Sloth's submod for FATW 3.3

**The Sloth** · June 30, 2018, 04:08 AM

I proudly present my very first submod ever. It is small, since it only affects a couple text files, and neatly fits into the ZIP file attached to this post. Unzip it and copy it into your FATW folder. Overwrite all.

WARNING: Like I said, I have never done this before, so there might me mistakes that I am not aware of. I believe this submod to be savegame compatible, but anyone installing it will do so at their own risk. Please tell me about anything that doesn't work as intended.

Feature list:

Sloth's Dwindling Firstborn:
- All playable non-mannish factions start with roughly twice as much military, or even more when played by the AI.
- Unit upkeep of native units has been drastically lowered.
- All native units are retrainable as usual, but no longer recruitable.

Explanation:
While non-mannish population growth is low, it still is constant, and in the mid- to late game, you'll gradually be able to field full stacks of elite elves and dwarves, which I feel fits poorly with the lore and how these factions are supposed to be on the decline. Instead, these factions are now a lot stronger at the start, but have a lowered military growth potential, which I hope will make turtling a viable strategy, and will eventually make these factions feel that the age of men is upon them, when the AI superfactions have emerged and you can't leisurely levy powerfull armies to meet them.
This change is intended mostly for roleplay, and is very likely to make non-mannish campaigns a cakewalk for players who rush the AI right of the bat.

Other Changes:
- All ranged units' descriptions now display their correct range, as well as maximum ammunition.
- Archers and slingers can no longer swim, to prevent them from shooting from unassailable positions in the middle of a river.
- To keep the swim ability interesting, several light cavalry units are now able to swim.
- Changed some archers' range to better fit their level of training. (Barding Longbowmen will no longer outrange Longbowmen of Dale)
- Increased the unit size of Archers and Mounted Archers of Khand to make them more comparable to similar units of other faction. Also marginally increased the unit size of the Dragonshield Riders.
- Khand should now be able to retrain mercenaries from its homelands in any foreign chief city with suitable Khandian barracks. I always thought it was a bit unfair that their elites are available to everyone and their mother, so I thought that if Khand is such a mercenary hub, then they should be able to use them better than anyone else. I am confident that this change is balanced, as these units are way too expensive to be used as an army mainstay.

Possible future changes:
- I want to buff Adunabar again, as they became a lot weaker in 3.3, even though nobody really knows how or why that happened. Suggestions on how to achieve this while changing gameplay as little as possible are welcome.
- Some minor text tweaks, like changing the top dwarven barracks. I don't like the idea of mass-produced mithril armor to fit out entire armies.
- Some trait stuff, mostly for agents. But this one is even further away on the horizon.

**SnuggleBunnies** · June 30, 2018, 02:07 PM

Thanks a lot, really appreciate your taking the time to do this. I'll check it out soon and report back.

**Wambat** · July 02, 2018, 12:29 AM

If I ever do feature a sub-mod let's play, this one sounds like a very good candidate. Keep up the good work. May this mod never die!

**CountMRVHS** · July 03, 2018, 05:42 AM

Great to see this, Sloth! I'll check it out.

I also need to run some test campaigns to look at Adunabar's 3.3 performance... There may be some relatively easy tweaks that can be made there.

**jimmy_dude** · July 06, 2018, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by The Sloth

- I want to buff Adunabar again, as they became a lot weaker in 3.3, even though nobody really knows how or why that happened. Suggestions on how to achieve this while changing gameplay as little as possible are welcome.

In my copy of 3.3, I went into the "campaign_script.txt", which is where AI Adunabar gets most of its buffs, file and nearly doubled AI Adunabar's starting forces by adding in almost full stacks in Calenhad, Taurdal, Threeways, and Dagorlad. I also nearly doubled their starting money, and I also gave them Sarnford to start in "descr_strat". The results I've had have been Adunabar more consistently winning in the north and not being wiped out in the south. Although their larger starting forces do make the RK campaign more challenging, the battles have still been manageable in the test campaign I did as the RK after the buff.

Also, I decided to change the "export_descr_buildings.txt" to give Adunabar a huge public order boost in Rivendell, as in any 3.3 campaign I've done, Rivendell always revolts within the first 2-3 turns for AI Adunabar, and that leads to Adunabar wasting armies in the north trying to take it back only for it to revolt again.

Hopefully these changes I made give you ideas on how to buff AI Adunabar's performance.

**CountMRVHS** · July 10, 2018, 06:52 AM

Good ideas there, jimmy_dude. Adunabar losing Rivendell was not just a 3.3 thing; similar behavior would occur consistently in 3.2 (basically, ever since we gave them Rivendell at the start).

I'm playing a Rohan 3.3 campaign right now to check out Adunabar's behavior. It's only 10-15 turns in, but so far Adunabar has been acting the same as I've seen in 3.2. They've taken Fornost and Weathertop in the North, and haven't yet lost anything in the South (that I can see).