So, yesterday I decided to start trying to mod the game (no can do with 1.9 due to TW not sharing the required files into the kit build for one of the key "test" changes I wanted to make are on the campaign map). And as such I've started taking notes and gathering overall info on all non-empire settlements (because I intend to balance emp later when all other factions are realistically able to survive a unified empire).
Than I've noticed the blatant discrepancy and total lack of reason with the entirety of the distribution of both lands and how many clans each faction had, here's how it looks:
Clearly the weakest faction in total number's Battania, yet it does carry a massive advantage with geographical choke-points, packed settlements with the caveat of being reasonably surrounded by forests which improves their overall mobility within their lands. Their only weakness? Vlandia - that because both their choke points towards Vlandia are wide open without forests and their overall army compositions bring them handicapped towards most army vs army battles due to the high % of cavalry that vlandian's tend to field. Than there are minor details like their northern territory lacking forests (region shared with Vlandia and Sturgia at the beginning of the game) and they gain significant economical strength in case they manage to capture Nevyansk castle (which to me is deliberately made as a guaranteed perma-loss to Sturgia 100% of the time due to location and surrounding borders)
If you pay attention you'll also notice that Batt has less clans than all others, which may be the reason why they don't collapse as often and as fast - that because their overall territory must only feed 8 clans. I've even came up with a weird "meta score" taking consideration of fiefs that provide both income and troops at which Battania isn't in the worst position. Their relative score's 4.75
Now the elephant in the room which's Sturgia, and the visual reason as to why they've struggled since the beginning of EA and still struggles to survive even now, so many patches later:
Sturiga's score's the lowest among all 4.33 - with a relative number of villages per clan at 3.5 - they are by far the most disadvantaged both mathematically and geographically (wide realm with bad terrain with multiple INTERNAL choke points, yet totally open to Khuzait / North Empire at the east - Battania / North Empire to the west). Their long winters also do more harm to them than to their foes.
All their starting settlements begin with the lowest overall prosperity combined with a low hearth to all villages - this means they are economically broke and rely on their starter spawned troops much more than any other faction. When compared to Vlandia which fields 2 extra clans than the average or Battania which rocks a solid prosperity average and have 1 less clan to share their overall economy + recruitment slots, or when considering FOOD production with both, you can see why they fare so badly so often.
What I'm aiming to test is if I rebalance their fiefs (and re-purpose their noble troops) if the same effect will repeat itself. My current predicted solution's to improve both Omor and Tyal, Omor's intented to gain one extra forester village to both better accommodate their geographical position with more logical settlements while strengthening it's overall relative strength, while Tyal to gain 2 extra villages, 1 to strengthen it's economy with iron and the other to fit TW's own lore (they say Tyal has horse breeders and they even have horses named after it, yet there's not a single village not even close that produces horses for them) - At the same time outside changes are, however, simpler, which's morphing the terrain around Balgard to turn their iron village into a fishing one, move Varcheg to the northern shore past the mountain pass, and change the horse village from Ustokol into a fishing village (according to lore)
After these changes are properly applied and tested, if I still think there's room to further strengthen them I'll add an extra castle in their forests between Sibir and Vladiv representing a foothold where lore dictates the Vakken are from, intented as a overlooking fortification on their most sensitive choke point - that due to the fact that if they lose Tyal to the Khuzaits, it's always a matter of time until the entire Tyal region's completely taken, and making it way too easy for AI to take over Sibir - I'm not amused by that at all considering logic when building fortifications and with the fact that both Sibir and Varnovapol have zero trade bound villages outside their natural villages.
I believe such changes will automatically rescue the Sturgians from total obliteration, and the consideration of the extra castle's due to how easily they've ALWAYS lost Nevyansk Caslte. This should make their foothold much more stable and their economy improve properly overtime (it's the single culture that is unable to sustain any town with 10k+ prosperity without cheating.)
----
The second wave of changes I want to test is trying to properly approximate the entire map to the OG "lore canon" we got back in WB - this obsly means restoring sargot to it's geographical position - which in turn will make for a top target to both Battanians and Sturgians, but the caveat is: If I do that, I'll certainly give more "oomph" to Vlandia with an extra castle where the "now empty" slot of Sargot used to be.
The Vlandian testing will be done until I decide if it's viable to give them their missing 2 villages (Usanc Castle and Ormafard Castle both have only a single village - which strikes me as stupid, and was probably shoehorned to allow them to have 2 extra clans above the average of 9 per faction) - I still think it'll work well because all the changes will probably turn the northwestern region of the map into a clusterfk where sargot nevyansk and caleus should be shifting factions quite often.
----
Than the final adjustment I'm considering regards the Khuzaits - to me their southern border makes no sense - as such I'm considering 3 choices:
After that it'll be about reviewing a few minor changes towards imperial factions and keep in mind the possible need of slightly expanding Battania to accommodate 1 extra clan.
I believe that such changes will make a drastic impact on the overall performance of AI and to be potentially powerful enough to actually end the imbalance among them making the results of AI vs AI much less predictable.
The changes to Sturgian troops will only come with a thorough review of all noble troops from all factions, though. The intention's to make them own the single specialized heavy infantry with the Druhzina, which to me makes way more sense than what we currently have - the current noble one won't be killed off, though, and instead I intend to create 1 extra path for the Sturgian Archers to give them HA units that work closer to what we see in RBM changes, but being deliberately weaker than noble troops. The logic behind this line of thinking's simple, though, and it's due to how the Lore and Geography tells us about the mingling of Eastern Sturgians with the Khuzaits over many generations, as such one would expect them to absorb part of the Khuzait culture, so to me it's obvious that they'd develop their own version of Horse Archers overtime...
After receiving such a "massive buff" on both territory and troops I strongly believe that Sturgia will be finally fixed for vanilla standards, and the work after that will be to level possible advantages they may pick-up with the changes on other factions by strengthening them, if needed expanding their own troop trees.
The ideas I've had please me a lot because it'll make the entire setting of BL feel more structured and consistent, considering that Sturgian's are supposed to become both the Vaegir and the Nords in WB, I never really felt comfortable with their illogical troop lines and weakness compared to all other factions;
Just felt like sharing. by all means if you have any ideas just tell me before i start this endeavor (which'll only really begin after the official release in a few days, apparently)
Than I've noticed the blatant discrepancy and total lack of reason with the entirety of the distribution of both lands and how many clans each faction had, here's how it looks:
| Sturgia |
|
| Khuzait |
|
| Aserai |
|
| Vlandia |
|
| Battania |
|
Clearly the weakest faction in total number's Battania, yet it does carry a massive advantage with geographical choke-points, packed settlements with the caveat of being reasonably surrounded by forests which improves their overall mobility within their lands. Their only weakness? Vlandia - that because both their choke points towards Vlandia are wide open without forests and their overall army compositions bring them handicapped towards most army vs army battles due to the high % of cavalry that vlandian's tend to field. Than there are minor details like their northern territory lacking forests (region shared with Vlandia and Sturgia at the beginning of the game) and they gain significant economical strength in case they manage to capture Nevyansk castle (which to me is deliberately made as a guaranteed perma-loss to Sturgia 100% of the time due to location and surrounding borders)
If you pay attention you'll also notice that Batt has less clans than all others, which may be the reason why they don't collapse as often and as fast - that because their overall territory must only feed 8 clans. I've even came up with a weird "meta score" taking consideration of fiefs that provide both income and troops at which Battania isn't in the worst position. Their relative score's 4.75
Now the elephant in the room which's Sturgia, and the visual reason as to why they've struggled since the beginning of EA and still struggles to survive even now, so many patches later:
Sturiga's score's the lowest among all 4.33 - with a relative number of villages per clan at 3.5 - they are by far the most disadvantaged both mathematically and geographically (wide realm with bad terrain with multiple INTERNAL choke points, yet totally open to Khuzait / North Empire at the east - Battania / North Empire to the west). Their long winters also do more harm to them than to their foes.
All their starting settlements begin with the lowest overall prosperity combined with a low hearth to all villages - this means they are economically broke and rely on their starter spawned troops much more than any other faction. When compared to Vlandia which fields 2 extra clans than the average or Battania which rocks a solid prosperity average and have 1 less clan to share their overall economy + recruitment slots, or when considering FOOD production with both, you can see why they fare so badly so often.
What I'm aiming to test is if I rebalance their fiefs (and re-purpose their noble troops) if the same effect will repeat itself. My current predicted solution's to improve both Omor and Tyal, Omor's intented to gain one extra forester village to both better accommodate their geographical position with more logical settlements while strengthening it's overall relative strength, while Tyal to gain 2 extra villages, 1 to strengthen it's economy with iron and the other to fit TW's own lore (they say Tyal has horse breeders and they even have horses named after it, yet there's not a single village not even close that produces horses for them) - At the same time outside changes are, however, simpler, which's morphing the terrain around Balgard to turn their iron village into a fishing one, move Varcheg to the northern shore past the mountain pass, and change the horse village from Ustokol into a fishing village (according to lore)
After these changes are properly applied and tested, if I still think there's room to further strengthen them I'll add an extra castle in their forests between Sibir and Vladiv representing a foothold where lore dictates the Vakken are from, intented as a overlooking fortification on their most sensitive choke point - that due to the fact that if they lose Tyal to the Khuzaits, it's always a matter of time until the entire Tyal region's completely taken, and making it way too easy for AI to take over Sibir - I'm not amused by that at all considering logic when building fortifications and with the fact that both Sibir and Varnovapol have zero trade bound villages outside their natural villages.
I believe such changes will automatically rescue the Sturgians from total obliteration, and the consideration of the extra castle's due to how easily they've ALWAYS lost Nevyansk Caslte. This should make their foothold much more stable and their economy improve properly overtime (it's the single culture that is unable to sustain any town with 10k+ prosperity without cheating.)
----
The second wave of changes I want to test is trying to properly approximate the entire map to the OG "lore canon" we got back in WB - this obsly means restoring sargot to it's geographical position - which in turn will make for a top target to both Battanians and Sturgians, but the caveat is: If I do that, I'll certainly give more "oomph" to Vlandia with an extra castle where the "now empty" slot of Sargot used to be.
The Vlandian testing will be done until I decide if it's viable to give them their missing 2 villages (Usanc Castle and Ormafard Castle both have only a single village - which strikes me as stupid, and was probably shoehorned to allow them to have 2 extra clans above the average of 9 per faction) - I still think it'll work well because all the changes will probably turn the northwestern region of the map into a clusterfk where sargot nevyansk and caleus should be shifting factions quite often.
----
Than the final adjustment I'm considering regards the Khuzaits - to me their southern border makes no sense - as such I'm considering 3 choices:
- expanding their overall fiefs with a new castle to overlook the region properly (I mean, fortified buildings are meant to watch over vulnerable places, specially BORDERS - yet they have a DOUBLE BORDER WITH NO PROPER OVERLOOKING CASTLE NEARBY)
- packing their southern border more closely together (villages nearer the castle - doesn't matter if I move the castle, the villages or both)
- filling the entire region with either a brand new faction meant to die-out as a "rebellious nomadic clan" or with equally distributed castles between Southern Emp, Aserai and Khuzait.
After that it'll be about reviewing a few minor changes towards imperial factions and keep in mind the possible need of slightly expanding Battania to accommodate 1 extra clan.
I believe that such changes will make a drastic impact on the overall performance of AI and to be potentially powerful enough to actually end the imbalance among them making the results of AI vs AI much less predictable.
The changes to Sturgian troops will only come with a thorough review of all noble troops from all factions, though. The intention's to make them own the single specialized heavy infantry with the Druhzina, which to me makes way more sense than what we currently have - the current noble one won't be killed off, though, and instead I intend to create 1 extra path for the Sturgian Archers to give them HA units that work closer to what we see in RBM changes, but being deliberately weaker than noble troops. The logic behind this line of thinking's simple, though, and it's due to how the Lore and Geography tells us about the mingling of Eastern Sturgians with the Khuzaits over many generations, as such one would expect them to absorb part of the Khuzait culture, so to me it's obvious that they'd develop their own version of Horse Archers overtime...
After receiving such a "massive buff" on both territory and troops I strongly believe that Sturgia will be finally fixed for vanilla standards, and the work after that will be to level possible advantages they may pick-up with the changes on other factions by strengthening them, if needed expanding their own troop trees.
The ideas I've had please me a lot because it'll make the entire setting of BL feel more structured and consistent, considering that Sturgian's are supposed to become both the Vaegir and the Nords in WB, I never really felt comfortable with their illogical troop lines and weakness compared to all other factions;
Just felt like sharing. by all means if you have any ideas just tell me before i start this endeavor (which'll only really begin after the official release in a few days, apparently)
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