Falkirk: 4x4 New MOD for Medieval

[Choco]

This is my 3rd try making MODs for the Medieval Total War Demo

This is the link: http://www.geocities.com/armendoza/Medieval.html

To instale this MOD:
1)Don'T Forget to backup your original files!
2)Use Winzip and extract those files to the directory C:\Total War\Medieval - Total War (Demo Version)\Battle\batinit\Historical Battles\Jaffa
3)There you go!!

Have you ever watched Braveheart? Have you ever wanted to fight the battles? Where you pissed off like heck with that mess of a game named "braveheart"? ... Well this is your opportunity to play Falkirk: the battle between Scots and English for all of you Melgibsonwannabe out there http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

This is a 4x4 battle. You play as Wallace/Mel Gigbson ... whatever. Edward I is out for your butt, you are outnumbered, your troops are not very strong and the nobles are traitors to you.

The battle was fought between pretty different armies and I have tried to show it in my MOD:

William:
-Your army is composed mostly by Higland Clansmen and "Shiltron" (pikemen)
- Very few archers.
- Your knights ..suck. They are scarce and worth squat. BIG chickens. To replicate the backstabbing by the jealous nobles the Knights has zero honor so 99% of the time they will run as soon as things get rough.

Edward:
- Lots of Knights and troops
- Lots of kick butt mercenary welsh long bowmen

Since I am using some troops that are not included in the original demo such as Pikemen and Highlanders that means that their icons won't show in the troops bar. Don't worry, the game runs fine all the same.

Have fun
http://www.geocities.com/armendoza/Medieval.html




[This message has been edited by Choco (edited 07-13-2002).]

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

seems a little harsh
no chance of holding the ground at all...

tips?

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

also you can edit the text in the triggers!

mine now read
//triggers
Trigger::1, BT_GENERAL DIED, factions 8, LABEL "Keep William Alive.", INVERT_CHECKBOX
Trigger::2, BT_INCAPACITATE, factions 5, LABEL "Kill the English.", INVERT_CHECKBOX
Trigger::3, BT_INCAPACITATE, factions 8, LABEL "Don't let your army flee."

:-)

[This message has been edited by TechnoMage of Shadows (edited 07-13-2002).]

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

Choco,
I've been looking through the unit's...

A few notes about Falkirk,

there were 30,000 scot's and 95,000 english

there was a marsh in front of the scot's position forcing the english to attack the wings and neglect the center.

The Scots were organised into 3 columns,
Comyn led his 10,000 troops from the field,
leaving Wallace with 20,000

The second column routed after the scots were surrounded and their archers driven off,

the last column fought on till dusk, only withdrawing then.
Note they withdrew, they did not rout.
They fought their way to Brian's ford on the Carron and on to Perth.
At Brian's ford Wallace and his men (now down to some 300) broke the Templars that were pursuing them, when Wallace himself slew Sir Brian le Jay, Master of the Templars.
desultory pursuit only continued beyond the ford for a short time.


The English could not break the Scots Schiltrons (Skiltrons) through hand to hand combat, nor with Cavalry,
they had to shower them with Welsh Longbows, and Irish Slingers before they could make any headway.

Perhaps the forces need to be modified slightly to reflect this,

only one column betrayed Wallace, that led by "Red" John Comyn.

Wallaces column did not rout,

and the Welsh Archers seem far too keen to engage in hand to hand combat...

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

did i mention I am having a great time trying to find a way to hold the ground!
:-)

[verysoon]

Sorry, no way in hell the British fielded 95,000 men. Less than 20k
http://members.aol.com/Skyewrites/falkirk1.html

They could never field that many until, oh,I don't know, some 700 years later.

[Choco]

Well Technomage, I made Falkirk a difficult MOD because ... ... The idea of playing Wallace in Falkirk is that you LOSE http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I haven't won the battle yet ... and I am the one who did the MOD http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Now the idea is that you can choose between either going down graciously like a feather or falling dead like a bag of coal http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Regarding the terrain, I wanted to include the marsh, but there is not a map with a marsh among the limited supply of maps we have in the MOD. In effect I wonder if features like marshes will be included in the full game.

Wallace has 4 units of Pikemen to replicate the Shiltrons. The Highlanders are his personal guard.

From most accounts of the battle it is clear that the scottish cavalry was composed by the noblemen and because they deserted Wallace fought without cavalry. Since apparently there is no way to make the AI a "traitor" I settled for the second best and that is the reason I put only a small unit of cavalry with zero honor in the MOD.

For the Welsh Bowmen staying away from close combat, perhaps setting them to "Skirmish" mode would do the trick. But in previous mods the AI attacked all the same.

The only idea I have right now to try to lose graciously is to rush Wallace to the right flank around the farmhouse as soon as possible hoping to beat the English left wing before the center attacks you.

Because the Welsh mercenaries are in the center in front of Edward that means that the English center is slower moving that its wings, which is pretty close to what happened in the real battle.

... but at the end the result is supposed to be all the same: Mel Gibson gets his butt kicked hard bwahahahahahaha!!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Choco]

Well the websites I checked in the web for info disagreed on the number of combatants.

But 95,000 vs 30,000 is way too much

Most estimations are around 30K vs 10K more on less

In any case what is per sure is that Wallace was heavly outnumbered. The English army was double or triple the size of the scottish army.

[LittleGrizzly]

hmm maybe this battle is impossible .......
we need the likes of mag koc amp to try it they'd find a way im sure !!!!

[TechnoMage of Shadows]

numbers involved came from a scottish history site, still we all know how reliable the web can be,
makes little difference though
still 3 to 1 odds..

not too worried about the marsh, the english still seem to come around the small rise in front of the hill, so that duplicates quite well.

but i think the english are overpowered and the pikemen particularly ineffective!
and clansmen in Medieval are weak, certainly not close to history.

[Choco]

Well I can't still win my own mod http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

The problem is not the numerical disadvantage. The problem is that the new troops are not as good as expected.

In theory Pikemen should be even better than Spearmen against cavalry but from what I see and I heard from people who tried my mod it seems they are just mediocre.

Also Higland Clansmen are not very good. They don't seem to be "special" types of troops. More like just a new label and sprite for a regular soldier.

I think I am changing the statistics. If you can win them then cheat http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Gothmog]

Quote Originally posted by verysoon:
Sorry, no way in hell the British fielded 95,000 men. Less than 20k
http://members.aol.com/Skyewrites/falkirk1.html

They could never field that many until, oh,I don't know, some 700 years later.[/QUOTE]


HOw interesting, we came up with the same reference! That was great writing indeed. My blood boiled while reading it.


------------------
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
http://www.grahamday.dial.pipex.com/rose-knight1.gif

[barocca]

Choco,
did you get my mail and file?

what did you think?

------------------
Clan Doragons Medieval Website
Mods, Unit Descriptions and more
DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon (http://doragon.cjb.net)

[Choco]

It is OK Barocca but it is still a very tough MOD. But again, perhaps it is just that my gameplay sucks http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Checking files I realized that you didn't change many of the weapon/armor stats and I think that is where the main problem relies.
Pretty dificult to win with 1/1 spearmen against 3/3 cavalry

My question is: The Weapon/Armor lines make reference to level of NORMAL stats or they make reference to stat "BONUS" for those troops?

So what happens if Weapon/Armor is set to zero? The Unit has 0/0 stats or it is just that the unit has no extra bonus above the normal stats?

[DrNo]

To get best from Pikemen put them in 5 rows.

The weapon/armour numbers reflect if a unit has upgraded weapons and armour.

0 means they have standard weapons and so the unit stats with honour adjustments reflect their combat effectiveness.

Hit the F1 key in battle to get the low down on all your troops.

[DrNo]

Well just played the hard version of Falkirk and you have no chance. No one would be able to win this battle.
I managed to move all my forces into the woods to left as you start and fought downhill in trees and still lost badly. Did manage to take 232 men with me and 2 Leaders!


Choco Pikemen are good against cavalry if employed in right way, however they will appear mediocre against the troops you have put them against.
Pikemen base stats are 0 att -2 def. Bonus against Cav 2 & 6 giving them a total of 2 and 4 against cav.

The LateRoyalKnights have 5 att 7 def making them far superior to pikemen in h-t-h combat.

The real problem comes from 3 of the 4 units of pikemen only having honour 2 instead of 6 like the other unit, against the Knights who have honour 4. i.e. stats even more in Knights favour.

I think you should try changing the Clansman to GallowGlass to get more realism.
Clansman are little more than peasents, whereas GallowGlass have armour piercing axes.
Also up Mel Gibsons rank a couple of notches!

[DrNo]

Double post, what's wrong with board?

Posts don't seem to be registering straight away.

[This message has been edited by DrNo (edited 07-15-2002).]

[Gothmog]

Now here finally comes a scenario that no matter how hard you try, you lose ...

Sounds good.



------------------
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
http://www.grahamday.dial.pipex.com/rose-knight1.gif

[Choco]

Hmm DrNo you are right ... I didn't realize the Pikemen' honor lvl

I am going to do some changes in the stats to make the mod more even.

But I am dissapointed by the Clansmen. I was expecting them to be really strong and they are just regular soldiers.

[barocca]

gallowglasses crash the demo here,
suggest HouseCarls - instead of Clansmen

[DrNo]

Barocca, I did of course forget to even check if GallowGlass would work with demo doh! Just looked at stats and thought they would represent the Scots better.
Housecarls only get a charge bonus of 3 compared to 8 for Gallowglass.

It's the image from Braveheart with the Scots going in swinging axes and destroying the first line of English soldiers that this battle needs to recreate. The power of the will and belief of the scots is what made them so good against superior trained troops.
Bit like Saladin's and other great leaders army's.

So I reckon Mel, sorry William should have at least rank 6 to give a honour bonus of 3 to all troops to reflect their belief in their leader. If he falls then so does the rest of the army.

Think I will try some changes and see what happens.

Choco keep up the mods, they're great!

[NagatsukaShumi]

Choco I suggest you improve this to the best you can and then wait for the game and make a very good Falkirk.

[Stephen Hummell]

How do mods work? cause I'd like to play falkirk.

[Choco]

Just download the zip file from my website and follow the instructions

This is the link: http://www.geocities.com/armendoza/Medieval.html

There you will find links to my Mods so you can download the files to your computer.

Those files are compressed with Winzip so you will need PKzip or Winzip to descompress the files.

To instale the MODs:
1)Don'T Forget to backup your original files!
2)Use Winzip and extract those files to the directory C:\Total War\Medieval - Total War (Demo Version)\Battle\batinit\Historical Battles\Jaffa
3)There you go!!

So you just go and play the MTW demo and choose the "Jaffa Battle" and instead the original you will get a totally new battle.

Hope it helps

[verysoon]

Quote Originally posted by Gothmog:

HOw interesting, we came up with the same reference! That was great writing indeed. My blood boiled while reading it.


[/QUOTE]


It's hard to believe that the world wide web is such a small place now http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif I'm looking at my "Atlas of Warfare" pg 49. Give English 25k at most. At Bannockburn, it gives The Bruce 15,000 to Edward II 23,000. I think our friend TechnoMage of Shadows was using Herodotus as a source

[Roman Totale XVII]

The 'schiltron' was actually a formation adopted by the Scottish pikemen rather than the troop-type itself. It was an all-round, circular defence used to great effect against the English cavalry. When pike units came into general use in Europe during the 16th-17th centuries this was still the standard defence against cavalry and was then often called the 'orb' or 'hedgehog' formation. The Scots pikemen in the English (British surely?) Civil War still called it the schiltron.

Just like the Napoleonic square, an all-round, continuous defence was the only way for foot to fend off horse because the latter can always use their mobility to flow round the flanks (even in a so-called 'frontal' charge). A reason why Japanese yari troops should be vulnernable to cav in STW/MI - there is no evidence that the Japanese developed close-formation all-round defence.

[Yager]

I'd have to agree the problem isn't so much being outnumbered it is just that all of the troops are horribly out classed. The scene was set for a victory. I ran my clansman off to the far left flank to hide and wait for awhile. Set up a solid line with all of my pikeman with arrows peppering anything that was in range. Their first charge I repelled but it seemed they kept marching their longbowmen in. They finally pushed in and my center was giving away when I tried to sweep up the flank with the clansman.

It was like hitting a brick wall. The clansman have absolutely no skill for battle even when they had 2-1 odds against a unit plus them being on the enemies flank. The clansman were utterly destroyed by a single group of billmen. Some 48 deaths with 12 kills by the clansman. Arrgh.

[Stephen Hummell]

It's good but the bad things are you can't win and the clansman are peasents

[barocca]

what about the Alan Mercenary Cavalry for Comyn?

[Stephen Hummell]

Sterling maybe, you know the 1 the scots won, or Bannockburn.

The numbers at the real battle were:
English:10k
Scots:5k

[Stephen Hummell]

But the bridge at sterling would be a japanese 1. Since there are no bridge battles feattured in the game. Oh well

[Yager]

Bannockburn would be great, truly if you think about it though most of the battles the Scots won were out of pure ferocity. No fancy smancy 'dance of doom' by generals. They grabbed their battle axe, their running shoes, and ran across the field hacking off heads.

Sterling, however, was beautifully thought out. Charging the English when they had no chance to retreat(caught crossing the bridge). I probably would have lit fire to the bridge but that is just must.