SP Viking Conquest Balance Mod 13

[Tingyun]

Poll added to the top of this thread!

Please vote on how the 6.0 realistic travel speeds are working out.

Currently the alternate download for maintaining vanilla speeds has 20% of total downloads, which is a pretty significant number for not being the default download. I mainly want to find out if that other 80% of downloads for the slower realistic speed version is just because it is the default, or whether some people actually like this change. I personally love the new speeds, but I aim to fit user preferences for Balance Mod.

I will always offer both versions with every future release, so everyone will have a download to suit their preference no matter how the poll turns out, I just want to know if I made a bad decision on which version to make the default download and which one the alternate. Finally, if you have any specific thoughts or suggestions to share, please do leave a comment!

 

[kalarhan]

Please vote on how the 6.0 realistic travel speeds are working out.

just a hint: module.ini variable "time_multiplier" can be used to control the speed of time when holding space. So if you reduce party speed, you can increase quick-time and keep the overall waiting period (for the player) the same.

e.g: half world speed + double quick time and you will take the same 1 minute to travel from A to B

 

[Tingyun]

Thanks for the great suggestion Kalarhan!

I’ve modified the poll options to include the timescale change. I’ll also upload to nexus now an optional module.ini download with it implemented (time_multiplier .25 ----> .5).

EDIT: very easy to follow Kalarhan's suggestion to tweak time_multiplier yourself to find a preferred value. Out of curioristy I tested changing .25 ---> .9, and even normal movement became a sort of moderate quick-time without having to hold extra keys.

 

[Tingyun]

The poll results are in, and they clearly establish that Balance Mod users prefer to not take polls.

Status quo it is then, hopefully the 80-20 download split reflects a real preference for the realistic travel speeds. Future versions will be the same as 6.0:

- Default download: full install with realistic slower travel speeds

- Optional download: full install with vanilla VC travel speeds

- Optional download: add-on file for Kalarhan’s above suggested timescale change, making time flow faster on the map (installed on top of the default download, this achieves realistic in-game travel times but vanilla VC real-life travel times)

In case anyone is curious, regardless of which version you pick, a displayed speed of 5.0 represents around 8-10 km/h given the VC map size, with the exception of a few places where the map is more condensed.

 

[Dirty Norseman]

Hi Tingyun, not sure how difficult it would be to add, but regarding viking longphorts could you remove the ruffians from spawning and replace them with Beserker or Ulfheddin units.

Reason being the longphorts are way too easy to beat when the ruffians spawn. Given the sweet loot you can get they should be tough to do.

Perhaps add a chance for Beserker / Ulfheddin loot to drop as well.

 

[Tingyun]

Hi Dirty Norseman: I haven't looked into lair spawns yet, but I'll make a note to check how they work. I know the amount of enemies are very dependent on player character level, and the loot you get is based on the enemies that spawned, but am not sure otherwise. Could you give more background on your situation when you find them too easy--character level(s) and what troops you had with you in particular? I'd be especially interested if you find them easier/harder at different character levels (personally I tend to find them much easier at lower character levels).

 

[Dirty Norseman]

Could you give more background on your situation when you find them too easy--character level(s) and what troops you had with you in particular? I'd be especially interested if you find them easier/harder at different character levels (personally I tend to find them much easier at lower character levels).

Difficulty for me depends on the units that spawn and where / how many spawn in the different spawn points. For example, with the viking longphorts there are four spawn points. When two or three or more vikings spawn at one point it's much harder than if one did. I've had some experiences where I've entered the longphort (at a low character level, i.e. start of game) and had to face four or five vikings at one point. That's a tough fight but is what it should be, given the armour and weapon loot you can get.

Now if ruffians spawn instead of vikings it's absurdly easy, especially if you have armour. Having ruffians spawn just doesn't fit...I mean why would bad ass vikings have ruffians hanging out at their lair? ?

Some things I think could be improved...

1. Only vikings, no ruffians spawn. Perhaps throw a Beserker or Ulfheddin in as well.

2. Add a renown bonus to the quest that reflects your deed of vanquishing the vikings.

3. Some of the loot drops can be ridiculously lucrative. I've had 3 or more undamaged Norse Hringserks drop (plus other high level cloth armour) as well as weapons in the loot for the quest. This has happened more than once in a play-through. While I don't think the loot should be stingy, perhaps it could be adjusted. Maybe more goods like silver, wine and amber could replace some of the armour. Maybe you find one of the in-game books (stolen by a viking after a monastery raid).

4. Perhaps a renown cap before you can accept the quest. If the difficulty of the quest is increased you better have your big boy pants on when you do it ?

Basically the longphort quests are easy when ruffians spawn. If I do the quest start of game I usually do it solo, as there's only 6 or 9 enemies. Once there's 12 and more the difficulty increases but with armoured companions and / or tier 4 infantry it's pretty easy regardless of number of enemies.

 

[Tingyun]

Hi DirtyNorseman,

Thanks for the thoughts, I’ll keep all of it in mind. A few quick notes:

- I think the loot is similar to killing the same units in a normal battle. You might be running a smaller party in the bandit camp raids, especially if you only take the allowed 6 extra men and leave the rest in the camp, so it is probably just that you are getting a higher share.

- I think the ruffians are meant to represent their camp servants. I had thought they tended to spawn towards the later parts of the battle, once most of the Vikings had died. I don’t think they were replacing the vikings 1 to 1.

- quest requirements aren’t a barrier to accessing bandit camps, you can find and attack them at any time quest or not, so no point trying to lock the quest away. I also don’t generally like trying to protect the player from themself—instead better to let them make their own decisions about what risks they are willing to take. There are also many types of camps, and even beginner players like to attack robber camps early for some looter and bandit combat.

- I’m not sure about adding more high level units. You mentioned you think the equipment loot is too generous—add some ulfhedin and you will throw some of the best swords in the game into the lootbox. Also ulfhedin are rare in bandit parties, and thematically unlikely to spend all their time hanging out in the lair. Probably what the enemies need are added quantity rather than quality, otherwise the player team of 7 will just overwhelm the added high level units.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’ll look into fine tuning the curve of how many enemies you get at various experience levels, and maybe consider increasing the amount of mid-level enemies (like plain vikingr) at some player character level ranges to prevent the player team from always having the advantage of numbers.

Any changes might be somewhat moderate though—bandit camp raids need to be conquerable for all skill levels and character types, since unlike normal bandit spawns, a less powerful combat player can’t simply raise more men to confront the challenge. For highly skilled or combat focused players, soloing, or only taking 2 or 3 companions, will probably remain needed for substantial challenge. The price of balancing for a wide audience...

 

[Dirty Norseman]

You might be running a smaller party in the bandit camp raids, especially if you only take the allowed 6 extra men and leave the rest in the camp, so it is probably just that you are getting a higher share.

Yes, I always quarter my army and take only 7 warriors (incl. me) into lairs, so higher share.

- I think the ruffians are meant to represent their camp servants. I had thought they tended to spawn towards the later parts of the battle, once most of the Vikings had died. I don’t think they were replacing the vikings 1 to 1.

Yes, ruffians spawn at the end, after the initial vikings have been killed. I guess my issue with the ruffians is I've done some lairs (late-game) facing 24 enemies and a third are ruffians, their stones just bounce off my heavy armour. At start of game if ruffians spawn it can dramatically effect the loot drop...but I think there's a random element involved cos I've also done lairs with ruffians and scored some sweet gear.

- quest requirements aren’t a barrier to accessing bandit camps, you can find and attack them at any time quest or not, so no point trying to lock the quest away. I also don’t generally like trying to protect the player from themself—instead better to let them make their own decisions about what risks they are willing to take. There are also many types of camps, and even beginner players like to attack robber camps early for some looter and bandit combat.

Fair enough.

- I’m not sure about adding more high level units. You mentioned you think the equipment loot is too generous—add some ulfhedin and you will throw some of the best swords in the game into the lootbox. Also ulfhedin are rare in bandit parties, and thematically unlikely to spend all their time hanging out in the lair. Probably what the enemies need are added quantity rather than quality, otherwise the player team of 7 will just overwhelm the added high level units.

I've fought plenty of viking parties with Beseker / Ulfheddin units in them and never had an ulfberth sword drop. Their bear / wolf skin and shields also drop rarely. For the ulfberth sword dropping I have more luck against the Irish renegade parties with bandit leaders.

Though I get your point about the loot. I don't know how the loot system works...I thought you (modder in general) would be able to add or subtract items from the loot list.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’ll look into fine tuning the curve of how many enemies you get at various experience levels, and maybe consider increasing the amount of mid-level enemies (like plain vikingr) at some player character level ranges to prevent the player team from always having the advantage of numbers.

Mid level enemies would be better than ruffians for sure. You could possibly look at other bandit lairs as well. Personally (late game) I find the highwaymen lair harder than viking longphorts. The highwaymen have lethal aim with throwing spears, especially when there's six of them charging toward you. Also the bandits that spawn in those lairs have skirmish javelins. Oddly enough the loot is nowhere as good as viking longphorts which I always thought was strange.

Whatever you think is best for mod. Cheers

 

[Tingyun]

Thanks for all the detailed feedback and suggestions. I will look into this for either 7.0 or 8.0.

I've fought plenty of viking parties with Beseker / Ulfheddin units in them and never had an ulfberth sword drop. Their bear / wolf skin and shields also drop rarely.

There is a vanilla Warband glitch present in all mods, where if a low level unit dies first its loot can crowd out the good stuff from better units. Bandit parties that are large enough to incorporate Ulfhedinn have enough men to trigger the glitch, as long as even 1 plain vikingr dies first then its entire stack will be looted first.

The glitch is virtually guaranteed to trigger if you use the vanilla VC “take first claim” loot option (gives x4 loot, which in a small party means it can magically make you get far more loot than you would have seen solo) or Balance Mod’s version of the option (actually shows all loot as if player were solo), although later Balance Mod versions have a workaround capping low level loot that should prevent the glitch in most circumstances, even when employing the “first claim” loot option.

So if some of those battles were in Vanilla VC, then that’s probably why you rarely got their loot. Their skins and shields are low value enough they drop easily if the unit hasn’t been crowded out the loot box by the glitch (loot probability for an item is inversely related to its price, so the swords are rarer). With the bandit leader battle, you probably got a lucky kill on the leader at the start of battle, or else didn’t use the “first claim” option, or had a larger party, something to prevent the glitch.

While the current Balance Mod capping solution prevents the glitch in most circumstances, 7.0 has a perfect solution, a sorting of the defeated party just prior to looting, meaning the glitch never occurs (high level units are always looted first), and the player always gets the loot they deserve.

I put the code up for any modder who wishes to use it:  https://www.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/8p48ge/kill_order_effect_on_looting_and_mod_solutions/

AWOIF 3.5 is the only other mod to have added the fix so far, but all other modders are welcome to do so as well.

 

[SaintofGreen]

Evening bud, i may be ever so slighty extreamly computer retarded. Have an issue starting game, it says Unable to open Modules/VikingConquest/map.txt. Have i just simply not followed download instructions properly or this an actual issue?

Ps. Really looking foward to trying out your mod

 

[Tingyun]

Evening bud, i may be ever so slighty extreamly computer retarded. Have an issue starting game, it says Unable to open Modules/VikingConquest/map.txt. Have i just simply not followed download instructions properly or this an actual issue?

Ps. Really looking foward to trying out your mod

VC Balance Mod does not include map.txt (as it doesn't change the map). Is your map.txt from vanilla VC missing?

Try uninstalling and then reinstalling Viking Conquest, and then copy the VC Balance Mod full install archive over into the Modules/VikingConquest folder, overwriting the originals. But do not delete the other files, only let it overwrite the changed ones.

Let me know if you have any further problems!

 

[Tingyun]

7.0 released!

Fully compatible with 6.0 and prior versions. This will be the final release for some time, unless someone discovers and reports a problem in need of a patch.

7.0 FINAL CHANGELOG

Tournaments vary by faction, including horses in Pict/Briton lands and throwing weapons only in certain factions

Finetuned all AI party templates for greater variety and better match to faction background (similar to the 5.0 Balance Mod more elite templates in overall challenge). For example, Northymbria is the principal employer of the new dane axe wielding troops, Frisia has large numbers of hired frankish cavalry mercs, the pure norse factions (danmark and northvegr) have larger numbers of berserkers, etc. Should give more variety when fighting the various factions

Changed tutorial battle axe to better fit new tournament templates (allowed use on horseback, removed thrusts)

Added and removed some upgrade paths

Added special pictish hornmen unit into the pictish upgrade tree, and gave it better javilins while removing knife to reflect tier. Previously it was very hard for the player to obtain this unit.

Adjusted AI lord recruiting speed

refined fix for vanilla Warband glitch that sometimes made low level troop gear fill up the loot buffer and crowd out better items, unless the player killed enemies in an unlikely order (now Balance Mod sorts killed enemies by descending level prior to looting, ensuring player always gets the loot they deserve no matter what order they kill the enemies. Earlier Balance Mod versions used caps for low level troop loot as a workaround.) See complete details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/8p48ge/kill_order_effect_on_looting_and_mod_solutions/

Removed the crazy high sale prices for equipment in refuge/bandit camps (now they pay reasonable amounts). The prior prices effectively broke the economy for anyone who sold heavily in bandit camps.

Companions now slightly easier to keep in party (grievances go down faster)

Repurposed Norse standard bearer into 2 handed Dane axe (using troll axe as it fits well) wielding troops. Norse tree could use additional unit variety given the enhanced effect of religion on recruiting. Name staying same for now to avoid having to test saved game compatibility issues (haven't tried to see if it would actually create problems to change name, just for now playing it safe making 100% sure it will work fine with current saves), so for now they serve both roles, presumably carrying the standard outside of combat (they still have the trophies for looting purposes). This gives an option for players who want some dane axe troops, even if a bit early historically, and varies up the troop types a bit. Changed upgrade paths around. Gave helmets. All changes fully save compatible (no troop stats modified to preserve save game compatibility, the standard carriers already had good 2 handed skill, that’s largely why they were picked).

troll axe removed stabbing animation (now swing only), reduced cost

Increased berserkers and repurposed standard bearer/dane axe wielders in pure norse recruiting templates (danish, Norwegian).

Increased discount for goods at production centers (timber camps, stone quarries, salt mines)

Increased most quest alloted times by 2x (some by 1.5x or other values). Earlier quest timers were fine even for the new realistic travel speeds in almost all cases, but good deliveries could be too tight on time with the flat 7 days regardless of distance, so to avoid any issues easiest to just double almost all the times. Haven't changed the conversation dialogue descriptions to match the new days yet.

Increased gold rewards dramatically (4x) for caravan and cattle escort quests. Increased gold rewards for some delivery quests by around 2x. These paid far too little previously.

Rearranged foot armor assignment (giving top tier spear units from saxons, angles, frisians, and britons better boots, as opposed to vanilla VC where they are downgrading leg armor by going from boots to shoes when upgraded Tier IV ---> V). Also improved Old Captain and Frankish horsemen boot selection

Increased price of leather gloves (partly to reflect value of leather and distribution on non elite units, but also to reduce their spam into loot, since low value items loot so much more frequently)

Rearranged some color schemes of footwear assignment

Lowered leg armor on all footwear to better reflect unprotected legs (both matching what is sensible given the items and the historical reality of less leg protection in the time).

Adjusted bandit spawn, lair respawn, and book reading times

Implemented DeSoto's suggestion to remove throwing weapons from tournaments

Switched out the "practice lance" (worse version of the tournament spear) with the better version, and made 1/2handed axe a bit more common.

disabled keep horse in town tweak

Slight difficulty level tweaks (hard difficulty no longer gets reduced tariffs, normal gets same AI target evaluation treatment as hard)

Gloves no longer can be improved in quality. Since the AI didn’t get the benefit, it was too cheap easy one-sided armor boost for player and companions to just harden gloves. But if you already have hardened gloves in your current save, you can continue using them if you like--there will just be no way to make any more gloves hardened.

Caio changed to pagan to reflect conflict with Beda, as well as provide an additional pagan companion

Some stroyline vanilla vc set personalities not working fixed by making them always occur (it seems the storyline condition wasn't registering when lord personalities were set--Hrodulf Haraldson was supposed to always be cunning in storyline for example, but it wasn't occurring)

a slight slowing of player relative to ai on water restored, easily dwarfed by likely player advantages in navigation, ship type, or sailor unit mechanics

Rebellion changes: No cap to charisma reducing rebellion chance, and relation drop changed from -30 to -5 (should make rebellions from happy lords only 1/6th as frequent or less).

Changes to relations penalty for granting fiefs (primarily to make AI kingdoms more cohesive)--base drop reduced from 2 to 1, drop for bad relations between AI lords only half as high. Before -24 relations already got the max drop, now generally relations drops will be less severe and responsive to truly terrible relations.The player could counter these drops easily enough, by either focussing carefully on the best personality lords, or tediously going around requesting people's input into fief granting decisions (which gives a bonus), but the AI couldn't, and there was a ton of treachery in AI kingdoms late game as a result. This serves mainly to make the AI bad personality lords less often end up in a spiral of treachery, and to close the gap just a bit between personality desirability, since the player is the only one in a position to carefully select. It also allows retaining the day-to-day behavior of vanilla VC bad personality weighted AI lords, when they make strategic decisions or interact with the player, while keeping total treachery and instability to something closer to what the Vanilla warband martial weighted personalities might display.

 

[Tingyun]

Credits for 7.0:

Reddit user Joaquin823 for suggesting changes to rebellions

Taleworlds user Rubik for making his Custom Commander code available for all to reference

Talewords user DeSoto for suggesting changes to tournaments

Reddit user Syn7axError for suggesting lowering leg armor strength (way back in the 1.0 release thread)

Nexus user Karth Galin for suggesting changes to quest timers

Reddit user D0UB1EA for also suggesting quest timer changes

 

[Khamukkamu]

Would you suggest this mod to someone who plays VC in Normal / Easy difficulty? Or this is finetuned for harder difficulty settings?

 

[Tingyun]

Hi Khamukkamu!

Definitely! Indeed average campaign AI is the recomended setting for Balance Mod. I have modded average though to remove some of the ways warband “cheats” for the player, for example removing code making player kingdom centers less likely to be targeted by the AI compared to AI kingdoms. Easy retains those features, but average campaign AI in Balance Mod is essentially intended as the fair difficulty, with no cheats for or against player. I also slowed down AI recruiting on average, and removed some anti player cheats on hard, essentially making the choice between average vs hard campaign AI a clear choice of “how fast and cheaply do you want the AI to recover troops after being defeated.”

I play on average campaign AI, and recommend it as the most balanced choice. Now, in some ways Balance Mod will be harder than vanilla VC because of other changes (for example, AI lords will have more elite armies, no more sky-high prices for loot sold in bandit camps and refuge, and trying to recruit troops of other religions is harder), but in other ways Balance Mod makes the game easier (for example, 99% ship capture rate means much more profit from fighting at sea, added building options to protect shrines/churches from rioting so religious conversion is viable, player lords who own a village can quickly press large numbers of low tier men into their service, dramatically increased mercenary contract pay and some quest rewards, etc). So the intent has been balance rather than difficulty, making some things harder and other things easier.

The most important way for a player to fine tune difficulty is actually not with the campaign AI setting, but rather with the “beginner”, “normal”, “hardcore” leveling and finance settings (Balance Mod fixes the vanilla VC bug where hardcore finance lowered costs). Finance setting affects upgrade costs, leveling affects xp required, so both of these are essentially a choice in how fast the player wants a powerful upgraded army.

The second way to fine tune difficulty is by choosing between the default “realistic travel speeds” version and the alternate “restore vanilla 2x as fast as realistic speeds” download. Slower speed means less loot per wage period (and a greater emphasis on fiefs/merc contracts for income, as they remain as productive as before), so this is essentially a choice in how easy it will be to maintain and feed a large army.

Balance Mod has also made VC more new-player-friendly in some ways—Vanilla VC made stat points very rare with its leveling system (only +1 every 5 levels), but then locked a great many stat points behind opaque mechanics (character creation choices offering dramatically more or less stat points, and events that a player might miss). Essentially in vanilla VC a player informed of optimal character creation choices and events could have some 30-40 character levels worth of additional stat points compared to a new player. Balance Mod instead makes all character creation choices give the same total number of stat points (except age, which is clearly marked for the player in the text description as being best at the middle choice), and no in-game stat increases are permanently missable simply through bad luck or lack of advance knowledge (random event for +1 str and int no longer requires the character have known in advance to always carry 20,000 coins in inventory for when it fires, the Druid sacrifice can no longer randomly fail, etc).

 

[Khamukkamu]

Thanks. I have actually not have finished VC, and will probably not feel the 'effects' of your submod. I will try it out when I have the time, and will definitely let you know if it makes the game feel subjectively better for me   Thanks for your work on this submod 

 

[Tingyun]

Thank you for your work on The Last Days! My other Norse warband character is a rider of Rohan.

 

[Joaquin823]

Hello, this will be the first time I post I make to this forum, and thanks in advance for reading this. So far I like that standard bearers for the Norse faction have the "Troll Axe" instead, which I am a fan of. What I don't understand is why standards have been removed from their load-outs all together. I get that this doesn't mean they can't be "symbolic" standard bearers outside of battle, but if we are going down that route, why not give other factions some kind of secondary weapon along with their standards.

On that note, maybe a short sword for Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and a goidelic-short swords for Irish and Pictish kingdoms, and maybe some kind of short-axe or sword for British kingdoms. I'm just throwing out some ideas, but if adding weapons to their loadouts prevents them from using standards up close, then please let me know. Thank you all for reading and your consideration.

 

[Tingyun]

EDIT: below changes added in 7.1, up for download now

Hi Joaquin823:

The Norse standard bearers are on their way to being completely repurposed into a new unit. In the next version they won’t be associated with the standard bearer + leadership mechanic at all, instead just being dedicated Dane axe wielding warriors.

Instead, in the next version the Norse troop tree will be unique in deriving their + leadership bonus from the Tier V huscarls. The idea will be that having so many (10-30) elite bodyguards brings the chieftain prestige and so grants the leadership bonus. The game balance aim is to let Norse armies have a slightly higher proportion of fighting units, to help create asymmetric balance with the other game mechanics that weigh against pagan players (religion recruiting penalties in almost all towns, no same religion other faction recruits, no relations bonus for high honor with upstanding pagan lords, more limitied lords to recruit).

Save compatibility is a major goal of Balance Mod, which meant also in creating this new unit, I had to find an existing unit that had all the right skills, because changing unit stats doesn’t work in existing saves. That’s why the Standard Bearer was picked—it had the right 2 handed WP and good skills for a Tier IV unit.

So in 7.0 I got the units new loadout and function out there, but I didn’t have time yet to do the final steps of the transformation and transfer out its old function, namely doing the following:

A) change Norse standard bearer unit name

B) change troll axe weapon name

C) switch the + leadership mechanic to the Norse huscarls

D) change the menu displays so they properly indicated to the Norse player he needs huscarls instead of standard bearers for the bonus

E) test the above to ensure no problems and full save compatibility

So in the meantime the unit continues having dual roles, but it will all be done for the next version.