Ah yep, aside from the +2 rank to morr knights those are all intended, i left in some very small boosts if theyre to just small aspects of the faction, those are all usually +2 in the base game. I decided some are not particularly stackable and the occasional small recruit rank is okay.

Ah, well all right then. Thanks.

if you ever see a +1 to all recruit rank or +2 to any specific recruit rank, let me know :)

Originally posted by Cerb:

if you ever see a +1 to all recruit rank or +2 to any specific recruit rank, let me know :)

Ah, right, I forgot to take that screenshot.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198003023777/screenshot/2539549115990001694/

Changed the black rose recruitment rank, left headhunter in because its not stackable (base game is +2, was changed to 1), and its a capstone skill, give some incentive to get there :)

OK, thanks for checking.

@Cerb

I have been playing with this mod alongside your hardcore SFO collection of mods and it is one of the best fleshed out and strategic experiences I have played. I could go on and on but I will summarize and say I think you do an excellent job of combining lore, grounded realism and game play into a fantastic experience.

With that being said I have some feedback I would like to share in relation to this mod and other aspects of the game that relate to it as well. When it comes to the skill tree of a lord (specifically the "red line" skill tree section) ... any generic lord can dump skill points into skills that significantly enhance the stats of units in a comparable way that veteran achievement does. For example: on my 10 millionth Karl Franz campaign I took my first settlement. After two battles I have a unit of swordsmen that have achieved rank 1 and have melee attack of 32 and melee defense 37. Base stats of un-ranked swordsmen is 30 attack and 35 defense. That unit earned those new stat buffs just as this mod aims to do. But then I recruit a generic lord. They are immediately level 6 and can dump skill points into first red line skill called "Emperor's Finest" and upon dumping 3 skill points in there the recruited swordsmen of that lord have melee attack 36 and defense 41 while being un-ranked.

I believe this works directly against the efforts of this mod. It is a cheap way to get stronger units without any effort and makes veterans that earned stats through experience without arbitrary skill dump less effective. On-top of that I believe it gets messy when you combine it with other ways that already increase unit stats. SFO has added generic lord traits that sometimes come with unit stat buffs in their army but these are unique to that lord specifically and are part of the strategic decision making you must do when you are trying to decide who to lead your forces for a particular campaign. Certain technologies also increase unit stats but these feel okay too because you are investing time into certain tech which results in loreful improvements to your troops like weapon damage and armor or even melee attack and defense with tech called "State-Issued Weapons".

So generic lord traits and technology upgrades feel like they have a place in the game because they are engaging in some capacity due to needing to make a choice or feels like logical military development but the red line skill tree of generic lords is random massive unit stat buffs that you and the AI can immediately get a hold of. It diminishes the attempts at grounded realism, engaging experience grinding and hard earned unit buffs that this mod attempts to bring into the game. I play legendary and very hard difficulty btw for further context.

The following link is to mod that attempted to solve this perceived issue but in vanilla.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3134016536

Yeah I mostly agree with you, red line buffs are either too strong or almost useless depending on what they give (woo speed/charge bonus for melee inf), and buff low tier units a lot more than high tier. Ive been working on a red line change mod for a while that essentially makes the red line percentage based, so it scales off the base stats of a unit, and also buffs more broadly than currently. I.e. there wont be a skill for just X/Y/Z unit, but instead will buff X stat for all units, and will likely cost some level of upkeep or fatigue resistance etc.. for the unit, havent worked that part out yet tbh. I dont want to remove red line skills, although i do think that would work quite well, but i will be reworking soon.

If you had any ideas please let me know :)

@Cerb

Oh man those ideas of yours actually sound exciting. It's exciting to know that something like that is in the works regardless of stage of development haha. Damn, alright I'll play some more campaigns and if I come up with any ideas in relation to this issue I will share them here.

Thanks again mate! :D

No worries mate appreciate the feedback