Scout's Vanilla+ Improvements: A Modlist Guide

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2761999444

The idea behind this modlist is really to increase the challenge of the game organically in simple ways. Tweaking existing mechanics and rebalancing the campaign in small ways that have knock-on effects to create large changes in how you play the game.

If we think about this game compared to Rome 1 then there is a lot that has changed. Rome 1 most of all was a great game for character-driven story telling. It made for the AARs of Rome 1 to be far more engaging and prevalent whereas Rome 2's does not have this and I feel this is probably the biggest failing of Rome 2 vanilla. It's one of the core aims of this pack to bring Rome 2 into line with this idea by placing more emphasis on characters, their trails, abilities and stats and making battles more significant by giving enemies more and more powerful armies. I will go over exactly how I achieve this below.

Tonally the two are completely different so if you wanted to bring back an experience similar to the original, you would need to do more than simply replace music. Personally, I think there are a number of game mechanics fundamentally different and so these are where I focus my changes:

1. Characters need to have greater significance.
Characters simply do not matter in vanilla Rome 2. The character screen is tucking behind too many menus for it to be something that players look at regularly like you would in Rome 1. I can't do anything about that but what I can do if make high level characters give a lot more buffs, have more abilities and I want to make it necessary to see the level and stats of opposing generals to judge your chances in battle, as Rome 1 gives you this information on the battle screen. I want the skills to be too powerful to ignore and abilities to provide you with a massive toolkit in battle. Nobody really cares about agents in the vanilla game until the AI has too many and it becomes annoying but what if agents could work as effectively as in Rome 1? I believe this was what the developers intended but they didn't go far enough with making characters matter.

2. Internal factional politics should matter a lot more
Most people playing this game really do not care about the complicated politics system in this game. Even after CA Sofia reworked the whole system to address this issue, most people just do enough to avoid the civil war (until that becomes impossible) and ignore the rest of the system. This is a shame as there is a whole massive panel of options for every character, a lot of intrigue you can use here and most importantly, a lot of buffs you can stack for keeping on top of the political game. Promotions, securing loyalty of other parties, assassinating powerful enemies, all of this should be a key part of any campaign. And it also adds to that whole "Character-driven story" thing that I hope to build here.

3. Battles between big armies should be more frequent and big cities should have big battles fought over them
One of the main problems with this game is how frequently you autoresolve battles. it doesn't really help the calculations for it are kinda messed up. Autoresolve really only exists because the devs knew you wouldn't really care about moping up 4 or 5 unit armies of militia with your own doomstack. They should not really be used to fight major battles. This cause of this issue is two-fold. The AI cannot really building multiple big armies and it is too stupid to be able to use them effectively. This means most of the battles you fight for major cities will be autoresolves, which is bad. Really, every one of the major cities you try to take should have a big siege battle with it and there should be field battles before you get to that point. Garrisons on big cities needs to be improved as well as the AI's army building and general strategy.

4. Building end game units should be the pinnacle of a playthrough
When you pick a faction to play a campaign as, what does that actually mean? If it's just the start position you could just install the "Unlock all factions" mod and be done with it. But what makes a culture pack DLC worth buying? It's the factions unique units of course. They are heavily weighted to end game for most factions and they are really the main thing that makes the faction interesting. But the problem is that by the time you can build them, you can also build a large number of cheap armies and steamroll the map with them. At that point, what is the point of even playing the faction you picked? I want the game to all but force you to build the best units possible in order to get the most out of your armies. It should be the main goal of building and researching all those army buildings so you should be encouraged to make good use of them.

5. The game should be consistently challenging throughout
It's far too easy to snowball in this game. Your income becomes so high so quickly you can build every building you research instantly, you can produce armies, even fully comprised of elites, up to your army limit with ease as soon as your imperium goes up. This seems like it's a balance issue but the requirements for an economic victory seem to imply this is intended? What's the point of having a money system if it's not about prioritising what to build or recruit? These things are not supposed to be trivial. I don't want the player's economy to just run away to the point at which economy becomes irrelevant. It's made even worse when you can simply pay the vast excess of money you're hoarding to just buy alliances with all your neighbours and never actually have to fight them. Income just really needs a nerf.

6. Every part of the game should be engaged with to provide their full range of benefits to your empire
Let me ask you this: What make a battle fun in this game? Because I see a lot of people with mods that allows them to build a large number of full stack armies and then cram 3 of them into a siege battle against 3 other full stacks. I don't think the answer is cramming the screen with as many units as possible. It might look pretty on a screenshot on Reddit but playing it is just micromanagement hell. Even the devs of this game know that. This was the first TW game to allow you to have 2 stacks and a separate navy in the battle and although this makes battles more "epic" the problem was that it is a lot for someone to focus on. This is why the overhead strategic map exists. I would argue the solution to making battles "epic" is not your GPU usage, but is instead the result of both your and your opponent building a single doomstack army stacking as many buffs as possible onto them, they would be the strongest and most expensive units you can make. There would be stakes to the battle because of this and it is a rewarding feeling to be using an army you spend all that time building get a clear edge on your enemy. This is why the army tradition system exists. From promotions, to generals skill, agents, imperium and stances or night battles, the name of the game should be about getting the best possible buffs for your armies instead of just pumping out stacks of levy pikeman if you want a rewarding battle experience.

Below is the modlist and the changes they make to address these problems.

First up is the AI. It needs to be a bit more aggressive and a lot more clever.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494382256

We need an AI mod to do two key things: Be a little more aggressive to allow the AI to actually be proactive in war and not just sit in their cities as they are wont to do in vanilla. We want to give them the ability to take advantage and attack you if you are weak, but we don't want to make them too aggressive to the point of making diplomacy pointless. If you use an AI mod that makes the AI that aggressive you might as well go for the "This is Total War" achievement, a playthrough in which diplomacy is non-existent. Let's not make a habit of cutting entire mechanics out of the game.

The second thing we want to AI to do is build it's unique units and be spending most of it's income on them. We need the AI to be doing the same thing you are, stacking buffs on it's best possible units so much so that every battle late game will be a fight between two deathstacks. Imagine you are trying to fight against the Lusitani for instance and you just see this monstrosity loom out of the FoW.

See now that is a fun challenge.

Look at the stats on these Lusitani Nobles!

Truth be told, this is a mod I am happy with but I have not played with the alternatives so much I can point to this one being the best out there. You could use any AI mod you want but really the point I want to get across is to make the AI more proactive in the campaign and builds armies that are actually fun to fight.

Next up, these mods will help the AI build more armies and make sure the most fun factions to fight will prevail over their neighbours.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1512624896
There actually exists a limit to the amount of money the AI can spend recruiting per turn. This is actually the sole reason why there are so few armies in vanilla. This mod simply removes that limit and nothing else. It will make sure every faction builds up to their army limit.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=187299520
All this mod does is remove most of the bonus cash all minor/unplayable factions receive in order to try to make them a challenge. The problem was that the AI had too hard a time conquering these factions and in some cases actually lost to them. With this, there no more Veneti conquering Rome. Of course, the problem is you don't want to have minor factions eliminating major ones otherwise every late game army you have to fight against is going to look like this.

The AI recruitment mod is trying its best but yeah, that's 10 militia hoplites.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2597408723
This is a general grand campaign rebalancing. Now that the Veneti no longer conquers Rome, it opens the door for Massalia to do it instead. We do kinda want to see a Rome final boss as that is the way it always was in Rome 1 with how overpowered Rome was there. It was fun to fight them though and given that they have so many unique mechanics and that this game is based largely around them, we do need to ensure Rome has a good shot of growing strong. Other factions are buffed and nerfed too although, to be honest, all this mod does is give them bonus gold which I always though was a kinda lazy way to work in difficulty. It's why I try to be clever about creating difficulty with this pack and is why I don't just play on legendary. But I suppose I do have to acknowledge this in order to directly affect difficulty.

These mods feature everything I think needs to be changed about war and battles in this game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394749528
So I thought hard on this one. I knew the army limit mechanic was wrong but how exactly do you fix it? The way I see the problem, is that it is too easy to spam out low quality armies and overrun undefended cities. There was little point investing in one single big army when you could be everywhere. You can defend every border and advance in every offensive at the same time. I don't think you should be able to do that. I realised that the problem was not that army limit existed, but that it didn't go far enough. With this mod, you can no longer be everywhere at once, you'll have to make do with limited resources at any one border, you'll have to build strong armies over many weak ones and I think this really gives life to battles. Your armies and units matter more, there's more at stake in each battle and any new crisis that turns up will be a real threat.

The value of this mod goes even further in almost incalculable ways. It keeps you on a similar level to the AI, you can no longer get a big numbers advantage on them. Those AIs also work with this limit and they can build strong armies up to that limit just like you meaning they will always be a challenge, no matter how large your empire is. It certainly make civil wars more dangerous as the mechanics are harder to cheese. It really helps the AAR aspect of the game as now armies and their movements matter a lot more, as do their leaders and traditions. It makes going up imperium levels more exciting and important. I can keep going if I wanted to but you get the point that this is honestly the most important, game-changing mod in the pack.

Side note, this was literally the only mod on the workshop I could find that does this. Literally all of the others are increases or removals to the army limit. I find it sad that people have looked at this mechanic, not understood its purpose immediately and just chose to rip it out of the game. I think if people embraced it, it would make for a far more compelling campaign experience.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2742820390
Another big problem with vanilla is that you just don't fight compelling siege battles. Mostly, settlements are undefended and easily autoresolved. This mod increases the scaling of garrisons so pretty much every big important city needs to be fought on map. Major climatic battles over places like Rome or Athens or Carthage were something Rome 1 had but Rome 2 really doesn't but now it can, doubly so if the is an actual army in the city too. Now, as with the AI, I haven't played all the garrison mods to know this one is the best but the idea is that small settlements remain largely unchanged but the big settlements get big garrisons of very strong units. Have a look at some of the major cities on Turn 1.

From top-left going clockwise: Rome, Carthage, Camulodunon, Alexandria

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2036733059
This one is just kind of a preference for me. I want you to make good use or army stance. They are too easily and too often overlooked but some factions play into them like how Suebi utilises ambush stance a lot. I want greater incentivisation for you to play around with stances.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1551802634
I would say I have no idea why rebels are so OP, but I do. They're trying to give you the challenge other empires don't provide. It's sad but now unnecessary with all our changes! Rebels are really now only an annoyance and a penalty for failing the public order game. I am pretty happy about where rebels fit into the game now so I think this mod balances them properly.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1702332444
The idea here is that I just don't want every playthrough to fall back on the same playstyle. If you play a naval faction, you should be using navies. If you're suppose to be raiding, you should be doing that a lot, and if you play barbarians you shouldn't really have complex siege engines. If there are other mods out there that can lean into this idea I will definitely add them to this collection but for now it's just this as a start.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3249457585
This mod is a rebalancing of various weapon types to make the more obscure and unique more useful. This is part of the same idea to make factions lean more into their unique playstyle, specifically factions like Odryssian Kingdom or Getae but also giving unique use for the more common weapons that mean units can fall more into the rock-paper-scissors of the weapons of Rome 1.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2409537683
Forced march is something both the player and AI can abuse. It's basically this game's version of the one or two unit armies running around burning things in Empire. This change makes armies vulnerable on the turn they start force marching and so this stance can only really be used for moving armies from one front to another, as it was historically. It also means you're less likely to catch an enemy in an ambush as the AI won't default to this stance any time they go anywhere.

The purpose of these mods is to increase the importance and prevalence of generals and other characters.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2713662127
One main reason why people don't really care about characters is that they are too ineffectual. If we just gave them an XP boost, it wouldn't really solve the problem as every general would end up the same and all 10* and thus none of them will be anything to get excited about. Instead, I'm following the same philosophy as the garrison mod. Low level characters are largely unchanged but every now and again you get one stand-out general that makes it up to the high levels and these characters will have massive stats and a vast array of abilities to truly become a force of nature on the battlefield. Naturally, this makes characters very worthwhile to invest in, which is one of my key goals on its own.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=186948023
This one works in tandem with the one above, which is why it's here. I found vanilla's 1TPY made characters too transient to ever get invested in. It was unlikely they ever reach those high star levels in time before they die meaning they will never become useful. I was running 4TPY for a while but the problem there is characters stay around for far too long. Your starter characters will still be around on like turn 160. It kinda makes dynasties not worth it as you will simply not be able to raise an heir in the entire length of a campaign. It's way too long. But then I thought, if we're trying to recreate the importance of characters in Rome 1, why don't we just use Rome 1's time scaling. It really was the perfect length.

Side note here, if you play the campaign packs like CiG or HatG, you have a lot more than 2TPY which pretty much guarantees your generals will hit max rank and that would be a problem in the GC but here those generals will include Julius Caesar and Hannibal and Vercingetorix and those are the kind of generals you want to be at 10*. Meeting them in battle will really be like fighting a hero unit in one of the more recent TWs.

This section is for mods that rebalance the economy into something actually challenging.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=260394514
I admit, corruption isn't the best mechanic I could use to balance the economy but really I think the vanilla economy is too easy to get to a point where it makes itself irrelevant with how much money you have. I would rather money be a limited resource where you have to prioritise which buildings and which units to build. As you increase your imperium, you will be able to build more armies and reap greater benefits but your income will also go down, necessitating you to build higher tiered buildings in order to keep up. I think this is really the challenge this game should have. I do wonder if this actually breaks economic victory conditions but I also think those victory conditions are a bit too steep and campaigns generally stop being fun a while before you reach. I'm trying to make that not the case but either way maybe avoid that victory condition.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1128778339
Now since I'm making corruption a bigger part of balancing economy, I'm going to give you a way to actively fight against it. Building research buildings will reduce corruption the more you build and upgrade. How much you are willing to do this is a trade-off but since you will want to build a lot of these anyway late game it will be all the more important to think about. The idea is to get you thinking more strategically about your own income and how to maximise it whether that be through using cheaper units, pumping provinces for gold, adjusting your overall tax rate or fighting corruption.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1108673904
Now here's the good stuff. As I mentioned before, I want you to make use of army stance and alternate gameplay styles based on which faction you are playing. This mod helps in this by doing something very significant: making trade the single largest income source is any playthrough. This makes it so the money you were getting now comes mostly from buffed trade routes. Not only will controlling resources be more important but raiding will become a viable money making method when you see a sea trade route like this.

I want factions that rely heavily on trade to build fleets primarily to defend these trade routes. I want players to send them out to the sea provinces the trade route runs through and set them to patrol stance as local piracy will be shaving a much larger chunk of your income off. I want sea province control and therefore naval dominance to matter. As I said before different factions should have different playstyles and these two mods are here for both raiding barbarian/pirate factions and naval trading factions. I do think this mod may be a little bit overtuned though.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1207957224
This is a little bit of a bandaid for the overtuned income although I do think it gets the problem of runaway income from trade under control as every imperium level you go up, the more units you will have, leading to actual scaling of income over a playthrough. I do think the solution to problems in economy like this are actually solved by weighing down both sides of the seesaw rather than try to remove weight as this gives us a bigger gap in the middle to work with.

These mods are not in the collection but I recommend them nonetheless as extra flavour in the spirit of the modpack.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1949431188
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1623319395
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1472275307
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1415360013
The AAA series is a great set of mods for that character-driven storytelling part of the game. It actually gives a sense of time and progress that really helps tell the story of your characters.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1423860128
I don't mind repeating names. The problem isn't as bad in Rome 2 as it is in Rome 1 but I still feel the expanded diversity can make for some very interesting possibilities.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1962928608
As far as bug fixing mods go, I have to recommend this one. I think it's the most comprehensive. I used to have a CTD problem before I installed this mod years ago and it has never plagued me since.

This is a Vanilla+ experience so it's not designed to work with total conversions like DEI or RTR. That being said, it was made to be dropped into other collections of mods so long as they don't affect or overwrite any mod here. This pack is entirely focused on gameplay so any graphical or cosmetic mods will work just fine.

I may also come back to this modlist and guide to update it if I see some other changes that I think would be better for the game. Keep a look out for that, and thank you for reading about my modlist!