This mod has now been updated for the Gargoyle Update Open Beta.
Older versions can still be downloaded from Paradox Mods if needed.

Swiftfoot raptors clearly a popular, meta mount pick atm! XD

@Daverin2112 I checked and Devastator Sphere is indeed at 48, seems I missed that unit. There may or may not be another hiding somewhere. Haven't seen any so far.

As for the Swiftfoot Raptors, I just tested them and they indeed seem to have reverted somehow. Oddly enough nobody noticed and the Hero mount is still at 40.

I will fix both of these soon, thanks for reporting!

And last post, sorry for spamming... but just checked the chariot mount. 40, as intended. So maybe they slipped something between the cracks that reverted Swiftfoot mounts?

I just checked with Reavers, Overseers on Swiftfoots were also at 48. Moved your mod to dead last so it wins all changes, started a new game, still 48. Also, Devastator Sphere is 48 move as well, oddly enough.

Have not checked other mounts yet.

In general, I am not an MP person, but the extreme majority of your changes are clearly well considered, and I think still add to a single person experience, fyi. So thanks for doing all this work!

I mean they are getting units with 48 movement, despite your mod being all but dead last in load order. I don't think anyone else, at least non-modded, had that issue. Are your movement changes supposed to be global and not per instance? Cuz if so... not sure where to start diagnosing.

This was done because many 48 movement units (and Heroes) caused problems by speedfarming the world map and utterly destroying ranged units in combat, especially when combined with Flying Mounts (for example Feudal Knights). Flying/Floating and Advanced Logistics have all similarly been reduced by 1 point of movement. This reduces the gap in movement per turn between 32 and 40. The goal is to make it more viable to play with "slow" units, which so far has been received positively.

Before this change the meta revolved almost exclusively around playing 40 movement + Flying/Floating or 48 movement units, as anything else would fall behind very quickly.

@Daverin2112 I think the developers wanted to look into making more cultures apply globally, but then for some reason Architects have an enchantment (so it doesn't apply to Mythic units). They're being inconsistent on this front, so I am personally not touching the moment.

As for movement. The game has been changed to operate on 32 and 40 movement only (like AoW Planetfall). This means no units, mounts, or effects in the game give you 48 movement anymore, with the exception of the Wayfinder Enchantment for Scouts.

Also, I know the architects are fresh enough that you understandably have not touched them, but just based on using swiftfoot raptors, they at least need movement speed corrected. Getting mounted units with 48 points.

I am guessing it is not strictly an issue in the MP community, but I am curious; what's the feeling on the imbalance in how cultures can benefit mythics?

In particular, Feudal, High, and potentially Summoning Mystic, are the only cultures whose unit buffs don't require an enhancement at all, and instead work in ways that benefit mythics (or in Summoning's case, specifically can benefit MO regardless of class.) The rest don't include mythics in their enhancements.

No,completely fair

@TurtleMaster I'm sorry, I don't make standalone mods or take requests.
It is very easy to do if you first spend a couple hours learning how to mod.

Would you be willing to make a version of this mod that is just the guild changes?

Was able to get it working, thanks for pointing me in the right direction

@Kazzap it's a bit difficult to explain here, but they are basically just number changes. The map related stuff can be found in RMG_DEFINITIONS_STRATEGIC. You'd have to gain some modding knowledge first though.

Is it possible to get a mod that is JUST the map size changes, or could you explain how you did them?

That makes me so sad. I want to play this game with my 4x friends so bad, but the game *is* the combat. without the combat its not a particularly deep or interesting 4x tbh, but with the combat is peerless at what it does.

@Spear Deer, sadly no. I don't think this will ever be a feature.

Does simultaneous turn multiplayer allow for combat that doesn't lock everyone else out of the game now?

Haha, maybe not a popular choice. Thanks for fixing it so quickly!

@HjAa, it's fixed now. Seems like nobody noticed that in the past weeks lol.

Hi! Thanks for the update and the good work. I've noticed that the Death Knight's Curse no longer works. It says that it only gives 1xWeakened, but the icon is gone and it can't be activated in combat.

Very pleased to hear it. Thanks, buddy!

@HjAa that wasn't intentionally removed. I'll add it back soon.

Would you consider letting skeletons keep their Resurgence on Champion level, as per the griffon update?

Fun to see someone else working their heinie off to accommodate the new beta patch. I applaud your efforts and thank you for this great mod!

This mod has been updated for the Griffon Update Open Beta.
Older versions can be downloaded from Paradox Mods.

i wouldn't consider it scuffed, because base game used that same mechanic for "produce Merchandise" except that only affects a single city. What I'm suggesting would be a line of " trade food" and "Trade Production" that would take would reduce the active cities food/production and give an empire wide bonus based on the amount of that resource being produced in the active city. Alternatively and more scuffed in m,y opinion, could you make a building confer a spell for you? like the farm guild lets you cast a "transport food" spell that cost gold maybe and gives target city X amount of food?

@gunningminer69 it should still work, but you might encounter some bugs.
If I made use of DLC exclusively mechanics or units they won't show for you.

I presume if I don't have all the dlc this won't work? (Context, don't have dragons, eldritch, or giants)

Not a fan of the bodge, fair enough Cody.

@Orionox. Perhaps, I've never looked into it or seen that mod myself.
But I dislike "scuffed" modding and actively avoid it. Personal thing.

Couldn't you make a building that just infinitely builds that improves food gains empire wide? It's not super accurate, but it does get the point across. There's another mod that does something similar, but it hasn't been updated in awhile.

@Orionox I have wanted Food Sharing (like Planetfall) in the game for a while.
But I do not think I can mod it. Even if I could, it would require UI elements too.

It would definitely make those guilds worth more for your later cities.

farm guild and workers guild should give a city project that allows the city to export food and production respectively, conferring an empire wide buff to food and production while reducing it in that city

@ElJoe, I'll keep an eye on it. Nobody actually casts that spell in our games.
But we also have a bit of a soft ban on Reaper, because the unit is very OP.

Generally speaking I have no problem just changing it back to 40 CP for now.

Next thing I would like to bring up is the spell called ' marked for death' .
Description:
Marked for Death 35 40 - "Target unit: Sustains 15 unblockable Physical Damage. Loses -10 Morale.
Has a Decaying Zombie spawn adjacent to them. Is afflicted with Visions of Death until the end of combat."
It is 30CP in the mod I think.
It seems an extremely powerful spell.
Especially with lots of units/ longer battles comined with the often picked
shadow upgrade 'Death mageic'.
Sometimes it can be removed.
Sometimes there is no option to have anything in combat that can remove the spell.

Often 4+ units are affected at around turn 5 in battle. this grants 4 zombies each turn.
It can take 2 lvl 5's to take down 1 zombie.
Tedious battles while being worn down.
I think the cost reduction is a step in the wrong direction.
I think it ought to cost more to prevent it from being cast so frequently, back to 40CP or even 50CP. This to avoid the exploitative nature.

Thanks for getting back to me! Love your work and your responsiveness here. Interesting. Must be another mod overriding it. Might need to change the order of them.

@Codyksp As a resume, i can just leave all my custom/pantheon rules as is and they will work ok (probably with a little imbalance in their form traits). As i can see, you not just raise cap to 10, but change trait costs - so, in general, all my existing rulers should be quite balanced with new 10 point system (they still would use around 10 points anyway with their "old" traits) and i can just create new ones with new system.

@HjAa that sounds like the mod isn't active or being overwritten.
For me it shows up as T3 in both the tome and the Encyclopedia.

@aclyte your existing factions will be "converted" to the new point system.
This can potentially lead to not having enough or having too many points used.
But you can simply edit them to fix that before starting a new map with them.

Default templates and AI rulers are periodically updated by me to use all points.
That being said, I probably need to update them again after recent changes.

For some reason the Constrictor comes up as a T2 unit both in the tome and the encyclopedia for me. Is this normal? Will the unit be T3 in-game?

Hello! Want to try your mod, but i'm a single player guy and i'm a bit cautious about 10 form points. How will it work with current races in game (and premade/custom/pantheon rulers)? Or i can just ignore this 10 point rule, take one of premade forms and game would work ok?

@hank333, it is a valid point. There is a similar type of issue with the Guild structures.
Basically myself and the MP community view it as a necessary evil for the moment.

We still always make the Draft structures, simply to produce T3/T4/T5 units faster.
T1 units are played with early on, usually 1 specific one depending on your culture.
And for some very specific cultures T2 units are also used (most often the Support).

But yes, we don't use them later in the game with the bonus production ranks.
Though I am unsure it would even matter, as higher tiers have more potential.
Rushing through the Draft buildings is pretty costly itself and only grants 1-3 ranks.

i.e. you pay 100/250, 170/450 and 280/750 vs 200/200, 400/400 and 800/800.
Plus, a unit that's 1 tier higher is still better than +3 medals at their baseline.

The only exception could maybe be a build that plays with Prolific Swarmers.
But even then, the higher tier units simply have room to keep growing stronger.

I'm really enjoying this mod! All the balance changes spot on. City development feels a lot more natural after you gated advanced buildings behind the town hall. But there is one potential design issue with the new way city buildings though, which is draft buildings. Currently, to get the building that increases tier 1 unit levels, I need a level 2 town hall. But if I already have a level 2 town hall, then there isn't much reason to build tier 1 units. Similarly to get the armory (+ level for tier 2) you need a level three town hall. I have found this disincentivizes building these draft buildings, since by the time they are available they are already obsolete. Curious to hear how you think about this.

@ELJoe the T5 Dragon units have a base cost of 700 Gold from Vassals.
This is actually even higher than what most other T5 units would cost.

The only way to make them cost 350 is by having the House Levies perk.
In that case you're so deep into the Order tree that I don't see the issue.

Something that might be worth your attention, maybe you have a good approach to it.
The following situation seems too strong, although I guess it happens rarely.
I have a vassal state. The vassal state has 3 areas near the wonder that gives
dragons. I can recruit the dragons from the vassal state for 350 gold each.

There's about 4 dragons for sale. This happened to me around turn 55 (all settings
on difficult, and the focus on 'good development').
I think it is a bit faulty to be able to recruit these at such a low price so early on.
This bypasses the whole needed build up of a city to recruit them (and to build them).

Possible solutions: Increase the price of dragons from a vassal by gold.
Increase the price of dragons by 'vasssal points' .
Disable the recruitment of these dragons through a vassal.
I think the situation with the dragons is a bit more extreme due to different types of dragons being able to be recruited (and hence many to hire).

It seems it nulifies the 2 skillpoint mod, but appart from that seems to work really nice with other mods i used so far.

@AwwHEEEALNaw these specific changes didn't achieve what we wanted.

None of these SPIs were being played with anymore, outside of Sunshrine.
We'd occasionally see Tome of Cryomancy picked, but that wasn't for the SPI.
Oathsworn and Mystic Potential were also weaker for it, while not being strong.

At the end of the day, the changes to the Astral Empire Tree are enough.
Combined with the change made to Cosmoflux Elixir, which is fairly big.