Chaos Rises news - Warsword Conquest mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Greetings warsword fans,

The time has come for the latest update concerning the state of the mod and also what new features to expect. At the moment, as mentioned previously, most of our needs are on the modelling front. Sterling work has already been done to tackle the list (massive thanks to kraggrim especially) but more are needed before we can think about releasing. Marshal_157 has been working on many new lods to improve performance and Burspa is in the process of making some new effects for the spells. While the models and effects are being created all systems are go on the coding front and I have been trying to bring as much improvement as I can to the mod. Here is what has changed since the last update article...

Chaos rebooted

It has often been suggested to us to divide chaos into 5 separate factions but due to warband ai (and other factors) that would not help create a balanced solution to the struggles they have in their current conflicts. So the changes that have been made have been done with the dual aim of increasing the diversity of the faction while also assisting their aggressive wars against Kislev and the Empire. They will remain as 1 faction but there are now 5 different troop trees and 4 lords for each of the 5 alignments (Undivided, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch and Nurgle).

Each troop tree has 2 demons (apart from undivided who get new cavalry) and have the daemon prince of their alignment as their epic unit (apart from undivided who have a chaos troll) and AI lords will only use sorcerers relevant to their alignment: Tzeentch (Tzeentch and Gold), Slaanesh (Slaanesh and Grey), Nurgle (Nurgle and Amethyst) and undivided (All those mentioned and Bright).

The marauders in each tree are exactly the same with their alignment in their name. Warrior class troops and above receive a bonus to their stats over the others based on their alignment:

Khorne: +1 power strike
Tzeentch: Magic resistance
Nurgle: +3 ironflesh
Slaanesh: +2 agility +1 athetics
Undivided: Unbreakable +2 shield

Lords will use the troop trees of their alignment and when recruiting from villages you will recruit from the Lord's tree as well. Chaos players will start as undivided but they can choose from any of the 5 in the camp menu.

The reboot will not be truly complete for this release; we still have some demons and unique armours to make for future releases but we have enough to be able to make the change now and it will help chaos a lot.

Other changes to assist chaos in the wastelands:

Chaos troll bandits are now friendly to chaos
Spawn points for patrols are now centred more around the flashpoint in the wastelands
The addition of demons to the troop trees has meant an increase in power for most of our current ones which means demon focused patrols are the strongest of all the factions

Magic information key

In order to help players use their tech spells effectively I have put in a battle command (H) so that they can get information which experienced commanders should be able to figure out by glancing around the battlefield but are unable to do in a warband setting.

For example if you have a healing spell equipped then pressing H will tell you how many nearby allies are wounded and to what degree. If you have a courage based spell then you will be told how many nearby allies/enemies have low or very low courage and if you have a spell which negates special abilities it will tell you how many nearby enemies have special abilities. Not every spell will produce info from the button as many don't need or require it but where it would help/is logical it will.

Kingdom Ladies

This is something we have been toying with for a while but we have decided to remove kingdom ladies/marriage from the mod completely. The amount of characters in the mod is already causing some issues and the loss of 360 characters helps a lot in this respect and lightens the load on a lot of frequently running scripts. I know some find it fun to see the wacky marriages but many also find it immersion breaking to see female orcs and skaven. This was the best solution all round.

Quality of life improvements

We have added in a few things to increase the overall experience of the mod. Polished landscapes, a new font, new musket sounds, lots of new lods for models and better flying ammo. There will also be a few new scenes to come for Nippon with potential for new firing animations and new skyboxes as well but they are just possibilities currently.

Other new changes

5 new random events made (currently 43) with more on the way.

A few balance changes to magic made. Spells which give troops poisoned attacks do not wear off at the end of the magic phase but remain all battle.

New flags for the pirates

Being drunk now gives -1 penalty to spell casting

Older changes which may not have been mentioned previously

Undead no longer eat food
Unbreakable troops will never desert

Wars are set at the start but the relations are not preset like before. This had led to much more frequent war and peace declarations in testing as well as non aggression pacts.

Thanks for your support of the mod and we hope to be able to give you more definitive release news soon.

Nameless Warrior