Saxon Total War- A new mod

[Byzantine Emperor]

----------------------------------SAXON TOTAL WAR-------------------------

Saxon Total War is a new mod based on the Viking and Norman invasions on Saxon Britain. It will have two separate campaigns, one based on the vikings invasions, running on similar time peroid to MTW:VI. Can you stop the hordes of the Norsemen? The second will encompass the Norman and Viking invasions of 1066. Can you change the tide of history and defeat William the conquerer?

Features:
* New map featuring Normandy, Scandanavia, England and Ireland.
Rough area of the map: EDIT: Cropped map slightly
https://img164.imageshack.us/img164/5451/maparea4co.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

* New units like Viking berserkers, Saxon housecarls and Norman knights.

* New factions:
Saxons
Vikings
Normans
Mercians
Welsh
Northumbrians
Picts
Scots
Irish

Here is some early research:

Saxons:
https://img435.imageshack.us/img435/769/saxons9wm.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

Vikings:
https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/7677/vikings4td.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

Normans:
https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/9976/normans6py.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

And here is a userbar for anyone who wishes to support my mod:
https://img453.imageshack.us/img453/4346/saxontotalwarbanner5aj.jpg (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=65767)

NOTE
.org users may notice that this sig does not work. It is too big for the sig restrictions i think.

Current members/contributors:
Coding:
Byzantine Emperor (me :))

Skinning:
snevets
The_Rat

Modeller
snevets
The_Rat

Mapper
Uranos (currently down because of a virus problem)

Scripter
-------- (not needed currently)

Research
Aenarion

Contribution
Makanyane, for the optional map

Positions needed at the moment are:
Skinner
Modeller
Mapper

[Myrddraal]

Have you had a look at Arthurian Total War?

[Byzantine Emperor]

No. Why?

[UltraWar]

Arthurian Total War is just like this...

I hope this goes well though.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Is it? Ive never heard of it, but Im guessing it doesnt have Vikings and Normans if it is purely Arthurian.

[Aenarion]

but Im guessing it doesnt have Vikings and Normans if it is purely Arthurian.

You are right Byzantine Emperor, this mod has not much connection with Arthurian:Total War. Arthur's Time is set a bit earlier than the Vikings. It is dated to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Anyway, this mod is going to look great and I'm looking forward to seeing any updates! :2thumbsup:

Good Luck!

Thanks,
Aenarion

[Myrddraal]

You are right Byzantine Emperor, this mod has not much connection with Arthurian:Total War. Arthur's Time is set a bit earlier than the Vikings. It is dated to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Correct, but you could still contact the Athurian TW team, their mod is a great lead on to yours - the Saxon's arriving in Britain kind of leads on to the Vikings. Their map is also the British Isles. Another mod you could also contact would be Age of Vikings and Fanatics. Their mod covers the whole of Europe, but I'm sure you could get some cooperation with these two mods.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Thanks everyone :2thumbsup:

Now I just need a team.

I will look in the scriptorium for mapping tutorials I think, see if I can do any myself.

By the way this mod will be for 1.6 BI.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I have the help of Aenarion for some research now :2thumbsup:

[Makanyane]

We've been playing a 'for our own amusement' mod based in britain (on BI 1.6)which is completely un-historical. ie. it starts with 3 faction of romano_brits in south, various celts in wales, picts in scotland and saxons to east - vikings / danes emerge (like slavs) in ireland, scotland and east anglia.

Maps are playable (by Wilddog), logos & banners have been done (not very well by me) and some skins (adaptions of existing barbarians) have been done but it needs more re-skinning, unit cards etc. Its unlikely to ever get finished as we're really only playing it and fiddling until MTWII comes out.

Maps are:https://img163.imageshack.us/img163/8731/britregions4qo.th.jpg (https://img163.imageshack.us/my.php?image=britregions4qo.jpg)(258 x 400 pixels)https://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5339/britheights0zi.th.jpg (https://img163.imageshack.us/my.php?image=britheights0zi.jpg)(517 x 801 pixels)

If you want to use maps as starting point let me know.

Anyway I should explain some of reasoning behind map as it will probably effect you. Unless you're making a smaller than vanilla map, I think you're unlikely to get away with as much sea as your map area shows - if you're going medium sized cropping down to orkneys might work - if you're anything like our size you can't have empty north sea area. (We've used naff looking viking boats to add landmass I think Arthurian mod had dragon there and some extra lumps of france)

If point is to have vikings etc. invade you need to make sure you have mechanism to organise this - I have no idea wether or not this can be done by scripting (CAN ANYONE ELSE ADVISE ON THIS?), but otherwise you could run the risk of your AI vikings happily settling down in Scandinavia and not going anywhere - especially over large sea distance (we've got Franks that should invade from Gaul but so far they've not been particularly succesful at getting foothold - unless you give them starting province on mainland). For vikings we cropped the map down so parts of ireland, scotland, cornwall and east anglia meet edge of map - this helps landmass issue and alows slav style, historic event defined, emergence.

[Byzantine Emperor]

The vikings and normans not attacking I have already taken into consideration. I thought through scripting I could force appearances of Vikings and Normans on the mainland. BTW can I have the files you were talking about? I could do some work to them to adapt it.

[Makanyane]

Version of base maps with only saxons / slave factions I can send relatively quickly as I kept a clean provincial map version of those.

Rest of mod I need to do some work on to find modded & renamed files as it's mixed in with BI folder.

can you pm me your email address? (and say if you're on broadband) as I don't know how to post these via forum.

[Byzantine Emperor]

I have dropped you a PM. Why would you want to know if I use broadband?

I also cropped my potential map a little. I think I may not want any of Ireland at all as it does not have much importance for the timframe.

[snevets]

The Battle of Hastings has always interested me. Essentially European cavalry and established tactics versus the elite line infantry of the north, weakened by the disorganized levies of the fyrd. Have you thought about how you might implement the witan? What are your plans for factions? You could btw have a small sweedish exploratory force rooting around saxon england with a command unit... they attack you, you destroy them, command's banner taken to a city and your off to the races (the Vikings should come of their own free will). You'll have to work through that to make it more historically accurate but you might also consider a strong starting alliance between William and the Hadrada to link the two invasions.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Im sure good scripters (I can script but not well) will be able to do all kinds of things. The Battle of Hastings is going to be a historical batlle along with Stamford Bridge. I am English so I am interested about this scenario. Im surprised no one's tried before.

[Makanyane]

I have dropped you a PM. Why would you want to know if I use broadband?
I've sent the very basic two faction provincial campaign version of map. I've isolated files for the version with all factions included + logo, unit changes etc. zip file is 11MB which is why I wanted to check re: broadband, will add some explanatory bits and send tomorow.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Well thanks very much. I just want to know what are the boat things in the sea for ( the bits of land shaped like longships ) You have already contributed a lot to this mod, Makanyane!

[shifty157]

Anglosaxons did not use cavalry in battle.

[Byzantine Emperor]

Anglosaxons did not use cavalry in battle.

?

An unreliable source perhaps?

[Makanyane]

Boat things were what I was trying to explain about in initial post. They add land mass - amount is probably tweakable (and they could definitely look better!) but if you don't have some land mass there for map of this size you get instant CTD. (had also originally planned for vikings to invade from there but couldn't get predictable behaviour)

That was required for our map_heights = 801 high (we much prefered IceTorques big map over vanilla so were aiming at something similar in scale). Unfortunately have tidied hard disc and lost testing files - from very fuzzy memory I think map_heights of about 500 - 600 high for our sort of cropping could work without land mass in north sea area. Its a real pain in the **** testing what size / land mass ratio works as its a matter of progressive trial and error. Also from our testing I think having land mass meet edges and therefore divide sea into separate areas helps.

If you're going similar / smaller than vanilla your revised cropping could work - there doesn't seem to be any definitive information on this - compare sea ratio with existing maps that you know work for the sort of map size you prefer. If you make yours from scratch its worth making an all land version first with limited provinces or pastable province block to check colours and text files work, then amend size / sea area so it is the only variable.

You wouldn't be able to use our britain and extend east without scaling down to smaller map size first, as that would definitely give you too much sea.

[shifty157]

?

An unreliable source perhaps?

No. Very reliable. As we can see with many examples: just because a game makes a unit doesnt mean it actually historically existed.

Anglosaxons would ride horses to battle if they had them but would send them away before battle began. They fought on foot in traditional germanic fashion.

[snevets]

Which is not to say that fighting on horses didn't occur as the Bayeux Tapestry shows (if I were you btw BEmperor I would look that thing over alot to get a good feel for the equipment), between saxons caught off guard and norman cavalry. It might be a little inaccurate but for gameplay purposes a light, maybe javelineer cavalry on small horses would be reasonable, to simulate the use of horses. I'm not sure how you would represent Saxon generals, probably on foot with heavy chainmail guards. At any rate this would be a line infantry versus cavalry and archers game, very interesting in a way.

An interesting coding idea btw might be to gather fyrd with show me how scripts, I know E Richard got a script which could recruit untrainable units working. Maybe you could have it work that a disorganized hoard fyrd like peasants can be recruited but a line fyrd with better weapons could only be given to you.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

i just wanted to say this mod looks good. keep it up.:2thumbsup:

[Byzantine Emperor]

Good ideas snevets. The client kingdoms thing may be a good idea for recruiting fyrd. General will probably be housecarls. And only very light cavalry will be there for just about everyone besides Normans. (knights)

[Epistolary Richard]

Age of Vikings & Fanatics (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=106) has Saxon (and Viking obviously) units made already. Maybe you should contact them and see if you can trade models.

[snevets]

Age of Vikings & Fanatics (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=106) has Saxon (and Viking obviously) units made already. Maybe you should contact them and see if you can trade models.
Well he would have to have some models of his own to trade first, not many are willing to just give away their stuff. Still, its worth talking to a few people.

[Epistolary Richard]

Well, not everything has to be so prescriptive or like-for-like. Perhaps there are other ways he can help them out. I do think it's a good idea for mods in a similar period to help each other out where they can - just make a public releaseall the closer.

[palissa]

Well, i did the german for aovaf, while scion made englisc and somebody did vikings (maybe always scion)

If yo uwant my models, feel free to ask, but you have to reskin them all :)

Other models you msut ask to the owners, i guess.

bye

[Agraes]

Yes, ATW period is 481 to 684 AD, so no Vikes for us!

Anyway you should have a look at our various previews.



Anglosaxons would ride horses to battle if they had them but would send them away before battle began. They fought on foot in traditional germanic fashion.

Not totally true. Saxons do have good cavalry, especially Jutish people, even if they rather like to fight unmounted. The english word "Knight" come from the saxon "Cnith". In ATW germanic factions got access to 2 cavalry units, Rideras, light cavalry armed with framea ; and Cnithas, mounted athelings.

And just read the De Bello Gallico, Cesar is saying the Germans are from the best horsmen, even if it is centuries before the viking age.

Links for our previews:
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1331
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1306
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1282
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1254
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1228
http://s10.invisionfree.com/Imperium_Total_War/index.php?showtopic=1155

Note we are currently in close beta phasis, so I expect a public release in a near future.

[tutankamon]

If you would need a researcher/historian/archaeologist just let me know I'm currently on my second year of studying archaeology in denmark at moesgaard...

[Byzantine Emperor]

If you would need a researcher/historian/archaeologist just let me know I'm currently on my second year of studying archaeology in denmark at moesgaard...

Good to see someone who likes the era :2thumbsup:

OK, I will tell you if I need anything :idea2:

[Woad Warrior]

Some Saxon Ideas:

Great Fyrd - peasant rabble, unarmoured, clubs
Select Fyrd - miltia unit, unarmoured, round-shield, spears, throwing clubs
Thegns - land-owners, leather armour, round-shield, spears, throwing clubs
Hearthwerod - hired professionals, leather armour, round-shield, swords, javelins
Huscarles - elite unit, chain-mail, kite-shield, axe
Royal Huscarles - Nobles Bodyguards, chain-mail, 2-handed axe

[Incongruous]

It might also be good to use the different millitary heritige of the various areas.
Kent was compact and heavily populated and had been heavily influenced by the Frankish millitary, the use of francisca was known among the Kentish, the idea of a great landed elite as say in Wessex was not as powerful i Kent where towns were stilly heavily populated. Kent also lead the way for the Germanic kingdoms in terms of fortification which it developed at a faster rate.

In Wessex we have a more mixed Celto-Saxon millitary but still basically Germanic in structure. Here the great nobles held a Burgh which were by the time of Aethelsan's death more like towns than millitary complexes. As Wessex was almost constantly at war its had developed a quickly mobilised force of lesser nobles called thanes, lanless proffesional warriors were also common. Men on Church land were also required to serve whenever the nedd arose, often to mantain public works (bridges, dykes and walls). The fyrd had also developed into a highly effective force. The great Fyrd was basically made up entirely of Coerls. The lesser fyrd was a much smaller affair but consisted only of the local landed elite of five-hide holders the thegns. These men were heavily armed and by this stage once again heavily armoured (in the 7th and 8th centuries armour seems to have become less common, most likely because the old roman stuff was wearing out but by the 9th century armour again became more common in the elite). The Coerls aswell made use of armour, just not of the same quality of that of the thegns.

In Mercia there was no real small local defence force. Thus Fyrds were bigger but less common and sigularly more costly to raise than those of Wessex. This army also included a large group of landed elite known as Twelfhyndes, who held the same amount of land as six Coerls (by this time about 2 hides).
All in all making a Mercian invasion a dangerous prospect to centred kingdoms such a sKent and Sussex.

The Northumbrian millitary is harder to pinpoint as it was very localised and almost always a static institution gurading a long and dangerous frontier while also keeping down its large Celtic underclass. This Celtic peasentry also had millitary obligations which probably reflected the Celtic way of war, tied together by family ties and carrying slings and perhaps Flatbows.

It must also be remembered that the Germanic tribes made use of Longbows (of about 2 metres) and they were often a large contigent by the 11th century as seen at stamford (they no doubt were an under-class and couln't keep up with Harolds fast moving mounted elite. by the mid 1050's the Saxons alos made use of heavy cavalry along the Weslh and Scottish borders.
King Macbeth suposedly made use of Norman mercenaries who were wiped out in battle against Saxon cavalry.

The elite of the Englisc kingdom as created by the Alfredian line were the Husskarls, made up of Earls, Gesithas, and after the conquest of England by Aethelsatn cnihtas and Thegns. Tthe Royal houshold guard probably numbered at around 3000, and Earl's houshold guards probably about 600-800 by the 11th century. Cnihtas were often the heavy cavalry of the Welsh borders.