Mod: Better Independents

[Edi]

Juzza, Thank you very much for the kind words!

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All right, I've done some revisions to the mod.

Enabled (i.e. commented out) units:
26 Light Cavalry
50 Slinger
39 Heavy Infantry
126 Woodsman
1118 Markata

Reason: Included in some national army lists, so that those lists do not get broken. Affected nations were the ape nations, nations with slingers (which can be useful, hence enabled again) and MA Man (has both slingers and light cav). The HI is enabled because it IS heavy infantry for EA and not utter crap. Woodsman was enabled because it gives some raiding potential for those who find them even if they lack national stealth units.

For people who are wondering why some indies are still enabled and some are not, read the mod file. It has a fairly extensive commentary section in the beginning which contains the rationale for WHY things have been done the way they have and why for example indie Pale Ones are unmodded (they are amphibian, so they can allow expansion to water from land). I am a firm believer in the maxim that undocumented code is only half-finished at best, and that also means giving a brief explanation on design principles.

The goal of the mod was NOT to eliminate ALL independents completely, but to eliminate the useless crap and totally worthless hordes of chaff that the AI likes to build while preserving the better units and allowing some options. Militia number 31, which is available to MA Man will NOT be enabled. It stays at 9000 gold a pop because it can be found in no less than three poptypes and I refuse to mangle the purpose of the mod by allowing it. MA Man will just bloody well have to do without that unit. If you're playing MA Man and in such desperate straits that you need to recruit the militia instead of spearmen to serve as chaff and archer bait, there's no hope for you anyway and the mod stays truer to its purpose.

The mounted commanders were never affected by this mod because those poptypes are far less common than the infantry ones and the nations with crap leadership deserve SOME chance of finding good commanders. Militia #30, which can appear from "lucky" events (ok, sometimes it is lucky, but more often not) is unaltered so that it doesn't bankrupt anyone, but unfortunately it appears in three poptypes, so you WILL see some of it in the AI armies. But there will be less chaff than normal and none of the indie archer hordes unless the archers are national troops, longbows or woodsmen.

Note that the mod version and filename has not been changed, because I really can't be arsed to do that. Just replacing the mod file with the new version will overwrite things and change existing games on the fly. If you're using it in MP, make sure everyone changes it at the same time.

Hopefully this lengthy post answers most questions you may have.

[Juzza]

You know, it wouldn't be that difficult to just #copystat these units and just add them to the nations with them recruitment lists, if you want some help, I'm better at coding that sprite drawing

[Edi]

The problem being that if you want a clean looking game, one would need to select the affected nations, clear the recruitment list and rebuild it entirely with the copystatted indie units in there. Bit more work that I'm willing to do at the moment. Currently that one militia unit is the only one affected.

I suppose I will do that at some point in the future, but that'll be after the patch. It also occurred to me that perhaps I should rename this mod to "Better Independents" and then make a separate mod where all indies cost 9k and put that out as "No independents".

What I'd really like would be poptype modding, so I could actually just copystat all the units already in the poptypes, then assign those copies back into the poptypes. That would be much easier and you could eliminate everything without needing to worry about militia events etc.

But if you want to go ahead and tinker, that is your right. If you show me the results and give me permission, I may just steal them for the next version.

[Juzza]

ooo I can tinker?? yay!

I think I'll emliminate as many indies as I can, it makes it really fun in sp vsing modded nations that actually use the units in there forts.

[Edi]

Just name the tinkered version with some identifier that distinguishes it from mine and it's all good.

[Sombre]

If you want a cleaner solution I still think No Indy versions of maps are the way to go. Very quick to do new ones. With them you only get indy units through sites, which makes finding indy sites like brigands lair or mermen village or whatever a bit more interesting as well as stopping the AI building indy armies pretty much completely.

[Edi]

That depends on what you're after, Sombre. The biggest problem with NI maps is that it is absolutely impossible to recruit any kind of commanders or mages (such as shamans, druids etc) that would allow diversification of magic. I wanted to retain those and the better units while eliminating the chaff and that CANNOT be done without modding it. As well, the mod can be used with all maps but map files have to be made for each map separately.

The NI maps are good for those who like them, but they are not my cup of tea nor as flexible a solution. The mod can be made clean with actually far less work than making NI maps every time you need one, it just takes a little more ONCE, but just for the sake of enabling one militia and disabling one light cavalry, I'm not going to do that. Not worth the time it takes.

[Sombre]

NI maps require far more work? I don't see how. All the NI maps require is copying the map's original text file, adding in a single copy pasted chunk of code and renaming the map.

You're right that they're different though. I like the fact that you can't get poptype mages with NI maps, so it's not a problem at all in my eyes.

[Edi]

I'm going to have to apologize due to the update. It seems like the commented out lines are actually being read and used, so there are now units that should be available, but are not.

I'll make another update in the next few days and rename the mod to "Better Independents", which is what it should be. I can also make a true "No Independents" mod where there really will not be ANY indies at all, but that requires redoing some nation army lists, so it's a very low priority one for me right now.

[Mr_Matt]

I got a quick question Edi.

If the indies cost 9k each then what happens if your using R'lyeh with their enslave mind commanders and get a couple indies from battles? Would that give you a ridiculous amount of upkeep?

MrMatt