The Medieval Mod IV v2.02 for VI

[WesW]

I have posted a new update to the Medmod IV v2.0 No Units mod for Viking Expansion.

(And yes, I know the title is getting ridiculously long, but I still get emails from people who get confused.)

All of the changes are for the Viking Campaign only.

I have increased the priority for boats to that of the 1.85 version. They were set very low, and this is really messing up the AI in certain situations.
In my current game, the Pictish king got stuck on one of the island provinces, which had a boatyard, and has stayed there for decades with the bulk of his army while the Vikings have raided and invaded his kingdom.
I looked at the boat priorities for the regular campaigns, and they were set at double those of the 1.1 game, while the V Camp's were at maybe half the 1.1 settings. I think CA had too many cooks in the kitchen.

I reduced the cost and increased the output of Abbeys to 1600 and 225, respectively.
I reduced the cost of Ports to 400 gold and 2 turns, and I just realized I forgot to mention this in the Readme. Oh, well.
Mine Complexes now cost 50% more than the basic structure, not 80%.

That's it.

[rory_20_uk]

Kewl - looking forward to the completed mod http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Sir Robin]

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

I Like It http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

More Please http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Dukezer0]

Looking foreward to it Wes.

Keep up the good work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

BTW, i don't think you should include valour bonuses for ships on any territory, they are a waste of time IMO. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[rory_20_uk]

I agree re: valour bonuses for ships. There are enough other units that could use the square.

[Hamburglar]

Hey WesW I've been gone for awhile but I have some new ideas for later MedMods


Boiling Oil - I think maybe boiling oil should be more devastating against the assaulters. As it is it barely does any damage to them and I really can kind of ignore it when I attack. I just expect to lose 5 or 10 guys at most to it so its not really a problem. I upped the power of it on my own in the projectilestats thing. I didn't bring up the power much but I gave it a Blast Radius like the cannons have because I think the oil would come down in a big splash and get a lot of guys. I'm keeping it as I have it for my machine but I'm just putting the idea out there if you like it.

Mongols - Maybe we could give them the Viking Raid bonuses. I don't know how, but it would fit them well if they could get lots of cash for smashing things. Fits with their personalities, eh? I don't know how to do this but if you do that'd be cool.

Other stuff:

I see a lot of the new units are only available in early. I don't really know why they are, but I think it'd just be better if they were available all the time. It's not like the Varangian Guard where they don't exist anymore - look at the Horsemen unit. It's just a guy on a horse with a spear. No reason it should disapear in 1205.

I think with the new units added a lot of the factions truly are balanced out and we don't need to do much fiddling with stats of units and adding stuff in and out etc. Arab Infantry are actually pretty decent troops and if they were available past Early they'd help with the Egyptian infantry force quite a bit. Maybe make them location bound to Arabian territories and Muslims so if the Turks expand southward they can use them too.



Possible Bug: I noticed that once I started playing with the most current MedMod, Roundshield Spearmen and Slav and Spanish Javliners don't leave corpses when they die. I dunno why. Might be just some weird bug with my game though.



That's all for now.

[rory_20_uk]

Hamburgalar, can you post those changes, as they sound like a good idea. I agree that boiling oil should really kill or incapacitate many troops that come close to the walls, rather than as it stands where losses are negligable.

[Hamburglar]

I think the blast radius really affects it well.


I went into projectilestats and I tripled the accuracy and I upped the lethality a tiny bit. Not sure how much because I'm dumb. I then gave it a blast radius size and blast radius damage equal to the mangonel I think.


I'm probably going to up it a little bit more. I modded my game so every unit is double-sized so I might be craving a bit more damage than everyone else.(playing on Units Size Huge is annoying because everything takes 2 turns to build)

I'm trying to think of how to make it so the boiling oil REALLY kills horses. As it is, a unit of Royal Knights can bust down a gate with few casualties, even with my modded oil. I don't think this should be the case because I doubt horses would stand around nicely while some guy dumps a bucket of hot oil on its head. If I could make horses scared of oil or something that'd be good.


Right now my oil is at the damage capacity that a 120 man unit of Chivalric Men at Arms loses a few more than half their guys when knocking down the gate. I'd say about a third of these losses are from arrows though, maybe a little less.



Also, I don't know if its possible, but I'd like to give boiling oil more "ammo". It only shoots like 5 times so if you're doing multiplayer you can take real advantage by just running a crappy peasant unit up to it 5 times and running out of the way every time it drops. You'll only lose a few crappy guys and then the oil will be empty.

Hey, I'm just a big fan of that boiling pot of death. Must have been all that time playing Lords of the Realm 2.



If the oil could have a lot of ammo I think it would be cool to have it dropping on the guys as they run THROUGH the gate because that would get a lot of kills. Plus, I'd cackle with glee when my 10 spearmen are holding 400 enemy assaulters in the gate and the oil dumps on them. I love the screams.



I've modded a couple more things in the game myself. I lowered the support costs of Royal Knights by a lot because the Danes tend to self destruct from their princes draining their economy. I also lowered the support costs of peasants by a LOT. I just figured they wouldn't really take anything to maintain. They don't get paid, and the only equipment they have is a colored shirt and a pointy stick. The only training they have is to walk in a line and know which way to point the sharp side of that stick.


I'm thinking about upping the capacity of all castles to make sieges last longer and maybe force the attacker to launch an assault more often if he wants to own the province.

[Grifman]

Wes,

Great mod, as always. A couple of problems though:

1) I get the MedMod campaigns along with the regular Early, High, Late campaigngs, but I don't see the MedMod Viking campaign show up.

2) Doesn't seem like your unit and prod files are compatible with the Gnome editor. I made a couple of changes with that tool, but the game then runs into a problem, I get an error message when I try to run the game after making a change.

Thanks,

Grifman

[Grifman]

Well, got the editor to run, so I must have screwed up somewhere http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif But still don't see your version of the Viking campaign.

BTW, having the best time with the Byzants this time. Usually, I can sweep the Turks and Egyptians by the time the Mongols arrive, but ain't gonna happen this time.

Grifman

[Wizard of Evil]

I really enjoyed the 1.85; is everything except the units same in this one ?

[WesW]

I hadn't realized I was gone from the forums for so long. (Spring in the South is my worst time of the year, and this Spring has been the worst in memory for allergins.)

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, guys. I have not run across any comments on the burning oil, and I am still having fun with the Viking campaign, so this is good info.

The thing regarding the corpses fits into the "weird and unique" category, which normally means it's either a bad download, or a coincidence with another problem your computer has developed.

Wiz, yes, most everything but the changes to regular (non-crusade) units is in the mod. See the Readme for more details.

Also, has anyone been playing the Viking camp with the 2.02 files? I finally started a new game with them, which means the merchant I added to Jutland is in there, and it has resulted in a totally new game. Basically, the Vikings are behaving as they were meant to; raiding, pillaging and generally raising hell all the way from East Sussex around to Wales. It finally took the combined efforts of every other faction to drive them off, and they still took out the Welsh before they were through.

The other factions are also building ships, at least the Picts have been. (I'm playing as the Scots.)

Basically, I have been challenged more, had tougher battles, and more overall suspense than I have ever had before with MTW, and I'm really not in any hurry to get back to the standard campaigns.

[+DOC+]

In addition to giving the Viking provinces merchants (as Wes has done), which in my opinion is a very good idea for the AI, there is another complementary modification which i have found to improve the terror factor and lastability of the AI Vikings.

Simply give them ~2 extra ships at the start.

One of the most common ways of the AI Vikings becoming ineffectual is by them losing enough ships to prevent them from raiding. They have 8 starting ships and it can sometimes be a considerable length of time before either of the Viking provinces are capable of building boats.

The AI will always position 1 ship adjacent to each of their home provinces and one ship in the middle sea separating Britain from their homelands. The extra ships allow them a little more variety in their raiding options (something the human player would instinctively have with only the 8 starting ships) and will also mean the Vikings will benefit more from trade at the same time. That is, assuming they are not at war will all the other factions.


EDIT: corrected the number of starting ships lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[econ21]

I haven't tried this mod with the VI campaign, which seems much tougher than the MTW ones anyway (at least, I was humbled as the Northumbrians a few times). However, I was getting bored as England on early facing the usual mass of French peasants, so I tried the no-units mod for that campaign.

I really like it.
(1) The AI picks much tougher units and as a consequence is much more aggressive.
(2) Some of the territorial changes are nice too - England becomes a genuine island but loses Anjou - probably a net gain; the Danes get a leg up with Norway etc.
(3) I haven't launched a crusade yet, but have been very impressed with the ones the AI factions put out - I would definitely think twice before refusing them permission to cross my land
(4) AI factions are building ships, but maybe a little less than the last time I tried the WesMod pre-VI when as England I got into a crazy naval arms race with France, neither of us leaving the Channel but trying to outproduce the other.
(5) I used to dislike having so many built up provinces in the mod, but now I like it - more realistic, gives more options for crusading; earlier access to knights etc.

Basically, all pluses and no minuses so far. Thanks, Wes.
[Really appreciate the no units aspect too.]

[WesW]

Glad to hear you like the mod, Simon. I keep thinking my unit changes would grow on you like the built up provinces, but I guess that can wait until the full version comes out. I plan on updating the No units version with any non-unit changes I make, so you can just re-install the No units version over the full version if you don't like it.

Btw, if any of you would like to try out my projectile text changes, you can simply get the 1.85 version, and swap the original file with mine. (Just use the Browse option when the install screen apprears to extract the mod to a temporary folder.) The specific changes are detailed in the 1.85 Readme.

DOC, I checked the startpos file, and the Vikings start with four ships in *each* province, so I don't think they would run out too fast. The current number allows them to reach the Irish Sea, which is the trade key, and it's this early trade income boost which is priming their pump so that they can start the pillaging.

[Hamburglar]

WesW - I and a lot of other people can't play the Viking MedMod version.

I start up a campain and I see Early, High, Late, and they all have MedMod versions, but the Viking campaign is only the normal one. I tried DLing the mod three times and every time I get this problem.

[Grifman]

As Wes politely pointed out to me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif, the VI campaign that does show up in the campaign selection screen IS his new version. Don't know why they both don't show up as the other campaigns do.

Grifman

[+DOC+]

Thanks for pointing out that mistake Wes. I've now edited my original post.

lol.

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

Giving them extra ships does give them a necessary early game boost though. Extra trade income and more viable raiding options other than the poor Picts or Northumbrians, which for some reason always seem to be targeted first.

[econ21]

Tried out another early Wesmod no units campaign last night as HRE (the French king died with no heirs in my English campaign so the campaign kind off lost its interest.). At first I thought the HRE had been over-strengthened, with the goldmine in Switzerland and the raised agricultural values in Franconia. But then first Hungary, then France and finally even Aragon started invading me. Great competitive battles - won some I should of lost and lost some I should have one. Much tighter and tougher than the standard campaign. Great stuff

[Hamburglar]

Woops - my mistake.


I just started playing it for a turn and could have sworn I saw Muster Fields when Wes said he trashed them.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ June 28 2003,13:27)]Woops - my mistake.


I just started playing it for a turn and could have sworn I saw Muster Fields when Wes said he trashed them.
No, guys, you're still not getting it. When you go to the Campaign Selection screen, the MM_Viking campaign is the first campaign listed, so it is *already selected* when the screen pops up. I sometimes have to remind myself of this, since your eye natually starts scanning the files which are the same color, but just look at the top of the list, and you will see it.

BTW, I don't know why this campaign isn't listed underneath the standard Viking campaign like the other files; in fact I can't figure out what the pattern is, period.

[Gregoshi]

Alx from the Entrance Hall posts the following comments about Med Mod 2.02 and the VI campaign:

-----
Hi,

I have played three VI campaigns in a row using Wes's [great] mod, using Irish, Northumbrians and Picts on expert, and all three times both the Welsh and the Saxons fell into civil wars that effectively deteriorated the south and southwest provinces of the mainland into rebels. This kills the campaign play, unfortunately, because rebels are just a mop up job. In one of the campaigns I also had the picts lose a king with no heir to illness while not being at war with anyone, and created half a dozen rebel provinces with full stacks. Same thing happened to Scots in another campaign.

Also, the vikings indeed play better with the Trader and more ship emphasis, but they still don't try to keep any of the provinces they raid. In fact, I placed a princess at their capital to watch what they're doing, and saw that despite having over 700 florins of income from that province alone, they would keep the majority of their army (as many as five heirs, each with 120 hurskarls - eek&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif just sitting there doing nothing, and raiding with the king and another unit or two. They certainly have the manpower now to quelch any rebellions in conquered provinces, but they don't even attempt to use it.

Another problem with the way the vikings play is they don't attack with their superior navy enough. Playing as the Irish, Northumbrians and the Picts, the first thing I did all three times was tech two of my provinces to shipway and make curraghs/boats/longboats and place them around my territories to prevent raids. Although I wasn't at war with them, the Vikings would not attack my zero defense curraghs/boats when they had a ranked general with two or more viking longboats in the same waters, basically making me invincible to their raids. This strategy is definitely too powerful.


Well, hope this helps at all in your development Wes; for me it's back to Byzantines for now http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

-----

[Yelping Godzilla]

I've played two very enjoyable campaigns using the 2.03 version. I'm prompted to post by Gregoshi's comments, as I have had something of a different experience.

In my first game I played as the Irish in my second the Northumbrians, both on expert. In both games the Saxons absoultely dominated, slowly grinding down the Mercians then crushing the Welsh, before invading Northumbria. As the Irish I landed a large invasion force in the North, having taken the Ireland and proceeded to assist the Picts in stomping the Scots, before joining the Saxons in a land grab as Northumbria was torn apart. I then waged a lengthly and vicious war against the Saxons, where the winning force for me came from the sheer power of massed armies of Gallowglass, which wore down the Saxons enough that I was able to secure a rapid win. During this game the Vikings raided pretty much only with their king and maybe a handful of Landsmen, though I couldn't always see what they were up to. They took over Manau and a couple of Mercian provinces and held them, but when my Irish and the Saxons really turned the map into a battle of superpowers, they were simply crushed and expelled. This is in contrast to the second game, as the Northumbrians, which I actually lost, in which the Vikings not only took about a quarter of the map, scattered about, but were the biggest danger to my kingdom. I always seemed to be battling those damned Huscarles and as Northumbria I simply didn't have the troops to match them, nor the finances to keep fighting. Indeed in this game I really only battled Vikings and rebels, struggling to keep my kingdom together until the Mercians finally fell to a civil war and were completely conquered in under ten years by the Saxons, who fought raging battles with large numbers of Viking armoured spears (they should be building Carls instead of spears, surely?). When the Saxons set their sights on my kingdom, they found it half controlled by seemingly invincible Viking royals and spears and half controlled by weakened and now in debt Northumbrians, whose best units were Fyrdmen. I was crushed. All things considered the Vikings would probably have been turfed out by the Saxons, but by the end of Northumbria it was just Irish, Picts, Saxons and Vikings left, the Irish had just begun to invade, the Picts were being smashed by Vikings and the Saxons were unopposed. as for the Irish, I suspect they had turned Ireland into a floating fortress much as I had.

So, great fun and the first time I've seen AI Vikings kicking ass.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Great posts, guys.
Well, since I am just about to start my first game with the 2.03 version, I will comment on what I have observed with the 2.02 version, but I would ask that you put further 2.03 experiences in that version's thread, and copy posts you want to reply to over into over to it.
I guess I should have requested that we keep the 2.00 thread for posts, and the others for update announcements and bugs only, but it's too late now.

Anyway, I too have noticed that keeping generals' loyalty seems much harder in the expansion. (I don't have access to anything that affects this.) In my last game, as the Scots, I had an awful time trying to find generals with more than 2 or 3 points of loyalty to place in command of rear-line provinces. After I had won a half-dozen battles or so, things got better, but in the beginning it was worse than I had ever seen it.
Also, I started a game as the Irish to see if the 2.03 version worked ok, and on the 2nd turn I received the message warning of disloyal generals. If the AI is facing anything remotely similar, their factions are going to dissolve into civil war if they lose a battle or two.

As for the Vikings, I will try and place some Thralls and peasants in their home provinces, and see if that enables them to send more of their best troops into battle. Stuff like AI behavior is out of my hands, at least directly. The best I can do is try and figure out what is affecting that behavior, and make modifications to move it in a better direction.

As for the Viking navy, I was repeatedly attacked by them, and had to devote significant efforts to shipbuilding to ever gain control of the seas around my provinces.
What I *have* noticed is that the Vikings don't seem to replace their naval losses, or not very rapidly. I may give Jutland a more advanced shipbuilder, in order to have it building ships instead of armies.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Ehh, no problem WesW. I actually missed the fact that this was the older thread until halfway through the post, so I figured it wouldn't do that much harm posting it here.

Just as I don't think there's much harm in me posting this too. I don't think the reduced loyalty in VI is a big problem, in fact I much prefer it for these reasons.

A. Before concepts of nationality, loyalty was a far greater problem and far more personal.
B. Princesses are now actually very useful for salvaging the loyalty of powerful generals, as well as putting them in line for the throne of course.
C. More civil wars really spices the game up for a human player.
D. Titles must now be more strategically assigned.
E. The Viking raids, almost a certain loss in battle, are more effective.

Not sure how much the loyalty is lessened in the medieval periods, but since I first played medieval civil wars have become far more frequent and almost always fun.

A perhaps annoying question, WesW, but when can we expect a VI with units version of MedMod? I understand that the additions to the main campaigns that come from the expansion and availability of new material mean you can't just throw in all the old unit/building changes piecemeal, however I still play the old periods half the time I'm playing medieval. I miss all the old alterations and I find in many cases the added units and features don't seem to fit very well - looking forward to seeing balanced and interesting unit lineups which include the new units and take them into account.

Keep up the good work, in other words.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Well the rebellions are a good challenge for the human, but I always look at how the AI handles things, and this feature could be very bad for the AI, unless they get loyalty bonuses.

As for the Full version, I am beginning to get that itch again, so when I get the Viking Camp up to par, and I think I am about there, I will start doing some heavy lifting on the Full version.
One thing that will help a lot is that I can use the NoUnits files as a starting point, and just concentrate on the units. This is one reason I haven't minded working on the V-Camp- the testing and changes made there can almost always be carried over to the full version.
Also, one of the main features of the Full version is going to be the addition of many small, new factions to replace the Rebel territories, and I wanted to see if new factions *could* be added before we spent a lot of time on them.
Once A_B helps me decide on what to call the new factions, I will post a thread for ideas on their unit line-ups. Nothing too radical- I 'm just looking for their general flavor, and if there was anything special or unique about them.
After that, it will be a matter of getting into the nitty-gritty of selecting bifs and customizing folders, texts, etc. I hope A_B or someone else with experience would take over this Textures work, while I concentrated on the units text and startpos files. And the Readmes and spreadsheets, of course. I want to use CA's sheet to do this all from, but it may still be a lot of work beyond that.

Since we have v1.85 as a model, it may not take too long to bang it out, once we get started.

[ToranagaSama]

Took some short time last night, loaded 2.03 over 2.02 and gave the Scilians a go. I haven't been keeping up lately and didn't remember or wasn't aware of all the goals set for this version.

I found out in this thread, Med Mod2 spearmen changed? (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=Post;CODE=06;f=15;t=8766;p=120939) , over in the Entrance Hall.

As I posted in that thread, do you some factions have round and square shielded spear units? Specifically, do the Scilians?

I started the game with a unit of square shields, but it doesn't seem as if the Scilians can actually build square shields. Is this correct and deliberate?

I haven't checked the stats yet, but it appeared to me that squares win out when pitted against rounds.

[Yelping Godzilla]

There's no difference in stats between square pegs and round pegs,.. uh, square shields and round shields.

The change is cosmetic and stems from the installation of VI, not any version of the MedMod.

Some factions have round, some have square.

EEUURAAH.