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About this mod
Levy Captain is a thought experiment aimed at streamlining every faction's troop trees by removing extraneous steps while also emphasizing faction asymmetry. This is a total overhaul of the main faction troops, replacing the existing troop trees.
- Permissions and credits
Mount and Blade has always had a particular issue in its design: players are encouraged to build elite-heavy armies. Whether it is the Swadian Knights and Nord Huscarls of old or the new Imperial Palatine Guard and Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer/Lancer/Darkhan/Marksman, there is really not much use to players for the first two to three tiers of units except in the early game and as a stepping stone to end of the tree.
Levy Captain is therefore a thought experiment spawned from the setup of Bannerlord making it more conducive to do so: what if common troops had to remain common, and noble troops remain where the elite are found? No more armies of pure Swadian Knights or Rhodok Sharpshooters, but having to use the regulars.
To that end, this mod aims to limit how far the common troops can advance even with the patronage of their (power-gaming) warlord, to make armies built more around various levels of levies, irregulars, and semi-professionals rather than most players ending the game with an unending tide of elite units, and in turn makes the elite stand out as there are no longer as many common options to meet and counteract them. Ideally, the end result would be the bulk of armies being made up of T2->T3 units, T4 for factional strengths, and a more limited number of noble troops.
To that end, every main faction has had their tree entirely overhauled to be built around the idea of T3 units and a few T4 units of their faction’s strengths (such as Sturgian heavy foot or Vlandian shock cavalry). Noble trees have also been overhauled if needed to account for certain missing units, or adjusted via a minor truncation (such as Vlandian Gallants or Aserai Tribesmen no longer requiring a horse when they already have one)
Be aware that this is ultimately the realization of a thought experiment, and as such the game balance will be severely affected and there may be some factions that are now much stronger or weaker than they used to be. Further overhauls will follow depending on the results of the thought experiment.
The manual that comes in the files includes this overview and other technical notes, as well as write ups for each faction’s overhaul. These are a mixture of lore, headcanons, and just general notes that will hopefully illustrate the mindset behind the different units and how they are envisioned by design. The manual is purely optional, but it is there for you to read or not read as you see fit.
Also, I would like to thank VirtuallyIdiotic for his series of mods (including Imperial Reforms) which helped inspire this, as well as for helping me bounce ideas on the project as well as letting me use it as a base reference to make sure I had all I needed. Likewise, I would thank Mandemon for the feedback he provided on the unit trees and fluff.
Installation
To install:
Compatibility
This module will overwrite the Culture and Party Templates for the main factions and their primary hero parties (IE, lord armies). This means that modules that affect these two will conflict with Levy Captain. Mods that do not should remain compatible.
Regarding the use in current campaigns: because this is an overhaul mod, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to install this mid-campaign. Technically speaking it is possible to do so as the mod is additive rather than removing existing units, but this also means that any standard units in the game will be left in until naturally removed from play. No tests were done to see how this affects the balance, so do so at your own risk.
This also means that if future patches add further story events which spawn troops, the mod will still spawn the official units for that, which should help keep this mod from crashing games after a patch.
However, because this is an additive mod it also means that you CAN NOT remove the mod from a save file as this will create null errors from missing units. Once units have spawned by the module, the save file will be unable to function without it. Otherwise, it will crash due to not being able to find the units.
If you wish to edit the units yourself, you may do so by modifying the LC_Troops.xml file in Module Data with the text editor of your choice. As always, you do so at your own risk.
If you wish to mix other troop tree overhauls with this mod, it is recommended that you move the alternative mod below this one as this is a full scale overhaul that affects all factions. This should ensure that it is overridden by the other mod for the relevant sections. However, I have not tested this mod in conjunction with other unit tree mods as it was not intended to be mixed with other unit tree mods.
Levy Captain is therefore a thought experiment spawned from the setup of Bannerlord making it more conducive to do so: what if common troops had to remain common, and noble troops remain where the elite are found? No more armies of pure Swadian Knights or Rhodok Sharpshooters, but having to use the regulars.
To that end, this mod aims to limit how far the common troops can advance even with the patronage of their (power-gaming) warlord, to make armies built more around various levels of levies, irregulars, and semi-professionals rather than most players ending the game with an unending tide of elite units, and in turn makes the elite stand out as there are no longer as many common options to meet and counteract them. Ideally, the end result would be the bulk of armies being made up of T2->T3 units, T4 for factional strengths, and a more limited number of noble troops.
To that end, every main faction has had their tree entirely overhauled to be built around the idea of T3 units and a few T4 units of their faction’s strengths (such as Sturgian heavy foot or Vlandian shock cavalry). Noble trees have also been overhauled if needed to account for certain missing units, or adjusted via a minor truncation (such as Vlandian Gallants or Aserai Tribesmen no longer requiring a horse when they already have one)
Be aware that this is ultimately the realization of a thought experiment, and as such the game balance will be severely affected and there may be some factions that are now much stronger or weaker than they used to be. Further overhauls will follow depending on the results of the thought experiment.
The manual that comes in the files includes this overview and other technical notes, as well as write ups for each faction’s overhaul. These are a mixture of lore, headcanons, and just general notes that will hopefully illustrate the mindset behind the different units and how they are envisioned by design. The manual is purely optional, but it is there for you to read or not read as you see fit.
Also, I would like to thank VirtuallyIdiotic for his series of mods (including Imperial Reforms) which helped inspire this, as well as for helping me bounce ideas on the project as well as letting me use it as a base reference to make sure I had all I needed. Likewise, I would thank Mandemon for the feedback he provided on the unit trees and fluff.
Installation
To install:
- Download the module wherever you wish on your computer and unzip the file.
- Copy or move the folder Levy Captain into your Modules folder within Bannerlord (for Steam, this will be Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules), assuming you did not unzip it directly into the Modules folder.
- Enable Levy Captain in your mod launcher of choice. In the launcher, make sure it is below the native files.
- Launch the game and begin a new campaign of conquest and glory in Calradia!
Compatibility
This module will overwrite the Culture and Party Templates for the main factions and their primary hero parties (IE, lord armies). This means that modules that affect these two will conflict with Levy Captain. Mods that do not should remain compatible.
Regarding the use in current campaigns: because this is an overhaul mod, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to install this mid-campaign. Technically speaking it is possible to do so as the mod is additive rather than removing existing units, but this also means that any standard units in the game will be left in until naturally removed from play. No tests were done to see how this affects the balance, so do so at your own risk.
This also means that if future patches add further story events which spawn troops, the mod will still spawn the official units for that, which should help keep this mod from crashing games after a patch.
However, because this is an additive mod it also means that you CAN NOT remove the mod from a save file as this will create null errors from missing units. Once units have spawned by the module, the save file will be unable to function without it. Otherwise, it will crash due to not being able to find the units.
If you wish to edit the units yourself, you may do so by modifying the LC_Troops.xml file in Module Data with the text editor of your choice. As always, you do so at your own risk.
If you wish to mix other troop tree overhauls with this mod, it is recommended that you move the alternative mod below this one as this is a full scale overhaul that affects all factions. This should ensure that it is overridden by the other mod for the relevant sections. However, I have not tested this mod in conjunction with other unit tree mods as it was not intended to be mixed with other unit tree mods.