Total War: WARHAMMER III

Total War: WARHAMMER III

73 ratings
Less Lethal Autoresolve
2
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
campaign
Tags: mod
File Size
Posted
82.644 KB
12 May, 2023 @ 11:13am
1 Change Note ( view )

Subscribe to download
Less Lethal Autoresolve

Description
TL;DR: Autoresolve is less likely to kill units when the army isn't being wiped out. No other changes.

Do you hate how autoresolve will frequently kill units in your army, even in decisive victories? I DO. How much do I hate it? Enough to learn how to mod the game to change the behavior... So that's what I did. This is my first Total War mod and I wanted to share as I think many experience the same frustration. I have not extensively tested this, but the scope of changes is so narrow that my expectation is there will be no issues.

How it works: Two variables that go into the autoresolve are modified. One impacts how damaged a unit can be before autoresolve 'retreats' the unit, the other is for how damaged a unit can be before autoresolve kills it. This mod increases the range between these two values so that a unit is more likely to be pulled out of the fight without being destroyed.

Images:
1. Test battle with LLA, 'pyrrhic victory' but no units lost.
2. Test battle without LLA, 'close victory' but half the army is lost.
3. LLA variables, these are literally the only two things the mod changes.
4. Vanilla values for same variables.
5. Post-autoresolve results with LLA.
6. Post-autoresolve results without LLA.

FAQ

Q: Is this mod compatible with X?
A: I believe this mod is compatible with any version of the game and any other mod that doesn't change those two variables... And if a mod does change those variables then your autoresolve is already not behaving as vanilla, and regardless the first mod in the load order should take priority (i.e. soft conflict rather than causing crashes or whatnot). My friends and I have used the mod with SFO and a few other simple mods without issue.

Q: Does it work in multiplayer?
A: Yes, my friends and I frequently play co-op and we've used it together, just need everyone to have it installed per usual.

Q: Is the mod save-game compatible?
A: Yes - You can even enable this mod and load up old pre-battle quicksaves to see what the new results would be (that's how I tested it).

Q: How exactly does the autoresolve use these variables?
A: I wish I could tell you! Maybe the autoresolve algorithm details are laying around somewhere in the files exposed to modding but I haven't found them yet. To quote a famous developer, "It just works."

Q: How is this mod different from X mod which changes autoresolve?
A: This mod changes ONLY the two variables shown. These aren't the only things I'd like to change about the autoresolve behavior, but I think the specific behavior this mod targets is something nearly universally disliked. This mod is intended to be hyper lightweight rather than overhaul the autoresolve system.

Q: Does this mod change the overall battle outcome?
A: Generally it should not, but since the autoresolve is a bit of a black box it might. What I've observed is that generally while this mod reduces number of units killed in a battle, it does seem to more heavily damage units that do survive the fight. Because of this I think it's possible you might lose a fight with this mod where you would not have (but lost almost your whole army) without it. Do however note that the game does have autoresolve 'prediction inaccuracy' that this mod has not touched - This seems to only really come into play when there's a large difference in lord levels and the battle outcome is very close, but again black box.

Q: Does this change affect the AI army in the autoresolve?
A: I am fairly sure it does, but I expect the autoresolve to still generally delete the losing side as there are other variables that seem to control that behavior. If you autoresolve to lose on your side the AI will have fewer units deleted, but as above will generally have higher damage on the ones that do survive the fight.
14 Comments
charlesat7 28 Apr @ 12:00pm 
@Selnath That sounds plausible, I thought it was odd that such a conflict would occur but as I can't remember this happening to me outside of this scenario, couldn't explain how it would have happened without the mod causing it. Thanks for the explanation.
Selnath  [author] 16 Apr @ 1:52pm 
@charlesat7 There's no conflict with SFO (SFO doesn't touch the only variables this mod affects) and this mod does not affect what autoresolve shows you - As mentioned in the FAQ the game has inherent autoresolve prediction accuracy that can effectively cause the prediction to just be wrong, that's the only explanation I can think of for your experience. The prediction accuracy is poor when your lord is much lower level than the opposing lord, I don't know the exact behavior but my understanding is the army quality/size is not a factor, just the lords of each side.
charlesat7 13 Apr @ 7:59am 
just to add, I am using SFO so maybe that conflicts in this regard?
charlesat7 13 Apr @ 7:47am 
Seems to work fine early but I tried this with a mid-late game army and it didn't at all.
Without the mod I lost 4 ironguts.
With the mod I lost 1 irongut and 2 ogre cavalry. Which is weird but could be explained... the real issue is that it didn't tell me I'd lose the cavalry when I hovered autoresolve. It told me I'd only lose 1 irongut. That makes this mod unusable imo.
Lycia Pintella 6 Jun, 2023 @ 1:12pm 
Load order matters if, say, a submod relies on something being loaded before it is loaded (if I modify something about tier 4 minor cities I need to let the tier 4 minor city mod load first unless I add some extra stuff to the submod to allow it to work regardless of load order). Also, for things like reskins, the load order matters (apparently, I don't do reskins) so you would want a reskin of Mixu's LLS to load before Mixu's.

But for a table that changes base game values, you can load whenever. Most of my mod pack files start with z_ or zz_ to make them easy to sort in my data folder, but I can make them high priority or work as submods with an ! or !! in the beginning of the table name. Feel free to friendlist me if you wanna talk modding or stuff, here or discord. I'm Lycia Pintella#8769 on Discord.
Selnath  [author] 6 Jun, 2023 @ 11:34am 
If table name was what dictated priority wouldn't that mean that load order never matters? I thought for sure many mod authors have noted that load order was relevant for how mods interact.

Unrelated but more important: Vanilla is best girl.
Lycia Pintella 4 Jun, 2023 @ 7:02am 
If you want your targeted mod to be able to be used in conjunction with other, larger autoresolve mods, you could throw a few ! marks before Less_Lethal_Autoresolve_Table and your mod will take priority, regardless of load order. The table name, rather than overall mod load order, governs which values the game uses when there is a conflict.
Forlorn 26 May, 2023 @ 5:57am 
Mod is not out of date because there were no changes to AR in 3.1
Selnath  [author] 20 May, 2023 @ 12:19pm 
The intent of the mod is to reduce the number of units that are wiped out from battles, not to reduce casualties. I suppose the name could be taken to mean either but that's what the description/FAQ are there to clarify.
Lampros 20 May, 2023 @ 10:21am 
Thanks. So basically, the mod is for now out-of-date?