Companion Party Control

The idea of companion parties is pretty cool. The way they are currently implemented is not. They run around the map, getting into trouble and you have no way of telling them what to do. This mod changes all that.

This mod adds the Companion Messenger Service to the menu of all towns, castles and villages. From this menu you can give your companions some very basic orders. In the future I may expand this mod, but for the time being it does what I needed it to do.

Once you give the companion parties a command they will do as you say and nothing else. The mod will switch off their AI so they can’t take any actions other than the ones you give them. If you tell them to stay in a town they will stay in that town until the end of time. No more running off to raid villages or get captured by looters.

From Companion Messenger Service menu you can do the following:

Report companion party status

Free one companion party from control

Free all companion parties from control

Order one companion party to stay in a town

Order all companion parties to stay in a town

Order one companion party to follow you

Order all companion parties to follow you

I did have some patrol capabilities in the mod, but the patrols did not work as you might expect. Because the companions are unable to make any decisions with their AI disabled, all they did was wander around. They were unable to attack the enemy or any bandits. This made the whole patrol thing fairly useless. I will look into adding patrol and attack commands in the future. (Ones that actually work!)

The two “Free” commands will turn the companion parties loose to do as they please. The “stay in a town” commands will make the companions parties travel to the town and stay there. The follow command has them follow you in a ragged formation. You can use the follow command to summon parties than you left waiting in a town. The report option will tell you what your companions are currently doing, even if you are not controlling them with the mod.

How I have used the mod:

The king of Vlandia is always making war and that has made me quite busy. During one campaign I had tracked down several enemy lords, but their parties were too fast to catch as I had a thousand man, clan-only army with me. I needed to ditch my army temporarily so I could chase down the lords that I had spotted.

I stopped at a nearby friendly village. I disbanded my army of companions just before entering the village. I used the Companion Messenger Service to tell my companions to head to a friendly town. My companions all took off for the town, leaving me free to chase down the enemy lords.

After I had destroyed two lord parties I spotted an enemy army heading my way. While I might have been able to defeat the army with just my party, I would be heavily outnumbered and my casualties would have been severe