Mod: Better Independents v2.1

[Edratman]

After a couples days of playing I changed all indy commanders back to standard costs because I was having troubles ferrying good indy troops and assumed the AI would have the same difficulty. AI seems to expand slightly better now.

[Alderanas]

I was playing a game last night in LA. I was a mod nation named theran the reign of the vampiri if you know it. I was fighting against LA abysia and got smashed when i attacked an army containing crossbowmen and archers because they held my vampirir hoards off with heavy abysian infantry while they peppered me with arrows and bolts. I love 2.0 it works great in my oppinion.

[DaveCG]

Going great so far, been playing a hotseat game with a friend and LA utgard seems to like the hev inf and crossbow men, and mixed in with it's giants are pretty damn strong, so far so good, shame that the silly sods still keep charging his LA man army of defenders and longbow men with out the mages, ah well, can't have everything.

A.I seems to be expanding fine on mine, everyone's got lots of provinces, the only thing (nothing to do with BI) is that my friend went with a 10 dom SC and is basically dom killing all the A.I's, shame they don't do anything about it.

[Zeldor]

Heh, I try playing with that + CBM + WH on and it seems it is also affected by some bug. I have full BI version on but there is also resource change for indies, so AI still recruits them... Without WH it is fine [and well, WH are included in CBM anyway]

[Edi]

That depends on what order it loads the mods in. The mod manual does say rather explicitly that different mods should not modify the same units or unpredictable results will happen.

In this case, the BI mod works correctly only if it loads last, because changes are applied in loading order and if there are conflicting orders in different mods (e.g. one sets #rcost 800 and the other #rcost 8), only the last to load is applied. If the two mods change different aspects of the same unit (e.g. one changes resistances and the otehr changes magic), there is no problem.

[Zeldor]

Oh yeah, I think I turned off BI for a whole and turned it on again in my last attempt.

[DakaSha]

can somebody tell me why independent units in one province will have their normal cost and the mods cost in the province right next to it?

i really want to try this out because the AI pisses me off but something doesnt seem right. i turned off cbm to make sure its not that.

btw how do i get BI to load last? just rename it to ZBI?


edit: im sorry i forgot that militias arnt changed. i feel like an idiot

[DakaSha]

no wait..

seriously im playing a game right now and in SOME provinces the miltia are 9k + 800 rec and the other units are normal priced

and in other provinces the militia are normal price and thje other units are 9k + 800 rec

im not kidding. am i doing somthing wrong? id really like to use this mod

edit: ok i checked the .dm
i guess certain units like militia and light infantry have different versions.. i wasnt even aware of this as i dont use those type of independents.

so i guess the militia is sometimes expensive and sometimes normal because there are two types and the one that is left unchanged is the one u recieve in events.

and i suppose its intentional that units like the light infantry with the javelin are left unchanged?

[Edi]

The light infantry with the javelin is left unchanged because it's a decent unit that can be useful. It is better than some similar national units (peltast for Arco, for example).

I would love to turn off that one militia type that is currently recruitable, but unfortunately that is impossible. There is an event that gives militia to a nation, so if I modded them to cost 9000 gold, they would have an upkeep of 600 each and getting 60 of those guys via event would mean instant bankruptcy.

The point of the mod is not to turn off all independents, but to leave the better, more useful units in the game. If they crappy ones are unavailable, the AI is more likely to recruit national troops instead of hordes of chaff.

I hope that helps.

[DakaSha]

yeah i played a game and the computer owned me

and yeah the reason i chose this over NI id because i think independents add alot of flavour

and it was soooooo cool to get my *** kicked by jotuns and goblins instead of kicking (more) militia and light infantry ***. the nations actually use their units. alot more fun heh.

also the ai is harder now. its still insanly stupid of course but now itll at least win when it does attack with 300+ units

it even taught me how insanely strong a horde of archers can be

anyways thanks for the mod its made SP alot more fun