Subscribe to download
Conditions Acceptable - State Troop Overhaul

Warhammer III featured a lot of great changes, one of which was a revision to how holder units and their armor were handled. However, a lot of these updates did not backport to earlier factions, with the Empire among those suffering the worst of these changes. Conditions Acceptable is an attempt to update State Troops to be more consistent with the later game factions, and to try and add a little more identity to their unit roles.

Conditions Acceptable has two driving goals in its design:
1) Bring State Troops up to the standard set by Warhammer III factions.
2) Ensure that they have a distinct identity compared to the other human factions as to preserve faction identity.

To that end, State Troops have been revised to be moderately armored across the board in order to better reflect their nature as a professional standing army and the munitions plate armor they wear. They are significantly better protected than the levies and conscripts of the other human nations, but the State Troops are still lacking in comparison to the warrior elite of the other humans nations as well. In this, the Empire's strength lies in a balance of quality and quantity.

This is furthered by the revisions to the Blacksmith building. As it no longer fills the role of unlocking higher tier units (many of whom already need higher tier structures to unlock), it instead allows you to better mass produce troops in a province by way of discounts to training and expanding on the benefits it already offered.

Some additional tweaks have been made to make State Troops less 'same unit with different weapons', though it should be recognized that at the end of the day the Empire's infantry is meant to hold back the enemy for the gunline, not win a fight on its own. Brief details are towards the end of the front page, and discussion posts have more details for those that wish them.

==
COMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER MODS:
Conditions Acceptable is intended to be a relatively lightweight mod done by using vanilla assets and effects to maximize compatibility and minimize breakage between updates. However, that does not mean that it is automatically compatible with other mods.

To see which files are edited in detail, see the file edits under "Discussions". Mods which modify the specific units listed there are unlikely to be compatible with Conditions Acceptable or may cause awkward interactions depending on which one overrides or if both are added.

This mod may be added mid-campaign and can be removed mid-campaign, though I would recommend a new campaign in the interest of fairness.

Specific Mod Compatibility:
Disciplined State Troops - Unfortunately, incompatible. Both modify land_units table, as that is where animations are specified, so one will overwrite the other.

==
BALANCE AND FUTURE GOALS:
Note that this mod is still in a rough form as of current release. Changes will continue based on feedback and tests derived from that feedback.
Also note that balance is meant to be based on Normal Difficulty.

Broadly speaking, the Empire still relies on its artillery and ranged troops to do damage. However, the addition of more armor similar to Warhammer III factions will allow them to hold more reliably. However, this is only relative and anything armor-piercing while armored themselves will usually still tear through them, so do not throw State Troops at Chaos Warriors or Grave Guards (especially if they have Great Weapons) expecting victory in the melee.

Regiments of Renown and Elector Troops have had their armor tweaked to be consistent with their base units. Other stats have been left alone for the moment. This will be tweaked in future updates.

==
CHANGE LIST:
This is a high level change list. Specific details are provided in the pinned Discussions threads.

General Change:
+30 Armor to all State Troops (except for Spearmen without shields, who only get +15). Does not include Archers, Free Company Militia, Flagellants, Greatswords, Huntsmen, or cavalry.

Spearmen - Only a +15 Armor change, in order to play up their role as the emergency meat shield.

Spearmen (Shields) - Slight cost increase paired with an armor bonus and a small Leadership boost to make these units a good all-around defender.

Swordsmen - Undergone a number of tweaks to retool them as a frontline brawler and to be the best individual soldiers among the State Troops, if not the Empire's elite. Includes a health and Leadership bonus as well as the armor additions. Cost has increased accordingly.

Halberdiers - To emphasize them as mass mobilization of the Empire and as anti-large/anti-armor tarpit troops, they have been weakened as individual soldiers (primarily a health swap with Swordsmen) slightly but make up for it with a +33% increase in men-per-regiment, with an according cost increase. They also no longer require Blacksmiths to be trained.

Crossbowmen and Handgunners - Functionally unchanged other than a bonus to armor, same in magnitude but still less in total than their melee counterparts. Their Sylvanian counterparts have also recieved this adjustment.

Greatswords - No longer require the Armory to be trained. In practice, upkeep will be your biggest limitation.
Empire Knights - No longer requires the Blacksmith. They are a bit of a subpar unit already, and often quickly overshadowed by Demigryphs or Reiksguard. This should allow them to be fielded before they are made obsolete.
Knights of the Blazing Sun- No longer require a Blacksmith, as the recruitment and upkeep penalty without building their unique landmark (which requires a T4 settlement) is already a rather painful malus.
Demigryph Knights - No longer requires the Armory. Consistency with how later games handled it as they still come out of a T4 building.

===