The Medieval Mod IV v 1.81 public release

Just a couple observations from my current 1.83 Argonese/Early campaign:

1. Started with the ability to produce crossbows. Shouldnt crossbows be introduced in the middle age? Maybe im crazy.

2. Many, and i mean MANY more ships in the water, but the ai still sucks at trade routes. France has about 10 ships off the coast of Granada, but no ships in the adjacent spaces. Byzantine has effective trade routes, plus ~25 ships hanging around sicily. This seems excessive.

3. The changes you made to protect Byzantine work too well. In every previous game, the Byzantine were kicked out of constantinople early on, and eventually killed off by the turks, or novogorad/polish/hungarian team up. something needed to be done for sure.
This time around they have been on a rampage, having killed the egyptians, turks, and sicilians early on, and are waging war on italy and aragon (and who know who else). ive never seen so lopsided a power in the game (besides my faction). i think you over did it with the byzantine.

4. I really like that crusader unit like knights of santiago and hospitalers can now be made. this was a great idea.

5. the ai factions seem to have pleanty of money now, and are upgrading units/building well. i have encountered few peasent units in combat.

Thanks for all your work.

This might just be me being crap, but with 1.83 LAN games always crashed. I was playing with huge units, which might have played a part, but it corrected itself on returning to 1.81. Don't know if it is any help or my computers playing up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/tongue.gif

Having played the Kiev/Early twice now, here is what I observed:

1. Shipping/Income: AI builds huge numbers of ships and placed most of them at three places (Strait of Gibralta, around Sicily and English Channel). Except for the difficulty in finding your own ships, this is not a problem for the game. Ships are being taken off when the faction is eliminated anyway. Income for the player and the AI are huge (in my games around Florin 1.0Mio by 1250AD).
Shortcomings here - Ships can not go through the Ionian Sea and MUST be guided around the African Coast to access the Western Mediter. coastal provinces. Having no deep-sea ships does not help either.

2. You may want to reconsider giving Khazar to Kiev. In the origional game and your earlier versions the Byzantines or the Muslim factions were always trying to advance to the North through Khazar. Now, it seems that the AI is reluctant to start a war for that route (like the Byzantines in my two games, especially when one is allied with them) and rather try something further west. In addition, the human player (at least I am) may be very reluctant to build up the province knowing that the Mongols will probably take the province anyway. That province was making F4,500 per year fully developed. Perhaps it is better to give Moldavia to the Kiev and leave Khazar a strong rebel province to allow the southern factions to advance North; this would definetely open up the game in this corner. It would also be historically a better fit.

3. Unit changes to Kiev: It seems to me that the elimination of the Halberdiers and the reduction of strenght for the boyars weakened the faction to a point where playing them becomes almost boring. Kiev has only 3 types of units worth building (Vikings, Archers, and FS), everything else is crap. The boyars are no match anylonger for the Western Knights. I used the Halberdiers to hold of the Hordes at the bridges of Kiev; but not with the FS.
Fortunately, you better equipped the rebellions (Knights etc.); hence, I could at least buy these units by buying the entire rebellious stack.
Different unit size - the FS has either 150 or 100 men units. Perhaps this is the reason for the observed and reported crashes, although I did not have any.

This is it for now. I hope it helps.

Well, as for AI ships, I guess this is part of their force-matching carried out to the oceans. If they attack each other like they do me, they should kill each other when they go to war.
In my current game, they are only building what they need, and are spreading out to form links quite well. How long does it take for them to have dozens of ships around Sicily?

OT, ships *can* go through the Adriatic, which takes the place of the Ionian, to Sicily or the eastern Med or anywhere else the Ionian connected to.
If I knew how to change the connection points, I would eliminate the voids that now exist. Red, if you are keeping up, perhaps you would care to do some testing?

All I did with Halberdiers was move them back to the late age, where they were originally.
As for Crossbows, I believe that they were developed in the 12th century in response to knights. With the added structures in capital providences, Feudal Kns are available much earlier, so I think the setup is good.

For the Russians/Kievans, remember that Urban Militia and Militia Sgts are stronger now. Also, the Rus have a style similar to the Muslims and Mongols, so the Boyars should not be going head-to-head with knights. The earlier availability of Crossbows should help them, too.
Historically, the Mongols conquered them, making them vassals. They were not able to regain independence until they got Arquebusiers and maybe Pikemen.

As for the Byzants, the whole purpose of giving Khazar to the Kievans was to stop the Byzants from going into eastern Europe and losing Constan. You can see how much stronger the Byzants are when they stay close to home from Obex's report. And this was really the only change I made for the Byzants, in addition to the elimination of the Sea of Marmara, which simply lets them use Constan's trade potential properly.
As for Khazar's potential, from what I read this was indeed a rich province, and the threat of the Mongols just adds some more decision-making to the game.

hey Wes, i downloaded yo mod and yo names files is screwed uup. For some names it says King Lazlo (Could not translate &#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif I

how do i fix it? i tried deleting the your fore/surnames and using the originals but now the game wont load.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (alman9898 @ Mar. 23 2003,00:16)]hey Wes, i downloaded yo mod and yo names files is screwed uup. For some names it says King Lazlo (Could not translate &#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif I

how do i fix it? i tried deleting the your fore/surnames and using the originals but now the game wont load.

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Alman, I have not changed any of the generals' or leaders' names. All I did with that file, IIRC, is add the new names for the Crusader units, which is why the game won't load with the original file, and correct a few syntax errors that slipped by CA.
If you do not have an English version of the game, then that will cause a problem; otherwise I don't know what the problem would be.

WesW,

I haven't downloaded 1.81, but I did download 1.7 and as alman9898 says, the name.txt file is messed up.

alman9898, go through the name.txt file and find the difference between the [" "] and the {" "} names. Copy the name in the "" in the {} into the "" in the [] and all will be well.

The proplem is with the different languages for the keyboard. Errors in typing. But that will fix it.

I've two posts from the Entrance Hall. First, Tancred DeHautville writes:

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Wes,

I have played all your mods starting with 1.2 and they have been one better than the other.

Unfortunately I've had some problems with 1.83. Playing as the Byzantines the campaign starts off with out any problem. Then, in the 1180s I start to get crashes to desk top when a battle loads. At first it was 1 out of 5 battles. I have been playing with large units. After 1200 however, every battle crashes. I have never had this problem before with any of your mods or any other mod or the original game.

Do you have any idea of what is happening?

Finally, I have been playing MTW since August and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for improving MTW and making it a much better game. Great work Looking forward to more of your mods.

Tancred



http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...s/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif
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Then goondo writes:

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I too have tried Med Mod 1.83 with huge units and I get crashes usually around 1090 to 1150. I have tried changing fort sizes in the build text file, and messing around in the unit file. I was able to change the default size of units, and make commanding units nonscalable, but then my huge units were stuck in 960 men size armies. Which text file can I change the default size from 960 to 3200 without moving the slider in the game. In otherwise make the default size = 3200. Thanks for any help. Oh if someone can move this post to the dungeon under the Med Mod discussion.

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WesW

If you make units double size, you don't need to worry about people with lower end systems. If anyone wants to play with default size units, they can load up your mod with double size units and just go into the options and change unit size to Tiny. This will cut them all in half and make Normal units.

Ok, I have ran a few tests, and apparently there is a limit on unit size somewhere between 200 and 250. Therefore, I have decided to set the crusader spear units back to 100 men. I think I will also set the other crusader units back to regular strength as well, since the concept has not worked out quite like I had expected it to work.
If you guys think the extra troops are needed, I will go in and lower the price of the crusader troops some more, so that more units will be created.

I went ahead and played a fairly large battle with Huge unit sizes, and it certainly filled up the map. I also saw why people say that huge sizes make units rather unwieldy. I think I will try Large sizes for my next campaign, and see how they work out. I am thinking they will be alright, though it may help to increase the default number of rows by one.
Does anyone know of a poll on what size people play as?

If there is anything else that you think needs changing, speak up, because I am going to post this update soon so that people will stop getting crashes.
(Btw, you can fix it yourself by changing the 150 to 100 in the 8th entry for OrderFootSoldiers, CrusaderFeudalSergeants and CrusaderChivalricSergeants.)

Also, how does unit balance seem to be with the lowered defense values for the later spear units? I have been playing a Late era game as the Byzantines (good God the Mongols are tough on the steppes), and through a bribe I ended up in one battle with Chiv Sgts defending against Hospitaller Ft Kns, and the Ft Kns cut through them like they were made out of paper mache (sp?).

I have about decided that the only way to avoid automatically losing naval battles is to make sure you have more than one ship in all your stacks. I have changed ship speeds back to about what they were originally.
One change I did make was to reduce all the 4-turn ships to 3 turns to build.

I also raised the land values of Constan and the levantine provinces back to about their original values, to represent the land trade that passed through them. The Byzantines were just too vulnerable with so much of their livelihood dependent upon dominating the seas.

Has anyone tried playing as the Burgundians yet?

I guess the posts here have been down the last few days due to the war in Iraq, but I think that maybe everyone is also about satisfied with the mod in its current form?
Myself, I have been having some exhilarating, frustrating, and often very bloody battles taking on the Horde in southeastern Europe.

I think I have messed with about every aspect of the mod by now, and I really can't think of anything more that needs to be looked at. I have a couple of discussions that I want to start soon, so that I can have a clear idea of whether or not I want to introduce a new concept to the game with the arrival of VI, but I think that the 1.* edition of the mod is about done.
Has there been an announced date for when VI is going to be on store shelves?

I've been playing with the germans, and no offence to the working of the mod itdelf, but boy, is it dull
Every go every place just makes more spearman or archers for the inevitable fight (started in the first turn of the game) with the French. Oh, then to add to my woes, the Danish attack as well, and occasionally the italians. So being attacked on three fronts - and I've not done anything to any of them
I'm so bored I would weep, fighting another battle containing unit after unit of spearman and basically nothing else.
It seems to be in part the German ship in the southern seas - by itself it is sunk every time. Thus the war starts, and just grinds on and on. I've basically got little money to do anything constructive with, just get the troops for the massacre at the frontline - it does not help that the French have generals that have ability to fight from the start, whereas the HRE does not.
With the size of the front line, it is a case of hoping that a catastrophe does not happen. All in all this does not add up to the most fun game that I've ever played.
Possibly it's just the Germans as a faction, but when I was the byzantines, the Turks immediately sank any and all of my ships that they could lay their hands on, then invading the islands of Cyprus and Crete.
Is it that you've given the AI some aggressive steriods all of a sudden? They seem to attack from the word go

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
Has there been an announced date for when VI is going to be on store shelves?

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Well, there hasn't been a real official announcement but if you read the Viking Invasion FAQ thread in the .com forums, they say they are aiming for a May 2nd release.

http://pub24.ezboard.com/fshogun....3.topic

This may have been covered before, but I know that you said that you were going to try to make crusades very costly, and hance would not often happen. At the moment, the Italians, french and hungarians have all got one on the go. I came under attack by one of them, and I think that they had something like 260 knights, plus the rest - chopping me into confetti sized pieces. My bad for being excommunicated I guess, but should Crusades be virtually unstoppable like this? I know that you said that the idea was they there would be a few more goes before they shrink , but I was next door to the start of one - very messy.
Oh, and am I right in thinking that Germans don't get hobilars now?

Yeah, I had read the May 2nd announcement, too, but I didn't know if there had been anything more recent, perhaps from Activision.

Rory, I have not done anything to AI aggressiveness. What you are experiencing is about par for the Germans, even when they are AI-controlled.
As to Crusades, I have set their units back to normal strength for the update, but yes, getting excomm'd and having a full-strength one come at you is very bad now. Perhaps the formula needs to be changed so that Crusades cannot be launched against a Catholic faction no matter what, but this is something for CA to think about.

I have noticed that about 3 factions will start producing crusades at the start of a game, but then they are rare after this initial wave.