Ranged weapons from other mods whose item usage RBM doesn't know now fly at their own missile speed instead of 10 m/s, which made some of them useless. Vanilla light crossbows are treated as crossbows.
Pommel and handle hits no longer get through armor better on a sharper blade or a Fine/Masterwork weapon. The blade never touches the target, so its sharpness and the item modifier no longer count.
Swings with weapons that aren't built from crafting parts (torches, banners, many weapons from other mods) now do posture damage when blocked or parried. They used to do none.
Pommel and handle hits now hit as hard as the swing behind them. A graze with the hilt used to do as much damage as a full pommel strike, whatever the weapon weighed; a heavier weapon and a fuller swing now hit harder, and skill still adds to it. Even an unskilled man's pommel hit keeps a small minimum. Torches, whips, push forks, banners and maces are unchanged.
Pommel and handle hits on a shield no longer damage it as if the blade had struck: they get no edge bonus against shields (including the extra shield damage of axes and shield-breaking weapons) and strike the board as a blunt blow.
Weapons that aren't built from crafting parts (many weapons from other mods) can now land pommel and handle hits: a swing that connects with the tenth of a sword or dagger nearest the hand, or below the top third or so of an axe, mace or polearm, is a handle hit. It used to count as a full blade hit.
Perks that add head armor (such as Metallurgy) now also protect the face, and perks that add arm armor now also protect the gap under the shoulder. Face and under-shoulder hits used to count only the armor pieces themselves and ignore these perks.
Swings count as face hits less often: besides coming in head-on, a swing now has to land on the face itself, not on the cheek, temple or brow, which the helmet covers. Thrusts and missiles are unchanged. With the battle hit log on, every head hit now also records where it landed on the head and whether it counted as a face hit.
Kick and bash knockdowns are no longer certain on a second kick: a kick or bash now always knocks a man down only when it empties his posture, or while he is still reeling from a posture break or posture tiredness. A second kick or bash within about a second only makes a knockdown more likely (×1.5). A man who is already down is not kicked at and not knocked down again, and a kick or bash from a friend gets no RBM knockdown.
AI soldiers now see an enemy whose posture is broken or nearly broken (25% or less) as an opening for a kick or bash. A kick or bash that just landed no longer counts as one.
AI banner bearers no longer kick their own formation. AI soldiers now only kick or bash an enemy, and not while a friend stands within reach in front of them, where the kick could land on him instead.
Flank cavalry stays organized before the lines meet, and covers its infantry: cavalry guarding a flank charges enemy cavalry within about 70 m of its post, or any enemy within about 35 m. It also charges enemy cavalry within about 70 m, or horse archers within about 90 m, of any friendly foot formation, at any point along its line. When the other flank has a guard, it leaves anything on that side of the main line to it. Arrow fire alone no longer draws it out, and it no longer charges distant enemy infantry. A charge is called off after 25 seconds, or when the enemy pulls away (for a charge to cover infantry, once the enemy is about 110 m clear of it). It is also called off when the riders scatter or get about 60 m from their post (or about 50 m beyond the infantry they are covering). The riders then regroup at the post and wait 5 seconds before charging again.
Cavalry charges ride through and hit what they charge:
A charge that bogs down in melee now pulls out 8 seconds after the riders actually start trading blows. The clock used to start some 25-30 m short of a wide enemy line, so riders broke off after only a few seconds of fighting.
Riders pulling out of a charge now ride on through, to a point beyond the enemy along the line they charged in on. They used to turn back the way they came when they hadn't got through.
A formation put back on the charge after doing something else starts a fresh charge instead of breaking off at once.
Riders now aim at the formation their formation is charging, not at whatever enemy stands nearest, such as skirmishers in front or the next block over. On the way in they steer a little toward the middle of that formation and lead it when it moves, instead of riding at its near corner and sliding down its side.
Charging cavalry now chooses what to charge by type, distance and strength. Enemy cavalry is the preferred target, then horse archers, then archers, then infantry. A stronger formation is worth a somewhat longer ride and a handful of stragglers is not. Infantry and archers that have their back to the cavalry, or their side, are more likely to be charged. Cavalry used to charge enemy infantry whenever any was on the field, even with archers much closer. The target is chosen when each charge starts and kept until the charge ends.
Horse archers keep formation: AI horse archers ride and shoot in formation as it circles the enemy, instead of every rider breaking off to circle his own target. A rider only leaves his place to get away from an enemy within about 15 m, and draws his sword within about 5 m. The formation also no longer switches between enemy formations unless another one is clearly closer.
Attackers keep advancing: in field battles the attacking side could stop and stand in place after a reinforcement wave or a change of tactic. Its formations now regroup for at most 10 seconds at a time while advancing. While its archers shoot, its infantry keeps walking forward (6 m every 4 seconds) instead of holding, and without usable archers it simply advances. Enemy cavalry more than 150 m away no longer makes it stop and brace.
The rally after reinforcements now lasts at most 45 seconds and can't start again for 30 seconds. Men still spawning or stuck on terrain no longer keep a formation standing where the wave entered.
Soldiers who swam into deep water no longer stand frozen there after a charge order.
With the infantry split tactics, both flank infantry formations now charge when the battle is joined. When any formation emptied during the advance (for example a few horse archers who lost their horses), one flank could drop out of the tactic and stand guarding its flank for the rest of the battle.
Rear ranks of a charging infantry line follow the men in front instead of stepping back or sideways. A friend ahead who is still moving toward the enemy now counts as only a quarter of an obstacle; once he stops to fight he counts in full again.
When a soldier in a charging line steps back, sideways or toward a friend, he now judges the spot by where the men around him, friend or enemy, will be half a second from now. He steps into a gap a man is just leaving, and not into the path of a man walking toward that spot.
In first person, posture tiredness now staggers the player backward, so the camera no longer looks through your own body. AI soldiers and third-person players keep the forward stagger.
A rider whose posture is broken by a heavy enough blow (a third of his posture or more) is now actually knocked off his horse. The dismount was there but never happened, unless a crush-through also dealt damage.
Kicks, shield bashes and pommel strikes that hit a block now drain the blocker's posture as unarmed attacks, as intended, instead of as a swing of the weapon in hand. A kick from a man holding a two-handed axe no longer drains a blocker like an axe blow.
A kick or bash now costs the kicker only its cost when he starts it (20 posture and 50 stamina, less with skill), wherever it lands. A kick that landed used to cost him posture and stamina a second time.
Unarmed overhead attacks now cost as much posture as unarmed swings and thrusts.
Crush-through damage now comes from the blow that was blocked: when a weapon block or parry breaks posture, the damage that gets through is what that strike would have dealt had it landed, at ×0.85. It used to be a perfect full-speed swing against the defender's armor averaged over his whole body, so a sloppy or late swing that broke a guard hurt as much as a perfect one, and more than the same swing landing clean on a helmet or cuirass. The strike's speed, where it met the guard on the weapon, and the attacker's movement now count. The body part it would have hit is judged by how high the weapons met (and, at shoulder height, how far to his side, for a shoulder hit), not taken from the guarding arm the game reports for a block, and that part's armor and damage multiplier apply, as do stamina and handle/pommel hits. The crush-through now also lands on that body part, so the hit reaction and the hit log show it there instead of on the arm, and the crush-through message names it. It is also reported with the damage type it was dealt with: blunt for a handle or pommel, cut for a sword thrust that met the guard off the tip.
Aserai Vanguard Faris no longer stand in place on a charge order. RBM forced their lance back into their hands whenever they drew a javelin more than 25 m from their target, so they kept swapping weapons and never charged. Riders now keep a drawn javelin at any range beyond 6 m, and still charge with the lance in both hands.
Clothing, armor and horse armor workshops make twice as many items from the same materials.
The nine gambeson horse armor recipes (artisans, linen, wool and tannery) produced nothing while still using up labor and leather, linen or felt. They now make horse armor.
Wool, hides and cattle are cheaper (wool 100 → 80, hides 70 → 60, cows 480 → 380). Tanning now pays in towns where hides cost up to about 1.6 times their value (was about 1.4).
Supply caravans carry up to 10 goods (was 6), and part of each caravan is kept for workshop materials, so food and staples can no longer crowd them out. Food is still sold first on arrival.
Cattle and sheep farms show the cow or sheep icon on the map and in the ledger instead of butter or wool.
Expected daily gold now matches what you are paid: the projected income could be positive while your gold went down every day.
The 14-day averages of your spoils cut, companions' spoils share, mint revenue and gold-paid promotions are no longer counted as daily income or expenses. That gold is paid when the battle or minting happens.
Garrison maintenance your fiefs can't pay is now charged once a day and shows in the Daily Gold Change message. The expected change shows tomorrow's charge, where it used to show only what had been paid since midnight.
The settlement wealth tax line shows the next day's tax instead of yesterday's, which ran high while a rich town was paying down its savings.
Your workshops that are low on capital are no longer charged their daily expense twice.
Most of the remaining English-only text can now be translated (thanks to OhMyMike57, who maintains the Traditional Chinese translation): the ledger's column headings, tabs, tooltips and income/expense categories, the settlement spending bubbles on the map, supply caravan names, the RBM lines in building tooltips, the custom battle preset prompts, the whole auto-resolve battle chronicle (phases, flavor lines, kills and hero events), the posture/stamina bar titles, the starvation notice, and every settings label, hint and option caption. The English language template lists 176 texts that translators had no way to find before.
The "Vlandia Lance" is now named "Vlandian Lance". The English language template now has the current names of the lighter eastern and repeating crossbows, and the plural names of plain ceramics, decorated pottery, ale and sheep herds (thanks to DivineOblivion).
A translation can ship its own CHANGELOG.md in its language folder. It is shown only while it covers the newest release; otherwise the English changelog is shown.
New shields: four Khuzait kalkan-style strapped shields and a Cataphract Targe, worn strapped to the arm by Khuzait and Imperial cavalry. They swap back to their hand-held versions when the passive shoulder shields option is off.
Ship ballista stones and boulders damage hulls and crew again (4.5.2 left them at almost no damage). Grapeshot stays capped at about vanilla's hull damage per pellet, so one volley can no longer sink a light ship.
Hand-thrown fire pots and stones kill again: the fire pot is back to full weight and damage, with a large splash. Burning splashes (hand-thrown, siege-engine and War Sails pots) deal full damage in the inner 30% of the radius and fall off to zero at the edge.
Spiked mace thrusts no longer pierce armor better than swords (mace pierce threshold 2 → 4). Existing configs still on the old default are updated once.
Kicks, shield bashes and weapon bashes deal real blunt damage instead of 1–2 points, using the same model as punches: it scales with skill, boot, shield or weapon weight and the body part hit, and armor reduces it. A bash blocked by a shield and a kick into a raised shield do no damage. Kicks and bashes also connect more easily (larger hit radius). The damage follows the new "AI Kick and Bash" setting.
Spears carried on the back no longer hang low and sink into the ground.
Armor worn down in battle no longer stays damaged on the saved gear after the War Sails storyline battle, stealth missions or closing the inventory mid-mission.
Sheathing a bow with an arrow nocked no longer leaves the string drawn, and a dropped bow no longer carries a phantom arrow.
Village livestock no longer get knock-downs or 0-damage hit reactions.
The tier-5 Kama dagger blade is no longer unlocked at campaign start.
The Battanian Oathsworn now carries a sword.
Metal shields stop missiles: nothing goes through a metal shield, raised or on the back. Missiles bounce off it, and arrows and bolts break 80% of the time. The shield still takes the hit's damage.
Arrows and bolts that hit a wooden shield stick 80% of the time, break 15% and bounce off 5%. Arrows and bolts that don't get through body armor (blunt trauma only) break or glance off instead of sticking.
Pila punch through shields: a thrown pilum that hits a raised wooden shield sticks in it and can drive through to wound the man behind, keeping 90% of the throw's force minus 5% per point of shield armor. Thrown pila no longer deal double damage to shields, and the javelin body-damage factor is halved.
Stuck missiles fall out: javelins, throwing axes and throwing knives stuck in a shield or a living body work loose after about 5 s. Arrows and bolts fall out of shields after about 45 s (at most 8 per shield), and a body holds at most 4 arrows. Each drops as a loose item you can pick up. Two new RBM Combat sliders set the times; 0 keeps vanilla behavior.
Flying arrow thickness (experimental): a new RBM Combat slider (1–10, default 1) makes arrows and bolts thicker in flight with Better Arrow Visuals, which are true to size and hard to follow. Arrows in the quiver, on the string and stuck ones keep their real size, and the hit test is unchanged.
Armor sliders: a new Armor Effectiveness slider in the RBM Combat options (0.25–3, default 1) scales every armor value, for all weapons. It also feeds auto-resolve and troop power, and does not change how fast armor wears. A collapsible "Advanced Armor" group below it holds three finer sliders that work on top of it: Armor Multiplier (0.5–4, default 2, how strongly armor absorbs blunt trauma), Blunt Trauma Multiplier (0–3, default 1) and Armor Penetration Threshold (0–3, default 1, how much of a blow armor stops outright).
Auto-resolve follows the live armor rules: thrusts and arrows no longer get a partial-penetration floor that live combat removed.
The Pavise and Deployable Pavise shields have more armor (7 → 10).
AI arrows and bolts no longer fall short at long range. RBM's arrow drag didn't match the engine's, so the AI aimed with one drag value while missiles flew with another.
AI archers, crossbowmen and slingers hold fire until the target is actually within reach, instead of opening fire at 200–300 m and landing tens of metres short. AI javelin and throwing-axe throwers do the same, instead of throwing at targets 30 m and more away and landing well short.
AI javelins and throwing axes go where the AI aims them. RBM used to pitch AI throws down after the AI had aimed (throwing axes by 5°, javelins when the target moved away, and all of them when there was no target), which only made them land short.
Javelins, throwing axes and throwing knives use the game's own air drag again, so axes and knives carry a little further and hit a little harder.
AI slingers aim at the target instead of over it.
AI shooters no longer over-lead moving targets, which makes them noticeably better against walking infantry and charging cavalry.
Skilled AI crossbowmen are at least as accurate as vanilla ones and settle their aim as fast.
AI shooters use the correct launch speed after re-equipping or picking up a bow, crossbow or sling.
Ranged aim arc (experimental, off by default): a new RBM Combat setting for the player. While you draw a bow or crossbow, wind up a sling or ready a javelin, throwing axe, throwing knife or stone, a dotted arc shows the missile's predicted flight, with a marker where it will land (red on an enemy, green on a friendly) and a ring on the ground showing how far your current aiming error can scatter the shot. In third person, aiming upward also lifts the camera and tilts it down so the landing point of a high shot stays on screen. Your aim is unchanged; the crosshair is hidden while the camera is moved. Throws include your own running speed. The camera frames where the shot lands on the ground, so sweeping the aim across walls, ladders and towers in a siege no longer makes it jump.
Sieges: attackers on the walls fight instead of idling until the gate opens. Attackers no longer stand shuffling outside a breached wall, and troops leave ladders and towers the AI has given up on.
Cavalry ordered to dismount now dismounts and holds its formation, including after the formation is delegated to the AI.
Retreating riders are no longer held back by RBM's speed limit.
Archers no longer walk into the enemy to pick up spent arrows. Ammo lying within 25 m of an enemy (45 m for horsemen) is ignored.
AI missile troops only look for spent ammo when they are nearly out: below 15% of what they can carry of that type (vanilla: any quiver at half), or down to their last javelin, throwing axe or throwing knife. They also no longer break off drawing, shooting or reloading to fetch it.
Troops that lose their melee weapon pick up a dropped one again.
Polearm troops no longer switch weapons back and forth while an enemy hovers at the edge of range.
Swimmers in field battles (e.g. on river maps) are no longer treated as being on land, so they are no longer ordered to cheer or to pick up weapons while swimming.
Rally after reinforcements: when part of an AI infantry formation is stranded far ahead of or behind the rest (typically first-wave survivors standing in front of a fresh wave), the formation stops and gathers before advancing again. After a reinforcement wave it gathers up to 200 m in front of where the wave entered, but never within 200 m of the enemy. Stragglers run straight to the nearest free place in the line at full speed. Works for both sides and every field tactic until the lines meet.
Advancing AI lines no longer leave a few men lagging far behind. When the line widens, each man takes the nearest place in it instead of one on the far flank.
Advancing AI lines that are already in formation move at their slower men's full speed instead of being held back further. The formation's speed limit now applies only while the line is ragged.
Siege attackers whose only melee weapon is two-handed (e.g. the Imperial Flame line) no longer sheathe it to raise their shield and fight bare-handed.
AI kick and bash (new RBM AI setting, on by default): AI foot soldiers now kick, shield bash and weapon bash, which the vanilla AI never does. They try it at close range against an enemy who is blocking, holding a weapon ready, showing his back or staggered; a clearly more skilled fighter also tries it at other times. How often depends on the two fighters' relative skill (mostly Athletics, partly weapon skill). A raised shield stops a bash but not a kick, so the AI kicks a man behind a raised shield and otherwise picks either. With the posture system on, throwing one costs posture and stamina, hit or miss.
Kick and bash knockdowns (same setting, player and AI): a kick or bash always knocks down an enemy who is already staggered (posture break, posture tiredness or another kick or bash a moment earlier) or whose posture it empties. Otherwise it has a chance based on relative skill against an enemy holding a weapon ready or hit from behind; it is higher for a kick than a bash, from behind and against a tired enemy, and lower the heavier his armor.
AI soldiers never kick or bash while bracing a polearm.
Posture tiredness plays a new stagger animation instead of the pick-up animation, and input can no longer cancel it.
Fewer stutters near the enemy: an advancing AI line re-forms at most once every 10 s, and formations no longer flip between line, loose and shield wall when they sit right at the switch point.
The bigger army fields more men: in field battles the battle size is no longer split 50/50. Each side's share follows the square root of its men left, so a bigger army has more men on the field than the enemy but less than its full advantage: 2:1 gives 59:41, 3:1 gives 63:37, 5:1 gives 69:31. Neither side ever gets more than 75% or less than 25%. A small army that fits in half the battle size still brings everyone, as before, and that guarantee fades smoothly for armies a little larger (5000 vs 600 starts 600 vs 400). The share is recalculated from the men each side has left at every wave, so it shifts as armies take losses.
Reinforcement waves refill fully: every wave in a field battle now brings its side back up to its share of your battle size setting (also with battle-size mods), as long as it has men left in reserve. In 4.5.2 the side that called the wave got a fixed half-line, while the side pulled in with it was topped up to full, so the side already losing kept facing a fresh enemy line. A wave held up because the game had no room to spawn it now also covers the men lost while it waited. The other side is topped up once when a new wave starts, instead of every few seconds while a slow wave is still coming in.
Better frame rate when AI formations charge: the frontline fighting system (men stepping forward, back and sideways in a melee line) now sizes up its surroundings only when a soldier makes a new decision, about once a second, instead of every frame. Charging soldiers also find their targets more cheaply, and AI formations no longer briefly take on charge, shield wall or line settings from a behavior they then don't pick, which caused short stutters. Battles play the same.
Better frame rate with cavalry: AI riders no longer search a wide area around themselves for enemies every frame. They only look when an enemy formation is close, and then a few times a second. Charging riders share one picture of the enemy's positions instead of each building their own, and riders pushing through crowds, lancers choosing between lance and sword, horse archers judging their reach and troops checking whether spent ammo is safe to collect all re-check a few times a second instead of every frame.
Cavalry riding slowly through its own infantry no longer knocks its own men back; only a real collision (above walking pace) does. A soldier is knocked back by a horse at most twice a second.
Lancers galloping through the enemy no longer switch to their sword.
Horse archers circling at the edge of their reach no longer stop and start shooting several times a second: once held back for range, they resume when the target is a few metres inside it.
Infantry braced against a cavalry charge keeps its brace for 8 s after the charge ends, instead of breaking formation and re-forming every time the cavalry pulls back to reform.
Starting gold is now a multiplier on the gold character creation gives you (default 5x, adjustable 1x–50x) instead of a flat 5,000-denar purse, so backstory choices matter again. The setting is renamed "Starting Gold Multiplier" and resets to 5x on existing configs. New campaigns only.
Starving a besieged fief works again: paid healing no longer mends starving garrisons, militia or parties faster than starvation wounds them.
Artisan quests no longer ask for hardwood or iron ore, which RBM villages don't produce. They ask for planks and tools instead.
A plank now refines into 10 hardwood.
Troop upgrade prices on the party screen are honest now. The price on an upgrade arrow is for the next man after spoils; upgrading a whole stack at once used to charge full price for the men the spoils didn't reach, several times what the arrow suggested. The arrow now only offers as many men as your gold covers, and its tooltip adds an "All N: you pay X" line with the real total.
Upgrading a batch the spoils fully cover no longer fails silently when you are low on gold, which also showed a gold gain and paid it out.
Cancelling the upgrade popup no longer forgets the spoils already promised to upgrades made before opening it.
Splitting one stack between two upgrade branches in one visit no longer spends the same spoils twice.
Men taken from a garrison or companion party and upgraded in the same visit pay with the spoils they bring. Men sent the other way take their share with them, and it is no longer spent on the upgrades of the men who stay.
Troops donated to a garrison or handed to a new clan party keep their spoils.
The troop upgrade cost multiplier now multiplies the price instead of stacking with perk discounts, so a low setting plus perks no longer makes upgrades free.
Leaderless parties that belong to someone (patrols) only promote the men their own spoils cover instead of billing the owner, and AI upgrades no longer pay the supplying town more gold than the payer had.
Prisoners recruited while in a town or village no longer arrive with a free spoils allowance.
War Sails: AI armies that have to sail to a siege no longer board their ships, disembark and board again in an endless loop. A party's strength no longer drops while it is at sea; the landing limit for ship raids now only affects the decision to raid a village through its port.
AI armies no longer form, march for a day and disband. A new army still needs 2.5x the defenders' strength to besiege, but one that already exists keeps its target down to 1.5x, vanilla's own factor for a siege under way. Army creation and dispersal are recorded in the garrison log.
Clans without a culture are removed the way vanilla does it, and clans that are already eliminated are no longer destroyed again on every load.
Militia caps: militia grow freely up to a soft cap of 40% of the fief's base (town prosperity, a castle's average village hearth, a village's hearth), then ever more slowly up to a hard cap of 75%. Above the hard cap 5% of the excess leaves each day, with their kit refunded. Barracks, the castle Guard House, Training Fields, the Train Militia and Raise Troops projects and the Citizenship, Cantons and Bolster the Fyrd policies raise the soft cap (up to 70%); Serfdom lowers it. The Guard House and the four policies no longer change militia per day directly. The militia tooltip shows both caps.
A town arms new militia straight from its own market's shelves, and disbanded militiamen put their kit back on them.
Prisoners sold at a castle are paid from the castle's own wealth, and gold the game pays to a castle goes into its wealth instead of an unused purse.
Workshop gear follows the town's culture: most weapons, shields, armor and ammo a workshop makes now come from the gear of that culture's militia, troop trees and mercenaries. A market holds at most 6 of any one item, so a few items no longer flood every market, and foreign-culture gear is no longer made.
Leather supply: towns no longer run out of leather, and so of armor. Workshop demand for materials is counted realistically instead of growing as inputs ran out, supply caravans now also carry leather, linen, wool, flax and iron ingots between towns, and tanning runs before every recipe that uses hides or leather, at a higher rate.
Wool and hides are cheaper, and villages produce hides a little faster.
All logging toggles and developer mode are now in one collapsible "RBM Debug & Logging" section. This adds rows for the AI behavior log and armor penetration messages, which had no UI before.
A newly created config is read right away, so settings missing from the default file are saved from the first session.
With Battle Hit Logging on, every AI bow, crossbow and sling shot is traced in the hit log (aim, predicted range, where it landed).
Every option on the config screen now has a hover tooltip that states its default.
"Recruits Kitted From Market" no longer shows the Starting Gold tooltip text.
Hit stop and the developer battle stats now need RBM AI on; the battle hit log and the ranged aim arc need RBM Combat on.
Reset to Default restores every setting to its real default. It used to set Spoils Spent on Fun to 1.5 instead of 0.25 and skipped Building Cost Multiplier, Construction Budget Share, Daily Maintenance and Self-Funded Maintenance Share.
The "Raid Plunder Pocketed" setting is removed; it only acted as an on/off switch. Raid spoils always flow as its default did, and old configs still load.
Options that depend on another sit directly below it, indented, and sub-groups share one heading style.
The battle hit log records every blocked or parried melee blow by type (chamber, weapon block or parry, shield block or parry, wrong-side shield), with a per-side table at the end of the battle. The developer battle stats show a melee hits counter and a counter for each block type.
Changelog on the title screen: an "RBM Changelog" badge in the top-right corner opens the list of versions and their notes. The newest one opens by itself once after an update.
Fixed a crash at startup on Linux/Proton (a regression since 4.4.9).
Fixed a crash at deployment in custom battles when a troop with a signature two-handed weapon was picked as banner bearer.
Siege machines no longer crash the mission when a soldier walking to one has lost his formation, and releasing a siege engine no longer crashes on soldiers without an AI component.
Arrows no longer crash the game when the shooter has already left the battle, whether they hit a shield worn on the back or armor (e.g. a helmet on a headshot).
A ranged hit that both breaks posture and kills no longer forces a stagger animation on the dying soldier.
Hardening against a reported crash from missile collisions in very large battles. Missiles that stick into a shield the soldier no longer holds are removed instead of left floating.
Hiring modded tavern mercenaries in your own fief no longer crashes the hire menu.
The smithy no longer crashes on saved crafting orders whose weapon uses a part its template no longer has (e.g. the gang leader dagger quest).
Disabling RBM Combat now fully disables it. RBM's native and spear combat parameters used to stay active with Combat off: AI archers kept engaging at RBM's range, the slower walk speed stayed, and so on. Native parameters switch back immediately. Spear animation parameters need a restart, and the config screen shows a notice when one is needed.
With Combat off, RBM_WS no longer adds the Nord crafting pieces a second time, which had made every Nord spear throwable. The "RBM_WS missing" warning now only shows when Combat is on.
RBM_WS weapon descriptions now match NavalDLC's again. Nord atgeirs regain their one-handed usage, and two-handed swords crafted from Nord pieces regain the one-handed grip.
The sneak-attack bonus now applies before armor, so stealth kills work again (the stealth tutorial and War Sails stealth quests).
Landing a punch no longer stuns the puncher. The recoil damage is still taken, but it can never kill.
Smithing: fixed the crash with long two-handed mace handles, and restored the Battanian falx blades. Crafting pieces that a future game patch or DLC adds are now attached to a weapon type automatically, so the smithy no longer crashes on them.
Loading a save made with Combat on, with Combat now off, no longer crashes on smithed weapons.
The Cloth Banner no longer removes the couch ability from lances.
The heavy spiked club head no longer floats above its handle.
The Light Menavlion's grip is back on the shaft, and the weapon is now shorter than the Heavy Menavlion.
Repeating crossbows keep their reticle while bolts are still loaded.
Troop equipment fixes: the Fian Champion's bows, the Skolder tier 2/3 helmets, two broken cape entries, and the missing reins on the light harness.
Passive shoulder shields: every _shoulder shield (e.g. the Falxman's targe) is swapped back when the option is off.
War Sails grapeshot no longer deals several times vanilla damage to ship hulls, where a single volley could sink a light ship. It stays deadly to crew.
Armwraps and the Leather Coat regain their vanilla stealth values, and the Leather Coat counts as stealth gear again.
Fifteen arrow visual entries with broken Empire/Vlandia culture references now resolve.
With Campaign off, junk weapons no longer sell for 400+ denars. The legacy weapon price floor is lower: tier-0 weapons are worth about 105, while tier 3 and above barely change.
Hardening against reported crashes when a missile breaks a shield.
Heavy posture breaks dismount riders again. A single hit that deals at least 33% of a rider's max posture can unseat him, including through a shield block, and a mounted attacker whose blocked attack breaks his own posture can be dismounted too.
Signature two-handed weapons. Eastern heavy lancers keep the lance in both hands with the shield slung on the back, and draw mace and shield only once an enemy is within 2.5 m. Falxmen, shock troops, two-handed axemen and atgeir infantry never draw a shield, and throw only at 6–25 m.
Eastern heavy lancers no longer swirl the lance between grips after a couch, or flip between lance and mace while hovering near an enemy.
Troops carrying a polearm and a sidearm prefer the polearm until an enemy has stayed within 2.5 m for 2 s (so a passing enemy or a cavalry charge doesn't trigger it), and keep the sidearm until no enemy has been within that range for 4 s (2 s for cavalry, so they have the lance back for the next charge). They no longer switch weapons back and forth while enemies hover at the edge. Troops with only a polearm are left alone, and throwing weapons (javelins, throwing axes and knives, throwable spears) count as neither polearm nor sidearm.
Reinforcements enter from the map border behind their own side, on dry ground, instead of spawning in one mid-field blob. Waves on both sides are paired, and each side's reinforcements are capped at half the battle size.
Player horse archers stay in formation under Move/Stop and in column under Follow. Those who lose their horse fight in melee instead of holding their bow.
A player's charge at a selected enemy formation now goes for that formation, instead of the nearest large enemy formation.
In sieges, player formations and shieldwall, square or circle formations keep their slots when an enemy gets close, so a gate shieldwall no longer dissolves into chases.
Archers flanking with no infantry to support hold a stand-off on their own side of the enemy, instead of marching through the enemy line.
AI order calculations no longer overwrite the formation of a player leading as a captain (e.g. shieldwall replaced by charge + line every tick).
AI infantry only braces against enemy cavalry that is actually charging within 150 m. Parked cavalry no longer freezes the attacker at its spawn.
Infantry under the split-archers tactic waits at most 30 s for its archers.
Siege archers switch to melee at 6 m instead of 15 m, so defenders no longer drop their bows after the first shot.
Frontline holds are released properly, so troops (e.g. archers with an enemy close by) no longer stay rooted in place. Retreating troops are never held.
Archers holding their sidearm are no longer moved to Infantry and back, which re-formed both formations each time.
Charge-routed troops are not rallied back out of a Retreat order.
Mounted banner bearers no longer ride back and forth at battle start.
The formation banner marker keeps up with cavalry.
Days-of-food forecasts account for troop rations running out. 31 food no longer shows as lasting thousands of days, and AI army and siege decisions use the corrected figure.
Saves carrying troop stacks broken by another mod are repaired on load instead of crashing in the daily training tick.
Fixed the Escort Merchant Caravan quest crashing on accept with the troop overhaul.
Well-provisioned parties with food perks (e.g. Spartan, Warrior's Diet) no longer eat almost nothing. The perks now scale what the party actually eats.
Fixed several crashes to desktop: fast horse deaths near riderless horses, charge blows that killed their victim, forced stagger animations on swimmers, climbers and siege-engine users, health bars reading deleted agents (War Sails), and native writes from worker threads.
Swimmers in naval battles are left to native formation handling, and the signature-weapon grip stands down while swimming or climbing.
Fixed a crash on save load caused by the party food tooltip patch being applied before game texts were loaded.
Per-battle AI data is cleared at the start of every mission, so old battles are no longer kept in memory. This also fixes a crash when reloading.
A redirected, protected or unwritable Documents folder, or a corrupt config.xml, no longer crashes the game at startup. RBM uses the defaults and logs the problem.
Code cleanup: removed unused variables, fields and dead code so the mod builds without compiler warnings. No gameplay change.
RBM's managed core parameters (spear/thrust tuning) now actually load. They were never applied before. They apply only with RBM Combat enabled.
Swings that hit the arm deal 0.5x damage (vanilla 0.15x); thrusts that hit the arm deal 0.034x.
Fuller thrust and late-swing speed curves; ballista bolts have 5x drag.
Fixed the two-handed mace skill coefficient (1.125 → 0.1125). Every swing was hitting the damage cap from around skill 25.
Punch damage: bare fists 0.4 → 0.3, cloth/leather gloves 0.3 → 0.4. A glove no longer loses to a bare fist.
Fixed unarmed blows while holding an item applying the skill formula twice.
Shield impacts: blocks and parries no longer spawn body-hit dust or blood. Metal shields throw sparks on every block, and wooden shields splinter on heavy blocks.
Restored vanilla collision reactions that RBM's armor thresholds skipped: kick and bash follow-through, hilt hits, shrugged-off blows and body punches. The couched lance keeps RBM's stick/bounce but regains the vanilla pass-through roll, so the Skewer perk works again.
Weapon sticking and hit particles now use the blow's damage type, so a swing that doesn't land on the blade counts as blunt.
Posture crush-through now uses the same damage math as live combat. The AI's copy dated from 2023 and had drifted from it. Crush-through damage is scaled x0.85 to compensate for the change.
Fixed unarmed crush-through dividing by zero (NaN damage).
Cavalry-charge knockdown routs flee in formation again. Since 4.5.0 these troops left their formation, came back formationless, and then charged on their own, ignoring orders. This was most visible in large battles. Charge routs also no longer set off the flee-contagion morale wave.
The rally now brings back only charge-routed troops. Ordered retreats and normal morale routs are left alone.
Fixed banner bearers added by Raise Your Banner clumping together, and bearers "attacking air". Bearers now always stand next to a neighbouring soldier in the formation grid.
New: per-settlement recruit pool. Manpower is now a finite, regenerating resource.
Its size comes from prosperity (towns/castles) or hearth (villages): it grows +0.03 per point a day, up to a maximum of 0.2 per point.
Each new volunteer costs 1 point. Each new garrison soldier costs 1 + (garrison / soft size)², where the soft size is 150 for towns and 100 for castles.
Garrisons stop growing when the pool falls to a reserve of 0.07 per point, which is kept for volunteers.
Militia and troop transfers are unaffected.
Building bonuses: Train Militia / Housing daily project +25% growth, Raise Troops daily project +50%, Castellan's Office max +10/20/30%, Barracks soft size +20/40/60, a fief's Roads and Paths +10/20/30% growth for its villages.
The settlement tooltip and the garrison tooltip show the pool, the per-soldier garrison cost and the building bonuses.
Building descriptions that promised garrison capacity or automatic recruitment (which do nothing under RBM) have been rewritten.
AI kingdoms form armies and take fiefs again. Their siege targets always scored 0, so armies never gathered.
Fresh sieges now need 2.5x strength (it was 3x).
AI lords top up their parties from their own clan's surplus garrisons, so they meet the party-size requirement for joining armies. Lords who already qualify aren't pulled home.
New option: "AI Lords Buy Equipment". Turn it off if another mod manages lord gear. It is on by default. Pack trains are unaffected.
Goods are now removed and paid for by the exact stack (including item modifiers) everywhere: citizen demand, troop food and drink, refining, minting, construction, caravans and workshops. Previously a sale could be paid for goods that never left the stack, or take from the wrong stack. A caravan that is short of cargo is now trimmed instead of creating goods from nothing.
Recruit, upgrade and luxury market purchases pay what the stack they actually take is worth.
Melee profiles use the shared combat skill table, so future retunes apply to it automatically. Blunt thrusts (whips, pitchforks, training weapons) are no longer pinned at the damage cap.
Fixed markets getting permanently stuck with NaN prices (#22). Existing saves are repaired on the next daily tick. Town food budgets and rounding are also guarded against NaN.
Fixed a race between the save thread and the town food cache, and a crash for towns with no owner.
Config: decimal settings now parse and save correctly on comma-decimal locales. Previously 0.05 was read as 5 (thrust modifier, weapon-type factors, horse price).
A config version mismatch that resets settings is now logged.
Weapon comparison tooltip: bow, crossbow and throwable rows show the compared weapon's own values, rows stay aligned with the target column, and missing values are left blank instead of showing -100 or 0.