Frequently asked questions (FAQ) Thread

[FactionHeir]

Please post here questions you have about game mechanics or other occurences you experience while using VanillaMod
I will answer each question hopefully within a few hours of you posting it and add it to the FAQ list in this post as appropriate. This is another chance for you to contribute even if all you have done was to examine the readme!

Some general changes to game mechanics that have not been mentioned in the readme but you may come across:

- You can build diplomats at any town hall or library structure as normal, but you can only upkeep 1 diplomat per council chambers or higher.
- Spies are limited to 1 per brothel, but the limit increases if you have a tavern or higher.
- Build times are slightly reduced to allow for a slightly more fast-paced game in terms of research and development.
- Fortresses and huge cities can train 4 units per turn and citadels can train 5 units per turn.
- You can recruit up to 2 agents of the same type per turn from a settlement now.
- Made bribing more useful by increasing the chance of success slightly and decreasing the bribing cost. It is now actually possible and viable.
- Priests have a slightly higher chance of denouncing heretics and witches per level but heretics generally have higher piety.
- Settlement towers are more reliable and have a good chance of incinerating siege equipment now on higher levels, making artillery more useful.
- Artillery construction is highly limited to prevent the AI from spamming it. Most late gunpowder artillery is available as normal however.
- Ship construction similarly has been limited to reduce spamming
- Gunpowder infantry fires more reliably
- Pikemen will be more likely to continue poking and when drawing swords will be easier to get back into pike mode.
- Aztecs are now formidable opponents
- The AI is less likely to randomly blockade your ports and break its alliance.
- Early units slowly phase out as buildings progress
- AI armies are more varied and generally a lot more difficult to beat with a balanced force
- AI will always attempt to train the maximum amount of men it can resulting in huge stacks
- The AI will defend its settlements much better when at war with several enemies.
- Mongols and Timurids will no longer likely remain idle.
- 2H Sword, Axe, Halberd animations are improved and sped up.
- The AI will act a lot more smartly in field battles and somewhat better in sieges
- Various fixes and tweaks to traits and ancillaries

[Raz]

What version of Medieval 2 Total War is this built for?

[FactionHeir]

VanillaMod will work for both Medieval2 version 1.2 and 1.3. In fact, it will work with 1.0 and 1.1 as well, but it is recommended to have at least 1.2 due to AntiTraits.

[Slawomir]

I was looking for a Vanilla Mod that only updates AI (campaign and battle).

I have noticed that you have edited the unit stats from the original Vanilla version. Were the unit stat changes needed? The more changes one makes the more removed the game becomes from the original Vanilla version...

You have also changed the building tree - you can now build catapults in large towns (instead of cities).

Are there any other changes that we should be aware of?

Please list all changes made, so we can judge how far removed this Mod is from the Original Version.

Thanks!

[FactionHeir]

Hiya,

Unit stats were changed to rebalance the game as pointed out in the readme. As per 1.2/1.3 with the shield fix, many units now have stats that are not congruent to their purpose or price. Similarly al late period non shield cavalry were a lot worse than those early shielded ones at a higher price, so other than eyecandy they didn't do much. This was fixed to make each unit good at what it does at the right price. If you have suggestions regarding balance errors however, I am happy to revise them.

I did not change where you can build catapults however.

[Slawomir]

Thanks for the reply!

About the unit stats, I was just worried that it might make the game unbalanced. Did you sue the Ultimate AI 1.6 unit stats?
I thought they would have fixed the unit stats in Patch 1.2.
Obviously they didn't???

Its sad that this great is so bugged!

I was playing Ultimate AI 1.6 but found that the mod too heavily modified the original game.

But your mod is perfect. Better AI and unit stats. And Vanilla is more fun too!

Thanks!