Question and Suggestion

[slav frunze]

Hi, I'm very interested in your mod - it seems to offer unique and interesting gameplay that no other mod does.

My question is, is this mod still alive and well or strugling somewhat, since these forums don't seem very active?

If the mod is alive and well, I have a suggestion I wish to make. It seems to me that the traits and acnicilliaries system in Medieval 2 Total War is not being used to its full potential. Although its used to impliment basic character outlines to make family members and agents somewhat unique, I think it is capable of much more.

One of my ideas is to use the system to impliment relationships between characters. For instance, General, oh say John, gets a trait where he has anger issues. While another general in his vicinity, say Richard, gets traits that are completely opposite. If these two are near each other for a few turns, they could develop traits that determine their relationship with each other. In the above example, John and Richard are completely different people and have conflicting view points and opinions. They would therefore develop mutual dislike traits, with John getting a "dislikes Richard" and Richard getting a reciprocal trait. If one of these men was an heir and eventually became the monarch, the other's loyalty to him would understandably suffer and if the dislike is intense enough, he may even start a civil war. I believe your mod can be really spiced up by inter-character relationships.

Likewise, this could extend to to become culture-specific. For example, Richard may get an intollerant trait. He may then have a greater chance of acquiring traits of disliking characters belonging to factions of that culture. This would lead to a less likely hood of Richard being bribed by that faction and maybe even increase his command when fighting against that faction.

Also, if its not hard-coded, relationships between faction leaders (which would have formed as a result past interaction, military or otherwise) could influence diplomatic dealings.

Thanks for your time and best of luck with your mod.

[alpaca]

Hi, I'm very interested in your mod - it seems to offer unique and interesting gameplay that no other mod does.

My question is, is this mod still alive and well or strugling somewhat, since these forums don't seem very active?

If the mod is alive and well, I have a suggestion I wish to make. It seems to me that the traits and acnicilliaries system in Medieval 2 Total War is not being used to its full potential. Although its used to impliment basic character outlines to make family members and agents somewhat unique, I think it is capable of much more.

One of my ideas is to use the system to impliment relationships between characters. For instance, General, oh say John, gets a trait where he has anger issues. While another general in his vicinity, say Richard, gets traits that are completely opposite. If these two are near each other for a few turns, they could develop traits that determine their relationship with each other. In the above example, John and Richard are completely different people and have conflicting view points and opinions. They would therefore develop mutual dislike traits, with John getting a "dislikes Richard" and Richard getting a reciprocal trait. If one of these men was an heir and eventually became the monarch, the other's loyalty to him would understandably suffer and if the dislike is intense enough, he may even start a civil war. I believe your mod can be really spiced up by inter-character relationships.

Likewise, this could extend to to become culture-specific. For example, Richard may get an intollerant trait. He may then have a greater chance of acquiring traits of disliking characters belonging to factions of that culture. This would lead to a less likely hood of Richard being bribed by that faction and maybe even increase his command when fighting against that faction.

Also, if its not hard-coded, relationships between faction leaders (which would have formed as a result past interaction, military or otherwise) could influence diplomatic dealings.

Thanks for your time and best of luck with your mod.
Yes, the mod is still quite alive. However, we are mostly active in our dev forums (here (http://s15.invisionfree.com/Byzantium_TW/index.php?showforum=13)) so you won't see much of it here. We are preparing another update at the moment which will hopefully be released in a few days.

As to your suggestion: I don't think such a trait system can be implemented. There is simply no way to make a trait character-specific. The only thing that could be done is personal dislike for the faction leader, but that is already reflected in the game with the loyalty attribute and the associated traits. Nonetheless, we will probably make a major overhaul of the MTW2 trait system to make it more interesting and fit it into our mod - what we will change hasn't been exactly decided yet because we don't have access to the traits file.

[shifty157]

As Alpaca said we are still very alive (more so than ever before in fact). We just havent posted any new updates recently because things like the release of the game have diverted our attention a bit. But as Alpaca said, we are preparing an update that i should be able to release before too much longer though with American Thanksgiving this thursday and all the general travelling, feasting, partying, and thanksgiving that goes on i really cant guarantee its release before next week.

As to the traits. It is impossible to have specific inter-character relationships but it should be possible to give characters outlooks on other cultures (factions/religions) that should have an affect in game. Thats something well have to look into. For some more information on what we plan to do with traits id recommend taking a look at our FAQ in these forums.

To quote myself from the FAQ:

We are planning on giving the trait system an overhaul. In RTW we found that the traits really didn’t have much of an effect on gameplay aside from the roleplaying aspect. We aim to change this deficiency because history is full of examples where the traits of the various nobles and especially of kings changed the course of history dramatically. We hope to make our trait system powerful enough to force the player to change the way he plays and adapt depending on the traits his characters get to the point that a particularly bad trait in the faction leader could send the entire faction into a downspiral while a particularly good trait could send the faction into a golden age of enlightenment and supremacy. The trait system will force you to keep careful track of the personalities of the nobles around you and most especially those of your sons. If you suddenly find that your heir apparent is progressing down the line toward some traits that could spell disaster for your kingdom if he were to become king you may just have to (GASP!) change your faction heir to someone more suited to ruling.

[slav frunze]

Ok, thats cool.

How about your faction list. Have you decided what to do with the extra 10 slots? May I suggest splitting the Rus into Kiev, Novgorod and Polotsk and having Lithuania, Bulgaria and Sweden as emerging factions. But those are just suggestions and the final decision is obviously up to the development team.

[shifty157]

The new factions to include are still very much under debate. I can say that we're looking to include at least one more faction in the northeast (probably Novgorod or Lithuania), a handful more factions in the middle east (around 3 or so) and a few more factions in Europe (most notably dropping Lombardy in exchange for one or two other northern italian states, probably Venice and Genoa). Like i said, there is still some major debate going on over which factions to include so itll be a little before i can give you a semi-final list.

[lpremus]

I have been browsing on the forum topic and had seen some of your maps with province borders that seem to be more "realistic" and not so huge like the original game. Well you be using a new strategic map layout? I am more of a strategic player of the game rather than a tactical game player. So I was rather disappointed that the map of M2TW was so off in sense of provinces. i really liked the moorish culture grand map and thought they may be your overall layout map for not only religion influence but to show province in a new map?

[HighLord z0b]

Like almost everything, the map is yet to be finalised. This is still the most recent map as far as I know http://s15.invisionfree.com/Byzantium_TW/index.php?showtopic=189
or this larger one:
https://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=senastekartan9ku.jpg

[shifty157]

Well that map (from the first preview) is a bit out of date at this point. In fact, I dont think any released map at this point is up to date as far as reworking provinces goes. In our next update youll be able to see a map with our latest province arrangements. We'll see about releasing a map with our latest faction list once we get this unpacker from CA and figure out our province limit etc.

Regardless, our mapper Anti_Strunt did put a good deal of time and research into the map to make it as startegic and historical as possible. In my opinion he did a wonderful job.

[Rhyfelwyr]

That maps only got 20 of our 30 factions as-well

[shifty157]

We know. We've debating which new factions to include for a while now. FInally though putting the finishing touches on our faction list. We're doing alot of other things currently too like looking extensively into the diplomacy text files.

[A living god]

If you have spare region place, would it be possible to have Castle defending Important Cities.
https://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4871/0000rf4.th.jpg
Have Edinburugh Castle defending Edinburugh or
THe tower of London defending London or
Bastille defending Paris

[alpaca]

Since you can't add more than 200 provinces apparently, that is something we'll probably not be able to do.

[Justiciar]

I don't think you should have another faction in Northern Italy besides Venice. The only other city-state with any form of autonomous authority was Pisa, and that was still quite clearly part of the Empire.

[shifty157]

@Justicar

Actually pretty much every major city in Northern Italy had an incredible degree of autonomy. Really they were only nominally part of the HRE which resulted in Frederick I of the HRE to gather together an army to enforce his rule over the region in the mid 1100s. He was defeated by a league formed by the northern italian states and backed by the pope. When Frederick's successor tried again and failed again any bond that may have existed with the HRE was officially severed.