Downloads: GarnierMod v1.1 [Mount & Blade]

This is version 1.1 (released 12/01/2008) of my mod for Mount & Blade.

Release thread on the Total War Center
Release thread on TaleWorlds forum

I mod M&B while I'm playing it to suit my tastes. This isn't a big ambitious mod or anything, just tweaks and ideas that I implemented for myself.

The theory and purpose of the mod is as follows.
I do not like grinding experience and leveling up a character over time, so my character stays fixed with certain skills. To make some more dynamics, weapon proficiencies decay over time, but go up through fighting as usual. This means you have to fight if you want to stay skilled, and gives less incentive to rest while your fiefs give income. Likewise renown decays faster and you eat more food, all to make sitting around worse. However, fighting also has its drawbacks. If you fall in battle, you get a wound which until it heals makes you fight worse. Wounds can accumulate, so you do need to be careful and retreat more often rather than fighting to the death. The two other main features are being able to start as a lord in any faction and have a castle, and also the new recruitment system where village recruits don't upgrade very far, and there are two other tiers of soldiers, "troops" which are recruited from towns, and "warriors" which are recruited from castles. These better soldiers cost a lot more than recruits, and are not as readily available, especially in the case of warriors.

DOWNLOAD LINK (18MB)

INSTALLATION:

Open the zip and place the folder "GarnierMod_1" in your modules folder. Then select "GarnierMod_1" as your module when you start the game.


FEATURES:

1. Each of the five capitals in the game has a bank, where you can borrow money or store money to be retrieved later. The interest rate on money you borrow is 400% per game year, and you have to pay 100 denars for every 1000 that you borrow, up front. Also you have to have at least that 100 denars in real (unborrowed) money to get a loan. You can't just keep taking more loans and stay rich. Interest is payed weekly and you can't avoid it. You make 1.2% per year as interest on money that you deposit in the bank, and this is added to your deposit each month.

2. Horses are all slightly faster, slightly more maneuvrable and have slightly less charge, so they aren't as good for wading through masses of men knocking them all down, but they go faster in the open. Also their hit points are halved, so they fall a LOT more. I may increase hit points to 3/4 of default at some point, but I am enjoying having them halved. You need to be careful and avoid throwing your horse directly into a mass of enemies, unless you are able to fight on foot as well. Also, I have added a few new horses (using default graphics). I have made horsemen not cost as much more than infantry to upkeep, as these changes make them not as powerful.

3. Recruiting is changed. Volunteers you recruit at villages only can be upgraded 1 or 2 times. You can hire middle tier troops at towns, though the number you can hire is based on renown and relations with the faction you are hiring from. You can also hire real warriors like knights from castles. These are quite rare to be able to hire. So each of the three tiers of troops stay in that tier, you dont recruit a peasant and turn him into a knight. I did update the types of reinforcements the AI lords get, so they don't just have armies of peasants (as might happen if they simply couldnt upgrade anymore). In version 1.1, AI Lords and castles get better troops on average than in 1.0, so the game is significantly harder in that respect.

4. Your men eat about twice as much food as in vanilla, but there is a warning when you are low on food. So you have to get more food on average, but you won't run out accidentally.

5. The companions start at level 30 and there is one companion with expertise in each party skill. You don't level them up anymore.

6. At the beginning of the game your character's skills are set to the default for this mod, and a very important rule is never to upgrade the character. This is a very significant aspect of the mod.

7. Your renown deteriorates four times as fast as in vanilla. Also your weapon proficiencies deteriorate over time, so you have to fight a lot to maintain higher levels. Now there is a good reason not to sit around letting time go by for whatever reason. Tweaked some in 1.1, but the theory is the same.

8. Each time you are knocked out in battle and carried away from the fight or taken prisoner, you get a wound that takes away some skills/attributes until it heals. The time it takes to heal is random, but on average it is 6 weeks for each wound. There is now a good reason to surrender if the battle is hopeless, to avoid taking a serious wound. Wounds tweaked in 1.1, so there is an equal chance of losing STR/AGI, and equal chances of losing each of the personal combat skills. Only STR/AGI and combat skills are affected by wounds. Also in the character report it says how many wounds you still are recovering from.

9. There is a button to sort your inventory by value of the items, and a button to select a new banner at any time you want.

10. The starting menus are redone entirely. You can choose to either have grown up in Calradia, or to be an unknown adventurer from far away. If you choose to be from Calradia, you choose the faction you've lived in/near, and then your station in society. You can start as a lord of any faction, and have a random castle and ~50,000 denars at the beginning, or a peasant with almost nothing. In between you can be a merchant, craftsman or soldier, for varying starting difficulty levels. The starting equipment is appropriate to your faction/station.

11. Income from fiefs is increased by 350%, so you can support more military, especially so you have money to recruit the rather expensive troops. Also you only recieve taxes from a fief/castle when the accumulated tax from that location is above 1000. I still will probably change the actual tax amount, to balance it.

12. Plate armor and great helmets are removed, as I wanted the armors to seem more historically accurate together. Also lords equipment is changed a lot, in general they ride better horses. Also all Swadian, Rhodok and Nord lords wear heraldric armor.

13. Party size and prisoner space is 1000, so you don't have to worry about hitting that limit. Prisoners are valued based on their level as well, not always 50 denars.

14. Since new recruits don't upgrade very far, I have made more of them available and they cost only 5 denars apiece. Also mercenary groups in taverns are larger.

15. My python source is included.

That's all I can think of that I did so far, I know there's more minor tweaks in there but I can't remember them all right now. Nothing game-changing though.

If you're modding feel free to take any of my code and use and abuse it. I don't claim to have done the best coding job, but my stuff does work.

There's no screenshots as there's not really anything to show, its all code and text, no new graphics or anything of the sort.