The original thread

[♔atthias♔]

We actually removed them specifically so they wouldn't have an undead themed regular ranged unit, since that's one of their special weaknesses in the tabletop and lore. Skeleton archers are for Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts are limited to their wizards for ranged attack. It's like how Dwarfs don't have cavalry.

and it made the VC far to strong I cannot remember how many times I used 2 skeleton crossbowman maxed out whit 3 golden chevrons backed up by zombies killed off averland family members and their knights of the blazing sun bodyguard in 1.6

[TheEmperor]

We actually removed them specifically so they wouldn't have an undead themed regular ranged unit, since that's one of their special weaknesses in the tabletop and lore. Skeleton archers are for Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts are limited to their wizards for ranged attack. It's like how Dwarfs don't have cavalry.

Thanks for the reply, I didn't know that.

[logan93]

and it made the VC far to strong I cannot remember how many times I used 2 skeleton crossbowman maxed out whit 3 golden chevrons backed up by zombies killed off averland family members and their knights of the blazing sun bodyguard in 1.6

they actually are still pretty OP in my opinion xD
just as vampires are meant to be, OP as hell :3

[YourStepDad]

it takes away many scripts
adds lizardmen and their territory same applies to high and dark elves
an there are at least three or more scripts/ quests to fulfill

Okay thanks, what are said scripts about?

Secondly, I have four questions very important to me.

Firstly, how does the AI fare in this mod? Would you people on this thread say its competent and difficult to beat? I really need to know how challenging people perceive this mod to be.

Secondly, is the Storm of Chaos script still in? If not, can it be readded back? Can I readd it back for personal use, I mean.

Thirdly, What is present in the original mod but not in here? Anything missing or removed in terms of units? Are the giants and daemons in?

Lastly, I've heard a lot of people have problems with crashes, even with some fundamental things such as sieges, and that the patch is on the way. Can any form of approximation on it be given? Just so I know whether to wait or to expect it, if at all possible to give of course.

Thanks in advance again.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Okay thanks, what are said scripts about?

Currently just a few simple quests that are explained, such as going to Lustria for gold. It'll be expanded on eventually.

Firstly, how does the AI fare in this mod? Would you people on this thread say its competent and difficult to beat? I really need to know how challenging people perceive this mod to be.

It does pretty well, even the rebels will kick your ass if you underestimate them.

Secondly, is the Storm of Chaos script still in? If not, can it be readded back? Can I readd it back for personal use, I mean.

It's no longer needed, Chaos uses the Crusade mechanic. What can be readded by swapping the campaign_script is some spawns and garrison scripts that definitely increase the difficulty.

Thirdly, What is present in the original mod but not in here? Anything missing or removed in terms of units? Are the giants and daemons in?

Norsca and most Norscan units are gone, with Chaos dominating Norsca, with all faction slots filled by the factions that have had official armybooks. Most everything else is intact, with stronger Greater Daemons, and you'll be seeing the Giants more frequently.

Lastly, I've heard a lot of people have problems with crashes, even with some fundamental things such as sieges, and that the patch is on the way. Can any form of approximation on it be given? Just so I know whether to wait or to expect it, if at all possible to give of course.

Most people seem to be having problems because they're not following the install instructions as written, and they clear up once they do. There are some bugs left that we're patching out, but it's likely to be a while will before we release it. I'd suggest playing 1.01 and saving often.

[YourStepDad]

This does sound very good. And yeah, Norsca being neutral and then allying with the Empire was pretty ..weird?

Aight, I'm sold. I'll give it a shot. I'm disappointed with the functionality of CoW 1.6, this sounds like it could fix just what I'm hoping it would, although I still am not sure that Chaos crusading is the better alternative. Then again, it does mean that Chaos faction could band up against a common foe in a way previously not seen, right?

Crusading CAI in 1.6 was pretty broken, I hope its different here.

Sorry, I just abandoned my 1.6 campaign with a bitter taste in my mouth, due to how broken and easy everything is because of AI that does not function on any level. I realize that MTW AI was always sup bar.

Thank you for a quick and elaborate answer. I really appreciate it. Just one last thing; empire and chaos are still lenient in alliances towards each other, right? No oddities like Altdorf casually allying with Chaos for no good reason?

Again, thanks.

[Van]

chaos might corrupt the faithful
but chaos should definitely not turn sigmarine.

could the empire have it's own crusade and pope function simultaneously with chaos to reign in all that civil war, not completely, just enough to make the empire somewhat stable when chaos hordes and greenskins or skaven are not on a rampage. the grand the grand theogonist could be a glorified diplomat in reikland who is sripted to get his way 90% of the time when negotiating with other empire factions. that way peace, settlements and demanding attacks on non empire factions would be close to the same as crusades and papal influence.

brettonia died on on its own in my campaign as well, while I dont have a problem with it much, there could be added reasons for it like not obeying the lady of the lake haha... or we could simply see them have better survival options in the future.
a bunch of brettonian rebel castles with skaven and vampires around them looks ok though!

is there room for norscan units to be independent until chaos takes over and force them to work for them or die out. just if some norscan models are around to put in, Im happy about the shieldmaidens being there and maybe it could be all the varied norscan units making their last stand against any who would encroach upon them.

the sub - sub mods addon option sound wonderful! and when there is a mention of developing sub mods to this submod of sisters of sigma and possibly nippon if soemone makes it coudl there be links provided for all these if they are finished? making it easy to collect all in one place.

I think the problem i mentioned with the giant spiders is rare, they seem to be moving now, i just encountered one battle where they didn't want to move.

can't wait to see new models and features!

[♔atthias♔]

chaos might corrupt the faithful
but chaos should definitely not turn sigmarine.

could the empire have it's own crusade and pope function simultaneously with chaos to reign in all that civil war, not completely, just enough to make the empire somewhat stable when chaos hordes and greenskins or skaven are not on a rampage. the grand the grand theogonist could be a glorified diplomat in reikland who is sripted to get his way 90% of the time when negotiating with other empire factions. that way peace, settlements and demanding attacks on non empire factions would be close to the same as crusades and papal influence.

brettonia died on on its own in my campaign as well, while I dont have a problem with it much, there could be added reasons for it like not obeying the lady of the lake haha... or we could simply see them have better survival options in the future.
a bunch of brettonian rebel castles with skaven and vampires around them looks ok though!

is there room for norscan units to be independent until chaos takes over and force them to work for them or die out. just if some norscan models are around to put in, Im happy about the shieldmaidens being there and maybe it could be all the varied norscan units making their last stand against any who would encroach upon them.

the sub - sub mods addon option sound wonderful! and when there is a mention of developing sub mods to this submod of sisters of sigma and possibly nippon if soemone makes it coudl there be links provided for all these if they are finished? making it easy to collect all in one place.

I think the problem i mentioned with the giant spiders is rare, they seem to be moving now, i just encountered one battle where they didn't want to move.

can't wait to see new models and features!

there is a hardcoded limit upon one pope faction which is required for the crusade so the empire can not have their own crusade mechanic
and the jihad mechanic is already used for the waaghhh gameplay

[Van]

there is a hardcoded limit upon one pope faction which is required for the crusade so the empire can not have their own crusade mechanic
and the jihad mechanic is already used for the waaghhh gameplay

so the diplomat solution might work?

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

this sounds like it could fix just what I'm hoping it would, although I still am not sure that Chaos crusading is the better alternative. Then again, it does mean that Chaos faction could band up against a common foe in a way previously not seen, right?

Yes, exactly. We're improving the CAI in the next patch, including some relations, but the idea is Chaos factions will always keep having some internal conflicts while also becoming very dominant and scary building armies on their own.

Crusading CAI in 1.6 was pretty broken, I hope its different here.

It is, a lot of things with AI labels and such have been tweaked under the hood, and the map more closely resembles the Medieval 2 map the crusades were designed for. Now Kislev is the natural barrier to the North that gets beaten back, the Dogs of War (formerly Border Princes) in the South taking the brunt of Orc hordes from the Badlands, letting The Empire try to close off Blackfire Pass, and the Dwarfs in all the mountain regions, keeping the Night Goblins and Skaven busy. Waaaghs! now include Night Goblins and Ogre Kingdoms, as well, so they function as full scale jihads and not just a free upkeep and movement point mechanic only for Orcs.

Sorry, I just abandoned my 1.6 campaign with a bitter taste in my mouth, due to how broken and easy everything is because of AI that does not function on any level. I realize that MTW AI was always sup bar.

The Med2 AI is very tricky. The CoW team has done a lot of really mindblowing, excellent work with their scripts. I know we all give a lot of flack to them and how rigid and intensive they are, but that's some damn good code. The thing is they built it all around the scripts firing and not letting the AI screw it up, while we're taking a different approach of building the game around letting the AI work as best it can. It's different and less predictable, and we have some more fixes to do to keep the AI from being too stupid, but it's fun to have the AI make decisions based on their circumstances.

Thank you for a quick and elaborate answer. I really appreciate it. Just one last thing; empire and chaos are still lenient in alliances towards each other, right? No oddities like Altdorf casually allying with Chaos for no good reason?

The AI can still make some odd decisions, but most of the "what the hell are you doing?" things are factions going to war rather than peace.

could the empire have it's own crusade and pope function simultaneously with chaos to reign in all that civil war, not completely, just enough to make the empire somewhat stable when chaos hordes and greenskins or skaven are not on a rampage. the grand the grand theogonist could be a glorified diplomat in reikland who is sripted to get his way 90% of the time when negotiating with other empire factions. that way peace, settlements and demanding attacks on non empire factions would be close to the same as crusades and papal influence.

No crusading, but we're improving the relations and tweaking the CAI some for the "good" factions so they're a little less likely to go to war and a little more likely to sue for peace after a few turns.

brettonia died on on its own in my campaign as well, while I dont have a problem with it much, there could be added reasons for it like not obeying the lady of the lake haha... or we could simply see them have better survival options in the future.
a bunch of brettonian rebel castles with skaven and vampires around them looks ok though!

Getting fixed in the next patch by making all factions have teutonic family trees, like Chaos and Orcs. We've helped it some by fixing the family trees so they have them, but the timeframe is too short to count on comings of age and adoptions. With teutonic as long as a faction has a settlement and a general they'll still be alive, which fits a lot better, and any problems with succession aren't an issue due to the short timeframe.

is there room for norscan units to be independent until chaos takes over and force them to work for them or die out. just if some norscan models are around to put in, Im happy about the shieldmaidens being there and maybe it could be all the varied norscan units making their last stand against any who would encroach upon them.

Yes, we've been talking about expanding that somewhat. There's a few rebel Norse on the map right now, actually, and they're not the traditional Med 2 easily steamrolled rebels, they're tougher. We're looking into expanding the number in Norsca, though they'll most likely be populated more with Marauders, since those are the real Norscan military units.

the sub - sub mods addon option sound wonderful! and when there is a mention of developing sub mods to this submod of sisters of sigma and possibly nippon if soemone makes it coudl there be links provided for all these if they are finished? making it easy to collect all in one place.

Absolutely, I've been talking to a few people working on sub-submods, as well as seeing a couple pop up here in the submods forum. I'd be more than happy to link them both in the OP here and in an announcement post on moddb once there's some more fleshed out. I'm also happy to consult with anyone interested in making a sub-submod and needing a little help, just as long as you're not only coming with a list of demands for me to do.

I think the problem i mentioned with the giant spiders is rare, they seem to be moving now, i just encountered one battle where they didn't want to move.

They might have gotten stuck. Also make sure you have the advisor on in battles so you get the popup in the upper left corner, that turns on the Germanicu5 ReallybadAI, which is absolutely required for the AI to be anywhere close to competent, especially with elephant-type units.

can't wait to see new models and features!

Me either!

there is a hardcoded limit upon one pope faction which is required for the crusade so the empire can not have their own crusade mechanic
and the jihad mechanic is already used for the waaghhh gameplay

Yeah, it sucks. I had a small hope early on there'd be at least a third based on the Americas Campaign Warpath, but that was just a renamed Jihad. I would have loved to give Bretonnia an Errantry War ability so they could send armies into the Wastes and Badlands, but alas.

[YourStepDad]

Okay, so I played a little and I can already see so many changes for the better. There is a night and day worth of difference in battles, I can see you fiddled with unit stats and boy am I glad you did. The AI actually seems to use its agents meaningfully now as well which is promising. The battles feel as they should now and units feel distinct now. Only after this change have I realized how botched the stats were in regular CoW. Glad to see that growth is back as well. Removing it was a bad idea.

All in all, I've actually got chills from the few battles that I played. the AI felt alive and unpredictable, partly due to new stats as well. Everything behaved differently and it was oh so satisfying and exciting. I just hope this persists.



However, one thing is rather discouraging and worries me ~ What's with all the gold? I've taken Mordheim by turn 2 and my income is 20,000 gold. Is this how its meant to be? Considering this happened in turn 2 I dread to think to think what will happen after I actually develop my economy.

Is this intended/explainable/subject to change?

[tomdoof2236]

Econ was broken(for some reason) in the last patch should be fixed in the new patch to add more financial restrictions so the player has to budget a little more. Marienburg and mordheim are cash cows tho.

[regnak999]

Okay, so I played a little and I can already see so many changes for the better. There is a night and day worth of difference in battles, I can see you fiddled with unit stats and boy am I glad you did. The AI actually seems to use its agents meaningfully now as well which is promising. The battles feel as they should now and units feel distinct now. Only after this change have I realized how botched the stats were in regular CoW. Glad to see that growth is back as well. Removing it was a bad idea.

All in all, I've actually got chills from the few battles that I played. the AI felt alive and unpredictable, partly due to new stats as well. Everything behaved differently and it was oh so satisfying and exciting. I just hope this persists.



However, one thing is rather discouraging and worries me ~ What's with all the gold? I've taken Mordheim by turn 2 and my income is 20,000 gold. Is this how its meant to be? Considering this happened in turn 2 I dread to think to think what will happen after I actually develop my economy.

Is this intended/explainable/subject to change?

Consider yourself fortunate, a lot of the 2nd level econ building don't work for the Lizardmen, (mining complex, fishing settlements, paved roads) and the skinks don't get free upkeep. If the captured settlements did not provide lots of gold things would be almost impossible. As it is Chaos Undivided has expanded it's lead over me while I took 5 settlements from them. Guess the Brettonians are folding too.(all but 2 Empire factions are already dead)

IOW I see the opposite problem from you.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Consider yourself fortunate, a lot of the 2nd level econ building don't work for the Lizardmen, (mining complex, fishing settlements, paved roads) and the skinks don't get free upkeep. If the captured settlements did not provide lots of gold things would be almost impossible. As it is Chaos Undivided has expanded it's lead over me while I took 5 settlements from them. Guess the Brettonians are folding too.(all but 2 Empire factions are already dead)

IOW I see the opposite problem from you.

While some of those issues can be fixed with some minor changes, at the heart of it, we can't please everybody in a single patch. Some people want to be able to support their full stack field armies, garrisons, and have buildings being built without going into the red as they expand their empire, while others want to need to strategically build their economy and occasionally bump into (nearly) unwinnable situations when they don't accurately anticipate everything and make mistakes, losing settlements and barely being able to support one or two stacks with only a handful of elites. Neither side is "wrong", just different modes of play. We'll probably have to have an optional economy patch in order for everyone to enjoy themselves fully.

[regnak999]

Well you have to have 80 settlements to win and that takes money. Especially with corruption, mine is well over 20k.

[Mr.Jester]

Will the Brettonians ever get more units? Their rabble units that aren't knights are hard to use against late game units as they simply turn to fodder. Maybe a few lore friendly filler units like:

Men at Arms bowmen
Crusaders
Squires (This would fit in pretty well, given that most nobles have servants and such. It would also give brettonia one reliable heavy infantry.)
Scavengers (Poor peasants who hunt with javelins. Whatever is legal to hunt anyways)
Adventurers (Lesser nobles who travel with moderate equipment and weapons)
Peasant woodsmen (2 handed axes)
Bounty hunters (Archers?)

Edit: These units aren't in the books as actual units, I just came up with these as ideas for expansion. I'm well aware of the unit limit as well, but I also feel that bretonnia is a huge relm that can easily choose where to campaign in. Not having the military to do so sucks, given their size.

[krle993]

Is there any chance, someone who knows to that stuff, to make submod for better A.I.?

[YourStepDad]

While some of those issues can be fixed with some minor changes, at the heart of it, we can't please everybody in a single patch. Some people want to be able to support their full stack field armies, garrisons, and have buildings being built without going into the red as they expand their empire, while others want to need to strategically build their economy and occasionally bump into (nearly) unwinnable situations when they don't accurately anticipate everything and make mistakes, losing settlements and barely being able to support one or two stacks with only a handful of elites. Neither side is "wrong", just different modes of play. We'll probably have to have an optional economy patch in order for everyone to enjoy themselves fully.

Yeah, that latter description describes EXACTLY how I want my campaigns to be. Literally down to every word. You seem to know your playerbase(s) and that is definitely commendable and promising.

I realize that some players don't want a hardcore economy and want to field large armies. That said, I don't think anyone will appreciate amounts of money so ridiculous that they render money, buildings and ultimately large armies too - meaningless.

If players can amass hordes of troops quickly, this will also make any victory regardless of the numbers involved less decisive and more meaningless. A bit of this is ammended by the large amounts of turns it takes to train elite units. Thats such an excellent addition and I'm glad its here. (but its not enough)

I mean, by turn 3 I've had men enough to fill 3 stacks of armies and still had 10k income each turn. Thats quite gamebreaking regardless of how I try to rationalize it. And that was without any economy buildings being built, too.

Regular CoW has it decent enough (albeit still high for my tastes but definitely reasonable) where you as most Empire factions earn a healthy surplus but still have to choose between pumping out armies or investing in economy. And, if you do pump out armies your upkeep eventually evens out with your profits decreasing severely. Naturally, expansion allows for more armies and the player still can field vast hosts, but it thankfully takes -some- effort. I think most would want this.

Glad you are making that patch oh so much, i just hope that regardless of the difficulty patch you decrease the overall income exponentially, to be at least around what Cow 1.6 was. Plenty of ways to go about this in any case, but something I've definitely noticed is that default town income is huge, and the peasants don't mind being taxed.

Oh, and is there any chance you could make Mordheim especially less prosperous? Its meant to be a warpstone and chaos infested ruin, after all. Having but a few of precious or unique buildings from it after rescuing it would be cool, but it would be awesomer still if, it being a depopulated ruin, you also had to rebuild it and repopulate it. The way it is its a free rich huge city. Just a tiny suggestion!

p.s.

I'm having problems patching the exe with the 4gb patch. I used the program before for various games or mods it came with and it seemed to work fine, but after patching medieval and kingdoms exe files I get an error and they refuse to work. Thankfully, the program automatically backups the exes, but yeah, anyone have a clue why this happens? I know I'm not the only one.

p.p.s. Have the bestigor models been improved? They seem to look discreetly better and more detailed here, haha.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

Will the Brettonians ever get more units? Their rabble units that aren't knights are hard to use against late game units as they simply turn to fodder.

Yes, Damsels. We might give the Men-at-Arms the ability for further armor upgrades, but ultimately your late game units are Grail Knights, Pegasii, and Questing Knights. If we balanced it so Peasants stand a chance against late game elites for other factions, then they're not really the 100% cav focused army they're supposed to be. If your playstyle favors infantry over cavalry, then play Dwarfs, who don't even get weak cavalry.

Yeah, that latter description describes EXACTLY how I want my campaigns to be. Literally down to every word. You seem to know your playerbase(s) and that is definitely commendable and promising.

Not to mention actually managing to take the 80 settlements, which is pretty daunting. Some people want that victory popup, while others would be much happier barely surviving through the whole game and find late game dominance tedious and boring.

I realize that some players don't want a hardcore economy and want to field large armies. That said, I don't think anyone will appreciate amounts of money so ridiculous that they render money, buildings and ultimately large armies too - meaningless.

Like Tom said, the economy was broken in 1.01. If you want to go for the originally intended economy, it's really simple. Just use this original resource rate file from 1.0: https://mega.nz/#!I0hyALZA!ITTnNcgPK...-4jTj34-FbGvwM
Combine that with swapping the campaign_script in the data/world/campaign/imperial_campaign folder with the "campaign_script - with spawns.txt" version for something closer to what you want.

I'm having problems patching the exe with the 4gb patch. I used the program before for various games or mods it came with and it seemed to work fine, but after patching medieval and kingdoms exe files I get an error and they refuse to work. Thankfully, the program automatically backups the exes, but yeah, anyone have a clue why this happens? I know I'm not the only one.

I'm not sure, it could be something to do with them being read only, maybe? I haven't had the error, so I haven't been able to test fixes. There's other such "large address aware" patches out there, maybe a different one would work better. They all do the same thing.

Have the bestigor models been improved? They seem to look discreetly better and more detailed here, haha.

A lot of units have been modified some, so I don't even remember, but I think so.

[Emishi]

Did you install the patch?

Oh damn, you were right. Much easier fight now.

A few things I want to add since my campaign progressed, please regard it as input and not as nagging:

-Skelettons can flee now? That surprised me a bit. Last time I played the mod they had infinite moral. Thematically a bit strange.

- The environmental bonus/ malus is all over the place. The lizzies get a bonus for desert and a malus for forest if I recall right.
Here is what I scripted for them:

stat_ground 1, -1, 3, -2

- Saurus are described as guerilla fighters. They should be able to hide in woods at least.

- I lowered the Saurus charge attack and increased their base attack as well as their endurance and morale slightly. They are very sturdy in tabletop and fluff and the antithesis to Chaos Warriors being of almost similiar strength. Tried to reflect that by increasing their stats and price to 1750. They still loose to Chaos warriors but only slightly.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type saurus
dictionary saurus
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Heavy
accent Lizardmen
banner faction main_infantry
banner holy crusade
soldier saurus, 50, 0, 1.6
officer sauruscap
attributes sea_faring, hardy, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit,hide_forest, warcry, mercenary_unit
move_speed_mod 1.1
formation 2, 2.3, 3, 3, 7, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 13, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_simple, slashing, axe, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 8, 4, 3, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 0
stat_ground 1, -1, 3, -2
stat_mental 21, impetuous, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 1750, 250, 100, 100, 1000, 4, 75
armour_ug_levels 3
armour_ug_models saurus
ownership egypt, slave
info_pic_dir merc
recruit_priority_offset 60

- Skinks work very well. I thought of decreasing their range and increasing their movement speed and giving them blowpipes from the chaemleon skinks

- Cold One Riders seem a tad weak, but ok Lizardmen are not known for their cav

- Stegadons are cool, great models too

- Skink Priests are absolutely broken for their price. Completely overpowered. ^^ 800 gold and just wrecking the most elite troops.

- Kroxigor...I haven't really had enough enough experience with them, but they seem a bit weak when compared to similiar units like the minotaurs. So far the lizardmen army feel is a bit distorted from the tabletop and fluff. Their main problem here is that they don't have elite enough melee troops to compete with the melee elites of other races and thus rely on sniping them out with their OP priests. Whereas in the tabletop the lizardmen challenge is that they have very expensive elite troops on one hand and very cheap and squishy skirmishers on the other, but nothing in between.