Rise of Three Kingdoms Version 5.5 (Yonghan) Update news

Greetings once again, everyone!

This latest update was extremely time consuming, as the majority of my time devoted to it was spent updating all of the unit cards in the mod. In a nutshell, what was done was the removal of the colored backgrounds but, more than that, well over 100 unit cards needed updating with entirely new soldiers. These ranged from the recently overhauled light Han regional units to the various unique units across both campaigns. Additionally, unit info images were similarly updated, so that they now should (mostly) match the unit in which you are viewing information on. And, lastly, the unit cards of unique bodyguard units, which are assigned to specific characters, were updated so that the unit card is the relevant character's portrait. With this, however, the only time you will see them is in the recruitment/retraining overview if you retrained the character's unique bodyguard unit to upgrade it. Below is an image of the Liu Clan roster, using Ba-Shu regional troops, with the new updated unit cards.

In this update there were also three new mercenary units added: Khampa Horsemen, Miao Militia, and Northern Army Companions. The Khampa Horsemen are based on the rather interesting history of Kham, in eastern Tibet. The eastern areas of Kham have many flat, fertile plains and the people there developed a penchant for horsemanship and mounted archery, to which they developed a martial culture that was quite a bit different than their neighbors. This history of Kham, and the people's legacy as mounted archers, makes the Khampa Horsemen a rather unique unit type in the western regions of China. Next is the Miao Militia, which is based on the minority Miao people that can still be found in areas of southern China to this day. During the Three Kingdoms period, the Miao actually held a majority in many of the southern regions of China, more specifically Jiao province and southern Jing province. As such, they were a sizeable population that many warlords who controlled those regions used to bolster their military forces. The Miao Militia are versatile, being highly mobile and able to hit their enemies at range with light crossbows before engaging in melee with spears. And finally we have the Northern Army Companions, which is based on the defunct Northern Army of the Han dynasty. The Northern Army was the Han's only professional standing army, and was stationed in the capital Luoyang. With the waning of Han power and authority, and chaos gripping the land, the Northern Army found itself essentially disbanded, with it's soldiers either dispersing, joining with one of the many regional lords vying for power or, like these men, offering themselves as mercenaries. As professional soldiers the Northern Army Companions are highly skilled and well-armed and armored, and will definitely be a welcomed addition to any warlord's military. Below you can see images of the Khampa Horsemen, Miao Militia, and the Northern Army Companions.

In addition to adding new units, several existing unique units had their models and/or textures overhauled, such as the Jingxiang Elite, Grey-beard Marksmen, Ironhorse Warriors, and Dongzhou Troop. For this update I will discuss the latter two. The Ironhorse (or Ironclad) Warriors are the unique unit of Goguryeo in the 194 campaign and serve as extremely heavy cavalry - perhaps the best heavy cavalry in the mod. Armored from head to toe, and wielding an iron shield and lance, these warriors ride atop warhorses that are similarly completely armored. While they can effectively overrun lightly armed units, and have better survivability in melee fighting, like all other cavalry they are a disadvantage in prolonged melee against polearm wielding infantry. Comparatively the Dongzhou Troop is a sturdy, defense-aligned infantry unit unique to the Shu faction (led by Liu Yan) in the 190 campaign. When Liu Yan came to power in Yi province, he needed to enforce his authority with an iron fist and also needed loyal men to do such bidding. To this end Liu Yan recruited his own followers amongst migrants and refugees from the troubled regions of central China: these were known as the Dongzhou Troops, men of the eastern provinces. While they performed their duties to enforce Liu Yan's will, they also brought much resentment amongst the local gentry, as the depredations of the Dongzhuo Troops against local people went unpunished. With their sturdy armor and shields, they were able to impose their will through not only intimidation and fear, but through feat of arms as well. Below you can see images of the Ironhorse Warriors, followed by the Dongzhou Troop.

Outside of those updates with units, there were also many more small, minor fixes to existing units. Several units had vertex weights fixed, or texture assignments updated, or body proportions fixed, or other issues with their models corrected, improving their quality when seen in action on the battlefield. For those who have played previous versions of the mod, the overly bright normal maps on all horses have been fixed, so now you won't be blinded when going into battle with men atop white steeds. Also, over the last few updates many units have been overhauled, specifically the regional light Han units, however their sprites were never updated and the transition between model and sprite was a bit of an eyesore - so new sprites have been created and implement for such units. And finally, following the guide of bovi & Kull, I implemented a fix to the infamous BecomesFactionLeader bug. If you don't know what that is, essentially what happens is that all traits have conditions for when they trigger - for many faction leader related traits, the condition is when they become faction leader. However situations can arise, and where the bug rears it's ugly head, where the game crashes when the faction leader gets killed in the battle where the last settlement of his faction falls, unless the rest of the family dies too. So through their investigation and tribulations, a work-around was developed via some additional hidden traits and triggers to avoid this campaign-ending set of circumstances.

The Version 5.5 (Yonghan) Update can be downloaded here and has instructions on how to properly install the patch (point installer at Medieval II Total War folder).

IMPORTANT NOTE: You must have the Rise of Three Kingdoms v4.5 Full Release installed prior to installing this update. This update is NOT save-game compatible (will break saves).

Happy gaming!