SP Native Fantasy Nysne - Metamorphosis (Version 1.2 - check p.5)

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Nysne is a low-fantasy mod for Warband. It takes place in Calradia, a generation or two after the Native game. Though much is the same in Calradia, things are beginning to change - drastically. It is a pivotal time in the land's history that could easily be shaped by a single leader...

Nysne aims to improve the Native game with a huge variety of new features and tweaks. The major focus of this mod is making every battle intense and thrilling, no matter how small or unimportant. One of the things I really wanted was to include the danger and difficulty of Multiplayer in the Single Player game. Every addition is thought out and has a profound influence upon the game in its entirety. It is currently unfinished but is very stable and well polished. Most graphical changes are finished entirely, future releases (if they occur) will add more features to the early game as well as expanding dialogs and quests in a big way. This mod is not for the faint of heart. If you think you are a capable fighter, you will have to prove it on the battlefield.

  • New music by Goldenjoseph
  • Polished Landscapes with expanded terrain borders
  • Huge new town scenes
  • Doghotel's BrainyBots
  • New claimants and NPC Claimant rebellions
  • Regional cultures within factions
  • Improved faces
  • New animations
  • changes to random maps
  • Over 1000 new items
  • New skyboxes
  • New troops/troop trees
  • Unique local troops for castles and towns
  • New bandit troops
  • Formations
  • New map icons for each faction
  • Deathcam
  • Many more
You'll be greeted by a familiar looking world when you begin your adventure. The factions and their borders are more or less the same. But if you look closer you will see that not all is as it once was. This is no longer a land ruled by snivelling old lords holed up in drafty castle halls. The leaders are young and vigorous, or old, wise, and battle-hardened. Heavy wars have attracted mercenaries and adventurers from across the world to fight for supremacy in this bizarre and hectic land. I'll explain in more detail for each faction in the spoilers below:
The Kingdom of Swadia occupy the same lands in the middle of Calradia. After King Harlaus died, his two sons inherited the Kingdom and ruled as equals, one in Dhirim and one in Praven. But the king in Dhirim wanted the capital to be moved to Dhirim, as it was larger and more prosperous than Praven, as well as being in an ideal location from which to rule a larger portion of Calradia. This debate however led to a slight cultural divide between the Swadians on the plains around Suno and Praven, and the more urbanized folk in the "Heartland" around Dhirim. Around this time the two areas also started to see changes in warfare. Khergits raiding farther and farther into Swadia found the plains ideal for their horses and bows. In response to this, plains Swadians took to riding lighter horses and throwing javelins, and even began to use bows on horseback. But none can match the Khergit in a contest of horse archery, so the Swadians rode at high risk. But what the Swadians had to their advantage was iron, and soon horsearchers in Brigandine and mail were sent to deal with khergit raids. These soldiers grew famous amongst the villagers of Calradia, and the Swadian armored horse archers became known as the "Scourges of the Plains". The plains Swadians fight entirely on horseback, with heavy knights, light skirmishing cavalry, and horse archers.
Meanwhile, soldiers in the Heartland had to contest mostly with Vaegir and Nord enemies. They maintained a balance of well-equipped infantry and crossbowmen, with heavy cavalry for support.
Following a widespread famine and the casualties of war, much of the vaegir territory became underpopulated. This caused many of the remaining Vaegirs to move south, or towards Rivacheg on the coast. With the colder and more remote villages now almost empty, people from over the northern mountains ("Vaeg" people, the ancestors of the Vaegir) have come down and taken up residence, due to overpopulation in their own homes, as well as the potential outbreak of war. The Vaeg and Vaegir get along remarkably well, and they are still very culturally similar. Most of their people have probably at one time or another spent time on both sides of the mountains, and families still remember ancient kinships, true and false. But if you pushed them, the Vaegir might say the Vaeg are witless savages. And perhaps a Vaeg might say that Vaegirs were weak and boring. But for now they get along, perhaps with thanks to their new ruler, a prince from the Vaeg named Hekter. When the previous Vaegir king died, his sons squabbled over the throne and rights. But Hekter, a cousin of the old king, came down and stole the support of the wise lords from the foolish brothers.
The Khergits are no longer newcomers in Calradia. Their fiefdom has been well-established for as long as anyone alive can remember. And their new leader knows that they will need to adapt if they're going to survive. The Khergit are now in need of heavier armors to combat the knights and mamlukes they face. Footsoldiers are being trained to defend castles and towns. But the more the Khergit abandon their life on the steppe, the farther they stray from the iron will to live that made the Khergits so powerful throughout the world. Even now, most of the Khergit born in Calradia never learn the strength needed to use the great Steppe composite bows that make their people so deadly. However, the Khergit Khanate is happy to employ the hundreds of small steppe tribes that are drawn to Calradia. Though some of these steppe people do not like fighting for someone who is trying to change their ways...
Less has changed for the Nords. It is a prosperous time for them. They have many young lords who are strong and full of life. The young king Sonnr is proving to be a talented ruler, and his strength is unmatched in all the land. Enforcing his rule are the Kulum-blood warriors, huge men who are said to have the blood of Kulum, a mythical Nordic hero.
The Rhodoks have perhaps changed the most. The Rhodok and Sarranid cultures between Jelkala and Shariz began to acclimatise to each other over a long period. The weather is fair in that region, and so there was much travel between villages. They began to influence each other's foods, music, and language. During this time, the Sarranid Sultanate had been invaded from across the desert. Such a thing was thought to be impossible, so the Sultan in Shariz was caught entirely unprepared. Control of the desert shifted to the invader, and the sultan in Shariz foresaw his demise. After watching his people become wreaked by disease, the sultan asked the new Rhodok king, Yorun, for aid, offering to give Shariz and all the lands around it to Yorun if he could save his people. Yorun accepted, and the Rhodoks helped to treat the disease. Unfortunately, the last Sultan of Shariz succumbed to its deadly grip. Now the Sarranid and Rhodok cultures have melded together in many ways - even in war the rhodoks now employ cavalry and bowmen along with their crossbows. But there are many Rhodoks who are not pleased with the recent changes...
The Sarranid Sultanate was in a decline, facing famine and disease. At this inconvenient time, an invader with a thousand mamlukes in gold armour assailed Bariyye - from the desert. It was always thought that crossing the great desert was impossible, or that simply it was where the world ended, just endless oceans of sand. But the mysterious invader was too powerful for the weakened Sarranid vassals. The leader of the invasion was only a girl, named Calurra. But with her army she managed to secure the sarranid desert. There were many rebellions, the largest being from nobles in Ahmerrad. They rallied the nomadic tribes of the deserts to bolster their troops, and managed to oppose Calurra's mamlukes better than any Sarranid force previously. But in time they gave out, and Calurra brutally murdered the leaders of the rebellion. From then on she has demanded the finest horsemen of the desert to serve her as tribute, in exchange for her sparing the lives of the desert people. But that was years ago, and Sultana Calurra has turned out to be a very capable ruler.
As alluded to in the title, this mod can be a bit brutal if you get into a bad spot. The brainybot AI and new animations are designed to make fighting incredibly challenging for players - but fair as well. This mod doesn't rely on enemies with a thousand hit points or enchanted weapons that do a thousand damage to make bots tough. Instead it is their ability to block, feint, kick, hold, chamber, their speed, and of course their equipment, which affect the skill of enemies you will face in this mod. Regular troops can be overcome without too much difficulty. A very experienced player should have no trouble hanging with higher-tier troops. But you would be wise to watch out for elite units, and lords and kings can fight as well as players - and probably better than many.

There have also been some changes to the way damages are calculated. Armour is now much more effective against cutting weapons. If your opponent is wearing mail, cuts from a sword will do little to harm him, though the bashing of the sword itself can still do some damage. Thrusting yields better results, but you still can't pierce chainmail. Enemies in plate armour will be almost impervious to cutting attacks and most arrows. Instead, picks and hammers, maces, polearms, crossbows, lances, these are used for killing men in armor. Each faction has a huge variety of troops, which are designed to work together in different ways. Fighting just one faction, there is a huge dynamic in the types of troops you will face. The wealth and holdings of lords as well as the region they come from will affect what types of troops they have. As well, each and every castle and town has its own local troop, which can be recruited by the fief's owner(if they're the right faction) or bought by the player in the "Manage this castle/town" menu option. These units are usually highly specialised, but can be very devastating if employed effectively. This means that fighting many lords is much more difficult than fighting just one, even a very powerful one. Pair this with the improved bot AI, and the player should now have difficulty defeating larger forces the way one can in Native. King's parties too are much stronger, large and full of the most elite units. If you want to play this game on full difficulty, you should be prepared to die - often.
This will just be a quick section on ideal settings for this mod.
-Due to the use of shaders for some effects (mainly the new ground textures in deserts) it is recommended you play this mod in Dx9. If you are lagging I would recommend to try lowering the resolution before switching to Dx7. I might try to make a Dx7 patch that fixes or at least glosses over the issues. All this being said, it still works and looks fine in dx7.
-Battle size should ideally be 150(default maximum) or above (with battlesizer.) I find ~200 to be a pretty ideal number. Lower than that should play fine, but I think anything less than 100 might throw off the balance of the mod one way or another. If you can run a battle larger than 400 total I would love to see screenshots/videos!
-The music is worth a listen
-The deathcam is sometimes choppy for some people. You can use the numpad arrows to turn the camera, or enable edit mode and use the edit mode camera if you fall in combat (this is what I recommend.)
-HDR should likely be turned off. But if you like how it looks with HDR that's up to you.
-The Brainybots start out with my custom settings, the "true" settings for this mod. It might be too difficult or too easy for you, and either is fine. You can access the brainybots configuration menu by pressing F10 in just about any scene (not on the world map.) Here you can enable/disable the improved AI, set it to only work for companions/lords, and set the % chances for blocking and feinting etc. The "Renown Bonus" is set quite high by default, so reduce this if you don't want extra powerful lords. Advanced tactics for the bots are of course still out of reach, but the bots are fairly proficient fighters, and with a bit of luck can sometimes be scarily good. Even MP vets should be able to find a good challenge.
Wei Xiadi
RRaptor, luigi, Pope, James (OSP Polearms)
Njunja
Havoc
wanderer
Adorno
Gutekfiutek
Yamabusi
AlphaDelta
fredelios
dejawolf
NaglFaar
Narf
ShaunRemo
Yoman
jacobhinds
Al Mansur
spak
Bogmir
bb
Daedalus
Somebody
Lav
Sonyer
TLD team
frell
SacredStoneHead
DRZ
CWE Team
motomataru
PapaLazarou
Gothic Knight
thick1988
Shik
Psiphoon
lucky_lancer
Caba'drin
The Bowman
Goldenjoseph
Jrider​
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I would love to see some bug reports from you all. The mod should be quite stable right now, but there are some things I have to fix and probably bugs I'm not even aware of. I am aware of these however:
-Some lords and King Hekter use her/she instead of him/he. This is easy for me to fix but rather tedious, so I've left it and you can just accept these people for what they are.
-When large troops die sometimes their arms will stretch out to absurd lengths, and their hands will float in the air etc. This is because I have to scale up the death animations for the scaled up characters, but I don't know how. So, sorry about this one.
-Lords ages are all screwed up, sometimes sons are noticeably older than their fathers. I was hoping to redo the family system entirely, for now you will just have to overlook inconsistencies.
-Starting options and equipment is the same as Native. Not really a bug but I should have redone this part too.
-Alleys in towns are boring and empty
-Factions with no land that aren't defeated can have lords running around with 0 troops
This mod started being made a long time ago. It has changed its shape many times over the years, but of course it started out with me making a few small changes to Native and spiralled out of control. About 6 months ago I thought I had something that might be worth releasing, so I've worked at getting it into a state that excuses releasing a mod for a game that's what, six years old? So, even though this release is far from being what I would have liked, it is very stable and fairly well balanced. Or maybe it's fairly stable and very well balanced? Either way, development will probably stop here, save a few bug patches and maybe one or two new features. I would have liked to do more, but... Maybe I'll mod Bannerlord, who knows.

If this mod receives more support than I anticipate it will, I might release another version adding more things to the starting game, and possibly to sieges. One thing I wanted to do was create more interactions between bandits/merchants/mercenaries/manhunters, and make each of them more playable.
 
Those scenes are quite nice.  Are you using SweetFx or something similar?  How about your flora resources?  Are they from Polished Landscapes?
 
Redleg said:
Those scenes are quite nice.  Are you using SweetFx or something similar?  How about your flora resources?  Are they from Polished Landscapes?
Yes the flora is PL. I'm also using an edited version of ElPadrino's enbseries shaders which will be included as an optional install. I think I'll make more changes to it as well, but for now it works fine.
 
Looking good!

The one thing I would say is, you should probably make those shaders less blurry.
 
Vraelomon said:
Your deserts look fantastic  :shock:
:eek: a comment! I was starting to lose hope...

Thank you! Unfortunately the deserts are not randomly generated... So some scenes are better than others. But I'm glad you like them.
 
Vraelomon said:
Your deserts look fantastic  :shock:

I'll second that.  The other terrains are nice as well, as are some of the towns and castles I visited.  I played for an hour or so tonight using a level 25 character with just a small warband and found the game to be truly challenging as you said in the description.  The brainy bots and animations make for a nice challenge and the bandit troops seem to be fairly tough.  I haven't had a chance to explore all the faction troop trees but I like what I see so far.

Speaking of troop trees, I was looking to see if you had some troop tree viewer in the game but couldn't find it.  Would you consider adding a troop tree viewer to a future version?
 
Comrade Crimson said:
I think I'll do a play of this, give a sorta quickie AAR for this. If I like it I may continue.
I would love that! I'll link it in the OP if you do make an AAR (along with anyone else who may be so inclined.)

Redleg said:
Speaking of troop trees, I was looking to see if you had some troop tree viewer in the game but couldn't find it.  Would you consider adding a troop tree viewer to a future version?
I left out the troop tree presentation (the one I assume most mods use) because I wanted to keep a sense of discovery - especially in a mod like this, it can take a longer than usual amount of time to work out of early game and join a faction etc. I want there to be a real sense of mystery when players fight a new faction for the first time. At the same time, there are so many troops in this mod it's near impossible to keep track. Troop names are also generally longer than Native (though none as long as the Native "Khergit Veteran Horse Archer") so playing with casualties turned on is usually just distracting and annoying - but also the best way to learn which troops are which for the enemy. I considered adding a troop tree presentation which only unlocks troops as the player kills them, but it didn't seem important enough to focus on. I think I'll feel the same way for any updates - I have big plans, and the knowledge to enact these plans, but I lack for time and want to work on other things. However, I will post some troop trees here so people can casually study up if they wish.
 
So far im finding pretty fun. The AI combat difficulty is a nice change of pace, and all the new items are pretty fantastic. Collecting screenshots and composing a story, should be able to post tomorrow I think with an AAR followup. I definitely think this is a nice native expansion mod. I think the most impressive feature, to me though is the regional troops within factions, that adds a whole new layer of detail that I am fairly impressed by.

Although, I do have one thing to ask.


When you get the chance, add in new companions. Perhaps I could shoot you a few ideas if you want.
 
very challenging mod, i am going to import these brainy bot settings into other mods as well that feature brainy bot
 
nonam3 said:
very challenging mod, i am going to import these brainy bot settings into other mods as well that feature brainy bot
Thanks nonam3, glad you like my settings. Have you tried to fight a Lord yet?

Comrade Crimson said:
When you get the chance, add in new companions. Perhaps I could shoot you a few ideas if you want.
Glad to hear you're liking it. Really excited to read of your adventures! About companions, of course I'd like to add more but like so many things it got left out of the first release. If you do have ideas I'd like to hear them (just post them here so others can give input) and if you or anyone reading this wants to take the time to write out some companion stories, I'd be much obliged as it would save me a lot of time. I'll work on getting a new release out soon.
 
Downloading the mod as I type, I'll get back to you with whatever I may experience. One thing I could suggest even without having been in game is perhaps adding some more factions? From my experience with playing M&B Warband I would dare say the more factions the merrier. And seeing as this is set in the future of Calradia, who knows what new factions will have emerged? Perhaps a faction to represent a player made kingdom in the native game?

As for companion background, I may be able to help with that. I have experience with Dungeons and Dragons, a host of rpg's and numerous books. So I'd wager I'll be able to come up with some interesting characters.

With kind regards,

Daafiejj
 
Daafiejj said:
Downloading the mod as I type, I'll get back to you with whatever I may experience. One thing I could suggest even without having been in game is perhaps adding some more factions? From my experience with playing M&B Warband I would dare say the more factions the merrier. And seeing as this is set in the future of Calradia, who knows what new factions will have emerged? Perhaps a faction to represent a player made kingdom in the native game?

As for companion background, I may be able to help with that. I have experience with Dungeons and Dragons, a host of rpg's and numerous books. So I'd wager I'll be able to come up with some interesting characters.

With kind regards,

Daafiejj
Hey Daafiejj. I'd love to hear some character stories from you! I just started playing DnD recently and it's a blast.

I wouldn't worry too much about the number of factions. Like I said, times are changing... Though there are no "new" factions, each existing faction has a claimant with strong ties to a region within a faction, and lords can now rebel against kings as well. 6 factions can quickly become 18 if conditions are right.
 
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