Latest info on M2 add-on

THIS IS INFO FROM ANOTHER FORUM I THOUGHT SOME OF YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:


The Addon will contain 4 Campaigns:

Britain: With England, Wales, Scottland,Norway, Ireland.

Crusade: Two Alliances vs. Each other: Jerusalem + Antiochia vs Egypt, Byzans,Turks and all together vs. Mongols

New World: Azteks, Maya, Apache,Tarasken, Chichimeken, Tlaxkalteken and Spanish Settlers under Cortes

East Europe: With German Knights, Poland, Lithuania, Danmark, Nowogrod

- They also added "Special abilities" for the historical persons in the 4 campaigns:
--> Richard I. can rally fleeing troups with the "Heart of the Lion" -talent.
--> Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can set confusion in the enemy lines (the enemy units will fight with each other) with his "Byzantine politic"-talent.

- The campaings have different targets and a different way of playing.
--> In the Eastern, the religion is more important (because of unrest and unit development -> you can only recruit teutonic knights in a catholic area).
--> In the New-World you have, if you play the spanish, only few Units at the start. So you have to look for alliances and trading routes. Maybe even find nativ american alliances, to recruit native units. You also need to become strong to fight the french and english, who will apear later in the new world. If you start as a native american fraction you also can have an alliance with the spanish, to get more advanced units. You also have to take care with the wars against the other native american fractions. Don't be to weak when more of the europeans arrive.


- Prestige points (at least in the new world campaign). For successfull missions or lucrative trading routes, you earn prestige and rise in rank. For each rank you get money and new unlocked units. If you lose battles or missions, your prestige and rank will also sink.
- More units on a battlefield.
- You can build Forts with water around it.... keep their position and which you also can conquer and use for your fraction.
- More + different mission targets: A noble man apears and asks for your help in a combat. If you are successfull, your reward will depend to how you won (how many you have killed).
- In the Britain szenario you can make -as an enemy of England- an alliance with renegate(?) english aristocrats. They ask for your help, to conquer a town. If you give the town after the victory to them, they will found a new anti-english fraction "Allianz der Barone"!


Sorry for the bad spelling....but i am reading and trying to remember the english translation ;)!

It is done to 70% and will apear in the 2nd quater of this year!

Haha, considering that M2TW isn't even done yet and not totally moddable, when they say the add-on is 70% done, they really mean 30%.

WTF???????????????????????

That update sounds like Dungeos and Dragons, or Warcraft 3 with spells and s**t. Oh and don't get me started on history.........:dizzy2: :thumbsdown: :dizzy2:

:no:

All the more reason to Stick to EB and get M2TW once EB2 comes out. :smash: :yes:

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Originally Posted by Xtiaan72

- You can build Forts with water around it.... keep their position and which you also can conquer and use for your fraction.

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I know you said bad spelling but.... so the add on is gonna be based around math?, No thanks :inquisitive: :laugh4:

Btw shouldn't this be in the m2tw forum?

Is it a patch or an expansion?

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I know you said bad spelling but.... so the add on is gonna be based around math?, No thanks

Btw shouldn't this be in the m2tw forum?

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No man, I pasted this from another forum. Apparently it's a translation from a German magazine which might explain the text...


I am curious about this hot-seat feature though...


Posted it here because I am more curious about peoples opinions here than elsewhere

Well, no offense to the makers, but apart from being able to team up with English aristocrats to overthrow the king and stuff, it looks crap.

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Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can set confusion in the enemy lines (the enemy units will fight with each other) with his "Byzantine politic"-talent.

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Wololo...

If my opinion of CA took a serious dent with RTW, it's being raped and ********* now. :rtwno:

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Originally Posted by Xtiaan72

--> Richard I. can rally fleeing troups with the "Heart of the Lion" -talent.
--> Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can set confusion in the enemy lines (the enemy units will fight with each other) with his "Byzantine politic"-talent.

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Sorry, but what is this? Byzantine Politics? Diablo II's Necromancer's Confuse, Empires: DotMW's Propaganda, Red Alert II: Yuri's Revenge's Chaos Drone, Command and Conquer III's Hallucinogenic grenades. Seriously, this is getting totally ridiculous.

By the next Total War game there should be AOE's converting priests in the game, AOM's myth units, and Warcraft III's hero units.

Nonono, its based on the Dune 2 Deviator :saint:

omg, WOLOLO!! that reminds me of AOE, I think it was.. and some unit in this game, funniest sound ever. I need to have that as a messenger alert so my parents can kill me.

Wololo............lol.................:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Dayve

Well, no offense to the makers, but apart from being able to team up with English aristocrats to overthrow the king and stuff, it looks crap.

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Look at it from a modders point of view, 4 seperate campaigns means that it will finally be possible to create "provincial" campaigns away from the main game, EB II could there for, hypothetically, have a main campaign, a "Ceasar's Campaign in Gaul", a "Sucessor States Campaign" etc etc.

Depending on the modability of these leaders abilities, EB could well use them to do something rather interesting as I am sure they are inventive enough to do so.

All faction slots should be filled by factions, therefor making it slightly easier for a project to come along and mod them.

Prestige is interesting and makes you more than a mere player, raising in rank for good deeds tro the "Empire", I imagine that can be made into an interesting system making seem more like say Consul of Rome or whatever equivalent rank there is.

If you think the add on itself will be crap, fair do's, but personally looking at it from a modification side, it opens up some interest corridors that I am sure EB will exploit to the full when they eventually convert to the MTWII engine.

There are still some big trait problems that would totally wreck our ability to do a lot of what we have currently done with RTW. And the issue with unit models is still looming quite large, though I have heard some progress by other modders is being made there. Some of our team members are steadily working on the expanded factions, but just as much work is being made on the late period mod also (which means we aren't working much on MT2W yet). I've yet to buy it for sure and don't see myself buying it for a while longer.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

There are still some big trait problems that would totally wreck our ability to do a lot of what we have currently done with RTW. And the issue with unit models is still looming quite large, though I have heard some progress by other modders is being made there. Some of our team members are steadily working on the expanded factions, but just as much work is being made on the late period mod also (which means we aren't working much on MT2W yet). I've yet to buy it for sure and don't see myself buying it for a while longer.

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There are still some problems with the MTWII modding, but breakthroughs on models are indeed being made so by the time EBII becomes a reality I would imagine it'll be cracked, pleasingly CA are making some effort to interact with the community, the future is brighter rather than bleaker certainly.

Any thing your interested in I am sure fellow modding Castellan alpaca would love to fill you in.

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but just as much work is being made on the late period mod also

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A late period EB? Cool.

Well, some of the new stuff sounds interesting. Some of it is just nasty.

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Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can set confusion in the enemy lines (the enemy units will fight with each other) with his "Byzantine politic"-talent.

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Particulary this one. I hope, but it doesn't seem very likely, that it's a strat map ability - i.e. convince an army to turn on its comrades before a battle, similar to bribe.

The way I see it CA just make a great engine, know that mods will improve there work.
It's sad but if they didn't they'd likely not make enoiugh money to ever make a new game.

sigh

There was also information that there was going to be some hot-seat options..

That sounds promising...

Special general abilities sounds a bit rubbish. Today its rally the troops and make enemies fight each other, tomorrow it will be summon zombies or dragons, or call lightning strikes on your foes...

What is hot-seat?

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

There are still some big trait problems that would totally wreck our ability to do a lot of what we have currently done with RTW. And the issue with unit models is still looming quite large, though I have heard some progress by other modders is being made there. Some of our team members are steadily working on the expanded factions, but just as much work is being made on the late period mod also (which means we aren't working much on MT2W yet). I've yet to buy it for sure and don't see myself buying it for a while longer.

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What problems are you guys having with traits in MT2W?

I believe that the models have been cracked...
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=79414&page=10
And judging from teh new direction that CA is taking with M2TW the expansion will be even more moddable....
IMO the most important fact is that the AI is moddable...so you wont need yoru scripts that much.

Something to do with Antitraits not working right, which would mess up a whole host if issues.

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Originally Posted by Xtiaan72

--> Emperor Manuel of Byzanz can set confusion in the enemy lines (the enemy units will fight with each other) with his "Byzantine politic"-talent

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W. T. F. ! ? ! ? ! ? !

WTF is this a patch!?!?!?!

I'm so uninformed, what is this I'm so confused:furious3: :furious3:

And the websites that let you download the patches for MTW2 are CRAP.:thumbsdown:

EDIT: or its the way the patch is installed.

I am playing M2TW with Dues Lo Vult 2.1 wich has Burreks skins, Titles, so on and am having a pretty good campaign but am anticipating EB2 with great relish. I don't consider M2TW to be crap. It's not as good as EB is but its not crap. In my opinion crap is RTW without EB(shudders from frightful images of cartoon men, half naked Conan barbarians who don't have good hygeine, screeching women, battlefield druids, gladiators, arcani, and 26th dynasty egyptians.)

With the implementation of fantasy powers like that of the Byzantine Emperor's, the battles in M2TW and future TW games will be just another un-realistic, crappy RTS.

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Fenring: Particulary this one. I hope, but it doesn't seem very likely, that it's a strat map ability - i.e. convince an army to turn on its comrades before a battle, similar to bribe.

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I hope so too, perhaps as soon as the battle starts the units are put under the Byz player's control and wreak havoc in enemy lines.

Seriously all of this pessimistic crap is getting ridiculous.
TW is not going to be Warcraft 3 for christs sake.

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Originally Posted by KSEG

Seriously all of this pessimistic crap is getting ridiculous.
TW is not going to be Warcraft 3 for christs sake.

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Eh you know how people are, an annoying bug or some feature they don't like and they blow it out of proportion, m2tw is a fun game, though I do prefer EB for the time frame. :yes:

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Originally Posted by hoom

Nonono, its based on the Dune 2 Deviator :saint:

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Most def.

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Originally Posted by Brightblade

omg, WOLOLO!! that reminds me of AOE, I think it was.. and some unit in this game, funniest sound ever. I need to have that as a messenger alert so my parents can kill me.

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Glad you liked it. The voice actor King_Azzole also especially likes this one. :yes:

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Originally Posted by Brightblade

omg, WOLOLO!! that reminds me of AOE, I think it was.. and some unit in this game, funniest sound ever. I need to have that as a messenger alert so my parents can kill me.

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Yes, it was Age of Empires. The priest said so every time he converted an enemy soldier, which is how I got to think about it. It could also heal friendly units, so that answers a question someone else posted in the other thread: Manuel of Byzanz will be the healing unit, too. :idea2:

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Originally Posted by KSEG

Seriously all of this pessimistic crap is getting ridiculous.
TW is not going to be Warcraft 3 for christs sake.

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Eh, if we can't have fun playing the game, let us at least have fun whining about it. :laugh4:

I wonder where AOE got it from, since it's a genuine Gallic utterance.

charge = (Unintelligible roar/shout) - WOH-loh-loh! x3 (drag out the final 'loh') - Ay-EE bazb! (drag out the 'ee')

My god, seriously people let's lay off the hate bandwagon here. Its one thing to poke fun or two it's another to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of omfgwtfbbq.

We all are quite aware we like history, if CA didn't bother to make the games in the first place we wouldn't have EB... or EB2 for that matter. Warcraft 3, C&C3 are all great games in their own right and I enjoyed every single CnC and WC game very much... just because they aren't uber realistic doesn't mean it's boring... EB is a great game based on history, none of the other RTS claim that to be the case.. and we already know CA isnt historically accurate in its games, and they cater to audiences that aren't as soupnazi about history as we are.

live and let live, and buy the game becuase you know you will, for EB2..

cheers

Well, 'wololo' is pretty long lasting. The Irish used it in medieval battle to open a charge sometimes, as it was rythmic and could could help keep step. I should imagine that's not so hard to find. But seems weird a priest would say it, unless it's coincidence and they just wanted a sound that's nice and rythmic.

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Originally Posted by Wolfman25

I am playing M2TW with Dues Lo Vult 2.1 wich has Burreks skins, Titles, so on and am having a pretty good campaign but am anticipating EB2 with great relish. I don't consider M2TW to be crap. It's not as good as EB is but its not crap. In my opinion crap is RTW without EB(shudders from frightful images of cartoon men, half naked Conan barbarians who don't have good hygeine, screeching women, battlefield druids, gladiators, arcani, and 26th dynasty egyptians.)

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Well, we do have 'druids' planned, but they'd be more realistic. Mind they'd be very high morale, wealthy, and well-equipped men. But, they'd not be the silly CA druids, but more realistic druids who did sometimes fight, most notably at Ynys Mon (Anglesy), against the Romans. They'd be extremely well-motivated, and will raise allied morale, and lower enemy morale (the Romans and other Celts and such were TERRIFIED of fighting druids, since they were holymen of the culture), but they won't be near as good in combat strength as a real champion, considering they don't regularly fight; their combat training is typically more 'how can you defend yourself if needed' as opposed to 'you need to go fight', which is a big difference.

According to gamestar hotseat will only be with auto-resolve battles.

Ah, CA is getting rubbish even more. Long live EB.

It turns out the Papacy will have the conversion ability as well:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...2702899329.jpg

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

Ah, CA is getting rubbish even more. Long live EB.

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Well, all things considered I'd have to disagree they aren't exactly taking away from gameplay, its not like you can't mod it out. Maybe EB2 will find some use with those new features so instead of taking jabs at CA and Sega, I'd think a better course of action is to see what you can use in the new expansion.

One thing I find interesting is the religion based recruiting that could be applied to things like 'Romanizing' areas. Another is the English Campaign's alliance feature. It'd be nice to be able to itnerect with small factions like the Syrocusians or Celtic and Iberian Tribes.

They're just adding new features instead of making the old ones work alot better which isn't anything new from CA.

Anthony: So they won't be super druids they will be human beings instead. Kinda of like the Sohei warrior monks in japan.I like it.
AntiSocialMunkey: I completely agree with your angle of the discussion It would be nice if the EB team was able to mods these features.

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

Ah, CA is getting rubbish even more. Long live EB.

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I strongly disagree. These kinds of things are trivial to mod out, which means a "no magic" mod will show up within a week of the update coming out. The rather small percentage of history nerds (and I include myself here) will be happy, while the rather large percentage of people who want to have massive cinematic battles with "special moves" will be happy as well. This means the game sells more, which means CA stays in business, which means they keep making platforms we can use to mod these games.

Without CA there is no EB, and at this point RTW is pretty long in the tooth - 2004 was a long time ago when you go by market standards. Historical games just do not sell well enough to sustain the size of company required to make the Total War series what it is.

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Originally Posted by blacksnail

I strongly disagree. These kinds of things are trivial to mod out, which means a "no magic" mod will show up within a week of the update coming out. The rather small percentage of history nerds (and I include myself here) will be happy, while the rather large percentage of people who want to have massive cinematic battles with "special moves" will be happy as well. This means the game sells more, which means CA stays in business, which means they keep making platforms we can use to mod these games.

Without CA there is no EB, and at this point RTW is pretty long in the tooth - 2004 was a long time ago when you go by market standards. Historical games just do not sell well enough to sustain the size of company required to make the Total War series what it is.

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The annoying part to me is that they'll spend time putting magic into the game, and keep virtually the same AI that Shogun had (along with the new 3D map that the AI, originally made for a basic 2D "attack or defend" setup, is generally too dumb to use).

OMG! I finnaly know what you guys are talking about! too bad its not viking invasion 2 or Magyar invasion but its cool.

A simple MTW2 expansion would've sufficed... (as for title)

M2TW is built on the RTW engine, which means you're most likely not going to see drastically improved battlemap AI until the next big CA game. I'm not sure if M2TW battlemap behaviors can be modded - my focus is still on the RTW engine - but the direction CA took with modding strat map behavior is very promising. Here's hoping the next game they have will have similar approach to moddability of battlemap AI, but the sheer complexity of battlemap AI makes me doubt it.

Just one question: Wololo??? Gonna need some clarification on that.

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Originally Posted by Afro Thunder

Just one question: Wololo??? Gonna need some clarification on that.

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In Age of Empires the preist would say "wololo" and everyone thinks its funny.

I agree about the AI thing. It's not that CA makes historically innacurate games and have officially departed from the TW roots (like so many franchise), it's that they don't touch the AI. RTW's AI sucks, its a miracle that EB and other mods have made campaigns difficult and battles at least not that easy *sometimes* with formations and stats. And I appreciate that mircale... love you EB.. now get back to work :whip:

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Originally Posted by cmlax999

I agree about the AI thing. It's not that CA makes historically innacurate games and have officially departed from the TW roots (like so many franchise), it's that they don't touch the AI. RTW's AI sucks, its a miracle that EB and other mods have made campaigns difficult and battles at least not that easy *sometimes* with formations and stats. And I appreciate that mircale... love you EB.. now get back to work :whip:

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If you're implying that TW's roots are 'historical,' then I'd have to disagree. TW has been about one thing ever: Gameplay with historical flavor. STW was not historically accurate, it just used a romanticized historical setting for rock-paper-scissors. The only one that I would consider semi-historically accurate would be MTW and Viking Invasion.

However, I do concede that STW and MTW were more edutainment than more recent TW games that present a 'sqash buckler' history of the periods in which they take place. The Manual of STW was great fun to read for info and MTW was loaded with historic references.

With all that said, I still don't think they have departed from its roots because they were never about history. They were just wrapped in history to make it cooler and have more depth. TW is and always have been about gameplay involving massive easily controllable armies slugging it out in a romantic historic setting and it hasn't and probably will not change.

Many people including myself like more history and less fantasy, but lets face it fantasy is fun too sometimes. Go Ivanhoe! :book:

@Blacksnail

True, without CA there would be no EB or RTR. But when you're a big fan of the series, have every game there is, you can't have the shock of discovering these fantasy addons. :no:

Viking Invasion is not remotely historically accurate. The 'Scots' (what?) and the 'Irish' are both wildly historically inaccurate (and far too weak; where'd the Danes invade first? Ireland. And where'd they go second? England. Why? Cause the Irish beat the living hell out of them, so they left Ireland to the Norse, who had Irish princes do most of their fighting for them outside the new city-states like Wexford, Dublin, Wicklow, Galway, and Cork). The Welsh are an unholy travesty too. That either Ireland or Wales was one faction is heinous. Nevermind the 'Scots' (they didn't call themselves anything approaching that, damn it) also controlled all of Ulster, when Ulster was 5 competing principalities for quite a time. That Ireland was only divided into 5 provinces and given one faction is a nightmare, especially considering the Leinstermen regularly allied with the Norse, and it was a king from Ulster (Mael Sechnaill) and from Munster (Brian Boru) who won the great military victories against the Norse.

And what was up with the Welsh names on the Isle of Mann? Gaels had since conquered the island and had enforced naming caveats. And why was Meath called Brega? Brega is a tiny sub-kingdom in Meath that descends from the Brigantian presence there. Why is the castle in Ulster Emain Macha? Emain Macha was burned in the 3rd century AD.

The Irish unit selection is ten-thousand kings of wrong. Where the Knights of the Golden Chain? They were the most famous order of chivalry outside of Frankish courts, and were a direct inspiration for Arthurian legends, AND they inspired near the entirety of the chivalric code, considering it was their code that the Irish missionaries brought to the court of the Carolignians and employed as a basis for their own royal retainers, which in turn inspired chivalry. Where are the house soldiers (the best trained ignoble, non-landed soldiers in western Europe right up to the middle ages, considering they were actually, you know...trained, as in really trained, in marching, formations, offensive and defense motions, and equipped too, which was pretty unusual for non-landed soldiery in those days)? Why the hell are their gallowglass when they didn't exist until the high middle ages? What the hell are 'dart men', considering every Irish soldier carried darts and javelins? Why are their no slings or bowmen? Why are their royal guards horsemen when the Arras fought on foot? Most importantly, why the living hell are the Dal Riadans (to hell with that 'Scot' stuff) any different? They were Irishmen for Christ's sake. What's this 'highlander' bull? Highlanders being recognized as seperate soldiers only emerged due to differences between lowlanders and highlanders in the middle ages, and even then, all highlanders were were essentially Irish-cultured men who lived in Scotland.

...There's a lot more wrong, but I'd not even call VI 'semi-historical'.

I'm dwarfed by the sheer, imposing mass of your knowledge...I really am, but...breathe man, breathe...

I guess EB was made for people like you :yes:

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Originally Posted by Dyabedes of Aphrodisias

I'm dwarfed by the sheer, imposing mass of your knowledge...I really am, but...breathe man, breathe...

I guess EB was made for people like you :yes:

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... or more correctly by people like him, as Anthony is our member, and may I say, one of the more knowledgeable ones, especially when it comes to Celts.

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Originally Posted by Anthony

Viking Invasion is not remotely historically accurate. The 'Scots' (what?) and the 'Irish' are both wildly historically inaccurate (and far too weak; where'd the Danes invade first? Ireland. And where'd they go second? England. Why? Cause the Irish beat the living hell out of them, so they left Ireland to the Norse, who had Irish princes do most of their fighting for them outside the new city-states like Wexford, Dublin, Wicklow, Galway, and Cork). The Welsh are an unholy travesty too. That either Ireland or Wales was one faction is heinous. Nevermind the 'Scots' (they didn't call themselves anything approaching that, damn it) also controlled all of Ulster, when Ulster was 5 competing principalities for quite a time. That Ireland was only divided into 5 provinces and given one faction is a nightmare, especially considering the Leinstermen regularly allied with the Norse, and it was a king from Ulster (Mael Sechnaill) and from Munster (Brian Boru) who won the great military victories against the Norse.

And what was up with the Welsh names on the Isle of Mann? Gaels had since conquered the island and had enforced naming caveats. And why was Meath called Brega? Brega is a tiny sub-kingdom in Meath that descends from the Brigantian presence there. Why is the castle in Ulster Emain Macha? Emain Macha was burned in the 3rd century AD.

The Irish unit selection is ten-thousand kings of wrong. Where the Knights of the Golden Chain? They were the most famous order of chivalry outside of Frankish courts, and were a direct inspiration for Arthurian legends, AND they inspired near the entirety of the chivalric code, considering it was their code that the Irish missionaries brought to the court of the Carolignians and employed as a basis for their own royal retainers, which in turn inspired chivalry. Where are the house soldiers (the best trained ignoble, non-landed soldiers in western Europe right up to the middle ages, considering they were actually, you know...trained, as in really trained, in marching, formations, offensive and defense motions, and equipped too, which was pretty unusual for non-landed soldiery in those days)? Why the hell are their gallowglass when they didn't exist until the high middle ages? What the hell are 'dart men', considering every Irish soldier carried darts and javelins? Why are their no slings or bowmen? Why are their royal guards horsemen when the Arras fought on foot? Most importantly, why the living hell are the Dal Riadans (to hell with that 'Scot' stuff) any different? They were Irishmen for Christ's sake. What's this 'highlander' bull? Highlanders being recognized as seperate soldiers only emerged due to differences between lowlanders and highlanders in the middle ages, and even then, all highlanders were were essentially Irish-cultured men who lived in Scotland.

...There's a lot more wrong, but I'd not even call VI 'semi-historical'.

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One question about what u say about the Norse???Why would Irish princes fight for the Norse?? I read fairly much about the vikings and this is something I never heard about before???

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Originally Posted by Anthony

Viking Invasion is not remotely historically accurate. The 'Scots' (what?) and the 'Irish' are both wildly historically inaccurate (and far too weak; where'd the Danes invade first? Ireland. And where'd they go second? England. Why? Cause the Irish beat the living hell out of them, so they left Ireland to the Norse, who had Irish princes do most of their fighting for them outside the new city-states like Wexford, Dublin, Wicklow, Galway, and Cork). The Welsh are an unholy travesty too. That either Ireland or Wales was one faction is heinous. Nevermind the 'Scots' (they didn't call themselves anything approaching that, damn it) also controlled all of Ulster, when Ulster was 5 competing principalities for quite a time. That Ireland was only divided into 5 provinces and given one faction is a nightmare, especially considering the Leinstermen regularly allied with the Norse, and it was a king from Ulster (Mael Sechnaill) and from Munster (Brian Boru) who won the great military victories against the Norse.

And what was up with the Welsh names on the Isle of Mann? Gaels had since conquered the island and had enforced naming caveats. And why was Meath called Brega? Brega is a tiny sub-kingdom in Meath that descends from the Brigantian presence there. Why is the castle in Ulster Emain Macha? Emain Macha was burned in the 3rd century AD.

The Irish unit selection is ten-thousand kings of wrong. Where the Knights of the Golden Chain? They were the most famous order of chivalry outside of Frankish courts, and were a direct inspiration for Arthurian legends, AND they inspired near the entirety of the chivalric code, considering it was their code that the Irish missionaries brought to the court of the Carolignians and employed as a basis for their own royal retainers, which in turn inspired chivalry. Where are the house soldiers (the best trained ignoble, non-landed soldiers in western Europe right up to the middle ages, considering they were actually, you know...trained, as in really trained, in marching, formations, offensive and defense motions, and equipped too, which was pretty unusual for non-landed soldiery in those days)? Why the hell are their gallowglass when they didn't exist until the high middle ages? What the hell are 'dart men', considering every Irish soldier carried darts and javelins? Why are their no slings or bowmen? Why are their royal guards horsemen when the Arras fought on foot? Most importantly, why the living hell are the Dal Riadans (to hell with that 'Scot' stuff) any different? They were Irishmen for Christ's sake. What's this 'highlander' bull? Highlanders being recognized as seperate soldiers only emerged due to differences between lowlanders and highlanders in the middle ages, and even then, all highlanders were were essentially Irish-cultured men who lived in Scotland.

...There's a lot more wrong, but I'd not even call VI 'semi-historical'.

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I'm sure you're right, my knowledge on the period is limitted. I thought it was somewhat historically grounded. Guess not, but that goes to my argument that TW was never historically accurate. A very informative post Anthony.

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Originally Posted by Birka Viking

One question about what u say about the Norse???Why would Irish princes fight for the Norse?? I read fairly much about the vikings and this is something I never heard about before???

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The Irish, particularly in Leinster and Meath, were promised favorable trading status, thus increasing their wealth. It's an economic thing. The idea of the 'Irish versus the Norse' is largely a myth. The Norse in Ireland as often fought for the Irish against other Norsemen (and many of the Norse there became culturally quite thoroughly Gaelic in most ways), and most 'Norse' armies in Ireland were mostly composed of Irishmen.

Consider Clontarff. On both sides there were Norsemen and Irishmen. Brian had substantial numbers of loyal Norse subjects, and Sigtrygg had allies from Leinster and most of his subjects around Dublin were Irishmen. His only truly 'Norse' soldiers came directly from Norway, or were Icelandic mercenaries, or came from Denmark, or from the Danelaw in England.

The Norse had no numbers to actually conquer Ireland alone; it'd be impossible. The Norse at the time fought in small pirating bands. To form a maintained presence, they needed Irish soldiers, and, since Irish soldiers were loyal to chiefs, themselves loyal to local princes/sub-kings, they needed to align themselves with those men. So, they'd marry their children to Irish gentry, and promise them special status in trade; reduced tariffs, setting aside goods specifically to be sold to certain territories, selling those goods at a reduced price, and so on.


Edit; another agitation...what's with 'last names' (the Gaels didn't have any at the time, just patronyms), particularly some like Fitz-anything (Fitz names are all Norman in origin, they'd not exist in Ireland at the time), or 'of the Nine Hostages' (a title that was given to high king/emperor Niall; it isn't right to just give that to random Irishmen).

Well I was aware of that the vikings never were many...Often becouse of internal fighting. I think the larges viking army I ever heard about is around 80000 men when they besieged Konstantinopel. But this is far away from confirmed that they were so many...

That's the point of it. The Norse in Ireland would have stood no chance against the Irish without more soldiers fighting for them. Even if they were the best equipped and trained soldiers the Norse could get (which many of them weren't, just landed men who had gone with the Norse to raid; a lot weren't necessarily that tough), the Irish would've overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Irish armies were utterly massive. Brian's native Irish contingent alone outnumbered his enemies at Clontarff, and they were only 1/3rd of his northern army of Munster. Any one of the kings of Ireland could have raised substantially larger numbers than any Norse king (at the time), due to the relatively small populations of Norse kingdoms, and that the Norse had smaller armies, composed of landed men, when they went invading. The Irish had the advantage; all of their nobles, all of their regular soldiers, and all of their levies were right there, and Ireland was, until the later famine and migrations out of Ireland, a very densely populated island, meaning there was a lot of people to draw soldiers from. For the Norse to have a chance at success, they needed to entice Irish leaders to support them; marriages, favored trading status, gifts, etc., to get Irish soldiers on their side, in their large numbers, and give them a chance to fight traditional enemies (for example, the people of Leinster and Munster fought all the time, what'd the Norse prince of Wexford do? Offered the Leinstermen handsome gifts, trade bonuses, and a chance to fight Munster with the support of a friend; plenty enticing for an Irish king or prince).

I would clarify, I'm not complaining about CA above, just the idea that VI is historically accurate in even the slightest.

Anthony, the Irish beat the Viking badly? how so? I thought if the English couldn't beat the vikings nor could the Irish.

What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

The "poltics" thing would be quite nice if you can tie it with the authority of the commander. It would lead to some very Manzikert-esque battles.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

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He is just using that term loosely to describe the Anglo-Saxons.

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What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

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The concept of 'England' does emerge during the viking period, but only post-viking invasions. I refer to 'England' solely as a region though in context of my post. Ignore this unless you're refering to K COSSACK.

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Anthony, the Irish beat the Viking badly? how so? I thought if the English couldn't beat the vikings nor could the Irish.

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Depends on which vikings. The Danes invaded Ireland before Norwegians and they made little progress. While their raids on monastaries were effective, when they actually engaged the Irish armies, they were devestated, and left to invade England (which, you should mind, was several kingdoms as well).

Even in that sense, the English were not some monolithic superpower. Until the high middle ages, well past the Norman conquest, England was a minor power, constantly dealing with internal issues (and even afterward still had to contend with them).

Further, it's a matter of military tactics. At the time, the inhabitants of England were various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms who fought little different than Norse or Danes of the era. Fighting them was nothing different or new for the Norse or Danes; they used very similar tactics. Compare to the regular use of cavalry in a Gaelic army (always drawn up on one flank, to flank the enemy).

Flanking the enemy infantry position, especially if it's a static or slow moving shieldwall, is simple, with cavalry.

I mean, come on. Do you know much of the history of the vikings in Ireland? They advanced in the east for a time, but then were driven back to the coastal forts they'd made. Permanent footholds inland were impossible for them to maintain.

Also, dark age Ireland is more advanced than you seem to realize. Never suffering the dark ages, the Irish had a more advanced military at the time than their neighbors did, in that they had readily equipped (and fairly well) regular soldiers, large weapon doles for levies, and orders of regularized proto-chivalry, with especially well-trained soldiers. It is that, aside from some advancements brought by the Norse (cheap production methods of mail and long-bladed swords, mainly), they were fairly stagnate in some ways (not all, the Irish were actively developing right up to the Norman invasion, but not necessarily new tactics; more refining the old). Even then, the Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 1100s was far from a conquest; Norman armies were often broken, and Norman captures rarely were maintained. Like the Norse, they only managed to maintain coastal holdings, as they could be easily reinforced. Inland holdings were, for centuries, trading hands between Gaelic and Norman lords (and the Normans weren't so different; they became so Gaelic in nature they were called 'more Irish than the Irish').

The 'English' in the period weren't that strong or imposing. Gaelic 'Scots' (Dal Riadans), essentially identical to the Irish, but for having smaller numbers, and the relatively backward Picts, had met with defeats by Anglo-Saxons, but also had some tremendous victories, and had efficiently contained them to a specific region of what is now Scotland. The English were hardly juggernauts, and their way of fighting at the time was steadily outmoded, particularly their lightness of cavalry, which became increasingly more important. Against the Danes, they had few real advantages to push, but the Irish had cavalry, at least, and numbers in far greater amount (the Fyrd was neither large nor well-trained nor well-equipped enough to amount to an effective resistance in northern England; the Irish ceithernn {warbands} were; they had javelins, spears, light cavalrymen, and light shock infantry, bolstered by regular soldiers and nobles, a far cry from Saxon armies composed of simple, early Fyrdmen, poorly equipped, bolstered only by their local gentry).

Ireland, also, when initially engaging the vikings, was coming out of a period of peace. Their armies were in far better shape than the kingdoms that made up England, at the time. The Irish set into eachother as a result as well (arguing over who was right to unite against the foreigners and such), but that was after the invasions that they began to fight eachother in major combat again. In addition, they drew the Norse into their fights, and turned many of the Norse against their forebears, and brought them into Irish armies, and those they couldn't could be successfully contained to coastal fortresses by either military superiority or flat-out numbers.

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Originally Posted by Digby Tatham Warter

He is just using that term loosely to describe the Anglo-Saxons.

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Yes!...tha-thats it!

Actually I didnt really know, I'm not very knoweledgeable about the middle ages.

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Originally Posted by Brightblade

omg, WOLOLO!! that reminds me of AOE, I think it was.. and some unit in this game, funniest sound ever. I need to have that as a messenger alert so my parents can kill me.

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"HIYO WOLO LO WOLO LO! HIYO WOLOLO!"

Oh dear lord....those priests...were my nightmares...AOE would mass them...ugh Lose entire armies against the bastards...and then the super speed cheat >:(...ARGH :P..yeah i used it but they used it to an even bigger extent...damned crazy priests!

@Anthony , friend , you do of course realize that the " setting" you describe is actually about 875412871254875124871524812754124,6 times better than the one we played in VI , don't you ?

Who will make this mod ?

On second thought :

Who will fix the diplomacy in this game * edit - EB?

It's the only thing that seriously spoils the great experience of EB ( for me ).

But it would be fine by me if someone could make an accurate mod of VI in the vein of EB , even with the same old ( non existent ) diplomacy .

Who doesn't love the stereotypical , bloodthirsty , horned (ok ok I know , I'm just trying to provoke you here , it will get things started maybe ) Vikings ?

Great info m8 , thanks a lot .

Sorry for the off topic comment fellas .

Satyros