I have been "away" of modding issues for a while, first helping Darth to get a really nice "last" mod and later due lack of time..., but now i'm here to try something i have been thinking for a long time..
I will try to combine Darth Mod with The Long Road giving them my personal touch and making them playable on Kingdoms (Thanks to retrofit mod)
I don't know how long could it take as i have not too much time to work on it, but i will post here any update of my work..
Status:
Working on Step 5 (90% done)
Step 0: (100% done) (I hade some problems with Xenophonia.., too many mods at once XD)
Understanding how to use Retrofit to create the mod.
Step 1: (99%)
*Using Darth Combat and Diplomacy over TLR
*Total rework of the EDU file
+More men per unit (max 250)
+More siege engines per unit (3-5)
+Rebalance for all units (Skills, cost and battle performance):
-More diference between kinds of units (swords, spears, heavy, light..)
-Light units attack faster, but are less lethal.
-Medium units, good performance speed/damage.
-Heavy units, slower but mortal. (this get worst with heavy polearms).
-Cavalry can no longer hold versus a spear unit unless disorganized or being Heavy cavalry.
-Light Cavalry could be beaten by common infantry in some situations.
-Light cavalry can no longer stand vs heavy cavalry
+Changes on combat system.
-100% hit ratio for melee combat.
-Rework on projectiles (range/accuracy and ammunition)
*Included XAI
Step 2: (99%)
*Improving and adapting campaign gameplay.
+Rework merchan TLR system towards Darth's values
+Rework of Building system
-Building Cost
-Unit roosters
+Rework unit pools
+Rework unit costs
+Rework of settlement variables
-pop Growth
-Pop happines
-Pop and farm income
Step 3: (99%)
Campaign Testing
Reports from campaign (no more than 20 turns into it)
-Slow city upgrades
-Cheaper units, but you cannot train units every turn due new replenish factors (sometimes you could be forced to train low level units)
-Well rounded AI armies
-Cavalry is strong, but not a key factor as before (I have lost an even battle with more cavalry units and with 2:1 kill ratio to my side)
-Cavlary vs Cavalry battles have 2 phases. At first there will be lots of casualties on both sides, but as the momentum has lost and soldiers get more stacionary battles could last for a while..
-Back charges are deadly, I've lost half my bodyguards plus my general cos i was hit by an archer's charge from the back while fighting enemy general's unit. I was forced to disengage to safe the unit..
-AI is training lots of troops and merging into nice armies. You will notice diference between factions depending on their tresaury.
-AI is training Merchants and chasing others faction merchants.
-AI is training Priests and sending them to convert population.
-New Faction Standings (99%)
-Xeryx's AI (99%)
-Diplomacy (99%)
-Campaign DB (99%)
Step 4: (90%)
Battle system
-New unit stats (99%)
-Faction specific stats (Removed)
-Improved Battle AI (90%)
-New Formations (50%)
Step 5: Test Phase (75%)
Improving Agent training priorities (50%)
Improving AI army composition (90%)
Testing Overal Diplomacy and FS effects (85%)
...
Version 0.75:
New Features:
Added new skins models from TLR.
Added new textures for cities in campaign map.
Added new artillery and dust effects.
New settlemen mechanics.
Xeryx's Campaign AI.
Initial faction standings adjustments.
Fixed minor AI errors concerning Portugal.
New catholic-papacy diplomacy rules.
New Diplomacy rules to avoid easy treaties. Faction standings have a higher weight than before.
Less rebel spawn armies, but bigger ones.
+10% to base defense during merchant acquisition attempts.
Some tweaks into the auto-calc.
Removed starting wars and alliances and replaced them with Bad or Good relations (all factions will have the same chances).
Reduced some rebel garrisons and lowered their exp.
Events and actions not affect only the pope, all factions are somehow affected by crusades, jihads, buildings, etc (no more "plain" FS file).
Religion will be a key factor during the campaign.
Current Changes:
New Combat system fully functional.
New Building cost.
New Units pools.
Pop Growth.
Merchant System.
Siege weapons accuracy.
Increased (a bit) resource's values.
unlock special ability for ribaults.
modded siege engines to almost same Darth's values.
Fixed "shield Bug" on campaign during AI turns.
Reworked unit's cost and pools
Units are cheaper than before, so you could have bigger armies. (this should help the AI building better armies)
Buildings are more expesive to keep the balance.
Lots of new rules into Faction standing file(3x size of vanilla file).
More weigh for religion.
Stronger effects to diplomatic actions.
Jihads added.
Removed duplicated rules.
Faction Specific rules.
New Religious conversion rules.
New Mounted accuracy/range values.
Shield Wall formation added to several shielded units.
Improved Ballistae accuracy vs units.
Removed all aztecks units.
Fixed bad accents.
Tweaked Turkish starting gold and population.
To install, unpack the Darth Ages into the Medieval II Total War/mods folder. This is the same folder where the Kingdoms campaigns such as the Crusades are located.
Complete mod (Version 0.84) It upgrades any previous version:
Darth Ages 0.84 (auto exec)
Battle Fix
Fixed bad behaviour of units during sieges.
UI files
Do NOT download them unless you are getting graphics issues with city names or white screens
Installation:
UI.zip file goes into Medieval\data\ui folder
DAUi.zip file goes into Medieval\Mods\DarthAges\data\ui folder
Those are the files i'm using without any trouble..
Update 8.1 it upgrades the mod with fixed unit files and new rules for Faction Standings and Script files.
Update 8.4:
Some of the current changes
+Rebalance of the EDU file
All units have 1 HP but elephants
Tweaked some stats for infantry and cavalry units
Greatly increased Ship offsets to help the AI
+Rebalance of the EDB
New values for religion buildings
Some Tweaks on troops availability
+New Money and development Scripts
+Reworked the FS file
A few new rules
Rebalanced Jihads/Crusade events
Religion wars have less effect
Battles are less relevant for allies/foes
+New land bridges on Ireland and Gibraltar
+Added Real Horses skins from Argent Usher
+Added XBAI
Update 8.6:
+Small tweaks to the EDU
Revised Camel units
Revised Papal and Swiss Guard stats
Fixed Hospitaler Knights bug
+Latest XAI version
+New Campaign script
Instead of building the upgrades it will give pop, because some settlements werent growing
+Less pirates (I hope)
+Less heretics and witches
+No ships available on Lakes
+5 New mines, with diferent bonus and income
Tin
Iron
Coal
Marble
Sulfur
+1st try to help the AI training Agents.
+Ports couldnt build ships on "Lakes"
+Pirates should not spawn on "Lakes"
+Removed TLR Leader Ancillaries (Temporaly, I hope)
Update 0.88
Changes into EDB to help the AI training more Agents
Tweaks on names files to fix CTD issues
Less pirates
Latest XAI files
Version 0.9
-New XAI and XBAI
-Tweaked Faction standings file
-Some minor fixed
-Reduced the chances of CTDs when destroying a faction
-Tweaked some units stats
-Tweaked economic system
-Added new city graphics
-Tweaked Unit priorities