ZX MiniMod Beta Released!

[Zarax]

The ZX MiniMod takes a different approach from the popular big Mods like BKB, XL or Medmod.
ZX aim is to bring an AOE flavour into MTW by using the exisisting MTW+VI unit set in a more specialized way, increasing faction specialization and rebalancing the game.
http://microsoftusernetwork.com/hosted/zxmod.rar

Some features:

- Increased faction specialization

Now each faction has more marked strenghts and weaknesses, focusing on the importance of developing customized strategies shaped on what you have and increasing the importance of mercenaries/strategic troop production territories in order to increase your army efficency.

- Revisited crusading system

Instead of having crusading orders tied to each faction, now they work on their own "zones of influence", where you have to build your chapter house or walk with your crusade in order to acquire an order's services.
Crusading roster has also been increased, moving a few units (like Turcopoles) into this specialistic role and giving two units to the factions with less chances to get a chapter house into the right place (this is done because the AI cannot recognize them).
In order to balance it and avoid a crusader swarm to Byz and muslims now crusading price has been doubled.

- Improved strategic balance

Now underdog factions gets their chance, they've been given money/territory bonuses so that they won't cripple the economy with the heirs.

- Peasants role redefined

No more peasant armies, they now appear only in crusades (early only) and rebellions, where they belong.

- Refined dimounted units

Now all light and non-noble cav can dismount outside sieges, improved the dismounted version of many units so you'll always get something useful.

- Other minor changes

A few units have been slightly retouched so they won't be nearly useless anymore (like AG).

Also, dismounted versions of many units has been improved, giving an increased tactical flexibility to cavalry commanders.

- Looking for feedback and suggestions!

- Now with install/uninstall guide inside the ReadMe.txt file

HRE, Rus, Novgorod and muslim factions needs some more work, how can they be specialized in order to get more specialization from them?

Admins, i'm posting here because the modding board isn't very visited except for the big projects...

[bretwalda]

Sounds interesting, could you tell us a little bit more about this?

- Increased faction specialization

Now each faction has more marked strenghts and weaknesses, focusing on the importance of developing customized strategies shaped on what you have and increasing the importance of mercenaries/strategic troop production territories in order to increase your army efficency.

[Zarax]

Sure...
Each faction (a bit like in AOK) has one or more defined attributes that rules out the unit set.
For example the Danish are an Heavy Infantry faction.
What does this mean?
Their unit roster is mostly focused on heavy inf (like Landsmenn or Huskarles), while they are weak in most other aspects, especially cavalry (so you'll have to get heavy cav from the steppes or hire mercenaries), meaning that you won't get knights but only the crappy raider cav or druzhina...

Another interesting faction to try are the Italians.
Being a Militia and Late Tech faction they'll have to makedo with an overall low morale army and may need to bring numbers against an heavier foe, especially on early where they won't get anything better than MS and ILI...
Things improves a lot with time for them (halbs in high and other heavy units in late) but mercs and crusades will be a resource through the whole game since they don't get killer units.

On the opposite tactical side you'll find interesting the Hungarians, which are a low tech cavalry archer faction.
I found them great on early as with Szekely you can make a pincushion of most enemies and engage lighter foes, but their roster won't improve much in high and late.
Facing the Horde head-on with them is an unique challenge, as you'll have to use amored spears and get nothing heavier than feudal knights, but ranged cav dueling is very interesting.

Since many faction have a big weakness in their roster conquering territories that allows the production of some units is vital, so the steppes will be the favoured cavalry source for some players while others will want to take Swabia or Switzerland to get good infantry, though my favourite is Navarre to get the Almughavars, which are the infantry equivalent of Boyars imho...
Also pay attention to valour bonuses in the territories as they have a purpose now and gives suggestions about what you might get from the lands...

Finally, while the concepts are more or less developed this is still a beta so that while stable the faction aren't 100% shaped yet and you might find some unbalanced things exploitable by the human player...
Playing the game i also noticed that now no faction manages to get easily so big that they can kill anyone in a few turns, and some manages to exploit the naval superiority in an interesting way... I've seen the italians making viking-style raids quite a few times, they can be a powerful foe but usually the papacy manages to keep them in check and they have problems with rebellions... Ironically now they plays a lot like the real history and Byzantium seems to be their favourite crusade target

[Es Arkajae]

Meh, doesn't sound like my cup of tea mate, I want at least a small level of universal faction units.

For instance what turned me off Medmod was the fact that playing as England my only swordsman unit for all eras was the damned galloglaises, no Men-at-Arms at all.

One of the things that has always seriously bothered me about the Byzantines after the VI was the fact that they had NO spearmen at all.

I think every faction should have at least the lowest level of each basic and important grouping i.e. archers, swordsmen, spearmen.The unique units are the ones that come after these and lend specialisation to a faction, every faction though should have the basic units to fall back upon in the absence of more advanced types.

I shouldn't be completely handicapped against any enemy because for some strange reason I can't arm a bunch of glorified peasants with something as simple as a spear.

[Zarax]

Each faction has a common tool set, or at least equivalent units...
More specialized factions doesn't mean 100% unique tool set, just that you'll have to focus more on certain units to get an hedge over the opponent.
Simply while all factions got the same basic units (spears, archers, light cav and men at arms) some got more advanced units in a respect or the other.
For example with the hungarians you'll get FMAA but not CMAA as they aren't focused on infantry rather than cavalry, while the Italians gets MS which are a bit weaker but this is compensated by the ILI...
Without the basic toolset it would be a nightmare to balance the thing, but my idea is simply to give more character to the factions rather than having them unique, so with the English you'll always get FMAA and not only Gallowglasses... This is not Medmod.
You'll also be happy to know that the Byz now gets something better than vanilla spears... Anyways the download is less than 100k and it's just 4 files so you can try it and remove it in 2 minutes if you don't like the concept.

[bretwalda]

I d/l it but I have to admit a readme would come in handy... Where to install and what to backup and how to remove (or at least the first because I figure those to be overwritten should be backuped) Also how do I start the mod - there will be a new option somewhere or ...?

I am new to mods so that is why so many questions but I am sure there are other people lacking expertise on that field