the latest version, where set_jump_mission is set before altering the item overrides.
  • A lot of the OSP items have mismatched lengths. I saw that you've rebalanced most of the native items (except adding about 23 length to the cleavers), and I assume this is going to be worked on. The second manhunter's polehammer/maul actually has about 110 length as opposed to the first one with twice the length
  • The viking helmets use the nasal helmet lods - the shape is roughly the same, but kind of looks weird at a distance
  • The damage threshold is set to 20, which is probably appropriate considering the boosted damange, but then again most troops die in two hits. When the attack actually hits after the 1.0 cutting soak factor in an overhead-slashed with a halberd, the enemy fell back several meters or so.
  • Halberds and other two-handed polearm without horseback animations should be marked with cannot_use_on_horseback.
  • On the same note, the overhead spear thrust animation plays for all swords, which is confusing. Maybe modifiy the thrust_onehanded_lance animations instead of overswing_onehanded? Not sure how well that would work for AI though.
  • The cuir bouilli and steel shields with hardcoded heraldic textures would probably work better with the tableau system - it would also reduce their frequency of appearance in shops.
  • You've also included the tweakMB backup folder for some reason. I assume this is to test compatibility
  • There's no need for having underscores for the mod's name in the installer script
 


this mod is a joke, I'm lvl 20 after 30 min in-game, lol. (played on normal)
That's on purpose... but hey, if people want to have to do epic grinding, no problem:

For folks who really *like* grinding, here's a grinding-mode that makes it much more time / kills to level.  Drop into the folder where the mod is installed.

Basically, though, this isn't a mod about leveling your character.  It's about taking over Calradia.

2) Charge damage is way TOO high - I was able to knock looters unconcious with the very first horse (played as archer guy from the menu) with like 80 dmg
You will find that it doesn't work that way vs. the heavily-armored people you fight later on.  And... moreover, it's a *realistic* system.  If you get run over by a 1,000 lb. animal, you don't just take 10-15 damage- you're out.  If you don't like that, sorry.

3) Prisoner price is too high - 150 as a looter - I was rich in 10 min
You were only rich by Native standards.  The money system is completely different.

4) Too strong leather armor - 80 for padded leather and 120 for some heavy armor - not too big difference, isnt it?
Really heavy plate goes past 160, with gauntlets it goes well over 200. 

It's considerably different, in terms of what you're effectively immune to.  And there are a lot of weapons that can still kill you regardless.

1) Capital cities (with the king living in them) have bandits as garrisons
This is a bug, I'll look into that.  Probably something goofy in the initial hiring sequences.

@Somebody:  good list, I'll take a look.  Yes, the Condottieres and other stuff is a feature- perhaps their pricing needs to be bumped further upwards, but basically you're buying the services of enfiefed knights, which wasn't terribly unusual.  Perhaps the presentation of that could be made a bit cuter, though.


 
I've been trying it for a while, and it certainly is different. Weapons are deadly wether you are lvl 1 or 20, so in that sense, it's more realistic.

The overhead attack for the spear is kinda weird (why does the weapon dissapear?), but it does the job I guess. Finally spears are useful!
 
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