Stainless Steel 6.3 & 6.4 Suggestions

[Vanguard13]

Long time player of SS - Seems that the 500 unit max has a LOT of work arounds. Enough to free up potentially 50 or more slots, using the following concepts. This involves TWO things: 1.the better use of armor upgrades. 2. integrated use of attachment sets, faction specific

Imagine: each faction could up-armour/upgrade AOR units (presumably of another ethnicity) into faction/culture specific attachments.
No reason why in the game, for example, the Croat Axemen couldn't be upgraded by Byzantines into lammelar. No reason why in the game Venetians couldn't give Croat Axemen italian chain mail.
These are attachment set variations which breathe unending dimension into the game without increasing the unit limit in EDU. EDB is limitless.

My suggestions are for example:
armor upgrades
1.) Nix the repetitive early spear and archer militia SLOTS but NOT the meshes. Indeed, its not stupid or impossible, and would be quite fun and ALSO free up a lot of slots if militia units and medium units of the same culture and faction were merged into one unit. The MESH files of the medium/professional units can be used as a 4th or 5th armor upgrade.
See how this makes sense? Because the 4th or 5th armour upgrade structure is not built until later, and because its not generally feasable to build them in each settlement, the player will continue to experience and enjoy visually and statistically different units, as they are armoured at different levels.

eg: 1. Kontaratoi to upgrade Gold into Skoutatoi mesh
2. Toxotoi upgrade Gold into Muratoi mesh
3. Akritai upgrade Bronze, Silver, Gold with Akontistai meshes

faction specific attachment sets
e.g: 1. eliminate all repetitive pavise spearmen. have only one EDU pavise spearmen. have faction and mercenary specific 'norm' and 'diff' attachment sets to give each faction a unique variation in appearance and color and shields, etc., for those pavise spearmen.

2. eliminate all repetitive slav spearmen - have only one EDU slav spearmen, have faction and mercenary specific attachment sets to give each faction its own slav spearmen variation. Using attachment sets, these variations and possibilities are virtually endless. There are no limits to the number of entries in EDB. They can look vastly different from each other, or just be colored differently with faction specific shields. All of this without adding more units to EDU. We can save many units in EDU by getting rid of EDU repetitive slav spearmen.

3. cultural specific attachment set UG's.
a.) Sicilians in the Balkans recruit AOR Skoutatoi, but half of their helmets could be Norman variations. Cool huh? This is all doable in attachment sets. This does not increase EDU and there are no 'hard coding' issues that prevent this.
b.) Romans in Sicily recruit muslim archers, but silver upgrade gives them roman helmets. Sick, eh?

corrolary - have the slav spearmen upgradable to gold, allowing the faction specific MESH attachment files to vary interestingly in that direction as well. several Rusichi units which mostly we don't get to see or unlock in most games, that don't have upgrades could be the 'final upgrade' (gold) mesh for any number of relevant 'lesser' units.

idea: western europe - have one very weak morale town militia spear units in EDU whose primary weapon is bow and arrow, very weak. This way in the western europe towns, you have One basic expendible defense units - essentially local constable, weak locals armed with spear and bow. Upgradable to gold, if you so choose, its up to you if you want to spend to overly armour your weakest lumpens. A rich king could do this is he so chose to 'mismanage'.

Introduce Serbian and Albanian dismounted unit of some kind in early game. If Croats and Bulgars exist, Serbians and Albanians definitely exist lol.
Bulgar and Croat units that are a little more colorful and yes the problem with the incomplete face texture layering should be fixed. They need a silver and gold upgrade too, which reflects a move towards, for example, Romanization if ruled by Byzantines, should have Franco-Norman elements if ruled by Sicilians, English, German or French, etc. This can all be done in attachment sets. No increase in EDU limit!

Finally, as said by many, many times before, it would be great to see mercenary spear and mercenary macemen in europe have more color and variety, reflecting the hodgepodge nature of a mercenary unit. I don't think it looks good, nor does it seem accurate that they all decide together to dress up in tan/pink.

Sicily is still vanilla Silver, which gives it a rebel faction feel. I'd suggest using more teal and yellow for norman sicily.

[TheP]

Sicily is still vanilla Silver, which gives it a rebel faction feel. I'd suggest using more teal and yellow for norman sicily.

Here here! I hate the vanilla silver for Sicily, half the time I miss them or mistake their banners for rebel banners.

I'd also like to see a greater variety of religious mercenaries for muslim jihads and if you could implement Vanguard13's suggestions I'd love to see something like Georgia, Serbia or Sweeden added with the unit slots made availible.

I also think that the Mongols do need a reduction in their constant reinforcment stream, playing as any faction other than the Khwarezmians (who're in a position to stop them pretty early, albiet with some difficulty) seeing (as I did) a litteral screen full of full stack armies just discourages the player from taking them on, I think the Mongols should get reinforcements for a few turns but eventually that should stop, if it's possible to script that for when Ghengis dies then that'd be cool but other wise I think an arbitrary year should be set. The mongols had a huge emprie but they didn't have infinite numbers of men to send west.

I also think the Timurids ought to be tonned down a little, to the powerful and influential force they were rather than the world conquering super power they are here.

[Vanguard13]

Here here! I hate the vanilla silver for Sicily, half the time I miss them or mistake their banners for rebel banners.

I'd also like to see a greater variety of religious mercenaries for muslim jihads and if you could implement Vanguard13's suggestions I'd love to see something like Georgia, Serbia or Sweeden added with the unit slots made availible.

Yes - Georgian, Serbian, Swedish AOR units could be imported from Rusichi or BC or even PDER - all three have liberal policies on importing their units.

The various multiply used vanilla 'South-peasant' skinned 'archers' (whether called armenian, balkan, southern etc. et al) can be condensed into a single EDU type, with three or four variations in the MESHs used in EDB.

They can each have different attachments and colors, etc., in EDB, creating all of the variation would 'expect'.

With these, and others, the Unit card description would have to be more broad and inclusive, e.g:

""Typically lightly equipped archers of various balkano-mediterranean ethnicities. Called 'W' (insert name) by the Sicilians and called 'X' by Romans, referred to as 'Y' by Bulgarians, and known colloquilally as 'Z' by Armenians - these men are recruited from various classes of woodmen and peasants and even some rogue adventurers. (then rest of description)"

With this, we free up Three more slots in EDU alone, without sacrificing a single ounce of variation in game play experience.

[Caesar Clivus]

My suggestions are for example:
armor upgrades
1.) Nix the repetitive early spear and archer militia SLOTS but NOT the meshes. Indeed, its not stupid or impossible, and would be quite fun and ALSO free up a lot of slots if militia units and medium units of the same culture and faction were merged into one unit. The MESH files of the medium/professional units can be used as a 4th or 5th armor upgrade.
See how this makes sense? Because the 4th or 5th armour upgrade structure is not built until later, and because its not generally feasable to build them in each settlement, the player will continue to experience and enjoy visually and statistically different units, as they are armoured at different levels.

eg: 1. Kontaratoi to upgrade Gold into Skoutatoi mesh
2. Toxotoi upgrade Gold into Muratoi mesh
3. Akritai upgrade Bronze, Silver, Gold with Akontistai meshes

That completely overrides the distinction between militia and professional troops. Kontaratoi were basically peasants given a spear and shield. Scutatoi were professional soldiers. The division between militia and professional in RealCombat isn't just appearance or better armour. It includes attack speeds, defense values, formations, morale. You can't just slap a new model and skin on a militia unit and think it's going to do the same job as a professional.

[Vanguard13]

That completely overrides the distinction between militia and professional troops. Kontaratoi were basically peasants given a spear and shield. Scutatoi were professional soldiers. The division between militia and professional in RealCombat isn't just appearance or better armour. It includes attack speeds, defense values, formations, morale. You can't just slap a new model and skin on a militia unit and think it's going to do the same job as a professional.

Sure, you can still have the distinction between militia and professional troops - no one has suggested reducing each faction's roster to anything like 'one sword, one spear, one archer' and relying only on Armour UG's. no, no, no such thing.

Nevertheless, there are a number of other game features which could be exploited to actually change the professionalism of the units 'in game'. The defense values can be improved through retraining traits at buildings. Likewise with morale, experience, and attack. The changes these make can be amplified ... the ability to build certain structures can be more difficult and more rewarding ...

With armour upgrades, morale, experience, and attack upgrades, and defense skill upgrades, i don't see too many obstacles in actually developing a militia unit into a professional unit 'in game' through experience and building upgrades of various types.

[Caesar Clivus]

But your original point was to free up EDU slots. Which given your idea of upgrading miltia into professional grade units would mean getting rid of the professional units as, under your idea, they would no longer be needed. Which goes back to my original objection of messing up the distinction between militia and professional troops. You would also then have profesaional grade troops at only militia grade upkeep. You would go back to the vanilla situation of spamming of elite units. The bulk of medieval armies were levied citizens. Professional troops only formed a small part of armies. Militia were never raised for more than a single campaign because then you would have no-one to tend the fields and harvest crops. They weren't kept around and trained/upgraded into professional troops.

[KNavis]

This is really another masterpiece of a mod!! Thank you very much!
Just one note: in the campaign menù and during the campaign itself, texts are a little hard to read. You know.. light grey on light brown or light grey on white. For a not-english like me it's a little problem
Anyway, great work!!! My complimentes!!!

[Vanguard13]

Dear Clivus,
I apologize, clearly I haven't adequately explained my idea. This would not eliminate professional soldiers, not most of them, and not as a category. The proposal would effect about 1/5th of the entire roster, or 20%, in order to achieve a 10% increase in available EDU slots/spaces.

Rather, we are looking at ' a few' militia units that could evolve into professional units. Again there are so many tools at our disposal which would maintain the 'special' nature of a professional over a regular militia or peasant levy unit.

There are buildings which improve morale
There are buildings which improve attack points
There are buildings which improve armour
There are buildings which improve defense skill points.
There are buildings which improve experience points

In addition:
The costs of buildings can be regulated
The years or tree required can be regulated
The retraining costs of units can be regulated to make it very expensive.

With these buildings, it is not 'as' necessary to have units which are distinguished entirely on the above points. Such can be acquired traits.

These buildings need not be cheap. They need not be available from the start. They need not be available in every region. There may be a complex tree to get there, etc.

Whether the player keeps, disbands, retrains, or upgrades a unit should fall within the purvey of the game-players preferences and capacity to rule. Real existing economic problems in the game, would cause the player to disband a peasant militia. But if they could afford to, and wanted to train them differently, they could. And it wouldn't be likely that 'every' unit would be, unless they are playing on an easy setting or came into a lot of cash. Its the king's right.

Remember that in EDU the retraining costs are 'hand tailored' to each unit. We can say that peasants/levy are the MOST expensive to uptrain and uparmor. No?

Its fun to play with a network of cities that must work together. The place that is built up for good units. Another town that has the best armourers. Another town still has the weapons or morale or experience upgrade, etc. You are sending your soldiers around, opting in and out of various expensive upgrades varying from morale to armour. Its up to you if the unit recruited will take on more professional dimensions or disposable ones. It depends on what you invest in them, and what you are able to. See?

Entirely as an aside from this, though, is the use of the accessory mesh. This can localize any unit using accessory meshes to match the colors and armor style of the given faction (or in that area, at that time, etc., what they could have bought, traded for etc.)

Anyhow, any number of objections are always possible. Its always possible to come up with possible problems, each one though naturally would have a work-around.

[The Source]

This is really another masterpiece of a mod!! Thank you very much!
Just one note: in the campaign menù and during the campaign itself, texts are a little hard to read. You know.. light grey on light brown or light grey on white. For a not-english like me it's a little problem
Anyway, great work!!! My complimentes!!!

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=423725

[KNavis]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=423725

Thank you Source, but my problem wasn't the menu buttons , just the text's colour (unit and building descriptions and so on), white on white.. you know. I know... i'm quite uncomprehensible cause of my broken english
Anyway, thank you very much for your hint.

[Thetrework93]

I dont know if anyone ever thought of this but wouldn't it be cool if players could have the ability to create thier own factions during the game? Some people such as myself find these games too easy once you have got 30 regions with a very reliable reputation on your shoulders. The ability to make and customize a faction and give them land for your empire to grow would make the game never old. Maybe even be able to become a new made faction and go against the magnificent empire you had before. I have so many ideas for this game but i dont know how to make mods. Soon i will be learning tho.
Honest Opinons! especially the bad critisizing ones

[oxxid]

After playing for a month this 6.4 version, the major changes I would suggest is to add logical buildings requirements for troops recruitment, making any castle wall building NOT a recruitment building.

For instance, it is for me quite unlogical to be able to recruit mounted knights with plate armor whithout ANY stable or armourer of any kind.

Also, this doesn't give much value to those buildings, as most Elite units are recruitable as soon as you build the castle wall (and the event has come for this unit to be recruitable, if you play with RR).

I find it to be a major drawback for gameplay motivation.

I would do it myself, but I'm just a beginner with modding, and I don't now how to add a mix of building requirements for a unit.
For example, I can move a mailed knight to be recruitable in a stable and not in a castle, but I don't know how to make it recruitable ONLY after a blacksmith has been built.

Your thoughts ?

[whitewolfmxc]

fix cross bow firing on walls issue http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=447025

[clocky]

there is LOOONG wish list - the topic is more then a year old but , how i see it , doubt there will be another version coming soon. Please tell us if the project is done to move along and just stop reading other "can't be implemented" posts. It's useless. Will there be a newer SS add-on version or we are just wasting our time here with suggestions?

[bɑne]

Everything here gets read and considered. A new version is beeing worked on.

[Halvar von Flake]

I haven't played the Scots for ages but my current campaign is unbelievable (GraculAI VH/VH)! In the year 1241AD I had the last battle against the English east of London in which the last three English family members were killed. The King of Scots and his heir died in this battle and the Scottish house was almost destroyed either...I never saw two messages of "a new faction leader" and two messages "faction leader killed" in the same round before! Fantastic!

My Suggestions:

Although the new Scottish suits and armors look very good I would suggest another choice of weapons for the following units:

Highlanders -> give them one handed swords like in Medieval I to make them look much better especially for animations and style (bye the way thanks for the music from Medieval I!)

Highland Rabble -> give them clubs or forks or daggers or a mix of them if possible (their weapons look weird and buggy)

[Caesar Clivus]

there is LOOONG wish list - the topic is more then a year old but , how i see it , doubt there will be another version coming soon. Please tell us if the project is done to move along and just stop reading other "can't be implemented" posts. It's useless. Will there be a newer SS add-on version or we are just wasting our time here with suggestions?

Can I suggest actually reading and/or searching before posting so you can see from other existing posts that a new version is being worked on.

[Thetrework93]

oxxid what do you mean your a beginner? I would do it myself, but I'm just a beginner with modding, and I don't now how to add a mix of building requirements for a unit.
For example, I can move a mailed knight to be recruitable in a stable and not in a castle, but I don't know how to make it recruitable ONLY after a blacksmith has been built.
Do you go to school for this or do you teach yourself, as you can see im ignorant on the matter. But i am hungry to learn.

[Enarec]

The Khwarezmian Empire could use a Dismounted Khwarezmian Noblemen unit. Currently it has no swordmen in it's roster. Seljuks have Hasham, Fatimids have Al-Haqa infantry (though those could use a small buff imo). Moors need some horse archers/good archers before the New Era.
The Fatimid Caliphate should be changed to the Ayyubid Sultanate. Sicily should be removed from the Late Era and their lands controlled by the Holy Roman Empire.

That's pretty much all in my opinion.

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

Great mod. If I was the developer I would take a step away from historical accuracy and take a step towards playability. We know historical accuracy and playability doesn't go hand to hand. I have a few suggestions here:

1) Switch all mercenaries to buildings like it has been done with Byzantines. It makes mercenaries easier to manage and use IMO.

2) Could u make it so that after conquering a settlement u need to build some "national" buildings before u can recruit troops. Sort of like converting newly conquered areas to server the kingdom. This would slow down enemies and players blitzkrieg. These have been done in various RTW mods. Good feature me thinks. Having to "convert" new people for 10-15 turn before beign able to recruit slows down expansion.

3) Lower/medium tier units get experience boost from upper tier barracks, stables and such. This ways lower/medium tier units could be used in the later game also? More boost to lower units from higher level barracks. Some factions lower tier units can't match plate-units at all. I'd scrub all peasant and truly low level units that take units slots and never see any use.

4) More dismounted units to cavalry factions. More variety into their army could make them more enjoyable. U don't have to go all out HA/heavy cav. U could mix in some foot units also that can hold on their own, but not match infantry nations units. Armies did fight on foot when it suited them.

5) Develop eastern factions to match western faction after plate era. It would be nice if eastern armies were more up to bar with western nations armies even though they were destroyed by mongols or so.

6) Make fortress-level cities able to recruit all units. Citadel would be easy, but very very slow and costly to achieve? Expensive buildings needed for developing citadels? Citadels only provide last armor upgrades and a good boost to higher level unit recruitment.

7) Recruiting nobles happen from a "noble/royal house" building or something like that. At the start of a campaign its only available in capital and high fortress level castles. But retraining should be available in castle level, but very slowly. I would do this system for higher level units. So u don't need to transfer units all over the place to retrain elite units. U could just have them sit at a lower level place to wait for reinforcements.

8) More buildings. More economy buildings so u need to take time to develop ur settlements.

Cheers. Gotta go play now