SP Native Woodlands Mod

[Hallequin]

Thanks for answering my questionaire, Nethros. As for progress, well I have been working on a few armor models, but not to any real success. I'll shift back to the scripting part for now.

Hm, if you haven't already, you could add certain leaders (I'm thinking of Braveheart, right now.) to a few partys, that are pretty strong, to give the player a challenge.

I'm thinking about it. I have an idea for the storyline that in the beggining, a part of the kingdom (the part near the river, for example) has broken off, and a war occurs between the two sides. You will eventually have to beat a few main parties (and capture the uber strong leaders for your king), to make them surrender and join with the main kingdom again. I don't think I'll implement village/town battles for this, but there might be one or two outposts (like the native castles, but wooden) that you would have to capture to complete the objective of beating the rebel kingdom, and you could eventually keep them.

So this would be the first part of the storyline, after the completion of which, you would move on to the second part, defending the kingdom from outsider (Swadian/Vaegir) invaders.

Since you're one faction against two, your troops should be superior to the Swadians, and the Vaegirs. Also, I would like to see lots of heros, but that's my personal preference.

Definately, but I'll try to keep it balanced as well. As for heroes, I think around 5-6 that the player can get to recruit at various stages is enough.

I can see the point of including ambushes in M&B, it would be very welcome. Although the real prerequisite for interesting ambushes ought to be a preview of the terrain before battle(to choose troops and tactics) and formations.

Not possible with M&B's engine as is, so not going to happen.

AFAIU formations at least are not going to happen in native, ever.

The Gladiator mod has some sort of formations. I haven't tried, but I've seen a vid of it. I have some hope/belief that it will happen for Native as well.

So the main idea of this mod is to add a good ranged faction that is at odds with everyone, much like the Warhammer woodelves.[/quote]

Haven't played Warhammer, but I believe it's similar.

Myself I have no interest in such a mod as it will consist of repetitive and pointless battles just as in the current native.
Without a strategical and political dimension where your char is a part of a greater purpose and trying to improve his station in life by choices affecting the great plan, M&B is fairly boring. As are all mods only adding new items and factions with retweaked stats.

Well, I am trying to add some sort of storyline that you will have the chance to play out or even change, so it might be a little more than what you described. But, I can enjoy M&B as is, because the combat itself is pretty fun, and though storylines add to the enjoyability, they aren't required to make a game enjoyable.

 

[Nethros]

You could always retexture current models.

Eother, it'd be hard to keep it balanced with troops, because from what I've seen, the woodsmen won't have any super armor.

 

[Hallequin]

You could always retexture current models.

Eother, it'd be hard to keep it balanced with troops, because from what I've seen, the woodsmen won't have any super armor.

They might not have superior armor, but they will have superior stats, and hopefully slightly superior weapons, like better bows.

 

[Nethros]

Yeah.

Another suggestion is to add in the story that they had elders in their villages that helped them.

Ya' know.

 

[Hallequin]

Each village will have it's elder, which will be like the counts and duke in Native, in the sense that they'll be the ones who give you missions and rewards.

 

[Nethros]

Okay. Sounds good.

I'll definately be checking this out. It seems to have a lot of potential.

 

[Hallequin]

Done with the troop tree. Here's a little test of the axemen. The 3 spear units are done too, but I'm too lazy to test 'em right now.

They're the same as in the troop tree, just I changed the names of a few elite axemen, I think. Oh, and the king's axes are supposed to have shields. I didn't add 'em cause I'm hoping to make some special ones for them.

So, what should I change?

 

[rmancrusader]

Looks great, but maybe you dhould make some new leather jerkins, thay dont really look like woodlanders that much.

 

[Apollon-04]

Yeah, it looks very weird for a woodsmen to have a coat of plates.

 

[orwiz]

Sounds good mod hope u don´t cansel the making of this mod.

 

[Hallequin]

Looks great, but maybe you dhould make some new leather jerkins, thay dont really look like woodlanders that much.

I'm leaving the armors for last, so sorry, but not quite yet.

Yeah, it looks very weird for a woodsmen to have a coat of plates.

Why not? First of all, only the top end troops will have them, and coats of plates, also known as brigandines, were very commonly used by archers in the 13th-14th century. And since these are archers, why not?

Great, just one thing: You don't cut trees with war axes; try hatchets.

Why? I mean the hatchets are small and light, whereas a large, heavy axe can bite a tree better than a small hatchet, being of more practical use.

 

[Apollon-04]

Yeah, it looks very weird for a woodsmen to have a coat of plates.

Why not? First of all, only the top end troops will have them, and coats of plates, also known as brigandines, were very commonly used by archers in the 13th-14th century. And since these are archers, why not?

Not because their archers, but because they live in the woods. They wouldnt have access to mines, forges, etc. So they couldnt make a metal coat of plates. But they would be able to make leather, etc.

 

[Hallequin]

They're not meant to be completely cut off from the world (rumors of a secret trade agreement with zendar), but they're access to the world market is limited, so foreign goods exist(chain mail and such), but are limited, so they're restricted to [some of] the elite troops.

Anyways, I'll be replacing most of the native armors for this mod in the future, so I'll fix that.

 

[Eother]

They're the recluses then. Some people might know of them, but nobody really thinks about it.

 

[Nethoras]

the woodsmen are WAY to well armoured, the kings axes should be the only ones with any scrap of non leather armour, honestly, it just ruins the whole woodsmen feel, Its just another troop type that uses an axe as opposed to a sword/pick etc whatev, I know its been said over and over agin, but maybye you should make a new troop tree for actual soldiers; not just loggers... then they could have armour, but otherwise you lose the coolness of having an army of guys wearing nothing but a tough pair of trousers (not pants) and a murderous grin who run across the feild with an oversized axe maybye if you want the axemens armour to improve without ruining atmosphere, you could give them warpaint that denotes their fighting skill, obviously the best axemen get the most intracate warpaint, that counts as armour (nothing above like 13 armour points or whatever you call em)
just a suggestion that I think would be key-oooel.

 

[Eother]

That would hurt the gameplay, if all your men sucked and didn't have armor.

 

[Hallequin]

the woodsmen are WAY to well armoured, the kings axes should be the only ones with any scrap of non leather armour, honestly, it just ruins the whole woodsmen feel, Its just another troop type that uses an axe as opposed to a sword/pick etc whatev, I know its been said over and over agin, but maybye you should make a new troop tree for actual soldiers; not just loggers... then they could have armour, but otherwise you lose the coolness of having an army of guys wearing nothing but a tough pair of trousers (not pants) and a murderous grin who run across the feild with an oversized axe maybye if you want the axemens armour to improve without ruining atmosphere, you could give them warpaint that denotes their fighting skill, obviously the best axemen get the most intracate warpaint, that counts as armour (nothing above like 13 armour points or whatever you call em)
just a suggestion that I think would be key-oooel.

As I said before, and I said again, most of the armors are temporary. I'll be making new ones as well as reskinning many of the existing armors, and I will change that, but that isn't my main concern right now. Nevertheless, I agree with most of your remarks. I will change the chain mail armors for all units into leather ones, only the King’s bow unit will have cuir bouilli or variations of it. Others will have small parts of chain mail on the armors, but still be mainly leather.

I will not make a new troop tree, though. All the troops will have humble beginnings and get upgraded to elite units, with experience. I might though make a new archer tree for a “rogue” branch, which will be part of the story/questline.

 

[Nethros]

Oh, and if you manage to code it, you could do something so that when the game reaches a certain number of days, they get their own uniforms or something.

 

[Hallequin]

What do you mean by that?

 

[Nethros]

For example:

If the number of days is lesser than 90, they use the type of armor they can get, but when the days equals or is greater than 90, they'll get their own type of uniform clothing, and maybe coat of arms or something...help from foreign countrys or a secret organization, you know?

After that, your party gets more morale.