Tuskmod - Original thread

[Walrusjones]

Thanks a bunch for contributing to the TW: Attila mod scene! My question is if Tuskmod is compatible with Radious, as far as you know?

Its hard to imagine that you wouldn't get hundreds of file conflicts with the Radious mods. Odds are, compatibility is in the gutters.

If I were you, I would only run one at a time.

[RightNow0815]

Having a great time playing your mod in campaign. These tournament replays look pretty good, with a huge wave of fresh meta stomping over the battlefield.
Keep it up, mate!

[Walrusjones]

Having a great time playing your mod in campaign. These tournament replays look pretty good, with a huge wave of fresh meta stomping over the battlefield.
Keep it up, mate!

In the aftermath of the tournament, I actually have a lot of advice for people who are just picking up the mod which will help them.

1. Archer range is a dead give away to where an archer unit is cost effective. 200 and 175 Range archers do well when kept BEHIND your line, and will get slaughtered by equivalent cost 150 range archers if the short range archers get in range.

2. Slowdown effects are incredibly useful, if you cannot circumvent a unit with slowdown effects, it is best to have a low cost unit of light cavalry to catch the units with slowdown effects so your more devastating units can maneuver freely.

3. Defensive formations can walk forward at a brisk pace, this can be used to intercept perpendicular enemy movements. An active defense is more effective then a passive one.

4. Shock units are very dangerous if not screened against, and are the ideal counter to entrenched enemy positions.

[RightNow0815]

These are some good advices, as far as my vs-AI experiences go (plus some additional test battles with some buddies), 2-4 are correct and welcome imho.

I really like the fact that much more units can be a viable option. Gothic Archers for example.

What is your opinion of Horse Skirmishers? I feel like Horse Archers are somewhat balanced at the moment.
But I still don't think javelin cav is that worthy, especially the more expensive ones like Germanic Night Raiders compared to standard Germanic Raiders. Are there any plans how to further approach the raider cavalry?

Just of curiosity: Has anybody already experienced the current effectiveness of anti-inf cavalry (axe using) for example Burgundian Mounted Axemen or Sogdian Camel Raiders?

Regards!

[Walrusjones]

What is your opinion of Horse Skirmishers? I feel like Horse Archers are somewhat balanced at the moment.
But I still don't think javelin cav is that worthy, especially the more expensive ones like Germanic Night Raiders compared to standard Germanic Raiders. Are there any plans how to further approach the raider cavalry?

Just of curiosity: Has anybody already experienced the current effectiveness of anti-inf cavalry (axe using) for example Burgundian Mounted Axemen or Sogdian Camel Raiders?

Regards!

Horse skirmishers will struggle in the early game campaign, as every unit of enemy melee cavalry will be light in the opening phases of the game. When the enemy starts using more true-blooded heavy cavalry units, the horse skirmishers become one of the most cost effective options available. We did run a tournament of tuskmod last week which I very much enjoyed, and horse skirmishers were pretty much the bane of heavy cavalry, but light cavalry (Scout equites, Equites Dalmatae, Germanic mounted Warband, most of the steppe line, Persian scouts,) was the bane of horse skirmishers.

As for the Anti-Infantry cavalry: Moramer cavalry was a very popular choice, for axe cavalry, I didn't see any units in the battles I spectated, but given that I only have seen 3/4's of the battles thus far, it may have been used.

[flippers]

I'll keep on eye on this mod and its upcoming updates, the changes really look interesting

[miTo82]

Hey Walrusjones!

Since I Play with your mod for a couple of days now, I have to say that I like it very much! Especially the feature for the Danes that allows them to recruit the elite marauders as regular land Units. It gives them a small boost to go ahead with the other nordic factions that have "unique" Units: Geats have the Thrall Spears/Spearmen, Jutes have the [Royal] Huscarls and the Danes now have the Elite Marauders in their regular land unit roster. I like that a lot!

As far as I can see, there are some more naval Units (normal / heavy and berserker marauders, Saxons have two unique Marine Units too). So, do you think abaut adding more of the naval Units to the land roster? I think specially for the nordic / viking factions this would be a nice Feature. And maybe it is possible to add some low tier naval Units to low Tier buildings (light marauders to Tier I or II Military Harbor, for example)...


And a small additional question:
I have looked into your mod with the PFM and found for the danes two additional Units:
- Elite Marauders
- Chosen Marauders

But in my Danes campaign I can only find the Elite Marauders (Tier III Military Harbor, as far as I remember), But I dont know how to recruit the Chosen Marauders. How can I recruit them?


PS: Sorry if I wrote the wrong unit names. I Play tith the german game Client and the names here a bit different =)

[Walrusjones]

And a small additional question:
I have looked into your mod with the PFM and found for the danes two additional Units:
- Elite Marauders
- Chosen Marauders

It is true that the Danes have a way of getting chosen marauders in the campaign as a land unit, how they do this has changed a few times. The next patch should probably include the last location for them.

[reactorisready]

Dear Walrusjones! When we will see a new version? )

[Walrusjones]

A newer version then the one here can be found in this thread. The multiplayer version is designed to update with surprising frequency, due to balancing being easier to make then new features.

As for the next version, which will hopefully include a few new submods (Slower battles, and two different garrison altering submods,) as well as the updates made to the multiplayer version.

The biggest delay with the current update of this version could be quickly summed up to me repeatedly deciding to keep continuing until I reach the level of quality with these submods that you would all expect.

My goal is to be done with the first draft of the garrisons tomorrow, and to try to get done with the slower battle submod (One which requires WAAAY more testing,) sometime this weekend. I may do an early release when I finish the first version of the dynamic garrisons submod (Will cover everything but religion, and resource buildings,) so everyone can play around and give feedback, and then release the full set on monday.

[Friar Chris]

I've been enjoying my campaign much more with the subtly better battle pacing and changes overall in Tuskmod. I have but one observation to report for now, and it concerns the cavalry 'roles' and their performance as a result:

I don't object the conceptualisation of the cavalry 'sub-roles' you explain on the front page, but I've got the feeling when playing through my campaign that the differences are now too pronounced. It seems that cavalry with anti-cavalry bonus tear through any other cavalry at alarmingly fast rates that are out of sync with the rest of the battle pacing; higher quality cavalry units are being slaughtered a tad too easily because they're (presumably) a different 'speciality'.

The other thing for me is trying to work out, when recruiting new units, what category any given cavalry falls into; it's a complete mystery to me which requires educated guessing from looking at the unit card stats. I don't really know beyond shock vs melee vs skirmisher (as in vanilla) what's going on.

[Walrusjones]

I don't object the conceptualisation of the cavalry 'sub-roles' you explain on the front page, but I've got the feeling when playing through my campaign that the differences are now too pronounced. It seems that cavalry with anti-cavalry bonus tear through any other cavalry at alarmingly fast rates that are out of sync with the rest of the battle pacing; higher quality cavalry units are being slaughtered a tad too easily because they're (presumably) a different 'speciality'.

To be fair, it isn't just the bonus versus cavalry that makes generic heavy cavalry less ideal for hunting other cavalry, but the way charges work as well.

In tuskmod, lighter cavalry units can catch heavy cavalry units much more easily, and if timed properly can actually hit heavy cavalry as they are starting their charge. (With the importance of impact damage in the warscape engine, this is a big deal.)

Of course, I have been studying the results of the tournament, and paying good attention to the unit trees of the various factions: No faction should end up without a light or medium cavalry option for screening (Germanics have Taifali cavalry.) Heavy cavalry charges are still one of the most devastating things in the game, but they are something you will need to set up.

In the case of the vandals: I have needed to fix their elite cavalry units for a while, and I think with this past weeks work, I am happy with the moorish cavalry, and vandal raiders performance.

As for acatziri raiders... I may have overdone them a bit, looking back on my friendly battles with Obelix.

[Gallidor]

Hey Walrus, I was checking the differences between the version posted here (1.2) and the tournament version. Is there a list of differences that you could post to shed some light on what you changed exactly, without changelogs I would find it difficult to keep track of all the changes.

One thing I was wondering about is why you decided to reduce the ammo of javelin throwers significantly. Elite Saxon Javelinmen had 12 ammunition and now only have 7, but they cost the same (very very expensive) and didn't receive any other changes. Was there a hidden change I didn't notice? I was wondering what the rationale behind this ammo reduction was.

Also I noticed a new sword with 38 damage, what was the purpose of this?

Thanks a bunch for the awesome mod! Can't wait to see the new submods you are developing.

[Walrusjones]

The Javelin changes were done after a few friendly battles pre-torunament. The drop in javelin ammo was a response to how many kills javelinmen were killing just throwing their javelins into the front of the enemy unit. Every battle in that tournament would have been determined by the javelinmen killing three times their size in men.

So, its a balance change. Javelinmen are still incredibly useful (See the typical build of obelix,) but not overpowered.

The 38 damage sword was made for units like the scout equites, and defensive infantry, a more thrusting focused sword. It isn't quite a spear, but it has a bonus of 5 versus cavalry. Making it a "Soft counter" to the spears hard counter.

[Gallidor]

Are you going to be updating the multiplayer version and the campaign version separately or are you going to combine them later? Or are you testing things with the multiplayer version before adding it to the main mod?

The sword idea is really cool.

I guess I didn't think that javelin throwers could be too good since they don't see much use in the base game, Im glad they have found a role! Would you consider maybe adding the new sword to the Elite Saxons? I think that would help them out versus cavalry considering a lot of other elite Javelinmen use spears in melee. Just a thought. Thanks for responding to all my questions.

[Gallidor]

I watched some of the Tuskmod tournament through Maximus's channel but I don't think he uploaded all the matches. Is there a place I can find all the matches that were played?

[Walrusjones]

He took a break from youtube, and a patch came out since the tournament. Since CA's patches typically break replays, this means it might be difficult to show off the rest of the replays.

As for the multiplayer version: I will update it whenever I find big balance issues, and when I update the campaign version. The campaign version will update at major milestones for the mod.

[Aethyr]

Just gave the mod a shot, pretty good, ive lost a couple of battles with it which is good.

[Walrusjones]

I am going to start a search for an AI expert today, as some of the new submods I will be adding, while great and fun, will also increase the need for a good AI to challenge the player.

[messenger]

I am very interested in the idea of you splitting up generic regional troops and factional/ethnic troops.
I find there is nothing more annoying than my Germans randomly turning into Franks and visa versa.
It would allow for a little more unit recruitment variety too.

Watching how this mod pans out with great interest!

Also a small personal suggestion/pet peeve/whatever:
Perhaps it would be possible to split unit upgrades into peasant/milita/professionals and noble units. It seems strange that most Norse units can upgrade into Nobles for example.