Beta 10.0 release of VC Balance Mod, a saved game compatible comprehensive gameplay, balance, and bugfix mod. Hundreds of improvements, see complete changelogs at mod page.
BETA for VC Balance Mod 10.0.
Please test if you can. Provided no bugs are found, I'll make it an official (and final) release.
UPDATE: So far everything looks good. The only delay in making this a final release is I need time to update the readmes and upload the different versions (so in a week or so)
IMPORTANT NOTE: 9.0 added the option to manage all settlements, to allow the player to build religious buildings or assist his lords. This is intended behavior.
CHANGELOG 10.0:
Updated with changes from latest Viking Conquest release, 2.044
Some religion tweaks
Fixed vanilla VC bug where AI kings courted ladies (includes code to make AI kings break up for current saves)
Saxon troop recruiting rosters made a bit more elite, to show their relative ascendancy in comparison to mercia and east anglia, and give a greater chance of them being the last kingdom to stand against (and defeat) the invading norse).
Made prison break success independent of whether the lord is conscious or unconscious (just put him on a horse or something, no need to abandon him even after all guards are dead, eliminate the video game escort quest annoyance)
To balance with the above, and encourage more interesting larger fights, village elders now require a good deal more money in bribes to take on the risk of involving themselves in your plots to set fires
Made prisoner escape check happen free of a couple of conditions (in particular, it will run periodically even during day)
armor performs a little better against blunt damage
A general balancing pass on all tier 2 and above slingers, increasing many of their WP. Also slight increases to peasant sling WP of cultures that heavily use the sling
Sling rocks given less ammo (decided their stats reflect better shaped rocks, and wouldn't be so easily obtainable in battlefield conditions
Some slight increases to WP norse axe warrior
Removed range guaranteed tag from briton champions (wasn't on any other infantry),
altered lord random personality distribution to shift a bit more away from the worst 2 personalities
interupt damage threshold moved to warband levels (meshes better with the improved mail armor)
Changed some values in AI courtship
Right to rule increases slowed in a couple of places
further +2 damage increase to 1.5 handed axes, and additional +2 for non-irish basic 1.5 handed (closing the gap a bit). Dane axe -2 damage, +5 speed. Axes made swing only (thrusting being epecially poor choice for them). 1 handed battle axes given +1 damage. A couple Pict/irish 1 handed axes given -1 damage. A couple other axes slightly tweaked to create more logical progression of length/speed/damage and balance of factions.
1 handed axe speed reduced
spears made a bit more breakable
plain length 30 seaxes/knives made stab-only when on foot (should help seax armed troops quite a bit, as their cut damage is terrible)
Fixed vanilla VC bug in Thora persuasion check
CREDITS:
Taleworlds user Eternalflame for druid sacrifice change
Reddit user ObeseMcDese for discussions leading to the more elite Saxon recruiting templates (when compared to Angles)
Steam users 杰克·赫兹, Disturbed, and Pode, and Nexus user adslhzc543, for discussions on fix for Thora dialogue
Taleworlds user Toster and everyone who participated in discussions at Taleworlds regarding marriage and courtship
Taleworlds user Ryantheskinny for his conversions of Troops and Parties files. Everyone should follow the progress of his mod in development, where he is expanding the VC map to cover Europe, among other exciting changes.
Prior version changelogs available at the mod page.
Link to the main VC Balance Mod page, with full changelogs of prior versions: Moddb.com
Installation instructions?
Hi sambob,
For full install instructions and info on the mod, take a look at the description for the 9.0 release here: Moddb.com
Since this is just a beta, I didn't put the full info in the description, sorry about that!
I've followed all the instructions to download but the file is downloading as an RAR and I can't unzip it and I don't have an option to covert it to download as anything else. It comes across as a note pad file with all the symbols. I've downloaded and unzipped several mods and haven't had this issue?
That's odd. Do you have winrar? It is a free download and should be able to open the archive: Rarlab.com
After that, just extract the text files into your Viking Conquest folder.
Let me know if you run into any further problems.
has diplomacy been removed by this mod
No, diplomacy mod was never part of Viking Conquest. It was part of Brytenwalda, the mod the VC devs made earlier, but they could never add it to Viking Conquest, because VC is a paid DLC and can't use fan-made content.
Balance Mod adds a few fixes/tweaks from Diplomacy mod into VC (as a mod, I am not subject to the same restrictions as the VC developers), but unfortunately that is only a small part.
Old Captain still needs renown to recruit, other than that works good other than npcs spawning inside each other in taverns. Also, recommend any tweaks to make the game more fun and a bit less grindy, thanks.
Hi JMWUSN,
I intentionally left the renown requirement just for the Old Captain, and I also edited the rejection dialogue into an easter egg reference to sound like a certain gruff "old captain" from the Last Kingdom tv series (Leofric).
If NPCs spawn inside each other in taverns, it must be a vanilla VC bug, as I don't alter tavern scenes or the templates for spawns there. If it causes any non-cosmetic problems let me know the details (I try to fix vanilla VC bugs when I can, but development is almost closed now).
Hmm, well Balance Mod with normal campaign ai/hard combat ai is the preferred settings (balance mod heavily mods campaign ai's effects). Other than that, I do offer some tweak files over at Nexus (I personally don't use them, but some people like them). Stuff like permanently happy companions, increased speed of timeflow on worldmap. But I haven't yet published versions of them for 10.0---I'm waiting to declare the Beta finished and release a final version, which should be within a couple of weeks--so they are not available yet. I also release the source files in a format compatible with the VC Tweaks tool, if you want to do heavier tweaking youself.
Let me know if I can provide any further info, and I hope you enjoy the mod!
First off, thank you for your reply and professionalism, and i am enjoying the mod very much, no game breaking bugs 140 days in, and i like that you fixed the looting system, especially with the hideouts, as now they are really worth going for and now i dont need to dump my whole army to make it worth it. I also got around 4 sets of armour from a longphort, and my compainions dont steal all the loot!
Glad to hear you are enjoying it!
Yes, I created a cap for army loot shares when raiding bandit camps (basically, the loot share is the same as if you had dropped off all your troops in a camp except for the 6 that accompany you).
The other change contributing to your loot is the fix for Warband's kill-order loot glitch. Basically, in Warband, when low level units die first their loot can crowd out the loot from high level units when overall loot is plentiful, so loot sometimes depends on the order units are killed in (and if you want loot from a very tough unit, sometimes the only way is to make sure no other unit dies before it does). It goes by unit type, so if you are fighting 100 peasants and 10 knights, if even 1 peasant dies first, all 100 peasants will have their loot added first, often crowding out the knight loot. And of course, low level units have bad armor and tend to die first...
I posted Balance Mod's fix for the glitch for other modders to use here Forums.taleworlds.com , and it has been incorporated into a few other mods so far (AWOIF and 1429: Hundred Years War - La Relance have notified me they used it, but there may be others as well).
Can't wait for the final version with source. You sir, motivated me to add Leofric companion xD Guess I ll have to restart the game once again after circa 900 days ;( xD
Btw not sure if the price to sell prisoners in mines are +-230 normally or i glitched the game myself, but it is quite easy for me to plunder port and make 50k from it xD
I'd like to ask if you tried to mess up with following things:
1) making some castles aviable for naval assault (seen river or even ocean in few caste scenes)
2) modify the sum you get when liege gives town to other lord
3) loss from owning too many fiefs (had 4 fully pimped-out very rich ports and somehow i was loosing 20k weekly, so after paying garrisons and my party i was left with 2-3k gold weekly, even got negative income when i took out my hundred norse nobles xD ) guess its not meant to have higher number of elite troops...
Hi dykjozo,
Final version will be coming in a few days, but is almost identical to current version, and completely save compatible with it. Leofric is indeed a very fun character, I am still sad that he got killed off.
I did increase prisoner sale prices at mines (vanilla VC had them pay something very low, like 20 if I remember corectly, while I made them comparable to what ransom brokers/slavers pay, and in turn raised that number a little bit as well). Mines pay a fairly standard price, while slavers/ransom brokers change more depending on who the prisoner is.
I haven't changed any scenes, or anything having to do with water access. What you are describing is vanilla VC--many scenes were made with water but not being marked as a port. My understanding is that it was a design decision by the VC devs, although it can sometimes seem odd, especially in cases like Jorvik, where historically it was a port.
I did not change sums given when towns are awarded at all.
I did mod tax inefficiency a little bit. If I remember correctly, I made the reduction to tax ineffeciency from having your minister like you (greater than or equal to 50 relations) a little lower. That change shouldn't change much of what you are seeing, as it has little effect (I left most of the reduction in place).
So make sure your minister likes you, to get the reduction from that, and also hire tax collectors, which gives a large reduction. That should help with the ineffeciency.
Yes, 100 tier 5 troops at once will cost a huge amount. You are certainly meant to fight with a much more mixed army, with a core of elites supporting a more lower level army. Tier 3 troops, at level 23, are quite cost effective. But you can also invest heavily in enterprises if you want to support more expensive armies.