New Mod needs help

[pyhhricvictory]

Hi all,

I am currently working on a non historical mod that allows the use of some of the smaller factions in the Early time periods plus some other changes. It is basically a Christian Mod, there are no playable Muslims, they are there and can be played but that wasn't the point.

Basically I have added the Burgundians and Swiss as playable factions and turned on the Argonese and Hungarians. Using one of the smaller guys is a bit more challenging. In the mod, there are no land bridges between England and France or Iberia and Africa. Some of the starting provinces have been changed, the only English mainland holding is Brittany, The Swiss have been given Switzerland and Tyrolia and the Burgundians have Burgundy and Provence. I know that it is not historically accurate but it effectively weakens the HRE and divides modern France into North and South. The per turn income has been increased in each province to allow the computer to hang on and build some truly huge armies, granted, in the early period you get a lot of peasants and militia but later in the game, it gets much stronger.

My main issue is that I am not sure how to mod the units to make each faction a singular experience to play. I know the mechanics of changing the files but am not sure how each should play.

Currently I have modded the Danes to include Sweden and changed their Royal unit to Boyars and given the ability to build Varangian guard (since they were effectively vikings anyway). I am considering taking away all of the feudal units from the Danes so they approximate a viking horde more than the standard European army of the time.

Does anyone have any type of suggestions as to what unit changes may make each faction or even region of Europe play a little differntly?

Thanks

[Kraellin]

umm, yer about 2 days late on this. i posted a very similar mod at the org recently. in fact, if you havent been peeking at my notes, it's almost scary how similar. though in mine, i didnt modify any of the units themselves. take a look at it for how and what to mod and then ask around for some more help on the individual units or read some more of the stuff here in the dungeon.

the link to my mod is:
http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/MTW/Stats/Kraellin_EarlyRussiaQ.zip

and if that doesnt work, just look in the 'recent files' on the org download pages for 'Early Russia Q'. 19 factions, no land bridges and very similar setup as what you're describing.

K.

[barocca]

For the Danes i'd include light horse archers, speed and flexibility, i agree with removing the feudal units, perhaps leave spearmen in though.

ALSO have a look at the Mayhem Mod, and TheLords extra units and see if any of the new units in those take your fancy for the various factions.

For the French perhaps remove archers and force them to have crossbows only, no archers, no horse archers, just crossbows perhaps also mounted crossbow - but thats your call.

For the Germans you could perhaps enable their order foot as a regular build, giving them a bit more oomph. Again no horse archers, just horse crossbow, but i would leave them with foot archer, perhaps remove foot crossbow?

For the Italians remove archers and allow them to build genoese anywhere, not just one province.
Light horse archers, no mounted crossbows.

For the Pope i would recommend allowing them to build Knights Templar and Templar order foot from the word go, and perhaps remove feudal/chivalric troops from their arsenal? i'd also allow the pope to build archers, crossbows, horse archer and horse crossbow.

Burgundians - light and fast troops types, horse archers

Hungarians - light and fast troops types, mounted crossbows

Novgorod and Russians - heavy troop types,

Polish - Heavy Horse, medium foot and archers,

Swiss - very heavy foot troops, very light horse,

Switch byzantines and all muslim factions to FT_Minor

(( oh yes, look at Kraellins russiaQ mod, he has some good ideas in it ))

[pyhhricvictory]

Thanks for the help.

Kraelin, I missed your mod. I have been covered up at work lately and haven't had a chance to read anything new http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif . I will definitely try downloading your campaign and give it a try. How do you get 19 factions playable though?

Barocca,
Thanks. I will look at thelords unit pack and try and add them to the campaign. I also want to add the pagan and Jewish addon units and agents to the game, possible adding a Jewish state in the middle east. I know it is not historical but could be interesting.

Again, thank you both for the help. Another reason to like the boards http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Kraellin]

hi pyh (not even gonna try and type your whole name :)

to get 19 playable factions, you have to turn the minors into majors in the early.txt file (high.txt, and late.txt if you want to start with these in those periods also). but, you also have to make sure all the other fields exist for those factions as well. things like 'startleader::' have to have that faction's info added there if it's not already. just go thru my file and notice the differences between the default early.txt and mine. it shld be pretty obvious what has to be added or turned on. you can also read some of the threads here in the dungeon to find out some of this stuff.

oh, and btw, you could prolly get 20 playable factions if you also turn on the 'golden_khanate', the mongols. i chose not to cause i prefer them to come in as they already do, as an invading faction. but, that's just a personal choice thing.

and welcome to the .org :)

K.

[pyhhricvictory]

Thanks again for the help. I got the number of factions playable up and have played through part of a campaign as the Swiss. Right now, the Danes have a huge neavy basically protecting her homelands and the Poles have launched two crusades to modern Turkey. I still cannot get hte Jewish add on to work, I was hoping to get a Jewish state in the Middle East.

I have added a couple of units to the Danes, I gave them the old Turcoman foot and Horse units renamed as Viking Light Cav and Viking Archers. With the addition of the Varangian Guard, they play very aggressively since they do not have very many defensive units.

Currently I am changing the missle units, Longbow is the only English archer and is availible from the beginning, Most of Europe uses Crossbowmen only and the Muslims use Desert and TZrbbie Archers. Poland, Hungary and Russia get the Bulgarian Brigands as their main archer. It is progressing pretty well so far and the battles have been more than interesting with the unit changes. Offensively, the Danes have become a force taking from Flanders to Pomerania and south into France as well as all of the Nordic Lands.

Again, thanks for the help. The footsoldiers are next

[Kraellin]

cool beans :)

K.