The Bretonnian Rework i Dream For – Bretonnia Overhaul

A Bretonnia Overhaul designed to be simple, yet (trying to) modernize the faction and make it more interesting to play both in campaign and in battles. Include new campaign mechanics, new abilities, new possibilities on the battlefield and a ton of tweakings.

Each subtypes of generic Lords and Heroes got 6 new skills with mutually-exclusive options to specialize them into support, campaign utility or personnal combat ability.

Louen, the Fay Enchantress, Alberic and Henri le Massif all got tweakings and new skills to be more in line with modern legendary characters and have more personnality in their army compositions.

Buildings of Bretonnia have been modified to have more clear utility. Farms and Industries no more compete with eachother, Farms generating growth and replenishment rate and Industries generating gold. Windmill and Cellar no more need other buildings for being constructed, Windmill being a bonus building for both gold and growth generation while Cellar are a bonus building for increasing the strategic depth of a region.

Tier 5 Cathedrals and Stables have been repurposed to be more in line with the new faction mechanics, Knights being no more recruitable by normal means.

The Technology Tree have been remade from scratch for all Bretonnian factions, the old one being a damn mess. It is made to be more generous and straightforward.

The new tech tree is divided bewteen military categories for Peasants and Knights, an economic category, a catch-all category which essentialy permit to boost Lord and Heroes and a diplomatic category. Grail Knigh units got the Aspiring Champions treatment, getting new capacities at the end of every categories.

As said earlier, Knights are no more recruitable by normal means. Bretonnian factions now got a general recruitment pool for them. The pool of Knight Errants replenish regularly while higher tier Knights replenish only under specific conditions.

Knights now have the Warband Upgrade system, Grail Knight units being available only from it. Knight Errants can evolve into all types of Knights. Knights of the Realm/Grail Knights and Questing Knight/Grail Guardians can be interverted while Flying Knights have their own separate category.

As Knights are now more rare, Peasants got a slight buff : they now all have the "Peasants on the Battlefield" ability, which boost their defensive capabilities if their leadership is high. Peasant Economy has also been removed from the game, as i feel it’s absurd to have a mechanic which restrain the recruitment of the worst units of the faction. In compensation, Bretonnia now have supply lines.

With the new tech three and the new character skills, all Bretonnian units have also more room for being viable. The new system intend to encourage diversity in the use of units, Knights being more rare and Peasants less worthless.

The annoying Vows and Troths system has been remade. First of all, you no longer have to validate them to play Knights, they now always have a normal upkeep. Second of all, you no longer have to select them : the game will do it for you.

The new Vows and Troths system is the same as Ogres Big Names/WoC Path to Glory : each characters have goals to accomplish from their creation, accomplishing these goals giving them thematic rewards. The only new thing is that when a Bretonnian character accomplish all the three of these goals, it unlock his grail blessing, giving him the same bonus as the base game Grail Vow, but also Blessings, a resource i’ll talk about later.

Errantry War is a new mechanic heavily inspired by the Waaagh mechanic of the Greenskins. The Chivalry bar is now similar to the Waaagh Bar, permitting to give a big momentum to the faction once filled. As such, Chivalry is also much more easy to gather than in base game.

The principle is the same as the Waaagh : you target a faction, you gain big advantages and you have to take the target’s capital to gain a reward. No extra armies for Bretonnia however, rather movement range bonus and specific bonus against the culture of the target faction. It’s also slightly less long than the Waaagh, during 15 turns instead of 20. Like the Waaagh, the value of the reward change according to the target faction’s ranking when you targeted it.

Errantry War give upgrade Knights in your recruitment pool as well as, like Vows, Blessings.

Blessings is a new resource designed to be hard to gain but giving big rewards. As said earlier, it’s gained by accomplish all the Vows of a character and winning Errantry War. High tier buildings can also generate it.

Blessings permit to upgrade Knight to Grail Knight units. But, essentially, it’s spent on the Cult of the Lady. The Cult of the Lady mechanic is inspired by the Mortuary Cult of the Tomb Kings and the Forge of the Dwarfs. It’s a menu where you can spend Blessings to gain various rewards.

In the Cult of the Lady, you can obtain Sacred Banners, powerful custom banners for Knights and Peasants, confederations with minor and legendary Bretonnian factions as well as Green Knight summoning and upgrades.

As mentionned just before, the Green Knightt is unlocked by the Cult of the Lady. However, it’s no more an invocation on the campaign map like in base game : the Green Knight now have a more global presence in your faction, that may be invoked in all battles.

His summoning still have limits : it can only be summoned when enough of your soldiers have been slain, and it have a time limit. The Green Knight can however become more powerful during the game with additional Cult of the Lady actions, until you can permanently summon him in battle.

When you launch a game with my mods, you’ll have to manually select your Bretonnian legendary lord to lead your first army : trust me i’m salty to have to let it in the release version but it’s the only way i found to make the Vow system work properly with legendary characters.

The ui of the new Vow system also have a short delay to show properly. Other problem : if you switch a normal character to Louen, it’ll show a Grail Vow despite him not having one. It’s only visual bugs but i didn’t find any solution to them.

I did all my tests with Victory Condition Overhaul and never bothered with vanilla victory conditions. As such, i highly recommand playing with it, as vanilla victory conditions are certainly softlocked by my mod.

The mod was not made with multiplayer in mind. Most of its features won’t work with it.

Of course incompatible with any mod which heavily modify Bretonnia.

Must be compatible with almost anything else.