And while my experience is hardly complete with Silverstag, I haven't met many of the additional companions added by Floris. Additionally, Floris' beautiful combat animations are gone, along with the diagonal geometry of the sidewards attacks. Freelancer is only really good for early game, and honestly a bit of a slog at the best of times, but if it's a part of how you like to establish your characters, then you'll probably feel its absence. Once example is the Freelancer submod, which allows players to enlist in the armies of lords. :pīut there are certainly elements absent from Silverstag.
No doubt at least a handful of Silverstag players will learn how to break them soon enough. There's quite a few of these abilities, and while none of them seem completely overwhelming, they can make the difference in the right situation. These abilities range from the likes of Blademaster (additional damage from cutting weapons, scaling with your Weapon Master skill) to Volley Commander (nearby allied missile troops get additional accuracy relative to your Tactics skill). Every five levels, you can give your character an ability through a new menu under your reports.
There are new character customisation options through the character ability system. The most notable is getting a period of HP regeneration after defeating an opponent, rewarding consistently good play in combat by allowing you to stay in the fight for longer. As a result, different conditions in combat can influence your HP. In Silverstag, your HP doesn't represent your literal bodily resilience, but a combination of that, your morale, and your general state of stamina. There's also things that influence combat directly, such as the health regeneration. Additionally, while hiring costs tend to be pretty high, upkeep costs are relatively low, making passive income from businesses and fiefs more profitable than you might otherwise expect. This provides very fine control over your force composition.
To accommodate this, Silverstag has new menus and displays for the purposes of hiring the specific kind of troops you want, if available, from whichever center you're at. You now hire troops from villages, towns and castles as a fully kitted out troop type (such as Swadian Man-at-Arms), which then can progress through veteran and elite versions of themselves, but don't become different troop types by upgrading. Silverstag also has new troop types, but it's no longer appropriate to call them "trees". For instance, Floris has the "native" recruitment system, but with new troop trees. In Silverstag, some gameplay elements work very differently. You'll have to try Silverstag to see which one you find preferable. Floris and Silverstag are both very good, but they handle the expansion of native features differently.