Mod choice: Radious, SFO, or Vanilla?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

So, a year on from release, the mod scene has stabilized, and I wonder what overhaul people prefer now. Radious, SFO, or Vanilla? Back in WH2 days, I initially used Radious, but felt it added too many new units and diluted faction identity. SFO was much better about that, with more interesting faction traits, but I find the building and tech tree gets bloated instead. Of course, Vanilla is also an option.

What mod do people usually play with? Or is there another overhaul you'd recommend?

[Bretcool5566bandit.gg]

very confused how you find sfo bloated with buildings and research lol

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Bretcool5566:

very confused how you find sfo bloated with buildings and research lol

Depends on the faction. The mono god factions are pretty scarce, but factions like the Dwarves have a ton.

As far as an answer to OP, in WH2 I preferred a modded vanilla tailored to my tastes. With WH3, I tend to prefer SFO. The big influence for me which leans me towards SFO in 3 is that SFO addresses two big issues I had with WH3 changes: lessening of factionwide bonuses, and trait downscale. I like thinking about traits and building armies around them, and I also like factionwide, or even armywide bonuses so I can use thematic armies rather than doomstacks. I might have stayed with vanilla had WH3 not unnecessarily changed so many things I liked from 2.

[DaBa]

I don't like Radious, it doesn't feel like it makes the game any better or interesting. It's just a lot of bloat and not a lot of substance. I really don't have anything good to say about it, I guess some people just like to see a lot of new units for no reason?

SFO adds some extra mechanics where I feel there weren't enough of them, it's also light and thoughtful with new content. The game still feels largely the same as vanilla, just with an extra icing on top. The changes to existing things is personal preference, I personally like the changes and the mod's approach to balance. And I don't mean it's a balanced mod, because it's definitely not! If anything it makes the game LESS balanced, but I don't really care. What I like about the balance philosophy is that it's trying to emphasize the identity and the strengths of the factions or specific units. Basically: every strength and weakness is emphasized, and balance cares more about what makes sense and is more lore friendly than if it is "balanced".

Also, the SFO mod menu is pretty nifty, with how you can manipulate certain things and change how some aspects of the game work, or even turn of things you might not like. Don't like unit caps? Turn them off or change how they work. Want even longer battles? You got it. Shorter battles? Sure. Want the game to be even harder? Okay chief. Tired of Empire and High Elves always dominating the strength rankings? Why don't you nerf them on the campaign map so other races have a chance to compete?

Vanilla is just that, vanilla. Still good, still works, still fun. Although whenever I play it I always miss all the little things from SFO.

[Уединение]

Radious isn't any good anymore imo. It was good on TWW2, but creator decided to ruin all of CA's art and used his own for the unit cards. Plus it's really too many extra units. Then you have to worry about mods conflicting with it etc. SFO doesn't add as many units ,but still changes so much that most mods wont work properly. I would choose SFO though if I was going to play with an overhaul.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Snow:

Radious isn't any good anymore imo. It was good on TWW2, but creator decided to ruin all of CA's art and used his own for the unit cards. Plus it's really too many extra units. Then you have to worry about mods conflicting with it etc. SFO doesn't add as many units ,but still changes so much that most mods wont work properly. I would choose SFO though if I was going to play with an overhaul.

Based pfp and profile.

[Уединение]

If you're looking for a cool mod I'd check out Jade Blooded Vampires. It's as good or better than most of their DLC's.

[Jack Greedy]

Radious is very nice and AI actually helping in wars there.

[kekkuli]

Vanilla, with some mods to add more flavor to it. SFO has some crazy balance issues like some races can't replenish their troops at all&auto resolve being more broken than in vanilla. Radious just bloats the game, adds elite units with similar stats to every faction.

[Beje]

Originally posted by DaBa:

I don't like Radious, it doesn't feel like it makes the game any better or interesting. It's just a lot of bloat and not a lot of substance. I really don't have anything good to say about it, I guess some people just like to see a lot of new units for no reason?

SFO adds some extra mechanics where I feel there weren't enough of them, it's also light and thoughtful with new content. The game still feels largely the same as vanilla, just with an extra icing on top. The changes to existing things is personal preference, I personally like the changes and the mod's approach to balance. And I don't mean it's a balanced mod, because it's definitely not! If anything it makes the game LESS balanced, but I don't really care. What I like about the balance philosophy is that it's trying to emphasize the identity and the strengths of the factions or specific units. Basically: every strength and weakness is emphasized, and balance cares more about what makes sense and is more lore friendly than if it is "balanced".

Also, the SFO mod menu is pretty nifty, with how you can manipulate certain things and change how some aspects of the game work, or even turn of things you might not like. Don't like unit caps? Turn them off or change how they work. Want even longer battles? You got it. Shorter battles? Sure. Want the game to be even harder? Okay chief. Tired of Empire and High Elves always dominating the strength rankings? Why don't you nerf them on the campaign map so other races have a chance to compete?

Vanilla is just that, vanilla. Still good, still works, still fun. Although whenever I play it I always miss all the little things from SFO.

I'll second this. SFO gave me a reason to play factions I was bored of and have some fun with them again. Highly recommended. And surprisingly a lot of mods work with SFO, sometimes even if it isn't mentioned it would so experiment with what seems appealing to you. I also use more slots for settlements since I like to build up my provinces (mod order is very important for this to work), double skill points on lvl up (need SFO version for this), reset talent points very useful when you confederate a faction and their lord has nonsense distribution of points, recruit defeated legendary lords since I like to pokemon the game and collect them all (I know I'm throwing any balancing out the window with these, I was just bored with vanilla and wanted to ramp it up to 11 with more stuff to do).

Dunno about Radious but I heard much of the same things: a lot of bloat, every faction is given everything with 0 regard to their strengths/weaknesses.

Also, sandbox initiated is probably the best mod to get if you're bored of Vanilla (it also works with SFO if you want to combine). It randomizes the start position of all factions, just for the player or just for the AI - your pick. + it gives you some diplomacy penalties/bonuses and some minor quests to keep the challenge and the incentive up. It's absolute chaos to play with Skarbrand in Cathay region and be surrounded by legendary elven lords, greenskins and anyone else BUT Cathay themselves lol.

[Jack Greedy]

Radious in not only about bloat of units. It is indeed very well balanced and offers nice alternative to SFO i can recommend it , at least try.

[dollars202]

Plain Vanilla. the white dot is lame.

[Mr.Hmm]

I dont use huge overhauls, they are not interesting to me.

[Klutch]

I tried radious about 20 years ago and didn't care for it

[Funky Monk]

Vanilla with a buttload of mods

[Centurion Teri]

Try both mods and decide for yourself you will never get a unbiased opinion here when talking those two mods.