Golden Age mod – TW Pharaoh Dynasties
Golden Age mod – Classic TW gameplay – v.0.3
Golden Age mod recreates the Shogun 2 & Medieval 2 era gameplay & feel in Pharaoh Dynasties, thanks to the changes brought to the game such as Lethality. The aim is for Battles (priority) to feel as close as possible to Shogun 2, and the campaign like Medieval 2.
As of v.0.3 the mod is playable, including in campaign, with the Battle System complete, albeit more balance passes are needed. Be careful, as this does play like Shogun 2: mistakes will be punished harshly, and your soldiers, especially the low tier ones, will easily run away when under pressure! Feel free to drop a message for any complaint or request!
Vision:
- Impactful combat: tactics & decisions matter, mistakes are costly, good play is satisfying
- Lethality as the main kill-resolution system, damage as secondary
- MA, MD, Armour and Proj. block, Proj. Spread as main balancing factors
- Weapon traits (armour-piercing, bonus vs shield etc) as main orthogonality factors
- Increased importance of context (height, position, terrain), rather than stats
- Strong orthogonal unit differentiation: context and unit type/roles matter more than tier
- Meaningful Morale: T1 units start routing from 1 major morale damage such as flanking
- Removed all Synced Animations: controversial. But favours combat dynamics & flow
- Minimalist UI: removing informative text and generally reduce UI, diegetically if possible
- Campaign Systems: replace campaign system complexity with depth and better balance
Implemented as of v.0.3 – Battles:
- Lethality as the core kill-resolution system: perfect charges will wipe out half a unit
- As a result, Lethality values are very high. E.g. ≈75% for melee, 25% for ranged
- Complete Armour overhaul with 100 armour equaling 100% lethality reduction
- Max & min chance to hit expanded to 1% & 99%, thus soldier’ skill gaps matter more
- More advantage on chance to hit when attacking from rear & flanks
- Easier elimination of routing enemies
- Slightly improved high ground advantage (melee for now)
- Fatigue complete overhaul : complete rebalance of all fatigue sources & sinks
- Morale complete overhaul : complete rebalance of all morale factors (copying S2)
- Morale complete rebalance : rebalancing all units so Tier 1 units rout easily, T6 hardly
- Projectile Spread : increased spread for most ranged weapons. Fire into blobs!
- Projectile Block (shields): increased overall chance to block projectiles (frontally)
- Reworked all unit traits: removed many unrealistic ones (see below for details)
- Difficulty Settings: removed AI bonuses on higher difficulties
- UI Banners: are much smaller now, looking more diegetic/realistic
- Custom Battle – Native units categories: reordered to make more intuitive
Implemented as of v.0.3 – Campaign:
- Campaign Camera angle changed to classic TW one instead of WH "top-down" angle
- Forts: can garrison 20 units now
- Barter Durations: minimum now 5 turns, maximum 30 turns by default
- Dynasties: more natural childbearing values
- Reworked Text: changed text in many places. E.g. Clubs renamed to Maces
Planned for v.0.4:
- Implement new weapon traits for orthogonality (bonus vs shield mainly)
- Overhaul of unit stances & attributes
- Second wave of unit traits rebalance/rework
- UI: unit cards to show Lethality instead of damage. Rework general ordering of stats
Using with other mods:
- Because many tables are modified, combining with other mods will likely not work well
- Unit roster mods in particular will not combine well, as they would need balancing
Weapon Niches & Unit Roles- Vision for what roles units should fulfill:
- Spears: best all-rounder, 2nd best option in most situations. Bonus vs Large, Charge Reflect & Armour-piercing. Good MA & good MD. Decent Lethality, bad charges
- Maces: specialist anti-armour but poor otherwise. Ok MA, poor MD, low Lethality, good charges, great blunt damage, excellent armour-piercing
- Swords: great MA & MD, good Lethality, average charges, struggles against armour
- Axes: great damage & anti-shield. Ok MA, MD, charges, great Lethality, bonus vs shields
- Khopesh: best damage but not anti-anything. Good MA, MD, chargs, excellent Lethality
- 2H Spears: better MA, MD, Lethalty, charge compared to 1H spears, but no charge reflect
- 2H Maces: better MA & charge, much better Lethality, but worse MD vs 1H maces
- 2H Axes: better MA, charge, Lethality, but worse MD compared to 1H axes
- Bows: baseline ranged weapon. About 1/3 Lethality of melee weapons
- Slings: lower Lethality than Bows, ignores armour
- Javelins: much higher Lethality, equivalent to a melee weapon, bonus vs shields
Unit Properties rework
- Removed Attributes: Causes Dread, Flanking Attack Improved, Flanking Defence Improved, Furious Charge, Heroic Heritage, Strider, Immune to Psychology, Powerful Strikes, Steadfast, Storm Warriors, Strength in Numbers
- Removed Abilities: Aim True, Aspire, Born in the Sand, Mistwalkers, Sand Scorpions, Catch your breath, Cavalry Double Time, Cavalry Formation, Hit and Run, Loyal to the King, Redoubt, Self-sufficient, The Underdog, Throw Dirt, Urartian battle Prayer, Urban Warriors
