This mod alters the unit size of most units to 250, foot as well as horse. The costs are changed by the same factor so the economical effectiveness of a unit will be comparable. The following unit types are excepted from the standard:
Ships, I haven't touched those.
Siege weapons. Their crews and pieces are doubled. More than six pieces are a bit too unwieldy in my opinion and I wanted to keep the existing balance between artillery types.
Chariots. 100 chariots is a sight to behold but a bit too costly and unwieldy to be useful. I have altered numbers so that there will be 45 chariots which take up roughly as much space as a cavalry unit.
Elephants. I haven't touched those. They take up a lot of space already and are so expensive I hesitate to add to it. Suggestions for making them more decisive are welcome. I have contemplated adding the attribute "screeching women" (as the elephants trumpeting, you know) to them to further undeerline the psychological effect of those strange beasts and make them useful by scaring.
Client rulers. Their costs are halved after the adjustment due to those units being a bit overpriced and also in order not to detract too much from the economic utility of recruiting the client ruler.
In addition to this the mod removes the attribute "javelins thrown before charge". The unit ai handles that behaviour bad enough as it is with smaller units and I find larger ones just messes up their formations when they try to charge after throwing. Besides, javelineers became immensely more dangerous to approach without this attribute.
Units have a default depth of 15 ranks, to make them form a compact square by default, such as when the enemy sallies from a settlement. That lessens the problem with units spreading out across the entire field in absurdly thin lines. It also seems to help the ai keep its companies in order in field battles, this is mostly an issue with cavalry. The problem with units forming marching columns in the middle of battle still persists unfortunately.
The mod comes in two versions;
Limited Version: Only the changes mentioned above.
Expanded Version (NOT YET READY): Limited version and the following alterations:
- Foot archers have a standardised formation - "formation 1.2, 1.4, 1.8, 1.8, 15, square". Archers do in vanilla EB II range from constantly having wide formation to standing as close together as hoplites. The former is impractical and the latter extreme is unrealistic, archers needed a bit of space to handle their bows. I have chosen a minimum spacing between ranks so that soldiers nock and draw without touching the model before them which looks decent. They stand wider than most melee infantry and will be less effective in melee as a result, all other things equal.
Installation:
Unpack the attached file with 7zip or some similar file compression tool.
Open the desired folder (limited or expanded version) and copy the export_descr_unit.txt file inside.
Install by pasting the attached file into ...Medieval II Total War\mods\ebii\data and overwrite as requested. I advise saving a backup of your existing export_descr_unit.txt just in case.