Roar of Conquest: The Late Middle Ages VI Changelog news

Greetings! I am happy to announce that Roar of Conquest: The Late Middle Ages VI is now live! This article will be covering all the changes and updates that this version brings to the table from the last version.
As of this update, Roar of Conquest is no longer just an overhaul of Stainless Steel; it now combines Stainless Steel 6.4 with Broken Crescent 2.4 into one big mod! However, Roar of Conquest is not simply a merging of two old mods into one; it also brings its own unique features and mechanics, such as replenishment of Castle units in Cities, an extensive rebalancing of unit stats, better balancing between all factions in the game, and more! So without further ado, on to the update!

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Bug Fixes

Besides tweaks and changes to improve coding in the mod, there have been three major bug fixes for the mod worth mentioning:

• The Sicilian faction leader will now spawn in the game when starting a campaign as Sicily.
• Dismounted Halbruder have had their combat animation fixed so that they will now fight properly and act as a combat-effective unit instead of just dying rapidly even against low-tier units.
• Arrows will no longer remain permanently in battle. This feature was a part of the old Stainless Steel mod, but caused most people a lot of problems with battlefield performance, so it has been removed, (again, since the last time I tried this fix it didn’t seem to stick. >:C )

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New Models from BOTET!

Before going any further, I want to give a huge “Thank you!” to the modding team of Call of Warhammer: Beginning of the End Times mod for allowing me to use some of their models and bring them into Roar of Conquest. While BOTET is a fantasy mod and ROC is a historical one, I believe you will agree that the models used not only fit in with a historical mod, they enhance it! The new skins are as follows:

1) Cossacks (Bulgaria, Kiev, Novgorod, Cumans)

2) Streltsy (Bulgaria, Kiev, Novgorod)

3) Winged Hussars (Poland)

I hope you guys enjoy these amazing new models!

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Over 150 Model Updates!

Yes, that’s right, over 150! With the inclusion of Broken Crescent, BOTET, and Yiu_DJC Unit Mods, there are now over 150 model updates brought into the game, which also includes over 40 brand new units! While I won’t show you guys all the new stuff here, I will be going back and updating all the faction roster articles, (see list here: Roar of Conquest Articles), and updating the pictures so that you will be able to preview the new looks for the mod. To give you guys a sample of what is in the update, please enjoy the following:

1) Cataphract Cavalry (Kwarezmian Empire)

2) Askari Axemen (Ayyubid Sultanate)

3) Berber Footmen (Almohad Caliphate)

4) Daylami Infantry (Kwarezmian Empire)

5) Edessan Guard (Kingdom of Jerusalem)

6) Pelekyphoroi Axemen (Byzantine Empire)

7) Indian Swordsmen (Timurids)

8) Iqta'dar (Seljuk Sultanate)

9) Iraq Heavy Archers (Kwarezmian Empire)

10) Janissary Infantry (Seljuk Sultanate)

11) Knights of St. John (Kingdom of Jerusalem)

12) Mamluk Archers (Ayyubid Sultanate)

13) Mercenary Arab Swordsmen (Mercenaries)

14) Mutatawwi'a (Mercenaries)

15) Pronoiarii (Byzantine Empire)

16) Rajput Heavy Infantry (Timurids)

17) Repeater Crossbowmen (Timurids and Mongols)

18) Seljuk Macemen (Seljuk Sultanate)

19) Spartharii tou Vasileos (Byzantine Empire)

20) Sudanese Longbowmen (Mercenaries)

21) Tabardariyya (Ayyubid Sultanate)

22) Templar Axemen (Kingdom of Jerusalem)

23) Tuareg Camel Archers (Almohad Caliphate)

24) Urban Militia (Almohad Caliphate)

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Reworked Faction Rosters

With all the new models and assets from Broken Crescent, I was able to do more than update the appearance of the Islamic factions; I was able to overhaul and streamline each faction roster to make them unique, fun to play, and fun to look at. In fact, the vast majority of vanilla models have been replaced with new ones for the following factions:

• Ayyubid Sultanate
• Seljuk Sultanate
• Kwarezmian Empire
• Almohad Caliphate

In addition, quite a few other factions have received new skins and units this update. While they are not quite as dramatic as the previous four mentioned, the changes are quite noticeable. The factions that received moderate updates are as follows:

• Byzantine Empire
• Kingdom of Jerusalem
• Cuman Khanate
• Republic of Novgorod
• Grand Duchy of Kiev
• Middle East Mercenaries, (not faction)

There are few other factions that received 1-2 changes here and there, but for those who were curious which factions to look at to see changes, this list should give you a good idea where to start!

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Timurids in Detail

The Timurids as a faction have had a rather turbulent history in Roar of Conquest. The faction went from being deleted from the mod in earlier versions to being brought back to, as of the previous update, being made a playable faction in the mod. Now, the Timurids once again take a central position in this update.
The Timurids have received a massive overhaul to their faction roster. When it came to updating the other Islamic factions, Broken Crescent had many fantastic units to choose from, and many of the new units were simply a case of going, “Oh hey, that looks awesome!”, and importing it into ROC. However, there was nothing for the Timurids, as the faction did not exist in Broken Crescent, and in Stainless Steel they were simply a clone of the Mongols.

As of this update, the Timurids are no longer a clone of the Mongols, or a clone of any other faction for that matter. This faction roster is a home-brewed one inspired by history, blending Mongolian, Indian, and Asian units to reflect the wide-spread conquests of Timur the Lame. I hope you guys will find this interpretation of the Timurids both enjoyable and not too far flung from the historical reality of the Timurid empire. Now, on to the other changes!

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Range Unit Overhaul

One major part of this update is the overhaul that many of the ranges units in the mod have received, which rather dramatically affect their performance in battle. These changes are as follows:

• All gunpowder units now deal armor-piercing ranged damage. While I was working with Broken Crescent’s mod files, I gained a deeper understanding of the unit stat files, and I was surprised to find out that practically none of the gunpowder units in the mod dealt AP missile damage. Since gunpowder was the historical reason that full-plate armor eventually went out of style, having no AP made no sense at all, hence the change.

• All crossbow units now deal AP missile damage. Again, crossbows where historically used to combat heavily armored troops, so the fact that they did not deal AP damage seemed ridiculous, so that has been corrected.

• All longbow units now deal AP missile damage. This change is something that could be challenged in a historical sense; to this day, scholars are still debating how effective longbows were at punching through armor. However, from a game play perspective, the change made logical sense; without being able to pierce armor, longbows were a mediocre unit at best, which especially hurt England’s late-game combat power. Now, after hours of playtesting, I can confirm that longbows are now one of the scariest missile units in the game, with a single unit able to get hundreds of kills in battle if kept out of melee.

• Most javelins now have bonus damage versus mounts. This change made sense, since throwing what is essentially a small spear at a horse would seem rather effective at bringing it down. In addition, elite javelin unit such as Almughavars also deal AP damage with their javelins, keeping them a relevant unit even into the later stages of the campaign.

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Shock Infantry Overhaul

After listening to input from people over on ROC’s discord, I learned that many people would not recruit infantry units with two-handed weapons because they felt they were too vulnerable to missile fire and not worth the risk in battle. With the update to missile units mentioned previously, it seemed that this concern would be even greater now. Thus, an update to shock infantry units seemed in order. The changes are as follows:

• All two-handed infantry units now deal AP damage, whether they wield a sword or an axe. This change was made after running a poll on the mod’s Discord, where the majority of the people said they would like to see all shock infantry deal AP damage. I realize that this change could be debated from a historical sense, as the effectiveness of two-handed swords in cutting through armor is debatable, but the people have spoken, and it certainly helps make units like Gothic Foot Knights more impactful in the late game!
• All shock infantry have had their melee attack increased dramatically. To give you an example, here are the current stats of Gothic Foot Knights in the mod:

Gothic Foot Knights

• Unit Size: 120
• Melee Attack: 22 (AP)
• Charge: 7
• Defense: 25 (Armor 17, Defense Skill 8, Shield 0)
• Attributes: Free upkeep
• Availability: Gothic Armor Event, (year 1450-1460)
• Building Requirement: Fortress

While two-handed units still suffer from being vulnerable to missile fire, they now operate as a high risk, high reward unit; keep them from being hit by missiles, and they will tear apart enemies in melee.
With these changes, I hope more people will be more inclined to use shock infantry in their armies, instead of skipping them over as being too risky.

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Recruitment and Upkeep Update

With all the changes in stats made to various units in the game, along with all the new units in the mod, I decided to update the recruitment and upkeep costs for all units in the mod. The goal was to make the recruitment and upkeep costs for units more standardized across all factions, instead of having similar units have wildly different costs and upkeep. One example was the Aventuros of Portugal, which had twice the upkeep cost of Pikemen in spite of the fact they were similar units. Here’s a list to help give you a general idea of what to expect:

• Feudal Units (i.e., Knights or Sipahis): expensive to recruit and have high upkeep, but have good stats and can be recruited in a single turn. They also receive free upkeep from places that can recruit or replenish them.
• Light Infantry/Militia: cheap to recruit and available in a single turn, with low upkeep.
• Professional Infantry (i.e., Venetian Heavy Infantry or Mamluk Foot Archers): higher recruitment costs and usually take 2 turns to recruit, but with moderate upkeep. The extra time you take to recruit them is made up for by the fact that have lower upkeep costs than Feudal units, and usually are larger in unit size.
• Light/Medium Cavalry: cheap to moderate recruitment costs, relatively low upkeep, and one-turn recruitment.
• Professional Cavalry (i.e., Lancers or Scholarii): high recruitment cost and take 2-3 turns to recruit, but with moderate upkeep costs. Often have larger unit size than Feudal units.

Hopefully, this list will help give you a rough idea of what to expect when recruiting and maintaining your armies in campaign.

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AOR Unit Update

Full disclosure; I expect this part of the update to be the least popular change made, so here we go. In Stainless Steel, there were units that were recruitable by all factions in the game, and the mechanic was called Area of Recruitment. In this update, AOR still exists, but is now limited by geographical regions and culture rather than being universal. To give an example, if as the Seljuk Sultanate you conquered Denmark, you used to be able to recruit Viking Raiders from the Danish regions. Now, you won’t be able to do that. My reasons are as follows:

• Code cleanup. Yes, I know this reason is rather boring, but cleaner coding means less chance of game crashes and makes it easier to troubleshoot bugs, so for stability’s sake the change made sense.
• Preserving unique units. When a unit can be recruited by everyone, it loses some of that flavor that makes it special to the mod. For example, Viking Raiders are an interesting unit, but because everyone could recruit them if they got the right regions, they felt commonplace.
• Historical realism. While Roar of Conquest is more focused on gameplay fun and balance than on being historical accurate, it still is a historical mod, and in my opinion I have a hard time believing that Danes would be willing to fight for the Egyptians and visa versa if they conquered each other’s home territories.

As I said, I don’t expect this change to be a popular one, but I didn’t want to hide it either and have people be surprised when they started a campaign and found they couldn’t recruit certain units like they used to.

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Settlement Changes and Upgrades

For the sake of bringing better balance between factions, especially those that seem to always struggle as the AI, certain settlements have changed hands or been upgraded in size to help them out. The changes are as follows:

• Damietta (Ayyubid): upgraded to Fortress
• Damascus: switched ownership from Rebels to Kingdom of Jerusalem
• Al Aqaba (Ayyubid): upgraded to City
• Targoviste (Bulgaria): upgraded to Large City
• Esztergom (Hungary): upgraded to Large City
• Belgrade (Hungary): upgraded to City
• Zagreb: switched ownership from Rebels to Kingdom of Hungary
• Krakow (Poland): upgraded to Large City
• Aarhus (Denmark): upgraded to Large City
• Edinburgh (Scotland): upgraded to Large City
• Burgos (Castile): upgraded to Fortress
• Zaragoza (Aragon): upgraded to Large City
• Lisbon (Portugal): upgraded to Large City
• Salamanca (Leon): upgraded to City
• Melilla (Almohad): upgraded to Fortress
• Silves (Portugal): upgraded to City
• Adrianople (Byzantine): upgraded to Fortress
• Dardanellia (Seljuk): upgraded to Fortress
• Mosul (Seljuk): downgraded to Castle
• Caernarvon: switched ownership from Rebels to Kingdom of England
• Ancona (Venice): upgraded to Fortress
• Bari (Sicily): upgraded to Fortress
• Eikundarsund (Norway): upgraded to Large City
• Galway: switched ownership from Rebels to Kingdom of Scotland
• Riga (Teutonic Order): upgraded to Large City
• Tortosa (Jerusalem): upgraded to Fortress

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Various Other Updates

None of these updates are major enough that I felt they needed their own section, but they were significant enough that I felt they should be listed, so here goes!

• The Caravan building chain is now available for the Ayyubid Sultanate, the Kwarezmian Empire, the Seljuk Sultanate, and the Almohad Caliphate.
• Highways, (tier 3 roads), are now available for all factions to build instead of just the Byzantine Empire.
• Brigand spawns have been greatly reduced; that means you should no longer see rebel armies spawning in your regions with 200+ public order.
• Most artillery units have had the number of artillery pieces in their unit increased. That mean when you recruit a Cannon, the unit will spawn into battle with 3 cannons instead of 2. This change will make these units a bit more effective in battles and sieges, and prevent the player from having to have multiple artillery units in an army in order to break through enemy walls.
• The Kingdom of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire no longer start the campaign as allies.
• The officers for units have been updated across the mod so that they will be more appropriate to each unit. As some people pointed out, it was rather strange to have a unit of Tercio Pikemen have an officer in a chain mail shirt, and I quite agreed with them.
• The lighting for battles has been returned to the default Medieval II format since the Stainless Steel version had several graphical bugs and inconsistencies.

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Submods Disabled

With all the changes made in this update, the submods are currently not working with the main mod, so will not be included in this update. Rest assured, they will return in the future.

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Note for Input

Quite a lot of people have shared their feedback about things that they would like to see added to the mod. While some of these requests are extravagant, most of them have been quite reasonable and flavorful suggestions for the mod. For those of you who have contacted me about certain changes and are disappointed that they are not in this update, rest assured; I’m not ignoring you, I simply haven’t gotten around to it, or it is something I do not have the skill to accomplish. Please remember, at the end of the day this mod is a hobby of mine, so while it is not perfect, I hope it will be something you guys can enjoy!

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So there you have it, the changelog for Roar of Conquest: The Late Middle Ages VI! If you like what you have seen and would like to try out the mod for yourself, you can download it here: ROC: LMA VI I plan on updating the faction roster articles for all the changed factions, so keep your eyes open for that. Feel free to join the mod Discord as well; it's a great place to share you thoughts on the mod: ROC Discord Until then, go forth and conquer!