Introduction to Gilded Vanilla Mod

This mod corrects some of the glaring issues with the combat in vanilla Medieval 2 to restore so usefulness to a range of units that otherwise would be avoided.

Information

The mod is hosted at ModDB

To install, download the mod and follow one of the two methods mentioned here

Melee Defence Skill Balancing

Rationale

This mod was created because the unit balance in the vanilla game rendered too many units useless and seemed to undermine the original intention in the game. When analysed, there appeared to be a systematic error that was at the root of the problem. After experimentation, a reasonably simple modification was made that provided a more sensible set of combat outcomes.

Note that these do not apply to the Kingoms expansions as there were too many differences to reconcile. Philosophically, the changes in this mod have the same goal as those made in the Kingdoms stats overhaul, however the Kingdoms changes went too far in certain directions. For example, they reduced armour ratings to level that made shields more effective than armour. This mod attempts to stay true to the original vision of vanilla.

Problem

The core problem is demonstrated by the performance of Dismounted Chivalric Knights vs Dismounted Noble Knights. From a historical perspective, the development of poleaxes was a result to the development of heavy armour. Improvements in armour meant that it became viable to forgo a shield, and at the same time reduced the effectiveness of swords. This meant that two-handed percussive weapons became the weapon of choice in knightly combat. If you have seen any of the historical treatises of fighting with these weapons in armour, they are brutally effective can-openers, and in combat would have been sent head-on against opposing knights.

However, in the vanilla game, the Noble Knight is easily bested by the Chivalric and in fact even by the Feudal. Being a heavily armoured unit (armour 8) it is slow and tires easily so it is not a useful flanker (a role which players mistakenly assumed was the intention for this unit) and its lack of shield made it vulnerable to missiles. As such, there is no scenario where the Noble Knight (English and Portuguese) is worth recruiting. In game, the poleaxe is a two-handed axe, and so this problem affects a large number of units.

Solution

Study of the Noble Knight vs Chivalric Knight comparison revealed some insights into the game mechanics. When a soldier attacks, there are three options:

• hit the opponent (and thus their armour)
  
• hit the opponent's shield
  
• the opponent parries

In the first two cases, the attacker is unaffected. However, when a parry occurs, the attacker is knocked back and at a disadvantage. Coming back to our match-up, the Noble Knight appeared to be having a lot of its attacks parried and thus being knocked back. Combined with the lack of the shield, it took many more hits than its opponent.

Even when the Chivalric Knight went up against the more similarly armed Imperial Knight it won easily, and again, with a lot of parrying. Studying these three unit types: Noble, Chivalric and Imperial, highlighted a glaring discrepancy in the Defence Skill values: 5, 8 and 3 respectively. Logically it made sense that of the three attack outcomes, the various defence areas would be the controlling factor: armour, shield and skill respective to the list above.

Assessing the entire range of foot infantry this discrepancy in defence skill existed, whereby sword armed units had a very high defence skill. Often this was the largest contributor to defence and when the combat impact (parries stunning the attacker) was included, it was clear these units had a big advantage over others.

Generally speaking the rules around defence skill appeared to be:

• Peasant/Milita: 1
  
• Professional: 3
  
• Uninspired Elite: 4
  
• Knightly: 5
  
• Veterans: 6
  
• (Non-sword modifier): -1

However, sword armed units had skill values in the range from 6 to 9. As such the primary change is a reduction of defence skill for sword-armed units, and an increase for two handed units. After analysing every unit, it appeared that sword-armed units had an unexplained 3 point advantage to defence skill over axe and mace units which was then removed. In turn, 2-handed units were given a 3 point boost to defence skills to represent the fact that parrying is actually easier for those weapons than for a sword and shield (where the combatant would rely on the shield more). This was applied consistently across the rosters. Prices were not adjusted as they appeared to be correct for where the final stats ended up.

Spearwall polearms did not have their defence skill increased as it appeared to make them too powerful in spearwall mode.

Result

The result is now a more historical match up between the Noble and Chivalric Knights and a clear role for both on the battlefield.

The Noble Knight will defeat the Chivalric by a modest margin and so has a clear assault role. The price difference (530 vs 610) is justified on the basis that the lack of shield makes the Nobles more vulnerable to missiles and combat losses in general. This makes the Chivalric Knight more versatile on the battlefield and on campaign.

This matches the historic outcome, poleaxes existed for a relatively short period of time before gunpowder rendered heavy armour not as necessary, while sword and shield would make appearances into the renaissance.

There are some nice side effects to battle balance that comes from this change. Axe and shield units now justify their high price as they typically match sword and shield units in their price range, however the AP attribute means the range differs based on the enemy armour level. Finally, elite pike units do not melt against sword units with comparable attack values, which makes more sense.

Spearwall Polearm Animations

Rationale

Spearwall polearms like halberds are a problematic unit type in vanilla to the point of pointlessness. For some inexplicable reason, they walk in slow motion, even with spearwall disabled. This impacted not just their tactical flexibility, but their ability to react in combat and as a result they were generally ineffective in all but the most ideal scenarios. It was even worse for the AI, the movement speed resulting in them being left stranded and largely missing the battle. It was a sad situation for what should have been a very interesting unit type: hybrid anti-cav, anti-armour generally militia unit.

Historically these weapons marked the point where collective unity could counter individual excellence and the days of the knight was giving way to citizen armies. Formed halberd units could counter cavalry and defeat infantry with the combination of spear and axe. There were many famous battles won over the nobility thanks to these weapons and organised formations - such as the battle of Morgarten in the 14th century.

To be historically representative, in game terms, these weapons should sit between the spear and the pike and roughly compare in the follow ways.

Weapon	Pros	Cons
Spear	Better missile defence (shield) More mobile (no spearwall) Better against cavalry melee (spear)	Poor versus infantry (spear) Weaker against cavalry charge (no spearwall)
Long Polearm	Better against charges (spearwall) Better infantry melee (non-spear & AP)	Less mobile (spearwall) Vulnerable to missiles (no shield)
Pike	Invincible against charges (spearwall)	Poor versus infantry (spear) Vulnerable to missiles (no shield) Poor against cavalry melee (sword)

Problem

The speed of units is controlled by the animations and there are not a lot of options available to tweak for the modder. Kingdoms introduced a parameter that could be added to the export_descr_units.txt file which was a speed modifier, and this was used in the original Lands to Conquer mod to slow down pikes and speed up halberds.

The problem with this approach is that when spearwall is off and these two unit types (pike and halberd) run, they normally run at the same speed as normal infantry. The speed modifier affected these movements too, resulting in running halberds being the fastest infantry ever seen and running pikes being painfully slow. This was better than vanilla, but still not great.

Also, possibly due to the speed, the units tend to make very few motions in combat. In practice this means that Armoured Sergeants remain more effective in the anti-cavalry role, even if you upgrade Halberd Militias to the gold level. So they are not even worth taking as an immobile cavalry defence.

Solution

To improve the usefulness of spearwall polearms, their primary animation was replaced with the one that the pikes use. The Obudshaer were given the Slow Pike animation that the Noble Pikemen have as they have armour '8'. This greatly improved the situation, walking at the same oddly fast pike pace, and play the hybrid role well. The only downside is a slight visual problem where the impact point appears to be at pike length rather than halberd, but that's all.

Pricing still seemed to be right as their reliance on spearwall for defence makes them less flexible than spears, but their use against infantry justified the higher price than pikes. They make a decent contrast to Armoured Sergeants or Spear Militia before pikes arrive due to greater melee survivability, without being overpowered.

Change List

Starting Point

For various reasons, Lands to Conquer Gold was used as the basis for this mod. It incorporated many campaign improvements and fixes as well as the excellent Early, High and Late campaigns that are great fun to play. However, there are two major changes that were made before the main mod changes were made.

Firstly, building recruitment was restored to vanilla. A lot of character was provided by the recruitment from walls especially for some of the eastern factions. This mechanism was provided to give them access to gunpowder or late cavalry units before western factions. Additionally, the ability to have useful Castles without building specialist recruitment buildings felt representative of why those structures existed.

Secondly, unit statistics were restored to vanilla. Lands to Conquer used the Kingdoms stats, which while they were an attempt to provide better balance, devalued armour to a degree that undermined the effect this mod wanted to provide. Knights ditched shields for poleaxes because their armour provided enough protection on its own. In the Kingdoms stats, shield defence (8) provided more than Partial Plate (6) which meant that shieldless units were at a big disadvantage. This did not seem representative of the historical situation.

Unit Changes

• All sword armed infantry with a defence skill value in the range of 6-9 was reduced by 3 (41 units affected)
  
• All two-handed infantry had their defence skill increased by 3, including non-spearwall halberds (24 units affected)
  
• Two handed sword units were given the AP attribute inline with Kingdoms balancing and general performance
  
• Norse Axemen were repriced as they were very overpriced for their stats: 700 -> 440
  
• Venetian Heavy Infantry were detuned as they were unstoppable for their price: Attack 16 -> 14, Charge 5 -> 3
  
• Mutatawwi'a and Religious Fanatics were given the AP attribute as they have 2-handed maces
  
• "fire_by_rank" was removed from all gunpowder units as it was too glitchy and causes the units to rotate of their own accord.
  
• Cavalry unit sizes were reduced inline with Kingdoms balancing as they were too over powered and generally hard to use at such big sizes. Still cost effective though.
  
• Reduced range and accuracy of fire arrows as it was too easy to kill Generals with Peasant Archers
  
• Removed flaming projectiles from ballista, catapults, trebuchet and bombards.
  
• Reduced catapult and trebuchet accuracy versus infantry for gameplay improvements.
  
• Gave Ballistas 4 machines because 2 were not cost effective compared to catapults even when catapult accuracy was reduced vs infantry.

Campaign Changes

• Removed Jinetes from 3rd level Portuguese City Walls
  
• Dismounted Gothic Knights are recruitable
  
• Switch French Knights to Noble rather than split across those and Chivalric
  
• Dismounted French Archers are recruitable
  
• Mounted Longbowmen are recruitable
  
• Galloglaich are recruitable
  
• Denmark can recruit Dismounted Chivalric Knights
  
• Dismounted Lithuanian Cavalry are recruitable
  
• Added Kataphracts to last level Castle walls
  
• Dismounted Tuareg are recruitable
  
• Sudanese Tribesmen are recruitable
  
• Late Generals are recruitable from the University which comes very late in the game
  
• Siege equipment and early gunpowder artillery recruitment pool size reduced to 1

Retained Anomalies

• Dismounted Latikon and Byzantine Lancers are slightly overpriced
  
• Varangian Guard have a small shield value (3) which is unique for a 2-handed unit

[Ragnar]

@Iforgot - the way Med 2 works, it's difficult to change the balance with spears so yes, they will be worse at infantry melee than swords, axe or mace infantry. They have an inbuilt weakness to non-spears that cannot be removed - even though their spear bonus can be tuned a little.

This mod doesn't change overall balance that severely, it alters the balance for one handed and two handed axes/swords so that there is a role for the latter. In vanilla, they always perform worse than sword and shield units so are pointless.

In this mod, they are better against sword and shield units, but will be less resilient due to the lack of shields. Specialised assault troops to break infantry lines which is kind of what they were thought to be historically. That said a good cavalry charge will still be devastating against Dismounted Feudal Knights.

[Ragnar]

Or Method 2 here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2056929356

[Ragnar]

@The Real Green - follow method 2 on this page: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=290002657

[Ragnar]

@DerRitter - prices, hardiness, stat_heat and stat_ground is unchanged from the base mod, which may be vanilla or tweaked by that mod author.
Defence Skill is the primary change in this mod as discussed above. Attack is largely vanilla.

[Ragnar]

@Lathelus - there are a few other files that might need an update might not. Let me know if you want more details and I'll give you access to the repo to see all the changes made.

[The Real Green]

@Ragnar

I have installed the mod, but I admit I am wholly new to M2TW modding scene and don't quite know where to start besides putting the mod(s?) in my /mods file.

[Raven]

Total war has loooong since done spears wrong, I tell ya hwat.

[Iforgot]

Just bought the game and straight to this mod. There are some guides that say spear units -> light -> heavy from worst to best. Does that still ring true for this mod?

[DerRitter]

I have compared Retrofit (Kingdoms balancing) unit stats with those of this mod, and I have noticed a few things:
In addition to the shield/armour discrepancy, this mod also changes the stat_heat and stat_ground of most units
defence skill is higher
most units have higher atk in comparison to the Kingdoms stats
most knights have "hardy"
prices are different (generally lower)

[Lathelus]

@Ragnar retrofit mod just "copies" the changes made in kingdoms expansions into the base game, nothing more, plus fixes some bugs present in the grand campaign. However, as you stated, the balance changes in kingdoms is weird at best, so combining the two is perfect for someone who want's your balance changes, but also wants the grand campaign to remain as vanilla as possible.