Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.81 -- Quick balance update
 

Just thought to drop by and inform you that Bretonnia conflicts with the Ogre Kingdom mod.

When running both mods simultaneously the "Destrier hoof" is replaced by "Sky giant Bone" and the "The Black Knight" has his weapon set to "Heavy Chains".
Also most of the Bretonnian males have more ogre like names like "Stump Bonebelly" or "Choppa Balfug" etc.

Otherwise nothing bad to say about the mods. Keep up the good work :D

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.81 -- Quick balance update
 

Brainfart on my part about the weapons, forgot to check for clashes after adding new weapons for the heroes.

As for the names, I can't believe that Sombre too got the idea of overwriting Bogarus names for his nation! Damn that man and his juicy brainpower! And I was thinking that I'd be especially clever.

I'll upload a fixed version soon.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.82 -- Quick bug fix update
 

Fixed version uploaded.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.82 -- Quick bug fix update
 

Er. Downloaded fix and still got the sky giant bone. Deleted the mod and reinstalled from .82.zip and still got the error.

Edit: I also get a no such spell crash bug if I load CBM after Bretonnia. Is it intended to be CBM compatible?

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.82 -- Quick bug fix update
 

I also got the CBM error. It seems to depend on the load order.

I've been playing with this mod a lot this weekend and enjoying it very much. Thanks, Burnsaber.

I think the "Summon allies" and bodyguards of the different commanders are a bit messed up - or, in any case, they certainly don't match the descriptions.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.8
 

Autosummons are still present, albeit at (I think) a reduced frequency. Is this WAD?

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.8
 

Hmm. when taking a closer look, it seems that Sombre has forgotten to update the "this mod takes following slots" summary in the Ogre .dm file(which I was using as a reference point for clash avoiding). But when I actually took a look at the code, it seems the actual weapon numbers roach deep in to Brettonnia territory. :eek:

I'll probably have to renumber all weapons, and it will take some time. I can promise to whip something up for the next weekend. But I have some good news. Today I had a spare hour or so and got inspired, so I made a pic for Green Knight (I actually got so into drawing him that I almost was late from work!), I might be able to wiggle him in to the next update. The redrawn King will likely have to wait, thought.

Yeah, of course. The error is probably cause of the tinkering I did with Bogarus national spells to give the commanders battlesummons. You just need to load CBM first. I added a warning about that in the first post.


Yeah, sorry, They've been under a *lot* of changes lately, the descriptions probably are laggin behind a bit. I also could make it a bit more clear which parts hint at domsummons.

Yeah, WAD, they're domsummons. You get those guys when in high dominion (a'k'a when you have high control over the population in a province). This will be made more clearer in the descriptions in the next version.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.82 -- Quick bug fix update
 

Sorry I forgot about the big bold print on the first page telling me not to do what I did with the load order.:doh:

Rereading that important first post, I noticed the request for a strategy guide. I don't have anything even vaguely solid or cohesive and some of the facts we're dealing with may change, but I'm going to see if we can start up a little dialogue on this.

First off, let's talk pretender. I'm gonna go way out on a limb and say that an earth bless is an absolute must. E9 Cyclops is always a good bet, but you've got some brutal expansion tools so can skip the SC.

I'd say skip the SC because the other thing you'll need is astral, at least S4. One of the glaring weaknesses of Bretonnia is that you desperately need mid-level astral but have basically no access to it. E9S4 gives you all the forge options you're dying for; hammers, crystal coins, earth boots, starshine caps and, once boosted, rings. If we're decided on E9Sx, the stand-out chassis is a Great Enchantress.

As a side note, the Lady of the Lake looks like it both autosummons and domsummons Kydnides which is not something obvious from the description. The odds of you taking the enchantress awake are pretty small, but whether you take her dormant or imprisoned will depend on your ...



Scales. I'm not sure how I feel about several scales for Bretonnia. Order/luck is pretty easily disposed of. You need lots and lots and lots of money, your PD can easily fend off various barbarians and knights and you've got some fortune teller action going. Order 3, misfortune 3. Now the hard stuff! In ascending order of debateability (it's a word because I say so, darn it):



Growth vs death. If you need points, death is sometimes attractive. You don't have any old age mages, but one of your strengths is that you've got pretty kickass chaff and can spawn them with considerable speed. In short, supplies might become a problem. Additionally, you've got God's gift to patrolling so I'd say growth is the way to go. The supply boost is nice, but you need money like you're an American car company and will probably be taxing at around 120-140% for large stretches.

Growth 3, to my mind. You'll get the cash to drop castles everywhere and pay for your stupidly expensive labs so that you can crank out your horrible research mages, bringing us neatly to ....



Magic. Your researchers bite the big one, so there's a natural urge to go magic 1 to offset this. On the other hand, you're going to be cranking out a 10 research Grail Damsel every turn from your capitol starting around late year one no matter how much they cost and you should have enough money to brute force your way through the research malus.

The last thing to consider is that your research goals are pretty spread out. All in all, I'd lean towards magic 1, but this debate is nothing compared to what scales you take for ....



Production. Wait, what? You've got knights. Hell, forget the regular knights. You've got 70 resource Grail Knights to buy! Nevermind the 100 resource Dukes. You've gotta take production 3... don't you? First and foremost, exactly how good are Grail Knights really? Well, they crush anything and everything in melee. With an earth blessing, 2 or 3 of them can smash a whole army of melee. The same can be said about the Dukes and Grail Heroes which you'll be recruit a decent number of from your many forts. Once counters to your Grail Knights start to come out (as early as evo 1), they look less and less appealing. Grail Knights, in my opinion, are too costly, too cap-only and too superfluous when you've got Dukes and Heroes.

What about a regular army? We're assuming that you're pumping out Marquis and Dukes on the regular, the occasional Lord with a sprinkling of Heroes to round things out. The question, really, is how much chaff do you need and how good does it have to be?

The largest problem facing Bretonnia is how to actually kill things. It seems like a non-sequitur to bring this up in a scales conversation, but the other way to phrase it is 'what, exactly, do I want my army to do?' Does Bretonnia rely on its recruitable troops to do the bulk of the killing? Your mages are great at stopping incoming damage, but kinda suck at actually killing things. You've got moderate air access and conjuring up storms isn't something that'll hurt you very much, so you've got a little bit of traditional evocation firepower there. That's the end of traditional firepower for you.

Enchantment gives you some interesting possibilities. Foul vapors + serpent's blessing for one. You can stack weak AoEs (freezing mists has some really interesting possibilities) and drop some regen, your earth blessing and relief will let you keep casting for an extended period, you can put up defenses vs. most any elemental spells the enemy brings and barkskin + protection gives you a pretty solid line. The ever-popular fog warriors is easily within reach. The sheer number of standards around and tons of sermon-capable priests will keep your morale high. To sum it up, your mages are great at being a buff-happy Wall of No best suited to slowly grinding down an opposing force rather than making them disappear in a puff of evocational might.

How does this all relate to production scales? It creates the question 'are your national troops the answer to killing the enemy.' I'm leaning towards no. They're hard to mass, easy to counter (you've got no real way to buff them offensively), and the fewer troops you have of any quality, the less mileage you're going to get out of the battlefield enchantments you're sure to be throwing around. Not looking at mass knights means a neutral production scale or maybe even a point of sloth is option.

Granted, this is all pretty theoretical. If you think the answer is to gather up some knights and lay the above buffs on them, go prod. 3.



Enough about scales! A few other quick things: Unmounted KotR look to me to be overpriced. 2/3rds more gold than an Errant buys you a slightly improved standard which is kinda useful, 2 points of defense which is a little less useful since it's the 17 prot keeping them safe and patrol + castle defense bonuses which are useless. Conversely, mounted Errants seem less attractive. The same 10 gold per unit, now a lesser percent, plus 5 piddly resources buys you the same small stat boosts -and- 3 points of prot.

Grail Heroes make me happy. They're your best bet for initial expansion; individual unblessed Heroes can take weaker provinces, leapfrogging to avoid knights etc, then quickly team up and circle back in pairs and trios to stomp knights once it's looking like you've grabbed what you can. After initial expansion, they can radiate out to various provinces and patrol. A single Hero on patrol can keep a province pretty comfortably at 120% taxes. If you're feeling a little cash strapped, crank it up to 140% with two Heroes on patrol. Growth, order and 140% taxes? Holy Freaking Income, Batman! Finally, in pairs they're great quick responders if any bad event takes over a province and with 3 flying map move, your once-spread patrollers can instantly converge in large numbers on any attacking force. On top of all that, the smallest gem investment makes them capable of smashing just about any opposing PD, giving you a significant raiding threat. Hero thugs + your large variety of remote attack spells? Mmmm.

Marquis vs Lords. Thugwise, they're pretty comparable. They've got the same bodyguard and the stat difference isn't enormous. The chaff generation on a Marquis is infinitely superior. Basic men at arms are just awful. Paying 50% more per commander can add up, but there's also the opportunity cost since you can only snag one per turn. If you're going prod. 3 and using Marquis and Lords more for thuggery than chaff generation, Lords are the way to go. You will of course want Marquis if you're shorting prod. and using commanders to generate troops. All told, I think it'd be more interesting to see Lords generate 5 upgraded men at arms and Marquis make 3 yeomen. This would stratify the 3 commanders a bit more and add variety.

Finally, I can't envision a circumstance where I'd ever recruit halberdiers. Their attack is too low to actually hit anything with their big stick, so the damage increase is moot. Shieldless with no defense and only average protection, they'll die in droves and the siege bonus is outweighed by the difficulty massing them.



Certain things about Bretonnia are pretty clear, but there's definitely a lot of unanswered questions out there. How do you kill things? Can you use a combination of raids and remote spells to take turf while your forest of forts stalls an advancing enemy? Is there a way to not get completely owned by Pythium?

Tune in next time, when someone with more smarts than me answers all these questions and more!

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Thanks very much, Radio Star, I'm honored.

Your timing couldn't have been any better, I was just to about upload a new version when I read your stragedy post and decided to sneak in some balance changes.

I'll give a more in-depth response tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy the new version:

Changes from 0.82 to 0.83

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.82 -- Quick bug fix update
 

Your facepalm was in vain, for you were not the who made the error. I added that after reading your post about the issue. So unless you can see into the future, you shouldn't worry about it.

I hope that we can get some discussion going. I'm not sure how to play Bretonnia myself.

Yeah I agree about that Earth bless, you also need hammers for the thugging you're going to do. But about taking E9? I'm not so sure about that. Your guys already have great prot, and boosting strenghts only works for a point. No matter how much prot you have the word "AN" will spell doom for you. E9 is an expensive bless and I'm not sure if you get the full bang for your buck here.

Yeah, you need astral and earth. Trusting to get lucky randoms with Damsels isn't that great stragedy.

fixed in 0.83, thanks for reporting.

Amen to that brother. Only scale I've taken everytime is Order.

Not sure I agree on misfortune 3, that's some serious bad mojo right there. Your fortune teller action isn't that good, I would take it as a minor bonus, not as an stragedy. T'ien C'hi this nation ain't. Perhaps for SP, since you can restart if your lab/temple burns on turn 2 or 3 (especially crippling for Breton), but for MPI never go over misfortune 2 and even then the constant barbarian and knight attacks are annoying.

Agreed, I often take death 1 or 2 with Breton, since your mages are quite young. But I can see the allure of the Growth scale considering your (quite clever) taxing stragedy. It's all good thought, since it's quite thematic. Bretonnian Knights are known for their courage and skill, not for their empathy towards the peasants.


Magic is a bit of no-brainer (and thematic, Bretonnia is the land of magical knights and monsters after all). I can't see a situation where you'd need 120 points so bad that you'd go from +1 research to -1. Not with your 220gp damsels.

Grail Knights are support troops, not a stragedy in themselves (although they work well for expansion). A force composed of just Grail Knights, although powerful, is easily counterable. But when you mix them up with peasants and regular knights, setting the Grail Knights at the back and buffing them up with flight, they show their true might. They take the heat off from your frontline troops and now-lanceless knights and can occansionally stumble and kill something important in the backlines while flying around.


The way to kill things with breton recruitables is Lances. But since they are one-shot only, you need to aim them. Flight is great for sparkling your knights around the battlefield to bypass your opponents frontline lance-suckers. Since Breton lances allow for str damage, casting earth might (with a gem) will make the knights doubly scary. The way for knights to keep killing troops after the lance strike is exhausted is to outfatigue the enemy. With two attacks per guy,the knights should be able to score more critical hits on average. Spells like Sleep, Dessication, Numbness, Stellar Cascades and Orb Lighting spam allows you to fatigue the enemy quickly.

But taking low or prot and drowning your foes in men-at-arms freespanwn, supported by relief and casters, sounds also intresting. If you have a high E god, he could support this strat by casting "Curse of Stones", allowing your men-at-arms to actually kill something though critical hits. Doesn't Quaqmire increase encumberance too? Sleep Clouds from high N damsels could also exhaust the opposing troops.

But I think the question isn't about either-or. You can have both Knights and men-at-arms to use their abilities to the fullest. The chaff take the hits while the Knights kill stuff.

The KoTR's (both footed and mounted) decrease unrest by 1 point each point in the province where they are. So they can theoretically actually make you money.

in 0.83 I made the Errants slightly cheper and KotR's slight more expensive. The increase and decrease was just 2 gold but makes the gold difference larger. Knight Errants are perfect for expansion and other situations where you just need lances, NOW. They're also good to wield against giant nations, since the Giants can damage your knights on shield hits, basically reducing your def to 10 something. Losing a Errantas is a lot more painless than losing a KotR.

Just a warning, this strat won't likely work in MP. High province count, low army count, high income and no research in graph will make you an absolutely uningnoreable rush target.

Unfotunately you can only mod the summons in instances of 1,2 or 5.

I reduced their res cost in 0.83, they now cost 10 resources.

There is one way to kill things that does not necessarily take any killing at all. Make the enemy flee into nothingness, abusing their lack of courage and honor to decimate them. Your remote attacks and flying Grail thugs can easily take all retreat routes froman advancing army. Then use a force of N2 or higher maidens and Damsels to spam Panic and forcing them to retreat, into your provinces :D

Certainly, I could see this working. See the castle stragedy quide for LA Man in the main thread, intrestring read.

Tough one. It's getting quite late here, so I can't ponder on this further. Perhaps some one else has some ideas?

Yeah, we need more discussion. just because I made the mod doens't mean that I have all (or even the best anwsers) to stragedy questions.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Strategy. Sorry.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Don't be sorry, for all is fair in love and grammar. The more I humiliate myself with my poor spelling, the more inclined I will be to take extra precautions to avoid it.

So let's talk strategy folks.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Ok, so i've decided to take a look at this. I'm going to be posting piecemeal simply because its easier to comment and not have ginormous posts.

So lets start with a first blush glance at pretender strategies.

There's absolutely no need for an awake SC. Your researchers are expensive though, so early research would be good. Your sacreds could benefit from a rainbow bless or some particular deep blesses (E9 or F9 in particular). Rainbow for magic diversity (particular good E, S, and any D or F) is also a possibility.

So, we're looking at a single deep bless with good scales, or a rainbow with good scales, or an awake researcher or rainbow.

Recommended Chasses:
Female Titan - great research chassis, probably even better than the Great Sage for pure research. Eventual light SC capability.

Great Sage - researcher + rainbow (diversity/bless). Native access to S and F (CBM) a plus - F gives you fire arrows for those abundant archers.

Lady of the Lake - 100% heal afflictions means you don't need to forge the chalice for tartarians. Take her with E4N4D2 at a minimum (E for forging, N4D2 to summon Lamia Queens for a good Tart caster). S4 also recommended. Imprisoned its plausible to get decent scales and a good rainbow bless.

Enchantress - 1 pearl/turn is great. Pretty good researcher + rainbow, and great for solidifying some stronger E + S.

Mother of Rivers - A niche choice - take her awake with a few more points in water (W4 bless probably) and good scales for great early thugs due to abundant water income. (6w/trn is pretty amazing). More than W6 not recommended.

Cyclops - Great E9 bless chassis. Probably imprisoned for scales since you don't need the awake SC.

Phoenix - Good F9 bless chassis and can cast flaming arrows for you. Also has good air to get you started on air boosters (rather than waiting for an A4 on randoms).

Mother of Springs - Good pure scales choice, needs a little dom/magic improvement
Sacred Fountain - Good pure scales choice, doesn't need any other points spent on it.

Scales:
O3 - mandatory. Seriously.

Production - no less than 0 (otherwise you'll have a hard time affording your great commander choices at the start). Up to 3 recommended.

Temperature - with access to water magic there's nothing wrong with cold scales. Recommend C1 or C3 as optimal.

Growth/Death - cash + cash growth? What's not to love. Death scales are acceptable if you need the points, but its sort of like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Luck/Misfortune - You have fortune tellers, and probably need points, so Mf2 seems logical, and Mf3 might even be survivable.

Magic - Drain 2 is acceptable (your researchers are not especially efficient, but they aren't going to get killed by it). Magic is of course better, if you can find the points.

Dominion:
Cheap temples + hard to mass sacreds = low dominion is ok. Dom 4 is probably playable, Dom 5 is certainly acceptable, and more than Dom 6 is overkill.

Some builds:
The Rainbow Blesser:
Lady of the Lake, Imprisoned, Dom5 F4W4E4S4D2N4 O3Pr3C1Mf3Dr2. Options - adjust Cold/Mf/Dr to taste, you just need 6 negative scales here. Rainbow bless mostly for thugs, but also benefits use of sacreds for great early expansion and as parts of larger armies later. Also great for Tartarians later.

Research Monkey:
Female Titan, awake, Dom4 S5N3 O3Pr3C3Gr2Mf2Mg1. Options - sack growth scales to remove misfortune (imho, not worth it to improve temperature because +3% income +pop growth >> -5% income in the not-too-long term). 36RP/trn with great scales (incl +1 for Mg1).

Pure Scales:
Fountain, imprisoned, Dom4 S3 O3Pr3Gr3Lk3Mg3. Options - get some more astral by giving up Mg3 (Mg1 is perfectly good) or taking some cold scales. C1 is practically free, and C3 is still a pretty good deal.

Big Bless:
Cyclops, imprisoned, Dom4 E9 O3Pr3C3Gr3Mg1. Options - Drop 2 scales for E10 and Dom5, which is great for your mages as a bless, and not a terrible upgrade for your knights. Also, more dominion. Probably not better enough to make it worthwhile.

Turbo-Bless - for those people who salivate at the idea of excessively blessed units.
Enchantress Imprisoned Dom5 F9A1E9S2 O3C3Mf2Dr2 - Options: Can take Pr scales in return for Death scales. Has many flaws, but what do you want from something as crazy as an F9E9 bless. (Note, the druid chassis will work at the same price, but with N2 instead of S2, no A1, and no s/trn.)

Geez, that was a ginormous post anyway. Whoops...

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Honestly, I think an F bless is actually fairly suboptimal, particularly the full 9 bless. If you need magic weapons you can use the grail heroes. If you want a big bless, E9 N? seems like the best option to me. 1 regen might seem small, but when you combine it with the awe and 20+ prot, it increases survivability significantly, and really cuts down on the afflictions. Also, I really hate to go imprisoned if you took E on your pretender, since you're going to want hammers badly for mass thuggery.

Note- Just because the LotL has 100 heal doesn't mean she can heal tarts. Only the chalice and GoH can do that, as they're undead.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Really? I'm not doubting you, but how is GoH healing them any more thematic than someone with the healer skill? Gifting health to the undead? Really?

Also, the Lady of the Lake's flavor text says she *has* the chalice. She should certainly work like she does or the text should be changed.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

So, the grail hero theory wasn't working especially well for me for a couple of reasons. (1) Grail heroes success rates weren't as stellar as i hoped. I took crippling injuries occasionally to really silly things, and lost to indies i probably shouldn't have. I'll try it again, but thus far not impressed by them naked. (2) It eats the commander buy from the capitol every turn until you get a new fortress up. Seriously uncool.

Works really well for expansion: ~20 archers + ~equal numbers of men at arms kills many independents surprisingly well, especially if you do something really weird like put your lord right behind your troops (yeah, not way at the back, weird) and use his banner to reinforce morale (or just have a KotR or two around). And your casualties tend to be purely men at arms, which a lord can replace, so you can field supply at least your first army. And yes, that's right, your starting army + a handful of archers can expand. Crazy.

After that you're going to want to use indie commanders as your troops leader, because the goal here is to free up that valuable commander buy in your capitol for researchers. Especially that juicy 10RP cap-only mage that you want to start buying every turn ASAP. When those indie commanders burn out their army's expansion pretender, they should build a fortress. *Now* you have somewhere to recruit those Bretonnian Lords and Grail Heroes and whatnot you want.

"I still can't use all my cash" - buy Grail Knights (you have some sort of bless, right?), KotR (and sprinkle them around - if Burnsaber is right, and i haven't checked - every 2 let you increase the tax level 1 step with no unrest! Sold!) Also, it would be useful to know if they provide the benefit the turn you buy them, because that way you could do clever things like instantly bump your capitol taxes to 110% without patrolling, and just buy 2 KotR.

Edit: I am a little disappointed the archers don't have longbows. I mean, their precision sucks, and it should, but in WH they have longbows.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I'm not really buying into the Grail Hero expansion either, I'm just saying that in the extremely rare circumstances you need magic weapons, they can do the job 90% of the time. Everything else, I pretty much agree with you, though I hadn't thought of sprinkling Kotr around to up income.

As far as GoH and tarts go, well, thematic or not thats the mechanic, and I don't _think_ you can mod the LotL to actually have the chalice, however cool that would be.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

wow, that's quite the typo i made, and i can't understand how i did that.

In: "When those indie commanders burn out their army's expansion pretender", replace 'pretender' with 'potential'. Oops.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Ok, the magnitude of their unrest reduction seems to be different than what burnsaber is advocating. Taxing at 120% with ~10 KotR present (and no patrolling) i'm at a steady state 2 unrest. Based on burnsaber's statement, 4 should be able to keep 120% taxation at 0 unrest.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

What settings are you using for expansion tests with the Heroes?

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Indies 5? I try not to touch defaults except for renaming.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I plan on commenting some day, but have not had much time for testing lately :( Between overlords and tourmaline I am using up a lot of brainpower these days. In fact I have had time for nothing but those two games today. And I am still playing around with my first bretonnia game, since I have this compulsion to not stop playing until I've gotten it "finished". My victory is assured, but there are still things I want to try out.

Then I will actually get to play around with optimum strategies, build orders, and expansion phases.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

On indies 5 I've been able to get 30+ spread out provinces with heroes in one year and I can reliably bring down somewhere in the low 20s with a more centered and balanced expansion strat. Part of the key is probably the first fort. First fort MUST start at turn 3 at the latest.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Thanks for the all of you for contributions to the discussion. It's a shame that I don't have the time to give appropiate respond to each point, but I'll try to pick up the things I need to address.

About the pretenders in general, I'd highly recomment taking some death if your pretender has nature magic. Lamia Quuens are perfect for this nation to diverse into death and minor blood magic.

Yeah, I know. But longbows in dominions are seriously awesome. No matter how low I make their prec, the longbows will overshadow the knights by a wide margin. This would result in rather unthematic 90% Longbow armies with some yeomen arrow catchers.

Hmm, this might be a bug, I'll look into it. Perhaps the #incunrest -1 command dosn't work on non-commanders? I deem that reather unlikely, considering that it's just the like unrest increasing aspect of Panganean satyr sneaks, expect in reserve.

I'll have to try out this Hero expansion strat. Sounds intresting.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Wait, do you try to expand blind with your starting army? Or do you put a fort up right next to your capitol? I can't see putting a fortress up before turn 4 *ever*, because you don't want to drain resources from your capitol.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I drop the 1st fort right next to the cap. I'm not an enormous fan of Grail Knights, so robbing resources from the capitol when the trade is faster expansion is worth it to me. To be competitive, there's just so much you're going to have to do so fast with this nation. You've gotta blitz out and grab turf while throwing up forts like mad to deter opposition and crank out more thugs, all the while you're racing against the clock to establish a secure base and make the switch to mage/research production and adding a couple massively expensive labs. With so much to do so fast, squeezing the most out of every possible turn seems vital, even to the point of robbing resources from your cap.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Just a small tip: If you're going to use grail knights and maidens to expand, try making thaum your first research target. Site searching is always useful, but the main reason I say this is that thaum 1 has the spell numbness, which all your maidens can cast. Its precision 100, aoe1, so you can't hit your grail knights, and it will fatigue the opposing troops. However, its real value is in the fact that it will keep your maidens from stupidly rushing into melee if the combat goes longer than 6 or 7 rounds.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

"Numbness" is alteration 2 and requires W2 to cast. You are likely thinking of "Dessication" spell, which is thaumathurgy 1 and requires only water 1 to cast.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

err, yeah, my bad

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this mod Burn. It's absolutely top stuff.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I'm very glad to hear that. You just wait for the Dwarfs. They will rock your socks to the next millenia.

Mind if I use this quote for advertisement purposes?

Here is some stuff from the Sing of the Hammer game thread, thought that it might be better to discuss these things here.


Yeah, he's a bit unfinished at the moment. He was poorleader in 0.6 but it still proved a bit too good as a commander in the early game (basically you could build Knights and summons these to lead them, allowing for 100% maiden/damsel recruit rate in capitol). In retrospect, I should've just let them be as they were.


Well, this would be a consistency issue then. You see, I could give a different graphic to the Q.Knight commander you get from "Call of the Quest", but the commanders you get from "Errantry War" and "Virtue of the Quest" would be just a GoR'd basic Questing Kinght, which might raise some confusion.

Hmm, quite true. I'm just trying make a nice and logical procression of the "Quest" spells, but I haven't made the top spell "Grail Crusade" (requiring S4!) at thaum 9. I'll probably boost the spell to summon some Grail Knights or a Grail Hero too in the next version. Grail Crusade will be like the "Virtue of the Quest", but also summon 100! Pilgrims.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Also, in a completely unrelated topic, how are people liking the Green Knight summon? It's a quite new mechanic (basically unique battle summon) and I'd be intrested in hearing what people think about it. Is it worth going for?

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

i think its pretty cool!

gives some more flavor to the nation ... and its nicely done too ^^

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

This is a superb mod. I'm really liking it, the graphics, the mechanics (so far, have not finished a game or tried all the new spells) and the heroes (the black knight is very nicely done).

I do have to second the annoyance of questing knight being noleader.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Thanks, always glad to hear that I'm doing something right. Also glad to hear that I managed to nail the Black Knight without a hitch, writing his description took ages.

Yeah, I'll make a new version of Bretonnia (0.9 likely) after I update dwarfs to 0.8. Should take 2 or 3 weeks, perhaps more if I actually start working on one of my numereous side projects in my "to-do list" (like, shading tutorial and/or general modding guide).

The new version will contain some minor fixes, improved sprite for the King hero and something extra (perhaps the "Grail Crusade" spell or the Beastmaster hero).

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

After playing against the other Warhammer nations with Dwarves, I noticed that I got absolutely raped by high Brettonian province defense. Looking at the .dm, do they really get(among other things) 1.5 mounted knights of the realm per point after 20? I suddenly don't feel nearly so bad about Dwarf province defense.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Yeah, intentional. It represents the fact that the "infastructure" of the province is so well developed that Knights of the Realm have been assigned to rule it as feudal lords. It can really suprise an unprepared opponent, especially if you go for decisive battle in bretonnian soil.

But like we all know, buying 20+ pd everywhere is just waste of gold. And there are ways to bypass the KotR's in high bretonnian pd (like flying fear/awe thug charging in the first turn), since the frontline is compased of sucky men-at-arms, the suckers will surround the guy, preventing the knights from getting hits in and everything gets scared of the fear aura and run away.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Beautiful graphics and nicely thematic.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Actually, something like 30-40 pd chased off a blue dragon with BoW. No dom 9, but with CBM's change to 20 prot he was killing everything else I threw him at.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Yeah, but there's a time and a place for that much PD. You just can't afford to plop that much PD down in every province. Not unless you're playing with insane amounts of gold, anyway.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Llamabeast does have the gold to do so. Once I'm dead in Sign I'll go into greater detail re: my thoughts on Brettonia and Skaven. For now though, suffice it to say that free troops+unrest reducing commanders+good scales+good 20+ pd=lots of pd wherever you need it.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I have had sufficient gold by virtue of not recruiting any mages all game though.

It is certainly quirkily tough PD, but for the moment I like it. It is an interesting and fun feature of the nation. It might be possible to abuse though, I'm not sure.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

How could you manage doing that?

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I'll wait for Trumanator's big pos before deciding, but the mounted KotR gain could be reduced to 1x per point of PD.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Redeyes: For most of the game so far I had two provinces and was fighting for survival. It's not a good strategy.

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Okay, my next move in the modding front is to get this mod updated. So if any of you have any suggestions, this would be a great time to share them so that I can squeeze them to the version 0.9.

Here's a list of changes I'm already committed to doing:

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

I totally agree, the only nation I have done so with some success was as MA ermor - but not really, because I still bought mages but used them all for reanimating. I figured Bretonia might be similar :happy:

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.83 -- Finally a stable release!
 

Over the past week or so I have been in a King Arthurish mood. Watched Excalibur and King Arthur with the wife because she had never seen either one. Anyway, I want to give this mod a spin but I have a few questions before I try it out.

Will I face any problems integrating this mod with my uber mod I use? It's no problem for me to change IDs to make sure units, items and even the nation do not overlap.

I thought I read somewhere in this thread that you added spells that overlap another nation's spells. Which spells are overwritten, why are they overwritten and what would I lose by disabling the spells if they cannot be moved to the modding range of spells?

How playable is this mod in it's current state? I've noticed a lot of modders now they never actually put a 1.0 next to their mods. Is this nearly a 1.0 version that will only see minor changes in the future or is this a mod that will undergo many updates and changes, making it look completely different than it does now? The reason I ask this is if the mod gets radically changed from now until a 1.0, I don't want to do a lot of leg work updating a modified version of it.

Thanks again for your efforts, I especially love your spriting :).

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v0.9
 

New version!

Changelist form 0.83 to 0.9
- Outrider to 0 gold (like in Sombre's mods)
- Fixed the black pixel in the Battle Pilgrim sprite
- Made Q.Knights poorleader again
- Removed "Call of the Quest", included "Grail Crusade"
- New King sprite (with special thanks to Calchet)
- New Hero: Beastmaster

This version is pretty final, I have no plans for further additions. I'm keeping the 0.9 version number to have some "room" for balance updates. I'm saving up the 1.0 version number for absolutely finished product.

As for the KotR unrest bug, I tested it and found out that there is no bug. The unrest reduction works fine, it is just calculated *before* the unrest from taxes is added. So, basically, Kotr and the Knight Commanders can keep unrest at a certain level, even if the taxation is high. Which is pretty cool, since it's quite thematic (sure the peasants complain, but won't rise against their masters). It's also a good gameplay balance factor that you don't get full use of the province you overtax (since the unrest reduces resources).

I'd also like to ask if there is any intrest for EA and/or LA version of the nation. Just scouting up what might be ahead after Rockon is completed..

EA Bretonnia would likely be less techy (knights have poorer armor, Pegasii haven't been bred yet for war and Destriers haven't been perfected yet) but more "heroic" (better stats on knight commanders, Grail knight recruitable everywhere, Q.Knights Cap only). Peasants would also be a bit more expensive, but have higher morale (the Virtue of Empathy is still alive and the noble knights treat the peasants better). Also Damsels would be even more powerful in S/E, but Maidens would be even weaker.

LA Bretonnia would be a lot darker (as per the era), drawing from the curse of Mousillon and the legend of the false lady and the bloody grail. Grail Knights aren't recruitable anymore, but are repalced by black knights. Damsels would be a lot weaker, but Maidens would get B/D picks due to the influences of the bloody lady. Peasants would be dirt cheap, but have even weaker morale and suffer from misformations (start with afflictions). Knight commander would not decrease unrest anymore (and have poorer stats, due fall of heroism), but have high patrol bonus to allow for a bit more cruel way to keep taxes high. Breeding has gone farther and Dukes now ride Griffons and trade their awe for fear. Heroes aren't recruits anymore, but summons. Basically it's a sort of fallen Bretonnia that might get its glory back with summons (if you take a pretender for it).



Should work fine. Just be careful with the numereous autosummon spells, it's pretty easy for them to go haywire if you forget to change their #damage value :D.

Yeah, the nation overwrites about 10 LA Bogarus national summoning spells and uses a name slot normally reserved for Bogarus. Justification = I really care more about saving 10 spell slots than single age compactibility with a nation I really don't fancy that much.

If you remove the overwritten spells, the Knight Commanders won't autosummon troops in battle.

Also, you should note that this mod should be listed last in your mod, since it seems to produce mystical crashes when it is loaded before certain mods (like CBM).


This mod is now quite finished. I have no planned content additions, just balance changes (you know, gold costs and stuff).

Re: Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail v.0.9
 

Hmm, not quite sure about the EA and LA versions. I quite liked the idea that Marverni was EA Bretonnia. The LA one seems to refer to some stuff I don't know, so it's hard to judge.

What I would like more would be another Warhammer nation. How about some elves? We are very short of elves.

But really, everything you turn out is pretty awesome and the point is to have fun, so make what you fancy!