Anyone interested in Crusader States mod?

[Minister of Fear]

Kingdom of Heaven has renewed my interest in the history of the crusades and I'm wondering if anyone's interested in a mod that takes the complexities of Outremer into account. I'm particularly thinking of a mod with a new map (centred on Outremer, but this should be discussed) and new factions that takes into account the variety of political/ military actors in Outremer; i.e. the Military Orders, the Assassins, the Mameluks, the Genoese, Pisans, Venetians, the Kings of France and England, Mongols, etc. I'm also interested by the role the Ilkhanate (nominally Christian in the 13th century) could have played if the Western Europeans had not been squabbling amongst themselves over the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples.

I suggest that the mod begin approx. 1248 with St Louis, the King of France, setting sail for Cyprus. You decide what will be the target of this crusade. Historically, the destination was Egypt but after initial success the crusade ended in disaster.

A new or modified map is needed. The brilliant work of BKB could be employed with his kind permission, but it would required admixture of his HIGH and LATE mods.

So, what say all of you, is this mod pregnant with promise, or is it stillborn?

Edit : Renamed thread as requested, now moved to engineers guild, once more as requested.

-Mithrandir

[AggonyDuck]

The idea of the mod is good, except I'd actually suggest starting it in the 12th century in the time between the first and the second crusade.
This pretty much allows the game to have several factions that actually played a role at that time. See perhaps the best thing about starting somewhere after the 1st Crusade is that both the muslims and the crusaders are splintered in several factions. ~;)

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm.... some interesting ideas. A few thoughts:

1. I wonder how the "politics" of the era could be enacted in this mod. In other words, if you're thinking about factions like, say, the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as France, what happens when the king of france wants to go on crusade? MTW diplomacy being MTW diplomacy, I imagine there could be a lot of situations where the French end up allying with the Saracens to beat up on the Crusaders -- which is fine I guess, but it might not be the kind of game some people want.

2. What kind of new map are we talking about? First let me say that I have NO experience making new campaign maps, so I would be no help there. But what did you have in mind for the area of the map? Personally, I think it would be great to have Constantinople east to the Caucasus (basically it could end where the MTW map ends on the eastern side). That way you'd have Constantinople itself as the seat of the Byzantine Empire, and you'd have at least a chopped-up Byzantine Empire, its land holdings depending on the start date, which would make things interesting. Also it sounds like you want to include some of the eastern Mediterranean islands, which sounds good.

4. Any ideas on factions/units?

3. Is this mod really feasible? I don't want to sound like a pessimist but the more I think about it the more interesting this seems, and I'm just wondering how willing people would be to work with this. I could offer some research time to help out myself, and I know a bit about basic modding (I've done some campaigns for myself in the past), but you'd need someone who can work with the campaign map and maybe make brand new unit graphics and shield graphics -- all of that stuff is beyond me.

Well it sounds interesting -- keep us posted.
CountMRVHS

[Krusader]

Sounds good.

I would suggest perhaps set a starting year to 1144-45 which was when Edessa fell, and just before Second Crusade. After the Second Crusade, things got more interesting, and the wars quickly flared up.

[Pericles]

I like the idea.

Most of the units are already available.

I think it is worth doing.

I, too, saw KoH and I am in the mood to play crusader type games.

[edyzmedieval]

The idea sounds great!!

I think you should start with the 1st crusade and end with the last crusade...

You should add many new units and stuff to make the game interesting...

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, Krusader's start date sounds good. The way I see it, you want to start the game while there are already a bunch of Crusader states established, right? So you wouldn't really want to start with the First Crusade. About the 1248 date, I confess I don't know too much about the later crusades. After 1204 things get hazy for me in that area, and my historical knowledge is more focused on Byzantium.

One other thing I was wondering about: would there be different starting eras in the campaign? In other words, would the High era still begin in 1204? I'm just curious about if this would have any impact on when units become available, as crossbows only become available in High, etc etc.

At the very least, the various Crusader knight types should be trainable by the appropriate factions, not just recruited randomly in a Crusade; but you were probably planning that anyway.

The big question for me, though, remains: can you mod the campaign map or do you know somebody who can?

CountMRVHS

[Krusader]

If you're going different eras, then might I suggest some possible start dates:

1095 - First Crusade preached. Launched some years later

1144 - Edessa falls. Second Crusade preached. Second Crusade achieves nothing in Asia Minor, while crusader states besiege Damascus unsuccesfully. After this the Muslim lords become more united and more hostile towards the crusader states

1204/1205 - Fourth Crusade ends. Byzantine empire falls and succesor states established. Dunno if this affects Holy Land.

1229 - Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II gets Jerusalem and other cities through diplomacy.

1260 - Baybars becomes Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. Defeats the Mongols at Ain Jalut, and wages a succesful war on the Christians. Defeats them in several battles, and in 1268 he conquers Antioch.
Armenians in Cilica or lesser Armenia also defeated some years before. Also warred with Seljuk Turks who were vassals of the Mongols at the time.

[junkmonk]

Kewl
:charge:

[metatron]

I was planning such a mod no later than last week, but real life issues have taken precedence.

[Minister of Fear]

Good. Sounds as if there is sufficient interest in at least convening a council of war. Those interested in contributing should send me a private message and then we can organise a MSN messenger conference at a time convenient to all regarding the mod.

As to points raised so far:

I'd love to do a mod beginning with the first crusade but my main interest is what happened once they got there. I think the better starting is as a few have suggested: mid 12th century, possible ten year prior to fall of Edessa. LEt's give Outremer some chance in it defence.

Which gives us some moslem and christians factions to work with, and these may include the Mameluks, Fatamids, Duqaq of Dasmascus, Assassins, Danishmends, Seldjuks, Caliph of Bagdad, Armenians, Gerogians, Byzantines, Hospitalliers, Templars, Aragonese, Genoese, Venetians, Pisans, English, HRE and Papact and Outremer itself. I wouls also like to include Khwarazim if it were possible.

The campaign map I think should include South western Europe and North Western Africa in the west of map and sourth Eurasia and arabia in the east (the Red and Caspian Seas and Persian Gulf should be on the map. And, no, i can't mod the campaign map but we should be able to find someone who can, or I'll just have to give it a go myself.

The units - we could use BKB's units-supplemented with one's of our own creation. This all depends on the factions, etc. And BKB's permission.

Diplomacy may be a problem, but if you consider the Venetians alliance with the Egyptians in the face of calamity, it may not be such a problem. My enemies enemy is my friend was coined by Machiavelli, but was practiced by the Venetians, et al long before.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Feel free to use whatever you want. Sounds like a good project!

[Meneldil]

Well, there was no Outremer state, but a bunch of rival kingdoms, counties, principalties. Having only one outremer kingdom faction would be quite bland, as crusader states spent a lot of time fighting themselves.
There should also be more than 1 byzantine faction, if you plan to go farther than 1204.

[Krusader]

Crusader factions would then be Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch & County of Edessa.

If you need any help with Prin. Antioch then I can find some info on them, as their leaders and nobility seems to have been mainly Normans.

[metatron]

We should focus on the Levant itself. The Venetians and Romans held lands nearby, giving them bases of operations.

A smaller campaign map = more provinces. Now, if we're going to have six crusader states, I think we need as many as we can possibly get in the Holy Land.

[Sir William Wallace]

a mod dealing with this time in history would be great, i would defiantly play it. i think it would pretty cool if you had individual orders of knights as factions in the game too. although i dont have any editing software as of yet, i offer my services to help with the mod.

[CountMRVHS]

More thoughts on the campaign map.

What Metatron says is true: focus on a smaller area, you get more provinces to fit in there, which can make for more historical accuracy. However, I can see the attraction in having factions like the Sicilians, the Venetians, etc.

I think the big question here will be what kind of campaign would we most like to have.

Personally, I'd like to see Byzantium included in this mod. During the time period we're talking about, there was much cooperation and conflict between the Byzantines and the Crusader states in Asia Minor and the Middle East. To do Byzantium justice, you'd need to include Greece and sections of the Balkans, not to mention all of modern-day Turkey.

When you talk about going further west, however, I get hesitant.

Here's why: If you want to include some Western European powers, it seems to me that you'd really need to include them all. Just having the Venetians, for example, and having the map only stretch west to Italy, would seem to be only giving a fraction of a larger picture. If you really want to have the English and the HRE as factions, then we're talking about a map which is basically the same scale as the current MTW map ... and then the focus wouldn't really be on the Crusader States at all; we'd be fighting all over Europe just like we can do now.

I think for the sake of simplicity and accuracy (as far as provinces and cities are concerned) it would make sense to confine the map to the Eastern Mediterranean, maybe with the Adriatic as its western border. Making the map even smaller in focus -- ie just the Levant -- would leave out a lot of room for the various Turkish factions as well as chunks of Byzantium: and my argument for Byzantium is that they were a very powerful LOCAL entity in the area at the time.

That's just my take on this; but hey I've got my own biases obviously ~D . I think a general rule, though, should be simplicity. I'd really love to see this mod get finished, and the best way to ensure that that happens is to keep it simple.

[Minister of Fear]

This is getting very interesting!

Firstly, Meneldil is right, there was no such thing as an Outremer faction but several kingdoms, principalities, counties, etc. and I do plan on that being reflected in the campaign. But I'm not satisfied by the idea, of Krusader, that the factions should so closely align with the area they established, ie. the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but they just may have to. What I wasn't aware of, but soon will be, is that there was more than one Byzantine faction in the 13th century.

To focus too sharply on the Levant would l think diminish the international dimension of the campaign. The maritime/trading cities of Italy (Genoa, Venice, and Pisa) should be in the campaign largely because their navies were pivotal to the success or failure of the crusader states. The kingdoms of England and France are necessary because of the shortage of fighting men the Crusaders could raise locally. Can we do without this?

CountMRVHS raises a good point about the game not becoming similar to available campaigns, we could avoid this even if those factions are available on map by having only those factions in the east as playable factions.

And thanks to BKB we have a great pool of units to use from the beginning.

So, at the moment, the following have shown interest in participating: CountMRVHS, Sir William Wallace, Krusader, Metatron?, is there anyone else?

[Krusader]

I can dig out information about the crusades. I don't know much about coding and that stuff!!

[metatron]

I propose we use this map:


http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/Chris5369/levant2.jpg (http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/Chris5369/levant.jpg)
(Click for larger image)

Except, with modern names. I figured, since the cities are of the most importance, that the cities should be their own provinces. Not to the exclusion of expanses of land, just more important (money wise, etc.).

[metatron]

I've done this work for the Kingdom of Jerusalem already for BKBs mod:


Here (http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/Chris5369/pictar3.jpg) you go. Colors are "238 233 233 then 242 224 103". I have a lighter set, but the difference really is minimal.

Since the coat of arms was that of Jerusalem, I figured why not just center the titles around it too...

Quote:
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER royal_palace "Lord Chamberlain" +2 +2 0 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER constables_palace "Constable of Jerusalem" +2 0 3 3 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER marshals_palace "Marshal of Jerusalem" +2 0 0 1 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER chancellery "Chancellor" +1 1 0 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER cathedral "Patriarch of Jerusalem" 1 2 0 0 4 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER chapter_house "Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon" 0 1 1 3 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER law_courts3 "Viscount" 1 1 2 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER college_of_surgeons "Master Physician of the Haute Cour" 1 2 1 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER royal_palace "Butler" +1 +1 0 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER royal_palace "Bailiff" +3 +2 0 0 0 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER cathedral "Patriarch of Antioch" 1 2 0 0 3 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER chapter_house "Grand Master of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem" 0 1 1 2 2 0 0
AddOffice:: FN_CRUSADER royal_court "Seneschal of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" +2 +3 0 0 0 0 0
No loyalty for the orders, as their loyalty to the King is tenuous at best, and loyalty for the Patriarchs, because obviously their office (and lives!) depend on Catholic control of Outremer. My research indicated that the position of Marshall was fairly unimportant, in direct contrast to the Constable...

Cut out "Patriarch of Antioch" and the Orders, and we've got a decent list for the KoJ's titles.

[metatron]

To focus too sharply on the Levant would l think diminish the international dimension of the campaign. The maritime/trading cities of Italy (Genoa, Venice, and Pisa) should be in the campaign largely because their navies were pivotal to the success or failure of the crusader states. The kingdoms of England and France are necessary because of the shortage of fighting men the Crusaders could raise locally. Can we do without this? First, it all depends on the time period we plan to cover.

Second, we could work it like VI and have a few "European" provinces that can't be reached by those in the Levant.

[Krusader]

Might I propose one thing:

Make some units hard to get, like mounted Templars, Hospitallers etc. for instance takes some turns to train them (like Battlefield Ninjas or Geishas in S:TW, although 8 turns might be a bit much?)

Wikipedia Map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Asia_minor_1140.jpg)

Here's an old map of the Levant in 1140.

[CountMRVHS]

I suspect sometime in the near future we'll make a final decision about the campaign map. It looks like we've got people who want a big map (Minister of Fear), people who want a small map (Metatron), and I suspect there are a couple others like myself who can see a compromise working out. As it is right now, I can see Minister's point about the Italian cities needing representation. However, the French and English still seem to extend the scope too wide for me. My inclination right now is that I'd prefer to keep the map from extending beyond Italy. Maybe the shortage of men in the Levant could be represented in some other way.... but as I said this will likely get settled soon, and I can work with whatever happens.

As for the Byzantines, if we're starting around 1130, then we're still looking at a unified Empire, led by John II at that time (1118-1143 I believe). In Asia Minor, the empire held lands roughly from the SW "corner" of Turkey to the NE "corner", where it meets the SE corner of the Black Sea. We've got a Seljuk faction, a Danishmend (right? this is from memory...) faction, and there should be several provinces in the hands of rebels, as there were a lot of nomadic, unaffiliated Turkish peoples milling about.

The split into several different Byzantine factions occurred later, after the fourth crusade and the establishment of the Latin state of Constantinople. However, in terms of representing this in the game.... I think we probably shouldn't, unless we have a separate start date for the High period at 1204. If we're just having one start date, from 1130ish on, then there should be just one Byzantine faction. I'm not familiar with BKBs units as I don't have the mod, but I've heard they're very accurate.

Anyway that's all for now. The Byzantine part should be fairly easy -- the hard part for right now is deciding the limits of the map and where to literally draw the line.

CountMRVHS

[metatron]

I could live with Constantinople and Crete included, just not so much the rest of Europe. Of course, you sacrifice things, for instance the Bulgar/Balkan pressures on the Empire.

I have another map we could use, lemmie find it.

[Minister of Fear]

Metatron - I just think that maps too small, where would the Ilkhnate be situated in the 13th century. However, see what you could do, roughly, in carving it up, as regards to the place of the various factions.

The campaign map may be negotiated another way. We could of course develop two campaigns, one with the small map, another with a larger map. Or we could include the Italian peninsula in the west and Caspian sea in the east. Lets continue to thrash this one out. Once its decided, everything else should begin to fall into place.

The time period could be the 12th and 13th century and if there's sufficient need we could have a HIGH and LATE era, one two cover the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and another to cover the Kingdom of Acre.

I'm looking through available maps at the moment, has anyone found one that includes what Italian peninsula in the west and Caspian sea in the east, as well as top of red sea and persian gulf.

[Minister of Fear]

Metatron- Ok. If you can live with Constantinople and Crete in the north and west, how far south and to the east are you prepared to go?

[metatron]

We have a danger of this mod growing beyond it's scope. We should remain focused primarily on Outremer. I understand that there were many forces at work, but the larger the map becomes, the more it degenerates into a simple "Eastern Mod".

I had this map in mind for my mod:

http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/Chris5369/first.jpg

But I could be persuaded to use this:

http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev2/files/Chris5369/second.jpg


But we need three things:
- A Name
- The Pope, so the Catholics don't start fighting amongst themselves so easily
- And thiis thread moved to the Engineers' Guild. :P

[Minister of Fear]

Metatron, your are hard man but fair. I'll happily accept the second map. I could even be persuaded to accept the first since the east expansion I suggested is unnecessary (possibly unfair on Outremer) in having such a large area of Moslem support in the East without the benefit of Western Europe. The exclusion of the Western powers would I think make friendly relations with Byzantium all the more necessary for the Crusaders. But I think it would make it all the more interesting in presenting in some measure the tenuous character of Moslem unity in the 12th and 13th century, and this requires the second map. That map would also make the arrival of the Mongols in the 13th century very interesting to play, and provide them with a sufficient base for offensive operations once the Horde is broken into factions by the battle for succession.

So, is the second map generally thought of favourably? Objections I think should require a counter-map.

I have a map that describes the boundaries of each of the factions and their geographic areas at 1100 and 1200 respectively. Can someone let me know how to upload images here.

And, oh. Wouldn't I love an eastern promise campaign!

As for a Name for the mod, how about: Outremer;
as for location of pope, let me think;
and, how do you move a thread from here to Engineer's Guild?

[CountMRVHS]

My vote's for Metatron's second map as well. My knowledge fades out when it starts to go south into Africa and farther east, but I'm sure you guys can fill in those gaps.

Just one thing I noticed: the Black Sea is cut into 2 pieces. Any way we could raise the norther border a teeny bit so ships could get from Constantinople to Georgia?

Other than that, I think the only thing we're going to have to do is make sure the province around Constantinople itself is rich enough to help support the Empire, to sort of represent the lands to the west that aren't being included.

Minister, that would be *great* to see the map you're talking about, with the borders for factions. Would of course make things much easier.

Outremer is a good name for the mod.

How would the Pope be represented here? Would he need to actually have lands? If so, where on this map could he be?

Or could we forgo the presence of the Pope entirely here.... I mean, how much influence did he have directly on the Crusader states themselves? It seems to me that Popes concentrated more on the raising & directing of Crusades than the workings of the kingdoms in the Levant, but I don't know.

One thing I think is for sure: In order to prevent the crusader states from behaving like the Danes and Aragonese, we're going to need to give them at least a few provinces to start with. It'd be no fun to have a bunch of Royal Knights sitting in Jerusalem for 100 years.

CountMRVHS

[Krusader]

What about Cross & Crescent? ~D

[metatron]

Heh, the map I was dealing with predetermined the northern and western borders, but I figured it would be a good starting point.

I read somewhere we could put the Pope on a province that doesn't border any others.

I second the vote for "Outremer", just "Outremer". Let's not use "Outremer: Total War", because "Total War" is tacky and cliched.

[metatron]

This map shows how west and north (but not east or south!) I think we should go. (Maybe even the "heel" of Italy).

http://www.amapsolution.com/images/wallmaps/middleEast.jpg

[Krusader]

What about this?

http://home.no.net/krusader/outremer1.jpg

[metatron]

I was hoping we could use the Pagan religion to make "Oriental Orthodox" factions, but the Mongols might curtail that...

[metatron]

What about this?

http://home.no.net/krusader/outremer1.jpgNot bad, but if we're going to include Greece and Italy, we need more of Iraq and Saudi Arabia too.

[CountMRVHS]

Metatron, are you being serious? Krusader's map seems quite a bit larger than what you were willing to do ... however it's a perfect map if we were focusing on the Byzantines. ~D

If you guys all want to go with one of these maps then pretty much whatever you choose will be fine with me. If necessary I could come up with a preference, but what I want - namely Constantinople and at least a good chunk of byzantium - looks like it's going to be in there in all of these maps.

Metatron, we could use Heresy for the pagan Mongols, and use Paganism for Oriental orthodox I suppose. There wasn't a whole lot of Inquisiting going on around here so Heresy wouldn't have much of a use as it is. I don't know if you can make a faction have "heresy" as a religion though.

[Malachus]

The factions in the game can only be set to orthodox, catholic, pagan, or muslim. Though Jewish and Heretic exist, factions are not allowed to have those religions. However, you can indeed change the name of either the orthodox, catholic, islamic, or pagan religions to make a certain faction a different religion like oriental orthodox or whatever.

[metatron]

Metatron, are you being serious? Krusader's map seems quite a bit larger than what you were willing to do ...I'm not a stubborn man.

I would much rather have a smaller map, but I do appreciate and will accept the larger maps.

[Minister of Fear]

Krusader's map is great, except that I agree with Metatron, if your going to have the heel of Italy and Greece, we need to include atleast the west and south coast of the Caspian, as well as the north west of the Persian Gulf. So I'm sticking with Metatron's second map at the moment.

Re the Pope. His influence starts to wane Crusader-wise by the end of the 12th century. The authority to initiate Crusades became an instrument used by successive Popes in influencing European affairs rather than the Levant. For God's sake, he called for a Crusade against Byzantium in the early 12th century!
Do we really need a Pope? Game-wise, can crusades be initiated without the Pope or papal faction? And if we don't have a Pope what other faction could call them (not including those in the Levant)?

As far as the religions are concerned, we have: Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental (eastern) Christians, Shite, Shia, pagans. Its difficult to represent the available religious diversity. What does heretic actually represent or reflect in the game? Could we just admit the oriental Christians as orthodox but make them different/ difficult another way? And do the same for the Moslem?

Cross & Crescent is good, but we have three votes for Outremer at the moment. The polls are still open, however...

[Krusader]

Krusader's map is great, except that I agree with Metatron, if your going to have the heel of Italy and Greece, we need to include atleast the west and south coast of the Caspian, as well as the north west of the Persian Gulf. So I'm sticking with Metatron's second map at the moment.

Re the Pope. His influence starts to wane Crusader-wise by the end of the 12th century. The authority to initiate Crusades became an instrument used by successive Popes in influencing European affairs rather than the Levant. For God's sake, he called for a Crusade against Byzantium in the early 12th century!
Do we really need a Pope? Game-wise, can crusades be initiated without the Pope or papal faction? And if we don't have a Pope what other faction could call them (not including those in the Levant)?

As far as the religions are concerned, we have: Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental (eastern) Christians, Shite, Shia, pagans. Its difficult to represent the available religious diversity. What does heretic actually represent or reflect in the game? Could we just admit the oriental Christians as orthodox but make them different/ difficult another way? And do the same for the Moslem?

Cross & Crescent is good, but we have three votes for Outremer at the moment. The polls are still open, however...

I'll fix the map then!!
Btw, Pope Innocent III did not call the crusade against the Byzantines btw. He called it towards Egypt. It was Venetian mercantile interests, French overestimation of number of crusaders and Byzantine throne politics that got intervined/connected together and resulteted in the Fourth Crusade's accomplishments.

[Krusader]

Refixed the map:

http://home.no.net/krusader/outremer2.jpg

[CountMRVHS]

Krusader's updated map looks good to me. But like I said I'll end up going with the majority on this one, just to get things settled quicker.

About the Pope. If we go with Krusader's new map, then I suppose we could give the papal faction a tiny bit of land at the northernmost part of Italy that is shown. However, the only Crusading faction that I can see accommodated on that map is Sicily and, arguably, the lands held by the various Italian merchant factions.

What I'm saying is that I'm not sure how Crusading should be modelled in this game. We may want to consider handling it differently. It seems like we've decided that our focus is on the levant rather than western europe -- therefore a crusade that begins in France would be beyond our scope at this point. So my first impulse is to say, let's not have any "Crusades" at all. We could give the Outremer factions the ability to build Chapter Houses, where they could possibly recruit certain Order knights (maybe in conjunction with other buildings to make them harder to get), but the ability to train a "Crusade" wouldn't be available. That seems to make sense because, say, the kingdom of Jerusalem didn't launch any actual crusades.

Of course the problem with this is that it doesn't allow for the various times in history when western europeans did send a crusade east with the intent of helping out the Christians already there. So if our map will not include western europe, how could those events be modelled? AFAIK the various "events" that pop up in MTW are hard-coded, so we couldn't therefore write our own event that coincided with a certain date and had some in-game effect. We wouldn't want to just make it cheaper for Outremer factions to train troops because that would be a sweeping game change and wouldn't reflect the reality of the situation at all.

I've got to say this one has me stumped. Right now I think we'd be better off forgetting about "Crusades" and focusing instead on the politics and history of the area itself. If we do that, we surely wouldn't need the Pope except as an excommunication dispenser, which I'm all for. But if anyone has any ideas on how to model Crusades in-game, let's hear it!

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

I like that new map, Krusader, very much. Let's see if we can convert it to the file type used by M:TW.

BTW, I meant the crusade lead by Bohemond that failed and lead to his return to Apulia.

[Blackguard_]

Sounds like a great mod. I didn't lke playing the Crusader States in BKB's mod becasue you just didn't get the feeling of being surrounded by huge powers and hanging on by a thread, as you could quickly conquer Egypt and the Turks but then there's nothing to do as its no fun to conquer Christendom as the Crusaders. Hopefully this mod will have the Muslim powers a credible threat to your existence.

Anyways, is there any way to fix allegiences? I do not want to have it end up with the Hospitallers and the Mamelukes allied against the Templars and the Turks.

As far as the last map posted by Krusader, are you sure it goes far south enough? Egypt does not seem represented enough.


We could give the Outremer factions the ability to build Chapter Houses, where they could possibly recruit certain Order knights (maybe in conjunction with other buildings to make them harder to get

I think only Order factions should have Order units unless you can make sure the Christian faction won't fight each other. It'd be too weird, not to mention inaccurate to see Orders fighting each other.


But if anyone has any ideas on how to model Crusades in-game, let's hear it!

Is it possible to have an event say "Crusade arrives in "such and such a place", X faction or factions gets a bunch of free units."?

[Blackguard_]

AFAIK the various "events" that pop up in MTW are hard-coded, so we couldn't therefore write our own event that coincided with a certain date and had some in-game effect.

Darn. Didn't see that part.


Maybe simply not have crusades?
I think the games recruiting system versus the historical manpower situation may make crusades too much of a boost for Outremer. I don't know about anyone else but I do not want to steamroll the muslims, at least not for a long way into the game. I like to play on the defensive mostly, as was historical and more fun then steamrolling.

[metatron]

Chapter Houses should only be buildable in Italy perhaps?

[bretwalda]

I am not sure whether it is doable, but what if Inns are modded (to lets say "Crusader Inns"), so only Christians can build them, and this way they could get "free" units (mercenary cost to be waaaaay reduced) but of course these units cannot be replenished (as mercenaries in the regular game)

[CountMRVHS]

That gives me the beginnings of an idea ....

OK, just thought it through and figured it won't work, but I'll mention it anyway in case it inspires someone else:

I was thinking we could change these "crusader inns" so that, instead of giving us the usual bunch of mercs, they would only give western european types. This might be a way to represent the appearance of other european forces in outremer. Rather than always being able to train certain units, these units would appear randomly and you couldn't always count no them. However, the problem is that the only way you could do this (I think) is to go into the unitprod txt and change what units are available as mercs. The problem with that is the Muslim factions would be faced with the same exact mercs as the outremer factions.... and I don't see a way around that.

[metatron]

^Disable their ablity to build an inn.

Anyway, we're still still left with their upkeep cost being rediculously high.

[Minister of Fear]

Well, we can always tweek their upkeep costs during the play-testing. But the solution to the appearance of Crusades could be solves using mercenaries. Hmmm, good thinking.

However, does anyone think its unfair that the other factions not have access to mercenaries? We could compensate this by designating another building that would enable other factions to build units they would normally have acquired as mercenaries.

[CountMRVHS]

Well, I just assumed it would be unfair for the Muslims to not have mercs, but now that I think about it ... *did* they really use mercs, historically, all that much? I think the Muslims will have their own "home field" advantages in this mod - they should probably be able to recruit a variety of cheap troops that would keep Outremer on its collective toes. So if I'm not wrong about seeing it this way, then I guess the lack of an Inn wouldn't be that bad for the Muslims.

The Byzantines however... they should definitely have mercs. I'm not sure how this can be achieved. Maybe we can make mercenary units that the Byz can just train at an inn ... like we create a unit called "Catalan mercenaries", and have it trained at an inn, with very high upkeep costs. I dunno. Or maybe just keep the old merc system intact for the Byz, if that's possible.

Of course that decision is a long way down the road, as I see it. How can we start getting our map into some sort of playable form? If we can just do that, the rest of this mod should be cake. I just don't want it all to fall down on this first step.

[metatron]

I think merc. upkeeps costs are hardcoded, but we could borrow from Wes and have "buildable" mercs.

Make their build times and cost high.

[Minister of Fear]

I agree with the Count, lets first get the campaign map in order . First, we need to convert it, etc so its in a MTW playable form. Secondly, we need to begin to think about aportioning it into provinces. I have a map that sets out the areas held by the various factions, but the provinces, will need more work and discussion.

The campaign map seems to me our first priority. Krusader's second map is the one we should go with. Any help, advice, particularly by those who have completed such a task would be greatly appreciated, the H:TW team readily come to mind.

I don't mean to head off conversation about other aspects of the mod but I don't want this mod to become no more than conversation. I, as I assume most of u do, want to actually play this mod sometime in the near future, because it really promises to be an interesting mod that would be a real challenge. I love playing when my backs to the wall, surrounded by enemies, with the faint, distant hope that with grit, determination and wit, my enemies will be slain and their women and children sold into slavery. Because it isn't going to happen anywhere else but here!

P.S. I'm going to request that this thread be moved to the Engineer's Guild sometime this week with the thread called Outremer mod.

[Pericles]

I agree:

Get the map done and divide up the provinces.

When I do any modding, the general rule I follow is:

When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay.

Once the map is done, I am sure we will find ways around any obstacle we find.

I really want to play this mod.

BTW, will this mod be for MTW:VI?

Cheers!

[metatron]

When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay.But what about people who find history to be gameplay?

[Minister of Fear]

Yes, Pericles, this mod will definitely be for M:TW/VI.

[Meneldil]

Good luck for the mod, I really like the new map :)

I think the French and British kingdoms should be in, acting like the vikings in VI, but I don't really know how you could achieve that.

[Pericles]

But what about people who find history to be gameplay?

I love history.

Unfortunately, some games which slavishly try to recreate history usually fall short, and can at times be boring.

MTW:VI is an excellent example of gameplay and history working together, but MTW does not slavishly follow every historical detail. This makes it fun and enjoyable.

[Minister of Fear]

I can't exactly imagine where the English would be in this mod, Meneldil . So far as as I can see, in 1100, you had the Franks in the south and the Normans to the north of the Levant, along with the various military orders and trading cities of Italy.

BTW, gameplay and history will both be respected in this mod.

[CountMRVHS]

Alright, new location!

Now we can get this sucker going.

To keep everyone updated, I've taken it upon myself to do some research into the Byzantine area of our mod. I'm looking at what cities/provinces should be included in the area including large parts of present-day Turkey, Greece, and the chunk of the Balkans that we have on our map.

As for the Holy Land, I imagine someone other than myself would be the better person to decide on that area. It sounds like we've got some very knowledgeable people here, and I'm more than happy to go with whatever you guys come up with for the Levant and everything east/south of that.

Of course I also welcome any help on the Byzantine/northern area of our map.

I've been looking around to see about how to get going on the campaign map. Is it possible that someone has already created a map that we could use, that is close enough to the map we want to use? I checked in the Mapping Library Project thread in the Alchemist's Lab and there might be something in there, but I'm not sure. If we can't just use someone else's preexisting map, we've gotta figure out how to do it ourselves, or hope someone can do it for us! But before we can do that, the provinces need to be all settled. If no one objects, I'll keep working on the Byz part, and I'll try to figure out a way to report what I come up with for ideas.... not sure how I'd do that ... see I've never sent any images here, and I don't know how I'd go about indicating where I think the lines should be drawn.... just use some sort of paint program? (thank God I'm not the most technically-minded person working on this mod or it'd never see the light of day!)

Anyway, anyone volunteering to work on the rest of the map?

[rojak]

this crusader mod is cool (http://www.mwart.com/xq/ASP/pid.1756/qx/productlg.htm)! :charge:

[metatron]

http://www.microgamedesigngroup.ca/BYZmap.jpg

We could use that to help us plan the Anatolian provinces...

[metatron]

Erm, that would take up 1/3 of our allotted provinces. I feel 1/4th (for Greece and Anatolia) would be better...

[CountMRVHS]

Metatron, where'd you get that map?

But yeah, there's way too many provinces there. How many do we get, 99? I was just doing a rough sketch of what provinces would be good to have and for Anatolia I think I came up with something like a dozen total. Here are the cities I figured should be included in Anatolia:

Nicaea
Pergamum
Smyrna
Laodicea
Attaleia
Dorylaeum
Sinope
Gangra
Ankara
Iconium
Trebizond
Nicopolis
Caesaria
Tarsus
Mopsuestia

Ok, so that's 15. That can even be cut down a little bit if you think it's too many. This is just a rough first attempt compiled from several maps, so some of those cities may change.

For Greece and the Balkans, I came up with these cities:

Constantinople
Adrianople (for the province of Thrace)
Thessalonica (for Thessalonica)
Larissa (for Thessaly)
Athens
Corinth
Mistra
Corfu (for Epirus)
Dyrrachium or Durazzo
Nis
Zara
Sardica
Varna

So that's another 13. 28 provinces in all for Greece/Anatolia. I haven't gone East into Armenia or Georgia yet. Again for the western half of the Empire I could cut down the number of provinces by several if necessary. If someone could give me a rough number of what we'll need on the rest of the map I could make the northern part fit that a little bit more.

Basically, I want to have several longish, thin coastal provinces around the edges of Anatolia that the Byzantines can be in possession of at the start of our campaign, as well as maybe 7 inland provinces for the various Turkish factions and rebels. I'm sure we can pull that off without robbing too much from the Levant.

What do you guys think we should do about the part of Italy that we're including? Should we just call it all Apulia and call Sicily Sicily and let it be like that?

Anyway, tell me what you think about the cities I'm proposing. Also, can I use a regular Paint program to cut up the provinces and post that here to show everyone? Never done that before so I'll need a bit of guidance to get that up and running. Until then I'm left just listing off cities and hope they ring bells.

CountMRVHS

[metatron]

http://www.microgamedesigngroup.ca/BYZ.html

[Minister of Fear]

Metatron and Count,
For the moment, I'd follow the rule of thumb that 50 or less provinces north of Antioch, and 50 or less provinces south of Antioch, obeying, of course, the rule of no more than 99 provinces. Otherwise, the map may look ridiculous. You need the provinces reasonably distributed so that Seldjuk, Danishmend, and Orotqid expansion into the Levant is not easily accomplished. Also, don't forget you have the County of Edessa to the north east of Antioch which will need comprise of at least 4-6 provinces. Guys, keep in mind the number of factions that will be fighting it out in Asia Minor. You'll have the above, then include the Armenians, which I would split into the Hethoumians and Roupians, the Byzantines, the Georgians, and possibly the Shah-Armen, Sassun, Moks and Alans.

[CountMRVHS]

Let's get a comprehensive list of factions that we're definitely going to include. I imagine that at least some of the provinces in Asia Minor will be under rebel control at the start, because not every local leader had large-scale ambitions or abilities or declared for a particular larger faction.

I confess that some of the names of those groups are alien to me, Minister. My knowledge of the political scene in eastern Asia Minor is limited, but that can be rectified. Any suggestions on websites or books I can turn to for a quick history lesson on those guys? :book:

But yeah, I'll leave the faction listing up to you guys. I'd only suggest that we may want to focus on the "bigger" factions and chunk up some of the "smaller", relatively inactive ones into rebels. My only other suggestion is that, if there is room, we could include the Pechenegs/Cumans/Bulgars (whatever you want to call 'em) that were known for giving the eastern empire such a hard time. I don't really want the Byz to be too powerful here, so it might be good to have some of those guys around to balance it out; otherwise the Byz might just get a too easily defensible corner of the map.

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

Well, the Shah-Armen, Sassun, and Moks fit in b/w the Ortoqids and the Georgians with the Alans to the north of Georgia. Its very hard to find out anything about those three, a part from Shah-Armen meaning 'King of Armenia'. If anyone else knows much about them I'd very much like to learn it. Maybe we just leave them as rebel regions with historical affinity to the Armenians.

I think we should definitely include the following factions:
Byzantines,
Seldjuk Sultanate,
Danishmend Emirate,
Ortoqids,
Fatamid Caliphate,
Abbassid Caliphate,
Atabeg of Mosul,
Emirate of Damascus,
Emirate of Aleppo,
Duchy of Apulia and Calabria,
County of Sicilia,
Georgians,
Armenians seperately as the Hethoumians and the Roupians,
Prince of Antioch,
Count of Tripoli,
Count of Edessa,
King of Jeruslam,
Hospitalliers,
Templars,
Assassins,
Venetians,
and Genoese.

That's about 23 factions. So, what do the people think?

Count, I think the Venetians, Genoese, and the boot of Italy, along with the Seldjuks will keep Byzantium moderately busy.

[Radier]

Awesome medieval mod guys ~:cheers:

Keep ip the good work

[metatron]

Can we get 'Byzantines' as 'Romans'?

[Minister of Fear]

Can we get 'Byzantines' as 'Romans'?

Why?

[Krusader]

Can we get 'Byzantines' as 'Romans'?
And quoting the Why? below

The inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire called themselves rhomaioi which means Romans, and they called their empire the Eastern Roman Empire.

The western Europeans or Latins called the Byzantines for Greeks.

The term Byzantine btw was invented in the 16th century I believe.

[Iustinus]

If you need help with this mod, I can make a music pack with real traditional Byzantine and Greek music and originall songs from the Crusades, I already have it half set up. I'm busy a little bit sometimes helping with AWI (which is one of the funnest battle mods there is) and with my own on HTW, but I might be able to help sometimes if it's needed.
Thanks!
Justin

[CountMRVHS]

Iustinus, that'd be great! It would be very cool to listen to different music during battles etc. We're not at that stage quite yet, but your services would be most welcome I think when we get there.

As for the Byz/Romans; it sounds good to me to call them what they called themselves. Rhomaioi sounds pretty cool too.

The list of factions looks good Minister. Forgive me, but I'm not sure how you plan to implement the holy orders if they're operating as their own factions. Just how independent from the other Crusader states were the Templars, for example? Would, say, the principality of Antioch be able to recruit Templars? The same type of question goes for the Assassins. Just curious about how it will work in the game.

CountMRVHS

[Malachus]

Ah, the Assassins. A mod that incorporates them. I like it. Of course, what type of units did the Assassins have historically? Same basic Muslim roster as is or anything 'unique'?

[Minister of Fear]

CountMRVHS/ Krusader:
Calling the Byzantines, 'Rhomaioi' would be fine. Suppose it adds some authenticity to the names of the factions.

Iustinus:
I agree with the Count, the music you refer to would be great, but we're just not ready for it at the moment.

Newagebassist:
The Assassins will I think be the only faction able to train Hashinhin units. They will also be able to train expert assassins. The other units that maybe available to them I'm unclear of and will gladly receive advise on.

CountMRVHS:
As I understand it, the Military Orders only allegience was to the Pope. I'm not sure exactly how I want to play this in the mod. The Orders largely acted independently historical so they should also in the game. The only problem with MTW is that allied units are not free to move through their allies lands. If there was a reason to mod this in RTW it is this. But lets wait to see how the campaign map comes along first.

[metatron]

CountMRVHS:
As I understand it, the Military Orders only allegience was to the Pope. I'm not sure exactly how I want to play this in the mod. The Orders largely acted independently historical so they should also in the game. The only problem with MTW is that allied units are not free to move through their allies lands. If there was a reason to mod this in RTW it is this. But lets wait to see how the campaign map comes along first.I was thinking the Templars (or the Hospitallers, prob. the Hospitallers) could be the Pope, but renamed.

[Pericles]

Here are some sites that provide lots of info on the various knight orders.

Here is a website that provides a great deal of detail on the crusades and on the various orders:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Crusade


Here is another website that provides a great deal of info on the Knights orders:

http://www.orderofmaltacanada.org/page_e_history.htm


In addition to the Hospitalers and the Templars, both formed in PALESTINE during the CRUSADES, there were also the LIVONIAN ORDERS, the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, and various orders devoted to fighting the MOSLEMS in Spain and Portugal had more strictly national interests and memberships. The Knights Of Malta, also an international body, was a later continuation of the Hospitalers.

More detail:

TEUTONIC KNIGHTS (too-tahn'-ik) or Teutonic Order, German religious-military order founded ab. 1190 at Jerusalem during the third CRUSADE. Patterned after the Templars and the Hospitalers, the new Order played only a small role in the affairs of the Frankish-Christian states which had been carved out in Palestine-Syria.

Around 1210 the Knights became involved in European affairs, and the Order reached the height of its influence and power during the 13th and l4th cent., when it conquered Prussia, converting the inhabitants to Christianity or replacing them with German colonists. By the end of this period, the Order, which after 1225 also included the LIVONIAN ORDER, with its cap. at Marienburg (Konigsberg after 1466), ruled a large domain along the coast of the Baltic as far as Russia. Following major defeats in the intermittent war with Poland (see TANNENBERG, BATTLES OF) in the l5th cent., the Order acknowledged Polish sovereignty. There followed a period of gradual but steady decline. In 1525, the Grand Master of the Order accepted PROTESTANTISM, and the former holdings of the Order in Prussia became a duchy under Polish protection. The Order's few remaining possessions in Germany proper were secularized in 1805. Biblio.: Krollmann, C., The Teutonic Order in Prussia (1938).


LIVONIAN ORDER (li-voh'-nee-un), Livonian Knights or Knights of the Swords, German KNGHTLY ORDER, founded in 1202 by the bishops of Riga to christianize the lands lying along the Baltic Coast, i.e., Livonia (N. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). In 1236, following their defeat at Siauliai by the Lithuanians, the Order became a branch of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, although it retained its autonomy in the Livonian Region. An attack by the Order on Novgorod led to its massive defeat by Alexander NEVSKY at Lake Peipus (1242), and in the years afterward the Order was steadily weakened by Russian and local opposition and by the Protestant Reformation. It was disbanded in 1561.

[metatron]

The Sword Brothers were absorbed into the Teutonic Order, which was much more active in the Batlic region than Palestine.

The Knights of Malta are just the Knights Hospitaller, but instead of the "Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem" it became the "Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta".

[Malachus]

In response to the Assassins (or Ismaeli or Hashishin.. whatever you wanna call 'em), that's what I thought... them being the only faction to create hashishin plus those expert assassins don't sound too bad either. I'd say they should also be given crossbowmen and trebuchets, but only buildable in the Caspian Hills where their headquarters were and where they defended using crossbows and traction trebuchets against the Mongols. Overall I'd say they should be given only hashishin, crossbows, and trebuchets because I don't think the Assassins were organized to the point of having battlefield armies... they wielded power with their expert assassins instead, which has been mentioned to be incorporated.

[Iustinus]

I am no expert on this time period, but I know that at least a little bit earlier (definately before Manzikert) the Byzantine army was almost entirely mounted. I have this idea for primarily mounted factions (like the Mongols) so that nearly all the troops you recruit in Campaign would be mounted. If you want infantry you can just dismount before battle. So you can have, let's say, Trapezitoi and dismount them as some kind of light infantry in a defensive position, or in a siege. Thus you have the choice always between mounted units and infantry, giving the impression of an almost entirely mounted army able to ride to the battle field. There is only one drawback I can think of- the amount of men you can fit in a castle. Instead the only infantry that should be immediately available should be some kind of garrison or border guards, leaving the main army mounted. In custom battle since you generally can't dismount you can then choose between infantry and cavalry.
Sorry this was kind of long, I don't know how the Eastern Roman army worked during the crusades, but if it was primarily still cavalry this is just an idea!
Thanks!
Justin
P.S. I know it is early, but I'm getting the music pack perfected, so by the time this mod is nearly done the music should be ready for whoever wants it.

[King Henry V]

I've found a map which could fit in most things, including the Eastern Roman Empire.
http://www.emta.org.au/img/Eastern_Med_Map.jpg it also fits in Italy and there's the possibility for Mongol territory in the eastern Black sea. Perhaps the English, the French and the HRE could be external forces like the Golden Horde. They appear if you can manage to convince the Pope that a crusade is needed, which could be an interesting aspect (say if Jerusalem or another importan place is lost). Just a suggestion.

[CountMRVHS]

Update on progress.

I've been working on which cities/provinces to include in the northern half of the map. At this point I have around 40, but we may want to think about cutting that down a bit. I think it would be better to have *more* provinces in the south of the map than in the north, so the Crusader states wouldn't need to conquer huge tracts of Asia Minor in order to get their 2/3 victory. To me, it would be nice if a Crusader kingdom could conquer from Egypt through the Holy land eastward and call it good; but that may be just me. Anyway, I think the number of provinces I have right now will give the opportunity for plenty of action; the Sicilians/Italians would be able to invade several parts of Greece and the Balkans, and Asia Minor is split up into about a dozen provinces. East of that I'm just making cautious guesses, but hopefully it'll work.

Just saw Kingdom of Heaven again in theaters today with my wife to keep up inspiration for the mod ~:cheers: . I can't wait for this thing to be playable!

I don't know if I'm violating any protocol here, but just to keep everyone informed about what's up: Fader_It, who has recently posted his great-looking Italy mod on this same page, has kindly volunteered to help us with making the campaign map for this mod. At this point we're working out cities and provinces, and then we'll ship the whole thing over to him to get started. Big thanks to Fader for this support!!!

I wanted to respond to a bunch of suggestions that have come up recently, at least from my own perspective. Of course I can't speak for everyone else involved:

@KingHenry: we've already got a basic map to work from, but thanks for the offer! If you look back I think on page 2 you can see it. Basically it doesn't have as much to the West but has more to the East.

@Iustinus: it's great that you're working on the music. Keep it up and let us know when you get close to finishing it. For the Byzantine units, I honestly hadn't given it a lot of thought, but I think there should be *some* mix of cav and infantry. Anyone who's more of an expert on that aspect of military history? All input appreciated.

@newagebassist: For the Assassins, again this is an area that I'm not 100% sure of. Sheerly for gameplay smoothness, I'd think we should give them the opportunity to train *some* kind of regular infantry other than just trebuchets, crossbows and hashishin. Maybe some fanatical axe unit or something. My history is lacking here as well, but in order to make them a viable faction I think we'd need to include some more stuff for them.

And here's a new idea I wanted to bring up for everyone: On the .com modding forums, there was some experimentation with increasing castle garrison limits, for the purpose of making longer sieges. This is something that apparently can be done through Gnome editor. Basically, by increasing the amount of soldiers that can fit in a castle, you increase the number of years the garrison will last, and therefore increase the probability of an AI assault. Also, when the AI assault comes, your garrison will not be scraps of beat-up forces that managed to run from the last battle, but they could be a full stack of hardened troops. So you'd get the chance to defend with a decent force, in other words. Some tests were done and it was found that only 1 stack could fit in the castle, no matter how big the limit was, but that still that 1 stack could be made to last for a very long time.

My question to everyone is, Is this a feature you'd like to see implemented in this mod? It would obviously work both ways: not only would the AI be more obliged to assault your citadel, but you'd likewise be obliged to assault an AI castle -- but to me this seems like an advantage in a game that is sadly usually lacking in fun siege battles. As long as it's tweaked so that the castle would fall SOMEtime, like in 10 years, so you wouldn't always be required to assault, this is something I'd be interested in. Anyone else?

OK I think that's it for now. I'm getting really excited about this -- hopefully the map will get done within a couple weeks and we can get started on the factions and everything else. Keep the suggestions coming,

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

Great work, Count. I've roughly divided the Levant into about 46 provinces, either housing a major city, or a strategic centre, i.e. Kerak Castle. Depending on how your going with Asia minor, etc. we could then do a little give/take, taking into account game balance, etc.

@Iustinus:
keep it up, the idea of having a sound track to go along with the mod is great;

@newagebassist: as a faction, the strength of the Assassins will be in manipulating other factions through targeted assassinations. They will I think have a limited unit list, will be the only faction that fields the Hashishin, and may also be the only faction to field the Nizari or Futuwwa. As always, I'm open to suggestion or flattery.

@CountMRVHS:
I like the idea you present re castle seiges. Lets at least give it ago during play-testing. Is there a way of selecting the units available in the stack that will garrison the castle?

Yes, lets please get the map done in the next few weeks. :charge:

[Radier]

I like the idea of longer sieges Count ~:cheers:

Good luck!

[Malachus]

[QUOTE=Minister of Fear]
@newagebassist: as a faction, the strength of the Assassins will be in manipulating other factions through targeted assassinations. They will I think have a limited unit list, will be the only faction that fields the Hashishin, and may also be the only faction to field the Nizari or Futuwwa. As always, I'm open to suggestion or flattery.


That sounds like a great roster... they should have to focus primarily on assassinations... not battle.

[CountMRVHS]

The only problem with that is, I'm not sure how we can get the AI to handle it properly. I'm afraid that if the Assassins are being played by the computer, we'll soon encounter a huge invasion of whatever unit they can recruit rather than the subtler method of assassination. Setting their behavior might help in making them more/less aggressive, but I don't know if there's any way we can influence how often they use strategic agents.

That said, I don't want to see a buffed, rampaging Assassins faction myself. So if we limit their unit roster, we should probably set their behavior to something defensive and give them a very defensible position -- so that whoever invades them needs to fight on territory that is very good for the Assassins' archers. Maybe some rivers, some mountains... not sure about the geography of that area.

Anyway, just something to think about.

[Malachus]

Well for the Assassins, you could try and give them a really high preference for building their assassin units. This should make them focus a lot on building those assassins and putting them to use rather than acting like any other old faction.

[Pericles]

I like the idea of longer seiges.

As it stands in-game right now, it is far too easy to wait and/or auto resolve sieges.

This would definitely add more strategy and force the player into researching and buying seige equipment.

Best of luck on the mod. :charge:

[Total War Merc]

sounds good

[Fader_it]

Hi boys, how's going?
I'm waiting for news about the strategic map.. did you decide anything about the map to use, the regions, etc.?
Send me all i need as soon as you can, so i can start working on the strat map for this mod!

F.
:book:

[CountMRVHS]

Hi Fader!

I think a couple weeks ago I sent a list of regions and cities to Minister of Fear. We'd split up the map so I was responsible for the northern half and he was working on the southern half. Haven't heard back from him yet on that, but perhaps he has been waiting for me to send him a map all along?

I'll try to get in touch with him and figure out where we need to go from here. What I may need to do is find a suitable map somewhere, then mark off the region borders and city locations with some sort of paint program...

I'm glad you're still interested in working on our mod! I'll be away this weekend but my summer vacation just began, so I'll have much free time.

I'm going to set an arbitrary deadline for next Friday. If I can't get hold of Minister of Fear before then, I'll go ahead and work out the map as well as I can myself and get it to you. If anyone else wants to get going on this, by all means, let me know. But probably Minister is just waiting for me to send him a map of my work so far. I'll get going on it by Monday.

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

Sorry guys. Just been a little busy then a little slack. I'll respond in kind this week to the Counts suggestions re map and then we'll be able to see where this is at.

I've been playing R:TW, having a break from M:TW, and I'm starting to see the attractions of the R:TW for this mod. I know; this sounds almost blasphamous, I feel like I need to take a cold shower and come to my senses but the diplomatic nuances available in R:TW are much better than in M:TW, we have a ready-made map that only needs the provinces to be tweaked, we can have more units than in M:TW, I prefer the manner in which armies can move around in the field, etc, etc. The only thing I much prefer in M:TW is the battlemap and that is mostly to do with familiarity.

I write this only as something to think about at this early stage.

Will update soon.

[CountMRVHS]

Woh, that's an interesting suggestion....

What do you mean when you say "we have a ready-made map"? I agree that the diplomatic options are greater, and do like the possibilities for army movement on the strategic map. However, it seems like an awful lot more work would be needed to turn it into a medieval game. And I have to say I'm generally not too impressed with the battles in RTW: the AI simply doesn't maneuvre, and the battles are over very quickly compared to MTW.

Maybe that's something to look at once BI comes out. I think, though, for now, if we could get a working campmap, then we can look at getting the rest of this mod completed for an MTW standpoint. Just selfishly, I'd like to get my own hands on a working campmap so I could start playing around with the factions, units, etc.

Anyway, do you want me to send you some sort of map, or is the list I sent you enough to go on? At some point there will need to be a map sent to Fader_It so he can commence getting everything put together.

No need to apologize about anything!

CountMRVHS

[King Baldwin IV]

Helo! this looks like a good mod. and its still in progress. ~:cheers: i cant wait to see it. forgive me for interrupting in the discussion of the campaign map. :embarassed: i've read the posts on the first page, and it was suggested that the start date was around 1248. it would be cool if we get to see the start of the kingdom and build it up. maybe starting around 1100 with Godfrey's brother as the first king. ~D here's a site for info on the Outremer (http://crusades.boisestate.edu/Outremer/).
good luck on the map! :bow:

[CountMRVHS]

Hi, King Baldwin IV; thanks for the interest!

Somewhere in this thread, probably page 2 or 3, we decided the starting date would be around 1130, to give the Crusader states an interesting position. Once the map gets off the ground of course we'll be able to firm up all of that, including factions, end date, etc etc.

Welcome to the forums!

CountMRVHS

[King Baldwin IV]

Sounds good! ~;) thank you.

[Fader_it]

Hi there.. the ideas of Minister of Fear are nice, but i have to say that the modding of R:TW to a medieval mod requires a really huge work. You need to create units model, reskin them, change about every graphic element of the game and this task would take months and months even for a group of many talented people. I don't really know if (and how much) the strat map in R:TW is moddable.. just drawing it would be quite more difficult than doing it for the M:TW one. So, i suggest to stick on working on the VI version, before moving to a large and more complex project. :)

I looked to the web site proposed by King Baldwin and i found it really interesting, with maps and many, many specific infos about Outremer and the holy land area in general.. what do you think, CountMRVHS?

[Pericles]

I would also suggest sticking with MTW:VI for this mod.

Get this mod done first.

Then after the BI expansion pack for RTW comes out, then you can see what fixes and new features have gone into RTW. Then do a mod for that game.

Cheers!

[CountMRVHS]

Yes; I agree.

I checked out the website King Baldwin linked and the maps do look good. My biggest question with the map right now is this: can we balance the kind of area we're talking about with the need to have many provinces in the Levant? In other words, our current scope for the map includes all of Turkey, Greece, and parts of Italy. All of that is great - but I'm interested to see how many provinces we can therefore fit into the middle east. Because obviously, I don't think we just want "Antioch, Tripoli, palestine, etc" like MTW has already -- we want to split up those provinces so the crusader states have some more room and more lands, and also to reflect the important cities at the time. That's why I'm looking forward to see what Minister of Fear has come up with for the southern half of the map, as that will address these issues.

[Pericles]

IMO I don't think it will be necessary to put in every historical province.

We may need to have some abstracton here for gameplay purposes: to place in enough provinces for all sides to balance things out...

"When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay".

Cheers!

[edyzmedieval]

The mod sounds good...

Ask the mods if they can give you a subforum.....

P.S.: Need any help?!

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the offer, edyzmedieval. What sorts of things could you help with? At this stage I'm waiting to hear back from Minister Of Fear to see what he's come up with in terms of southern provinces. I've taken care of the north, pretty much.

Since you've seen the scope of the mod, what areas do you know the most about? I'm fairly confident in my knowledge of the north/western areas of this map, but once you get east and south my knowledge fades out. I don't know much about factions, units, provinces, or important towns in the eastern part of Turkey or the middle east. With the Byzantine areas I'm ok.

Let me know what sorts of things you can offer!

@Pericles: my primary concern in that area is exactly gameplay: what I'm worried about is that there will only be room in our map for a single province of Jerusalem, and a single province for Edessa, and a single province for Antioch -- exactly like it is in the MTW map. If the map looked like that, each crusader faction would only have 1 province, which wouldn't be much fun and would probably tend to cripple them unduly from the start.

It will depend on what Minister of Fear has done, but one way I can think of fixing that potential problem is by limiting the size of our mod further. Instead of including all the areas of Byzantium, we could limit it to the middle east, more in the manner of metatron's suggested maps from the first page of this thread. That would give more room and focus to the crusader factions and their immediate neighbors. I don't know though. That's just kind of a back-up suggestion.

Anything yet, Minister Of Fear??

[edyzmedieval]

I'm very good at the historical part... I can give you info( I have many books about Medieval history, also because it's my hobby) about the Balkans especially because I live there.

I am now learning to make unit graphics and unit animations, based on the topics in the Repository. So, on the graphics part I am learning. I also know the basic stuff with MTW modding(modding the text files). But on the graphics part I have to learn much to complete my MTW modding skills.

Cheers! ~:cheers:

[Minister of Fear]

The part of the map I'm dealing with is a little harder to develop then I thought since I have to use a variety of maps to develop the campaign map just for the cities/provinces south and east of Antioch.

There will definitely not be a singe province for the County of Tripoli or Edessa, etc. They will be made up of several provinces/cities/regions that are integral to the game. At the moment, I have roughly 60 of these. The next step is to make out a rough map with these in place that can help me in deciding which of the to cull so I end up with about 50. Then I'll send them to the Count and we will, i think with Fader's council, finalise the list.

Give me until the end of week, Count. You should have a list in your hands by then.

[CountMRVHS]

Sounds good. ~:cheers:

[Fader_it]

Good.. i'll tell you then if the provinces shape, size, border fits well to the limits of the game. For example, the name "Constantinople" could be too long to be included in the province of the same name on the map, so this should be worked out in some manner; don't worry, this is just work of mine. Only a question: anyone decided what image to use as a background for the campmap? Did you imagined it as a modern satellite map, a paint, a monochromatic parchment-like, or something similar?

[CountMRVHS]

I always liked the parchment-type look of the MTW map. I think something simple would be best; probably monochromatic so it's easy to see province names, pieces, etc. when you're playing. Anyone else have any suggestions for this?

[Pericles]

I also like the parchment-type look of the MTW map.

:bow:

[edyzmedieval]

I als like it... Gives it an intellectual game feeling :book:
:bow:

[King Baldwin IV]

i like the parchment type too, though anything clean and simple will do. Cheers.

[tutankamon]

Is there anything I can do to help?
I'm not an expert modder though...

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the offer Tutankamon!

As you can see right now we're getting the campaign map in order. This mod will use a totally different map and we're in the process of deciding what the provinces should look like. That will probably be finished by the end of the week, and then we'll send our results off to Fader_It, who has so kindly agreed to help us put it all together.

Once we have a working campaign map, things will really start to happen. We'll be doing research on unit types, deciding the unit types for different factions, seeing who has what province, how much each province should be built up; oh yeah, and designing the factions and all of that.

I don't know exactly how the mod is going to progress once the map is finished -- I mean what order we'll be doing things -- so I'm not sure exactly in what areas we'll need help. Do you have any particular areas of interest, or any specific skills you'd like to contribute? Let us know,

CountMRVHS

[Fader_it]

Good :).
So, the parchment-like type is the winner. Eheh, it's also the most easy to create from a pre-existing map, just some sepia and texture effects and the work is done. However, i didn't understand from the previous posts if you aim to create also new unit models or if you will use new combinations of the existing ones.. this could be a quite difficult part to complete.

Regards, F. :book:

[Minister of Fear]

Ok. I've just completed the map list for area south and east of Antioch. It has been sent to CountMRVHS, and hopeful to Fader_it as well. So let the challenge of creating the campaign map can begin... :charge:

[Radier]

Good luck!

~:cheers: :charge:

[edyzmedieval]

Great work Minister of Fear!!!

Hopefully Count will be kind enough to give me the map so I can examine it for the Byzantium Total War mod..... It's a lot of work to be done at both mods..... So I think a join of forces would be in the interest of both modding teams.... ~D

BTW, Count, if you need any more historical help, feel free to contact me....

[NormanPain]

Strangely I suggested a mod similar to this a while a go and got no response ~:confused:

Very glad to see that one is in the works though, I have been wanting this for some time. I havent checked this site in a while and was surprised to say the least. ~:cheers:

I see a lot of people worrying about the muslim nations having to much land, don't forget that the muslims were fighting themselves just as much as the crusaders, it was one big mess, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries. I have been reading alot on the crusades lately and have thousands of pages worth of reference material if you need it.

Will the Armenians be a seperate playable nation in the mod or will they be considered part of the Byzantine Empire? Though superficially part of the Empire the Armenians did not often think of themselves in that way as they had different customs and religious practices.

BTW the Middle Earth Total war team had a foot soldier Unit for the Haradrim(Think he was Numenorian guard) that looks very much like a crusader with a conical helm and chain maille(in the style of VI without any clothes over top of the armour so it is very visible). Change the shield and it would be perfect, maybe you should check it out and see if you can use it?

I like the longer sieges idea, also siege weapons are far too strong, I say halve the damage they cause and increase ammo by 25-50% therefore creating longer sieges on the playing field as well where you actually have time to try things such as sallying forth during the assualt and attacking the Trebuchets and at least have a chance at stopping them from destroying the walls.

I like the second map option, but the first is fine too, as I would be playing as Christians or Byzantines most of the time it doesn't matter a whole lot to me.

If you need information on weapons and armour used in different period I would be more then happy to help. Im kind of a "Gear-Geek" so to speak.

Anyways take care all and I hope this goes as planned, I am looking forwards to this ~D

[CountMRVHS]

Alright, I've got the list of the cities and provinces and am looking for a good map that I can use to draw in the borders with my paint program so I can send the whole thing to Fader_It. Can anyone recommend a good place to look for maps?

This part will take some work and I'll be somewhat busy over the next week, so I don't imagine I'll have anything ready to ship to Fader for about a week. If anyone can help with links to map sites that would help speed things up a little.

AFAIK the Armenians will be at least one separate faction, maybe two. In regards to units and unit graphics... I haven't even thought that far ahead yet! But I suppose this might be a good time for people to make suggestions for units and factions, so once the campaign map gets finished we can get right into that process. :charge:

CountMRVHS

[Pericles]

Some sites with lots of Crusade maps:

http://www.newadvent.org/images/04543cbx.jpg

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/2ndcde.jpg

http://www.newadvent.org/images/04543ccx.jpg

http://www.newadvent.org/images/04543cdx.jpg

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbookmap.html

http://www.medievalsources.co.uk/portal_crusades.htm

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/worldreach/assets/docs/crusades/Maps.html

http://www.culturalresources.com/MP_Muir22.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/First-Crusade

[Minister of Fear]

CountMRVHS: I've looked through those maps and they're pretty much one's we've seens already, or links to the same maps. My principal sources for cities i listed are found Steven Runciman's three vol: A History of the Crusades, and there I used Vols II and III. For the cities in Persia I used an old map of Ottoman Empire in the 16 & 17th centuries.

When you have a mock up of map done let us have a look before you send it to Fader_it. I hope you noticed that I had slightly more than 50 cities as you had listed some of these in your list. Otherwise, as I think most of the action will be in the Levant I think the greater proportion of the cities should be there.

[NormanPain]

I currently am reading Runciman's series, great set of books I must say ~:cheers:

[Fader_it]

Hey friends, are you still there? Are you away from home, on vacation?
It's really passed a while from you last postings.. obviously, i'm still waiting for my map to work on. ~:)
Say something!!
F.
:book:

[Minister of Fear]

I'm waiting to here back from CountMRVHS re the maps also. I'm not sure whats happened. Lets give him another week.

[Pericles]

I sincerely hope there is a way to resurrect the idea behind this mod.

A "Crusades only" mod would be great to play.

I noticed in the past few months there has been a resurgence in interest in the history of the Crusades, especially after Scott's Kingdom of Heaven movie.

Just recently, on a trip to my local library, I found most of the books on the Crusades are out on loan.

In addition, more documentaries about the Crusades are about to be released on dvd.

Is there still interest in a mod of this type?

Perhaps it could be a bit less ambitious in terms of map detail, etc, and presented a bit more abstractly (ie land divided into provinces that aren't necessarily historical in area size).

What do you think?

[Fader_it]

Hi there!
I'm not interested to work on this mod anymore, as i have moved on toward other projects. MTW modding isn't taking my time much as it did in the past.
Good luck for the work on this mod!

F.
:hide:

[edyzmedieval]

It's dead anyways.....

[Weebeast]

Maybe I need a life or whatever for bumping this old thread, but what have you all done so far? Has anyone got the LUKUPMAP.LBM done? Do you mind sharing what you got so far here? I don't know, maybe some charismatic guy might be able to make something out of it or even considering to pick up. Well, that guy ain't me. I'm just a poor peasant who only knows about having fun with cows and pigs in the pasture.

This project reminds me of Barbarossa's army during the Third Crusade. They had potential to take Jerusalem back but then the Emperor died and the army shrunk. :shame:

Also, MII:TW is 11 months away.

[Fenixx]

Hello,

Am interestered if any of the previous participants in this old thread would still have any of the old materials for this mod. Am interested primarily in the maps and supporting info, i.e. faction lists, mapping details, etc.

Thanks,
Aspiring Cartographer

[Raz]

Hello,

Am interestered if any of the previous participants in this old thread would still have any of the old materials for this mod. Am interested primarily in the maps and supporting info, i.e. faction lists, mapping details, etc.

Thanks,
Aspiring Cartographer

You revived an old thread that I had no idea existed... and I love you for it! :laugh4:
Backdrop (skip if you have no interest in this): I have always been interested in this time period and always wondered if it could be turned into a mod. I've worked on some of the basic stuff for a mod like this for a little while now (about 6-8 months, on & off) and have created a monster unit list (hitting the max. unit limit of 256) and building tree. I'd even came up with some cool features that is possible to add to the game (although a bit of a work out, sure). Like blank provinces that have no income and you can't build anything on them to represent deserts (so you can't cross the Sahara in a single turn). I had worked out a way to represent Kerak and Krak des Chevaliers so you could produce Templar knights and Hospitallers. I had even developed heroes represented in game as full units not just a character with a portrait (This was done to represent how Richard the I would've been a better fighter than the Leper King of Jerusalem).

Ok.. anyway: I still have pretty much all of this and more but I don't have a camp-map worked out (terrible at map-making). I've found some great maps at Hip-Kiss (http://www.hipkiss.org/data/maps.html) (bookmark it if you have to) and around the web but they didn't show the area that I wanted. After endless hours of googling the words "Holy Land" I'd found a map that showed the places that I wanted it to show. Thing is that it was a touch small and you know how big the maptex is on MTW. Anyway long story short, I found a little gem that resized the map perfectly and with minimal loss to the detail. It's called ReShade and is a little beauty.

Ok, suppose you want the maps now? I've been talking gibberish for the last two paragraphs. In this package (you'll need winRAR to uncompress it) I've put together four different maps that I've taken off the web, one has been cropped and resized using ReShade to a much higher resolution though I'd suggest that you resize one of your own (yes this whole post was just to tell you about reshade... <_<). Linkage:
http://rapidshare.com/files/105795389/MapTextures.rar.html

Wait, that is what you wanted, right? ~:joker:

[Fenixx]

Raz,

Good to hear from you, I owe you AT LEAST 22 mins. :)

Am d/Ling as I post. Have read this thread, as well as RTW The Crusades mod threads and some of M2TW Broken Crusades. I like your ideas for the finer details for a MTW version. So is this why you've been spending so much time in the Alchemist Lab??? :)
Where to begin?! I needed a project topic for my first start to finish map. The sample in LMM4 was Holyland, so guess what? Anyway, I am only interested in the map for now, due to my inexperience (though I'm learning fast). But who knows.
Some of the former posters are still around. CountMRVHS is doing The Dark Age Mod (The Britannia one). Pericles - last MTW post I saw was in Fall of Rome (although he's active in other TW product forums). Edyz doing a mini-mod. Don't know where Fader It and Minister of Fear are.
Don't want to step on any toes here, but would love to do the map!
What do you think?
Will post more after I D/L the maps. Thanks again.

[Raz]

...So is this why you've been spending so much time in the Alchemist Lab??? :)

Heh, no. I don't think I'm ready to announce a mod as big as that. I thought I was ready to take on a mod about the Three Kingdoms period in China. The original thread is on the second page of this forum... but I think I just put up too many features and I didn't think that the mod would come out the way the public wanted it and the way I wanted it to be released as. I didn't want people saying "You promised this and that but you failed to deliver..." :shame:
It's where I got this badge from *points underneath his avatar* but I don't think I really deserve it. I mean sure I want to keep it and all..... :grin2:

I've been thinking of doing a small mod for another mod (if that makes sense). Like a revival of a larger mod made by somebody else, but that's about all. Enough about me though... I think it'd be a great idea if you did this map and who knows, you might end up reviving this old dusty thread and releasing this long forgotten mod. :2thumbsup:

[Fenixx]

Raz,
Thanx for the D/L. I found the French maps most interesting. Different sounding names for familiar places...
Glad to hear you're doing a mod on a mod. Best Wishes to you in your endeavor. Many successful mods have been done based on other mods and each brings a new prespective and scope. Just proves that the ole MTW engine still has room to grow (or SHRINK :) ), even if most of the timeline is gone. I hope... Would be interested in your mod, when you're ready to announce. I won't pry, though.
If and when you have time (i.e. please focus on your current project), would like to hear about your ideas about scope and factions re: Crusades era, as you have obviously spent some time on this...
Pending reply from others, I'll commit to work with what I've got. Have got three different periods and three different scopes in mind, but thats just the maps...

[western]

I always hoped someone would do a crusader mod. Maybe hope is not dead:beam: I played the crusader mod on Rome a few times - even modded it further so more factions were in - but there is nothing quite like MTW1 for playability and period atmosphere.

Problem with factions was always that you don't want the crusader states fighting each other. Having them as one faction is kind of realistic - Jerusalem sent contingents to Tripoli and Antioch when they needed, and vice versa (at least up to Hattin). Lesser Armenia is another faction throughout; also Byzantium; then Damascus, Aleppo, Seljuks and Egypt. Then you have crusaders, who might just be labelled as such - so if they manage to become established in the Holy Land they are then the equivalent of the religious orders (so perhaps Templars et al should only be available to them, so you never get Templers fighting Templars, unless someone manages to seduce them away (Baphomet?). Assassins might be a tiny faction - with an obvious bonus available.

Problem I never overcame with the Rome Mod was that it was too easy for the crusader states to grow. They certainly tried in reality - projects to conquer Damascus and Egypt were serious - but it needs to be really hard, and a fight for survival most of the time, with occasional windows of opportunity when crusades arrive.

Those are my thoughts - really just to show there is wider interest in this, and a hope that we might still get some new Mods up and running, as Macsen is proving on ATW:2thumbsup:

[Fenixx]

Western,
Thanks for chiming in! Appreciate your comments! I don't know if I'm the man for the job (in deference to those who've already tread this path), but I'm certainly continuing work on the maps.
My first obstacle is in deciding upon scope, and then factions, which in turn decides scope. Here are my thoughts:
1) Large map - Upper right corner would be about Paris, France. Lower right, as in default map. Except for English, which would be inset or abstracted, all 8classic historical crusades represented.
2) Medium map - URC would be Geneva/Milan/Genoa, with corresponding abstractrations/insets.
3) Small map...etc...
4) Mixed map - 1) Above with Crusader States inset map.
Whaddya think?