The End Times

The End Times is a complete overhaul which aims to find realism in fantasy. All units are now usable throughout the game, with the AI recruitment reworked to be aware of this. Sweeping ai changes have also been made in campaign and in battle and are used to make the game more difficult, despite the difficulty settings not giving as many AI buffs.

2 new factions have been added, playable in campaign if you use Mixu’s Unlocker and always available in custom battles and MP. Skeggi has an all new roster with a mixture of Norscans, Lizardmen, Humans and Dwarfs with a mixture of equipment just as varied. The Decadent host is a new faction for Sigvald, a norscan faction with a hybrid roster of chaos and Norsca with a smaller monstrous component and larger infantry one.

New units have been added, some like Sergeants available for whole Races and others like Knights of the White Wolf only available to specific subfactions, giving some variety to which faction you choose within a race. Bordeleux and the Cult of Pleasure for example have a very different feel to their counterparts.

Strategy is emphasised both in battle and campaign – the ai is more likely to flank you and use cavalry in a much more effective way so you’ll need to plan ahead for that. Ranged units are much less accurate and have much flatter trajectories so management of those is a greater part of battle, using them at the front of an army or on the flanks is now much more common than as a back row, which is reserved for hills. Every unit is restatted to a different scale so the units that seem vastly better may well be a similar power level, dont be too alarmed when you see the stats at first, they make sense when you adjust to the scaling. Some units also have adjusted arms and armour, and perform a different role to in the vanilla game, so watch out for those

Fatigue is rebalanced and makes a greater impact, especially to charge and attack. Units tire faster, but recover much quicker, so resting units is much more worthwhile. Undead don’t tire and vampires won’t tire from combat, making the undead very good in long battles, especially when this is combined with The Dead Rise and The Hunger giving regeneration.

The ai buffs in campaign are lessened greatly and replaced with ai tweaks, aversions are much greater but can still be overcome in most cases, with the dwarfs much more resistant to this and the Tomb Kings much more changeable based on in game events. Deal evaluation is rebalanced to make diplomacy more engaging and give generally more reliable outcomes. Buildings are changed with the inclusion of Statesman, giving most civic buildings a downside. Garrisons are reworked to function like a small army, typically giving a faction every element they need to fight like they typically do.

Be aware that for lords and heroes mounts come with disadvantages and advantages instead of a linear progression. For example, a horse will make a character faster, but find it harder to defend themselves, while a dragon will drop the defense skill significantly since the Lord’s parrying skill won’t defend the back of a dragon out of reach.

Sieges are less frequent, with minor settlement garrisons no longer giving walls – very few minor cities can gain walls at all, and all those that can gain them through unique landmarks, such as the one at Ubersreik. Defenders gain a very large morale bonus in sieges and you can expect them to be a bloodier affair, though your equipment will build much faster and most cities won’t gain access to late towers, which are limited to Landmark Cities.

I highly recommend the supporting mod, https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2807513685 which alters projectile trails.
There are now many submods available for large faction and unit mods, check out The End Times + Extra Content collection down below to find them easily. There is a channel in the Discord for requesting submods.

See the discussion https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1980004789/4763089742376903895/
for a list of thanks and credit to people whove contributed, assisted and for included mods.

https://www.patreon.com/TheDukesTW The mod is of course always free but donations are massively appreciated.
https://discord.gg/48tWqDq Join the discord for more information, feedback, announcements or to join the MP community.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jiQZRyQuGiBi6zmrVrZ7APbW3iYVxmMIujb8F-XyIJg/edit?usp=sharing for more info on the mod