Duke John
03-08-2004, 14:03
Foreword
A few months ago I made an attempt at the NET to make a community mod designed for MP and it failed, because it was meant to redesign all the armylists and it would also needed a seperate installation.
However I am a stubborn guy and will not give up my quest to provide the community a balanced game with historical graphics to boot. My aim is to find a balance between game-play and historical accuracy, some people may not like that, but since this mod will not provide me any income, I will care very little for the consumers who only play for winning. The last few months (with some pauses) I have been working on and developing a mod about the Wars of the Roses, below is a first draft of the mod.
Introduction
"The Wars of the Roses, lasting from 1455 to 1487, were a dynastic struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, and involved only the aristocratic families of these houses and their followers. Rather than a civil war, these campaigns represented a prolonged struggle for power between two political parties, both of which accepted the unity of the kingdom and the existing system of government by King, Council and Parliament.
Thus the wars were fought by the great barons with the aid of their private armies. "
[Source: The Wars of the Roses by Osprey Publishing]
Now why makes this the Wars of the Roses interesting for multiplay? The WotR were not so much about conquering regions or besieging cities and castles. The aim was to overcome the rival house by defeating them in field battles. If they had no army left then they would pose no threat. So the WotR are mainly about pitched battles and that is what most of us do in mp.
The armies pitched against each other were also mainly of the same composition so that will make the mod relatively easy to balance. You can compare it to Shogun, with each faction having the same unit selection.
The factions
As said before all the factions will be the same. For some this will be dull, but remember that mod is just another period that you can select, you won't be restricted to play only this mod. Because of the armylists you will require (slightly) different tactics and amend your playing style. While some of you might not be up to this kind of change, this mod is also not meant for those.
Unlike normal M:TW factions are now not named after countries but after kings, barons and dukes that were able raise personal armies.
The armies
First some technicalities to better explain the limited amount of units. VI allows 10 custom BIFs, which are used to display units on the battlefield. So I can add 10 new models.
When making new unitgraphics you can either choose to render weapons together with the soldier or place them afterwards using coordinates. The latter is very, very laborous and takes weeks to do it reasonably well. Even CA makes mistakes with this, just look at Swabian Swordsmen for a good example.
I choose to render the weapons together with the soldier. This will take more time to animate, but I am done after the rendering, so I will save alot of time. In my eyes it also looks better, but since a picture is worth a thousand words:
http://chronicles.metw.net/wotr/screens/wotr_menatarms_charge.jpg
This is how the Squires will look like, although the model will be edited a bit.
Before someone suggests to use existing unitgraphics for this mod: NO, I really dislike the looks of the units. CA did put so much effort into S:TW and then they give medieval soldiers football shirts. The units are also not representable for the timeperiod, remember my love for historical accuracy. I have a couple of books that cover the period and I am doing my utmost best to make the models as realistic as possible.
And now the unitselection that I have come up with. Please take in mind that the tactics used during the Wars of the Roses were slightly different than on the mainland. The longbow ruled supreme as missile troop, and the common use of anti-cavalry weapons such as the bill, pike and poll axe made cavalry a rare sight on the battlefield.
Standard infantry
Billmen
Men: 100
Equipment: bill
Attack: good
Defense: moderate
Armour: moderate
Comments: This unit is meant to hold the line, the armour piercing bill will help the unit to put a decent fight against armoured units. Do not see this unit as normal Billmen but as a spearmen unit, it will get a rankbonus since normal infantry relied on each other for protection. Billmen will also get slower turning speeds to take the large formation into account.
Pikemen
Men: 100
Equipment: Pike
Attack: bad
Defense: excellent
Armour: good/moderate
Comments: Pikemen have a similar role compared to Billmen, but are not that good at killing. They excel however in keeping the enemy at bay using their long pikes and they will hold the line for a long time. This comes at a cost, Pikemen are even slower in turning and they rely heavily on rank bonus to remain effective. A flank charge will probably spell doom.
Halberdiers
Men: 60
Equipment: Halberd
Attack: Good
Defense: Good
Armour: Good
Comments: Halberdiers are meant as a inbetween. They are not that good at holding a line because of their numbers, and they are also not that good at attacking as Men-at-Arms. However they are better at flanking since they do not need to hold formation. You should see them as a relatively cheap way to protect a flank.
Men-at-Arms
Squires
Men: 40
Equipment: Pollaxe
Attack: excellent
Defense: excellent
Armour: excellent
Comments: Squires can cut up any unit, however their small size will make not a certain bet against Pikemen and Billmen if sent unsupported.
(Foot) Knights
Men: 40
Equipment: Bastard sword
Attack: Excellent
Defense: Excellent
Armour: Excellent
Comments: Nobles were forced to fight on foot to avoid having them flee at the slightest setback. Knights are similar to Squires, but are slightly better and have even better morale. Ideal for holding the line no matter what. This unit will be pretty expensive though.
Some of you may frown upon this unit, but this unit is not put in just to add another choice, but to be a representable general unit for historical battles and for the players who want to stay in character.
Cavalry
Mounted Men-at-Arms
Men: 40
Equipment: Lance and cavalry hammer
Attack: excellent
Defense: excellent
Armour: excellent
Comments: Because of the many anti-cav units caution is advised when using this unit. A well placed flank charge is still a very effective way to collapse a flank.
'Prickers'
Men: 40
Equipment: lance
Attack: bad (excellent charge)
Defense: moderate
Armour: good
Comments: Prickers were used at the back of the army to discourage soldiers from deserting. They were also used to pursue the enemy once it started to rout. Since armies are mainly composed of infantry it is wise to keep this unit as a reserve specifically for pursueing at which it excels because of its great speed and an excellent charge.
Missile troops
Longbows
Men: 100
Equipment: sword and buckler
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: moderate
Comments: English armies had alot of longbows, to reflect this a 100 unit will provide enough longbows without the need of selecting 4 units. In other words, you can have the same amount missiles but with more slots left to fill with combat troops.
This unit is not that good at combat but because of its numbers it can swarm an unit, which is how it went in history.
Armoured Longbows
Men: 60
Equipment: hand axe
Attack:moderate
Defense:moderate
Armour:good
Comments: This unit should act like an hybrid. In most battles the longbows would first fire their arrows after which the infantry moved forward through their ranks. After combat was initiated, the longbows joined to strengthen the line.
Handgunners
Men: 60
Equipment: arquebus
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: moderate
Comments: Not really reliable, but the fearcausing effect can help in routing unit that has been a target practice for longbows.
Demi-Culverins
Men: 12 crew
Equipment: demi-culverin
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: bad
Comments: the cost of this unit will be high enough to avoid homing-missiles at high valour. This unit is mainly put in for sieges.
Balancing the stats
What I conclude from the many discussions on disbalance is that upgrading the units with valour makes certain units better in a way that we do not want. Units are not choosen on common sense (rock paper scissors), but on the knowledge of the upgrade formula. The stats of the units should reflect their combat ability and their cost is an important factor to keep that combat ability on most valour levels.
One way I want to achieve this is by giving some units the same cost. For example Billmen and Pikemen perform a similar role but have slight differences. These differences should be big enough that they cannot be countered by upgrading. Since both units cost the same, the player is forced to think about what kind of unit he wants to hold his line. He should not be able to take in consideration that Pikemen are a better buy at valour 3 compared to Billmen.
Morale
A lot of the upgrading is done to gain the necessary morale of 8. Most of the units will have a high enough starting morale to be reliable enough at valour 0 or 1. To avoid ubersoldiers by upgrading them to valour 4, the units will also have a higher starting cost compared to normal M:TW.
Movement
Besides the changed manueverability of certain units (Pikemen, Billmen) this mod will also lose the slow moving rates of heavily armoured units. Armies in the WotR are mainly composed of infantry and that means slow army movement. Together with the removal of pavs will this help keeping games fast paced and not transform them into a crawl.
Shooting contest
At the moment most games start with a shooting contest. Nothing wrong with this, since it helps players to position their armies before clashing into each other. All of the battles during the Wars of the Roses also started with shooting. The longbows were lethal on the mainland but they now cancelled each other out, but still they forced the infantry to move forward since nobody could endure the rain of arrows for long. That is probably except for the Men-At-Arms; armour production was now at its height and arrows could rarely penetrate plate if it struck at an angle.
With the exclusion of pavs, you can now quickly destroy a missile line with a cavalry unit. If you still want to do this after taking into consideration the AP arrows and anti-cav infantry is up to you.
Since longbows go through their arrows quickly it will be a tactical decision on how long do you want to continue. Save a few arrows to thin the infantry ranks, or continue shooting the enemy missile to lessen casualities when you advance your line. With pavs this problem didn't exist since they lasted the entire battle.
Will this mod make other periods impossible to play?
This mod will be fully compatible with MP and does not interfere with a regular installation of M:TW - VI. It will be an additional period to select. Note that it probably will not be compatible with another mod, although it will work with CBR's mod.
My last words
And now I hope that this mod I am working catches your attention and that you share my view that a slighly different unit selection provides interesting battles and is not more of the same.
I am very interested in your opinions, do you think it will work? Is the community too conversative to download the mod? Is the armylist seriously flawed? Still if you heavily disagree I am still interested in your opinion as long it can help in making a better mod.
I will also need the help of the community to balance the armylist, it is relatively small so it won't be that much work. However the balance is vital to back up everything I said above, so if players, who have knowledge on how the game-mechanics work, want to help then please post.
Thanks for your attention,
Duke John
A few months ago I made an attempt at the NET to make a community mod designed for MP and it failed, because it was meant to redesign all the armylists and it would also needed a seperate installation.
However I am a stubborn guy and will not give up my quest to provide the community a balanced game with historical graphics to boot. My aim is to find a balance between game-play and historical accuracy, some people may not like that, but since this mod will not provide me any income, I will care very little for the consumers who only play for winning. The last few months (with some pauses) I have been working on and developing a mod about the Wars of the Roses, below is a first draft of the mod.
Introduction
"The Wars of the Roses, lasting from 1455 to 1487, were a dynastic struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, and involved only the aristocratic families of these houses and their followers. Rather than a civil war, these campaigns represented a prolonged struggle for power between two political parties, both of which accepted the unity of the kingdom and the existing system of government by King, Council and Parliament.
Thus the wars were fought by the great barons with the aid of their private armies. "
[Source: The Wars of the Roses by Osprey Publishing]
Now why makes this the Wars of the Roses interesting for multiplay? The WotR were not so much about conquering regions or besieging cities and castles. The aim was to overcome the rival house by defeating them in field battles. If they had no army left then they would pose no threat. So the WotR are mainly about pitched battles and that is what most of us do in mp.
The armies pitched against each other were also mainly of the same composition so that will make the mod relatively easy to balance. You can compare it to Shogun, with each faction having the same unit selection.
The factions
As said before all the factions will be the same. For some this will be dull, but remember that mod is just another period that you can select, you won't be restricted to play only this mod. Because of the armylists you will require (slightly) different tactics and amend your playing style. While some of you might not be up to this kind of change, this mod is also not meant for those.
Unlike normal M:TW factions are now not named after countries but after kings, barons and dukes that were able raise personal armies.
The armies
First some technicalities to better explain the limited amount of units. VI allows 10 custom BIFs, which are used to display units on the battlefield. So I can add 10 new models.
When making new unitgraphics you can either choose to render weapons together with the soldier or place them afterwards using coordinates. The latter is very, very laborous and takes weeks to do it reasonably well. Even CA makes mistakes with this, just look at Swabian Swordsmen for a good example.
I choose to render the weapons together with the soldier. This will take more time to animate, but I am done after the rendering, so I will save alot of time. In my eyes it also looks better, but since a picture is worth a thousand words:
http://chronicles.metw.net/wotr/screens/wotr_menatarms_charge.jpg
This is how the Squires will look like, although the model will be edited a bit.
Before someone suggests to use existing unitgraphics for this mod: NO, I really dislike the looks of the units. CA did put so much effort into S:TW and then they give medieval soldiers football shirts. The units are also not representable for the timeperiod, remember my love for historical accuracy. I have a couple of books that cover the period and I am doing my utmost best to make the models as realistic as possible.
And now the unitselection that I have come up with. Please take in mind that the tactics used during the Wars of the Roses were slightly different than on the mainland. The longbow ruled supreme as missile troop, and the common use of anti-cavalry weapons such as the bill, pike and poll axe made cavalry a rare sight on the battlefield.
Standard infantry
Billmen
Men: 100
Equipment: bill
Attack: good
Defense: moderate
Armour: moderate
Comments: This unit is meant to hold the line, the armour piercing bill will help the unit to put a decent fight against armoured units. Do not see this unit as normal Billmen but as a spearmen unit, it will get a rankbonus since normal infantry relied on each other for protection. Billmen will also get slower turning speeds to take the large formation into account.
Pikemen
Men: 100
Equipment: Pike
Attack: bad
Defense: excellent
Armour: good/moderate
Comments: Pikemen have a similar role compared to Billmen, but are not that good at killing. They excel however in keeping the enemy at bay using their long pikes and they will hold the line for a long time. This comes at a cost, Pikemen are even slower in turning and they rely heavily on rank bonus to remain effective. A flank charge will probably spell doom.
Halberdiers
Men: 60
Equipment: Halberd
Attack: Good
Defense: Good
Armour: Good
Comments: Halberdiers are meant as a inbetween. They are not that good at holding a line because of their numbers, and they are also not that good at attacking as Men-at-Arms. However they are better at flanking since they do not need to hold formation. You should see them as a relatively cheap way to protect a flank.
Men-at-Arms
Squires
Men: 40
Equipment: Pollaxe
Attack: excellent
Defense: excellent
Armour: excellent
Comments: Squires can cut up any unit, however their small size will make not a certain bet against Pikemen and Billmen if sent unsupported.
(Foot) Knights
Men: 40
Equipment: Bastard sword
Attack: Excellent
Defense: Excellent
Armour: Excellent
Comments: Nobles were forced to fight on foot to avoid having them flee at the slightest setback. Knights are similar to Squires, but are slightly better and have even better morale. Ideal for holding the line no matter what. This unit will be pretty expensive though.
Some of you may frown upon this unit, but this unit is not put in just to add another choice, but to be a representable general unit for historical battles and for the players who want to stay in character.
Cavalry
Mounted Men-at-Arms
Men: 40
Equipment: Lance and cavalry hammer
Attack: excellent
Defense: excellent
Armour: excellent
Comments: Because of the many anti-cav units caution is advised when using this unit. A well placed flank charge is still a very effective way to collapse a flank.
'Prickers'
Men: 40
Equipment: lance
Attack: bad (excellent charge)
Defense: moderate
Armour: good
Comments: Prickers were used at the back of the army to discourage soldiers from deserting. They were also used to pursue the enemy once it started to rout. Since armies are mainly composed of infantry it is wise to keep this unit as a reserve specifically for pursueing at which it excels because of its great speed and an excellent charge.
Missile troops
Longbows
Men: 100
Equipment: sword and buckler
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: moderate
Comments: English armies had alot of longbows, to reflect this a 100 unit will provide enough longbows without the need of selecting 4 units. In other words, you can have the same amount missiles but with more slots left to fill with combat troops.
This unit is not that good at combat but because of its numbers it can swarm an unit, which is how it went in history.
Armoured Longbows
Men: 60
Equipment: hand axe
Attack:moderate
Defense:moderate
Armour:good
Comments: This unit should act like an hybrid. In most battles the longbows would first fire their arrows after which the infantry moved forward through their ranks. After combat was initiated, the longbows joined to strengthen the line.
Handgunners
Men: 60
Equipment: arquebus
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: moderate
Comments: Not really reliable, but the fearcausing effect can help in routing unit that has been a target practice for longbows.
Demi-Culverins
Men: 12 crew
Equipment: demi-culverin
Attack: bad
Defense: bad
Armour: bad
Comments: the cost of this unit will be high enough to avoid homing-missiles at high valour. This unit is mainly put in for sieges.
Balancing the stats
What I conclude from the many discussions on disbalance is that upgrading the units with valour makes certain units better in a way that we do not want. Units are not choosen on common sense (rock paper scissors), but on the knowledge of the upgrade formula. The stats of the units should reflect their combat ability and their cost is an important factor to keep that combat ability on most valour levels.
One way I want to achieve this is by giving some units the same cost. For example Billmen and Pikemen perform a similar role but have slight differences. These differences should be big enough that they cannot be countered by upgrading. Since both units cost the same, the player is forced to think about what kind of unit he wants to hold his line. He should not be able to take in consideration that Pikemen are a better buy at valour 3 compared to Billmen.
Morale
A lot of the upgrading is done to gain the necessary morale of 8. Most of the units will have a high enough starting morale to be reliable enough at valour 0 or 1. To avoid ubersoldiers by upgrading them to valour 4, the units will also have a higher starting cost compared to normal M:TW.
Movement
Besides the changed manueverability of certain units (Pikemen, Billmen) this mod will also lose the slow moving rates of heavily armoured units. Armies in the WotR are mainly composed of infantry and that means slow army movement. Together with the removal of pavs will this help keeping games fast paced and not transform them into a crawl.
Shooting contest
At the moment most games start with a shooting contest. Nothing wrong with this, since it helps players to position their armies before clashing into each other. All of the battles during the Wars of the Roses also started with shooting. The longbows were lethal on the mainland but they now cancelled each other out, but still they forced the infantry to move forward since nobody could endure the rain of arrows for long. That is probably except for the Men-At-Arms; armour production was now at its height and arrows could rarely penetrate plate if it struck at an angle.
With the exclusion of pavs, you can now quickly destroy a missile line with a cavalry unit. If you still want to do this after taking into consideration the AP arrows and anti-cav infantry is up to you.
Since longbows go through their arrows quickly it will be a tactical decision on how long do you want to continue. Save a few arrows to thin the infantry ranks, or continue shooting the enemy missile to lessen casualities when you advance your line. With pavs this problem didn't exist since they lasted the entire battle.
Will this mod make other periods impossible to play?
This mod will be fully compatible with MP and does not interfere with a regular installation of M:TW - VI. It will be an additional period to select. Note that it probably will not be compatible with another mod, although it will work with CBR's mod.
My last words
And now I hope that this mod I am working catches your attention and that you share my view that a slighly different unit selection provides interesting battles and is not more of the same.
I am very interested in your opinions, do you think it will work? Is the community too conversative to download the mod? Is the armylist seriously flawed? Still if you heavily disagree I am still interested in your opinion as long it can help in making a better mod.
I will also need the help of the community to balance the armylist, it is relatively small so it won't be that much work. However the balance is vital to back up everything I said above, so if players, who have knowledge on how the game-mechanics work, want to help then please post.
Thanks for your attention,
Duke John