Wiki & upcoming v2.0 news - Nova Aetas mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

The upcoming changes are so immense that I will call next version 2.0 instead of 1.5. It will come out in some months.

First I want to announce the Wiki of Nova Aetas. You can find it here:

Nova-aetas.wikia.com

You can find a lot of information on the wiki, but it's not complete. Please feel free to contribute your share.

The main changes affect graphics, gameplay and AI decision making. The battlefield atmosphere will be changed dramatically as well.

Thanks to Caba'drin you are now able to let your divisions of arquebusiers fire in volleys and the same applies to archers and crossbowmen.
Many thanks goes to Motomatary for his FormRanks kits which enables formations for both player and AI. Due to many tweaks and more the AI is also smarter and won't just send his troops at you.
His other mod about campaign tweaks is also installed. It will make AI lords much smarter, more aggresive and Marshall won't get stranded during campaigns anymore.
Thanks goes to Jacobhinds as well. He found some poorly coded block somewhere in the scripts. This will reduce stuttering in battles a lot.

I myself have found some way to improve performance in town and village scenes by making collision meshes quad-dominant. This improves performance greatly! I have also found a way to make graphics much better by applying normal and specular maps to most textures.

I am sure you will enjoy v2.0! It has so many improvements. I've got managed to fix a lot of (dominant) bugs as well. You can now enter prison from streets/courtyard and turn back so you can complete the rescue a lord quest. Fixes have been applied to the construction site as well. I've found a minor fault so people couldn't add more than 1 unit of a material at the end of the progress.
You are able to finish construction immediately now via a menu option, to make it more user friendly.

Version 2.0 is going to contain a lot balancing tweaks as well. For a full overview of all changes I recommend you to look at this list:

FIXED ISSUES
- No longer double god names for Nordic at religion
choose
- No more 'wood sounds' for arena swords
- No longer able to climb up stairs in tournaments for
both AI and player
- Typo: No longer need to buy chips instead of ships for
travelling to New World at ingame FAQ
- Removed heavy arena plate armour for Rhodok Levy
- Added mail mittens for Mercenary Sword and Buckler men
- Random building in villages will now apply the native
bonusses.
- No more war with Turguhn Horde before their arrival
- Fixed bug with some tournament helmets not showing up
- Fixed missing upgrade from Rhodok Sergeant to Rhodok
Knight
- Fixed 'defend village against bandits' quest
- Fixed 'defend village against bandits' quest being the
only one for villages
- Fixed bug where you are called wrongly in dialogues.
Cause was creating a masterpiece
- Fixed dungeon passages so the quest 'rescue prisoner'
works now
* Other passages
are still obsolete - do not use them!
- Added extra condition check before redirecting to
Zendar so walking on bridges
shouldn't lead
you to Zendar menu anymore
- Parties/player icon will sooner change to ship when
leaving Zendar
- Bridges no longer change to bandit icon (need testing)
- Fixed crash bug when entering castle hall of Agonic
castles
- Victory options now only affect kingdoms instead of
villagers and bandits
- Fixed Senuzgda castle hall scene
- Typo: Rodelero, instead of Rodeleros (plural form)
- Fixed various lady's dressing. They caused a ctd
- Fixed King's Purse not actually giving money to player
- Fixed some Turguhn troops being in the Archer group
- Fixed personal customisable troops being in the Archer
group
- Cheat option for castle construction menu is now hidden
- Fixed castle construction bug where you can't add 1
unit
- Fixed bug on battlefield about 'opcode 1745'

BALANCING / POLISHING
- Corrected weights of armour
- Better armour for Sword and Buckler men
- Lowered Prestige Points bonus for winning options at
end of battle
- Looter and bandit armour now fit with headwear
- More shiny and heavy plate armour for lower troop tiers
- Recruitment period now shortened by every trainer skill
point, but never fewer than 4 days.
- OSP: Overhauled morale and routing system which
improves performance in battles greatly
- Becoming a vassal now makes you enter the Noble Class
immediately
- Becoming vassal now requires you to be an Aristocrat
- Penalties from killing lords/kings now greatly reduced
- Penalties from killing lords/kings now only affect hit
faction and allies for half impact
- When there are barracks in a village, you can recruit
upgraded troop (footman/militia)
- Prestige points gained by cutting/harvesting/mining
increased from 1 to 3
- Halved chance for AI to build stuff in towns and
villages
- Halved chance for random events in towns and villages
- Lowered damage stats for Acztaoc weapons with about (3-7 points)
Increased accuracy of all firearms with 5 points
- Increased damage done by coloured jousting lances
- Added option to castle construction menu to finish
castle
- Increased sensivity of deathcam

GRAPHICAL / PERFORMANCE
- Significantly improved overall graphical performance by
making collision meshes quad-dominant.
* Only affecting
scenes with props / not battles
- Better graphics with bump mapping
- New loading screens
- New skyboxes for night
- Corrected late townhall scene
- Added collision meshes for some Mohtai statues (no
longer walking through)
- Revised sea travel script for better performance
- New textures for native stones and bricks

ADDED FEATURES
- Renamed sacred sword to Zulfikar for Islamic religion
- Changed forest bandits to the creepy religious Cathars
with black armour
- OSP: New dynamic troop tree overviews, listed under
Reports menu
- OSP: Volley fire! For crossbowmen, archers and
arquebusiers. Use numpad period to start/end volley fire
- Buying items in towns - not sharing your religion - are
25% more expensive now
- Completely new items for common goods, food, religion
items, colony goods and more!
- Forced recruitment: you can force volunteers to follow
you if nobody wants so, success depends on skills
- Added steel bolt type which causes heavy damage (also
added to crossbowmen of kingdoms)
- Muskets and bullets now appear when first faction has
developed new technology
- Formations and AI Mods by Motomataru
- 10 new Acztaoc items to be found in chests
- OSP: Campagin AI fixes and tweaks bringing more
activity, fights and better decision making

BUGS
- Temporarily map glitches (black land, disappearing
land)
- Customisable troops might re-uip their old gear
together with new equipment on reload.
- The passages in scenes are obsolete; don't use them.

© Quintillius - Nova Aetas