Mod proposal: a more nuanced Imperial Legion

[CaesarInvictus]

I've been thinking quite a bit about the factions that bethesda left us in skyrim. It's come to my attention that after playing the game for a long time one realizes that there is precious little depth to NPC mechanics and how these factions interact. Mods like warzones have come to increase the conflict, and others like "Civil War Overhaul" have done much to improve an otherwise bland gameplay experience, but it leaves one wanting more, and for some time I could not identify why.

 

Well, after deliberation Ive come to a conclusion. The reason I held those views was simple: mechanically the factions behaved almost entirely the same, and quickly became bland and boring to fight against. There is no difference to fighting the stormcloaks or the legion or the Thalmor or any 'humanoid' faction really, save for very rudimentary equipment differences; enemies will not use fresh tactics or challenge players with unique situations and require numbers to overwhelm players rather than thought provoking strategy.

 

The mod I am proposing to make would solve this in a lore friendly and engaging way by making encountering a legion soldier a far more interesting experience.

 

Below is a very quick sketch of a few prospective new NPC types I would add to the legion. They would be implemented with complete preexisting legion AI, factions, routines, etc and so would be fully compatible with almost any mod of similar make, particularly because they are called as new entities in legion leveled character lists rather than edited vanilla entries; with this method not only will the new npcs behave properly but also instantly render the mod compatible with anything legion related on the nexus right now; the lists I would use are only dabbled with by two mods I know of, and with only rudimentary implementation at best.

Imperial Legion:
-Front Ranker (heavy infantry)
EQUIPMENT:
-Heaviest armor feasible for legion infantry; consider nordplate, potential for ebony
heavy enchanted imperial shield, potentially enchanted melee weapons, high quality BLUNT weapons (maces, war-axes)

-Legion Archer
EQUIPMENT:
-Lightest armor possible, possible random chance for hide gear, simple. Imperial bow with
random chance for something higher, good variety of quality arrows, chance for enchanted arrows

-Legion Crossbowman
Equipment:
-Medium level of armor, standard imperial trooper getup, give a simple sword and crossbow

-Cyrodiilic Knight
Equipment:
-Full plate mail, perhaps with legion heavy plus nordplate accessories, whatever works; big
lumbering brute to act as a tank; give two handers, heal spells. Some level of randomization?

-Black Marsh Expatriate* (Argonians exclusively)
Equipment:
-Medium level legion armor with exotic accessories. Consider orcish/falmer/whatever. Speedy
with dual wielding weapons of varying quality -> knives or short swords above iron but below ebony.

-Hammerfell Expatriate* (Redguards exclusively)
Equipment:
Redguard headgear, medium-heavy legion armor, eastern style accessories. Armed with mix of
quality bows and quality maces.

-Aldmeri Expatriate* (high elves and wood elves exclusively)
Equipment:
Elven helmet, boots/gloves. Spellcasters in thalmor robes with legion accessories

-Nordic Auxillia
Equipment:
wide range of gear, some occasional variation even in chest armor (steel, occasionally wolf/nordplate)
Medium quality sword and shield randomization.

-Imperial Battlemage
Equipment: red mage robes, preferably with some healing and destruction buffs
-Alternatively (keep it randomgen) heavy legion armor and hoods
-Armed with high* quality knives, wide range of destruction or heal spells (if possible, buff self/allies)

-Cyrodiilic Auxillia* mix of races, predominantly imperial (nominal redguard, elven, nordic, elements)
Equipment:
light imperial gear with chances for better quality stuff
chance for high quality bow builds superior to the archer
chance for high quality melee equipment superior to normal legion units

-Dunmer Auxillia:
Equipment:
Medium quality legion armor, perhaps with chitin pieces, chance for one of three builds:
-'Redoran' -> given slightly better armor, bonemold elements.
-'Telvanni' -> enchanted weapons (iron or steel), mage-hoods.
-'Hlaalu' -> high level exotic weaponry

-Orcish Auxillia:
Equipment:
Medium to heavy legion armor, orcish accessories
Orcish weapons, obviously.

-Imperial Sergeant
Front ranker but with officer helmet and group buff spells, healing spells. Slightly more health and higher level

-Imperial Captain
Imperial knight but with Tullius gear and no helmet, ebony level accessories and weapons.

-Imperial Tribune
Higher level captain, **rare** power to summon allies to assist him in battle (Cyrodiilic auxillia)

Expatriates: represent individuals descended from political exiles or imperial patriots from lands that have seceeded from the empire. They also include rehabilitated prisoners of war serving out penal sentencing in battle, and occasionally spies for their former masters.

 

Auxillia: As the military demands on the legion increase local troops are gathered to fill out the gaps in legion battle lines in lieu of distant reinforcements. The Auxillia are recruited regionally rather than ethnically, and because of lax regulations will often fight in their native styles with weapons and armor they brought with them into service.

 

Front Rankers: represent the hardened veteran shock infantry selected to be first in organized legion battle lines at the head of a legion, also representative of the legion's elite first cohort. Simply the best of the best of the regular soldiery.

 

Assuming the initial legion release was well enough received I would move on to do the same to the stormcloak faction, then the Thalmor, perhaps even the 'Hold Guards' until every generic NPC faction in the game had its own set of variable randomly generated characters which could, if successful, make the game feel considerably less padded, more engaging, more alive.

 

Imagine what it would be like if in your average hold you came across a <City name here> Captain, who upon catching you in an act of crime blows a horn and summons two or three weaker guards to his side (for a limited time of course). Or perhaps you ambush an Aldmeri patrol with the intent of killing the elves only to realize all too late that the group had a proficient Wood Elf druid in their ranks, who promptly summons a Spriggan to accost you. This is the sort of thing that this kind of mod can readily achieve.

 

The random chance nature of the mod would mean that as a stormcloak player fighting the legion it would be entirely possible you only run up against low quality Auxillia and breeze through the legions, only to later come upon a pack of Front Rankers lead by a Tribune and with a sizable bunch of battlemages and knights in tow. A real high level challenge!

 

But I want feedback before I go ahead on this. If you have any ideas for additions or subtractions, let me know. Should some npcs be leveled so they wont appear too early, or should npc gear and EXP level be scaled so that early players will get the full experience of the mod without being badly beaten up? Or, should the entire thing be unleveled and serve to liven up the game by occasionally throwing un-winnable situations at a early level player, demanding they consider a retreat?

[scissorhands]

A good idea, but a bit pointless when you consider that you can 1-shot people after a few hours of playing. It would still be pretty neat though.

[CaesarInvictus]

If some of the tougher npcs were leveled in such a way as to always be a challenge this too could be avoided. Though I would be hesitant to do so. Other mods like Duel combat realism make this less likely to happen ingame anyway, so I'm inclined not to do things like that.

 

This isnt meant to be a difficulty mod per-se, just one that fleshes out the world and the groups operating within it to be more dynamic

[bben46]

As I see it, this is not intended to make the game more or less difficult - just to add variety to the groups you encounter.

 

I would use a mod that added that kind of variety to the game. I see that what you propose is similar to the Roman Legion, but not quite the same. giving the Cyrodiil Imperial Legion it's own unique flavor.

 

I will be interested to see what you do with the organization and structure of the stormcloaks also. I see them as less organized, but more zealous than the Legion. The legion is a top down structure. While the stormcloaks I envision are more regionally organized. Each hold has it's own leaders that the troops from that hold will follow. A stormcloak trooper from The Rift may not be willing to take orders from a leader from The Pale. This could lead to a more disorganized kind of attack with each warrior trying to gain as much personal valor as possible. One possible troop type could be the berserker. Another the poacher. With a few zero level farmers thrown in to fill out the ranks.

 

As for the holds and forts - the quality, organization, leadership and equipment of each garrison may vary by quite a bit.

 

BTW, if you are one shotting everything - you likely have some mod that overpowers your character. Try raising the difficulty some.

[CaesarInvictus]

I see that we're of like-mind on the civil war factions, bben.

 

Regional troopers would be possible but could be slightly anachronistic; for instance, I could make rift stormcloaks with a brigand-ish sort of loadout, but I would have little in the way to enforce where they would spawn among stormcloak units. So in the final battle for solitude or fort battles in and around markarth you might see Rift troopers running around. For balance purposes I would probably make region-unique npcs around the same toughness as normal stormcloaks too, just slightly different. If all that sounds okay then I dont see why I couldnt add them in.

 

Leadership of those local troops is sadly something that would be difficult to pull off. It is possible; if I added the ability for groups of three stormcloaks to be called when the game calls for a generic stormcloak npc I could in theory create a region based warband or 'lance' of fighters. But this is an unstable solution with the potential to throw balance badly out of the window, unless the imperials also had similar spawn potential. And at that point every battle would devolve into a mess of npcs- and large npc battles in skyrim are buggy and problematic.

 

Alternatively I could make local hold 'warlords' that can summon allies in combat ala conjuration. While this option sounds gimmicky its actually a potentially more interesting one from a gameplay perspective, assuming I could get the conjuration AI working right and make the spells sufficiently convincing. (maybe have a horn call sound and animation, then have a warrior run into the cell or something)

 

I did have a very rudimentary plan for stormcloaks in place, but I'll be sure to tweak it so that it has a bit more life in it:

STORMCLOAK units

-Great War Veteran
Heavy legion chest armor, nordplate boots and gauntlets, steel horned helmet
((Ulfrics call brought many other disgruntled legion veterans out of retirement, bringing
with them old campaign armor, mixed with the armor of their homeland))
Weapons: high quality blunt one-handers, a heavy shield of some sort.

-Black cloak
The invisible hand of Ulfric and the sole 'special forces' unit among the stormcloaks, these
are robed assasin-like figures who sometimes operate with stormcloak cells to wage guerilla war
upon the Legion's forces.
Black hood, perhaps renamed thieves guild armor. Equipped with dual daggers of mid-high quality,
poison, and medium quality bow/crossbow. Arrows likely enchanted with poisons or debuffs.

-Barbarian
((Some nords are... simpler than others))
A physically large nord with hide or scale armor equipped with a large war-ax, of variable quality
Highly skilled and hearty, has self-healing spells and potions.

-Legion Turncoat
((Ulfrics call to arms has convinced more than a few legion auxilliaries to turn their weapons
against their masters))
Stormcloak chest armor with legion helmets greaves and boots. Armed with normal legion weapons.

-Knight of Windhelm
((Ulfrics own hold is more sophisticated than the legion would like to think, and produces capable
nobles fit for battle))
Similar to Cyrodiilic knights except that Windhelm knights carry crossbows and enchanted two handed swords;
Nordplate armor with some minor randomization.

-Stormcloak Cryomancer
((nord mages who abandoned their college to fight for Ulfric. They have trained themselves in the art of
destruction magic, particularly a mastery of ice based spells))
-dangerous high level destruction mages capable of unleashing master level arctic spells on legion units;
has very little to no armor, low HP, and no self or group preservation spells (healing or wards)- a glass canon.

-Coastal Raider
((Old tradition bound 'pirates' from the coasts and floes of the sea of ghosts come to aid in the rebellion,
armed and equipped with hand axes and shields.))
-Viking analogue, can summon ancestor spirits to aid him, has powerful buffing spells, often carries high level
or enchanted weaponry.

-Dunmer militia
((from the slums of Windhelm vagrant or unlawful dunmer are taken by the tens to become canon-fodder for Ulfircs
war. Armed and equipped with terrible hand-me-down or scavenged weapons and armor, these irregulars rely on
familiars, ancestor-spirits, and hope to survive.))
-Equipped with clothing and occasionally the odd piece of armor or two. Iron level weaponry. Some summoning spells.

-Merchant militia
((born out of the moderately wealthy families of Windhelm and the Rift, merchant militia are offered as a tithe
in order to appease Ulfric and allow for favorable policies and tax-breaks for the more well-to-do families of the
rebellion. As such these militiamen and mercenaries are assembled paid and trained professionally, and fight as
such in the stormcloaks service.))

-Healer
((Not everyone in the rebellion fights. These battlefield medics tend to the Sons of Skyrim in battle, but are largely
drawn from noncombatant civilians, who have no place in war. Quick to run and useless as fighters Healers can only
provide group benefits to keep stronger soldiers in the battle longer))
*Might remove this, depends on how AI plays out.

-Stormcloak Veteran
((Those who survive in the harsh reality of the rebellion are made stronger, more self sufficient, and more independent.))
Stronger version of the normal stormcloak soldier with self-healing and better gear.

-Stormcloak Battle-brother
((For those veterans who prove themselves true heroes of Skyrim, the title of battle-brother is given))
A stronger version of the Windhelm knight with enchanted gear, some magical talent, and faster movement speed,
highly dangerous.))

-Stormcloak Loremaster
((Men of the mountains with deep connections to the Thu'um and Skyrim, who can call on the loyal dead of Sovngaarde
to fight again from beyond the grave for their land.))
Summons dead ghost-heroes to fight, shouts, competent two-hander specialist.