Lands to Conquer v2.3

[Lusted]

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Mod Overview

Lands to Conquer is a mod aimed at improving the gameplay and balance of Medieval II Total War. It does this through extensively rebalanced unit stats; changed unit costs; longer, slower paced campaign; more difficult to maintain larger empires; and various other things.

A major feature of the mod is it's extensive rebalancing, for which i've had the unofficial help of Jason Turnbull aka Palamedes, a Creative Assembly Australia developer.

Installation Instructions

This is a standalone version of the mod, you do not need any previous versions to play it.

You must a new campaign with 2.3

It installs to its own folder so it does not affect the default game. Just use the Lands to Conquer icon on the desktop to launch this mod, or the M2TW icon to launch M2TW.

To install the mod simply point the installed to your Medieval II Total War installation, which by default is installed to:

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War

You must have the Official Update 2 patch for Medieval II Total War in order to install LTC 2.3.

Once installed you should use the new Lands to Conquer desktop shortcut to run the game.

The changes Lands to Conquer 2.3 makes to Medieval II Total War are listed below:

Battlemap
-Drastically improved balance of units done by me and Palamedes. Battles feel much more like battles in the original Medieval: Total War now.
-Improved balance of missile units through their accuracy.
-Cavalry units made smaller and so are now more manouverable.
-Cavalry less effective in woods.
-Increased effect of heat on western units.
-Battles are slightly slower paced.
-13 new custom battle maps. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=76887

Campaign map
-1.5 Year per turn, and dates shown on campaign map again
-Building construction times and cost increased so as to fit in best with 1.5 year per turn campaign.
-Unit recruitment changed. Units now replenish slower and elite units have smaller recruitment pools. Also units no longer recruited from walls or from castle upgrade buildings.
-Character Names Project included that adds accurate character names to many factions.
-English Armoured Sergeants, Dismounted Broken Lances, Dismounted Gothic Knights and Dismounted Mongol cavalry units added into the campaign
-Ai recruits better armies. They are more balanced and have more higher tier units in them.
-More variance in the date at which the Mongols and Timurids appear
-Merchants make more money.
-Inquisitors made less powerful.
-Increased movement distance for armies and agents.
-More recruitment slots in castles.
-More free upkeep slots in cities.
-Recruitable generals(including dismounted generals for some western factions).
-Pirate and Rebel spawn rates reduced.
-New population levels required for each level of settlement, but lowered slightly from 1.21.
-Distance to captial penalty increased, but not as severe as in 1.21.
-Religious Unrest increased.
-Corruption increased.
-Income from trade increased, and population growth from trade decreased.
-Population growth from farms increased.

Graphical
-New loading screens and splash screens.
-New textures for the Byzantines using a mix of mine and Whitewolfs work.

Credits

A big thanks to the following modders who's work i have used in this mod with their permission.

Jason Turnbull aka Palamedes - for his great help with unit rebalancing.
Whitewolf - for the use of some of his Byzantine skins
DeRougemonnt - for the use of the CNP
lawngnome - for helping with the edits to unit recruitmnt and settlement mechanics.

[vixtro]

Nice one! Downloading this as I type

[RickooClan]

The content sounds very promising!

If there are any balancing on pike issue and how was that be done? ( I remembered in an other thread you state you will remove their sword + reduce their mass? )

[manhole]

I've just installed the new 1.2 patch and then installed the 2.3 LTC mod but for some reason when I try to run LTC by clicking on the shortcut, nothing happens. MTW2 itself seems to be working fine after applying the 1.2 patch.

I've been playing the previous version of LTC with no problems and love the mod. This has only happened now with the latest version.

[Lusted]

If there are any balancing on pike issue and how was that be done? ( I remembered in an other thread you state you will remove their sword + reduce their mass? )

Haven't removed sword, just increased pike mass to 4, and increased their primary and secondary attacks.

[fenir]

very nice lusted,

I have always been a fan on your work. But you have done a nice job of this one, i must say.

I usually, only use my own mods, (tho i do use bits of others), and your work seems to always find a place in my own mods.
Anyway, just wanted to thank you for some very nice work, and thank you for some added bits for my personal mod. it certainly saves me time.


PS: still waiting for someone to do a full work up of byzantine gun powder units if anyone has them?


Anyway thank you lusted and team.


fenir

[Haudegen]

I recently installed your mod and I like it. One question though: What happened to the pre battle speeches? I´m playing the Scots and I´m hearing only boring one-liners. No references to the enemy, no trait-related statements. Or are there no such soundfiles for the Scottish generals in vanilla?

[dopp]

I've noticed that the armor of most units has been lowered across the board. Does this mess with armor upgrades in any way?

[Lusted]

Not really as the upgrades aren't working properly.

[neoiq5719]

i´ve just downloaded the 2.3 patch from filefront but when i try to install it, it says "this file contains invalid data". Any ideas? thx

[vixtro]

The mod has been working great for me so far and I have only seen one little AI problem on the Campaign map. A polish army of about 3 units keeps getting in a boat and unloading again onto the east side of York every turn for that past 10 turns or so now. It's a strange one and it could just be something that could happen in Vanilla anyway. I'm thinking about attacking them to get rid of em as it's getting kinda annoying lol

[neoiq5719]

ok i have just installed the 2.3 and in the very first battle Isaw that the AI was AS DUMB AS EVER. I really dont know the meaning of "improving AI for the 1.2 patch", must be a different concept from the one i have.
A whole army stood still with i was making a BBQ out of them. Some things are never gonna change and i think they wont no matter if you call them 1.2, 1.3 or 1. whatever u want. This is as good as this game gets.

[Revenant]

I have one question concerning late era heay cavalry in LTC 2.3 :

I checked their stats and realised that for example Lancers have worse stats than chivalric knights, have bigger upkeep and the same cost and recruiting conditions... so I do not understand why they are in this game? Yes, I know they have probably armoured horse with bigger mass and better armor and whatever... but as unit vs. unit, they are worse and have bigger upkeep.

The same is with gothic knights, but as they have ap secondary weapons and HRE do not have similar unit, they are ok...

The same issue is with Gendarmes who have crappy stats and extremely high upkeep, but at least they are trainable in cities...

So, my question is: what is the logic behind this all?

my opinion is that late era unit should be better or slightly worse but cheaper and with lower upkeep (like sword and buckler men vs. dismounted feudals. S+B are really usefull because of their low upkeep) which can mean something as better availability of non - noble units in renaissance era.

But now, lancers, for example are completely useless.

I think that better stats = more cost and upkeep (compared to other units of this type as general)

unless the unit is trainable in cities and so is militia, then it can have slightly worse stats and higher upkeep

or is the only representative of unit type the faction has (for example faction does not have any other units of heavy infantry except this) in which case it can have very high cost and upkeep...

But your logic can be different.

[Lusted]

Yes, I know they have probably armoured horse with bigger mass and better armor and whatever... but as unit vs. unit, they are worse and have bigger upkeep.

You point out the reason they are more expensive, then ignore it. Lancers have the mount with the highest mass, and combined with a very high charge bonus means they are one of the best cav units for charging, so are very useful for flank or rear attacks against pikes, and frontal attacks against sword infantry

They have no shield, so they are not meant for cav v cav combat.

[Revenant]

You point out the reason they are more expensive, then ignore it. Lancers have the mount with the highest mass, and combined with a very high charge bonus means they are one of the best cav units for charging, so are very useful for flank or rear attacks against pikes, and frontal attacks against sword infantry

They have no shield, so they are not meant for cav v cav combat.

But they have the same attack/charge as chivalric knights (11/7)... Is the bigger mass really such difference?

[Lusted]

Oh yes it does, mass is hugely important in charges. Lancers and CK are the same price because CK are better in melee, but Lancers are better in the charge.

[dopp]

But it makes very little sense nonetheless why Lancers (and Gendarmes) should emphasize butchering infantry (in a period where pikes and halberds pretty much stop any cavalry charge dead regardless of power) and make themselves vulnerable to older cavalry types in the process. The ultimate evolution of the heavy cavalryman defeated by his outdated predecessors (feudal and chivalric knights) just because he decided not to carry a shield? That's pretty silly. No wonder the knights went out of fashion.

[The_Notorious_P]

Great Work I like it a lot. I've started a Byzantine campaign, to see the graphics changes, but I think something is wrong. the shields carried by the militia (havent gotten very far) are solid red or blue. I'm talking the classic red and blue, the pure shade you'd get in Paint by assigning zeros and a 255. This is intentional?

Another thing I noticed was that Emperor Alexis has the Intelligent trait, but it's the princess one...he has +1 charm, lol.

[Lusted]

Great Work I like it a lot. I've started a Byzantine campaign, to see the graphics changes, but I think something is wrong. the shields carried by the militia (havent gotten very far) are solid red or blue. I'm talking the classic red and blue, the pure shade you'd get in Paint by assigning zeros and a 255. This is intentional?

No, the militia do tend to have simple coloured shields but they're not pure colours, they've got shading and borders on them.

Another thing I noticed was that Emperor Alexis has the Intelligent trait, but it's the princess one...he has +1 charm, lol.

Seems to be a M2TW bug.

[Miles Sueborum]

Is the improved Campaign AI of the privious versions (that one that keeps some treaties and so on) still included in this mod?

[RussianWinter]

Hi - for some reason, whenever I fire up the mod my game options (skip AI movement, Auto-manage) and minimal battle UI aren't saved and I have to manually re-toggle. I haven't experienced this in vanilla. Any ideas?

[Dave1984]

I am having a little trouble with this- it plays and runs fine, except that the only place there is any sound, at all, is the thunder and wind track on the main menu. Anywhere else- nothing. Not a sound.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[bbeltx]

Anyone could re-upload it in somewhere else? I think these (FileFront & MegaUpload) servers doesn't from here (Brazil). I've been tried for days and I got nothing.

[VonSchlepp]

In your previous LTC you made it possible to transfere ritinue to other generals, I noticed in this up date the abilitie to give other generals ritinues is shortly limited. What file do I go to to edit this and how is it done?

Very good mod by the way and thankyou.

[Lusted]

export_descr_ancillaries.txt in the landstoconquer\data folder. Edit the transferable line for each one. Make sure you know a retinue that can be transferred cause i don't know whether you need to set it to 0 or 1.

[VonSchlepp]

Done! #1 will allow the ritinue to be transfered. Thanks.

[Skott]

I've noticed that merchants dont get much from resources now like they did in vanilla patch 1.1 and LtC 2.2. The merchants are much more weaker and vulnerable than before as well. Every time I try to use my merchant to take out another merchant he fails every single time. Best chance I have had yet is 35% and he still fails. Everytime a AI faction control merchant comes along he succeeds taking out my merchant. Training the merchants up is pretty weak too. Its extremely hard to get it to happen.

I'm still in my first campaign with LtC 2.3 and patch 1.2 but this seems grossly unbalanced. I much preferred 1.1 and LtC 2.2 as far as merchants go. Any chance of getting this changed, Lusted? Or maybe explain to me how I can make the changes myself? Otherwise I'm enjoying the new LtC 2.3 mod.

[Sultan Borat]

Yah I disappointed the original vanilla game screwed the Byzantine churches, Their designs are generally modeled off the Hagia Sophia with a dome in a box design.

To be there waisnt any "religious" wonders too. Constantinople Hagia Sophia *sanctum of holy wisdom* would grant religious bonuses and extra income from pilgrimages. Jerusalem would have the dome of Rock , Rome would have St Peters square, Spiraling minaret in Syria.

I wish it were possible to convert units, A Christian general could become a Muslim and vice versa.

[Pharnakes]

Hi, I thought I'd ask this here as you seem to be the only mod that has done this; how do you change the amount of money that a merchant makes without affecting trade income to a city, and how do you mod the distance from capital unrest penalty?



Thanks

[Lusted]

descr_campaign_db.xml and these lines for merchants:

<merchants>
<base_income_modifier float="1.0"/>
<trade_bonus_offset float="10.0"/>
</merchants>

Just set the numbers higher.

descr_settlement_mechanics.xml for DtC and these lines:

<factor name="SOF_DISTANCE_TO_CAPITAL">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.2"/>
<city_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="16"/>
</factor>