Troop Tree Expansion For M&B .960

[Somnolent]

Like the ideas, thought I'd throw in my .02.

Rhodok wise, I might simplify it a bit:

Rhodok Recruit->Rhodok Militia (all troop trees spring from the militia which is in keeping with the citizen soldier concept of the Rhodoks)

Then on the infantry side-

Rhodok Spearman->Rhodok Veteran Spearman->Rhodok Sergeant->Rhodok Knight Sergeant

Getting rid of the pikeman to pole knight thingie...

For the missile side of things starting after the militia, but otherwise the same as you had.

Rhodok Crossbowmen->Rhodok Veteran Crossbowmen->Rhodok Sharpshooter->Rhodok Sniper


Militia would have shortened spears and hunting crossbows and be a good general castle filler.  Sergeants and Knight Sergeants would be very heavily armored and use Glaives or Swords of War while spearman would actually be spear and pike oriented (if you want to keep your long pointy things, don't move them up the troop tree).

Crossbowmen would use Light Crossbows and Crossbows, Veteran Crossbowmen would use Crossbows and Heavy Crossbows, Snipers would use only Siege Crossbows.  All Crossbowmen would have Board Shields like their infantry counterparts and have Picks or Short swords as their side arm.

Eh just some random thoughts.

 

[Somnolent]

I kind of like the idea of each elite missile unit having its own name (probably just me though).  So perhaps the Rhodoks could be Rhodok Crossbow->Rhodok Sharpshooter->Rhodok Veteran Sharpshooter.  Vaegir would be Vaegir Archer->Vaegir Marksman-Vaegir Master Marksman and Swadians would be Swadian Forester (Longbowman)->Swadian Ranger (Longbowmen) and Swadian Crossbow->Swadian expert crossbow or something along those lines. 

 

[Somnolent]

Here's some ideas for the bandit faction troop trees:

Sea Raiders:  Raider (Base)->Marauder->Reaver->Reaver Chieftain

Forest Bandits:  Bandit (Base)->Brigand->Outlaw->Outlaw Chieftain

Looters:  Looter (Base)->Pillager->Ravager

Mountain Bandits:  Clansman (Base)->->Vandal->Vandal Captain->Vandal Chieftain

Steppe Bandits: Tribesman (Base)-> Rover->Master Rover->Rover Khan

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

Wow that's a lot of post...

None of your ideas are bad, I certainly could always use help with names. For the Rhodok tree, I want to see how it plays now before I shift it around. The idea of dividing spearmen and pikemen was to have them focus on different things: One on defense with the big shield and one on damage. Similar story with the siege crossbowman and the sharpshooter line: Siege Crossbowman don't have particularly high crossbow skill compared to sharpshooters but they have some serious armor and are designed to operate under heavy fire like would be experienced in a siege.

If it looks like its going to be overly complicated then I may come back to some of your suggestions.

I think I will take your advice on some of those name suggestions though.

On an unrelated note I will probably try and start on the mercenaries today. The tactics kit is probably going to stay so that's something people can look forward to in version two when I get it out. I will also probably try expanding on the bandits for that release as well. Following that I will get to work on the new bandit faction. Another version or two for balancing after that and I can walk out of beta, at which point I will probably make the source available.

 

[Somnolent]

lol, yeah sorry bout that.  This is something I've been thinking about doing as well, so figured I'd be lazy and shoot some my ideas over to someone who's actually doing it

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

lol, yeah sorry bout that.  This is something I've been thinking about doing as well, so figured I'd be lazy and shoot some my ideas over to someone who's actually doing it

Fair enough.

 

[Servitor]

I dislike the troops trees, but wish you good luck all the same.

Good Luck!
Servitor

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

I dislike the troops trees, but wish you good luck all the same.

Good Luck!
Servitor

Thank you...I think...

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

I'm going to put myself in harm's way and come here upon this board to make a heretical proposal to the M&B players. This is a thought that occurred to me while testing my humble little mod here, both the portions I have released and the ones I haven't. I've been playing the Rhodoks to see how far I have to go till they don't stink. Looks promising so far but I haven't hit the big leagues yet, so we'll see. But something did arise. Since I've implemented the Battle Tactics kit, enemies like to run away toward the end of the battle. This is all well and nifty because it gives lighter cavalry a useful purpose: chase em down and skewer them.

But Rhodoks have no cavalry of their own. They either have to enlist mercenaries or chase them down on foot.

Continuing with my philosophy that mercenaries and out of faction troops should be a bonus and not a prerequisite for doing basic tasks, I am contemplating giving Rhodoks some form of light cavalry (hides behind riot shield).

Right now I'm thinking of making it an upgrade of the Rhodok infantry, with the other upgrade of course being the veteran infantry. The Rhodok Horseman would in essence be an infantry guy on a horse with some slightly different stats which or more horsey related. As far as cavalry go they'd be pretty weak but they would fill the roll of troop chaser. Since two of the Rhodoks' neighbors are cavalry heavy factions, it stands to reason that A) They have horses and B) They see their value on the battlefield so I don't think its too much of a breach of Rhodok etiquette.

What do people think?

I'm also welcoming comments on anything else about the mod from people who have tried it. This is still the first beta release and I'm looking to make it better so feedback is highly valued.

Also I will probably throw a new version up this weekend with the new mercenaries and a small expansion to existent bandit trees. And possibly Rhodok cavalry. 

 

[Boeing]

I think it would be okay. They're obviously not rich and can't field the large amounts of heavy armored cav that the Swadians can but I don't see why they wouldn't have outriders or scouts.

BTW I've been playing for the last 3 days, I like it. Looking forward to the tactics kit though!

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

So that's one vote for Rhodok cavalry.

On an unrelated note here are some screen shots I took of some of the new mercs. I decided to test them by giving myself lots of money and hiring an all merc army. It was nasty to watch the sea raiders die so badly. 

 

[RogueHunter]

your troop tree expansion is a beautiful project,only thing is i hate to see "known issues",you have to hurry with updating it! 
btw,your expansion is on my mod list,i love to say this when i post! 

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

your troop tree expansion is a beautiful project,only thing is i hate to see "known issues",you have to hurry with updating it! 
btw,your expansion is on my mod list,i love to say this when i post! 

I saw that it was on there and was very happy to see it 

I could theoretically release a new version right now but I want to take some time to actually mosey through the mod to spot any glaring problems. I didn't do that with my first release, though on the positive side I haven't seen glaring problems.

As for the 'known issues': the mercenary captain (now Freerider) problem is fixed...if you could really call it broken before...

I'm keeping the increase in army size per point in leadership though taking away the additional morale. Instead I'm making it so that heroes (your character included) only count as 1 rather than 3 in determining party sized based morale penalties (seriously I fail to see how that made sense before...). I then reduced that penalty by 25% overall to allow larger parties before you have to start grinding bandits just to keep people from leaving. I'm toying with the idea of dropping the renown per troop limit increase to 20 instead of 25. Not sure about this one yet. I think the increase in army size on the part of NPC's was just a fluke, since I haven't seen it as pronounced lately as I did that first time, so I will probably leave things as stated above (ie. without the renown change). I'll figure that one out later.

Oh and there are some mounted sea-raiders now. Not many, maybe 5 in a party of 20. But they are there. And Sea Raider leaders have Great Swords. Yeah...fun times. 

One final note before I shush and go to bed: I am going to try and finalize the troop tree for the invading nation of Terma (that new bandit faction I mentioned, name tentative) and will also be digging through some game dialogue to try and find a legitimate place to put it in the world of Mount and Blade. Eventually (if I figure it out) I'll add some random peasant dialogue about them, though neither Terma nor dialogue will be in the next version. I will however post the tree either tomorrow or Wednesday.

 

[RogueHunter]

now your one of my favorite modders! 
just keep up the hard work,update it several times a month and it can get far! 

 

[Boeing]

Have Geroia invade

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

now your one of my favorite modders! 
just keep up the hard work,update it several times a month and it can get far! 

I'll try to keep it updated often as possible. I go back to school for the last year of my undergrad in a couple of weeks so after that all bets are off, but I'm pretty sure I can get at least one a month out when needed. I'm thinking after the third release (the one after this next one) I might sit back and wait for 1.0 to come out before continuing so I can get everything ported with ease. I'll figure that out when I get their though. I also have a mod project for Oblivion that I'm not even half-way to a release for yet which I would like to continue on. As someone hoping to go into game development making mods can be surprisingly helpful to one's chances of getting a job, or so I hear.

The nice thing is once the bandit faction is made then anything else will just be a couple of units here and there which is a lot easier to do then having to make a bunch of new units at once in addition to modifying the code style for pre-existing units to try and make it easier for me to edit (moving inventories and skill sets into separate variables to make them easier to hunt down, read, and change...for me at least.

Have Geroia invade

If Geroia is a military power looking to bring in masses of pillaged loot and slave labor I may. 

I'm trying to avoid pre-existing powers in the game in case the devs decide to do something with them themselves. Still I will consider the evil empire of Geroia. 

 

[Somnolent]

More thoughts, hope u don't mind...

Since the removal of Zendar, Manhunter's have always seemed a bit out of place to me.  Not sure if this really fixes that but here's a thought for neutral party like them but different.

Replace Manhunters with the "ranger" troop tree.  Not sure why, maybe just for the hell of it.  I know I get sick of taking out Sea Raider parties and only getting smelly man hunter's for my efforts (oh and all those nice hauberks and helms).

Manhunter becomes Ranger Page (foot based)
Slaverdriver becomes Ranger Squire (foot based)
Slavehunter becomes Ranger (foot, high emphasis on the long bow)
Slave Crusher becomes Ranger Warden (mounted, light skirmishig cavalry, missile weapons and light lances, coursers)
Slaver Chieftain becomes Ranger Knight (mounted, medium armor, hunters, lance and bow)

Also here's some fiddling with the "Peasant Woman" tree

Peasant Woman
Camp Follower becomes Quarter Mistress (lame I know, can't think of anything else yet..., foot based)
Camp Huntress becomes Shield Dottir (foot based)
Camp Defender becomes Spear Wife (foot and horse-with riding horses as a possibility)
Sword Sister stays the same...

Built into the game is a nice "looter" tree that you can just change the advancement on.  In my personal install I've changed the Looter tree to

Looter->Bandit->Brigand

I've included all looter bands to have 5-25 looters, 0-15 bandits and 0-10 Brigands.  I've also added 0-5 farmers and 0-8 peasant women as prisoners.  This makes the whole early part of the game a lot of fun for me.  It allows me to recruit low level neutral troops very easily and makes the "looter" bands a lot more fun and fairly challenging as they now have a mounted component as well.

Eh, I'll stop bothering you now...

 

[Somnolent]

I lied...my bad...more "general" ideas to the bandit factions.

Mountain Bandit (foot and horse based skirmishers)

Mountain Bandit->Mountain Bandit Veteran->Mountain Bandit Hetman

Forest Bandits (foot based skirmishers)

Forest Bandit->Forest Bandit Outlaw->Forest Bandit Ringleader

Sea Raiders (foot based medium infantry and skirmishers)

Sea Raider->Sea Raider Prowman->Sea Raider Carl->Sea Raider Jarl

Steppe Bandits (mounted light skirmishers)

Steppe Bandit->Steppe Bandit Rover->Steppe Bandit Khan

 

[ArakDemonBlade]

I've considered modifications to the looter tree but haven't done anything so far. They are kind of low on my priority list to be honest. They are pretty much pointless after you get a small army but I don't want to make them too hard at early levels as new characters need some kind of fodder at least.

I have considered neutral parties like the man hunters, which are indeed a bit out of place. I have no concrete plans as of yet but I might do parties of mercenaries or some such.

 

[Somnolent]

Early on (at levels 1-10) the game seems to compensate by keeping looter party sizes low.  This changes later as your level advances and as you remove parties from the map.  No clue as to the mechanism in place, but early "looter" parties are at about 6-9, with 15-25 fairly common around level 12ish...