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Chaos Resource Balance - Vassals Matter by the Redhorn

Update 2022/10/09: After a thorough review of comparative resource adbundance on the different maps, I've made adjustments to some resources, check the change log. I've also added more vassal units to the list.

TL;DR:

For all Warriors of Chaos factions:

- Almost all Chaos units get a buff from strategic resources
- Iron re-balanced to +3 armor, but applies to any armored chaos unit, and improves gunpowder vassals
- Buffs from resources that say "Marauder" also affect Norscan units
- Skaven, Norscans, Ogres, Dark Elves, Orcs, Empire, and Kislev get a buff from at least one resource
- A universal morale buff to all non-chaos vassal units from Dyes (everyone loves facepaint)
- Resources that give combat bonuses increase the upkeep of respective units.
- Pottery doesn't give combat bonuses to anything because it's a pot, but gives a diplomacy bonus (mortals love pot[s])
- Boosted the amount of resource provided per build slightly to offset the initial upkeep costs, so in the early game trade will make up the difference and upgrading large numbers of units only affects you later on.


Reasoning and background:

I really like the idea of Warriors of Chaos eschewing economy and trade in favor of dominating other cultures and combat efficiency. I think that's successful in terms of flavor.

How the games were actually playing out wasn't hitting that mark for me though. Vassals never got used. You sit at 100 allegiance points because you never purchase their units, which has the added affect of nullifying all the "ally missions." Using trade resources for combat stats was cool, but iron was way better than anything else you could get, so you ended up just running around gobbling iron nodes til your regular warriors were armor capped.

So armies had a lot of "same-iness" to them which is the opposite of why most die-hard Warhammer fans play Chaos (In the tabletop the fun of a Chaos army has always been mixing and matching and getting creative with your army, all the way down to swapping out individual pieces on individual models)

This mod aims to change all that in a balanced lore-friendly way.


Points of Interest:

The most egregious outliers:

Iron was made less over-powered. Iron is one of the most abundant resources on the map (23 nodes in Immortal Empires), so getting 10 armor from each instance trivialized the game by the time you get ~3 nodes. The fact that it affected only your chaos warriors meant it shoe-horned you into using an army of pretty much exclusively those units, unless you just wanted your army to be weaker. So iron only gives 3 armor now (which is the number where it's still attractive to me as an option) but it affects armored trolls, chosen, knights and aspiring champions as well. The higher quality metallurgy also increases the range of empire/kislev gunpowder units slightly.

Gold, gems, salt, wood, and medicine now do useful things.

Overview of the rest:

Most units - regardless of which chaos roster you are on - have a targeted benefit from at least one resource. some have two. Regiments of Renown are included where applicable.

Different sets of units benefit from different resources, and depending on which god you follow you will be interested in different resources. For example, several different Slaanesh units benefit greatly from wine, Tzeentch units get more benefits from gold, etc.

Factions receive an equal amount of benefits, but not all factions benefit in the same way. For example, Khorne and Nurgle daemon units gain ap damage that the other two don't, Tzeentch daemons alone gets barriers, and Slaanesh daemons get exclusive speed and extra attack. Combined with different flavors of benefits for vassals there are lots of different combinations to play with.

Norsca and Skaven are the primary focus of vassal benefits. For example, pastures improve Norscan wolves and beasts, and salt improves Skaven guns. It's a lot more fun now to have underling units in your army. You can actually get a useful mammoth or ratling gun squad.

Second order beneficiaries are Empire, Kislev, Orcs, and Dark Elves. These are either easily manipulated / chaos-oppressed factions, or factions Chaos-adjecent to at least one Chaos God. They have a buff to a particular subset of units: Cult of Khaine units for Dark Elves, gunpowder units for empire, etc. Check the tooltip screenshots.

There are a couple global benefits I added in just for fun should you choose to subjugate enemies farther afield of the traditional chaos-inclined units: Ogre base damage can be buffed with ivory (I really like the idea of Puppets of Misrule frontlining some big ogre vassal units) and there is a general buff to morale for every vassal unit from dye, so you can get at least some buff for your units regardless of what you vassalize - high elf, lizardman, whatever!





Some of my other mods:

WoC Tech Adjustments - Vassals Matter:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2871900770

Vanguard Boon fix:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2867860508

Skullcleaver (The Butcher's Nails) Khorne flavor weapon:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2870253961