A New Dawn mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Welcome to A New Dawn!

Other downloak links : Nexusmods.com?
Mega.co.nz

Link to the taleworlds thread : Forums.taleworlds.com

The current version is 0.62. In order to play the mod, you must download v0.5 (which contains all the textures and models used in the mod), then v0.6 (it contains the new musics) and finally v0.62 (the latest patch).

The goal of this mod is to considerably improve the Native game, through the use of Floris Mod Pack as a base, which is already a great improvement. Key changes are :

• A much more active world, with dozens of new parties and factions fighting each other on the map.
• Bigger parties and armies, which also makes the game harder, especially at the beggining.
• 3000 new and high quality items.
• Rebalanced item stats and skills. Armor is now much more protective, but also weighs more.
• 500 new troops and a much wider troop tree. Each faction has several types of troops which all fill a specific role.
• 11 new minor factions that roam the world. All of them can form armies and attempt to take a castle. If they succeed, a new faction will be formed and behave like the regular ones. There can thus be up to 17 factions at the same time (although such a high number is very unlikely). 12 new castle have also been added.

Detailed features

Combat

• Hit points have been increased for all troops (the player and his companions get increased hit points during battle, which aren't visible on their character sheet). Ironflesh gives 3 extra hp per skill level during battle for both the player and his companions.
• Armor protection and weight values have been increased. In addition to that, troops that use light armor get high agility and athletics values while heavily armored troops usually get very low values. This makes heavy troops much more resilient than before, but also much slower, especially compared to lighter soldiers.
• Crossbows take more time to reload but also deal more damage, in order to differentiate them a bit more from bows. The penetration rate against shields has also been increased and repeating crossbows (which deal lower damage) have been added.
• Pike weapons have lost the overhead attack. This makes bots using them much more effective in groups, especially cavalry.
• The charge damage of armored horses has been significantly increased. Wounded horses move more slowly. Camels and elephants have been added!
• Troops are now more likely to flee when the battle is about to be lost.
• Formations can be used by both the player and the AI. Possible formations include wedge, square and shield wall.
• The size of the battlefields has been increased significantly for large battles (more than 100 soldiers involved). This leaves much more space for deployment and should hopefully make strategy more important as more tactics become viable. New orders (like skirmishing) are also available.

Troop Trees

• Troops have now got 3000 new high quality items to choose from. Low and middle tier troops tend to spawn with varied gear in order to reduce uniformity, while elite troops usually use have uniformized equipment.
• Each major faction has now got 8 tiers of troops. The price and training time of these troops have been balanced in such a way that fielding a big army of elite troops is almost impossible economically wise, as top tier soldiers cost several hundreds of denars a week. Instead, the player should choose between a small army of high quality troops, a medium size army of decent quality soldiers or a horde of chaff. Leadership and charisma now grant a higher increase in party size.
• Major factions specialize in 4 different types of troops which go up to T7 (only one of them reaches T8) and 6 types for T4 and T5. Each faction still has its own specialty (nords use almost no cavalry while khergits have very little infantry) but can choose between several roles - defensive (shield) and offensive (2 handed weapon) infantry for example. Dedicated anti-cavalry troops such as pikemen or hybrids (infantry / archer) now exist.
• Mercenaries have got their own troop tree, which isn't much bigger than the native one. However, there are a lot of mercenaries that can't be acquired through an upgrade and must instead be recruited in taverns or from prisoner stacks.
• Minor factions have got their own troop tree, albeit much smaller.
• Some AI lords get their own retinue of special troops. Kings always get a special retinue of royal guards and the lord of certain towns will get a special retinue.
• Troop trees can be viewed in game or in the screenshots section.

Minor Factions and World Map

• About 20 new factions have been added on the world map, each of which spawns its own parties and fights most other factions. The map is now much more active than in native, with battles going on pretty much everywhere. Some of these parties will be very tough to handle in the early game - the player must therefore avoid them and target weaker parties instead, or join forces with another party.
• Attacking or helping parties will decrease or increase your relation with their faction.
• Mercenaries roam the map as well, attacking pretty much everyone (including other mercenary parties). Both the player and the AI can hire them, making them follow their new master for at least a week. They may still switch sides if the price is high enough, though. There are 3 mercenary unique spawns that may similarly be hired, although the price becomes very high.
• Most of these factions will sometimes spawn armies. These armies will wander around the map, sometimes looting a village. They may also siege a castle or a town which, if successful, will change the minor faction to a "real" faction, behaving exactly like the 6 regular factions (kings, lords and ladies will spawn). This makes the world much more dynamic and every game unique. You may even ally with one of these minor kingdoms and try to lead it to world dominance!
• 12 new castles (2 for each faction) have been added to defend choke points and to provide more space for the new factions to develop.
• Lords now have a pathfinding skill, making them much faster than before and able to catch or escape from the player. Most parties get a speed boost equivalent to the pathfinding skill. The player can no longer expect to be faster than everyone thanks to his pathfinding skill.

Custom Commander

• Choose an npc instead of the player to lead the battle
• Autoloot
• Auto-selling system
• Increased speed for a short time when leaving soldiers behind when fleeing
• Extra experience based on your intelligence
• Mystic merchants where you can buy items without knowing the prefix
• Custom camera for battles
• Check ingame the effect of a prefix on an item
• Many mod options in camp menu
• Recruit troops for your own towns and castles
• Change the faction colours
• Show shot distance on screen
• Show next pay day in report menu
• Custom troops

Miscellaneous

• New tournament system (thanks to Windyplains)
• Cinematic compilation (graphic and sound enhancement)
• Sea travel and battle (a ship needs to be bought first)
• Color coded messages for a more organized feeling
• Bridge battles
• The ability to duel your own troops or even lords
• Custom names for each NPC (guild masters, armorers...) for more immersion
• Random events, like prisoners escaping from their dungeon or deserting from their lord's army
• New quests
• New NPCs in taverns to make them feel more alive
• Detailed report of the casualties inflicted by each soldier at the end of every battle
• Higher morale penalty for killing troops of the same faction (except for mercenaries)
• New banners
• Lords can be taken prisoner by non-kingdom parties (like bandits)
• New music
• Freelancer mod, allowing you to join a lord's party as a soldier
• 6 new companions
• Improved battle AI
• New buildings that allow you to improve your troops' stats in battle (hit points, damage...)
• A new building (training academy) that lets you upgrade your troops.
• New presentations for character creation, factions, reports and companions overview
• Unique titles for the lords of every faction depending on their best fief (town, castle, etc...)
• New icons on the world map for each faction's lords as well as minor factions