This is a balancing submod for The Elder Scrolls: Total War. All credit for any assets in the submod goes to the ESTW team.
First off, I wouldn't really call this a submod. This is my idea of a large scale fix for The Elder Scrolls: Total War, which while a very well done mod, especially in respect to artwork, modeling, and design, is really poorly balanced in the practice of playing the game, especially the campaign. I didn't like how recruiting was not standardized and honestly poorly done between factions (Morrowind factions can only train units in Morrowind, Aldmeri hires troops everywhere, High Rock factions recruitment is confined, etc.), the unit statistics were off (Skirmishers had no armor values, shieldless units with shield values, Daedra faction is extremely overpowered without reason, etc.), and lots of text errors (such as the boats), and that's not including the broken english on the translations, though seeing how the team is Russian that is forgivable.
Eventually my personal tweaking to the mod focused on these aspects:
-Unit recruitment for factions being alot more standardized and widespread. Most units of every faction is recruitable everywhere following a conversion of region religion - a recruitment idea taken from Third Age: Total War and Brittania: Total War's culture system - with the exception of specific units, mostly elites, who are recruitable only from specific AoRs or regions. Units that couldn't be recruited before for whatever reason are now recruitable. Castles function as the barracks of the Castle type settlement, making conquered castles easy to recruit units from with little monetary investment. Home AoRs such as Morrowind for Morrowind Factions and Hammerfell for Hammerfell factions allow those factions to recruit many of their units without building barracks in their towns, and lower level castles can recruit higher tier units in home AoRs than in foreign AoRs. This should make taking homelands from enemy factions tough, as they have the home field advantage of being able to easily produce their elite units.
-Unit balancing for all units: Armour upgrades have been standardized and given logical progressions for all units, unit armor values are tweaked to either balance with other units or otherwise just to add armor values where there was none, such as with many javelin units, attack values are balanced, with armor piercing attributes much less liberally granted to units, all units are granted free-upkeep status, and costs for units are adjusted to balance with other similar units. DAEDRA UNITS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY NERFED!!! Their elites can still trash your elites, but their normal units such as Caitiffs and Mythic Dawn won't trash your elites, and with the right tactics you can beat a stack of Daedra with a stack of your own forces. They still have no cavalry, which is a significant weakness.
-Adding in functionality to villages. The first level of religious building and barracks can now be built in villages to nullify the high levels of unrest from religious unrest, as well recruit basic town guard units with an added recruitment slot. Dagoth Ur ash pits now adds one recruitment slot - ash villages are no longer useless! You still can't upgrade settlements, but I left this in as a design choice of the mod creators. Plus custom settlements would likely break if upgraded. I don't know. Side note: Argonians can build temples now. They couldn't before, for whatever reason.
-To a small degree, adding in text or correcting text pathing errors. The most obvious error you will see corrected is with ships, while they will have Medieval 2 descriptions, atleast they will no longer be unlocalised placement texts anymore.
-General Faction Balancing: All factions received massive king's purse incomes, especially the AI. No longer. The highest king's purse for any faction is now the Empire's 4000, 6000 if played by an AI. The massive deficits caused by this were rectified by making all units free upkeep in Cities (which should have been done in the first place) and by reducing the amount of units each faction started with at the start of the campaign. All factions start with a profitable income, some more than others. Expand fast. AI factions still get boosts to King's Purse to balance with the Campaign AI being mediocre.
That being said, these fixes will still have their own shortcomings. I don't know what direction to take to balance mages. I haven't actually played far enough for The Hordes of Oblivion event to start, so I can't see my changes in practice. Some factions are lacking in units, such as House Haalu and Orsinium. There are still some flavor text issues. But in my opinion, the mod is a LOT better off now.
These fixes will overwrite these files:
data/export_descr_unit
data/export_descr_buildings
data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/campaign_script
data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_strat
data/text/export_buildings
data/text/export_units
AND MANY OTHER FILES I HAVEN'T KEPT TRACK I'M SORRY
These fixes will add to these folders:
data/ui/unit/"adds various pictures"
data/ui/unit_info/"adds various pictures"
If any files overwritten have been modifed by other submods, or you simply wish to backup your vanilla files, BACKUP THESE FILES!!!!
Feedback is appreciated, but my response is not guaranteed. I am not a professional modding team. I'm one lone amateur who wanted to make his game more fun to play who decided to share his changes. I'm on a hard College Student schedule. Updates to these fixes are not guaranteed. If you don't like them, then don't download them. I am 99% sure that any bugs that you encounter will not be caused by these fixes, but by the base mod and any other modifications.
TO INSTALL:
First download the 1st patch "Export of My ESTW Fixes.rar"
Export data folder to your main Elder Scrolls Mod Directory. It will ask to merge and overwrite. Overwrite.
Download Update 1.
Export data folder to your main Elder Scrolls Mod Directory. It will ask to merge and overwrite. Overwrite.
Download Update 2 (This is the linked update due to large size.)
-To do so, go to link, accept terms and services, give an email and you will receive a download link.
Export contents of "Export of My ESTW Fixed 3.rar" (I misnamed it because I'm stupid, this is update 2 technically) INTO YOUR DATA DIRECTORY, NOT MAIN MOD DIRECTORY. Overwrite.
Download Update 3
-Same link procedures as above.
Export data folder to your main Elder Scrolls Mod Directory. It will ask to merge and overwrite. Overwrite.
Play.
Let me know if the linked update is troublesome in any way.
MOST CHANGES ARE COMPATIBLE WITH SAVE GAMES, BUT NOT ALL. START A NEW GAME FOR BEST PERFORMANCE OF THESE FIXES.
LINK TO UPDATE 2: www.filehosting.org/file/details/515077/Export%20of%20my%20ESTW%20Fixed%203.rar
LINK TO UPDATE 3: http://www.filehosting.org/file/deta...Update%203.rar
Enjoy.