DESCRIPTION
Goal:
This mod overhauls the level up rewards for various unit types with the aim of increasing unit type identity by allowing them to excel in specific roles as they gain experience.
It achieves this through adding a champion level up reward to each unit, as well as swapping some others around.
The goal is to provide a fair and ideally balanced experience that rewards players that manage to keep their troops alive to the higher experience levels, while spicing up combat and increasing the viability of high level but low tier units.
New level up rewards:
All Units:
Legend Medal: Legend (+10 Morale)
Shield Unit: Melee support tank, shrugs off ranged fire
Elite Medal: Defence +1 (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Deflection* (Mod* +3 Defence and +3 Resistance against non-flanking Physical Ranged and Magic attacks)
Legend Medal: Exalted Defence (Bolsters defence of nearby units when entering defence mode, unchanged)
Shock Unit (Infantry): Front line breaker, chain kills for maximum carnage
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Grim Executioner (When this unit kills another, it gains 3 Fortune) + Brutal (Mod* Morale loss is reduced by -30%)
Legend Medal: Killing Momentum (Refresh 1 action point on kill, replaced +20% Critical)
Shock Unit (Cavalry): Back line sweeper, break through lines for devastating flanking charges
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Sprint
Legend Medal: Aggressive Tactician (Mod* +30% flanking damage, replaced +20% Critical)
Polearm: Versatile infantry with powerful offensive and defensive stances, excel against large targets
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Golden Retaliation (When in Defense Mode, this unit has unlimited Retaliation Attacks)
Legend Medal: Melee Charge Strike (Charge attack like shock units, replaced +1 Retaliation)
Skirmisher: Ultimate flanker, distract enemy troops to allow tactical strikes
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Fleeting (Ignores enemy zone of control)
Legend Medal: Ambusher (Mod* Provides the taunt ability with 3 range, 2 cooldown, free action, effect last for 2 turns including turn cast, 90% effect chance, replaced sprint)
Ranged: Ultimate ranged precision, take out priority targets from afar
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Eagle Eye (+1 Range +10% Accuracy)
Legend Medal: Sniper (+20% Accuracy, was +1 Range)
Battle Mage: Ranged damage dealer, blast down enemies with critical casts
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: War mage (+20% crit chance, note: ranged critical chance is limited by accuracy)
Legend Medal: Bypass resistance 1 and Status resistance 2 (unchanged)
Scout: Ultimate utility, useful as vanguard or army support
Veteran Medal: Sprint + Quick escape (Custom* survival on route chance + 50%)
Elite Medal: Resourceful (Mod* All units in the army heal an additional 5 hit points per turn on the strategic map)
Champion Medal: Demolitionist (Mod* Adds +3 Fortification Damage when part of a besieging army)
Legend Medal: True sight (can see camouflaged/invisible units on the strategic map, replaced sprint) + Unleash the Hounds (summons war hound at the start of the battle)
Support: Battlefield buffer, defensive masters warding nearby troops from enemy magic attacks
Elite Medal: +1 Resistance (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Spellwarden (Defense mode grants +1 Defense and +6 Resistance)
Legend Medal: Exalted Resistance (Bolsters resistance of nearby units when entering defence mode, unchanged)
Fighter: Melee duellist, ultimate one on one melee combatant
Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged)
Champion Medal: Watchful (Retaliation attacks +1) + Unyielding (Mod* +10hp)
Legend Medal: Martial expertise (Mod* +6 Defence +6 Resistance against retaliation and opportunity attacks, was Brawler Medal +10 health +1 Def)
Mythic: Battlefield terror sends enemies fleeing, swings the tide of battle
Elite Medal: Mythic (+10% damage, +1 defence, +1 resistance, unchanged)
Champion Medal: Vicious Killer (Deals double morale damage on killing an enemy) + Intimidating Aura (At the end of this unit's turn, adjacent enemy units have a base 90% of losing -5 Morale. Doesn't affect Tier V and hero units.)
Legend Medal: Cunning (+20% Critical damage +20% Critical damage chance, was Killing momentum)
Compatibility:
Only the base game is required.
This mod overwrites the ‘core unit – type’ entries in the UnitTypes_Definitions.rpk and will not be compatible with any other mod that edits the same data.
Realistically this will only be mods that also edit the medals for units on a unit type by unit type basis i.e. all shock units, or all shield units.
CHANGELOG
v15 - Released 2023-09-10
Changelog: 10/09/23 V3.6 Removed all Data Tags from Level Up abilities so they don’t conflict / overwrite descriptions of the base game abilities they were built off.
v14 - Released 2023-09-05
Changelog: 05/09/23 V3.5 Background update to resolve any issues that may occur with Knightly Orders or other in-game scripts relying on the original medals being present. Basically, I’ve removed the effects from any of the unused Legendary Medals and changed their titles to ‘Legendary’ then re-assigned them to their original unit types. Unfortunately I had to do this because they can’t be hidden when linked as a unit upgrade reward. To help mask this I’ve added another legendary medal bonus that provides +10 morale. I think it’s still fitting with the mods original intention. How: Sprint, Killing Momentum, Range, Retaliation, Brawler Medals have had their linked properties replaced with a ‘Legend’ morale boost property, and have been reassigned to the units that originally received them: Scout & Skirmisher, Mythic, Ranged, Polearm, Fighter (in that order). Units that have their existing legend medals simply have the ‘Legend’ morale boost property added as a second legend medal reward: Shield, Battlemage, Support. Shock Infantry and Cavalry units didn’t have an easy solution. Their legendary medal has been renamed but hidden from the unit panel, the ‘Legend’ morale boost property has then been added to a hidden group property that contains their original level up reward. The end result should be all units showing a ‘Legend’ level up reward when mousing over their experience, and then show the correct properties plus the ‘Legend’ property in their unit panel on reaching legendary medal. Unfortunately it’s a pretty messy way to deal with things, but the only way to make it present clean in-game due to the way the vanilla level up abilities have been implemented.
v13 - Released 2023-08-29
Changelog: 29/08/23 V3.4 Mythic Brutal ability renamed to Cunning Some ability Icon changes Shock Unit (Infantry): Front line breaker, chain kills for maximum carnage Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Grim Executioner (When this unit kills another, it gains 3 Fortune) + Brutal (Mod* Morale loss is reduced by -30%) Legend Medal: Killing Momentum (Refresh 1 action point on kill, replaced +20% Critical) Ranged: Ultimate ranged precision, take out priority targets from afar Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Eagle Eye (+1 Range +10% Accuracy) Legend Medal: Sniper (+20% Accuracy, was +1 Range)
v12 - Released 2023-08-26
Changelog: 26/08/23 V3.3 Update to Skirmishers Ambusher ability – make it a free action Skirmisher: Ultimate flanker, distract enemy troops to allow tactical strikes Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Fleeting (Ignores enemy zone of control) Legend Medal: Ambusher (Mod* Provides the taunt ability with 3 range, 2 cooldown, free action, effect last for 2 turns including turn cast, 90% effect chance, replaced sprint)
v11 - Released 2023-08-26
Changelog: 26/08/23 V3.2 Languages and ability displays tested for consistency – all good (as far as I can tell) Update to Skirmishers Ambusher ability to bring it inline with intention (draw enemies out of defensive positions) without being OP for multi-skirmisher armies. Skirmisher: Ultimate flanker, distract enemy troops to allow tactical strikes Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Fleeting (Ignores enemy zone of control) Legend Medal: Ambusher (Mod* Provides the taunt ability with 3 range, 2 cooldown, leaves one action point after use, effect last for 2 turns including turn cast, 90% effect chance, replaced sprint)
v10 - Released 2023-08-25
Fix broken languages. Will need to double check ability numbers display correctly still.
v9 - Released 2023-08-24
Changelog: 24/08/23 V3.0 Played around with abilities a lot, made a bunch of custom ones, scrapped a bunch of custom ones. A couple of issues with custom skills: 1. The AI has no idea how to use them (unless they’re basic passives), giving the player an even greater tactical advantage over the AI 2. The AI has no idea how to use them, making the abilities less effective in auto resolve 3. Custom abilities need custom text and from what I can see custom text creates issues with translations. In saying that I tried changing the language settings and basically all the abilities are still presented in English anyway… this technically means custom abilities could still be on the cards, but unlikely to be any time soon. 4. I’d like to get back to playing and enjoying the game. Shield Unit: Melee support tank, shrugs off ranged fire Elite Medal: Defence +1 (unchanged) Champion Medal: Deflection* (Mod* +3 Defence and +3 Resistance against non-flanking Physical Ranged and Magic attacks) Legend Medal: Exalted Defence (Bolsters defence of nearby units when entering defence mode, unchanged) Shock Unit (Infantry): Front line breaker, chain kills for maximum carnage Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Grim Executioner (When this unit kills another, it gains 3 Fortune) Legend Medal: Killing Momentum (Refresh 1 action point on kill, replaced +20% Critical) Shock Unit (Cavalry): Back line sweeper, break through lines for devastating flanking charges Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Sprint Legend Medal: Aggressive Tactician (Mod* +30% flanking damage, replaced +20% Critical) Polearm: Versatile infantry with powerful offensive and defensive stances, excel against large targets Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Golden Retaliation (When in Defense Mode, this unit has unlimited Retaliation Attacks) Legend Medal: Melee Charge Strike (Charge attack like shock units, replaced +1 Retaliation) Skirmisher: Ultimate flanker, distract enemy troops to allow tactical strikes Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Fleeting (Ignores enemy zone of control) Legend Medal: Ambusher (Provides the ranged taunt ability from wand of provocation, replaced sprint) Ranged: Ultimate ranged precision, take out priority targets from afar Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Sniper (+20% Accuracy) Legend Medal: Range (+1 Range, unchanged) Battle Mage: Ranged damage dealer, blast down enemies with critical casts Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: War mage (+20% crit chance, note: ranged critical chance is limited by accuracy) Legend Medal: Bypass resistance 1 and Status resistance 2 (unchanged) Scout: Ultimate utility, useful as vanguard or army support Veteran Medal: Sprint + Quick escape (Custom* survival on route chance + 50%) Elite Medal: Resourceful (Mod* All units in the army heal an additional 5 hit points per turn on the strategic map) Champion Medal: Demolitionist (Mod* Adds +3 Fortification Damage when part of a besieging army) Legend Medal: True sight (can see camouflaged/invisible units on the strategic map, replaced sprint) + Unleash the Hounds (summons war hound at the start of the battle) Support: Battlefield buffer, defensive masters warding nearby troops from enemy magic attacks Elite Medal: +1 Resistance (unchanged) Champion Medal: Spellwarden (Defense mode grants +1 Defense and +6 Resistance) Legend Medal: Exalted Resistance (Bolsters resistance of nearby units when entering defence mode, unchanged) Fighter: Melee duellist, ultimate one on one melee combatant Elite Medal: Damage +10% (unchanged) Champion Medal: Watchful (Retaliation attacks +1) + Unyielding (Mod* +10hp) Legend Medal: Martial expertise (Mod* +6 Defence +6 Resistance against retaliation and opportunity attacks, was Brawler Medal +10 health +1 Def) Mythic: Battlefield terror sends enemies fleeing, swings the tide of battle Elite Medal: Mythic (+10% damage, +1 defence, +1 resistance, unchanged) Champion Medal: Vicious Killer (Deals double morale damage on killing an enemy) + Intimidating Aura (At the end of this unit's turn, adjacent enemy units have a base 90% of losing -5 Morale. Doesn't affect Tier V and hero units.) Legend Medal: Brutal (+20% Critical damage +20% Critical damage chance, was Killing momentum)
v8 - Released 2023-08-10
Update to almost all unit type medals (mainly Gold Champion). Big changes to battlemages that have a more offensive upgrade, and support units which allow them to refresh support abilities for clutch situations. Some abilities from the game have been slightly customised for utility and balance, this means some descriptions are slightly inaccurate. I’ll look to fix this down the track. For now, all the tooltips should be pretty much correct, and the abilities look to be functioning as intended. Will playtest and listen to feedback for further balancing.
REQUIREMENTS
Age Of Wonders 4
Full game
FORUM LINKS