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The Knight's Path: Bretonnian Knight Upgrade System

Welcome, fellow Bretonnians! This mod aims to leverage the Warband Upgrades system introduced with the Champions of Chaos DLC to create a unique upgrade system for Bretonnian Knight units, befitting their description in the lore as errant nobles who progress through the ranks over time. With this mod enabled, only Knights Errant can be recruited in the traditional fashion (for non-AI players). Advanced knight units can only be obtained through upgrades to the original units, simulating a path toward the Grail that is the aspiration of all the young nobles of Bretonnia (peasants are still recruited in the usual way, but who cares about peasants?)

This mod was partially inspired by (and borrows a little art with permission from) BAGHolder's Warband Upgrades mod for all factions (which I encourage you to check out as well!), but this mod is much more limited in scope and has different design goals (and works quite differently under the hood). Whereas BAGHolder's mod provides upgrades as an added option for the player, in The Knight's Path, the upgrade system is the only way that (human-controlled) Bretonnia players are able to attain advanced knight units, making knight recruitment very distinct from peasant recruitment and unique among all races and factions.

Although it is not required, it is highly recommended that this mod be used alongside two of my other cavalry-focused mods:

• Elite Knights: This mod reduces the unit size of Grail Knights, Grail Guardians and Royal Pegasus Knights while buffing the stats of these units significantly. The idea is to make all manner of Grail Knights feel more elite on an individual basis as they are depicted in the lore while retaining the balance of the base game.
  
• Balanced Cavalry Speeds: This mod rebalances cavalry speeds across the game to better differentiate cavalry from different races and bring it closer in line with tabletop and the lore. In the case of Bretonnia specifically, nearly all heavy cavalry units have been made slightly faster than vanilla.

The banner feature of this mod is the introduction of an upgrade system for Bretonnian knight units, but in order to accommodate this, there have also been some changes to buildings. Below is the list of everything that has been changed.

• Warband Upgrades (renamed "Noble Path of the Knight") introduced for Bretonnian knight units.
  
• Direct recruitment for all knight units (except Knights Errant) disabled for players (AI still recruits normally).
  
• Exception to the above: Cathedral of the Lady (final building in worship chain) provides the player with direct access to recruit Knights of the Realm within that province, allowing them to regain advanced units faster in the mid- to late-game.
  
• NEW BUILDING: Grail Church, occupies a hitherto unused Tier IV slot in the worship chain for Bretonnia. This building allows for Grail Knight upgrades (and Grail Knight recruitment for the AI), which was removed from Pegasus Aeire (Grail Church still requires Royal Stables before it can be built). Additional effects can be seen in the screenshots above.
  
• Upper-tier worship buildings (IV and V) require the existence of Royal Stables (tier III stables) in the province in order to be built, simulating the need for high-quality warhorses in order to obtain Grail Knights or Grail Guardians.
  
• Highest-tier stables building (tier V) requires the existence of a Grail Church (or Cathedral) in the province, simulating the need for a holy site in the region in order to obtain flying Grail Knights (i.e., Royal Pegasus Knights).
  
• Royal Stables provide +1 recruit rank for Knights Errant; Pegasus Aeire and Royal Menagerie provide +2 recruit rank instead. Grail Church and Cathedral of the Lady provide an additional +2 recruit rank for Knights Errant (allowing a total of +4, the requirement to upgrade to Knights of the Realm). These bonuses allow faster access to advanced knight units as the campaign goes on.
  
• Cathedral of the Lady, in addition to opening up access to direct recruitment of Knights of the Realm, provides +2 recruit rank to these knights.

All Bretonnian Legendary Lords now receive a unique bonus specific to this mod as part of their faction effects:

• Louen Leoncoeur can directly recruit Knights of the Realm from the start of the game.
  
• The Fay Enchantress can directly upgrade Questing Knights to Grail Guardians, skipping the Grail Knight stage if desired.
  
• Alberic de Bordeleaux's knights retain ALL of their experience when upgrading from Knights Errant to Knights of the Realm.
  
• Repanse de Lyonesse can raise Foot Squires to knightly status, able to upgrade those who have reached Rank 7 directly into Questing Knights.

This mod relies heavily on Lua scripting in order to function, but it has been designed to carefully avoid potential pitfalls with multiplayer synchronization. That said, I have not had a chance to test in a network environment. If issues arise, please report them here!

This mod should be compatible with most other mods, although it may not be compatible with other mods that alter Bretonnian buildings or add a different version of the Warband Upgrades system for Bretonnian factions. There is no support added for unit expansion mods, but if anyone wants to create a submod to accommodate one, just let me know here or on Discord in Da Modding Den.

Save game compatible.

I couldn't have learned how to make mods like this without the support of the friendly folks over at Da Modding Den, in particular script guru Groove Wizard. The Total War wiki and associated documentation (most of which is hosted by Groove Wizard) has also been indispensable. Special thanks also to BAGHolder, who showed us all that Warband Upgrade mods were possible and laid out a basic framework on how to make them.

[discord.gg]
[tw-modding.com]