Proper mod poll

[Ferret]

Redone with better options this time, if there are any more suggestions then post them and I'll keep a tally.

edit: I would have made a no preference option but if you have no preference then don't vote!

links:
Stainless Steel 4.1:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=110425
Broken Crescent:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=346
FH's mod:https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=250

[TinCow]

As stated in the other thread, it would be useful if people who have played these mods could give their opinions on why they would be good or bad choices for our next game. Most of us probably haven't played all the mods, so we need some other basis on which to make our decisions. If there is a mod that you think would be good that is not on the voting list, please talk about it as well. Here's what I posted in the other thread:

Ultimate AI: Much harder than vanilla TW. Probably the hardest mod out there, which is a good thing. However, it achieves this by putting massive restrictions on recruitment and unit variety. This would make a KOTR-style game very boring, and thus I do not recommend UAI for our game.

SS 4.1: Increased map size and fabulous trait/retinue system, including retinue 'titles' for the owners of each province, allowing us to represent our OOC province ownership in-game. SS 4.1 would really make role-playing fun, and the supply and morale system created via the traits would also increase realism and difficulty, making things like the Moscow Crusade nearly impossible. At the same time, there is no AI mod bundled with it, so we would probably have to lay one on top to make sure we got the most out of the game, which increases the installation complexity.

[Zim]

BC: A total conversion map centered on the middle east, with the map extending from Greece to India. 16 completely new factions, with 1 old faction (the ERE) completely redone with new units. The new units are breathtaking, and I encourage anyone who's curious to browse through the BC link EF provided and check them out. An Area of Recruitment system prevent the Maharaj of India from recruiting elephants in Jerusalem, or the KOJ from recruiting Templars in Ghazni. Unique buildings like the Hagia Sophia have been added to many settlements. Major trade centers, like Antioch, Constantinople, and Merv, are significantly more valuable than other cities, making them a key part of strategy in the game.

The Mongol invasion is actually threatening in BC, especially if you play an eastern faction like the Kwarezhm Shah. Unit balance and AI tweaks make battle much harder than vanilla, but not quite as good as the best Battle AI mods. Garrison scripts, and a few scripted extra armies in the early game add to the challenge. Titles are included for many but not all settlements, and traits and retinues redone but probably not currently up to the level of SS.

I think that cover the mods strengths and weaknesses well, although I'm sure Ramses could do a better job.

[Ramses II CP]

Here's what I love about Broken Crescent:

1. Battles are rarely as one sided as in Vanilla. Although some unit rosters are weaker than others (The Kypchaks don't seem to fight well in AI hands, for example) for the most part your battles will be a little longer and a fair amount bloodier. I found this extremely compelling, as vanilla battles were frequently becoming boring 'Let's hurry up and get to the part where you rout' affairs. Most general's cavalry is significantly tougher and many of the bottom tier units are substantially more difficult to use. No more bogging down a general in the equivilent of militia spearmen; he'll carve a path right through them. Top tier units will destroy bottom tier ones head to head, and the AI will tech up faster than we will.

2. The regions are almost all new. The history of the region will be new to many of us. I've read a fair amount of history, and I'd say I was familiar with less than half of the factions or events on my first play through the game.

3. If we get to fight the Mongols they will take cities from us. They will cross bridges against us. They will at least heavily damage armies of the best troops we can assemble. They're supposed to be reinforced for each city they sack too, so there's no more simple attrition calculation to make. BC's Mongol Invasion makes the game shine.

4. The AI builds and uses more agents than in vanilla. If we play on VH/VH it will be difficult for our merchants to hold their resources in popular areas, and our spies will more often find themselves caught or kicked out. Assassination is easier against agents, but slightly harder against generals.

5. Movement range is substantially greater than in vanilla, which will increase our flexibility and number of options. Quite often at the end of KotR a turn would pass in which there wasn't really any battle to be found. In BC there will almost always be the option of riding out and finding something to kill if you so desire.

6. Growth, conversion, construction, and the expansion of the nation are generally slower than Vanilla. If you exterminate a city in BC it'll be useless for a long time, making the in game consequences much more dramatic. If you merely sack a castle, it will be a long, long time before that castle makes it back to the fortress population range.

7. The starting army for a faction is the most powerful force it will have for many years. Competition for those men as opposed to newly trained scrub units can be intense IC, perhaps making for some early game drama. Training a professional and well equipped army is difficult and time consuming.

8. No gunpowder. Let's face it, the battle engine for MTW2 is not well balanced to handle gunpowder. By the time the player gets gunpowder units he can usually create a single army of them that would sweep away 99% of the stacks the AI is cooking up with minimal losses. Getting rid of gunpowder improves the balance of the game.

Here are the problems, as I see it, with BC:

1. Defensive siege AI is not meaningfully improved. We won't have any trouble taking towns. The offensive AI is slightly improved, but we won't have much trouble defending towns either.

2. Horse archers are excessively powerful. If we go with BC, I will propose an army limit on horse archers.

3. Mercenaries are prevalant and of very high quality. The area of recruitment limitations are quite easily overcome by the use of mercenaries, which often start with a high number of chevrons and can be retrained even higher sometimes. There would have to be a cap or some form of control on mercenary hires to prevent them unbalancing our expansion outside our AoR.

4. Merchants are out of whack. They cost 100 florins to recruit, and in many cases can find a resource making around that much per turn within their starting range. Each upgrade to the market line allows the training of a new merchant We would have to excercise some caution or restraint here.

5. Assassins have an unusually high success rate for the player. No one is quite sure why, but assassination attempts seem to work far too well for the player. I've taken out multiple 30% or less targets turn after turn without losing an agent. There would have to be a cap of some kind.

6. There are still some less common bugs that may affect gameplay. AI citadels sometimes build cannon towers. AI ships sometimes spend a turn popped up onto the land, though they pop back off (This may be a retreat bug). The town square of Kiev is underwater and cannot be captured, so any attack there would have to be auto-calc'd.

All things considered BC is an incomplete mod, but it vastly improves the vanilla game experience. If we decide to use it, I'll be ecstatic, but if we decide against I'll go with the majority happily.

[Northnovas]

I would be for SS 4.1. It has it's quirks and the same hardcore issue of the TW Game.

However, I do like the bundle of mods, the map size more states and cities, the titles that can only enhance the RP of the game, use UAI 1.5 for Campaign game and fixes to the ancillaries similar to FH's mod for KotR.

The draw back will be no further enhancement because of Kingdoms but maybe that is were FH can help out if needed.

[phonicsmonkey]

Ultimate AI: Much harder than vanilla TW. Probably the hardest mod out there, which is a good thing. However, it achieves this by putting massive restrictions on recruitment and unit variety. This would make a KOTR-style game very boring, and thus I do not recommend UAI for our game.

I'm not going to be part of this game (don't have enough time!) but I just thought I'd drop in and share my experiences - the interesting thing about UAI is that there is an option only to install the AI files (and not the rest of the mod which affects recruitment and whatnot) - so if you like the way the AI performs in UAI then you can apply those files to either the vanilla game or any other mod (like SS4.1 for example).

BC already uses those files, or something very similar as the designer of UAI (GrandViz), is also responsible for the AI in BC.

Sorry if I've muddied the waters!

[Cecil XIX]

Interesting info phonicsmonkey, that means we could install SS with UAI's AI files. That's combo's got my vote.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'm not really a mod expert/novice at all, but I just want to say be careful making things too complicated. IMHO we lost around six to a dozen WotS players strictly because of the complexity of the mod.

[TinCow]

I'm not really a mod expert/novice at all, but I just want to say be careful making things too complicated. IMHO we lost around six to a dozen WotS players strictly because of the complexity of the mod.

Yep, this is a big concern of mine and one of the reasons I listed a separate AI mod install as a negative for SS 4.1. Whatever we do, we need to have very simple and easy to follow instructions on how to install everything properly, including links to the files and step-by-step instructions.

[Zim]

While I'm sad to see BC trailing, if it can't be the mod we use I'm glad Stainless Steel 4.1 is the other option. It's actually small enough for me to download with my crappy internet connection (and, more importantly, to fit on my thumb drive so I can put it on my gaming computer).

Think I'll give it a try tonight.

GeneralHankerchief, if I recall correctly from back when Anno Domini was getting updated AI files every week or so, changing new AI files for the old one is pretty straightforward. A little daunting to those with little/no mod experience (like me at the time. ) but easy enough with good instructions.

I'm actually surprised SS 4.1 doesn't already have an AI mod, since it combines so many other good mods.

[Northnovas]

SS 4.1 uses UAI 1.5 for the Campaign. I don't know if there is a mod for the AI for battles?

[Zim]

Does it? The fix list for 4.1 says it uses Lusted's battle AI and the Vanilla campaign AI.

SS 4.1 uses UAI 1.5 for the Campaign. I don't know if there is a mod for the AI for battles?

[Ignoramus]

BC looks very very interesting, but wouldn't fit the feudal aspect of the game. None of the factions in BC are really feudal(except maybe Antioch or Jerusalem), and it just wouldn't feel right having a feudal Caliphate.

I also agree with TC about the complexity of the mod being an issue. It was one of the reasons I stayed in the Lower House of WotS.

I'm leaning towards SS 4.1 at the moment.

[FactionHeir]

VanillaMod uses UAI 1.6's battle AI files for formations and field battle behavior (flanking etc) with some minor changes by myself. Strat map has some elements of UAI 1.6 infused but has been completely reworked to ensure the AI expands early and also keeps relatively well to alliances and does not attack you without sense.

In addition to fixing a majority of fixable bugs in the game, I also managed to make horde factions stronger and their AI a lot more reliable so they will expand west rather than wander. AI also makes good use of mercenaries and won't spam diplomats and artillery anymore. They get some monetary bonus per turn proportional to the number of settlements up to a cap so they don't get ever rich, at the same time their troops have a higher chance of rebelling than in unmodded M2TW but still lower than that of the human player.

Regarding cons, it obviously uses the normal map at present which not everyone likes I suppose and its graphics are not as flashy as BC or SS.

[pevergreen]

Voted for SS by mistake, meant to vote for Vanillamod (the hardest on VH/VH ive ever played in TW, awsome fun!)

[AussieGiant]

I voted for SS4.1

But I voted for it based on the idea that we will not be putting anything over the top apart from perhaps FH's VnV patch.

I also am very wary of the technical component of this game being even remotely complex...in reality it needs to be very, very simple.

If SS4.1 is not used then I would go to FH's vanillamod as it is a nice "revision" of the basic game and not a complete overhaul.

And I agree with Igno on the matter of the OOC system and the IC game.

We need to be very aware of having something that doesn't match in the slightest. Not because it's not possible, because it is, but because it will help immersion possibilities if we are "gaming" in a system that is realistic to the nation we pick.

[TinCow]

I do think SS 4.1 needs a battle AI. However, I'm hoping that we can create a specific install that does all that for us instead of having multiple installs. We're going to need a custom patch anyway to get the recruitable generals working, so we might as well bundle everything else we need with that. Since everyone will have to install a our custom mod from a zip, as long as that zip contains everything we need, it won't add any extra steps. We'll get permission to repackage whatever battle AI mod we use inside our own custom mod for the game, so that it's all installed at once. Any future editing that FH does for us can also be repackaged into the same install, so that the number of files people need never increases. As of right now, if we used SS 4.1, we would have to install SS 4.0, which is an easy executable file, followed by the SS 4.1 patch, which is another easy executable file, followed by simply unzipping our custom mod on top. That's not bad at all, as long as we provide specific instructions along with links to the downloads. WOTS was way more of pain than that would be.

[AussieGiant]

Agreed TC. Very astute move.

As long as it's all zipped up and set out in a linear format then that will be realistically possible for all involved.

Keeping "FH's" updates included and incorporated will be important. I expect him to "scan" the files and listen to everyone's feedback and provide small tweaks when errors or issues arise.

I've reached the end of MTWII as a challenge so I don't mind losing the original install and just installing the PBM version.

[FactionHeir]

I don't actually know anything about SS beyond some thread where people asked for help. Depends on how many scripts refer to certain parts of code whether I can make arrangements without making SS very non SS, and of course whether you guys can get approval from the SS and UAI teams for me taking apart their mods for the PBM.

Personally I obviously prefer my own mod as I know everything about it and can modify it at will

[Ituralde]

I just fired up SS4.1 to play around with the features a little bit and seem to have encountered a problem. Most tooltips are missing when I play the game. This makes it impossible to understand what effects the new trait system has.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Specifically I get tool tips on the strategic map, like when you hover over a settlement it will pop up saying that this is a Large Town or whatever. Once I go down to the lower bar, where the character portraits are I don't get any tool tips, same goes for the settlement scroll or character scroll.

[FactionHeir]

Sounds like a faulty installation to me.