Medmod IV v3.01 Beta

[WesW]

The working beta for the full version of the Medieval Mod IV for Viking Invasion is now posted at my webpage.

It has taken a lot longer than anticipated to get the beta working but, as I was searching out all the bugs, I gradually added almost all of the features for the full version, except the minor factions. The minor factions are a large part of the mod, and I also plan to update the GA's for all the major factions, but the only other things left are stuff like adjusting the rebelling troop lists and dismounting units.

The Charts and Readmes folder includes the spreadsheet I gradually made to help me put the mod together, which includes an up-to-date units text, provincial ownership and homelands pages. Plus, there are text files with an updated mod description and new units file. The new units file also lists the old units which have been re-named and modified, to help you through the confusion.

And there will be some confusion, since the old units' names and descriptions have not yet been updated. This means you will probably want to print out the new units text to refer to when looking at the battle preview screen, or even on the battlefield.
As I have stated in the mod development threads, new or re-named units have the same textures as the existing units they most closely resemble stats-wise. Therefore, if it looks like a pikemen, it is a pikemen, regardless of the name. This also applies to building requirements, so that you can use the 1.85 "units" stats page in the spreadsheet for all the new units in the game as well. I have attached the units from the Viking Campaign at the bottom.
I just remembered that I didn't adjust the non-missile VC units' costs to match the medmod's modified cost structure, but the difference should not be all that much. All other stats for all other units should be up-to-date, except for Woodsmen.

I mentioned in the mod description that Kats and Woodsmen are different now, and I changed Bonnachts for the 2.04 version. I have also replaced the Kerns' javs with darts, and given them excellent speed. They have better defense and now sport a large shield, but they lose their spear bonus and are again a 60-man unit.
The only significantly different unit in the game is the Mourtatoi, which I added to the units sheet. Looking through the stats, though, it is about identical to Janissary Bowmen.

I have implemented Pablo's new bow setup, which differentiates between Eastern and Western bowmen. I have not included a chart with the exact differences, but basically, the more arrows a unit has, the more powerful its bow. Mongols are an exception, having the same killing power as Longbows but without as much range.

I have removed the Armourer requirement from most all Muslim units, as many have suggested.

The Mongols now have two new units: Chinese Infantry and Mangonels. The Infantry still displays the name of Viking Thralls, but its stats are the same as Saracen Inf., while the Mangonels shoot the same projectile as Mortars. The Mongols also start the Late era with plenty of them, so I look forward to hearing from you on how they perform.

You need to be familiar with the new Inn and buildable mercenary concepts, and study the homelands page of the spreadsheet, which lists the provinces where Inns may be built. They are very important for playing as certain factions.

I was a loss as to what to do about the Holyland provinces for the Catholics, and how to mesh it with the Homelands concept, but I think I finally developed a good setup.
I only added one new unit, Outremer Knights, which are buildable Knights Templar. They can only be built in the provinces of the Crusader Kingdoms, and require a Chapter House in well. A House in placed in Cyprus for the High era. And since Houses are now unique, this adds several new wrinkles to the game.
Except for Turcopoles, the only other advanced units available to Catholics in the Holyland are mercenaries, and all three Levantine provinces, Tripoli, Antioch and Palestine, may have Inns. Since Gallowglasses and Germanic Knights are buildable mercs in the High and Late eras, along with Almughavars in the Late. And since Archers, bolt, gunpowder, and artillery units are available anywhere, you can still build a powerful and versatile force.

To get around the inability to add new resources, I tied Inns to Salt, and placed this resource wherever I wanted mercs to be available. I also made the value-less Mercenary good, with the Swiss gray and silver shield as their emblem, to designate these provinces.

The end result of all this should be a game which is much more varied strategically, with the Homelands concept becoming a larger and larger factor as your empire expands. It will also make holding onto your homelands critical.
This is not a mod for people new to MTW, however. (And remember, you must have the Viking Expansion installed to play it.) If you are still learning the concepts of the game, you need to use my 2.04 mod until you get a good grasp of the strategic aspect before you are faced with all the new things this mod adds.

The mod now weighs in at almost 4megs, so future updates will only consist of the actual files that have been altered. Therefore, don't throw away this beta.
I will post a new full version of the mod for the public release, but I will also keep posting updates so that you beta-testers won't have to get the whole thing again.

So, here is it for us to enjoy, though I am probably going to have to take it easy for the next little while because of the eye strain and neck stiffness I have developed this weekend. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Obex]

Very cool Wes. thank you for your work, and to those who helped out as well. i look forward to trying this out.

[BDC]

Can we install this over the 2.04 release or do we need a clean install?

[Shahed]

Thx Wes look forward to trying this out.

Which units have been modified ?
Is there a list somewhere ?

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (BDC @ Aug. 11 2003,02:40)]Can we install this over the 2.04 release or do we need a clean install?
Just install it over 2.04. Really, all you have to do is switch out the three campmap\startpos to go back and forth between the two.


"The Charts and Readmes folder includes the spreadsheet I gradually made to help me put the mod together, which includes an up-to-date units text, provincial ownership and homelands pages. Plus, there are text files with an updated mod description and new units file. The new units file also lists the old units which have been re-named and modified, to help you through the confusion."

[Shahed]

Ooops Sorry Wes, in my excitement I only read that the mod is out http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif read your whole post carefully now.

Btw is your signature some lines from Lawrence of Arabia ?

[-Isapostolos-]

I installed the mod and discovered these things. I installed the mod manually (transferred all required files to their respective maps), and something might have gone wrong there.

Having said that these thing I discovered till now:

-Old units with new names still have new names like Pictish crossbowmen instead of Geonese crossbowmen(?).

-All leaders of all factions don't have names.

-And I can't figure out where I can find out what homelands are of which faction...

Ofcourse all of these things could easily be my fault...

[Yelping Godzilla]

Hey, great going WesW

Nice to get back from Wales to find the beta is ready for me to play around with. If there is anything more I can do to help, then don't hesitate to ask. Obviously getting descriptions in there is going to be fairly important, so I'll get to work on a few more of those (I think a lot of my original suggestions have suffered from a removal of the unit that spawned them).

Is Pablo's bow system similar to the compound/western system that I mentioned a while back?

I'll get to testing right away. I presume all comments go in this thread?

EEUURAAH

[Leet Eriksson]

After a few bumps in installation i finally managed to make it work,this is a really good mod

EDIT:this is weired...the egyptian sultan allied with me and in the next turn he helped me invade lesser armenia,he got killed in battle and has no heirs so his faction degenrated into rebel stats(i saved after that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif).

[BDC]

Does one of the files show what the not-renamed old units are in the current beta? ie Royal Bodyguards seemt to have morphed into Norman Knights, but I'm not sure. If there was a simple list somewhere it would make the game easier... Anyway seems to work well, especially with the ai. They have proper navies now

[Yelping Godzilla]

I don't know if it would help or not, but when WesW asked me to send me the work I had done in changes.txt I was surprised. I thought I would be sending the two loc files, with the stuff I had done already edited in. As far as I know, using those two files I've already done, everthing would have the right name and placeholder descriptions.

I can't tell if I can help though, because I can't get a complete download of the zip. It keeps ending prematurely.

WesW, whether the work I've already done would help or not, I can (once I've got the damned thing downloaded) do all the names and start putting in descriptions already written for those two loc files. I'm happy to do all the work regarding names and descriptions if you'd like. That way you could concentrate on more immediately important work.

Well, let me know.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

YP, it would be great if you wanted to start on the new units' descriptions. I think you had all the re-named units done before, but they wouldn't translate when I placed them in the changes text.
You may be able to get them to work, now that the new units are sorted out; I don't know. You will just have to place a re-named unit's name in description in the changes text, and see if it reads properly in a custom battle review panel. If it doesn't work, you'll have to type over the existing names and descriptions in those two texts.

Things got really deep and involved over the weekend, and I learned a whole lot about how the game loads and reads things, so excuse me if I reference things that haven't been mentioned before. For those of you who have helped before- everything posted or sent by email prior to this beta is now obsolete and probably needs to be thrown away. Everything needed to continue to help with the mod is contained in the Charts and Readmes folder.

I knew that many of you would have a lot of questions regarding this and that, and that is why I made the detailed post to start the thread. Everyone is going to have to do like Sinan did and read it all over carefully, or else you are going to spend a lot of time getting confused and then posting here with already answered questions. I am saying this because you will be the one who ends up wasting time this way by not taking 30 minutes or so to read the post, and then study the texts and spreadsheets in the Charts and Readmes folder.
This mod adds enough new wrinkles, which are complicated by its unfinished status, that it's like getting a whole new Viking-like expansion. I mentioned in the lineup thread that what I had done before was a tuneup of the game, while this was a major overhaul, and so it is.

As for unit names; I used most all of the Viking Expansion in the mod, and most all of them fall into the re-named category. Unfortunately, they still use their old names right now, so you are going to see them popping up all over the place.

When you decide on which faction you want to play as, you will need to find its entry in the v3 description text and see what all has changed, and then you will probably want to check the New Units text to see what names your units currently go by.
If the entry says sonething like: "Norman Knights- Feudal Knights; Dark Age Royal Knights", what this means is that I used the existing entries and graphics for the VI unit, Dark Age Royal Knights, and converted its stats to equal those of a Feudal Knight. When the mod is complete, the unit will have the name Norman Knights, with an accompanying description, but right now it still uses the old name and description.
Remember that you are volunteering to test a beta, so that means you can't just plug-n-play without doing some studying first. And I know it's not easy- I still get confused myself, which is why I had so many bugs to get out, but this method saves a lot of time in the long run, and makes the mod richer by using all of the VI graphics.

The New Units text is very important for everyone to keep handy if you are going to concentrate on the names. I have set the mod up so that units use old icons and textures, however, so you can go by sight alone and be fine as far as your rivals.

As for the bow setup; I copied and implemented the suggestion list just as it is on, I believe, page 2 of the lineup thread. I also gave the compound bows a slight armour-penetration factor, but the overall effect is similar to an increase in attack or defense factors- say if short bows have an effectiveness of 2, compounds are a 3, and longbows a 4 or 6 depending upon whether the target is armoured (6) or not (4).

Isop, I haven't done anything with faction names.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Ok, I'll keep trying to download the mod and then if I can get all the names working I'll send you the modified files.

I'll also put in as many descriptions as possible and probably change the generic placeholders into specific placeholders - a simplified gameplay only description, if you will.

Just hope I can get the file.

EEUURAAH.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I have downloaded the mod and I must say I am most impressed that everything is actually working (always a good start) and a lot of the exciting stuff is already implemented.

Wes, I've sent you an email titled 'MEDMOD YG loc', which has attatched a names.txt that will fix all the unit name problems (although it assumes you'll be playing medmod, not vanilla, since in vanilla of course the names will now be strange). I will start work on the descriptions.txt asap.

I'll be starting a French campaign from High very soon and I'll bring war reports, the odd battle report and observations to this thread. I urge everyone else to do the same for other factions; it is almost always worth reading.

EEUURAAH.

[BDC]

It's good anyway - you have done a huge amount of work to get it this far http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Yelping Godzilla]

Alas, I have been tempted away from my glorious French campaign by the allure of the Sicilian naval prowess and their marriage of cultural units, both western and middle eastern.

Starting in High, my first actions were to build up a trade empire, which in due course, left me with 40k florins and the second largest income after the Italians. The Italians were incredibly succesful, taking the Byzantine lands and joining them with their own native territories, before grabbing chunks of northern Africa and beginning to invade the various islands. At the height of their power, they were supported by their allies, at sea this support chiefly being from the Sicilian navy. However they made a classical blunder, the best known being never to engage in a land battle in Asia, but only slightly less well known is never to trust the Sicilian navy when an empire is at stake. In short, I attacked them. Suddenly and in every sea I could. Half the waters of the world were stained with blood, as our two navies all but destroyed eachother. With my vast economic reserves, I was able to survive this blow, the loss of the my trade empire. The Italians found it a major setback however. After another fifteen years of bitter naval war, I had grasped Rhodes and Sardinia, as well as invading Greece with a powerful all mercenary army. My reserves were depleted, down to 5k and the Italians, though now the weaker at sea, were clearly still far stronger than my kingdom. I decided to risk an attack on constantinople, relying on my Egyptian allies, who had been dragged into countless savage battles with the expanding Italian empire. The Egyptians had lost Egypt to their romano foes, but they had driven off the Turks entirely and were slowly battling toward conquered Constantinople. The battle there saw 2k mercenaries of Sicily, 1k of the Egyptians finest cavalry and in defense, 2k Italian crusaders. I had underestimated the power of these men. The sheer number of knights, mounted and on foot, allowed them to crush the Egyptian charge and then totally rout my mercenaries, who relied primarily on ranged fire. Using a clever sea-link, the Italians also drove me out of Greece, smashing my well equipped, but poorly led Popolo and Contadina infantry.

I made peace with the Italians as the Mongol Horde arrived, smashing Russia and badly mauling the Egyptians. To the West, Spain was fast falling to the powerful Almohads, though an English crusade marched right through the orange territory, pillaging and destroying much of their might. Everywhere war raged, like never before. A very impressive start. I began to build my navy once more, began recruiting the excellent Futawwa from Siciliy and increased my standing armies of Contadina and Popolo, while dismissing the remaining mercenaries. Time to build up my finances and strike again, this time to the West.


Things I noticed (in no order)

Pavise Sailors really don't look right with the bulgar brigands description graphic and in battle are graphically buggy, looking like a big mess.
Sicilians should not be able to recruit merc gallowglass.
Contadina Cavalry might benefit from having the basic mounted xbow picture in their description scroll.
Teutonic sergeants in Outremer? I think you put MMteutons there instead of basic teutons, which are now order sergeants.
Basque infantry needs a space in the name text. Heh.
Viking Karlsmenn (byz inf) are currently massively overpriced. I'm sure there are lots more issues like this, but I figure if I report them as I find them, they'll all eventually get fixed.


Ok, on to the modding part. Well I have done some work on the descriptions.txt and after a little testing, I'll send that to you too Wes. It has all the descriptions suggested so far, with a few modifications. Pablo, keep those descriptions coming :] I have modified some of them, but never too heavily, if you don't like the modifications I make, I'm happy to change them back.

That's all for now. w00t etc

EEUURAAH.

[Leet Eriksson]

Some units are graphically messed up,but everything is running very well.you'll need to finish those descriptions for the other units.Also i don't think Hoplitai existed in MTW...i might be wrong,but i was chatting with Nicesphorus in the .com and he told me he never heard of such unit.

[sprucemoose]

i noticed that faisal,the viking landsmen i think it was in my game.also is it correct that you cant build assassins and spys?.

[Dukezer0]

Hey, i come back from germany and what do you know, the beta is done. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Good work Wes, i shall start testing it right away.

PS. Your work does not go unappreciated. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ Aug. 11 2003,07:54)]Is Pablo's bow system similar to the compound/western system that I mentioned a while back?
I don't understand what you mean. I didn't think it wasn't an issue, as I only did western unit descriptions.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Wes said: I have implemented Pablo's new bow setup, which differentiates between Eastern and Western bowmen.

I think he just had us mixed up. My bow suggestions were in the readme :shrug:

Pablo, would you be willing to do more descriptions? Italian units preferably, because I'm currently working on Hungarian/Polish/Russian stuff :]

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ Aug. 12 2003,09:04)]Pablo, keep those descriptions coming :] I have modified some of them, but never too heavily, if you don't like the modifications I make, I'm happy to change them back.
What needs to be done? I was gone for a long while. In any case you probably know better than me what the descriptions should say, so I don't mind at all.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ Aug. 13 2003,13:27)]Wes said: I have implemented Pablo's new bow setup, which differentiates between Eastern and Western bowmen.

I think he just had us mixed up. My bow suggestions were in the readme :shrug:

Pablo, would you be willing to do more descriptions? Italian units preferably, because I'm currently working on Hungarian/Polish/Russian stuff :]

EEUURAAH.
Gah. Now I feel bad. I suggested no such thing (not smart enough http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif).

I'll get to work on the new Italian units.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Cool. I don't mind who gets credit, it's of no interest to me really, I just thought there might be a different bow system put in and I was curious as to what it was.

If you post up the descriptions here, I'll put them in the right files and send the periodically to WesW. The descriptions may have to be modified several times because a balance needs to be found between stat changes based on history, entertainment and gameplay. For example, in my Knights Banderium description, I have mentioned they are not quite the equals of the royal knights of other countries. In terms of stats, this isn't reflected at the moment and if WesW wants to keep them the same stats as all the other knights (presumably stats are open to debate and suggestions, but his say is final) then I'll happily change the description so it no longer claims they are weaker.

This is one of the things that concerns me about the mod, although it's no great worry as this is only the first beta. The problem as I see it is that the units in various lineups will be too samey - while the lineups have changed to alter strategy, I think the stats will have to too. Taking the example of the Knights Banderium, they could have slightly reduced stats (one less attack, one less defense, maybe one less charge bonus, same armour, morale etc) and still cost the same, simply representing that the Huns don't specialise in knights. Of course, they might also have slightly reduced build requirements.

As we are doing the descriptions, we are doing research into the historical roles of these units, so if a unit is famously worse than another unit, but they use the same base stats currently, we should show the difference in the descriptions themselves then take it up with WesW to see if the stats can be played around with. If they can't, the description gets altered.

I think this is a good system,... but it's WesW's mod, so he gets to say either way.

Discussion is key, methinks.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Italian Nobles-
(Feudal Knights) Though often overshadowed by the mercenary and militia troops of the Italian cities, the nobility of northern Italy retain at least some of their feudal trappings. They can often been seen engaged in combat, armored and astride their powerful warhorses.

Contadina Cavalry-
(Mounted Sergeants + Crossbows) The contadina mercenaries are contracted to a term of paid service in the defense of an Italian city. They are professional soldiers and fight as such. From horseback, they fire crossbows to inflict casualties at range before closing to make use of the lance.

Contadina Infantry
(Militia Sergeants) These mercenary footmen are hired by the Italian cities to offer a defence against their enemies. Though well trained and equipped, they are often not as effective as the more motivated feudal troops of other Catholic nations.

Italian Sailors
(Bulgarian Brigands with Crossbows) Sailors in the Italian navy are good fighters, trained to wield crossbow and sword against pirates and enemy sailors. They remain no less effective on land, though it would be wisest to employ only their bows until the enemy is broken or circumstances become desperate, for they are no match for real soldiers in a melee.

Ital. Lt. Inf.- bonus in Milan
keep same description, I think.

Popolo Cavalry-
(Teutonic segreants) The popolo are the common people of Italy, who have long sought a place of importance in political society. They raise troops that are well trained and equipped, and their cavalry is no exception. Despite this, they are not to be compared to the noble cavalry of the other Catholic nations.

Italian MAA
(FMAA) The Italian cities are wealthy and can afford to raise large bodies of armored swordsmen. These men can be quite effective in the defence of their towns, though they are fodder for cavalry and best used against other footmen.

Carraccio Guard- Varangian Guard
No idea...

Popolo Inf.-
(Billmen) The Popolo, or peasants of Italy, are often organized into communes. These groups recruit and equip footsoldiers to defend their common property. Armed with powerful polearms, they are a potent defence against cavalry and other battlefield threats.

Pavise Sailors-
During boarding actions, Italian sailors are sometimes forced to enchange volleys of crossbow bolts at close range. To avoid being hit, they hide behind large wooden shields. This tactics are easily applied to the land battles into which they are sometimesthrown.

Pavisiers-
(Gothic Sergeants) Great shields that cover the whole front of a soldier's body are made in Pavia, called pavises. They are often put to use by soldiers in nearby cities, as they offer superior protection against missiles and other weapons. Combined with a long spear, they can make a body of troops very difficult to break by cavalry or archery.

Hosp Merc Kns.-
The Knights Hospitaller of Saint John are a crusading order. As monetary and political support for the crusades fades, they must find other ways to fund their efforts. Selling their substantial martial skills to the wealthy is one way that they have paid their expenses.

Hosp. Ft. Kns.-
Don't know what I should put for this...

Condoterri-
(Swiss Halberdiers) The condotterri are the top rung of the mercenary ladder in Italy. They are quite experienced and very well equipped to destroy cavalry and foot soldiers. These bought troops present a formidible barrier to those who would invade Italy.

Pavisier Pikemen-
(Swiss Armored Pikemen) By combining the long pike, pavian shield, and modern plate armor, the Italians have created a formation soldiers which can make a butchery of its foes while remaining almost invulnerable itself. A deadly enemy to cavalry and infantry alike, these pikemen are the pride and defense of Italy.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ Aug. 13 2003,14:08)]Discussion is key, methinks.
Well, then I think the Italian Nobles should get a few subtractions to portray the fact that they are dominated and overshadowed by the city folk of northern Italy.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I was just thinking that the Italians should perhaps not have such a powerful early knight unit. Weaker nobles would certainly fit in with their abundance of militia and independant soldiers or mercenary companies. Not sure exactly what the stat loss should be, however.

Concentrating on changes I've thought of during description writing rather than playtesting, I would like to see non-merc gallowglass get a morale boost. I have mentioned in the flavour text that they are fighting for more than money and so are more reliable (merc gallowglass were a headache for anyone who hired them almost immediately after the fighting stopped). In fact they would be very tenacious indeed, perhaps some of the most difficult to rout troops in the game.

I'm going to change the name and description of Nubian spearmen to African spearmen next. I think they should be brought in line with the cheap spearmen available in the west and their quality emphasised. Currently western spearmen are 125/25 for 100 and nubian 175/37 for 100. The nubians have 2 extra charge bonus, one less defense, small shield instead of large and are slightly faster.

I propose the charge be dropped to 1 extra, melee upped to 1 extra and honour (morale) upped to 2 extra, keeping the defensive weaknesses. Then cost changed to 150/37 meaning they are better, still more expensive (therefore less useful as rearguard/filler units) but worthwhile for anyone who can get them, especially early on.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Sorry about the mixup regarding the bows. I was a little unsure when I posted it, but I thought Pablo was the one who ahd developed that. I remembered after my last post that I had tacked the bow setup to the bottom of the mod description file, for those of you interested.

The unit descriptions posted in the lineup thread were kinda spreadout over different factions. You'll probably want to finish the partials before starting new ones, so that you can better see what is still undone.

Faisal, if you guys seem to have agreed on new names for the Muslim troops, you can post those here, and write up new descriptions for them, too, if you want. If you think the infantry troops could use some stat changes, post those and why they are needed or are more historically accurate, and I'll see what I can do. I can't say I'll implement them for sure until I, and whomever else wants to weigh in, can see how they would affect game balance.

As for Byzantine Inf, they still have their 1.85 stats, which are almost identical to Viking Karls. Remember that they are a 100-man unit.

Spies and Assassins have not been changed. However, I have seen Muslim Princesses in my game, and I can't figure out why or how. They are not eligible to the Muslims; they were not placed at the start of the campaign, and they were not set as heirs.
I have always thought that if Muslims and Pagans didn't betroth their daughters, then they should only have children (princes) half as often as Christian kings, to make things even in the frequency of heirs. But that's another topic.
Has anyone else seen Muslim, or Pagan, princesses?

YG, I don't know why you stated that the Sicilians should not be able to hire mercenary Gallowglasses, since they are a generic merc available to anyone.

As far as errors, I have noticed and corrected little things all over the mod, from graphic errors to startpos inconsistencies.
I corrected graphics errors with Arab Infantry, Genoese Sailors, Pavise Sailors, Viking Thralls and Mourtatoi. I also changed the icons for the Mourtatoi and Pavise Sailors. I found the name error for Outremer Knights right after I posted the beta, so that is changed now.
Due to graphics (bif) incompatibilities, I have switched the stats and eras of Bulgarian Brigs and Gen Sailors.

If anyone sees anything else that seems strange or not covered in the mod material; please report it.

Myself, I started a game as the Byzants in High to see what I could do. I attacked Constan on the first turn, I believe, and starved them out 8 turns later. I then set about improving my provinces and trade network, and everything was pretty calm until the Horde arrived. The Poles had captured a Chapter House somewhere and built a Crusade, which didn't have any cavalry due to faction restrictions, but they still waltzed into Rum without a problem, and stayed there until I bribed their general and half their army, and forced the few stragglers to hole up in the Citadel. The Turks had attacked the Egyptians a few turns earlier, and between the loss of Rum and the Egyptian counter-attack, the Turks are practically through.
Myself, I had managed to put together two solid stacks of troops in the Crimea in anticipation of the Horde, and they certainly didn't disappoint. The only invaded Khazar, but with 15 full stacks. The next turn they sent half of those at me.
Crimea was flat as a table, with clumps of trees scattered around. The Horde sent in all their infantry, 16 units, for the first wave, and I tried to lure them into an ambush, but they wouldn't take the bait. They spread out their forces out of bowshot and started marching back and forth like cavalry used to do before the patch. I finallt decided to initiate the action by bringing my bait of spears, hoplitai and archers into range. The Mongols started skirmishing every which way, so I went ahead and tried my enveloping manouver even though the mongols were well out in the open. It still succeeded pretty well, but the Mongols were so fast that I had to chase them across the map before I finally routed them. To make a long story short, the mongol cavalry kept throwing waves at me until they finally surrounded my forces and broke them, since my re-inforcements had to go all the way across the map, they didn't get there in time. I had played the battle just to see what I could do, out-numbered over three to one, so I reloaded and abandoned the province.
The Mongols seemed determined to get me anyway, attacking Georgia with half their forces and threatening Trebizond. They decided to go for the easier target in Armenia, though, and moved the bulk of their forces back to Khazar, in the way the AI often does- over-react one way, leaving a province almost unguarded, then over-react the other way, leaving the second province bare.
Anyhow, when they moved out of Armenia, I decided to attack it anyway. Of course, the Horde moved everything from Khazar to Armenia, and I found myself out-numbered almost as bad as before, app. 2700 versus 7200.
Again, I had to go to the Mongols, but this map had more forests where the bulk of the fighting took place, which was a high, central ridge. It took me all morning to play out the battle, and twice I was on the verge of defeat, especially towards the end when wave after wave of heavy cav appeared. However, I finally drove off the last of them, and secured the province. Casualties were about 2700 to 1800 after I killed the app 450 prisoners. I don't know how many prisoners I recovered after the battle, but I don't think there were all that many.
If the Mongols had attacked from Khazar the next turn, they would have almost assuredly swamped me, but they didn't, and since they were expanding over the steppes, they had to spread out their forces. I am now attacking their forces in Armenia, which were significantly weakened after they stormed the castle the turn before.

I didn't want to turn this into a story thread, but trying to stop the horde is always one of those things worth telling about. Perhaps we can start a thread for medmod battles either here or in the main hall. This new unit setup, with the faction and/or language-specific names, and the strengthening of the Horde, is going to make for some great stories.

Btw, I contacted DanQ, co-owner of Apolyton, to see if they had any stats on visitation and downloads from my site. They have gotten some pretty good programs for that in the last few months, and I just finished studying the data.
Since May, the number of unique visitors to my webpage has grown steadily from 1737 to 2348 in July, and 1294 thru Aug. 13th.
The 1.84-5 mod was downloaded 400 times in May, 270 times in June, and 340 times in July. There were no stats for April, when the mod was first posted.
The various versions of the No Units mod were downloaded 450 times in June, and 425 times in July.
The 1.85 mod had been dl'd from 3D 200 times since it was posted July 14th, while the 2.04 mod, which I sent in to Barocca along with the 1.85, has not been posted here at the Org.
The 3.01 beta had been dl'd 45 times as of about noon central time, which I guess is pretty good for a beta.
One thing that surprised me was that my mods for the Call-to-Power games were steadily downloaded at a rate of 2 dozen a month for Medmod I, and 3 dozen for Medmod II. I remember that the various incarnations of the Medmod I had been downloaded about 10K times from Apolyton when I stopped working on it full time, an average of over a thousand a month, but that was three years ago.

Anyway, it makes me feel good that the mod's name is getting out in the Total War community, too, and I also feel a little better about the amount of emails I get from confused people, which have been quite small given the number of downloads.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I didn't think the Sicilians should have Gallowglasses simply because as far as I know, Galloglaich were never hired by anyone further south or east than the HRE. Italians, Sicilians etc never would have had the chance to get them.

I've been mulling this over for a while and I really think, now that there are buildable mercenaries, you shouldn't be able to hire any mercs using the old method. It's a little drastic and may not be so popular amongst the players, but I just don't think the feature fits. The AI doesn't use mercs at all and I am very much in favour of disabling things which the AI cannot do. If a few more buildable mercs were added, both the AI and the player would benefit, I think. Well, just my opinion. I know I'm going to stop using that way of hiring merc for good.

I've seen Muslim princesses. I also can't seem to build spies and assassins. Very odd.

As for the outremer knights, did you make changes in startpos or in names.txt? As far as I know, names.txt was all exactly right.

Description wise, I'm just going to do whatever I can find information on in the factions I've decided to work on. Some units I'll leave until quite late, since they don't have a lot of historical information I can find.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ Aug. 13 2003,15:38)]I was just thinking that the Italians should perhaps not have such a powerful early knight unit. Weaker nobles would certainly fit in with their abundance of militia and independant soldiers or mercenary companies. Not sure exactly what the stat loss should be, however.
I think a morale and charge penalty (or more) to show that they're softer and less motivated than regular knights.

[sprucemoose]

All i can say is Excellent work Wes

It is a real challenge now,i got my botty slapped by the French good style,i foolishly attacked them as they were conquering all of Europe,i now sit happily in Ireland my only province http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif((((.

I too cant build the spys and assasins,but everything else works ok.

cheers for now .

[Yelping Godzilla]

I've seen basic crossbow units floating around in the early period - I think the Russians had some, are these in the startpos? Mounted crossbows were also buildable in the early era. As the Polish I started off with a unit of urban militia forty men strong.

I don't know if it's worth reporting these startpos irregularities, since they are generally very obvious and they don't make much of a difference for the beta anyway.

Descriptions news: The Russians are pretty much done. The Polish are coming along nicely, but I'd like a change, so I'm going to make sure all the Mongol units are done tonight.

I think all royal knight units should take two turns to build. Currently they are still good buys and they can be used to replace an actual knight unit in the lineup. Taking two years would mean they couldn't be mass produced to be present at every battle. The french should be exempt, of course, using their special royal knights.

I've just revised the Turcopole description. Looking at their stats, I'd like to suggest some changes, based on relation to horse archers (the unit below) and Turcoman horse (the unit above). I'd like their charge bonus upped by one, as they used spears rather than swords, their attack upped by two (still less than Turcoman, but better than horse archers, who aren't armed for melee at all), armour dropped by one (same as horse archers, Turcopoles wore less armour than Turcoman), morale dropped by one (Turcopoles are /famed/ for being unreliable, this would put them equal with horse archers). The cost can remain the same, making them less than a great bargain (you have to pay extra to get a unit type you don't normally have) but I think the build requirements should change from bow2 and inn to horse1 and inn, making them easy to aquire as soon as you have the holy lands.

I've just noticed that Sicily has Teutonic knights, buildable in Sicily, Malta and Naples. I don't believe this is historically accurate - The teutonic order were certainly in these territories, but so were the other orders. The Templars were far more numerous here and have a history of being supported by Siciliy, unlike the Teutons. While the Teutons had a regional commanderie in Malta and Sicily, it was primarily for retired knights or novices, who became full brethren (if at all) at other locations. Overall, if Sicily is to be able to build any order knights, they should be Templars (by far the most numerous, particularly in the med).

On the subject of order knights, I'm worried about the base stats for the default MTW orders (not to mention the new ones), as compared with chivalric knights. Here are my observations and (longwinded) suggestions.

All are current/proposed.

-----Armour------
Templar 6/7
Chiv 7
Teutons 8
Hospitaller 8/7
Santiago 8/7

Templar had just as much armour as chivs, despite being active in early. The others are brought in line too, except Teutons who could/did wear heavier armour, being active in Northern Europe.

-----Attack------
Templar 4
Chiv 4
Teutons 5/4
Hospitaller 5/4
Santiago 5

Teutons and Hospitallers wouldn't have been any better than chivs. Santiago don't get reduced because the Iberian conflict was particularly bitterly fought.

-----Defense-----
Templar 4/5
Chiv 5
Teutons 6/5
Hospitaller 6/5
Santiago 6/5

Again, just bringing them all into line as they were all historically about as skilled as eachother.

-----Morale------
Templar 8/10
Chiv 8
Teutons 8/9
Hospitaller 8/9
Santiago 8/9

Of all the orders, the Templar have the most stories of insane bravery. The other orders also get a bump above ordinary knights.

Overall, Templars would no longer be the worst order. Historically, they never were, despite being around from an earlier date.

If you appreciate these fairly specific suggestions, Wes, as opposed to more general ones, I can keep using this format.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

I found the error with the Spies and Assassians. For the Expansion, CA made new versions of the Brothel and Tavern, and I forgot to change the names over in the units text. I also found a few more syntax errors with the Muslim clerical units and fixed those.
I still can't figure out the Muslim princesses, though I wonder if this is maybe something we ought to leave in?

I have made several unit changes again. YG, you'll have to update the names and descriptions accordingly.

1)I gave the Byzantine Inf back to the Byzantines. I still plan on calling them Hoplitai unless someone else has a better suggestion. They retain their current stats, so this really just changes their look, and of course the game files.

2)I gave the Viking Karls back to the Vikings. They retain their stats and unit strength, so this is another graphic and game file change.

3)I changed the Hoplitai entry in units text to Jobbagy, who are now re-named as Heerban. I haven't changed their VI icon, but they are now Gallowglasses with an extra point of defense.
This creates a situation where the Swabian Swordsmen are elite versions of Heerban.

4-5)I reduced Popolo Cav from Teutonic Sgts to Mtd Sgts, and I set Italian Nobles to appear in the High era. The Nobles were listed as Early in the mod description, and Late in the units text, so obviously I have been of different minds on them at different times.
This now sets up the pattern where the Italians get spear and halbard units one era earlier than normal, but they get cavalry units one era later than normal.

6)I adjusted Nubian Spearmen like YG has suggested. I gave them an extra point of attack, lowered their charge by one, and lowered their cost to 150 and 2, but removed the faction bonus from the Egyptians.
This gives them higher attack, charge speed and morale compared to generic Spearmen, but lower defense and a smaller shield.

As a result of switching the units around, the Hoplitai-named files are now free to be used as another unit if need-be. I am primarily referring to all the graphics files, which mimic those of Feudal Sgts. We can perhaps use these files for a generic merc for the southern Med, with a mix of offensive and defensive stats like the Hoplitai.
The Merc Swiss Pikemen and Almughavars are already divided into northern and southern provincial availability, so it would not be hard to implement such a system for the Merc Gallowglasses and a new buildable merc unit.

I have also gone through the various texts, updating them. I'll try and post an updated beta this weekend. Since the changes made are spread out all over the mod, the update will contain the entire mod.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Glad to see the byzantine infantry removed from the Nordic armies, the graphic was getting on my nerves.

I can make all of the name/description changes quickly enough. I'll probably send you the files tonight.

Also: Any response on the stuff I mentioned above?

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

Very Interested in this mod. Cant wait for the final release. Good work so far WesW. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

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

[WesW]

Here are the primary stats for the Turcopoles. Their cost is 250 and 9.

CHARGE_BONUS( 2 ), MELEE_BONUS( 2 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( 1 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 3 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 2 ), AMMO( 28 ), FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 3 )

I think this is about what you suggested. The pasted-in units text is the most up-to-date file, over the Units page. I have been updating the units page some, but I'll wait until the gold version to make sure it is completely caught up.

I feel pretty good about all the knights stats and costs. These were slowly developed over the course of 1.85's development in the winter and spring. The Royal units take a Royal Court to build, and cost the same as mercs relative to their numbers and stats. Which reminds me that I need to put in the cost penalties for the buildable mercs....

I could see having Outremers replace the Teutons for the Sicilians. I had thought that since the HRE had nominal control over Sicily in the high era, that a German knight would be the appropriate type for the Norman successors. I don't have any trouble with changing it, though, since it would be a better historical fit.

As far as getting mercs the standard way- what do the rest of you think?
I have restricted the units that can be mercs so as to eliminate the heavy, elite-type units. Sometimes they still show up, however. My thinking was that by restricting the provinces where Inns could be built, mercs would be harder to get than normal, and that they would primarily be used to fill holes in native troop types.
One aim I had was to eliminate the opportunity to hire a dominate army through mercs, so if this is still available, then maybe YG's suggestion should be implemented.

It takes me forever to make my posts, YG, so if you are posting frequently, some can get in between the time when I start and finish the reply. Just let me know if I seem to skip or ignore a post, since this is what has normally occurred.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Hmm. Well it's not that close to what I suggested. If you won't change anything else, will you at least reduce morale? I'm not kidding when I say those guys were famous for legging it. The charge bonus isn't that important, the only other real difference is that I'd give them 2 armour, not 3 :]

Are you sure you won't reconsider regarding the knights? I know you have your reasons for having the stats the way they are, but I don't think my suggestions would cause any radical harm to them and I just think they make more sense historically. Particularly having Templars as strong as the others.

Thanks for the swift reply, I'll keep complaining/suggesting and hope the odd change makes it through.

EEUURAAH.

[sprucemoose]

Wes i think the mercenaries are ok,i dont think they need changing as in my latest campaign i have had to use them to bulk up my english army as im now be attacked by every man and his dog they have now dried up.The home province rule is also excellent as it forces you to hang on to these otherewise your in deep doo-doo.

Looking forward to the update keep up the ggod work

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

p.s

How can you look at the build and unit prod? gnome veiwer keeps crashing.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Excellent mod. I played a Spanish game and launched a Crusade against the Ex-communicated HRE in Switzerland, with an eye towards siezing a merc-recruiting base of power in central Europe. Except that Switzerland has no mercs, to my surprise http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Still, when the Crusade appeared it was a bit more intimidating than the ones you got in regular MTW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

REALLY intimidating,Also o turcupoles,they have the same stats as turcoman horse in your mod,but there is a problem,the turcoman is a bit expensive(Turcopoles 250,Turkoman 275).

Also Mameluke Horse Archers are toned down somehow,and are 300 while the mongols kick ass and only cost 125

Thats from my experience on the game anyway,also i noticed muslim princesses wich is absolutly absurd(mongolian ones too brrrrrr http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif )

[ShadesPanther]

Could you upload it to the org maybe as on your site i cant download it on my 56k or my bros ISDN as you can only download for 7 minutes before the download stops

[Yelping Godzilla]

Mongolian units are all total bargains. They aren't supposed to be balanced. This helps the horde avoid being totally useless as in default MTW.

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

What minor factions are yet to be added? And when will those be available?

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

[WesW]

I guess I should have mentioned that, if you were not familiar with v1.85, you need to go over the readme, since all that stuff is in this beta, too. The stuff that has been developed for this beta is in addition to all the 1.85 stuff, which is substantial.
The 1.85 readme explains the Mongol bonuses, the new Crusade setup, and a lot of other stuff I can't recall right now. The readme is posted by itself at my webpage.

Pablo, I don't know why you thought Mercs would naturally be found in Switzerland. (Naw, I can see why it could be intuitive.) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Inns in the mod are placed where the action is, but also to be spaced out, so you have to look for the merc emblem, or consult the spreadsheet.

Bullwinkle, I don't use the Gnome editor, which may be a mistake, so I don't know about the units text not loading. You would have to contact them.

I have heard several complaints about downloads timing out with the mod, so I'll try and get the new beta sent to the org's beta section as well. Whatever the problem is with Apolyton, it's due to general site problems or some-such. My Ctp mods are all bigger than this beta, even broken into sections, and everything has always been fine.

As for the knights stats; you get into big balance problems when you try and take one type of unit and start fiddling with it independently of everything else.
Regular knights have to gradually increase in stats to warrant the higher building req's, so the Crusader types have to stay in that flow or else you start getting either useless units or uber units. The unit inter-relationships are the most delicate part of the game, so I am reluctant to do much with them on a large-scale basis. It may seem odd, but it's usually easier to swap existing units in and out than it is to adjust individual units.
For this mod, with the restrictions on available units to each faction, it usually isn't too tough to adjust the stats of one unit, since a given faction usually only has two or three units available in a given class. Thus, if the Huns were weak in heavy cav, it's not that big a deal to weaken the Banderiums a little, but it's a whole other subject when you start talking about adjusting "all" heavy knights.
This is getting off-topic, but in CtP 1 the Tank unit was so over-powered compared to all the other units in its era that the first faction to get access to it always won the game, since they could roll over any other unit. This became known as the "Race to Tank" scenario, and I always try and keep it in mind when you start talking about large-scale changes. I still tried some large-scale changes developing the first version of this mod, and they generally didn't turn out too well, and I eventually went back to CA's original setup.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Well for the most part I do agree with you, but I think an important point to remember is that knights, as 'super heavy' cavalry are often completely apart from other unit relationships. MTW, particularly with this mod, represents pretty well that for a long time there simply wasn't anything to deal with charging knights, other than your own knights. I think for the most part, changes to the stats of various knights will have the greatest effect on their relationships with eachother, rather than with other units, until perhaps the middle/end of the late period. I'm not looking to get the stats of the chivalric knight (which is the 'base' for the battle dominating knight units) changed, my suggestions are really just to bring the order knights in line with them, since historically they only had minor differences. Because these units are used as stat bases for other knights in the mod, however, I can see this could cause problems. I was really just thinking that all chiv style knights should start off with the base chiv stats and then be altered case by case a little to represent the history of the unit and the faction. At the moment templars and therefore any units based on them are underpowered chivs - some of them may deserve to be reduced, like Banderium, but as I said I'd like to see them all start at chiv stats and go from there. The non templar order knights and units based on them are currently more powerful than chivs, the reason for this being that they have higher build requirements, are more difficult to get. The situation here will change, I think, when the Teutons/Outremer come in as minor factions. I'd have thought they would then be almost the only factions with buildable order knights, so the requirements would end up of similar level to those in secular factions needed for chivs.

I'm understanding more now why the stats are how they are. Earlier crusades can get Templars, so Templars can't be allowed to dominate by having far and away the best stats for the era. Equally, you only get the other orders in crusades later when there are quite a few chiv stat units running about, so they need higher stats, reflecting the extra effort required to get them. Regarding the Templars, they really were an uber unit, as it were. They were the best troops a western general could have for a long time and they were chiv standard before the chiv appeared across europe. They were around in the golden age of crusading, so I think having chiv stats would simply reflect that back then, crusades were far more effective than they were later on. Later on, crusades actually become easier to mount because you simply have more money, so I don't know if the above chiv stats for the other order knights are totally justifiable on grounds of requirements (not going into getting them via building, because I haven't really checked that out enough).

I get where you're coming from, but I am very interested in seeing the various knights (they are symbols of medieval warfare, really) made both historically quite accurate and balanced amongst eachother. Since balance is very much an art of fine tuning and will alter as the mod progresses, I can only make the suggestions based on theory, "wouldn't it be cool if" factors and historical knowledge.

I don't think this is a hugely important issue, of course, but I do think it's interesting and raises questions about making changes with gameplay vs history in general.

Thanks for the response once more :]

EEUURAAH.

[rory_20_uk]

Will there still be the problem that islamic countries will fight well in the very hot areas, but will suffer from their inability to counter the knight threat? Has anyone found whether France especially can stomp rather hard on the Eastern forces with its units of Royal knights?
I would have thought that origionally the biggest problems with a crusade would be factors such as mass desertion, inability to feed / pay such a force of men, irrespective of the resistance that the Muslim forces were able to bring to bear. Such factors can not be portrayed in the game (you can't fight a war of attacking and retreating without loosing masses of territory, and the crusader can easily stay put if he so desires).
Sorry if I am rambling - must be the excitement of posting after so long...

[Leet Eriksson]

Welcome back rory_20_uk http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif ,you have a point,i'm having a terrible time countering knights right now,playing a muslim faction is more challenging now than before.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I personally haven't found things easy at all while crusading over there. While the knights and foot knights are powerful, they soon get exhausted and are worn down pretty effectively by horse archers (it's difficult to catch them) and massed spear (should be even more difficult in the next version, with African spearmen about). The main problem with crusades in the middle east is simply that you can't back them up. They are powerful but they soon get worn down and thanks to homelands restrictions, can't easily build their own reinforcements. Before, with sea dominance you could easily support them, but now the muslim factions (especially egypt) often have powerful fleets.

Edit: Also remember most (perhaps all) of your foot archers will have compound bows now, they get extra range and stopping power, plus some armour piercing ability.

EEUURAAH.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ Aug. 15 2003,20:36)]Pablo, I don't know why you thought Mercs would naturally be found in Switzerland. (Naw, I can see why it could be intuitive.) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Inns in the mod are placed where the action is, but also to be spaced out, so you have to look for the merc emblem, or consult the spreadsheet.
Right, there shouldn't be another one so close to Austria.

It turned out that it didn't matter. Getting two stacks stuffed with Templar cav, Feudal foot knights, and Crusader spearmen made up for it well enough. They ended up in Austria, anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[A_B]

I found a bug in the beta (an ommision really). The Spanish Militia doesn't have a texture.

Also, why do the Spanish get what in essence is Viking Landsman? Is this historical, or just for game balance purposes? I know that Spain had been conquored by German Barbarians at the fall of the Roman empire - Vandals if i remember rightly. Are these axe wielding loons their decendents?

[Lancer6969]

Yeah I noticed that too, and the Italians have access to Two Different kinds of spearmen, both have different points, but they are called Spearmen.


If you build a Spearmaker in the Province of, I believe is, Provence (the piece of land just east of Aragon.) You can build two kinds of Spearmen. At the bottom the the Discription screen of the Spearmaker of theis provinces it says "Alone enable you to train - Spearmen, Spearmen"

Looks kind of wierd.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (A_B @ Aug. 16 2003,12:16)]I found a bug in the beta (an ommision really). The Spanish Militia doesn't have a texture.

Also, why do the Spanish get what in essence is Viking Landsman? Is this historical, or just for game balance purposes? I know that Spain had been conquored by German Barbarians at the fall of the Roman empire - Vandals if i remember rightly. Are these axe wielding loons their decendents?
They're not actually Vikings or Germans. Think of them as improved militia. The Spanish get the unit to represent:

1) Religious motivation of all social classes. The Spanish Catholic church has always been unusually fervent, and it was under siege and in desperate danger all through the medieval period.

2) The superior constitution of their peasants. Life for a peasant in medieval Iberia was tough, harsher than in most other parts of Europe. Banditry, raiding, and rough terrain contributed to make an unusually tough underclass. Records of their performance are favorable.

3) The greater organization and tradition of militia units in Christian Spain. Instead of poorly motivated and ill-trained troops like most of Europe's militia, Spanish militia took and active and important part of the defense of their homeland. Spain was in a constant state of war from the 8th century until the 15th.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Ok, a few more comments from the land of Tokyo -crushes building, breathes radioactive special effects-

Ahem. Firstly, I think the Serbian Husars, or Gusars, need a change. Currently they are based on Teutonic sergeants, presumably with added lance stats. This makes them fairly similar to Cossacks, although the Cossacks in the period afaik didn't use lances. I'd like to suggest they be made into lighter lance cav, as opposed to medium/heavy cav. The Gusars didn't wear as much armour as the Cossacks, or as the Teutonic sergeants. They were also probably a little faster. Basically, they should be a good to high quality light/medium lancer unit.

This makes additional sense when you consider my new unit suggestion. Serbian Vlastela (noble cav) are noble, elite, lance and bow armed cavalry. They would only appear in High and Late, restricted to Serbia, only available to the Serbians and possibly also the Huns. They'd be feudal knight stats, with added bow capability. They offer an unusual chance to get lance+bow cav, potentially very useful to combat Byzantines, Turks or Mongols. They could also make a nice Royal BG unit for the Serbian minor faction, one which isn't as powerful as default High and Late royal BGs. Buildable in units of 20 or 40, I'm not sure which.

As a base unit for graphics and animations, I'm not sure there is a suitable lance+bow cav existing. I think the Lithuanian nobles in medmod are lance+bow though, so if you can work out a base for them, I'm guessing you could work out a base for these.

Descriptions are coming along nicely, Eastern Europe inching ever closer to completion. I'll send the files tonight, please try to avoid posting up the next version of the mod before you get them ;]

I know a suggestion for a new unit isn't entirely helpful at this point, but the Vlastela seemed like a particularly good idea (historically accurate too, of course).

EDIT: I suggest that Clipeati pikemen receive an armour bonus and a slight morale bonus. In addition, they should cost twice as much as normal in upkeep. Historically, they demanded double pay because they kept servants and were of a higher social standing than common infantry, they could also afford better armour (though not up to Armati standards). Gameplay wise, I think this is ok, because the Hungarians in late aren't a pike dominated force.

EEUURAAH.

[A_B]

Wes,

Enjoying the mod as the Argonese. The peasents have pretty much disappeared. However, they have been almost totally replaced by regular spearmen. The French armies i'm fighting are all spear with a few Nobles and FMA. While this is a realistic force, the Spaish Milita give me a great advantage over them. It seems the spanish militia are too powerful and inexpensive for the early portion of the game.

The Byzantines are now a force to be reconed with, and are expanding nicely (but not too fast). Italians are also doing better than they used to.

[Hamburglar]

I'd have to agree with A_B

It seems that the spear heavy countries really get torn apart by the countries with cheap sword type units like the Spanish militia.

Maybe Spanish militia should be a little less powerful, unless its supposed to be like the Almohad militia.

[A_B]

Regarding my last post;
i think a solution would be to have FMA and Noble Cav. have a higher build priority. Almost all the AI cavilry is from the heirs bodyguard - and these are small contingents. If the French had one FMA for every three spear, and one heavy cav for every 2 FMA, the AI would be a much tougher opponent. I don't really know what the historical mix should be.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Has Wes starting editing any of the priorities yet? I imagine it's a field in which almost endless tinkering can be made.

Whether it's a good idea to get new features like the minor factions done first or concentrate on getting the AI as strong as possible, I'm not sure.

EEUURAAH.

[Razor1952]

My reaction playing French early expert.

1. Easily winning, have huge trade economy and by 1350 200k in the bank and closing on 60%.

2.Was offered the hand of a turkish princess, -gave error of no picture but game didn't crash.

3.Was able to build townwatch series in non homeland provinces (Navarre)but then couldn't build anything with them. I guess they need to be disabled for non homeland provinces.

4. Edited the spies/assasins so they worked and that was OK.

5. The homeland and mercenary concepts, I'm not completely sold on them as yet but see they have potential.


My suggestions are

1. Reduce the value of sea trade either by reducing # of trade goods in the sea provinces or actually the value of goods themselves.

2. Boost farming income especially for inland provinces, perhaps add the forests from the Viking era. I've noticed the ai often builds up the farms improvements even when the farming income is very poor. That would I believe help the ai to peform.

3. Perhaps more provinces where if gained otherwise unobtainable units can be built.( Like steppe cavalry ). Huge armies with just spearmen might be realistic but it sure is boring.

4. I grabbed Livonia where Woodsmen ar native but they still cost 400 to build , Is that by design or they they be cheaper there?

5.My pet thing is the make spies/assasins more usable. Bearing in mind that BF's take most of them any way, I would suggest scattered provinces around the board get valour bonuses for spies/assasins and the upgrades can largely be build more quickly and at lower levels. I modded this myself and with some persistance was able to assinate a few faction leaders but it was still very hard and unpredictable to achieve, I thought quite balanced IMHO.

All in all excellent work Wes and look forward to the finished mod.

[Razor1952]

I forgot, had some Arab infantry who didn't work out as looking even vaguely human on the battlefield.

[sprucemoose]

razor,which file did you edit for spys?

was it both or just unit or build prod?

[WesW]

Hi everyone. I had a bad weekend and Monday, which is why I haven't posted the new beta. Apolyton seems to be down at the moment, and the full beta is too big to post here. I added all the small files which fixed the way that cavalry units held their lances and shields, which were in the 1.85 mod. I also found out that I had not included the 1.85 texture files for the units I moved around to different bifs, like the Nizari.

I made some more unit changes:

1)I wasn't happy with the way the Kats were working out with the new setup, plus the fact that their current bif didn't have a bow, so I moved them back to their original bif. I kept their stats the same, but they are a 40-man unit again, and they lost their shields but retained their bows. They also lost their axes in favor of swords, but I gave them an extra point of attack to partially compensate for that.
I looked up their original stats, and their current ones are very close to those. They have a little less charge and a little less armour, but the bows should more than make up for that. They are pretty much a more heavily armoured version of Byz Cav.

2)I wasn't very happy with the way the Sipahi of the Porte were working, either, so I went back to the original setup of Royal Ghulams for the early and high Turk BG unit, with the Porte's in the late era, with their original stats, but still a 40-man unit.

3)I changed the look of the Janisary Bowmen back to the original. I had been looking for a way of making the Moutatoi visually different from the Bows, and it turned out to be simpler to adjust the Bows.
I would still prefer to have a ChainHlm or MSHelm bif with a bow for the Moutatoi, though.

It would also help the mod if there were an SMailCav bif with a crossbow added. The Lord's bif mods added a mace to the EEuroCav bif. If a crossbow was added as well, it would really make the Russian crossbow cav look good.

Faisal, I believe, commented on how hard it is to play as the Muslims, and it is apparently much harder for the AI, since I continue to roll through any Muslim force of even close to my size. I recently defended a strong hill with about 8 bow-armed units, and a mixture of spears, swords and cav against a large Egyptian force of mainly spears, though of all three types available to them. The result was a massacre. Even though I was substantially out-numbered, I routed them with a loss of about 50 men.

I made a Muslim Hordes variation of the 1.85 mod to try and address this very problem, but it restricted the unit sizes you could select. I want to do the same thing for this mod, but make it the default setting. 100-man units can be raised to 120 and only eliminate Huge unit sizes. I just don't know how many people would be strongly opposed to the change on this ground.
The basic problem is that the Muslim units are not as heavy as the Christian units, and with the 16-unit limit, they can't bring as much statistical weight to the battlefield, at least if they are restricted to the same unit size as the Christians. I want to change the Muslim unit sizes to 120, 75 and 50 for spears, swords and cavalry, respectively. I think this would go a long way towards making the game more balanced and challenging.

The suggestion about the farmland priorities is a good one, and I'll implement it the first chance I get. It requires going through the startpos files and fixing the beginning land improvements just right, so it's not a quick or easy job. I agree that it could make a big boost to AI performance. BTW, isn't it a good problem dealing with AI "over"-development of its provinces?

Razor, you are confusing region and faction bonuses with the Woodsman, and 5) isn't doable, really. Syria now has back its original bonus, which was to Assassins. I don't think there is a spy province yet, so if anyone wants to suggest something, I'll keep it in mind.

For non-Homeland provinces, you can build basic units like spearmen and archers, plus regional units like Steppe Cav, any generic bolt or gunpowder unit, any artillery unit, any ship unit that your faction can build, and any special attack unit such as spies and assassins. In short, you should almost always be able to put these provinces to good use, freeing up your homeland for the regular and elite troops.

As for the spearmen hordes- my plan is for the addition of the minor factions to go a long way in suppressing this. The problem isn't unit priorities, but defense requirements. Especially in early, most all major factions border at least one rebel province. Rebel provinces start the game over-strength, because they don't build new units. Thus, the major faction's defensive AI reads that there is a strong threat on its border, and starts churning out as many of whatever unit can be had as fast as it can until it meets its defensive goal. With every faction doing this for at least one province, you end up with increasing threats all along everyone's borders, so you end up with income-sucking hordes of cheap units everywhere.
The minor factions will start out with forces comparable to the major factions on a provincial basis, so hopefully we won't get this start-game arms race each game. If this approach doesn't work, I can add a lot more units to the start of the game, so at least the hordes will be composed of quality troops.

As for Provence- you can recruit Pyrenese Brigands (Round Shield Spearmen) there, so that is why you see two entries.

YG, I don't think the Huns need another cav unit. I think the nobles you refer to are about the same as the Bashtina I added. The stats for Teutonic Sgts are the same as Feudal Kns, with lower morale but excellent speed. If you want to give them a bow, so they could be used as a heavier version of Szekelies, that would be fine. I am not exactly sure what the name Husar denotes, so if a name change is in order, feel free to change the descriptions.
Also, I read the descriptions you have been sending in, and I want everyone to know that they are fantastic. They tell you everything you would want to know about the unit- its qualities, its place in history, its relation to other units, and squeezed into a few sentences. Here are his descriptions for a couple of the new Russian units:

["Cossacks_desc"]
{"Cossack comes from the Turkic word Kazak, meaning free man or adventurer. The Cossacks defy outside description, seeing themselves simply as a special self-governing entity within Russia. They are strongly Christian and highly motivated soldiers, independant though loyal. Armed with chekan battle hammers and swords and often clad in elaborate heavy armour, they are superb cavalry. "}

["Berdyshi_desc"]
{"(Halberdiers) The Berdysh is a long, broad, two handed axe found solely in Russia. Found in the armies of both the Russian princes and the fearsome Mongol army, these men from the edge of the steppe use this peculiar half-halberd half-axe with considerable skill. Less armoured than western halberdiers, they are nonetheless a valuable resource for any ruler looking to expand his domain beyond the steppe."}

This is type of background info that really brings the game alive to me. Instead of just building Halbardiers or Swordsmen or whatnot, you will be building, and fighting, actual historical units, with their own unique histories, armaments and qualities.
GY, I have made notes where your descriptions imply that units should have slightly altered stats from others in their class, and I'll make whatever stat and/or textural change is necessary to fit the description.

Btw, was it typical for a well-armed cav unit to have bows, lances and shields? I just wonder how they would manage all that equipment with only two hands, even if they guided the horse with their knees.

Finally, I haven't seen any suggestions for the Hoplitai entry, which is unclaimed since I brought in the Jobbagy. I am going to restrict the merc Gallows to northern Europe like YG suggested, so a medium unit is needed, primarily for the Outremer. Perhaps something like Outremer Infantry, to go along with the Knights? They would have about the same stats as the current Byz Inf./Hoplitai. These guys would be the pages and retainers of the Knights.

My plan for the mod right now is to continue to play and get feedback, and make any generalized unit changes that are necessary. Sometime next week I'll start on the new factions. I am going to have to study what some of the other mods have done, like Gnell's, and also get info from you guys on stuff like names. I know someone has made a complete Scotland faction, which I would want to use, but I don't really know what else is out there.

[Razor1952]

Spruce moose just add (or alter ) in the units file that new_tavern/new_brothel is the required building for those agents.

Wes, Can only only 1 province have a units bonus?, I thought maybe several of the "unused provinces" could also get the assasin or a spy bonus.

Of course you could just start spies/assasins with +1 or +2 valour or alter the development tree to add another level ( say inns at the basic level also builds assasins/spies , taverns give +1 valour , then the two agents trees diverge. That way with syria you could build +5 assasins and other provinces +4's , I've played around with these and they still get caught in droves, but at least you can occasionally get lucky.

BTW I also thought these better agents would take longer to build AND have upkeep -like 2-3 years and 100 florins/year, to stop agent flooding. It always annoyed me to have to build 20 spies to get a job done. This way a player with some effort can go the devious route to victory without it being too easy or too tedious.

Btw what do you think about reducing the trade values.?

[Yelping Godzilla]

Well the Bashtina are good but expensive heavy cavalry for Hungary. They mercenary chivalric knights, unless I'm missing something. On the other hand the Serbian Vlastela are only feudal knight stats and have an added bow, so they don't compare as High/Late heavy cav.

The reasons I'd like to see Vlastela in the game:
Historically the Serbian Empire used these guys at the front of all their armies.
Lance+bow cav are rare and interesting to use.
The Serbians (whe they're implemented) will need a weaker royal unit - in High and Late, feudal knight stats are weaker than default royals.

The main reason is the historical side of it. Like you said, a lot of the fun of the mod is playing using historical units, with nice flavour text, historical units you have to use in a similar way they were used in history.

Another reason though, relates to the Bashtina. I can't find any info on Bashtina, or indeed mercenary knights in Hungary, at all. I personally think they should be removed. The huns do get Banderium and Husars, along with their horse archer units - if the Vlastela were available to them (they could be Serbian unique) they would bridge the gap between horse archers and heavy cav.

Husars is fine for the name as far as I know. I think Gusar is pronounced Husar anyway. To my knowledge they never used bows, but were damned good lance cav. On lance cav generally, they can't be allowed to become the equals of knights - they are really a cross between the knight and the mounted sergeant, a bit more useful when not charging than MS, but not the elite units that Knights are. I still think Husars should get less armour than Czeladz lance and Cossacks, on historical grounds. Gameplay wise, if the Huns could also get Vlastela, they wouldn't need the lancers to be as armoured, having a feudal knight stat alternative.

Even if the huns aren't allowed Vlastela, I'd like you to keep them in mind for the Serbs, when they are implemented. I believe you said you were planning on giving the minors perhaps one or two unqiue or shared special troops.

As for the historical use of lance+shield+bow, you're right in that it wasn't actually used that much. The Byzantines made use of the configuration, but often when historians report units used this equipment, it meant that they /could/ use that equipment. They would bring it with them to battle, but only actually ride out to fight with either bow+sword+shield or lance+shield+sword. The cases where lance and bow were actually used as a combination in battle are remarkable - often the cav were very successful too.

Thankyou for the comments regarding the description text. Pablo's descriptions are also in there and I think are of equal quality - in fact many of his are more 'MTWesque' than mine :]

I'm not sure what should be done with hoplitai. Outremer wouldn't have had a similar unit, historically. Their armies were almost always order knights (templars usually) plus assorted untrustworthy turcopoles and possibly some basic spearman type units. Of course they also got lots of crusaders 'helping' them out, so maybe make the crusader units buildable in Outremer. That way I think you'd get feudal sergeants. Not sure though.

I'll edit the post later if I remember anything else.

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

I wonder if my post got deleted? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif . Anyway...I was wondering what the minor factions will consist of. And when the Official release of the mod will be. I am sure I will get the "when the mod is done" answer, but just a little update would be great http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

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

[Dukezer0]

Hi all. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Have been play testing the new mod profusely and noticed the graphical and other errors that most have encountered and posted about. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

As with the AI, i have played 5 games (not all the way through of course) and seen different outcomes each time apart from the italians always get troused.
Also i agree with razor on the building priorities, fighting 1000 spearmen can be *yawn* and unstrategic.

On a personal note, why are there some provinces without a valour bonus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif , and still some with a naval valour bonus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif .
Pleeeeeeeeease could you sort this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif . There is no point to naval units having valour bonuses and there are so many units that each province could have a valour bonus unit, it makes it more interesting and fun IMO.

Also IMO, assassins and spies should not have valour bonus provinces, there are buildings for this. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Contrary to the above rant(s), fantastic mod (even for a beta) and is shaping up to be everything i thought is would be http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif .

Cya l8r, DZ http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Yelping Godzilla]

Quote[/b] ]Originally written by WesW

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

That's from one of the readme texts Lancer.

EEUURAAH.

[Lancer6969]

Great thanks, this might take a while Looks awesome.

[Lord of the Isles]

This is a query about Agents (spies, assassins, inquisitors, bishops, priests etc). I find them extremely annoying. The constant micromanaging detracts from gameplay for me but I appreciate that this is subjective and others quite like them.

But this isn't the place for a discussion of pros and cons. I released a simple mod for 1.1 (No_Agents_1_1 or similar) to get rid of them (all agents save Emissaries and Princesses, with some building values tweaked to compensate for losing bishop/priest's religious effects). Since installing Viking Invasion they are back of course but when the VI patch comes out I intend to release an update for the mod.

But I've since fallen for Medmod. Have there been any requests for doing something about Agent Hell in Medmod? I'd be happy to mod it for my own use only when it gets more stable but wondered if I was alone in my views?

[Yelping Godzilla]

Well, I'm not sure that I'd like to see all agents gone, but when I think about it the game might be better without them. I would like to see an alternative version of medmod, with no agents, or rather only Emissaries, Princesses and perhaps assassins.

Spies, Inquisitors, priests - As far as I know the AI doesn't use them properly and for the player unless you use them in a 'cheap' manner (spy swarms) they're pretty useless.

I think assassins should stay in, because they can at least be annoying when they are used against you and they don't show up on the strat map. Additionally, I use them to get rid of 0 star, yet disloyal, generals to prevent them turning in a civil war.

EEUURAAH.

[A_B]

I would certainly be interested in a 'no agents' mod. another thing to do, to keep the campaign hard, is limit yourself on agents, but allow the AI to have them. Or, limit yourself to a total of 20 (or one parchement full - something easy to remember).

[WesW]

Mod's up.

I think some of you guys are getting ahead of the game here with talk about no agents variations and such. There are probably going to be several more weeks of play-testing before everything is in and all balanced out.
I have always invited people to make their own versions of the Medmod, and I'll even post the finished version at my site.

"On a personal note, why are there some provinces without a valour bonus, and still some with a naval valour bonus?"

Because the mod's not finished yet, Dufus. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I have been adding in the valour bonuses as I go through the factions, but there are things to consider here. DOC did some studies a few months ago, and found that the AI seemed to stop developing a province once it became able to build the bonus unit. An exception was when a province starts out able to build the unit, in which case it develops the province normally. Thus, I have been taking time when assigning units to valuable provinces. I changed the bonus in Wessex from Cog, I believe, to Carrack for this reason. I also want the bonuses to have some special connection to the unit whenever possible, like Serbia for Serbian Husars.
I have added quite a few additional bonuses for this update. If someone wanted to scan the map and make a list of which provinces were still available, it be a big help to me. It's not a goal, though, to grant every single province a unit. Some factions have more provinces available than others, and I don't want to give them too much of an advantage this way.

So far, I have just been updating the unit text sporadically as far as costs and such, and not updating the spreadsheet at all to show the changes. I *have* been updating the mod description text pretty consistently, and I have re-written most of the concept descriptions and such, so everyone needs to read the top part of it.

YG, I can change the Bashtina to the Vlastela, with the stats you suggest. This may even provide a smoother transition to the Banderium if they were weaker than other Late era knights.
I can also knock the Husar's attack, defense and armour down a point. This will set them in a nice niche. They are faster than Nobles, have better charge and armour than Szekely, and lower costs than Vlastela.
Do the Vlastela have superior speed?

Also, I want to alter/add Glory Goals for all the factions to match their Homelands. I have a note made about creating a custom file for this, but I can't find the post it came from for more details. I don't play GG's, but I thought that if one of you who did wanted to make them for all the factions, I would like to include it in the mod.

Razor, only one province is allowed per unit. The rest of the stuff with spies and assassins is not something I want to get into. Like a no agents variation, if you wanted to make your own version of the mod, I would be happy to post it.

Right now, I plan to spend the next week or so implementing the list of stuff I already have on the to-do list, plus anything else that comes up during testing. I'll post that as the next beta, and then I'll get into adding the minor factions.
After that, more play-testing will be needed to see how the minor faction concept works, along with making final adjustments to costs and so-forth, and then hopefully the mod will be about ready for public release.

[Yelping Godzilla]

I think the Serbian Empire had pretty limited access to the speedy steppe breeds, so I reckon the Vlastela would be normal fedual knight speed.

You're probably right that if the Bashtina had stayed around people wouldn't have used the Banderium. Especially with the homelands concept - they would want their key provinces building ultra elite units. It all fits historically, as the Huns were at a disadvantage when it came to super heavy armour. Very happy with the reductions to the Husars too - I'll be playing medmod primarily as Hungary so it's not like I'm trying to weaken them. Just want them to have a historical and unique army.

Remember the Husars don't have bows, so there's no fear of them ever replacing the horse archer units.

I hope to have the descriptions 90% done by the time the next update is made. Of course they will all be subject to change, but I'm concentrating on getting rid of placeholders and updating renamed units now, rather than revising descriptions already completed.

EEUURAAH.

[A_B]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ Aug. 19 2003,23:30)]I have always invited people to make their own versions of the Medmod, and I'll even post the finished version at my site.
I think that once the MedMod is complete, it will be good to go through and create new 'super hard' campaigns based on individual Factions. For example, the MedMod, super-hard, high age Byzintine campaign. The Byz would start with no money, fewer territories, and more expensive elite units than in the Regular MedMod.

I know a lot of experienced players mod the game like this anyway. Having these superhard mods - all based on Wes's medmod, would just save us all a lot of time.

[Lancer6969]

You should try it A_B. Good idea.

Are there a lot of new units in this mod or what?? Great job on the mod so far.

[Dukezer0]

Quote[/b] ]Because the mod's not finished yet, Dufus.


Sorry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif, and yes i am a dufus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Right, i've been testing the turks and have found everything to be ok apart from the following...

1) Ottoman sipahi seem to be a little under powered when compared to other high period cavalry, especially because they take 2 turns to produce. But is this how you want them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif (perhaps i am thinking of the other MedMod where they kicked arse.)

2) You probarbly know about the graphic glitch for the janissary archers (looks like they are walking upwards http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif .)

3) I may be alone with this one but i experienced many battles with the mongols, and as much as i hate them( http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif ), i am unbias when i say that i think the missile stats for both warriors and horse archers are slightly over powered too. The janissary archers (were) the most powerful bow unit, now they seem to be the equal of the MW and MHA. I know they have armour piercing arrows............just food for thought. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

4) Even though it was high period, most of the production of the russians were still in the early period http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif .

5) IMO i don't think you need to change sipahis of the porte back to ghulam bodyguards. Its nice to have each faction have a unique royal unit, though they are slightly too powerful, perhaps just change the +1 valour bonus on Rum http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif .


On a different note (and i know i've said it before http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif ) the AI is superb, apart from the slight production anomaly when the period changes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Will post when i've played the english http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

DZ

[Lancer6969]

Someone might have already said this, but the ITALIAN Men at Arms, are screwy in the Battlefield. They keep attacking, it needs to be fixed.

[Gregoshi]

Prime Meridian has following problem posted in the Entrance Hall:

-----
I'm not exactly what you'd call gifted with computers, so I ask for forgiveness in advance. I went to the MedMod site, clicked on the 3.02 beta link, and chose to save the zipped folder to My Documents. Then, I went to My Documents, right clicked the folder and selected "Extract All...". I chose to unzip the files into the Medieval TotalWar fold. However, when I started the unzipping process it prompted me for several passwords. Now what am I supposed to do?
-----

Original thread is here (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=10259).

[Dukezer0]

Oh, another thing i noticed is that the royal unit of the french starts with chivalric knights (normal) but then changes to feudal knights in high http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif .

Is this right?

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

[A_B]

The mercenary Lansmap textures are mis-linked. They will appear Wavy in battles. I emailed Wes about it already.

This is a great mod. The new units add charachter to all of the different factions. It will make it fun to play the French (who i usually avoid) and Italians, and all the minors.

I have a Super Duper Hard Russian campaign built, if anyone wants to try it.

[ToranagaSama]

Would someone be so kind as to instruct as to the most effective manner in which to install the latest beta.

I have MedMod IV 2.03 installed at present.

I ask because of the following on Wes' page:


Quote[/b] ]CAUTION: Installing over vanilla VI or v2.04 will result in some changes and/or omissions to unit names and descriptions, as well as some changes to unit graphics.

Is the above generally expected as a result of the "beta" state of the mod or simply a quick in relation to "vanilla VI of v2.04"? Need I heed the caution if installing over 2.03? Do I need to uninstall?

Thanks.

[TS anticipates a "lost" weekend http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif ]

[Yelping Godzilla]

It's just due to the state of the beta. When 3.02 is fixed (it's not working right now), to be on the safe side you should use a clean copy of MTW with VI installed and install it over the top. There are problems with the beta, which is why it's a beta, but the warning is really about the Viking campaign - with 3.02 installed it isn't advised to play it. All the units would have messed up names/grahpics.

EEUURAAH.

[WesW]

Hi, TS. The mod adds a lot of new units, but it also uses most all of the Viking Campaign units, and most of them have new names and several have new pics and icons.

Thinking about it, though, if you install this beta, and want to go back to playing the Viking Campaign, all that would be messed up are some of the icons and pics, as well as the names of most of them. Generally, though, I wouldn't recommend getting into the beta if you still want to play the Viking Campaign.
There's certainly no need to uninstall anything before installing the beta.

I certainly didn't make the zip password protected, so I don't know what is happening with that. You can try simply leaving the field blank and pressing Enter to see if it's reading a null password. Wait.... Are you sure it was passwords, and not prompts asking if you wanted to over-write files? The zip would only have one password, which would come up before the files started unzipping.

Thanks for the bug reports, guys. I have fixed both of those. You can still play the game normally; the unit just won't look right.

Duke, yes, the French bodyguard units are the regular knights for that era.
I haven't touched the Ottoman Sipahi. The only Muslim units I have adjusted are the Porte, which I set back to its original stats and era, the Nubian Spearmen, whom I made some tweaks to, and the Hashishin, whom I increased to 16 men. I don't think I have mentioned that last one anywhere, either. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
I set the textures for the Jan Bows back to their original ones for the 3.02 update. Let me know if you have the updated 3.02 units text, which I posted separately from the rest of the mod.
The Mongols are unchanged as well. The Mongol bows have shortbow range but longbow killing power.
The Porte can certainly be changed back easily enough. Historically, I am told, they didn't appear until the Late era, which has them coming out with the Janisaries. I'll see how it works out, and how the provinces divide up when I split the Turks into Ottoman and Seljuk factions.

For everyone: If you have observations or problems with the 3.01 beta, continue to report them here. If you have the 3.02 beta, go ahead and post in the thread YG made. The 3.02 zip actually didn't contain anything that hadn't already been announced, so I didn't think to start a new thread when I posted it, but obviously there needs to be one now.

Finally, I forgot Razor's question about adjusting trade. As far as trade balancing, all you can hope to do, really, is get things set up so they run pretty well for the first century or so. The game can go so many ways that you may have a huge income one game, and struggle the next. The AIs are even more varied in their outcomes, and they are the ones I worry about. Actually, getting things to run as well as they do now took months of work, and is, I believe, much better than the setup the game shipped with.

[Lancer6969]

I didn't have any problems with istall at all. Great mod so far, cant wait for the Minor Factions. Keep up the good work

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

You should start mixing and matching up units, and make new ones. All the new units are great, but the ones that are just named differently are, well ya know, not as fun. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Anyway, cant wait.

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

[Gregoshi]

Prime Meridian reports that he was accidentally extracting the zipped file to the wrong folder. He apologizes for the mistake and thanks all who pondered on his problem.