Some basic ideas:
1. IMO there should be a big difference in power between the first and second invasion. If the first one is a mid-game event, then it shouldn't be apocalyptic at all. The second one should be very powerful.
2. Doom Tide (respawning armies) event is one of the most annoying and grindy elements of the Chaos Invasion. IMO it should either be toned down or removed entirely. Instead of respawning armies over and over again, maybe just have 1 respawn and if the first invasion is defeated, Archaon will appear earlier to takecare of thinge. The second invasion should have no respawns at all.
3. MCT Reborn support would be excellent. The player would be able to customize the experience.

Originally posted by cybvep:

Some basic ideas:
1. IMO there should be a big difference in power between the first and second invasion. If the first one is a mid-game event, then it shouldn't be apocalyptic at all. The second one should be very powerful.
2. Doom Tide (respawning armies) event is one of the most annoying and grindy elements of the Chaos Invasion. IMO it should either be toned down or removed entirely. Instead of respawning armies over and over again, maybe just have 1 respawn and if the first invasion is defeated, Archaon will appear earlier to takecare of thinge. The second invasion should have no respawns at all.
3. MCT Reborn support would be excellent. The player would be able to customize the experience.

Thanks for the feedback! I am looking into the MCT as it is a great tool and that is an excellent idea going forwards. Doom Tide, personally I like it lol, but I agree it can be a forceful/grindy experience at times/and obviously a big preference thing, so I will look into editing it as well within the script and for sure including that as an option within the MCT once I get that going :D

Originally posted by cybvep:

Some basic ideas:
1. IMO there should be a big difference in power between the first and second invasion. If the first one is a mid-game event, then it shouldn't be apocalyptic at all. The second one should be very powerful.

Here give this a shot/look, may be more what you are looking for/was thinking about what you said today and yeah like Doom Tide is cool feature, yadda yadda, but just idea of one final, omfg, wave comes out of nowhere is cool/a lot more fitting with existing fluff.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2253006298

Wow, that was quick, man. Great stuff, I will definitely give this a go in my next campaign.

BTW how impactful is the lack of Chaos Dwarf and Beastmen mods?

Chaos LLs - Archaon, Kholek and Sigvald - can have thematic semi-doomstacks, I think in their case it's appropriate. Nobody will complain if Archaon has an army full of elite units (unless it's all just 1 unit type - that's just boring). It's Archaon, after all. As for the rest, I think that variety is important. Some mobile cavalry/chariot-heavy armies, some monster-heavy armies, some "classic" armies (infantry, cavalry and artillery, no monsters) etc. Not every army should have Hellcannons. Not every army should have Chosen. Not every army should have Chaos Knights. Not every army should have Dragon Ogres. You get the idea.

The problem in Vanilla and in many Chaos mods as well is that you are fighting similar armies over and over again. Samey unit compositions, high number of armies and respawns all contribute to the problem (if you have to do that 30 times instead of 10, then it gets worse). That's why I find all these super Chaos Invasion mods pointless- it's a grind, I just want to be done with it. The submod you made may be fun because all the armies will be on the map and it will be clear what you have to do in order to win. There is nothing worse than beating several Chaos armies in a row (including Archaon) only for them to reappear in full strength.

Originally posted by cybvep:

Wow, that was quick, man. Great stuff, I will definitely give this a go in my next campaign.

BTW how impactful is the lack of Chaos Dwarf and Beastmen mods?

Chaos LLs - Archaon, Kholek and Sigvald - can have thematic semi-doomstacks, I think in their case it's appropriate. Nobody will complain if Archaon has an army full of elite units (unless it's all just 1 unit type - that's just boring). It's Archaon, after all. As for the rest, I think that variety is important. Some mobile cavalry/chariot-heavy armies, some monster-heavy armies, some "classic" armies (infantry, cavalry and artillery, no monsters) etc. Not every army should have Hellcannons. Not every army should have Chosen. Not every army should have Chaos Knights. Not every army should have Dragon Ogres. You get the idea.

The problem in Vanilla and in many Chaos mods as well is that you are fighting similar armies over and over again. Samey unit compositions, high number of armies and respawns all contribute to the problem (if you have to do that 30 times instead of 10, then it gets worse). That's why I find all these super Chaos Invasion mods pointless- it's a grind, I just want to be done with it. The submod you made may be fun because all the armies will be on the map and it will be clear what you have to do in order to win. There is nothing worse than beating several Chaos armies in a row (including Archaon) only for them to reappear in full strength.

All those mods, from what I saw in my test, will reduce is the number of lord types(nothing I did but the Chaos Dwarf mod just adds them to faction pool I think), and unfort you will see armies with reduced total unit numbers when they spawn, ie 16/20, now this may also just be due to me testing from a save which always had them enabled, it was after all a stability test I did by just yanking them, a fresh campaign without them ever present may not suffer from this issue at all, but I'm not sure. In future/with MCT could be possible just have option to disable one and/or all 'sub mod units' based on preference or compatibility issues.

Now thing with Archie, and LL lords, I'll have go through script once more to certain here but way I understand it, or at least have it, the game spawns not only Archie's Boys, but all the vanilla additional vortex factions, if remember, from same list in army gen part of script.

Long term goal is to rework at least Archie(have plans include something with Crom too), and add Chaos Dwarves as unique "factions" ie, so I can tweak their loads seperate from main factions where they are kinda hundled together. By using the challenger factions from Norsca the script is able to create sep entries I can customize, but I'll have to do some more leg work to make the entries for afore mentioned groups because yes, actually just having long chat with my very, very pro chaos, ex TT friend and he had very similar ideas for where could go with this mod/even simple idea of customized horde armies right. Other thing as well to bear in mind way mod is worked out is each diff has sep num hordes spawns, so getting tiresome can always save scrub to easy, spawn fewer hordes, bump up to previous diff. Again, something for MCT, but easy as killswitch is work around for now.

Other mod may as well take some working, and I'll try to take some time soon to test out straight up cutting out, or someone disabling doom tide in script, way it was worded and from a few tests with some weird script breaks, decided to just try 1 or fewer and go from there until more time to monkey around with it, should be pretty rare though with extra factions now.

My ideas for customized Chaos LL army spawns:

1. Archaon: Chosen and Daemons (all of them fit, he is the Everchosen), Chaos Knights (both variants - they actually serve different roles), Giants and Dragon Ogre Shaggots (against single entities - otherwise he will not have enough punch against them), Hellcannons (for sieges and crowd-clearing). He could start with 1 Exalted Hero as well. No need for Sorcerers, he is good enough. Make sure that he starts with high level horde buildings of all kinds so he can replace losses when neccesary with various units.
2. Kholek: full monster mash with Dragon Ogres, Dragon Ogre Shaggots, Trolls and Chaos Spawn, giving a nice mix of anti-large, anti-infantry and unbreakable. Giants are too slow for such an army, so can be ignored. Chaos Warhounds and/or Marauder Horsemasters can be added for anti-skirmish and anti-artillery purposes. He should start with at least 1 Sorcerer. No Hellcannons. Make sure that he spawns with monster buildings so he will be able to replace losses.
3: Sigvald: Daemonettes as core unit (he is pro-Slaneesh after all) supported by Gorebeast Chariots, Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes)/Horsemasters, Dragon Ogres and Hellcannons. This will give him a fast and hard-hitting army with plenty of firepower as well. He can have sth like 3-4 heroes as well to give him the champion's army theme. Make sure he starts with buildings which allow Chariot, Hellcannon and Daemon recruitment so he can replace losses.
4. Saarthoral: Daemons of all kinds (as a Tzeentchian manipulator, he enlisted them all and will lead them to death), 2 Sorcerers (heavy magic focus) and all kinds of random ♥♥♥♥. Everything will fit. If you say WTF when looking at his army, then mission accomplished. Can start with random buildings as well.

Thanks for taking time to think that/type that out. Great ideas, and I'll deff use this as notes when I'm working on them, in theory this shouldn't be hard to implement just take some leg work parsing out extra factions in script for them to occupy.

Started working on getting MCT working too, focus on that right now just to consolidate current versions of mod(getting grasp of it too I feel, so look for that update potentially soon too) but be good idea where to look next in refining this concept. If were lucky too, for Saar's maybe see new pink/blue horrors unit on workshop from our friends with other ones by then.

It's good that you made the MCT support a priority. Mod customisation is da best.

I have some ideas for making generic Chaos armies interesting as well. There should be a few spawned army templates with different ratios of infantry/cavalry&chariots/monsters/skirmishers/artillery, with some of them having 0% in one or more categories. Therefore, the player will face armies which are varied both in unit composition and overall focus. In Vanilla you end up fighting very similar armies which also respawn due to freaking Doom Tide, which quickly leads to boredom. I swear that the only noticeable "variation" in Vanilla's armies is the number of Hellcannons.

Here are some specific suggestions for spawned army templates:
1. Classic Total War army: 50% infantry, 30% cavalry&chariots, 0% monsters, 10% skirmishers, 10% artillery.
2. Attila army: 0% infantry, 50% cavalry&chariots, 0% monsters, 50% skirmishers, 0% artillery.
3. Monstrous horde: 25% infantry, 0% cavalry&chariots, 60% monsters, 15% skirmishers, 0% artillery.
4. Boom army: 50% infantry, 10% cavalry&chariots, 10% monsters, 0% skirmishers, 30% artillery.
5. Chaos masters army: 40% infantry, 15% cavalry&chariots, 30% monsters, 0% skirmishers, 15% artillery.
6. Heavy metal army: 70% infantry, 10% cavalry&chariots, 10% monsters, 0% skirmishers, 10% artillery.
7. Rush army: 0% infantry, 40% cavalry&chariots, 40% monsters, 20% skirmishers, 0% artillery.

Obviously, the AI will replace their losses by building different units (not necessarily corresponding with the spawned template), which will increase the variation even further.

With something like this implemented, fighting Chaos armies should be a fun experience IMO. The player will be encouraged to try out different tactics depending on the type of the enemy's army. Some of them will be much harder to destroy than the rest, depending on what the player likes to use in their own armies. This is much more interesting than samey stuff that we have to fight in Vanilla.

BTW turn 170 timeout is super late for Archaon IMO. This means that with timeout values the first invasion lasts for more than 50 turns. Few of my campaigns last more than 150 turns in total, so it's an exaggeration IMO. Timeout should be at sth like 145. It still gives 30 turns for the first invasion with timeout values and it's just spawn time. The Chaos armies will still take a few turns to actually reach their targets. IMO one of the problems with many Chaos mods is that you need to wait too long for Archaon to show up, so I just wanted to share my thoughts here. This will be moot if you can customize the Invasion with MCT, but it's not implemented yet :).

Originally posted by cybvep:

BTW turn 170 timeout is super late for Archaon IMO. This means that with timeout values the first invasion lasts for more than 50 turns. Few of my campaigns last more than 150 turns in total, so it's an exaggeration IMO. Timeout should be at sth like 145. It still gives 30 turns for the first invasion with timeout values and it's just spawn time. The Chaos armies will still take a few turns to actually reach their targets. IMO one of the problems with many Chaos mods is that you need to wait too long for Archaon to show up, so I just wanted to share my thoughts here. This will be moot if you can customize the Invasion with MCT, but it's not implemented yet :).

eh, new vanilla values after update are between 140-160 *shrugs* can't be only one having typical campaigns last well past 150 tuns.

Nice to see you alive. Any luck implementing spawned army templates?