Medmod IV v3 preliminary faction unit lineup

[WesW]

Preliminary unit list:

All factions will have access, in all provinces, to basic Spearmen, plus Archers, Crossbowmen, and gunpowder units, as well as Javelin-throwing cavalry shirmishers, and Peasants. Note that these units will not have the two morale points that were added for the expansion.
In addition, all Catholic factions will be able to produce Royal Bodyguards in all their provinces, unless stated otherwise, since this represents the local nobility. These units are 50% more expansive, man per man, than regular knights, so I think this provides a reasonable trade-off for the additional strength they provide. I may create a Royal Druzhina Bodyguard for the Russians with similar costs and availability. Also, unless specified, the Royal Bodyguard units are unchanged from the basic game.
This means that the restricted units are basically advanced spearmen, blades, polearms and non-royal cavalry, as well as faction specialties such as Longbowmen.

At this point, I have no plans to alter any of the Muslim units from the 1.84 version of the mod, except perhaps the return of some cavalry units to their original settings. Note that the Muslim factions will have a Homeland region as well.
Thus, I have listed below the units that will be restricted to each Christian faction's Homeland provinces, with mercenary suggestions where there are no native options.
Note that all non-regional Catholic units may be built in the Outremer (Palestine, Antioch and Tripoli). In addition, French units, which are used by the Crusader Kingdoms, may be built in Cyprus.

Current regionally restricted units such as Steppe Cav are implied to still be available as before, though this could change later on for a few such units.

New concept: Homelands. A dozen or so provinces that share the same ethnicity as a given faction, usually encompassing the faction's territory and some surrounding provinces. Note that two or more factions may claim the same province, where their peoples intermingle. This can often lead to conflict between the factions.

New concepts: restricted Inns and Buildable Mercenary units.
Inns can now be built only in provinces where the Mercenary "good" is found. These provinces will generally be in areas where ethnic Homelands overlap, and thus conflict is more likely, or in areas where special mercenary troops are available, such as in Ireland.
Each faction will generally have an Inn available at the start of the game. Thus, as your empire expands, you may be able to capture other designated provinces, build them up, and use them as further recruitment centers. However, this will take time and money.
Buildable mercenary units require all of the buildings that they would were they normal troops, in addition to the Inn, and may be built by any faction. These units cost 50% more than comparable units, just like Royal Bodyguards. They are a way of:
1)filling in the gaps certain factions have in their native troops, including Muslim factions
2)fielding balanced armies, or
3)just bulking up your forces, but all at a premium.
Note that Inns cost more to construct than before, since their potential effect is greater, especially for factions such as the Byzantines.

Generic buildable merc units (faction-specific units are specified in the faction unit lists below):
Alan Merc Cav- All eras
Germanic Knights- Feudal Kns; High and Late eras
Mercenary Viking Landsmenn- Early era only
Mercenary Gallowglasses- High and Late eras
Swiss Mercenary Pikemen- Late era only, Northern Europe
Almughavars- Late era only, Mediterranean region


Huns
The Huns have a hybrid force of both Eastern and Western unit types, which reflects their struggles against both Muslim and Christian forces.
Note: The Poles and Hungarians have lost the ability to launch Crusades that was added for v1 of the mod.

Early-
Hungarian Nobles- Feudal Kns.
Szekely Horsearchers- use VI stats
Bulgarian Brigands- bonus in Bulgaria
Woodsmen (regional)- Woodsmen now have a large shield and a little better descipline, which places them in between Urban Militia and Viking Landsmenn. Also, they can now be found all over Europe, except for the open Steppes, Italy and Iberia.

High-
Serbian Husars- Teutonic Sgts.; bonus in Serbia
Bashtina- Chiv. Kns.; buildable mercs
Transylvanian Archers- Arm. Ottoman Inf.
Croatian Spearmen- Chiv. Sgts.

Late-
Knights of the Banderium- Kns of Santiago
Clipeati- Pikemen
Armati Infantry- Halberdiers

Poles
The Poles are a somewhat hybrid force as well, though they develop some very nice heavy units in the last half of the medieval period, and are further strengthened in the Late era by their merger with Lithuania.
Note: The Poles and Hungarians have lost the ability to launch Crusades that was added for v1 of the mod.

Early-
Szekely Horsearchers- use VI stats; bonus in Moldavia
Polish Retainers
Baltic Infantry (regional)- Bulgarian Brigands; bonus in Novgorod
Woodsmen- bonus in Prussia

High-
Czeladz Bowmen- Mtd. X-bow w/Byzantine Cav. stats
Czeladz Lancers- Teutonic Sgts.
Knights of Dobrzyn- Kns. Templar
Polish Militia- Billmen
Silesian Spearmen- Chiv Sgts.

Late-
Rycerz- Kns. of Santiago
Rycerz Swordsmen- Hospitaller Ft. Kn.
Silesian Pikemen- Pikemen; bonus in Silesia

HRE
HRE units have lower than normal morale, though they do get a boost in the Late era from their unique ability to hire Landsknecht buildable mercenaries, from Inns located within their Homeland. In addition, their Homeland is larger than normal, encompassing the traditional HRE provinces, plus Livonia and parts of Poland and Hungary.
There are two Landsknecht units: Pikemen and Halberdiers.
These units have better than average morale, and impressive stats, so an integrated force, combined with the excellent German mounted units, can be a very potent army.
They *are* mercenaries, however, so they cost somewhat more than regular units, though less than typical mercs.

Early-
Dienstleuten- Mounted Sgts.
Knechte- Feudal Kns.; bonus in Bavaria (reflects seat of power)
Heerban- FMAA

High-
Teutonic Sgts.
Teutonic Kns.- Chiv Kns.; bonus in Prussia
Swabian Swordsmen- Swabia only
Teutonic Spearmen- Chiv. Sgts.

Late-
Gothic Kns.- bonus in Austria (reflects seat of power)
Gothic Ft. Kns.
Gothic Sgts.

Danes
The descendents of the Vikings remain strong in infantry, but weak in the other areas (spears and cavalry).

Royal Huscarles are the 40-man bodyguard unit for Danish nobility, and have early, high and late versions.

Early-
Viking Raider Cav- like VC
Viking Landsmenn- like VC; bonus in Norway
Viking Karlsmenn- orig. Byz. Inf.

High-
Nordic Mauraders- Mtd. Sgts.
Viking Huscarles- Hosp. Ft. Kns.

Late-
Mtd. Huscarles- lower-quality Gothic Kns.
Armoured Huscarles- JomsVikings

French
The French are somewhat the *default* faction, being the one that CA seems to have built the Catholic factions' unit lineup around. Well, I have managed to work in a couple of wrinkles which I think you will like.

The French bodyguard units are their era's knights, namely the Destriders, Chevaliers and Lancers. This means that those units are available for that era only, though the French nobility will lead impressive, 40-man units, reflecting French supremecy in mounted knighthood.
In addition, the French knights will still retain their bodyguard status, meaning they may be built in *all* French-controlled provinces.

The French, as well as the English, can obtain superior Flemish Pikemen from Flanders, should they be able to capture and hold that rebellious province.

Early-
Destriders- Feudal Kns.; bonus in Anjou
Feudal MAA
Urban Militia
Woodsmen
Pyrennese Brigands (sp?); Fyrdmen; regional; Catholic
High-
Chevaliers- Chiv. Kns.
Mtd. Sgts.
Militia Sgts.
Basque Inf.- Armoured Spearmen; regional; Catholic only

Late-
Lancers
Gendarmes- bonus in Paris
Compagnies d'Ordonnance- Hosp. Ft. Kns
Voulgiers- Halbs.
Partisans- Pikemen

English
The English develop potent archer units as the period progresses, get the unique Billman unit, and maintain adequate knights from their French possessions. Their native spear units are quite poor, however.

The English, as well as the French, can obtain Scottish Highlanders and/or Pikemen, with Highlanders available in all eras while Pikemen arrive in the High era. Though the Pikemen are of poorer quality than the regular unit that developed later, they, like Billmen, can be an advantage in the High era, and may be the only option available to the English in the Late era. In addition, Irish Bonnaghts (MM v2.04 stats) may be bought as buildable mercenaries.

Early-
Norman Knights- Feudal Kns.; bonus in Normandy
Norman Sgts.- Mtd. Sgts.
Woodsmen
Bonnaughts- Irish buildable mercenaries; Ireland only
Longbowmen
Fyrdmen- like VC

High-
Muntators- Sp. Jinettes
Welsh Longbowmen- Welsh Bandits w/bucklers
Billmen- bonus in Mercia
Gallowglasses- available in Northumbria and Scotland; bonus in Scotland.

Late-
Knights of Gascon- Chiv. Kns.
Hobilars- Sp. Jinettes+1; bonus in Ireland
Mercian Longbowmen- Sherwood Foresters w/bucklers

Spanish/Aragonese
When the Medieval period begins, the Christian factions have been pushed to the nothern highlands of the Iberian Peninsula by the Muslim invaders. The Early era covers the time when the Christians turned the tide of the war, the High era when the Almohad Empire collapsed due to losses and civil strife, and the Late era when the Christians set about consolidating their gains, including the initiation of the Inquisition, and the mopping up of the remaining Muslim-controlled areas.
The Sp/Ar enjoy a price discount on their units, and have stronger than average militia troops, as their people are used to defending their towns, and this war was about ethnic and cultural survival, rather than plunder or political aspirations.
Tercio units do not have a price discount, coming as they do after Spanish survival has been assured, but they do not have a price penalty, either, like Landsknechts.

Early-
Spanish Jinetes; bonus in Valencia
Kns. of Hidalgo- Feudal Kns.
Spanish Militia- Viking Landsmenn
Pyrennese Brigands (sp?); Fyrdmen; regional; Catholic only; bonus in Navarre

High-
Kns. Calatrava- Chiv. Kns.; bonus in Aragon
Caballeros- Teutonic Sgts.
Spanish Militia Sgts.- Viking Huscarles, can melee w/sh.
Basque Inf.- Armoured Spearmen; regional; Catholic only

Late-
Kns. of Santiago- bonus in Leon
Spanish Ft. Kns.- Hosp. Ft. Kns.
Tercio Pikemen- Swiss Pikemen

Italians
The Italians will be split between two factions; the Venetians and the Tuscan Confederacy. The Venetians will control Venice and all Italian provinces to the east, while the Tuscans will control everything west of Venice.
This will result in two relatively small factions, though ones with potent defensive troops and the potential to raise large armies through a profitable sea trade over time. The Venetians in particular could be poised to become a major power in the High era, when they will control Constantinople in addition to the normal Italian states.
Italian units are built to defend against attacks by their larger Christian neighbors, such as France and the HRE. This has lead to the development of superior spear units, and at an earlier era than other Catholic factions. Well-trained, versatile crossbow units are also a hallmark of Italian armies.
In addition, the constant skirmishes and outright wars among each other, along with the Lombards and Sicilians to the south, has resulted in Contadina and Popolo militias that are stronger than normal.
On the negative side, the urban nature of the Italian power structure, built more around trade than feudalism, means that Italian nobles have not attained nor kept pace with the martial prowess and technological development of their Catholic peers, though they do get some help with the arrival of Mercenary Hospitaller Knights in the Late era.

Early-
Italian Nobles- Feudal Kns.
Contadina Cav.- Mtd. Sgts. w/X-bows
Contadina Inf.- Militia Sgts.
Italian Sailors- Bul. Brigands w/X-bows; bonus in Genoa
Ital. Lt. Inf.- bonus in Milan

High-
Popolo Cav.- Teutonic Sgts.
Italian MAA- FMAA
Carraccio Guard- Varangian Guard
Popolo Inf.- Billmen; bonus in Tuscany
Pavise Sailors- Ital. Sailiors with pavise sh.
Pavisiers- Gothic Sgts.

Late-
Hosp Merc Kns.- buildable mercs; Chapterhouse required instead of Inn
Hosp. Ft. Kns.- buildable mercs; Chapterhouse required instead of Inn
Condoterri- Swiss Halberdiers; bonus in Rome
Pavisier Pikemen- Swiss Arm. Pikemen

Sicilians
The Sicilians have perhaps the most unique army in all of Christendom, in that it employs significant numbers of Muslim troops in its repertoire, as well as Italian units and Norman and Teutonic Knights.

Early-
Norman Kns.- Feudal Kns.; Malta, Sicily and Naples only
Berber Camel Warriors
Mamluk Horse Archers
Contadina Cav.- Mtd. Sgts. w/X-bows
Contadina Inf.- Militia Sgts.
Futuwwa
Nubian Spearmen

High-
Teutonic Kns.- Malta, Sicily and Naples only
Popolo Cav.- Teutonic Sgts.
Popolo Inf.- Billmen
Pavise Sailors- Bul. Brigands w/X-bows and Pavise Sh.
Murabitin Inf.

Late-
Hosp Merc Kns.- buildable mercs; Chapterhouse required
Hosp. Ft. Kns.- buildable mercs; Chapterhouse required
Almughavars (buildable merc)

Russians
The Russian forces change character with their subjugation by the Mongols. Before, they were modelled along similar lines to the Feudal Europeans, but after their forced vassalage, they gradually changed until they closely resembled the Steppe peoples they were primarily combating.
However, their western provinces do have the ability to produce western-style heavy infantry if it is needed to combat invading Teutonic Kns. or others.
Russian bodyguard units are 20-man Royal Druzhina Knights, which have separate variations for each era.
Note: Remember that the Steppes produce several types of cavalry which the Russians will have access to.

Early-
Boyars- unchanged
Woodsmen
Peshtsi- Slav Warriors; 100-man unit
Kop'ya Infantry- Feudal Sgts.

High-
Russian Retainers- Boyars w/ X-bow
Peshtsi Sgts.- Militia Sgts.
Rogatina Infantry- Rus Spearmen

Late-
Russian Dvors- Khazar Royal Cav w/axe
Cossacks- Teutonic Sgts.
Berdyshi- Halberdiers
Ratniki solva- Swiss Arm. Pikemen

Byzantines
The Byzantines are unique in the game for several reasons: the professional nature of their armed forces, the extent to which they used foreign mercenaries, their geographical location, and their history, such as how they begin the High era having lost their capital province to a deceitful combination of hypocritical Crusaders and schemeing trading rivals. Even though they were eventually able to recapture Constantinople, Byzantine power had been dealt a deadly blow, and the following years were simply the death throes of the empire.
Even though very capable units could have been raised or hired by the Byzantines, they were too crippled to make wide use of them. Though a start in the Early era gives you the opportunity to strike at your enemies before they can gain strength, later games will be a task of holding off the numerous aggressors around you, and then using your advanced units to grow your empire.
The Byzantines have access to perhaps more impressive units than any faction in the game, but they are hampered from raising large numbers of these troops by the geographic restrictions of many native units, and the mercenary status of the heaviest units, whose armour and training are foreign to the ways of the East.
To represent the large amounts of mercenaries in the Byzantine armies, they are given the ability to build Inns in three of their Homeland's provinces: Constantinople, Bulgaria and Greece.
Bulgaria and Greece were chosen because they are part of the Empire in all three eras, and to represent the fact that most mercenaries hired were fellow Christians from Europe.
Note that Constantinople is considered a European province.

The new, 20-man Kataphractoi bodyguards have added a bow and heavy lance to their already impressive arsenal. With upgraded armouries, they continue to be an effective unit for the duration of the Medieval period.

EARLY-
Kataphraktoi; bonus in Constan
Stratiotai- Byz. Lancers
Vardariots- Byz. Cav.
Hoplitai- Feudal Sgts. with an attack of 2; bonus in Greece
(Early) Varangian Guard- early only; buildable mercs; Constan only
Trebizond archers- bonus in Trebizond

HIGH-
Pronoiai Allagion- bonus in Nicaea; Asia Minor only
Kontaratoi- Italian Lt Inf. w/+1 attack
Paramonai- CMAA; Europe only
Mourtatoi- armoured Trebizonds, only available in certain coastal provinces

LATE-
Imperial Kavallarioi- Gothic Kns.; buildable mercs
Imperial Menavlatoi- Swiss Halberdiers; buildable mercs
Imperial Skutatoi- Swiss Pikemen; buildable mercs

Golden Horde
The Horde will retain their bonuses from the 1.85 version, plus they have some new units from their vast empire, and of course access to all the Steppe units.

High-
Mongol Heavy Cav.
Mongol HA
Mongol Warriors
Chinese Infantry- Saracen Inf.
Chinese Mangonels- w/exploding ammo ala gunpowder arty

Late-
Berdyshi- Halberdiers (from subjugated Steppe border provinces)
Ratniki solva- Swiss Arm. Pikemen (from subjugated Steppe border provinces)

This finishes up the major factions.

For the minor factions, I currently have:

Swiss, Late only;- Swiss units, Italian spear units, HRE and French infantry, Fr. and HRE Early-era Kns. and Mtd. Sgts. The Swiss are very strong in infantry, but weaker in mounted units than even the Italians. The Swiss have access to most infantry units of their three surrounding neighbors over the entire Homeland of those respective units. This means that the Swiss can potentially recruit troops from a very large area, but will this be enough to build an empire given their weakness in mounted units?

Ottoman and Seljuk Turks;- eras yet to be worked out. Both will use current Turkisk units.

Burgundians, Late;- Flemish Pikemen; French units

Papacy- Italian units

Lithuanians, Early and High eras (E&H);- Boyars for BD unit, Lith. Cav. instead of Polish Retainers, Polish units otherwise.
Livonians, Early only;- People of Novgorod. Russian and regional units.
Prussians, E&H;- Lith. Cav. BD, Polish units otherwise.
Teutonic Order, H&L;- Germanic units
Swedes, all eras;- Danish units
Scots, all eras;- Scottish units
Irish, Early only;- Irish units
Serbians, H&L;- Hungarian units
Kievans, E&H;- Russian units
Cumans, E&H;- regional units
Georgians, all eras;- Byzantine units
Cilician Armenians, all eras;- Byzantine units
Crusader Kingdoms, High era only;- French units plus Turcopoles
Tunisian Berbers, all eras;- regional units
Portuguese, and Basque, all eras;- Spanish units

[Yelping Godzilla]

My greatest initial concern is the amount of jav armed units, whether mounted or on foot. You say that all factions will have access to basic jav infantry, but I'm not sure this would be historically accurate, not to mention that even with javs modded to aadd range (they cannot skirmish and get close enough to throw unmodded) the AI is pretty rubbish at using them.

I wouldn't mind seeing an axe armed nordic/viking mercenary unit on the mercenary unit roster in early, Northern Europe. They were still the best infantry in Europe at this point and they give factions such as the English, who aren't 'blade' heavy a better chance of killing off some French knights early on. Would include Gael Gaedhil, ostmen from Ireland, nordic scots, viking remnants and so on.

I'll keep posting :]

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

I agree with YG - javelin armed infantry and light cavalry skirmishers were not that common and were generally remarkable when they were around.

I think I'd switch the German and Polish knights around - make the German mercenaries Gothic, and the Poles Feudal - IIRC Gothik Knights are heavily protected but have a fairly low charge and attack? I think this probably fits their image better as not quite as good as "real" knights, while Polish knigts were considered as good as any except the French.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Hakonarson: Do you know anything about 'Romanian' armed forces during the MTW period? I seem to remember being told that they had particularly good, if comparatively lightly armoured knights.

WesW: Just noticed the word Landsknechts at the bottom of your post.

I presume you are going to make German Landsknechts a mercenary unit available across Europe in Late (possible discount for HRE hiring them)? My only question would be, how will they be different from Swiss pikemen in the game? I know that in reality they were famed for their use of not only pikes but also staggeringly large and heavy two handed swords. I don't think this dual use can be covered by one unit, so I'd like to suggest that they might be split into two, Landsknecht pike and Lansknecht flambergers. The pike unit holds the enemy medium infantry and heavy cavalry, the flambergers (two handed sowrd infantry) chop up the heavy infantry and then finish off troublesome knights.

Been waiting for a chance to use Landsknechts, so please tell me they're in :]

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

Romanians had a fierce reputation - particularly under Dracula - but their "heavy" cavalry was fairly light - they didn't use spurs apparently, so didn't wear leg armour to allow them to control their horses properly with their legs. Otherwise they resembled western knights - wearing plate armour, long lances, etc.

Most Romanian cavalry were bow-armed light skirmishers tho' - still considered fierce and extrmely good, but doing a completely different job.

The OTHER Romanians are the Romanian Franks - those that took over large parts of Greece in teh wake of het 4th Crusade's capture of Constantinople in 1204 - they weer apaperntly extremely highly regarded.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I think I'm actually thinking of both and combining them - the Romanian heavy cavalry and the Romanian Frank knights merge to create a highly regarded non spurred heavy knight, heh.

Thanks for the information. I wonder if it's worth including Romanian territorial units (Frank or otherwise).

EEUURAAH.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Ah, you've edited in more faction lineups. It all looks very good, I epsecially like the idea of the French recruiting their nobility from any province. I presume the royal bodyguard unit size for the french will be 40 knights default?

One major question I have is this; Will there be sufficient overlap in useful non basic units between factions that provinces can be given valour bonus which makes the province useful for either side? For example, will the standard generic MTW Chivalric Knight unit be kept on for factions like England and France, then assigned a valour bonus in a province that could belong to either of them? I'm a little worried that by reducing the number of generic (non basic) units shared between factions, the very cool territorial bonus strats from v1.85 will be negated.

While I like the differing factional units which fill certain existing roles (such as Germanic swordsmen as FMAA for HRE), I'm not sure leaving out the generic units would be a good idea - presumably each factional type is subtley different from the generic and in some cases replaces it entirely (again, germanic swordsmen/FMAA etc). However I'd like to see a few factions share that generic - FMAA still being used by the French /and/ Polish for example.

Anyhoo. Looks good.

EEUURAAH.

[Hamburglar]

Hey Wes

Just some thoughts:


1) I think Javelin type units shouldn't be all over the place. They were kind of rare to begin with in Medieval times and making every faction have them seems to be overkill. PLUS, more importantly, the AI doesn't know how to use them well. I find that Slav Javlinmen really REALLY hurt the Hungarian and Russian armies in the campaign because they fill up on them and they are basically a crappy throwaway unit that never gets a chance to chuck its spears and just dies immediately. Same thing with the Mounted Javelins. The AI doesn't ever use them correctly. They just march them up to your lines and
A) Try to throw a javelin but get skirmished away when you take two steps forward.
B) Get pummelled by your missle tropps
C) Get surrounded and smashed quite easily



2) Where's the love for the Feudal Men at Arms? I think every Catholic faction should have these guys. Factions that don't will be at a MAJOR disadvantage. I can see the French utterly RAPING the English since the English have ZERO strong infantry units in Early. They seem way too weak - they don't even have militia units besides crappy Fyrdmen. I think militia sergeants and urban militia should be available across the board to everyone, but only in their home provinces. I can see the Byzantines really tearing up the Hungarians with their Byz Inf because the Huns have nothing to fight it with. Poles have no halfway decent infantry either. I think Feudal Sergeants or Feudal Men at Arms are an essential backbone.

3) Gallowglasses. Why only High and Late? they were in the Viking campaign thus they were in VERY Early, plus the description itself says they are an old unit, a relic of earlier times. Every other High and Late unit in the game is something that "developed" or was "invented" over time. I see Gallowglasses as having been there for quite awhile.

4) German units: Giving them lower morale I think is pretty bad. No reason for it either. Germans have a HARD enough time surviving through the Early Age as a powerful country and making them have crappier morale is gonna slam them. Sure, they might be good in Late but they're never gonna survive till then. The average German soldier was no more cowardly than the average Frenchman, Pole, or Italian, but you're making it that way. They just weren't very unified. I think the low loyalty of their generals is enough to hurt them. Besides, I think the Germans got shafted anyway by making Italy so strong. Historically, Italy existed in a FAR LESS unified form than Germany. Germany was at least united in name, Italy truly was just a bunch of provinces with no loyalty to each other whatsoever.

5) Where's the love for the CMAA? It seems nobody gets them. Just a little weird. I didn't think they were that "overkill"

6) Pikemen - I understand that some factions have "unique" Pikemen, but in the Late Age practically every Catholic army had a decent contingent of Pikemen AND Halberdiers (Hey, are they even on here at all?). Hiring mercenary Pikemen is difficult and expensive, kind of eliminating the point of them in the first place. They were the next evolution in spears, and denying them to a lot of factions because someone stole their Inn isn't cool.

7) Hobilars: Why Late period? And why make them missile troops? Historically they were available quite early and that they were simply very light horsemen used for scouting and chasing down crappy troops. Don't change our precious hobilars into a missile troop pleaaaaase.

8)Arbalests: Don't see them on here whatsoever. You didn't list them in the "every faction" list so I'm just wondering who does and doesn't get them.

9)Danes: They truly did get out of that whole Viking Thing later in the Medieval ages. The game illustrates this well with them not having Viking Invasion units in any era but early. Towards the Late era they were pretty much like many other Catholic armies and maybe they should get some "normal" knights and infantry.


The main problem I'm seeing here is that there's not many "standard" infantry units for factions to base their troops on. Its just a lot of specialization. The Feudal Sergeants and Feudal Men at Arms truly are the backbone of almost every Catholic nation, and getting rid of them seems kind of weird. I really woudl support just having an "English Man at Arms" and "Polish Man at Arms" or whatever (name them whatever you like) and just make them restricted to each factions home province. This way on the Big Long Conquering Tours they still can't build too many of them but they at least have that Rank and File infantry available.


I love the MedMod, this is why I write these insanely long posts, but it just seems you took the HomeLand concept that we started discussing months ago a little too far. It just seems that there's way too many holes in the unit lineups. For example, this is what England can build in the Early Age.

Royal Knights
Norman Knights
Mounted Sergeants
Fyrdmen
Spearmen
Archers
Peasants
and then apparently some skirmishing unit.

That seems REALLLLLLY light.

For infantry they have a choice of Fyrdmen or Spearmen essentially, both being Spear units and both having VERY low morale and both will rout at the mere contact of Feudal Men at Arms *which the French have*. The only English "strength" is their Cavalry but you said yourself the French Cav is going to be far superior.

In High the English get a decent infantry unit in the Billmen and Gallowglasses(Only in Ireland, right?). But the French improve even more with Chivalric Knights, Militia Sergeants, and Muwahid Foot.



Yeah this is getting REALLLLLY long winded but I just wanted to say what I've noticed and it seems that a lot of the delicate balance has been completely thrown off. I think a lot of it would be solved by bringing the Militia and the Feudal units back to All-Catholics so no country is a lot weaker. They should all have a similar base and then work off of their strengths.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I know you directed the post towards Wes, but I'd like to make a few points in response to yours.

1. Pretty much agree. Jav units just weren't that common. If the javs were modified to have extra range to avoid the skirmishing problem, the AI weighting would still need to be reduced, since the AI is poor with them. I don't think it's worth removing slavjavs, spanjavs etc though, if they are weighted correctly.

2. The English really didn't use very many FMAA, which is to say they didn't use many swordsmen. Giving them spear and bow armies doesn't make that much sense for Early though, since the English weren't a bow heavy army in that period. Bear in mind that the English will be able to get, presumably, light offensive infantry in the form of highland clansmen/celts/irish units etc though. I agree the FMAA FS etc 'generic' units should be available to most, but the idea is to force differences between the catholic factions. Historically I think most if not all catholic factions could raise urban militia (Wes said basic non homeland units wouldn't be in the faction unit lists) but a lot of them probably wouldn't field many Militia Sergeants.

3. CA have Gallowglass, or Galloglaich, wrong as far as I'm concerned. They're Scottish (not Pict) and they appeared in Irish armies in the High/Late periods commonly as mobs of mercenaries, using axes. That's where the confusion comes in - they were more common in Ireland than anywhere else because they were the best mercenaries readily available to Irish lords looking to gain power. They were around in Early but not so common, active or successful. They're often mixed up with Gael Gaedhil, which were Irish/Nordic axe waving lunatics. Don't know how they should fit into V3.

4. Not sure what Wes means about the extra morale in VI being removed. I presume the HRE will be the same as everyone else for basic inf morale. If not, I agree with you, they shouldn't be handicapped :]

5. Hmm. I don't know much about the use of CMAA historically, but I doubt they were that heavily used, especially by some factions. I do think they should be present, as a generic unit, but not for catholic factions who avoided heavy sword foot, or already used massed dismounted knights. Er, actually if they used massed dismounted knights, they'd be more likely to have CMAA, so ignore me.

6. I figured pikemen in late counted as a basic unit you could raise outside your homelands.

7. I think horsemen have replaced hobilars. Historically, I believe they were the same thing. Mounted infantry that stayed mounted in battle. I'd like to see the two distinguished from eachother, with horsemen being a non-homeland basic unit, that takes the MTW standard hobilar role (only with more accurate/balanced stats) and hobilars being a homeland unit available only to say one third the catholic factions, with higher morale, being dedicated harassment/capture/ambush cavalry. Still mounted infantry rather than dedicated heavy cav (knights) or cav support (mounted sergeants) but with higher morale, slightly better speed etc otherwise same as they ever were.

8. Basic troops again? On a very personal note, I want to see arbalests increased further in quality from crossbows (range, lethality etc), costing more and being rarer. At the moment, they simply replace the crossbow, which is irritating. Arbalests in MTW mean heavy crossbows, heavy crossbows require much more training and dedication to use, hence they weren't massed levy weapons.

9. No idea. I thought in many places, such as Finland and Norway, change was slow, but that it was quick in Denmark itself.


I know my reply isn't exactly as important as WesW's, eheh, since it's his mod, but I figure discussion can't hurt. Good to see intelligent comments.

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

Gallowglasses aren't only "high and late" I believe they are "early and late" or "early and high"....should implement them all over northern brittania.

[WesW]

Let me see if I can clear some things up here...

HB, you need to read the Advice Needed thread I started last week to get info on the historical makeup of the medieval armies of each faction. It's probably on page 2 now. It explains a lot of where this list comes from, plus I give some other explanations of my aims with the mod.
A lot of the questions you raised are answered or cleared up in that thread, though YP did a good job with several of them.

My thoughts on unit use:

From my experiences, which I admit may not be as extensive as many of your's, the AI does ok with Sp. Jinettes. It's the infantry that they can't use, because it can be ridden down by faster infantry or cavalry. The jav-cav units (jav-cav is a unit from my other medmods) are meant to be hobilar-like scouts. They aren't *supposed* to engage other units head-to-head, so even if they didn't have the javs, I would want them to avoid engagement if possible.
The times when I have tried to chase down Jinettes, I have simply winded my Mtd. Sgts or knights, left their backs exposed to the other AI cav units, and trapped behind their lines.
I frequently use my light cav as bait versus the AI, so if we want to pull off one or more of our units to chase them down, that's our mistake to make, as far as I am concerned. They are to be used to run down fleeing infantry and/or cav units, and if they can launch a few javs before then, then that's an extra benefit.

I think I will go ahead and remove the jav infantry unit from the generic list. I just thought of them as being shirmishers available to fill out a main army in the Early era, or a non-homeland garrison in the later eras. They may be more trouble than they are worth if the AI loads up on them as soon as they are available, and before it has access to better troops.
I hope to use the minor factions concept, where there will be *no* rebel provinces at the start of the game, to eliminate or tone down the AI tendency to load up on whatever troops are available as soon as the game starts. I believe that it does this in reaction to the over-strength rebel provinces on its borders, so that by making them real factions, it will remove this reaction, among other game benefits.

Morale:
CA gave all units in the game 2 more morale points for the expansion, in response to player calls, mostly MP'ers from what I have heard. I plan to remove these added points for the generic units and the HRE units. I plan to remove them from the HRE units to reflect the reality of the Empire's fragmented status. This balances out the fact that the HRE has no holes in its unit lineup.

Gallowglasses:
From what I have read, in more than one place, they didn't appear in battlefield reports until circa 1250, fighting with the Irish. I didn't hear that they were mercs, so YP would seem to have more in-depth knowledge of them than I, but I want them to be a Ireland-only unit, like in 1.1, available to the English after they take over the heart of Ireland for the High era.
I agree with YP in thinking that CA pretty much mythified their explanation for putting glasses in the VC. *I* believe that they were included to give the Irish one unit that didn't absolutely SUCK when the AI was in charge. I am going to try and give them another with my last VC update, btw.

I had actually forgotten about Highlanders, but I will leave them alone, so the English can recruit them if they conquer Scotland.

Generic units:
Arbs fall into the bolt category with X-bows, so they will be available as before. I meant to convey the thought that all the "standard" projectile units, from Archers to Arquebusiers, will be available as before.
You can include the artillery in with that as well.

Militia units:
From what I keep reading and hearing from posters, militia units, or levies, were spearmen, not axemen. Again, I would take your historical examples that contradict this into consideration, but what I keep finding time and again is that, outside of dismounted knights, blades and polearms were rare until you get into the late era in the north, and were secondary weapons to the bow most everywhere else.
Btw, cav units will dismount into the same units as in v1.84, unless a special circumstance is present.

Swordsmen:
Please see militia comment above.

Non-Homeland troop availability:
I want you to be able to raise basic, early-era level troops in these conquered provinces, along with missile and artillery units.
Special units like Flemish Pikemen or Lithuanian Cav may be built under certain circumstances in selected provinces, but basically the heart of the Homeland concept is that the quality troops needed to defend all of your provinces will have to come from your ethnic population.

Faction holes:
I really don't think I have left many gaping holes in the faction lineups, unless you want to talk about unit types unsuited to their native terrain.
For factions like the English who may need swordsmen in the early period- this is what the buildable mercs are for. The building priorities will be set so that the English build the required structures for Viking Landsmenn, and the AI should start spitting them out. The English won't have a lot of them, but they are only supposed to have enough to defend with, not attack. If they want to attack, they will have to develop their faction strengths.
The English, for example get their best units in the high period, when they can perhaps weaken the French. The French were indeed weak at the start of the Hundred Years' War, and will be in the mod with the emergence of Burgundy. However, the French then receive their best units, with which they can, perhaps, turn the tide.

Statistical differences:
Unless noted, new units will have exactly the same stats as the old units they are compared to in the unit lineup. They will also have the same icon and same battlefield look, so we won't get bogged down in learning a whole new, very long unit list.

I want them to have their historical names, and I hope some of you will volunteer to research and write accurate, historical descriptions for them. Stuff like this is what makes a game come *alive* (those of you who have played previous medmods can perhaps attest to this), and really immerses you in the time and place. In my other mods, I needed a half-dozen people just to help with all the descriptions, and I am going to need some big-time help with this one as well.

Danes:
I am getting away from historical accuracy with their lineup to some extent, but for gameplay aspects I think that there needs to be *one* Catholic faction whose strength is infantry.
I want each faction to be unique, and I prefer to have one faction specialize in each unit category, so that we get the opportunity to experience a full variety of situations and challanges on both the strategic and tactical level.
My thinking is that the Danes will be well suited to rainy, cold and forested Scandinavia, but they will face increasing hardships if they try to expand too far south or east. Their hardy axemen should do well versus knights until perhaps the late era, when they see the need for a type of Gothic knight to better defend against the advanced units of the French and HRE. They can protect against flanking attacks, and force the enemy to engage in melee, when the Arm. Huscarles can chop them to pieces.
However, if the Danes go a'Viking too far from home, and see a horde of Mongol HA's surrounding them on the Steppes, they may be screwed.

This leads into what the whole mod is about-

1)Every faction is distinct and unique, both to play as and to engage in battle. I mean, you could play Custom Battles and get up to 30x30 unique challenges just playing in the same era and on the same map.
2)It should be a bitch-and-a-half to get a complete conquest victory, or even a partial one if you start in the Late era.
Also, from the way the units are shaping up, the Late era appears to be the most interesting one, which is significantly different from what most people report with the current setup. Perhaps we can get into using Serpentines and assaulting Fortresses. Wouldn't that be...Medieval?
3)The game will give a much greater historical feel than before, both from 1) and 2), and from the historically accurate names, abilities and descriptions.
Right now, I plan on calling this version
The Medieval Mod IV: 3D - Feel it, Play it, LIVE it.

(Just don't ask about diplomacy, though that part will be a little better too with the minor factions concept.);)

Will it all work? We'll see, but if you're not stoked just from reading my two posts in this thread, then you need to go back to playing chess. THIS is the stuff that gets *me* stoked about mod-making, and THIS is the stuff that the Medieval Modification Packs name is all about. Up until now, I have been learning about the game and the era, and tuning things up. Now we are finally getting into a complete overhaul, at least with what we have access to, and this is the stuff that has resulted in players like you sending me checks for up to $40 once when I asked for donations that reflected the mod's worth to them. (I asked for the donations because I was facing a potential crisis with some upcoming medical bills, but that didn't affect their donation amount.)

Making these mods has been a blast for me, and so too I believe for everyone who has helped with them in the past. I hope some of you join in on this one, and we can get that feeling once again.

[BDC]

This looks very very hopeful. The publishers should pay you for doubling the life of their game.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif I can't wait.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I have plenty to say, including that it's YG not YP ;]

But for the moment I want to address a a single issue. Will Norman Knights be the English royal bodyguard unit in Early/High and then Gascon in Late? (similar for Poland, with polish retainers etc)

OR

As I would prefer it, will the generic royal knights that change in each period be used? It occurs to me that this would allow the English access to full plate, barding equipped chivalric knights in High in addition to the feudal Norman Knights, although only in very small numbers, at great cost and most often with the most noble of nobles, the royal family. This makes complete sense to me. The English did have /some/ up to date knights in the High period and this would reflect this perfectly.

In fact I'd forgotten the generic royal units for all the Catholic factions (excepting French, Danish etc) make quite a change to strats and army makeup. I would argue that keeping the generic royal units for these non-specialised (royally) factions doesn't make the factions samey at all, rather it retains the ability of a strong, numerous royal family to bolster your power (as well as being a pain if they get ideas about the throne). I want to suggest that the generic royal knights units be made even more expensive than they currently are (200% of 'standard' cost or similar).

If you aren't planning on keeping them on, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree, argue, complain and generally be a pain :]

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Unless stated otherwise, the royal guard will be the same as always for all factions.

Btw, Simon has sent me a spreadsheet where he has integrated the Gore lists with MTW's, and I am looking that over now. It may be that I can add some Urban Militia for the English in Early.

This is the preliminary list, so it's a work in progress, obviously. Keep coming in with the comments, etc. If someone disagrees with something, I'll reply with my thinking on it, but that doesn't mean I won't go back and eventually come around to their way of thinking. Sometimes is may even be weeks later, but I periodically go back and scan the previous posts for everyone's comments, and compare those with my current thoughts on the matter and try and come up with what I think is the best decision based upon what's happened since then.

The reason I try and get as much input from other players as possible is because I respect their/your opinions and logic as much as I do my own. Sometimes it takes a while for my ideas to catch on with people, especially the groundbreaking ones, and sometimes it's other's ideas that take a while for me to catch on to. I think that, in the end, we use the best of both, and that's what it's all about- making the best game possible.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I don't think you should worry about making the English weak in Early, because if you're going for historical accuracy it's not a bad point to shoot at. Generally speaking the English army was just a smaller copy of the French until the time of Edward I (at least in my opinion).

[Yelping Godzilla]

Two suggestions, both regarding buildings.

Valour bonuses.
That is, valour bonuses which come from buildings. I'm not sure how readily these can be changed by modders and if they could, what would be worth changing. However I wish to raise the point that in the Viking Campaign buildings which gave a valour bonus to a particular unit, such as the lvl2 archer building for archers, said in their description valour + 1. The church/shrine said morale + 2 (or whatever). This feature is missing from the medieval campaign and that annoys me. Even now I am unsure which buildings actually increase the valour of corresponding units. I think the VC descriptions were a step in the right direction, although even they only said "Valour + 1" not the unit the valour upgrade was for. This addition in the VC appears to be hardcoded to me, rather than simply being an altered description, however what I propose is this:

The buildings which give bonuses have their prose description slightly altered to make it CLEAR what kind of unit benefits with a bonus and then have the bonus itself laid out CLEARLY in BLOCK CAPITALS at the end of the description, like a technical addition. I don't think this would hurt the immersion into the game to any great extent and it would help out a lot of players.

Examples.

"The hyperblacksmithsupermetalarmourer employs new metal making techniques to blah blah blah and all military forces created in the province benefit from it's presence.

ARMOUR + 3"

"The church of the divine arsebucket blah blah blah leaving all military forces from this province with a boost to morale from their faith.

MORALE + 2"

"The military training hall is a place for veterans to pass on their knowledge blah blah blah allowing the recruitment of elite troops and giving all lesser sword infantry a bonus to valour.

VALOUR + 1"

Sorry if I'm overexplaining, just making a point about clarity. It's only mildly annoying and can be very useful.

Mongol build tree
I'm not sure how you are planning to deal with the Mongols Wes, but one thing I would like to see is their build tree simplified by barring them from constructing buildings which are of no use to them, since they have a limited selection of units with very similar (perhaps should be made even simpler and similar) build requirements.

That's all for now.

EEUURAAH.

[NagatsukaShumi]

I'd like to see the Mongols having the ability to build Yurts (The tents).

[Hamburglar]

Okay Wes a lot of the ideas make sense now but.......

In the "New Idea" area for the Mongols:

Months ago I suggested a bunch of changes to the Mongols to make them more Mongol-like - I think you put a bunch of them in back before VI. Just thinking maybe we should continue this. These changes were:

1.Lower the support cost by A LOT for all Mongol Units.

Why? Because the Mongols controlled much of Asia during this time and it can be assumed that they use a lot of those lands to support their troops that are moving into Europe at the time.

2. Lower the build requirements for Mongol troops.

Why? So they can actually build some stuff. Also, like Yelper said, dont let them build advanced things they don't need.

3. Give them a few siege weapons in the starting lineup.

Why? If someone has a Citadel or Fortress in Khazar in 1230, the Mongols are gonna have a REALLY hard time busting into Europe.

4. Give them the Viking Raid bonus. I don't know if this is possible, but I think it would fit well with the Mongol smash and burn philosophy, plus it will help with their money problems.

------------

Anyway, back to the troops:

Thanks for considering giving the English Urban Militia. I am just of the opinion that SOME historical accuracy NEEDS to be balanced for gameplay reasons (like your explanation of why you keep the Danes as "Vikings"). I'm afraid that the English AI will get pretty steamrolled if they dont have any infantry besides spearmen and peasants. They can get Highland Clansmen, IF they get Scotland, which the AI often has a hard time doing, especially moreso if we make Scotland a true faction with a King that's gonna pump out sons to help defend the realm. I do think Militia Sergeants aren't too out of line. They're a good "kill the spears" type of unit and they aren't too overpowered.


Another issue: You didn't really address halberds at all, along with pikes. Where are they gonna be?

As for Men At Arms - I know they weren't VERY common, but I think maybe you should just make them decently expensive like knights are. Every Catholic country had the capacity to field Feudal Men At Arms, they should jsut be more "difficult" for the English to field or something.



Skirmishers - Thanks for considering my ideas on Infantry Skirmishers. It's just that every time I fight a battle I consider enemy skirmishers as troops worse than peasants because all they do is die. Slav Javs have really hurt the Eastern armies IMO.


HRE - I still think killing their morale is a bit too much. The HRE has a hard enough time surviving as it is and it seems like their neighbors have actually been strengthened, which will only hurt them more. Lowering their troops morale permanently I think is too harsh of a measure. Their troops shouldn't be "intrinsic cowards". They have low loyalty already and they really aren't much of a powerhouse at all. I've been playing this game nonstop since it came out and I've barely ever seen the HRE succeed in becoming one of the Uber-Factions.



And if we do this to HRE, could we possibly do it to Italy as well? Because if we're playing the historical reality game then we have to understand that Italy is pretty much only existing in the games imagination. The Holy Roman Emperor was at least "in name" in charge of Germany, but Italy wasn't even considered any sort of conglomeration at all.




Other stuff:

How many new factions are you really gonna add to fill up the rebel territories? Is every territory going to be its own separate faction or will some of them be united together. What're their tech trees gonna be like?



Dismounting Units: Is it possible to make it so every horse unit can dismount in open battle? It just seems weird that some can and some can't for no real reason. My Teutonic Knights should be able to dismount just like my Chivalric Knights, but they can't in the game.




All in all, you explained a lot of your reasons pretty well, but I still think FMAA should be available to most countries for at least an "expense", and not as mercs, but real troops, even requiring the "Royal" buildings like Knights to build.

[Hamburglar]

I just read the topic about historical armies and found a lot interesting, but the problem again is that it seems lots of armies really relied on skirmishing type units, and the AI sucks with them.


Even many of the archer units are utterly horrible, if not for their stats, but for the fact that the AI doesn't know how to use them. I can always charge into them because they only seem to fight hand to hand if they have to, even if they're a "hybrid" unit.



I propose splitting a lot of these hybrid units up. For example, Mongol Warriors should be split into Mongol Foot Archers and Mongol Swordsmen or whatever, because the Mongol infantry dies WAY too easily sicne they decide to skirmish around all the time. Jannissary Infantry should lose their bows for this reason as well because the Jannisarry Archer seems to be enough for them missilewise.


Also: Not sure if you mentioned it, but I think since Hobilars are messed with the regular "Horseman" unit should be available across the board. I think every faction had a crappy quality "guy on a horse" type of troop.

[Yelping Godzilla]

AAAAARGH >_<

I just lost a HUGE post :sob:

I&#39;m going to try and sum it up, editing it in bit by bit to avoid the same problem.

:sigh:

Firstly, this is partially in response to Hamburglar.

Mongols

I propose that two versions of the Mongols be created. One version is playable and has units with slightly lowered upkeep and unit cost, as well as lower build requirements and removal of pointless buildings. This version is considered fair and balanced. The other version is non playable, the AI Horde version. In this version the mongol units have greatly reduced upkeep and build cost. The build cost reduction means tens of thousands of mongols turn up when they appear in high, a true horde. Additionally, with the low upkeep, this vast army does not cripple the mongol economy. On top of this, the Mongol units have even lower build requirements. Say a fort for mongol warriors, a bowyer and horse farm for mongol horse archers and a royal court and horse farm for mongol heavy cav. I implemented these changes, as well as making horse farms available without 20% farmland and the horde, when they appeared, behaved exactly as they should. The initial wave smashed right through, even attacking France and when they began to be depleted, they were able to build hordes of replacements in almost any province. It really is the only way to get a proper AI golden horde working.

I&#39;d also suggest a spcial siege unit exclusive to the mongols. A mongol mangonel, requiring only a level one siege building (historically constructed by enslaved european engineers - the mongols were fiendishly smart in war), don&#39;t allow them any other siege unit.

Militia for English

Historically, very dubious. I think it&#39;s worth trying the mod both ways though, with and without the UM and, in late, possibly MS. I&#39;d rather not see them in for the English, but historical concessions must be made, I agree. So test and see.

HRE

They have a balanced unit list and everyone&#39;s basic units are pre-expansion cowards, so I don&#39;t think it will hurt them so much. Besides, even if the HRE are weak in standard MTW, this mod will change things quite radically, so there&#39;s no way to tell at the moment if they will need to be let off the hook. One big problem might be that the HRE have too many poor quality generals, so they never offset the morale bonus with leadership. However the election system does tend to give them a chance at a stronger royal family I believe.

Italy

I think Wes is dividing it into two factions, the Tuscans and the Venetians. If he doesn&#39;t, I agree about the morale drop as with the HRE. Italy, even the north, simply wasn&#39;t unified.

Small factions

I&#39;m really looking forward to both helping create these (with suggestions, of course ;] ) and playing them. I assume we&#39;ll have Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania and the original Novgorod (as well as the new medmod Kievans) etc. One suggestion I want to make right now is that they have weaker than normal royal bodyguard units (although unique and historically as accurate as possible), to avoid their royal family alone saving their one province from a growing true faction under the AI.

Dismounting units

Some units shouldn&#39;t be allowed to dismount historically, as they never, ever fought on foot, for various reasons. However if we look at history, more units should be able to than can in standard MTW.

On the other hand, from a gameplay point of view, I think there should be barely any dismounting at all. This is because the AI cannot do it. At all. Instead, I think in the case of unique dismounters (like chiv knights to chiv foot knights) the foot version should be buildable (depending on faction/territory restrictions) but at an elevated cost. I think for example the English should be allowed to build dismounted norman knights and later dismounted Gascon etc. While not strictly historically accurate, this makes more sense gameplay wise and goes some way to removing the infantry problems in the English lineup.

Both considered, I&#39;m pretty much anti all dismounting, just as I&#39;m anti most non build mercenaries (happy to see a new system added here Wes)

FMAA

Same as Urban Militia. Historically dubious, but worth trying both options out.

Pike and Halberd

Generic Pikemen should be a basic unit available in all provinces from Late. To represent their lack of training etc, they should have lower stats than in standard MTW, also making them distinct from the specific factional pike units, which are presumably well trained, such as swiss pike, German LS pike etc. As for halberds, I think CA were pretty much right with the description of function, although I don&#39;t know about their usage in the period.

The end.

I have my hopes up about this mod. Oh yes. But is it wise?

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

It might not be unreasonable to keep MAA as mercenary troops, either of the hireable or buildable variety.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 13 2003,16:31)]I&#39;m really looking forward to both helping create these (with suggestions, of course ;] ) and playing them. I assume we&#39;ll have Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania and the original Novgorod (as well as the new medmod Kievans) etc.
I don&#39;t know about Ireland. Historically speaking they weren&#39;t very active (about the only time they did something of wide importance in the medieval eras was the Scotti conquest of North Britain). If we include the Irish, then why not the Norwegians, or Swedes, or Portugese?

[Yelping Godzilla]

Ah but they /could/ have been, if they had been united under an aggressive leader. A lot of MTW is about &#39;what if?&#39; scenarios. I&#39;m not saying they should be in there from the start of High or Late, but possibly in Early they might have done something if properly led.

I think Sweden and Norway are probably going to be controlled by the Danes from the start. Might depend on period though. Just so the AI can actually do something as them.

And yes, why not the portugese? Turning rebel factions into minor powers is what Wes is talking about, so portugal seems like a good candidate.

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

Good work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Militia as done in MTW are nonsense, as are both the CMAA and FMAA.

As you pointed out - militia generally means "town militia", and invariably means slightly more disciplined but often less enthusiastic versions of country troops.

They MIGHT be armed with halberds or other pole weapons, but more likely with spear or crossbow.

"Men-at-arms" is a term that came about when non-knights became rich enough to afford a knightly panalopy, and so were required to serve "as knights" by property laws. Sometimes they served mainly dismonuted - as with the English. ALL Knights are but not all men-at-arms are knights.

Mongol siege equipment was provided by Chinese engineers - not European ones. So was most of their infantry - basically disciplined spearmen and crossbowmen.

Tuscany wasn&#39;t a faction in Italy - Genoa, Naples, Milan, Venice, Florence were factions.....

Pikemen were not universal - outside Switzerland they started being recruited in Germany right at the end of this period, but the Landsknechtes proper didn&#39;t appear until a generation or 2 after it. Small numbers were also raised in Italy, but appart from them the Low Countries were virtually the only place that had them, and anyone else using them had to hire mercenaries.

So IMO thy should be province specific to Flanders, and available as random mercenaries.

Galloglas - they are a fairly late unit as someone pointed out, and lasted well into the renaissance period, eventually succumbing to or becoming musketeers as the preferred mercenaries. However early on the Irish made a lot of use of "Ostmen" - these were essentially Vikings from the Scot&#39;s Isles & Hebrides - descendants of Vikings & the natives & pretty warlike still. Early Galloglas IMO probably simulates these chaps.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Mongol siege equipment did benefit from enslaved european engineers. At the fall of Kiev I know that although pretty much eveyone else was killed those with useful knowledge were just enslaved.

I thought in Late factions had started to levy their own pikemen, but I don&#39;t know that for sure. I think it would make sense in terms of gameplay, if not historically, to have a basic generic pike unit.

As I said before I think CA got mixed up between Galloglaich and Gael Gaedhil, which were the mixed children of Irish and Ostmen, armed in a similar way to Ostmen (in turn the same as norsemen - VC carls).

EEUURAAH.

[Hamburglar]

One good pro for adding the Irish as a faction is that its going to be easy.


Viking Invasion gave us names, faces, flags, and units. We just have to decide what units can go in and throw them in there.


Maybe make Khazar its own country? Then we can have the Khazar Royal Cavalry unit be its Royal Bodyguard unit. I&#39;ve never actually seen this troop in combat since its rebel only.



For the English: I just had a thought - were the Huscarle type units still in use during the Early Age? It seems to me that its a possibility and maybe England should get them instead of some other infantry.


As for footknights, I support making them buildable since the AI can build them too. And they were definitely VERY common in at least the Late Era. From what I read it was a rarity for English knights to fight on horseback on the "defense" once the longbow came into wide use.




I like your Mongol ideas, but I think they should start out with a couple of those Mangonels just in case someone builds up Khazar a lot. If there&#39;s a Citadel the Mongols will probably die. All you need to do is kill the Khan and then the whole faction will turn to rebels. Pretty easy to kill the Khan if he&#39;s using his head as a battering ram.

And Mongols should be able to have definite "different" foot units. Chinese Spearmen would be a good unit, as well as a good "non-hybrid" archer unit.

I just really think the AI does horrible with most of the hybrid units. Horse units are okay because they can skirmish away quite easily but when the AI tries to run away with foot units they just end up dying.





Crusader Units:

I think some Crusader Units should be buildable in certain areas. Maybe Templars in the Holy Land, Hospitallers on Rhodes and Malta (I think), and Teutonics in Prussia and Pomerania. They should be expensive but they should be there. Maybe make Catholic rebellions in those territories feature a lot of these guys.

[Lancer6969]

English---should include the Huscarles...they already dont have all the units that they did during the Medieval Times. they should have access to all the Crusader units, but later on in the game.

All the crusader units should be available....maybe also make all other factions have access to trainable units that CA made rebelous.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Huscarles in the English armed forces are basically unheard of after the conquest. The vast majority of them died in 1066 and they were never continued afterward. A lot of them joined the VG.

Don&#39;t think they&#39;d fit gameplay wise either.

Could be wrong though.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ July 14 2003,10:17)]Crusader Units:

I think some Crusader Units should be buildable in certain areas. Maybe Templars in the Holy Land, Hospitallers on Rhodes and Malta (I think), and Teutonics in Prussia and Pomerania. They should be expensive but they should be there. Maybe make Catholic rebellions in those territories feature a lot of these guys.
The Hospitaller base on Malta falls outside the MTW period, and it doesn&#39;t exactly make sense to make them buildable on Rhodes, either, unless we make the Knights of Saint John their own faction in the Late era.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Put them in the holy land, as with Templars. They were less numerous, but they were there. I know that the holy orders appeared elsewhere, like Templar in Greece, but for simplicity&#39;s sake, I&#39;d say have Hospitaller and Templar only buildable in outremer.

EEUURAAH.

[Turbo]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 14 2003,11:35)]Huscarles in the English armed forces are basically unheard of after the conquest. The vast majority of them died in 1066 and they were never continued afterward. A lot of them joined the VG.

Don&#39;t think they&#39;d fit gameplay wise either.

Could be wrong though.

EEUURAAH.
Huscarles were seen as mercenary units under Byzantine command for sometime after their defeat. They even rematched against the Normans in Southern italy, fighting as mercenaries for the Byzantines. I was reading that they didn&#39;t fare well in those engagements either.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Turbo @ July 14 2003,14:31)]Huscarles were seen as mercenary units under Byzantine command for sometime after their defeat. They even rematched against the Normans in Southern italy, fighting as mercenaries for the Byzantines. I was reading that they didn&#39;t fare well in those engagements either.
They initially defeated the forces of Robert Guiscard, but the Normans were rallied by his wife (who was IIRC six feet tall and well muscled) and they went on the slaughter the Varangian guardsmen (who were not Varing at all, but Saxons).

[Hakonarson]

The Mongols used whatever skilled subjects tey could - Kiev was under direct Mongol rule, so would be no exception.

However AFAIK Kievan Russia wasn&#39;t renowned for it&#39;s siege engineers or as a centre for the building of siege artillery - unlike China for example where gunpowder had been in use for decades.

We know that tens of thousands of Chinese infantry and siege specialists were marched across Asia to the west (Russia, the Caucassus, etc) and it was these men who enabled the Mongols to attack and take cities long before they conquered Kiev.

Varangians after the conquest of England were a mix of Saxons and Vikings - the Viking nature was never fully extinguished until the fall of Constantinople to the 4th Crusade in 1204 - after which hte Varangians essentially were never raised again, while the Saxon nature was extinguished when the last of the former Huscarls died or retired.

[WesW]

I just finished an all-night update to the unit lineup. All the Catholic factions are done, and I went back and added or changed stuff to most all of the previous factions.
A big thank-you to Simon, whose Word Doc was a HUGE help in this process.

I will answer all of the comments since my last post when I get up tonight.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Quick question: Will you be including a difference in the projectilestats txt between crappy european shortbows and eastern compound/composite/full recurve bows? As it stands, desert archers for example aren&#39;t much different from standard archers, when in reality they were far superior at range.

Update looks good generally. Few things I&#39;m not sure about I&#39;ll post on later.

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

Hey WesW,

I think you really should include the Saxon Huscarles in atleast the early period for the English, and maybe as a Mercenary for the Byzantines....I also think that the Tuetonic order should be placed on in the Russian Provinces. Since that was basically created for them, i think.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Nice lineup all around, but I have to ask about the "Tercio Infantry" for the Spanish in late. From my own (admittedly limited) knowledge of the Tercio, it was just a pikeman square which deployed arquebusiers at the corners. I don&#39;t recall any heavily armored swordsmen being involved.

I think a good unit for the Spanish in late would be "conquistadores." Pizarro, Cortez, and their men were the trailing edge of a Spanish tradition of professional Muslim-fighters. They&#39;re not essential, but I think they would be a nice addition as an elite (high cost, of course) unit.

Let&#39;s say
40 mounted crossbowmen, but with good attack, good defense, medium armor, high morale, discipline, and the ability to dismount into similarly improved crossbowmen. Cost would be appropriate high.

Just a suggestion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif IMO, the Conquistadores were the best soldiers in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Lancer6969 @ July 16 2003,09:40)]Hey WesW,

I think you really should include the Saxon Huscarles in atleast the early period for the English, and maybe as a Mercenary for the Byzantines....I also think that the Tuetonic order should be placed on in the Russian Provinces. Since that was basically created for them, i think.
The Saxon huscarles were all but exterminated in Britain by William the Conqueror, because he reordered the society onto French (fuedal) terms and pretty much forbid them to take up arms.

The Saxon huscarles in the Varangian guard were pretty much wiped out by the military genius/adventurer/lying weasel Robert Guiscard.

[Lancer6969]

Oh, ok well he already has the unit lineups set, he has them set really good. I just want to play it now.

[WesW]

Yelping Godzilla
Monster Island, Tokyo pending Posted: July 13 2003,13:00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two suggestions, both regarding buildings.

Valour bonuses.

I don&#39;t know that to suggest, other than if you wanted to alter the building section in the descriptions.txt to look like what you want. If you want to do this, I will be happy to insert it into the mod, just remember that I changed the effect of most of the master-level blds., so you would need to refer to the spreadsheet.

HB, I plan on retaining the Mongol bonuses that were in 1.85. I figure the Viking Raid bonus is hardcoded, but it&#39;s a good idea.
The Billmen are the English halberds. The English will have to hire their pikemen, or get control of Scotland or Flanders, which I admit the AI will have a hard time doing. We&#39;ll have to see how it works out.

YG, the Mongol siege unit and weak minor faction BG&#39;s are a good idea, and I will keep HB&#39;s suggestions for spears and such in mind, too.

Just a comment: I don&#39;t much like the Rebel-only concept, since rebellions are only going to happen to the AI in normal circumstances. These units/graphics should be *played* with, rather than just be an opponent, or as usually happens, a myth.

Just a note for this summer- When I heard a couple of years ago that they were going to take a Terminator 3, I asked my unit designer to make a T-1000 unit for Call-to-Power 2. It would only appear when this AI entity Wonder of the World went berserk, and it always would sooner or later. (This wonder shipped with the game designed like this). This rebel faction could then start spitting them out like paper clips, and you would have had a Horde-type of effect, only in the 21st century.
In Ctp2, you had these 3D models that showed fairly detailed close-ups of the units, and this unit could have been the coolest one in the game, or any civ game for that matter, but Tom faded from the mod scene about this time, so it never got made. Maybe I should have modded StarCraft? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Anyway, it would be cool if Rome had detailed 3D models and such, and some of the graphics guys here could design a LoTR mod with scary-as-hell Balrogs and the like.

Now to address post-update comments...

As far as I know, there is only one unused arrow slot in the proj stats, and I used it for the Mongol Bows.

Lancer6969 Posted on July 16 2003,08:40
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey WesW,

I think you really should include the Saxon Huscarles in atleast the early period for the English, and maybe as a Mercenary for the Byzantines....I also think that the Tuetonic order should be placed on in the Russian Provinces. Since that was basically created for them, i think.

Well, I have put Woodsmen in for the English, with the opportunity for Bonnaughts and/or Highlanders, so I feel good about them right now.
Also, I have decided to give Woodsmen a large shield and another two points of morale, which now places them just a little below Viking Landsmenn and FMAA in quality.

I think the Early VG is for the Byzant variation.
The Teutonic Order will have, probably, Latvia, Livonia, and in the Late era, Prussia.

Pablo, I too have heard that the Spanish had the best fighters at the end of the Med., beginning of the Ren. periods. I had heard that the Tercio was this unit, though they were a mixed unit like most all the famous ones at this time. I am admittedly a little short on info on Spanish troop types. Simon&#39;s Document didn&#39;t cover them for some reason, so I had to make do with what I had dug up on my own earlier. I needed a name for the late era units, and Tercio was all I had come across. I guess I could change it to Spanish Ft. Kns.

YG, I have learned the hard way to use "select all" and ctrl-c to copy the bodies of large posts before submitting them. You don&#39;t have to paste the post anywhere, just get it on the computer&#39;s clipboard.

[Rosacrux]

Seing the latest version of the Byzantine lineup, I feel they are severely crippled... I think the previous (the one you posted yesterday) was better, if not historicaly then gameplay-wise.

Also, there is still missing an actual pike unit (kontaratoi or menavlatoi should be in as a pike armed unit in the Late era, even though they were present earlier in the byzantine armies - gameplay reasons).

What about the byz. inf? And why "early VG" instead of the standard VG? I would agree to keep them early only, even though that would leave the byz unit lineup with an enormous hole in the High era... struggling to survive at best.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Regarding the valour bonuses in the descriptions, I&#39;d be happy to do them myself. I&#39;ll start today and tell you how I get on. Is the spreadsheet you refer to the file marked Orig CA Excel File on your website? It doesn&#39;t seem like it would be, so I&#39;ll have a look in the 1.85 files for a spreadsheet too. If I don&#39;t find it, I have no problem using the 1.85 building text to find where bonuses are doled out.

Edit: Found it. 1.85 version. Work begins :]

Regarding bows - With my suggestion you end up with this.

Shortbow (Sbow) - The basic, lowest quality bow.
Used by: Archers, Genoese sailors, horse archers, turcopoles etc

Mounted longbow (MTLG) - No longer a horse archer weapon slot, now used for higher quality shortbows, eg compound bows, higher quality eastern equipment.
Used by: Trebizond Archers, Desert Archers, Mongol horse archers, Mongol foot etc

Longbow (long) - Still the English (or welsh, or scandinavian, if you want to be pedantic) longbow, requiring years of training, group practice, huge strength.
Used by: Longbowmen etc

Note that we are left with horse archers that have the same projectile type as normal archers. However most mounted archers are eastern and use compound bows, indicating they should have bow type 2, the mtlg. To distinguish the highly skilled mongol horse and other elite horse archer units, regardless of apparent bow type, it is wise to save bow type 2 for foot compound archers or higher quality archers and only very elite mounted archers.

In terms of range and other stats, bow type 1 (sbow - shortbow) is the base, bow type 2 (mtlg - compound) is better, but not by a vast amount and bow type 3 (long - longbow) is the best by far.

I&#39;ve tried this and I found it worked very well. For your mod I think overall it might weaken the mongol forces, but only very slightly. It would also give muslim factions a small extra boost.

Finally; I always copy my posts into the clipboard, but my area is prone to power loss, which the clipboard doesn&#39;t help against. From now on, I&#39;ll write them in notepad, then transfer them.

EEUURAAH.

[Leet Eriksson]

hmmm Wes if you had some time can you write down the muslims faction units?

[Hamburglar]

Wes - I used to play those Civ games and that Terminator unit would have been pretty sweet.


Anyway, about the halberds. I know the Billman is essentially the English halberd, but do any other countries but the Swiss get the Halberdier unit?




I think YG&#39;s ideas on bows would work. Would make the archer heavy nations a lot better.

And maybe if Conquistadores go in, should they be mounted with gunpowder weapons?

[sprucemoose]

looking good wes

any ETA on this one,im itching for a new challenge.

[Lancer6969]

Thanks for answering my question, cant wait for the mod.

[WesW]

HB, most all the Catholic factions get a halberdier in the game.

YG&#39;s bow setup looks good to me to, though it would help me if you would go through the Muslim units in the spreadsheet, and the preliminary unit lists here, and specifiy which ones qualify for the MTLG. Remember that I am using the ninj spot for the Mongol bows, which only they use.

Faisal, the Muslim units are currently unchanged from the 1.84 or 1.85 versions. If you, or someone else, would like to come up with better names and descriptions, I would most likely use them. The changes I made were for gameplay only, so if some of you would like to improve their historical accuracy like I have for the Catholic units, it would be a welcome addition to the mod.
I know some of you made some posts regarding the Muslim units earlier in the thread, but I was so busy at the time that I didn&#39;t study them too closely once I saw that there didn&#39;t appear to be any major changes proposed.

Tonight has turned out to be part two of the Byzantine unit development. I started out with a feeling that something more needed to be done with the faction to make it unique, then I read Rosa&#39;s post and realized that the Byzants were indeed short on later spear units, and things snowballed from there.

I ended up re-working the restricted Inn concept into something which I like much better, and used this to work the Byzants into what I think is going to be the most challenging and fun faction to play for many of us. They now favor history much better with the added flavor, which also gets closer to some of CA&#39;s price settings, and makes them perhaps the most unique overall faction in the game.

I made a couple of final tweaks to the Huns tonight, and now I don&#39;t plan on changing anything else on my own, which means it will be up to you to lay out detailed lists and settings of what you think can be done better regarding the Muslim factions. I am not against taking a lot of time to consider any proposals, but they will have to pretty much be debated and agreed upon by you guys here.

[Rosacrux]

Wes, I love it more that way. A challenge it shall be but a winnable challenge, not a lost cause. Cheers, you are the best. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Old Bald Guy]

Does the MedMod require more CPU/Vidcard power?

[Yelping Godzilla]

I&#39;ve pretty much got the list of bow types ready. It&#39;s based on the standard MTW:VI units, not the 1.84 units. I&#39;ve checked over the 1.84 spreadsheets, there isn&#39;t much difference. I&#39;ll edit in the new unit suggestions next.

Compound Bows (bow2, mtlg)

Desert Archers
Bulgarian Brigands
Trebizond Archers
Futuwwas*
Berber Camels*
Turcoman Foot*
Ottoman Infantry
Janissary Archers
Janissary Infantry*
Szekely
Nizari
Transylvanian Archers
Landsknecht Archers*
Mourtatoi

Shortbows (bow1, sbow)

Archers
Genoese Sailors
Horse Archers
Byzantine Cavalry
Turcoman Horse
Turcopoles
Mamluk Horse Archers
Boyars
Steppe Heavy Cavalry*
Ottoman Sipahi
Faris Cavalry
Baltic Infantry*
Kataphractoi

Longbows (bow3, long)

Longbowmen
Sherwood Foresters
Welsh Longbowmen
Mercian Longbowmen


* notes

Futuwwas do use compound bows, but are an offensive hybrid units. When attacking with bows, giving them the sbow would force them ahead of the rest of the archers, making them more likely to engage. I&#39;d go with compound, but shortbows might be worth trying.

Berber Camels would appear to be a case of mounted compound, therefore sbow users. However, the camel is a steady mount and berbers used heavy support saddles, which would allow them to fire like archers on foot. Again, the sbow is still a reasonable second option.

Turcoman Foot probably used compounds, although I&#39;m not sure for certain. Additionally, they are another hyrbid unit, so they are another possible for the sbow list.

Janissary Infantry are offensive hybrid. They use compounds in the game, but should possibly use sbow. However I believe you rightly changed this unit into pure infantry in 1.84.

Steppe Heavy Cavalry are mounted bow users, so they get sbow. Just wanted to draw the distinction from Szekely, who get compound because they are superbly skilled non hybrid horse archers, though not so much as the mongols.

Baltic Infantry I believe would use western shortbows or lower quality compounds. As they are a hybrid unit, this shouldn&#39;t hurt much. However, I am not completely sure they don&#39;t deserve bow2, hence the star.

Landsknecht Archers are elite archers and trained, as longbowmen did, to fire as a group, destroy regiments and kill officers. I believe they deserve bow2, however technically they used western shortbows, as far as I know.

If I missed anything,...


Other thoughts

The hybrid jav units like Kerns could benefit from being given the impetuous quality. That way I think (haven&#39;t tested) when the AI uses them they will charge more often and get destroyed less.

In the VC, the forest clearing building cannot be razed, as far as I know. If you gave this quality to some buildings in the medieval campaigns, such as castle/keep type buildings, it would stop human players launching a slash and burn campaign against the AI, who can&#39;t cope with these tactics.

Also - I&#39;ve checked the bonuses from buildings and it turns out they are displayed in the Medieval campaigns too, I just assumed some buildings which didn&#39;t give bonuses did. However the descriptions are clearly misleading, so I&#39;ll get to changing those and making some other suggestions.

I&#39;m starting a new job, so I don&#39;t want to volunteer for any work via email just yet - I&#39;ll keep posting here though and hopefully help with the descriptions, which I suppose will be an open task and really should be conducted on the forum.



EDIT: I think you&#39;ll need a mercenary resource rather than mercenary good. I&#39;ll give it a go, but I don&#39;t think anyone has got aded /resources/ working yet.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Well, the Forest Clearing trait must be hard-coded, because it doesn&#39;t appear to have any special property in the buildings text.

Did I put Landsknetch Archers in the list? I remember Pikemen and Ft. Kns., I believe.

I thought that one disadvantage for HA&#39;s was that they couldn&#39;t use as long of a bow as footmen. Did the Camel Archers stand up in the saddle to shoot?

Also, for everyone- Don&#39;t be too hesitant about taking on one of the tasks needed. Looking back at my post, I think I gave the wrong impression when I said that "if you want to help, and have experience..." What I meant was that I would prefer for those of you who have experience to take on one of the jobs where experience is needed. Only a few jobs are in this category. The rest don&#39;t require experience, so anyone interested can take them on.

I also may have over-stated the time or complexity of some of the jobs. Most can probably be done in an afternoon/evening or two on the weekend, or by taking an hour a night for a week or so.
The learning curve is pretty flat for the ones where I didn&#39;t ask for experienced people, so once you do a couple, it goes pretty smoothly from there.
Don&#39;t forget that you can always email me regarding problems or questions, and if something comes up that is going to leave you unable to finish the job in a timely manner, just let me know and we&#39;ll see what to do then. Different people have different amounts of free time, so if someone gets finished early, they might take on the rest of your job, too, or else I can finish it. I would just like to get the bigger jobs started on by the end of this weekend.

I have posted a better description of the jobs and what they entail in the new Help Wanted thread I posted here in the Dungeon, which is why I deleted the post I made earlier. Please look it over and get back to me if you want to help, even if you just say to give you whatever still needs to be done.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Shame about the Forest Clearing. Would have helped the AI if that property could be doled out to other buildings.

I tried to get a mercenary resource working, but I couldn&#39;t manage it. Unlike tradegoods, there doesn&#39;t appear to be anywhere you can declare a new resource. I think you could probably modify an existing resource to be mercenaries. I&#39;d suggest making iron into a dual resource, which enables inns /and/ enables weapon upgrades. This could represent that wherever professional mercenaries can be found, better quality weapons could too. Makes for some very valuable territories, although you would have to make the weapon upgrade building (I forget the name) a more expensive/difficult undertaking.

You put LS archers, LS Pike and LS two-handed sword infantry (Flambergs) in the HRE description. I don&#39;t know much about the historical accuracy of LS archers, although I&#39;d imagine they would be professional and well equipped, as with the other LS troops.

I think the Camel archers we saddled in an always upright position different to that of horse archers, because of the size, stability and shape of the mount. I don&#39;t know enough to decisively say either way though.

I will see if I can rustle up some descriptions for the proposed new units. Of course these will probably change over time. I&#39;ll use a MTW style history-lite tone. No dates, in other words. I&#39;ll post them up here.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 19 2003,10:41)]I will see if I can rustle up some descriptions for the proposed new units. Of course these will probably change over time. I&#39;ll use a MTW style history-lite tone. No dates, in other words. I&#39;ll post them up here.
If you wanted, I could help write some MTW-esque descriptions. I don&#39;t know enough about medieval militaries to have been much help with decided which units would be which, but I may know enough to come up with the blurbs.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Landsknecht Pike (HRE)

Landsknecht are a highly successful group of professional mercenaries. These disciplined fighting men enjoy their independance and flaunt it with gaudy trappings to their armour, wielding pikes with great expertise, trained to direct ranks of weapons on any assault. Like their rivals the Swiss, the Germanic Landsknecht are known for ferocity and discipline in equal measure. Despite being mercenaries they are unlikely to rout unless sorely pressed.

Landsknecht Two handed swordsmen (HRE)

While the pike is a powerful defensive weapon, there comes a time when highly offensive action is required. These heavily armoured soldiers wield, with terrible effect, two handed swords known as flambergs, often nearing six foot in length and capable of shearing through flesh, bone and armour alike. The Lansknecht have made an art of wielding these massive blades and their charge is a devastating ordeal for any infantryman, or even mounted knight

State Militia (HRE)

The state militia represent an early attempt at raising a unified force to protect the empire from aggressors. Although very lightly armoured and barely trained, these militiamen are armed with two handed polearms capable of bringing down superior opponents, despite their armour. Lacking experience in battle or the belief in a cause found amongst professional soldiers, these men cannot be relied upon to hold fast should the tide of battle turn.


Peshtsi (Rus)

These infantry are used for the defense of city walls and gates, to cover the advance of cavalry and to safeguard the massed archers common especially in the northern armies. Here much of the territory is dominated by forest, river and marshland making infantry a necessary component of the army, although these men are not true soldiers and while able to launch a determined charge lack the equipment and training for prolonged bloody combat.

Kop&#39;yo Infantry (Rus)

The Kop&#39;yo spear is a fearsome weapon, often over two metres in length and tipped with a remarkably long specially shaped head of damask steel. In the hands of these hardy infantry the weapon is particularly effective against enemy cavalry, perfect for bringing down mounts then quickly finishing off their riders. Protected by kuyak, or crude scale armour, under which they wore thick quilted armour, they are tough and reliable spearmen.

Rogatina Infantry (Rus)

The Rogatina boar spear sports a wider blade than the Kop&#39;yo and may be used to to hack and chop as well as stab. In the hands of an experienced warrior it is a versatile and deadly weapon, retaining the excellent anti cavalry abilities of the Kop&#39;yo, with the benefit of being quite effective against ranks of infantry. The Rogatina Infantry are made up of battlefield veterans; ordered, determined and well armoured they form the backbone of a Rus army.

Chinese Spearmen (Golden Horde)

The horde is feared for the might of their mounted warriors; their skill with horse and bow, their devastating charge and natural ferocity. However the Khans are also famed for their military cunning, their use of every resource at hand. The subjugated Chinese are one such resource, providing the horde with plentiful auxiliary spearmen. They are no warriors, but are fairly well equipped.

Chinese Mangonel (Golden Horde)

When it comes to war, the Mongols never allow their sometimes bloodthirsty nature to get in the way of success. Enslaved engineers and labourers from subjugated China construct and crew these siege weapons, a necessity for war in the fortified west. They have the unique ability to hurl projectiles which explode on impact, causing great destruction and confusion.

Berdyshi (Golden Horde)

The Berdysh is a long, broad, two handed axe found solely in Russia and Berdyshi infantry are men from the edge of the steppe forced or raised to join the Mongol army, who use this peculiar half-halberd half-axe with considerable skill. Less armoured than western halberdiers, they are nonetheless an important part of the horde, being far more trustworthy than Chinese auxiliary.


Well that&#39;s what I&#39;ve done so far. I thought I&#39;d post them up here to see if I was on the right track. They are about the right length, perhaps only very slightly too long. I should probably test them in game.

If these are ok, I can carry on and do some more. All suggestions welcome.

EDIT: Pablo, can you do some French/English units? Little bit of research is usually enough and if you&#39;re doing them, I can make sure we don&#39;t do the same unit. I&#39;m going to do some more HRE, Rus, Polish, Mongol etc

WesW: Are the English going to have generic Longbowmen in High or Late? The mostly Welsh longbow units were the original and best, with some english units also being very good, but later the overall standard dropped sharply (Late longbowmen were worse, if better armoured).

EEUURAAH.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Since the unit lists are, although still the first version, technically no longer preliminary, I feel this is a good time for everyone to double check them too. As I research writing the descriptions, I find parts of the unit list that don&#39;t fit historically. I&#39;ll edit in my findings as I go along in this post.

I realise that historical accuracy isn&#39;t everything though. In some areas the mod appears to be making concessions to both gameplay and fun factor; rightly so I believe. The Danes for an example, have stayed vikingesque. As I right descriptions, I will have to take further liberties with historical accuracy in order to keep things interesting and of course, keep in mind that this is a game.

Heerban (HRE) - They were rural militia often armed with bows, but we have them down as early FMAA. The archer unit covers the actual Heerban unit, but if we want the HRE to have FMAA then until we can find a suitable name for them, they will have to just be generic FMAA, not named Heerban. I&#39;ll look for an alternative name.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

For anyone that missed it, I have posted a new topic with a better description of the jobs and requirements needed, and have deleted my earlier post. (So you can go ahead and delete your memory of it, too.) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I have also edited my initial post at the top of this page to try and clear up a few poorly-written things that I noticed earlier from that now-deleted post.

As for descriptions- they are a big job, and quality work is something I try and require for them, so I certainly appreciate you guys trying to do the job right.
If you find descrepecies like the Heerban, keep in mind that different sources have differing names and/or descriptions for units. I got the Heerban name from the Terry Gore file that Simon sent me, for example, where I determined that they could fit the description of basically a sword-wielding Urban Militia.
We really have plenty of time for the descriptions. What I need now in that department is work on entering all the new units&#39; names in the Loc files, so that we can get a working beta out to test the new concepts and see how the AI handles the new unit lineups.

[Yelping Godzilla]

If you want I can start doing the Loc files. They aren&#39;t too hard and I&#39;ve modified them before.

Shall I will stick with exactly the names that are in the first post, even if they may change later?

EEUURAAH.

[Hamburglar]

Yelping Godzilla - We don&#39;t really need to fix the "slash and burn tactics" that hurt the AI so much. Since the VI expansion, you have to take over the castle in order to destroy buildings. Just moving in and forcing the enemy to hole up in the castle doesn&#39;t cost anybody anything, unless the attacker is the Vikings.

I think maybe a decent idea would be to extend castle garrison numbers a bit to make sieges last longer and force an assault more. This makes "empire building" harder to do since you&#39;ll have a real hard time cracking the bigger castles and as a player you will need to invest in siege equipment.

[Yelping Godzilla]

You always had to take the castle, as far as I know.

The problem is if you attack the AI where the enemy king is in charge, he will /never/ go into the castle. If he did, he would be easier to kill is the logic there. The problem is you can then sell everything there and go after him again. As long as you can force him to flee, you get to sell everything.

But it can&#39;t be helped, so it&#39;s a moot point.

I&#39;m just not in favour of letting players do things the AI can&#39;t, or won&#39;t. Like hire mercs, sell stuff, dismount etc.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 19 2003,12:25)]EDIT: Pablo, can you do some French/English units? Little bit of research is usually enough and if you&#39;re doing them, I can make sure we don&#39;t do the same unit. I&#39;m going to do some more HRE, Rus, Polish, Mongol etc
I&#39;m reasonably familiar with Western European stuff, though I have a low opinion of myself and I&#39;d advocate quality control from some of the brighter members of the board http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Pablo Sanchez]

My knowledge is somewhat hit and miss, but I&#39;ll post what I know and admit it when I don&#39;t http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif First, the Spaniards.


Early-
Spanish Jinetes; bonus in Valencia

assuming you&#39;ll stick with the thing the game already has

Kns. of Hidalgo- Feudal Kns.
m
don&#39;t know much about them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Spanish Militia- Viking Landsmenn
(Viking Landsmenn) Spanish commoners are men raised in a hard land split by centuries of war. The fight against the Moor and christian bandits often requires them to take up arms alongside their lords, and if organized into militia they make effective soldiers.

Pyrennese Brigands (sp?); Fyrdmen; regional; Catholic only; bonus in Navarre
(Fyrdmen) The north of a Spain is a poor and mountainous region, and its inhabitants have often turned to banditry to supplement the meager harvests. These men can make passable soldiers for the christian kings of Spain.

High-
Kns. Calatrava- Chiv. Kns.; bonus in Aragon
(Chivalric Knights) The Knights of Calatrava are the first knightly order to be founded in Spain. They are noble warriors in the chivalric tradition who are sworn to defend Spain against the Moor. The order includes many of the greatest warriors in Spain.

Caballeros- Teutonic Sgts.
(Teutonic Sergeants) Caballeros are non-noble horsemen, usually the auxilliaries and subordinates of a knight. They are well equipped and professional soldiers, though no match for a knight.

Spanish Militia Sgts.- Viking Huscarles, can melee w/sh.
(Viking Huscarles) As the Iberians struggle to defend their homes from bandits and muslim raiders, the value of strong militias has become more evident. With regular drilling and training, the natural constitution of the Spanish peasant can be turned into impressive infantry.

Basque Inf.- Armoured Spearmen; regional; Catholic only
(Armoured Spearmen) The Basques are a hard people from the Pyrenees, who have staunchly defended their unique culture since the days of Rome. When pressed into service by the Spanish kings, they make formidable infantry.

Late-
Kns. of Santiago
A knightly order first formed to defend pilgrims on their way to the holy tomb of the Apostle James at Compostella, they have since expanded their role to defend Spain as a whole. The Knights of Santiago are among the most effective cavalry in Christendom.

Spanish Ft. Kns.- Hosp. Ft. Kns.
(Hospitaller Foot Knights) Spain is a country of mountains and rough terrain often hostile to horses. Spanish knights have long been accustomed to fighting on foot. With the increasing appearance of effective pike and spearmen on the field of battle, they often choose to dismount even in favorable terrain. Spanish knights remain as deadly on foot as on horse.

Tercio Pikemen- Swiss Pikemen
(Swiss Pikemen) The tercio is a unit of hardy Castilian peasants trained and equipped as some of the best pikemen in the world. In formation, it is almost unbreakable and can cause murderous damage to enemy infantry and cavalry. If competently commanded, and supported by ranged units, the tercio is potentially invincible.

EDIT:
added parenthetical information...

[WesW]

I have just finished the "Master unit list", and it has taken me all evening and all this morning. I had no idea....
By the time I was done, I had made several more changes to the unit lineups, mostly with sword vs axe units, and a few other odd things to try and reuse units.
Be sure and look over the Basque units again.

YP, I certainly need you to get started on the Loc files, now that I have the unit list made. I am posting it in the Help Needed thread.

I am going to try and confine all the questions on *how* to make the mod to that thread, so that you guys can continue to debate *what* is in the mod in this thread, like the Muslim units, or post and debate/refine your research descriptions.

[Leet Eriksson]

I&#39;m very sorry for not replying Wes,i was a bit busy with major computer problems,but here is the unit name changes i want:

Ghazi=Syrian Axmen

Saharan Cavalry=Bedioun cavalry(the sahara desert was uninhabited to my knowldege)

Futuwwa=Cenegaverler(thanx to kanuni for translation)(basically Futuwwa is arabic for teenage,and its absurd to see children fighting)

Sipahi=Akinji(thanx to kanuni for translation)(these lame horsemen are an insult to the sipahis,Akinji is better alot better)

AHC=Sipahis(if you can)

Nizari=Al Mujahidoon(i dunno if nizari existed,but there were veteran muslim loons calling themselves al mujahidoon,and yeah they kicked ass)

also Saracen Infantry could be changed to Kurdish Mountain Spearmen(used by both Egyptians and Turks)

thats all for now,but if you modded any muslim cavalry to be an equivelant to catholic ones i suggest you name them according to quality Al Halqa for the best muslim cav(notice they are arabic) and Toassin for the Veterans.

and thanks in advance.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Pablo Sanchez @ July 19 2003,18:44)]mohammedan raiders
could you make that Muslim raiders?no offence but i feel insulted.

[Kanuni]

Quote[/b] ]mohammedan raiders

could you make that Muslim raiders?no offence but i feel insulted.
me too


Quote[/b] ]also Saracen Infantry could be changed to Kurdish Mountain Spearmen(used by both Egyptians and Turks)


Hmmm, Kurdish Mountain Spearmen was not commonly used by Turks as far as I know.
But Saracen inf. was really present in history I think, I prefer it remained as it is. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Heraclius]

could i jump in here for a minute? I know some things about Byzantine military history, but for more advanced stuff you&#39;d have to consul kataphraktoi or Galestrum, so I wondered if I could ask some question and make some suggestions.

1-Why are the Imperial Skutatoi "buildable mercs"? I believe the Skutatoi were actually some of the few native troops in the Byzantine army.

2-I know practically nothing about modding but in case it would be possible to put something like this in the game, Galesrum told me the skutatoi used long spears for anti-cav and fought infantry with either swords or axes. I think that might be really hard to mod in but just in case.

3-the mourtatoi were quite rare in Byzantine armies, nonexistent in the early periods, so it may not be worth your trouble to include them.

4-I may be wrong about this but weren&#39;t condoterri Renaissance Italian mercenary generals?

5-this i&#39;m not sure about- were the menavlatoi mercenaries? oh and besides the menavlion the menavlatoi carried javelins (but not all the time)

6-I might have missed this but in case I didn&#39;t, you may want to include a "Latinikon" unit. That was the most common name for the heavily armored French/Norman/German knights in Byzantine service.
that&#39;s all. overall it looks great and I can&#39;t wait for it to be done (I&#39;m addicted to the medmod, its the only mod i&#39;ve ever used so i&#39;m really looking forward to this one) good luck.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (faisal @ July 20 2003,19:48)]
Quote[/b] (Pablo Sanchez @ July 19 2003,18:44)]mohammedan raiders
could you make that Muslim raiders?no offence but i feel insulted.
I&#39;ll change it immediately. I meant no offense, it&#39;s just what they called them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

[Pablo Sanchez]

Now, new French units.

Early-
Destriders- Feudal Kns.; bonus in Anjou
(I believe it is spelt "destriers," no d)
(Feudal Knights) Since the days of Charlemagne, the core of the French army has been the mounted and armored noble. Astride his destrier, or war horse, he can charge home with devastating impact. The French cavalry is the ruler of the medieval battlefield.

High-
Chevaliers- Chiv. Kns.
(Chivalric Knights) The code of chivalry is an important development for the knight. Its focus on loyalty, courage, and piety can give a warrior considerable motivation, and no one takes it more seriously than the French. Together with advancements in armor, chivalry has made the knights an even more dangerous foe.

Late-
Compagnies d&#39;Ordonnance- Hosp. Ft. Kns
(Hospitaller Foot Knights) The new realities of war in the late medieval era have convinced the French kings of the value of a strong standing army. France will no longer rely on mounted nobles and peasant levies; these companies of powerful infantry will form the core of a new permanent army.

Voulgiers- Halbs.
(Halberdiers) The Voulge is a powerful and brutal weapon consisting of an axe-head with a sharp tip, mounted on a long pole. It requires strong men to use properly, but a skilled soldier can easily unhorse a knight with the tip or bring the axe-head down onto an armored footman with bonecrushing force.

Partisans- Pikemen
(Pikemen) A partisan is a long spear tipped with what is in essence a large knife blade. Large groups of men armed with these weapons form a nearly impenetrable barrier against cavalry, but the size of their weapons and closeness of their formation can make movement difficult and leave them vulnerable to missile weapons.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Heraclius @ July 20 2003,20:48)]4-I may be wrong about this but weren&#39;t condoterri Renaissance Italian mercenary generals?
I&#39;m fairly sure condotierri referred to contract warriors in general. A book which I read (Medieval Warfare: A History by Maurice Keen) defined them as mercenary companies hired by Italian city states, often weighted towards cavalry. This was during the Hundred Year&#39;s War Period.

[Hakonarson]

Condotierri were the generals who raised companies of troops on contract to cities - teh contracts were called Condotta, and the various forms of het name was applied to all sorts of troops.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Pablo Sanchez @ July 20 2003,20:58)]
Quote[/b] (faisal @ July 20 2003,19:48)]
Quote[/b] (Pablo Sanchez @ July 19 2003,18:44)]mohammedan raiders
could you make that Muslim raiders?no offence but i feel insulted.
I&#39;ll change it immediately. I meant no offense, it&#39;s just what they called them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif
I appreciate it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Kanuni @ July 20 2003,20:27)]
Quote[/b] ]mohammedan raiders

could you make that Muslim raiders?no offence but i feel insulted.
me too


Quote[/b] ]also Saracen Infantry could be changed to Kurdish Mountain Spearmen(used by both Egyptians and Turks)


Hmmm, Kurdish Mountain Spearmen was not commonly used by Turks as far as I know.
But Saracen inf. was really present in history I think, I prefer it remained as it is. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
But the kurds used by the ayyubids matched the saracens stats,and considering how close they were to the turks i thought the turks recruited them too.but anyways keep em unchanged is better.

[Lancer6969]

Im not up to date on my history of muslim religioun, why is that offensive? Just curious.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Quote[/b] ]Chinese Mangonels- w/exploding ammo ala gunpowder arty

Great idea. Could you tell me how you plan to do this? I&#39;d be really grateful. I&#39;d also like to make a unit like this, with the Korean units from Mongol Invasion as crewmen.

[Hakonarson]

Kurdish mountaineers can be called "Dailami" - they were very common in Turkish and otherarmies that bordered the area south of hte Caspian sea, so mostly feature in armies that are not in MTW. they should be something like Almughvars, and available as mercenaries.

IMO there&#39;s nothing at all wrong with calling troops "teenagers" - it was teh term used at teh time, and after all we have no problems with "infantry" - which derives from the Italian for baby (Infantera) Usage and literal translation can be quite different and I like the flavour that using the period terms uses (eg "Tank"&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

I&#39;ve never heard of Syrian axemen - the first Ghazis appeared a few years after the death of the Prophet and were Arab light horsemen - they were unpaid religous fanatics and often a pain to their commanders

From 750-ish they were more commonly known as known as Mutatawwi&#39;a in several Arab/Moslem armies and came in 3 basic "flavours" - 1 equivalent to Catholic Fanatics, one as current Ghazis but do away with the armour piercing, and a third mounted as uncontrollabel Saharan cavalry.

All 3 would not generally appear in any army, but the cavalry and one of the 2 foot varieties were common, the 2 foot together less so but do feature in the Ayyubid & Mamluk Egyptian armies in small numbers.

Ottoman Ghazis are an exception - they were all light horse archers - basically religously motivated nutters only paid in loot - and they formed a large majority of the army until the mid 1300&#39;s when the more regular army began to supplant them.

IMO except for the Ottomans they should also be limited to Jihads - this isn&#39;t perfect, but it would limit ther numbers to something less than they might otherwise be - especially the cavalry. the Ottomans should get theirs only from a fairly low level of building, and not in the late era.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (The Blind King of Bohemia @ July 21 2003,13:03)]
Quote[/b] ]Chinese Mangonels- w/exploding ammo ala gunpowder arty

Great idea. Could you tell me how you plan to do this? I&#39;d be really grateful. I&#39;d also like to make a unit like this, with the Korean units from Mongol Invasion as crewmen.
Well, I figure to use the Explode flag when the projectile hits trees, wood or soldiers, and the Bounce flag when it hits the ground or stone. I can use the BlastRadius settings from some of the other units as a guide to make it a unique and effective early cross between a mortar and a cannon.
I think it will be a fun unit to see in action, both in open field and siege situations.

Lancer, the reason Muslims don&#39;t like to be called Mohammeddens is because it is false. They don&#39;t worship Mohammed, though they do follow his teachings, which they believe came directly from the mouth of God.

[Lancer6969]

Thanks WesW,

Thats very interesting. Are you gonna give every province its own unique Nobility? In example- If I land in Khazar, will I be able to train Khazar Royal Cavalry. Or if you land in the province of Venice, can you get Venician Royal Guard or something more historically correct? That would be pretty fun, and give you more of a reason to conquer other provinces that you wouldn&#39;t normally conquer. Please think about this, it would be historically accurate.

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

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Lancer6969 @ July 22 2003,19:37)]Thanks WesW,

Thats very interesting. Are you gonna give every province its own unique Nobility? In example- If I land in Khazar, will I be able to train Khazar Royal Cavalry. Or if you land in the province of Venice, can you get Venician Royal Guard or something more historically correct? That would be pretty fun, and give you more of a reason to conquer other provinces that you wouldn&#39;t normally conquer. Please think about this, it would be historically accurate.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif
I don&#39;t plan on adding any more units to the mod right now. A few of the factions have unique royal units, like the Danes, but the rest will use the generic royal cavalry units. I don&#39;t see the need to do all the work needed to add new units unless they have unique stats or abilities.

Btw, if you conquer Venice as anyone other than the Tuscan Conf., you aren&#39;t going to be able to build anything but plain Spearmen, Archers, etc. This goes back to the Homeland concept.

I just remembered that someone asked about the Byzant units a couple of days ago. I had to get up to do something after I read the post, and didn&#39;t get back to it.

Anyway, the reason I gave the Imperial moniker to the Late era units was to help designate them as elite, heavy and also foreign troops. There were real Byzant spearmen with the name Skukatoi, for example, but the Byzants didn&#39;t have any native Pikemen, so when I decided to give them access to a pike unit, I designated it as a buildable merc and gave it a royal bodyguard type of name. Thus, if you meet a unit on the battlefield with the Imperial designation, you know you are in for a real fight.

[WesW]

Also, for Pablo and the rest of you working on unit descriptions- When you write the description, put the existing unit they are modelled after in parentheses at the beginning of the description.
Thus, for Tercio Pikemen you would have "(Swiss Pikemen) These...."

This will help us know what their abilities are if we look them up in the pre-battle screen, for example.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ July 21 2003,16:40)]From 750-ish they were more commonly known as known as Mutatawwi&#39;a in several Arab/Moslem armies and came in 3 basic "flavours" - 1 equivalent to Catholic Fanatics, one as current Ghazis but do away with the armour piercing, and a third mounted as uncontrollabel Saharan cavalry.
The Mutatawwi&#39;a(in arabic=volunteers)are basically half trained peasants,that are sometimes as good as urban militia or on par with fanatics,in earlier times they usually raided byzantine "themes" using small forts called Thugoors(forts).Saladin also used an amphibious raider unit also known as ghazi(commanded by his christian general Ibn al Awam)basically no armour(you can&#39;t swim with armour anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif)at all but carried small axes.

EDIT:typo,also had to add another "(".

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ July 23 2003,00:13)]Also, for Pablo and the rest of you working on unit descriptions- When you write the description, put the existing unit they are modelled after in parentheses at the beginning of the description.
Thus, for Tercio Pikemen you would have "(Swiss Pikemen) These...."

This will help us know what their abilities are if we look them up in the pre-battle screen, for example.
I have done so. Are the descriptions given so far acceptable for your purposes?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Early-
Norman Knights- Feudal Kns.; bonus in Normandy
(Feudal Knights) The Norman knights are famous throughout the world as some of the best heavy cavalry available. They helped change William the Bastard into William the Conqueror, and they made Robert Guiscard the terror of the Mediterranean.

Norman Sgts.- Mtd. Sgts.
(Mounted Sergeants) There are seldom enough knights to form the whole of the cavalry line. Therefore, English armies maintain a contingent of mounted soldiers to offer support to the noble horsemen. These men, while no match for knights, are less expensive to keep in battle and more numerous.

Woodsmen
Woodsmen are strong men and intimately familiar with the axe. They are also tougher-minded and more independent than farmers, which makes them a superior choice for an emergency. Though they are not real soldiers, woodsmen are more effective than peasant levies and can sometimes be a deciding factor in a hard-fought battle.

Bonnaughts- Irish buildable mercenaries; Ireland only
Longbowmen
Fyrdmen- like VC

High-
Muntators- Sp. Jinettes
(Spanish Jinettes) Light cavalry forms an important part of the English army. Muntators armed with javelins and swords can unleash a devastating volley of darts onto armored troops before galloping away, and they can just as easily ride down stragglers and light troops.

Welsh Longbowmen- Welsh Bandits w/bucklers
(Welsh Bandits) The Welsh were the inventors of the longbow, and they remain its most effective wielders. The English kings have developed them to be an effective element of their army. Not only can the Longbowmen fire murderous waves of arrows through even the most heavily armed knights, but they can also perform effectively in a melee.

Billmen- bonus in Mercia

Gallowglasses- available in Northumbria and Scotland; bonus in Scotland.
Gallowglasses are mercenaries from Scotland, heavily armed and well equipped. From experience against the relatively lightly equipped troops of that kingdom, they focus strongly on the attack and can quickly rout many troops from the field. However, as with most mercenaries, they remain capricious and prone to retreat in the face of danger.

Late-
Knights of Gascon- Chiv. Kns.
I don&#39;t know what to put here http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

Hobilars- Sp. Jinettes+1; bonus in Ireland

Mercian Longbowmen- Sherwood Foresters w/bucklers
(Sherwood Foresters) The English have recognized their longbowman as the most essential part of their army. By banning all sports except for archery, and instituting rigorous training programs, the kings of England have molded a force that is deadly at range and just as dangerous in a melee.

[WesW]

Yeah, your descriptions look great, Pablo.

For Woodsmen, they are now about equal to irregular Landsmenn- hardy, tough and independent skilled loggers who are at home in the woods and very adept with the tools of their trade.

For Gallowglasses, you can now describe them as the Scottish warriors and mercenaries they really were.

[BDC]

Are siege weapons going to be primarily mercs? (Along with Genoese crossbowman.) Whilst my knowledge is really limited on all this stuff I think that they were mainly carried about by experts who hired themselves out to whoever had money, although smaller engines would just be made by an army on its own.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ July 24 2003,19:29)]For Gallowglasses, you can now describe them as the Scottish warriors and mercenaries they really were.
I assume the stats stay mostly the same? BTW, you&#39;ll want to proofread what I&#39;ve written closely, as my grammar and spelling have their ups and downs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[WesW]

I haven&#39;t really gotten around to thinking about which units will be eligible as normal mercenaries. I guess I will have something similar to the 1.85 setup. Artillery will be available, along with all but perhaps the strongest and/or regionally restricted units like Mercian Longbowmen. And the numbers which show up for hire will be reduced, as in 1.85.

Pablo, units will retain their primary characteristics unless noted otherwise. Way I say this is because I moderated the stats of some of the one-dimentional units for 1.85, to keep them from dying so fast, but they still kept their role as attack-only.

[rory_20_uk]

I imagine that all the additions to the other areas of the game are going to mean that this is unlikely, but are there going to be any alterations to the naval aspect to the game? I know that there are less variables that you can alter to improve things, but I was just wondering... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Hope that all the existing work is going to plan

[WesW]

I am just using the same naval stats that were in 1.85.

As for the mod, I spent all night Monday working on the units text, and I guess I am about halfway done with it. I haven&#39;t been feeling too well since then, but if I hit another good spell I should be able to finish it.
Kekvit said that she doesn&#39;t have time to work on the startpos files right now, so I am going to do those as well, but I think I can use some of the excel charts I constructed for the units text to get that done in a couple of hours.