[Mod] Air commanders mini mod

[Thrake]

This adds a stratagem to recruit leaders skilled for leading aircrafts. It can get exp in high command, operational command and all the airforce related skills except for lead from front and against the odds. Other leaders may pick a bit of air skills randomly too due to how backgrounds are randomly assigned. The other notable change is that anti-air tactics can now show up, more likely on mercenary and military leaders.

Feedback is welcome.

Here's the new stratagem:

Air commander stratagem.png (108.71 KiB) Viewed 2012 times

One commander it generated:

Air commander.jpg (301.86 KiB) Viewed 2012 times

Mod file:

AirCommandersv2b.zip

(377.27 KiB) Downloaded 26 times

How to install:
- Extract the .zip in Shadow Empire's directory. It contains two files, AirCommanders uses the stratagem picture in this post. AirCommandersPymous is only a cosmetic change of the stratagem image, intended for players using Pymous Shadow Stratagems artpack to keep the same art style.
- Launch the game and extract the .se1zip of your preference from the main menu like in the following screenshot

se1zip.png (1.04 MiB) Viewed 1988 times

- Select Aircommanders with the modlib picker. It can be deacticated anytime through the modlib picker.

Thanks to Pymous and Mroyer for providing the stratagem picture of the Pymous friendly version.

Version log:

v2:
Removed operational command from air commanders background skill list and replaced it with lead from front as well as against the odds.
v2b:
Updated description

[mroyer]

Hi Thrake,
The zip file contains another file named AirCommandersv1.se1zip.

How is this file used?

The file is not recognized by the game if dragged it to the ShadowEmpire\shadowscenarios folder. If the extension is changed to .se1evlib, it crashes the game.

Thanks,
-Mark R.

[Thrake]

Hi Mroyer.

That's a good question, I should have explained it.

The file should be put in the Shadow Empire directory. Then the game should be launched.

se1zip.png (1.04 MiB) Viewed 1989 times

Then you can extract it from the main menu. Then the mod should appear in the modlib picker menu.

[mroyer]

Right!! It'd been so long since I did that, I forgot about it.
You can distribute the .se1evlib (instead of the .se1zip) if you want to and save the users that conversion step.

Thanks, Thrake. Checking it out now.

-Mark R>

Edit: Italics above is bad advice. I understand the purpose of the .se1zip now, it's so other files like the image files can be distributed together with the .se1evlib. Sorry for any confusion.

[Don_Kiyote]

Thanks, excellent idea.

It looks like an Interior Council card. I'll try it out on my current game.

Air Commanders are potentially very interesting to develop. Having a card which focuses on them is a good start. Custom Skills are begging to be invented, too, something like 'Ground Operations' or "Instructor" (Int).

Also, do Air Commanders help replenish Airforce units' Readiness now, or is it still only their own HQ unit?

[mroyer]

It looks like an Interior Council card.

Since I use the Pymous artwork mod, the card stuck out like a sore thumb . So I made my own to fit the Pymous style.

Untitled.jpg (24.66 KiB) Viewed 1918 times

Air Commanders are potentially very interesting to develop

Indeed. I hope someday something like this mod is included in the official game. Thanks to Thrake for figuring out how to do it.

-Mark R.

[Thrake]

Thanks, excellent idea.

It looks like an Interior Council card. I'll try it out on my current game.

Yes, this is an interior stratagem generated through the human resources task.

Air Commanders are potentially very interesting to develop. Having a card which focuses on them is a good start. Custom Skills are begging to be invented, too, something like 'Ground Operations' or "Instructor" (Int).

The main objective is to provide a stratagem that feels like it's missing from the base game while integrating it seamlessly. I'm not entirely satisfied currently and may change a few things but major changes are beyond my scope.

Also, do Air Commanders help replenish Airforce units' Readiness now, or is it still only their own HQ unit?

It looks intentionnal that operational command has no effect on airforce according to the manual so I did not change it. Now you mention it though air OHQ don't need operational command despite being in the list of skills for the air commander background, therefore I will replace it. I'm not sure why I used to think they did.

All the mod does currently is to allow to recruit leaders with skill levels that always started at 0. This is done by tweaking backgrounds (which determine which skill levels a leader has levels in) as well as adding two new ones (one of which is used by the stratagem, the other one is intended so that occasionally leaders generated from other stratagems may have some air skills to stay in line with the randomness of the character generation).

It looks like an Interior Council card.

Since I use the Pymous artwork mod, the card stuck out like a sore thumb . So I made my own to fit the Pymous style.

Untitled.jpg

Air Commanders are potentially very interesting to develop

Indeed. I hope someday something like this mod is included in the official game. Thanks to Thrake for figuring out how to do it.

-Mark R.

Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind I could use it to make a Pymous friendly version.

[mroyer]

Air Commanders are potentially very interesting to develop

Indeed. I hope someday something like this mod is included in the official game. Thanks to Thrake for figuring out how to do it.

-Mark R.

Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind I could use it to make a Pymous friendly version.

Absolutely, if Pymous doesn't object I can send the original image without the card borders. I'll ask him on discord.

-Mark R.

[mroyer]

Pymous gave the green light - you have a private message, Thrake.

-Mark R.

[Thrake]

Thanks, I've added the Pymous friendly version in the zip.

[Thrake]

I have updated the mod. Despite the fact that air OHQ have skill usage in operational command, they do not benefit from it in any way. Therefore I removed it from the list of skills, and added lead from front and against the odds instead.

I also had reports of the Pymous version graphics not working. I'll look into it.

[Don_Kiyote]

I gave it a spin.

Thanks again. But I have a question.

I don't want to be alarmist, but would it be possible for this mod to affect the secondary skill generation of non-Airforce Commander card generated leaders? Or, has anyone noticed an increase in usually rare specialized Air secondary skills on newly generated leaders across the board, for example "Aerial Logistics"?

[Thrake]

The skills that leaders get depend on backgrounds they are generated with.

This mod adds two backgrounds. When new leaders are generated they are assigned several backgrounds to form their carreer with some logic. For exemple vanilla's scout and soldier backgrounds can lead to the military commander background (what you get when using the recruit military stratagem). However any leader could also have been a soldier or scout, or even a military commander for stratagems that don't set a specific background, like senior.

I tried to mimmick how other vanilla stratagems are generated, including an important random factor. To achieve this I added a background focused on air related skills, air commander (the background that is guaranteed when using the new stratagem). However I also added a more generalist background, aircraft pilot which is intended to show up randomly in carreers and is used to lead to aircraft commander background to not generate somebody that has been say trader and then air commander. I gave it skills that didn't felt completely out of place, it does include aerial logistics and an offensive one, it could represent a pilot for civilian aircrafts or a military pilot. It also features skills not related to air like technician so you may get leaders with aircraft pilot background without air related skills.

I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it and I'm not entirely satisfied by the way things are, but is it worst than rolling your 10th leader with skill in streetwise?

[Don_Kiyote]

Interesting very interesting thanks

The skills that leaders get depend on backgrounds they are generated with.

That makes quite a lot of sense now that you say it.

One thing I notice is that Skills do not always line up with Stats, and that Stats seem to be affected by banner Profile 'aspects' (and maybe by current profile state, or turn's start Profile state and some kind of rolling weight).

I'm not sure about the profile thing, but banner aspects have a more definite effect. For instance, having Government in my banner, as I do now, leads to stronger 'Willpower' levels. Willpower a skill though, not a stat... But surely I'm not imagining that having a high 'Mind' profile leads to higher mean 'Intelligence' characters.

Alright, leaving Stats aside, lets focus on backgrounds, and how they come about...

I'm concerned about an overflow of air commander skills. But knowing how the characters are generated helps me to be less concerned. In the previous game, with your mod enabled, I was I believe 'Fist' banner. Lets say that means more leaders with military backgrounds are generated. If there were only two military backgrounds before, and you added two Air related ones, and the generator equally weights all four of those for the 'Fist" banner, then I would see air skills far more often than in the prior game, where I wasn't 'Fist' but still had your mod enabled.

If you don't choose fist, you will still see a jump A/C skills, but not as pronounced.

-----

But I still need to guess at: how the banner Profile affects characters generated.

Lets say it does this through background. Then: which do what? 'Government' should give me leaders with *which* kinds of backgrounds (Is 'Bureaucrat' a background?); 'Enforcement' which, and so on. I usually do look at backgrounds, but not always. I'll be paying more attention in the future. Some are easy to guess: If 'Military' is a category of backgrounds, then I would expect Fist/Enforcement/Autocracy to give me like 60-80% 'Military'-skilled (but not stat'd) leaders, when otherwise random.

Anyways, as a player, you're right, its not too bad as it is, having a greater variety of backgrounds and grey skill, even if it means more military skills overall.

[Thrake]

This is the list of backgrounds for what it's worth.

backgrounds.png (6.15 KiB) Viewed 1217 times

Last two are the ones I added. Corporate and gladiator backgrounds I don't think will appear with random leaders. Which means that there should be 13 vanilla backgrounds to pick from for random leaders and 15 with my mod.

[Don_Kiyote]

...13 vanilla backgrounds to pick from for random leaders and 15 with my mod.

Interesting, thanks, that helps So increasing from something like a quarter up to something like a third of generated leaders will have 'military' backgrounds. If all values are evenly weighted.

I would still like to know how Profile and Banner affect character generation.

[WideEyes]

I think the Pymous approved version must've been dropped from the .evzip? It's not appearing in the directory far as I can see, unpacked or otherwise.

[Thrake]

Fixed it.