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About this mod
Here's a mod that changes and reskins the Empire faction troops.
- Permissions and credits
Now updated for version 1.8.0! I've also gone and fixed the name of the archers to Toxotai (from Toxatoi... whooops)
Introduction
Here it is, my slap-dash messy attempt to make a Byzantine mod. It's approximately balanced, probably won't crash your game, and almost certainly just as erroneously not-byzantine as the original flavour to anyone who's actually academically invested in the byzantines, but hey, there you go.
Installation
Unzip the file and drag it into C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules
Once done, enable it from the game launcher
Looks
Maybe it's just me, but I felt that the Empire roster was the only one that felt less like an analogy of its real world nation/culture, and more like a fantasy faction that was inspired by the Byzantine Empire. All the byzantine tropes are there, but the infantry art design always stopped short of actually looking properly like I imagined a byzantine soldier to look. I think it's the over-reliance on that nasalhelm, but I also felt there just wasn't enough of that eastern flair.
I've been waiting for a mod that satisfies my desire for a more Byzantine Calradian empire, but short of one mod that has been removed, the only mods that change only the Empire seem to want to make the faction more classically roman. That's fair enough, but it feels a bit anachronistic to me.
So yeah, there's more scale, more lamellar, more eastern influence. There's less of a reliance on those big expensive looking nasalhelms being distributed to every rung of society. At the same time, there's more helmets overall, even within the recruit and early archer troops, as helmets would have been the first thing someone would buy when going off to war. Simpler form factors of helmets have been employed for the low tier troops (where stats would allow), and the more artistic and distinctive helmets in use by the more elite soldiers.
Finally, the heavy infantry tree now uses heater shields. I wanted to us kite shields with flat tops, as these were favoured by the Byzantines, but these aren't in the game. The big heater shields are close enough.
Menavlion and heavy infantry tree
So as well as being a reskin of the empire, this mod also quite significantly changes the tech tree of the faction as well. Firstly, the Menavlion branch is gone. I know this isn't exactly the point of that branch, but the spearmen/swordsmen choice feels very Total War™, and hey, I love those games, but the distinction between swords and spears feels less important in M&B, and I didn't really feel there was altogether much difference between Legionaries and Meavllions. Just as important an influence in this decision was that we can expect that the average infantryman was probably already armed with a spear anyway. The soldiers in the heavy infantry tree are now equipped with both swords and shields.
Crossbows
Continuing the theme of disappointment, crossbows are gone too. I've seen some speculation that the Byzantine empire employed crossbowmen in the defence of fortifications, but in my limited research I couldn't find any concrete evidence of wide-scale adoption of crossbows by home-grown imperial units. In fact, it seems to have been a surprise of sorts when the Byzantines encountered Normans with crossbows, but the extent to which that might have just been the author personally not knowing much about military affairs is beyond my limited academic scope. The Byzantines, as far as I can tell, utilised composite bows, probably used by soldiers recruited from their Asian territories. In game, the crossbow branch has been removed entirely as well.
Mounted archers
The Bucellarii have been replaced by the Trapezites, a horse archer unit one tier lower, and balanced to be similar to Khuzait Horse archers. These raider cavalry are the best home-grown solution the empire can field in terms of horse archers, a good but qualitatively inferior option to the best horse archers that can be fielded by factions that actually specialise in such matters. Imperial commanders will now have to make a choice as to whether they want to employ Imperial Horse archers for their ease of access, or if they want to go through the effort of employing mercenary horse archers from other nations, and trade the moral debuff and effort for better troops. The Byzantines faced the same quandary. They had light raider cavalry to supplement their heavier horsemen, but for massed horse archery seemed to prefer foreign mercenaries as they were often in close proximity to steppe tribes, who's soldiers had lived their whole lives on the saddle and, and who's way of life depended on the bow.
Psiloi
To make up for all of these losses, I've addressed the omission of light infantry/skirmishers in the imperial arsenal. Byzantine armies would have utilised regular infantry and archers (Toxatoi), but also skirmishers. I'll admit again I'm no expert in this topic, and I've seen some places call the archers toxatoi or psiloi, and the lightly armoured javelin men were peltastoi; and others say that toxatoi are archers, and the psiloi are lightly armoured javelin men.
In either event, the use of light infantry using thrown missiles is a recorded part of the byzantine way of war, and there's now a new branch that splits from the heavy infantry branch. These aren't so much ranged units that can fight in melee if required (that's a staple of late tier ranged units anyway), as much as lighter infantry that can't necessarily hold a line, but have a lot of damage potential. They're armed with javelins, axes and smaller round shield than their heavy infantry peers, as well as being more lightly armoured. A commander can, if he so desires, pair them with the regular infantry, or move them to skirmisher formations and deploy them as shock troops. This branch feels to me a more important distinction than the Menavlion / Legionary distinction it replaces. You now have two different weights of infantry to balance, rather than the same infantry with a different weapon. The intention here is to make the ratio an important balance, entirely using one branch or the other probably won't doom your chances in battle, but for the most flexible force you can get you should probably be using at least some units in your less favourite branch.
Names
"Imperial commanders used to call them Skutatoi because of the great shields they weild. But the name didn't stick to the proud soldiers who liked to be called legionaries instead, in honour of the legions of old."
Screw that. They're not legionaries. Do you see many Imperial legions walking about? No, you don't, because they don't exist anymore. It seemed to me like a bit of a cop-out to have a byzantine faction only to go "oh, they don't use skoutatoi, they use legionaries because the soldiers said so". Like, you can't have your cake and eat it too, that just detracts from the Byzantine-ness (?) of the faction.
The naming scheme has been altered across the board to give a more Greek/Byzantine flair, and if the soldiers don't like it, that's tough and they'll have to get used to it. As mentioned before, the horse archers are now called Trapezites, and I decided on Psiloi for the skirmisher line, however there's a few other changes to talk about
The heavy infantry line is as follows:
Spathatoi > Kontaratoi > Skoutatoi > Menulatoi
There's no specific reason for the order of Kontaratoi and Skoutatoi, the first means spear bearer and the second (as hinted in that jive-ass wack description of the so-called legionary) means shield bearer. It seems to have just been a term to describe your basic foot-slogger, without any specification given for quality, but here the order is as it is because Spathatoi (sword bearer) has only a sword and a shield, the Kontaratoi are so named because they now have spears, Skoutatoi have larger better shields than the previous tiers and Menulatoi are, as they were in real life, more heavily armoured. The naming scheme of course isn't perfect: there's no reason why the shield should be picked up on specifically when every other bit of equipment is also superior to the Kontaratoi, but eh, whatever.
The archer line is named as follows:
Imperial Toxatoi > Imperial Trainer Toxatoi > Imperial Veteran Toxatoi > Imperial Tagmata Toxatoi
The Tagmata prefix is an allusion to the Legionary name of the old top tier imperial unit, where the legionary, named after the legion, was the superior infantry. In the same vein, superior units in the new naming scheme are still named after the military unit they're part of; the Tagmata.
Finally, we have the Skirmishers:
Imperial Psiloi > Imperial Tagmata Psiloi > Imperial Hetaireia
The tagmata name has already been explained, but the Hetaireia were commonly body guards in the tagmata system. The Palatine guards are gone from the archer branch, but for that bodyguard flavour you've now got the Hetaireia.
Introduction
Here it is, my slap-dash messy attempt to make a Byzantine mod. It's approximately balanced, probably won't crash your game, and almost certainly just as erroneously not-byzantine as the original flavour to anyone who's actually academically invested in the byzantines, but hey, there you go.
Installation
Unzip the file and drag it into C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules
Once done, enable it from the game launcher
Looks
Maybe it's just me, but I felt that the Empire roster was the only one that felt less like an analogy of its real world nation/culture, and more like a fantasy faction that was inspired by the Byzantine Empire. All the byzantine tropes are there, but the infantry art design always stopped short of actually looking properly like I imagined a byzantine soldier to look. I think it's the over-reliance on that nasalhelm, but I also felt there just wasn't enough of that eastern flair.
I've been waiting for a mod that satisfies my desire for a more Byzantine Calradian empire, but short of one mod that has been removed, the only mods that change only the Empire seem to want to make the faction more classically roman. That's fair enough, but it feels a bit anachronistic to me.
So yeah, there's more scale, more lamellar, more eastern influence. There's less of a reliance on those big expensive looking nasalhelms being distributed to every rung of society. At the same time, there's more helmets overall, even within the recruit and early archer troops, as helmets would have been the first thing someone would buy when going off to war. Simpler form factors of helmets have been employed for the low tier troops (where stats would allow), and the more artistic and distinctive helmets in use by the more elite soldiers.
Finally, the heavy infantry tree now uses heater shields. I wanted to us kite shields with flat tops, as these were favoured by the Byzantines, but these aren't in the game. The big heater shields are close enough.
Menavlion and heavy infantry tree
So as well as being a reskin of the empire, this mod also quite significantly changes the tech tree of the faction as well. Firstly, the Menavlion branch is gone. I know this isn't exactly the point of that branch, but the spearmen/swordsmen choice feels very Total War™, and hey, I love those games, but the distinction between swords and spears feels less important in M&B, and I didn't really feel there was altogether much difference between Legionaries and Meavllions. Just as important an influence in this decision was that we can expect that the average infantryman was probably already armed with a spear anyway. The soldiers in the heavy infantry tree are now equipped with both swords and shields.
Crossbows
Continuing the theme of disappointment, crossbows are gone too. I've seen some speculation that the Byzantine empire employed crossbowmen in the defence of fortifications, but in my limited research I couldn't find any concrete evidence of wide-scale adoption of crossbows by home-grown imperial units. In fact, it seems to have been a surprise of sorts when the Byzantines encountered Normans with crossbows, but the extent to which that might have just been the author personally not knowing much about military affairs is beyond my limited academic scope. The Byzantines, as far as I can tell, utilised composite bows, probably used by soldiers recruited from their Asian territories. In game, the crossbow branch has been removed entirely as well.
Mounted archers
The Bucellarii have been replaced by the Trapezites, a horse archer unit one tier lower, and balanced to be similar to Khuzait Horse archers. These raider cavalry are the best home-grown solution the empire can field in terms of horse archers, a good but qualitatively inferior option to the best horse archers that can be fielded by factions that actually specialise in such matters. Imperial commanders will now have to make a choice as to whether they want to employ Imperial Horse archers for their ease of access, or if they want to go through the effort of employing mercenary horse archers from other nations, and trade the moral debuff and effort for better troops. The Byzantines faced the same quandary. They had light raider cavalry to supplement their heavier horsemen, but for massed horse archery seemed to prefer foreign mercenaries as they were often in close proximity to steppe tribes, who's soldiers had lived their whole lives on the saddle and, and who's way of life depended on the bow.
Psiloi
To make up for all of these losses, I've addressed the omission of light infantry/skirmishers in the imperial arsenal. Byzantine armies would have utilised regular infantry and archers (Toxatoi), but also skirmishers. I'll admit again I'm no expert in this topic, and I've seen some places call the archers toxatoi or psiloi, and the lightly armoured javelin men were peltastoi; and others say that toxatoi are archers, and the psiloi are lightly armoured javelin men.
In either event, the use of light infantry using thrown missiles is a recorded part of the byzantine way of war, and there's now a new branch that splits from the heavy infantry branch. These aren't so much ranged units that can fight in melee if required (that's a staple of late tier ranged units anyway), as much as lighter infantry that can't necessarily hold a line, but have a lot of damage potential. They're armed with javelins, axes and smaller round shield than their heavy infantry peers, as well as being more lightly armoured. A commander can, if he so desires, pair them with the regular infantry, or move them to skirmisher formations and deploy them as shock troops. This branch feels to me a more important distinction than the Menavlion / Legionary distinction it replaces. You now have two different weights of infantry to balance, rather than the same infantry with a different weapon. The intention here is to make the ratio an important balance, entirely using one branch or the other probably won't doom your chances in battle, but for the most flexible force you can get you should probably be using at least some units in your less favourite branch.
Names
"Imperial commanders used to call them Skutatoi because of the great shields they weild. But the name didn't stick to the proud soldiers who liked to be called legionaries instead, in honour of the legions of old."
Screw that. They're not legionaries. Do you see many Imperial legions walking about? No, you don't, because they don't exist anymore. It seemed to me like a bit of a cop-out to have a byzantine faction only to go "oh, they don't use skoutatoi, they use legionaries because the soldiers said so". Like, you can't have your cake and eat it too, that just detracts from the Byzantine-ness (?) of the faction.
The naming scheme has been altered across the board to give a more Greek/Byzantine flair, and if the soldiers don't like it, that's tough and they'll have to get used to it. As mentioned before, the horse archers are now called Trapezites, and I decided on Psiloi for the skirmisher line, however there's a few other changes to talk about
The heavy infantry line is as follows:
Spathatoi > Kontaratoi > Skoutatoi > Menulatoi
There's no specific reason for the order of Kontaratoi and Skoutatoi, the first means spear bearer and the second (as hinted in that jive-ass wack description of the so-called legionary) means shield bearer. It seems to have just been a term to describe your basic foot-slogger, without any specification given for quality, but here the order is as it is because Spathatoi (sword bearer) has only a sword and a shield, the Kontaratoi are so named because they now have spears, Skoutatoi have larger better shields than the previous tiers and Menulatoi are, as they were in real life, more heavily armoured. The naming scheme of course isn't perfect: there's no reason why the shield should be picked up on specifically when every other bit of equipment is also superior to the Kontaratoi, but eh, whatever.
The archer line is named as follows:
Imperial Toxatoi > Imperial Trainer Toxatoi > Imperial Veteran Toxatoi > Imperial Tagmata Toxatoi
The Tagmata prefix is an allusion to the Legionary name of the old top tier imperial unit, where the legionary, named after the legion, was the superior infantry. In the same vein, superior units in the new naming scheme are still named after the military unit they're part of; the Tagmata.
Finally, we have the Skirmishers:
Imperial Psiloi > Imperial Tagmata Psiloi > Imperial Hetaireia
The tagmata name has already been explained, but the Hetaireia were commonly body guards in the tagmata system. The Palatine guards are gone from the archer branch, but for that bodyguard flavour you've now got the Hetaireia.