Total Recruitment for TATW 1.4

[Baron Samedi]

THIS SUBMOD IS OUTDATED & INCORPORATED INTO MY COMPILATION. PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE BUT IN THE THREAD OF THE COMPILATION. THANK YOU!!!

TOTAL RECRUITMENT
for TATW 1.4

• Is your game basically over by the time you finally get access to the elite units of your faction's roster?
• Are you tired of being forced to play with those militia type units for almost your whole campaign?
• Don't you have the patience or will to wait 100+ turns to finally do some damage with those cool Swan Knights, Berserkers or perhaps Mumakils?
• Do you prefer a more interesting, action-orientated and arcade-like gameplay above a slowpaced and boring campaign?

If you answered one of these questions with a yes, then don't look any further, because Total Recruitment [TR] will be suited just for you.

What does Total Recruitment do?
Total Recruitment includes a total revamp of the recruitment system in TATW. It changes the way you can recruit the units of your faction's roster. All units will be available from the moment you start your campaign, provided you have the correct buildings. Building more advanced barracks increases the replenish rates of your units, meaning you need less and less turns to be able to recruit them again.

F.A.Q:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If I conquer for instance Minas Morgul with Gondor do I have immediate access to the complete unit roster of Gondor?
No, culture still remains important as it should be, however the culture requirements to recruit units are slightly less strict than in vanilla (50% is the maximum).

Are there still the barracks events in the campaign?
No it doesn’t fit well in Total Recruitment.

Can I now build AOR units such as Marines, Swan Knights and Mumakils in every settlement?
No this is perfect as it is right now in vanilla.

If I build more advanced barracks, are there any changes in recruitments-pools?
No, the maximum unit pool size remains 1 for each type of barracks, meaning there will be at max. one unit of each type available every turn. The reason for this is to prevent the human player from spamming armies in a single turn and to stimulate the player to build more advanced barracks.

Are they any changes in recruiting units via towns or castles?
In most cases you can recruit faster in castles. Other than this; units recruited in castles (with the exception of mustering halls) have more experience (1+) just like vanilla.

Since I have complete access to a faction's roster are there any incentives for me to recruit low-tier units?
Yes you could build only elite stacks, but you still need a developed economy to support them. Therefore it is advised to produce well balanced armies or the recruitment upkeep will kill you eventually.

Is Total Recruitment compatible with other submods?
Yes, provided they don’t modify the export_descr_buildings (EDB)-file.

Is Total Recruitment save-game compatible?
No, you need to start a new campaign for the changes to take effect, but you will still be able to continue your previous saved games without any problems.

How do I uninstall Total Recruitment?
Place your back-up files in the original folder destinations (see installation for more details).

Requirements:
TATW 1.4




Installation:

1. First make a back-up of export_descr_buildings located in: …\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age\data and descr_events.txt located in: …\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign.
2. Extract the contents of the download (always download the newest version please!) in: …\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age and allow it to overwrite everything.

Credits:

• KK & co for this wonderful mod
• Kikka for suggesting the idea for this submod

[Jackie Treehorn]

It's OK for one who likes the arcade style of playing.
For a more realistic and strategical based game the current modus fit better.
Let's stay with the example Minas Morgul. Why should a player be able to recrute the whole Gondor roster when he conquer this settlement from Mordor? In that city there is no human being left. Only Orks, Uruks, Nazguls and other followers from Sauron life there. So, in order to be able to recrute soldiers there, there must be first a human population. That needs time, of course and so the concept of TATW is right imho.

[Baron Samedi]

Let's stay with the example Minas Morgul. Why should a player be able to recrute the whole Gondor roster when he conquer this settlement from Mordor? In that city there is no human being left. Only Orks, Uruks, Nazguls and other followers from Sauron life there. So, in order to be able to recrute soldiers there, there must be first a human population. That needs time, of course and so the concept of TATW is right imho.

Ehhhh you first need to convert the population (through culture) before you can recruit there my friend, just like vanilla.

[Humakty]

A very interesting approach. It being unrealistic is debatable, after all in the book/movies the various protagonist have their full roster available, they don't start at stone age like in base game. I'll install tonight and report any bug/ unbalance.
Thanks for the work done !

[Smaug]

Great! I will try it out as soon as I find some time. Be ready for loads of feedback and development ideas .

+rep as soon I've spread some around.

EDIT: If I install this on top of RRRC, is it compatible?

[Baron Samedi]

A very interesting approach. It being unrealistic is debatable, after all in the book/movies the various protagonist have their full roster available, they don't start at stone age like in base game. I'll install tonight and report any bug/ unbalance.
Thanks for the work done !

Ty. Please do report feedback!

Great! I will try it out as soon as I find some time. Be ready for loads of feedback and development ideas .

+rep as soon I've spread some around.

EDIT: If I install this on top of RRRC, is it compatible?

Ty, i'm open for suggestions. As for compatibility; RR/RC obviously changes the EDB, so no its not compatible with that submod (hence why I explained this in the F.A.Q). It should be playable, but you would need to change the EDB yourself if there are additional units/buildings in that submod. You should check it out.

[Humakty]

I don't think it will be compatible, as RR/RC modifies the same files (at least for buildings), but as you're good for a reinstall, you can always try and hope.

[Smaug]

I don't think it will be compatible, as RR/RC modifies the same files (at least for buildings), but as you're good for a reinstall, you can always try and hope.

Nope, haven't installed it yet .

[Humakty]

I've benn playing as Dale, and it is really agreable to be able to recruit your full OB from the very beginning. It doesn't seem to unbalance thing much, but I haven't seen troll factions in action. I wonder if the weakest faction might be isengard now, seeing as their elite is a tad under the other nations ones. Berserkers can't compare to elite charging cavalry. Will do more testing soonish.

[confused german]

Great idea! I included some similar changes to my own version, allowing some elite units to be theoretically able to recruit from beginning but with huge replenish rates like fg in vanilla. Morover i added some elite units to the starting lineup, since
1.) as said, the books don't start at stoneage
2.) I like action
3.) I used to try to turtle as much as i can in vanilla, still i didn't get these dmn elite units before i got bored because of overpower.
Elite units are the salt&pepper of this game!

Thanx for the good work! I cannot implement it right away, cause i edited some replenish rates (elves) and, as you know, this is dmn work. I'll have to redo it with your edb to check it out properly without destroying gamebalance.
What did you change in d_events? Just removed barrack events?

[Baron Samedi]

I've benn playing as Dale, and it is really agreable to be able to recruit your full OB from the very beginning. It doesn't seem to unbalance thing much, but I haven't seen troll factions in action. I wonder if the weakest faction might be isengard now, seeing as their elite is a tad under the other nations ones. Berserkers can't compare to elite charging cavalry. Will do more testing soonish.

I am not sure they would be the weakest faction, since they for instance can recruit a lot of pikemen with Isengard (the settlement). I will start also a campaign, soon I have time and will keep an eye on them.

Great idea! I included some similar changes to my own version, allowing some elite units to be theoretically able to recruit from beginning but with huge replenish rates like fg in vanilla. Morover i added some elite units to the starting lineup, since
1.) as said, the books don't start at stoneage
2.) I like action
3.) I used to try to turtle as much as i can in vanilla, still i didn't get these dmn elite units before i got bored because of overpower.
Elite units are the salt&pepper of this game!

Agreed!

What did you change in d_events? Just removed barrack events?

It's just an empty textfile. I wanted to make this submod as installer-friendly as possible, so if you install this submod you won't have to delete the contents of that textfile yourself. But as I explained in the F.A.Q. it is to delete the barracks events in the game as it would slow down the pace of the campaign unnecessarily too much.

[confused german]

It's just an empty textfile. I wanted to make this submod as installer-friendly as possible, so if you install this submod you won't have to delete the contents of that textfile yourself. But as I explained in the F.A.Q. it is to delete the barracks events in the game as it would slow down the pace of the campaign unnecessarily too much.

Ah, yep!! (slow down pace of campaign = bad, bad, bad --> the game is a timekiller anyways. Faster game progress by cutout lenghtening phases of boredom is my and obviously your recipe.)
((I cannot understand how some people play until turn 300 or so, someone should explain me. I would like to, too, but always get bored too early due to lack of challenge - same with old med2: i never finished a grand campaign, although i checked out nearly every other aspect of this game including world-dominance via a mixture of a strong, small main land, powerful diplomacy, regional trade and military power bases at hotspots and a cia-like network of assasins and spies to destabilize certain neighbours and rivals to keep them in a balance of power and in constant war with each other. It worked, but i never finished the job to get 45 regions: this had mainly meant to autoresolve steam-roll over france and northern africa with my overpower armies and the new twohander swordsmen, of course playing hre. In the end I was disappointed because I mainly chose hre for the campaign to have a lot of twohanders in my battles, but did the whole thing again with that militia, bg's and good/old feudal knights again!!!))
Edit: Afterwards I played the scotts: There I had my twohander unit early in game.
All in all I strongly support your approach, and will check it out and report back as soon as i solved some other problems and start a new campaign...

EDIT: Okay, currently checking it out: Gondor's Campaign Turn15 right now. Result: very nice, astonishing different gameplay. Nevertheless I won't keep "vanilla" Total Recruitment, but will change it: the replenish rates for lowest barracks must be higher and after all I don't like every jerkwater town to be able to recruit highest level units like Berserkers and stuff, so I'll alter it, making these units only available wuth higher level buildings. Moreover some of the militia units seemed quite useless now, so i downgraded their quality to make'em cheap as hell, cost around 200, upkeep around 100, so to really fullfill militia purposes. All in all very nice gameplay, will be funny to see how it develops.
EDIT2: Well, Turn20 right now: stats show that I'm No.11 in military, that means last. This never happened to me in any total war game excluded maybe 1st 2turns of Denmark in med2! Replenish rates are too high in my humbelest opinion, Ai not having such financial limitations as I masses armies. Well, maybe you wanted it that way?
Edit3: looking through the file and taking notice of the numbers you used for the replenish rate value I suspect that the actual outcome is not what you wanted. It's a little hard to explain, just an impression i'm going to explain: you have to divide 1 through the replenish rate value (e.g. 0.33) to get the number of turns (e.g.=3). Sometimes you used odd numbers like 0.34 or 0.45 for example. (Both result in a r-rate of 2 turns, if i'm not mistaken.) If you wanted a r-rate of 2turns why then did u use the value 0.5 (which exactly results in 2 turns)? Asking myself this question I thought of the possibility of some failure here.
Hope you appreciate the feedback!

Regards

[Humakty]

I have played Mordor a little, and I have great pain facing Gondor with anything else than Nazguls (who, as usual, kill everything and anything, in any quantity). The AI economical bonuses are much more noticeable than in base game. Fountains guards breed like rabbits, and gondor infantry and spearmen are everywhere. I don't complain, after all the AI is bad enougth to be beaten whatever, even if I think VH mode might be a tad over the top (I tested on medium). Full stack Fountain Guards ? Bite this one !

[Baron Samedi]

Uploaded a new update (V1.1) for the people who installed the Bugfixer for patch 1.4(1.4.1).

EDIT: Okay, currently checking it out: Gondor's Campaign Turn15 right now. Result: very nice, astonishing different gameplay. Nevertheless I won't keep "vanilla" Total Recruitment, but will change it: the replenish rates for lowest barracks must be higher and after all I don't like every jerkwater town to be able to recruit highest level units like Berserkers and stuff, so I'll alter it, making these units only available wuth higher level buildings. Moreover some of the militia units seemed quite useless now, so i downgraded their quality to make'em cheap as hell, cost around 200, upkeep around 100, so to really fullfill militia purposes. All in all very nice gameplay, will be funny to see how it develops.

First of all thanks for your feedback (+rep).
I'm personally satisfied with especially the ''starting'' replenishment rates. They are based on the starting vanilla rates (it takes for instance 25 turns to recruit trolls, just like vanilla), recruitment costs of the unit (a unit that costs 800 takes on average 8 turns to recruit, while you can recruit a unit that costs 700 every 7 turns and so on...) , uniqueness and balance. As for low tier units, its worth recruiting them because of the lower upkeep costs they have, but I agree that the differences regarding upkeep costs are not that great. I however don't have the ambition and will to review and change the upkeep costs of all units in TATW.

EDIT2: Well, Turn20 right now: stats show that I'm No.11 in military, that means last. This never happened to me in any total war game excluded maybe 1st 2turns of Denmark in med2! Replenish rates are too high in my humbelest opinion, Ai not having such financial limitations as I masses armies. Well, maybe you wanted it that way?

IIRC you are usually the smallest military power in vanilla during the first ~100 turns. Its true that the A.I. is financially less troubled than you as a human player (because of the money scripts). Changing the rates is not the right solution since it affects both you and the A.I. The net result remains the same or is minimal. If you think its to hard, than its best to reduce for instance the A.I.'s king's purse via the campaign script.

Edit3: looking through the file and taking notice of the numbers you used for the replenish rate value I suspect that the actual outcome is not what you wanted. It's a little hard to explain, just an impression i'm going to explain: you have to divide 1 through the replenish rate value (e.g. 0.33) to get the number of turns (e.g.=3). Sometimes you used odd numbers like 0.34 or 0.45 for example. (Both result in a r-rate of 2 turns, if i'm not mistaken.) If you wanted a r-rate of 2turns why then did u use the value 0.5 (which exactly results in 2 turns)? Asking myself this question I thought of the possibility of some failure here.

The starting rates all makes sense imo. 0.33 isn't used because it doesn't lead to 3 turns (3*0.33=0.99). The value of 0.34 does exceed 1, so you have 3 turns. As for the rates of the more developed barracks it indeed makes less sense. In the current system the rates of all the units increases with 0.05 with each barracks upgrade. That leads to cases in which the net result is 0 turns (for instance from 0.4 to 0.45 still leads to 3 turns, until it reaches 0.5 with 2 turns). In the future I am aiming more for a system in which the rates for lower tier units increases more with each upgrade compared to higher tier units and besides this; each barracks upgrade should at least lead to one turn reduction in recruitment time.

Hope you appreciate the feedback!

Regards

Yes I do, especially since I don't have the time to do more testing myself!

I have played Mordor a little, and I have great pain facing Gondor with anything else than Nazguls (who, as usual, kill everything and anything, in any quantity). The AI economical bonuses are much more noticeable than in base game. Fountains guards breed like rabbits, and gondor infantry and spearmen are everywhere. I don't complain, after all the AI is bad enougth to be beaten whatever, even if I think VH mode might be a tad over the top (I tested on medium). Full stack Fountain Guards ? Bite this one !

Yes you might reduce the bonuses that the A.I. gets via the campaign script, since they are less of a nescessity in this submod.

[confused german]

"The starting rates all makes sense imo. 0.33 isn't used because it doesn't lead to 3 turns (3*0.33=0.99). The value of 0.34 does exceed 1, so you have 3 turns. As for the rates of the more developed barracks it indeed makes less sense. In the current system the rates of all the units increases with 0.05 with each barracks upgrade. That leads to cases in which the net result is 0 turns (for instance from 0.4 to 0.45 still leads to 3 turns, until it reaches 0.5 with 2 turns). In the future I am aiming more for a system in which the rates for lower tier units increases more with each upgrade compared to higher tier units and besides this; each barracks upgrade should at least lead to one turn reduction in recruitment time."

--> Yes, you,re right. (I found out the hard way the other night!) Hope it didn't confuse you.

Meanwhile I used your Submod as a mere base and developed an own recruitment system by redoing the whole thing. I would never have done this without Total Recruitement! Thanx. Especially I like the idea of always only one unit in the storage. In my current version I kept this and increased replenishrates and erased some units from the early building plan and so made some difference between castles and cities. It,s not quite finished yet, there's some coding work and final testing to be done...
(Also I made Saruman a level10diplomat whith special power in bribing - that's fun! I just can't get the textures right (using gandalf's strat map model)).

Is the +1Experience in castles in your mod included?

[Baron Samedi]

Is the +1Experience in castles in your mod included?

Hmm strangely it wasn't the case. I have no idea what caused this. Anyways I changed it for version 1.1. So as from 2-tier barracks in castles (for instance knights stables, garrison quarters, etc..) units have 1+ experience as it should be the case.

[confused german]

Ahh, yes, than I was right: I thought i didn't see it in the data. Strangely you say? Probably a little too fancy copy&paste operations??
(This edb is made for overlooking things imo.)

[Hero_of_All]

hey man can you change the recruitment cost or w.e i dl its fine for me i enjoy it

[Baron Samedi]

hey man can you change the recruitment cost or w.e i dl its fine for me i enjoy it

Glad you enjoyed it so far. As for recruitment cost: it takes more turns to recruit the more expensive units in Total Recruitment. Personally I am satisfied with how thing are at the moment, but if you want to make changes here and there, this is how you do it:

1. Open export_descr_unit.txt with notepad in: ...\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age\data
2. Find the units for which you want to modify the recruitment costs
3. Change the second number in the line: ''stat_cost''. The upkeep cost is the third number btw.
4. Save once finished and enjoy TATW.

[gottaloveorcs]

I'm having this very strange problem, since I downloaded the Baron Samedi Modpack.

When I accept the total recruitment it works just fine.
But when I decline it, it just removes all the units, and I'm not able to train a single unit anywhere anymore. The only thing that remains are the diplomats, assassins and the spies. But there's not a single soldier unit left anymore..

Anyone knows how to fix this?