View Full Version : Pocket - MTW Pocket Mod: General
Third spearman from the left
09-19-2006, 10:35
Hi all I've been playing around with the gnome editor and want to add a few more valour bonuses to the game. I've already given Milan a crossbowmen bonus because of what is written about the italians under pavise crossbows unit description. Anyone have any good historical suggestions for bonuses in other regions?
Also I'm looking at allowing some merc units like the alans to be built by other factions not just the BYZ. Anyone like to suggest other units that should be more readily available?
I have Alans as trainable in Georgia and Khazar by the Byzantines the Horde and Russians/Novgorod. It may be an idea to allow all of the eastern European Christian and Pagan factions to train them. I haven't given them a valour bonus there however. I don't use inns/mercenaries in my games (removed) so this is the only way for me to get Alan Mercs. I've also thought of putting the Inn building to other uses.
The lands most lacking valour bonuses are, again, Eastern Europe. It may be an idea to put a valour bonus for vanilla horse archers and/or steppe cavalry in one of the eastern steppe provinces, such as volga bulgaria. Also it may be an idea to add bonuses for the Mongol units in their emergence provinces to give them a bit more edge when they arrive. The Mongols should sweep across Asia and eastern europe making a big mess, in MTW they penetrate the Turkish provinces and slug it out with the Russians before losing momentum and petering out.
In the west it may be a good idea to put a valour bonus for Feudal Knights somewhere in Europe. You'd have to do the research as to where, but possibly in Ille de France to replace the one for Chivalric Foot Knights.
I would also ditch the valour bonuses for all ships (portugal, wessex, Venice, Tunisia, Aragon, Denmark etc) as they're not really much cop and the AI can't exploit them. Another one is the Inquisitor and Grand Inquisitor valour bonuses in Castille. That's a particularly nasty one, as GI's are dangerous enough as it is. It also berates Castille which was not only famous for lunatic witch burners. It would do better with a valour bonus for a Spanish specific unit such as Lancers, Javelinmen or Jinetes.
Another one that I would remove is the Syrian valour bonuses for assassins and Nizaris and replace it with a more realistic one for e.g. Desert Archers, Horse Archers or Futuwwas. I am working on a mod to make the Taverns and Inns in MTW easier to upgrade, to give decent agents to all factions.
Another good one is Bedouin Camels and/or Arab Infantry for Arabia.
Vladimir
09-19-2006, 16:32
Good suggestion on the Mongol valor bonuses. Give all the mounted units hidden bonuses in Kazar (or lesser if an XL style map) and have one territory give a Step Cavalry bonus.
Some great ideas there, Third spearmen.
As one who plays the Spanish (Castille-Leon in XL) a lot, I won't disagree that Castille-trained Inquisitors are perhaps a bit overpowered. ~D I wouldn't mind if Castille gave a bonus to Jinnettes instead, although Lancers would perhaps be more appropriate.
I personally would keep the ship bonuses in, if only because it helps lessen the odds that the AI's lone barque manages to somehow sink my 3 galleys (:furious3:). If you are intent on removing the ship bonuses, however, then I'd recommend Venice's Galley bonus be replaced with a bonus for Italian Infantry.
Another would be to replace Wessex's Caravel (or was it Cog?) bonus with a bonus for Feudal Knights--the English were somewhat known for their cavalry-heavy armies until the Scots showed them the error of their ways at Bannockburn. ~;)
Denmark's Longship bonus could possibly be replaced with a bonus for Viking Carls, but I'm not sure how historically accurate that would be. (And giving the bonus to Huscarles doesn't bear considering; that would just be scary/ridiculous!)
Tunisia's ship bonus could be replaced with a bonus for Muwahid Infantry, although I'm not sure these guys need the help! Still, it could provide the Almos with another strong unit that can help them out in the later stages of a campaign.
I would also recommend Arabia give a bonus to Bedouin Camel Warriors. Not only was it home to the two largest Bedouin tribes (Aniza & Shammar), but it would also be nice if Arabia actually possessed some sort of strategic value for once.
Third spearman from the left
09-19-2006, 20:38
Martok, Vladimir and Caravel
thanks for the great feedback so far guys :2thumbsup:
I had not thought of getting rid of the ship bonuses but that sounds like a great idea. The idea of trying to get a good bit of historical fact behind these valour upgrades really appeals. The Arabia/Bedouin Camel Warriors valor bonus is one I'm going to go with for sure.
Do any of you guys want to suggest any units that should be more readily available to build by more than one faction?
Galagros
09-19-2006, 21:47
Are you doing this for vanilla or a mod? (so I can get the right units into my head and think)
I presume he's doing it for Vanilla, though not sure.
With regard to Arabia and Bedoiuns, it's the best idea, but I'd throw those poor devils the Arab Infantry in as well. They need all the help they can get. I did it once, and it gave me both the incentive to develop Arabia and reason to train the arabs in the first place. I remember a certain campaign where I used them as mass flankers against the mongols and they gained valour quite quickly.
As to units that should be more readily available, I'd say Futuwwa. The Egyptians should definitely be able to train these as well.
Also, and dare I mention this, it may be an idea to give the Byzantine at least access to Armoured Spearmen.
For the Almohads, Turks and Egyptians I'd take away the Militia Sergeants/Urban Militia. They seem to be a muslim reworking of the Catholic units, that is not at all accurate. Also I feel that with Ghazis and AUMs available there's not a desperate need for them.
Also another one I've wondered about is Armenian Heavy Cavalry. They're only available to Muslims yet they are inherently a christian cavalry type. Oddly enough the unit dismounts to feudal sergeants giving indication that CA may have considered making them available to all factions occupying those provinces, regardless of religion or culture type. They may have made them exclusively muslim in order to fill the gap for an exclusively muslim medium cavalry, though I don't see it as the muslim factions can train Ghulam Cavalry which are almost the same (though AHC cost less to support and have a better charge).
The only other unit changes I can think of are more restrictions.
With regard to Arabia and Bedoiuns, it's the best idea, but I'd throw those poor devils the Arab Infantry in as well. They need all the help they can get. I did it once, and it gave me both the incentive to develop Arabia and reason to train the arabs in the first place. I remember a certain campaign where I used them as mass flankers against the mongols and they gained valour quite quickly.
Good point, Caravel; I meant to mention that in my earlier post but forgot to. I rarely bothered with Arab Infantry in vanilla MTW/VI, as Gazis were always superior in terms of "bang for your buck". VikingHorde's XL Mod gives AI the ability to throw armour-piercing javelins, which helps; but even then they still seem a bit underpowered at times. A valour bonus in Arabia could actually make it worthwhile to train them again.
Also, and dare I mention this, it may be an idea to give the Byzantine at least access to Armoured Spearmen.
Ooh, that's a good one! (The XL Mod gives the Byz the ability to train Latin Auxilaries, which definitely helps out with their lack of a strong anti-cav unit.) I would even go so far as not only give the Byz access to AS, but give them a training bonus as well (in Anatolia, perhaps?).
For the Almohads, Turks and Egyptians I'd take away the Militia Sergeants/Urban Militia. They seem to be a muslim reworking of the Catholic units, that is not at all accurate. Also I feel that with Ghazis and AUMs available there's not a desperate need for them.
I agree with removing UM; not so sure about removing Militia Sergeants, though. Having a cheap anti-armour/cav unit can be useful for dealing with Crusades coming through your lands, particularly if you can't recruit significant numbers of Muwahid/Saracen Infantry yet.
I would also make Jinnettes available to all factions (so long as that faction owns one of the Iberian provinces in which they can be trained). Given that they were partially inspired by Moorish soldiers and tactics, I don't see why Jinnettes couldn't be trained by Muslim factions as well.
Good point, Caravel; I meant to mention that in my earlier post but forgot to. I rarely bothered with Arab Infantry in vanilla MTW/VI, as Gazis were always superior in terms of "bang for your buck". VikingHorde's XL Mod gives AI the ability to throw armour-piercing javelins, which helps; but even then they still seem a bit underpowered at times. A valour bonus in Arabia could actually make it worthwhile to train them again.
Giving the Arabs javelins wouldn't be hard at all though I'm unsure of the historical accuracy of this.
Ooh, that's a good one! I would even go so far as not only give the Byz access to AS, but give them a training bonus as well (in Anatolia, perhaps?).
Anatolia would be a good one, though perhaps Greece would be better? It lacks any kind of valour bonus at present, it's a large area and is really not a province but a generic region.
I agree with removing UM; not so sure about removing Militia Sergeants, though. Having a cheap anti-armour/cav unit can be useful for dealing with Crusades coming through your lands, particularly if you can't recruit significant numbers of Muwahid/Saracen Infantry yet.
I'm (re)thinking that militias should be there. In my case anyway. I was looking into "homelands" last night, which I have been considering implimenting for a while. It seems stupid to be able to train certain units belonging to specific ethnic groups at an extreme distance from their origins. In this case the militias would be handy.
I would also make Jinnettes available to all factions (so long as that faction owns one of the Iberian provinces in which they can be trained). Given that they were partially inspired by Moorish soldiers and tactics, I don't see why Jinnettes couldn't be trained by Muslim factions as well.
Good idea! I'm thinking province specific is better than faction specific in many cases. Throughout history we see where an invaded people's fighting men are absorbed into or adopted by the conquerors armies. It is more realistic for the Almohads to train Jinetes in any part of Iberia, than for say, the English to be training Longbows in Volga Bulgaria.
Vladimir
09-20-2006, 12:42
I strongly suggest leaving the galley bonus intact for Venice. They were renowned throughout the world for the assembly line type shipyard they had and were able to build a huge amount of ships. Ship bonuses for England, Aragon, Denmark, and maybe Big C. would be also be historically appropriate and would give a more realistic feel to the game. All though it's all up to user choice of course.
Now, back to reading the rest of the thread...
If Palastine doesn't have one, then maybe Ghazi bonus there.
I agree with what you're saying, but the point is that the naval system is already a bit of a lottery anyway. Giving the italians super valoured galleys is asking for trouble. Luckily the Sicillians don't have such a bonus in any of their home provinces!
England has the Cogs bonus in Wessex as is. Aragon has the Wargalleys(?) bonus, not alot of use to Aragon themselves. Denmark has the Longboat one, Constantinople has no ship bonus and I'm not sure if it should.
The way I see it, these bonuses can seriously imbalance a campaign. I've lost many fleets in the past to these valoured up ships, especially as regards venice. The Portugal one for Caravels isn't a problem because the place is so unstable and rebellious that the AI never manages to tech up to build a dockyard anyway.
Also if I as the Spanish can take Portugal, and tech it up to build high valour Caravels, then put together many three ship fleets with a Portuguese Caravel as their Admiral's ship at the head, the AI doesn't stand much of a chance.
To reflect the ease of production in Venice the italians should simply be able to produce the Galley type ships more cheaply, which I think they can anyway IIRC.
In reality the AI shipping needs all the help it can get. Yes there are those occasions where your fleets go down one after another, though it's rare if you manage them correctly (attacking first with like ships grouped together in groups of no more than 2 or 3!). The AI sends it's fleets to the stupidest of places, i.e. the Danes often send a loan longboat to the Black Sea instead of putting it to use guarding their coast or forming the beginnings of a trade route. Imbalancing this even further with provinces pumping out high valour ships will only make matters worse.
If Palastine doesn't have one, then maybe Ghazi bonus there.
Palestine has one for Knights Templar, but it can have Ghazis also. Though Ghazis are very generic in the game, and historically there were many Ghazis of different origins.
Basically we can mod many (not sure of the limit) units to have a valour bonus in the one province, but we can't give the same unit valour bonuses in multiple provinces AFAIK. I haven't tried putting i.e. "ID_LIBYA, ID_AFRICA" in the field for the province valour bonus for Saharan Cavalry. For all units it contains only one province (i.e. ID_LIBYA), so I somehow don't think this will work.
-Edit: I'm wrong there, I was thinking or the "ruler advantage" column. There are multiples (such as algeria and morocco for berbers, but they don't apear to work (confirmationm needed)).
Vladimir
09-20-2006, 15:35
England has the Cogs bonus in Wessex as is. Aragon has the Wargalleys(?) bonus, not alot of use to Aragon themselves. Denmark has the Longboat one, Constantinople has no ship bonus and I'm not sure if it should.
I was thinking about their fire galleys.
Is that the Valour bonus for Aragon, Fire Galleys? And it's standard Galleys for Venice right?
Third spearman from the left
09-20-2006, 21:44
Two points I'd like to throw on the table
1. I am playing XL mod 2.1
2. I've started using the gnome editor because of my boredom with the AI and it's silly tactics. Ships are a pet hate of mine mainly down to the AI's inability to make chains and trade. My idea is to take away the valour bonus for ships and replace each with a more useful faction bonus. but to balance I've made all things sea based cheaper and quicker to build.
Port 1 year, cost 200
Shipyard 2 years, cost 400 etc
low level ships cost 200 and take one year to build
next level 300 and 2 years build etc
I'm hoping that cheaper ships and buildings will mean more ships on the seas, more hope of chains and easy replacements when fleets are lost.
Giving the Arabs javelins wouldn't be hard at all though I'm unsure of the historical accuracy of this.
Nor am I. I think VikingHorde gave them javelins (actually I believe they were throwing spears, now that I think of it) mostly so that you had a reason to recruit them, as opposed to any historical precedent. Once you're able to recruit Ghazis & Muwahids, Arab Infantry become pretty redundant--unless they're given a valour bonus, and/or another ability.
Anatolia would be a good one, though perhaps Greece would be better? It lacks any kind of valour bonus at present, it's a large area and is really not a province but a generic region.
Good idea, Caravel. Also, since Greece was once famous for its hoplites, bestowing it with a bonus for armoured spearmen would be sort of a nice symmetry as well. ~:)
I'm (re)thinking that militias should be there. In my case anyway. I was looking into "homelands" last night, which I have been considering implimenting for a while. It seems stupid to be able to train certain units belonging to specific ethnic groups at an extreme distance from their origins. In this case the militias would be handy.
True enough. If you're going to have homelands, then militia units could have a bigger role in your armies abroad. (This is not a criticism in any way, but I do confess to sometimes wishing VH's XL Mod had Homelands like Wes' MedMod, as I think this would help with the "steamroller" effect later in the game. But that would just be icing on the cake for me. ~:))
Good idea! I'm thinking province specific is better than faction specific in many cases. Throughout history we see where an invaded people's fighting men are absorbed into or adopted by the conquerors armies. It is more realistic for the Almohads to train Jinetes in any part of Iberia, than for say, the English to be training Longbows in Volga Bulgaria.
Agreed. Some units should be limited more by region than by who can recruit them. I don't think we should see the Polish being able to train Longbows, however, or the Sicilians training Huscarles. ~D There does still have to be some limits.
To reflect the ease of production in Venice the italians should simply be able to produce the Galley type ships more cheaply, which I think they can anyway IIRC.
I second that as well. I'm more in favor of the Italians/Venetians being able to produce Galleys cheaply, as opposed to being able to produce them with a +1 bonus. Sort of like how the Uesugi clan could train cheaper Archers in Shogun.
Is that the Valour bonus for Aragon, Fire Galleys? And it's standard Galleys for Venice right?
I believe that's correct, yes.
Two points I'd like to throw on the table
1. I am playing XL mod 2.1
2. I've started using the gnome editor because of my boredom with the AI and it's silly tactics. Ships are a pet hate of mine mainly down to the AI's inability to make chains and trade. My idea is to take away the valour bonus for ships and replace each with a more useful faction bonus. but to balance I've made all things sea based cheaper and quicker to build.
Port 1 year, cost 200
Shipyard 2 years, cost 400 etc
low level ships cost 200 and take one year to build
next level 300 and 2 years build etc
I'm hoping that cheaper ships and buildings will mean more ships on the seas, more hope of chains and easy replacements when fleets are lost.
~:cheers:
I think VikingHorde gave them javelins (actually I believe they were throwing spears, now that I think of it) mostly so that you had a reason to recruit them, as opposed to any historical precedent. Once you're able to recruit Ghazis & Muwahids, Arab Infantry become pretty redundant--unless they're given a valour bonus, and/or another ability.
For some reason Arabs and javelins doesn't seem to go together, though I could be wrong. The majority of Arab fighters were mounted, and armed with swords and bows of some sort. This is why I'd resist turning them into javelinmen. I'd give them bows before I'd give them javelins.
Good idea, Caravel. Also, since Greece was once famous for its hoplites, bestowing it with a bonus for armoured spearmen would be sort of a nice symmetry as well. ~:)
The Byzantine should have access to such a basic unit. I'm not so sure about giving the valour advantage for the Armoured Spearmen though but if they are able to train the normal round shield ones, then they should also be able to train the armoured ones, or neither. It's simply a generic unit and should be available to any catholic or orthodox unit that can't train Feudal Sergeants as a replacement (as the roundshield spears are used in place of the regular spears for some factions).
If you're going to have homelands, then militia units could have a bigger role in your armies abroad. (This is not a criticism in any way, but I do confess to sometimes wishing VH's XL Mod had Homelands like Wes' MedMod, as I think this would help with the "steamroller" effect later in the game. But that would just be icing on the cake for me. ~:))
I've been working on and off modding for over a year, and have messed around with units sizes, and stats continuously as well as Sahara and landbridges. As things stand I believe that the stats are balanced enough. It has been my goal to create a sort of non personalised mod that doesn't drastically alter the game, nor add new provinces, new units or any new graphics. In essence the changes would only be scripted. a sort of a semi-realism / gameplay patch/fix that doesn't try to fix what isn't broken.
The main issue as I see it is homelands and provincial valour bonuses as well as the 'which factions should train what' issue. There are quite a few muslim units in particular that should be more restricted. Muwahid Foot Soldiers being a good example. They should be restricted to their Almohad homelands, and the Almohad Faction. Murabitin = Almoravid. Muwahid = Almohad. Homelands, for me is absolutely essential and can only mak the game vastly better, but it needs to be implimented well.
Agreed. Some units should be limited more by region than by who can recruit them. I don't think we should see the Polish being able to train Longbows, however, or the Sicilians training Huscarles. ~D There does still have to be some limits.
That's why I said 'many'. There has to be some limitations. In essence both systems have to be in effect. There will be areas where they overlap and areas where they cancel each other out.
I second that as well. I'm more in favor of the Italians/Venetians being able to produce Galleys cheaply, as opposed to being able to produce them with a +1 bonus. Sort of like how the Uesugi clan could train cheaper Archers in Shogun.
The Italians can produce all of their ships cheaply as it stands (Vanilla) with the exception of Dromons. It would be simple to mod those in.
I've also messed up my most recent crusader_unit_prod11.txt so will be redoing that. It crashes and I can't be bothered to search for the error (not a column row reference crash but a real crash). Instead I will create more regular backups and catalogue all of my changes in future! :wall:
For some reason Arabs and javelins doesn't seem to go together, though I could be wrong. The majority of Arab fighters were mounted, and armed with swords and bows of some sort. This is why I'd resist turning them into javelinmen. I'd give them bows before I'd give them javelins.
Yeah, that'd make more sense. It would be a good way to give the Eggies a hybrid infantry unit, sort of like Jannissaries (except not as uber).
The Byzantine should have access to such a basic unit. I'm not so sure about giving the valour advantage for the Armoured Spearmen though but if they are able to train the normal round shield ones, then they should also be able to train the armoured ones, or neither. It's simply a generic unit and should be available to any catholic or orthodox unit that can't train Feudal Sergeants as a replacement (as the roundshield spears are used in place of the regular spears for some factions).
Agreed. I still think the Byz should have a province that gives Armoured Spearmen a bonus, however. Unless you were going to allow them to train another heavier spear/pike type unit later on, the Byz could use all the help they can get in that department.
The main issue as I see it is homelands and provincial valour bonuses as well as the 'which factions should train what' issue. There are quite a few muslim units in particular that should be more restricted. Muwahid Foot Soldiers being a good example. They should be restricted to their Almohad homelands, and the Almohad Faction. Murabitin = Almoravid. Muwahid = Almohad. Homelands, for me is absolutely essential and can only mak the game vastly better, but it needs to be implimented well.
I mostly agree, but Muwahid=Almohad only? I don't know about that one. I personally would make them available to all Muslim factions, but that they must own one of the north African provinces (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.). Of course, I'm hopelessly incompetent when it comes to modding such things myself, so you and Third spearmen do what you like. ~;)
That's why I said 'many'. There has to be some limitations. In essence both systems have to be in effect. There will be areas where they overlap and areas where they cancel each other out.
(Have we just spent the last several posts essentially agreeing with each other on this point, without actually realizing/acknowledging it? :inquisitive: )
I've also messed up my most recent crusader_unit_prod11.txt so will be redoing that. It crashes and I can't be bothered to search for the error (not a column row reference crash but a real crash). Instead I will create more regular backups and catalogue all of my changes in future! :wall:
What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with editing the Crusader unit files? Are you attempting to just rebalance their stats, or something a little more extensive?
I mostly agree, but Muwahid=Almohad only? I don't know about that one. I personally would make them available to all Muslim factions, but that they must own one of the north African provinces (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.). Of course, I'm hopelessly incompetent when it comes to modding such things myself, so you and Third spearmen do what you like. ~;)
Historically Muwahids were Almohads and Murabitins were Almoravids. So it makes sense that Muwahids should be restricted to Almohad only, and/or only available in Almohad provinces as this is where they come from.
(Have we just spent the last several posts essentially agreeing with each other on this point, without actually realizing/acknowledging it? :inquisitive: )
Probably, I seem to have a knack for that. :laugh4:
What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with editing the Crusader unit files? Are you attempting to just rebalance their stats, or something a little more extensive?
That file is not just stats, it controls which faction can build which unit, when, where and which valour bonuses from which provinces.
Historically Muwahids were Almohads and Murabitins were Almoravids. So it makes sense that Muwahids should be restricted to Almohad only, and/or only available in Almohad provinces as this is where they come from.
Interesting; I didn't know that. I was under the impression they were more like Nubian Spearmen, where they served with several different Saharan/Arabian nations. Thanks for the mini-history lesson. :bow:
That file is not just stats, it controls which faction can build which unit, when, where and which valour bonuses from which provinces.
Right. I was just curious what you were going to change, that's all. ~:)
The word "Almohad" a corruption of Al-Muwahhidun (the monotheists). "Almoravid" is a corruption of Al-Murabitin (the sentinals). The Nubians would have been slaves, Murabitin and Muwahid infantry would not have been slaves, which is why they would not generally have been found serving in Turkish armies in Anatolia! If you look you can almost see how the westerners, in particular the Castellanos corrupted the words to make them more palatable to weserners. This is common.
This is why I feel that both should be exclusively Almohad and that Murubitin infantry should only be available in early, with Muwahid Foot Soldiers possibly replacing them in the high and late periods. (There is a lack of any specific Hafsid units).
In my opinion. they should be renamed as either Almoravid Javelinmen/Almohad Spearmen (or Murabitin Javelinmen/Muwahid Spearmen) and given valour bonuses in either Sahara, Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. The era restriuctions should also be there.
-Edit: As to stat editing, I'm of the opinion that the stats are mostly ok as they are. Some of the obsolete units (such as i.e. Ghulam Cavalry, and Arab Infantry) need something to make them worthwhile, but I'm not sure that beefing up the stats will accomplish this without pushing another unit into obsolescence.
The word "Almohad" a corruption of Al-Muwahhidun (the monotheists). "Almoravid" is a corruption of Al-Murabitin (the sentinals). The Nubians would have been slaves, Murabitin and Muwahid infantry would not have been slaves, which is why they would not generally have been found serving in Turkish armies in Anatolia! If you look you can almost see how the westerners, in particular the Castellanos corrupted the words to make them more palatable to weserners. This is common.
This is why I feel that both should be exclusively Almohad and that Murubitin infantry should only be available in early, with Muwahid Foot Soldiers possibly replacing them in the high and late periods. (There is a lack of any specific Hafsid units).
In my opinion. they should be renamed as either Almoravid Javelinmen/Almohad Spearmen (or Murabitin Javelinmen/Muwahid Spearmen) and given valour bonuses in either Sahara, Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. The era restriuctions should also be there.
GAH! No, you can't take the away the Muwahids from my Egyptians! ~;p
But seriously, yeah that does make sense. I think I've actually heard before that Alhmohad was essentially a "Castillian-ization" of Muwahid (probably elsewhere on this board, no doubt). Didn't know that Murabitin was a curruption as well, though.
-Edit: As to stat editing, I'm of the opinion that the stats are mostly ok as they are. Some of the obsolete units (such as i.e. Ghulam Cavalry, and Arab Infantry) need something to make them worthwhile, but I'm not sure that beefing up the stats will accomplish this without pushing another unit into obsolescence.
Well I personally find Ghulam Cav to be decent enough already (although you're not the only one who thinks otherwise), so I can't really think of any suggestions offhand as to how to improve them. With the Arab Infantry, however, I like your idea of giving them bows and turning them into a hybrid unit. That's probably the best solution I can think of, aside from the throwing spears VH gave them in his XL Mod (but which you feel is historically inaccurate).
@Third spearman from the left: So have you made any progress on adding/replacing unit bonuses? You've been kind of quiet the last couple days, and I was curious as to what changes you'd made so far. :book:
highlanddave
09-22-2006, 19:13
slightly off topic, but a question has been burning in me to ask you, caravel and martok. i judge the longbowmen in the xl mod to have built up to be too powerful. what are your thoughts?
slightly off topic, but a question has been burning in me to ask you, caravel and martok. i judge the longbowmen in the xl mod to have built up to be too powerful. what are your thoughts?
To be honest, I haven't noticed that much of a difference, although I can tell they're a little amped up from their original selves. I don't frequently play as the English, however (in either vanilla MTW/VI or XL), so it's possible I haven't enough experience to form a true impression. That said, they still seem fine to me--but then I always felt they were actually a little underpowered in the vanilla game. I think I have/had perhaps overly-high expectations for longbows, and was therefore slightly disappointed with the initial results. (So in my mind, the XL Mod fixed this to at least a degree.)
Well I personally find Ghulam Cav to be decent enough already (although you're not the only one who thinks otherwise), so I can't really think of any suggestions offhand as to how to improve them. With the Arab Infantry, however, I like your idea of giving them bows and turning them into a hybrid unit. That's probably the best solution I can think of, aside from the throwing spears VH gave them in his XL Mod (but which you feel is historically inaccurate).
Ghulam Cavalry are essentially AHC with a charge bonus of 6 as opposed to the AHC's charge bonus of 8. They cost less to train, but more to support and they take much more teching up. They need some other kind of stat/cost difference to AHC to make them worthwhile training. I would suggest equalising the charge with AHC, making them disciplined, and cranking up their armour 1 point, but also increasing the cost.
@Third spearman from the left: So have you made any progress on adding/replacing unit bonuses? You've been kind of quiet the last couple days, and I was curious as to what changes you'd made so far. :book:
I was wondering the same. :book:
Ghulam Cavalry are essentially AHC with a charge bonus of 6 as opposed to the AHC's charge bonus of 8. They cost less to train, but more to support and they take much more teching up. They need some other kind of stat/cost difference to AHC to make them worthwhile training. I would suggest equalising the charge with AHC, making them disciplined, and cranking up their armour 1 point, but also increasing the cost.
That, or just lower their training cost (and keep their stats the same). I like the idea of making them Disciplined either way, though. :2thumbsup:
The problem with lowering their training cost is that, unless they're alot lower, and unless their support cost is lowered as well, there is still nothing to gain whatsoever from recruiting them. Thinking about it, I am reluctant to alter their charge at all. I would prefer if they were better in defense and melee and were disciplined. This is more inline with their high prerequisites (Spearmakers guild horse breeders guild). AHC's only need a horse breeder, and they're simply better cavalry. Why tech up to a cavalry that you've already superceded?
Your last point rings all too true, Caravel (although I can't disagree with the rest of your statement either). While I find GC does well enough in battle, I never have understood why their build requirements were so high. Bumping up their stats does make quite a bit of sense.
The only concern I have is making sure they're not made identical to Kwarazmian Cavalry--although that's another unit that could definitely use some buffing as well. (They're too expensive, and their build requirements too high, in comparison to their combat abilities.)
Your last point rings all too true, Caravel (although I can't disagree with the rest of your statement either). While I find GC does well enough in battle, I never have understood why their build requirements were so high. Bumping up their stats does make quite a bit of sense.
I'm going to try it once I've fixed all of the homelands. I keep hitting a point where the gnome editor corrupts the crusaders file. Even reversing the changes doesn't fix it, so I have to revert to a backup. (Why couldn't CA have made this file easier to edit like the startpos files? :no: )
The only concern I have is making sure they're not made identical to Kwarazmian Cavalry--although that's another unit that could definitely use some buffing as well. (They're too expensive, and their build requirements too high, in comparison to their combat abilities.)
Khwarazmian Cavarly = Kataphrakoi but alot faster with 2 points less to the charge (Kataphraktoi 8 charge, Khwarazmian 6 charge) and undisciplined. Personally I find them overpriced and take too much teching up, so seldom bother with them. AHC with upgrades and a good general can give anyone a run for their money. The Khwarazmians do need some souping up (and perhaps some slowing down), to give 3 levels of cavalry (Armenian, Ghulam, and Khwarazmian). Historicaly they would have been among the ranks of the Mongols and the Turks, I doubt the Fatimids, Abuyyids or Mamluks would have had anything to do with them.
And don't get me started on those Sipahis of the Porte! :furious3:
Update: Well I've complated the homelands and the valour bonus regions suggested here, with the excaption of jinetes and armoured spearmen (I still haven't decided about those). Jinetes have always seemed a bit fishy to me. They're not exactly Jinetes as such, but some kind of Javelin cavalry. Sadly they're probably fantasy units. I've made Jinetes available to all, though only trainable within Iberia of course. As to the armoured spearmen it seems wrong to have greece only famous for these. If I can think of another Byzantine unit as well I may add them as an extra "hidden" bonus.
Third spearman from the left
09-24-2006, 20:23
Hi Guys
have been a little busy of late so not had much chance to put in to practice the changes mentioned. I've had one other question come to mind and wanted to get your ideas on it. In my current game I'm playing as the turks in high period. It's now 1389 and I've had the injection of otto troops for the late period but was very disappointed that Janisary troops are only available in the one province that the MA is built in. I think this seems really unfair and might change this, any thoughts on this and the best way to implement it?
A difficult one. The Janissaries were historically elite troops only produced in Istanbul IIRC. The valour bonus for the archers in Georgia and the heavies in Bulgaria are rather pointless. Though the youths may have been 'recruited' from these regions, they weren't trained there. There shouldn't really be any valour bonuses for them, as they're tough enough as they are. As to restricting them to production in Constantinople only, I'm not in favour of that. Since MTW doesn't follow history exactly and since these type of slave troops could have been relocated easily it makes sense to leave a few possible turkish 'homeland' provinces open for recruitment.
As to multiples. I'm not so sure about that. If they become too common they become a bit of an exploit.
I have always modded the Janissaries to Late period only, due to the Janissary corps being founded by Murat I in the mid to late 14th century.
OmarPacha
09-25-2006, 23:53
Very interesting thread, I like many of the modding suggestions shown.
Only I have to warn that VH should have been fixed the differences between heavy cavalry that Caravel noted some post before: In XL mod Kataphraktoi and Khwarazmians have the same speed and same charge bonus.
About the removal of syrian valour bonus for assassins- I don't think it's a good idea - it's a balancing factor in all campaigns where a faction takes too soon the supremacy. If you own Syria, you may sit and wait with a good chance to kill the enemy leader and his heirs and, most of times, 12-14 killers will make your day and return you a fair campaign game.
One tip about the GNome editor; I found that sometimes, for little editing work, the notepad has more chance of success. :balloon2:
Greetings
Kralizec
09-26-2006, 00:54
Is that the Valour bonus for Aragon, Fire Galleys? And it's standard Galleys for Venice right?
Aragon gives a bonus for gungalleys.
Venice for standard galleys.
Do the ship bonuses actually do anything? Ships don't have valour, just command stars. I could be wrong, but I think I recall building a couple of dhows in Tunesia in an Almohad campaign and most of them didn't have command stars when freshly built.
Another thing about ships: is it historical for the Italians to have acces to fire galleys? I also thought that it was kinda odd for the Byzantines not to have a single vessel that can travel through deep sea...
Trebizond archers can be recruited anywhere with the Byzantines, wich doesn't make sense. Better would be to give them a more generic name like "Byzantine toxatoi" (literally archers) and keep the bonus in Trebizond.
For more valour bonuses, perhaps:
Normandy for Feudal knights
Flanders for militia sergeants and maybe pikemen*
Algeria or Tunesia for Murabutin and/or Muwahid infantry
Arabia for Arab infantry and/or Imams and/or Bedouin camels
* the bonus in Tyrolia should be removed, it's redundant as Swiss pikemen are available so nearby. Pikemen should be reworked to be available earlier and made stronger as they're useless in vanilla. Personally I made them available with the lvl 3 militia building (at citadel level) + spearmaker lvl 3 and their stats are now 4 charge, 1 attack, 1 defense, 4 morale. They're still not uber but can usually defeat spearmen from the front.
Aragon gives a bonus for gungalleys.
Venice for standard galleys.
Do the ship bonuses actually do anything? Ships don't have valour, just command stars. I could be wrong, but I think I recall building a couple of dhows in Tunesia in an Almohad campaign and most of them didn't have command stars when freshly built.
They do have effect. Ships produced in those provinces have 3 command stars to start with IIRC.
Another thing about ships: is it historical for the Italians to have acces to fire galleys? I also thought that it was kinda odd for the Byzantines not to have a single vessel that can travel through deep sea...
I would say that it wasn't historically accurate.
Trebizond archers can be recruited anywhere with the Byzantines, wich doesn't make sense. Better would be to give them a more generic name like "Byzantine toxatoi" (literally archers) and keep the bonus in Trebizond.
Good idea.
For more valour bonuses, perhaps:
Normandy for Feudal knights
Flanders for militia sergeants and maybe pikemen*
* the bonus in Tyrolia should be removed, it's redundant as Swiss pikemen are available so nearby. Pikemen should be reworked to be available earlier and made stronger as they're useless in vanilla. Personally I made them available with the lvl 3 militia building (at citadel level) + spearmaker lvl 3 and their stats are now 4 charge, 1 attack, 1 defense, 4 morale. They're still not uber but can usually defeat spearmen from the front.
:2thumbsup:
Algeria or Tunesia for Murabutin and/or Muwahid infantry
Arabia for Arab infantry and/or Imams and/or Bedouin camels
I've already given Muwahid a valour bonus in algeria and Murabitin in Morocco.
Third spearman from the left
09-28-2006, 23:23
Does anyone fancy creating a list of all the suggestions in this thread, taking out the duplications and then I'll implement them in my current game and report back?
ps: I did a bad thing today....I bought Rome Total War Gold Edition :embarassed:
Does anyone fancy creating a list of all the suggestions in this thread, taking out the duplications and then I'll implement them in my current game and report back?
I'll try to do that tonight if I have time.
ps: I did a bad thing today....I bought Rome Total War Gold Edition :embarassed:
Well considering you're working on some MTW modding, we'll put off your execution until next month. ~;)
Seriously it's not that bad, but you'll probably need to install a realism/balancing mod, because as it is, it plays like it's been designed for 5 year olds.
Does anyone fancy creating a list of all the suggestions in this thread, taking out the duplications and then I'll implement them in my current game and report back?
I'll try to do that tonight if I have time
Caravel, if you don't get a chance to do it, just PM me. I should have some free time tonight.
ps: I did a bad thing today....I bought Rome Total War Gold Edition :embarassed:
"Tar and feather him! Boil him in oil!" ~D
But seriously, yeah you'll want to take Caravel's suggestion and download one of the realism mods, either RTR or EB. The latter seems to particularly popular lately, so that might be the one you should try out.
But seriously, yeah you'll want to take Caravel's suggestion and download one of the realism mods, either RTR or EB. The latter seems to particularly popular lately, so that might be the one you should try out.
The current version of EB won't work with R:TW Gold: it requires R:TW 1.2. However, the port to R:TW 1.5/Gold (EB 0.8) is almost ready. The same goes for the official R:TR release (R:TR Gold), but there is an unofficial port (R:TR Platinum Edition) that does work with 1.5.
Kralizec
10-03-2006, 22:06
Caravel: Most of the ideas in the summary are good, but I wouldn't give the Almohads acces to Armoured Spearmen. One of the unique features of an Almohad campaign is that you can't simply use lots of spearmen to form a sturdy phalanx and circle your cavalry around it, you'll have to better and improvise a lot.
I think your idea for pavise crossbowmen/arbalesters is excellent, though.
I suggest a name change for the Hashishin. The Hashishin (or Nizari, they're actually the same...) were an independent sectarian faction that you would never find fighting for the Seljuks, Egyptians or Almohads.
I think that Fedayeen would be a better name choice. This name was given to various islamic warriors throughout history, most recently a Baath militia in Iraq (not a fine example, I know). The name apparently means "one who is ready to sacrifice his life" according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen#Islamic_history)
(as a side note, in Dune the Fedaykin (a distortion of the name) were Paul Muad'Dibs personally trained commandos)
Marquis de Said
10-03-2006, 23:14
Why not, instead of giving Armoured Spearmen to Russians and Novgorod, just make Rus Spearmen buildable in all eras by both factions? That way these factions would have their own unique spear unit that is virtually identical to Armoured Spearmen. You could also give them a bonus in Novgorod or Kiev.
Other suggestions for province bonuses:
Szekely in Carpathia or Hungary (I think the Hungarians need a bit of a boost)
Polish Retainers in Poland
Lithuanian Cavalry in Lithuania (this would possibly make teching up to the unit worthwhile)
Byzantine Infantry in Anatolia (the Anatolian heartlands were the main recruiting area for the Byzantine army before the battle of Manzikert)
Inquisitors/Grand Inquisitors/Cardinals in Rome (this would make sense, plus it would make the Pope more annoying than he is already, increasing the fun of wiping him out)
Slav Warriors in one of the eastern European provinces or possibly in Serbia
Druzhina Cavalry in one of the Russian provinces
Woodsmen in Finland (this would make the province more attractive)
Can anyone suggest a province that was famous for its Mounted Crossbowmen? This unit is a favourite of mine, and I would love to give it a bonus somewhere.
On another note, there was another thread some time ago where the pros and cons of assigning bonuses were discussed, and someone mentioned that giving a province a bonus may actually hinder the AI. Apparently the AI will only tech up to the unit with the bonus and stop building anything in the province after that. So that might be something to research more and consider.
Why not, instead of giving Armoured Spearmen to Russians and Novgorod, just make Rus Spearmen buildable in all eras by both factions? That way these factions would have their own unique spear unit that is virtually identical to Armoured Spearmen. You could also give them a bonus in Novgorod or Kiev.
A very good point. Changed the listing for Armoured Spearmen. The issue of Rus Spearmen is another problem. I'm not sure of their historical accuracy. Also they don't fit the high and late periods. I believe they are simply a gap filler put in place by CA, whom of which seemed to designate alot of units as "spearmen" in order to fit the rock/paper/scissors agenda. Saracens are a good example of this.
Other suggestions for province bonuses:
Szekely in Carpathia or Hungary (I think the Hungarians need a bit of a boost)
Polish Retainers in Poland
Lithuanian Cavalry in Lithuania (this would possibly make teching up to the unit worthwhile)
Added to the list. :2thumbsup:
Byzantine Infantry in Anatolia (the Anatolian heartlands were the main recruiting area for the Byzantine army before the battle of Manzikert)
Ah... now we hit an obstacle. Byzantine Infantry are probably one of the most historically innacurate unit in the game. Their armour does resemble that of a late kataphraktoi cavalryman, but they appear as footsoldiers with eastern style shields, and short curved swords. I don't profess to be a medieval military history expert, but they are simple fantasy units. The Byzantine didn't deploy this type of infantry.
Inquisitors/Grand Inquisitors/Cardinals in Rome (this would make sense, plus it would make the Pope more annoying than he is already, increasing the fun of wiping him out)
An idea, but as I've stated before, Inquisitors tend to hit the AI more than they do the player. The AI also sends it's own Inquisitors against it's own generals based on low piety and nothing else. So a superb general that hasn't read the bible in a while could end up being roasted by his own faction's inquisitor. Inquisitors are also overpowered anyway. The player can exploit them horrendously, which is why I wouldn't overpower them even more.
Slav Warriors in one of the eastern European provinces or possibly in Serbia
Good one. Or Bohemia, or Poland perhaps? I'll add this to the list once we get some more ideas.
Druzhina Cavalry in one of the Russian provinces
Muscovy perhaps?
Woodsmen in Finland (this would make the province more attractive)
I don't see any reason why not. Though they already have one in Lithuania. Maybe remove that one once the one for Lithuanian cavalry is in place?
Can anyone suggest a province that was famous for its Mounted Crossbowmen? This unit is a favourite of mine, and I would love to give it a bonus somewhere.
I know that the Burgundians, Genoese, Venitians and HRE made use of these, but I'm not sure if any province was exactly famous for them. The crossbow wasn't difficult to use and often considered dishonourable.
On another note, there was another thread some time ago where the pros and cons of assigning bonuses were discussed, and someone mentioned that giving a province a bonus may actually hinder the AI. Apparently the AI will only tech up to the unit with the bonus and stop building anything in the province after that. So that might be something to research more and consider.
I've heard of this, and I've often wondered if it causes the AI not to build ports or watchtowers in these provinces.
Marquis de Said
10-04-2006, 17:36
Has anyone considered making Almughavars buildable by the Aragonese (and maybe the Spanish) in Aragon and possibly also in Navarre?
I don't know about the unit's historical accuracy, but I've modded them into the vanilla game in the past and they are a really cool unit. Spearmen that throw javelins and have an irresisitible charge. Almost too good to be true!
Vladimir
10-05-2006, 19:15
In an earlier version of XL I let the byzzies build the armored version because they would always be steamrolled by the Eggys. Plus they're great fun to play with. However, if I face them on the battlefield, I make sure I kill them first.
Looks good, Caravel! You've already covered just about everything I can think of, and then some. :thumbsup:
I did come up with one other idea, but it might be a bit ham-handed. Since the Spanish were reknowned for their steel, I think it would be cool if one of the northern Iberian provinces (probably Aragon, Navarre, or Valencia) was able to train either FMAA or CMAA with a valour bonus. I realize this is already somewhat reflected by most Spanish provinces having iron deposits (thus allowing the owners of said provinces to build a Metalsmith improving units' attacking abilities), but I think it would still be nice if one of those provinces gave a more direct bonus to infantry trained there. Just a thought, anyway.
Not sure about the FMAA/CMAA valour bonuses being in Iberia. Could put them in Navarre, but that hardly seems like the sort of province to be famous for such infantry.
I probably won't be working on this again until sunday, when I'll update the listing to be alphabetical and add some more ideas. There are alot of unconfirmed ideas there that need more input.
Vladimir
10-06-2006, 18:54
Well if you really want to put something there than maybe Spanish javelinmen?
CountMRVHS
10-06-2006, 20:26
For my Charlemagne-era mod, I wanted to make a Basque faction, so I gave them Navarre. Not knowing anything about the Basques of the period, I figured I'd give them some kind of fanatical low-tech infantry, so I made Highland Clansmen trainable in Navarre as well as Scotland. I know I know it's unhistorical as heck but it works for me, for now, without having to create a new unit. A bonus is that the unit description for clansmen doesn't mention Scotland specifically at all.
Anyway, I made the change in crusaders_unit.txt so it ended up carrying through to my regular vanilla campaigns, with the consequence that now I see the Spanish are training some clansmen in their armies. Personally I think it's a neat touch, so I think I'll keep it. But anyone who knows more about the Basques could certainly correct me; I'd be interested to hear what they *actually* used.
Just an idea; probably not everyone's cup of tea. There are certainly other ways to reflect what I'm trying to do, with re-named units such as Celtic/Slav Warriors, etc.
CountMRVHS
For my Charlemagne-era mod, I wanted to make a Basque faction, so I gave them Navarre. Not knowing anything about the Basques of the period, I figured I'd give them some kind of fanatical low-tech infantry, so I made Highland Clansmen trainable in Navarre as well as Scotland. I know I know it's unhistorical as heck but it works for me, for now, without having to create a new unit. A bonus is that the unit description for clansmen doesn't mention Scotland specifically at all.
Anyway, I made the change in crusaders_unit.txt so it ended up carrying through to my regular vanilla campaigns, with the consequence that now I see the Spanish are training some clansmen in their armies. Personally I think it's a neat touch, so I think I'll keep it. But anyone who knows more about the Basques could certainly correct me; I'd be interested to hear what they *actually* used.
Just an idea; probably not everyone's cup of tea. There are certainly other ways to reflect what I'm trying to do, with re-named units such as Celtic/Slav Warriors, etc.
CountMRVHS
If you wanted to make it a bit more historical, you could move the Highlanders from Navarre to Leon. There was a fairly strong Celtic culture in Leon at one point, although only remnants of it now remain. It's a thought, anyway.
Rather than post this in another thread.
I was thinking of possibly using the Inn structure as a "Levy Raising Structure". By this I mean that it can hire one type of unit and one only, a militia or levy. A Levy unit would be cheap and not very effective. But this would symbolise the Feudal society, and would be a good addition in my eyes, not to mention historical.
The only way to get this working would be reduce the Merc penalties that certain buildings great (BUILD_PROD files) and increase the Inn Merc attractivity (BUILD_PROD files).
I may implement this in my game.
**slaughters chickens, draws pentagram, resurrects thread**
I was thinking previously of putting the Inn to some use, but couldn't think of anything. I had throught of redesigning the assassin/spy tech tree and having the Inn as the lowest building capable of producing both at 0 valour, then having the brothels and taverns for upgrades. I'd given up on that though after having the gnome editor corrupt my crusader_build_prod11.txt a few times...
Using it for basic levy troops is an idea. Personally I don't use mercs so I've usually modded Inns out of the game in the past. The AI can't make use of them so I don't bother either. Mercs always feel a bit cheap and nasty also.
I've been playing through a few campaigns with the XL mod and am quite impressed. It has improved somewhat from what I remember, though it was always a good mod. I may start to mod this, instead of modding vanilla MTW/VI, but haven't decided yet. I need to redo everything and fix a few landbridges and the Sahara province, before I get onto valour bonuses and unit availablity again.
**slaughters chickens, draws pentagram, resurrects thread**
Ah, but did you remember to chant backwards? ~;)
Using it for basic levy troops is an idea. Personally I don't use mercs so I've usually modded Inns out of the game in the past. The AI can't make use of them so I don't bother either. Mercs always feel a bit cheap and nasty also.
I would be inclined to agree with you there, especially since (as you said) the AI doesn't make use of mercenaries. I confess, however, that I find inns to be moderately useful--if only because they enable me to hire artillery crews early on. I'm not sure how to reconcile that, as personally I dislike restricting access to merc, particularly in the Early period. Still, I rather like the idea overall.
Also: What do you consider to be "basic levy troops"? UM and vanilla spearmen?
I've been playing through a few campaigns with the XL mod and am quite impressed. It has improved somewhat from what I remember, though it was always a good mod. I may start to mod this, instead of modding vanilla MTW/VI, but haven't decided yet. I need to redo everything and fix a few landbridges and the Sahara province, before I get onto valour bonuses and unit availablity again.
Which landbridges are you altering?
Ah, but did you remember to chant backwards? ~;)
:oops: :help:
I would be inclined to agree with you there, especially since (as you said) the AI doesn't make use of mercenaries. I confess, however, that I find inns to be moderately useful--if only because they enable me to hire artillery crews early on. I'm not sure how to reconcile that, as personally I dislike restricting access to merc, particularly in the Early period. Still, I rather like the idea overall.
I suppose the merc artillery thing doesn't affect me so much. I rarely fight sieges and hardly even build the siege engineer. I just don't like how MTW manages sieges at all, nor can I see much use in any of the siege equipment apart from an occasional catapult. The biggest problem I have is that archers cannot mount the walls, this to me makes the whole thing redundant. Also the stupidity of the AI while assaulting makes it quite unfair. (sending in 1 unit at a time to be shot to pieces etc, breaking the wall then walking away and coming back again, or going around the back to break the wall, then coming back to the front again... arghhhhhhhh... need I go on?). So I avoid sieges and anything to do with them.
Also: What do you consider to be "basic levy troops"? UM and vanilla spearmen?
I suppose, UM's, spearmen and peasants would be basic levy troops. Though wouldn't archers be levy troops in some cases also?
Which landbridges are you altering?
XL appears to have most landbridges altered already. I'll have to check Sicily/Naples and Sardinia/Corsica, I can't remember if they're disconnected or not (I've only played a little as the Irish, the Volga Bulgars and the Hospitallers so far). Apart from that it's ok. I need to add the Finland/Sweden one as well, and enable the Sahara province of course.
Once I get back to using my own internet connection (house move, phone line change (what a house move this turned out to be!)) I'll host whatever we come up with here for download so that people can test it out. I suppose I should work on an XL version and a non XL version, though I'm not sure I'll have the time to do the latter.
The biggest problem I have is that archers cannot mount the walls, this to me makes the whole thing redundant. Also the stupidity of the AI while assaulting makes it quite unfair. (sending in 1 unit at a time to be shot to pieces etc, breaking the wall then walking away and coming back again, or going around the back to break the wall, then coming back to the front again... arghhhhhhhh... need I go on?).
I wouldn't really know. The AI assaults castles so rarely in my games, it's hard to make a comparison. :sad:
I suppose, UM's, spearmen and peasants would be basic levy troops. Though wouldn't archers be levy troops in some cases also?
Well that's what I was wondering. Surely in the case of the English and the Muslim factions, I would think that at least vanilla archers would be levies. I'm no historian, however, so I couldn't say for sure. :shrug:
XL appears to have most landbridges altered already. I'll have to check Sicily/Naples and Sardinia/Corsica, I can't remember if they're disconnected or not (I've only played a little as the Irish, the Volga Bulgars and the Hospitallers so far). Apart from that it's ok. I need to add the Finland/Sweden one as well, and enable the Sahara province of course.
I know that XL removed most of the landbridges (except for the one from Denmark to Skania), but I also think VikingHorde's patch restored a couple of them. I'm drawing a blank on which ones, though. Still, about the only other place where I could see having a landbridge (aside from the aforementioned Dennark-Skania link) would be Constantinople-Nicea....but that's only a maybe.
Once I get back to using my own internet connection (house move, phone line change (what a house move this turned out to be!)) I'll host whatever we come up with here for download so that people can test it out. I suppose I should work on an XL version and a non XL version, though I'm not sure I'll have the time to do the latter.
Sounds good. I'll be more than happy to try it out. :2thumbsup:
I wouldn't really know. The AI assaults castles so rarely in my games, it's hard to make a comparison. :sad:
I tend to retreat to castles alot instead of fighting, then I bring in troops to relive them, so maybe I see more attempted assaults. I've grown quite accustomed to fighting them off or at least ensuring that the AI pays dearly for their victory. If I'm a muslim faction I often use this as an excuse to Jihad.
Well that's what I was wondering. Surely in the case of the English and the Muslim factions, I would think that at least vanilla archers would be levies. I'm no historian, however, so I couldn't say for sure. :shrug:
I'm pretty sure that Archers were levied at least in England. I'm not at all sure about muslim factions.
I know that XL removed most of the landbridges (except for the one from Denmark to Skania), but I also think VikingHorde's patch restored a couple of them. I'm drawing a blank on which ones, though. Still, about the only other place where I could see having a landbridge (aside from the aforementioned Dennark-Skania link) would be Constantinople-Nicea....but that's only a maybe.
I haven't had the chance to check which landbridges are intact and which aren't. I do feel that Nicaea and Constantinople should not be a land bridge but should be divided by sea. VH made a good job of that area as far as I can tell.
Sounds good. I'll be more than happy to try it out. :2thumbsup:
:2thumbsup:
It appears as though VH reused the "ID_AFRICA" province as the new Mesopotamia province, so enabling Sahara for XL is not going to be quite as simple...
Gah! Sorry Caravel. I'm pretty sure VH had said something about that previously, but I didn't think of it until your mentioning it just now. My apologies for not giving you a heads-up on that. :shame: I knew he had maxed out all the provinces for XL, but I'd forgotten that little bit (about using the Africa province slot for Mesopotamia).
Gah! Sorry Caravel. I'm pretty sure VH had said something about that previously, but I didn't think of it until your mentioning it just now. My apologies for not giving you a heads-up on that. :shame: I knew he had maxed out all the provinces for XL, but I'd forgotten that little bit (about using the Africa province slot for Mesopotamia).
No worries! :2thumbsup:
I quite like the Mesopotamia province, but I do think that the Sahara province should have been retained and one of the other extra provinces (such as Estonia or Savoy) could have been done away with. I say this because it helps to break up the straight line of provinces that exists accross North Africa. In Vanilla MTW a Crusades would cut through that area devastating it in a linear fashion. With the Sahara province enabled a crusade can go to Cyrenacia avoiding Algeria and Tunisia by cutting through the Sahara instead.
I'm also not keen on the Khazar/Lesser Khazar situation. Khazaar is now landlocked and it's one time trading potential lost.
As I've said before, mods are all well and good but the personalisations are often enough to be quite offputting to the end user who may see things from an wholly different perspective.
Also I noticed that I can't train Bedouin Camels in Mesopotamia. :book:
I quite like the Mesopotamia province, but I do think that the Sahara province should have been retained and one of the other extra provinces (such as Estonia or Savoy) could have been done away with. I say this because it helps to break up the straight line of provinces that exists accross North Africa. In Vanilla MTW a Crusades would cut through that area devastating it in a linear fashion. With the Sahara province enabled a crusade can go to Cyrenacia avoiding Algeria and Tunisia by cutting through the Sahara instead.
That's a valid point. Goodness knows I've taken advantage of the "linear-ness" of North Africa often enough as the Spanish (and occasionally as the Portuguese), so I can't claim to not know what you're talking about. ~;)
As far as which province to eliminate, I would personally suggest Estonia (although Savoy's probably a good choice as well). It seems to possess only minimal strategic value, and it's not as if the Novgorods or any of the Scandanavian factions really need it.
I'm also not keen on the Khazar/Lesser Khazar situation. Khazaar is now landlocked and it's one time trading potential lost.
I hear where you're coming from. I suspect, however, that VikingHorde did that to give the Cumans another province--which in my experience they often need. Just my opinion, though.
As I've said before, mods are all well and good but the personalisations are often enough to be quite offputting to the end user who may see things from an wholly different perspective.
I consider myself fortunate in this respect. I'm interested enough in the medieval period to appreciate the improvements the XL mod has made on the original game; but I'm not a scholar either, so I don't notice any glaring errors/omissions that would interfere in my enjoyment of it. ~:)
Also I noticed that I can't train Bedouin Camels in Mesopotamia. :book:
I hadn't really thought about it in a while (it's been some time since I played as the Fatamids), but you're quite right. My guess is that it simply escaped VikingHorde's notice when he was adding the province--it would be fairly odd of him to deliberately preclude camels from being trained there. ~:confused:
That's a valid point. Goodness knows I've taken advantage of the "linear-ness" of North Africa often enough as the Spanish (and occasionally as the Portuguese), so I can't claim to not know what you're talking about. ~;)
I hate the province layout in the region, and I do feel it needs an extra province. The Sahara is there and usable. I have reverted back to vanilla MTW/VI 2.01 now. If anything does come of our efforts here, then this mini-mod or at least this information will be available to the wider vanilla userbase and not just XL users.
As far as which province to eliminate, I would personally suggest Estonia (although Savoy's probably a good choice as well). It seems to possess only minimal strategic value, and it's not as if the Novgorods or any of the Scandanavian factions really need it.
I'd agree, though I don't want to get into messing with provinces. I'd have to combine the lookup map from XL with the one from vanilla in order to remove those provinces then mess about trawling through the code undoing stuff. That's not really my objective as such. New provinces IMHO don't add that much to gameplay, new units and new factions definitely do. Strangely enough the only new province I really appreciate in XL is Mesopotamia. It does make things interesting. Personally I would have joined the County of Edessa to Syria and used the ID_EDESSA province as Mesopotamia.
I hear where you're coming from. I suspect, however, that VikingHorde did that to give the Cumans another province--which in my experience they often need. Just my opinion, though.
Possibly. I'm just not so sure about provinces with that many trade goods being landlocked. On a similar note it would be interesting if local trade good be boosted in value, to make it actually worthwhile, while lessening the value of sea trade at the same time. I haven't really thought about this before...
I consider myself fortunate in this respect. I'm interested enough in the medieval period to appreciate the improvements the XL mod has made on the original game; but I'm not a scholar either, so I don't notice any glaring errors/omissions that would interfere in my enjoyment of it. ~:)
I know what you mean, and I do think that the XL mod does have some very good improvements, many of them contributing to greater historical accuracy. Some of the new units are rather questionable, and the unit balancing is a bit off though. Another problem is that naptha throwers have been removed in favour of the naptha catapult which replaces them. While some may dislike naptha throwers for whatever reason, others may see their absence as a problem. The changes I prefer are those subtle ones, that on the surface don't make much of a difference, but which improve gameplay. Homelands, trade/farm balance, new valour bonus regions, better historical faction/unit naming, landbridge changes, different dismount types for some units, reassignment of certain units to other factions and restriction of others to specific factions, stat changes to some units, are the sort of changes that make a difference in my opinion.
Another major problem that has had me puzzling for a while is bodyguard units. As they are, they're pretty poor. I am at a loss as to why the Byzantines qualify for a full size unit of Kataphraktoi whereas the Muslim factions have to make do with a non scalable 20 man units of Ghulam Bodyguards. The 20 man units have their pros and cons. Firstly they're small so their support costs are low. This means that having 6 heirs mature one after the other won't break the bank, as it would if each of those units were four times the size. In a campaign as the Volga Bulgars (XL Mod) I had to send alot of my heirs out to fight in the hope they're be killed, and I'd be able to disband their units which were costing me 210 florins in support costs apiece and preventing my economy from getting off the ground. The cons of a 20 man unit is that they're easy victims for missiles, and are quickly beaten and routing, which gives the units leaders alot of the coward type vices. How many times have you simply gunned down the muslim faction leader and his heirs and watched the rest rout off the field??
The solution in my opinion is to make the 20 man units scalable and reduce the 80 man units (Kataphraktoi, Boyars and Mongol Heavy Cavalry, off the top of my head) down to 20 - also scalable. That way the units scale with whatever unit size the player prefers. That solves the problem for the Muslims, Pagans and Orthodox, but not the catholics. Early Royal Knights are the same as Feudal Knights, the only difference is the unit size. The same goes for High Royal Knights and Chivalric Knights, and Late Royal Knights and Lancers. As I've said earlier in the thread, it would be a good idea to make Lancers available to all factions, as they're simply a Late Medieval Knight type of unit (The Spanish type of Lancers are fantasy). In this way, Royal Knights could be removed altogether and catholic factions could use Feudal/Chivalric/'Lancer' Knights as their bodyguards in a scalable 20 man unit. The tech tree would be adjusted so that Feudal Knights would depend on the first type of Royal Court and not the second, Chivalric would depend on the second and Lancers (who currently don't have a royal court dependency) would depend on the third. The easiest way to do this would be to actually remove the Chivalric Knights, Lancers and Feudal Knights and rename the Royal Knights as Feudal/Chivalric/Lancer and adjust their unit sizes and dependencies accordingly. This sounds a strange way of doing it, but it will preserve the upgradeability of the old type to the new type, which is how the Royal Knight units currently work. The problem with this is that the new Feudal Knights would be unavailable after 1204, and new Chivalric Knights after 1320.
I hadn't really thought about it in a while (it's been some time since I played as the Fatamids), but you're quite right. My guess is that it simply escaped VikingHorde's notice when he was adding the province--it would be fairly odd of him to deliberately preclude camels from being trained there. ~:confused:
Just something I noticed that's all. I wondered if there was a historical significance. Maybe camels feared the reputation of the Mesopotamians and were reluctant to cross the border? :egypt:
(Briefly off-topic: So Caravel = Manco Capac now? What inspired the name change?)
I hate the province layout in the region, and I do feel it needs an extra province. The Sahara is there and usable. I have reverted back to vanilla MTW/VI 2.01 now. If anything does come of our efforts here, then this mini-mod or at least this information will be available to the wider vanilla userbase and not just XL users.
:2thumbsup:
I'd agree, though I don't want to get into messing with provinces. I'd have to combine the lookup map from XL with the one from vanilla in order to remove those provinces then mess about trawling through the code undoing stuff. That's not really my objective as such. New provinces IMHO don't add that much to gameplay, new units and new factions definitely do. Strangely enough the only new province I really appreciate in XL is Mesopotamia. It does make things interesting. Personally I would have joined the County of Edessa to Syria and used the ID_EDESSA province as Mesopotamia.
Personally, I think most of the additional provinces make a fair bit of sense. My two personal favorites are Skania in southern Sweden and Algarve in southwest Iberia--I think they definitely alter the strategies of the factions nearby. Mesopotamia actually annoys me, but that might have more to do with the fact that it makes it harder for my Fatamids to take out the Seljuk Turks. ~;P
Kidding aside, I would recommend keeping Edessa and Syria separate from each other. Both cities played fairly significant roles during the existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (although Damascus was never actually taken by the Crusaders). I realize you don't want to monkey with the provinces more than you have to, but Estonia or Savoy still probably the two best choices. Just my two cents; take it with as many grains of salt as you're comfortable with. ~:)
Possibly. I'm just not so sure about provinces with that many trade goods being landlocked. On a similar note it would be interesting if local trade good be boosted in value, to make it actually worthwhile, while lessening the value of sea trade at the same time. I haven't really thought about this before...
I don't know about lessening the value of sea trade (unless it's by only a very small amount). VH already nerfed income from sea trade pretty heavily--IMHO, gutting it much further might threaten to make it not worth the time and effort necessary to set up trade routes. I definitely agree, however, that inland trade could (and probably should) be increased. I don't think it should equal what a faction can get from sea trade, of course; but it could still be significantly increased.
I know what you mean, and I do think that the XL mod does have some very good improvements, many of them contributing to greater historical accuracy. Some of the new units are rather questionable, and the unit balancing is a bit off though. Another problem is that naptha throwers have been removed in favour of the naptha catapult which replaces them. While some may dislike naptha throwers for whatever reason, others may see their absence as a problem. The changes I prefer are those subtle ones, that on the surface don't make much of a difference, but which improve gameplay. Homelands, trade/farm balance, new valour bonus regions, better historical faction/unit naming, landbridge changes, different dismount types for some units, reassignment of certain units to other factions and restriction of others to specific factions, stat changes to some units, are the sort of changes that make a difference in my opinion.
Well you probably know better than I--as I've said before, I have only a passing familiarity with medieval history. I'll leave such decisions & changes to you. :bow:
Another major problem that has had me puzzling for a while is bodyguard units. As they are, they're pretty poor. I am at a loss as to why the Byzantines qualify for a full size unit of Kataphraktoi whereas the Muslim factions have to make do with a non scalable 20 man units of Ghulam Bodyguards. The 20 man units have their pros and cons. Firstly they're small so their support costs are low. This means that having 6 heirs mature one after the other won't break the bank, as it would if each of those units were four times the size. In a campaign as the Volga Bulgars (XL Mod) I had to send alot of my heirs out to fight in the hope they're be killed, and I'd be able to disband their units which were costing me 210 florins in support costs apiece and preventing my economy from getting off the ground. The cons of a 20 man unit is that they're easy victims for missiles, and are quickly beaten and routing, which gives the units leaders alot of the coward type vices. How many times have you simply gunned down the muslim faction leader and his heirs and watched the rest rout off the field??
The solution in my opinion is to make the 20 man units scalable and reduce the 80 man units (Kataphraktoi, Boyars and Mongol Heavy Cavalry, off the top of my head) down to 20 - also scalable. That way the units scale with whatever unit size the player prefers. That solves the problem for the Muslims, Pagans and Orthodox, but not the catholics. Early Royal Knights are the same as Feudal Knights, the only difference is the unit size. The same goes for High Royal Knights and Chivalric Knights, and Late Royal Knights and Lancers. As I've said earlier in the thread, it would be a good idea to make Lancers available to all factions, as they're simply a Late Medieval Knight type of unit (The Spanish type of Lancers are fantasy). In this way, Royal Knights could be removed altogether and catholic factions could use Feudal/Chivalric/'Lancer' Knights as their bodyguards in a scalable 20 man unit. The tech tree would be adjusted so that Feudal Knights would depend on the first type of Royal Court and not the second, Chivalric would depend on the second and Lancers (who currently don't have a royal court dependency) would depend on the third. The easiest way to do this would be to actually remove the Chivalric Knights, Lancers and Feudal Knights and rename the Royal Knights as Feudal/Chivalric/Lancer and adjust their unit sizes and dependencies accordingly. This sounds a strange way of doing it, but it will preserve the upgradeability of the old type to the new type, which is how the Royal Knight units currently work. The problem with this is that the new Feudal Knights would be unavailable after 1204, and new Chivalric Knights after 1320.
It's your last sentence (which I underlined) that somewhat bothers me. I'd hate not being able to retrain my Feudal/Chivalric Knights--we deal with enough of that nonsense as it is (Viking units, Varangians, etc.).
I admittedly can't think of another solution, however; and I do agree that bodyguard units should really be scalable. (Never quite understood why they weren't. :inquisitive: ) [sigh] I don't know. :shrug:
Just something I noticed that's all. I wondered if there was a historical significance. Maybe camels feared the reputation of the Mesopotamians and were reluctant to cross the border? :egypt:
:laugh4:
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps VH associated Mesopotamia more with the Baghdad Caliphate....and I'm not sure how much the people there used camels. (?) That's more of a random guess, though. :shrug:
(Briefly off-topic: So Caravel = Manco Capac now? What inspired the name change?)
The name change was inspired by the name change feature. I thought to myself, oh no, name change needed! Name needed! Think of a name quickly! Manco Capac was the first Inca so I thought why not, after checking to see if anyone had any similar names. When the 30 days are up (I think it's 30 days or it may be 60 days) I'll either go back to caravel or try something else! :idea2:
Personally, I think most of the additional provinces make a fair bit of sense. My two personal favorites are Skania in southern Sweden and Algarve in southwest Iberia--I think they definitely alter the strategies of the factions nearby. Mesopotamia actually annoys me, but that might have more to do with the fact that it makes it harder for my Fatamids to take out the Seljuk Turks. ~;P
Thst's why I like it, it helps the Turks out! :2thumbsup:
Kidding aside, I would recommend keeping Edessa and Syria separate from each other. Both cities played fairly significant roles during the existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (although Damascus was never actually taken by the Crusaders). I realize you don't want to monkey with the provinces more than you have to, but Estonia or Savoy still probably the two best choices. Just my two cents; take it with as many grains of salt as you're comfortable with. ~:)
Well since I won't be working on the XL mod or in all likelihood modding provinces, that won't be too much of an issue. You're right about Edessa in that respect... I suppose just leaving the provinces as they are ( :yes: ) is the best idea. ( :yes: :yes: :yes: )
I don't know about lessening the value of sea trade (unless it's by only a very small amount). VH already nerfed income from sea trade pretty heavily--IMHO, gutting it much further might threaten to make it not worth the time and effort necessary to set up trade routes. I definitely agree, however, that inland trade could (and probably should) be increased. I don't think it should equal what a faction can get from sea trade, of course; but it could still be significantly increased.
I mean in relation to the vanilla game. We've already talked about cutting the trade percentage, but not boosting the actually trade goods value, which would help local trade vastly. At present the local trade just isn't worth it. You have to lay out 1000's of florins in Syria to see a decent income from trade and even then it takes eons to get your money back.
Well you probably know better than I--as I've said before, I have only a passing familiarity with medieval history. I'll leave such decisions & changes to you. :bow:
Not necessarily, my knowledge is also a passing knowledge and what information I have retained (the info that doesn't just pass straight through the sieve) is often irrelevant. What I was referring to, was that while some almost historically accurate units were added (not knocking them either, as they're better than what I could do by a long shot), many of the other fantasy units are still there, pretty much unchanged. I'm not sure that VH ever 'sold' this mod as an historical accuracy mod however so you can't blame him. What i feel we're trying to achieve here is primarily a gameplay mod, with as much historical accuracy as possible thrown in as an extra.
It's your last sentence (which I underlined) that somewhat bothers me. I'd hate not being able to retrain my Feudal/Chivalric Knights--we deal with enough of that nonsense as it is (Viking units, Varangians, etc.).
I know. Bu the point is that if you drag a battered unit of Feudal Knights in to be retrained they'll appear next year as Chivalric Knights. That was part of the idea behind it. This is how it works at present with Royal Knights and this is how it would work under the new system with Feudal/Chivalric/Lancer Knights.
To reiterate in more detail:
Feudal Knights - removed
Chivalric Knights - removed
Lancers - removed
Early Royal Knights - renamed as "Feudal Knights"
High Royal Knights - renamed as "Chivalric Knights"
Late Royal Knights - renamed as "Lancers" (or something else)
Above Knight's units changed to become a scalable 20 man/horse unit instead of an unscalable one.
Dependencies changed as follows:
New "Feudal Knights" - same as old Feudal Knights but only requiring the Royal Court, not the Royal Estate.
New "Chivalric Knights" - same as old Chivalric Knights but only requiring the Royal Estate, not the Baronial Court
New "Lancers" (or another name) - Same as Lancers but needing the Baronial Court in addition to the usual dependencies.
Basically the Royal Court dependencies are stepped backward one level, which to me makes sense, as I'm usually only producing Feudal Knights after 1205 as it is now, because I cannot tech up fast enough. By that time they feel obsolete anyway.
I admittedly can't think of another solution, however; and I do agree that bodyguard units should really be scalable. (Never quite understood why they weren't. :inquisitive: ) [sigh] I don't know. :shrug:
I'm convinced of it, and had been working on it for months, before I went AWOL, and have tried many different approaches and all have failed. This is the only one I hav come up with that seems even half workable.
:laugh4:
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps VH associated Mesopotamia more with the Baghdad Caliphate....and I'm not sure how much the people there used camels. (?) That's more of a random guess, though. :shrug:
Camel1: "Mesopotamia is over there ya know?"
Camel2: "Where?"
Camel1: "The Caliphate of baghdad you fool!"
Camel2: "I couldn't give that *makes rude gesture* for the caliphate of baghdad!" *prepared to cross frontier*
Camel1: "Don't say I didn't warn you..."
Camel2: *pauses* "you're not telling me you believe that load of old camel dung?... about no camels being allowed in mesopotamia?"
Camel1: "camels can't go there..."
Camel2: "watch me!"
Camel1: "ok your life..."
Camel2: "pfffttt..." *steps over border...*
Camel1: "NOOOOOOO........."
-Edit: I've applied the changes and it seems to be ok. My unit sizes for all bodyguard cavalry are now 40 (41 with a facton leader). The Royal Cavalry modded into the Feudal, Chivalric Knights and Lancers seem to work fine. I edited the Ghulam Bodyguard's dependencies to include the same buildings as those needed by Ghulam Cavalry as well as the Royal Court. Their dependencies are the same whatever the era. (early/high/late ghulam bodyguards depend on the same buildings)
Now I need to get back to re-applying all of the other changes we discussed in this thread... tomorrow. Hasta Mañana! :2thumbsup:
The name change was inspired by the name change feature. I thought to myself, oh no, name change needed! Name needed! Think of a name quickly! Manco Capac was the first Inca so I thought why not, after checking to see if anyone had any similar names. When the 30 days are up (I think it's 30 days or it may be 60 days) I'll either go back to caravel or try something else! :idea2:
Very good sir. :bow: (Oh, and you can change it every 60 days!)
I mean in relation to the vanilla game. We've already talked about cutting the trade percentage, but not boosting the actually trade goods value, which would help local trade vastly. At present the local trade just isn't worth it. You have to lay out 1000's of florins in Syria to see a decent income from trade and even then it takes eons to get your money back.
Gah! I forgot you were referring to vanilla MTW/VI. ~:doh: You're right; sea trade in the original game is way overpowered. As for inland trade, increasing the value of the trade goods themselves is a brilliant idea! ~:thumbsup: (I wonder if anyone else has tried doing so?)
Not necessarily, my knowledge is also a passing knowledge and what information I have retained (the info that doesn't just pass straight through the sieve) is often irrelevant. What I was referring to, was that while some almost historically accurate units were added (not knocking them either, as they're better than what I could do by a long shot), many of the other fantasy units are still there, pretty much unchanged. I'm not sure that VH ever 'sold' this mod as an historical accuracy mod however so you can't blame him. What i feel we're trying to achieve here is primarily a gameplay mod, with as much historical accuracy as possible thrown in as an extra.
Agreed. I don't think it was ever VikingHorde's intention to pass off XL as a "realism" mod, although I have a feeling he did try to somewhat improve the game in that respect. What we're talking about doing is actually somewhat similar, albeit in a slightly different direction.
I know. Bu the point is that if you drag a battered unit of Feudal Knights in to be retrained they'll appear next year as Chivalric Knights. That was part of the idea behind it. This is how it works at present with Royal Knights and this is how it would work under the new system with Feudal/Chivalric/Lancer Knights.
Okay, so would *all* knights be upgradable as the Eras changed? Or would only the Royal units be able to do so?
Camel1: "Mesopotamia is over there ya know?"
Camel2: "Where?"
Camel1: "The Caliphate of baghdad you fool!"
Camel2: "I couldn't give that *makes rude gesture* for the caliphate of baghdad!" *prepared to cross frontier*
Camel1: "Don't say I didn't warn you..."
Camel2: *pauses* "you're not telling me you believe that load of old camel dung?... about no camels being allowed in mesopotamia?"
Camel1: "camels can't go there..."
Camel2: "watch me!"
Camel1: "ok your life..."
Camel2: "pfffttt..." *steps over border...*
Camel1: "NOOOOOOO........."
I....I got nothin' after that. :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
-Edit: I've applied the changes and it seems to be ok. My unit sizes for all bodyguard cavalry are now 40 (41 with a facton leader). The Royal Cavalry modded into the Feudal, Chivalric Knights and Lancers seem to work fine. I edited the Ghulam Bodyguard's dependencies to include the same buildings as those needed by Ghulam Cavalry as well as the Royal Court. Their dependencies are the same whatever the era. (early/high/late ghulam bodyguards depend on the same buildings)
Cool. :2thumbsup:
Now I need to get back to re-applying all of the other changes we discussed in this thread... tomorrow. Hasta Mañana! :2thumbsup:
Excellent, MC. Let me know how it goes! :yes:
You're right; sea trade in the original game is way overpowered. As for inland trade, increasing the value of the trade goods themselves is a brilliant idea! ~:thumbsup: (I wonder if anyone else has tried doing so?)
I think I may have a go at that later, and quite possibly over the weekend, though Mrs Caravel may have something to say about that. :juggle2:
Agreed. I don't think it was ever VikingHorde's intention to pass off XL as a "realism" mod, although I have a feeling he did try to somewhat improve the game in that respect. What we're talking about doing is actually somewhat similar, albeit in a slightly different direction.
I think what we need is a "light mod", that fixes and changes alot of the common annoyances, adds some new stuff, but is extremely lightweight, say a 1MB download and no more. I'd love to host the map I've edited, about 2 years ago, but the file is just too big (30MB or so if I recall correctly!). The map has the landbridges edited out visually. It's very smooth and you can't see where they were. I always use this map myself.
Okay, so would *all* knights be upgradable as the Eras changed? Or would only the Royal units be able to do so?
The new Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers will also be the new bodyguard units. They will be the Royal Knights and the other knights all in one. Because they're based on the Royal Knights, they will be upgradeable in the same way that the Royal Knights were. In a nutshell here are their advantages:
1) Smaller unit size than the old Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers = lower support costs.
2) They are a larger unit size than the old bodyguard units, so they're better equipped to fight and protect your heirs and king.
3) Unlike the old Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers these units become obsolete with every era change, but unlike the former, the new units can simply be upgrade from Feudal Knights to Chivalric Knights to Lancers by retraining the unit after the era change has occurred.
4) The unit size is not full size, as with Kataphraktoi so you're not paying dearly in support costs every time an heir matures, though you are paying more than you were previously, when the units were 20 man non scalable (up to a maximum of double the cost on huge unit size).
5) The new Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers can now be built earlier because the tech levels for Royal Courts have been dropped 1 level.
6) The Lancers are available to all Catholic factions and not just the Spanish and Aragonese.
I've also changed Mongol Heavy Cavalry, Kataphraktoi and Boyars to 20 man units (scalable). They need some testing before I'm satisfied if they are going to stay like that. Ghulam Bodyguards have also been changed to scalable and their dependencies changed to the same as Ghulam cavalry + the Royal Court. Sipahis of the Porte are now also scalable. I could also add the Royal Court (otherwise useless for orthodox) as a dependency for Kataphraktoi, but that would be historically wrong, so I think the best idea would be to just remove the Royal Courts from the orthodox factions. (Along with the later Militia buildings for those factions that don't need them.)
I think I may have a go at that later, and quite possibly over the weekend, though Mrs Caravel may have something to say about that. :juggle2:
Hey, whatever you can get done is good. I'd hate for you to get in trouble with the wife, so no rush. ~D I'd do it myself if I knew how, but I'm just not adept at that sort of thing. ~:dunce:
I think what we need is a "light mod", that fixes and changes alot of the common annoyances, adds some new stuff, but is extremely lightweight, say a 1MB download and no more.
Agreed. Since most of the changes are in the numbers and not visual, we're probably talking about more of a glorified patch than anything else. It would be a nice patch, though. ~:)
I'd love to host the map I've edited, about 2 years ago, but the file is just too big (30MB or so if I recall correctly!). The map has the landbridges edited out visually. It's very smooth and you can't see where they were. I always use this map myself.
Cool. Out of curiosity, what other changes did you make?
The new Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers will also be the new bodyguard units. They will be the Royal Knights and the other knights all in one. Because they're based on the Royal Knights, they will be upgradeable in the same way that the Royal Knights were. In a nutshell here are their advantages:
3) Unlike the old Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers these units become obsolete with every era change, but unlike the former, the new units can simply be upgrade from Feudal Knights to Chivalric Knights to Lancers by retraining the unit after the era change has occurred.
5) The new Feudal Knights, Chivalric Knights and Lancers can now be built earlier because the tech levels for Royal Courts have been dropped 1 level.
Okay, I'm definitely warming up to your changes now. :thumbsup: The two points listed above are my favorite. They both make a lot of sense when you think about it. No more oudated Feudal Knights in 1250--just upgrade them to CK's! And actually being able to train the respective units before the next Era arrives is a nice change as well. This is actually sounding far cleverer than I first envisioned. :bow:
I've also changed Mongol Heavy Cavalry, Kataphraktoi and Boyars to 20 man units (scalable). They need some testing before I'm satisfied if they are going to stay like that. Ghulam Bodyguards have also been changed to scalable and their dependencies changed to the same as Ghulam cavalry + the Royal Court. Sipahis of the Porte are now also scalable. I could also add the Royal Court (otherwise useless for orthodox) as a dependency for Kataphraktoi, but that would be historically wrong, so I think the best idea would be to just remove the Royal Courts from the orthodox factions. (Along with the later Militia buildings for those factions that don't need them.)
I agree with removing the Royal Courts for the Byz/Novgorods. I've never really understood why they get them in the tech tree anyway, unless CA left it in by accident (which is certainly possible).
Also, as one plays as the Eggies a lot, I have to say that scalable GB's would be nice as well. :2thumbsup:
Hey, whatever you can get done is good. I'd hate for you to get in trouble with the wife, so no rush. ~D I'd do it myself if I knew how, but I'm just not adept at that sort of thing. ~:dunce:
I'm about to start today. :yes:
Agreed. Since most of the changes are in the numbers and not visual, we're probably talking about more of a glorified patch than anything else. It would be a nice patch, though. ~:)
A glorified patch is an apt desription, not really a mod, as a mod involves many more visual changes.
Cool. Out of curiosity, what other changes did you make?
Well err... that's it really... :shame:
Okay, I'm definitely warming up to your changes now. :thumbsup: The two points listed above are my favorite. They both make a lot of sense when you think about it. No more oudated Feudal Knights in 1250--just upgrade them to CK's! And actually being able to train the respective units before the next Era arrives is a nice change as well. This is actually sounding far cleverer than I first envisioned. :bow:
I'm not sure I said anything about training them before era! They're very era restricted. Feudal Knights will no longer be available in High and Late, and Chivalric Knights will only be available in High. Lancers will only be trainable in the Late era. Basically if you have e.g. any battered units of Chivarlic Knights or Feudal Knights left during the Late period you can send them in to be retrained a Lancers. And if you had any Feudal Knights left during the High period you could retrain them into Chivarlic Knights.
I agree with removing the Royal Courts for the Byz/Novgorods. I've never really understood why they get them in the tech tree anyway, unless CA left it in by accident (which is certainly possible).
Possibly left in by accident. The problem is that many new players will build it, thinking that it may do something. They will look at the description and think that it wil give more power or influence to their king somehow.
Also, as one plays as the Eggies a lot, I have to say that scalable GB's would be nice as well. :2thumbsup:
:2thumbsup:
To work...
:smash: :whip:
-Edit: I was also thinking of reusing the Fedual Knights unit, but reducing it's stats somewhat, and making a new 'mounted militia' cavalry type. I'm not sure of the exact historical accuracy of this, but mounted militias did exist, I just need to find more information on them...
Summary updated: :2thumbsup:
Summary (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1256747&postcount=39)
Oleander Ardens
11-21-2006, 17:04
Gunpowder units should get a bonus in Tyrolia as it focused early on sharffschützen and scheibnschuetzn in english sharpshooters or marksman to defeat invading troops. In the 15th century the relationship between handguns/arks and pikes/polearms was from 4:1 to 6:1, asthonishingly high. Skirmishing in loose order, hiding behind cover and a taste for sniping the high ranking among the enemy was natural for men which hunted or shoot for the best the price of a shooting fest.
This men didn't "kill" but "took down the game" "laid them on their skin" speaking in the language of the Jaeger or Hunter.
Tyrolean sharpshooters showed their potential became later on the bane of the invanding bavarian and french troops. A nice ambush from 1703 might illustrate how they proceeded: Bavarian troops marched down a valley to pacify it. The villages didn't agree with that so the commander of the Schuetzen let destroy the bridges, construct a trench and positioned his best shooters on both hillsides of the valley well hidden. The bavarians marched by without seeing them, and in the meantime some men started to break down the bridges behind them.
As the bavarians tried to cross, havoc broke loose and many were taken down by the sharpshooters on both sides. A Deroute followed and most were killed and the rest captured. A good deal of the surrendered bavarians were cruelly cut down before the priest, which had fought with the Schuetzen intervened..
Cheers
OA
I'm not sure if Tyrol was famous for it's Arquebuses and Handguns between 1087 and 1453, though I do agree that it's not a bad idea to give gunpowder units some bonuses, and possibly in that region. Between the 11th and 15th century, pieces such as the Arquebus, and early handguns especially, were actually dangerous matchlock weapons that often exploded in the users face, were frowned upon by the all important clergy as "unchivalrous" and were next to useless in rain (or even fog / heavy humidity). They were also heavy, inaccurate, cumbersone, badly balanced, slow to reload, very long and poorly designed, with not much, if any, thought for ergonomics.
I know that some people will disagree with this statement, but they likely haven't actually used these types of early weapons. The weapons they've used are probably replicas of later 17th/18th century flintlocks which are a totally different animal. A replica, even if it is a replica of a 15th century Arquebus, is still a replica.
It was also terrible for a preened and handsome dandy on a fine horse and several thousand quids worth of armour, anxious to show daddy that he is a real knight, to be shot off his noble steed by nothing more than an ill trained peasant. Even the bow/longbow and crossbow had this same problem. Warfare wasn't ready to be revolutionised at that time.
From reading about this in the past, the biggest effect these types of weapons had, until they were better refined, was fear.
Oleander Ardens
11-21-2006, 21:20
I will post a few facts in two days, once I get the book about the Schuetzen once again in my hands..
However keep in mind that Tyrol is perfect country for shooters. Since 1400 at latest the gunpowder weapons started to overtook the crossbows, which became a domain for the nobility. The lower classes of the citiziens and farmers flocked to the gunpowder weapons, increasingly owning a personal fireweapon. The Landesfuerst did support them by organizing shooting competitions and gifting the prices, because he had an strong and fruitful alliance with them against the nobility.
Some of them even competed with the commoners which enjoyed political power and relative richness. I will post the exact details later
BTW there is a great picture where the shooters have to hit a wooden knight which is pulled from the left to the right. Fits quite nicely into the plan of the Landesfuerst do get his peasants to shoot down a noble knight :yes:
Cheers
OA
Innocentius
11-21-2006, 22:48
Speaking of unique ways of fighting...
Would it be possible (both theoretically and for you who are creating this mod) to add som real local units? I came to think of this while reading through some books of mine about medieval Sweden (though I guess somewhat similar troops would appear in other regions too, I just haven't heard of them).
What I mean is this: During the middle ages, the Swedish armies were quite unique for Europe. They consisted of peasants (peasants and peasants, farmers in Sweden always had more power than in wester europe, and were not in villenage) who brought pretty much everything with them to the battlefield (this depended on which part of Sweden they came from). Crossbow, polearm-like weapon (axes in the early middle ages, and the more halberd-like weapons later on) as well as a sword or axe. On top of this some light armour and usually a shield. The tactics used were mainly to ambush the enemy in the middle of some dark, deep forest. This proved efficient many times, even when fighting against much more professional troops.
The in-game unit could be somewhat like the following:
A crossbow unit, but with less efficient fire rate and damage, and much much better at melee than ordinary crossbowmen.
Unit size: 60
Cost: Cheap
Support cost: Cheap
Charge: Strong
Attack: Very good
Defence: Weak or average (depends on era, weak in early and high, and average in late)
Speed: Average
Bonus fighting in woods (disadvantage fighting in the open).
Sky-high morale.
Now, the thing would be this: This unit can only be trained in Sweden, by the Swedes, and suffers from a huuuge morale and valour drop once they leave Sweden. So, in short: is there a way of creating "patriotic" units, who can only truly be used in certain provinces?
Just wondering.
So, in short: is there a way of creating "patriotic" units, who can only truly be used in certain provinces?
Just wondering.
In a word no, unfortunately not. :no:
This is what could be done. Supposing the Pictish crossbow unit is used, though based on say Highland clansmen type stats? Possibly with slightly better morale, using the "uncontrolled" discipline type. The unit could be retricted as only trainable in Sweden, and nowhere else. And only trainable as the Swedish and that's it. Also there are no specific "bonus fighting in woods" type units. The only way to do this is to make them more of a Ghazi style unit, which are entirelyu suited to ambushes. Amazing morale, fast, devastating attack, very strong or irresistable charge and again "uncontrolled" discipline type, though no armour and terrible defense. This unit would be ideal for hiding in woods and bursting out upon the enemy, or using their crossbows as a decent missile unit if no ambush opportunity presents itself. (they'd need to be turned off fire at will or they'd blow their cover when the enemy come into range).
I will post a few facts in two days, once I get the book about the Schuetzen once again in my hands..
Look forward to that. :2thumbsup:
Innocentius
11-22-2006, 15:47
This is what could be done. Supposing the Pictish crossbow unit is used, though based on say Highland clansmen type stats? Possibly with slightly better morale, using the "uncontrolled" discipline type. The unit could be retricted as only trainable in Sweden, and nowhere else. And only trainable as the Swedish and that's it. Also there are no specific "bonus fighting in woods" type units. The only way to do this is to make them more of a Ghazi style unit, which are entirelyu suited to ambushes. Amazing morale, fast, devastating attack, very strong or irresistable charge and again "uncontrolled" discipline type, though no armour and terrible defense. This unit would be ideal for hiding in woods and bursting out upon the enemy, or using their crossbows as a decent missile unit if no ambush opportunity presents itself. (they'd need to be turned off fire at will or they'd blow their cover when the enemy come into range).
Well, close enough then~:rolleyes: Shame you can't make units region-dependant.
Nice work with the mod, seems to be turning our really good judging from the latest summary:2thumbsup:
Update
1) Yeoman Cavalry added to the units section of the summary. (I really don't like this name, it needs changing!)
2) Shipping updated. Ships will take 1 year for coastal vessels, 2 years for the small deep sea vessels and 3 years for the big ones.
3) Huscarles added.
The Iron mine has now been implimented. The Iron mine is not a big earner, only a bit better than a copper mine, it costs 550 and 950 to build at present, though I need to tweak that as I go along. The metalsmith and upgrades now depends on the Iron Mine except the Master Metalsmith which depends on the Iron Mine Complex. The castle levels have been preserved.
I have added roughly 50% of the homelands now. These are mainly for the Muslim factions and the Byzantine, though I have done some for the English, the Castilian Leonese, the Danes and the Italians also. I will write these up once they're finished. For now though I would appreciate any input anyone can give regarding Catholic, Novgorod and Russian faction homelands. For the Golden Horde I'm favouring no homelands at all for MHC, MHA, and MW. Their units need to be trainable anywhere.
I'm already noticing some shortcomings. The lack of UM in the early campaigns for the Egyptians and Turks make the unit roster feel rather empty, and also make the Town Guard seem pointless (despite the happiness bonus). I feel it needs some other unit training purpose, apart from simply the happiness bonus. I'm thinking that maybe the Arab Infantry should depend on the Town Watch instead of the Swordsmith. They're not the greatest infantry out there so teching up to a keep and swordsmith for these seems to be a lot. Not sure about this yet though, but if the English and Danes can get Vikings and Clansmen from a basic fort then the Egyptians and Almohads should be able to get Arab Infantry from a Town Watch.
The Square Shield Spearmen unit is also rendered rather redundant for the Egyptians and Almohads by the presence of the Nubian Spearmen. I will probably remove it again. The Turks who don't have the Nubians and use the Round Shield Spearmen anyway aren't affected.
Update
1) Yeoman Cavalry added to the units section of the summary. (I really don't like this name, it needs changing!)
2) Shipping updated. Ships will take 1 year for coastal vessels, 2 years for the small deep sea vessels and 3 years for the big ones.
3) Huscarles added.
1.) Very good. :2thumbsup: If you don't care for the name, we could always simply call it Militia Cavalry like we originally discussed. Possibly Merchant Guard Cavalry would work too, but that doesn't seem as realistic to me.
2.) I forget--were you changing the costs of ships as well, or just the build times?
3.) Huzzah! :thumbsup: I did just now think of something, though. I know you've upped the build requirements for them, but had we decided on whether to make them more expensive as well? I wonder if that would be too much, or if it would help further balance them....
The Iron mine has now been implimented. The Iron mine is not a big earner, only a bit better than a copper mine, it costs 550 and 950 to build at present, though I need to tweak that as I go along. The metalsmith and upgrades now depends on the Iron Mine except the Master Metalsmith which depends on the Iron Mine Complex. The castle levels have been preserved.
Cool cool. Aside from northern Iberia, may I suggest placing an iron resource in Syria as well? Damscus was famous for its steel swords, almost--if not as--much as Spain was. :yes: I think you could also probably place a few in the Alps/northern Italy, although I'm less certain as to how realistic that would be.
I have added roughly 50% of the homelands now. These are mainly for the Muslim factions and the Byzantine, though I have done some for the English, the Castilian Leonese, the Danes and the Italians also. I will write these up once they're finished. For now though I would appreciate any input anyone can give regarding Catholic, Novgorod and Russian faction homelands. For the Golden Horde I'm favouring no homelands at all for MHC, MHA, and MW. Their units need to be trainable anywhere.
Have you made the Novgorods/Russians into seperate factions, or are they still the same? If the same, then I would recommend their homelands include Novgorod, Muscovy, and Kiev. Aside from that, I'm not sure which provinces would be appropriate to include for them.
As for the French, I would say their homelands should include all the usual suspects: Flanders, Ile de France, Toulouse, Anjou, Normandy, and Acquitaine. I would also include Champagne, Lorraine, and Provence; I would leave out Brittany, however.
If you wanted to get somewhat radical, you could even make an argument that the provinces of the Holy Land--Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, and Jerusalem--should be Frankish Homelands as well. Of course, one could argue that they should be homelands for all the Crusading factions, and not just the French! :book:
I'm already noticing some shortcomings. The lack of UM in the early campaigns for the Egyptians and Turks make the unit roster feel rather empty, and also make the Town Guard seem pointless (despite the happiness bonus). I feel it needs some other unit training purpose, apart from simply the happiness bonus. I'm thinking that maybe the Arab Infantry should depend on the Town Watch instead of the Swordsmith. They're not the greatest infantry out there so teching up to a keep and swordsmith for these seems to be a lot. Not sure about this yet though, but if the English and Danes can get Vikings and Clansmen from a basic fort then the Egyptians and Almohads should be able to get Arab Infantry from a Town Watch.
I think having Arab Inf being dependent on the Town Watch isn't a bad idea at all, MC. It certainly makes a lot of sense, given how they formed a significant portion of a Caliph's army. Me likey! :yes:
1.) Very good. :2thumbsup: If you don't care for the name, we could always simply call it Militia Cavalry like we originally discussed. Possibly Merchant Guard Cavalry would work too, but that doesn't seem as realistic to me.
Militia Cavalry is probably better until we come up with another name.
2.) I forget--were you changing the costs of ships as well, or just the build times?
Costs are all halved. I've been testing it, and it's alot better. I'm playing a Turks campaign, and the Byzantine fleets are now a real problem. Their ships are appearing every year, and engaging mine. I can no longer glut the sea with ships as I used to and easily dominate the med.
3.) Huzzah! :thumbsup: I did just now think of something, though. I know you've upped the build requirements for them, but had we decided on whether to make them more expensive as well? I wonder if that would be too much, or if it would help further balance them....
I think the build requirement changes are ok for now. I may increase the support and training costs also. I need to have another look at that.
Cool cool. Aside from northern Iberia, may I suggest placing an iron resource in Syria as well? Damscus was famous for its steel swords, almost--if not as--much as Spain was. :yes: I think you could also probably place a few in the Alps/northern Italy, although I'm less certain as to how realistic that would be.
Syria is a good one.
Have you made the Novgorods/Russians into seperate factions, or are they still the same? If the same, then I would recommend their homelands include Novgorod, Muscovy, and Kiev. Aside from that, I'm not sure which provinces would be appropriate to include for them.
The Novgorod/Russian problem...
I'm convinced that CA struggled with this also. Originally I'm sure they were one faction, the Russians, then CA, possibly after discovering the relevance of Novgorod to the early period, went through the process of coding in another faction for early, the Novgorod, as an effort to create a northern European faction, but never finished them. Instead they assigned them the Russian faction's colours and units, with Vikings as an additional unit and left it at that. There is no real need for the Novgorod faction as the Russians can simply be renamed "Novgorod" in early and assigned the relevant provinces.
Modding in the Novgorod as they were intended to be would be a long process, involving the new campaign map flags, new units, etc. It would be good, because the Russian faction could then be included in the Early period around Kiev. To be honest though, any player wanting this sort of thing will just go for the XL mod. The aim of this mod is to be as light as possible after all.
I need to do more work on the Russian faction as a whole, but I'm leaning toward removing Novgorod and renaming the Russian faction as Novgorod in Early. The Viking Unit (the Drangar) also needs to be take away from the Novgorod and possibly a new infantry unit created for them, based on it.
As for the French, I would say their homelands should include all the usual suspects: Flanders, Ile de France, Toulouse, Anjou, Normandy, and Acquitaine. I would also include Champagne, Lorraine, and Provence; I would leave out Brittany, however.
The French are easy enough, however they don't have many unique units, so homelands for them probably won't be an issue. Units such as Hobilars and Gendarmes are the only few that I can think of. The former will need a combined Anglo-French homeland with the latter needing a somewhat larger homeland covering much of France, Iberia etc. Apart from that, there are no other semi-unique French units that I can think of.
If you wanted to get somewhat radical, you could even make an argument that the provinces of the Holy Land--Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, and Jerusalem--should be Frankish Homelands as well. Of course, one could argue that they should be homelands for all the Crusading factions, and not just the French! :book:
The Crusading units won't have any homeland restrictions imposed upon them. I may make it possible for units such as Order Foot soldiers and Order Knights (St. James, St. John, Templars) to depend on a chapter house and be trainable in certain parts of the east such as Palestine, Rhodes and Malta.
I think having Arab Inf being dependent on the Town Watch isn't a bad idea at all, MC. It certainly makes a lot of sense, given how they formed a significant portion of a Caliph's army. Me likey! :yes:
That will give the "Egyptians" 2 decent units early on in Arabia: Bedouin Camels and Arab Infantry.
I've noticed in my current campaign as the Turks, that the Egyptians didn't do too well after I took Antioch and Tripoli. The huge dent in their income must have placed them in the red. This is probably down to the increased support costs of Ghulam Bodyguards. I may tweak the costs a little and also try to make Egypt a richer province than it is at present.
The Byzantine's Armoured Spearmen make a big difference also.
I have renamed the Egyptians, Turks and Almohads per era. They are now known as:
Turks: Seljukid Empire / Seljukid Empire / Ottoman Empire
Egyptians: Fatimid Caliphate / Ayyubid Sultanate / Mamluk Sultanate
Almohads: Almoravid Caliphate / Almohad Caliphate, Marinid Sultanate
Innocentius
11-28-2006, 17:40
Iron should be added in Milan, and some southern German provinces (like Bavaria). This area was one of the main producers of weapons and armour during the medieval period, and of course even later on. Even the muslims of the Middle east often bought swords from northern Italy.
I think that Novgorod should remain at least in the High era. Afte the Mongol invasion, Novogorod lost some of its independancy as a state, but existed untill the late 15th century when the muscovites finally brought an end to them, moving the seat of power in Russia from Novogorod to Moscow. When Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes at Neva and the Teutonic Knights at lake Peipus, in the 1240's, he did so as a defender of Novogord.
Kralizec
11-30-2006, 07:44
Turks: Seljukid Empire / Seljukid Empire / Ottoman Empire
Egyptians: Fatimid Caliphate / Ayyubid Sultanate / Mamluk Sultanate
Almohads: Almoravid Caliphate / Almohad Caliphate, Marinid Sultanate
Who are they? I thought the Nasrids were the main muslim power in Iberia after the Almohads had expired.
The Marinids held sway in the Maghreb from the 13th to the 15th century. They actually took Fes from the Almohads in 1248 and established it as their captital. That was basically the end of the Almohad Caliphate, though they still lingered on for a few more years, and the beginning of the Marinid Dynasty. All in all the Almohad Caliphate spanned something around one hundred years.
The Nasrids were an islamic dynasty in Spain, based around the Granada, not Morocco nor any other parts of the Maghreb.
The Marinids also held some territory in Spain, but nor Granada. It may be a good idea to give Granada to the rebels in late, as this would have been held by the Nasrids and not the Marinids.
Iron should be added in Milan, and some southern German provinces (like Bavaria). This area was one of the main producers of weapons and armour during the medieval period, and of course even later on. Even the muslims of the Middle east often bought swords from northern Italy.
I think that Novgorod should remain at least in the High era. Afte the Mongol invasion, Novogorod lost some of its independancy as a state, but existed untill the late 15th century when the muscovites finally brought an end to them, moving the seat of power in Russia from Novogorod to Moscow. When Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes at Neva and the Teutonic Knights at lake Peipus, in the 1240's, he did so as a defender of Novogord.
Adding Novgorod into late would mean modding the Novgorod faction's colours and flag images. I'm not so sure about doing that as yet, as I hadn't planned on altering any graphics for this mod. Editing the graphics for MTW is a complete pain as they appeared to have used some pretty ancient tools. Many of the texture files are stored in the .lbm format (the bitmap format used by Deluxe Paint, originally a Commodore Amiga program). You can't save these files in psp because it's mucks up the palettes forcing you to download another tool to save the file with. Another format used is .bif which you also need to download a special program in order to view and edit.
Kralizec
11-30-2006, 22:52
Thanks for the clarification.
IIRC in XL, the Nasrids are a late period faction that controlls granada and the north north African provinces (except Egypt and the Sinai obviously)
That would be unhistorical then, but understandable because with less territories the moorish faction cuold be overrun by those powerfull late catholic kingdoms.
If the starting positions of the Iberian chistians would be a little tweaked, a Nasrid Granada faction might be very interesting (and challenging) to play.
Just some thoughts...
Innocentius
11-30-2006, 23:25
That would be unhistorical then, but understandable because with less territories the moorish faction cuold be overrun by those powerfull late catholic kingdoms.
Unbalanced or not, if it's correct I'd let it stay that way. Some factions really need to be doomed factions top open up for a more interesting game. Like the Armenians in Early XL, they stand no chance unless you spend all of your money on helping them out (giving of course that you are their neighbour or have an easy sea-access).
Thanks for the clarification.
IIRC in XL, the Nasrids are a late period faction that controlls granada and the north north African provinces (except Egypt and the Sinai obviously)
That would be unhistorical then, but understandable because with less territories the moorish faction cuold be overrun by those powerfull late catholic kingdoms.
If the starting positions of the Iberian chistians would be a little tweaked, a Nasrid Granada faction might be very interesting (and challenging) to play.
Just some thoughts...
The Marinids never controlled as far as Cyrenacia so shouldn't really be there as far as I can tell. Uniting them into one faction and calling them the Nasrids is just wrong in my opinion. I'm pretty sure that the Almohads were the only Berber Muslim Dynasty to get as far as western Egypt., so in the later period the Marinids should probably only be in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and the Sahara. Granada should be rebel (or assigned to a new Masrid faction), and Cyrenacia should probably be Mamluk controlled.
Kralizec
12-01-2006, 00:20
XL's Nasrid faction isn't historically correct, sorry if my wording was confusing. In XL they're basicly the same old moorish empire (without Cordoba) under a new dynasty.
Realisticly the Nasrids would be a single province faction, but then they'd probably get overrun rather quickly by the late catholic steamrollers. Granada didn't fell until 1492, a couple of decades after the end of the games in fact. Of course each game is just an alternate history, but I'd be unhappy if the Nasrids/Elmohads/orange guys were exterminated within 30 years in 90% of all campaigns.
Of course in MTW that's not as much of a problem as in other TW games, because factions can reemerge.
I don't know anything about the Maranid's possessions and strenghts at the start of the Late period, but maybe they'd be a better choice.
Well if Granada was rebel the Marinids could bribe or invade also. They'de have as good a chance as the Castillians. Another alternative would be to mode the Andalusian Infantry all periods and create a separate Nasrid Faction that would still be able to train those in Granada with +1 valour. This would assist them in holding out against their enemies. The balance issue would be the same as for the Aragonese or Danes. As yet I have no plans to create a Nasrid faction due to the hassle and time involved.
Innocentius
12-01-2006, 14:56
Realisticly the Nasrids would be a single province faction, but then they'd probably get overrun rather quickly by the late catholic steamrollers. Granada didn't fell until 1492, a couple of decades after the end of the games in fact. Of course each game is just an alternate history, but I'd be unhappy if the Nasrids/Elmohads/orange guys were exterminated within 30 years in 90% of all campaigns.
Well, in like 7 out of 10 cases, the same thing happens to the Aragonese in 2.01(VI), Early. The Armenians in Early XL get wiped out within the first 10-30 years. Both Aragon and Armenia remained kingdoms into the 16th respectively late 14th century.
Third spearman from the left
12-01-2006, 15:57
I don't know....... I turn my back for five minutes to play RTW and my thread is back from the dead :dizzy2:
Some nice ideas here, but have not seem anything about farming increases, or did I miss that?
It's going to happen soon once we've decided as to how much to increase them by, and how much to lower the build cost by (I'm thinking of halfing it in most cases). I've also got to work on the mine incomes, the trade goods incomes and import tax percentage on trade goods, which needs increasing.
For the mines i'm thinking starting again from scratch with the build costs. I'm not sure why a gold mine would cost more to build than a copper mine? This is just a game balance thing that makes the mines unworthwhile IMHO.
In terms of value I would say that the mines should be structured as follows:
Gold
Silver
Copper
Iron
Salt
Though perhaps Iron was worth more than copper in those days? Iron must have been invaluable for warfare, but may have been very common.
Below this would the forestry, as wood was plentiful back then (I will use the forest clearing graphics for this one). I'm not sure about the income or build cost for this yet.
I've been a bit slow as present, because I've been playing a campaign to check out the state of things so far. The shipping is better overall. The units changes make a positive difference but may need some further tweaking.
Innocentius
12-01-2006, 16:14
I'd say silver should perhaps be more valuable than gold. Even though gold was more valuable as a metal, the profit from a silver mine would be much bigger than that from a gold mine. Gold is rare, and thus used for luxury. Silver was the most common metal used for coins and other forms of payment, IIRC.
Good point, yield. The mine income could also be based on yield and not just the value per good. The silver mine in that case would probably be the more valuable yes.
Well I've done the farming improvements. Farms cost half as much to build and are more productive. The mines are also more productive but cost the same to build. The import percentage has been raised to 50%.
I've renamed Yeoman Cavalry to Militia Cavalry for now.
Anyway... with Christmas approaching, and a court case coming up next february, I'm not sure if I'll be continuing to work on this for much longer. So far the changes I've made have been positive but it's early days yet, and there is still alot to do. I've started to add the Nasrid faction to the late period (FN_ANDALUS) just to see how they go, but have hit a problem when associating units and buildings to them in the crusaders and build prod files. It's ages since I've done this sort of stuff before so I can't think of what I've missed out. I've read through some of the old threads in the repositary, but to be honest that place is in a mess and I can't find any straight answers to my questions by searching. I'm feeling a little phased about all of this now to be truthful.
On December the 9th or therabouts I'll be hosting the the files I've changed so far for download to anyone that's interested.
Later
Manco
Nice work, MC!
If you need to take a break, then you should by all means do so. Whatever you've got done so far, I think there will a number of us who will be more than happy to try it out. :2thumbsup:
So far the changes I've made have been positive but it's early days yet, and there is still alot to do. I've started to add the Nasrid faction to the late period (FN_ANDALUS) just to see how they go, but have hit a problem when associating units and buildings to them in the crusaders and build prod files. It's ages since I've done this sort of stuff before so I can't think of what I've missed out. I've read through some of the old threads in the repositary, but to be honest that place is in a mess and I can't find any straight answers to my questions by searching. I'm feeling a little phased about all of this now to be truthful.
Here's a great resource, helped me a bunch: http://www.box.net/public/24jcbrbxkf
The most likely thing is something wrong with the faction association/culture specific.
On December the 9th or therabouts I'll be hosting the the files I've changed so far for download to anyone that's interested.
Definitely.
Here's a great resource, helped me a bunch: http://www.box.net/public/24jcbrbxkf
The most likely thing is something wrong with the faction association/culture specific.
Definitely.
Thanks for that I'll take a look at that tonight, though the Nasrid faction was only an afterthought and not something I was going to add to the mod at this stage. I've yet to mod in the forestry, that's what I'll be doing this evening. Also I need to add Iron to the suggested provinces, which I haven't done as yet. I will be trying to add some other mines also.
At present the mod is in such a condition that it will overwrite existing files. I'm going to change that so that it uses it's own dedicated crusaders, build and startpos files with it's own /loc/english/ files also.
A few economic balancing issues need to be resolved also. The Turkish/Early campaign I was playing I have now abandoned. It was going very well.
I had noticed the Sicilians isolated on Malta supporting a lot of Royal Knights units with a total support cost of 1200. The province was earning 320 or thereabouts. This is something that needs to be solved. Even if they were half size units, the Sicilians would still be isolated on Malta and still paying 610 in support costs while earning only 320. There is nothing economically I can do to save them from this fate, except for giving islands a ridiculously high income, and even that won't help the AI if it doesn't spend on the right things. So what is the solution? Well I've mentioned this before, but here goes:
There are landbridges on the map that in my opinion ruin gameplay. Those are Cordoba/Morocco, Granada/Morocco and Flanders/Wessex. Cutting these landbridges does not create any 1 province "islands". There are other landbridges such as Sicily/Naples and Sardinia/Corsica that I also cut. Sicily is quite a strong province and the Sicilians overflow into Naples quite quickly if this landbridge is left intact. I often see them fighting it out with the pope and taking on the Hungarians and Italians. I once linked: Naples/Sicily/Malta/Tunisia, and watched the Sicilians spill into north Africa and wipe out the Almohads. This is partly why I isolate them.
Sardinia and Corsica I isolate simply because they are separate islands. Nothing more than that.
I am now rethinking some of the landbridges for this mod.
For Finland/Sweden I like that fact that the Novgorod can expand into Scandinavia and the Danes can expand into northern Russia. The land route is there anyway, but it's off the map, so it should be there.
Denmark/Sweden is a standard one that I've never touched. Personally I think it should stay, because without it the Danes find it more difficult to expand. The AI is stupid and would probably let Sweden get isolated from the king causing a rebellion.
Wessex/Flanders stop the English from attacking Flanders in the same predictable route every time, and stops the French from storming Wessex and pretty much putting a stop to the English before they've even got started. It's a strategic point and needs to be a true sea crossing. Also the British Isles are a number of self sustaining provinces and not one small island.
Cordoba-Granada/Morocco breaks up the Moorish faction into 2 parts and makes it more difficult for the Almohads to storm Spain, though they still do on occasions. The Straits of Gibraltar is a strategic point that needs exist as a natural barrier between north Africa and Europe. The downside is that Maby crusades will take the route through constantinople when crusading to morocco because they cannot cross at this point. Though often if they can use spanish, italian or other shipping they will cross. This also enables the Iberian peninsula to be more easily defended.
Sardinia/Corsica is probably a pointless one. Allowing the two to be connected will help the AI.
Sicily/Naples I put there to stop the Siclian expansion into Naples. The sicilians can build ships anyway, so the owner of Naples should have a chance to build his own and keep the sicilians out. The jury is still out on this one however.
And the new ones I'm proposing are, Sicily/Malta which will stop the isolation of an AI faction on Malta.
Nicaea/Rhodes to stop the Byzantine reappearance and isolation problem.
Greece/Crete for the same reason.
As to Cyprus, it borders to many provinces I'm unsure as to which province it could be linked to. It could be linked to all three though this would make it very indefensible. I'm leaning toward Antioch at the moment.
What is needed is a landbridge that gets automatically deactivated once a ship is in the water. :thumbsdown:
There is no reason for these islands to be isolated. Supposing I as the player secure crete and then congratulate myself for the superb victory. I now control an island in the med. I spend the next few decades developing it for income stick a peasant/spearmen garrison in there, make sure my fleets are intact, one last look at the taxes, goodbye crete, the end. Forgotten. It serves no purpose. How is it strategic? It may be navally strategic in the real world but not this game, it provides no benefit at all. If I lose all of my mainland provinces I can retreat there. If I lose all of my ships and go into the red, that strategic retreat becomes a death trap, as it does for the AI. I suppose if I was a western crusader I could launch attacks from there into the mainland, but to do that I'd have to develop it to produce decent units, by that time my navy would be so expanded I'd be able to just drop those units in from anywhere else.
Also, even when lanbridged to a nearby territory the islands are still as defensible as a coastal province (moreso with only one neighbour that is likely to be your own province) and would act as useful strong points. The volatility of the islands could be reproduced by lowering the base happiness. This would cause scenarios like the Byzantines reappearing on Rhodes and pushing back into Nicaea to re-establish their faction.
In regards to the land bridges, Manco, do what you think best. I personally can't stand the land bridge between Morocco & Granada/Cordoba (and am glad the XL mod removed it). If it's too much of a hamper to the AI, though, then there's really nothing for it but to put it back in. :shrug:
I've yet to mod in the forestry, that's what I'll be doing this evening. Also I need to add Iron to the suggested provinces, which I haven't done as yet.
Where are you planning to add them, by the way? I've been meaning to ask. I know we've discussed a few provinces, but I wasn't sure where you'd actually decided to place the new mines & forestry mills.
By the way, it occurs to me that we should maybe give your mini-mod a name. I vote for "Caravel's Less-Cheese" mod. ~D
The Granada-Cordoba/Morocco landbridge is staying out, it's basilcally too unrealistic to keep.
The island landbridges I can't as yet decide on. I suppose the isolation issue is probably the highest priority.
The forestry will have to go where wood alread exists as a trade good. A new resource, "wood", will have to be placed in this province also.
As to the other mines I'm not sure yet. A few bottles of beer appears to have interfered with my plans... :smash:
Oh and as to the "Caravel's Less Cheese" mod. I'm not sure, as alot of other people contributed besides myself. It sounds ok though.
"you need to go here and download Caravel's Less Cheese mod and change those socks while you're at it!"
The Granada-Cordoba/Morocco landbridge is staying out, it's basilcally too unrealistic to keep.
The island landbridges I can't as yet decide on. I suppose the isolation issue is probably the highest priority.
The forestry will have to go where wood alread exists as a trade good. A new resource, "wood", will have to be placed in this province also.
As to the other mines I'm not sure yet. A few bottles of beer appears to have interfered with my plans... :smash:
Mmm, beer. [salivates] ~:cheers: But I digress....
I'm wondering about some of the wood provinces now. I don't know if if it's unique to the XL mod or not; but I noticed that in my current Fatamid campaign, Antioch (or maybe it was Tripoli, I'm blanking out now) has wood as a trade good. This makes little sense to me, as the Holy Land isn't exactly known for its abundance of trees. :inquisitive: I didn't think to take a more extensive look last night, but I'm suddenly wondering where else wood is listed as a trade good in places that don't make sense.
I think I'm going to load up a vanilla game tonight and see where all the wood is located on the map, because I really don't think there should be forestry resources in provinces that have no forests. :no: I'll also try and nail down where all of the current iron provinces are located, and see where else we could place iron on the map.
Oh and as to the "Caravel's Less Cheese" mod. I'm not sure, as alot of other people contributed besides myself. It sounds ok though.
"you need to go here and download Caravel's Less Cheese mod and change those socks while you're at it!"
Heh. :laugh4: :laugh4:
Hmm, what about the Low Calorie Mini-mod? I know it's (another) corny name, but it reflects that it makes some relatively minor changes, mostly in the interests of game balance. Sorry; I seem to have a mental block when it comes to coming up with a decent name for the mod! :shrug:
I'm wondering about some of the wood provinces now. I don't know if if it's unique to the XL mod or not; but I noticed that in my current Fatamid campaign, Antioch (or maybe it was Tripoli, I'm blanking out now) has wood as a trade good. This makes little sense to me, as the Holy Land isn't exactly known for its abundance of trees. :inquisitive: I didn't think to take a more extensive look last night, but I'm suddenly wondering where else wood is listed as a trade good in places that don't make sense.
Well the new wood resource should be in the same places as the wood trade goods, but the trade good need not always be present. An inland province may have an abundance of wood for a forestry, but may not do much of a trade in it so the trade good would be absent.
I think I'm going to load up a vanilla game tonight and see where all the wood is located on the map, because I really don't think there should be forestry resources in provinces that have no forests. :no: I'll also try and nail down where all of the current iron provinces are located, and see where else we could place iron on the map.
I agree, we may have to go by where forests are visually in abundance, that would be much more straightforward and would enhance gameplay.
Hmm, what about the Low Calorie Mini-mod? I know it's (another) corny name, but it reflects that it makes some relatively minor changes, mostly in the interests of game balance. Sorry; I seem to have a mental block when it comes to coming up with a decent name for the mod! :shrug:
The "Now with 50% less fat than your regular MTW" mod. :beam:
Geezer57
12-07-2006, 13:59
I'm wondering about some of the wood provinces now. I don't know if if it's unique to the XL mod or not; but I noticed that in my current Fatamid campaign, Antioch (or maybe it was Tripoli, I'm blanking out now) has wood as a trade good. This makes little sense to me, as the Holy Land isn't exactly known for its abundance of trees.
Hmmm, thinking back to Biblical tales, wasn't Lebanon renowned for its cedar?
It is, so tripoli could have the wood as trade goods and a resource for a forestry. Or maybe just the former if the wood is not that abundant?
Hmmm, thinking back to Biblical tales, wasn't Lebanon renowned for its cedar?
Gak! Yeah, you're right. I'd completely forgotten that, Geezer. Silly me... :dunce:
It is, so tripoli could have the wood as trade goods and a resource for a forestry. Or maybe just the former if the wood is not that abundant?
I would say one or the other, yeah. Even with them being well-known for their cedar, I just don't think Tripoli/Lebanon has enough wood resources to justify both.
EDIT: By the way, Tripoli doesn't have wood as a trade good in vanilla MTW/VI. It only has wood in XL.
The "FOREST" resource is working, and I didn't have to do alot. There was already an icon for it in there (I expect the experienced modders knew this before I did). There is also an info parchment for a "forester" and upgrades, so that's pretty doable. There are also alot of others such as glassmakers, grapes as a resource and other "merchants" that would have made an income from certain resources. I don't think it would be that hard to add extra resources either. Existing trade goods may be easy to copy and add back as duplicate resources.
The next problem is my messed up buildprod file. I've opened them in wordpad, saved them and the formatting has been wrecked. No other text editors show the problem. when I open in another editor such as Notepad++ or Crimson Editor the file looks fine, but when I try to launch MTW I get an error about "{CASTLE7" making it obvious that a line has been chopped in half (wrapped) onto another line. I can't fix it because when I open in another editor it looks fine. The problem is i'm using Win98SE here, with the old notepad that won't open large files.
I need to edit the buildprod file in a text editor because the gnome editor won't allow me to add new lines for some reason?
I got one file working again, then added back the Iron mine to that, and that won't work either same error. Remove the Iron mine and it works again... confusing...
Well I've downloaded a mass of text editors cannot find even one that doesn't somehow mess up the formatting of the buildprod file. :furious3:
Bummer man. :sad: Is it just a problem with adding/removing iron mines, or is it more extensive than that?
Adding a line to the file and saving it messes it up somehow. Gnome editor cannot then parse the file correctly. i'm stumped so far. I have a feeling i need the xp or 2k version of notepad as opposed to the win9x one. :shame:
-Edt: I got the iron mine working before, but I'd edited that under XP I think...
-Edit: I did try opening a vanilla buildprod file in wordpad, and other editors, as well and saving it. After that it wouldn't work but threw an error.
Fixed those errors and found a half decent text editor called "TextPad". My own connection is up so I've put up some screenshots. It's nothing much to look at of course, because the main differences are the unit stats, valour bonuses and other non cosmetic changes:
Al-Murabitun Infantry (http://mysite.orange.co.uk/caravel/almoravid.jpg)
Iron Mine (http://mysite.orange.co.uk/caravel/Iron_mine.jpg)
Al-Muwahhidun Infantry (http://mysite.orange.co.uk/caravel/almohad.jpg)
Andalusian Infantry (http://mysite.orange.co.uk/caravel/andalus.jpg)
Forester (http://mysite.orange.co.uk/caravel/forester.jpg)
There is a Forester, Foresters' Workshop and Foresters' Guild that can be constructed in any province with the "forest" resource.
I've now begun adding more Iron and and Forest resources to some provinces, working from a list that Martok sent me. :2thumbsup:
Nice, Caravel. (Good to see you back to your original name, btw!) :2thumbsup:
One question on the Forestry buildings: Do they provide a straight income just like the mines & mine complexes, or is it like farming in that it's partially based on the income of the particular province it's in? I had assumed the former, but I just realized there's no particular reason why that would be so.
The Unknown Guy
01-11-2007, 16:47
One note: after removing armenia and georgia and their respective garrisons, Byzantium gets tougher to play than expected. Shouldnt the Nicaea garrison be a bit stronger to counter this? Maybe some armored spearmen?
The Unknown Guy
01-11-2007, 17:08
PD: I meant in "High" epoch. Your military assets are severely reduced as it is.
One note: after removing armenia and georgia and their respective garrisons, Byzantium gets tougher to play than expected. Shouldnt the Nicaea garrison be a bit stronger to counter this? Maybe some armored spearmen?
I am here struggling for more ways to stop the Byzantine from taking over the whole map before the high era, and you post here saying they're now too hard (presumably starting in high?). Seems I can't win! :laugh4:
Lesser Armenia (The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia) and Georgia were historically independent for, AFAIK, the entire duration of the three eras with the exception of the Mongol conquest, and for Lesser Armenia until 1375 when it fell to the Mamluks.
You have to remember that during the early era the Byzantine were recovering from a serious decline, retaking many old territories. Then 1204, bang, it all goes down the toilet again with the arrival of the fourth crusade, sacking of Constantinople, virtual disintegration of the empire and establishment of the Latin States. At this point they are down to Nicaea and nothing more (The Empire of Nicaea. In the high period I've left Rhodes in Byzantine control, in reality it should be rebel also). This is how it should be, a one province faction. I've actually played a campaign as the Byzantine/high/hard using this setup and found it to be one of the best campaigns I've ever played. It offers a big challenge but is not as dull as an Aragonese or Danish campaign. It's easy in some ways, as you have a good province and are surrounded by rebels. ~;)
In early the lack of Georgia and Armenia certainly doesn't hamper the AI Byzantines anyway. :wall:
I will review their starting units in the high period however to see that they are balanced enough. Thanks for the feedback! :2thumbsup:
-Edit: More than enough units IMHO.
The Unknown Guy
01-11-2007, 23:05
I actually like the mod a lot more than vanilla. And a lot more than total conversions. I find it quite balanced, and it´s more interesting for Byzantium to pull out combined arms armies than to keep churning out Byzantine Infantry for both attack and defense ad nauseam.
As for the High epoch problem: you´re stuck with a few units, barely enough to retake trebizond and constantinople, and the last is a must. The turks have enough forces to overrun you in a turn if you try to conquer anything. Rhodes, as you pointed out, is a non-historical
Suggestion: Since Trebizond went out to became the independent, throne-claimant, Empire of Trebizond, how about turning it into a byzantine province, with a small garrison? (and remove Rhodes, which would be under the Hospitaller´s control, if I am not mistaken). Quid pro quo.
Not that you *can´t* play in high, but it´s hard enough, as you have to take (roughly) the provinces you start with in late, and hold to them until the mongols arrive&hope that they weaken or vanquisk the turks. (For the record, in Vanilla I preferred to play in High and play a retake constantinople&trench game, than an early Pax Byzantina campaign, in which it was not too hard to hold onto Naples and Sicily, and keep Serbia, Bulgaria, Anatolia, and Trebizond as your borders in your mainland)
A couple of questions: Did you tinker sieges? It seems to me that now the besiegers suffer more casualties while holding a province down. Also, now it seems that there are more crusades travelling around, and through different routes and to different provinces than the vanilla crusades used to do (at least, some of them. I´ve seen spanish crusades travelling through Africa to Tripoli, (and Spanish Crusades were unusual in Vanilla), as well as Italian crusades seeking to take Armenia and such (which is also not too usual)
I actually like the mod a lot more than vanilla. And a lot more than total conversions. I find it quite balanced, and it´s more interesting for Byzantium to pull out combined arms armies than to keep churning out Byzantine Infantry for both attack and defense ad nauseam.
:2thumbsup:
As for the High epoch problem: you´re stuck with a few units, barely enough to retake trebizond and constantinople, and the last is a must. The turks have enough forces to overrun you in a turn if you try to conquer anything. Rhodes, as you pointed out, is a non-historical
You can go for Constantinople early, it is very do-able because I have done it a few times while testing, and there are also a few bribes open to you. Historically the Byzantine Emperor was in a similar predicament to the player, economically crippled and struggling to survive in a region full of enemies. When you're down you're down. Once you get it back together kick the Turks off the map, rampage through the Egyptian provinces and hold back the Horde, rebuilding the Empire to it's former glory it is very satisfying indeed.
Suggestion: Since Trebizond went out to became the independent, throne-claimant, Empire of Trebizond, how about turning it into a byzantine province, with a small garrison? (and remove Rhodes, which would be under the Hospitaller´s control, if I am not mistaken). Quid pro quo.
When the Empire fell apart in 1204, the only remaining major Greek states IIRC were the Empire of Nicaea, the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Trebizond. These were the successor states, each claiming to be the "real" Eastern Roman Empire. Trebizond and Epirus never returned to Byzantine control but remained independent. Trebizond finally fell to Mehmet II sometime in the late 1300's if I remember correctly. This would make giving Trebizond province to the Byzantines just wrong. I'm sure that Rhodes should be rebel orthodox in the high era, it passed to Hospitaller control in the early 14th century. In late it needs to be rebel garissoned by Knights Hospitallers, Hospitaller Foot Knights and perhaps some order foot soliders with a decent fortification (Citadel). The Byzantines in high will become the Empire of Nicaea to all intents and purposes. Creating a virtual Successor States faction wouldn't work any more than creating a combined muslim faction out of the Egyptians, Turks and Almohads would work. Epirus had a rather chequered history, and did eventually return to Byzantine control for a while, but that didn't last. I really feel that a single province Empire of Nicaea is the way to go. If there are issues with it being too weak I may add some armoured spearmen and maybe even a unit of Pronaioi Allagion. Bear in mind that this mod is still being developed so we'll see how things go for now.
Not that you *can´t* play in high, but it´s hard enough, as you have to take (roughly) the provinces you start with in late, and hold to them until the mongols arrive&hope that they weaken or vanquisk the turks. (For the record, in Vanilla I preferred to play in High and play a retake constantinople&trench game, than an early Pax Byzantina campaign, in which it was not too hard to hold onto Naples and Sicily, and keep Serbia, Bulgaria, Anatolia, and Trebizond as your borders in your mainland)
I would advise you to stick with it, you may be suprised. As I've said before, the AI now does better in early than it did before.
A couple of questions: Did you tinker sieges? It seems to me that now the besiegers suffer more casualties while holding a province down.
Nope. I'm not sure what's causing that one. It may be a side effect of something else? I quite honestly haven't noticed it myself.
Also, now it seems that there are more crusades travelling around, and through different routes and to different provinces than the vanilla crusades used to do (at least, some of them. I´ve seen spanish crusades travelling through Africa to Tripoli, (and Spanish Crusades were unusual in Vanilla), as well as Italian crusades seeking to take Armenia and such (which is also not too usual)
The reason for more crusades may be due to the fact that more are coming your way. This is because the landbridges being cut means that alot of crusades will take the land route via constantinople. Unfortunately you will sometimes get e.g. A French Crusade being declared in Toulouse for Morocco, that makes its way eastwards via Constantinople and south through Asia Minor via the Holy Land, Egypt and North Africa! Not alot I can do about this except add a landbridge between Granada and Morocco, and I really don't want to do that. If it comes down to it though, it will have to be done. The removal of landbridges may have changed the way the AI looks at the map. It now looks at different provinces due to relative distances having changed.
The Unknown Guy
01-14-2007, 21:55
- Notes on crusades 1.3: Not my imagination. More crusades going on at once, from more factions than usual (It´s rare to see Italian crusaders), and at strange places (Algeria, Armenia, even Constantinople! I spotted Spanish crusades travelling around Africa too
- Landbridge: Why not one in Punta Tarifa? The coasts are real close there.
(Also: Why not follow your stated idea and turn Asia-Constantinople into a landbridge battle? :p)
- Sahara: (Wasn´t really Almohad, as they went for Western Sahara coast. And it sort of... doesn´t look right in the map. I dont know, I didnt play that campaign too throughly)
- Modding Castile and Aragon: Castile: Gets Jinetes as exclusive, but they should need a spearmaker as well as a master horsebreeder to build. Aragon: Since the almugharavs are now unused, why not give them to Aragon?
- Notes on crusades 1.3: Not my imagination. More crusades going on at once, from more factions than usual (It´s rare to see Italian crusaders), and at strange places (Algeria, Armenia, even Constantinople! I spotted Spanish crusades travelling around Africa too
In my experience so far, I see no more crusades than usual. I'll have to wait for more feedback. I'll be keeping a look out for this, thanks. :2thumbsup:
- Landbridge: Why not one in Punta Tarifa? The coasts are real close there.
I've been considering that one for a while, the problem is that it allows the Spaniards and other crusaders to decimate the Moorish factions in a matter of years.
(Also: Why not follow your stated idea and turn Asia-Constantinople into a landbridge battle? :p)
It is already a landbridge. If you mean a bridge battle then that can be done, but historically it wasn't a bridge battle, it was attacked from the sea, and besieged. No bridge existed across the bosphoroust back then. Constantinople was completely surrounded and existed as a city state before it finally fell in 1453. Cutting the landbridge at this point and resizing the Nicaea province would mean more crusades bypassing constantinople and going via Georgia. If this was cut, then I could use the same argument that the straits of gibraltar should also remain a true channel. Instinct tells me to do it but it's a difficult one. The same applies to Sardinia and Corsica, as well as Sicily and Naples.
- Sahara: (Wasn´t really Almohad, as they went for Western Sahara coast. And it sort of... doesn´t look right in the map. I dont know, I didnt play that campaign too throughly)
I have to disagree. The MTW map continues south as far as 30th parallel north latitude, being pretty much bang on the line. Virtually all of this terrain came under Almohad control circa 1200. The biggest innacuracy is in fact the Cyrenacia province, the almohads would only have conquered the western part of this, as far as roughly the 20th meridian east longitude, but this can't be helped. Otherwise though, the geography of the almohad faction is pretty bang on.
In the early era the Almoravids would have been in parts of Western Sahara only. Again this is the limitations of the provincial map model. If the Almoravids were in Western Sahara then in MTW they will have to control all of it. The provincial map model cannot account for provinces breaking up or being merged together. Sahara was not exactly a province either, more so a territory, with no distinct borders.
During the late era the Marinids would have been in Western Sahara and Morocco. Granada would have been a Nasrid Kingdom at that time. Algeria would have been under the control of the Hafsids and Tunisia the Ziyanids. In reality the Marinids should only start the late era with Morocco and Western Sahara (thus all of Sahara), at present they've got the Hafsid and Ziyanid provinces until I decide what to do with them. I have thought about creating all of these individual factions but that would turn the pocket mod into a "suitcase mod" and also creat alot of factions that would effectively be clones of each other. Out of these dynasties the marinids are the most impressive. They defeated the almohads and also repelled invasions from Castile, which is why I have opted to represent them in the game and not the Ziyanids, Hafsids or Nasrids.
- Modding Castile and Aragon: Castile: Gets Jinetes as exclusive, but they should need a spearmaker as well as a master horsebreeder to build. Aragon: Since the almugharavs are now unused, why not give them to Aragon?
Castile Leon probably should get Jinetes as exclusive, as they were developed there to combat the Moors. Almughavars I had thought about, but had decided to leave them as rebel only. They were mercenaries after all, so making them strictly aragon would be ahistorial.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Regards
Caravel
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
01-15-2007, 19:58
I get Novgorod as a playable faction in Early, and, at least in Grand Achievements mode, if you click in theirs you crash to desktop (anyone else getting this, or I borked on something?)
You can't play Novgorod GA. Nothing can be done about it. Modding them as playable has this side effect. To avoid this never click on Novgorod's GA goals, whether you're playing as Novgorod or not.
You can't play Novgorod GA. Nothing can be done about it. Modding them as playable has this side effect. To avoid this never click on Novgorod's GA goals, whether you're playing as Novgorod or not.
You know, I was wondering about that when I saw they were playable. Not that I play as the Novs a whole lot, but it's still good to know. :yes:
Also been meaning to ask: When you release a new update, Caravel, is it still compatible with the previous version? Or do we have to restart our campaign(s) once we've downloaded/installed the latest one? (I just want to make sure I'm not assuming anything here.)
The majority of new updates will be incompatible. It's best to finish your current campaign first then update. There will be yet another version coming soon. I spent last night fixing the harem woman info pic (then finishing an STW shimazu campaign I was playing). I found that paint shop pro messes up palettes, wheras photosop doesn't, though it is an old version of psp (5.0) I'm using. After this next release it will be back to speculating about further changes. The Unknown Guy raised the issue of the landbridge between Granada and Morocco. The problem is that the AI crusades cannot cross here, and instead take the long road (via constantinople and north africa). Replacing the landbridge leaves the Almoravids, Almohads and Marinids, and even the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks, very vulnerable to crusades as they were before. I think I will have to go with my original proposal of linking Granada/Morocco as well as Sardinia/Corsica and Sicily/Naples. This is better than the old situation where Cordoba and Morocco were also linked.
I still haven't decided what to do about Malta, Ireland, Rhodes, Cyrus and Crete:
I am now rethinking some of the landbridges for this mod.
For Finland/Sweden I like that fact that the Novgorod can expand into Scandinavia and the Danes can expand into northern Russia. The land route is there anyway, but it's off the map, so it should be there.
Denmark/Sweden is a standard one that I've never touched. Personally I think it should stay, because without it the Danes find it more difficult to expand. The AI is stupid and would probably let Sweden get isolated from the king causing a rebellion.
Wessex/Flanders stop the English from attacking Flanders in the same predictable route every time, and stops the French from storming Wessex and pretty much putting a stop to the English before they've even got started. It's a strategic point and needs to be a true sea crossing. Also the British Isles are a number of self sustaining provinces and not one small island.
Cordoba-Granada/Morocco breaks up the Moorish faction into 2 parts and makes it more difficult for the Almohads to storm Spain, though they still do on occasions. The Straits of Gibraltar is a strategic point that needs to exist as a natural barrier between north Africa and Europe. The downside is that many crusades will take the route through Constantinople when crusading to Morocco because they cannot cross at this point. Though often if they can use Spanish, italian or other shipping they will cross. This also enables the Iberian peninsula to be more easily defended.
Sardinia/Corsica is probably a pointless one. Allowing the two to be connected will help the AI.
Sicily/Naples I put there to stop the Siclian expansion into Naples. The sicilians can build ships anyway, so the owner of Naples should have a chance to build his own and keep the sicilians out. The jury is still out on this one however.
And the new ones I'm proposing are, Sicily/Malta which will stop the isolation of an AI faction on Malta.
Nicaea/Rhodes to stop the Byzantine reappearance and isolation problem.
Greece/Crete for the same reason.
As to Cyprus, it borders so many provinces I'm unsure as to which province it could be linked to. It could be linked to all three though this would make it very indefensible. I'm leaning toward Antioch at the moment.
What is needed is a landbridge that gets automatically deactivated once a ship is in the water. :thumbsdown:
There is no reason for these islands to be isolated. Supposing I as the player secure crete and then congratulate myself for the superb victory. I now control an island in the med. I spend the next few decades developing it for income stick a peasant/spearmen garrison in there, make sure my fleets are intact, one last look at the taxes, goodbye crete, the end. Forgotten. It serves no purpose. How is it strategic? It may be navally strategic in the real world but not this game, it provides no benefit at all. If I lose all of my mainland provinces I can retreat there. If I lose all of my ships and go into the red, that strategic retreat becomes a death trap, as it does for the AI. I suppose if I was a western crusader I could launch attacks from there into the mainland, but to do that I'd have to develop it to produce decent units, by that time my navy would be so expanded I'd be able to just drop those units in from anywhere else.
Also, even when lanbridged to a nearby territory the islands are still as defensible as a coastal province (moreso with only one neighbour that is likely to be your own province) and would act as useful strong points. The volatility of the islands could be reproduced by lowering the base happiness. This would cause scenarios like the Byzantines reappearing on Rhodes and pushing back into Nicaea to re-establish their faction.
Belisario
01-16-2007, 18:31
Hi Caravel! I've detected a minor error in the mod. Some region titles does not correspond with the province, for instance "Duke of Serbia" in Greece, "Duke of Edessa" in Trebisond or "Duke of Trebisond" in Nicaea (I can't deny I enjoy playing the Byzantines, above all in the High era :beam: ).
The Unknown Guy
01-16-2007, 20:20
On the topic raised in the other thread: Yes, a "season" system" would be rather nice (In fact, when I bought the game it´s the one thing that I missed from Shogun). Is there any prospect of that coming around?
Hi Caravel! I've detected a minor error in the mod. Some region titles does not correspond with the province, for instance "Duke of Serbia" in Greece, "Duke of Edessa" in Trebisond or "Duke of Trebisond" in Nicaea (I can't deny I enjoy playing the Byzantines, above all in the High era :beam: ).
Hi Belisario,
I cannot reproduce the error during any era. I've checked all of the provinces you've listed. Nor have any others reported it as yet. Did you start a new campaign or did you load a campaign they you were playing before you installed the mod?
On the topic raised in the other thread: Yes, a "season" system" would be rather nice (In fact, when I bought the game it´s the one thing that I missed from Shogun). Is there any prospect of that coming around?
Unfortunately the years/turns can't be modded. :no:
- Notes on crusades 1.3: Not my imagination. More crusades going on at once, from more factions than usual (It´s rare to see Italian crusaders), and at strange places (Algeria, Armenia, even Constantinople! I spotted Spanish crusades travelling around Africa too
More on this point: The increase in Italian crusaders was possibly due to them being better protected from the Sicillians by the lack of the landbridge. This has now been restored of course.
You are probably noticing more crusades because they are all taking the same route, this is why the Morocco -> Granada and Cordoba landbridge has to be there, to allow crusades from western europe to the maghreb to take a more direct route. The AI is not capable enough to send ships first to secure the crossing. Most, though not all, of the crusades declared in western Europe heading for any provinces south of Syria should now take the route across the straits of gibraltar.
I had to join both Cordoba and Granada to Morroco as anything else looks ridiculous. La Punta Tarifa is actually in Cordoba province in the game, so that province has to be landbridged to Morocco. The problem is that not landbridging Granada also just doesn't look right.
Sweet, Caravel. And just in time for the weekend, too! :2thumbsup: I'll let you know if I run into anything -- assuming I'm not too busy kicking the Byz' and Seljuks' rear ends, that is. ~D
:2thumbsup:
Gah... I've been having PC problems (CPU getting too hot), luckily it's all sorted now, though it's taken half the night. So it'll be tomorrow before I get back to this.
Update:
I may have introduced something into 1.0.6 that is causing a crash. So I'll need to try and trace that next before I can do anything else. It could be related to graphics card drivers though of course, but somehow I seriously doubt it.
Does the campaign start loading, hang, flash black and then crash?
Does the campaign start loading, hang, flash black and then crash?
Basically I can start the game fine, start a battle with no problems. The problem appears to be campaign map. Sometimes it can keep going for ten game turns, other times it crashes after the first few seconds. On other occasions it the load screen flashes off and the screen goes black. There is a delay of about 10 seconds then the error message appears.
I've just tested now with a clean install of vanilla MTW/VI 2.01 and the same thing happens, so that rules out modding being the cause. It looks like it may be the graphics card drivers. I had just reinstalled XP and the Omega 7.1 drivers for my Radeon 9800 a few days ago. I was playing Rome last night to give it a good testing, and it was rock solid. It appears to be the new graphics card drivers + MTW problem. Instead of installing older drivers there's got to be some settings I can play about with, so I'll try that now.
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 02/02/2007
Time: 11:38:26
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Faulting application medieval_tw.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module medieval_tw.exe, version 1.0.0.0, fault address 0x0033d54d.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 6d 65 64 ure med
0018: 69 65 76 61 6c 5f 74 77 ieval_tw
0020: 2e 65 78 65 20 31 2e 30 .exe 1.0
0028: 2e 30 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 .0.0 in
0030: 6d 65 64 69 65 76 61 6c medieval
0038: 5f 74 77 2e 65 78 65 20 _tw.exe
0040: 31 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 1.0.0.0
0048: 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 at offse
0050: 74 20 30 30 33 33 64 35 t 0033d5
0058: 34 64 0d 0a 4d..
-Edit: I almost forgot. I'm also getting the problem where the game doesn't exit. I have to do ctrl+alt+del and kill the process.
Hmmm.
The campaign start loading, hang, flash black and then crash. Usually refers to unit and/or map problems. So yes it's not modding as you already figured out.
I'm not to good with the graphics driver problems. Geyser57 would probably know.
Well I've stopped the crash when exit problem, but not the other problem. The crash on exit, on this card and with these drivers appears to be caused by AA. Disabling AA eliminates the problem. I'm still working on the other issue. It is extremely erratic and random, which makes it hard to pin down.
-Edit: No, the problem is still there. It occurs when loading a savegame every time. If I make a save then exit, load up again and then load the savegame. It crashes every time now. The crash on exit occurs after you've played a few turns and a battle, then try to exit I think.
Geezer57
02-03-2007, 17:27
Caravel, I've found that for MTW and older Radeon cards (anything pre X1xxx series), that the Omega 2.6.53 drivers (based on Catalyst 5.7) are the most compatible. And, as you've found, don't enable AA - for some reason the game engine doesn't like it. These have worked great with soft-modded 9500 non-Pros, 9700/9800 cards, x800GTO2/x800XL/x850XT cards in my machines.
You can find the drivers in the archive here: http://www.omegadrivers.net/archive.php
Good luck!
P.S. Strongly recommend the use of Driver Cleaner Pro v1.5 (the free version) when changing drivers. It's available here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Driver-Cleaner-Professional.shtml
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745
http://www.overclock.net/downloads/138459-driver-cleaner-pro-1-5-a.html
Many thanks Geezer57, I will look into that. At present I seem to have got it working again. The problem was that my Medieval_TW.exe file had become corrupted, this was causing the errors and *cough*I now have the CD in the drive constantly*cough*. Anyway the mod is ok, which is the main thing. The crash on exit is still there. I've got AA and AF set to application preference and that has fixed the slow menu performance. I will probably downgrade to the drivers you've suggested though. You often find that newer drivers contain a lot of code relevant to later generation cards, so they're often not worth having. I also detest the newer catalysts that ship with that vile control centre that depends on the .net framework. Luckily the Omega drivers don't seem to have that.
:thumbsup:
Some ideas for the next release. Keep the bug reports and feedback for 1.0.6 coming though. :thumbsup:
With some changes to the unit roster done, and various other changes, The building tech tree looks like the next area I will be looking at. What I dislike about it is the extreme amount of redundancy. IMHO it is poor. The STW tech tree had meaningful buildings that fulfil a purpose. Every level produced a new unit, gave a valour bonus, upgraded a weapon, farming upgrades went up to 100%, etc etc. MTW changed all that, with certain factions having a whole tech tree load of militia buildings that do nothing, a royal court that does nothing, and higher level civil buildings that give nothing more than titles. Then there are the horse farmers that depend on the 20% farmland, that once built do nothing whatsoever, and require you to upgrade to the horse breeders.
Another building I've been looking into is the border forts and watchtowers. I find that I can play a campaign not using any border forts. I do build watchtowers though. As to why I build them, mainly for the loyalty bonus. I don't really care that much what the AI is doing to be honest, I will always build watchtower, town watch, church, brothel etc, to boost loyalty. The spying on my neighbours bit is a secondary. I tend to use my watchtowers for most spying, as well as my ships fopr spying on coastal provinces further afield.
In view of this, I plan to do some testing soon with border forts and watchtowers totally removed. This will force me to put the, now much more readily available, spies and assassins out into the field doing some real work. The AI border forts ruined this in the past as they were always killing the majority of my agents off. Now my men will have a sporting chance against the AI agents in their provinces. If my men are lost the AI agents will gain valour. The AI may then send these agents on foreign missions. It will be an incentive for me to place my spies in the rival factions provinces and for the AI to place their spies and assassins in mine and each other's. A whole new dynamic.
Another factor is the inbalance of the Spearmaker/Bowyer and Swordsmith/Armour. I can see no reason why the Swordsmith should depend on the Spearmaker, nor why the Armourer depends on either (IIRC) the Bowyer or Spearmaker. It may have some kind of game balancing behind it all, but it is highly illogical. The dependence of those two on the town watch is also an annoyance. Also, why should horse breeders be upgradeable with no restriction? To cut a long story short I would readjust the tech as follows:
Fort: (this would only allow the garrison of troops and the production of farmland upgrades, construction of a port etc, with no troop training facilities, except for those troops which only depend on a fort or town watch etc.)
Keep: Horse Farmer, Bower, Spearmaker, Swordsmith, Armourer, Siege Engineer, Gunsmith.
Castle: Horse Breeder, Bowers' Workshop, Spearmakers' Workshop, Swordsmiths' Workshop, Armourers' Workshop, Siege Engineers' Workshop, Gunsmiths' Workshop.
Citadel: Horse Breeder's Guild, Bower's Guild, Spearmaker's Guild, Swordsmith's Guild, Armourer's Guild, Siege Engineer's Guild, Gunsmiths' Guild.
Fortress: Master Horse Breeder, Master Bower, Master Spearmaker, Master Swordsmith, Master Armourer, Master Siege Engineer, Master Gunsmith.
Costs would be adjusted accordingly, as would the startpos files.
Deus ret.
02-15-2007, 22:57
In view of this, I plan to do some testing soon with border forts and watchtowers totally removed. This will force me to put the, now much more readily available, spies and assassins out into the field doing some real work. The AI border forts ruined this in the past as they were always killing the majority of my agents off. Now my men will have a sporting chance against the AI agents in their provinces. If my men are lost the AI agents will gain valour. The AI may then send these agents on foreign missions. It will be an incentive for me to place my spies in the rival factions provinces and for the AI to place their spies and assassins in mine and each other's. A whole new dynamic.
good point and interesting to try out (particularly because of provinces being 'blind') but it will likely result in you being far superior in espionage/counter-espionage. the main reason is that the AI can't handle its agents properly, especially defensively, and won't maintain one or two defensive spies/assassins in their provinces whereas you are free to do so. actually I don't use border forts anymore because those defensive spies will valour up quickly while catching enemy agents. the border forts do exactly this and 'override' your agents' ability to do so.
besides, having a significantly increased number of agents on the map will also slow down the game considerably....
Sorry Deus ret, missed your post yesterday when replying.
good point and interesting to try out (particularly because of provinces being 'blind') but it will likely result in you being far superior in espionage/counter-espionage. the main reason is that the AI can't handle its agents properly, especially defensively, and won't maintain one or two defensive spies/assassins in their provinces whereas you are free to do so.
Very true, I've posted about this before.
actually I don't use border forts anymore because those defensive spies will valour up quickly while catching enemy agents. the border forts do exactly this and 'override' your agents' ability to do so.
besides, having a significantly increased number of agents on the map will also slow down the game considerably....
The problem is that the border forts make subterfuge both boring and redundant. The only targets I can go after are those provinces where the AI has neglected to upgrade to a border fort. I'm convinced that they were included by the devs because subterfuge was basically broken, and to clean up the agents that the AI will spam to prevent them slowing down the game. The AI is useless at it. It counterspies badly and cannot use half of the functions. The AI cannot conduct treason trials or reveal vices AFAIK, but I may be wrong about this. What it can do is send spies to rival enemy provinces to lower the loyalty there (perhaps the spies reveal vices also?). The AI will train assassins and send them after targets and that's about it. It would be great if rival factions spies and assassins could be made visible so that you can see what they're doing and better analyse their behaviour? Does -ian mode allow this (anyone)?
Deus ret.
02-17-2007, 22:01
Very true, I've posted about this before.
so it's you I got all this from! man, the world is small ... *cough* ok back to businness...:shame:
The AI cannot conduct treason trials or reveal vices AFAIK, but I may be wrong about this.
I'm pretty sure it can't, for the sole reasons that your generals would get valour bonus vs. spies as time goes by like the AI ones do (those who resisted the attmept) -- you can only be successful in so many espionage missions.
It would be great if rival factions spies and assassins could be made visible so that you can see what they're doing and better analyse their behaviour? Does -ian mode allow this (anyone)?
it does ....well, in a way, and in a cumbersome one. with -ian you can switch control between factions with the keys 1-10 and [shift-]1-10. while controlling a faction you can at least see the current position and mission (if any) of its agents. thus, -ian doesn't really allow to (of course you can check every turn and see what has changed...), and only for the first 20 faction slots. beware if you play a faction outside that range, you'll never get back to it again....
I'm afraid I know of no other method to do that. maybe it's better that way, because if we knew we might be so horrified about the AI's inablility (which you presume probably rightly) that leaving spies and assassins entirely out of the game would be the only option left for reasons of fair-play :juggle2: ....
Cambyses II, brilliant. I'm really enjoying playing as the Byz. The new unit roster adds flavour and dynamics to the original stale one. One thing though, Psiloi have a support of 52 and Skutatoi have on of 37, its a little odd that light infantry cost more to support than main infantry.
Cambyses II, brilliant. I'm really enjoying playing as the Byz. The new unit roster adds flavour and dynamics to the original stale one. One thing though, Psiloi have a support of 52 and Skutatoi have on of 37, its a little odd that light infantry cost more to support than main infantry.
I'll have a look at that, next. :2thumbsup:
I've found a bug already, or at least I think I have. Siege engine crews on the battlefield without their equipment, in every battle, as Innocentius said in an earlier post. I'm wondering what's causing this as I haven't changed anything relating to them in either the projectile stats or the unit stats?
:book:
Edit: Regarding the subterfuge and watch towers / border forts issue. I have been watching the AI controlled Byzantine so far in this test campaign I'm running as the English. I've got to 1120 so far and have never seen the AI send a spy on a mission. Assassins yes, spies no. The AI seems to be incapable of having it's spies carry out treason trials, reveal vices or gate opening during a siege. Also the AI spies were very immobile. I had watched them for ten years and they never moved. There were three in Serbia, two in Bulgaria and one in Nicaea, none at all in the other Byzantine provinces. Of the assassins I monitored, nothing new. Just the same random assassinations at any target it feels like going after (the AI can always see all of the map).
I've found a bug already, or at least I think I have. Siege engine crews on the battlefield without their equipment, in every battle, as Innocentius said in an earlier post. I'm wondering what's causing this as I haven't changed anything relating to them in either the projectile stats or the unit stats?
I've had that before. And asked it in a thread. If I find the answer I will post it up.
Deus ret.
02-18-2007, 14:38
Also the AI spies were very immobile. I had watched them for ten years and they never moved. There were three in Serbia, two in Bulgaria and one in Nicaea, none at all in the other Byzantine provinces.
now that's good news in favour of a removal of border forts! if the AI doesn't move those spies, they'll automatically act defensively, evening out the balance somewhat.
...although I have to admit that my defensive agents quite often catch enemy spies. no idea if they were on a mission or not, but in any case there seems to be some movement (perhaps it's random?).
now that's good news in favour of a removal of border forts! if the AI doesn't move those spies, they'll automatically act defensively, evening out the balance somewhat.
...although I have to admit that my defensive agents quite often catch enemy spies. no idea if they were on a mission or not, but in any case there seems to be some movement (perhaps it's random?).
It may be an idea edit the startpos files to place spies in the factions' "capitals", this would guarantee some level of protection. My concern is that though the AI may train spies they may not move them to where they're needed. I had noticed that spies In Serbia must have come from Greece where there was a Brothel. There was no Brothel in Serbia. So the AI moved those spies there for whatever reason, but didn't move them again. Movement occurs but it is limited, the majority of foreign agents caught are assassins. The assassins I had observed only moved when on missions. I had not observed any that were simply moving around. Their targets were extremely random. A general of mine in Scotland was hit the year after he was trained, by a Byzantine Assassin moving in from Constantinople. There had been no Byzantine Spies there, nor any of their Princesses or agents. The AI simply selected the target at random as it can see all of the map, all of the time. When I first started playing MTW (que jerky black and white silent movie covered in lines and scratches of me playing MTW v1.0 as the English) I remember assuming that if a rival faction discovered that I was trying to assassinate their generals/emissaries/royalty, that there would be some kind of international incident. After discovering pretty quickly that this was not the case I was rather disappointed. I had also assumed that your enemies would go all out trying to bump off your generals, and was similarly disillusioned on discovering that this was also fiction. Overall diplomacy is poor, and RTW hasn't done a whole lot to improve it, except add more features that the AI really can't use.
Innocentius
02-18-2007, 19:39
Sorry about the use of the Pictish Crossbowmen info pic. I fully understand the difference, but there is no other info pic I can use at present. That one is a placeholder until I can find something more suitable. I am no artist myself so I will need to find something I can use (such as the funny image for the harem women). If you can find a better name, and write a description for their info pic, as well as actually finding an image for conversion into an info pic that would be great. :thumbsup:
The name is a bit tricky but I really think Swedish Peasant or Swedish Peasantry is the best, since that is what they were refered to as (bondesoldater literally: peasant soldiers).
I could write a short description of them, won't take too long. But I'm not sure how the info-pics work? Can you simply convert a suitable picture into the game?
Belisario
02-18-2007, 20:02
Hi Innocentius
If you have a nice picture for the Swedish Peasants I could try to make an infopic. :yes:
Deus ret.
02-18-2007, 20:31
It may be an idea edit the startpos files to place spies in the factions' "capitals", this would guarantee some level of protection.
given your observations on the AI handling of spies, this really sounds like the best solution. ....if the AI employed defensive spies in every province there wouldn't be much difference to border forts anyway :saint:
Overall diplomacy is poor, and RTW hasn't done a whole lot to improve it, except add more features that the AI really can't use.
nor can the player, or have you ever tried reaching an at least somewhat reasonable agreement with the AI after the 1.5 patch (which eliminated save/load and simultaneously the easy way to e.g. a fair protectorate deal)? it's plainly impossible, and if a cease-fire is only accepted after you pay ridiculous amounts of money (to the losing side of the war of course, and they won't stick to it for more than a few turns!) it probably had better been left out entirely.
Trust me, MTW:VI really shines on the diplomatic side of things when compared to RTW.
Innocentius
02-18-2007, 22:35
Hi Innocentius
If you have a nice picture for the Swedish Peasants I could try to make an infopic. :yes:
That depends...Is there some sort of conversion program for this or do you mean drawing one by hand with the inspiration from other pictures?
That depends...Is there some sort of conversion program for this or do you mean drawing one by hand with the inspiration from other pictures?
You just need to find a picture, either off the net or scanned. The format should be a 256 colour bitmap for best results though other formats can be utilised anyway. Jpegs usually have artifacts though and are not really suitable, unless they're good quality and low compression.
I was reading some Osprey books in a bookshop yesterday afternoon. Particularly one about the Moors. I noticed that some of their infantry and cavalry were holding that funny shaped shield that the Ghazi Infantry carry.
I still haven't found out what is causing the siege equipment bug.
I've begun to test without border forts and watch towers, but I'm running low on available time lately. I am finding myself thinking about modding pretty much every hour of the day! It's pretty hard work, and to be honest there's not a whole lot of interest, as most are clickfesting their way through M2TW rather than playing yet another mod for this old game. The problem with this mod is that there is no real "candy" as there is with others, that offer many new factions and units and a new or redesigned map, and there never will be as I don't have the time or expertise to devote to such a venture. In the ideal world I would love to produce a realism mod for MTW with all of the historical factions in place, with their proper units types and stats balanced to somewhat recapture the battles of Shogun.
I'm not 100% sure on this yet, but 1.0.6 may be the last version of this mod. I may release a bug fix version and with any new info pics added, but I'm not sure about new features/units etc. Anyone that wishes to, would be free to take up the reins and continue of course.
This is BKB's would it be suitable.
https://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6666/examplerq1.png
I'm not 100% sure on this yet, but 1.0.6 may be the last version of this mod. I may release a bug fix version and with any new info pics added, but I'm not sure about new features/units etc.
That sounds good, man. When you first talked about creating this mod, my impression is that it was always with the understanding that it was going to be limited in scope anyway (and therefore contain only a finite number of changes). Aside from any possible bug fixes, I agree that 1.06 is as good a stopping point as any. :yes:
You're to be commended, Cambyses. While I know that modding is often its own reward, it's also hard work. So I thank you for your efforts, my friend -- as well as congratulations on a job well done. ~:cheers:
Well, I've simply spent far too much time on it lately. A few nights ago I was working on the removal of border forts and watch towers. I had eventually removed both, though I had kept getting errors :furious3: . In the end I made Border forts Pagan and Golden Horde only, which means that you'd rarely see them. I had also modified the tech tree to that which was in my example above. After this I had altered the standard fort to cost 50 florins only and take 1 year, with the fort and motte, and the fort, motte and bailey the same. I wanted these as temporary defensive structures. During that period a stone keep only really counted as a defensive structure for a county town, not a wooden fort. Those were mainly for border defense, not troop training or housing. I had passed on the happiness bonuses from the watch towers and border fort to the fort and keep. I had then reduced the build time for the keep to 6 years and it was all going well. It was at this point that I realised that I had exhausted what I could do with the game, without going into much more extensive modding. I also realised that such changes would perhaps be less popular than some of the previous ones. Adding new new units is a chore, adding new factions must be tortuous. To do that I would probably need to get a divorce and live as a recluse. Anothr annoyance is the bugs that keep cropping up. This damnable siege equipment bug especially. It must have something to do with the projectile stats file, as that's the only file I had edited to add the compound bow. I will probably run a clean install of MTW/VI tonight in order to run a test install of the mod on it. This should expose some of the problems that Innocentius reported with the Swedish Peasants.
All in all though I'm done here, and if I can't find/solve any more errors it will be up to any players to find solutions and post them up themsevles.
:bow:
EatYerGreens
03-04-2007, 20:50
Hi CambysesII,
It's a good-sounding mod you've got there, so congratulations on a job well done!
It took me a fair while to read the whole thread and I spent a lot of time nodding and thinking "durn, that's exactly what I'd want to do: How do I do one now, without it looking like a complete rip-off?" LOL
I'll need to backtrack to find pieces I wanted to quote, which would lead to a series of 'bitty' replies so, instead of that, I'll do what I can from memory.
You came to the right conlusion about the dismount issue, in the end, but I still can't resist pointing out that, cranes being a myth or not, it's solved by realising that the knights simply don't mount their horses on the day of the battle. :beam:
- - - - -
I was glad that Geezer57 pointed out the YouTube demonstration of armour-clad agility (although I don't know what era that type of armour belongs to: I'd be slightly more sceptical if it turned out to be 15th c.) because it feeds into a concept that I've raised in threads before and would like to incorporate into any modding I did myself.
Namely: (and this is personal belief and preconceptions, not facts) early armour was closer to iron than to steel, crudely shaped, thick pieces of plate, heavy and exhausting if you had a lot of moving around to do (penalty to a marching attacker, not so bad for a near-static defender). Later armour used compound curvature to achieve equivalent protection, or better, from progressively thinner pieces of plate and using steel of close-to-modern quality.
In the vanilla game, each higher level of armour-boost gives increasing protection but penalises you by causing progressively higher rates of fatigue and becomes practically fatal, in the desert regions.
I would favour a system where 'armour is armour' and the protection is either the same across the board or else +1 for metal, bronze and silver and +2 for gold BUT the fatigue factor is +4 for metal, +3 for bronze, +2 for silver, +1 for gold (so unarmoured troops still fatigue the least). That's a lot steeper a gradient than I'd like but I doubt it allows decimal points.
- - - - -
I like the idea of the 50% import rate. It's not often that the AI gets its routes right so it would probably be rare for the player to benefit substantially from this. At the same time, it means you can elect to give financial aid to factions who can help keep your biggest foe at bay and help stop the Danes, or factions trapped on an island, from going broke.
(I might nick this idea...) ;)
- - - - -
Getting the Byzantine's troop mix right and giving them their historical names looks to have turned into something of a labour of love. If I was building a 'lite' mod, I wouldn't have gone to that level of depth. I accept the CA names and I know exactly what I'm up against when I'm on the battlefield with them. Inaccurate, merely descriptive, unit names are also exactly what I'd expect to hear back from my agents abroad, so that is kind of 'in-character'. Obviously, being aimed primarily at the US/UK market, the unit names were all Anglicised, first of all and, presumably, the language-localised versions suffer from this. At least least, with your mod, all except Greek players will be mystified by the unit names in equal measure. ;)
- - - - -
Dispersed throughout the thread are a few mentions of minor bugs in the original program, which you've fixed. It would be handy to have these summarized in a single message although, in most cases, you only say 'fixed' but not precisely how.
I'd similarly like to know what exactly caused the siege equipment fault. I was on the point of posting to suggest a possible link with where you stopped them from appearing in rebellions but then reached the end of the thread and you'd already solved it. I'm none the wiser though.
I like the idea of the 50% import rate. It's not often that the AI gets its routes right so it would probably be rare for the player to benefit substantially from this. At the same time, it means you can elect to give financial aid to factions who can help keep your biggest foe at bay and help stop the Danes, or factions trapped on an island, from going broke.
That was the main thrust of the idea: to give income to the AI factions from the player's bloated trade network.
Getting the Byzantine's troop mix right and giving them their historical names looks to have turned into something of a labour of love. If I was building a 'lite' mod, I wouldn't have gone to that level of depth. I accept the CA names and I know exactly what I'm up against when I'm on the battlefield with them. Inaccurate, merely descriptive, unit names are also exactly what I'd expect to hear back from my agents abroad, so that is kind of 'in-character'. Obviously, being aimed primarily at the US/UK market, the unit names were all Anglicised, first of all and, presumably, the language-localised versions suffer from this. At least least, with your mod, all except Greek players will be mystified by the unit names in equal measure. ;)
Well I'm not sure I agree with that at all. The Byzantine units were not only renamed in a greek fashion, they were redesigned, resized, many stats were changed and a new unit was added. I feel now, that they are better than they were. Many will no doubt disagree, but that's personal choice. I haven't personalised them in any way. Instead I've filled in the gaps and tried to give them more historically accurate names.
Dispersed throughout the thread are a few mentions of minor bugs in the original program, which you've fixed. It would be handy to have these summarized in a single message although, in most cases, you only say 'fixed' but not precisely how.
Well, I've fixed these bugs as I've been going along. I'm quite sure that I'm not the first person to have fixed these. The Sicilians names have been fixed before I'm sure, though I have no idea by whom or when they were fixed (it's very easy). The faction mix ups in the marriage proposal parchments I've never seen referred to anywhere else, but I've no doubt they've also been fixed before. The golden Horde Faction leader's campaign map piece is messed up because it's misspelt. If you go to: X:\...\Medieval - Total War\campmap\pieces\Units\Pagan and find the file "army_leader_waiting.Buf" and rename it to "army_leader_awaiting.Buf" - problem solved.
The reason why you don't see any step by step guides, is because this was a mod thread, and not a modding guide thread. Have you searched through the alchemists lab and repositary? If you find nothing in there I can probably knock you up a guide as to how to fix a few of those other things.
I'd similarly like to know what exactly caused the siege equipment fault. I was on the point of posting to suggest a possible link with where you stopped them from appearing in rebellions but then reached the end of the thread and you'd already solved it. I'm none the wiser though.
My thread about this is in the alchemists lab. The problem is the gnome editor, if you avoid using that when editing the projectilestats file you won't have any problems.
Good luck with your modding.
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
03-04-2007, 23:19
Well I'm not sure I agree with that at all. The Byzantine units were not only renamed in a greek fashion, they were redesigned, resized, many stats were changed and a new unit was added. I feel now, that they are better than they were. Many will no doubt disagree, but that's personal choice. I haven't personalised them in any way. Instead I've filled in the gaps and tried to give them more historically accurate names.
As a grain of support, I like the stuff you do with Byzantium (althrough I don´t agree with all changes, and I add some of my own -such as lowering the Toxatoi, or however they are called now, support to 37, and removing the province restriction-). I think they were supposed to be a singular faction, different from all others, to begin with, and your modifications further enhace this feeling.
Oh, and, as for adding new factions: I was going to suggest making kingdoms that weren´t too big yet were historically important (Portugal, Navarre, for instance) unplayable factions, with standard catholic units (or standard Iberian units in the case of these two). It can´t be utterly impossible, if only because BKB and XL did it, and thus it can be looked up...
The Unknown Guy
03-04-2007, 23:25
Well I'm not sure I agree with that at all. The Byzantine units were not only renamed in a greek fashion, they were redesigned, resized, many stats were changed and a new unit was added. I feel now, that they are better than they were. Many will no doubt disagree, but that's personal choice. I haven't personalised them in any way. Instead I've filled in the gaps and tried to give them more historically accurate names.
As a grain of support, I like the stuff you do with Byzantium (althrough I don´t agree with all changes, and I add some of my own -such as lowering the Toxatoi, or however they are called now, support to 37, and removing the province restriction-). I think they were supposed to be a singular faction, different from all others, to begin with, and your modifications further enhace this feeling.
Oh, and, as for adding new factions: I was going to suggest making kingdoms that weren´t too big yet were historically important (Portugal, Navarre, for instance) unplayable factions, with standard catholic units (or standard Iberian units in the case of these two). It can´t be utterly impossible, if only because BKB and XL did it, and thus it can be looked up...
The Unknown Guy
03-04-2007, 23:33
Well I'm not sure I agree with that at all. The Byzantine units were not only renamed in a greek fashion, they were redesigned, resized, many stats were changed and a new unit was added. I feel now, that they are better than they were. Many will no doubt disagree, but that's personal choice. I haven't personalised them in any way. Instead I've filled in the gaps and tried to give them more historically accurate names.
As a grain of support, I like the stuff you do with Byzantium (althrough I don´t agree with all changes, and I add some of my own -such as lowering the Toxatoi, or however they are called now, support to 37, and removing the province restriction-). I think they were supposed to be a singular faction, different from all others, to begin with, and your modifications further enhace this feeling.
Oh, and, as for adding new factions: I was going to suggest making kingdoms that weren´t too big yet were historically important (Portugal, Navarre, for instance) unplayable factions, with standard catholic units (or standard Iberian units in the case of these two). It can´t be utterly impossible, if only because BKB and XL did it, and thus it can be looked up...
EatYerGreens
03-04-2007, 23:51
Well I'm not sure I agree with that at all.
That was meant to be tongue-in-cheek but the wink smiley didn't come out right. :oops: I also entirely glossed over the changed unit sizes and stats, didn't I?
Anyway, I was basically saying that it was an entirely laudible effort, just that I wouldn't have gone to the same lengths...
The faction mix ups in the marriage proposal parchments I've never seen referred to anywhere else, but I've no doubt they've also been fixed before.
This one rang a bell with me because I've certainly seen it go wrong in the game. You won't find any threads mentioning it in the topic title but I think I've seen it mentioned, in passing, a few times. That makes it virtually untraceable though.
The golden Horde Faction leader's campaign map piece is messed up
This one I haven't seen, myself, so I was curious about it. They're alive and thriving in my current English campaign and the leader's piece appears normal, whenever I bother to look (though they've had two or three succession events so far - I started in Early and am up to the 1290s).
Have you searched through the alchemists lab and repositary?
Not for a long while. The 'nuggets' are widely scattered though, hence the usefulness of a condensed "fix these before you start modding in earnest" post.
If you find nothing in there I can probably knock you up a guide as to how to fix a few of those other things.
Only if you have the time and the inclination. And for the community's benefit rather than mine, specifically.
I'm more of a 'meddler' than a modder, so I'd probably never progress beyond the 'home-brew' stage. As you said yourself, M2TW is out and there's enough interest in the various existing mods for any new releases to have a hard time catching on.
As a grain of support, I like the stuff you do with Byzantium (althrough I don´t agree with all changes, and I add some of my own -such as lowering the Toxatoi, or however they are called now, support to 37, and removing the province restriction-). I think they were supposed to be a singular faction, different from all others, to begin with, and your modifications further enhace this feeling.
The Psiloi are restricted to the Byzantine homelands by design. Having the Byzantine Standing Armies being churned out, outside their homelands feels wrong. Before I abandoned the mod, I was planning to add an "eastern archers" unit that would have been available across the board to all factions in the eastern provinces, a "western archers" unit for all catholic and orthodox factions in the west. This would have resolved some of the issues that one would have when conquering outside their homelands. Personally I didn't see the need for lowering the support for Psiloi, the professional armies of the Byzantine would not have come cheaply, and it's not as if the faction is exactly underpowered.
Another important point is that while you may not agree with certain changes, I have yet to see a mod where I myself agreed with even 50% of the changes made. The difference with those other mods is that they are mostly closed projects, and you pretty much get what you are given.
Oh, and, as for adding new factions: I was going to suggest making kingdoms that weren´t too big yet were historically important (Portugal, Navarre, for instance) unplayable factions, with standard catholic units (or standard Iberian units in the case of these two). It can´t be utterly impossible, if only because BKB and XL did it, and thus it can be looked up...
Adding new factions, as I've said time and time again, is a) a lot of work, b) not what this mod is about, c) involves a lot of extra files being bundled with the mod pushing up the download size probably into the 10MB+ region.
That was meant to be tongue-in-cheek but the wink smiley didn't come out right. :oops: I also entirely glossed over the changed unit sizes and stats, didn't I?
It depends on how you look at it I suppose, certain parts of the mod appeal to some players more than others. The Byzantine and Turks simply went through their optimizations (additional units, unit rebalancing, major name changes, info pic changes, battlefield sprite changes) first, other factions would have followed but this mod was never finished. Both the Byzantine and Turks were pretty much done with, and I was planning to move onto the Almohads and Egyptians next. After which the Poles and Hungarians would have followed, then the rest of the Catholic factions. People were contributing valuable info pertaining to the latter as this thread was progressing, so I was doing that as I went along, though concentrating on the Byzantine and Turks as they were first on my list (they had been dealt the worst hand).
This one I haven't seen, myself, so I was curious about it. They're alive and thriving in my current English campaign and the leader's piece appears normal, whenever I bother to look (though they've had two or three succession events so far - I started in Early and am up to the 1290s).
Zoom in and check the Khan's inactive piece on the campaign map. His piece looks like a catholic or orthodox culture piece. When it's picked up or attacking it's normal pagan again. If this doesn't appear in your game, then I can only assume it's localised. I've always had this problem. It originates from the VI disc I think.
Dutch_guy
03-05-2007, 19:17
Hey, good to have you here again EYG :2thumbsup:
:balloon2:
The Unknown Guy
03-06-2007, 14:06
Another important point is that while you may not agree with certain changes, I have yet to see a mod where I myself agreed with even 50% of the changes made. The difference with those other mods is that they are mostly closed projects, and you pretty much get what you are given.
That´s my point. I agree with most of the stuff and that I dont çuite agree I push up and down.
For the moment my only tweakings have been moving the Psiloi support from 52 to 37 and back to 45 (Now they have long range, they deserve it :p), removing Novgorod as playable, and toying around with the Varangian Guard (Following my idea of small groups of strong units)
By the way, you have abandoned it for good? :(
The Unknown Guy
03-10-2007, 17:17
Can some moderator make this sticky? I think this mod´s worth it
That´s my point. I agree with most of the stuff and that I dont çuite agree I push up and down.
Well that was the whole point: Players giving feedback and that feedback being analysed and replied to here by those involved and any others that feel like participating.
For the moment my only tweakings have been moving the Psiloi support from 52 to 37 and back to 45 (Now they have long range, they deserve it :p), removing Novgorod as playable, and toying around with the Varangian Guard (Following my idea of small groups of strong units)
Support costs do need tweaking for a lot of units, but there's only so much that could be done at once. THe Varangian Guard idea you have is much the same as an idea that I had came up with for Huscarles earlier in this thread; so we are thinking along the same lines. :2thumbsup:
By the way, you have abandoned it for good? :(
Who knows? I may get back to it one day. Interest in it just died off, and without that there wasn't much point going on with it.
Can some moderator make this sticky? I think this mod´s worth it
Thanks for the vote of confidence, and it's nice to see someone still playing this mod, though it's not really necessary to sticky it. I was thinking of asking a mod to close it in fact. :embarassed:
The Unknown Guy
04-17-2007, 20:34
Some input:
- Kontarakoi: they lack an in-battle icon. They also lack an (artistic) info picture. (in this last issue I suggest using the ChivSergs pic. It fits the description and general looks. It could potentially be tweaked so that instead of the three lions it displays the Greek cross, too.)
- I´ve tried to tune down steamrolling Castile by raising the requirements of Jinettes. But now it seems to die pretty much every single time. On the other hand, Aragon now seems to fare decently.
- Rebellions: I don´t know if this can be tweaked, but I´m getting an awful lot of "Siegers Trade Unionist strikes". AKA: Most of my rebellions are mainly artillery, or only artillery. It becomes rather surrealist that "peasant rebellions" turn out to be some guys moving around a trebuchet.
- Bringing back the issue of repairing the broken economy: will it perform still as "rebel" or will it become a juggernaut?
Also, on the same subject: On a Byzantium High game I took Trebizond and left Constantinople alone for a few turns, and they indeed built a ship.
Some input:
- Kontarakoi: they lack an in-battle icon. They also lack an (artistic) info picture. (in this last issue I suggest using the ChivSergs pic. It fits the description and general looks. It could potentially be tweaked so that instead of the three lions it displays the Greek cross, too.)
I was sure they had an in battle icon? I will have to check that again. Also I have a info pic for them but haven't used it as yet. so that isn't a problem.
- I´ve tried to tune down steamrolling Castile by raising the requirements of Jinettes. But now it seems to die pretty much every single time. On the other hand, Aragon now seems to fare decently.
This is the issue you will always face where uber units exist. Jinetes are somewhat overpowered and Aragon are economically crippled due to their supporting of the numerous heirs that come of age. This is something else I'm working on.
- Rebellions: I don´t know if this can be tweaked, but I´m getting an awful lot of "Siegers Trade Unionist strikes". AKA: Most of my rebellions are mainly artillery, or only artillery. It becomes rather surrealist that "peasant rebellions" turn out to be some guys moving around a trebuchet.
:laugh4: I've done that already. Despite my changes to the rebelling troops mixes the number of ballistas, trebuchets and catapults is still an issue. On the whole I've yet to see the real usefulness of siege equipment in a rebellion so I've removed it from rebellions altogether.
- Bringing back the issue of repairing the broken economy: will it perform still as "rebel" or will it become a juggernaut?
It won't get any any more aggressive but it will be better able to defend it's provinces. It should also develop it's provinces saving the player/AI factions from doing this. The main issue is actually achieving this. There are several methods none of which have really worked so far. Instead of a huge bloated starting income, the rebel AI needs to receive a huge cash bonus every year. Turning a closed off province into a cash cow for the rebels is one idea (EatYerGreens), another would be to create unique and very cheap and fast to build rebel only buildings (I'm thinking the rebel tavern or brothel, but I need to test this and ensure they actually build the thing and also edit the building influences to force the rebels to build them) that will give a large income to the rebels annually.
Also, on the same subject: On a Byzantium High game I took Trebizond and left Constantinople alone for a few turns, and they indeed built a ship.
The ship may have been in the startpos file, because the rebel factions cannot build ships. There is nothing to stop the rebel faction from building a shipyard but when it comes to actually building ships the following dilemna, column 5 in the unit prod files, appears. This column restricts certain ships to certain factions for example on row 121, the Dhow, we have this:
"FN_ALMOHAD, FN_EGYPTIAN, FN_TURKISH, FN_GOLDEN_HORDE"
That restricts the building of Dhows to those factions only. That is to say, the rebels (FN_REBEL) cannot build Dhows.
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
04-19-2007, 12:04
(from the other thread)
The fort I would have as a simple garrison building, costing 100 and taking 1 year to build, as a temporary outpost to hold down a province - not a town/settlement. The only buildings that could be constructed at fort level would be the farmland, port and mines. The horse breeders I would change to depend on the later castle levels instead of being fully upgradeable,
Sounds well, and if the AI can handle it properly, it might make the campaign more dynamic. Also, it would make the "surrounded factions" (like Poland, or the HRE) more playable, by keeping smaller garrisons on the borders, backed by neighbouring armies able to retake the province if attacked. In fact, some game files suggest that it was in the original plans to make "Border forts" garrisonable
In fact, it sounds like it would make the game more realistic. After all, one of the first things a conçuering army would do would be establishing a fort, even if it was just a temporary one (suggestion: could it be made so that assaults and sieges invariably destroyed the defender´s fort, so that the would-be conçueror had to rebuild it?), lacking fortified cities to camp. Romans certainly did it, but I´m not certain about the middle ages, as mainly cavalry armies would reçuire larger forts, perhaps larger than it was practical. , althrough some browsing I just did of the Alexiad (which, for the record, is a free pdf download from some site, but I can´t remember the address. If someone is curious -as I was- I suggest googling it. It was on the fifth page of the search, or so) seems to point out they did
after attacking several places repeatedly without success, he reached Moglena via Bodina and there rebuilt a small fort which had long lain in ruins. There he left a Count, nicknamed the Saracen, with an ample garrison and betook himself to a spot on the river Bardares called the Asprae Ecclesiae.
It would also be more realistic on the "homeland" frame. It just doesn´t sound right that someone is the overlord of a province and doesn´t keep even a token fort as protection. Borders would be more stable, too, as long as the opposing army had enough troops nearby, for a retreat could be followed by a counterattack the following year. Whereas abandoning besieged forts for a time would be suicidal, as they can be torn down by any kind of troops, and would be unable to hold large garrisons (which would fall çuickly anyway).
One concern: as I mentioned, during my messing up with the spanish jinetes reçuirements, I failed to achieve a balance whereby they weren´t either churned out in dozens, or too scarce to hold back the almohads (I left it at horse breeder 3, and almost invariably Castile gets crushed. However, Aragon seems to hold, maybe because Castile gets crushed), so it seems it needs a deeper tweak than my attempt.
Also: shouldn´t the sicilians get some personal unit? (Or gothic knights and sergeants, at least?)
Also: my old suggestion concerning certain borders:
-Making the Spain-Morocco landbridge a coast battle
-Making the Constantinople-Asia Minor border a coast battle (after all, Constantinople is in Europe)
-Making the Egyptian-East of Egypt border a bridge battle (Somewhat flimsy, I know, but I was thinking that the Nyle should be a natural defense)
(from the other thread)
Sounds well, and if the AI can handle it properly, it might make the campaign more dynamic. Also, it would make the "surrounded factions" (like Poland, or the HRE) more playable, by keeping smaller garrisons on the borders, backed by neighbouring armies able to retake the province if attacked. In fact, some game files suggest that it was in the original plans to make "Border forts" garrisonable
In fact, it sounds like it would make the game more realistic. After all, one of the first things a conçuering army would do would be establishing a fort, even if it was just a temporary one
I am speaking of the existing fort, not an extra fort or forts. When it upgraded to a keep it would still disappear and be replaced by that structure as ever. The fort would function the same way, but would be cheaper, faster to build but support few units. The rest of the tech tree would then be realigned with cheaper and faster castle upgrades, as follows e.g. (draft) :
Fort - Improved Farmland+, Mines, Port, Shipwright (?), Watch Towers/Border Forts.
Keep - Spearmaker, Swordsmith, Bowyer, Armourer, Horse Farmer, Siege Engineer, Town watch, Trading Post, etc, etc ,etc
Castle - Spearmakers' Workshop, Bowyers' Workshop, Armourers' Workshop, Horse Breeder, Siege Engineers' Workshop, Town Guard, Merchant, etc, etc ,etc
Citadel - Spearmakers' Guild, Bowyers' Guild, Armourers' Guild, Horse Breeders' Guild, Siege Engineers' Guild, Town Militia, Merchants' Guild, etc, etc ,etc
Fortress - Master Spearmaker, Master Bowyer, Master Armourer, Master Horse Breeder, Master Siege Engineer, County Militia, Master Merchant, etc, etc ,etc
This gives 4 solid levels, not 5 overlapping and interdependent ones that cause a lot of unnecessary building. All costs and build times would need to be tweaked. Also many units that depend on, a for example, a swordsmith, would have to be changed to depend on a swordsmiths' workshop to prevent them being available too early. The lower level swordsmith could then be used as a dependency for other units (this is better than the current situation where you can build several upgrades and still be able to train nothing new).
(suggestion: could it be made so that assaults and sieges invariably destroyed the defender´s fort, so that the would-be conçueror had to rebuild it?), lacking fortified cities to camp. Romans certainly did it, but I´m not certain about the middle ages, as mainly cavalry armies would reçuire larger forts, perhaps larger than it was practical. , althrough some browsing I just did of the Alexiad (which, for the record, is a free pdf download from some site, but I can´t remember the address. If someone is curious -as I was- I suggest googling it. It was on the fifth page of the search, or so) seems to point out they did
Can't be done, the fort may be destroyed in an invasion as it is now, but this cannot be coded to occur always.
One concern: as I mentioned, during my messing up with the spanish jinetes reçuirements, I failed to achieve a balance whereby they weren´t either churned out in dozens, or too scarce to hold back the almohads (I left it at horse breeder 3, and almost invariably Castile gets crushed. However, Aragon seems to hold, maybe because Castile gets crushed), so it seems it needs a deeper tweak than my attempt.
jinetes are probably slightly overpowered in the melee department (currently 2) lowering this to about 0 should make them do less well once they get into a fight, forcing them to charge, throw and skirmish. This needs to be looked at in more detail though, as do the Andalusian Infantry (AUM) which are still a little too overpowered and ruin the flavour of the Moorish factions.
Also: shouldn´t the sicilians get some personal unit? (Or gothic knights and sergeants, at least?)
The Sicilians were Normans, Gothic armoured Knights are typically (very) late era and should be HRE only. The Italians need a variant - Milanese Knights perhaps. Both of these would need to be later era only, and have very steep dependencies.
Also: my old suggestion concerning certain borders:
-Making the Spain-Morocco landbridge a coast battle
-Making the Constantinople-Asia Minor border a coast battle (after all, Constantinople is in Europe)
-Making the Egyptian-East of Egypt border a bridge battle (Somewhat flimsy, I know, but I was thinking that the Nyle should be a natural defense)
-It is a coastal battle
-This cannot be coast battle due to the province layout. I have looked at editing the map to extend Nicaea right up to the west coast and placing the border of constantinople on the coast line of the bosphorous. Messing about with this time consuming however, and will probably result in a hugely increased download size, it is also not a priority at the moment.
-Armies crossing from the Sinai into Egypt should face a bridge battle perhaps? Though not in the other direction.
:bow:
Innocentius
04-21-2007, 21:01
The Sicilians were Normans, Gothic armoured Knights are typically (very) late era and should be HRE only. The Italians need a variant - Milanese Knights perhaps. Both of these would need to be later era only, and have very steep dependencies.
I think that Gothic Knights should be available to England, France, Spain, Aragon, Poland and Denmark (and Portugal in XL) as well, not just the HRE and the Italians. It wasn't like Gothic armour didn't reach outside Germany. Look at Graham Turner's pictures in the Osprey book about Towton (1461, slightly out of the MTW timeframe) and you see the better part of the Englishmen running around i full-plate Gothic armour.
Also, Gothic Sergeants I think should be re-designed to something better. They are nigh impossible to reach and once you get them they do about they perform just like Chivalric Sergeants since there are less men in a unit. Making them a better version of Chivalric Foot Knights (i.e. certain bonuses while attacking cavalry) and such would be good. Giving them the same stats as JHI just with more armour and a lot slower would be interesting.
Innocentius
04-21-2007, 23:58
Why not increase their number from 60 to l00?
Of course, that would be the obvious solution, but I'm not really a great fan of spears anyway so I'm thinking about re-modding them in my game as soon as I'm through with my Polish campaign.
These are some of my unit modifications (if it's of any interest...):
Gothic Knights dramatically improved (8, 6, 7, 9, 10) and are now worth the buck. I'll make them available to all catholics after my Polish campaign.
Gothic Sergeants, Latin Auxillaries and Janissary Heavy Infantry stats slightly improved. I'll change the Gothic Sergeants into a polearm unit later on (i.e. a unit with a bonus of 3 attacking cavalry and only 1 while defending against cavalry), changing their build requirements to something like; Military Academy, Master Armourer and Master Spearmaker while removing royal_court4 (don't remember its true name). The high requirements will be pretty necessary as they will be better than JHI!
Handgunners improved (3, 3, 4, 4, 4) but only available in Late and now require Gunsmith's Guild and Swordsmith's Workshop. I increased the recruiting cost as well. They now make CMAA superflous in Late as they can fulfill their role while at the same time act as missile troops with demoralising ammo!
They are still slightly worse in melee than CMAA though, and will only beat them roughly 1 of 10 times (Normal, both units charging head-on, handgunners don't fire), but if recruited with a single armour or morale upgrade they can beat them even in head on combat, without using their guns.
An idea for Sicily: apparently Frederick II allowed muslims to settle there as his personal guard (mainly because he had good relations with muslim princes, and they didn´t mind when he got excommed, apparently).
So, maybe the King of Sicily could have access to some muslim units? Perhaps Faris, or maybe Desert Archers?
Interesting idea, and one I'll be interested in implementing.
Then again, this does not necessarily mean over-complication, as an already working muslim unit (maybe the Futuwwas, or Janissary bowmen?) could be copied, and used with a different description along the lines of "Territorial disputes with the Papacy have forced the Crown of Sicily resort to recruiting muslim settlers in their lands as soldiers. These men are both indifferent to excommunication threats and loyal to the King of Sicily beyond any kinship with fellow muslim rulers, making them a fierce fighting force in Sicilian armies - as long as they are paid"
They could be called... Mercenary Sarracen Militia, or something?
I would avoid the word "Saracen" and also I think I would base the troops on Moorish units rather than Turkish ones. Also having specific units for such a role, when the Muslim factions themselves lack many specific units would be overdoing it a bit perhaps? Perhaps Al-Murabitun Infantry and desert archers available to the Sicilians in the Maghreb, Malta, Sicily and Naples?
On the Gothic Knights. That type of armour came about in the mid to late 1400's in Germany, adding Gothic Knights to all factions would be a bad idea, I have considered removing them altogether and am certainly considering removing them from the Italians. The Gothic Sergeants are another issue that I haven't looked into yet.
The Unknown Guy
04-23-2007, 14:27
Another thing, which occured to me while putting down another rebellion of the infamous Siege Engineers Union: Ballistas are useless because of their short range, not-bouncingness, slowness to build, and horrible accuracy (related to them not bouncing)
So perhaps they could either be improved in accuracy (hence making them the very first antipersonnel arty you get), or reduce the building time to one turn, so that you can churn them çuickly when (if) you need to assault a castle, or would like some artillery firecover fast, even if it´s a bit piss-poor?
Another thing, which occured to me while putting down another rebellion of the infamous Siege Engineers Union: Ballistas are useless because of their short range, not-bouncingness, slowness to build, and horrible accuracy (related to them not bouncing)
Well, I have been negotiating with the SEU and we have reached an agreement to the effect that they will no longer be participating in strike action. :beam:
So perhaps they could either be improved in accuracy (hence making them the very first antipersonnel arty you get), or reduce the building time to one turn, so that you can churn them çuickly when (if) you need to assault a castle, or would like some artillery firecover fast, even if it´s a bit piss-poor?
I'm not sure about improving them, as that may turn them into anti-general sharp shooters. I have experimented with removing them in the past and that is possibly the best course of action, though I do think they could be retained as lower cost, quick to build siege equipment for breaking gates. Trying to find which stats to improve is the main issue. I like the idea of reducing the build time, and perhaps improving the projectile damage and range slightly.
Innocentius
04-23-2007, 17:14
On the Gothic Knights. That type of armour came about in the mid to late 1400's in Germany, adding Gothic Knights to all factions would be a bad idea, I have considered removing them altogether and am certainly considering removing them from the Italians. The Gothic Sergeants are another issue that I haven't looked into yet.
Gothic styled armour was rather popular already during the 1420-ies. Jeanne d'Arcs gothic armour is one of the more famous examples.
I don't see why adding Gothic knights to all catholics woul be such a bad idea? It's both historically accurate and hardly affects the game since I've actually never seen the AI field a Gothic unit (or Janissar Heavy Infantry for that part).
Gothic styled armour was rather popular already during the 1420-ies. Jeanne d'Arcs gothic armour is one of the more famous examples.
I don't see why adding Gothic knights to all catholics woul be such a bad idea? It's both historically accurate and hardly affects the game since I've actually never seen the AI field a Gothic unit (or Janissar Heavy Infantry for that part).
Well because this type of armour wasn't as widespread at that time. To be honest I see your point in that it wouldn't be such a big deal to make Gothic Knights available to all factions as they take so much teching up you're unlikely to see many of them.
I've been working on the Rebel income Tavern/Brothel buildings. I have successfully implemented them but have hit a stumbling block. No matter how much income I assign to them the rebels still go negative. Is this hardcoded I wonder or am I missing something obvious. I had checked the income/expenses parchment and it shows that every province is making more than it expends. I then increased the incomes drastically and was getting around 73,000 florins per turn. Still the rebel economy went into the red. :shrug:
I've completed the simplification of the tech tree. I will still have to fine tune costs and build times of course. At present I'm going for the 2,4,6,8 build times for all weaponsmiths, horsebreeders, and town watches. I would like to hear arguments for the 4,6,8,10 build times. I'm also using the 200,400,600,800 costs any suggested adjustments to those would be welcome. All of the first level buildings depend on the Keep, not the Fort.
The Metalsmith is still available and so is the Armourer, though I have been considering Noir's advice on the removal of armour and weapons upgrades. The Armourer could instead be used as a regular dependency building and to give valour to some units that depend on it, at the master level only. The metalsmith would probably need to be removed altogether. I have Iron as a mining resource now anyway so Iron in the provinces would not be redundant. This is only something I'm considering.
The castle structure has been altered in that the Fort costs 100 and takes a year to build. It is not necessary to build the Fort or it's upgrades in order to build the Keep. So the Keep can be built from an empty province for 800 florins and takes 6 years. The hope here is that the AI will get going from the early period faster, and not hang about training Spearmen and UM from it's forts for the next few decades. The issue is how this will effect poorer factions, though this has pros and cons. It will force the AI up to the level of a Keep before it starts spamming hundreds of troops. Unless it upgrades to a keep it will only be able to build income generating buildings such as farmland, and foresters. This will need some testing to see how it functions.
@Martok: Is it possible we could have this thread merged to the original Pocket Mod thread?
:bow:
May i suggest that the Aragonese and the Sicilians could do with more starting provinces in the PM than they currently have. The Byzantines in any case did not held Apulia nor Naples at the time the game starts -1087 AD- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Byzantium1081ADlightpurple-1-%2BAntioch.png) and the Castilians were in fact two kingdoms the Castilians - Leonese and thus unlikely to be yielding the territorial robustness that seem to be enjoying.
The Aragonese could start with Navarre or even Toulouse (as it is not much use to the French being isolated anyway), and the Sicilians with Naples.
If the Turks get wiped out they may be strengthened with Anatolia and perhaps even Nicaea as they were also holding them briefly after Mazinkert and in fact took the Byzantines to arrange for the Crusaders to get them back.
The Danes may enjoy a landbridge to Sweaden and so solve their chronic economic anemia and also perhaps expand towards Livonia, Lithuania, Prussia rather than going for Freisland or Saxony, as they usually do at least in vanilla.
Certain key historical provinces are located at crossroads and thus are vulnerable, however they were founded in those locations due to the natural protection the particular location would provide.
Such places include Venice and Constantinople that are both in crossroads and as such very susceptible in falling to one conqueror or the other way too easily. Venice was a remnant of the Roman empire and was officially reckognised as such by Byzantine Imperial documents; it developed into a community of "floating houses" as protection from the various barbarian hordes that were roaming the italian North in the period 400 to 600 AD.
Constantinople, is known to all a very secure place that was facing land only on one side and was protected there with the best walls of the whole medieval period.
I suggest that these places be less of a "passage" than they currently are.
Another idea for when the time comes to consider this, would be to differentiate the rosters by re-arranging units and essentially contstraining them to 1 missile/1 spear/1 light cavalry/1 heavy-medium cavalry/1 melee(sword)unit per faction/per era. These can be additive, that is the ones for a faction from the early era may complement the ones on the high.
The rosters as they stand give 2 spears, 2 missiles, 2 swords etc per faction per era. This is somehow problematic as they create a tactical abundace for the player with any faction that essentially helps him to get by with the situation he's facing on the battlefield.
It would be nice to play with rosters that make for particular advantages over certain factions and in certain terrains and also to simplify the things for the AI as he spams low tech units early in that he cannot get rid off if not attacked. On top of that he continues to prefer low tech units as they cost less for the factions with feeble income. The present units (as a number at least) are more than enough for doing this, they need only to be reaasigned to factions for that purpose i would have thought.
The overall level of warmaking is also low due to the small number of factions in the game and since the PM is not adding any this needs to be addressed in another way; in my opinion by sharing more evenly the large number of non-faction occupied provinces as stated in the above post in order to make up for more equal wars and thus a more healthy AI economy overall. In that respect the whole eastern steps being rebel is somewhat of a problem.
Noir
The Unknown Guy
04-24-2007, 02:39
May i suggest that the Aragonese and the Sicilians could do with more starting provinces in the PM than they currently have. The Byzantines in any case did not held Apulia nor Naples at the time the game starts -1087 AD- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:B...%2BAntioch.png) and the Castilians were in fact two kingdoms the Castilians - Leonese and thus unlikely to be yielding the territorial robustness that seem to be enjoying.
In fact, the problem with the northern Iberian kingdoms is the land sharing, and size of the provinces. Castile would not become that large until much later on. In fact, Navarre, which is not even an in-game faction, was the dominant Christian kingdom at the time. Serious rehasal of the Iberian çuestion would reçuire adding Aragon and Navarre as unplayable factions (not unfeasible, but hard. I downloaded the manual. Would reçuire a lot of coding. Shields are no problem as there are plenty of them freesource. Spanish Jurisprudence recognizes free lawful use of national symbols, I seem to recall,so getting the shield of Navarra is not a problem. I don´t know about Portugal, through), and add some more provinces in the north (VERY HARD)
Anyways, I´ve managed to increase the survival rate of Aragon (and the Almohads) by limiting the number of Jinetes avaiable at any given time, increasing the support cost to 90 per unit. It works... after a fashion. I cant really tell, as they managed to kick the almohads nonetheles (althrough around year ll20, later than usual), but they didn´t have that many Jinetes, and had several costly battles. I think it was mainly due to having many heirs.
Such places include Venice and Constantinople that are both in crossroads and as such very susceptible in falling to one conqueror or the other way too easily. Venice was a remnant of the Roman empire and was officially reckognised as such by Byzantine Imperial documents; it developed into a community of "floating houses" as protection from the various barbarian hordes that were roaming the italian North in the period 400 to 600 AD Indeed, the first Italian Doge was appointed by the Byzantines. They were given autonomy for lack of ability to defend them at the time.
Concerning Constantinople: The thing is that I think that it should not be a normal map. Not even a coastal battle. Ancient maps of the city show it to be on the golden horn, surrounded by a huge wall on both land and sea, plus the Theodosian wall after it. What I would like is that the battle took place there, at the foot of the Theodosian walls, through I don´t know how. Would it be viable to add a map cut down by a wall? Furthermore:would the AI know how to deal with it, and bring either siege eçuipment or cheap infantry to storm the walls? And, third: would it make Byzantium too easy to play? Trebizond/Nicaea/Bulgaria/Greece are all at hand, and present a four-border, easy to defend yet wealthy core. That without adding the trade. Plus the pocket mod addresses many of the problems that the Byzantines have in game, such as the problems with Byz Cavalry, and the like
If the Turks get wiped out they may be strengthened with Anatolia and perhaps even Nicaea as they were also holding them briefly after Mazinkert and in fact took the Byzantines to arrange for the Crusaders to get them back. True: and it might help to delay the Byzantine Juggernaut that happens countless of times in Early (along with the Spanish Juggernaut, and the Russian VP Juggernaut, it´s one of the three monsters in the game)
I've completed the simplification of the tech tree. I will still have to fine tune costs and build times of course. At present I'm going for the 2,4,6,8 build times for all weaponsmiths, horsebreeders, and town watches. I would like to hear arguments for the 4,6,8,10 build times. I'm also using the 200,400,600,800 costs any suggested adjustments to those would be welcome. All of the first level buildings depend on the Keep, not the Fort.
I have a possibly stupid question (I ask out of genuine curiosity, and not to be adversarial): Why the increase in build time & expense for every building level? Why not just make it an even 4 years & 400 florins for each one? Is there something inherently unbalanced about having equal costs and build times for each level?
The Metalsmith is still available and so is the Armourer, though I have been considering Noir's advice on the removal of armour and weapons upgrades. The Armourer could instead be used as a regular dependency building and to give valour to some units that depend on it, at the master level only. The metalsmith would probably need to be removed altogether. I have Iron as a mining resource now anyway so Iron in the provinces would not be redundant. This is only something I'm considering.
Given that the Spanish were reknowned for their steel weapons (their swords in particular), I don't know that removing the Metalsmiths is such a great idea. I can understand removing their dependence on the presence of iron, however. Would there be any way to make the Metalsmith dependent on specific provinces instead? That way, Castille and Syria (Damascus was famous for its steel weapons as well) could still produce troops with an attack bonus. I don't know if this is feasible, but it might be an alternative solution.
As for the Armourer(s), I think Noir may have a point. I'm not sure if they should be removed entirely, but it might not be a bad idea to at least dramatically raise their building requirements. Perhaps restrict them to Citadels and Fortresses only? That way one couldn't build more than an Armourers Workshop, and troops therefore couldn't be trained with more than 2 extra levels of armour. :book:
The castle structure has been altered in that the Fort costs 100 and takes a year to build. It is not necessary to build the Fort or it's upgrades in order to build the Keep. So the Keep can be built from an empty province for 800 florins and takes 6 years. The hope here is that the AI will get going from the early period faster, and not hang about training Spearmen and UM from it's forts for the next few decades. The issue is how this will effect poorer factions, though this has pros and cons. It will force the AI up to the level of a Keep before it starts spamming hundreds of troops. Unless it upgrades to a keep it will only be able to build income generating buildings such as farmland, and foresters. This will need some testing to see how it functions.
Sounds good, Cambyses. If you need someone to help test that out, I should have some free time this weekend.
@Martok: Is it possible we could have this thread merged to the original Pocket Mod thread?
:bow:
I was wondering about that. I'll do so once I'm done posting this. ~:)
If the Turks get wiped out they may be strengthened with Anatolia and perhaps even Nicaea as they were also holding them briefly after Mazinkert and in fact took the Byzantines to arrange for the Crusaders to get them back.
I agree that giving Anatolia to the Turks would help. I disagree with giving them Nicaea as well, however -- while I believe you're right about the Byzantines not getting it back until the First Crusade, I think that would still unbalance things too far in the Turks' favor. I *do* propose making Lesser Armenia a rebel province, as it was (IIRC) a semi-autonomous principality largely independent of Constantinople's authority.
The Danes may enjoy a landbridge to Sweaden and so solve their chronic economic anemia and also perhaps expand towards Livonia, Lithuania, Prussia rather than going for Freisland or Saxony, as they usually do at least in vanilla.
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe the Danes have a landbridge to Sweden already. (If not, however, then you're right that they should.)
Certain key historical provinces are located at crossroads and thus are vulnerable, however they were founded in those locations due to the natural protection the particular location would provide.
Such places include Venice and Constantinople that are both in crossroads and as such very susceptible in falling to one conqueror or the other way too easily. Venice was a remnant of the Roman empire and was officially reckognised as such by Byzantine Imperial documents; it developed into a community of "floating houses" as protection from the various barbarian hordes that were roaming the italian North in the period 400 to 600 AD.
Constantinople, is known to all a very secure place that was facing land only on one side and was protected there with the best walls of the whole medieval period.
I suggest that these places be less of a "passage" than they currently are.
If you're saying that those provinces should have different battle maps that favor the defender more, then I think you might have a point. :yes:
The overall level of warmaking is also low due to the small number of factions in the game and since the PM is not adding any this needs to be addressed in another way; in my opinion by sharing more evenly the large number of non-faction occupied provinces as stated in the above post in order to make up for more equal wars and thus a more healthy AI economy overall. In that respect the whole eastern steps being rebel is somewhat of a problem.
A couple of points here:
1.) Personally, I feel there's already enough war going on. While I realize the name of the game isn't Medieval: Total Peace, I don't think we need to try and force the factions into attacking each more often. ~;) I know that's only my own opinion, but I would wager a good number of florins that I'm not the only one who feels that way.
2.) While historical accuracy isn't always the most important aspect of this game, I do believe it's something that Cambyses (and for that matter, myself) wanted to try and improve with the Pocket Mod. With that in mind, arbitrarily adding a lot of the "rebel" provinces to the lands of existing factions just wouldn't be realistic at all.
Of course, it would be more realistic to make most rebel provinces their own playable faction, but that's obviously not a possibility with the hard-coded faction limit. (That, and I know Cambyses never intended to add more factions anyway -- doing so would be far beyond the scope envisioned for the Pocket Mod.)
The Unknown Guy
04-24-2007, 03:16
I think that would still unbalance things too far in the Turks' favor.
In High or Late I would agree, but in Early I witness the Byzantine Juggernaut rule from Lithuania to Syria. They should be a superpower on Early, allright, but they seem to eat EVERYTHING. In my current HRE game, I´m pondering abandoning my provinces and letting them loose at the French and Italians that have been pestering me, while I stay in the relative safety of Saxony and Scandinavia (Under Imperial control)
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe the Danes have a landbridge to Sweden already. (If not, however, then you're right that they should.)
They do, and there´s a landbridge from Sweden to Finland too, btw.
Would there be any way to make the Metalsmith dependent on specific provinces instead? That way, Castille and Syria (Damascus was famous for its steel weapons as well) could still produce troops with an attack bonus. I don't know if this is feasible, but it might be an alternative solution.
I think that the easy way to do this would be restricting Iron again to a few provinces.
This makes more sense than it might seem. While all nations found iron reserves, not all iron was of the same çuality. Spanish iron mineral, for instance, is of great purity. Hence smiths had an easier time putting together good steel weapons than smiths in places with poor iron mineral (such as England). (For the record, I read somewhere that in Japan they bypassed the problem of having horrid iron mineral by hammering it over and over until they drove out most of the impurities, hence Japanese swords being of high çuality too)
In fact, the high çuality of the steel later played a role in the Industrial Revolution both in England and in Spain (which, besides being wrecked by civil wars at the time, has sucky coal, and english mineral coal had to be imported, whereas the Bessemer Steel Convertor reçuired high ammounts of high çuality iron, which was not found in many places-but luckily for Bessemer, it was just across the sea)
Hi Martok,
i misread your post, apologies. My post now edited.
I think that the PM needs extra factions then - however i know that's out of the scope of the mod and i leave it at that.
Many Thanks
Noir
No apology necessary, mate. :bow:
For what it's worth, I actually agree that adding more factions would be grand, all other things being equal. Doing so would require a great deal of effort, however -- far more so that the considerable amount Cambyses has already expended. Would that I possessed modding skills myself, I might be able to help him out; but (unfortunately) I don't, so I can't. :shame: That guys like VikingHorde and BKB managed to find the time and energy to create a mod all by themselves continues to simultaneously stagger and impress me! :sweatdrop:
May i suggest that the Aragonese and the Sicilians could do with more starting provinces in the PM than they currently have. The Byzantines in any case did not held Apulia nor Naples at the time the game starts -1087 AD- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Byzantium1081ADlightpurple-1-%2BAntioch.png)
It is probably best to give the Sicilians Naples. I have done this in the past. The game seems to make efforts to represent the very short Byzantine reconquest of parts of Naples and Apulia. I can't remember the exact details of this but I don't believe it is worthwhile representing. This will be changed to a Sicilian province and the Sicilians renamed Siculo-Norman.
and the Castilians were in fact two kingdoms the Castilians - Leonese and thus unlikely to be yielding the territorial robustness that seem to be enjoying.
The Aragonese could start with Navarre or even Toulouse (as it is not much use to the French being isolated anyway), and the Sicilians with Naples.
I'm not sure about Toulouse as it was never fully under Aragonese control. It should possibly be an independant province, but that simply gives us more rebels. Navarre could be Aragonese in the high era but not in early or late, as it would have been mostly independent in those times. It's borders, and the borders of the other Spanish kingdoms would have been very dynamic, which we can't really represent in this game. (this is why I'm largely opposed to changing the map, as you can never get it right anyway, and not enough extra provinces can be added to make enough of a difference)
If the Turks get wiped out they may be strengthened with Anatolia and perhaps even Nicaea as they were also holding them briefly after Mazinkert and in fact took the Byzantines to arrange for the Crusaders to get them back.
I'm strongly in favour of giving the Seljuks both Nicaea and Anatolia in the early period to try and rebalance the game in this area. The Byzantine would not have held either of those provinces in 1087, they would have only held the part of Nicaea that is represented as part of constantinople in the north west and would have only reconquered parts of western Nicaea some years later. Both provinces I would start in the early period as Orthodox religion with Seljuk forces occupying them.
The Danes may enjoy a landbridge to Sweaden and so solve their chronic economic anemia and also perhaps expand towards Livonia, Lithuania, Prussia rather than going for Freisland or Saxony, as they usually do at least in vanilla.
The landbridge already exists, as does the one from Sweden to Finland.
Certain key historical provinces are located at crossroads and thus are vulnerable, however they were founded in those locations due to the natural protection the particular location would provide.
Such places include Venice and Constantinople that are both in crossroads and as such very susceptible in falling to one conqueror or the other way too easily. Venice was a remnant of the Roman empire and was officially reckognised as such by Byzantine Imperial documents; it developed into a community of "floating houses" as protection from the various barbarian hordes that were roaming the italian North in the period 400 to 600 AD.
Constantinople, is known to all a very secure place that was facing land only on one side and was protected there with the best walls of the whole medieval period.
I suggest that these places be less of a "passage" than they currently are.
Constantinople needs to be a small separate province on the coast with it's own specific castle map. That is pretty much beyond the scope of this mod at the moment... never say never though. Venice needs to a small landbridged island, again this involves a lot more work and deviates from the main objectives here.
Another idea for when the time comes to consider this, would be to differentiate the rosters by re-arranging units and essentially contstraining them to 1 missile/1 spear/1 light cavalry/1 heavy-medium cavalry/1 melee(sword)unit per faction/per era. These can be additive, that is the ones for a faction from the early era may complement the ones on the high.
The rosters as they stand give 2 spears, 2 missiles, 2 swords etc per faction per era. This is somehow problematic as they create a tactical abundace for the player with any faction that essentially helps him to get by with the situation he's facing on the battlefield.
It would be nice to play with rosters that make for particular advantages over certain factions and in certain terrains and also to simplify the things for the AI as he spams low tech units early in that he cannot get rid off if not attacked. On top of that he continues to prefer low tech units as they cost less for the factions with feeble income. The present units (as a number at least) are more than enough for doing this, they need only to be reaasigned to factions for that purpose i would have thought.
I'm not sure about this, examples needed.
The overall level of warmaking is also low due to the small number of factions in the game and since the PM is not adding any this needs to be addressed in another way; in my opinion by sharing more evenly the large number of non-faction occupied provinces as stated in the above post in order to make up for more equal wars and thus a more healthy AI economy overall. In that respect the whole eastern steps being rebel is somewhat of a problem.
The biggest problem, as regards rebel provinces, is in the east. This is only a problem in the early era as in high and late, the GH and Russians fill the void somewhat. In the early era the region is ripe for Byzantine over expansion. The remedy would be to add extra factions in that area such as Pechenegs, Cumans and others. This is a lot of work and, etc etc etc. For now I would prefer another solution, if the mod evolves into something better in the future and involves a lot of new units, factions and provinces then so be it. But for now I prefer to concentrate on refining what we have, before adding more bulk.
:bow:
Anyways, I´ve managed to increase the survival rate of Aragon (and the Almohads) by limiting the number of Jinetes avaiable at any given time, increasing the support cost to 90 per unit. It works... after a fashion. I cant really tell, as they managed to kick the almohads nonetheles (althrough around year ll20, later than usual), but they didn´t have that many Jinetes, and had several costly battles. I think it was mainly due to having many heirs.
I think that the easy way to do this would be restricting Iron again to a few provinces.
This makes more sense than it might seem. While all nations found iron reserves, not all iron was of the same çuality. Spanish iron mineral, for instance, is of great purity. Hence smiths had an easier time putting together good steel weapons than smiths in places with poor iron mineral (such as England). (For the record, I read somewhere that in Japan they bypassed the problem of having horrid iron mineral by hammering it over and over until they drove out most of the impurities, hence Japanese swords being of high çuality too)
The problem is one of game balance as well as one of historical accuracy. By adding Iron to more provinces, and the addition of the Iron Mines I have given more non trade income to the AI factions. Also this enables most factions to have at least one province with a metalsmith. Restricting Iron again to the vanilla provinces would yet again imbalance the game in favour of those factions with the upgraded weapons, and remove that income. Personally I see it as either:
1) Metalsmiths, available sparsely to all factions in a larger number of provinces.
2) Removal of all metalsmiths from the game altogether.
The metalsmiths after all increase attack, which is technically improving a units ability to fight, not it's actual weapons, whereas historically it would have been longevity, sturdiness and durability that would have set these weapons above the rest. The metalsmith would also no doubt improve the quality of armour though armour is dealt with via the armourer. The metalsmith also gives an attack bonus to an urban militia man probably armed with the cheapest of weapons. The effect is far to "global" in that it improves a factions attack bonus across the board. It also places emphasis of the equipment over the men wielding it. A better system would be to have certain Spanish units that reflect the greater quality of the steel. Knights of Santiago, Jinetes and Spanish Javelinmen already represent this. Other units could be added if necessary.
Another aspect is armour upgrades. These are both ahistorical and poorly implemented. Sending your archers back to the province with the Master Armourer to be retrained with what? What do they get equipped with? Why would Gothic Knights be trained with anything less than the best armour anyway. Armour was hard to come by in those days, most was scavenged or looted and only the nobility wore full suits of it. Personally I believe the armourer upgrades need to go. This is not a Mechwarrior game where you add more armour to your chassis. Instead a valour bonus could be added to the Armourer at master level. The swordsmith doesn't upgrade swords, the bowyer doesn't upgrade bows, so why should the armourer add an extremely false defense bonus?
The Unknown Guy
04-24-2007, 14:35
Sending your archers back to the province with the Master Armourer to be retrained with what? What do they get equipped with? Why would Gothic Knights be trained with anything less than the best armour anyway. Armour was hard to come by in those days, most was scavenged or looted and only the nobility wore full suits of it. Personally I believe the armourer upgrades need to go.
You have a point there, specially bearing in mind how the effects of armor affect the units. How are units with no armor, or very light armor, such as Psiloi, going to get "better" armor? Perhaps with better çuality leather, granted, but it should not give a "plus one" bonus, as a knight "improving" his armor gets that very same "plus one". And I don´t think that the improvement in defensive properties would be the same for a knight than a guy in a leather armor, or that the guy in leather should roast in the desert for carrying a BETTER armor than an unupgraded eçuivalent.
In fact, I don´t think the improvement would be noticeable at all, unless the armor in çuestion was falling to pieces.
Knights of Santiago, Jinetes and Spanish Javelinmen already represent this.
Concerning Javelinmen, I think they mostly represent the "historical" almugharavs, which did use hit and run tactics, (the actual in-game almugharavs are a bit puzzling, as they have an odd "defends well vs cavalry", which is unrealistic in warriors which would deal as much damage as possible, and then retreat to the hills). In fact, the muslims called "almugharavs" (bandits, or somesuch, when translated) everyone which used these tactics, which were popular in every region of Spain with mountains to do it. (Roland, the French hero, did not fall in battle with muslims, contrary to popular belief. Actually, he annoyed the Duke of Navarra -not a kingdom yet back then-, and got ambushed by his minions on a mountain pass). The term nowadays applies mostly to the Aragonese ones because it was them who started sending them around as mercs.
They´re a bit lacking in HtH skills, however, specially considering they´re more expensive than other javelinmen and that they´re described as being able to skirmish.
Another potential unit (For High or Late only) would be the Knights of Calatrava, which was a secular, non-crusading, knights order, loyal directly to the crown.
BTW: a bit off this particular subject: Arab Infantry (the "backbone of the armies of Islam" one) seem balanced to me after all (I had doubts formerly). While it´s a dangerous thing to get thrown at you, for their high attack and high numbers, their poor defense and armor makes them easy prey to projectiles, and repeated cavalry charges. Plus, while playing other factions, I´ve never really seen Egypt as able to flood the Almohads or the Turks by sheer numbers, unless they were already weakened by Byzantine or Spanish expansion.
Edit: Something I just forgot: Byzantines. As I usually played them on High, I rarely saw the "Byzantine Juggernaut". But I´ve seen it now, and indeed, is absurd. I think the problem doesn´t come from the command stats of heirs per se, but by the fact that, FOR SOME REASON, the Byzantine Emperors ALWAYS start with a very high influence (Even in High, where they are technically Emperors-in-exile), which, furthermore, doesn´t drop when a succession takes place (In my HRE and Almohad games, "succesion" is almost synonimous of "lossing one or more points of influence. Which is realistic, because a succession is the ideal moment for rebellious nobles to stage a coup or a secession movement), and which, furthermore, does not fall despite horrid defeats and losses (Come on, I lose l96 Psiloi because I mess up troop deployment, and my generals will just shrug and say "oh well, it happens"?). If their influence worked the same as with other factions, they wouldn´t be able to steamroll the steppes, because they´d suffer civil wars and/or rebellions for bloat effect. Right now in my HRE game they own ALL Eastern Europe, and all their provinces are cheerful and happy)
I have a possibly stupid question (I ask out of genuine curiosity, and not to be adversarial): Why the increase in build time & expense for every building level? Why not just make it an even 4 years & 400 florins for each one? Is there something inherently unbalanced about having equal costs and build times for each level?
Possibly a misunderstanding so bear with me. I have decreased build time and cost for all weaponsmith buildings. This is the system I'm currently adhering to:
2,4,6,8
200,400,600,800
(orignally for bowyer, town watch and spearmaker only)
I was inviting criticism of this system. I was hoping that any proponents of the other system would make their case:
4,6,8,10
400,600,800,1000
(the old swordsmith and armourer setup)
Given that the Spanish were reknowned for their steel weapons (their swords in particular), I don't know that removing the Metalsmiths is such a great idea. I can understand removing their dependence on the presence of iron, however. Would there be any way to make the Metalsmith dependent on specific provinces instead? That way, Castille and Syria (Damascus was famous for its steel weapons as well) could still produce troops with an attack bonus. I don't know if this is feasible, but it might be an alternative solution.
It is not possible to make the metalsmith (or any building) dependent on a province unless a resource is added. The only alternative would be to add another Iron resource called e.g. "Superior Quality Iron" and have this as the dependency for the metalsmith. I really prefer not to do that however and would like to remove the metalsmith and it's unrealistic attack bonus upgrades. I don't mind retaining it as a dependency building available in all provinces, without the attack bonuses, but I can't see it's uses as yet.
As for the Armourer(s), I think Noir may have a point. I'm not sure if they should be removed entirely, but it might not be a bad idea to at least dramatically raise their building requirements. Perhaps restrict them to Citadels and Fortresses only? That way one couldn't build more than an Armourers Workshop, and troops therefore couldn't be trained with more than 2 extra levels of armour. :book:
That is one way of doing it I suppose, but it seems illogical. I am trying to achieve a logical tree that has some relevance to real life. Not being able to build a metalsmiths' shop at all because your castle isn't big enough is verging on the ridiculous. At least the lowest level building would be available, at Keep level.
I agree that giving Anatolia to the Turks would help. I disagree with giving them Nicaea as well, however -- while I believe you're right about the Byzantines not getting it back until the First Crusade, I think that would still unbalance things too far in the Turks' favor. I *do* propose making Lesser Armenia a rebel province, as it was (IIRC) a semi-autonomous principality largely independent of Constantinople's authority.
I seriously don't think it would imbalance it, if both provinces are orthodox and so not that easy for the Seljuks to hold down, but not impossible either. The Seljuks really do need all the help they can get, with the Byzantine on one front and the Fatimid war machine breathing down their necks on the other. Remember that they no longer have UM, Saracen Infantry in the early era, nor do they have universal and exclusive access to Futuwwas. Turcoman Foot Soldiers are more easily available and Turcoman Horse and Horse archers are in infantry sized units, but despite this in most campaigns they fail, this is because archery heavy armies will ultimately fail in an autocalced AI vs AI battle. This is one of the downsides of the game. To remedy this the Turks need a balanced sword Infantry unit that is not armed with a bow.
1.) Personally, I feel there's already enough war going on. While I realize the name of the game isn't Medieval: Total Peace, I don't think we need to try and force the factions into attacking each more often. ~;) I know that's only my own opinion, but I would wager a good number of florins that I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Constant war early on is very destructive and razes a lot of infrastructure. I do feel that there is enough war also, though I believe Noir may be referring to factions that have stockpiled lots of cheap units plunging further and further into the red while not breaking out and attacking. This may be remedied by changing some of the starting AI types, and by adding the extra provinces in certain eras.
2.) While historical accuracy isn't always the most important aspect of this game, I do believe it's something that Cambyses (and for that matter, myself) wanted to try and improve with the Pocket Mod. With that in mind, arbitrarily adding a lot of the "rebel" provinces to the lands of existing factions just wouldn't be realistic at all.
The way I look at it those rebel provinces can be strengthened for now with decent generals, good infrastructure and some strong units to represent the factions they should be. If a time comes when extra factions can be added then it will be easy enough to slot them into place.
Of course, it would be more realistic to make most rebel provinces their own playable faction, but that's obviously not a possibility with the hard-coded faction limit. (That, and I know Cambyses never intended to add more factions anyway -- doing so would be far beyond the scope envisioned for the Pocket Mod.)
New factions are something I have looked into and have decided against for now. Adding a lot of flakey factions to an already less than perfect vanilla game, with a Pocket Mod that is far from maturing would be running before walking. I too would like to see new factions such as the Navarrese, Leon, Portugal, the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, and Cilician Armenia, to replace the rebels but that is almost another project entirely. And I would like that project to be based on the core that is laid down by the Pocket Mod.
For what it's worth, I actually agree that adding more factions would be grand, all other things being equal. Doing so would require a great deal of effort, however -- far more so that the considerable amount Cambyses has already expended. Would that I possessed modding skills myself, I might be able to help him out; but (unfortunately) I don't, so I can't. :shame: That guys like VikingHorde and BKB managed to find the time and energy to create a mod all by themselves continues to simultaneously stagger and impress me! :sweatdrop:
I'm open to anyone providing data on extra factions, their locations and where they should be located, and especially units for those factions. The units can exist before the factions themselves exist and can be recruited by other factions or rebel only. One has to remember though, that new units require artwork to ensure they're not simply generic copies of vanilla units.
:bow:
You have a point there, specially bearing in mind how the effects of armor affect the units. How are units with no armor, or very light armor, such as Psiloi, going to get "better" armor? Perhaps with better çuality leather, granted, but it should not give a "plus one" bonus, as a knight "improving" his armor gets that very same "plus one". And I don´t think that the improvement in defensive properties would be the same for a knight than a guy in a leather armor, or that the guy in leather should roast in the desert for carrying a BETTER armor than an unupgraded eçuivalent.
In fact, I don´t think the improvement would be noticeable at all, unless the armor in çuestion was falling to pieces.
My point exactly. It's not as if a superb suit of armour can be somehow bettered by running it through 4 different armourers. How is the armour going to be somehow "bettered"? It would be repaired perhaps but not improved that much. And why would it's improvement mean faring even worse in the desert? Surely a master armourer would produce only the best, lightweight, durable and ergonomic armour, which would actually be better suited to the desert than a heavy and cheap tin can of a suit produced in a normal armourer. It seems that the developers philosophy was that more armour is somehow added to the man, increasing weight, which is simply not the case at all.
YConcerning Javelinmen, I think they mostly represent the "historical" almugharavs, which did use hit and run tactics, (the actual in-game almugharavs are a bit puzzling, as they have an odd "defends well vs cavalry", which is unrealistic in warriors which would deal as much damage as possible, and then retreat to the hills). In fact, the muslims called "almugharavs" (bandits, or somesuch, when translated) everyone which used these tactics, which were popular in every region of Spain with mountains to do it. (Roland, the French hero, did not fall in battle with muslims, contrary to popular belief. Actually, he annoyed the Duke of Navarra -not a kingdom yet back then-, and got ambushed by his minions on a mountain pass). The term nowadays applies mostly to the Aragonese ones because it was them who started sending them around as mercs.
They´re a bit lacking in HtH skills, however, specially considering they´re more expensive than other javelinmen and that they´re described as being able to skirmish.
They're an odd unit which is why I've left them as rebel only. I may turn them into the Aragonese version of Spanish Javelinmen, and change their stats, removing the cavalry defence bonus.
Another potential unit (For High or Late only) would be the Knights of Calatrava, which was a secular, non-crusading, knights order, loyal directly to the crown.
A possible renaming for Lancers? Give Gothics to almost all catholic factions, create Milanese Knights for the Italians and rename Lancers to Knights of Calatrava? Personally I think they already fit the bill and have a poor name that needs changing. They simply need to be restricted to Castile only. And perhaps only trainable by the Spanish and Aragonese (as they are at present).
BTW: a bit off this particular subject: Arab Infantry (the "backbone of the armies of Islam" one) seem balanced to me after all (I had doubts formerly). While it´s a dangerous thing to get thrown at you, for their high attack and high numbers, their poor defense and armor makes them easy prey to projectiles, and repeated cavalry charges. Plus, while playing other factions, I´ve never really seen Egypt as able to flood the Almohads or the Turks by sheer numbers, unless they were already weakened by Byzantine or Spanish expansion.
:2thumbsup:
Edit: Something I just forgot: Byzantines. As I usually played them on High, I rarely saw the "Byzantine Juggernaut". But I´ve seen it now, and indeed, is absurd. I think the problem doesn´t come from the command stats of heirs per se, but by the fact that, FOR SOME REASON, the Byzantine Emperors ALWAYS start with a very high influence (Even in High, where they are technically Emperors-in-exile), which, furthermore, doesn´t drop when a succession takes place (In my HRE and Almohad games, "succesion" is almost synonimous of "lossing one or more points of influence. Which is realistic, because a succession is the ideal moment for rebellious nobles to stage a coup or a secession movement), and which, furthermore, does not fall despite horrid defeats and losses (Come on, I lose l96 Psiloi because I mess up troop deployment, and my generals will just shrug and say "oh well, it happens"?). If their influence worked the same as with other factions, they wouldn´t be able to steamroll the steppes, because they´d suffer civil wars and/or rebellions for bloat effect. Right now in my HRE game they own ALL Eastern Europe, and all their provinces are cheerful and happy)
That is at the top of my "things to fix" list. I will be working on the starting royalties stats very soon. The further reduction of the number of provinces in early will also help, as will the addition of some stronger rebel provinces.
The massive trade bloat is also still an issue. Adding some deep sea regions is probably the only answer to this.
The Unknown Guy
04-24-2007, 15:28
(on that topic, even bearing in mind it´s a long term thing, if at all...)
Leon, Portugal, and Navarra I´d leave with default Spanish units (as with Aragon). Granada, I don´t really know. Andalusian Infantry is certainly a fitting unit, whereas Muratibin infantry and the like wouldn´t be. Maybe, akin to the proposal concerning Sicily, a mainly-muslim unit rooster with some heavy cavalry on catholic factions lines, to reflect both the adaptation of European military tactics, and the fact that many of the rulers of the Taifas kingdoms were native Iberian nobility gone muslim. I´m not profficient on the Granada dinasty, but I do know they were originally from the north.
As for shields, Portugal, Leon, and Navarra are easy to get. Granada I´m not profficient, as it´s current representation on the Spanish shield is a pomengranate (the çuestion is whether it was always so). And Cilicia, I have no idea. I just looked into wikipedia, the most unreliable source of information since the Yellow Press, and it says it was a standing Lion. In fact, it looks the same as the shield of Leon, only looking the other way
I've changed a few things in my mod that I would like to suggest.
#1: I've set my unit availabilty so that "Feudal" units are avaible in High, and Chivalric are available in Late. This eliminates the need for gothic units, which I have changed the names of and made german only. The ealry era is "the peasantry" era, and thus the most powerful units available are generally Militia Sergeants.
#2: I have changed the use of the town watch to be used in conjunction with the spearmaker, boywer, axesmith (which I'm having trouble with the pic, the background keeps turning up the supposedly transparent green), and swordsmith to create the "peasantry" units, the metalsmith and armourer have lost thier bonus and are now used as troop dependent buildings, for high attack and high defense/armor units respectivly(speaking of which; how does defense and armor factor in during battle exactly? Armor is for ranged, and defense is for melee, right?).
#3: The royal court line is now required for all "Knight" type units, and all factions can now build up to the highest level. Also, I have added requirements for "Bodyguards", including raising the requirements for the royal courts, as it used to be easy to get CFK at a low tech level.
#4: I have made Iron a tradeable item, and have mafe metalsmiths buildable everywhere. This reflects the fact that although good Iron sources were few, the material could still be traded.
#5: I have limited the production of faction specific only units to certian areas, but have made them buildable for any faction. Religion still plays a role, so no futuwwas or JHI for the Byz or Catholics, but okay for the Byz to have RK.
A few things just to explain myself:
1. All the input here on my account is suggestions and nothing more. There are no hooks neither strings attached nor any other sort of demand of the type "do this as i enjoy playing this way" from my part. I am simply providing feedback and ideas as i don't play the PM for pleasure, but for the sake of helping Cambyses II with it and i will do that as promised till the project is complete or abandoned. Please Martok & Cambyses II treat all my further posts here on this spirit ie discuss them further if interesting and disregard them without explaining more than a line if uninteresting/unfeasible.
I do understand that its a huge time waster and source of fustration having to argue for things that they are ultimately unfeasible or out of interest for the mod and having to "convince" the casual forumite that comes here and posts his daily opinion only, and yet having to do so with "reasonable" arguments, so feel free of this obligation in our interaction.
2. Relative to the warmaking level, my own experience with altering MedMod IV suggests the following:
a) Factions tend to go in still water financially with garrison troops.
b) There are more than one for each type of unit in each era so they go in inactivity with low tech/old units usually as the AI prefers them (due to being cheaper).
c) Constant (= about a battle per 10 turns on a particular front) border skirmishing of a certain degree alleviates that as the AI gets the chance to rid of its units and build the new ones.
d) This may be achieved by: incerasing the default rebeliousness from 0 to 2 for almost all provinces and tweaking the meintanance costs in order so that the AI can still garrisson effectively the more now rebelious provinces but still can get surplus forces to invade.
e) This works as AI factions fight without progressing in conquest - they simply get rid of a stack as the newly conquered province will rebel repeatedly and the AI stack will be lost most of the time and he will retreat. As a result the AI will build the new unts.
f) The above approach is best complemented with strict homelands to further prevent and punish gigantism and overexpansion. I have implemented and playtested that and it works as i describe.
In my first campaign i've played in the PM: French/Early/Hard the Italians were a pile of militias and cheap spearmen as they haven't fought a single battle in 60 turns (!). When i atacked them in 1146 or so, they fell with only 2 extremely easy battles and no hope of re-making an army before i conquer them entirely eventually. Not "enough of warmaking" unfortunately i'm afraid.
The Italian AI was too busy teching up to the higher forts before building the military buildings and as this much like in vanilla takes ages and costs millions they cannot defend themselves before they finish all that building up, that is effectively before the late early era i guess.
Note also that i don't bum rush the AI never and i am roleplaying my games and enjoy peace for empire building etc. So the "classic" argument for total peace and total war is innaproriate relative to my suggestions, i feel, with all due respect Martok.
3. Relative to provinces: Historical accuracy in the mod as it stands is feasible only in the state of compromise in my view. Asking to respect it fully without more factions and without altering the map is sort of an impossibility as far as i can see.
The Byzantines as mentioned did held only 3 of the continental provinces (Greece, Thrace and Bulgaria) that they hold at the start of the early era excluding islands yet none of you finds that odd.
In my opinion to give reasonable starting points and home lands to factions so they play better in the course of the campaign is much more important rather than arguing who held what and when for a counterargument as why the Aragonese can't hold Toulouse or Navarre. All in all the Aragonese AI targets Toulouse or Navarre anyway as he has nowhere else to go and he can train units there (homeland). The Castilians and Almohads are too much for him so he has to build from somewehere. This will also help represent the more complex situation that existed in the Iberian rather than a black/white christian vs muslim war ie it will introduce the Aragonese as a power in the equation, which makes for more interesting political/military dealings.
Making it easier for the Danes to unite Scandinavia or even giving a second Scandinavian province to them, is way more reasonable from a "historical" persepective than them ending up in Burgundy or than the Russians conquering Sweaden.
4. Relative to rosters: What i mean Cambyses II is that the Byzantines for example don't need HAs and BC as in vanilla (haven't played with them yet in the PM) - they are the same type of unit in essence and one or the other is redundant. Conversely, the Catholics dont need spearmen and Sergeants - Hobilars and Mounted Sergeants in the same era; you can decide to give one unit of each type to certain factions and the other to certain others and so simplify the roster and so help the AI in the campaign and in battle (as you can work a style for him or the player that plays the faction after that point). You can group the factions as to who gets that spearman type and who gets that missile type etc also helping with distributing homelands.
All this can be done with existing units - at most a simple renaming will be required.
The AI will play better as the phenomenon of having lower tech units will reduce/dissapear = they will be only one unit per type the AI needs to build to fight effectively. Even if he is losing a war and makes a few units for a desperate defence they will provide a much better enjoyment/resistance than the bunch of UM and simple spearmen and archers that he is getting now when on the line financially.
Many Thanks
Noir
I've changed a few things in my mod that I would like to suggest.
#1: I've set my unit availabilty so that "Feudal" units are avaible in High, and Chivalric are available in Late. This eliminates the need for gothic units, which I have changed the names of and made german only. The ealry era is "the peasantry" era, and thus the most powerful units available are generally Militia Sergeants.
I can see the sense in what you're doing there, though I would be uneasy about depriving the game of Feudal units in the early era. I have structured it presently so that Feudal units go out of date and are replaced by chivalric equivalent ones in the high era, to force the AI onto moving on to producing these unit types. Men at arms to Chivalric men at arms, Knights to Chivalric Knights, Sergeants to Chivalric Sergeants. The chivalric units then last for the last two eras.
#2: I have changed the use of the town watch to be used in conjunction with the spearmaker, boywer, axesmith (which I'm having trouble with the pic, the background keeps turning up the supposedly transparent green), and swordsmith to create the "peasantry" units, the metalsmith and armourer have lost thier bonus and are now used as troop dependent buildings, for high attack and high defense/armor units respectivly(speaking of which; how does defense and armor factor in during battle exactly? Armor is for ranged, and defense is for melee, right?).
Ensure you have the latest bif reader and which paint package are you using? Small black spots will always be an issue and you'll have to edit those out manually. The trick is to try and fil in with background space instead of leaving too many transparent "holes". It's these holes that seem to cause the problem when bif reader processes the file into a new bif. Personally I will not be implementing an Axesmith in the Pocket Mod, as that would mean me having to go down the fletcher, tanner, mason, camel breeder, halberd maker rout which I don't want to get into.
Armour is simply added to defence in battle. It is treated as a stat in that it causes units to perform poorly in the desert and is taken into account when on the receiving end of an armour piercing attack. All in all though it's the same thing as defence.
#3: The royal court line is now required for all "Knight" type units, and all factions can now build up to the highest level. Also, I have added requirements for "Bodyguards", including raising the requirements for the royal courts, as it used to be easy to get CFK at a low tech level.
By "knight type" are you including non catholics? If so then that would be ahistorical IMHO.
#4: I have made Iron a tradeable item, and have mafe metalsmiths buildable everywhere. This reflects the fact that although good Iron sources were few, the material could still be traded.
Expect to see uber upgraded units. Those factions with a poor economy - without the upgrades - will fall very fast.
#5: I have limited the production of faction specific only units to certian areas, but have made them buildable for any faction. Religion still plays a role, so no futuwwas or JHI for the Byz or Catholics, but okay for the Byz to have RK.
The Byzantine wouldn't have trained Royal Knights. Their bodyguards were Kataphraktoi type cavalry. Futuwwa are trainable by Egyptian and Turkish factions in the Pocket Mod but only in Syria.
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
04-24-2007, 18:29
On the order of Calatrava: it appears that it would be slightly anachronistic as a "secular order", because althrough it indeed became so in time, it was not until the sixteenth century when it became fully secular.
I say "slightly" because, on the other hand, they did play a very significant role in the politics of the Kingdom of Castile during all the Reconçuista, becoming openly involved, and adding a significant manpower, in wars against muslim princes, other Spanish kingdoms, and succession wars, and besides, the King had a strong say in the appointing of the Grand Master (althrough "officially", it depended only on both a certain bishop and the pope).
My semi-mistake is due to a play I saw a while ago.
Addenum: apparently there WAS an earlier secular order in Castile, with the King as the Grand Master, the "Order of the Band", which was limited to the nobility, and placed a special emphasis in "chivalry, solidarity (whatever it meant), and loyalty to the king". And it was conveniently existant from around l304, and l474. So it would still be a little anachronistic in High (but just a little).
Either would do. Methinks that the Order of Calatrava is more famous, however.
Something I've just noticed... The Byzantine faction leader starts with +2 influence over all other factions which start with a standard, seemingly hardcoded, 4 influence regardless of era. This gives the Byzantine a distinct advantage over their rivals. They are exposed as cheats!! :thumbsdown:
I have reduced the start leader's command stars by 2 so far and this will hopefully make a difference. I have given Naples to the Sicilians and Anatolia and Nicaea to the Seljuks in the early era. Will reply to other comments tomorrow.
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
04-25-2007, 01:25
Do they have any hardcoded non-decrease of Influence?
In my current HRE game I´ve noticed that every succession is followed by a decrease of influence (which makes sense), something I didn´t notice with the Byzantines, althrough that could have been because they already have an hyped influence, and I usually manage to, starting on High, get a stable border composed of Nicaea, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Greece, at the very least. This makes it very handy for getting influence for browbeating incoming enemy armies.
Oh, also: shouldn´t the germans get a special if Gothic Knights (and Milanese for others) become universal?
Or maybe Swabian Swordmen and the elective nature of the HRE (which effectively means that wars with them must be carried to the bitter end, as the royal line is a secundary concern)
(posts merged - please delete)
A few things just to explain myself:
1. All the input here on my account is suggestions and nothing more. There are no hooks neither strings attached nor any other sort of demand of the type "do this as i enjoy playing this way" from my part. I am simply providing feedback and ideas as i don't play the PM for pleasure, but for the sake of helping Cambyses II with it and i will do that as promised till the project is complete or abandoned. Please Martok & Cambyses II treat all my further posts here on this spirit ie discuss them further if interesting and disregard them without explaining more than a line if uninteresting/unfeasible.
I do understand that its a huge time waster and source of fustration having to argue for things that they are ultimately unfeasible or out of interest for the mod and having to "convince" the casual forumite that comes here and posts his daily opinion only, and yet having to do so with "reasonable" arguments, so feel free of this obligation in our interaction.
Well I for one and appreciating the input you are providing. :bow:
2. Relative to the warmaking level, my own experience with altering MedMod IV suggests the following:
a) Factions tend to go in still water financially with garrison troops.
b) There are more than one for each type of unit in each era so they go in inactivity with low tech/old units usually as the AI prefers them (due to being cheaper).
c) Constant (= about a battle per 10 turns on a particular front) border skirmishing of a certain degree alleviates that as the AI gets the chance to rid of its units and build the new ones.
d) This may be achieved by: incerasing the default rebeliousness from 0 to 2 for almost all provinces and tweaking the meintanance costs in order so that the AI can still garrisson effectively the more now rebelious provinces but still can get surplus forces to invade.
e) This works as AI factions fight without progressing in conquest - they simply get rid of a stack as the newly conquered province will rebel repeatedly and the AI stack will be lost most of the time and he will retreat. As a result the AI will build the new unts.
f) The above approach is best complemented with strict homelands to further prevent and punish gigantism and overexpansion. I have implemented and playtested that and it works as i describe.
a) Lots of cheap and poor quality troops do tend to bog the AI down and cripple it. your argument is that instead of giving the AI lots of poor quality troops give it 1 decent unit of every type per era that it can actually use. This does make sense though unfortunately it also makes for rather restrictive gameplay. Personally though I wouldn't miss units such as Spearmen or UM and I would definitely consider removing them. Taking Spear units as an example, currently there are a whole range of them available to catholics including Spearmen/Round Shield Spearmen, Armoured Spearmen, Feudal Sergeants and Chivalric Sergeants. I would advocate removing Spearmen altogether and converting them into a regional fuedal sergeant (known as simply "Sergeants" in this mod). That is I would structure it as follows:
Sergeants/Eastern European Infantry (mutually exclusive)
Sergeants: Western Catholic units represented by either the Feudal Sergeants info pic or the (square shield catholic) Spearmen info pic. The English and HRE could use the standard FS version and all other catholics could have the square shield one. All of these would be superceded and replaced by Chivalric Sergeants in the high era onwards.
<Eastern European Infantry>: Eastern Spearmen using either the Armoured Spearmen or (round shield catholic) info pic. The "armoured" variant could be exclusively a Danish and Novgorod version. The "round shielders" would be the Polish, Hungarian and Russian. These would last the whole 3 eras.
Alternatively it could be structured quite differently:
Sergeants/Eastern European Infantry (mutually exclusive)
Sergeants: Early Western Catholic units represented by the (square shield catholic) Spearmen info pic. High units would use the standard FS info pic, and Late using the Chivalric Sergeants. All of these units would be named "Sergeants". This would force the use of what is basically spearmen until the high era. Statistically they could be altered to give better morale, as at present they are not much good at anything except running.
<Eastern European Infantry>: Early Eastern Spearmen would use the Armoured Spearmen info pic, High and Late would switch to the standard round shield spearmen info pic (this is because the former looks antiquated and distinctly norse and is not really suited to the high and late eras). The Danes, Novgorod, Poles, Hungarians and Russians would use these types of infantry and not have access to sergeants. These would last the whole 3 eras.
Alternative suggestions welcome.
I would also advocate the 2 point increase to the default rebelliousness.
In my first campaign i've played in the PM: French/Early/Hard the Italians were a pile of militias and cheap spearmen as they haven't fought a single battle in 60 turns (!). When i atacked them in 1146 or so, they fell with only 2 extremely easy battles and no hope of re-making an army before i conquer them entirely eventually. Not "enough of warmaking" unfortunately i'm afraid.
The Italian AI was too busy teching up to the higher forts before building the military buildings and as this much like in vanilla takes ages and costs millions they cannot defend themselves before they finish all that building up, that is effectively before the late early era i guess.
Note also that i don't bum rush the AI never and i am roleplaying my games and enjoy peace for empire building etc. So the "classic" argument for total peace and total war is innaproriate relative to my suggestions, i feel, with all due respect Martok.
This is why I'm trying to make building easier for the AI. So that if the AI wants to tech up to a certain unit it can do so easily and be in the position to train other units on the way. Making all of the weaponsmiths more easily available helps. The Italians have an extreme shortage of decent units in the early era anyway, except for Italian Infantry which I rarely see the AI training, and have an valour bonus for UM in Tuscany which means they'll develop those and start training many of them.
3. Relative to provinces: Historical accuracy in the mod as it stands is feasible only in the state of compromise in my view. Asking to respect it fully without more factions and without altering the map is sort of an impossibility as far as i can see.
As I've said before, more factions is a possibility in the future but I wish to lay a foundation before starting work on the furnishings. The map is another issue. Boundaries changed so frequently that no map can be accurate throughout 1087 to 1453 anyway, this is why I see changes to the map as secondary at the moment. The provinces are purely representational and if for example Lesser Armenia is far larger than Cilician Armenia that is purely cosmetic. The province is still in the same place, can be attacked by the same neighbours and has the same attributes. The difference is simply it's size and appearance on the map. Splitting and adding provinces is another matter, but there are not, IMHO, enough free "slots" to add the sufficient amount of extra provinces required to do it justice. Just botching in Mesopotamia or Murcia won't really help much.
:bow:
The Byzantines as mentioned did held only 3 of the continental provinces (Greece, Thrace and Bulgaria) that they hold at the start of the early era excluding islands yet none of you finds that odd.
I have always found it odd, yet have not gotten around to altering it yet. Just because I haven't changed something it doesn't mean that I am not aware of it/ignoring it. It is basically because I am trying to do many other things in a limited amount of time as well as reading up on the subject.
It has now been finally altered and I have added Anatolia and Nicaea to the Turks. I will have to work on balancing the garrisons and adding basic fortifications and ports to the entire map. It bothers me that many provinces start entirely empty in the early era.
In my opinion to give reasonable starting points and home lands to factions so they play better in the course of the campaign is much more important rather than arguing who held what and when for a counterargument as why the Aragonese can't hold Toulouse or Navarre. All in all the Aragonese AI targets Toulouse or Navarre anyway as he has nowhere else to go and he can train units there (homeland). The Castilians and Almohads are too much for him so he has to build from somewehere. This will also help represent the more complex situation that existed in the Iberian rather than a black/white christian vs muslim war ie it will introduce the Aragonese as a power in the equation, which makes for more interesting political/military dealings.
You're quite correct, but historical boundaries have to be respected. The English will probably go for Scotland also, so why not have them start with Scotland. Give the Danes Sweden and Norway and give the Novgorod a good chunk of those rebel provinces? You see the argument "give them the provinces" can apply to any faction, the challenge is to get it working properly without resorting to this. I think the answer is to eventually add a Navarrese faction.
Making it easier for the Danes to unite Scandinavia or even giving a second Scandinavian province to them, is way more reasonable from a "historical" persepective than them ending up in Burgundy or than the Russians conquering Sweaden.
Not necessarily. By today's standards yes, but in those times where Normans ended up in Sicily, anything was possible under the right circumstances. The simple issue here is Sweden's rebelliousness. Reducing it will assist the Danes in holding it down. The other issue is that the Danes spam vikings, spawn bodyguards and then become crippled. Because you're playing an old version of the PoM you won't have the lower cost bodyguard units I'm working on at present. These cost little to support and so don't paralyse the economy. Aragon and Poland are benefiting greatly from this as are all other factions. The Danes are still the main problem. When testing for 200 years, I found that of all factions only the Danes still went into the red. I was quite pleased with the results.
4. Relative to rosters: What i mean Cambyses II is that the Byzantines for example don't need HAs and BC as in vanilla (haven't played with them yet in the PM) - they are the same type of unit in essence and one or the other is redundant. Conversely, the Catholics dont need spearmen and Sergeants - Hobilars and Mounted Sergeants in the same era; you can decide to give one unit of each type to certain factions and the other to certain others and so simplify the roster and so help the AI in the campaign and in battle (as you can work a style for him or the player that plays the faction after that point). You can group the factions as to who gets that spearman type and who gets that missile type etc also helping with distributing homelands.
All this can be done with existing units - at most a simple renaming will be required.
BC don't exist in the Pocket Mod. They have been replaced by the Pronoiarioi Kavallarioi Toxotai which are a version of Pronoiarioi Kavallarioi (Pr0n Cav) armed with bows. I agree though that the Byzantine don't really need the HAs and eliminating and restricting redundant units has been one of my priorities all along.
Hobilars and mounted Sergeants are another one. I feel that all factions with Sergeants should also have mounted Sergeants, thus Hobilars would seem somewhat redundant. Hobilars though were gaelic mercenaries and should have a place. It may be better to give the French and English Hobilars instead of mounted Sergeants.
The AI will play better as the phenomenon of having lower tech units will reduce/dissapear = they will be only one unit per type the AI needs to build to fight effectively. Even if he is losing a war and makes a few units for a desperate defence they will provide a much better enjoyment/resistance than the bunch of UM and simple spearmen and archers that he is getting now when on the line financially.
Many Thanks
Noir
I will look into all of this.
:bow:
Do they have any hardcoded non-decrease of Influence?
In my current HRE game I´ve noticed that every succession is followed by a decrease of influence (which makes sense), something I didn´t notice with the Byzantines, althrough that could have been because they already have an hyped influence, and I usually manage to, starting on High, get a stable border composed of Nicaea, Trebizond, Bulgaria, and Greece, at the very least. This makes it very handy for getting influence for browbeating incoming enemy armies.
There also appears to be a +1 command star bonus to the Byzantines, though I can't be 100% certain of this. I will check this out more thoroughly later this evening. I did notice that the first faction leader in the early period, faction leader 0, Alexius I IIRC, starts out as follows:
FAMOUS_KINGS:: FN_BYZANTINE 8
//name no. c d p a portrait vnv
6, 1, 4, 5, 4, 5, -1, defender2
0, 1, 2, 5, 3, 4, -1, lawman1
7, 1, 3, 5, 3, 3, -1, tyrant1
6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, -1, secretkiller3
5, 11, 3, 3, 3, 3, -1, tyrant1
3, 3, 2, 6, 4, 5, -1, builderking3
7, 2, 1, 3, 5, 1, -1, pious2
3, 6, 3, 4, 4, 5, -1, educated1
The first column indicates the name of the faction leader, no 6 "Alexius" in this case. The second is the number of times someone bearing his name has been king before (e.g. 1 = Alexius I, 2 = Alexius II etc). This is modified further in the setstartleader line in the startpos file. The third (c) is command, next is dread, then piety, acumen, special portrait and vnvs. Alexius starts with 4 command +2 command from the expert defender virtue to give a total of 6 command, except on the campaign map he clearly has no less than 7 command stars. Am I missing something here? :shrug:
Reducing his command stars by 2 had the difference of reducing the stats of other starting units considerably. If I find no other way to fix this influence bonus I will have to reduce the command stars of all the Byzantine leaders considerably more.
As to whether their influence deprecates normally I can't be certain either. It may that they simply tend to win an awful lot which gives their leader the illusion of having unshakeable influence, who knows. All I know is that +2 influence is a killer and makes all the difference. It also gives the Byzantine better generals from the outset.
Oh, also: shouldn´t the germans get a special if Gothic Knights (and Milanese for others) become universal?
Or maybe Swabian Swordmen and the elective nature of the HRE (which effectively means that wars with them must be carried to the bitter end, as the royal line is a secundary concern)
A valour bonus? This brings me again to the biggest issue with valour bonus regions, and that is the AI tendency to do nothing with the province except to build it up to produce the valour bonus unit. I'm reluctant to create more of them and have considered removing them and implementing them in another way perhaps. More use could be made of the ruler advantage column instead of the region advantage one. Certain factions would be able to produce those units cheaper, as they were famous for them. This is not as ideal as the regions but IMHO the regions simply don't work as the AI cannot handle them at all.
Originally Posted by Cambyses II
You're quite correct, but historical boundaries have to be respected. The English will probably go for Scotland also, so why not have them start with Scotland. Give the Danes Sweden and Norway and give the Novgorod a good chunk of those rebel provinces? You see the argument "give them the provinces" can apply to any faction, the challenge is to get it working properly without resorting to this. I think the answer is to eventually add a Navarrese faction.
I see where you are getting at, but IMO you are presenting the wrong example. The English do have a load of provinces and so they don't need to be "strengthened" with Scotland or Wales - their starting position is fine and so i dont propose that we "divert" from historical corectness for the sake of gameplay.
The Novgorodians have it easy also because of those rebel provinces - not to mention that being a generic "Russian" faction they should be representing the Kievans also that held three or four of those steppe rebel provinces in the south.
It is the Aragonese and Danes that suffer because of this. If having Toulouse the Aragonese AI may go for Vanecia or even better take it to the seas, I'd say that this is way more historical that it staying put for ages and not taking any part in the "Reconquista".
Of course you are the boss :)
Making the weaponsmiths easier to build is a good approach - also i would suggest that you treat their cost and building times - effectively the cost and building time the AI can churn out decent troops. The ones you have presented sound a bit high still to me - but remember that i haven't seen any playtest campaigns with the verson you are working on. In my experience the AI stubbornly goes on to complete them all - this is why he is building all the forts first (to guarantee their security) and then goes on to finish them till the last level before considering making anything else like for example economic buildings.
As for valor bonuses, as i said in another occasion, i would have them minimal or remove them entirely as they really hamper the AI's game in my experience - a substitute for them campaign-wise is to actually get certain units recruitable only in a single province.
Originally posted by Cambyses II
Lots of cheap and poor quality troops do tend to bog the AI down and cripple it. your argument is that instead of giving the AI lots of poor quality troops give it 1 decent unit of every type per era that it can actually use. This does make sense though unfortunately it also makes for rather restrictive gameplay.
If this means restrictive gameplay with having less than two or three units for a unit type (ie spears or missiles) i object it. Gameplay is actually improved for both the player and the AI if that single unit per role is decent per faction (and you can play around with that to create "styles" ie faction X may have strong infantry and decent cavalry while faction Y decent infantry and strong cavalry etc).
The tactical AI can greatly benefit by having available a single decent unit at every role as in vanilla is hampered by having 3,000 of each of very variable quality and his "choice" is often a function of his economic situation and that means that usually he goes for the cheaper. This is actually killing the gameplay in MTW as unlike STW the cmpaign can be won on the strategy map. The great "variety" of units benefits the player only - for the AI is definitely a great minus. Many of SP players play to play with this unit type or the other (Gothic Knights - so cool, Ah katanks so powerful, Lancers yeah!, JHI whoa! etc), however the point of the game is to play with tactics. I wouldn't play just to say "ah! Gothic knights are great, look how they charge and rout everyone" - that's not the point, every unit and every army should have a counter if played correctly and their strengths should be denied if one plays to their weaknesses - at least for me. The player shouldn't have infinite adaptability to rosters, circumstances, climates and terrains with just any faction. He should be playing with the strengths and weaknesses of his faction choice.
Battles in SWs mod for example that has the restricted roster of STW are extremely difficult and the player needs to shed a lot of effort into playing better to get anywhere in the campaign. You cannot win by simply swarming either, as profit is restricted. In MTW vanilla, you can win and lose simply by difference of strength most of the time. This is unacceptable for me, you should be playing with slightly less troops than the AI to get the best enjoyment in tactical terms in my opinion and with equal strength units overall (if you have better cavalry they have better infantry or missiles etc).
An equivalent for MTW would be to have a simplified roster for each era and for each faction and then make sure that all AI factions can have immediate access to them in the beginning of every era and that they cannot build their older units.
Many Thanks
Noir
The Blind King of Bohemia
04-25-2007, 12:01
Hobilars though were gaelic mercenaries and should have a place.
That's a bit of a generalization. While it is true that they took the inspiration from light Irish horse, they would not have fought in the Gaelic manner, with no stirrups and using javelins. The Hobilar was mainly a term for light horsemen in English armies of the period. Hackney, Galloway or Bogtrotter horses would have been designated this term. There was also dismounted Hobilars, which probably would have been referred to as Welsh or Cornish foot during the HYW.
I see where you are getting at, but IMO you are presenting the wrong example. The English do have a load of provinces and so they don't need to be "strengthened" with Scotland or Wales - their starting position is fine and so i dont propose that we "divert" from historical corectness for the sake of gameplay.
Perhaps that was a bad example, but you are looking at it from a gameplay and tactics perspective, whereas I am trying to juggle gameplay, tactics and reasonable historical accuracy. My main point was that giving Navarre to the Aragonese in the early era would be like giving Scotland to the English, giving Egypt to the Seljuks or whatever - from an historical perspective.
The Novgorodians have it easy also because of those rebel provinces - not to mention that being a generic "Russian" faction they should be representing the Kievans also that held three or four of those steppe rebel provinces in the south.
The Novgorodians are something that I will be moving on to next. I personally don't much like the Russian/Novgorodian situation as it is. Surely in 1087 the Kievan Rus state would still have existed? It would have broken up in the early 13th century. Such a state is just a feasible as the HRE or any other feudal state. It seems that one Kievan Rus faction would be better in the early era and perhaps Novgorod as a faction and the other Kievan Principalities lumped into another faction for high and late?
It is the Aragonese and Danes that suffer because of this. If having Toulouse the Aragonese AI may go for Vanecia or even better take it to the seas, I'd say that this is way more historical that it staying put for ages and not taking any part in the "Reconquista".
Again I'm not sure about handing the Aragonese Toulouse, it seems ahistorical.
Making the weaponsmiths easier to build is a good approach - also i would suggest that you treat their cost and building times - effectively the cost and building time the AI can churn out decent troops. The ones you have presented sound a bit high still to me - but remember that i haven't seen any playtest campaigns with the verson you are working on. In my experience the AI stubbornly goes on to complete them all - this is why he is building all the forts first (to guarantee their security) and then goes on to finish them till the last level before considering making anything else like for example economic buildings.
2 years, 200 florins for the lowest doesn't seem high to me?
As for valor bonuses, as i said in another occasion, i would have them minimal or remove them entirely as they really hamper the AI's game in my experience - a substitute for them campaign-wise is to actually get certain units recruitable only in a single province.
I have homelands already, for most units and many units that are recruitable in just one or two provinces.
If this means restrictive gameplay with having less than two or three units for a unit type (ie spears or missiles) i object it. Gameplay is actually improved for both the player and the AI if that single unit per role is decent per faction (and you can play around with that to create "styles" ie faction X may have strong infantry and decent cavalry while faction Y decent infantry and strong cavalry etc).
The tactical AI can greatly benefit by having available a single decent unit at every role as in vanilla is hampered by having 3,000 of each of very variable quality and his "choice" is often a function of his economic situation and that means that usually he goes for the cheaper. This is actually killing the gameplay in MTW as unlike STW the cmpaign can be won on the strategy map. The great "variety" of units benefits the player only - for the AI is definitely a great minus. Many of SP players play to play with this unit type or the other (Gothic Knights - so cool, Ah katanks so powerful, Lancers yeah!, JHI whoa! etc), however the point of the game is to play with tactics. I wouldn't play just to say "ah! Gothic knights are great, look how they charge and rout everyone" - that's not the point, every unit and every army should have a counter if played correctly and their strengths should be denied if one plays to their weaknesses - at least for me. The player shouldn't have infinite adaptability to rosters, circumstances, climates and terrains with just any faction. He should be playing with the strengths and weaknesses of his faction choice.
Battles in SWs mod for example that has the restricted roster of STW are extremely difficult and the player needs to shed a lot of effort into playing better to get anywhere in the campaign. You cannot win by simply swarming either, as profit is restricted. In MTW vanilla, you can win and lose simply by difference of strength most of the time. This is unacceptable for me, you should be playing with slightly less troops than the AI to get the best enjoyment in tactical terms in my opinion and with equal strength units overall (if you have better cavalry they have better infantry or missiles etc).
An equivalent for MTW would be to have a simplified roster for each era and for each faction and then make sure that all AI factions can have immediate access to them in the beginning of every era and that they cannot build their older units.
The STW unit roster was indeed superior in this way. Any specific and practicable input on this would be good.
:bow:
That's a bit of a generalization. While it is true that they took the inspiration from light Irish horse, they would not have fought in the Gaelic manner, with no stirrups and using javelins. The Hobilar was mainly a term for light horsemen in English armies of the period. Hackney, Galloway or Bogtrotter horses would have been designated this term. There was also dismounted Hobilars, which probably would have been referred to as Welsh or Cornish foot during the HYW.
Good to know, thanks. :bow:
I can see the sense in what you're doing there, though I would be uneasy about depriving the game of Feudal units in the early era. I have structured it presently so that Feudal units go out of date and are replaced by chivalric equivalent ones in the high era, to force the AI onto moving on to producing these unit types. Men at arms to Chivalric men at arms, Knights to Chivalric Knights, Sergeants to Chivalric Sergeants. The chivalric units then last for the last two eras.
I see what your getting at here. I mainly did it so that the player couldn't overrun the computer with the feudal units as the computer was still stuck with peasantry. This way, they are on a more equal (albiet forced) footing.
Ensure you have the latest bif reader and which paint package are you using? Small black spots will always be an issue and you'll have to edit those out manually. The trick is to try and fil in with background space instead of leaving too many transparent "holes". It's these holes that seem to cause the problem when bif reader processes the file into a new bif. Personally I will not be implementing an Axesmith in the Pocket Mod, as that would mean me having to go down the fletcher, tanner, mason, camel breeder, halberd maker rout which I don't want to get into.
I am presently using a rather jury rigged setup that involves bif reader, paint shop pro, and purpgrab. There are no "holes", just the green background isn't transparent, which I believe has something to do with the bif reader.
I use the axesmith as a catch all for "axe like weapons - polearms included. I reasoned it didn't make sense to have the Varangian Guard use a "spearmaker" when they are an axe unit.
By "knight type" are you including non catholics? If so then that would be ahistorical IMHO.
Sorry, I was being a bit too general there. What I meant was any "royalty" or "nobility". This includes Kataphractoi, Ghulam Bodyguards, and Royal Knights, Varangian Guard, etc.
Expect to see uber upgraded units. Those factions with a poor economy - without the upgrades - will fall very fast.
Iron is just a rather High income trade good now. Metalsmiths and armourers are now required to "make" the powerful units, such as Chivalric Knights, and no longer provide any bonus to attack, defense, or armor.
The Byzantine wouldn't have trained Royal Knights. Their bodyguards were Kataphraktoi type cavalry. Futuwwa are trainable by Egyptian and Turkish factions in the Pocket Mod but only in Syria.
I understand that. The Byzantines can train them only as normal units, to reflect that the catholics wouldn't quite be "Byzantine". They would continue to hold on to their past. At least thats the way I imagine it. Plus, it reflects the fact that you could't just walk into a islamic province and start training say, Byzantine infantry. I also believe that it could represent a form of changing military, allowing all faction to become more adaptable to changing warfare/climate/enemy. The other driving force behind it was the fact that people don't just move across the border when a faction is defeated; many stay, and could be recruited.:2cents:
Innocentius
04-25-2007, 14:22
May I just make one quick remark on the landbridges between Denmark-Sweden and Sweden-Finland?
I've already earlier in the first thread about this mod questioned the existance of a landbridge between Sweden-Finland as I find highly unrealistic and ahistorical. Indeed the Baltic was not a theatre of great naval warfare until the early modern era and the 16th century, but it was still impossible to transport troops between Sweden and Finland for the kings of Sweden unless they had a sufficient navy to do so.
The landbridge between Denmark-Sweden is even more inaccurate. Yes, Öresund isn't very wide but naval control of these waters was still vital to the kings of Denmark during the medieval period, and in the 17th century, when the Danish had lost control of the eastern part of the strait (Scania) naval battles here were frequent to decide who should be able to obtain the Sound Dues (established in 1429, but dues obtained by the Danish existed earlier).
Originally posted by Cambyses II
Perhaps that was a bad example, but you are looking at it from a gameplay and tactics perspective, whereas I am trying to juggle gameplay, tactics and reasonable historical accuracy. My main point was that giving Navarre to the Aragonese in the early era would be like giving Scotland to the English, giving Egypt to the Seljuks or whatever - from an historical perspective.
I see the point, however what i tried to convey is that i would not wish to change anything that matches gameplay and historical accuracy - if something however would work in the campaign better for a slight sacrifice in historical accuracy (not gross errors) then i would go for it. I would repeat the example that all of us were playing with the Byzantines occupying Anatolia, Nicaea and Naples at the beginning of the early era which is similarly ahistorical and i am glad that you've changed it as it will help the Seljuks and the Sicilians as well.
You are the boss in any case :)
Originally posted by Cambyses II
2 years, 200 florins for the lowest doesn't seem high to me?
Yes, however if that increases to 4, 6 and 8 turns for the subsequent upgraded versions it gives a 4+6+8 = 18 turns wait for the AI to finish and start "considering" economic buildings. That is 18 turns per military building. In order to finish them all he would need say 5x18 = 90 turns for a single province. Not to mention that the time and cost for upgrading the fortresses is also added (another 18+ turns possibly with all the delays that the AI would make to actually find the money), not to mention any delays due to attacks/sieges/loss of province etc etc.
This brings up a total of i would say roughly 100+ turns before the AI accounts for his economy in most cases as he goes on to complete his military buildings before he builds anything else most of the time. During all those turns he has to defend himself with what he's got and that's why i'm saying that simplifying the rosters would help alot. You won't be getting chore battles with any faction even if they are not at the increase financially.
100+ turns of wait to develop the economy means that he is probably cornered and bankrupt, or swollowed by that time in vanilla at least apart from a couple of superfactions and the player.
This also explains why the AI gets most of his income by occupying land and why he is so desperate to expand rather than keep the expansion-turtle&upgrade process that the player does. Its simply because his building queu is dominated by military buildings alone until he more or less completes them and to myunderstanding this is hardcoded in order for the AI factions to keep up with the player in bulding the new units as i explained in the AI psychology thread.
Last but not least the Kievan/Novgorodian idea is certainly better than how things stand at the moment.
Again i am saying that i haven't played the version you are working on and i dont have a clue how it works overall. All the above is just speculation.
Many Thanks
Noir
I see what your getting at here. I mainly did it so that the player couldn't overrun the computer with the feudal units as the computer was still stuck with peasantry. This way, they are on a more equal (albiet forced) footing.
I can see the sense in it, as I've said before, and i think it could work if vanilla spears were uprated to lower class Sergeants to fit the early era (see my post above on this).
I am presently using a rather jury rigged setup that involves bif reader, paint shop pro, and purpgrab. There are no "holes", just the green background isn't transparent, which I believe has something to do with the bif reader.
Everyone uses the same array of unsuitable tools so you're not alone. I'm not sure what could be causing your problem as I've done very little bif editing and creation for months now. It may be that you don't have the latest version of the bif reader. Version 23C is the latest I believe?
I use the axesmith as a catch all for "axe like weapons - polearms included. I reasoned it didn't make sense to have the Varangian Guard use a "spearmaker" when they are an axe unit.
Personally I would use the Swordsmith for this. The Spearmaker is simply representative of a pole turners', he would need the services/use of a forge to make spearheads. I would say that battle axe, pike and polearm units could rely on both the Spearmaker and Swordsmith. An "Axesmith" is a fantasy building in that Axesmiths didn't exist as pure axe makers. Axe heads would be forged, ground and hafted by a blacksmith, as axes were chiefly a work tool taken up as arms in times of war.
Sorry, I was being a bit too general there. What I meant was any "royalty" or "nobility". This includes Kataphractoi, Ghulam Bodyguards, and Royal Knights, Varangian Guard, etc.
I have the Bodyguard units all depending on the Royal Palace only. The way I see it is that the Palace incorporates the court anyway. The Royal Court building I have as one of the prerequisites for Feudal Knights.
Iron is just a rather High income trade good now. Metalsmiths and armourers are now required to "make" the powerful units, such as Chivalric Knights, and no longer provide any bonus to attack, defense, or armor.
That is probably the best way to do it, though I would just scrap metalsmiths altogether, unless they could be renamed as "Blacksmiths" and used as a prerequisite for all cavalry (shoes, bits, stirrups, spurs etc - the blacksmith was absolutely vital to most cavalry), and axe / polearm units?
I understand that. The Byzantines can train them only as normal units, to reflect that the catholics wouldn't quite be "Byzantine". They would continue to hold on to their past. At least thats the way I imagine it. Plus, it reflects the fact that you could't just walk into a islamic province and start training say, Byzantine infantry. I also believe that it could represent a form of changing military, allowing all faction to become more adaptable to changing warfare/climate/enemy. The other driving force behind it was the fact that people don't just move across the border when a faction is defeated; many stay, and could be recruited.:2cents:
:bow:
May I just make one quick remark on the landbridges between Denmark-Sweden and Sweden-Finland?
I've already earlier in the first thread about this mod questioned the existance of a landbridge between Sweden-Finland as I find highly unrealistic and ahistorical. Indeed the Baltic was not a theatre of great naval warfare until the early modern era and the 16th century, but it was still impossible to transport troops between Sweden and Finland for the kings of Sweden unless they had a sufficient navy to do so.
The problem is that in order to do this, we have to start questioning other Landbridges, and to remove all of those effectively cuts the Danes off from Sweden and Norway. If they do conquer them and then send their ships elsewhere you get the cut off effect and the provinces will rebel instantly.
The landbridge between Denmark-Sweden is even more inaccurate. Yes, Öresund isn't very wide but naval control of these waters was still vital to the kings of Denmark during the medieval period, and in the 17th century, when the Danish had lost control of the eastern part of the strait (Scania) naval battles here were frequent to decide who should be able to obtain the Sound Dues (established in 1429, but dues obtained by the Danish existed earlier).
Vital yes but not a wide channel as far as channels go. Inland rivers and mountain ranges were also vital but provinces between these are linked directly.
I see the point, however what i tried to convey is that i would not wish to change anything that matches gameplay and historical accuracy - if something however would work in the campaign better for a slight sacrifice in historical accuracy (not gross errors) then i would go for it. I would repeat the example that all of us were playing with the Byzantines occupying Anatolia, Nicaea and Naples at the beginning of the early era which is similarly ahistorical and i am glad that you've changed it as it will help the Seljuks and the Sicilians as well.
:bow:
Yes, however if that increases to 4, 6 and 8 turns for the subsequent upgraded versions it gives a 4+6+8 = 18 turns wait for the AI to finish and start "considering" economic buildings. That is 18 turns per military building. In order to finish them all he would need say 5x18 = 90 turns for a single province. Not to mention that the time and cost for upgrading the fortresses is also added (another 18+ turns possibly with all the delays that the AI would make to actually find the money), not to mention any delays due to attacks/sieges/loss of province etc etc.
This brings up a total of i would say roughly 100+ turns before the AI accounts for his economy in most cases as he goes on to complete his military buildings before he builds anything else most of the time. During all those turns he has to defend himself with what he's got and that's why i'm saying that simplifying the rosters would help alot. You won't be getting chore battles with any faction even if they are not at the increase financially.
100+ turns of wait to develop the economy means that he is probably cornered and bankrupt, or swollowed by that time in vanilla at least apart from a couple of superfactions and the player.
This also explains why the AI gets most of his income by occupying land and why he is so desperate to expand rather than keep the expansion-turtle&upgrade process that the player does. Its simply because his building queu is dominated by military buildings alone until he more or less completes them and to myunderstanding this is hardcoded in order for the AI factions to keep up with the player in bulding the new units as i explained in the AI psychology thread.
So which is the major issue here, time or money? Or perhaps both? Do military buildings need to increase in cost but not in time? In fact should they function as "upgrades" should. That is should the first building cost e.g. 500 and each subsequent upgrade 200? After all one is adding on to, or otherwise improving, the existing building and not rebuilding it entirely. Perhaps 4 years for the first building and 2 years at 200 for each upgrade? That would be only an additional 6 years and 600 florins to complete the workshop, guild and master levels. The issue here is that the AI would get to the +1 valour bonus at master level rather quickly...
Last but not least the Kievan/Novgorodian idea is certainly better than how things stand at the moment.
Again i am saying that i haven't played the version you are working on and i dont have a clue how it works overall. All the above is just speculation.
Many Thanks
Noir
I can see no other solution at present apart from that. Extra factions are probably needed.
:bow:
Originally posted by Cambyses II
So which is the major issue here, time or money? Or perhaps both? Do military buildings need to increase in cost but not in time? In fact should they function as "upgrades" should. That is should the first building cost e.g. 500 and each subsequent upgrade 200? After all one is adding on to, or otherwise improving, the existing building and not rebuilding it entirely. Perhaps 4 years for the first building and 2 years at 200 for each upgrade? That would be only an additional 6 years and 600 florins to complete the workshop, guild and master levels. The issue here is that the AI would get to the +1 valour bonus at master level rather quickly...
I think they need to decrease both - as you've said they are both the issue and also consider as to their dependency relative to the forts; the AI will go and build the citadel before doing merchants and the higher farms most of the time.
In the MedMod IV, at about 120 turns in the camaign the map was swarmed with Fortresses but not with 40% and 60% farms or secondlevel merchants at all. The AI was suiciding financially to build all the military buildings.
So what i did was take out the dependncy for all the higher level military buildings (4 and 5) and reduced it to the third level castle and standasdise the build times and costs to 4 turns and 400flrns and it worked very well that way: the AI was finishing all the military buildings within max 25 turns and then hit it with merchants and farms.
This also helps the AI to get the units of each era right away, even if there is a lot of pillaging because he can rebuild them cheaply and quickly.
Many Thanks
Noir
Well it can only be tested to see what the AI makes of it. :shrug:
Just a suggestion, but is it possible to limit certain buildings being built in certain eras? This might alleviate the "build to fortress syndrome", which may also explain why Byzantium can become such a super power, considering Constantinople is already half way there.
Innocentius
04-25-2007, 16:37
Vital yes but not a wide channel as far as channels go. Inland rivers and mountain ranges were also vital but provinces between these are linked directly.
The main difference being you don't need to have naval superiority to defend and control a mountain range~:rolleyes:
For my part, i'm all for cutting off landbridges but only in cases where the cut off area can produce enough income for a faction isolated there to get back into the game.
In that respect islands arejust death traps for factions and this is unnacceptable. In my home mod of MedMod IV i've connected them all to the mainland getting rid of the phenomena of bankrupted Byzantines in Cyprus with 3000000 katafractoi Princes.
In that respect cutting off England works well, as a dominant faction there can return after a number of turns to being competitive in the game.
Posted by YourLandandConqueror
Just a suggestion, but is it possible to limit certain buildings being built in certain eras? This might alleviate the "build to fortress syndrome", which may also explain why Byzantium can become such a super power, considering Constantinople is already half way there.
Not that i know of, but it would be a one off solution to this problem as you suggest. Indeed the problem is that the AI won't stop building military buildings until they are complete and having access to all of the tech tree from the early era he does so.
As for Constantinople having an advantage well, that's another reason why i connected all military buildings to the 3rd level castle. Nobody gets any advantage other than the University, the higher Gunpoweder buildings and the Cathedral and Military Academic + the fortification. Most of these come very late in the campaign though so the others have time to catch up, not to mention the possibility that Constantinople is... sacked! :pirate2:
The Ai responded well in the change i saw the first fortresses over 180+ turns in the campaign.
Many Thanks
Noir
A side note for Cambyses II:
It won't be an issue if the AI gets to +1 valor bonus quickly for two reasons:
1. Everyone will be getting as fast there (the player included) and actually with much less lag than in vanilla.
2. You can remove the +1 valor bonus altogether.
There's nothing better in TW than building up veteran units and paying attention to how and whom of your generals are performing in battle.
All this was strangled by the "deep" campaign tech-tree in MTW, disregarding completely how the AI does things and destroying his game on the battles and the strategic map at the process. As i said in another occasion its simply bad design. It was the first but decisive step towards shaping TW into a conventional RTS and of course boosting sales.
At least in those days they weren't making "leaked" patches and subsequently polls (!) to "how many are satisfied with it" (!!). What a shame!
Many Thanks
Noir
Update on the "peasantry" era I am trying in my mod. It seems the Byzantines and Turkish have quite the advantage, as Byzantine has few quality competitors for its units, and the Turkish still have to many archery units, which go from very poor in combat to decent with my mod. Of course, once the clock hits 1205, everything changes, with the catholics getting a more even footing. By 1321, Byzantium is gone, the Turks are in power and fighting off the Egyptians and Hungarians, and suprisingly enough, the HRE is still alive and kicking. I am going to play through a couple of times, to see what happens, but everything is going quite well. Oh, sorry if this seems off topic, but I wanted to inform Cambyses II on how the changes went, so he can decide if you wants to consider them.
The main difference being you don't need to have naval superiority to defend and control a mountain range~:rolleyes:
I believe you may be missing the point here. Natural defences are natural defences. I perfectly understand your ideas of naval control cutting off islands, the problem is that this has absolutely no strategic value in the game itself. Cutting off Crete for example does nothing other than causing possible Byzantine faction reappearances on the island. It also turns it into a worthless backwater that once protected by fleets will never be under threat again. The same goes for Ireland. Totally isolated and often untouched by the AI until the English go there. I have seen a full scale English reappearance on Ireland alone. Without a port and financially crippled supporting a huge army, they are effectively dead. The same goes for the effective two province Island (an island in game terms) of Sardinia/Corsica. The Italians can reappear here, or even the Sicilians, when they do, it's often game over for them - they're trapped there. Your proposal of turning Norway/Sweden into a similar two province island would have much the same results. With no decent income apart from that which is gained from trade, useless if you've no ships and no port, they would be another death trap to reappearing factions. Having the link from Finland to Sweden is logical as those regions are linked by land - they are not islands. Yes the land route is not the most pleasant of journeys nor the preferred route (you will find that sea was often the preferred mode of transport for men and provisions - not just in Scandinavia), nor the most practical, though neither the is the land route through Arabia, Syria and Edessa to get to Rum. A faction cannot find support in those two provinces alone as one can in Britain, so why isolate it?
I dislike landbridges as much as the next man, though I have come to terms with the fact that in this game they are a necessary evil. I played the game with all land bridges modded out for almost a year. I witnessed the usual trapped factions and crusades all heading along the same route through Constantinople. The sad fact is that the AI shipping cannot be relied for this, and that land bridges are unavoidable. The only landbridge that can be removed is the one from Flanders to Wessex, and this is only because the British Isles can provide reasonable support for a faction. Other islands simply cannot.
It is obvious to me that more land bridges are needed and that ships alone should never be relied upon as a means of reaching any part of the map. The ships are there to protect the coasts from seaborne invasions, provide long distance transport and to prop up a global trade infrastructure, they are not portable landbridges. The AI has no clue as to how to utilise them in this capacity, and the player should not be able to exploit this.
:bow:
The only way to restrict buildings to provinces is to bind those buildings to a resource (as with mines).
As for Constantinople having an advantage well, that's another reason why i connected all military buildings to the 3rd level castle. Nobody gets any advantage other than the University, the higher Gunpoweder buildings and the Cathedral and Military Academic + the fortification. Most of these come very late in the campaign though so the others have time to catch up, not to mention the possibility that Constantinople is... sacked! :pirate2:
The Ai responded well in the change i saw the first fortresses over 180+ turns in the campaign.
Many Thanks
Noir
When you say, bound to the 3rd level castle, are you referring to allowing all levels of smiths, militias and horse breeders to be built at that level? This sounds feasible. If so what would be the distribution? I intend to stick with the castle structure I have currently with the fort as the basic garrison building for holding down the province while the keep is being built. Perhaps the first two military building levels at Keep level and the last two at Castle level?
Update on the "peasantry" era I am trying in my mod. It seems the Byzantines and Turkish have quite the advantage, as Byzantine has few quality competitors for its units, and the Turkish still have to many archery units, which go from very poor in combat to decent with my mod. Of course, once the clock hits 1205, everything changes, with the catholics getting a more even footing. By 1321, Byzantium is gone, the Turks are in power and fighting off the Egyptians and Hungarians, and suprisingly enough, the HRE is still alive and kicking. I am going to play through a couple of times, to see what happens, but everything is going quite well. Oh, sorry if this seems off topic, but I wanted to inform Cambyses II on how the changes went, so he can decide if you wants to consider them.
I am certainly considering them, though I would have to make a lot of changes to the unit roster as I had detailed in an earlier post. The spear units in particular would need an overhaul, as would UM/MS. The militia buildings are another point I'm still not happy with. I have removed militias and the militia buildings, except the first, from the Byzantine, Turks and Egyptians as they are simply wrong. The Almohads still have both to try and represent the Andalusian soldiery, which they vaguely resemble (they certainly don't resemble anything else either Turkish, Egpytian or Moorish that I know of, though this is still far from the perfect solution. The rest of the UMs would then need to be doled out among the catholics in an era specific fashion. The UM as Early Urban Militia and the MS as High/Late Urban Militia perhaps? Feudal men at arms I consider as already done as they're early only. Chivalric would be high/late.
Originally posted by Cambyses II
When you say, bound to the 3rd level castle, are you referring to allowing all levels of smiths, militias and horse breeders to be built at that level? This sounds feasible. If so what would be the distribution? I intend to stick with the castle structure I have currently with the fort as the basic garrison building for holding down the province while the keep is being built. Perhaps the first two military building levels at Keep level and the last two at Castle level?
Yes, this is exactly what i did.
The distribution is up to you; the main differentiating point is the cost and build time of forts 2 and 3 (Keep & Castle). The other factor is how many of these military buildings need to be combined for each unit.
For example more professional units such as the Byzantines', would require a larger number of buildings to become available for training while more "amateur" units such as the Turkish in early may be more easily available.
Many thanks
Noir
I've been looking into the Kievan Rus provinces for the early period and as far as I can tell they would be occupying most of the east including Pereyaslavl, Cherginov, Smolensk, western Muscovy, southern Lithuania, northern Kiev, Ryazan, Volhynia and Novgorod. They would not be in control of Khazar, Livonia, Moldavia, Volga Bulgaria, or Crimea from what I have seen so far. The problem arises with provinces where there is clearly only partial control, though the Rus were in control of the capitals of these provinces. I am tempted to add only Kiev, Pereyaslavl, Cherginov and Smolensk, though I'll need to look into this more.
The Kievian/Novgorod problem could be resolved by using the original Novgorod faction and the Russian faction. They are identical in almost all respects, including faction color and flags, so a little work in that area is going to be a must. Also, I my self have never played Byzantium long enough to know (I get bored after killing off the Egyptians), but do they have REAL glory goals besides homelands? If they don't, or you don't care one way or another, use one of the FREE# factions to replace Byzantium, as this should get rid of the hard coded influence bonus, since they are no longer officially "Byzantine". This would work espescially well during High, when they are left with Nicea only. Again, this would require a little more work then you are looking for. I treid this with the HRE and France, which cuased everyone to go after the French (obvoiusly~:rolleyes: ), but was rather humourus when the French had to reunite the Holy Roman Empire, and the HRE had to make a cathedral in paris:laugh4: .
The Kievian/Novgorod problem could be resolved by using the original Novgorod faction and the Russian faction. They are identical in almost all respects, including faction color and flags, so a little work in that area is going to be a must.
That's what I was thinking of doing, but the difficulty will be the faction shields and other graphics. Also without new units, they will be effectively clones of each other, though the Aragonese and Spanish are to all intents and purposes exactly this of course.
Also, I my self have never played Byzantium long enough to know (I get bored after killing off the Egyptians), but do they have REAL glory goals besides homelands? If they don't, or you don't care one way or another, use one of the FREE# factions to replace Byzantium, as this should get rid of the hard coded influence bonus, since they are no longer officially "Byzantine". This would work espescially well during High, when they are left with Nicea only. Again, this would require a little more work then you are looking for. I treid this with the HRE and France, which cuased everyone to go after the French (obvoiusly~:rolleyes: ), but was rather humourus when the French had to reunite the Holy Roman Empire, and the HRE had to make a cathedral in paris:laugh4: .
I was also thinking of doing that (did you see the other thread where I had posted about this? :laugh4: ), the problem is that I'm worried about messing up the GA game. I don't play it myself but would like to retain it's functionality for those that do. I wonder about CA's reasoning behind the Byzantine influence and command bonuses. :inquisitive:
Note: Summary (finally) updated to 1.0.6b - see first page of thread.
Yes, about 15 minutes ago. I even posted in it!:laugh4:
Anyway I have another update, and its about your mod this time. It appears that with the landbridges available, the Danish end up in a war with the Novgorod 6 times out of ten (although this is playing only ten times in early for 30 years). I added a substanial navy to all factions (about 8 ships for those with a historical background for naval travel, 5 for those that don't). It actually helps get the AI every now and then, but I have no I dea if it is historically accurate. I attempted to curb the AI gang attacking the HRE by increasing the Infrastructure overall (as each "province" was in fact a pricipality, and there for self sustaining) and added a few more units. I ended up with the exact opposite of what I hoped for, with everyone still ganging up on the HRE, but losing horrible in the process. I could attempt to create another "HRE" faction, but that would kill the GA part. Looks like its back the drawing board.
The way to treat the Spanish Aragonese roster sounds good Cambyses II.
Also, my opinion relative to "twin" factions: it doesn't matter. Its better having them like this and without adding new units as: in most cases factions that are presenting this problem represented vaguely the same "ethnicity" (Rus and Spain). On top of this it may limit the fighting "styles" that you may be creating along the way for factions. One per faction is too much and probably you'll never cover it as their is a ceiling on how many units you can get in the game. One per geographical area though (roughly: Russia/steppes, Iberia, North Italy, South Italy/Sicily, Greece/Asia Minor, The Balkans, The Middle east/Egypt, North Africa/Southern Spain, Eastern Europe,Germany/France/England and Scandinavia).
In the practical level it also helps with creating more restrictive homelands for factions even to their simpler units and introduce the parameter of logistical strength for factions.
Many Thanks
Noir
I'll be having a go at the rus and Novgord using the Russian And Novgorod factions respectively as a basis soon. I may also try adding some factions, but bear in mind that they will be unfinished. I'm pretty sure that FN_FREE21 through FN_FREE30 are the only new factions that can be added? I will first work on disabling face shields first as they are hardcoded to certain unit graphics folders and crash when used with new factions.
The Spanish are set usually by default to catholic expansionist and that 160 (almost) is quite high.
Just to add a comment on something from your earlier posts Cambyses II. Develop provinces to a certain degree at the beginning of the early era is a welcoming addition gameplay wise; it will also help the AI factions to perform better as well as your self to "regulate" better initial conditions for them more effectively. You can make also for more historical conditions examples from my home mod of MedMod IV:
1. The walls of Antioch (fortress in Antich)
2. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (large Mosque in Jerusalem)
Many Thanks
Noir
Regarding the Russians and Novgorod. It seems to me that the best approach is to include "Russia" in the Early and High eras as the Principalities under the Kievan Rus holding the core provinces. In the high period this would be extended to cover Volhnya and others, though Novgorod would emerge as a stronger independent faction - using the Novgorod faction of course. In the late period there would be two factions, the Russians in Muscovy and the Novgorodians. The rest would be again rebels, Golden Horde and Poland/Lithuania. I believe that this will handle the eastern rebels problem well.
Sounds good to me.
Many Thanks
Noir
Another dilemma is Lithuania. During the early era in the game this would have been mostly part of the Principalities of Polatsk and Kiev. The Lithuanian state would not have existed as the superpower it was to become. It may be a good idea to place this province under the Kievan Rus with Pagan religion. It's rebelliousness will provide quite a challenge.
Its much better than having Lithuania as a rebel province.
On the other hand, its also worth consider to adding them as a faction as they did became a superpower in that very less populated map area. This will give some challenge to the Polish game too, as they'll be squashed between HRE, the Lithuanians and the Steppe factions - currently they are invading HRE in a form of an inverted Blitz, most of the time.
Many Thanks
Noir
I would prefer to have a Grand Duchy of Lithuania faction and separate Poland faction in the Late era only and have Lithuania as a Kievan Rus possession in early and rebel in high - avoiding the earlier Pagan Lithuanians altogether. he problem with this is that correct representation would need more provinces in that area and would need the Teutonic Order to be added to the Late era to complete the whole scenario. In the high era a separate Pagan Lithuanian faction might be an idea, but I'd prefer to avoid all of this for now.
So for the time being I would go with:
Early Lithuania: Kievan Rus
High Lithuania: Rebels
Late Lithuania: Rebels
The Unknown Guy
04-27-2007, 14:43
Note that the HRE could have the Teutonic Order crusade against a rebel pagan province. Or Orthodox Rus, for that matter.
The Unknown Guy
04-27-2007, 15:19
The Spanish are set usually by default to catholic expansionist and that 160 (almost) is quite high.
Just to add a comment on something from your earlier posts Cambyses II. Develop provinces to a certain degree at the beginning of the early era is a welcoming addition gameplay wise; it will also help the AI factions to perform better as well as your self to "regulate" better initial conditions for them more effectively. You can make also for more historical conditions examples from my home mod of MedMod IV:
1. The walls of Antioch (fortress in Antich)
2. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (large Mosque in Jerusalem)
Many Thanks
Noir
Wouldn´t this conflict with some GA goals?
Regarding the Jinetes, I didn´t mess with the priorities (I didn´t dare, either), I took an approach to checking the Malthusian problems they generated.
On possible info about the Kingdom of Granada: this month´s National Geographic History magazine came with an article about the muslim taifas kingdoms in Spain (previous to the Almohad assistance/invasion cocktail), but no cigar about their military, other than it was a mercenary force, which they could afford because as a general rule their lands were wealtheir than those of the christian kingdoms in the north, but despite all it was weaker than theirs, and in fact began to pay these first to avoid wars, then to hire them as thugs to maul their muslim enemies.
I remember an article concerning Boabdil in an older issue, but I can´t find it right now...
Originally pposted by The Unknown Guy
Wouldn´t this conflict with some GA goals?
Most likely the walls of Antioch wouldn't - its a citadel in Tripoli for the kerak GA goal of the French, i think. I've never played Egyptian GA, however i have a hint that they need a Grand Mosque in Egypt (although i might be wrong).
Many Thanks
Noir
The Unknown Guy
04-27-2007, 18:06
yes, those two are the ones I have in mind.
Edit: how goes the tweaking of the Rebel faction´s cash?
(Suggestion for finding out whether they really have an inbuilt bankrupcy: isolate some province, give it to them, and give it a huge income)
Oh, I don´t know if I mentioned: perhaps give trade goods to ALL islands? so that a beaten-back faction can still make up enough cash and resurge? This applies particularily to Italy, Sicily, and Byzantium, but any faction could end up like that. Once I played a game where France was mainly Cyprus.
edit:
A last note concerning the Taifas Kingdoms: apparently there was woe in muslim Spain when Toledo fell to Castile, as it was the former capital of the visigoth kingdom (thus kind of pointing out that things had taken a turn for the worse for them, and them beseeching almohad help). A historical insight I just found in the formerly mentioned NGH magazine, I don´t know if it will help in any way with either the Almohads, or a long-run Granada.
The issue with Navarre, Aragon, Leon, Castile, Portugal and Granada is that in order to do the region justice provinces need to be altered and new factions need to be added. This in itself is not the main issue however. Concentrating over much on one region is. There are very many inaccuracies that need addressing and fixing these would be much more conducive to good gameplay than adding many small one province factions to Spain and altering all of the provinces.
First of all if we look at this circa 1100 map:
http://www.euratlas.com/time/sw1100.htm
The Taifa kingdoms are represented in the game as being under Almoravid Suzerainty, and this is probably better as it is. Barcelona would be too complicated to represent and would again be another one province faction, which leave only Navarre and Aragon. To be continued...
In MedMod IV, there are 3 Christian factions (Cast/Leon - Portugal - Aragon) and two Muslim ones (Almoravids weak but rich in Spain - Almohads strong but less rich in North Africa).
This gives a better combo of possibilities and interactions in the area IMO, for whenever you go introducing factions. It also works as 3 more provinces are added one of which (Castile) is completely internal.
With the present No. of provinces and their arrangement the 3 factions there work well i find.
Many Thanks
Noir
In MedMod IV, there are 3 Christian factions (Cast/Leon - Portugal - Aragon) ...
The problem with this is that, though Castile and Leon may have been united at the start of the early era they would not have been in high era for some time, though to all intents and purposes they are best represented in the game as the Castilian-Leonese. Portugal would not have appeared as an independent kingdom until the 12th century - thus a high era faction. Navarre, pretty much always independent during the timeframe of the game probably needs to be added as an independent faction.
...and two Muslim ones (Almoravids weak but rich in Spain - Almohads strong but less rich in North Africa).
This seems pretty ahistorical. Almoravids would be early era only, controlling Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Sahara (i've never been sure about Cyrenacia, a small western part perhaps but not the whole province) and Granada, Cordoba and Valencia in Iberia. Personally I see the representation of the Cid's occupation of Valencia as an irrelevance. He would only have held Valencia for a matter of years before his death. It was back in Almoravid control quite quickly.
Portugal fits the bill as an emergent faction for the 12 century, as it cannot be represented in any other way that i can think of other than being present from the early period. In that way it adds to the complexity that characterised the Christian kingdoms, as it was uncertain as to who will emerge as a unifier. In addition, later on in the campaign the Spanish after having vanquished the Moors need to fight for the control of the eastern Iberain lands (as it was historically), instead of establishing unopposed a superempire.
The Almoravid/Almohad, as "ahistorical" as it may be, it represents well the state of the Northern African Muslim kingdoms that did not comply to the Moroccan/Iberian main rule and may well have challenged it and also at the same time adds greatly from a gameplay persepective to either playing as an up and coming Almohads or an established but two way threatened Almoravid.
Again, we differ in the "historical accuracy" view - i believe that it is possible in a more abstract way that would also serve gameplay while you are more sensitive in preserving it in a more absolute sense.
As always you are the boss and this is your mod - my suggestions were more in the direction of indicative numbers of factions and provinces that would give an interesting interaction IMO. You may add a North African Dynasty and call them Hammadids
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/1090map.htm
Many thanks
Noir
Portugal fits the bill as an emergent faction for the 12 century, as it cannot represented in any other way that i can think of other than being present from the early period. In that way it adds to the complexity that characterised the Christian kingdoms, as it was uncertain as to who will emerge as a unifier. In addition, later on in the campaign the Spanish after having vanquished the Moors need to fight for the control of the eastern Iberain lands (as it was historically), instead of establishing unopposed a superempire.
It makes sense to add Portugal to the early era as a county, not as a kingdom, though in the high era they could be added as a kingdom. To represent this fully one would need to add an Algarve province however.
The Almoravid/Almohad, as "ahistorical" as it may be, it represents well the state of the Northern African Muslim kingdoms that did not comply to the Moroccan/Iberian main rule and may well have challenged it and also at the same time adds greatly from a gameplay persepective to either playing as an up and coming Almohads or an established but two way threatened Almoravid.
The Almohads pretty much swept away the Almoravid Dynasty from within as what was effectively a large scale Islamist rebellion. Representing them as two sovereign nations is pretty flawed. The last remnants of Almoravids became effectively rebels. If you want to think of this in game terms, think of a civil war perhaps where the player backs the rebels.
In the early era there needs to be one main Muslim faction based around Morocco that faction being the Almoravids. The high era needs to have only the Almohads additionally in possession of Valencia. The late era would need an extra faction. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, and possibly three muslim factions along the North West African coast, though I would include only the Marinid Sultanate in Morocco for now, though the provinces as they are in the game would lend themselves to the implementation of Zayyanid Algeria and Hafsid Tunisia very well.
You may add a North African Dynasty and call them Hammadids
During the early era Tunisia should probably be Fatimid lands to represent the Zirids - Fatimid vassals. Cyrenacia again, is another problem. This land would have been mostly populated by nomads and would never have been claimed by any dynasty for long. It should probably always be rebel anyway. Whichever sources you consult many will show completely different versions, and maps so it is not easy to paint a clear picture. Algeria could indeed be the base of a Hammadid faction also.
I have considered removing Cyrenacia, and Indeed Sahara (again) already as I feel that these would have been areas of non conquest. This would also split North Africa in two giving two separate regions. This would also free up two provinces to be reallocated elsewhere if it ever came to adding provinces. If I were to do this though I would extend Morocco province to the south and west to the edge of the map.
Thanks for all the historical info it added certain points to my existing knowledge. The civil war from whithin you mention may be two factions too, because the player may play so as it never happens.
"Portugal" as a kingdom or county was not my point but how that actual faction (and any of its future evolutions/incarnations may be added to the game).
Originally posted by Cambyses II
I have considered removing Cyrenacia, and Indeed Sahara (again) already as I feel that these would have been areas of non conquest. This would also split North Africa in two giving two separate regions. This would also free up two provinces to be reallocated elsewhere if it ever came to adding provinces. If I were to do this though I would extend Morocco province to the south and west to the edge of the map.
I am certainly glad to hear this, have you playtested it? It worked well when i did!
Those two provinces are very well used elsewhere and the divisoin between east/west in North Africa, "pay dividens".
Many thanks
Noir
Thanks for all the historical info it added certain points to my existing knowledge. The civil war from whithin you mention may be two factions too, because the player may play so as it never happens.
At present the Almohads in the early era are renamed as Almoravids, and in Late Marinids.
"Portugal" as a kingdom or county was not my point but how that actual faction (and any of its future evolutions/incarnations may be added to the game).
My point was that Portugal could be added in earl as "County of Portugal" and in High and Late as as kingdom. It is fairly easy to do this.
I am certainly glad to hear this, have you playtested it? It worked well when i did!
Those two provinces are very well used elsewhere and the divisoin between east/west in North Africa, "pay dividens".
I would like to eliminate this area as a crusade route to the east. I haven't tested it as yet, nor am I certain about it. The immediate problem would be the sea zones, many of which would have to be merged. I would like to eliminate this area as a crusade route to the east. Cyrenacia is a pretty poor and redundant province anyway. Part of Eastern Cyrenacia was annexed by the Fatimids and it would probably be an idea to extend Egypt to this small area - as far as Benghazi - or leave it as it is rather than create another province there.
Another province to remove would be the Sinai, annexing this to Egypt, creating a larger Egypt in the process. This was always part of either Fatimid, Ayyubid or Mamluk Egypt anyway (I know there is a mod that has done this but can't remember which). This would free up three provinces in total. Egypt and Sinai combined seem to be representative of the core of Fatimid Egypt around the early 12th century.
The Levant is also incorrectly occupied by the Fatimids in 1087. The Early era setup is more reminiscent of early Fatimid or the earlier Tulunid Dynasty of Egypt. Antioch should be Seljuk in the early era and not Fatimid. Tripoli should also perhaps be Seljuk and Palestine should probably remain Fatimid - for the lack of any other faction to give them to and to avoid making them rebel. The provinces are really rather too large and unsuitable for the era. The Fatimids were in decline in that period and the Seljuks were on the up, the game doesn't reflect this at all in it's vanilla state.
Kiev:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Kiew-city-COA.PNG/150px-Kiew-city-COA.PNG&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Kiev&h=207&w=150&sz=40&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=PRECFeGcbTOwqM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=76&prev=/images%3Fq%3DKievan%2Bmedieval%2Bcoat%2Bof%2Barms%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
Many thanks
Noir
Belisario
05-01-2007, 17:16
Hi Cambyses II,
I have read some interesting things. I have some free time this night and tomorrow and I will provide info for Kievan Rus' kings and heroes and perhaps some info about the Almoravid/Almohad matter.
If you are rigorously historical I would say that Almoravids were not established in any Andalusian province in 1087. Yusuf ibn Tashufin (1061-1106), the greatest Almoravid amir, made his first crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar in 1086 and defeated the Castilian-Leonese at the battle of Zallaqa/Sagrajas, near the city of Badajoz, but he returned to Morocco afterward. In 1088 made his second crossing and it was a failure (siege of Aledo) but at least it served to awaken him to the disunion of the Andalusian rulers. He embarked for the third time in 1090/1091 and this time he arrived in Algeciras with a precise plan: to put an end to the Andalusian taifas.
In past I took part in the Almoravid/Almohad scenario in early for the Medmod, but at present I would prefer an Almoravid/Taifas scenario. In this case we could add an Andalusian faction ruled by al-Mu'tamid of Seville, "the epitome of the cultivated Muslim Spaniard of the Middle Ages—liberal, tolerant, and a patron of the arts" according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Hi Cambyses II,
I have read some interesting things. I have some free time this night and tomorrow and I will provide info for Kievan Rus' kings and heroes and perhaps some info about the Almoravid/Almohad matter.
:bow:
If you are rigorously historical I would say that Almoravids were not established in any Andalusian province in 1087. Yusuf ibn Tashufin (1061-1106), the greatest Almoravid amir, made his first crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar in 1086 and defeated the Castilian-Leonese at the battle of Zallaqa/Sagrajas, near the city of Badajoz, but he returned to Morocco afterward. In 1088 made his second crossing and it was a failure (siege of Aledo) but at least it served to awaken him to the disunion of the Andalusian rulers. He embarked for the third time in 1090/1091 and this time he arrived in Algeciras with a precise plan: to put an end to the Andalusian taifas.
In past I took part in the Almoravid/Almohad scenario in early for the Medmod, but at present I would prefer an Almoravid/Taifas scenario. In this case we could add an Andalusian faction ruled by al-Mu'tamid of Seville, "the epitome of the cultivated Muslim Spaniard of the Middle Ages—liberal, tolerant, and a patron of the arts" according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
I wouldn't say rigorous but I would like to get it as close as possible. Though if for (fictional) example some faction or other was holding a certain province between 1086 and 1089 after which time it returned to the previous owner, I would prefer to omit this kind of thing. The Almoravids occupying the al-andalus in 1087 is fine by me, but adding the Taifa kingdoms is in interesting prospect.
I have been looking into the map around the north african region, and am still perplexed over the Morocco province. The castle location for Marrakech in that province is much too far north. It looks to be in the approximate location of Fes. The answer seems to be to remove Sahara and extend the Morocco province southwards so that it encompases more truly Almoravid territory at the time.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/umayyad.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/0/0f/300px-Almoravid-empire-en.svg.png
The issue is editing the lukmap to do this. In the past I have had no luck with the LBM files in PSP (through versions 4, 5, 7, X and XI), as it seems to change the palette no matter what. The only solution appears to be the LMM editor which I have downloaded and have it running but it seems rather complicated. I don't want to set castle positions I just want to move some province borders!? If anyone has any ideas about this I'd appreciate it. I also need to merge Sinai and Egypt together into a single province and perhaps extend Egypt's western border slightly and tweak Algeria and Tunisia perhaps. :dizzy2:
I have been testing with Sahara and Cyrenacia disabled and it appears to work well. I gave 9000 each income to both provinces and it keeps the rebel economy afloat. This will be a temporary solution however as I may use those provinces elsewhere on the map if I can actually get a working lukmap. Thanks to CA for using a file format that went out in the dark ages. :thumbsdown:
Belisario
05-02-2007, 17:48
Three main protagonists of the Kievan Rus' scenario at the beginning of the Early Era
Vsevolod I Iaroslavich
born 1030
died 1093
Grand prince of Kiev from 1078 to 1093.
Vsevolod was the son of Grand Prince Iaroslav I the Wise (ruled Kiev 1019-54), and brother of Iziaslav I Iaroslavich (ruled Kiev intermittently 1054-78) and Sviatoslav II Iaroslavich (ruled Kiev 1073-76). To ensure the unity of the state, his father Iaroslav I introduced primogeniture, according to which his eldest living son, Iziaslav, was to succeed him as grand prince and ruler of the Kiev and Novgorod lands; Sviatoslav would rule the Chernigov land to Murom-Riazan', and Tmutarakan'; Vsevolod, the Pereiaslavl' and Rostov-Suzdal' lands; Igor', the Volhynia land; and Viacheslav, the Smolensk land. However, as a result Kievan Rus' state began to fall apart.
At first the three oldest sons of Iaroslav ruled in harmony; they defeated the Pechenegs in 1060, but in 1068 they took some losses from the Cumans on the Alta River near Pereiaslavl', and the Kievans dethroned Iziaslav I. Iziaslav with the help of Poles took Kiev a year later and overrode the rebels, but events of 1068 became an important turn in history. With Vsevolod's help Sviatoslav deposed Iziaslav in 1073 and took over as grand prince of Kiev. When Sviastoslav II died, Vsevolod inherited the Kievan throne but ceded it to the banished Iziaslav I (1077) in return for Chernigov. But Oleg Sviatoslavich, son of Sviatoslav II, was not willing to compromise. In the subsequent war Oleg and his Cuman allies were defeated, but Iziaslav I died in battle and Vsevolod succeeded him as grand prince of Kiev (1078). During his reign, Vsevolod managed to maintain control of most of the central region of the Kievan state, but he was continually pestered by his nephews seeking more lucrative towns to rule. He was assisted by his capable and popular son, Vladimir Monomakh, who followed his father's lead and did not contest the throne, inviting Iziaslav I's son, Sviatopolk II Iziaslavich to rule (1093-1113).
Vladimir II Monomakh
born 1053
died 1125
Grand prince of Kiev from 1113 to 1125.
Vladimir was the son of Grand Prince Vsevolod I Iaroslavich (ruled Kiev 1078–93) and Irina, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus. He became active in the politics of Kievan Rus', helping his father and uncle Iziaslav I Iaroslavich (ruled at Kiev intermittently 1054–78) defeat his cousins Oleg Sviatoslavich and Boris Viacheslavich at Chernigov (1078) and succeeding his father as prince of Chernigov when Vsevolod became grand prince of Kiev. While his father was alive Vladimir ruled Smolensk (from 1067) and Chernigov (1078-94), he led successful military campaigns in his father's name, and participated in diplomatic missions. After his father's death he became prince of Pereiaslavl' (1094-1113) and assuming a leading role among princes of Rus' at the conferences held to avert perpetual warfare among themselves and to unite the princes against the Cuman threat (Liubech 1097, Vitichev 1100, Dolobsk 1103). When his cousin Grand Prince Sviatopolk II Iziaslavich (ruled Kiev 1093–1113) died, the city council of Kiev named him successor.
During his reign, as prior to it, Vladimir was almost constantly involved in wars, fighting primarily the Cumans, who had settled in the steppe region southeast of the Kievan state and had been raiding the lands of Rus' since 1061. In addition to his martial qualities, Vladimir Monomakh was known as an adept administrator, whose ability to curtail the internecine warfare among his princely relatives revived, if only temporarily, the declining strength of Kievan Rus'. He was also noted as a builder; he founded the city of Vladimir on the Kliaz'ma River in northeastern Russia, which by the end of the 12th century replaced Kiev as the seat of the grand prince.
Oleg Sviatoslavich
born circa 1050
died 1115
Oleg was the son of Grand Prince Sviatoslav II Iaroslavich (ruled Kiev 1073-76). After his father's death in 1076, Oleg inherited Chernigov, but the new grand prince, Oleg's uncle Iziaslav I Iaroslavich (ruled at Kiev intermittently 1054–78), gave Chernigov to another uncle, Vsevolod Iaroslavich. Instead Oleg ruled Volhynia, but he was driven out in 1078 by Iziaslav and sought refuge in Tmutarakan', a Chernigovian domain on the Black Sea shore. In 1078 Oleg and his cousin Boris Viacheslavich tried, with Cuman help, to regain his patrimony in Chernigov, but they were defeated by Iziaslav and Vsevolod's army. Oleg returned to Tmutarakan', where he was captured by the Khazars in 1079 and handed over to the Byzantines. He lived in exile on Rhodes until 1083, when he returned to Tmutarakan'.
In 1094 Oleg took Chernigov, after his Cuman allies had ravaged it, from his cousin Vladimir Monomakh. He was driven out by Monomakh in 1096, and then took Murom and Rostov from Monomakh's son Iziaslav. Oleg then attacked Iziaslav's brother, Mstislav I Vladimirovich of Novgorod, but was defeated and forced to attend the Liubech congress of princes in 1097. There Oleg forfeited Chernigov, Murom, and Riazan' but was given Novgorod-Severskii (in the Chernigov land), which he ruled until his death. Because of his enduring ties with the Cumans (he also married a Cuman princess) Oleg refused to join Kievan Rus' military expeditions against them. Oleg's descendants, the Ol'govich house of Chernigov, struggled for control of the Kievan state against the descendants of Vladimir Monomakh.
The Unknown Guy
05-02-2007, 18:03
I have been testing with Sahara and Cyrenacia disabled and it appears to work well. I gave 9000 each income to both provinces and it keeps the rebel economy afloat. This will be a temporary solution however as I may use those provinces elsewhere on the map if I can actually get a working lukmap.
Well, on the bright side: then it is something amiss with the buildings, right?
I´ve seen the AI build inns in the last version of the mod. There was one in Norway, at least. Maybe the cathedral income is grossly limited? (maybe it could be made so that inns added to rebel provinces an obscene "harvest cash bonus", on the order of 500%?)
The Unknown Guy
05-03-2007, 08:50
Another note (concerning Varangian Guard):
How about implementing the "Early" and "High" versions, since it´s already there?
Early would be the Varangians more or less as they are in-game right now, 60 men units. Using the "early" pic, and maybe removing the "bonus vs armored troops bonus", and having them wield a sword (following the pic. style)
High would be 30-sized axe-wielding units, maybe with a small armor bonus.
This would reflect both the integration of the VG in the imperial household, and the lesser avaiability of far-away mercs for Byzantium from High&onwards.
@Belisario: Thanks for the info, I'll get onto that later. :2thumbsup:
Well, on the bright side: then it is something amiss with the buildings, right?
I´ve seen the AI build inns in the last version of the mod. There was one in Norway, at least. Maybe the cathedral income is grossly limited? (maybe it could be made so that inns added to rebel provinces an obscene "harvest cash bonus", on the order of 500%?)
Well, the income is there, on the treasury parchment, as clear as day, but for some reason the AI doesn't get any of it. I will have to try LEV1_INCOME instead of CATHEDRAL_INCOME and see if the AI get's an income from that. I'm not sure about FARM_INCOME, which is a percentage (120%, 140%, 160%, 180%) of the provincial income set in the starpos file. Only one structure has FARM_INCOME type and that is the Improved Farmland, that structure is upgraded so it is really unique in a province. If a province has two or more of such structures stating different percentages it may not know which percentage to use, unless it can somehow add them together (which would be ideal).
Another note (concerning Varangian Guard):
How about implementing the "Early" and "High" versions, since it´s already there?
The problem is that after the loss of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, that the Varangian Guard pretty much disappeared from history. The unused early VG you're referring to seem to be classic 9th - 11th century VG and look much more like those I have seen in old paintings, textbooks etc. The ones that appear in the game currently are a representation of VG using Byzantine equipment as opposed to their own equipment, though I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is. As with the Byzantine Infantry, the equipment they are using is very dressy and may only have been worn by nobility. I have read somewhere that they were painted like that in the roman tradition but seldom if ever wore that kind of gear. I believe the axes were always retained. From what I have seen and read they are synonymous with axes.
I had commented before about reducing their numbers, and that seems a good idea - I'm thinking a 20 man scalable unit. Basically I don't want to turn the Byzantines into a force that can spam these "Vikings", I prefer to have the main Byzantine Force as the main focus with their combined arms of Skutatoi, Kontaratoi, Psiloi as the main Infantry force and Pronoiarioi Kavallarioi, Pronoiarioi Stratiotai, Armenian Heavy Cavalry and various Steppe Mercenaries as the main cavalry force. The Kataphraktoi and Varangian Guards will be much harder to obtain and only in the Early era. In the Vanilla game the Byzantine are a mish mash of ineffective, overpriced strangely named and ahistorical units combined with 2 highly overpowered units. Fixing this may have temporarily turned them into a juggernaut, but that is being remedied (less provinces in early and starting command stars lowered for faction leaders). The Vanilla Byzantine, were all about VG, Byzzie Infantry and Kats - this is what we need to get away from.
The Blind King of Bohemia
05-03-2007, 13:45
Unfortunately, the LMM requires you to redraw the borders of EVERY province and sea I'm afraid.
Gah! and I can't find any other program that doesn't mess up the palette of the .lbm file. CA must have used Deluxe Paint on the Amiga to do the graphics in this game.
I'm not prepared to redo the entire lukmap file, and I prefer not to use the lmm. I have checked out the gimp but the plugin for lbm/iff is no longer available. :wall:
I'm probably going to forget lukmap editing for now. :shame:
The Unknown Guy
05-04-2007, 11:43
So editing maptex is not enough? (I never tried, but after I found the file I fancied it was).
What kind of file type is lbm? (meaning, what is the relation between the humongous Maptex2 file and Lukmap?)
Maptex is actually the texture file. You can do pretty much anything with that. As you can see it doesn't define any border or provinces, it's simply an image. You could place another image on there if you wanted providing it's the same dimensions and file type. The Lukmap is the actual province layout and is the real map. It works by looking up the palette index numbers of the colours and comparing them with a province table, from this it determines region outlines, positions, borders, seas, etc, etc, but not connectivity between regions which is determined by the setneighbours in the startpos file. Sea regions use one colour each and land regions use two colours each, one for the border and one for the region itself (the province). The rest of the map, the dead areas in between the regions and unused areas, use a shocking pink colour, which I believe corresponds to the very first colour in the palette, and this is where the problem is. The provinces don't seem to correspond to the actual RGB values but to the number referring to the colour's position in the palette. So changing the colour of a province in the lukmap has no effect so long as the colour is still unique. If you recoloured, for example, Wessex accidentally the same colour as Syria, then that would either become effectively the same province (Syria) or crash the whole thing (more likely the latter). For example, Rhodes on the map is a tiny Island, with a an extra zoomed in mini map to make it usable. Both are detached from each other, but because they're the same colour, they're the same province (Try dropping your army stack on the real Rhodes, the small Island, you should be able to get one stack or agent on there).
LBM is an old type of 256 colour (This is also partly why the number of regions are restricted) bitmap used by Deluxe Paint, an old art package for the Amiga computers. They are of the old paletted image types, whereby if you changed a colour in the palette the colour in the image would change to that colour. This is why it doesn't matter which colours are used in the Lukmap file so long as they are unique and occupy the same positions in the actual palette index. I can save a semi working Lukmap from Ultimate Paint, with all of the provinces messed up as the palette index has been effectively scrambled, but I would have to then find out all of the original palette positions for the land regions, land region borders and sea regions, and then recolour the whole thing manually. Even then I'm still not sure if it would work.
:wall:
Oh well I have a new HDD to install later, so I'll see how I feel after that.
:bow:
Edit: Examination of the Lukmap2 LBM with a hex editor reveals that there is a "CMAP" section and a "BODY" section, I expect the body to refer to the image data, whereas the CMAP must be the "colour map". It may be possible to restore the original palette, after the file has been processed by Ultimate Paint, by a simple copy and paste of the CMAP section from the original file to the modified one. I will try this later - it is a long shot though.
Well back on topic, I was looking into the roles of Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors both in the game, and historically. It seems to me that because all Inquisitions were Papal Inquisitions then Inquisitors should be restricted to the Papacy only. Factions training Inquisitors and sending them off on missions in foreign lands, killing other factions' generals is highly unrealistic and not a true reflection of inquisitions. The Spanish Inquisition was outside the time frame of the game (late 15th century) so it is irrelevant. Both the Episcopal Inquisition and the Papal Inquisition (you see mention of these in the game as the Cathars and Albigensian Heretics - the latter whom were crusaded against) were totally authorised by the Papacy and only the Papacy had the authority to start an Inquisition.
The Grand Inquisitor would have been only a single individual, but for our purposes this is going to be difficult to achieve. I would do away with Grand Inquisitors altogether and restrict the Inquisitors to the Papacy only. I would then up their training time to four years and perhaps increase their cost. The Reliquary, I would probably remove.
It would have been a fascinating feature of the game if the Papacy/Church had been set up as totally independent entity to the factions. Whereby all of your churches would provide income to the Papacy and the Papacy would also be able to train their own bishops/cardinals from your churches and you would be unable to train any. The player would be striving to coexist with the church and keep them out of affairs of the state. You would not build churches or monasteries, the Papacy/Church AI would build them in your provinces and they would have their uses and their drawbacks. A faction leader's piety would be an indication of his standing with the Papacy and church as a whole. An impious man would not get much cooperation whereas a pious man would be able to send bishops as emissaries to carry out certain tasks or to help convert a province, etc... Oh well you can't have everything.
:bow:
The Unknown Guy
05-04-2007, 16:38
It seems to me that because all Inquisitions were Papal Inquisitions then Inquisitors should be restricted to the Papacy only. Factions training Inquisitors and sending them off on missions in foreign lands, killing other factions' generals is highly unrealistic and not a true reflection of inquisitions.
Hmm, half-half, I´d say. The priests who tried the Knights Templar, for instance, were pet-priests of King Charles IV (?) of France, for instance, whereas the actual pope sent in his own men to try to aquit them. And in general, all Inquisitors relied heavily on the local armed forces to do their dirty work (such as actually fetching the poor b. they wanted to put on trial). This I do recall from the forementioned history magazine.
As for other sources of info: according to Wikipedia,:uneasy:
All medieval inquisitions were decentralized. Authority rested with local officials based on guidelines from the Holy See, but there was no central top-down authority running the inquisitions, as would be the case in post-medieval inquisitions. Thus there were many different types of inquisitions depending on the location and methods; historians have generally classified them into the episcopal inquisition and the papal inquisition.
(editing to make it shorter)
The episcopal inquisition, was established in response to the growing Catharist heresy in southern France. It is called "episcopal" because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus. The episcopal inquisition was not very effective for many reasons. (goes on to cite how it was not too effective) The Church responded to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls which became the papal inquisition. The papal inquisition was staffed by professionals, trained specifically for the job.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Inquisition
(for what it's worth, they do seem to have some history book dealing with the "matter (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_Inquisition_of_the_Middle_Ages_Vol._I/Chapter_I)
(My motto regarding anything found on Wikipedias: Caveat Emptor)
So, could the two types of Inquisitor be divided and altered? Making, for instance, the regular inquisitor fit the said model, and nerf severely its capabilities to send people to the stake, or limit them in some other way (having just one? having them disappear on failure "as an amend" to whichever nobleman they were pestering?), whereas the pope could get Grand Inquisitors, renamed to Dominican Inquisitors, with high effectiveness?
(For gameplay purposes: whereas using mass inquisitors as hounds is certainly cheesy-and ridiculous, as no inquisitor would be able to get a monarch's men at arms after him-, being able to have to deal a certain ammount of "faith ordeals" is fitting, particularily in your lands, or borderlands. And besides, they´d be needed to keep zeal high. Otherwise crusades would collapse)
Also, does the papacy actually churn out Inquisitors? I think I saw some, playing as Byzantium, but there are two problems with this sighting
- It was in one of those "War Pope" games
- As they work only on Catholics, I don't know whether it would actually try to burn at the stake one of my generals. Hence I don´t know if they were actually put to use. I do know that the pope didn´t like me too much as it let the Germans crusade against me.
@ Cambyses II: I wholeheartedly support your idea to restrict the Inqs/GI's to the Papacy only, as well as increasing their training times and/or costs. As someone who plays the Spanish/Castille-Leonese a lot, I can personally vouch for just how unbalanced they are -- it's just too easy to burn another faction's royal family, along with any other good generals they may have. So long as they're not overpowered and heavily abused by the Papacy, I think your idea is a good one. :2thumbsup:
P.S. -- I concur Grand Inquisitors should be removed from the game entirely. It's simply ridiculous that they can convict kings and even Popes of heresy. ~:rolleyes:
Also, does the papacy actually churn out Inquisitors? I think I saw some, playing as Byzantium, but there are two problems with this sighting
- It was in one of those "War Pope" games
- As they work only on Catholics, I don't know whether it would actually try to burn at the stake one of my generals. Hence I don´t know if they were actually put to use. I do know that the pope didn´t like me too much as it let the Germans crusade against me.
Yes, the Papacy does train Inquisitors. I remembr in particular one of my Sicilian campaigns last year where I had to temporarily destroy my port in Malta, just to strand one of the buggers (who insisted on frying my generals one after the other) until I could kill him. :furious3:
Only generals working for a Catholic faction can be tried for heresy by Inquisitors. Muslim, Orthodox, and pagan generals are not affected by them.
Hmm, half-half, I´d say. The priests who tried the Knights Templar, for instance, were pet-priests of King Charles IV (?) of France, for instance, whereas the actual pope sent in his own men to try to aquit them. And in general, all Inquisitors relied heavily on the local armed forces to do their dirty work (such as actually fetching the poor b. they wanted to put on trial). This I do recall from the forementioned history magazine.
I think the Inquisitions in the game represent the real Inquisitions authorised by the Pope himself by way of a Papal Bull, not petty "inquisitions" carried out by local rulers.
So, could the two types of Inquisitor be divided and altered? Making, for instance, the regular inquisitor fit the said model, and nerf severely its capabilities to send people to the stake, or limit them in some other way (having just one? having them disappear on failure "as an amend" to whichever nobleman they were pestering?), whereas the pope could get Grand Inquisitors, renamed to Dominican Inquisitors, with high effectiveness?
(For gameplay purposes: whereas using mass inquisitors as hounds is certainly cheesy-and ridiculous, as no inquisitor would be able to get a monarch's men at arms after him-, being able to have to deal a certain ammount of "faith ordeals" is fitting, particularily in your lands, or borderlands. And besides, they´d be needed to keep zeal high. Otherwise crusades would collapse)
Well, one could give the Pope the Grand Inquisitors and rename them, and give the other factions the normal Inquistors, but that is all we can really do with both types of agent, as they're unmoddable. This really defeats the object however. As Martok has pointed out, the Inquisitors as a whole are much too overpowered, so restrictions, and the total removal of the Grand Inquisitors, are needed if gameplay is going to be balanced (GAs are MTWs answer to the Geisha in STW. We didn't need the Geisha then and we don't need GAs now). Whatever their origin they would be following the orders of the Pope. Which is why I think restricting them to the Pope would be the best policy. I would even restrict cardinals to the Pope if I thought he would use them correctly. I would make Cardinals the Papal version of Bishops, this would give the pope greater power to convert provinces than the player has, unfortunately the AI will fail miserably in this task so it's not worth it. I will be reducing rates of conversion anyway. Buildings and units that propagate religion will have that power severely nerfed, as at present provinces convert over far too quickly. This will go hand in had with the increase of the default rebelliousness suggested by Noir, but will need to be balanced in order for it to work properly.
Also, does the papacy actually churn out Inquisitors? I think I saw some, playing as Byzantium, but there are two problems with this sighting
- It was in one of those "War Pope" games
- As they work only on Catholics, I don't know whether it would actually try to burn at the stake one of my generals. Hence I don´t know if they were actually put to use. I do know that the pope didn´t like me too much as it let the Germans crusade against me.
I have seen the Papacy train Inquisitors on many occasions, though with the usual AI drawbacks of trying it's own low piety generals for no obvious reason.
The effects on crusades will be a none issue as the zeal increasing effects of Inquistors can be transferred to Cardinals or even Bishops in a lesser form. This is how Alims and Imams work currently, the Imams increase zeal whereas the Alims have no effect. It may be a good idea to add a small zeal raisng effect to Alims and Bishops to give AI Crusades and Jihads a better chance of succeeding, as the AI cannot top up it's Crusades/Jihads with extra troops in the way that the player can.
The effects on crusades will be a none issue as the zeal increasing effects of Inquistors can be transferred to Cardinals or even Bishops in a lesser form. This is how Alims and Imams work currently, the Imams increase zeal whereas the Alims have no effect. It may be a good idea to add a small zeal raisng effect to Alims and Bishops to give AI Crusades and Jihads a better chance of succeeding, as the AI cannot top up it's Crusades/Jihads with extra troops in the way that the player can.
I completely agree. I didn't even realize that was possible, else I would've brought up the idea to you a long time ago. :dunce: It would be nice if Bishops and Alims did raise zeal at least a little bit, as they're of only limited usefulness with their current abilities.
Another way to deal with the standard Inquisitors would be to make them hidden like Spies and Assassins are. This way they would (theoretically) get caught by rival spies and assassins or border forts. With only the Papacy training them and with them working in this fashion they would not trouble you as much. You wouldn't have to worry about chasing them around with assassins - simply tighten up your security. The only way you would know an inquisitor was there would be when an inquisition occurs. I'm not sure if this would work in practice as I'd have to test it. Personally when playing as a catholic I "religiously" assassinate rival faction Inquisitors as if left unchecked they can valour up and become dangerous, this is just an automated way of doing that.
I was also considering setting the Harem Woman agent as invisible so that sending it abroad would be a risky prospect, as it would have been. Such a woman would not really operate as a public emissary but would be more of a shady character.
Edit: It works with Inquisitors, I get the message "your spy lost" when he enters a rival faction's province with a border fort.
The Unknown Guy
05-05-2007, 22:02
(GAs are MTWs answer to the Geisha in STW. We didn't need the Geisha then and we don't need GAs now)
Very good point. I hated the Geisha. Specially REBEL geishas (I saw -felt- one once)
The effects on crusades will be a none issue as the zeal increasing effects of Inquistors can be transferred to Cardinals or even Bishops in a lesser form.
Cardinals would be more fitting, imho, as bishops can be churned out from any church. Then again, the çuestion is whether it should be easy to plug the population into a religious frenzy from early on, or if it should reçuire some effort, which in turn would regulate the number and strenght of "holy wars", to a greater or lesser degree. I think that, with increased zeal, the number of crusades around would increase, if only because the player would have an easier time raising zeal, and their strenght would be certainly greater. The problem is twofold: Muslim factions, which do not Jihad nearly as much as the catholic factions crusade, would likely be on the receiving end of "juggernautish" crusaders, which could be spawned from early on (whereas Jihads would reçuire the Grand Mosçue to be built). The other problem is that one or more crusades following the same route would tear down the garrisons in their path (as most provinces would hold a high zeal), resulting in... odd, geopolitical changes.
A possible solution to "huge crusades" would be increasing the building reçuirements for Chapterhouses (which right now can be built before you have access to mounted sergeants). This would give non-catholic factions the chance to build up a decent army to withstand the crusade. And would limit once again the number of crusades going around, which is convenient too, to avoid several crusades following the same path ripping apart the garrisons there.
I have seen the Papacy train Inquisitors on many occasions, though with the usual AI drawbacks of trying it's own low piety generals for no obvious reason.
That faction´s low piety generals, or all AI´s low piety generals? The latter would be an annoyance, as you would be the only one to suffer Papal presence, no matter where you were. The former makes sense (specially if only the papacy issues inçuisitors) as the AI wouldnt go around destroying itself. Plus, in my HRE game I have a pope with 0 piety. (this would present problems to the agent handling AI if it went after its own)
Another way to deal with the standard Inquisitors would be to make them hidden like Spies and Assassins
Well, on the other hand, having only papal inçuisitors to deal with wouldn´t be that much of a problem. :frog: At worst, standing ready to kill them off as they arrive.
I was also considering setting the Harem Woman agent as invisible so that sending it abroad would be a risky prospect, as it would have been. Such a woman would not really operate as a public emissary but would be more of a shady character. Granted, sending a character which is essentially a (well, what she is) with open fanfarre and noise to a foreign ruler's court would be a bit unfitting. On the other hand, it's not exactly the kind of "threat" spies would be looking for, either. :p
BTW: does the AI build them? Never seen it, but it might be because of their high build reçuirements.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.