Stainless steel?

[seireikhaan]

Do you have Kingdoms? If so I think 5.1 still does and if not 4.1 almost definately does.

Links:4.1 5.1

Actually, I have neither game at the moment, as I am waiting for the computer first. Is Kingdoms required for Stainless Steel? I'm rather hesitant about putting SecuRom onto my brand new comptuer.

[Ferret]

SS was made without Kingdoms up to 4.1, so that still works with normal M2 but with Kingdoms you can go all the way up to the latest 6.1, which, though it doesn't have America, goes very far East and has loads of factions and a lovely campiagn map.

[Andrei]

Just my : stainless steel will make the game worth playing...gone will be the days when the AI dind't have a clue where it was...it acctually takes me a little planing to beat the AI armies...and all in all in 6.1 the AI can make armies so dynamic that makes your Uber-Stack obsolete...

Stainless steel will make the game so much more that you would expect...it really is worth playing...I recommend it with all my heart for those who want to have a fun experience with the total war game...



PS: At one point I lost in front of the AI that i wanted to throw my computer out the window, but calmed down, reloaded and beat the crap out of the AI :2reloaded:

[El Jojo]

Actually, I have neither game at the moment, as I am waiting for the computer first. Is Kingdoms required for Stainless Steel? I'm rather hesitant about putting SecuRom onto my brand new comptuer.

4.1 is the latest version which doesn't require kingdoms. I am using it and it works perfectly.

[Old Geezer]

The only serious drawback with SS that I have found yet after playing almost 40 turns is that auto-resolving, esp. assaults on settlements, is almost invariably a disaster of the most monumental proportions. I had the same experience in Kingdoms when playing as the Spanish. Field battles as the Spanish against the Moors are ridiculously easy but the assaults are not. It sure is slow moving armies, even with increased movement. I wonder if my generals all die of old age before being able to get to the Middle East if they go crusading or will the armies all starve to death.

[Monk]

The only serious drawback with SS that I have found yet after playing almost 40 turns is that auto-resolving, esp. assaults on settlements, is almost invariably a disaster of the most monumental proportions. I had the same experience in Kingdoms when playing as the Spanish. Field battles as the Spanish against the Moors are ridiculously easy but the assaults are not. It sure is slow moving armies, even with increased movement. I wonder if my generals all die of old age before being able to get to the Middle East if they go crusading or will the armies all starve to death.

Crusade and Jihad armies have I think triple movement points, stick them on a navy and they can cross the Mediterranean in something like three turns. Not to mention I am almost sure that the AI will warp Jihad/crusade armies as I regularly see them arriving within 3-4 turns even without navies.

[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.

[RollingWave]

unit movement point is also higher though. espically the agents. and now most units move at the same speed.

[Ferret]

It seemed to me that movement was slower, it takes forever to move anywhere. Maybe that's because I played BC...

[Monk]

Like I said crusade armies have their movement points increased by a lot in SS. You can go from northern to southern france in one turn, hire a mercenary boat and keep going.

[Old Geezer]

It just took me at least 6 turns, IIRC, to march an army with a catapult from the south of France to Vilnus. That's 9 years. Well it would have been but I took the train, i.e., used "character_reset". The only slow up was when we switched to narrow gauge rails. If I give Vilnus to the Pope does King Rodrigo the Merciless get more or less time in Purgatory? My guess is more.

If it were 6-month turns then such a march would still take 3 years. It didn't take AlGore that long to invent the Internet and re-invent the Government.

[G^2]

Poor Gore forever picked on.

Anyone know of a FAQ or Guide to SS. I would be intrested to see all the unit stats and any advice anyone had for the mod.

[Monk]

Poor Gore forever picked on.

Anyone know of a FAQ or Guide to SS. I would be intrested to see all the unit stats and any advice anyone had for the mod.

While it's not a guide, this will give you a great overview of every faction/unit in SS 6.1 as well as stats for those units. It also has a few other mods like BC as well as the Kingdom campaigns and vanilla m2. Check it out!

http://totalwar.honga.net/faction.php?v=ss6&encode=en

I didn't make this, another user by the name of Honga made it and it's very helpful. All props to him.

[G^2]

Thanks for the quick reply Monk that was exactly what I was looking for. I have spent about a week trying to find some type of Guide, EB was so user friendly because any information you wanted to find was right there on the web sight. Koodos to Honga for taking the time to make the Faq.

[RollingWave]

I'm having a fun time as the Cuman, really tough. they start with piss poor land almost completely landlocked (they have one settlement that can build ports... to the Caspian... zzzz)

I made a made dash towards the baltic, but I'm still making no money now that I have 3 ports on the Baltic and 3 more on the black sea along with 2 on the Caspian.

the thing is that I need to convert a lot of those castles to towns, as the biggest advantage for the Cuman is that their bread and butter unit (Cuman Horse archer) can be build in both types of settlements anyway. but conversion is REALLY costly to say the least.

dispite having a pretty large empire and carefully worked alliances (now highest in population and about 2-3 overall) i'm still in a dangerous situation, I allied with the Kwarzinians and Turks and Lithunia so i got both my back covered and a dagger in the back of the Rus's back. but I only have basically 3.5 battlion running around despite 15+ settlements.

battalion 1: my original army. 1 general, 1 noble, all the rest are cuman HA. they made a amazing run from my capital to the shores of the Baltic. almost all of them are deep in the silver or gold level now.

battalion 2: my second army was originally a offshoot of battlion 1 but the Kiev Rus attacked me and they've been doing back and forth battles with them in the central area of Russia. this is the only army where I have any sort of decent non-merc infantry (3 Cuman Axeman)

battalion 3: after the war with the Kiev Rus started I mobilized a second army from my heartlands and they took the rout dircetly to the Black sea. having secured 3 settlements on the black sea now they've formed a double whammy with battalion 2 as they're now in close proximity to Kiev and could go fast by sea.

battalion 3.5: I was in a ton of economics trouble during most of this, I think I realize the problems now, the war with the two Rus is denying me a great deal of land trade is obvious, but my capital being way too far back (causing a lot of extra corruption in the front it seems) and too many rebel stacks running around unchecked is another. so this new army is basically the rebel cleaner. trying to reestablish my homeland and covering most of the places with watch towers. to get my economy back in good shape (and building up a new good general + army don't hurt :P)

The situation is pretty dangerous though, battalion one is in Reval (a Baltic town) and is boxed in by the Novogods (Can escape VIA sea though) but it's my only real army in the area. if something happens to them I think i'll lose 5+ settlements with little that could be done. the Novogods are on their knees (3 or 4 settlements left with Lithunia also on their back) but they keep showing up with large armies in my land, and more and more they're comming with mass catapults and trebuchets, which is scary for my HA army. I'll still win most battles, but with this sort of setup I can not afford to take too many losses. on my conqest of Novogod I had 1 battle where I lost more than 100 HA on the field .. that was it! (the sally of Novogod, got hit on 3 sides and the main army had 1000+ against my HA army of 600 +)

Battlion 2/3 are in better situations as they got the Keiv Rus locked up in a pretty bad position and they havn't been showing up with mass seige. plus they have a couple of well developed castles to supply them with infantries for a more conventional war too. where as battlion 1 has relied exclusively on mercenaries during seige so far.

Byzantium and the Turks are locked in a death match , as well as the Kwarzinians and Fatamids, so my back is pretty safe for now, both the Rus and Kiev Rus has sued for peace (Nov came to me I went to Kiev Rus) mostly because all 3 of us is screwed economically. I need some time to regroup, particularly in the Novogod region. and i need to build up, over half my towns can upgrade walls and I can't even afford to do THAT!

[St.Jimmy]

Hi all. Just downloaded 6.1 and it looks great so far. One question tho. While this is installed will i still be able to play my campaigns on retrofit? Or would i have uninstall S.S then carry on? Iv never played long enough to reach the new world lol and looking forward to it in my russian campaign.

[PBI]

Yes, Retrofit should still work, it does for me. I think SS installs in a separate mod folder so it doesn't affect your base installation of Kingdoms or any other mods you have installed.

[St.Jimmy]

Thanks for the quick reply. I also use the unit add on for retrofit if that makes any difference? I doubt it would tho. Iv glad someone else mentioned the crashs to desktop at the faction screen. I thought my comp was'ent good enough lol

[seireikhaan]

Yes, Retrofit should still work, it does for me. I think SS installs in a separate mod folder so it doesn't affect your base installation of Kingdoms or any other mods you have installed.

So does that mean that I could install SS and Broken Crescent both on my computer without having to copy files?

[Ethelred Unread]

got the following mods on my comp:

Stainless steel 6.1
broken crescent
retrofit
lands to conquer

and they don't seem to affect each other - i think because they install into seperate folders

[Ferret]

Yep so long as they are in seperate folders you can have as many as you have room for, I currently have 10 different mods installed