CONCEPT: NO MORE PLOT ARMOR

I have been playing Bannerlord (and Warband) for a very long time now, and like many I have struggled with the endless mid- to end-game slog. Part of the issue is that:
1) There are too many damn nobles and endless parties to whack-a-mole
2) The stakes of battle are low once you have 5000 Fian Champions and many lords in your kingdom.

I have wondered if the simple solution could be to increase the Death Rate of all heroes dramatically.



WHAT THE MOD DOES

It appears all Heroes have a fixed 50x higher battle survival chance than the average grunt.
I have reduced that significantly. 

The "Battle Death Chance" calculation has the following factors:
- Difficulty settings
- Damage type
- Medical skill
- Doctor's Oath perk
- Physician of the People perk
- Cheat Death perk
- Armor
- Age
- Fudge factor    <--- this mod only touches this!

So even with this mod, not all Heroes have the same death chance! There are more factors.

You will notice many more battle deaths of:
- PLAYER character
- ALL Lords and Ladies
- ALL Companions

This applies to BOTH battles in which you participate AND battles between AI factions!
This mod does not affect deaths due to old age or child birth.



GAME IMPACT

Check out this LP featuring the mod by ReformistTM!



So far in my testing (3x version), I have found the following impacts on the campaign:

- Very small clans will get wiped out, at a rate of about one clan every 2 years.
Note that children are... uh... removed when all the adults of a clan die.

- Rebel clans have new importance. In one test game a Marunath Rebel became King of Battania.
Rebels will be absorbed into kingdoms and contribute to the gene pool.

- Mercenaries in the form of Minor Clans become more important as time goes on. Minor Clans are hard-coded to maintain 4 to 5 characters, which means unless they get nuked in one battle they will be around forever. As noble houses weaken, Mercenaries will be key to winning wars.

- Wars are much more dynamic. I have seen Vlandia conquer a big chunk of Aserai before being violently pushed back.
So far I have not seen a faction steamroll the rest. It seems the AI diplomacy system somewhat stabilizes despite the deaths.

- Empires rise and fall. After ~50 years in-game I have noticed some empires chill out a bit when many of their lords have died. They become aggressive again as nobles come of age.

- Companions are valuable. I have to say TW's decision to "hide" characters in 1.1.0 is unfortunate timing, but you can make use of innkeepers for tips. Or use console commands to reveal characters.

- Medicine becomes an S-tier skill tree. Praise Jeremus.

- Sieges are extra deadly / frustrating due to lack of control over some companions. Pick your battles wisely.

- Surrender is a viable option if you are caught in a losing position. Companions will likely survive.

- Spouses might not belong on the frontline after all...

- The AI is still dumb as a brick! Some deaths will be frustrating.
I am hoping to find some good companion mods in the future to enhance the experience.



INSTALLATION

As of version 2.0 this is now a proper mod - install like any other!
Requires Harmony.



CONFIGURATION

As of Version 3.0 you can now tweak the death rate!
1. Go to the mod directory  ...\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules\DeathForAll
2. Open DeathRateConfig.xml
3. Tweak the ModdedFactor value. A lower number means less bonus to heroes -> less likely to survive getting KO. 
4. Save the xml.
5. Launch the game with mod enabled; you should see a message on startup with the configured value.



COMPATIBILITY 

For Bannerlord version v1.2.7
Check Old Files section for BL v.1.1.x
Save-Game Compatible - can be toggled on/off

Not compatible with:
- King Slayer (might be redundant, similar to this mod)
- Mods that mess with healing, medicine perks effects, and  death rate.
- To be precise mods that mess with  GetSurvivalChance()
- Campaigns with Birth and Death disabled, obviously.

Compatible and * Recommended mods
* I Don't Care - reduces message log spam so you don't miss important deaths
* Surrender Tweaks - for some degree of AI self-preservation
* Unlanded Clans - expands the gene pool, useful if death rate is further increased
- Drastic Battle 
- Banner Kings
- Realistic Battle Mod
- Diplomacy



UNDER THE HOOD / DO IT YOURSELF

I followed a nice pointer by u/devnbp on Reddit.

This mod affects one single arithmetic operator in the method GetSurvivalChance(). That method has a bunch of inputs and some pretty obscure math. 
GetSurvivalChance() is used by a fairly straightforward chain of methods centered around battle result calculations.

If you want to edit things yourself, you can mess with the libraries in your game files:

1) Get dnSpy
2) Go to Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\bin\Win64_Shipping_Client
3) Backup the file TaleWorlds.CampaignSystem.dll 
4) Open TaleWorlds.CampaignSystem.dll in the directory using dnSpy

The file you are looking for is:
> TaleWorlds.CampaignSystem.GameComponents
> DefaultPartyHealingModel
> GetSurvivalChance
See screenshots for the exact value I changed: explainedNumber.AddFactor(50f, null);
A lower number means less bonus to heroes -> less likely to survive getting KO. Recommended minimum is 1.

5) Recompile and play.



Keywords: death rate, kill lords, kill, death, mortality, Michael Crichton