Map Updates and Previews

You can ask questions and see updates on the campaign map here. I'll also be posting a full run down of the way the campaign map will function and the role of cities,villages and stongholds at a later date. Stay tuned!

The Overal Map with RTW map super-imposed ontop for a sense of scale
https://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b...us/showoff.jpg

The mountain path above Jerusalem near Damascus
To give you a rough idea that pass is nearly as wide as RTW Italian peninsula
https://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a...pcrusades2.jpg

Any slowdown associated with the map that is 5 times bigger than the RTW map?

:book:

none that we have noticed yet.

I saw awhile ago that you were discussing turning off the HGT converter or something, to get R:TW to bypass its own map generating process. I seem to remember that the R:TW map makes all areas somewhat bumpy, just to make battlefields more interesting.

Is there any news on this? Or am I completely forgetting what I saw?

Also, and I probably need to read up a bit more, why are you not including any parts of Europe? Do the crusaders start with lands in Asia Minor?

Yes they do. The Crusader campaign starts in 1187. Saladin has crushed the Kingdom of Jeruslam and taken the holy city itself. The Kingdom has been forced all the way back to the ancient stronghold city of Tyre and a few outlying villages. Richard the Lionheart is on his way to the Holy land to assist in the great crusade that is to come. As the crusaders it will be your goal to crush Saladin and reclaim the Holy Land in the name of Christianity.

And what of the hgt thingy?

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

Any slowdown associated with the map that is 5 times bigger than the RTW map?

:book:

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I think he was refering to the fact that the map scale makes two turns per year a bit out of scale - it hardly takes a couple of years to travel from Alexandria to Jerusalem. Maybe you incorporate the More Turns Per Year script, making a turn one month, for example.

the amount of turns per year and the distance travelled by armies on the map are of course paramount to the playability. The tpy are top secret right now but it is more then one... and well its also more then four. I'll leave it at that.

Map Update

Ok we have made some major progress with the map thanks to Uranos. This is just a sneak peak of the Principality of Antioch area and what you are likely to see in The Crusades.

Antioch
https://img138.imageshack.us/img138/...och18pm.th.jpg

One of the great cities of the Roman and Christian world, Antioch had only been captured by the Muslims in 1085, having been retained by Byzantium until then. It's capture was key to the success of the First Crusade - without control of Antioch, the crusaders could not have moved on to Jerusalem. The siege lasted for seven and a half months, and conditions for the crusaders were often worse than those inside the city. The city was located in the valley of the Orontes, in mountainous country. The city itself was on the valley floor, with the citadel high on the mountains above the city, but contained within the city walls.

Walls of Antioch
https://img80.imageshack.us/img80/38...antioch4qt.jpg

Campaign Map
https://img95.imageshack.us/img95/7063/antiochsm6nq.jpg
https://img113.imageshack.us/img113/...iochsm24tn.jpg

P.S. next map preveiw will be the Country of Tripoli

cheers

reiks

Wow very impressive campaign map shots.

I saw awhile ago that you were discussing turning off the HGT converter or something, to get R:TW to bypass its own map generating process. I seem to remember that the R:TW map makes all areas somewhat bumpy, just to make battlefields more interesting.

Is there any news on this? Or am I completely forgetting what I saw?

We switched map makers and so that idea was dropped afaik. The map seen in the antioch preview is completely different from the map seen at the beginning of this post.

I'd love to see more details on the history of "Settlement 8" :grin:

took awhile for someone to notice that one. I figured someone would have pointed it out MUCH sooner.

Settlement8: the medieval Area 51? :laugh4:

But nice work on the map :2thumbsup:

How do you fight "distance to the capital" penalty on such a big map?

You have to increase the bonuses from other buildings, pretty much all across the board. So if on a normal map the bonus from say the church was +5 we have to increase it to 15 or 20 (maybe more still have to test). But these increases won't be isolated. Every building will see the increase, so relatively things will be the same. Hopefully you understand what I mean.

w00t, nice map shots there ... since The Wheel of Time mod died, this is my favorite to wait for °° :)

be prepared to get more useless omments from me in the future :)

Greetz

HahnHolio

MASSIVE MAP PREVIEW

Its what alot of you have been waiting for. A full preview of the campaign map. The map its self is done, along with provinces and all its features. Only missing now is adding generals, armies and garrisons. With this preview you will be seeing the layout of the map as it is presented at the beginning of the Crusader campaign. The Saracens control nearly the entire map with the Crusaders holed up in Antioch, Tyre and Tripoli. As well as some of the surrounding areas.

Also featured in this preview besides the map itself are our new strategy map features. Our new agents, armies and ships are being previewed as well as our new Crusader Strongholds and Capital cities. Not to mention the crusader and saracen GUI, character portraits, names, new map textures and new stylized radar map.

This preview has SOOOO much new content it eclipses everything we have released so far. I really hope you enjoy it.

CRUSADER GUI AND LOCATIONS

In this series of images you can catch a glimpse of several things. Firstly, the new GUI. As you can see we spared no expense in giving the GUI a face lift. Every button and background has been tweaked and edited.

https://img117.imageshack.us/img117/...er_map1.th.jpg

Not only that you also can get a look at the Crusader armies and agents (more on them further in the preview.) Hopefully on of the first things you noticed in those screenshots was Antioch. It looks a little different from the rest of the cities does it not? Thats because its a Crusader Capital. Crusader capitals are very important cities. Not only do they possess massive stone keeps and large stone walls to protect the cities they also command the territory around them. By conquering a capital you send a message to the inhabitants of the area. You have the power and the men to defeat any city or town, and so they will surrender themselves to your will expelling their garrisons and turing their cities over to your administration.

https://img117.imageshack.us/img117/...er_map2.th.jpg

You can see much of the same in the second image as the first. However it also highlights another feature of the Crusades. Strongholds. Strongholds are those settlements you see that have only the wall and keep on the map. Examples in the above images are Beaufort and Krak des Chevaliers. These are the homes of the Military Orders. They are strong fortresses with large stone walls and a keep with not much else. Inside there are barracks, blacksmiths and stables. From these fortresses you will be able to recruit troops for the Templar, Hospitaller and Teutonic Order.

In the next set of images you'll see the majority of Saracen held lands at the beginning of the Crusader campaign. Take note of the cities, the distance between them and the scope of the map. Also take a look at the mighty Nile and nile delta. The mighty river of egypt is an actual river that will need ships to cross. A powerful barrier against Crusader invasions.

https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...en_map1.th.jpg

https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...en_map2.th.jpg

Saracen cities also feature the Captial feature. Their captials are not differentiated by the keep as they are not given one. They instead contain Saracen citedals and large stone walls. However, the same features are all implemented, take a Saracen captial and several of the surrounding towns and cities will expel their garrisons and turn administration over to you.

AGENTS AND ARMIES

You may have noticed a few things looking at the above screenshots. There are no army and garrison flags denoting the strength of the armies. This is done for a reason. The Crusades is all about gameplay and difficultly and now agents will play a more important role than ever. Simply glancing at the campaign map will not be enough anymore. You will have to use your spies to check garrisons, the size of enemy armies and even the skill of an enemy general or if its even a general (as captians and generals look the same on the campaign map). Your spies can travel and see farther as well as being cheaper to buy and maintain (allowing you to keep more of them in the field). A strong and reliable spy network is more important then ever. Assassins are also included in the Crusades and will function identically to assassins found in RTW/BI. Finally we come to diplomates who, you may have noticed, are missing from the preview. Thats because there are none. With only two factions (plus the rebels) you won't need them, heck who would want peace with the infidels in the first place!

Now to the armies. As mentioned earlier there is only one army model. Captains and Generals look the same on the map and there are no banners to indicate army sizes. You'll also notice that armies don't look like a single person anymore but instead look like a medieval army marching with banners and spears (and unlike other mods our armies don't dissappear underground when they run out of movement points.)

Finally you will see the fleets of The Crusades. The fleets consist of several ships on the map and will function identically to the RTW/BI fleets. Their main role will be transporting troops as the map is quite large but they will also be able to fight.

Crusader Assassin, Spy, Army and Fleet
https://img117.imageshack.us/img117/..._agents.th.jpg

A Close Up of the Crusader Army
https://img117.imageshack.us/img117/...er_army.th.jpg

More of the Crusader Fleet
https://img117.imageshack.us/img117/...r_fleet.th.jpg

Saracen Agents, Army and Fleet
https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...agents1.th.jpg https://img118.imageshack.us/img118/...agents2.th.jpg

Thats everything for now. Later we will hopefully have time to preview the Saracen campaign start. I hope you enjoyed the preview. Special thanks to Uranos and his amazing work on the map!

Absolutely stunning. The polish of the graphics is incredible, more than worthy of the already excellent battlefield models. And that map is massive! Looks very, very promising.

How many of those capital cities are there, and how many settlements would they bring to the cause if captured? And if there are such clearly defined differences between various types of cities, does that mean we cannot upgrade them as in RTW?

And dare I ask it, how is the movement rate when compared to RTW, and how many turns per year are there? Or is that still a secret?

This preview definitely reaffirms your skill and the promise of this mod. Keep it up!

if by movement rate you mean the available distance an army can travel, its considerably larger than RTW though we will be tweaking it during our testing phase. There are roughly 12 capitals on the map (give or take a few) and the amount of settlements to be gained or lost is still being decided. You will only be able to upgrade vertain cities twice and even then they will be limited. There are towns, large towns and cities. towns and large towns are limited in their troop production (mostly militia) and will not have stone walls. Cities open up troop production and gain a stone wall. Capitals will be able to be all your factions troops. Turns per year is still a secret.

Thanks. Sounds like you're doing a lot to keep the campaign game more interesting, which can only be a good thing.

Quote:

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Simply glancing at the campaign map will not be enough anymore. You will have to use your spies to check garrisons, the size of enemy armies and even the skill of an enemy general or if its even a general (as captians and generals look the same on the campaign map).

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Love it! Great idea

The map has to be at least 10 times better than the Alexander add-on map.

:jawdrop: AWESOME. I can´t wait for this. I already liked Chivalry´s new army models, but yours are outstanding - I especially love the idea with the missing strength indicators, that´s one really neat idea.

But is it just me or does the right-most banner-carrier indeed carry Stars and Stripes :laugh4: ?

Its just you.

Looks amazing, I really can't wait.

Quick question: will the wonders have effects IE pyramids, pharos lighthouse, hanging gardens of babylon etc.?

Well, the lighthouse was gone, the pyramids forgotten, and hanging gardens was probably sacked. Alot of the books were rumored to have been destroyed during the Umayyad invastion of egypt. Interesting idea though, how about wonders like the Sepulchur and the Dome? Or the Mosque at Dimashq and the Al-Husayn mosque in Al-Qahira?

As you can add the citedals onto the city would it not be possible to add a bit more flare into the normal cities perhaps maybe a church or important historical buildings. I would be lovely to see cities like jereuselam be a bit more unique.

By the way this mod looks like its my new favourite i just hope it doesnt ruin MTWII for me! :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

churchs are already in and a mosque has also been made. Jerusalem will have its surprises.

Tyre looks in danger of being the next victim of coastal erosion

You should see it on the battle map its amazing. The ocean is maybe 100 yards from the walls. Absolutely stunning.

What work has been done on sieges will there be new siege engines and walls which arent boring, like doube walls?

double walls sadly don't work in RTW. you can make them and they look pretty (and we did this) but they don't work. This is because the secondary walls do not connect and so where there is a seam (say the gate house connecting to the wall) it is as if there is a hole in the wall. If troops run over these seams they fall to their death. So we decided to pull the secondary walls out of the game. Not to mention they also completely borked the path finding in larger cities. It would appear the game just isn't designed to utilize multiple walls. As for seige weapons, we can't modify siege animations and so a trebuchet is out of the question. However their will be catapults (not those ulgy RTW ornager ones, there will be new models) and ballista.

Not to mention that it would probably be impossible to get siege engines to the second wall - weapons like onagers or ballistae can´t move through city gates or wall breaches, so I strongly suspect the same goes for rams, ladders and siege towers as well - and that is assuming the problems Caius already explained were solved somehow.

You are correct, seige weapons cannot enter the cities. The second walls however do not have gates, theres no way of giving gates to them. Other than the guys falling thru the walls and the path finding issues they actually played great when they surrounded the city square. It meant a lot of hard work to capture a city. But in the end they caused more issues than was really needed so we dropped them.

Cities are divided into paths and blocks of impasseable areas filled with houses. Couldn't you place walls in those areas just for good looks?

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Cities are divided into paths and blocks of impasseable areas filled with houses. Couldn't you place walls in those areas just for good looks?

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I was thinking something similar - Rome has arches, why not make it look like an open gate, then place wall like buildings around. Ok so they may not work as walls, but you could probably place towers which fire, which would give them a defensive value, and it would look great.

There are major path finding issues that crop up. No matter where the walls are placed. Sig-one who has also run into the path finding issue. Also as far as I know the walls can't function defensively i.e. fire arrows.

No, I know they wouldn't function as walls, but it might look good.

Aye it would. All I know is that Reiks, the man working on settlement plans recently, tried all sorts of wall combinations. The only place they didn't cause path finding issues was the lowest settlement level where the paths were the most basic.

You shouldn't use wall combinations.

You should look at the inner walls as a big house, not a wall. Model the entire inner wall as one object so that there are no joints. Add gateways above all the paths/roads. The walls should further only exist in the impassable areas of the settlement. Normally these are clusters of houses, only now you replace part of it by a wall.

It can work. If you still don't understand it, would be it worthwhile to make a diagram or would you rather spend your time on something else anyway?

5x larger than vanilla, awesome. The most I could get was 2x. Would you be kind enough to reveal the exact map size in pixels ? and share your technique and what files to edit to achieve such largeness ?

-IceTorque

The original size of map_heights was around 1000X900 - 2 times wider and 2,5 higher then vanilla and that makes totally 5 bigger then vanilla map, i guess BDH made it working. Because of troubles in running it, landmass limit and small number of provinces - 69 i made a smaller one, and now the map is 521x591.

§Very good work , Love the Arabic UI interface... Have you been able then to implement the new buildings since you asked me?

Actually no. We went the replacing route instead of the brand new buildings route like you suggested. Everything goes as planned according to the tutorials but then the game either crashes at map loading or it loads and the building is invisible.

Well actually I suggested you to replace , not to add new ones , or may be I expressed myself badly ... you need to edit the item.db file , and substituite the objects there with the new cas files you prepared for high mid or what u want to havelike lods , then u need to place the new cas files in the correct buildings folder , remember that the walls need a separate subfolder for it , I think you can see the correct placing by unpacking the models buildings pak and so see how those are organized .... then u need to delete the relative items from the folder (well this isn't actually needed if u edit the db file ) but if u didn't edit the db file u need the game to recreate it I think (this soulution I didn't try ) but if I am not wrong if u delete the item db file the gamwe should generate a new one provided that he finds all the correct buildings in the correct place , u need to follow then the DJ tutorial for that other way by unpaking in the correct sequence all the stuff.... so as you see there are two solutions , or u follow the DJ solution in his tutorial with my small add on at the end of it , or you edit the item db file possibly with an editor or hex editor ....

About the invisible building , it quite never happened to me , but could be for bad export?

Wow, just wow. This game looks absoloutely amazing. I really cannot wait until it comes out, and it does look a lot better than medieval 2. I can see you guys have put a lot of hard work into this, and if i worked at CA, id actually release it as an expansion!! IT really does look that good.

Nice work guys and i absoloutely cannot wait to play it!

^^^ Have you payed the demo for M2TW? It was just officially released. I wouldn't say it surpasses M2 for one reason - Caius has limits in modding, CA doesn't.

Does anyone knows where to find the demo of M2TW? I'd like to test it although I feell Caius 's it's better

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sed Nomine Tuo da Gloriam

Does anyone knows where to find the demo of M2TW? I'd like to test it although I feell Caius 's it's better

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Here:
http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/gam...2demo.exe.html
More links are availiable in the first article, on the main website www.totalwar.com.

wow! this map is stupendous