Two Crowns mod: 1403-1500

[ShadesWolf]

A modification for Medieval: Total War - Viking Invasion



The Two Crowns mod will have the following features:
- Historical armylists
- New unitgraphics
- New campaignmap focusing on Western Europe


I use the following code:
X: not done yet and not under attention
O: not done but is progressing
V: done

V Step 1: Setup

V: Timeperiod
The mod starts at the year 1415 and ends before 1500.

V: Factions
The mod will include the following factions:

Playable factions
The French
The English

Rebels
The Swiss
The Scots

Factions that act as civil war
The Burgundians
The Yorkists

Disabled Factions
The Milanese Citystate (this name should be edited)
Holy Roman Empire (may become rebel)

All the above factions will be playable in Multi-Player.


O Step 2: Armylists

O: English

X: French

O: Burgundians

O: Swiss

X: Scots

X: Milanese

O: Germans

O: Yorkists


X Step 3: Tactical part

X Step 3a: Unitgraphics

X: BIF Allocation table
Allocating BIF slots to the units.

X: Creation of unitgraphics


X Step 3b: Unitstats

X: Classifying units
Deciding on how units should interact; which unit wins vs this unit but loses vs that unit.

X: Unit stats


X Step 3c: Factions

X: Coat of Arms
Faction shields and flags.

O Step 4: Strategic part

O Step 4a: Campaignmap

O: MapTex

O: Provincelist

X: LukUp
Processed by LMM.



English Henry V
1. Knights
2. Men-at-Arms
3. Retinue Billmen
4. Retinue Longbows
5. Shire Billmen
6. Shire Longbows

7. Mounted Men-at-Arms
9. Prickers

10. Field Cannons (Culverins)

11. Mercenary Pikemen
12. Mercenary Handgunners
13. Scottish Mercenaries
14. Kern/Bonnachts

Yorkists
1. Knights
2. Men-at-Arms
3. Retinue Billmen
4. Retinue Longbows
5. Shire Billmen
6. Shire Longbows

7. Mounted Men-at-Arms
9. Prickers

10. Field Cannons (Culverins)

11. Mercenary Pikemen
12. Mercenary Handgunners
13. Flemish Pikemen

The exclusion of Scottish and Irish troops is because the Yorkists mainly got their allies from the continent.

Germans
1. Dismounted Knights
2. Men-at-Arms
3. Pikemen

4. Handgunners
6. Crossbowmen

6. Knights
7. Mounted Men-at-Arms
8. Mounted Crossbowmen

9. Field Cannons (Culverins)

10. Swiss Mercenary Pikemen
11. Swiss Mercenary Halberdiers
12. Flemish Pikemen

Burgundy

1. Mounted Men-at-Arms
2. Ecuyers, armoured cavalry with spear
3. Coustilliers, fast cavalry
4. Mounted Crosbowmen

5. Men-at-Arms
6. Voulgiers
7. Pikemen
8. Crossbows
9. Handgunners
10. Mercenary Longbows
11. Mercenary Pikemen

12. Bombard
13. Culverin
14. Field Cannons

Swiss

1. Swiss Armoured Pikemen
2. Swiss Pikemen
3. Swiss Armoured Halberdiers
4. Swiss Halberdiers
5. Crossbows
6. Mounted Crossbows
7. Handgunners
8. Culverin


There are at the moment no downloads available of the Two Crowns mod. However as an apetizer you can download the Wars of the Roses beta here.

Two Crowns Team
- ShadesWolf
- Duke John

[Duke John]

French Royal Knights


English Royal Knights


Burgundian Men-at-Arms

[ShadesWolf]

Sounds like a good idea DJ

But we still need a campaign map, and somebody to do the Automatic LukMap & Script creator stuff..



The problem of the WotR is that it only happened because the HYW was lost and lots of English soldiers came home and the current King wasn't succesfull at anything. There was unrest. If the HYW was won then there would be no WotR which is very likely in a SP campaign and gives us problems. As a solution to this, if we added Scotland, then the English player would need to keep a large part of his army in England to protect against an invasion from the North. Due to the fact of Larger numbers in the French armies we could build into the game a hard challenge for the English player... Hense very difficult to win.

[Duke John]

Quote[/b] ]As a solution to this, if we added Scotland, then the English player would need to keep a large part of his army in England to protect against an invasion from the North. Due to the fact of Larger numbers in the French armies we could build into the game a hard challenge for the English player... Hense very difficult to win.

Good idea The French are supposed to win, so that will be the easy faction. The English are supposed to lose and also have a civil war which will be the hard faction.

Scotland
What about if in the Scottisch provinces you can only train Scottish units. Instead of making it a playable faction (not major or minor) we make it rebel with the Scottish regions having a high rebellion rate.
If we do make the faction minor or major then we lose the ability to make the region very stubborn in accepting a new government as the rebels will also go against minor factions.
Combine this and we have typical Scottish armies that strongly rebel against the English surpressors.

Time period
Do you agree on the 1416-1500 period?

Cheers, Duke John

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]Time period
Do you agree on the 1416-1500 period?

I would prefer a 1415 start, as this would enable the Siege of Harfleur and Agincourt. So can we agree 1415 - 1500.

Quote[/b] ]Scotland

This is an excellent idea, I really like this one, it will make it also impossible for England to capture and then hold.

Quote[/b] ]Campaign map

If you can make the LMM conversion that don't worry about the campmap. I can do it in the same style as the official ones. I did one for my Ancient mod and it turned out very well. Could you me an example of which part of Europe you were thinking of. Sorry DJ you have lost me on this one.

[Duke John]

Quote[/b] ]If you can make the LMM conversion that don't worry about the campmap.

Should be:

If you can make the LMM conversion then don't worry about the campmap. I can make the texture (MAPTEX.TGA) But I do need to know which part of Europe will be displayed.

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]But I do need to know which part of Europe will be displayed.

I was only thinking of the area around France and England. So the West I guess

[ShadesWolf]

I have a lot of information for this period (mainly 100 years war) so any stuff we can use, Im willing to share.

I have the following books on the subject ( Osprey)

Orleans 1429
Agincourt 1415
HenryV and the Conquest of france 1416-1453
The armies of Agincourt
Armies of Medieval burgundy 1364-1477
French armies of the Hundred years war
Medieval european Armies
English longbowman 1330-1515

I also have on order...

the Swiss at war 1300 - 1500
War of the roses 1455 - 1485

[ShadesWolf]

We could call this Two Thrones (based on the game by Paradox)

[Duke John]

I have from the Osprey Books:
- The Swiss at war 1300-1500
- German Medieval Armies 1300-1500
- Armies of Medieval Burgundy
- French Armies
- Wars of the Roses
- Bosworth
- Tewkesbury
- Towton
So I think we've got all the information we need. Do you have a scanner so that I can see how the units look like in your books?

Title of the mod
Not so sure about The Two Crowns. I also want the Burgundians and Swiss take a prominent place.

[ShadesWolf]

For Burgundy - Armagnacs V Burgundians (French Civil war)

The only problem would be the Swiss, which we would need to do alot more work on the campaign map to make more provinces to cover them...

BTW yes I do have a scanner, so thats no problem

[Duke John]

What if we make the Burgundians also leaderless. So the resurgence of that faction starts the French Civil War. We just have to test out if we can influence where it resurfaces.

And we make the Swiss also rebels. This makes them less expansionist (as they should be). But we can give the Rebels loads of money which avoids easy picking of rebel lands.

And then we're back to the Two Crowns mod
So we really dive into the English and French with lots of little twists (Swiss, Scots as stubborn rebels and the resurfacing Yorkists and Burgundians as Civil Wars).

I am starting to like this alot We'll show CA what the game could have been

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]What if we make the Burgundians also leaderless. So the resurgence of that faction starts the French Civil War. We just have to test out if we can influence where it resurfaces.

Ok two thoughts

- If we make the main Burgundian province, the [field] Burgundy then they might re-appear there.
- If we had two startup files one could be tailored towards MP and the other SP. In the MP we could also include Scots, Swiss, Burgundian as playable factions
In the SP they would we rebels or Minor.

This way we get the best of both worlds.

[Duke John]

Yes, I agree on the SP, MP startup files.

Quote[/b] ]If we make the main Burgundian province, the [field] Burgundy then they might re-appear there.

If you are sure about this then I am very happy I think we then have the big things pretty much settled.

Could you start working on armylists? I was thinking about 10 units at the max for each faction. We can keep the WotR armylist for the English, although we might want new graphics so that English units have the Cross of St. George. Perhaps only a few. I will certainly give the Knigthly units a new tabard with gold lions on red.
Each unit will get its own BIF since I render the weapons/shields together with the unit.

Techtree
What is your opinion on the techtree? Do you want eleborate ones, or simple ones (which are IMO more realistic). I had the next idea in mind for my WotR mod:

Castles
There is only 1 real castle type: Castle2. This will greatly speed up mapmaking as we only need 1 castlemap for each province. Let’s say that Paris has a big castle. Doing this then it will always have a big castle independent of techtree level.

Then there is a lesser castle type: Damaged Castle (Castle1). This one is not buildable. So when does it appear? If a castle degrades during an assault, it gets degraded to damaged castle. We give Castle2 1 year buildtime so it will be quickly repaired.

We give all units and buildings the Damaged Castle as prerequisite. So the provinces aren’t that much (or more like not all) degraded when it switches sides.

Upgrades
I follow CBR’s opinion that unit balance is best without upgrades. So I would suggest that we remove all upgrade buildings and that if you want a better unit you train the better version instead of upgrading the units. Which is historically much more accurate.

Cheers, Duke John

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]Techtree
What is your opinion on the techtree? Do you want eleborate ones, or simple ones (which are IMO more realistic). I had the next idea in mind for my WotR mod:

Simple ones, much easiers to handle.

Quote[/b] ]Castles
There is only 1 real castle type: Castle2. This will greatly speed up mapmaking as we only need 1 castlemap for each province. Let’s say that Paris has a big castle. Doing this then it will always have a big castle independent of techtree level.

Then there is a lesser castle type: Damaged Castle (Castle1). This one is not buildable. So when does it appear? If a castle degrades during an assault, it gets degraded to damaged castle. We give Castle2 1 year buildtime so it will be quickly repaired.

We give all units and buildings the Damaged Castle as prerequisite. So the provinces aren’t that much (or more like not all) degraded when it switches sides.

Great idea, this makes castles far easier to produce, and will be far much more fun.

Quote[/b] ]Upgrades

Totally agree, we dont need them.

Quote[/b] ]Could you start working on armylists? I was thinking about 10 units at the max for each faction.

NP can start later, We need to decide on all the factions, hows about:

1. Lancastrians (Henry V) (SP & MP)
2. Swiss ( MP)
3. HRE ( MP)
4. France (SP & MP)
5. Milan ( MP)
6. Another Italian citystate... ( MP)
7. Burgundy (SP & MP)
8. And the Yorkists (SP & MP)
9. Scotland (MP)
10.Papacy

[Duke John]

You know what they say: great minds think alike

So we agree on the most important concepts except for the damned Papacy, why? I don't want warnings about invading France Let's just use FN_09 till FN_18 for factions and avoid all hard-coded misery.

[ShadesWolf]

OK NP but I will still want to have one of the campaign provinces as none attackable to represent the home of the Pope in southern france.

[Duke John]

Quote[/b] ]OK NP but I will still want to have one of the campaign provinces as none attackable to represent the home of the Pope in southern france.

Could me provide me with the historical background as to why you want this? Also do you want the Hardcoded Pope or a faction that is named Pope?

[ShadesWolf]

Sorry DJ you are right, the Pope had left Avignon in 1377 and returned back to Rome.

[Duke John]

Quote[/b] ]Sorry DJ you are right

This is the first time that I was right when I was just asking a question
I wasn't trying to correct you I only wanted to know why you wanted the Pope in Southern France. So the Pope is out?

[ShadesWolf]

Quote[/b] ]So the Pope is out?

[ShadesWolf]

Do you think you could do something with that map ?

[ShadesWolf]

If it is ok by you, I will go through and make a list of the Provinces that should be included for the Mainland part of the map.

Shall we keep the current VI Britain map, or would you prefer to create a new one ?

[Duke John]

Just start from scratch. As an example of what I am capable of, here's my map I made for my Ancient mod, it worked 100% in VI:

And scale 1:1


Cheers, Duke John

[ShadesWolf]

Excellent, I will start with detailing what provinces I want in mainland Europe, and I will also start working on units for factions. Starting with burgundy

[CBR]

Hm interesting. Good luck guys

Will this still be an add-on or do you have to make so many new units that you run out of custom folders?


CBR

[Duke John]

This mod will be crammed with new unitgraphics for all the included factions. We will first focus on the tactical part, releasing factions as we go, and then move on to the strategic part.

CBR
If you like if you are always welcome to lend us a help balancing the units or providing information on units. I believe that you once made a mod that focused around Italian armies with pike and shot. Do you also have ideas on armies in the 15th century?

[CBR]

Sure I can help if you want it.

Hm 15th century armies..

Yes my Italian Wars mod was early 16th century warfare with pikes and arquebusiers as main infantry units as well as halbardiers and 2-handed swordsmen as support.

15th century is a bit more blurry and several changes of the armies during this period. But I should have armylists for all of them


CBR

[CBR]

How many units do you have now or plan to make?


CBR

[ShadesWolf]

We are looking at approx 10 ish units per faction, similar to what you see in 'War of the Roses'

Currently I am working on Burgundy, and the army makeup. Any suggestions would be greatfully received....

Currently this is what I have...

Until 1471, Burgundy’s armies were recruited from four sources: nobles and their numerous followers; the ducal guard (household troops); town militia; and foreign mercenaries. These followed the French model and were divided into:

(1) Heavy cavalry, consisting of armoured men-at-arms, mostly nobles, forming the nucleus of the army.
(2) Light cavalry, drawn from the followers that the men-at-arms were required to bring with them: mounted archers, crossbowmen and swordsmen, who task was to harass the enemy before the main engagement, and to support the men-at-arms.
(3) Infantry, which formed but a small proportion of the army, and consisted of pikemen, archers and crossbowmen. It should however be noted that what we call cavalry usually dismounted to fight and most battles in this period were ultimately battles of infantry.

The nucleus of the army was the man-at-arm, these consisted of Chevaliers (rich nobles, dukes, counts and barons, and Ecuyers (squires) minor aristocrats or bourgeous. Throughout the whole period of the Valois dukes the majority of men-at-arms came from the two Burgundies, and a lessor extent the province of Artois.

Most of the manpower and infantry were drawn from Flanders, Holland and Zeeland, and the Flemish towns were renowned for their pikemen. They are described in an account of 1471 as having a sallet, brigandine, sword and pike, or a long lance with a slender shaft and a long sharp spear-head.

Armies make-up

Flander and Artois 38%
The Burgundies 29%
Allies and mercenaries 33%

MOUNTED
Chevaliers (knights with lance)
Ecuyers (squires with spears)
Mounted crossbows
Gendarmes (miltia/town cavalry with sword)

FOOT
Goedendag clubmen (Flemish)
Flemish Pikemen
Swiss/ German halberd (mercenaries)

RANGED
Genoese crossbowmen (mercenaries)
crossbowmen
English Longbows (allies)
Handgunners

ARTILLERY
Serpentine artillery
Bombard artillery

A few more notes I found on Burgundy...

Burgundian Ordonnance is an army with a little of everything but nothing in abundance. You get regular dismounting knights, mounted superior bowmen, pikemen, psiloi... you name it, but never in numbers. Even so, with tactical skills and some eye this army is not a loser, but fairly lethal.
The first think to keep in mind is that YOU must have the initiative. You are almost certain to be outnumbered and overwhelmed. Therefore you must get the enemy befor he gets you.
The C3 of this army is excellent. You get three regular generals which also are good in the hacking thing.
The steel fist of the army are the gendarmerie: regular dismountable knights. They really rock. They are just as lethal as their irregular counterparts, and much more controllable and not liable to go berserk. About the only thing sans elephants you should avoid with these guys are irregular knights which may prove troublesome. You can dance around with these guys, and even Irr Kn should not prove too much touble - with a little help of friends.
If the gendarmerie is the steel fist, the Ordonnance archers are then the blowtorch. Reg Bw(S) is poison with a capital P. Anything not crushable with Kn can be dealt with these guys. They kill almost anything sans Ps(S). You should maximize their numbers. They are their worth of weight in gold. If you have to bargain in points, then bargain in Kn, not Bw. The key here is to use the archers in combination with the Kn. Separately both are toast: together they can handle almost anything. Irr Kn are a delight to be sucked against these guys...
Other Ordonnance infantry mostly suck. Crossbowmen are best to left at home. Ordonnance pikemen are few, but four of them make a nice block. Handgunners are few, but Ps(S) is the proper way to spell nuisance. Take all four of these. Low Countries pikemen (Reg Pk(I)) are also a worthy buy. They are excellent to be used to swell the numbers and raise the breakpoint of the army. Don't buy voulgiers - they are few, and if you need good infantry, just dismount a couple of gendarmes.
Italian knights are best to left at home, but their LH is a must. Feudal troops are a liability. Irr Kn(I) suck big time, and why waste points on Irr Bw(O) mtd while there is need for points for Reg Bw(S) ? Besides, Irr Bd(S) produce control problems due to their impetuosity.
Ordonnance artillery is fairly decent. Bombards are a good buy, and organ guns make fairly good camp guards, especially if protected by palisade. A petardier element in ambush will produce also nasty surprises...
This army is an army for a player who knows what he is doing. The keyword is co-operation. Duke Charles failed in this, and it was his undoing. Same applies to a player who tries to win on only one part of this army. It is an integre entity which requires using all parts of this army closely together: knights, archers and lights. Keep your ranks close and archers near the knights - there you go Have your knights adventuring alone and your archers facing some pike phalanx alone... goodbye. This army is a mediocrity in hands who don't know what to do, and a fine instrument for a cunning, devious and ruthless gamer. It isn't a straightforward killer like French Ordonnance, or a manouevre army like Hungarians. It has its own nature, which may require several games to notice.
But certainly this army isn't the loser it's been labeled here either