Check it out on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891413076
IMPORTANT: I'm wrapping up my PhD thesis and defense for the end of the year, so my bandwidth will continue to be low for the next couple months. I'm sorry if updating DS isn't my highest priority, but I fully plan to keep it updated once I'm finished. Thanks for your patience, and I'm sorry if it's inconvenient to your playthroughs.
Latest Update:
Version 5.1.0 has added a select_skills_randomly parameter to Settings.xml, which selects the initial promotion skill bonuses for you. For those of you staying in manual, the number of skill selection rounds can be tweaked with the number_of_skill_rounds parameter. The "previously a ..." bug has also been smashed. The Harmony logging file has also been removed. I have also recompiled 5.1.0 for game version 1.6.0 (and all versions that share compatibility) - for those of you who prefer the classic versions.
Mod version 5.0.0 re-introduces ai-generated companions. The culling system has been fixed - the problem arose because defeated companions were being captured, which placed them technically in the victorious party (despite being in the prisoner roster). I have expanded the scope of the checks, so they're now properly cleared! Additionally, there is a cap on the number of ai-generated companions allowed per party. This can be adjusted, but remember that they all should die when their lord is defeated... Raw deal. Finally, the biggest update - you can now try to poach companions from defeated enemies! Currently the probability of success depends on their traits, however the system can be expanded significantly in the future, if warranted. This presents a great way to potentially flesh out your early army, before you have enough top-tier troops of your own to qualify for a promotion!
Mod version 4.8.0 rebalances this system - each excess kill before promotion (above the threshold number) grants the new hero a certain number of extra skill points to each assignment. Default values have been adjusted with this in mind. You can also use an external namelist to make your new companions use your friends' names, enemies' names, twitch chat's names, or any random assortment of characters that you want. This is an opt-in setting, and if the namelist is empty (or doesn't exist), the absolute worst that will happen is that you get the default behaviour. Because I care about error handling. (Yes, this is a bit streamer-baity, but half the fun of XCOM was naming the troops after your friends and trying not to get them killed immediately) (also, it appears I accidentally left the setting toggled "on" for the latest published version - however the namelist is empty, so it won't actually do anything)
Mod version 4.7.0 launched with a major adjustment to the companion uplift skills system. They are now all manually selected by the player, who can set primary (3, +100 default), secondary (4, +50), and tertiary (6, +25) skills for their new companion. This fully replaces the very old random-assignment system (which had been augmented by the initial player select system).
Notes to Users:
THE BUG WHERE COMPANIONS CAN BE STOLEN FROM THEIR GOVERNOR/TOWN POSITIONS IS DUE TO THE "SERVE AS SOLDIER" MOD, WHICH DOES NOT CHECK FOR WHETHER THE WANDERER BELONGS TO THE PLAYER'S CLAN.
Bugs related to units from other mods may be marked "not a bug". This is because many modded units (including but not limited to custom units) do not have all the requirements for hero character objects. This can include lacking civilian armour/equipment sets, or in the case of custom units, invalid/null character objects. You can request specific compatibility for specific mods, but if it's a PITA, then don't hold out hope.
If you have a question about parameters and/or effects, they are likely answered in the description...
Known Issues:
Currently (23/1/2022, game version 1.7.0) various harmony-based adjustments don't work on re-loaded games (loading after having previously started a game). This doesn't seem to be fixable on my end, but thankfully the only harmony-based adjustment used in this mod changes the companion limit, which is ignored by my system anyway.
For those who want their custom/modded units to be compatible with DS:
DO: Include a civilian equipment template. I have added error handling for cases where civ equipment isn't present, but like all exception-handling it might cause something bad to happen.
DO: Have wanderer templates for custom cultures in your mod (is_template="true", and occupation="Wanderer")! DS prefers to take templates that match the uplifted CharacterObject's culture, but if none exists it will select randomly from all available.
DO: Make sure your custom unit has a valid CharacterObject. If you somehow sidestep having a CharacterObject, then the uplifting won't function.
DO: Feel free to give your custom CharacterObject flavourful skill distributions. While DS expressly allows players to provide up to a 175 skill point bonus (assigning primary, secondary, and tertiary bonuses) to specific skills, this won't necessarily lead to a well-rounded hero. Flavourful distributions provide a nice base to build off of.
DO: If you're making units with custom cultures and want them to be able to go from companions to lords in the future, add a CombatantCivilianEquipmentDefaultTemplate and a MediumNobleEquipmentTemplate definition to your mod, under the new culture you're adding. The game checks specifically for those sets, and will crash if it can't find them to equip on the new lord.
The example for this is in sandboxcore_equipment_sets.xml: ?<EquipmentRoster id="emp_bat_template_medium" culture="Culture.empire"> <EquipmentSet> <Equipment slot="Item0" id="Item.empire_mace_4_t5" /> <Equipment slot="Item1" id="Item.chivalric_kite_shield" /> <Equipment slot="Head" id="Item.ironlame_feathered_spangenhelm" /> <Equipment slot="Body" id="Item.lamellar_with_scale_skirt" /> <Equipment slot="Leg" id="Item.decorated_imperial_boots" /> <Equipment slot="Gloves" id="Item.plated_strip_gauntlets" /> <Equipment slot="Horse" id="Item.noble_horse_imperial" /> <Equipment slot="HorseHarness" id="Item.imperial_scale_barding" /> </EquipmentSet> ? <Flags IsEquipmentTemplate="true" IsNobleTemplate="true" IsMediumTemplate="true" /> </EquipmentRoster> Where the "Flags" tag indicates that this is both Noble, and medium, making it qualify.
For the Combatant Civilian set: ?<EquipmentRoster id="emp_civ_template_default" culture="Culture.empire"> ? <EquipmentSet civilian="true"> <Equipment slot="Item0" id="Item.empire_noble_sword_3_t5" /> <Equipment slot="Body" id="Item.fine_town_tunic" /> ? <Equipment slot="Cape" id="Item.scarf" /> <Equipment slot="Leg" id="Item.folded_town_boots" /> <Equipment slot="Horse" id="Item.noble_horse_imperial" /> <Equipment slot="HorseHarness" id="Item.light_harness" /> </EquipmentSet> <Flags IsEquipmentTemplate="true" IsCivilianTemplate="true" IsCombatantTemplate="true" /> </EquipmentRoster> ?We can see that the flags indicate that this is a civilian template for combatants. Things like looters, criminals, etc lacking these templates is a base game shortcoming, ameliorated by the fact that looters/etc always level up to a standard culture that has these templates defined. If your mod creates end-game units, or companions that have a non-standard culture you need to add these templates, otherwise the game will crash when you try to turn them into a lord, regardless of whether the hero was generated by Distinguished Service or not!
Additional notes with regards to Serve As Soldier compatibility:
SaS includes multiple additional functions, including Harmony patches for wanderer XP gain, AI training events, etc, that interface... in interesting ways with Distinguished Service. If you have both mods, and find XP gains are weird, that units are being poached, or that there's a flood of wanderers in towns, reporting a bug on the DS bugs page will do absolutely nothing. The SaS modder is great, has done great work, and I'm sure they're working to resolve these issues, but in the meantime, please stay patient and understand that with so many different moving parts, mod interactions are unavoidable and sometimes lead to funny, unexpected behaviour.
Additional notes with regards to Leveling Rebalance compatibility:
So after diving through the LR binaries, I have come to the conclusion that implementing an XP fix for generated companions when this specific mod is used is unfeasible. It's possible, don't get me wrong, but LR has decided to use the absolute least friendly method possible to change levelling XP values, which means I'd need to implement specific methods to adjust the values I feed in to their Harmony transpiler'd injections, which is way too much trouble to go to when they should have just adjusted the specific table of values in the game model that is already referenced by DS to calculate the correct amount of XP to award to new heros. This means that if you're using the two mods together, you'll end up with weird stat values sometimes (particularly on the higher end, when the base game's exponential curve will massively oversaturate LR's linear). Learn to live with it, unless LR changes up their method to be more compatible with the game.
Love the mod! Do you think you'll eventually integrate MCM or Modlib? It would make it easier as the settings file won't need to be adjusted after the updates :).
EDIT: Thanks for the reply! Your concern is certainly understandable as when Modlib updated the last time a lot of depended mods broke for a while.
I don't want to introduce dependencies that could lead to incompatibility that I have no way to fix. That sort of issue is a well-known problem that drives programmers absolutely insane, and if MCM or Modlib changes their API with no backwards compatibility (there can easily be good reasons to do so, not least of which is that backwards compatibility is very hard to pull off properly - I mean, look at Windows' attempts at supporting legacy software) then it's on me to completely overhaul my mod to function with the new framework.
I'm sorry if that's disappointing, but the HeroesMustDie mod author has been driven to completely drop work on his great mod for the forseeable future because MCM broke.
To quote Cheyron, "i wish i had never added those options menu".
(stickied in case other people are wondering why I don't incorporate MCM or Modlib)
All battles or just in the tutorial? I crashed after first battle in a new game but i'll test further. There an aternative - 'Mav's expand your clan' which works and allows you to manually promote troops.
its more about the immersion.. that's where the "cheating" feeling comes from, you're able to do something that other characters can't, and its not like there's a lore reason to it as well like in Skyrim or something, you're supposed to be just some dude.
This mod has not worked for me so far. I tried with my current load order to slide it in where I thought best and it crashed right after a battle with troops under my command... I assume right when the recruitment popup window would occur. I disabled every other mod except the necessities and the crash happened every time at the same point. What file do I need to download? Is there a patch? I hope to get a reply because I am really looking forward to running this mod!
maybe i am just noob but i dont get how it can be compatible with game version 1.6.0 etc while game is only published up to 1.2.9-1.3 versions so please fix my confusion , si that working with 1.2.x ?
e1.6.0 was a early access version : https://www.taleworlds.com/en/News/465 A lot of people forgot to add the 'e' prefix, because no one expected TW to restart from 1.0.0 later...
1706 comments
Check it out on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891413076
IMPORTANT:
I'm wrapping up my PhD thesis and defense for the end of the year, so my bandwidth will continue to be low for the next couple months. I'm sorry if updating DS isn't my highest priority, but I fully plan to keep it updated once I'm finished. Thanks for your patience, and I'm sorry if it's inconvenient to your playthroughs.
Latest Update:
Version 5.1.0 has added a select_skills_randomly parameter to Settings.xml, which selects the initial promotion skill bonuses for you. For those of you staying in manual, the number of skill selection rounds can be tweaked with the number_of_skill_rounds parameter. The "previously a ..." bug has also been smashed. The Harmony logging file has also been removed.
I have also recompiled 5.1.0 for game version 1.6.0 (and all versions that share compatibility) - for those of you who prefer the classic versions.
Mod version 5.0.0 re-introduces ai-generated companions. The culling system has been fixed - the problem arose because defeated companions were being captured, which placed them technically in the victorious party (despite being in the prisoner roster). I have expanded the scope of the checks, so they're now properly cleared! Additionally, there is a cap on the number of ai-generated companions allowed per party. This can be adjusted, but remember that they all should die when their lord is defeated... Raw deal.
Finally, the biggest update - you can now try to poach companions from defeated enemies! Currently the probability of success depends on their traits, however the system can be expanded significantly in the future, if warranted. This presents a great way to potentially flesh out your early army, before you have enough top-tier troops of your own to qualify for a promotion!
Mod version 4.8.0 rebalances this system - each excess kill before promotion (above the threshold number) grants the new hero a certain number of extra skill points to each assignment. Default values have been adjusted with this in mind.
You can also use an external namelist to make your new companions use your friends' names, enemies' names, twitch chat's names, or any random assortment of characters that you want. This is an opt-in setting, and if the namelist is empty (or doesn't exist), the absolute worst that will happen is that you get the default behaviour. Because I care about error handling.
(Yes, this is a bit streamer-baity, but half the fun of XCOM was naming the troops after your friends and trying not to get them killed immediately)
(also, it appears I accidentally left the setting toggled "on" for the latest published version - however the namelist is empty, so it won't actually do anything)
Mod version 4.7.0 launched with a major adjustment to the companion uplift skills system. They are now all manually selected by the player, who can set primary (3, +100 default), secondary (4, +50), and tertiary (6, +25) skills for their new companion. This fully replaces the very old random-assignment system (which had been augmented by the initial player select system).
Notes to Users:
Known Issues:
- DO: Include a civilian equipment template. I have added error handling for cases where civ equipment isn't present, but like all exception-handling it might cause something bad to happen.
- DO: Have wanderer templates for custom cultures in your mod (is_template="true", and occupation="Wanderer")! DS prefers to take templates that match the uplifted CharacterObject's culture, but if none exists it will select randomly from all available.
- DO: Make sure your custom unit has a valid CharacterObject. If you somehow sidestep having a CharacterObject, then the uplifting won't function.
- DO: Feel free to give your custom CharacterObject flavourful skill distributions. While DS expressly allows players to provide up to a 175 skill point bonus (assigning primary, secondary, and tertiary bonuses) to specific skills, this won't necessarily lead to a well-rounded hero. Flavourful distributions provide a nice base to build off of.
- DO: If you're making units with custom cultures and want them to be able to go from companions to lords in the future, add a CombatantCivilianEquipmentDefaultTemplate and a MediumNobleEquipmentTemplate definition to your mod, under the new culture you're adding. The game checks specifically for those sets, and will crash if it can't find them to equip on the new lord.
The example for this is in sandboxcore_equipment_sets.xml:?<EquipmentRoster id="emp_bat_template_medium"
Where the "Flags" tag indicates that this is both Noble, and medium, making it qualify.culture="Culture.empire">
<EquipmentSet>
<Equipment slot="Item0"
id="Item.empire_mace_4_t5" />
<Equipment slot="Item1"
id="Item.chivalric_kite_shield" />
<Equipment slot="Head"
id="Item.ironlame_feathered_spangenhelm" />
<Equipment slot="Body"
id="Item.lamellar_with_scale_skirt" />
<Equipment slot="Leg"
id="Item.decorated_imperial_boots" />
<Equipment slot="Gloves"
id="Item.plated_strip_gauntlets" />
<Equipment slot="Horse"
id="Item.noble_horse_imperial" />
<Equipment slot="HorseHarness"
id="Item.imperial_scale_barding" />
</EquipmentSet>
? <Flags IsEquipmentTemplate="true"
IsNobleTemplate="true"
IsMediumTemplate="true" />
</EquipmentRoster>
For the Combatant Civilian set:
?<EquipmentRoster id="emp_civ_template_default"
?We can see that the flags indicate that this is a civilian template for combatants.culture="Culture.empire">
? <EquipmentSet civilian="true">
<Equipment slot="Item0"
id="Item.empire_noble_sword_3_t5" />
<Equipment slot="Body"
id="Item.fine_town_tunic" />
? <Equipment slot="Cape"
id="Item.scarf" />
<Equipment slot="Leg"
id="Item.folded_town_boots" />
<Equipment slot="Horse"
id="Item.noble_horse_imperial" />
<Equipment slot="HorseHarness"
id="Item.light_harness" />
</EquipmentSet>
<Flags IsEquipmentTemplate="true"
IsCivilianTemplate="true"
IsCombatantTemplate="true" />
</EquipmentRoster>
Things like looters, criminals, etc lacking these templates is a base game shortcoming, ameliorated by the fact that looters/etc always level up to a standard culture that has these templates defined. If your mod creates end-game units, or companions that have a non-standard culture you need to add these templates, otherwise the game will crash when you try to turn them into a lord, regardless of whether the hero was generated by Distinguished Service or not!
SaS includes multiple additional functions, including Harmony patches for wanderer XP gain, AI training events, etc, that interface... in interesting ways with Distinguished Service. If you have both mods, and find XP gains are weird, that units are being poached, or that there's a flood of wanderers in towns, reporting a bug on the DS bugs page will do absolutely nothing. The SaS modder is great, has done great work, and I'm sure they're working to resolve these issues, but in the meantime, please stay patient and understand that with so many different moving parts, mod interactions are unavoidable and sometimes lead to funny, unexpected behaviour.
Additional notes with regards to Leveling Rebalance compatibility:
So after diving through the LR binaries, I have come to the conclusion that implementing an XP fix for generated companions when this specific mod is used is unfeasible. It's possible, don't get me wrong, but LR has decided to use the absolute least friendly method possible to change levelling XP values, which means I'd need to implement specific methods to adjust the values I feed in to their Harmony transpiler'd injections, which is way too much trouble to go to when they should have just adjusted the specific table of values in the game model that is already referenced by DS to calculate the correct amount of XP to award to new heros.
This means that if you're using the two mods together, you'll end up with weird stat values sometimes (particularly on the higher end, when the base game's exponential curve will massively oversaturate LR's linear). Learn to live with it, unless LR changes up their method to be more compatible with the game.
EDIT: Thanks for the reply! Your concern is certainly understandable as when Modlib updated the last time a lot of depended mods broke for a while.
I'm sorry if that's disappointing, but the HeroesMustDie mod author has been driven to completely drop work on his great mod for the forseeable future because MCM broke.
To quote Cheyron, "i wish i had never added those options menu".
(stickied in case other people are wondering why I don't incorporate MCM or Modlib)
There an aternative - 'Mav's expand your clan' which works and allows you to manually promote troops.
Otherwise is cheating for me/player...
A lot of people forgot to add the 'e' prefix, because no one expected TW to restart from 1.0.0 later...
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