Hello, I like what you have done in regards to unit sizes. I definitely think that you should overhaul the way the economy and income works. With tier 1 units being usable for the whole game, you're turning this game into a third age total war direction that I really like. In order to properly overhaul the economy, Interruptions to your economy for going on an offensive war is something I was thinking about. Things like average base incomes of faction x and turn y would need to be figured out, average costs per attack/defense/unit, etc. What are your goals for late game?

I have see that you are working to flesh out each faction which is great.Area of Recruitment (AOR) that are region specific are another idea that I had.

AOR is awesome and I want to do it. I of course want to do a few other things first (like just make regular units), but yes its awesome and should be in the game.

Do you think you could give me a more in depth analysis of how the economy of the warhammer world should work? Especially things like trade income vs taxes vs raiding for all of the factions.

People are telling me that hordes are having a hard time doing anything right now.

Yeah reduce upkeeps for horde is a good idea. If you can't reduce specific horde units upkeep, try to reduce wild / savage orcs upkeep. Most of orcish hordes use it.
Playing as empire, it's true that i see dwarfs taking advantage on orcs close to me. And in the original campaign, orcs armies were annoying me whil they are not now.

Perhaps reducing greenskin upkeep or increase all orcs base income. It seems a good solution because now as all settlement have walls, orcs must have more armies to capture dwarfs settlement (which are harder to take than orcs settlement).
Not too much because the greenskin campaign would turn easy.
I think greenskins should have more armies. But they also have the WAAGH advantage so not too much or they will become overpowered.

Perhaps increase base income of 500 (1000?) for all greenskins factions or reduce units upkeep by 10-15%.
Also, the recruitment AI could improve this. Greenskins needs to have units strong enough to take a dwarf city so if it's possible to improve this.

There is also a serious AI improving mod that i recommand you to check. It's called "Better AI" by Minos.
I tried to play with this mod. It turn the campaign much harder, basically it have to be used with AI buffs disabled.
This mod changes A LOT the way AI works in Total War Warhammer. The AI is a lot more intelligent. There is a better army composition, the AI is not much more agressive but more perfide and will not hesitate to run away a battle you have the advantage on. For instance, the first army you have to defeat in the campaign, with this mod, if you attack it, will run away to his town not to take any risk.
But this changes a lot the way campaign works so perhaps it's not a good idea. Anyway this mod is really strong. It's up to you to see if you really needs it.


Another mod that think would greatly be added to your collection is "Happiness Matters" by Zarkis. Basically it improves economy by making tax decrease or increase in relation of the region happiness.
I think it adds some deepness to the economy of the game so i think you could add it with no problem.

I will probably reduce AI buffs because they are no longer needed.

I do like happiness matters! it could seriously help balance hords vs non-hordes, since hordes can make factions unhappy (reducing income)

Removal of extra upkeep that lords cause so upkeep can be raised or lowered for units without concern for how much a unit could cost late game with many lords.

-Thus really elite units could cost much more without having to think, this unit costs 800 gold to upkeep but if the player has lords its cost will be way too much so its base cost has to go lower.

Removing the extra upkeep would effectively erase the issue and allow rather outrageous upkeeps for elite units without being unreasonable late game.

I haven't done any specific unit testing, just playing through the campaign as VC and taking note of stuff that just feel wrong or goes against what the units stood for from a historical medieval standpoint(since excluding the monsters and magic everything else is just medieval units, swordsmen, spearmen, halberdiers ect).

Fist- skeleton/grave guard vs empire

Now i am aware that that they cause fear and that VC magic lets you heal them constantly therefore keeping them at full strength for almost the hole battle, but they just seem week. The skeleton warriors/spearmen are pretty much what i expect, they got no muscle so their attacks shouldn't be as strong as a humans but grave guard(keep in mind i know nothing of warhammer lore) look/sound as if they are supposed to be a living terror, a true nightmare for grown men but they lose against swordsmen if no magic is involved and the swordsmen don't break(which is one of the VC strong points, fear). In another mod that aimed to make units more lorefriendly grave guard were given magic dmg to represent their cursed blades, I don't know if they had cursed blades or not but if they did it would make sense.

Two- defense/attack of units

I understand that you are making unit costs/stat equal among like units (swordsmen/spearmen/halberdiers) but i feel like the stats should be change VERY slightly. Spearmen definitely get an anti large bonus, they existed to kill horsemen after all but their attack/weapon dmg should be lower than that of a sword since you can put more strength behind a sword swing than a spear stab, that is just fact. But on the flip side spearmen should have higher defense cause they can keep the enemy at a distance and unless they also have a long weapon (spear/halberd/lance) they wont be able to hit back until they close the distance. Speaking of defense if a unit has a shield they get 30% missile defense, that alone is fine but should probably be tweaked depending on how much of the persons body that shield covers. Example would be dwarfs and chaos, the shields they carry cover about 50-70% of the soldiers body and thus should give a lot more protection than say that of an ungor unit where the shield is the size of its head. Also, if a unit has a shield it should increase it melee defense(in other total war games it did), now this can just be universal increase since although different size shields help against missile in melee that would all provide roughly the same amount(excluding shields that cover the whole body like those or roman centurions) cause smaller shields(ungor) weigh less and can be used to intercept sword swings a lot easier whereas large shields(chaos warriors) are heavy an be moved easily but since they are so big they don't need to be moved much to block attacks.

Three- unit stat/bonus

For this it is more the difference between spearmen/halberdiers, historically spearmen were the weakest/lowest unit on the battlefield sense it took practically no training to use a spear or mach in a line, now i don't know how spearmen were ranked in warhammer but it cant be too different whereas halberdiers were usually castle guards because a halberd is useful against mounted units and infantry, but these actually took some training to be able to use them properly. Now within the game halberdiers should be a unit that is like a swordsmen and spearman unit combined but isn't as good as either of them, in other words, has anti large similar to spearmen but less of it, and anti infantry like swordsmen but again less. The role of a halberdier on the battle field is actually as the main/front line, the length of the halberd allows them to brace against cav and keep inf at a distance BUT, because of the axe head style blade of the halberd it is slightly harder to stab at mounted foes but it can be swung at mounted foes whereas a spear can't (well at least not effectively), this also applies to anti inf, the length means it is hard to use in close combat but if swung at an enemy it is like a greatsword, lots of strength/weight behind the blade, this gives it the armor piercing. So by doing this you still keep all 3 units 'special' with their own roles, swordsmen are meant to charge infantry, spearmen are meant to becharged/attack cav/large, and halberdiers are meant to be a jack of all trades unit that can be used, to less effect, in any combat situation, greatswords are still you elite ianti infantry unit to to be used in charges/offense only cause although they have a lot of armor they have no shield and although greatswords have very good dmg/ap their size/weight makes it hard to parry attacks and there for should be used to charge a flank while halberdiers/swordsmen hit the front.

I could keep going but i'll leave it at this for now.

Hordes are always tricky, especially since the Garrisons have been increased. I imagine a money script for AI hordes would be your best bet. I don't have experience with modding but I could defintely help you with economic balancing. You need to come up with some long term goals like:
How long you intend for an average game to last, do you want trade to be a major part or minor part of income, etc.
This will subset into other goals like how many turns should it take to fully upgrade a major settlement, replenishment rates, etc. Please let me know how I can help. If you are looking for any inspiration on how mods approach economic balance issues please look at Third Age Total War for ME2, Europa Barbarom 2 for ME2, and DEI for Rome 2.

EB2 and Radious (I'm tgoodenow on TW forums FYI so I know you've played radious cuz you made submods) shape the economies for many armies on the map for every faction including Humans while DEI and TATW restrict Humans at the beginning and make the campaign an uphill battle.

I made growth cost for new horde armies a lot less, and a few more horde things that should make them truly fast an agile on the campaign map. No more feeling like you have to wait 5 turns with your horde in one place all the time.

Lore wise, spearmen, halberdiers, and swordsmen were made up of the same soldiers, except perhaps that swordsmen were a tad more elite.

Halberdiers are the bread and butter empire unit, but spearmen are not some cheap throwaway meatshield.

I agree that the base damage of spears should be less than swords, to reflect their bonus vs large, but remember I also put a bonus in there for swordsmen getting +5 damage vs infantry. So I think they are pretty good right now.


HOWEVER, for VC, I think you are right. I feel like the undead armies are sorely lacking right now. I will do my best to fix this the best I can. Grave guard should probably get a serious damage buff, actually. Skeletons just need to be more all-round OK and less... underwhelming and crappy. But maybe I can buff them a bit to make them suck less. I feel like crumbling happens way too quickly and "fear" is underpowered.

Both should be adjusted as well. VC are probably the hardest faction in-battles to balance, because so much comes down to magic.

However I wonder if the new corpse cart and mortis engine will breath new life into the VC roster, by being able to buff undead infantry and keep them in the fight

I haven't tried the new dlc units yet, but i do have them, cause I'm not sure if i should try them in vanilla or with your mods which haven't been updated to include those so i wouldn't be able to get a measure of how they performed. And as i said in the previous post, i know nothing of the lore so if i make a suggestion that although works historically is against the lore, then obviously don't do my suggestion.

For the skeleton units (warriors/spearmen) they really should be weak, should not be able to take on a swordsmen group without magic support, but i do agree that crumbling happens way to fast for all VC units excluding hero/lords and the truly top tier units (blood knight/black coach). I have an idea change it but sense I'm no modder i don't know if it is possible. My idea is to have the VC lords/heroes have a much higher influence on undead leadership, by this i mean as long as the general/heroes unit is alive undead units will maintain a high leadership number. This is because undead don't actually have leadership but dark magic maintaining their forms, and the one supplying that dark magic, or at least manipulating it, are the lords/heroes. Therefore as long the the 'puppet master' so to speak is alive his undead minions will keep going. This will put more of a focus on killing the VC general instead of trying to kill off each unit. And because vampire are strong melee combatants as well as accomplished spell casters they are very hard to kill, before they get mounts. Now if someone has a master necromancer as a general then they will be easier to kill cause they are poor melee, but if one uses the magic right the enemy wont get close, and eventually they get flying mounts so then they only need to worry about missile/magic/flying units cause melee wont touch them.

As for fear mechanics of course it should lower enemy leadership, but maybe it could also lower attack speed/strength to represent that the enemy is scared and want to hide behind their shield more. Also by doing this undead stats don't need to be buffed much cause the enemy wont be doing as much dmg.

As for a more universal leadership control, ive noticed that leadership tends to just go down at a stead pace while untis are in cambat, and to a degree this makes sense. What doesnt make sense is when you have a unit of blood knights slaughtering hundreds of ppl and yet their leadership is still going down, if they are doing that good, if they are in combat situations where they are 'winning decisively' their leadership should be going up, to represent their growing courage/arrogance in the heat of battle. But the opposite will happen if they are losing their engagement, and if they are just standing around waiting for the order to charge then their leadership shouldn't be affected at all unless a general has died, enemy=higher leadership, friendly=less. And their leadership should return to starting values if they leave combat for a few minutes.

An idea for province growth, make it lower, cause in everyone of my VC play-throughs by turn 50-70 I have grown all of Sylvania to max pop and am making high tier armies, but when i play as horde factions, i feel it take way to long to upgrade my horde, much less maintain it, when i can finally get high tier units. I want to be using lower tier units for longer, to actually have a point to them other than starting army.

One last thing, for the empire cause they have a spearmen units and a spearmen unit with shields, just make sure that the shield one has higher defense, they got a shield after all, but lower attack cause they are using the spear one handed now instead of in both.

Horde growth has been tripled or maybe even quadrupled

The RoR are NOT rebalanced yet and have some major issues. I will fix tonight.

I took your advice though, and re-examined the spear/sword balance. Spears do less base damage now.

Also, I buffed skeleton warrior damage, and also massively buffed grave guard who deserved it.

So if you wanna test out the undead now, and the empire infantry stats, then go ahead!

Just don't judge me that the RoR units are messed up for now

I think I can revamp fear and crumbling later, but you are right. Idk why the undead units start crumbling even when they are winning combat. Makes no sense.

But I also removed the stupid regen cap that CA added.

I also buffed invokation a bit too, and the vampire augment spells

Sorry but what RoR?

Regiments of Renown (RoR). Or basically, the new dlc units. I haven't revamped flagellants either yet