I wanted to share a bit more about the troop re-design. The latest video shows the current state of the troop trees. As I have discussed before, in this mod, cavalry will play a little bit less of a role, while infantry, archers, and the extended skirmisher lines will play a greater role. This is a personal preference, and also somewhat in line with what you might expect from a period roughly 200 years prior to the native game.
In terms of equipping the troops, I have tried to make each factions' troops distinctive. I have used a number of excellent OSP arms and armors to achieve this. Vaegirs are no longer the plain Jane troops who used a combination Khergit stuff, bandit stuff, and some of their own common stuff. I tried to give each troop at least 2 armor choices in their inventory to provide some more variation while keeping the armors similar in stats across the factions and tiers. For example, tier 4 infantry of the Nords will have different looking armor than tier 4 infantry of the other factions, but the armor stats will be similar.
All infantry troops through tier 4 use pole-arms and sidearms and have shields. I have buffed the damage on spear-type polearms by about 5 points piercing damage. I have not changed the damage for cutting pole-arms, since the damage was adequate.The tier 4 troop of each faction has a very good polearm, such as a long voulge for the Vaegirs, a bec-de-corbin for the Swadians, a pole-ax for the Nords, hafted blade for Khergits, long pole scythe for Sarranids, and glaive for Rhodoks.
Each faction now has a tier 6 infantryman who has excellent equipment and both 2-handed and 1-handed weapons.
Archers and skirmishers are are now equipped with shields, with archers and skirmishers using small shields, except in the case of crossbowmen, who use board shields or kite shields. Archers also have leather or thick cloth armors, only the top-tier will have some light-medium metal armor. I have given archers more blunt sidearms than blades. This will help with the prisoner-taking aspect. The skirmishers are equipped with good throwing weapons and a one-handed weapon that is different than that used by the infantry of the faction. For example, Swadian skirmishers use axes, which are not found in the Swadian infantry. Nord skirmishers mainly use hammers and mallets instead of the axes used by much of their infantry. I think this helps provide a variety of weapons across the factions. The new skirmishers, especially the higher-level ones, are a match for many of the infantry troops, although less heavily armored than an infantry troop at the same level. Plus they will hit you in the face with a jarid or throwing axe!
As far as gameplay balance goes, I like the ratios of infantry to archer to skirmisher to horsemen in the AI armies and party templates. Cavalry still plays an important role but unless the AI army is large, their cavalry probably won't steamroll your troops. The factions seem pretty well balanced and still have some of their characteristic strengths and weaknesses. For example, Nords and Rhodoks have the best infantry forces, the Nords at the high level, and the Rhodoks at the lower level. The Swadians still have robust cavalry, just less of it. The Vaegirs still have the best archers. The Khergits are now a fairly well balanced force, as are the Sarranids. All factions now have tier 6 infantry, albeit the Nord Huscarl is still the man. All factions now have some horsemen, cavalry in some cases, mounted skirmishers in others.
Anyway, I apologize for the wall of text. I have been tweaking a few things and have even begun adding an additional faction. If it turns out well I may include it in the mod I release this September.