A mod to improve troop commanders

[zlefin]

I know qm's been considering ways to encourage the use of national commanders to lead troops instead of indy commanders.
This is a mod meant to test out some efforts to encourage that.
The mod only adjusts national commanders, it does not adjust any other parts of the game, so it should be pretty compatible.
This mod does not adjust any commanders with levels in magic or priest levels.
Currently, this mod only covers middle era units, until there's some commentary on if/how well it works.

This mod also does not adjust stealth units, scouts, spies, and assassins are all left as is. not as far as i remember at least.

Most of the adjustments involve the adding of standards of various levels, and some minor stat improvements to increase the fighting and survivability of the commanders.
A few of the commanders weren't changed at all, if they were quite decent already.

I just finished it, checked a couple nations but i haven't thoroughly checked everything for typoes. So there may be a few minor bugs. This is the first release version 1.00

So, try it out if you want, and post if you think it does/doesn't make it worthwhile to have some national commanders to lead your troops.
Remember it only supports middle age nations.
Zlefin http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Morkilus]

The new mod commands might be great for introducing new ways to make national commanders worth recruiting. Imagine if that Bandar commander got one casting of Strength of Giants, or your Ulmish commander got Legion of Steel?

[DrPraetorious]

I'd like to avoid overtly magical effects for commanders.

My preference would be to give each national leader a command aura with a fixed but large radius - this command aura would give a bonus to AP and to attack skill, generally speaking (I was going to have the Lictor boost the MR and possibly Str of undead, there are some other specialized leaders who might get other bonuses for non-standard units.)

The idea here is that this would encourage you to actually use your national commanders to lead troops into battle.

QM has suggested that this would make army-placement a six-titted fire-breathing ***** goddess (note to self: new pretender chassis), and I'll need to play with it some. A very large area (as much as 1/9 of your side of the battlefield) would still potentially provide a benefit from fielding several national commanders, and wouldn't be too much of a pain to handle with respect to placement.

[Serenity]

Six tits..

I'd make it nine and a half.

[MKDELTA]

DrPraetorious said:
My preference would be to give each national leader a command aura with a fixed but large radius - this command aura would give a bonus to AP and to attack skill, generally speaking (I was going to have the Lictor boost the MR and possibly Str of undead, there are some other specialized leaders who might get other bonuses for non-standard units.)


I like the idea. Maybe the effects could be more varied though, especialy for nations that have a lot of plain commanders, like Ulm. Some could boost defence & AP instead. Some could boost precision (useful for archers). And so on.

Even better would be some kind of an ability for commanders to give these bonuses to only troops under his/her command, but that can't be done now. :/

[DrPraetorious]

There aren't that many effects available for stat boosts from spells. In particular, boosting defense and AP is not possible (you can give people outright quickness.)

If you look in the "bistmasker" spreadsheet that comes with my spell modding, guide, you can see them - that's it, that's all there are.

There are other effects to improve morale and to remove fatigue, but no other stat-boosting effects.

[Endoperez]

There is Haste, though, which makes units move faster. I guess that's what MKDELTA wanted to do.

[Lord_Neko]

Well, I'll check this out when I get a chance. Sounds like a good idea but I have always pretty much used my national commanders anyways so far...

I do like the idea of auras though.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Morkilus said:
The new mod commands might be great for introducing new ways to make national commanders worth recruiting. Imagine if that Bandar commander got one casting of Strength of Giants, or your Ulmish commander got Legion of Steel?



This is an interesting idea. I also like the idea of improving commanders instead of downgrading indy commanders.
But unforunatly we don't have a lot of options in doing so.


Dr P, your idea is ideal, except we can't mod that.