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Cataclysm - Battle Overhaul

Good day, thanks for stopping by.

The mod I present to you was created because I found that the battles were far too short and never had any time for real tactical thinking, or (in the case of Skaven) rushing to and fro rallying units and never actually enjoying the spectacle.

This mod aims to correct that.

Unlike other battle overhaul mods mine represents a complete overhaul of the core aspect of the battle system from pitched battles to sieges whilst keeping the essence of the game intact. The result are battles that will last 10-15 minutes on average for a 20v20 stack, climbing to about 18 or more for a 40v40 or large siege. So without further to do I shall outline the changes made.

UNITS:
I really wanted to give line units real staying power. Every unit in the game has had their overall health increased as so:

Infantry, Cavalry, artillery and monstrous infantry: 4x increase
Characters (including mounts) & named ROR monsters: 3x increase
Monsters: 2x increase

Attack delay has been dropped to 2 seconds to compensate for the large health pools across the board. This leads to a fast pace of combat with no standing around. the 2 second delay actually hits a sweet spot where it's roughly the length of time for the "stagger" animation to fully play out which gives a pleasing cut and thrust to the battle line, an intensity where the majority of the time a single unit will actually react to being hit by an axe! It also removes the tendency for regiments with extended health to not lose any men for a good five minutes; with this mod the casualty loss is constant and immediate but at a slower pace.

Another plus is that bodies are far more spread out across the field - no more will there be a thin wall of corpses winding down the middle! Another little perk (which was accidental but totally claiming it wasn't!) is that battle lines shift, I found through testing that it gave me a visual clue as to who is roughly winning the fight.

Morale has been increased by 5 points across the board and melee defence by 10 to add more staying power. Low morale units now stay in the fight for much longer, especially if they outnumber the foe. Affects Skaven directly (I got tired of chasing them around the map), however they will still flee if under pressure. Morale is directly tied to unit health and not numbers, therefore a near full strength regiment might well flee if their health drops below a threshold. there's not a lot that can be done about it, changing the kv_rules to men not hit points results in characters and monsters becoming unbreakable.

Fatigue levels have been increased and fatigue loss in combat dropped to compensate.

Attack strength remains the same which adds longevity. Monsters will do damage but they're no longer game changers; their main strength is the fear they cause but can be overwhelmed by a determined enemy.Even so they will average over 100 kills per test.

To aid cavalry-based armies (Bretonnians) charge damage has been doubled for all units.

To aid shooting armies (Wood Elves) attack damage and AP damage has been doubled to make them viable. Artillery now do a lot of damage but the number of engines remains the same. Spells and magic have also received the same treatment.

Characters have a much more supporting role and are effectively "glass cannons" as are monsters, they can turn a battle but are not pivotal to success.

Sync animation removed for skeletons (because it looked ridiculous) but added to a limited number of units from the following factions:

Empire
High Elves
Dark Elves
Wood Elves
Tomb kings
Stormvermin

These five factions are renowned for the discipline of their warriors so you'd think they'd know even basic drill!
Empire troops are professional soldiers, Elves in general like that sort of stuff (see opening cinematic), Tomb King infantry fought in phalanxes so coordination was required and Stormvermin - because they like to pretend they know what they're doing. Only added for spear or halberd units and a few others.

SIEGES:
Attempting to storm a settlement has become a much more dangerous undertaking. traditionally the attacking force had to outnumber the defenders by some margin, the same applies here. Walls and gates have had their health tripled and towers now do twice as much damage, however tower range has been halved. This means that reinforcements and artillery can sit out of range and bombard safely. Siege towers and battering rams have had a slight increase in health but WILL fall to sustained tower fire. During testing a level 4 city will destroy 4-5 out of 9 towers depending so prepare those siege ladders!

Capture time has been reduced by half and the actual units that can capture during a siege has been changed. Now ONLY INFANTRY AND CAVALRY (including chariots) can capture towers, gates and the city square. My reasoning was a single character could not hold a tower, gate or city on their own and monsters are either too stupid or feral to do anything so useful.

Overall the key is to enhance the experience for the player whilst trying to avoid making battle too long and tiresome, especially late game where you might have several battles or sieges to fight per turn. I hope I've achieved that.

META:
Bonuses for difficulty have been removed or applied to the player because frankly handicapping the player is cheating, not making the game more difficult.

COMPATIBILITY:

This mod only makes changes to battles so mods that change the campaign won't be affected.

It is not compatible with other battle mods.

As this is a battle mod it should be compatible with saves.

Latest update and all that. Additional DLC not necessary to enjoy this mod.

This mod only makes changes to the base game units so any mods that add additional units will be unaffected by the changes I've made. If there's suitable demand I shall make compatible versions with permission.

With regards to sieges I'm not sure what the result will be when this is used alongside mods that increase the size of garrisons. it's not a compatibility issue as such but may make sieges much harder.

FUTURE PLANS:
I have tried to make this as balanced as possible with the limited time I have but it's not guaranteed. I've tested nearly a hundred separate battles with different factions and army makeup but it's very difficult to make it perfect. The overall cost, upkeep and stats besides that outlined above remain unchanged or applied globally so it should be fine.

A vanilla mod for those who do not want the unit size increase.

Possibly more versions for popular overhauls.

I'm very much open to suggestions and changes.

Please note that Unit Sizes must be set to Ultra in the options.

Please leave ratings, it will help a great deal. Enjoy!

(As of 04/10/19 I've reduced unit size back down to vanilla. This will aid FPS and increase compatibility.)