Guilliman's Balance Mod, Release 1.0

[Guilliman]

Guilliman's Balance mod

Greetings everyone.

This mini mod changes some aspects of the game to slow it down. Most units take twice as long to build, less economy income etc.
Personally I'm enjoying it a lot more then vanilla, so hoping to share it with everyone. If people have comments/ideas or find some things over/under powered I'll see to make adjustments.

Do note the British still are easy mode and America, apart from the native Americans isn't well managed (spain/france). They don't seem to spent too much on units there making conquering them easymode.


Alright, the list of changes and updates so far

Economychanges:
-Reducing global income by 20%
-Increasing all unit cost by 50%


Unit changes:
-Reducing bow range to same range as standard line infantry muskets
-Native American Tribesman, auxiliary tribesmen ,warriors and auxiliary warriors unit size reduced to 120 (from 160)
-Increase Generals bodyguard group size by 50%
-Reduce Morale globally by 50% (rounding up, so no unit will have less then 2 morale points)
-Reduce all musket wielding infantry accuracy by 20%
-Increase all musket wielding infantry reload skill by 20%
-Increase all artillery reload skill by 50%
-Increase all artillery cannons by 2 per group (with proper horses and units to matchs the extra cannons).
-Increase all build times of units by 100%
-Reduce Galleys hull defence by 20%
-Increase all ships reload skill by 20%
-Remove unit limits.

Technology changes:
-Increase Tech points per turn for all schools/colleges etc by 25% (effectively +25% research speed.-found to make it less hectic and boring, also buffs AI to have more effective cannons early on, they seem to love teching it)


Thats it for the moment. Comments, suggestions? I welcome all critical thinking. I will start putting this in my game to test some values and both land and see battles. Adjustments will be made depending on comments. I estimate first public release to be in a few days at most!

One minor question I have. I'm unable to get a self made patch_<insert mod name here>.pack to work. For the time being this mod will replace patch.pack (I will keep an original patch.pack on my website to download incase anyone didn't backup his original). If anyone can help me with how to setup a patch pack for my mod so the game uses that instead of the original patch.pack It would be really appreciated.



*NEW* update 17/03/09: Added to list.
-Remove unit limits.

*NEW* update 17/03/09 *2:
-All artillery that have minimum range have had that reduced to 100 yards (from 200-250yards)
-Native American Tribesman, auxiliary tribesmen ,warriors and auxiliary warriors unit size reduced to 120 (from 160)
-All Admiral ships have received a small increase in hull strength
-Special edition ships have been slightly buffed ("HMS Victory" and "Constitution")
-Ships are build slightly faster (6 turns became 4, 8 turns became 6)
-some minor economy changes to make it slightly easier early game
-Artillery range that was 400yards increased to 500 yards.

Download V1.0
Download it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NUYWD4ZX

How to install:

.1 -Backup your patch.pack by copying it somewhere out of the data folder.
.2 -Place the new patch.pack into the data folder and you're good to go.

Notes:
If you don't like the mod and want to remove it, simply delete patch.pack in your data folder and place the one you backuped (see .1 above) back into the data folder.
Also note everytime the game patches trough steam the mod will be replaced with the new patch. So if the mod randomly stops working, check if there was a game update .

Enjoy.

[joedreck]

Seems it will be a very good mod. I like the higher costs and reduced income. Everthing looks nice, only some points.

Bigger Grenadier and General units are not good to me.

And the reduced reload time is not good too. Your soldiers need the time. If the soldiers reload to fast, your soldiers will be to often under fire before reach the enemy.

Unit limits are natural, cause there can not be only elite units. But if you use same system as the CA with Generals (more Generals, less quality), so it's a good idea.

[Guilliman]

Reload times are offset by accuracy though, as well as lower moral on all units. This causes the enemy (or your troops as well) to rout sooner rather then stay and getting shot up to 10% or less at times. Also indirectly increases the bonus that +moral points from generals and veterancy give.

Can always change if testing and public opinion labels the land battles as boring because of it
If unique units become too spammable I'll make them cost more. Limits are never fun honestly. If you want a full stack of elites, sure but damn if you loose them in a battle hehe

I'm tempering with the idea of making all ships lose some of their durability, I believe this increases the chance to have fatal damage (sink/blow up) this why smaller ships with less defence blow up faster. I should test that now.

[Guilliman]

Minor update: (added to first post too.)
-All artillery that have minimum range have had that reduced to 100 yards (from 200-250yards)
-Native American Tribesman, auxiliary tribesmen ,warriors and auxiliary warriors unit size reduced to 120 (from 160)
-All Admiral ships have received a small increase in hull strength
-Special edition ships have been slightly buffed ("HMS Victory" and "Constitution")

[Condottiere SOG]

At 1/10 scale, the units in game are pretty accurate. You would do the game an injustice to make units larger than they are on Huge. 160/80/60/32 is just right. Maybe the only thing CA got on the nose.

[{***}Gen.ALW{***}]

All dismountable Cav units should be 192, as they were usuially 1/5th larger than their infantry counterparts of equal size so that 1/5th of the men could hold horses and they would still be of equivilant size. If you could also make it so that every 5th man stays with the horses when they dismount that would be great. And even further shot in the dark, make it so the horses and rider now come together when they remount since there will be someone holding the horses.

[bangell99]

Reload times are fine. I'm OK with you reducing the accuracy, just make the guns more accurate at close range, if you can do that.
Also, grenadiers should stay the same. Increase their stats (melee particularly) not their unit size.

[Trajan]

Moved to the Empire Mod Threads/WIP.

[Guilliman]

Thank you for the input so far. I'll agree to change the grenadier unit size back to 80 and costs and upkeep back to match it. Melee stats will be very slightly increased as I feel myself it to be a bit too lacking (since they're only 80 pop a unit and are very easily outnumbered.

Did some testing, started a grand campaign on hard/medium. I must say, the start is actually challenging, with 1stack and a half I had to start conquering a few regions to get back on track financially.

the native Americans are proven to be a challenge, arrows are still lethal but now they have to get in range of muskets, which is good.

I think Musket fire is pretty good now, they don't hit that often so there's plenty of time to get in range before too many casualties are taken.

I have to be honest, I've come closer to defeat on several fights already because of the global moral reduction (-50%) It makes a lot of battles more of a retreat rather then slaughter mill, which in turn makes it challenging, because a lot of times you'll be attacked on the campaign map before your unit has time to reënforce (which btw is a lot more expensive with the new unit costs).

I have yet to fight a battle against say france or spain who also use line infrantry and cannons. I'm preparing to attack spain colonies atm, so we'll see how this works out, if it's as expected I'll upload the mod and further balance can be done with actual community playing/testing

[Guilliman]

Alright, first version released, you can download it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NUYWD4ZX

How to install:
.1 -Backup your patch.pack by copying it somewhere out of the data folder.
.2 -Place the new patch.pack into the data folder and you're good to go.

Notes:
If you don't like the mod and want to remove it, simply delete patch.pack in your data folder and place the one you backuped (see .1 above) back into the data folder.
Also note every time the game patches trough steam the mod will be replaced with the new patch. So if the mod randomly stops working, check if there was a game update .

Enjoy.


Also, not sure if I will be continuing it due to lack of enthusiasm and the fact I got a call today for a possible job (interview tomorrow). I'd love to continue this mini mod publicly for those that like it though. I'm continuing it anyway for myself.

[Condottiere SOG]

All dismountable Cav units should be 192, as they were usuially 1/5th larger than their infantry counterparts of equal size so that 1/5th of the men could hold horses and they would still be of equivilant size. If you could also make it so that every 5th man stays with the horses when they dismount that would be great. And even further shot in the dark, make it so the horses and rider now come together when they remount since there will be someone holding the horses.

Why is that. Hussar units had squadrons of up to 150men and there were 10 to a regiment in this period. Also heavy cav was usually limited to 5squadrons.
Battalions were 500-800strong except in cases of Guard units(caps at 1000men). There were many regiments that only had one battalion in reality(especially in England's case-most European regiments had 2 battalions-guard and other special units sometimes had three battalions).
If you are trying to be literal-this is definitely the wrong game for that.