You should consider recompiling this mod with the latest version of diplomacy. I've been noticing my inventory items have been vanishing left and right.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/calradiaimperialage/forum/thread/inventory-items-vanishing-solved-v133

This is in reference a much older version of Diplomacy than you're using, but I suspect the problem has reemerged somehow. The bottommost stuff in my inventory keeps going missing, which is Problematic if it's, say, all of my books, or all of my horses. I had to spend a week tooling around in a city waiting for my shop income to come in, and then I spent more time training peasants in a villiage, and I checked my inventory to find nothing but food! All of the armor and weapons I'd been stockpiling to arm and armor new companions is missing, my entire herd of horses is missing, and ALL OF MY BOOKS ARE MISSING! >_<

Also, some suggestions.

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Female bandits should be able to upgrade into female faction troops in the same way that male bandits can upgrade into male faction troops.

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Non-faction bandits should be able to upgrade into the standard mercenary upgrade line, or else at significant expense into Bandit Captains/Bandit Knights, perhaps with Brigand as an intermediary step?

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Bandits are already living lives of violence, they shouldn't "upgrade" into raw recruits as if you'd just picked them up off the farm. They should upgrade further into the upgrade tree, differentiating into the two troop trees immediately.

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Looters are frustrating because they don't do anything and upgrade, bizzarely, into two different kinds of factional troops. I'd like it if instead they could be upgraded into either the peasant or Manhunter trees. This would be especially nice, since Manhunters are hard to acquire, and this would give you a proactive method of recruiting them.

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It would also be nice if you made a female Manhunter tree.

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Specifically, to sum up my sugestions re: upgrading, as below. Female troops should upgrade at the corresponding levels in their own trees.

Desert Bandits should upgrade directly into Sarranid Skirmishers/Veteran Footmen.

Forest Bandits should upgrade into Swadian Skirmishers/Footmen

Mountain Bandits should upgrade into Rhodok Spearmen/Crossbowmen

Sea Raiders should upgrade into Nord Footmen/Huntsmen

Steppe Bandits should upgrade into Khergit Horsemen. (Skipping three whole tiers of troops would make Steppe bandits a little too good, perhaps.)

Taiga Bandits should upgrade directly into Vaegir Skirmishers/Veterans.

Looters should upgrade into your choice of the generic, non-faction Bandit unit[mountandblade.wikia.com], or into Manhunters.

Non-faction Bandits should upgrade into Brigands or Mercenary Swordsmen (and thus go into the Mercenary troop tree,) and Brigands should be able to upgrade to Bandit Captains and Bandit Knights.

(I'd make it more complete, but you haven't published your female unit trees.)

Ugh, great I wasn't aware of the diplomacy bug. Thought I had grabbed the most recent version of it from the M&B Repository. i.e. here: http://www.mbrepository.com/file.php?id=1975

Do you know if there is a better place to grab a newer version? I'll need to do some snooping around...

I like those suggestions ShadowDragon. I've been wanting to integrate the bandits in better with the faction troops, so it may just be high time to go and do that. Maybe that'll be my big change for 0.4. The biggest challenge for me will probably be doing it in a way that's balanced. It'd be a nice way to help people get more decent male units early in the game and get out of that largely unintended "all-female army" phase a bit more quickly.

Some of them I could see working fairly well, looters are obviously very unskilled and easy to do, neither the forest or the mountain bandits are so powerful that they'd be an issue. Steppe and Desert bandits I'd just have to be careful I was upgrading them into more effective versions rather than downgrading them. Sea Raiders shouldn't be too much of a problem as the Nords have strong infantry anyway.

The only real problem I see will probably be with the Tundra/Taiga bandits, as they're already pretty advanced in level. I might have to work out something different with them, but we'll see. The Vaegir don't have top-teir female infantry at least, so forcing them down that line might not be the end of the world.

As for a female manhunter tree I was still deciding how I wanted to do that. In some way it'd be fun to twist that in a new direction for the female units, but that's been a gap I've been debating how to fill for a while. Definitely some untapped potential there. Any thoughts on a troop type that might be missing in the game?

As for the Bandit Leaders I purposely kept them out of the troop trees. I originally thought of them as mini-Lords in a sense (perhaps deposed nobility, or other notable figures), possessing skills and qualities the common bandit wouldn't have. I made them more powerful because of that, but having them be as powerful as they are probably won't work if I make them too easy to obtain. As of right now it's difficult to get your hands on more than a dozen or so unless you're purposely stockpiling them in a castle or something, so the fact they're more powerful doesn't throw off the game balance too much. Still there's potential there though, hmm... this could be fun. :)

Originally posted by someproteinguy:

Ugh, great I wasn't aware of the diplomacy bug. Thought I had grabbed the most recent version of it from the M&B Repository. i.e. here: http://www.mbrepository.com/file.php?id=1975

Do you know if there is a better place to grab a newer version? I'll need to do some snooping around...

http://www.mbrepository.com/file.php?id=1887 Diplomacy 4.3

Huh, ok. I guess I was under the impression that was just the mod itself and not the source code. I'll download it tonight and take a look.

Originally posted by someproteinguy:

I like those suggestions ShadowDragon. I've been wanting to integrate the bandits in better with the faction troops, so it may just be high time to go and do that. Maybe that'll be my big change for 0.4. The biggest challenge for me will probably be doing it in a way that's balanced. It'd be a nice way to help people get more decent male units early in the game and get out of that largely unintended "all-female army" phase a bit more quickly.

Again, I'd emphasize that you really don't want woman soldiers to be obviously mechanically inferior to the men. You're treading into ground that very easily raises the hue and cry of sexism. It's the reason why in most tabletop RPGs, female characters are statistically identical to male ones.

I might suggest a compromise, if you don't like giving the female soldiers as much STR as the men. Give them other useful traits, like better shields and more Shield skill, and ensuring that they never spawn with 2h weapons so that the Shield skill is actually used, Give them maximum ironflesh so their HPs are comparable, and maybe a few dots of Trainer, so they can help raise the newbie stacks.

Also, I'd change Nord Steelhearts to Nord Shieldmaidens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden

Some of them I could see working fairly well, looters are obviously very unskilled and easy to do, neither the forest or the mountain bandits are so powerful that they'd be an issue. Steppe and Desert bandits I'd just have to be careful I was upgrading them into more effective versions rather than downgrading them. Sea Raiders shouldn't be too much of a problem as the Nords have strong infantry anyway.

The only real problem I see will probably be with the Tundra/Taiga bandits, as they're already pretty advanced in level. I might have to work out something different with them, but we'll see. The Vaegir don't have top-teir female infantry at least, so forcing them down that line might not be the end of the world.

Remember, there's an opportunity cost in raising bandits into regular soldiers; bandits take a lot more XP to earn their upgrades than regular troops do, and "recruiting" by the club is a dangerous prospect unless you've like, gone out of your way to raise a force composed primarily/entirely of bludgeoning soldiers, like Sarranid Mamlukes/Veiled Knights.

I mean, I do most of my recruiting by the club, but that's because I used TweakMB to raise my maximum Surgery to 15 so that none of my soldiers ever die in combat unless I run away.

As for a female manhunter tree I was still deciding how I wanted to do that. In some way it'd be fun to twist that in a new direction for the female units, but that's been a gap I've been debating how to fill for a while. Definitely some untapped potential there. Any thoughts on a troop type that might be missing in the game?

Well, you could give the female Manhunters bows and quivers of Practice Arrows. I believe they deal bludgeoning damage rather than slashing. Obviously they'd need to still have maces/shields, but making them an equavilent archery option to the male manhunter's infantry/cavalry might be interesting design space. (Also you should totally see what you need to do to make those practice arrows - and perhaps other practice weapons - show up in shop inventories.)

As for the Bandit Leaders I purposely kept them out of the troop trees. I originally thought of them as mini-Lords in a sense (perhaps deposed nobility, or other notable figures), possessing skills and qualities the common bandit wouldn't have. I made them more powerful because of that, but having them be as powerful as they are probably won't work if I make them too easy to obtain. As of right now it's difficult to get your hands on more than a dozen or so unless you're purposely stockpiling them in a castle or something, so the fact they're more powerful doesn't throw off the game balance too much. Still there's potential there though, hmm... this could be fun. :)

They're not really significantly more powerful than existing top-tier faction units. While they could be deposed Lords or disenfranchised bastard children of the nobility, they don't have to nessessarily be that to have those skills.

Or you could make an all-new disenfranchised nob tree that starts out weak and utterly useless, and grows up through a bandit leader tree to the bandit lords/knights. Make them a rare tavern discovery, spawn a few into bandit bands, etc.

Originally posted by someproteinguy:

Huh, ok. I guess I was under the impression that was just the mod itself and not the source code. I'll download it tonight and take a look.

Uh... Maybe I'm confused, but I didn't think you 'compiled' anything to make a M&B mod.

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

Originally posted by someproteinguy:

Huh, ok. I guess I was under the impression that was just the mod itself and not the source code. I'll download it tonight and take a look.

Uh... Maybe I'm confused, but I didn't think you 'compiled' anything to make a M&B mod.

Yeah I need the python code from their module files to integrate it properly. :(

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

I might suggest a compromise, if you don't like giving the female soldiers as much STR as the men. Give them other useful traits, like better shields and more Shield skill, and ensuring that they never spawn with 2h weapons so that the Shield skill is actually used, Give them maximum ironflesh so their HPs are comparable, and maybe a few dots of Trainer, so they can help raise the newbie stacks.

That's more or less the way things are now. I.e. men have more strength and more power-strike/throw/draw, women have both higher weapon skills, and more points in things like riding and horse archery (one or two cases I actually gave them a better weapon mix as well to push the envelope a bit farther). The general goal is to have an army made entirely of either sex be a credible threat and viable in the game, but the strongest army be a mix of the two.

If I have it balanced where I want it the sex that is weaker for a certain unit should still be about 90% of what the other sex's version is. Obviously getting there can be a bit difficult with so many factors, and a bit of deviation in that number is fine as well. There's many units in game that, at least from what I can tell, the two versions are basically indistinguishable and that's definitely intended.

They're not really significantly more powerful than existing top-tier faction units. While they could be deposed Lords or disenfranchised bastard children of the nobility, they don't have to nessessarily be that to have those skills.

Or you could make an all-new disenfranchised nob tree that starts out weak and utterly useless, and grows up through a bandit leader tree to the bandit lords/knights. Make them a rare tavern discovery, spawn a few into bandit bands, etc.

You're right, they're not significantly different than top teir units. I suppose I had envisioned something more, but given you're fighting them for the first time with just a scattering low teir troops I had to be realistic about how strong they could be. The male version is probably in a comfortable enough spot as is, the female version I might want to nerf a bit if I make it more widely available. Part of me feels she's a bit too strong in melee to be that good with a bow. I mean it doesn't bother me too much when there's just 5 or 6 of them in a group, but a whole line of Female Bandit Captains might be a bit much.

Burying some stronger (or at least potentially stronger) units in the tavern spawns might not be a bad idea though. There's enough other units in there now that they wouldn't come up much.

I'm actually fielding a whole line of female bandit captains right now - 24 of them so far.

They're quite nice, but they lack a shield. That alone is a critical balancing factor. They're deadly at range, even moreso up close and personal, but they don't have any staying power.

Hmm, they should have a shield. I need to look at that when I get home then and make sure that got copied correctly into both versions. But if simply taking away the shield works that's actually nice to know.

Men should have: 2H Axe, spear/lance, 2x throwing weapon
Women are (ideally): 1H sword, shield, bow, arrows

Having a shield is nice, mind you. :) Maybe I just haven't been looking too closely, since they tend to wind up commingled with my Nord Huntresses.

They're not really UNBALANCED, quite honestly. And if someone's willing to go to the trouble of hunting down and capturing looters - the single most useless unit in the game - en masse to raise them up through an inferior unit tree to get to the slightly-superior end-tree unit, I'd say let them.

Having double-checked, yes, they definitely do have shields. I must've been looking at Nord Huntresses when I decided that they didn't, or perhaps a Bandit Captain who'd lost her shield in the fighting.

Awesome, thanks for checking on that. I double-checked on my end last night too, and they did indeed have them.

Also I'm going to go ahead and make some of the changes we discussed above to the bandit trees in this next release, and I added the female bandit upgrades as well as that was an oversight.

I haven't integrated the Captain/Knight units into the trees, as I'm still mulling over how exactly I want to do that. If it happens it'll most likely be upstream from brigands like you mentioned, but I think I'd like to stick one more unit in there (making them a 5th tier like in other trees), and nail down the female manhunter tree first as well. Either way it won't be a 0.31 thing.