SWO-RD : Steph's Warhammer Overhaul - Recruitment Diversity

[Steph]

For a few weeks, I've been working on a new mod for Warhammer II. I'll soon update this thread with some information about the mod. Stay tuned.

Although the name focused on Recruitment Diversity (I needed a R and D to make the SWORD), the mod is not limited to that.

Key concepts

The goal of the mod is to increase flavour and immersion, by giving more diversity to the units you can recruit and maintain, including heraldic versions of the units.
Also, you need to keep more balance armies, as you cannot have armies with only the highest tier units.

Elite units will be more important, since they'll be more scarce... while lower tier units will remain important to the end since you'll still need them for large armies.

I'm trying to remain close the the Lore, with some adaptation for gameplay reasons. I will probably add some less-lore friendly units at some points, but I'll try to have them as an "add-on" in a separate mod, so you can chose not to use them.

The mod includes new textures, and db editing, but I'll try to keep the startpos unchanged, and stay close to vanilla stats if possible for better compatibility.

The initial version of the mod will be focused on the High Elves, and depending on positive feedbacks, I plan to apply the same principle progressively to the other factions.

With Bretonia and Empire next in line


Downloaad
Mod is published on Steam, look for "SWO-RD core"

Direct link to Steam

[Steph]

Buildings:
- The landmark buildings have been extended. In Ulthuan, each of them starts at level 1 for settlement level 1, and goes up to level 5 (4 only for landmarks without a level 5 initially). The initial level is not expensive, other are more expensive. I've spread the bonus given for each level. For example, if the landmarks building initially gave a +10 bonus (at level 5), then you'd get +2 at level 1, +4 at level 2, etc. This means you can start getting the benefits sooner, but to get the full benefits it will be more expensive (since you need to pay for each intermediate level).
- I have added a few levels to some buildings to have a more spread recruitment of units.
- Settlements give a little less garrison units, but the other buildings can also contribute to the garrison.
- Specialized buldings (barracks, stable) increase the capacity of the units which are limited.
- Landmarks buildings increase the capacity of the associated units.


Units:
- For the core units, such as spearmen or archers, the initial units have been duplicated twice.
-- First, there is the generic version. This one is a little weaker than vanilla (lower leadership, a bit less men in the units), but it can be recruited in any region, anywhere in the world, and is not limited.
-- Second, the "heraldic version". This is a little stronger than vanilla, but it can only be recruited in a specific province, since they require the landmark building. They are also limited in number, and their capacity can increase with the level of the associated landmark building.
-- Third, both "generic" and "heraldic" versions come with an elite version. The elite version has half the men, but better stats. Elite versions are always limited in number, and the associated building can increase their capacity (ex barracks increase the capacity of Sentinels).

- Special units (ex: White Lions of Chrace) have a generic version (ex Axemen), also weaker, which can be recruited anywhere, but are limited in number. Capacity can increase with the number of associated generic building built in several cities. They don't have an elite version
- The standard version can only be recruited in their associated province, and also with limited capacity. They have an elite version, with an even smaller number limit.

- I have completed a little the roster for gameplay reason(ex: HE have swordmen), and given some units different ammunition. This is not completly Lore friendly, but I hope close enough not to disturb too much.

- I may add a few regiment of renown later.

- But I do NOT plan to find each obscure reference to possible units and invent something for them which is completly against Lore.


Unit graphics
- Each type of units have specific graphics and icon. But inside a unit, there is less variety. For exemple instead of given 6 different possible shield to spearmen, swordsmen, sentinels, spearmen can have 2 shields, swordmen two other shields and sentinels two other shields.
- To get enough variety to have different units (especially elite), since we cannot edit mesh, I'm playing with some texture variants (ie silver vs gold), which may not be 100% lore, but I think are the best compromise.
- Units have an officer, and 5 "bodyguards" with slightly different graphics. No effect on gameplay, just for visual (see screenshots below).
- The icons are all hand made, and correspond to the actual unit as much as possible. Icons come with a colored frame that help identify them: generic or heraldic, standard unit or elite, etc.

[Steph]

Ok, so I did some testing, and it seems the resource ARE working. I have added a HE_N resource to the star tower, made it a requirement for Spearmen, and started a campaign with Tyrion, another with Teclis.
Tyrion cannot recruit Spearmen, but Teclis can


Now, I have two possible solutions for my mod


1) Use landmarks. Idea: Spearman have a "generic" weaker version, recruitable with the Barracks, but anywhere (Ulthuan, and rest of the World). Then, I have special hearldic spearmen (exemple: eataine Spearmen), that requires the Lothern landmark as primary requirement, and the barracks as additional requirements.
This way, HE can recruit better spearmen, in Ulthuan only, and have to recruit weaker units elsewhere
Since I limited the umber of heraldic units, it means you can recruit a core of "strong" units in Ulthuan kingdoms, and outside you only have weaker units, and if you reach your limit of strong heraldic units, you also need to fall back to weaker units to complete your roster
It works, and doesn't reequire startpos editing. However, it requires a Landmark. Works well for Ulthuan since there is a landmark virtualkly everywhere, but poor Teclis is stuck with weaker units, and his start position is thus even harder.

2) Use resource ID. I could give region specific resource everywhere, so my Eataine spearmen can only be recruited in Eataine, not using Landmarks. This would be more flexible, can work more precisely as I could tweak it region by region. But requires a lot of startpos changes


What do you think of both methods?

[Steph]

I'm updating it to include the new units from the latest DLC. I'll post a few more screens probably this week end

[MTurambar]

Great. I bought the DLC the Queen and the Crone, but after a fast play, I prefer wait to play your mod with a lot of more units.
Thanks

[Steph]

I think you can start playing without my mod, I'll still need time to finish it. And the n try again later with the mod to compare.

[MTurambar]

So I see is far away from finish.
I will try the basic game, but I wish play with more elves units and heraldry, like your mod.
Hope soon Total war make DLC of Ogre Kingdoms and Kislev (with real Kislev units and not just the Empire)

[Steph]

Not "far", but this week end I try for my 2nd Dan Aikido black belt, then I have my parents in law 50 years wedding anniversary, then we have an exchange student for 2 weeks...

So I don't have much more to do, but few time to do need before mid July

[MTurambar]

I see. Good luck with your 2nd Dan Aikido

[Steph]

Got it! In my group 2 out 9 succeeded (including me), 7 failed.

[MTurambar]

Congratz.
A question about your mod.
If you play with Lothern, and you conquest Averlorn, you will can recruit the sisters, maidens etc units, and special ones like Pegasi Sisters?
If you recruit units, example a Archer, en Tiranoc city, but you Kingdom is Lothern, that units come with Tiranoc Heraldry or Lothern Heraldry?
thanks

[Steph]

I've reworked a bit the sisters following DLC. I now have "generic" sisters, with the graphics preview in this thread earlier. They can be recruited with the sisters building, in any region, but they are more or less equivelent to standard archer/spearmen. Kind of female version of regular troops. They wil get the Avelorn shields I preview here (for Spear sisters), but they will have the colour sof the main recruiting faction (i.e. if you play as Lothern, they will get blue shirt, while with Avelorn it will be green shirt).

Then you have the "Sisters of Avelorn" from the DLC. These one can be recruited only in Avelorn, but you can do it as any Elven faction, and always ahve the same colours. And they get their magical bow and better stats.


So, as Lothern
- Recruit female "standard" units in any region, with blue colour (but the shield is still green)
- And fi you conquer Avelorn, recruit elite Sisters. If you don't conquer Avelorn, you won't get the elite sisters.

Same for Shadow Warriors, but with Nagarythe (generic verison everywhere, elite in Nagarythe only).

And conquering Avelorn give access to more special units, such as unicorn, pegasi, or Treeman.

If you recruit an archer in Tiranoc as Lothern:
- You can recruit a generic archer, it will have Lothern colours (these units can e recruited anywhere, including for exemple in the Old World)
- You can recruit heraldic archers, it will have Tiranoc colours, abut cannot be recruited outside of Tiranoc, a,d the number of allowed units is limited.


To summarize gameplay as the HE:
- You can recruit weaker generic version of the units anywhere, including outisde of Ulthuan, with your faction main colours.
- You can recruit heraldic units (Spearmen, Archers, Silver Helms) in the Ulthuan region, each region gives units with specific heraldry and increase the unit limits
- You can recruit elite units (Swordmasters of Hoeth, Sisters of Avelorn, Phoenix Guard) in only one region, and they have the better stats.

[MTurambar]

I Undestand
Thanks

[Steph]

I'm doing the final touch with the info card, I hope to ahve everything done soon.

So I'm starting to think about the future of the mod.

I think the concept I used for the HE will work quite well for Bretonnia and Empire, but I will make it later.


I want to finish the Elves first.


For Wood Elf, there won't really be a concept of "generic" units recruitable in the rest of the world vs Athel Loren. Because of WE recruitment mechanism, they'll recruit directly the equivalent of HE heraldic and unique units. So their rosters will be simplier. I may however keep the concept of regular/unit (Eternal Guard - Eternal Warden for exemple). And I don't plan to have a region specific bonus or unique unit for them.


For the Dark Elves, I'd like suggestion of how to handle them.


First, I think they won't have the regular/elite versions. I don't fill like having Dreadspear - Lordling Dreadspear. Their "elite" sound too much like a hero/officer.


But I'd like to have the generic weaker for rest of the world, and normal unit for Naggaroth.


So at least two "versions" of the unit. For the normal versions, I have several possibilties


1) They can the same for every Dark Elves region (ie a Dreadspear from Naggarond will be the same as a Dreadspear from Har Ganeth) and a global unit cap (ex: 40 dreadspear)
2) They can be the same model, with different colour and cpa (ex: 10 for Dreadspear from Naggarond, 10 more for Har Ganeth...)
3) They can b real heralric units (ie with different shield heraldry.


I'm thinking option 2 could be fun, and not too difficult to do. Option 1 would be the fastest to do.
What do you think ?


I'm not sure how to handle special / rare units.
1) Should the Black Guard be recruitable only in Naggarond, and nowhere else?
2) Should there be the Elite version in Naggarond, and a generic Black Guards available in every DE region, but not in the rest of the world?
3) Should there be the Elite version in Naggarond, and a generic Black Guards available in every region, including outside of Naggarond?


According to lore, I think there are actually few units which should be limited to a specific region
- Black Guard in Naggarond
- Executionner in Har Ganeth
- Cold One in Hag Graef
- War hydra in Karond Kar


Do you see other units which should be limited to a region?

[MTurambar]

Looks Great.
About Dark elves, I dont know really, maybey manticores, beastmasters, Doomfire Warlocks

[Daruwind]

Hi Steph, really great mod,cannot wait for it to be finished My HE heart cannot give you enough rep...I added some ideas. HOpe it will helps at least in discussion!

Buildings:
- The landmark buildings have been extended. In Ulthuan, each of them starts at level 1 for settlement level 1, and goes up to level 5 (4 only for landmarks without a level 5 initially). The initial level is not expensive, other are more expensive. I've spread the bonus given for each level. For example, if the landmarks building initially gave a +10 bonus (at level 5), then you'd get +2 at level 1, +4 at level 2, etc. This means you can start getting the benefits sooner, but to get the full benefits it will be more expensive (since you need to pay for each intermediate level).
- I have added a few levels to some buildings to have a more spread recruitment of units.
- Settlements give a little less garrison units, but the other buildings can also contribute to the garrison.
- Specialized buldings (barracks, stable) increase the capacity of the units which are limited.
- Landmarks buildings increase the capacity of the associated units.

Sounds good, only question is size and power of garrison. I usually feels that in late game the garrison is quite weak and instead of having multiple weak units it would be great if garrison were improving in strenght a bit more in time. This would also help AI to be able to survive into late game. This is maybe general topic not linked with HE only. The rest ideas are very well done! Only possible idea i have is, in region with resources maybe having more complex building tree for resource building. Example could like having Iron Mine with later two possible ways of developing. Maybe one for economic purpose..more resource, effects in such way and second option like Ironforge or something with bigger garrison,recruitment and such bonuses insetad of economic ones..

Ok, so I did some testing, and it seems the resource ARE working. I have added a HE_N resource to the star tower, made it a requirement for Spearmen, and started a campaign with Tyrion, another with Teclis.
Tyrion cannot recruit Spearmen, but Teclis can

Now, I have two possible solutions for my mod

1) Use landmarks. Idea: Spearman have a "generic" weaker version, recruitable with the Barracks, but anywhere (Ulthuan, and rest of the World). Then, I have special hearldic spearmen (exemple: eataine Spearmen), that requires the Lothern landmark as primary requirement, and the barracks as additional requirements.
This way, HE can recruit better spearmen, in Ulthuan only, and have to recruit weaker units elsewhere
Since I limited the umber of heraldic units, it means you can recruit a core of "strong" units in Ulthuan kingdoms, and outside you only have weaker units, and if you reach your limit of strong heraldic units, you also need to fall back to weaker units to complete your roster
It works, and doesn't reequire startpos editing. However, it requires a Landmark. Works well for Ulthuan since there is a landmark virtualkly everywhere, but poor Teclis is stuck with weaker units, and his start position is thus even harder.

2) Use resource ID. I could give region specific resource everywhere, so my Eataine spearmen can only be recruited in Eataine, not using Landmarks. This would be more flexible, can work more precisely as I could tweak it region by region. But requires a lot of startpos changes

What do you think of both methods?

Second option is probably better. It is more complex but looking forward, if you will have multiple races/factions overlays for unit recruitment. Having unique resource ID and thus unique building version in that region allows you to tinker recruitment for all possible races in that particular region. Plus the buildings won´t be showing all unavailable units from different regions right?

For Wood Elf, there won't really be a concept of "generic" units recruitable in the rest of the world vs Athel Loren. Because of WE recruitment mechanism, they'll recruit directly the equivalent of HE heraldic and unique units. So their rosters will be simplier. I may however keep the concept of regular/unit (Eternal Guard - Eternal Warden for exemple). And I don't plan to have a region specific bonus or unique unit for them.

What about Worldroots? Maybe the easier way to implement would be different outpost building tree (if not making special building/landmark..) in some regions. Like little bigger outpost? Maybe having even better replenishment? Honestly I could imagine this region granting access to some special units, limited in numbers. Ye it is exactly what you trying avoid :/ I would add just some spirit inspired units like feral? guardian? primal? wild? ...Tree-Kin,Treeman,Dryads to these Worldroots outposts. Limited in numbers, recruitable only in these regions. Cap depending on how many worldroots player control?

Reason is, for WE there are not many interesting regions...like just Lothern,Oreon´s Camp... can be build like Athen Loren. This way there there will be a few more regions..like 1 per continent? 1 more in Lustria, Naggaroth and so..
http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Worldroots

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For the Dark Elves, I'd like suggestion of how to handle them.
First, I think they won't have the regular/elite versions. I don't fill like having Dreadspear - Lordling Dreadspear. Their "elite" sound too much like a hero/officer.
But I'd like to have the generic weaker for rest of the world, and normal unit for Naggaroth.
So at least two "versions" of the unit. For the normal versions, I have several possibilties

1) They can the same for every Dark Elves region (ie a Dreadspear from Naggarond will be the same as a Dreadspear from Har Ganeth) and a global unit cap (ex: 40 dreadspear)
2) They can be the same model, with different colour and cpa (ex: 10 for Dreadspear from Naggarond, 10 more for Har Ganeth...)
3) They can b real heralric units (ie with different shield heraldry.

I'm thinking option 2 could be fun, and not too difficult to do. Option 1 would be the fastest to do.
What do you think ?

Option 2) is good. One version for Naggarond with different colours and caps per city and second lesser/generic version for rest of the world. I would however add the Naggarond version to Black Archs. Maybe have them with little different coulour schemes as Archs are basically oversee Druchii bases.

I'm not sure how to handle special / rare units.
1) Should the Black Guard be recruitable only in Naggarond, and nowhere else?
2) Should there be the Elite version in Naggarond, and a generic Black Guards available in every DE region, but not in the rest of the world?
3) Should there be the Elite version in Naggarond, and a generic Black Guards available in every region, including outside of Naggarond?

According to lore, I think there are actually few units which should be limited to a specific region
- Black Guard in Naggarond
- Executionner in Har Ganeth
- Cold One in Hag Graef
- War hydra in Karond Kar
Do you see other units which should be limited to a region?

Yes, I would limit them to these regions as well. If player is holding the key region and build special building he would be then able to recruit Black Guard for example and this building chain will also allow players to recruit limited and slightly worse version in rest of empire....in Naggarond. And of course Black Archs again! Thus player would need to utilise Archs abroad.

[Steph]

Sounds good, only question is size and power of garrison. I usually feels that in late game the garrison is quite weak and instead of having multiple weak units it would be great if garrison were improving in strenght a bit more in time. This would also help AI to be able to survive into late game. This is maybe general topic not linked with HE only. The rest ideas are very well done! Only possible idea i have is, in region with resources maybe having more complex building tree for resource building. Example could like having Iron Mine with later two possible ways of developing. Maybe one for economic purpose..more resource, effects in such way and second option like Ironforge or something with bigger garrison,recruitment and such bonuses insetad of economic ones..

I actually reworked the garrison, and hopefully you should get better garrison units if you build several higher level buildings (barracks, stable, etc). Not only from the main settlement and walls. Maybe I could expand economical building linked to resource later.

Second option is probably better. It is more complex but looking forward, if you will have multiple races/factions overlays for unit recruitment. Having unique resource ID and thus unique building version in that region allows you to tinker recruitment for all possible races in that particular region. Plus the buildings won´t be showing all unavailable units from different regions right?

It's more complex than that. If I use a resource as requirement, then the building will only show the available unit for this region... except it displays ALL the icons for every possible units. See below how the militia camp displays the generic and Eataine spearmen, and not Avelorn... But the icons for every spearmen, swordmen, etc is shown? I consider it a bug (text is correctly filtered, icons are not).... but CA answered that since resource are kind of a left over from Rome and not really used, they won't fix it.



It may be fixed by creating special buildings chains (Eataine Barracks), available only in Eataine. But.... if I make it a replacement of the current barrack, it means you cannot build the generic barracks... which is required for the first technology... and so many side effects...

What about Worldroots? Maybe the easier way to implement would be different outpost building tree (if not making special building/landmark..) in some regions. Like little bigger outpost? Maybe having even better replenishment? Honestly I could imagine this region granting access to some special units, limited in numbers. Ye it is exactly what you trying avoid :/ I would add just some spirit inspired units like feral? guardian? primal? wild? ...Tree-Kin,Treeman,Dryads to these Worldroots outposts. Limited in numbers, recruitable only in these regions. Cap depending on how many worldroots player control?

Reason is, for WE there are not many interesting regions...like just Lothern,Oreon´s Camp... can be build like Athen Loren. This way there there will be a few more regions..like 1 per continent? 1 more in Lustria, Naggaroth and so..
http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Worldroots

Maybe I'll use a way to add a few more interesting spots to recruit a few units as WE. But they won't be many units, and they won't have heraldic uniforms. So in term of unit rosters, the WE willl not be as extensive as the HE..

Option 2) is good. One version for Naggarond with different colours and caps per city and second lesser/generic version for rest of the world. I would however add the Naggarond version to Black Archs. Maybe have them with little different coulour schemes as Archs are basically oversee Druchii bases.

Yes, I would limit them to these regions as well. If player is holding the key region and build special building he would be then able to recruit Black Guard for example and this building chain will also allow players to recruit limited and slightly worse version in rest of empire....in Naggarond. And of course Black Archs again! Thus player would need to utilise Archs abroad.

Yes, this was also my current preference

[Steph]

I have updated post #4 with the final icons and full roster for HE.

[Daruwind]

Damn fine work, cannot wait to play it

[Steph]

I've "finished" to add the region specific building for recruitment. Running a campaign with Alarielle to check everything runs fine.

I hope I can publish a beta version soon.