Stainless steel?

Hey everyone, I've noticed many of you play Stainless Steel and was thinking about trying the mod out. However, I have some questions that I can't seem to find the answers to after searching the forums and going over to Stainless Steel Twcenter page.

1. How much harder is SS compared to vanilla?
2. How is the unite balance, I really liked the balance in kingdoms (haven't patched to 1.5 yet)
3. How is general gameplay compared to vanilla, ie. can you go on crazy blizts? can you turtle?
4. Are settlements harder to manage?
5. Is it easy to recruit elite units like in vanilla or are elite units harder to come by.
6. In general what makes SS better than vanilla?

I know there are similar threads already, but I read them and still couldn't really get any answers, most people just stated that SS was great without giving many details.

I also went to TWcenter where the moder outlined what the mod did in bullet form (ex: assassins success slightly increased), which left me wondering how this really effected the overall game play. (ex: do you lose more characters to assassins? Does the AI use assassins more? do you use assassins more in SS than vanilla? ect.)

If anyone has a link to a good thread that already exists on the subject please let me know.

Thanks for the help

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1. How much harder is SS compared to vanilla?

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Much harder. The Campaign and battle AI were originally Lusted's LTC gold AI, so you know it's gonna be a challenge, since 5.1 I believe kong has continued to tweak and improve upon it. The AI uses its Naval forces in good synergy with it's ground troops, movement points feel lowered from vanilla (or maybe it's just the bigger map making it feel that way. Or both.) so you got to be careful with your armies and not let the AI outflank you and hit your cities. I've found using your navy to trasnport your army is almost a must as of course navy movement > ground movement.

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How is the unite balance, I really liked the balance in kingdoms (haven't patched to 1.5 yet)

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Bodyguard units are a big too strong but they can be taken down like anything else. I've played three campaigns so far; Spain, England and Byzantium and so far I've not noticed any uber units that just rip everything up and cannot be killed. That's just me though.

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How is general gameplay compared to vanilla, ie. can you go on crazy blizts? can you turtle?

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I haven't tried blitzing but turtling is in tact. I turtled and teched up in my England game and for the most part the AI will honor it's alliances with you and let you be (for a while) to turtle. (unless it's on VH, then they cannot be trusted!).

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4. Are settlements harder to manage?

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Rebellion triggers in 6.0 were out of this world, 6.1 is a bit more tame in regards to that thankfully. You still have to worry about happiness and rebellion but now its more manageable.

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5. Is it easy to recruit elite units like in vanilla or are elite units harder to come by.

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You need to tech up if you want the elite units, it takes a little while to get the heavy hitters but the great thing is the AI is much better at teching up than you. After about 1120-30 if you capture one of their castles odds are it's gonna be able to recruit some tough units. I think they may get a king's purse bonus or something since I regularly see little guys like Genoa or Sicily with only a few provinces appearing with like 6 stacks. :skull:

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6. In general what makes SS better than vanilla?

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Reskinned units, campaign and battle AI that can actually beat you, bigger map, lots of new factions, reskinned campaign models for characters/cities/castles. I could go on. :yes:

There's also a supply system that adds supply lines into the game; basically it makes so your armies can only be in the field for so many turns before their morale drops. I don't really like it and thankfully there's mods on the main SS board at TWcenter to remove it if it's not your cup of tea. :thumbsup:

IMO it is much harder to pull off an early blitz, because 1) the map is much bigger -> longer ways and 2) starting militaries are smaller. So best advice would be to wait a few turns and build basics and recruit some troops, then assemble one or two forces and go after your rebel neighbours. In general, the pace of the game seems much slower. This is something I like and value very much with e.g. EB, but I still have to get used to it in M2TW.

You might want to start a campaign in LTC to get a feel for the slower pace, the way the AI functions, and unit differences, especially the much more effective pikemen.

Thanks allot for all the feedback guys. Yeah I defiantly want a slower pace game, in vanilla I find myself expanding quickly and finishing the campaign way before time runs out. Also, I like that pikemen work better, it always drove me nuts in vanilla having to micro manage my pike units. I don't know how I feel about the army supply mod, I might turn that off. Otherwise I think I'm going to make the up grade. Thanks again guys for the quick response and insight. On more question: did they increase build times for buildings?

yeah for almost everything as far as I have seen. I don't think there are any 1 turn builds anymore.

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Originally Posted by Elite Ferret

yeah for almost everything as far as I have seen. I don't think there are any 1 turn builds anymore.

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That's correct, roads and bottom tier churches are now 2 turn builds. The default campaign turn length for the Early era (SS has a Late era as well) is 1.5 year turns but I did a quick edit and made it 1 year turns to slow it down even more. I'm quite happy with this mod and recommend it if nothing else to try out and see if you like it.

The only thing to watch out for is SS has menu crashes that plague the faction select screen if you jump around clicking the symbols; if you go right to the faction you're wanting to play however the crashes won't happen. :thumbsup:

It's already been mentioned but perhaps not stated enough - the map in 6.1 is now HUGE. It's as big as the programming can actually handle and it really does feel like you've built an empire.

There's also a recruitment mod with 6.1 which affects (read as slows down) your ability to recruit high level units. In effect you have to take time building up an army of any quality and then use it wisely once you've got it. Combined with the supply mod, blitzing becomes far more difficult, and you have to plan your early expansion carefully.

I can't recommend it enough though. I'd stopped playing m2 and kingdoms until I found stainless steel. The only downside is the size of thing!


Just to clarify - when I say size at the end there I mean the size in MB of the download, not the map size.


[Merged your two posts rogether for ya. -- Martok ]

SS sounds incredible, can't wait to download it. I just have to find time to move my CPU to download it because I still have dial-up at my house (since its such a large mod). Thanks again to all for their feed back will post my first impressions.

Played SS 6.1 for a few hours.

It is a lot more fun than Vanilla, a lot harder. A nice selection of mini mods.

Everything takes so long to build and train though. And the end turn is slooow.

I finally got SS 6.1 downloaded last night. Do you think I'll have time to finish one long campaign, early era before I retire at the end of August? (Who will be the first to explain in 10 pages or less how I can easily win by blitzing in 25 turns without cheating or exploiting or even going to the restroom once?)

In SS 6.1 I can confidently say that blitzing in 25 turns is impossible, unless you cheat.

Am I right in thinking that in 6.1 they've got rid of the New World? Is that why the map is so huge now?

Makes sense I suppose, to use all that space taken up by empty sea to expand the map of Europe instead. After all, the Aztecs are quite fun the first few times, but I rarely keep playing long enough to get there.

This is indeed true, there is still a lot of wasted land in the South as well, with some tweaking there the map could be even bigger...

Hm, well there are a lot of new southern provinces in the east. Haven't played that enough to see whether they are useful or not.

Well G2,I've just downloaded it. My initial impression is that it looks good, very good. I wouldn't bother with too much of the detail. If you aer getting a bit bored with the vanilla version then give it a try!

I find with mods that it is best to try then out & see what suits you - same game, different flavour.

I love the look of the map but remember, it is a mod so there will be bugs...

These guys do such a service putting them together...give it ago!

Henri

Hey Henry707 and everyone, well I finally was able to get SS on my CPU (after moving it to a friends house to take advantage of his high speed internet connection) my impressions. Wow. SS is great I wish I would have tried it earlier. I love how the campaign map with all the extra provinces. I hated how in vanilla the alps really didn't prevent army movement but in SS (im playing genoa) there are plenty of choke points to prevent invasion. (i'm a turtle, defensive player) also love the slower build time, bigger badder rebels, and the training system for your characters. Plus, the AI respects alliances and won't wander around my territories doing nothing. Also, like the titles like in MTW, glad to see them back. Quick question, how do I prevent my generals from getting sick, seems like if their laying seige in the winter they catch phemonia, how do I cure this when they do catch it? Don't think that I will ever go back to vanilla.

p.s. Love the music from Last of the Mochinins(sp?) in the main menu, wish there weren't crashes so I could read all the faction backgrounds and listen to the music. Still a great mod.
G^2

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Originally Posted by I of the Storm

Hm, well there are a lot of new southern provinces in the east. Haven't played that enough to see whether they are useful or not.

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There are only two at the very bottom, one is a town and the other is the large town Mecca, as this was an important city I guess that is why they went so far South.

Curing your generals of sickness is as easy as letting them recoop in a settlement for a turn or two. It's why I've tweaked the campaign a little to be 1 year/turn instead of 1.5 year/turn as there's a lot of character development traits that need to be managed as well as your army/infrastructure

I started a Spanish campaign last night and got to turn 12. I am blitzing about as normal and have taken 3 provinces. I cheated and used "character_reset" to get my Princess over to meet the Pope and get an alliance. She also made an alliance with the Portugese with whom I even have military access. The characters move farther and so do the armies - it must be scaled to the bigger map which is so huge that I am getting a slight delay just before the characters and armies stop their moves. The combat is some of the hardest I've had in M2TW. The armies I started with are small and weak and the AI's are good. The castle assault on Pamploma was a very close run operation and my spearmen really performed poorly against even archers. It was a good thing that I had 2 generals and 5 mailed knights and a jinete. The stats have really been modified, apparently. I didn't bother to check but it seems mailed knights didn't have just a 4 attack before did they? Their charge seemed to be larger. The mercenary spearmen are going to be my schwerpunkt (sp. ?). My wife remarked immediately that the strategic map look much better. Building stuff takes so long that I do not have a cash shortage, which is highly unusual. The added announcements are great. I really like the added ancillaries/titles and added buildings like the school. The Argonese tried to take Valencia but el Cid must have trashed them good as I saw their stack retreat. I think they hurt him enough that as soon as I finish building a ballista maker in Toledo I shall go over and pay him a visist. I guess there is no way to bribe him. I'd really like to take him over to capture Cordoba. I haven't had any generals get sick whilst besieging yet - all the vitamin C and sterile face masks that I furnish all my troops must be helping. This is so much more fun than my last campaign which was a Retrofit HRE that I can't believe I wasted so much time finishing that one. SS is so good that I don't care if Empires doesn't come out until 2010.

Hey guys!

I'm also going to try Stainless Steel, I just finished installing it. I'm not really a die-hard player, I've never even started a campaign on VH/VH basically because I'm lazy. :sweatdrop:
Anyway SS really looks awesome, so my question is:
What faction should I start out with? I apologize if this has been asked before!
I'm not into Blitzing anyways, so even the slow pace should keep me playing! :2thumbsup:

Asking what faction to try first is sorta asking like what flavor of ice-cream to get, everyone is going to suggest something different. Me? I'll suggest trying out England, while not a flashy new addition like the Knights Templar or The Cumans; they have immediate enemies in the Irish and Scottish and uniting the British isles almost a mini-campaign in of itself since it's been expanded a couple more provinces.

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Originally Posted by Monk

Asking what faction to try first is sorta asking like what flavor of ice-cream to get, everyone is going to suggest something different. Me? I'll suggest trying out England, while not a flashy new addition like the Knights Templar or The Cumans; they have immediate enemies in the Irish and Scottish and uniting the British isles almost a mini-campaign in of itself since it's been expanded a couple more provinces.

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Thanks for the quick reply, Monk! I agree with you, but Stainless Steel is is way better balanced than vanilla right? I mean, in vanilla playing England was obviously a lot easier than playing HRE. Anyway gonna play England first, let's see how it goes! ^^

My first go in SS 6.0 was as the English and I tried to play England as I always had, be a good christian for a few decades and tech up then wipe out the scottish. I was very surprised when my forces were unable to blitz very far north and kept getting bogged down or incuring heavy losses.

In SS the Scottish use their navy very effectively, now playing 6.1 I've noticed in ever single game they seem to take York and then sail around England and take the north coast of France. I've even seen them take Antwerp and start wars with Norway advancing as far as Olso. :dizzy2:

Thanks for the help Monk I've noticed that I have to pay allot more attention to my characters in order to ensure they get good traits. Also, as Old Geezer said I can't believe I wasted so much time on vanilla (he had retrofit) when I could have been playing SS. Shadebeard after you finish your English campaign I recommend Genoa as a good faction because you can unite northern Italy and thus have a strong defensive position from the Alps (unlike vanilla were the Alps barely give any choke points), while your cities churn out tons of cash. Beware though, because your cities won't tec up as fast as in vanilla leaving you with Italian Spear Malitia but no Xbows for the first 100 turns or so.

Does anyone know where I can find a download for this mod? I've heard some about it but can't find a download/patch required..

First make sure you have Kingdoms, doesn't really matter what patch you use in my experience.

Then go here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=159996

Linked the main 6.1 thread as it also has install instructions and a full overview of what you're getting.

Threads merged.

Umm, a question...

I'm getting a new computer in a week or so, and it definitely is capable of running M2. But what I'm curious about is this: is there still a SS which enables me to get to the New World, that still has most of the benefits of SS? Its sorta something I'd like to be able to do, I guess, at least a few times while not having to play M2 unmodded.

Do you have Kingdoms? If so I think 5.1 still does and if not 4.1 almost definately does.

Links:4.1 5.1

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Originally Posted by Elite Ferret

Do you have Kingdoms? If so I think 5.1 still does and if not 4.1 almost definately does.

Links:4.1 5.1

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Actually, I have neither game at the moment, as I am waiting for the computer first. Is Kingdoms required for Stainless Steel? I'm rather hesitant about putting SecuRom onto my brand new comptuer.

SS was made without Kingdoms up to 4.1, so that still works with normal M2 but with Kingdoms you can go all the way up to the latest 6.1, which, though it doesn't have America, goes very far East and has loads of factions and a lovely campiagn map.

Just my :2cents: : stainless steel will make the game worth playing...gone will be the days when the AI dind't have a clue where it was...it acctually takes me a little planing to beat the AI armies...and all in all in 6.1 the AI can make armies so dynamic that makes your Uber-Stack obsolete...

Stainless steel will make the game so much more that you would expect...it really is worth playing...I recommend it with all my heart for those who want to have a fun experience with the total war game...



PS: At one point I lost in front of the AI that i wanted to throw my computer out the window, but calmed down, reloaded and beat the crap out of the AI :2reloaded: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :smash: :smash:

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Originally Posted by makaikhaan

Actually, I have neither game at the moment, as I am waiting for the computer first. Is Kingdoms required for Stainless Steel? I'm rather hesitant about putting SecuRom onto my brand new comptuer.

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4.1 is the latest version which doesn't require kingdoms. I am using it and it works perfectly.

The only serious drawback with SS that I have found yet after playing almost 40 turns is that auto-resolving, esp. assaults on settlements, is almost invariably a disaster of the most monumental proportions. I had the same experience in Kingdoms when playing as the Spanish. Field battles as the Spanish against the Moors are ridiculously easy but the assaults are not. It sure is slow moving armies, even with increased movement. I wonder if my generals all die of old age before being able to get to the Middle East if they go crusading or will the armies all starve to death.

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Originally Posted by Old Geezer

The only serious drawback with SS that I have found yet after playing almost 40 turns is that auto-resolving, esp. assaults on settlements, is almost invariably a disaster of the most monumental proportions. I had the same experience in Kingdoms when playing as the Spanish. Field battles as the Spanish against the Moors are ridiculously easy but the assaults are not. It sure is slow moving armies, even with increased movement. I wonder if my generals all die of old age before being able to get to the Middle East if they go crusading or will the armies all starve to death.

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Crusade and Jihad armies have I think triple movement points, stick them on a navy and they can cross the Mediterranean in something like three turns. Not to mention I am almost sure that the AI will warp Jihad/crusade armies as I regularly see them arriving within 3-4 turns even without navies. :wall:

You mean if they don't get stuck or run off in the opposite direction to take a few settlements without the human desertion penalty :grin:
Movement is doubled by default rather than tripled, although it "looks" tripled.

In my English campaign I noticed a french crusade army that hung around Cean for about 10 turns. I was wondering why it never depleted. Personally, I love the new map, its one of my favorite features along with AI diplomacy that makes me love SS.

it's pretty fun, but some of the unit balance still needs further work, there's considerable complaints that the Muslim factions are now nearly unplayable late game.

I'm just starting, I like it so far but the development early on is sloooooow. I had like 20K hanging around every turn with nothing to spend it on :P

also, desert archers are now crazy effective against low armor troops. as it should be I guess.

I'm just worried about the late game :P I'm guessing I can't get camel gunners until REALLY late . that would be bad...

I only play BC and SS6.0 (didn't like 6.1 much, haven't really tried it tbh though) now, and only go back to Vanilla kingdoms so that I can hose the Aztecs with mounted thunder braves. I found that with SS the economy is strong (enough to build buildings anyway) until 50-60 turns in, when your empire is getting large and you need more armies and the buildings get a lot more expensive. I've got 4 saves, one as Denmark, one as England, one as Egypt and one as the Templars.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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The most fun is definately Templars, the first 15 turns were pretty intense, assualting in a seige on SS with the big rebel stacks is horrible. I actually took one settlement (Edessa I think) with only one bodyguard and 2 crossbowmen left, the general had been killed by the last pissing peasent lol.

The only annoying things I found is that changing cities too castles is now realistically priced - 10k florins on hard/v hard - so i've ended up leaving settlements how they are mostly. Also, cavalry, especially bodyguards are a bit too strong (imo), a 10 man bodyguard unit can and has cleaved its way through about 400 spear militia by itself, any heavy cav is the same, spearmen are a mere speedbump too them. Armoured Sergeants are about as heavy spears you get and they get trounced by heavy cav. Meh!

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Originally Posted by Walternat0r

Also, cavalry, especially bodyguards are a bit too strong (imo), a 10 man bodyguard unit can and has cleaved its way through about 400 spear militia by itself, any heavy cav is the same, spearmen are a mere speedbump too them. Armoured Sergeants are about as heavy spears you get and they get trounced by heavy cav. Meh!

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That's disappointing if it's true. One of my favourite things about BC is the fact that even the heaviest cavalry are worthless against spears, meaning that you have to use missiles and heavy infantry. I always find it depressing in vanilla, that building a properly balanced army and having a careful, well-thought-out battle plan is so inferior to simply launching a headlong charge of heavy cavalry which will sweep all before it. A shame if they've decided to go down that road in SS.

How does 4.1 compare to 6.1? I don't have Kingdoms installed.

SS sounds really good, however. I'd love a more competent AI!!

Read this thread and am just starting SS. Best mod by far I've ever played! It raises the immersion level 200% IMO.

I have a question though-Why is it that when one of my princesses manages to nag a 5 or 6 star foreign general into marrying her, the general will (or has every time in my experience) immediately lose most of his stars?? Maybe she has him watching Oprah and The View with her.

That said, I'm very happy that it seems much harder to obtain or develop Generals with high command ratings. In the past, I'd have 10, 10 star Generals in my faction at a time. All it took was winning a battle or two against Rebels. This way, the battles become more challenging.

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Originally Posted by Walternat0r

Also, cavalry, especially bodyguards are a bit too strong (imo), a 10 man bodyguard unit can and has cleaved its way through about 400 spear militia by itself, any heavy cav is the same, spearmen are a mere speedbump too them. Armoured Sergeants are about as heavy spears you get and they get trounced by heavy cav. Meh!

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There's some good submods you can install with SS that reduce the effectiveness of the bodyguards (they are a bit like the jedi kings of old) - i think it's the Total Combat one. Check the sub mod folder from http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=160920

I also have stone forts and the realistic archery/javelin mod. The total combat mod also removes the large banners and instead has standard bearers for each unit which looks amazing. In melee though it's hard to see who's who unless you zoom in close. As i am a general cam purist this isn't too much of a problem.~D

Oh yeah, Lusted has also tweaked the battle and strategic AI to be more sensible - one change i've seen is that the AI moves around as stacks, not in bits and pieces. Garrisons are more sensible too.

I did have the permanent arrows mod too, but when I assaulted a city with a full stack & a full stack of allies, vs a full stack of moors my computer decided it was too much and started to lag (and it's a dual core with 2 megs ram).

early thoughts so far, yes the bodyguards are crazy strong. you could essentially clear away most rebels with nothing but your body guards. I'm thinking about getting the total combat submod.

I really like how real it feels though, basically when you need to actually go to war you start mobilizing your forces, you can't just park a huge army around doing nothing or you'll go broke. but the mercs in the game are much better. making it possible to mobilize a decent army pretty quickly.

on the flip side. it also means that if you lose a decisive battle the consequences is HUGE. because your main army will often need to rely on mercs, which cost a lot of $$$, if you lose your main bulk you will take a looong time to recover, if you do it at all. that's another very realistic aspect of the mod. when you lose a major battle you will lose a lot of ground very quickly.

an example, as the Moors I played nice until I saw the Spaniards snoozing around my land, I decided to lure them into a war, and send a couple of desert cav to hang around those stacks . soon enough one stack of militas + javlin attacked me, I just ran circles around them and won a close victory, after that i mobilized a pretty significant force, basically drawing most of my units from the Granada and Algrave with a significant reinforcement from Africa and Cordoba AND more Mercs and that was only just 1 big stack. i march towards Toledo, after 3 decesive battle the Spainard had nothing but a few militas and their generals remain in the two city, and it remained that way when i took them out about 5 turns later.

battle 1: I marched towards Toledo and the Spainards had a similar idea and marched towards Cordoba, army meet. I win a clear victory.

battle 2: seiging Toledo which only had a rather light garrison, I saw a big relief army comming with a couple of small stacks already hanging next to the castle, deciding that I can't wait to get sandwitched i assaulted a won (though took about 1/6th casualty on my stacks)

battle 3: relief army came to find Toledo occupied. decisdes to reseige it, I looked at our army composition and decided that waiting for a assault is probably a bad idea. (they had mass spear milita I had mostly archers + cavs and a few ballistas. most of my infantry died in the assault) sally forth and after a hard fought battle won a heroic victory.

Spain was basically broken after that, and after I settled down Toledo I send two smallish army to take their two remaining settlements (1 by sea other by land)

Aragon also hit me at this time, but they lost a major battle and immediately sued for peace , I went alone with it because i really had no extra men or money to attack them at this time.

If crusading armies' movement points are doubled will a 40 year old general with a catapult live to travel all the way from London to Jerusalem, if he walks all the way and never runs into a unit and has to stop or detour? It looks like SS will be even worse than vanilla in this regard. I am playing as Leon-Castille now and the Holy Land looks sooo far away.

unit movement point is also higher though. espically the agents. and now most units move at the same speed.

It seemed to me that movement was slower, it takes forever to move anywhere. Maybe that's because I played BC...

Like I said crusade armies have their movement points increased by a lot in SS. You can go from northern to southern france in one turn, hire a mercenary boat and keep going.

It just took me at least 6 turns, IIRC, to march an army with a catapult from the south of France to Vilnus. That's 9 years. Well it would have been but I took the train, i.e., used "character_reset". The only slow up was when we switched to narrow gauge rails. If I give Vilnus to the Pope does King Rodrigo the Merciless get more or less time in Purgatory? My guess is more.

If it were 6-month turns then such a march would still take 3 years. It didn't take AlGore that long to invent the Internet and re-invent the Government.

Poor Gore forever picked on.

Anyone know of a FAQ or Guide to SS. I would be intrested to see all the unit stats and any advice anyone had for the mod.

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Originally Posted by G^2

Poor Gore forever picked on.

Anyone know of a FAQ or Guide to SS. I would be intrested to see all the unit stats and any advice anyone had for the mod.

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While it's not a guide, this will give you a great overview of every faction/unit in SS 6.1 as well as stats for those units. It also has a few other mods like BC as well as the Kingdom campaigns and vanilla m2. Check it out!

http://totalwar.honga.net/faction.php?v=ss6&encode=en

I didn't make this, another user by the name of Honga made it and it's very helpful. All props to him. :2thumbsup:

Thanks for the quick reply Monk that was exactly what I was looking for. I have spent about a week trying to find some type of Guide, EB was so user friendly because any information you wanted to find was right there on the web sight. Koodos to Honga for taking the time to make the Faq.

I'm having a fun time as the Cuman, really tough. they start with piss poor land almost completely landlocked (they have one settlement that can build ports... to the Caspian... zzzz)

I made a made dash towards the baltic, but I'm still making no money now that I have 3 ports on the Baltic and 3 more on the black sea along with 2 on the Caspian.

the thing is that I need to convert a lot of those castles to towns, as the biggest advantage for the Cuman is that their bread and butter unit (Cuman Horse archer) can be build in both types of settlements anyway. but conversion is REALLY costly to say the least.

dispite having a pretty large empire and carefully worked alliances (now highest in population and about 2-3 overall) i'm still in a dangerous situation, I allied with the Kwarzinians and Turks and Lithunia so i got both my back covered and a dagger in the back of the Rus's back. but I only have basically 3.5 battlion running around despite 15+ settlements.

battalion 1: my original army. 1 general, 1 noble, all the rest are cuman HA. they made a amazing run from my capital to the shores of the Baltic. almost all of them are deep in the silver or gold level now.

battalion 2: my second army was originally a offshoot of battlion 1 but the Kiev Rus attacked me and they've been doing back and forth battles with them in the central area of Russia. this is the only army where I have any sort of decent non-merc infantry (3 Cuman Axeman)

battalion 3: after the war with the Kiev Rus started I mobilized a second army from my heartlands and they took the rout dircetly to the Black sea. having secured 3 settlements on the black sea now they've formed a double whammy with battalion 2 as they're now in close proximity to Kiev and could go fast by sea.

battalion 3.5: I was in a ton of economics trouble during most of this, I think I realize the problems now, the war with the two Rus is denying me a great deal of land trade is obvious, but my capital being way too far back (causing a lot of extra corruption in the front it seems) and too many rebel stacks running around unchecked is another. so this new army is basically the rebel cleaner. trying to reestablish my homeland and covering most of the places with watch towers. to get my economy back in good shape (and building up a new good general + army don't hurt :P)

The situation is pretty dangerous though, battalion one is in Reval (a Baltic town) and is boxed in by the Novogods (Can escape VIA sea though) but it's my only real army in the area. if something happens to them I think i'll lose 5+ settlements with little that could be done. the Novogods are on their knees (3 or 4 settlements left with Lithunia also on their back) but they keep showing up with large armies in my land, and more and more they're comming with mass catapults and trebuchets, which is scary for my HA army. I'll still win most battles, but with this sort of setup I can not afford to take too many losses. on my conqest of Novogod I had 1 battle where I lost more than 100 HA on the field .. that was it! (the sally of Novogod, got hit on 3 sides and the main army had 1000+ against my HA army of 600 +)

Battlion 2/3 are in better situations as they got the Keiv Rus locked up in a pretty bad position and they havn't been showing up with mass seige. plus they have a couple of well developed castles to supply them with infantries for a more conventional war too. where as battlion 1 has relied exclusively on mercenaries during seige so far.

Byzantium and the Turks are locked in a death match , as well as the Kwarzinians and Fatamids, so my back is pretty safe for now, both the Rus and Kiev Rus has sued for peace (Nov came to me I went to Kiev Rus) mostly because all 3 of us is screwed economically. I need some time to regroup, particularly in the Novogod region. and i need to build up, over half my towns can upgrade walls and I can't even afford to do THAT!

Hi all. Just downloaded 6.1 and it looks great so far. One question tho. While this is installed will i still be able to play my campaigns on retrofit? Or would i have uninstall S.S then carry on? Iv never played long enough to reach the new world lol and looking forward to it in my russian campaign.

Yes, Retrofit should still work, it does for me. I think SS installs in a separate mod folder so it doesn't affect your base installation of Kingdoms or any other mods you have installed.

Thanks for the quick reply. I also use the unit add on for retrofit if that makes any difference? I doubt it would tho. Iv glad someone else mentioned the crashs to desktop at the faction screen. I thought my comp was'ent good enough lol

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Originally Posted by Poor Bloody Infantry

Yes, Retrofit should still work, it does for me. I think SS installs in a separate mod folder so it doesn't affect your base installation of Kingdoms or any other mods you have installed.

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So does that mean that I could install SS and Broken Crescent both on my computer without having to copy files?

got the following mods on my comp:

Stainless steel 6.1
broken crescent
retrofit
lands to conquer

and they don't seem to affect each other - i think because they install into seperate folders

Yep so long as they are in seperate folders you can have as many as you have room for, I currently have 10 different mods installed :laugh4:

SS is brilliant.

Takes lot of adjusting and more micro-management but lets face it, the "clean" version was just too easy and too stupid to live.

Does anyone know if the 2Hers are fixed in this mod? Iv heard theres a seperate mod that only fixs the 2Hers? Is this true?

I don't think that outside of a stat balance SS does anything for 2H animations. If you want 2H anim fixes you may want to try mine.

Thanks FactionHeir. I Have been eyeing yours up for a while. Will I be able to use it with Retrofit and the Grand Unit Add On? Or will i have to use it on its own?

It comes in its own mod folder (well you need to manually create the modfolder first :tongue2:) like most other mods, so its fully independent unless you add files to it.
I'm not sure if you need the GUAO though as I did unlock most of the unavailable units in it by default.
Re Retrofit, I have my own unit balance, so the only thing it might add are the siege things. Would involved some manual text edit by you to implement them I suppose.

Thanks for the tip about SS not fixing the 2 handed animation so I can modify my copy.

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

It comes in its own mod folder (well you need to manually create the modfolder first :tongue2:) like most other mods, so its fully independent unless you add files to it.
I'm not sure if you need the GUAO though as I did unlock most of the unavailable units in it by default.
Re Retrofit, I have my own unit balance, so the only thing it might add are the siege things. Would involved some manual text edit by you to implement them I suppose.

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FactionHeir,

How difficult would it be to combine your new 2H animations with the SSTC ones used by SS? They have speeded up 1H animations but 2H ones are now at a disadvantage, which can only partially be fixed by re-balancing stats.

Well, basically you would need to decompile both of the packs from each mod and then figure out which of the individual anims (over several hundred) you want to keep and which ones you don't want. Then you need to make sure you got the right impact frames and radii for each individual anim and enter them into the descr_skeleton file. Then you can have it automatically compile it into packs.
It would be easier to do if the SS team were to use my anims as I have changed fewer than they did (afaik they use the RC anims for arrows and have other anims for new units etc) and use my skeleton config for the changed anims.

If you want to get them to do that, be my guest, but personally I'm not overly interested in merging my mods with theirs.