SFO: Grimhammer II Order & Mayhem Update Showcase

Hello Everyone!
Venris Here!

It’s a special time in the year when a new, major update is out for SFO: Grimhammer II! But this update is special; it was ready 2 months ago, but the community decided to wait for the DLC to release. So we did, and in that time the update has grown. Grown and grown to a point where it’s really massive, 16 pages of changelog and tons of changes.

The name of this update is Order and Mayhem, and its main focuses are Bretonnia, Chaos, and the new DLC factions. This Friday, 10.05.2019, it will be released for Patrons Beta and on Monday, 13.05.2019, for Public Beta. Full release on steam will be on Wednesday, 15.05.2019. Beta will be save compatible, but with the full release some balance changes may conflict, so to be safe, it's always better to wait for full release (or start a new campaign).

In that time, the new ‘full mod changes document’ will be released to the public. KroozaNob was working on it very hard and I hope that all of you will like what we did with the place :).

Before we dive into the full update showcase, I want to thank some people that helped me in these 4 months of heavy work:

- New units cards made by Dino.

- New icons made by [HN].

- New scripts made by DrunkFlamingo and FrostyDemise.

- New texts made by Kyle.

- New AI changes thanks to Celtik.

- New Chaos Fortress system thanks to Warsonger.

- New visuals made by Willemsen, Dryrain and Shawmuscle.

- Units balance made by Balzaphon, Dino, Joggnagetti, Norse, KroozaNob and WulfDrake.
- Patrons and all supporters that helped me when I had a hard time modding, and who are always cheering me up!

Full update changelog: LINK


1. New Lands of Bretonnia

Bretonnia was the faction that won the Patrons poll, so we focused on them. We knew that they were not in the best spot, and CA agreed,  which is why we combined our changes with CA’s.

Confederation:

In the lore, each Dukedom is very important and unique. That’s why we decided that each time you confederate, you get a choice with 4 options to receive permanent faction bonuses. Those bonuses are different for each faction you confederate, and combining them can give different outcomes.

Errantry:

A new mechanic we worked on for quite some time. In our first draft it was the system for Vows, but with CA’s changes we decided to change it to Errantry. Each of your lords has 5 skills for Errantry and 5 skills for Grand Errantry. From each of these groups you can pick 1 skill that suits your lord the most. Upon selecting it, a random army will spawn near your border. You need to defeat this army with that specific lord to receive a factionwide bonus for X turns and be able to keep your newly taken skill. If you lose or don’t take the fight in 5 turns, the skill will be removed and the point refunded. Grand Errantry works the same way, but the spawned army is stronger and the rewards better. We thought that this system is interesting for a faction that in lore is always looking for a challenge.

Legendary Lords:

To make each campaign different we made several changes to Legendary Lords. Each of them received campaign-only army abilities. Each of these abilities can be adjusted with 8 new technologies that each major Bretonnian faction received. These are unique for their campaign, so picking Louen’s campaign will disable the ability to upgrade Alberic’s ability after confederation, etc. To adjust it even further, each LL received their own special building that can be built in each province with different stacking bonuses.

New Hero/Heroes:

Bretonnian lore is not flexible and doesn’t give a lot of room for new stuff. But we still wanted them to have something new, which is why Bretonnia will receive the first ever heroes squad unit. The Lost Sons of Bretonnia are a 6 unit heroic squad of hybrid melee casters, with very strong attacks and a mix of buffing spells.Their recruitment is linked to the new LL buildings.

New Units:

Herrimaults are a new addition. Sneaky archers that debuff their own ally’s leadership. In lore, they are like Robin Hoods that always work alone for the sake of the peasants. That's why we decided to add them, because they give a lot to the roster. In campaign, they require chivalry to be recruited, and have their own building with various knight debuffs.

The second new unit is the Knights Errant (Foot), but don't riot just yet! They are a campaign-only unit that is only found in garrisons to bolster the otherwise very weak Bretonnian defense. Nothing more, just a small addition, because horses on walls...?

Green Knight:

The Protector of Bretonnia was always a very weak spot in each Bretonnia campaign. That's why we reworked him in 2 different ways.

35 new skills in the campaign; each time you summon him, you can spend 13 points, and his skills reset with each summon. These skills have various effects on himself, units, lords, economy, and more. You can’t have it all, so you need to decide what’s the most important area to bolster each time you summon him.

The Green Knight will now aid your forces while defending if he has not already been summoned. His time on the battlefield depends on your chivalry level. As the Protector he should protect, right? That's why he will work as an army ability when he is not summoned on the campaign map, aiding your defending armies. 

He also received 2 new abilities that have mapwide range!

See more here: VIDEO

Buildings:

Beside Herrimaults and the LL buildings, we have a new smithing mechanic. 2 new building chains that grant increased stats to units recruited in that province.

Chaple of Zeal - Additional melee attack and weapon damage to new recruits in province and grants melee attack to siege defending armies provincewide. 

Chaple of Resolve- Additional melee defence and armour to new recruits in province and grants melee defence to siege defending armies provincewide. 

Campaign:

A lot of smaller changes were added, but the most important ones are the cost of chivalry for knight units, and banner carriers for Men-at-Arms units. To see what else was changed take a look at the changelog.

I hope that these changes will make Bretonnia’s game more interesting and fun each time you decide to fight Fur Ze Laedy!

2. Chaos Divided and Undivided

As many of you know, I am a big Chaos fan and always look for ways to make them a proper faction, and not the placeholder that they are in vanilla. With the help of Warsonger we crafted something really great in my opinion!

Chaos Fortress:

In the lore Chaos settles (very rarely but they do!) and it just came to SFO. In certain regions you can occupy the settlement to build special fortresses with many new buildings, effects and units.

Can raise Chaos Fortress in: Old World(Middenheim, Carcassonne), Badlands(Karak Eight Peaks), Southlands(Khemri), Ulthuan(Gaean Vale, Vauls Anvil), Northern Naggaroth(Frozen City), Naggarond(Clar Karond), Lustria(Hexoatl, Xlanhuapec)

With 16 new building chains and 1 special landmark, you have a lot of options to make mortals tremble! Many game events and things like ‘raze for specific god’s bonuses’ were extended with effects buffing this new system.

See more here: VIDEO

Divided or Undivided:

The technology tree received major changes and now you can pledge yourself to the Undivided path and not only specific gods. Overall choice is much easier to achieve and its rewards are bigger game changers. Additionally, all technologies were reworked.

See more here: VIDEO

New Units and changes:

Chaos in the Empire is all about cultists so we added 2 units of those for campaign only. They can be recruited only in new fortresses and gain strength with every fortress you build. They can also sacrifice themselves to buff their allies, which their gods love of course.

Each LL received new skills to play with in campaign and abilities in battle. How you choose to make your characters is very important to me so each campaign can be different.

Chosen can now choose Chaos Marks that alter their stats, but each one has negative effects, so taking all of them is not wise. You can use those in custom games but to receive them in campaign you need to pledge yourself to the Undivided path.

Chaos Gods:

Warriors of Chaos always had a strange campaign flow. The first turns were very hard in most cases, and later ones very easy. That's why we added 2 new mechanics. First is the God’s Gift event that you receive in the game’s first turns. It lets you decide to pick one Chaos God and receive its gift for 25 turns helping in your campaign. The second mechanic is the cost of power. Each unit upgrade in the technology tree will increase the upkeep of your units, making the late game economy not as easy, but still possible to raise multiple armies.

End Game:

So with new Chaos Fortresses there is great opportunity to build a secret Chaos Portal in Middenheim. And now you can! Its first level will debuff your armies, economy, and bolster the ranks of your enemies. But if you survive this and build the second level of it, something wicked will come to this world and change it forever!

There are many more changes to this faction and even more that we would like to add but time is our enemy, as always.

3. General Changes

With this update we added many minor and major things to all factions. I won't write everything here but summarize only the most impactful ones.

Traits:

In vanilla game most of the lords and heroes use generic pool of traits while only 30% are faction-specific traits. Factions like Chaos and Norsca don't even have their own traits and use only generic ones. In this update we added over 60 new traits for all factions making the ratio between faction-specific and generic 50/50. All old traits were also reworked and made much more interesting.

Skills:

In the past we added over 150 new skills for lords. This update also adds several new skills but more important are almost 40 new skills for heroes. In vanilla, heroes have almost the exact same number of skill points and skills, effectively removing player choice. By adding new skills we want to introduce choice back to the player. Some heroes received unique skills, but most special lines are for each hero type. So wizards, champions, dignitary, spies etc., have a new line of skills giving different campaign bonuses. 

In the future, we want to give even more skills to each hero, but those skills would be more unique and be able to shift the roles of those characters and give new mechanics.

Public Order:

Public Order is a mechanic I like very much. In vanilla, it's useless and ignored by all, let's be honest here. But in SFO, different PO levels give different bonuses. This update extends that mechanic. Taxes PO penalty is much higher now, but many factions received more ways to manage it. But also, turning off taxes in a province will now grant a massive growth bonus, so choosing not to take money can provide benefits.

AI changes:

SFO is a mod that has much smaller AI bonuses in comparison to vanilla. Thanks to Celtik’s changes in the past, the AI works pretty well most of the time. The game is harder and more fair. But the snowball effect in Total War games can't be full avoided because the AI is not human. At later turns, the player will also beat AI with synergistic technologies, events and effects together to get a bigger power level. That's why we added a new system that will grant various units and campaign bonuses to the AI depending on the turn and the player power level. Thanks to this, the late game should be still interesting and challenging.

4. DLC

But what about DLC content? Yes, it was rebalanced and changed in many ways. I don't want to talk about the specifics of DLC stuff but don’t worry, those are also in this update and mentioned in the changelog with details. You can expect Slann ranged weapons, Skaven food technologies, and more! I also take care of growing power creep we have with each DLC in the game. New mechanics don't need to be OP to be fun.

As you can see this update is massive, and this small summary is only part of the changes we made. 4 months in the making and hundreds of modding hours, yet there are still many things to do. With every DLC I have a feeling that the new LLs are just much better than the old ones, even within the same race. So my future goal is to make those forgotten LLs also interesting in the campaign. Mazdamundi, blessings of the Old Ones similar to Sotek sacrifices? Queek, trophy heads mechanic with bonuses depending on who you’re hunting now? Army abilities depending on edicts for Karl Franz? Different and new mechanics for each LL or more campaign-only LL specific units? All of it is possible but requires time. And time is my only enemy :(.

Thanks everyone for your help again, and I hope you will enjoy this new update! Right after release, the new roadmap will be published with the Team’s future plans.

Venris Out!

P.S. I am taking a long vacation after the update drops, need to see my son from time to time :).