Rodion Romanovich
06-05-2005, 14:10
WHAT THE MOD IS ABOUT
====================
The mod is focused on vikings, but isn't restricted only to the wars to the north. Starting date is 843 AD and ending date is 1099 AD. Even though focus will be on the viking raids, colonization and conquests in Northwestern Europe and modern Russia, the map will cover all of Europe and some more. In order to put the vikings in a correct historical context we believe it's necessary to include also the southern parts of the map, as decisions there affected the situation to the north too. The vikings also had direct contact with many of these locations and factions: Miklagaard (Constantinople), Saerkland (Jerusalem), and so on. Heirs of vikings would also later establish the kingdom of Sicily, which became a dominant power in the high Medieval period. Including more than just Northern Europe also means a bonus in that the political situation between the other factions is quite interesting and it's a period that is seldom represented in mods or games. This period was also the time when the religious fanatism reflected in the crusades rose. At the ending date, 1099 AD, the first crusade reached and captured Jerusalem.
The mod is aiming for realism and will not feature too exotic and/or non-historical units/locations from tales or legends. However, approximations are often necessary. There are hardcoded limits for number of factions and maximum number of units and models, which we can't change. There are also situations when we have chosen to approximate by representing some faction slightly incorrectly at the starting date, but with the result that the behavior of those factions will be more true to history for the entire rest of the mod period.
PROGRESS SO FAR
==============
This post will be updated with details about progress of the mod.
- Research: 90 %
- Planning tech trees & units: 95 %
- Campaign map 75 %
- Buildings: 5 %
- Units: 40 %
- Testing: 7 %
- Planned release: not known yet
THE MOD TEAM RIGHT NOW
=====================
- LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix - project leader/map editing/testing-balancing/PR
- skeletor - skinner/modeller/faction banners maker/building maker
- ScionTheWorm - skinner/modeller/faction icons maker
- Meneldil - map editing/buildings editing
- King Ragnar - researcher/skinner
- Emperor Umeu 1 - coding/unit balancing
- Duke John - coding/scripting/holder of master copy/vegetation editing - not confirmed
TABLE OF CONTENTS TO THIS FORUM
============================
Some interesting threads that may contain previews of units and progress in other fields:
- News thread (contains links to all previews of the mod) (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54098)
- Tech trees (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48791)
- Units under construction (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48793)
- Campaign map (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48794)
Some of the info in these threads might be incorrect or old
SPECIAL FEATURES OF AOVAF
======================
MAJOR FEATURES:
- Lower battle speed - a lower battle speed not only makes battles more realistic, but also makes it harder to fight the AI with hit-and-run tactics and quick routs.
- Unique recruitment system that simulates the assimilation of conquered provinces - it takes time before locals can be recruited. Recruitment system combines scripting, buildings and ZOR systems and creates a new unique recruitment system not yet seen in any other mod.
- Smaller percentual stats difference between units - units will differ less in stats, meaning that militia units won't be completely useless. This also means a technological progress isn't as overpowered as in vanilla R:TW, and means rebels will remain a threat always, rather than an annoyance.
- The factions that didn't make it into the game are represented as rebels. These rebels are often a lot tougher than the vanilla R:TW rebels, sometimes even harder to break than playable factions.
- Most factions start off with quite good armies. They'll be slightly weaker than the armies formed during the first few game turns, but the player won't start out as weak as R:TW factions. This means a more interesting - and difficult - start. Rushing/blitzing is harder than in R:TW.
- Economy is rebalanced so that armies will be smaller so that every battle will be important. It also slows down expansion, and gets rid of the snowball effect with strong factions becoming unbeatable. The economical rebalancing means that some minor settlements needed to establish a secure frontline may, in return, cost so much to keep up public order in, that the player might benefit from choosing distant targets and create a more colonial type of empire. It will also make it benefitial to strike important cities - capitals for instance, as the first target in wars, rather than progress by step by step pushing the frontline forward. This will result in a more historically correct gameplay, and make strategy a lot more complicated.
- Economical rebalancing of unit costs will also in most cases make it necessary to use a more historically correct army divided in a core army, and a temporarily recruited militia. The core army is necessary to maintain public order in peacetime, but for wars it's necessary to call in militia to get the numbers needed. The militia is cheap to recruit and with 0 turns build time can be gotten hold of quickly, but cost much in upkeep. The core army units cost much both in upkeep and training, but are a necessary elite of key troops needed to, if used correctly, turn an even battle into a crushing victory. The balancing will ensure that militia will constitute the majority, in numbers, on the battlefields, which is more historically correct. The core army + militia system will also add another threat to the player - losing your core army in a battle can be a really severe loss. A historical example of this was the destruction of the Byzantine core army (tagmata) in the battle of Manzikert in the late 11th century.
- The pope will replace the R:TW senate. He will hand out missions to France, Lotharingia and the Holy roman empire, but his power is limited. Failure to please the pope can lead to excommunication and after that there's no way becoming liked by the pope again and the other two of those factions will become your enemies. The Pope/Senate might also be removed, it's still under discussion. If so, the Pope will still be included, but using another system than the Senate system.
- Navies will have higher morale - it'll be easier to eliminate inferior navies completely when they're attacked by a superior navy. This means less hunting 1 ship navies back and forth in the oceans.
- It will be possible to sail up some rivers with your navies
- Some factions that were historically very dependent on mercenaries, like the Byzantines, will here also be very dependent on mercenaries. This will of course require them to be careful with losses and work hard on getting a steady enough economy to support these expensive troops. The Byzantine need for mercenaries will be very pronouced, more so than any faction in R:TW. They'll however have many good mercenaries to recruit nearby - including the varangian mercenaries which historically made up the famous varangian guard. Mamluks/Abbasids will also be a faction which will rely more on mercenaries than others, however not as much as the byzantines. They'll mostly hire turkish mercenaries, and the need for mercenaries will only be big in the early part of the game (that's partly what historically turned them from abbasids to mamluks - when the mercenaries recieved more power). Khazars will also want to hire mercenaries.
SOME BATTLE REBALANCING FEATURES:
- Cavalry will be powered down somewhat in comparison to infantry. In most cases, cavalry will also be so much more expensive than infantry that armies will consist of more infantry. Only cavalry factions who had horses as a central part of their culture will, as is historically correct, be able to field a good cavalry at an despite large numbers affordable cost.
- As spearmen and axemen dominated most of the battlefields of the period, they'll have much importance in this mod. Spearmen will be able to hold their own and inflict more casualties than they take losses for a short period of time, but will lose in any prolonged engagement with other infantry, unless the opponent is a levy unit with very poor morale. Heavy axemen will form good defensive lines, wheras lighter axemen are fast shock troops for hitting flanks.
- Swordsmen will be more rare, but have their uses. Often the rich elite troops will be the only to carry swords.
- Light cavalry will be of two types. 1. The militia/untrained cheap cavalry will just be like a weaker form of heavy cavalry. 2. The professional light cavalry of the muslim factions and steppe factions will have an anti-cavalry bonus and be very effective vs slower cavalry. Medium/heavy cavalry is the cavalry intended for killing infantry. The Byzantines will have the fearsome kataphraktoi almost from start, but most others will have to wait until they get hold of the real beasts. They will instead stick to medium cavalry with less armor but in return stronger charge due to lighter weight and slightly higher speed. Cavalry archers will be rare (due to high cost and long training time) but they'll be used by the muslim and steppe factions. The earliest cavalry archers will be pretty weak against the heavily armored footmen and more effective foot archers, but for example the Byzantines will also be able to train some armored horse archers. Of course, what they gain from their armor they lose in speed, and won't be as able to skirmish as their faster, lighter counterparts.
- Camels will have a "frightens cavalry" attribute and also an anti-cavalry fighting bonus and a desert combat bonus. However they are slow and will therefore not perform well against faster light cavalry that can isolate and surround them. Camels will be rare and only used by Abbassids, Al Andalus and the Khazars.
- Archers will appear early, almost from start, to reflect their importance as the main missile weapon of the time. But the earliest archers will be of low quality, and upgrades are needed before a more professional archery appears. The Welsh will have their famous longbowmen almost from start and they'll also appear as mercenaries there. Crossbowmen will appear later in the game and also as mercenaries, especially near Genoa (genoese crossbowmen). Pavise crossbowmen will appear very late, and require 2 or 3 training turns. Their slow speed makes them less suited for skirmishing and are safest kept behind the line unlike normal archers, which are faster.
- Javelinmen will be cheap and some will use spear and javelin in combination. Most nations won't use the javelinmen much though, as they are partly outdated - at least as missile troops - compared to archers with their longer distance. But normal infantry equipped with javelins, darts of throwing spears as extra weapon thrown before charge were numerous.
- Militarily, the vikings will start with easily available good units. Catholic and other factions will get better units later, but sometimes be in pretty difficult positions from start. Vikings will have an advantage in their strong navies. Later, when cavalry is improved, the viking infantry-based armies are at a disadvantage. However, terrain modifiers for cavalry will if necessary be modified to make sure a wise commander can handle cavalry well by taking full advantage of terrain.
====================
The mod is focused on vikings, but isn't restricted only to the wars to the north. Starting date is 843 AD and ending date is 1099 AD. Even though focus will be on the viking raids, colonization and conquests in Northwestern Europe and modern Russia, the map will cover all of Europe and some more. In order to put the vikings in a correct historical context we believe it's necessary to include also the southern parts of the map, as decisions there affected the situation to the north too. The vikings also had direct contact with many of these locations and factions: Miklagaard (Constantinople), Saerkland (Jerusalem), and so on. Heirs of vikings would also later establish the kingdom of Sicily, which became a dominant power in the high Medieval period. Including more than just Northern Europe also means a bonus in that the political situation between the other factions is quite interesting and it's a period that is seldom represented in mods or games. This period was also the time when the religious fanatism reflected in the crusades rose. At the ending date, 1099 AD, the first crusade reached and captured Jerusalem.
The mod is aiming for realism and will not feature too exotic and/or non-historical units/locations from tales or legends. However, approximations are often necessary. There are hardcoded limits for number of factions and maximum number of units and models, which we can't change. There are also situations when we have chosen to approximate by representing some faction slightly incorrectly at the starting date, but with the result that the behavior of those factions will be more true to history for the entire rest of the mod period.
PROGRESS SO FAR
==============
This post will be updated with details about progress of the mod.
- Research: 90 %
- Planning tech trees & units: 95 %
- Campaign map 75 %
- Buildings: 5 %
- Units: 40 %
- Testing: 7 %
- Planned release: not known yet
THE MOD TEAM RIGHT NOW
=====================
- LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix - project leader/map editing/testing-balancing/PR
- skeletor - skinner/modeller/faction banners maker/building maker
- ScionTheWorm - skinner/modeller/faction icons maker
- Meneldil - map editing/buildings editing
- King Ragnar - researcher/skinner
- Emperor Umeu 1 - coding/unit balancing
- Duke John - coding/scripting/holder of master copy/vegetation editing - not confirmed
TABLE OF CONTENTS TO THIS FORUM
============================
Some interesting threads that may contain previews of units and progress in other fields:
- News thread (contains links to all previews of the mod) (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54098)
- Tech trees (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48791)
- Units under construction (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48793)
- Campaign map (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=48794)
Some of the info in these threads might be incorrect or old
SPECIAL FEATURES OF AOVAF
======================
MAJOR FEATURES:
- Lower battle speed - a lower battle speed not only makes battles more realistic, but also makes it harder to fight the AI with hit-and-run tactics and quick routs.
- Unique recruitment system that simulates the assimilation of conquered provinces - it takes time before locals can be recruited. Recruitment system combines scripting, buildings and ZOR systems and creates a new unique recruitment system not yet seen in any other mod.
- Smaller percentual stats difference between units - units will differ less in stats, meaning that militia units won't be completely useless. This also means a technological progress isn't as overpowered as in vanilla R:TW, and means rebels will remain a threat always, rather than an annoyance.
- The factions that didn't make it into the game are represented as rebels. These rebels are often a lot tougher than the vanilla R:TW rebels, sometimes even harder to break than playable factions.
- Most factions start off with quite good armies. They'll be slightly weaker than the armies formed during the first few game turns, but the player won't start out as weak as R:TW factions. This means a more interesting - and difficult - start. Rushing/blitzing is harder than in R:TW.
- Economy is rebalanced so that armies will be smaller so that every battle will be important. It also slows down expansion, and gets rid of the snowball effect with strong factions becoming unbeatable. The economical rebalancing means that some minor settlements needed to establish a secure frontline may, in return, cost so much to keep up public order in, that the player might benefit from choosing distant targets and create a more colonial type of empire. It will also make it benefitial to strike important cities - capitals for instance, as the first target in wars, rather than progress by step by step pushing the frontline forward. This will result in a more historically correct gameplay, and make strategy a lot more complicated.
- Economical rebalancing of unit costs will also in most cases make it necessary to use a more historically correct army divided in a core army, and a temporarily recruited militia. The core army is necessary to maintain public order in peacetime, but for wars it's necessary to call in militia to get the numbers needed. The militia is cheap to recruit and with 0 turns build time can be gotten hold of quickly, but cost much in upkeep. The core army units cost much both in upkeep and training, but are a necessary elite of key troops needed to, if used correctly, turn an even battle into a crushing victory. The balancing will ensure that militia will constitute the majority, in numbers, on the battlefields, which is more historically correct. The core army + militia system will also add another threat to the player - losing your core army in a battle can be a really severe loss. A historical example of this was the destruction of the Byzantine core army (tagmata) in the battle of Manzikert in the late 11th century.
- The pope will replace the R:TW senate. He will hand out missions to France, Lotharingia and the Holy roman empire, but his power is limited. Failure to please the pope can lead to excommunication and after that there's no way becoming liked by the pope again and the other two of those factions will become your enemies. The Pope/Senate might also be removed, it's still under discussion. If so, the Pope will still be included, but using another system than the Senate system.
- Navies will have higher morale - it'll be easier to eliminate inferior navies completely when they're attacked by a superior navy. This means less hunting 1 ship navies back and forth in the oceans.
- It will be possible to sail up some rivers with your navies
- Some factions that were historically very dependent on mercenaries, like the Byzantines, will here also be very dependent on mercenaries. This will of course require them to be careful with losses and work hard on getting a steady enough economy to support these expensive troops. The Byzantine need for mercenaries will be very pronouced, more so than any faction in R:TW. They'll however have many good mercenaries to recruit nearby - including the varangian mercenaries which historically made up the famous varangian guard. Mamluks/Abbasids will also be a faction which will rely more on mercenaries than others, however not as much as the byzantines. They'll mostly hire turkish mercenaries, and the need for mercenaries will only be big in the early part of the game (that's partly what historically turned them from abbasids to mamluks - when the mercenaries recieved more power). Khazars will also want to hire mercenaries.
SOME BATTLE REBALANCING FEATURES:
- Cavalry will be powered down somewhat in comparison to infantry. In most cases, cavalry will also be so much more expensive than infantry that armies will consist of more infantry. Only cavalry factions who had horses as a central part of their culture will, as is historically correct, be able to field a good cavalry at an despite large numbers affordable cost.
- As spearmen and axemen dominated most of the battlefields of the period, they'll have much importance in this mod. Spearmen will be able to hold their own and inflict more casualties than they take losses for a short period of time, but will lose in any prolonged engagement with other infantry, unless the opponent is a levy unit with very poor morale. Heavy axemen will form good defensive lines, wheras lighter axemen are fast shock troops for hitting flanks.
- Swordsmen will be more rare, but have their uses. Often the rich elite troops will be the only to carry swords.
- Light cavalry will be of two types. 1. The militia/untrained cheap cavalry will just be like a weaker form of heavy cavalry. 2. The professional light cavalry of the muslim factions and steppe factions will have an anti-cavalry bonus and be very effective vs slower cavalry. Medium/heavy cavalry is the cavalry intended for killing infantry. The Byzantines will have the fearsome kataphraktoi almost from start, but most others will have to wait until they get hold of the real beasts. They will instead stick to medium cavalry with less armor but in return stronger charge due to lighter weight and slightly higher speed. Cavalry archers will be rare (due to high cost and long training time) but they'll be used by the muslim and steppe factions. The earliest cavalry archers will be pretty weak against the heavily armored footmen and more effective foot archers, but for example the Byzantines will also be able to train some armored horse archers. Of course, what they gain from their armor they lose in speed, and won't be as able to skirmish as their faster, lighter counterparts.
- Camels will have a "frightens cavalry" attribute and also an anti-cavalry fighting bonus and a desert combat bonus. However they are slow and will therefore not perform well against faster light cavalry that can isolate and surround them. Camels will be rare and only used by Abbassids, Al Andalus and the Khazars.
- Archers will appear early, almost from start, to reflect their importance as the main missile weapon of the time. But the earliest archers will be of low quality, and upgrades are needed before a more professional archery appears. The Welsh will have their famous longbowmen almost from start and they'll also appear as mercenaries there. Crossbowmen will appear later in the game and also as mercenaries, especially near Genoa (genoese crossbowmen). Pavise crossbowmen will appear very late, and require 2 or 3 training turns. Their slow speed makes them less suited for skirmishing and are safest kept behind the line unlike normal archers, which are faster.
- Javelinmen will be cheap and some will use spear and javelin in combination. Most nations won't use the javelinmen much though, as they are partly outdated - at least as missile troops - compared to archers with their longer distance. But normal infantry equipped with javelins, darts of throwing spears as extra weapon thrown before charge were numerous.
- Militarily, the vikings will start with easily available good units. Catholic and other factions will get better units later, but sometimes be in pretty difficult positions from start. Vikings will have an advantage in their strong navies. Later, when cavalry is improved, the viking infantry-based armies are at a disadvantage. However, terrain modifiers for cavalry will if necessary be modified to make sure a wise commander can handle cavalry well by taking full advantage of terrain.