Final mod poll

[Zim]

This will be the final mod poll. In one corner, we have the reigning champion of mod poll round 1, Lands to Conquer. Designed by Lusted, a distinguished modder that has gone on to to find employment with Creative Assembly. Lands to Conquer improves the game in just about every way imaginable while keeping much of the feel from vanilla. Better AI on and off the battlefield, slower pace on the campaign map, added features from Kingdoms, rebalancing of almost every facet of the game, and it is extraordinarily stable. I have played earlier versions and found them to be everything that vanilla should have been and more. It also has its own minimods and I am told is fairly easy to mod itself, compared to heavier full conversion mods. A description of the latest version and its features can be found here.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=137614

In the other corner we have Deus lo Vult. This mod has been put forth by CecilXIX as the best mod for our game. Deus lo Vult has a history every bit as distinguished as LTC, having been started in the early days of MTW2 with its last major version coming out just several months ago. It's strengths lie largely in its numerous features, offering many improvements to the game, and many aids to roleplaying. It has been brought up that as a more complicated mod DLV may be more difficult for us to mod to our purposes for the game, and contains some features that would have to be modded out for use in the game (note that at least some features can be deselected prior to installing).

For an explanation of some of the mod's cooler features I will direct everyone to Cecil's post below, as he has first hand experience with the mod.

I'd like to recommend Deus Lo Vult (DLV) very strongly. It's a well-made mod that's added many features, many of which would be great for roleplaying, and it is also available for both Vanilla and Kingdoms.

By far the best part of using DLV (for our purposes) is the ranking system. Anyone remember in LOTR how you had to be "certified" by a senior noble first before you could 'legally' command a battle? Remember how we all ignored it and moved each other through the process as quickly as possible because it didn't really mean anything? It was a good idea though, and DLV implements it in a very interesting way.

See here for a diagram of the system.

There a five ranks, available only to those who aren't The bottom two give morale penalties to represent the soldiers being uneasy at being led by a rookie. The other three give bonuses in the form of a trait and ancillary. There is limited space for the top three ranks, not everyone can get their own banner, although that may not matter depending on turnout. Still, the system as a nice hierarchal effect and would give excellent roleplaying opportunities.

The mod does have some of the traits that we don't want, such as a system for civil wars, but that can be eliminated by simply removing the triggers for one trait. There is a way for the FL to lock disobediant generals and family members in a Dungeon in the capital, which would be quite interesting.

There may also not be enough money to give everyone much to do, however DLV for Kingdoms starts each campaign with a series of yes/no questions on how much of the script should be activated. We could removed the extra monetary penalties the game levies for having (practically) anything outside a settlement, if we should so choose.

Those options are discussed here.

Other roleplay-enhancements include -

• Having characters choose careers (General or govenor?)
• Young military cadets can pick up traits by being in a stack adjacent to an experienced general.
• Old generals can retire and become govenors, for a fee.
• Cavalry units require a suitably high-ranked knight to be recruited
• A rank system for govenors
• A faction must accumulate 'government points' and 'military points' in order to upgrade settlements. (This can be switched off at the start of the campaign if we so choose)
• Crowns, Royal Banners, Province Banners and Legendary Swords. (Faction Leaders can gain multiple crowns!)
• Generals are given a trait representative of their command experience.
• Characters age, giving penalties. They can also die at anytime from ages 50-110. (Not having predictable deathdates would be a *huge* plus, in my opinion.

I know it's a lot, but it's really a nice mod. Here are some links for more info.

Download page for Kingdoms Version
Download thread for Vanilla version
Manual for Kingdoms version
Guide to the features of Kingdom's version.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Abstain.

[TheFlax]

I voted LTC.

DLV looks nice, it has some interesting features, yet in the end I'm afraid we will get in another situation like we had for LotR; being stuck with features with don't want. I'm in favor of something simple and would rather roleplay without the constraints of annoying features. (Even if missing out on a few features that give more mechanical aspects to the roleplay.)

Hopefully I made some sense.

[Cecil XIX]

The problem of over-complicating things is real, but easily avoided. If we just decline the scripts the mod offers at the beginning of the campaign, and remove the one line of traits that triggers the civil war system, I don't think DLV would make things more complicated. It's all rather intuitive. I would be more than willing to personal provide the modified files that would remove not only the civil war system, but also the province title ancillaries if we so desire.

And the extra campaign scripts, which work very well for a normal singleplayer, might be too restrictive for this type of game where power is less centralized and people have certain expectations about the availability of action. These can be decline at the beginning of the campaign by Zim via pop-up, though I'd reccomend keeping the extra-agressive AI.

LTC Gold is an excellent mod, and beautifully simple and modest in scope. In fact, I would say it is more "vanilla" than the regular vanilla game, it's how the unmodded game is supposed to be. But I think the many added features of DLV, particularly the Heraldric ranks and the fact that characters that can live from 50 to 110, make it the superior choice.

[mini]

i voted DLV

[_Tristan_]

Voted DLV if only for the "character age limit" reason... I think it will had some "piquant" to some situations and will prevent us from meta-gaming, by estimating the probable deaths of the principal characters... And it leaves a Damocles' swords over the heads of all avatars that want to make something of their lives...

[Zim]

New posts in the prior mod poll thread that perhaps were meant to be posted here.

In looking over DLV, the economics are such that it would be very important to have some uber-governors to keep the cash flow going in the right direction early on. Is there a feeling that there are players who would be comfortable playing out those roles? Considering how we got into that downward cash spiral in LOTR at the end, it seems just as easy to do the same thing if not easier with DLV. Is this something that will be an issue, especially with the lack of collective experience with the mod?

In all fairness, the crash at the end of LotR was more or less on purpose, but it does seem we would need governors. I for one would not mind playing one, but I suspect I'm in the minority.

[mini]

if using DLV, maybe we can work with the governor/general thing in the rules set?

For instance: Dukes are best to be governors, governing their capital city.
They then attrack other governors to their house, which they make counts to govern other cities in their territory.
They can also attrack other players which are generals, who can do the fighting for them, and whom they can make counts of castles in their territories...

Something like that, just brainstorming. if we use that piece of gameplay, we must consider incentives for choosing either path for any player who stands before the choice.

[Cecil XIX]

The issue of needing to have govenors will only exist if we choose it. It stems from three features:

1. Settlements cost an extra amount of money each turn, larger settlements cost more.
2. Generals and agents cost various amounts of money each turn they are outside a friendly settlement. (Every time we besiege a settlement it could cost us 2000 extra florins a turn!)
3. Govenors allow the build up of govenor-points, which are necessary in order to build the buildings necessary to upgrade cities.

Each of these three features can be deactivated at the start of the campaign. I would, in fact, reccomend doing so, especially with the second feature I outlined. These features work great when it's just one person playing a campaign, but a ampaign played by several people simulataneously has different recquirements. The best to play DLV normally would be too restrictive for a WOTS-style campaign.

Fortunately the game allows us to customize how much of the script we want to run. Even apart from that, I am quite confident I can edit the traist and ancillaries files in order to eliminate other features we decide to exclude, such as the civil war system. I am confident this will make DLV the mod with the best net contribution to LOTR's successor.

[Zim]

Seeing how close this was when the poll was closed after two days, I sent a pm to a mod to see if they're able to reopen it. If not maybe people who haven't gotten a chance to vote could pm me their choices? Or pm them to a mod who could send them on to me so it would remain anonymous?