Attack Protocol – Roaming Army Overhaul

Goal:

I find the early game to be 10x more interesting than the late game. The process of clearing sites, growing levels, and building armies is addictive, especially when you add in events and raids by mobs spawned by treasure sites.
The further the game progresses the less of these interactions you have, and the more it becomes about finding and wearing down your AI opponents.
This mod aims to extend the player vs environment portion of the game by increasing the strength and variety of roaming army spawns, with some spawn types having the potential to become very powerful if left unchecked until the late game.
This mod should increase the chance of seeing large roaming armies earlier on, and decrease the chance of seeing stacks full of high tier units until later into the game.
Expect spawned raiders to grow stronger over time and roam further from their bases. Be prepared to face the consequences if you don’t dedicate troops to defend your cities or actively root out and destroy these spawn points.

As a final touch, I’ve added defenders to the resource pickups that are normally free for the player to collect. They’ll be guarded by thematic defenders whose strength will vary depending on the prize they guard.

How it works:
17 new spawns have been created and distributed amongst the existing spawn sites. These spawns each have a unique flavour, are based on existing unit lists, and will update with any mods that add new units to those lists. All spawn sites have increased defender strength so they are harder to demolish in the early game. Some spawn points have map abilities that may make them tougher to deal with. The new spawns have varying behaviour based on the following profiles:

World Enders:
Spawns Weak strength stacks of up to 6 units which slowly grow in strength up to 7.3x starting power. De-spawns previous stack on timer and spawns new stack as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned frequently (7-13 turns) without first spawn delay, spawned stacks use raid behaviour and have a very large radius of operations (60 hex).
Spawns include: Haunted Boneyard, Haunted Boneyard Archons, with the addition of Sorcerers Enclave, Those who are chosen, Naga Den, White Walkers, Dark Pact Riders

Destroyer:
Spawns (1.5x) Medium strength stacks of up to 3 units which slowly grow in strength up to 2.2x starting power. Spawns on timer once previous stack dies as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned infrequently (10 to 20 turns) with first spawn delay (+25 turns), spawned stacks use patrol behaviour and have a medium radius of operations (20 hex).
Spawns include: All new Dragons Den, Giant Camp, Monsters Nest, Sea Monsters Lair

Raiders:
Spawns (0.5x) Weak strength stacks of up to 6 units which slowly grow in strength up to 9.5x starting power. De-spawns previous stack on timer and spawns new stack as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned frequently (3 to 9 turns) with no first spawn delay, spawned stacks use raid behaviour and have a large radius of operations (30 hex).
Spawns include: Brigand Hideout, Pirate’s Nest, with the addition of Barbarian Camp, Greenskin Tribe, Frozen Camp

Territorial:
Spawns (0.8x) Medium strength stacks of up to 6 units which slowly grow in strength up to 4.15x starting power. De-spawns previous stack on timer and spawns new stack as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned frequently (8 to 16 turns) with no first spawn delay, spawned stacks use patrol behaviour and have a small radius of operations (7 hex). A boss unit will be forced to spawn in these stacks.
Spawns include: Monster Den default, Monster Den Spider, WIP Mud Pit, Frost Cave, Haunted Battle Site

Annoyance:
Spawns (0.5x) Very Weak strength stacks of up to 6 units which slowly grow in strength up to 11.8x starting power. De-spawns previous stack on timer and spawns new stack as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned frequently (3 to 9 turns) with no first spawn delay, spawned stacks use brigand behaviour and have a small radius of operations (15 hex).
Spawns include: Summoners Circle, with the addition of Sirens Cove, Snake Pit, Magical Flux, Spider Pit, Mourning Harbour, Kobold Camp

Wanderer:
Spawns Random strength stacks of up to 4 units which slowly grow in strength up to 1.5x starting power. Spawns on timer once previous stack dies as long as spawn point isn’t cleared, stacks spawned very infrequently (15 to 45 turns) with a first spawn delay (+15 turns), spawned stacks use wander behaviour and have a huge radius of operations (100 hex). They are friendly to the player.
Spawns include: WIP Item Rack, Knowledge Seekers

Pickups and Structures:
All pickups are defended, with guards drawn from Sunken City Group Cat, Brigands Rogues Group Cat, Ancient Ruins Adventurer Group Cat in addition to vanilla unit categories.
Basic pickup Defenders (gold, mana), are pretty trivial which will still allow early game seizing of loot provided you have a moderate strength scouting party. As the reward increases, so does the defender strength, roughly in line with vanilla.
Structure Defenders all have slightly increased strength and numbers where applicable to keep in line with the spawns. This should make it easier to choose an appropriate defender strength for your Attack Protocol spawns without making the structure defenders too trivial.

Defender Strength (6 new Attack Protocol options):
AP0: Safe (Lord) – Def Strength x0.9, Boss +0, Units -1
API: Base (Lord) – Def Strength x1.2, Boss +0, Units +0
APII: Balance (King) – Def Strength x1.5, Boss +0, Units +0
APIII: Challenge (King) – Def Strength x1.75, Boss +0, Units +0
APIV: Deadly (Emperor) – Def Strength x2, Boss +1, Units +1
APV: EndTime (Human) – Def Strength x2.5, Boss +2, Units +1

Expected spawns at 10 turns:
Almost all spawns are at the ‘Very Weak’ to ‘Weak’ level

Expected spawns at 50 turns:
Half the spawns have now started reaching the ‘Strong’ level, the other half have fallen behind in strength gain at this point and are around ‘Medium’ strength.

Expected spawns at 100 turns:
The weaker spawns have stopped scaling somewhere between ‘Strong’ and ‘Very Strong’ levels.
The more powerful spawns are peaking at ‘Very Strong’ levels – equivalent to 2xTier IV 1xTier III 1xTier II 2xTier I stack on base game ‘Normal 1x’ difficulty, or 3xTier IV 3xTier III stack on ‘Tier II Attack Protocol: Normal 1.5x’ difficulty

Expected spawns at 150 turns:
The ‘World Enders’ spawn point stops scaling and caps at approx. 1.3x ‘Very Strong’ levels – equivalent to 3xTier IV 1xTier III 2xTier II stack on base game ‘Normal 1x’ difficulty, or 6xTier IV stack on ‘Tier II Attack Protocol: Normal 1.5x’ difficulty

Compatibility:

Dependent on all DLC.

This should work with most other mods except those that change the adventure sets i.e. those that change unit spawns and strength or spawn lists from treasure sites that spawn enemies (i.e. brigands hideout, boneyard etc.).
Loads at Priority 1 and overwrite any mods with a lower Priority.

Under the hood:

Changes made in the following resource packs:
AOW_STRUCTURES.RPK (in Title Packages) under Category: Adventure & Reward Sets
STRUCTURES_DLC3.RPK (in DLC3 packages) under Category: Adventure & Reward Sets
STRUCTURES_DLC2.RPK (in DLC2 packages) under Category: Adventure & Reward Sets
TITLE.RPK (in Title Packages) under Category: User Settings

New spawn lists made per those described above, and assigned to the various spawn sites.
Refer Excel sheet ‘Behaviour Matrix’ in file for comprehensive list of modified settings