Stainless Steel MOD 1.2 released [Updated Jan.14.2007]

[King Kong]

I have updated my Stainless Steel Mod, a combination of many small mods and bug fixes, many other additional improvements and burrek's new unit textures.

The main intention:
- A much harder and challenging game

The main changes:
- AI produces more, balanced and tough armies
- Elimination of bugs and other errors
- A few more, logically inserted provinces
- New unique european unit textures

All changes are well tested and working and shouldn't affect the game balance in general.

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1.2 features

- "Improved battle config AI in almost every matter" (Darth formations 2.0)
- New version of traits/titles/transferable ancillaries (Dearmad 1.7)
- More realistic battle map movement
- Some other minor balance tweaks

1.1 features

- 10 new provinces (Arta, Barcelona, Belgrade, Balearic Isles, Bryansk, Lyon, Munster, Palmyra, Sinop, Sulaym)
- Win conditions distended
- Show date as years
- All 17 factions playable
- Unlimited men on battlefield allowed
- 2-Hander fix (Rhedd)
- Piety from cathedrals trait fix
- Princess' trait fixes
- Venetian HI/Archers armour bug fix (Lusted)
- New early/high unit textures (burrek)
- New traits/titles/transferable ancillaries (Dearmad 1.5a)
- Ballista/cannon tower fix (zxiang)
- Ballista tower fire rate reduced
- Cannon tower range reduced
- Added Dismounted Gothic Knights
- Added English Armored Sergeants
- Added Dismounted Broken Lances
- Added Mounted Longbowmen for custom battles
- Unit recruitment depends on barracks
- Merchants income increased
- Inquisitors less effective
- Movement on sand/mud/swamp lowered
- Weak units from the initial game become rare in the advanced game
- Artillery morale lowered
- Less artillery recruitable
- (Great) bombards, serpentins can deploy stakes
- Mercenaries can have experience
- Less mercenary missile units
- More mercenary special units
- Little more witches
- City growth slightly reduced
- Citadels/Huge cities have 4 recr.slots
- Castles-citadels have 1-2 free upkeep
- Conquering the Aztecs is much harder
- Mongol/Timurid armies slightly weakened
- Mine income slightly increased
- Money script to support AI factions
- Light/heavy cavalry charge slightly reduced
- No naval invasions from Milan
- Worse relations PapalStates - IslamicFactions
- Better relations Turks - Egypt
- Higher Piety required for Jihads (6)
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DOWNLOAD 1.2 FULL VERSION:
http://files.filefront.com/Stainless.../fileinfo.html
INSTALLATION:
Simply extract the files in your "...\Medieval II Total War" folder. Now you can start the mod by launching the .bat file.

DOWNLOAD 1.2 PATCH (If you already have Stainless Steel 1.1)
http://files.filefront.com/Stainless.../fileinfo.html
INSTALLATION:
Simply extract the files in your "...Medieval II Total War\Stainless_Steel\data" folder and overwrite existing files.


NOTE1: Version 1.2 is compatible with saved games from 1.1.
NOTE2: You may also combine this mod with one of the diplomacy mods out there, e.g Ultimate AI mod or Shaba Wang's diplomacy mod. Simply add the .xml file(s) into the "Stainless_Steal\data" folder.


Also I want to thank Olmsted, Darth, Lusted, zxiang and Rhedd for their great work and ideas and thanks to Dearmad for cool new traits and ancillaries! And much regards to burrek for his awesome new textures!

Prepare to sweat under enemy attacks!
I hope you'll like it!

Some impressions of the arriving armies:
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...to/england.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...oto/france.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r..._photo/HRE.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...hoto/milan.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/portugal.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...to/hungary.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r.../byzantium.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...oto/venice.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...hoto/egypt.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/scotland.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...hoto/spain.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...hoto/turks.jpg

[Giorgos]

i'll give it a try as soon as i can. Have you thought of incorporating burrek's skins in you mod? I tried them today and they look fantastic!

[Polack]

Where is the .bat file?

[King Kong]

Oh sorry, I forgot to add the .bat and .cfg file to the archive.
...and i corrected "steal" to "steel"

I have just uploaded the complete archive.

[King Kong]

@Giorgos
Very good idea! Thanks for that.
This skins look really very nice.

Edit: I have added them to my mod.

Also I would highly appreciate any comments or suggestions on my mod.

...sorry for my english

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Looks nice, I'll give this a try.

[King Kong]

Many thanks for the feedback.
You won't regret it!

...and I am a bit confused about the different 2-hander fixes. :hmmm:
Can someone recommend me the most proper one? (I am currently using Rhedd's)

[Fridericus Rex]

Installation: I have the four folder unzipped on my desktop - now, what or where I have to copy these folders to.

Please give more specific instructions.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[King Kong]

@Fredericus: Sorry, if my instruction wasn't clear.

You have to EXTRACT ALL files into your default Medieval II directory.
For example into the "C:\programs\SEGA\Medieval II Total War" folder.
(the folder where your medieval2.exe is located)
The files will be automatically copied in the correct directories.

To start the mod launch the Stainleel_Steel.bat file.

I hope this helps

[Fridericus Rex]

Thank you, appreciate your clarification. Can I continue my saved game?

[King Kong]

@fredericus: yes, that's correct.


... hmmm.. 1300 views and only 2 comments on my mod?

Come on guys, I would really highly appreciate every comment!

Have you seen tougher AI armies in any other mod?

[ironmaiden]

@fredericus: yes, that's correct.


... hmmm.. 1300 views and only 2 comments on my mod?

Come on guys, I would really highly appreciate every comment!

Have you seen tougher AI armies in any other mod?

alright, i just downloaded this and i'll let you know. before i do, what difficulty level do you prefer? i like vh/vh. all in all, so far, i like the name.

as far as the original game scale of the map, doesn't bother me. in one day, i get two sessions out. one on bigmap and one on the original.

[King Kong]

Thank you very much for your replies, Flavius & Ironmaiden.

@Flavius: hmm.. perhaps I should think about to incorporate the BigMap into my mod. thanks for the hint.

@Ironmaiden: I also prefer vh/vh and, as I said in the original post, my main intention with this mod was to make the game even much harder (mainly through more and better AI armies).

...I've just seen the poll for the best mods...
Darth Mod seems to be very popular. This is really something that is missing in my mod... I should include this as fast as possible!

[ironmaiden]

well...so far it seems that i will have my hands full. maybe, i hope!

i'm not sure if the picture will open but if it doesn't, it shows scotland taking a rebel settlement (antwerp) for themselves. a full stack. denmark stands right next to them hoping for something. they too have a near full stack. this is on turn 5! scotland has fleets all over the english channel. i'll keep on playing to see how crazy stuff will really get. at least by turn, what, close to thirty, maybe?

[King Kong]

@Ironmaiden: Wow, in my games the scots weren't that aggressive!
...and I played and tested 4 different campaigns on vh/vh for about 100 turns...

Perhaps you could give me another short reply what was happening in the later game.
I would really appreciate that!

[Flavius_Maximus]

great ideas

Bigmap Extended BigMap .99i is now very stable -- plenty to support any mod package. I've yet to crash on it.

http://www.totalwarmods.com/BigMap%2...ad%20Page.html

... hmmm.. 1300 views and only 2 comments on my mod?

Come on guys, I would really highly appreciate every comment!

A very fine mod consolidation. Really good. It's just that many of us are just not into gaming on the original scale maps anymore.

[ironmaiden]

are you going to update your splash screen from 1.0 to 1.2?

[Wolfgrin]

@ King Kong
Thought I'd give you some feedback on your army compositions.

I haven't played your mod, as I am playing Spurious' Big Map. In it I see armies composed much like the ones in your screenshots. They are better than vanilla, but just about the only decent infantry they use is dismounted feudal knights. Why doesn't the AI use some of the better choices, like Byzantine Inf, Venetian heavy Inf, Danish swordsmen, etc. England does seem to use a good mix of infantry, but they rarely employ their greatest tactical edge, the longbow. Any ideas why they continue to do this? Do the armies in your mod get better as the years go by?

[King Kong]

@Ironmaiden: I really appreciate that you give me some feedback from your game!

"i'm using your mod with ultimateAI v1.0. if that makes a difference."

I don't know exactly how a diplomacy mod affects my mod... never played with one of them. I can live with the diplomacy from the vanilla game, actually.

"france and the HRE are just about wiped out. myself, too, for that matter!"

as I said I wanted to make a harder game.
but hmmm... do you mean that's good/bad or too hard? :hmmm:

and yes, the splash screen is updated, of course.

[King Kong]

@Wolfgrin:

Thought I'd give you some feedback on your army compositions.

I haven't played your mod, as I am playing Spurious' Big Map. In it I see armies composed much like the ones in your screenshots. They are better than vanilla, but just about the only decent infantry they use is dismounted feudal knights. Why doesn't the AI use some of the better choices, like Byzantine Inf, Venetian heavy Inf, Danish swordsmen, etc. England does seem to use a good mix of infantry, but they rarely employ their greatest tactical edge, the longbow. Any ideas why they continue to do this? Do the armies in your mod get better as the years go by?

First of all, I am pretty sure that the armies get a lot better in the later game. As you can see, all the screenshots are made between turn 50 and turn 80 and I believe therefore the AI armies are pretty tough. Especially Byzantium already uses some of their special units relatively early.
I made several test campaigns but I couldn't play each campaign more than 100-120 turns. So, I can not be 100% sure what AI armies will arrive in the late game period.
Nevertheless, I tried to make a system, without changing the unit costs, which is going to force the AI to produce better units the more they improve their barracks.
Also I wanted to prevent them to build too much of one kind of unit.
However, I agree with you that the AI could make more use of their faction specific units...
I'll look into this and try to improve that even more!
Thanks for your feedback!