[S] Pike and Blade 3.5: Riders on the Storm!

[Aeon221]

A new version 3.0 has been launched!

Check the changelog and readme for details, but the name should make it obvious that this is the update adding the new mercenaries. Unfortunately, due to the way mercenary units work, the only way to add them and have them populate the towns is to put them in before the unit "mercenaries_end." This meant moving all the units above number 34 up 7 units, which means that old saves are now broken -- they record units as seven spots lower on troops.txt, so they pull up the wrong entries all over the place, populating armies with some very weird dudes -- and that I had to spend an assload of time doing tedious entry updates for all upgrades and reinforce parties. There might be bugs, so definitely be sure to tell me if you see any weird upgrades! And yeah, I'm unhappy too, as this totally ruined my 400+ day save that I had spent a great deal of time on =(

But the new mercs are a lot of fun, so definitely use it!

I ended up not having mercenaries auto-pop into faction armies this update, but it'll be a minor change to make that happen. I just wanted to test a few other things -- for instance, having the nords pop a few more high tier units to help them with autocalc battles -- before adding a whole bunch of new variables into the mix.

Based on my numbers, all versions of the mod have now been downloaded 1016 times since its original posting on 4.23.2010. Thanks!


edit:

@Cassial: If you want to have them upgrade, it's a two second process to do it yourself -- but in the mod itself, I'm not gonna add it =D

And yeah, I like having more variety in units using the more interesting two handed weapon types that you used to never see on the NPCs. I might change some of the lord unit loadouts too, but I think they get gear spawned onto them by script.

@Iaksones: You're not the only one who feels it's strange that these guys don't upgrade, but it works pretty well and helps a lot with balancing out the mounted units. Glad you enjoy the mod, and definitely feel free to post about balance and AARS and whatnot!

 

[raul-1]

****e this is grreat

 

[Aeon221]

WHOOPS. I may have broken the tutorial quest -- NOTE TO SELF, CHECK A NEW GAME BEFORE UPLOADING NEW **** -- so, uh, I'm frantically fixing that!

edit: Ok, so all sorts of weird and not-supposed-to-happen things are happening. I'm instantly getting 20 levels with a new character, even though I've never set up edit mode or cheat mode or whichever does that. I'm also seeing the Swadian merchant spawn as an arena fighter even though the script is set to grab a unit between trp_swadian_merchant and trp_startup_merchants_end.

Rather than dicking around with all this to figure out what the hell exploded, I'm going to just revert to an older troops.txt, move the new lower tier merc units to the beginning and the high tier ones to the end (and thus make them unrecruitable from taverns, an unfortunate but apparently necessary solution), and just do it like that. I should have a new fixed version up and ready as 3.1 within a few minutes.

 

[chunzhu]

Currently waiting for the fixed version before I download. I can't wait!

(btw, any updates on the fix?)

 

[Cassial]

Broken saves? Nooooo!

I had just finished conquering ALL of Swadia. Damn!

Well, the new version seems really wonky anyway. I'll wait for it to settle.

Wait, if you're moving things around in the .txt again, does that mean our original saves will work now?

 

[Aeon221]

Ok, the problem is fixed and the new version is now again compatible with saves. However, t4/t5 mercenaries can no longer be hired in taverns. I'll need to do a 3.2 sometime soon to adjust which mercenaries can be hired, but this hotfix is good to go.

edit: Goddamn that was some serious tinkering, sorry about all that to people who have to download twice, but hey, at least it's all save compatible!

 

[Cassial]

That is good news. And, honestly, it's no big deal that the highest tier mercs are not hirable. You can just train them up yourself, y'know?

 

[Aeon221]

That is good news. And, honestly, it's no big deal that the highest tier mercs are not hirable. You can just train them up yourself, y'know?

All true, it's just irritating that it didn't work out as well as I hoped.

And I'm shocked by the amount of stuff broken merely by moving things around in the troops.txt file. I mean, new character levelup? Why on earth would that be related to anything in there?

Anyway, the advice I read to put stuff before the trp_mercenaries_end was insane, and something I wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they wanted to trawl through random files looking for solutions.

 

[Aeon221]

Another patch, this one minor -- fixes a break in the merc upgrade tree, and gives the mounted crossbows somewhat worse armor. Couple of other things I probably forgot, but this is truly a small patch.

 

[Jubs]

A bug that I've come across;

The Swadian Sergeant never appears in the Swadian lord's/town's/castle's army. Every other Swadian unit seems to, I'd guess they're being skipped over in preference to Squire -> Knight.

This was the case in v2.51 and seems to still be in.

It's possible other factions are missing a unit, it was just easy to compare their army list to my own and notice the Sergeant was missing.

 

[Cassial]

They're probably going squire -> Knight because the Sergeant ends right then and there, while squire moves onto one more stage. Maybe Sergeant needs to have a stage added to it? Captain?

 

[Aeon221]

I hadn't noticed that, but a quick once over shows that you're right. Apparently I neglected to give them a high tier infantry unit in their p3 reinforcement -- a similar oversight occurs with the Sarranids, although it's not as noticeable there. And since they had so many other upgrade choices with their t2 infantry reinforcements, they tended to get very few infantry/no t5 infantry.

I've fixed this by giving both of them a t4 infantry reinforcement instead of a t5 squire, so they should end up with fewer squires and more sergeants by their own upgrade choices.

I don't _think_ the t6 upgrade path has an impact on upgrade choices, because I'm pretty sure that they just upgrade evenly and at random -- but I also thought that changing up the troops.txt file wouldn't have serious ramifications, and you all saw how that went >.>

So, as of this post there's a 3.2 patch uploaded.

 

[Cassial]

Truly, you have the most quickly updated mod I have ever seen.

 

[Aeon221]

Truly, you have the most quickly updated mod I have ever seen.

Well, I make my (lack of a) living writing, so I have plenty of time to check this out while I'm working. Besides, I'm not kidding when I say the troops.txt and party-templates.txt are really simple to edit for yourself. Major props to the Taleworld devs for making this the easiest to mod game since Civ2. I might write up a few quick tutorials when I'm done with the strategy guide I'm writing for troop command in this mod, but honestly it almost seems wasteful!

 

[Cassial]

Speaking of troop command, Warband really needs a formation system.

 

[Iaksones]

Truly, you have the most quickly updated mod I have ever seen.

Well, I make my (lack of a) living writing

For what it's worth, your posts made reading through this whole thread interesting and not so much a chore.



I'm starting a new character--probably an all cav Khergit/Sarannid type commander--and if I find anything interesting as far as battles against different army compositions go, I'll post.

 

[Cassial]

Aeon, I have a question.

I played with Morgh's troop TXT tool to give Sword Sisters a little bit of Power Strike. However, these changes don't show up in the game. I know you make changes to troops without causing a new game to be required, so how do I make my change?

 

[EnDSchultz]

Would just like to report that it seems as if Khergit Veteran Lancers are actually of a lower level and have less upkeep than regular Lancers. That is, unless it tracks things like that on a troop-by-troop basis and the 'standard' one that happened to be displayed my party list was just a wimp.

 

[Aeon221]

Would just like to report that it seems as if Khergit Veteran Lancers are actually of a lower level and have less upkeep than regular Lancers. That is, unless it tracks things like that on a troop-by-troop basis and the 'standard' one that happened to be displayed my party list was just a wimp.

I can't begin to speculate on why he has a lower upkeep, but I can assure you that the veterans are set by default to be three levels higher than the standard ones, and the war lancers six levels higher than the veterans. I'll see about getting a few of them in game and try to figure out what's going on.

Aeon, I have a question.

I played with Morgh's troop TXT tool to give Sword Sisters a little bit of Power Strike. However, these changes don't show up in the game. I know you make changes to troops without causing a new game to be required, so how do I make my change?

You have to hit the update troop button after you change a troop and before you switch to a different one to have it update the file, otherwise the changes are reverted -- this is a mistake that I regularly make! Then, once you're done with all your changes, you save the file, and it'll fill through in game.

 

[Aeon221]

Ok, so, wow.

Cataphracts and Knights sans warhorses are much less dominant on the battlefield. Cavalry charges can still be devastating, but instead of them wading through the infantry line and coming around for another pass -- slaughtering hordes of infantry in the process, even pikes -- close packed infantry will now block them in and chop them down. It's to the point that I'm considering a major buff to Swadian and Sarranid infantry if I make this an official change, because both factions just get torn apart without the heavy cav busting them a path.

I know I had intended to pull armored horses a while back, but for whatever reason it never made it into an update, so I never saw it on the field. Now that I have, it's a little insane. I can definitely say that this confirms my theory that warhorses, rather than cav in general, were the real balance issue.

What do you guys think? Stronger Swad/Sarranid infantry, but heavy cav without warhorses? Or warhorses, and just live with the existing balance? Or maybe nerf the warhorses so that they're not nearly so well armored, but still have a fairly good charge?

Feedback is definitely requested on this issue =D