Check it out! Working hero units!
V1.2 beta is done! Main campaign and custom battles have been thoroughly tested and work great!
Released as Beta: While I'm confident there aren't any game breaking bugs (beyond the few that come stock with RTW), I'm guessing there might be the odd thing that'll need tweaking sometime in the future.
Here's the file, no previous versions of the addon needed (but it does require a clean install of EoD), if you have a previous version this can be installed overtop (just overwrite).
http://www.gamefront.com/files/21794..._V1_2_Beta_zip
Notes:
I haven't played through entire campaigns for every-single faction, so if you do a full play-though for a particular faction a quick comment stating that you have (and which one you did) would be very encouraging and much appreciated (as would comments/feedback in general ).
The provincial (designed for Satanae) campaign has not been tested but you can play Satanae in the main campaign and with the recent changes it'll probably still be a good time.
The very fine artwork in this little pack (with the exception of a couple of hacked-together unit cards) comes courtesy of Blue Lotus, The Crusades, and End of Days mods (many thanks to all!).
V1.2 Changes
Hero units!
-Each faction (all but Satanae) has a unique hero unit. These powerful units are set up as mercenaries with a very slow refresh rate (50+ turns) so, any losses taken to a hero unit cannot be easily replaced. Heroes can only be recruited in a faction's home region (as well as in custom games), but any hero can be recruited by any faction in the main campaign. Each faction starts the campaign with a hero unit attached to one of their armies.
-Heroes are useful not only because they have high attack and defence values but also because their presence on the battlefield simultaneously boosts morale for friendly troops and instills fear in the enemy soldiers (after all, who in their right mind would want to fight against a legendary hero!).
Balancing overhaul
-Partly to help balance in the heroes and partly because this was the whole point of this little project before I got completely side-tracked with this business of adding new factions... every unit has been re-balanced to fit the basic scheme of: militia<Professional<Elite<Elite Cavalry<Hero
-Attack and defence values have been adjusted to allow for just slightly longer battles
-morale and general (and hero!) effects are fairly noticeable now too (ie. starting a chain rout with a well placed cavalry charge can happen, even if the enemy army is still in reasonably good shape; at the same time though, a competent general can rally fleeing troops and mount a very
respectable comeback)
-archers, while certainly a problem for unarmoured militia, are mostly just a nuisance to well armoured troops (crossbows and welsh longbows being the exceptions)
-Armoured knights play like the main battle tanks they probably were on a medieval battlefield -stronger than before but still vulnerable if surrounded in melee or fighting spearmen
-spear bonuses have been simplified and are consistent for all spear wielding units across the board (light cavalry is pretty well matched 1:1 against spear militia but spear militia has no chance against a squadron of armoured knights)
Other:
-Added one more region to the campaign and tweaked some of the regions added in the previous version (so it's not savegame compatible)
-tweaked campaign starting positions so AI factions all perform reasonably well with the redone unit rosters