reworked peasants mod!

[mynameismud]

hello tw community!

i am new but i really love m2tw, modding and stainless steel thanks for all the fun campaigns guys! you are awesome im always tweaking around with the files and i wanted to share my contribution with you all even if its not so great

first this mod requires NO external files! all you have to do is make small changes to the text i love early game, especially since mid late game always crashes eventually but i always had problem with peasants! they look out of place in my cool army and are thoruoughly useless for both ai and player so here are some changes i want to share:

first i replaced the pitchfork peasants with the unused town militia skins! i want to believe like even a worthless serf can get a sharp stick and shield if called by his lord to do so. they look similar to spear militia but they have small round shield and atleast they look like they can share the field alongside my knights again no extra files! just edit your export_descr_unit and change peasant skins to town_militia!! so easy this works for north south slav and muslim peasants!! simly add ne_ se_ ee_ or me_ at the beginning. problem is skins are missing for some factions but thats ok!! i use similar colour skins and dont notice difference castille colours for genoa. england colours for venice. slave colour for sicily! edit battle model file to make these changes

since these new peasants are armed i gave them the new label "levy ifantry" to correspond with levy archers! since they have shields i bumped theyr shield stat +4!! now they are like levy archers with sheild instead of bow and are not as useless good for desperate mass defenses but still hopeless against missiles and cavalry charge and armour units!! also still much weaker than spear militia. plus one armour upgrade gives them +5 defense!! fearsome
highland rabble say they are tough but they stink!! funny thing is they are most abundant unit in scotland roster to balance peasant units i make big changes to rabble. they get stats of +2 attack and +5 defense skill!! i know very controversial but hear me out! these stats are very similar to highlanders who have +5 defense skill but they are missing the +3 shield and instead of axe they get wimpy stick so it makes sense! gives a small advantage to weak scotland. stronger than new levy infantry but still useless in comparison to real soldiers. also defense skill means those english archers will still mow them down!!

ingame ai adapts well and is highly compatible with mods and save games. most important thing is THEY DO NOT SPAM! at best ai will supplement armies with 3-4 levy infanty and ignore building them when better units are available! they are not game changing and in general i feel add depth to an ignored and useless unit. so i have fun with these guys these mods are really only a idea to other fellow players because they are so very easy to implement and allows player to change values to her own tastes! i do not have dl ready but if anyone is interested in trying my personal mod i will gladly put up pictures and make the changes to a fresh copy of ss and realease to the community. if i could help even one stainless steel player i would be sooo happy!!

what to do from here??? i have ideas to make peasant units even more significant! maybe cavalry bonus for spear levys and infantry bonus for muslim sword levys to make them more unique? i was looking into a second armour upgrade for peasants. vanilla tw lists two armour upgrades for town militia but my attempts to implement them have failed maybe make castles longer to get and extend the period of times for peasant armies will give early game a more "dark ages" feel and increase the value of your starting knights? i hope someone reads this will be interested and that i dont waste time with my silly mod good day!!

[Lifthrasir]

First of all, welcome on the forum. It's always good to see new people.

Your idea is fine but you have to consider that some people have no experience at all in modding and will probably encounter problems to update the files as you say. You may create modified/updated files to make the installation easier.

Regarding the Highlands units, they're completely wrong (and not only graphically). It has been mentioned numerous times. First of all, Highlanders were not levies. They had a "job" like farmer, ironsmith, etc..., but when their Taskman (understand the representative of their Clan Chieftain) called in the event of war, they left their occupation, take their weapons and go, ready to fight. They were experienced fighters (because regularly mustered to fight against pirates or bandits or to raid against another Clan or a nearby kingdom). Finally, they were famous to be fanatically loyal to their chief. So basically, nothing in comon with the poor peasants who were forced into the army, with little experience and bad morale, and sometimes would not even have been given a weapon.

Hope it helps and keep going

[Melooo182]

I liked the idea! so made a downloadable version.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Sub Mod Manager compatible and all.

mynameismud if you want you can use it as framework for those other improvements you had in mind.

Have to add this only works with vanilla SS6.4 early and late campaigns and should be compatible with any other submod that doesnt alter the model database serialization or change peasants stats and ownership.