Grand Unit Addon Mod (for Retrofit 1.0) Version 6.0

[Neptulon]

GReat post, but on the other side its a little irritating when you want to have a hard game without being swarmed, I want the other factions to be smart but not swarming me :S

THankyou anyways, I love your mod

[Candelarius]

That's fine, but I don't think the Edward and Oneill models are ugly at all.

[asoiaf]

Fair points on the battle map models, I wasn't sure if there was more available as I have only really spent time with the America's campaign. Too busy playing Retrofit +GUAM to worry about the other campaigns.

[Demokritos]

Just called in to pay my dues for an excellent mod, Candelarius! With Xyrex' and Naimad's Campaign and Battle AI (provided by Queen Anne's Revenge), and Joe Dreck's first banner mod for greater interest in this sphere of things, I've had two of my most satisfying TW campaigns for ages! I particularly like the dust-and-dirt-covered look of many units, which I've not seen since Sicilian Vespers 2.0 (actually, I'd be thankful if you provided an explanation of how you accomplished that look). This little detail brings so much more Medieval feeling to the game that I'm never quite content without it. Hats off for this one, C!

There's only one thing that sort of bugs me and that is the faction colour of the Byzantines. Such a strong purple tint all over the place comes across as very unrealistic to me: I can't imagine the Byzantine army ever looking like that (realizing, of course, that this may be CA's doing, not yours - I don't remember how the vanilla Byzantines looked like). So I was wondering, before I start replacing or editing those units in an attempt to raise the good of this mod, do you have any plans to tune down that colour a bit, perhaps reserving most of that colour to troops with a closer connection to the Emperor (since that may have been an imperial colour reserved for him)?

PS. Very nice unit additions you have in store!

[Candelarius]

Just called in to pay my dues for an excellent mod, Candelarius! With Xyrex' and Naimad's Campaign and Battle AI (provided by Queen Anne's Revenge), and Joe Dreck's first banner mod for greater interest in this sphere of things, I've had two of my most satisfying TW campaigns for ages! I particularly like the dust-and-dirt-covered look of many units, which I've not seen since Sicilian Vespers 2.0 (actually, I'd be thankful if you provided an explanation of how you accomplished that look). This little detail brings so much more Medieval feeling to the game that I'm never quite content without it. Hats off for this one, C!

I actually didn't change anything regarding dust and so forth.

There's only one thing that sort of bugs me and that is the faction colour of the Byzantines. Such a strong purple tint all over the place comes across as very unrealistic to me: I can't imagine the Byzantine army ever looking like that (realizing, of course, that this may be CA's doing, not yours - I don't remember how the vanilla Byzantines looked like). So I was wondering, before I start replacing or editing those units in an attempt to raise the good of this mod, do you have any plans to tune down that colour a bit, perhaps reserving most of that colour to troops with a closer connection to the Emperor (since that may have been an imperial colour reserved for him)?

PS. Very nice unit additions you have in store!

Thanks!

But no, I have no plans on changing any faction colors, so, feel free to change them on your own if you wish. I'm trying to stick to as much to the "vanilla" as possible with this mod, as it is intended to be nothing more than a unit addon for the Retrofit Mod.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[Demokritos]

I actually didn't change anything regarding dust and so forth.

Surprise, surprise! At first I thought you were kidding, but checked it out with a vanilla M2TW and found out that you're right! I haven't played a vanilla M2TW for so long and was so quick to turn to the mods that I missed that part: it is the mods that usually make the units appear as if they're in a perfectly clean environment all the time, far away from the appalling sanitary conditions which often plagued medieval Europe (not only in the form of terrible diseases) or any battlefield! I even discovered that the vanilla Mailed Knights did not have that noseguarded helmet which I have found in so many mods and which I always thought looked rather disturbing, as if it shrank their brains or something. I've got more respect for the vanilla setup now.

[Candelarius]

::::NOTICE::::

The Grand Unit Addon Mod is only for the Retrofit 1.0 Mod. This mod is not compatible with the Multiplayer Addition of the Retrofit. In addition, since the MP Addition is specifically balanced for multiplayer matches, it would be extremely inadviseable to modify the MP Addition, as others would then be unable to play against you in MP matches. I will not be supporting or troubleshooting any problems people may experience with their game if they install my mod on any other mod other than the Retrofit 1.0 Mod.

Thanks,
Candelarius



EDIT:
I've corrected the annoying tendency of the game to give units of the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher as Mission Rewards. In the 5.5 release of the Grand Unit Addon Mod, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher will no longer be recruitable in the campaign at all. Instead, they will now truly be unique. When a Catholic faction captures Jerusalem, the unit will now spawn (appear) just outside Jerusalem (I have it spawning outside the city because if you take the city with a twenty-piece army, thereby filling up the cities unit slots, the Canons will not spawn). This solves the Mission Reward issue and also now makes the Canons truly unique. They are still available in Custom Battles like normal.


EDIT:
In other news, I've managed to add two more units to the game. I was playing a custom battle as England today, recreating a Henry VIII era army against a late period Spanish army, just for fun after reading about the era yesterday. The thought occured to me when playing with the Late Generals Bodyguard: hey, these guys would make a really cool unit! So, I assigned them a better name (Late Armored Knights, since the term "Gothic Knights" is already taken and "Renaissance Knight" sounds sorta lame) and made them recruitable. I also made their dismounted counter-part recruitable as well. I didn't change their stats at all, and they are available in the very last recruitment buildings, so are very late era. The factions that get them are England, Scotland, France, Denmark, Hungary, and Poland. HRE already has the Gothic Knights, and the Italians and Iberians already have late era knights.

Click Here for pics.


Thus, my revised 5.5 change log (ever expanding...they better hurry with the patch already!):
1. Minor mercenary pool tweaks in the Holy Land and Egypt.
2. Fix for Council Mission awards giving Canons of the Holy Sepulchre unit.
Canons are no longer recruitable from barracks, and are now only a "reward" for capturing Jerusalem (as a Catholic faction).
Single unit of Canons, lead by a captain, will spawn outside Jerusalem immediately after capture.
3. Removing the Early Generals Mod. This was a hard decision, but, I've decided to go this route for the following reasons:
a. It bothers me that the strat map generals do not match the battle map generals.
b. It bothers me that the generals in the FMV and event pictures, and faction vids, do not look alike.
c. My mod was supposed to be a unit addon mod, and it bothers me that I've allowed myself to toss in non unit addon stuff.
d. Sure it's nice in the early era to have early generals, but, when one gets to the late era, ones generals still look out-of-place anyway.
4. Added faction leader battle map models from Kingdoms.
5. Added new faction color coded textures to the faction leader strat map models (many were still "england red").
6. Added English Huscarl mercenary unit, available for hire in early era England.
7. Added armor upgrades to Polish and Hungarian Foot Knights.
8. Added Knechten cavalry unit to the HRE.
9. Added Dismounted and Mounted Late Armored Knights to England, France, Scotland, Denmark, Hungary, and Poland.
10. Added Halberd Militia to Milan.
11. Added Dismounted Men at Arms to Sicily.
12. Added Mounted Men At Arms to Sicily.
13. Added Late Crossbowmen to Venice and Milan.
14. New UI cards for Sergeant Swordsmen.
15. Changed name of Spanish Dragoons to "Dragoons", since unit is shared with Portugal.

[Confederate Jeb]

Hey I downloaded the retrofit mod a while back and I was going to download the addon mod when I saw that you were making another update. Should I go ahead and download this one now and then do the update later, or should I just wait till the 5.5?

[Candelarius]

Hey I downloaded the retrofit mod a while back and I was going to download the addon mod when I saw that you were making another update. Should I go ahead and download this one now and then do the update later, or should I just wait till the 5.5?

It's up to you, version 5.4 is bug free, the next version will just be a feature update. So, you can play version 5.4 until the next update. Version 5.5 is done, I'm just waiting for the Kingdom's patch to come out so I can activate buildable stone forts in my mod.

You will need to start a new campaign when you install the 5.5 update, so, maybe play custom battles or a short campaign or something.

[Confederate Jeb]

Alright thank you. Great work by the way.

[Confederate Jeb]

Hey I just downloaded it and was looking through the units. I noticed that the Portugese get Spanish Dragoons. Shouldn't you rename them to Portugese Dragoons or something? And for me there are no Mamluk Gunners. Just wanted to ask. Thanks.

[Candelarius]

To rename the unit I would need to create another EDU entry, and, since we only have 500 available unit slots to work with, I figured it was more important to have one more cool unit than to worry about renaming the Dragoons.

I'll check on the Mamluk Gunners when I get home from work.

[Confederate Jeb]

Ok I figured it wasn't changed for a reason. You could just name them Dragoons, but I don't know how long that would take so don't worry about it. Thanks for answering.

[Candelarius]

Ok I figured it wasn't changed for a reason. You could just name them Dragoons, but I don't know how long that would take so don't worry about it. Thanks for answering.

Actually, I could just name them Dragoon! Done! Thanks for the feedback.

And the Mamluk Handgunners are working fine, why do you think they are not? Make sure you select "all" in the era selector in Custom Battles to view them in the roster, see screenshot below:

[Confederate Jeb]

Actually, I could just name them Dragoon! Done! Thanks for the feedback.

Your quite welcome. Anything to help.

And the Mamluk Handgunners are working fine, why do you think they are not? Make sure you select "all" in the era selector in Custom Battles to view them in the roster, see screenshot below:

Oh so its the foot gunman? No wonder I didn't notice it. I assumed that by Mamluk it was mounted. Thanks!

[Candelarius]

I've decided to not add buildable stone forts to the campaign map. After observing the AI behavior in the Brittania campaign, behavior with wood forts in the regular campaign, and reading people's concerns in the forums, I've decided that adding buildable stone forts would severely unbalance the game. This is because the AI tends to avoid them, rather than actually attacking them, tends to put large garrisons in them and then never moves the garrison from them, thereby weakening the AI's actual settlements, and also tends to underman other forts, making them very easy for the human player to capture. Basically, adding buildable stone forts would only make the game easier for the human player.

Therefore, I'm considering adding them in as permanent stone forts at strategic locations on the map, perhaps one per province or one at certain strategic points on the map (but not too strategic that they "bottleup" the AI who sometimes refuses to attack the forts). I'm still not sure about this concept, and it needs further testing, but, that's where I'm at for now. So, I've removed buildable stone forts from my 5.5 change log.

[Legionario]

Good to hear,and at this point,why don't you just release 5.5 ?

Instead of waiting for the official patch (if it ever comes out) ??
regards

[Candelarius]

Good to hear,and at this point,why don't you just release 5.5 ?

Instead of waiting for the official patch (if it ever comes out) ??
regards

I'm doing just that, actually.

[Tyre]

After experimenting with forts I've found some decent locations. They don't seem to ad or detract much from the game but make for s nice place to garrison troops on the move or some great battles when the ai chooses to attack them. Anyway heres the locations I'm using if you want to try them out, I know the map can be quite finicky when trying to find placeable locations.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

; knightly_order_fort_b culture northern_european ;Hill/Ramp
; stone_fort_a culture northern_european ;Hill Fort
; stone_fort_b culture northern_european ;Moat
; stone_fort_c culture northern_european ;wall
; stone_fort_d culture northern_european ;Trench/Stakes
; me_fort_a culture middle_eastern ;Trench
; me_fort_b culture middle_eastern ;Hill Fort



region Paris_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 113 120 stone_fort_b culture northern_european

region Zaragoza_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 96 95 knightly_order_fort_b culture northern_european

region Stockholm_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 151 179 stone_fort_a culture northern_european

region Volga-Bulgar_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 262 158 stone_fort_d culture northern_european

region Ryazan_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 227 144 stone_fort_d culture northern_european

region Kiev_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 206 138 stone_fort_c culture northern_european

region Dublin_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 83 161 stone_fort_a culture northern_european

region Hohenstauffen_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 139 128 stone_fort_b culture northern_european

region Budapest_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 179 116 knightly_order_fort_b culture northern_european

region Thessalonica_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 188 96 knightly_order_fort_b culture northern_european

region Jedda_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 273 61 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern

region Timbuktu_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 76 35 me_fort_b culture middle_eastern

region Marrakesh_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 61 62 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern

region Alexandria_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 224 34 me_fort_b culture middle_eastern

region Tripoli_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 186 31 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern

region Edessa_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 270 83 me_fort_b culture middle_eastern

region Nicaea_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 205 81 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern

region Cordoba_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 83 78 me_fort_b culture middle_eastern

region Cordoba_Province

farming_level 0
famine_threat 0
fort 68 77 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern

[Confederate Jeb]

Sweet!