Stainless steel?

[FactionHeir]

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
Movement is doubled by default rather than tripled, although it "looks" tripled.

[G^2]

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.

[RollingWave]

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...

[Walternat0r]

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: 

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!

[PBI]

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!

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.

[Ulstan]

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!!

[Cid]

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.

[Ethelred Unread]

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!

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.

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).

[RollingWave]

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.

[Old Geezer]

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.