New troop tree in progress

[Caesar914]

Hi everyone! I'm currently working on a troop tree for this wonderful mod. No offense to the makers of the troop trees already available to us, but they're just not doing it for me. What I'm working on right now, I believe that the goal is to make troops more aesthetically pleasing, using different choices for armor, perhaps compromising a bit on function. For me this is about the rpg vs combat element of the game. I tend to care more about the former rather than the latter. Also though I want to have a troop tree that is a bit more straightforward, I'm not fond of the overlapping in the default tree in extended.

So anyways, right now I'm making good progress with the Swadians. Their tree looks like this right now:

->Swadian Recruit
    ->Swadian Spearman
          ->Swadian Militia
              ->Swadian Page
                    ->Swadian Squire
                        ->Swadian Knight
                              ->Swadian Lordling
                    ->Swadian Noble Archer
                        ->Swadian Noble Longbowman
              ->Swadian Footman
                    ->Swadian Rider
                        ->Swadian Cavalry
                              ->Swadian Man-at-Arms
                                  ->Swadian Lancer
                    ->Swadian Sergeant
                        ->Swadian Pike
                              ->Swadian Armored Pike
                                  ->Swadian Halberdier
                        ->Swadian Sword
                              ->Swadian Armored Sword
                                  ->Swadian Champion
    ->Swadian Peasant Archer
          ->Swadian Archer Militia
              ->Swadian Longbowman
                    ->Swadian Yeoman
                        ->Swadian Retinue Longbowman

Ok, so how can you actually visualize this? Militia through footmen will be lightly armored with leather, gambesons, and padding and have a focus on spears rather than swords, seeing that in history it would be pretty rare for poor peasants all to have nice, functioning swords. Pages are where the knightly troop line starts. Pages will all wear tabards, arming caps, wield 1h swords and kite shields, and be unmounted. The Noble Archer and Noble Longbowmen are there because I wanted to introduce an archer that would wear plate and reflect that nobility does not just have to mean riding a horse and wielding a lance. Pages can go that way, too, though, with the Squire, in mail surcoat and coif, riding a destrier. Knights and Lordlings will be plated and ride heavy mounts. Footmen, rather than Pages, are the route to professional rather than noble troops. The cavalry line starting with the Rider is meant to be light cavalry as opposed to the noble line. They will all ride coursers. Men-at-Arms and Lancers, though, wear heraldic mail to bear your crest on, though, so they are a bit heavier, and that is probably the main example of me compromising function for looks. Sergeants wear mail shirts and are the last to bear both sword and spear. After that they specialize into Pikes or Swords. They use mail with a bit of plate. Swords and Armored Swords use shields and 1h swords, or bastard swords. Champions wear Calradian plate and a sallet, and wield 2h swords. Halberdiers use the morion helmet and ornate red plate with a blue and yellow colored halberd. The peasant archer line isn't changing much. Yeoman will use the armor (can't remember the exact name) that looks like a padded tunic with some mail. Retinue Longbows will wear heraldic mail (I figure that if they're going to be called "retinue" then they might as well bear the arms of whoever they're in the retinue of).

So...... anyways........ the reason I'm putting this up here is to see if I should keep this to myself, or keep working on it past the Swadians if people are interested in using it or checking it out too? Let me know what your thoughts are on this tree I have going, I would really appreciate opinions.

In particular two problems I'm running into are how to figure out what levels to set troops at and how I can make it that troops will be guaranteed to carry multiple weapons (for example some troops from one type will have a polearm and some will only bear a sword, I don't know how to set it that a troop will always carry both).

Thanks!

 

[effemb]

post screenshots of your troops when done if you could plz .
id love to see what kind of improvements youve made compared to my tree in terms of look and style. because i spent days looking over every piece of armor, helmet, boots, shield, weapons and even horses in the game, to make some really good looking troops. but i didnt test them all in a battle scene (tested all the ones i finally chose, but not alot of the ones i didnt).

btw you said that you wanted to chop down the tree, but your tree is actually even more cluttered imo.

then, you have tier8 troops? or did you make mistake with the alignment in your graph?

also, you have 6 final troop types in swadia.  thats more than swadia currently has.  you also didnt remove any troops, you have 26, the native floris tree has 26.  so for a less cluttered and less overlapping tree it doesnt at all accomplish that, yet.

id chop out the multiples, you have 2 longbowmen there already and the noble longbows upgrade at tier4 or 5 is it? and they upgrade from the knights branch?  thats just odd.  youre changing the role of a troop at a late tier, not only changing it but reversing it entirely.  archer is the opposite of cavalry.

id remove those noble longbows completely or at least make them an upgrade branch from the archers branch.

you got a good idea with design in a few ways, but if you actually want to make it an improvement, you need to actually remove some troops.

i like where your troops split and diverge paths for the most part though.
sargeant splitting into: pike and sword branches, thats cool.
i would split page into knight and lancer branches though if you want 2 types of cavalry in swadia (imo swadia shouldnt have 2 cavalry but thats up to you).
then remove the noble longbows (-2 troops)

id do it like this, given your objective:

this is your tree:

隐藏

1->Swadian Recruit
2    ->Swadian Spearman
3          ->Swadian Militia
4              ->Swadian Page
5                    ->Swadian Squire
6                        ->Swadian Knight
7                              ->Swadian Lordling
5                    ->Swadian Noble Archer
6                        ->Swadian Noble Longbowman
4              ->Swadian Footman
5                    ->Swadian Rider
6                        ->Swadian Cavalry
7                              ->Swadian Man-at-Arms
8                                  ->Swadian Lancer
5                    ->Swadian Sergeant
6                        ->Swadian Pike
7                              ->Swadian Armored Pike
8                                  ->Swadian Halberdier
6                        ->Swadian Sword
7                              ->Swadian Armored Sword
8                                  ->Swadian Champion
2    ->Swadian Peasant Archer
3          ->Swadian Archer Militia
4              ->Swadian Longbowman
5                    ->Swadian Yeoman
6                        ->Swadian Retinue Longbowman

first of all, youve got THREE tier EIGHT troops???
what level ranges are your tiers?
tier7 trees are already quite expensive in terms of upgrading, and takes a long time to train them.  if i were to change the tiers, id make them less (tier6 is a good balance), not more.  in my tree rather than making them less, i made the tier7 quite hard to obtain, and made them truly elite troops, but the majority of troops you will own become tier5 and tier6 - thats the bulk of your force, tier5 and 6 troops.
i dont even know what youd do with 8 tiers.
keep in mind that if you push the level ranges together more, that means more upgrading.  upgrading costs money.  it also means more types of troops.  warband has a limit on how many troop types can be in 1 battle.  something that floris mod already has issues with quite often.

this is what id do with your goals in mind:

隐藏

1->Swadian Recruit
2    ->Swadian Spearman
3          ->Swadian Man-At-Arms
4              ->Swadian Page
5                    ->Swadian Squire
6                        ->Swadian Knight
7                              ->Swadian Lordling
5                    ->Swadian Rider
6                        ->Swadian Cavalry
7                              ->Swadian Lancer
3          ->Swadian Footman
4              ->Swadian Sergeant
5                    ->Swadian Pike
6                        ->Swadian Armored Pike
7                              ->Swadian Halberdier
5                    ->Swadian Sword
6                        ->Swadian Armored Sword
7                              ->Swadian Champion
2    ->Swadian Peasant Archer
3          ->Swadian Archer Militia
4              ->Swadian Longbowman
5                    ->Swadian Yeoman
6                        ->Swadian Retinue Longbowman
7                              ->Swadian Noble Longbowman [???? tier7 archer plz? ]

i removed the 2 noble archers. i put one in as the tier7 archer.
i changed swadian page tier4 to upgrade to either lancer or knight branch.
i changed swadian footman to tier3 (otherwise you have 2 tier8 foot troops).
i removed the man-at-arms in cavalry branch, and gave the name to the swadian militia tier3 cavalry branch.

thats a total of 3 troops taken out.  the 2 archers, and the 1 tier8 lancer cavalry.  and 1 put in (the noble archer)

regarding the tier3 footman - you want to have troops becoming their definitive role by tier4 at the latest.  you had still a multiple upgrade path on a tier5 troop.  i dont want to still wonder what a troop is supposed to do at tier4 or 5, by then they should already be established as a specific troop type and be quite good at it.

regarding the tier4 cavalry - tier4 with 2 upgrade paths is alright in this case since theyre both still cavalry, but id make it split ways at tier3 if you can.  so that tier4 has 2 types of cavalry (knight, and lancer).

furthermore, you have tier7 for all your troops except archer.  why no love for the archers? swadia is the second best foot archer faction in the game based on native theme....just behind vaegir.

thats a total of FOUR tier7's.
imo, too much.
and i would chop it down still alot more.
id suggest deciding on either removing one of the foot troops, or one of the cavalry.  2 foot troops + 1 cavalry + 1 archer is good, as would be 1 foot troop + 2 cavalry + 1 archer.
but 2 foot, 2 cav, 2 archer lines in your tree just clutter it even worse than it is right now.

its obvious that swadia is your favorite faction and you want to make them badass.
but youre falling into the most common trap of modding: putting your own preferences too overwhelmingly on the mod, which will inevitably break it and make nobody else want to play it (and eventually make it boring for you as your faction will be OP and the others wont be).  of course, you havent posted info on what you plan for the other factions, but i think you went a bit overboard on swadia already.

anyway, good luck!
if you want item numbers for my tree, the file with all info is included in the download.  might save you some time in looking through all the items and finding the matching sets/pieces.  floris has over 2100 items, and sadly enough i know the item # for almost half of them by now haha.

dont forget to post some screenshots, i definitely would like to see some better looking troops...the floris mod ones are extremely ugly!

 

[effemb]

In particular two problems I'm running into are how to figure out what levels to set troops at and how I can make it that troops will be guaranteed to carry multiple weapons (for example some troops from one type will have a polearm and some will only bear a sword, I don't know how to set it that a troop will always carry both).

btw about this:
the item order seems to help alot regarding which items/weapons are used primarily, and which are secondary.

put the 1h/shield at top if you want the troop to default to 1h/shield...put it at bottom if its a backup and the troop is primarily a 2h or pike troop.

furthermore, if you want the troop to default to using ranged weapons, tick the "ranged" box in the "garauntee" bracket (youre using morgh's tools i hope? or module system?).

if you want it to be mounted, garauntee it a horse, and make sure "mounted" is checked in the troop type bracket.
all of these have equivalent keywords in the module system.

another way to make troops favor one type of weapon over another is by giving them weapon proficiencies higher in their primary weapon type and lower in the secondary one.

so for example my Infantry/archer hybrids: Ia are primarily infantry with lets say 220 pike skill, and 180 archery skill.  this will make them default to pike more often than not.  however if i want that troop to default to archer even with the lower archery skill i can just add the "ranged" garauntee to it, and the game will classify it as an archer.
its customizable ingame anyway but default behaviour is important.

good luck, i wanna see screenshots!