A Couple Questions About Upgrades (Armour and Weapons)

[Psyco]

I apologize beforehand for the size of the post

I'm planning on doing a small bit of modding (making castles more useful, etc), but before I start, I want to make sure I don't break anything.

Question 1- Can you make all units have "leather armor" and able to upgrade 3 times? If possible, how would I go about doing this (I assume start in the export_descr_unit, but from there, I'm not sure)?

I intend to make armouries something like this:


Building | Cost | Effect
Leather Tanner 1000 10% Discount on Retraining (like the Hospitals)
Blacksmith 2000 10% Discount on Retraining, +1 Armour
Armourer 3000 20% Discount on Retraining, +1 Armour
Heavy Armourer 4000 20% Discount on Retraining, +2 Armour
Master Armourer 5000 40% Discount on Retraining, +2 Armour
Armour Factory 6000 40% Discount on Retraining, +3 Armour

I dislike the way that troops lower on the tech tree are so much easier to produce and upgrade than more elite troops, while not much worse. This change is one of a couple meant to combat this.
Is it possible to take a unit, Zweihanders, for instance, who could only get one armour upgrade (to bronze), and give them "leather armour" while keeping their armour value the same, so that they can get the full 3 upgrades? I assume I would also need to change something to do with the skins due to visible upgrades, but I don't know what (I have no intention of reskinning, so the further upgrades would use the highest upgraded skin available for that unit).

Question 2- Can you allow everyone to get 3 levels of weapon upgrades?
(I'm not sure that this question is valid, because although I assumed the Master Swordsmith would upgrade weapons by 2, this might not be the case)
Question 2a- Can you change the number of Garrison Slots provided by City Walls? Also, can you have other buildings give Garrison slots, and how do they interact (add together, only the highest counts, etc)?

I'm going to change barracks to approximately this (costs will probably remain the same):

HRE City (cities will have 2 Garrison Slots from Town level to City and 4 from Large City onwards)
Building | Effect
Town Watch Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia and Militia Crossbows
Town Guard Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia and Militia Crossbows; +1 Experience to all units recruited in the Barracks
City Watch Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia and Militia Crossbows; +1 Experience to all units recruited in the Barracks; +3 Garrison Slots (assuming that Garrison Slots add)
Militia Drill Square Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia, Militia Crossbows, Halberd Militia and Pike Militia; +1 Experience to all units recruited in the Barracks; +3 Garrison Slots
Militia Barracks Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia, Militia Crossbows, Halberd Militia and Pike Militia; +3 Experience to all units recruited in the Barracks; +3 Garrison Slots
Army Barracks Trains Town Militia, Spear Militia, Militia Crossbows, Halberd Militia and Pike Militia; +4 Experience to all units recruited in the Barracks; +6 Garrison Slots

HRE Castle (all foot troops are available from the Castle corresponding to the barracks that they would normally be trained from [Zweihanders trained from Citadel rather than Armoury].
All Cavalry require the stables [no cavalry trained from the Castle building])
Building | Effect
Mustering Hall +1 Experience to all Castle foot troops
Garrison Quarters +2 Experience to all Castle foot troops
Drill Square +2 Experience to all Castle foot troops, +1 Weapon
Barracks +3 Experience to all Castle foot troops, +2 Weapon
Armoury +4 Experience to all Castle foot troops, +3 Weapon

Would this be possible?

Thanks

[JaM]

It is possible to add more armor points in one upgrade.THe only limit is that you can add only +3 armor points at all. way to make this is simple. You have to edit armour_ug_levels , armour_ug_models stats.

Example: You have a unit that with base leather armor (4) and you want make that upgrading to light chain will add +2, so you will have to change


from: armour_ug_levels 1,2 to armour_ug_levels 1,2,2

if you have a unit that have 3 upgrade posibilities, then you will have to sacrifice some of them. I thisnk that this is not a big problem as there a lots of duplicate units,for example we have Billmen and Bill Militia,Heavy Billmen, Heavy Bilmen militia so its not a problem make Militia units to be low tech units.

A second possiblity how to make armor upgrade worth its cost is completelly lower all attack and armor+shield stats. I did it in my own EDU and it works perfectly.

My values are 0 unarmored,1 leather,2 light chain,3 heavy chain, 5 partial plate, 6 full pate, 7 adv plate.

(+2jump between heavy chain and part plate due to better protective capabilities of plate armor)
same with shields (i know they dont work as they should in melee,its known bug)
1 light shield, 2 medium shield, 3 pavise

right now shield are working only against missiles and make negative bonus in melee. The best way to overcome this is add to unit with shield same defence value (not armor) as the shield value. The only negative is that unit will be stronger in autocauculated battles, but not too strong, and enemies will have same units too.

In my EDU all misiles have low values (bows have attack 2,longbows 3+AP, crossbows 4+AP,arbalests (steel crosbows) 5+AP)

So unit in partial plate armor with medium shield will be quite resistant against base arrows,but will be vulnerable to AP bolts and partially against Longbow AP arrows (only half of armor counts against AP projectiles).

I'm still working on my EDU, and i will release it as soon i can.

[JaM]

I acsed on official forum about armor upgrades and i was informed by that there is nothig behind the armor upgrades. Armor upgrades just add +1, and there isnt any secret system behind. So units with the same type of armor (leateher) dont have same protection.

[Psyco]

Thanks for the reply.

I probably should have posted earlier, but I have answers to my questions.

For the armour upgrades, I gave all units "armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2, 3", then made the armouries give the corresponding upgrades (Blacksmith got "armour 1", Heavy Armourer got "armour 2", Armour Factory got "armour 3").

For the weapon upgrades, it was as easy as adding the lines "weapon_melee_blade 1", "weapon_melee_blade 2" and "weapon_melee_blade 3" (although the second and third upgrades aren't available in the game, and show up as bronze on the unit cards, it gives the correct bonus)

[Point_Blank]

It is possible to add more armor points in one upgrade.THe only limit is that you can add only +3 armor points at all. way to make this is simple. You have to edit armour_ug_levels , armour_ug_models stats.

Example: You have a unit that with base leather armor (4) and you want make that upgrading to light chain will add +2, so you will have to change


from: armour_ug_levels 1,2 to armour_ug_levels 1,2,2

if you have a unit that have 3 upgrade posibilities, then you will have to sacrifice some of them. I thisnk that this is not a big problem as there a lots of duplicate units,for example we have Billmen and Bill Militia,Heavy Billmen, Heavy Bilmen militia so its not a problem make Militia units to be low tech units.

A second possiblity how to make armor upgrade worth its cost is completelly lower all attack and armor+shield stats. I did it in my own EDU and it works perfectly.

My values are 0 unarmored,1 leather,2 light chain,3 heavy chain, 5 partial plate, 6 full pate, 7 adv plate.

(+2jump between heavy chain and part plate due to better protective capabilities of plate armor)
same with shields (i know they dont work as they should in melee,its known bug)
1 light shield, 2 medium shield, 3 pavise

right now shield are working only against missiles and make negative bonus in melee. The best way to overcome this is add to unit with shield same defence value (not armor) as the shield value. The only negative is that unit will be stronger in autocauculated battles, but not too strong, and enemies will have same units too.

In my EDU all misiles have low values (bows have attack 2,longbows 3+AP, crossbows 4+AP,arbalests (steel crosbows) 5+AP)

So unit in partial plate armor with medium shield will be quite resistant against base arrows,but will be vulnerable to AP bolts and partially against Longbow AP arrows (only half of armor counts against AP projectiles).

I'm still working on my EDU, and i will release it as soon i can.

Interesting, I was just about to start modifying my EDU in the same direction. Can you please send me what you have so far? I would really like to see what you have done with defense skill values and attack values too, so if a longbow is 3+AP, what have you done with melee weapons etc to compare.

My email is Lee_Vincent@xtra.co.nz, thanks :)

[JaM]

Here is my last EDU file with lovered stats. I did some minor changes:

Armor levels are now:
0 unarmored
1 padded
2 light mail
3 heavy mail
5 partial Plate
6 Full Plate
7 Adv Plate (units with Gothic armor have 8)

When upgrading from Heavy mail to Partial plate unit will recieve +2 bonus instead of standard +1

All attack values are lowered: Spear 1 (+4 against cavalry),Pikes 1(+8against cavalry)Sword 4 (elite units have 5),Mace 5 (AP),Axe 6-7 (one-handed,Two handed,+bonus for elites),Bows 2,Longbows 3+AP,Crossbows 4+AP,Arbalests 5+AP, Halberds 2+AP(+4against cavalry),4-5 Lances... etc

This EDU is only working with latest DARTH VADER Open Source (01/20/2007)
(I used his arrows so you need atleast descr projectile files)

Defence values are higher for most units, All units with shields recieved additional bonus as shields dont work in melee,only against ranged attacks. (with exception for all Pavise units - Pavises were extremly heavy, hardly useful in melee).

All Knights have 2HP but are reduced in number to half (40 in huge setings) (2HP will not help them survive frontal charges against pikemans)

[JaM]

Sorry, i didnt realised that i cant post any attachments... If anybody interested, PM me and i will send you file