Mediaeval Auctoriso FAQ

Hello everyone. About two weeks ago I asked the community to come up with any and all questions about MA that they wanted answered to post them to be included in an FAQ. I must say that im very pleased with the public response. You certainly came to me with your questions and lots of them and now its time for me to keep up my end of the bargain.

I tried to answer each question as thuroughly as I possibly could but im afraid that every question can be answered to the extent which it should be. This could be due to any number of reasons but for the most part its either that the question dwelt into areas of MTW2 that we just don’t know anything about yet or the question dwelt into areas of the mod that we’re keeping under wraps for a future announcement. With that in mind lets get this show on the road.

We’ll start off with some easy ones and see where it takes us.

How many factions do you plan on having?
We plan on having as many factions as CA gives us room for. At the moment that looks like its going to be 21 so until we find out otherwise we’re planning for 21 factions. The faction list at the moment is still a bit fluid as theres still discussion going on to decide which minor factions to include at the cost of another. Obviously the major factions like France, England, and the like will be included.

What does "Mediæval Auctoriso" mean?
Mediaeval Auctoriso is latin for Authentic Medieval.

Will you sacrifice gameplay for historical accuracy, vice versa, or be heroes and improve both?
Well with a bit of luck and a lot of work we hope to do both. There are plenty of people advocating one side or the other in this debate and even more running around somewhere in between. Really our goal with this mod is to give the player as much freedom as possible to create his own alternate history and to have the game react to the player’s decisions in a dynamic and historically logical fashion. What I mean by this is that we aren’t adhering to the mantra that only things which actually existed in history can be in the mod. Not only does this view limit the player’s freedom to do whatever he wants with his empire but we also believe that this incredibly strict view of historical accuracy isn’t historically accurate at all and doesn’t do the scope of the game any justice. Therefore to truly give the player as much freedom as possible, we are introducing a good deal of content which never actually existed historically but had history gone down the alternate history created by the player we believe this content would have existed. So while it isn’t historically accurate, it is historically logical.

Googling (certain unit/faction) got me nothing? What's the deal?
It is true that some of our factions never actually existed. For example in our most recent faction preview we previewed The Moorish Amirate which im sure many of you realized never existed. Whats the deal? Well the fact is that in areas where political factions rose and fell multiple times throughout our time period we decided early on in our development that instead of trying to pick just one of those political factions we would represent the cultural group as a whole. Northwestern Africa is one of these regions. At the start of the game in 1073 Northwestern Africa is controlled by the Almoravids, a berber tribe that had just recently risen to power through a jihadist campaign. About fifty years later the Almoravids would fall prey to the Almohads who were also a small berber tribe from the same area that rose to power very quickly through a jihadist campaign. While these were two very separate political factions they were in essence exactly the same in everything but their name. In this way, many political factions rose and fell in northwestern Africa throughout our timeframe so instead of trying to pick just one of these factions and because of the fact that there was always some form of Islamic empire in the that region we decided to represent the cultural group as a whole because in actuality it was the cultural group itself that was the source of stability and power in the region and not the countless political factions that rose and fell as fate would have it. This is true for most of the Islamic factions.

My article I found on Yahooligans contradicts your history fact, why don't you change it?
We’ll consider it of course but not everything found on the internet is the epitome of historical accuracy and objectivity therefore you always have to take things with a grain of salt or several and always cross-reference with other sources. Ultimately, everything we do will have a reason behind it so don’t expect us change things on a whim.

I want to give you women and cars and money, how do I do this?
This is perhaps the most important question so everyone better pay attention. We will be opening a special thread in our official forums detailing the processing of sending us women, cars, and money so go check it out shortly.

How are you selecting where to add counter-factual units, and how many do you think you'll eventually have?
This is a very good question and one that I cant entirely answer in part because we haven’t made final decisions on this and in part because we’re keeping specifics under wraps for now. Regardless. Counter-factual units will be introduced during gameplay from a large variety of causes but all of them have one reason for being included and that is because we want to make the game as dynamic as possible in changing to the player’s actions. So if your armies enter a different climate you can expect them to adapt to that climate. You can expect that as you assimilate another culture your military units and those of the other culture will blend and interesting crossbreeds will arise. You can expect that the longer you fight a particular faction your unit roster will adapt to better counter that faction. I need to stop here however before I go too far and say too much about this feature of our mod which is without doubt our largest feature and arguably our most important feature. The ultimate goal is that not only will your army list change on a region by region basis but it will also change on a turn by turn basis. As to how many of our units will be counter-factual I really have no idea. Its all very fluid at the moment and also depends on how much room CA gives us for units but just as a guess I would say about 1/3.

Will there be Pagan factions?
Yes. There will be at least the Mongols and most likely the Kipchaks as well.

Will Paganism be an easy walk-over feature for Monothestic factions or will it (as I've understood it) as in real life provide real resistance against northern crusaders?
Well we would like to make it as high in status as the other religions in the game but im afraid that the religious system of MTW2 will most likely be very hardcoded. Really we’ll just have to see exactly whats possible in terms of religion when the game comes out. There will be no northern pagan factions so any northern crusaders will meet up against rebels and for more information about rebels see the next question.

Are the rebels likely to be as strong as in EB?
Yes. The fact is that many of these “rebel” provinces were actually just minor kingdoms that had the scope of our mod been much smaller or had the faction limit been infinitely large would have probably warranted their own faction slot. A perfect example are the Normans. Had our mod started before 1066 then the Normans would have probably been lumped in with the rebels even though historically this minor duchy in Northern France conquered by naval invasion one of the strongest and most entrenched Kingdoms in Europe at the time. Its an impressive story and just goes to show what some of these “rebels” are actually capable of.

Are there going to be such "special-buildings" like the ruins of Babylon or that holy lake in Germania like in EB?
We haven’t discussed this feature yet. Probably the only thing keeping us from doing something like this would be if we didn’t have enough room for it and we wont find that out until the games arrives.

To what degree will fixed historical happenings be of importance? Events such as the "Marius reforms" in Rome.
We are planning on introducing several eras to the game that will have sweeping effects on almost everything. The transition from one era to the next will not be fixed to any certain date but will very dynamic so that the only thing dictating how soon or how late the player’s faction makes that transition will be the player’s own actions. That’s all I can say about this feature for the time being. Otherwise there will be no actual historical events that occur with their causes stemming from within our map boundaries. These events should be handled dynamically by the game engine and not just be dropped into the game regardless of the circumstances generated by the player's alternate history. Events from outside of the map (such as the mongol invasions) will still occur on a historical timeline.

Will all factions have the same type of "Government Systems" or will they be faction/religion/culture specific? How will said "Government Systems" work?
All factions will have the same forms of government available to them though there is a good chance that certain factions will have a leaning toward a certain form of government and away from another. The extent of the government system is still under discussion but I can tell you that it will be very extensive and it will be a very important part of how you run your empire. The form of government you maintain in a province will impact on absolutely everything in that province so it is very important that you take your time and make your decision wisely because although changing governments will be possible it wont by any means be a very enjoyable process. That’s all I can tell you right with certainty because like I said the feature is still very much under discussion.

There is some interesting talk about "regional" and "adaptive" unites rather than the standard core unite tree. How many core unites will each faction possess, roughly, not counting "regional" or "adaptive" unites?
Im sorry but that’s a question that I cant give an exact answer right now because we have no idea what the unit limit will be in MTW2. The majority of a faction’s units will, however, be its core units with the regional and adaptive units being situation-specific additions to the core unit list. A faction's core units however will only show up in reasonably assimilated provinces. Before a assimilation, players will have access to a full spectrum of regional units from which to call up armies.

Is the same system for reqruitment of unites from new territories as used in EB going to be implanted into this mod?
Im not familiar with EB’s unit recruitment system but I can tell you that our system of recruitment will be very very different from anything you’ve experienced in a Total War game yet. I cant tell you any more than that.

Will some steppe peoples be playable [e.g. Mongols, Timurids, other....]?
As I mentioned earlier, the Mongols and most likely the Kipchaks will be included.

Will we have a good working MP? (apart from the connection problems that is)
I mean will we able to have a good balanced MP game, or will it be like most mods, mainly aimed at the campaign?
The main focus of our mod is enhancing the single player campaign but we are not at all planning on neglecting the multiplayer game. Several of our members actually prefer multiplayer to singleplayer so you can be sure of that. Due to various aspects of our mod, however, there are some tricky issues with multiplayer that will need to be resolved if we intend to bring a polished and quality experience to the community but we’ll take care of that when the time comes. I can tell you that we'll be taking full advantage of the multiplayer eras feature of the game.

If a faction shows religious tolerance towards other religions in their domain, will there be some form of benefit for not trying to stamp out the minorities?
This is a tough question. My guess is that the religious system of MTW2 will be very hardcoded and from the various religious information CA has released it seems like taking care of minorities will be a bad thing. We’ll just have to see how the game handles religion before we can really figure out what we can change.

What manner of religious troops will be seen on the battlefield? Only Christian templars or others as well for Muslims, Orthodox and Pagans? How will these unites be accsessible?
We have some very interesting ideas for religious troops that we think you’ll really like. We are planning on giving each religion its own little roster of religious crusader troops which will be recruitable under certain circumstances. As to what troops exactly will be included is a matter we haven’t decided on yet. Im sorry but I cant go into our crusader troops feature more extensively at the moment but I can tell you that it will be very dynamic and very cool.

Will we have emergent factions (since it's the RTW engine it should be possible)?
Despite it being the RTW engine, we haven’t heard anything official from CA on the issue so for the time being we’re planning on having no emergent factions. Obviously we will reopen the issue of the faction list if we find out that emergent factions are included.

How will the trait system, if new, work?
We are planning on giving the trait system an overhaul. In RTW we found that the traits really didn’t have much of an effect on gameplay aside from the roleplaying aspect. We aim to change this deficiency because history is full of examples where the traits of the various nobles and especially of kings changed the course of history dramatically. We hope to make our trait system powerful enough to force the player to change the way he plays and adapt depending on the traits his characters get to the point that a particularly bad trait in the faction leader could send the entire faction into a downspiral while a particularly good trait could send the faction into a golden age of enlightenment and supremacy. The trait system will force you to keep careful track of the personalities of the nobles around you and most especially those of your sons. If you suddenly find that your heir apparent is progressing down the line toward some traits that could spell disaster for your kingdom if he were to become king you may just have to (GASP!) change your faction heir to someone more suited to ruling.