The Medieval Mod IV v 1.84

[WesW]

What I plan on being the final version of the mod, before the Viking Expansion, it now available here (http://wes.apolyton.net/Medmod_IV_1.84.exe).
The readme is available here (http://wes.apolyton.net/Readme.doc).

I made a number of changes from the 1.83 update, most all of which fall into the "tweaking" category. I believe that about every major improvement that can be made, has been made, subject to your personal preferences of course.
I have gone through the charts and readme to make sure that they are accurate and up-to-date, and that the readme presents its info in an orderly fashion.
Below is a detailed list of the changes from v1.83:

1)Raised the land value of Constantinople and the levantine provinces back to their approximate original values.
2)Set ships speeds back to about their original values as well.
3)War and Gun Galleys can now move into level 2 seas.
4)Reduced the time needed to build late-era ships from 4 to 3.
5)Reduced the time to build all artillery pieces by 1 turn.
6)Monasteries now add 2 to morale instead of 1.
7)Castle add-ons now increase garrison size by 25, for that level only. Total capacity goes up by 50 per level, starting at 200 for Forts (205, actually).
8)Set Crusader units back to their original numbers of men.
9)I also corrected some errors with the crusader units' cost and/or support.
10)Corrected the building requirement for Almughavars to a level 4 spearmaker.
11)I added the shield to Gothic Knights.
12)Made Royal units scalable, so they will increase in size along with all other units when using that game option.
13)I adjusted unit costs back to increments of 25.
14)Added two rounds of ammo to archers and gunpowder units. This makes for a nice progression of 12,24,30 and 36.
15)Adjusted the stats and/or requirements for the Muslim and Orthodox High era and Royal cavalry units.
I realized that I had held these units to too high of a building standard compared with Catholic units. This allowed me to strengthen the Boyar and Porte units without raising the castle req'd, though they now require a Swordsmith2 in addition to the Breeder3 and an Armourer2.
I also lowered the req's for the Sipahi and Khwar units, though they still require a Citadel.
I lowered that stats of Kats, to differentiate them from the Pronoiai, and make them available with a Castle. I also raised the defense of Pronoiai by a point.

Well, as I said at the top of the post, I hope this finishes out the Medmod IV for the base version of Medieval: Total War. I look forward to hearing any comments and suggestions on the overall mod, and I hope to start discussions soon on the new features of the expansion pack as well as a couple of new concepts that I have in mind. I have greatly enjoyed the feedback and discussions in the various mod threads so far, and I hope that all of you have enjoyed this attempt at further enhancing the great game that CA has given us.

Wes Whitaker

[[DnC]]

Thanks a lot for the work so far, I really enjoy your mod

Back to playing MTW again http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Hamburglar]

Hey Wes

I have an idea thats not really a problem fix but just to add a little flavor to the game


How about each faction having their own unique royal knight? Even if its just adding a new name and a little description without changing the stats I think it'd make the factions a little cooler. We could find out what the "household guard" of knights was called for each kingdom and just make that unit their "royal knights". If you're up for it I could do research and find out units.

[rory_20_uk]

Wes, thanks for your reply re my post on the 1.83 thread. Without sounding like too much of a suckup, I might end up getting the expansion pack just so I can keep up with the additions to this mod. And if you decide to add the Lord's extra units, that would be amazing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
I think that it is a bit of a conundrum with the crusades, as if they are too easy, then they are pointless - pathetic tides of old men and horses getting nowhere, but too good and they are monsters at the start of the game.
I am surprised that you have not altertered the AI's aggressiveness, as on another game (I'll draw a veil over what a French crusade at point blank did to my "kingdom"). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif
Very quickly I was at war with France, Denmark, Italy and Hungary. Now, Denmark and Italy were due to me - picking on carrion if you will, and were for the most part OK. The French and the Hungarians both again got frisky after their crusades anded, and had lots of troops and so lashed out at all the nearby weaker provinces. Yes, all of the crusades were in the initial rush - is it that the AI just immediately blows all their money on a crusade?
Another note with the HRE is that although money often floods in, getting decent units is more of a difficulty. But I guess that this is the whole point.

[insolent1]

HI Wes,
Nice mod u must have put a a lot of work into it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
Turkish early, found it much harder to control the seas which was a nice change. I was disappointed to see u needed an armoury to build AHC & that u need a master armoury for JHI which rules these 2 units out of desert warfare http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif

[rory_20_uk]

Wes, were mercs always so cheap? Getting 40 knights hospittoler for 50 florins seems insanely good (OK, the upkeep is 250 per turn). I bought 4 units of them, and completely trashed my next foe by just charging them at one end of his army and routing them all the way along - not much can deal with that amount of combined firepower. By the end of the battle they were of course run ragged, having ben used when and when not appropriate, and then disbanded. Is this reduced cost something to do with increasing the amount in the crusades, or were they always that cheap?

[WesW]

HB, that sounds like a good idea with the Royal Guards. If you wanted to add Muslim units to the list, along with the Catholics, that could prove fruitful as well.

I have been thinking about making faction-specific units in place of the generic Catholic units for those factions.
Here I am talking about MAA, militias and knights. This is related to the thread I am about to start regarding the restriction of all elite units to certain geographic areas.

Rory, you don't sound like a suck-up at all. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif And you wouldn't be the first person to buy a game simply because there was going to be a medmod for it.
A couple of years ago, I was going to have a surgery which we were not sure if insurance would pay on, and I asked for monetary contributions to show appreciation for the medmod II, I believe. When Ctp 2 came out, it cost $60, but due to poor sales its price dropped considerably after a few months. What I did was to ask people to compare the price that they got the game at to the original $60, and send a contribution for the difference if they found that the medmod turned the game into one that warranted the full price. I eventually received about $160, which was not really enough to make a difference once it was divided among all the people, about a dozen, who had helped me put the mod together. My insurance did pay for most of the medical costs, so I decided to donate the $160 to one of the 9/11 charities after that tragic event.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the AI in MTW, so I can't work on the strategic workings of the AI. In my current game, I am playing as the Spanish. I had allied with the Aragonese, had married into their faction, and even lifted a siege on Aragon one time. And how do they repay me? They invade Castile when I had left it moderately defended while I wiped out the Almohads. The Aragonese were already at war with a couple other factions, but that played no factor in their decision. They simply saw a rich province that they thought they could conquer, and so they attacked, all other factors disregarded. It's things like this that I would like know whether or not they have been addressed for the expansion.

As for the cheap knights, I changed the names of Crusader units to include the name "Crusader" in their title, for those units that also had a regular variant, so that you could tell which were Cruaders and which were not.
I had to cut the cost of Crusader units to 20% of normal so that more of them would be created, and this has the effect of making them cheap to hire, but not to support.
(The game uses a hard-coded monetary figure when creating units, and creates them until this figure is passed. Unfortunately this figure is not tied to Crusade cost, so I had to adjust it independently of that of the units.)
I can imagine that the huge support cost of a crusade could drain all of a faction's income, and lead to the disbanding of some of the elite units after the crusade runs its course.

What I have found with mercs is that those units who are given the merc tag are created randomly by the game. All other units may become mercs if they are disbanded. Thus, my removal of the merc tag from elite units only means that they will not be created randomly by the game, and will still show up if they are disbanded.

In my current game, I too have bought several crusader cav units, which have been very useful. Remember, though, that mercs cost twice as much as regular units to maintain, so you can ruin yourself by reckless acquisition of them. One thing that I don't like about the patch is that you can no longer combine merc units.

Insolent, I was not aware that the armourer req would have an effect on desert warfare. I thought that the armour value itself was what determined fatigue.
If someone could elaborate on this, I would be grateful.

Thanks for the kudos, DnC. Myself, I have felt so awful the last week that I have not been able to play that much. Writing up the readme, putting the final touches on the mod, and posting it were my major accomplishments last weekend. This is why I haven't reviewed this thread since posting.

[BDC]

Great mod... Has made MTW so hard I can no longer play without thinking about it. Can't wait for the VI and all the new mods...

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

[Hamburglar]

Additional armor given by an armourer makes them tire faster in the desert. Try it out in a custom battle - just make two units on your team and have one of them with maxed out armor and you'll see it get tired quicker.

[insolent1]

Hi Wes,
Right i've been playing a bit more & have found a lot more units tied into the armoury. This is only a problem when u want to conquer the desert areas of the map. Any unit that starts with 5 armour or below is good for desert warfare. Btw i have been finding it twice as expensive to bribe rebels would there be any particular reason for this?
So far in the 3 campaigns I have started I have seen the turks wiped out in first 4-5 years & the Scilians excommunicated & once they get excommed most catholic factions launch crusades at them, this has happened in all 3 games. I think the Argonese should get an emissary at the start as well.

[rory_20_uk]

Hi there Wes Just had a game as the Byzantines, as I was getting fed up losing as the germans (BTW, they were the first to be destroyed).
And now that, the LAte period has begun, I am being somewhat disturbed by the lack of troops that byzantium can produce that are any good. The others all have new decent knights and the rest, whereas I am still using the same old feudal seargents.
Is this the way that you want to leave it, or are you going to include some more units? Of course I imagine that the idea is that this means that life is much harder for the dear ol; Byzantites, but I think that they would not be slow to adapt and adopt new methos of fighting... Not that I am a sore loser or anything http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[WesW]

Rory, the Byzants can have Pikemen now, as well as Almughavars in most of the provinces bordering the Med Sea.
You can scan the units sheet, and anything in purple or brown, I believe, can be built by the Byzants. The Pronoiai A. and VG are still formidable units in the late age, and a pumped up Greece can put out very competent Byz Inf. Militia Sgts are better than before, so this gives the Byzants a one-turn armour-piercing unit.

The Egyptians don't get anything, I believe, for the late era, so the Byzants are certainly better off than they are.

As far as the Sicilians, in my current High era game, they took Constan early, and used its wealth to become a leading power. I just finished a huge battle with them. The first time I attacked, I didn't realize that I would be assaulting a bridge, so eventually I had to reload and attack again with additional missile units. I managed to kill their 6-star general with my Crossbows in the opening missile duel, and this just took the fight right out of them. I had already isolated them from the rest of their empire, and I ended up getting 3,000 prisoners, whose ransom was refused. This included almost an entire Crusade, plus a lot of other fine troops.

Btw, I am going to set the peasant revolt list back to about its original settings, which means getting rid of all the crusaders in the list. Peasant revolts are just so powerful right now that I believe they would be devastating for the AI factions.
I don't understand why the CA guys didn't put some code in there to always garrison provinces with at least the minimum amount of men necessary to prevent bandits and peasant revolts.

Also, I have done anything to mess with bribery costs.

[rory_20_uk]

Dear Wes,
Obviously I am not quite in the late period yet to get those nice pikes and other things. Looking forward to it.
I agree that the peasant revolts are too powerful. They almost become a small power of their own for a time, as the AI leaves those provincees alone for years, and in one case has not botherd to retake a province since the start of the game due to a particularly nastly revolt.

[rory_20_uk]

Wes, I was going to use the GnomeEditorv2.0 editor on my files, and for some reason if works fine for the units, but not for the buildings. Do you know why this might be? I've had no problems in the game, and I am pretty sure that it's not a corrupted install.

[WesW]

Rory, I have not used the Gnome editor, so I don't know what the problem would be from. What I *have* found is that you can use the original CA spreadsheet I have at my webpage, and paste it directly onto a new text file to create a new units text. This may not do you much good with trying to modify my mod, but it can be helpful if you want to do your own.
Myself, I think I am going to try and use the CA sheet that comes out with VI, and make my changes to stats using their system. I actually think my support system is a little better than theirs, because I don't have to do it from stratch, but can build off of their foundation.

I haven't heard from some of you vets out there, like Elmo and TS, in what seems like quite a while. I am sure some of you are starting to get outside and enjoy the weekends, and about all I have been watching lately is the war. (I even taped a centcom briefing a few days ago to better keep up with everything.) However, it would still be nice to hear from you guys.

[Hamburglar]

WesW - you reloaded in a battle against the AI. I'm ashamed http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif


And yeah, I'd say the peasant revolts are a bit too much. Portugal is CRAZY now since they revolt all the time and when they do revolt in my Late Era game they're full of Hospitallers and Gothics and stuff like that. The AIs are bribing them a lot faster than I can though and getting some nice troops.


And I'm playing Late Era so I can play as Burgundy. It's a lot of fun doubleteaming France while allied with England. I own almost all of France except the stuff the English start with - I also own Prussia, Switzerland, Swabia, Lorraine, Scotland, and all of Iberia except Castile and Portugal. Portugal is too much of a death machine and those guys in Castile have all these Portuguese Crusaders with them.

Also - should the Burgundians be able to Crusade? Just a thought.


I'm looking around for those royal bodyguard knights but its a lot harder than I thought. I am finding "faction unique" knightly orders for some of the countries like the Order of the Garter for England and such but I can't really find out what the special bodyguard is called.

[Hamburglar]

Also - I dunno if its possible, but try to give the Mongols some siege weapons to start with. THey beat me when invading Khazar in my Kiev game but I had 1 survivor (my cowardly general) run back into the fort. The siege time lasted about a LONG TIME before he starved to death and the Mongols never assaulted. I think they only ever assault if they have siege weapons.

[rory_20_uk]

Wes,
I'm not sure if you said you were going to deal with it, but I think that peasant unrest is supposed to be peasants, plus the odd thing that is slightly harder.
I was playing in the mid era (1227), and I got an "unrest" that composed of 80 Militia sargents, 240 Gardarme crusaders, 160 Knights templar and a cool 600 templar foot knights., for a total of 1,080 troops. I tried to be a big girl and play the "hide some horses and wait" routine, but they were villagent and checked the woods the fiends http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I think I'm going to have to bribe them, as that's the only way to get rid of em. Of course once bribe, I think that they unbalance things in my favour, as I am of course going to start a war as soon as possible, if for nothing else than to reduce the horrendous upkeep costs

[Satyr]

Wes, is there any way that you broke Crusades? I have a patched game and installed the latest version (thanks, it's great) but last nite I had a German crusade wander around my 4 Italian provinces for almost 20 years.

[WesW]

Hi, Mary, always nice to see a little female involvement on the forums. No, I have not done anything to mess up crusade pathing, though I have noticed some odd things with it even post-patch. Sometimes it looks like the game only checks the pathing every other year or something, rather than each turn. The crusade is most likely trying to get to its destination by using your trade links, but the enemy, or you, keeps moving ships around and upsetting its path.

I have also set peasant uprisings back to their original troop mix. I can post this as a quick fix if you guys want it.
I really wish this board let you attach small zips like Apolyton does. It would make things like this so much simpler.

I also gave the Mongols some catapults for the late era.

I made a request last night in the unit restriction thread for links to online sites that talk about medieval units. So far, no one has responded (the thread is in the Main Hall).
I have found stuff on crusading orders, and stuff on the composition of medeival armies and the like, but nothing that describes particular units. I may end up going to the local library, but I doubt our small town's will have all that much.

[econ21]

Wes, it would be good if you could post the quick fix as the changes you mention sound good ones and I'm thinking of starting up a new campaign over Easter.

I've also been looking at sources of information on medieval military units - one of the best I have found have been the army lists for Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare minatures rules. He has posted draft revised versions you can download from the files section of his yahoo discussion group if you join it:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GoreAMwar/messages/
The word files you need are MWGROUP 2a, 2b and 3.
The lists give you good information on the composition of many armies in terms of arms, army and quality. They often use local names as well. Often I suspect the source of this stuff is the Wargames Research Group "Armies of the .." books by Ian Heath and others - I bought the two for the Middle Ages and one for the Crusades; the one for Feudal Europe is unfortunately out of print.

[cugel]

Wes, well, I want to throw a spanner into the works and say I totally disagree that rebellions are now too tough I thought that was the BEST new feature of the game Either the AI would bribe the enemy generals (adding very tough new troops to it's armies) or I would have to conquer the province (ensuring a VERY Tough fight). I liked that a lot

I think players are being too impatient. After 10-20 years, they will see that the AI has taken over all those provinces (in my observation). If you change this I'm going to change it back

Regarding Medieval armies, I think you might find something of use in this site: http://www.deremilitari.org/resources.htm

They have articles on just about everything, and links too numerous to count.

[WesW]

UPDATE ALERT:

I have posted a small zip at my webpage, entitled mildpeasants. There are four things in it, a units text and the three campaign files.

The campaign files should be useful to everyone. I hope I have finally fixed the bug with Tunisian ships appearing in the African Coast. I would have sworn I fixed this months ago... I also gave the Mongols some catapults for the late era.

In the units text, I set the composition of peasant revolts back to its original settings.
I also made Spanish Jinetes unique to the Spanish and Aragonese, and gave them excellent speed. I also took Mtd Sgts away from those two factions.

Unzip the units text into the Medieval - Total War folder, and the campaign files into the Medieval - Total War/Campmap/Startpos folder.

This way, you can continue to use the "raging" peasants file if you want to.

Thanks for the links, guys. I am going to check them out after I get this post up. Simon, I noted that you keep mentioning Terry Gore, and I checked out some Google results on him last night. I didn't run across anything useful, but maybe your link will do the trick.

There seem to be people from about all European countries that frequent the forums. I wonder if I could put out a call for individual countries?
I am going to make a post in the Main Hall thread, and would cretainly appreciate anything you guys would care to add.

[rory_20_uk]

Cugel, in mo way am I saying that you are wrong in the fact that the hardcore peasant revolts make things harder, I think that they should be changed back (as they are supposed to be peasants after all). A possible way to allemeorate this would be to upgrade the other revolt types both in liklihood and in the types of units that they could include. This would make things more intersting, and keep the peasants as the odd amusing battle where a few thousand peasants get utterly destroyed - something that I never tire of seeing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

It's a shame to hear that the Crusader AI is hard coded (I have noticed more and more with your mod Wes that the problems that people are complaining about - me included - are the hard-coded aspects of the game. The additions that you have made have been generally lauded, and rightly so&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[WesW]

I have posted another variation for the mod that includes the mild peasants changes, and also makes Muslim units 25% larger than normal. There was a bug with the mild peasants units text, which I didn't catch until I had already altered the Muslim units, so I just decided to delete that zip and post the Muslim horde variation. This should help some with Muslim factions being handicapped by the 16-unit battle limit. Anyway, we can try it out and see how it goes.

It contains the same files as the mild peasants zip, so the installation is exactly the same.

Also note that you will NOT be able to use the Huge units setting with this variation. Normal, or Medium, sized should be fine, though I don't know about Large sized.

[WesW]

As some of you know, my webpage has been down the last couple of days. I have been offering to send the mod out via email, but I have gotten a couple of them bounced back to me. I have sent an email to the Apolyton admin inquiring as to when the sites will be back up, and I will wait a couple of days, or until I hear back from him, before sending replying to any more email requests.
Just so you know that I have not been ignoring anyone.

[Westland]

Has anyone tried the mod with 25% larger muslim units?
Does it unbalance the game?
I haven't tried it myself yet because I was in the middle of a campaign and did not want to make any big changes.

[misplacedag]

1. Gnome editor will not work on the prod13 file because an ending quote is missing in the upgrade Discipline & Valor field for the Military_Academy building. Edit the file with a text editor, insert the missing quote and then the Gnome editor will work fine.

2. ROI studies in other threads indicate a decent ROI for upgraded Merchants in land-locked regions if the region has two or more tradeables. However, they are no longer available to land-locked regions due to the port and shipyard requirements. Has anyone noticed an impact in playing any of the "inland" factions? Since I really like to rule the seas, I've never tried any of those factions.

[Dukezer0]

Yo WesW, i have been playing MTW with your mod(s) for some time now and would like to congratulate you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

I was doing a mod for myself and browsing this forum on some tips on how to do stuff that i didn't know anything about when i stumbled apon your mod. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

Fantastic, just what i was doing in my mod and more, can't imagine playing MTW without it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

One thing that most ppl overlook is the "every province having a valour bonus unit" thing. This is one of the things i was in the process of doing. It pushes the player to take certain areas, instead of it being just another part of the map http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Love the inclusion of hospitaller foot knights and knights of santiago in the new mod http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Though, the only thing i do change is the periods i can produce certain units. I used to change all to "ALL PERIODS" but i realized that the AI doesn't produce the buildings for these higher units so its a little in the players favour http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif
So now i just choose a few choice units depending on the faction i am playing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I like the graphic changes. Perhaps they may go unnoticed but still worth the time you spent on them IMO http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

All in all as we english say "you're a bleedin genius my son", keep up the good work and can't wait to see what you will do to viking invasion (if it needs it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

BTW, this is not an arse kissing session, just kudos for someone who has some time to make others gaming time more enjoyable http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

C YA

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (misplacedag @ April 29 2003,06:13)]1. Gnome editor will not work on the prod13 file because an ending quote is missing in the upgrade Discipline & Valor field for the Military_Academy building. Edit the file with a text editor, insert the missing quote and then the Gnome editor will work fine.

2. ROI studies in other threads indicate a decent ROI for upgraded Merchants in land-locked regions if the region has two or more tradeables. However, they are no longer available to land-locked regions due to the port and shipyard requirements. Has anyone noticed an impact in playing any of the "inland" factions? Since I really like to rule the seas, I've never tried any of those factions.
Damn, I wondered if something was wrong with the Academy. I meant to pose the question in the mod thread weeks ago. I know I looked at the building code, but obviously I missed the problem. Well, at least it's a relatively small thing.

As for the land-locked provinces, there are not many that have more than one good, and with the way I have increased the priority for merchants, I felt the AIs would be wasting a lot of effort if they had access everywhere. I did go in and put more advanced merchants in the campaign files for a couple of the mid-east provinces like Edessa and Armenia.

Thanks for the kudos DZ.