Medieval Fidelity for MTW:VI

[Ignoramus]

Some of you may have seen that I tried to start a mod for MTW2 a year ago, called Medieval Fidelity. The mod was based on Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Northern Italy from 918 - 1066, and focusing on the feudal relationships of those regions. Not being that experienced at modding, the mod never really took off. Now my experience with modding is mainly with RTW and MTW2, but I was wondering whether you guys think this will work with Medieval?

[Raz]

Oh goody, 100% to my vote! :smug2:
But I believe I posted in your forums some time ago. I really want to see this. And the good thing about it is that you don't need any new unit graphics as you could just slap on those from vanilla MTW.

[axel]

you got my vote for 100 % as well :2thumbsup:

[bamff]

Put me down as a further interested party! :2thumbsup:

[ULC]

Essentially, what would this entail? It sounds eerily similar to BKB's AoW (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87085)

[Ignoramus]

Medieval Fidelity is focusing on the feudal aspect of Western Europe. So there would be three main kingdoms, England, France, and Germany, with all the major vassals of the last two represented as factions. For example: Normandy, Aquitaine, Brittany, Vermandois, Flanders, Champagne, Blois, Toulouse, Anjou etc.

Whereas AoW, while similarly focused on Western Europe, is later and is more international in scope rather than concentrating on three kingdoms.

[ULC]

Then I am in full support of this one! Would the timeline be expanded? Seems a little narrow, but then again I like to turtle.

[Hound of Ulster]

It's doable, but I agree with YLC on expanding the campaign.

[Ignoramus]

The reason for the narrow timeline was that it was originally planned for MTW2, which could have had 2 turns a year. The question is, do I extend it later or earlier?

[ULC]

Later and earlier. As a suggestion, set the date to the actual division of the Carolingian Empire, 843, or the last "Frankish" emperor, Charles the Fat, 888, and make the end date 1104, the First Crusade (That way You can mod out the crusades without much of a problem). This way you can hit on very important dates during this process. I also suggest adding northern Italy (I have a map if you want), because where ever the empire was, there was the Italians.

[dimitrios the samian]

Sounds good ... & I agree with YLC those Italians are important ..

[Raz]

The seven voters have spoken, send forth the word that production should begin. :smug2:

[Ignoramus]

Ok, it seems that there's enough support for this project to begin.

I'll change the start date to 843 and the end date to 1104, as per YLC's suggestion. That means that there'll be two era at the moment, with the second starting at either 918 or 936.

Regarding Italy, I had already thought of including Northern Italy, but perhaps I should extend it to include Central Italy as well?

So far, the mod looks like this:

Eras
Decline of the Franks
Early Middle Ages

Factions
West Franks - Frankish Faction
East Franks - Frankish/Germanic Faction
Western Roman Empire(Lothair)- Frankish/Germanic Faction
Danes - Pagan Faction
Norse - Pagan Faction
Slavs - Pagan Faction
Welsh - Celtic Faction
Bretons - Celtic Faction
Mercia - Germanic Faction
Northumbria - Germanic Faction
Scots - Celtic Faction
Irish - Celtic Faction
Picts - Celtic Faction

Kingdom of France - Frankish Faction
County of Vermandois - Frankish Faction
County of Flanders - Frankish Faction
County of Brittany - Celtic Faction
Duchy of Normandy - Frankish Faction
Duchy of Aquitaine - Frankish Faction
Duchy of Gascony - Frankish Faction
County of Toulouse - Frankish Faction
Duchy of Burgundy - Frankish Faction
County of Champagne - Frankish Faction
County of Blois - Frankish Faction
County of Maine - Frankish Faction
County of Anjou - Frankish Faction
Holy Roman Empire - Germanic Faction
Duchy of Bavaria(emerging) - Germanic Faction
Duchy of Swabia(emerging) - Germanic Faction
Duchy of Lotharingia(emerging) - Germanic Faction
Duchy of Franconia(emerging) - Germanic Faction
Danes - Pagan Faction
Norse - Pagan Faction
Kingdom of Wessex - Germanic Faction
Kingdom of Scotland - Celtic Faction
Kingdom of Provence - Frankish Faction
Kingdom of Burgundy - Germanic Faction
Kingdom of Italy - Italian Faction
Republic of Venice - Italian Faction
Papal States - Italian Faction
Irish - Celtic Faction
Slavs - Pagan Faction
Magyars - Pagan Faction

I'll need a mapper and various artists, as I'm not an artistical modder at all.

[Raz]

Arts are so very numerous on the intra-webs that you don't need a 2D artist unless you really want original and unique graphics. For example, watch as I turn a picture of a model spearman (off of the internet) into a graphic that is usable in MTW:
Oh, boy what have i got myself into to... <.<

First, find a picture of the model you want to implement. For this, I got mine from www.wargamesfoundry.com. I found my image of a spearman and saved it to my hard-drive. I opened it in GIMP and using the free-select tool, I encircled my model that I'd use:
https://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1059/steponefi6.th.png (https://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=steponefi6.png)
In this case, the one on the far right was the best choice as it is the least obscured by the others, (i.e. not being overlapped).

Next, I inverted my selection, and deleted it, then moved my spearman into the centre and neatened him up. I did this using the free-select tool again and selecting the parts such as the base, and the part of the other model on the left. I then deleted these parts as they are not needed.
https://img147.imageshack.us/img147/7365/steptwowi6.th.png (https://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=steptwowi6.png)
Note how I also deleted the fuzz produced by the image being JPG'd. I used the wand-select tool to do this. That and a bit of the manual clicking with a paintbrush.

I next used the wand again, and selected the background, then inverted my selection so I only had the spearman, I copied this - pasted it - then used layer/scale layer to a maximum of 50x50 px. Which is the size of the unit panels in MTW.
https://img254.imageshack.us/img254/4728/stepthreenb9.th.png (https://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stepthreenb9.png)
See how that I kept the chain linked and used cubic scaling, this ensures best scale detail.

Almost done, I created a new image 50x50 and pasted this scaled spearman into it. I then used image/mode/index on this new smaller image, as the format used in MTW requires a max of 256 colours. I doubt it has 256 colours in it, but it must be done.
https://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9776/stepfour256fm7.png (https://imageshack.us)

Open readBIF, and create a new 50x50 single frame BIF. (Sorry no screenies as I don't do modding on this computer. :shame: ) and import the saved 256 colour spearman. Save BIF.

You are now pretty much done, any modder would now know what to do with that BIF now, and I'm in a bit of a hurry so, I can't really write it here. Hope that all helps. :thumbsup:
Obviously you need a graphics editor other than MSpaint if you haven't already got one, like The GIMP (available as a free download) or Photoshop. You will also need readBIF which you can get on the org's own server.

[Raz]

Aww, I really want feedback soon from my first MTW modding tutorial. Note, shameless self-promotion post. :smug2:

[Hound of Ulster]

I just had a thought.

Why don't YLC and Ignoramus combine thier efforts. The mods they are working on are very similar, so it makes sense (and saves time) to combine the Dark Ages and Med Fidelity mods.

[ULC]

True, and it would also eliminate much work. My only concern would be the eastern factions...maybe we can make a series of maps, each one dealing with a specific area? But I don't just want to throw away all the work OmarPacha has done...

I liked your tutorial Raz, I use that process myself. What editor were you using by the way?

Ignoramus, I am sorry to say this, but you can't program in emerging factions, that all hard-coded.

[Ignoramus]

Can't you? That's a shame.

I'd certainly be willing to combine efforts with YLC. As to your concerns about the map, I think you can use different maps for different campaigns.

[ULC]

Yes, of course, but OmarPacha put a lot of time into making the main campaign map. We could still have an overall campaign covering everywhere, but we could also have a few other covering different areas.

1) Northern & Central Europe
2) Eastern Europe & Steppe
3) Outremer
4) Mediterranean
5) Iberia

What do you think?

[Ignoramus]

I'm certainly interested in other campaigns, but I would like to get the current MF draft campaign in as well.

For Outremer, we could do a First Crusade mod, something which hasn't ever been done(I'm pretty sure).

[ULC]

Sounds agreeable. So, do we agree to work together?

[Ignoramus]

I'm agreeable. Working together can only benefit the two mods.

[Raz]

I liked your tutorial Raz, I use that process myself. What editor were you using by the way?

I was using The GIMP, it says at the beginning of the post that I opened the image in GIMP, just in case you missed it. :2thumbsup:

[ULC]

Whoops, how foolish of me, and I should have recognized that two, since I use gimp as well!

[Belisario]

Hi, I am currently working on a map (Lukupmap) of northeast Europe which roughly covers the same extension of MTW2's Teutonic campaign. I progress slowly, for the moment I divided Scandinavia into 21 regions and now I am working on the Poland area. I began this task thinking in a "Teutonic campaign" (I need another title) which would start around 1250 but could be possible other start dates. If you are interested I will inform you of my progresses. I am really interested in this type of "scenario mods".

[Ignoramus]

That sounds useful, Belisario.

How are we going to divide the tasks up between the merged mods?

[Hound of Ulster]

Ask Cegorach and Macsen Rufus about how to implement differant maps, they could give you some valuable expertise.

Why not do Med Fidelity as an expansion for Dark Ages?