Mods for a sorta new player

[Doge]

Hey guys I am a sorta new player looking for a mod , am considering one of the following :

Tocan Calradia
Diplomacy
Native Expansion

Which is the best mod that enhances the original gameplay without changing too much of it , as I love the way it is now and I might go for all the other fanciful and more dramatic mods once I finished the game and am looking for a second playthrough.

I am not exactly a new player , I have played it before probably at least half a year ago and had accumulated nearly 300 days on my save data. Just when I think I have hit my prime and am ready to conquer the world starting with a town/keep at a time , for some reason I forgotten , I went to download the diplomacy mod and it corrupted my save data. And I pretty much rage quit and never looked back since , until now.

So yeah , still bugs me that I did not manage to conquer all of the empires and thus I wanted to look for a mod that will make my gameplay more enjoyable with as minimal changes to the original/native games as possible as I wanted to experience the game from start to end, the way it was meant to be experienced.

Anyway now that I think of it , I was probably preparing for the late game stuff and heard the diplomacy mod helps a lot thus I went to grab it.

Thanks for reading , and hope to see what you guys think is the best mod for the first playthrough and why is it so.

Have a nice day and peace out! :)

[JtDarth]

Of the three, I would recomend Diplomacy.
I've never even heard of tocan calradia, so I cant speak for it, but native expansion (last I played it)makes a ton of changes to the bandit and mercenary groups, and fills the land with groups of fifty relatively high tier mercs/bandits that will attack you while you are still using a rusty sword and saddle horse. It also adds a new faction full of ridiculously OP troops that the player has very little access to.
Diplomacy expands the political system and overall improves late-game gameplay, and also incorporates a few major headache reducers, such as battles continuing after you are knocked out so you dont have to use auto-resolve, making horse movement speed dependent on hp remaining of horse (makes khergits much less of a pain in the rear, and can be turned off as well) and enables automated recruiting from owned fiefs, by sending out a recruiter.
Diplomacy stays the closest to the vanilla game.

[Arcaian]

Diplomacy stays close to the original game - hardly touches it even, until you become King really, and if you get the default version it adds in some other useful stuff like formations and the like. If all you want is that, get it - no changes to the core gameplay or faction balance at all really.

I think DarthNachoz has undersold Native Expansion. I find it extremely fun, albeit slightly different from normal native gameplay. It adds other mercenary bands that do try and fight you, but that's mostly because the early game is really easy on Warband once you've learnt you can out pace most bandit groups and then by the time you have 10 men you can kill them all. Even with a lot of hours in Warband (steam mostly only counts my 500 mp hours, got about 500 sp hours too) I can't easily beat the mercenary bands for some time into a native expansion game. You can still outpace them, so not too hard, just don't fast-forward everywhere. It adds a whole bunch of new items, a whole bunch of new quests and just overal more content. The 'ridiculously OP' faction DarthNachoz mentioned are the Dark Knights. If you've ever played Medieval 2: Total War, think of it as the Mongol invasion. Basically the Dark Knights appear in a random spot with large armies of very good troops, but they only even have 3 lords and a queen who can recruit them (when I last played at least). They're a challenge for the rest of the world, you can set when they appear (or for them not to appear) and normally they come when the world has just started to become a little boring - some factions dominating, some dying, the Black Knights shake it up. Native Expansion is pretty much diplomacy + more content + the Black Knights.

[Father Ribs]

I have not played any of these, but if you want an enhanced version of the basic game which improves a lot of the game and adds dozens of new troops and ways to enjoy the game, and a lot of enhancements to take care of the minor chores, I really recommend Floris mod. The only ding I have against it is there are so many improvements to the game, that the sparse documentation means you'll have a little work to make the most out of the enhancements.

[Sohei]

Just use the Diplomacy mod. You may even want to turn off or set to low some of the options in the diplomacy mod to keep the game balance close to Native.

[JtDarth]

Originally posted by Father Ribs:

I have not played any of these, but if you want an enhanced version of the basic game which improves a lot of the game and adds dozens of new troops and ways to enjoy the game, and a lot of enhancements to take care of the minor chores, I really recommend Floris mod. The only ding I have against it is there are so many improvements to the game, that the sparse documentation means you'll have a little work to make the most out of the enhancements.

Im quoting the OP here:
wanted to look for a mod that will make my gameplay more enjoyable with as minimal changes to the original/native games as possible as I wanted to experience the game
Foris makes sweeping changes to the game, including massive changes to the troop trees, balance changes (namely in their attempt to 'balance' cavalry, 1257 AD did it far better, instead of adding multipliers to the damage done to horses like floris, they simply reduced overall health) Floris also completely overhauls tournaments and the rewards thereof, and just overall changes way to many things to be what the op claims to be looking for.

Originally posted by Arcaian:

Diplomacy stays close to the original game - hardly touches it even, until you become King really, and if you get the default version it adds in some other useful stuff like formations and the like. If all you want is that, get it - no changes to the core gameplay or faction balance at all really.

I think DarthNachoz has undersold Native Expansion. I find it extremely fun, albeit slightly different from normal native gameplay. It adds other mercenary bands that do try and fight you, but that's mostly because the early game is really easy on Warband once you've learnt you can out pace most bandit groups and then by the time you have 10 men you can kill them all. Even with a lot of hours in Warband (steam mostly only counts my 500 mp hours, got about 500 sp hours too) I can't easily beat the mercenary bands for some time into a native expansion game. You can still outpace them, so not too hard, just don't fast-forward everywhere. It adds a whole bunch of new items, a whole bunch of new quests and just overal more content. The 'ridiculously OP' faction DarthNachoz mentioned are the Dark Knights. If you've ever played Medieval 2: Total War, think of it as the Mongol invasion. Basically the Dark Knights appear in a random spot with large armies of very good troops, but they only even have 3 lords and a queen who can recruit them (when I last played at least). They're a challenge for the rest of the world, you can set when they appear (or for them not to appear) and normally they come when the world has just started to become a little boring - some factions dominating, some dying, the Black Knights shake it up. Native Expansion is pretty much diplomacy + more content + the Black Knights.

Refer to what I quoted above to father ribs, and add in that the op considers himself reletively new.
Native expansion makes many changes to game balance and economy, as well as all those little mercenary bands and the DKs. The new weapons added weren't balanced around the native weapons in the last version of native expansion I played, with many being head-and-shoulders better than their native equivalents. Again, the OP is looking for close to native, this means that adding all that new content is kinda not what he's looking for. Diplomacy is the closest to what he is looking for, and Diplomacy + PBOD (Pre Battle Orders and Deployment) would be something I would reccomend to him as well. PBOD greatly expands the amount of control you have over your troops in a battle, which makes it a massive boon for those who play their characters as generals, instead of as warriors. Even if you don't wish to do micromanagement, it still adds the ability to explicitly choose which of your troops go into battle, which means you can keep your cavalry off of the crippling mountains in the rhodok kingdom.

[Doge]

Thanks for the replies guys! I will probably get diplomacy which I believe has little to no changes on the game, at least early to mid game , and only minor changes to improve late game kingdom management issues etc., as I really want my first playthrough to be as close to the native/original way the game was intended to be played. And after I am done ,I will probably start my second playthrough with the native expansion mod , maybe floris or some other mods.

Once again , thank you! :)

[Ultra Smurf]

If I remember correctly, Tocans Calderia incorperates the diplomacy mod. From all the mods I have used, that has remained pretty close to native while at the same time including some extra features.

They have some over powered mercenary and bandit warbands but the man hunters also have been improved to balance this out, there are alternative versions to them to. Boats are also included in the mod, though they can be considered ice-ing, they are not crucial to game play so can be ignored.

In regards to factions and the map, they are mostly unchanged, with only some minor changes to the unit trees. There is also a lot more heroes available in the taverns, and a few extra weapons and armor.

[Pookie The Krogan]

get the clash of kings mod

[Sohei]

Originally posted by Pookie The Krogan:

get the clash of kings mod

He asked for a mod that is close to Native.

[Pookie The Krogan]

it is close to native...i mean you have cities, armies, lords ect

[Sohei]

<facepalm>

[JtDarth]

Originally posted by Pookie The Krogan:

it is close to native...i mean you have cities, armies, lords ect

That's not what he meant and you know it. The way the op is worded makes it quite obvious he is looking for 'native with small enhancements', not a TC like clash of kings. Not to mention the fact that the question/dilemma the op had is already answered.
Go back under your bridge!

[Pookie The Krogan]

I dont have a bridge ): i have a box, someone else stole my bridge /: if you see a new one then that would be nice!
BUT
a clash of kings is a good mod...

[JtDarth]

Originally posted by Pookie The Krogan:

I dont have a bridge ): i have a box, someone else stole my bridge /: if you see a new one then that would be nice!
BUT
a clash of kings is a good mod...

I havent played the mod, so I cant comment on the quality, but I can say that it isnt what the op was looking for.