Getting armor, weapon and valor upgrades via retraining

**Quillan** · 12-02-2006, 20:26

Well, I'm basing this off RTW, but in that game there was a file down in the data folder called export_descr_unit.txt, which contained the specifics on every unit in the game. It had weapon stats, amount of ammo carried, attack rating, armor rating and type (flesh, leather, metal - metal gave penalties in desert), defensive skills and so forth. So it's very easy to go in, find the line for Spanish Pikemen (or whatever the game file refers to Tercio Pikemen as ) and change their armor from "0, flesh" to "3, flesh" and let the game engine take care of the upgrades from there. However, in the corresponding file for buildings, I don't recall there being a way to modify the amount of armor that could be given.

**Kobal2fr** · 12-02-2006, 20:43

Yes, but I believe things might work differently in M2, because a unit starting with flesh armor and sounds will use metal sounds when upgraded to say chainmail (if I'm not mistaken, to be honest I haven't payed attention to this sort of thing while playing. I will now

), whereas in RTW armor upgrades didn't change the type of armor worn at all, it was a much more generic system...

Guess we'll know for sure when the Holy Grail, I mean the patch+unpacker, is available

**Maizel** · 12-02-2006, 21:08

It's probably done that way to prevent cheap units from being uber units.

But it could be compensated by raising the defense skill, or the shield defense.

Man, i wish i knew how to mod.

**dopp** · 12-03-2006, 01:08

But some of the units affected are pretty advanced units themselves (pikemen and musketeers). It is also very costly to upgrade them, since you have to build armorsmiths to do so. I want my money's worth really. In RTW, smiths upgraded every unit produced or retrained there. So catatanks with 21 armor got +2, peasants with 1 armor also got +2. In M2TW, you only get upgrades if your current armor is lower than the level of the smith. This suggests that armor upgrades are supposed to bring weak militias in line with tougher professionals, at least in terms of armor. It will hardly make them uber, since professionals are still better fighters (higher attack and def) and have better morale and perhaps collision mass. But as you can see, the armor upgrades are inadequate and the upgraded units are significantly weaker than they should be.

**Shahed** · 12-03-2006, 05:30

As I was playing just now, I experienced another variation.

This time I have a tanner in Symrna, and a Castle. Trained a unit of Turcomen, came out without armor upgrade. Retrained and it got the upgrade. This has already been mentioned but I wanted to mention my experience as well.

Armor upgrades are bugged, sometimes.

On the armor level discssion I'm a bit disappointed because I thought it worked by giving unarmored units padded armor level, and so forth, but it does'nt. That IMO would be IDEAL, it adds a specific armor level classification to the game. It's not only very cool, it also makes it much simpler to understand and use the units. The upgrades in TW past (and present regretably) are definetly flawed because that allows you to have more uber n00b units going around. That system has proved it's weaknesses.

I believe a simplification along the lines of armor level upgrades is much better.

Nevertheless M2:TW is a step ahead, but these armor bugs need ironing. They are directly affecting the gameplay.

**dopp** · 12-03-2006, 14:07

Update: Armor upgrades actually seem to have been intended to work as I have described. The partially unpacked units_desc file reveals an additional line that lists the amount of armor a unit gets when it is upgraded. For mailed knights this is 5, 7, 0, 0. 5 is their base armor (light mail), 7 is their upgrade (heavy mail), the two 0 means they cannot be upgraded further. For Byz Lancers it's 5, 7, 8, 9, meaning they get 3 upgrades and can max out at partial plate like katatanks.

Edit: The code is commented out, so it's not working properly. I still say someone should ask the devs what the deal is.

**dopp** · 12-05-2006, 14:58

Sorry for resurrecting this thread. The unpacked data files have been released, and it seems that the code is indeed not implemented. Maybe a developer could comment on why the new armor system was scrapped? It makes a lot more sense than using the old RTW one. If it cannot be made to work properly, maybe the unarmored units need to be tweaked to bring them more in line with the units that come equipped with armor. Otherwise, they are rather gimped.