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Mod Overview
Lands to Conquer is a mod that is aimed at improving the gameplay of Medieval II Total War. It does not make any big changes, apart from the unit rebalance, but instead makes a series of smaller changes that lead to a big overall difference. These changes include: better battle ai(also used in Stainless Steel 4.1). Better campaign ai that will defend it's settlements with more troops, and attack with more armies. More logical diplomacy ai thanks to changes to the way reputation and relations change. Longer slower paced campaign that includes increased effects of religion, unrest, and changes to the city/castle system to make the 2 settlement types more distinct.
It's one big new feature are 3 new custom campaign maps, each using enlarged sections of the Grand Campaign. They all have different gameplay and add to the overall gaming experience. The Grand Campaign is still playable as well as the new custom campaigns. The new campaigns are available from a new menu option.
A large part of the mod is it's extensive rebalancing, for which i've had the unofficial help of Jason Turnbull aka Palamedes, a Creative Assembly Australia developer.
It also set's up a hosteat version of the mod for those who want to play one of the new campaigns against a friend on the same pc.
Installation Instructions
This is a standalone version of the mod, you do not need any previous versions to play it.
I strongly recommend starting a new campaign with 3.1 due to the campaign ai improvements, rebel naming system and province name changes
It installs to its own folder so it does not affect the default game. Just use the Lands to Conquer icon on the desktop to launch this mod, or the M2TW icon to launch M2TW.
To install the mod simply point the installed to your Medieval II Total War installation, which by default is installed to:
C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War
You must have the Official Update 2 patch for Medieval II Total War in order to install LTC 3.1.
You can install 3.1 over 3.0.
Once installed you should use the new Lands to Conquer desktop shortcut to run the game.
The changes Lands to Conquer 3.1 makes to Medieval II Total War are listed below:
Features Overview
Battlemap
-Improved ai coupled with a completely redone unit balance results in more challenging battles, and battles that feel more like the ones in the original Medieval: Total War.
-Terrain and weather also play more importance in battles.
Campaign
-Improved ai and tweaks to faction standing result in a more challenging campaign, and more logical diplomacy and ai.
-Campaign is 1.5 years per turn and so is longer than normal M2TW, and population growth, income and building times/costs have been changed in line with this.
-Increased effect of religious unrest, corruption and other factors mean that religion is more important and taking care of your characters.
-The Character Names Project that adds in realistic names to many factions is included.
-The difference between cities and castles has been more emphasised by increasing the number of recruitment slots in castles and free upkeep slots in cities, making cities make more money but buildings in cities more expensive, and troop producing buildings in castles are cheaper.
-Guilds have been chaged so there is more variety in the Guilds you get offered, and the bonuses they give.
-Fight more diversly named independent factions who replace the rebels.http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=113894
-More historical province names to add more depth to the map.
Custom Campaigns
-Hundred Years War (1337 - 1450) : map featuring England, France and Scotland on an enlarged map focusing on that area. In this campaign it's all about war, and the gameplay of the campaign will be quite fast paced and a challenge to complete on Very Hard. There is little use for diplomacy in this campaign as all the factions hate each other. Finances are also quite tight. So you should have only a few stacks going around fighting battles and assaulting castles because of your low finances, and they will be assaulting probably because you'll be a bit pushed to meet the victory conditions near the end. The campaign is just 75 turns long to take 20 provinces. But it works well, and you can as always play beyond the end date. This campaign will be especially tough as the English, and easiest as the French.
-Reconquista (1146 - 1280) : Has Spain, Moors and Portugal on a blown up map of Spain. This campaign will last longer than the HYW campaign, and you'll have to take fewer provinces so will be slower paced. But there will be more emphasis on religion. With the increased effect of religious unrest in LTC, and this campaign focusing on the wars between the Christians and Moors in Iberia, use of priests/imans to convert the populations in provinces could be key to victory, otherwise the religious unrest could seriously hamper you. The 3 factions in it also have very similar fighting styles with good skirmishing light infantry and cavalry and a core of heavy cavalry and infantry. Once again with the factions not getting on very well with one another diplomacy will not be much use.
-Italian City States (1280 - 1450) : Venice, Milan, HRE, Sicily, Hungary and Papal States(unplayable) fight it out on an enlarged Italy map. The campaign with the most factions and least provinces, it is also the longest. There will be a clear cut superpower at the start, the HRE, but they will be disliked by the Pope so won't have things all their way. The smaller nations(Venice, Milan, Hungary) will be too weak at first to take on the HRE so getting in the Popes good books and using diplomacy well will help them towards victory. In the south Sicily will be large but weak, and will have to pass through Papal lands if it marches up mainland Italy. There will be more emphasis on city troops as those are the Italian factions specialities, and on diplomacy at first and conquest later.
-There is also a new hotseat shortcut for LTC in 3.0 that will launch the mod with hotseat set up. This allows for multiple factions to be played in a camapign on one computer, so if you have friends you can play against each other in one of the camapigns on the same pc.
Change list
3.1
Battlemap
-Slight tweaks to projectile stats.
-Fixed too high health for siege towers and rams problem, incorrect file was included in 3.0.
Campaign
-Lanbridges added to HYW and Grand campaign at the Pas-de-Calais, and in the Reconquista campaign at the Straits of Girbraltar.
-Changes to campaign ai and faction standings that result in a better campaign experience.
-Fixed error with Scottish starting character name in HYW campaign, and other errors with names.
-Slight changes to the way money gifts and certain events effect relations with the Pope so he is less easy to manipulate.
-Hotseat version of LTC now sets up properly.
-Tweaks to the money script and faction standings for all campaigns for a better campaign experience, and slightly tougher campaign on harder difficulties.
Graphical
-Added in radar map backgrounds for all custom campaigns.
3.0
Custom Campaigns
-Hundred Years War, Reconquista and Italian City States.
Battlemap
-Drastically improved balance of units done by me and Palamedes. Battles feel much more like battles in the original Medieval: Total War now.
-Tweaked and improved ai and ai formations.
-Improved balance of missile units through their accuracy.
-Cavalry units made smaller and so are now more manouverable.
-Cavalry less effective in woods.
-Increased effect of heat on western units.
-Battles are slightly slower paced.
-13 new custom battle maps. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=76887
Campaign map
-Hosteat shortcut on desktop for hotseat campaigns.
-1.5 Year per turn, and dates shown on campaign map again
-Building construction times and cost increased so as to fit in best with 1.5 year per turn campaign.
-Unit recruitment changed. Units now replenish slower and elite units have smaller recruitment pools. Also units no longer recruited from walls or from castle upgrade buildings.
-Character Names Project included that adds accurate character names to many factions.
-AI money script added in that scales according to difficulty. Ai only gets money boosts on H and VH difficulties, and then more on VH than on H. The money boost is also subtle and helps make the ai more challenging.
-Tweaks to Guilds which result in more varied Guilds in the campaign. There will no longer be the Thieves Guild spam the ai does in vanilla.
-English Armoured Sergeants, Dismounted Broken Lances, Dismounted Gothic Knights and Dismounted Mongol cavalry units added into the campaign
-Ai recruits better armies. They are more balanced and have more higher tier units in them.
-More variance in the date at which the Mongols and Timurids appear
-Merchants make more money.
-Inquisitors made less powerful.
-Increased movement distance for armies and agents.
-More recruitment slots in castles.
-More free upkeep slots in cities.
-Recruitable generals(including dismounted generals for some western factions).
-Some unused dismounted merc units added into the campaigns
-Pirate and Rebel spawn rates reduced.
-New population levels required for each level of settlement.
-Distance to captial penalty increased.
-Religious Unrest increased.
-Corruption increased.
-Income from trade increased, and population growth from trade decreased.
-Population growth from farms increased.
Graphical
-25 new loading screens, a new splash screen and menu background.
-Menu text brightened a bit to make it stand out more on the new background.
Credits
A big thanks to the following modders who's work i have used in this mod with their permission.
Wilddog - for making all the maps for me, a truly amazing mapper.
Jason Turnbull aka Palamedes - for his great help with unit rebalancing.
Unspoken Crusader - for use of parts of his Custom Campaigns mod
DeRougemonnt & finney13 - for the use of the CNP.
lawngnome - for helping with the edits to unit recruitmnt and settlement mechanics.
A big thanks to DrJambo, Klink and others who helped me to improve the mod with their suggestions and discussions.
Also thanks to Wikipedia for some of the historical info.
And of course due credit to The Creative Assembly for making the Total War series.
