[MOD] Ethos Armies

[Armakoir]

A mod to create more depth, flavor, and diversity in terms of armies and ground combat.

ETHOS ARMIES (on Steam)
(formerly ARMIES ACCORDING TO ETHOS from this thread)

Current Version: 0.92 (as of JUNE 10)
Current Progress: Big update with lots of armies and new features added. I consider this mod pre-beta. This version is not considered complete or balanced but it should be playable, and enjoyable!

The State of Ground Combat in Stellaris

Spoiler

Ground combat and planetary invasions are in a pretty bad spot right now. Beyond just being boring, there are several fundamental problems:

1. Morale Damage is based upon Regular Damage (by design)
   
2. Attachments and Leaders do NOT modify Morale Damage (bug)
   
3. Morale DOES modify Morale Damage (bug)
   
4. Attacking armies do not suffer Morale Damage (bug?)

What does this mean? If you want to play a Spiritualist Pacifist who mind-chops invaders off his planet, you're SOL.

Solution? Fix the bugs and give Morale Damage its own Min/Max values in defines.

Regarding ETHOS ARMIES: Honestly, most of the armies I created are worthless on a functional level. Especially the Airborne units (units designed to destroy an enemies morale but who themselves have very low morale). So, go big regular damage or go home.

UPDATED IN 0.92:

• Lots of new divisions and armies (see features)
• Layered unlock of divisions and armies using both events and technology. The first unlock occurs after an empire's first defensive or offensive planetary invasion, and requires a player decision.
• Two new Society (Military Theory) technologies.
• Renamed "Brigades" to "Divisions".
• Gene Warriors remain the best army according to base stats. However, they are only available to Fallen Empires.
• Continued tweaking of Defines, et al.

OVERALL FEATURES:

• 2 new non-restricted archetype armies: Mechanized Assault Group, Airborne Assault Group
• ~50 new Ethos restricted divisions and armies
  • Players will have access to 7-8 divisions or armies; AI should use 6-7 different armies
  • Except Pacifists, each pair of ethos has an associated division. After an empire's first planetary invasion (defensive or offensive), the player will choose the Ethical focus of their ground forces.
  • Fanatic ethos unlock (via technology) improved Armies based solely on that ethos.
• Vanilla armies re-envisioned (WIP).
• Planetary Warfare rebalanced.
  • "Planetary Fortifications" is now "Command & Control"
  • C&C damage reduction between ~30% and ~9%
• More involved planetary invasions (WIP). Instead of more health and more armies, I will be implementing ethos-driven occupation strategies using events. An event based method creates more depth without having to rely on the AI (though I'll still run into morale issues).

ARMIES:

• Two New Archetype Armies: Mechanized Assault Group, Airborne Assault Group
• Division: 50% boost to archetype army stats; 25% reduction to health and morale
• Fanatic Armies: 75% boost to archetype army stats
• Fanatic Elite Armies: 150% boost to archetype army stats

ETHOS DESIGN INSPIRATIONS:

• Militarist - Somewhat generic militarist. Bonus stats vary.
• Materialist - More mechanized divisions (ie Mech Warrior). High damage output.
• Spiritualist - A religious interpretation of Spiritualist (blame years of W40k). High morale.
• Individualist - More airborne and mech divisions (ie special forces). High morale damage (if bugs are ever fixed).
• Collectivist - More infantry divisions (ie Red Army). High health.
• Xenophobe - Varied division composition, purge and death squads. Good damage, good morale.
• Xenophile - Varied division composition, somewhat ones with nature (ie monstrous cavalry). Good damage, good health.

KNOWN ISSUES & COMPATIBILITY

Spoiler

KNOWN ISSUES:
* The definable values for morale and morale damage are all screwed up. Basically, morale_damage is not an independent value (nor is it even functional in the code). Rather, morale damage is based upon regular damage and, apparently, modified by morale itself. Considering there are so few stat variables, this makes creating functionally unique units quite difficult, and it also makes game balance hard to establish. For now, I am leaving these values untouched according to my original design approach in the hopes that Paradox fixes the morale bugs.
* New non-vanilla armies are generically named. Changing this requires an entry for every individual army in every individual namelist. That's not something I'm going to do, but I'll work on a template that may be helpful.


COMPATIBILITY
Replaced/Overwritten Files:
00_armies.txt
00_country_types.txt (See Note 1 below)

Partially Modified Files:
00_defines.lua (as ethosarmies_00_defines.lua)
l_english.yml (as ethosarmies_l_english.yml)

NOTE 1:
In order to get the AI to utilize the new armies, I must replace the 00_country_types file. This causes a conflict with mods that also want new ships utilized by the AI. I plan to develop a version of Ethos Armies that includes a compatibility patch with the more popular new ship mods.

PLANS:

Spoiler

Future Updates and Features:
* Occupation strategies (ie events) according to ethos.
* Incorporating my Strategy Attachments mod.
* Incorporating my Battlebarge Transport mod.
* Imaginative and flavorful unit descriptions.
* More armies! Have any suggestions? With the structure in place, adding armies is now just plug-and-play.
* More flavorful (yet still species neutral) army titles! Have any suggestions?
* Icons! Anyone gfx inclined? Or have links to icon resources?
* Balance, Balance, Balance


Possible Features:
* Planet modifiers (ie terrain bonuses)?
* Can armies require strategic resources?
* Can Insurgencies (ie Garrisons) be linked to happiness levels?
* Can average damage be displyed everywhere?
* Non-English Localization?
* Army stats window after combat resolution?

My Other Mods:
Ripple Ping: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689794111
(WIP)Strategy Attachments: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=693811197

 

[omnicide]

Thanks for this mod and figuring out what is going on with morale!
What happens if you give an empire a major army morale boost? My idea is a hive mind mod and I wanted to give them "army_morale = 1.0" = +100% morale for all armies. My reasoning is that in a hive mind there should be no one running from the battlefield. Now reading your mod description I am wondering how morale is really working. Maybe my reasoning is correct, but the way morale is implemented (or bugged) my mod would be totally useless or totally overpowered?

 

[Armakoir]

I like the idea. As morale is currently implemented/bugged you should be able to increase the morale of armies. BUT you will also increase their morale damage at the same time. This is the part that might be OP (and somewhat outside your design concept, I think).

 

[omnicide]

by the way, if I just want to add a few simple armies, can I put them in "01_armies" or do I have to overwrite the 00_armies?


EDIT:
- thanks for your answer!
- this question is unrelated to my hive mind empire idea. I'm just wondering why you overwrite 00_armies and preserve the original armies in there instead of adding to them in an additional file. But I guess that is because Stellaris doesn't always load additions, but forces us to overwrite files

 

[Armakoir]

A 01 file (or event just something like omnicide_armies.txt) should work for added armies. For most files, additions do not need to be a 00 file, and a 00 file without the original content and only the added content should result in a crash or a very noticeable lack of content (testing this with localisation files is a safe way to go).

To be honest, I haven't tried the 01 method (with the armies file in particular). I think right off the bat I planned on modding the original armies so I've always used the 00. I think if I used a 01 file I would end up duplicating the original armies, and I'm not sure what kind of problems that would result in.

 

[omnicide]

I'm going to ask here, since there is no one else working on Armies as far as I know. So I made my simple mod to add armies. Since there is no weight_modifier in the armies file, I guess country_types decides what AI empire builds what armies. So if I don't add anything to country_types, no AI empire will ever build my armies - correct?

The next step would be to make my armies pickable for AI empires, but give the choice to the player. So I don't want my armies to appear randomly, but only if the player decides a certain empire should use them. So my idea goes like this: the player creates a custom race and saves it to appear as AI empire in his game. The problem is, how would I mod it so the player can pick something in the empire creation tool to trigger this specific empire to build my armies? It would have to be a trait, but can you even trigger army AI weight by a custom trait!?