[Fixes] Carnage752's Balancing and Fixes for The Elder Scrolls: Total War 1.2

[Carnage752]

I'm at a total of 3 new units: Hlaalu Pikemen (Adds a new tactic to a Morrowind faction, based it off Hlaalu/Imperial Relations), Orc Smiths (A tier 1 militia unit for Orc Recruitment Balancing), and Dres Slavers (A Horse Archer unit, only one in the game, adds to House Dres roster supporting an unconventional unit strategy). I have a concept for an elite hero unit (Like Hands of Amalexia or the Blades, for reference) for the Orcs that I would name "Champions of Malacath", but I don't have enough models in order to splice out a badass looking unit. As of now, the Orc roster is somewhat fleshed out, if top-heavy, per Orc strategy.

I also added some battle map music tracks the factions that use Morrowind and Empire music sets. They are just generic music tracks from vanilla Medieval (With a surprise one for Morrowind ), but they add much-needed variety. Morrowind had only 3 battle tracks, and Empire o

[10cabee]

That's really great to hear! I'm looking forward to your next couple of updates immensely! Orcs definitely need more units which is gladdening to hear that your adding some more in. Champions of Malacath would be so cool; from what you've said, it sounds lke you won't be prodcuing them though, right? This is only my personal preference, but if you still feel like making this mod even more awesome, i'd love to see a bit more unit depth with Anequina (especially in an upgrade to cavalry). I'd love to see something like 'Khajiit Brutes' as well. The other faction I'd consider having a look at is maybe the Argonians; I just feel they'd benefit a lot more with a bit more depth. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here but I just wanted to put my thoughts out there.

Might have to consider a Morrowind faction when i've finished my Anequina campaign now!

[K'Sharra the Conqueror]

Make all khajiit generals have the "night fighter" trait like the orcs in Third Age. Could one do somthing like the Kingdom of Morrowind for other factions? Like if Anequina conquers Pellentine, Anequina will be renamed the "Khajiit Empire" and get access to the Pelentine units. Also can the spy model for the khajiit factions be changed to the "senche" model to represent an Affiq (small quadruped khajiit used as spies)? Making the generals for the khajiit look differet from their bodyguards so one can identify them in the middle of battle. Maybe give them differet armor or fur color. The Anequina generals have the Pellentine symbol on thier armor, consider channging that?

[Carnage752]

@K'Sharra
For Khajitt changes, I'm considering buffing charge values for their cavalry significantly and attack values somewhat less, due to their mounts being more combat worthy than other mounts. If I can bring about giving all Khajiit generals nightfighter, that will certainly happen. For a Kingdom of Morrowind-like event that creates a new faction, I honestly think that doing so would be too much trouble for not enough reward, so I won't be doing so. Spies can remain the same, see no real reason to change that, and I don't work with textures well, so I probably won't make any changes in that nature.

[Carnage752]

Messed with all of cavalry to tweak stats. I removed lance animations and combat stats for units that don't have lances and aren't supposed to use lances (Legion Cavalry, Order of War Cavalry, and many others). Admittedly, some units are supposed to have lances on their meshes but simply don't have them, so I will likely tweak the meshes to give them lances so they look less goofy.

Cavalry values are now balanced across the board. If the cavalry uses lance animations, then the stats you will see on their unit cards will represent their charging/lance attack stats. If they do not use lance animations, then it will display their "standing" combat stats. MTW does not display the stats of the secondary weapons cavalry pull out (As in they use a lance to charge, the swords they pull out afterwards are their secondary weapons), so you will have to look at the export_unit_descr for secondary stats on cavalry, but across the board they are balanced. Cavalry that isn't supposed to be weak is buffed, and OP horse riders are somewhat nerfed. Overall, they are all much more standardized in competence.

The main cavalry factions are Anequina, the Breton Factions, and the Crowns. Anequina have high charge and attack values to represent the combination of the mounts combat prowess (They ride freaking jaguars) and the riders combat prowess, and desert raiders secondary attack has an AP value is damaging. Pit them against a heavy-armor cavalry unit like Knights of The Rose and watch the carnage ensue. Breton factions are like typical western cavalry nations: High Armor and balanced. No AP though. Crown Kataprhacts are the pinnacle of armored cavalry though, and can trash nearly anything in a bloody charge. Crowned Lancers are nothing to shake a stick at either.

Other faction's cavalry are less lancer intensive, but they still fulfill the fast attack role well, and some can be quite capable in a straight up fight, like Legion Cavalry, though they aren't as capable of the cavalry factions at shock effects.

House Dres has the only mounted archer unit in the game, which gives them a unique advantage over most cavalry nations. They add to the flexibility of House Dres strategy.

I've done some other changes as well. I think y'all will enjoy the next update.

Also just spent two hours rebalancing the costs of every single unit besides mages and siege weapons. The argonians had a massive advantage in the cost department, which is now fixed, so AI Black Marsh will not be able to spam lots of units now. Nor will you, rapscallion.

[10cabee]

Do you have any idea if these changes will be compatible with existing saves? I want to start a new campaign soon so I'm wondering whether I should wait till your next update to do so.

[Jadli]

it will not be compatible.
Also im impressed with your work Carnage, you are going further into moding than i ever would

[K'Sharra the Conqueror]

Can the Undead, Tamriel Empire and the Oblivion hordes be destroyed now? In patch 1.2 of the mod they still exist as faction even after all their units and settlements has been taken. Also does units that have visualy the same armor (for example Sandguard 7 armor , Sandguard heavy swordsmen 5 and Anequina elite bowmen 5) have the same armor value? Should they no all have 7 armor?

[Carnage752]

I added in a backdoor out of the Ghostfence surrounding House Dagoth holdings to represent the Dwemer tunnels in the Northern Ghostfence area that allowed House Dagoth to escape. I may add a permanent stone fort there to act as a bottleneck (plus represent the Dwemer ruins that presided over the tunnels), but I'm 50/50 on doing so. I did it more to help House Dagoth ai actually be aggressive on the campaign map than for lore purposes, but it's there now. I also messed with region assignments within the House Dagoth area to give them full sections of the Ashlands within rather than making them effective region islands in the giant Ashland area controlled by Dagoth Ur (The Region Capital). I have a theory this will improve AI decisions when it comes to sending armies to fight, but I may be wrong. Either way, it just looks nicer.

@K'Sharra I try to fit in weapon, armor, and generally all unit values with lore and unit aesthetics (Such as armor models and textures) so it makes sense. Inevitably, however, I will have to sacrifice some of that for unit balance. Just a small immersion breaker, but nothing I can do without a whole lot of work that wouldn't be worth the payoff.

@10cabee It will not, I'll see if I can release this weekend, maybe tonight.

@Jadill Thanks! Tutorials saved my life.

[Carnage752]

I think I've compiled all of my changes. As always, report to me if there are any issues. Update 3 incoming.

[Iforgot]

Glad to read that! Very lucky since i just found out about your submod today!

[Vythodias]

I may add a permanent stone fort there to act as a bottleneck (plus represent the Dwemer ruins that presided over the tunnels)

How?! You have NO idea how jealous I am... I've been struggling for the past three weeks to figure it out. If you could teach me, I would be indebted to you. I mean, I've been able to get the forts to render on the strat. map but in the bat map, they render as wooden forts. I've learned to go into the files and allow construction and make them permenent, but I am obviously missing something somewhere. Hex-coding whatever that is, sounds like something that a witch-hacker would invent... It's all beyond me. I've tried manually placing stone forts in the descr_strat file and I feel like a caveman.

The only thing, I've effectively taught myself, was how to build over resources... finally, I can outlaw slavery as the empire.

Teach me, please, I beg of you. These tutorials are quite beyond me.

Help me Carnage... You're my only hope.

[Carnage752]

Posted update 3. Look at the main page, follow additional update instructions. It's another linked update, unfortunately.

@Vythodias I haven't actually tried to yet... If it's too difficult, I may just not do it hahaha.

[Vythodias]

@Vythodias I haven't actually tried to yet... If it's too difficult, I may just not do it hahaha.

I get you... For me, it is certainly easier said then done. I tell you what, in the happy event, you figure it out... you come back and rescue me, yeah?

Love your tweaks by the way. Very well done; for whatever that's worth.

[10cabee]

You're doing amazingly well, Carnage. You've made ESTW much better through all your improvements! Keep it up! I'm downloading the next update now by the way; if i spot anything out of the ordinary, i'll let you know.

[10cabee]

Whenever I initiate a battle, the music stops and makes a wierd static-sounding noise. This has happened every battle I've been in by the way.

[Carnage752]

For which factions? Factions have specific music soundtracks. I know the Daedra soundtracks have had this problem.

[10cabee]

I'm playing as the Aldmeri Dominion. It's the piece of music that plays when you can choose to assult etc.

[Carnage752]

I haven't messed with the Aldmeri's music soundtracks... Was this a problem before the update? It might just be a bug with vanilla ETSW.

[10cabee]

I haven't been the Dominion before so cannot 100% say. I know that it was working with all the other factions I had done previously (before the update).