MA Weekly Blog

[shifty157]

Hello folks. I'm here today to usher in our new public blog for MA. Every week a different member of the team will take a little time to talk about whatever it is that he wants to talk about. We still plan on continuing the larger updates that we've been doing. We just felt we needed something a bit more consistent to keep you up to date on exactly what’s going on in the dank depths of the MA dev forum. While most of the time this blog will simply be a small update of our progress and some tidbits of information, this week we have a pretty big announcement for everyone. Since I know you’re eager to hear what it is (and since I’m just as eager to tell you what it is) Ill cut the introduction here and get right to it.

Introducing the Provincial Titles Project for Vanilla
(or PTPV for short)

Alot of people (including ourselves) were pretty unhappy when we heard that the provincial titles from MTW1 would not be included in MTW2. So when the rumor became official so long ago during the summer months we immediately sat down to begin brainstorming how we would bring the titles system back to MTW2 and more importantly how we would improve it and thus within a day of CA's infamous announcement the PTP was born. The project has evolved considerably since then as more information trickled out from CA and more ideas trickled in from our various members but we've finally got a solid setup working in game.

Credit for this goes to Alpaca for actually doing the work to get the script working correctly and efficiently in game, Solo for doing the research on the various titles and heraldry, Conn for his expertise on the British Isles, and the rest of team for their various overused adjectives of encouragement.

Here Ill be showcasing a nearly complete version of the PTPV which will serve as the basis for the much more extensive system we'll be incorporating into MA. The PTPV should be released publicly for download relatively shortly.


The process of appointing a title begins by opening the "city info" scroll within the settlement scroll. The advisor will pop up asking you whether or not you want to appoint a new ruler.


If you select the "show me" button then the advisor will take you to the list scroll that displays all of your generals. Choose the general you want and press the check mark to confirm your selection.


Congratulations! You've successfully appointed a new ruler although the new appointment won’t become official until the following turn. Your character gains a 'future ruler' trait to signify his impending new title.


At any time before the appointment becomes official if you have second thoughts it is a simple click of the button to cancel everything with no ill effects.


Your general now gains the new title along with a substantial improvement to his loyalty. The trait gives the gameplay bonuses while the ancillary displays the coat of arms of the province.


Later on if you feel that another general is better deserving of the title you can change it using the same process however be prepared for a negative backlash from the original holder of the title. Note also that if you lose the province to another faction then your general will also lose his title so be careful to keep your generals' property safe.

As you can see the system is very simple yet very powerful. As I said this is a nearly complete version so you can expect some minor changes in the final release.

The final MA version of the PTP will be much extensive incorporating such elements as varying reactions from your generals to gaining/losing a title depending on their other traits. Some generals will react very favorably and become more loyal while other more egotistical generals might react with a drop in loyalty feeling themselves now even more capable of challenging your rule. Overall the system will be much less straightforward and require a bit of forethought before simply handing out titles like free food samples at the supermarket. It will also give you the ability to appoint other titles that dont require giving away provinces.

As I said, the vanilla version of the PTP will be ready for download relatively soon so keep your eyes open for a more definite announcement from us concerning the actual date.

That’s it from me for this week.
Shifty

[Solo]

Hi guys.

I guess most of you are rather busy today, packing stuff, doing last minute shopping (hey, I know I'm not the only one to do that) or just spending time with your friends and families. Well, We've been quite busy on our side too and we have something for you to enjoy the next few days in a comfy chair, playing your favorite game. As we announced last week, we were giving the very final touch to our provincial titles mod these past days. alpaca did a great job at tracking down the last few glitches and the PTPV is now ready, right on time for christmas. We just cant make it the usual shiny red package, but the intention is there :)

Here's a couple screenies taken while testing ...



... but I'm sure you're just eager to test it by yourself so here's the download link :)

The PTPV

Even if the PTPV took us a lot of time these last few days, the MA dev forum have still been very active on other subjects. One thing I can tell right now is that we will communicate in a very near future about the list of factions included in the mod since we decided to let you guys have your word on which one will fill our last slot. We all think here that we found a very balanced list that suits the most our ideas for the mod (that point is of course very important since there's almost an infinity of lists possible) but we're down to three faction for the last spot, which would honestly all make a very different and rather unique addition to the mod. So we'll present each of them from a gameplay perspective and have you guys vote and debate on that subject.

In the meantime, I wish you all a merry christmas. Have fun !

[alpaca]

Happy new year, everyone!
The first news is actually a small announcement. We will put up a team list for you guys so you can see who your glorious idols are.

Now, let's get straight to the action - I have some interesting news for you fresh from our slave pit (or the "dev forums" as non-initiates call it):

Let's talk about emblems. Our very own heraldry expert Solo has started work on a way to get his astounding heraldry onto the very shields of your knights! This is one of the most impressing visual changes I saw yet for this game, and it will be something for you guys to look forward to in screenies (Wait, is that a new one? Nah, already seen it.) :)
Here's an early peek for you:




The next news item I'd like to talk about is the start of working on the traits&ancillaries system. I won't go into too much detail here, but there's a few things we have in mind for this, hopefully making the character building aspect far more interesting than it is in the vanilla game.
One of these ideas is that characters shouldn't have a huge number of traits (while that can be nice, you can hardly affect how they gain these traits, and it will degenerate into a generic meh-they-get-tons-of-these-whatever-I-do-why-should-I-bother-to-check-them-feeling) which should ensure you can both have a tighter grip on what happens to your character, and will make you more attached to them.
We're also planning to devise a system that will give you disadvantages if you don't care for your characters (a bit like the feels unappreciated traits of MTW2 but far more interesting) - which might also be dependant on your campaign difficulty setting, but that's not set in stone yet.
Furthermore, we will of course implement a far more advanced Title System. This will include office titles, possible negative effects of having titles, or not awarding them at all, and a whole lot of other shenanigans.

All these steps will hopefully add a whole new layer of immersion to the game, and please people who like to roleplay with their faction's family.


Another thing that has been going on in the last week was work on the factions. We'll try to make our factions as unique as possible while still maintaining historical accuracy. This is, of course, a balance act that can never satisfy everybody, but I'm confident that we'll have some very cool stuff there to show you in the future.
I'm not the best person to talk about this, though, as I don't follow all the conversation between our history buffs in detail ;)


The last paragraph for today is, again, associated to the PTPV:
I thought of a few more tweaks for the script, which I will probably incorporate some time this week and after some testing, you should get version 0.5 fresh out of the press.
The two main changes will be an ability to see what a title would add to your character in the advisor text, and an automatic popping up of the same advisor in case you don't have a ruler associated with the province.


Well, this is it for today. I hope you enjoyed the read, and we will be back with you next week with more news from the slave pit!

So long
alpaca

[Renown]

Hello! This is my first official post in the capacity as a member of the Mediaeval Auctoriso team, and seeing it as such, I'd like to take a moment and thank the high quality team for letting me become one of their august number.

Thank you!

Now on to the fun stuff! (now yell YAY!, it is ok to look like a geek when you yell yay at whatever computer screen your looking at, trust me, I'll even do it with you every time I read the post)


Well, a lot of what we have been doing recently has been working on the basis of the entire mod. That is Solo has been busy rebuilding our map from scratch so as to improve upon our already existing map-concept that was created by Anti-Strut. So please expect a very beautiful and enjoyable map to play on.

There has been a lot of discussion upon the basis of our traits system, and we have made some significant progress here. Namely expect to see a trait system like none other out there at the moment with tons of traits that actually matter for the game play, and, allow someone to RP with their character. No more will you have a 45 year old character with 20 odd traits, instead, expect fewer more important traits.


Of our emblems, you saw a few examples of what we are doing with our units, but thats not the least of it, our Heraldry experts have designed every single herald we will use (and we are using a LOT).


We are also using a very realistic and historic list of character names for our mod. Certain names will be used more frequently (as they were in history) than others bringing another viable sense of realism that vanilla did not include, this has been in progress since the game was released and has been viewed in every step of our development. The basis of our character name list comes from using a frequency database based on primary sources. So expect to see a fully immersive set of names that you could literally "get lost in"


We are also expanding upon our recently released PTPV project. While additionally including Byzantine/Feudal (Catholic/Russian)/Islamic titles for EVERY REGION on the map. Your British lords are already able conquering Egypt and gain a Kingdom or Princedom; but now the Byzantines will get their own title, as will the Islamic factions Also included will be AI compatibility! These updates will be released in the upcoming PTP V0.5 release! PTP is light years ahead of the competition in the regard of its script makeup so expect more fun things from this area!


I hope that with this post we will gain more notice. You might be asking "why do you need people to notice you? You keep most of your work behind closed doors", well, that’s true... but we have an important decision coming up soon that requires the public to make. "Huh?" Yeah, we need YOU!

Very soon we will need everyone here to vote on our final faction. The mod team has created a list of 30 factions we will use, and has decided in combined wisdom to let the public decide, out of a limited number, the final faction that MA will be using!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog and are looking forward to future updates and information!

Renown
A new member of the Mediaeval Auctoriso team.

[IrishArmenian]

Hello, everyone from the team here at Medieval Auctoriso.

This week has been a busy one, especially for Solo, who has set the standard even higher for the team with his outstanding work on nearly every aspect of this mod, most notably heraldry, which you have already seen a preview of, and our Campaign map. Our resident Frenchman has been giving so much effort in this project, that it is hard to find a thread without a screenshot of some of his work. The whole campaign map is coming together, and expect to see the rough version (no regions) in the near future.
While that was being discussed and revised, the creators of PTP were busy with translating titles and researching nobility titles in the Orthodox and Muslim world, no small feat at all. They have come up with all three lists, which are all but finalised.

Unit discussion has picked up again, due in large part to Woad Warrior, Conn and Zob. Expect to see much more authentic armour, arms, and use of those two thanks to Zob's being a medieval battle reenactor.
As many of you have reitterated, we have a final faction list, with the exception of one slot. One slot that you, the public, can vote on. We are currently in the description stage. We will write a small description, explain the advantages versus the diadvantages and finally, a map to show said faction's starting positions in the Campaign. (in the Dev. Forums, not public, but beggars can't be choosers, right?) . As all factions did play a part in medieval history, their impact on the game depends on their proximity. Thus, feel free to vote for whomever you think will make the gameplay more exciting. The voting will start soon, at (Insert wherever we will put this, I think it was the Org). Each choice will make the game much more challenging, believe you me.

When voting, it would be much easier on us if you made short, succint votes. However, feel free to discuss and debate which faction you think would be a better choice and why, amongst your peers. What is a vote without some point and counterpoint sepculation?
Please vote in this fashion:
Name:
Vote:

Seeing as you will vote for the faction, you best know the factions already in game:
Papal States
Kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of Ireland
Kingdom of England
Kingdom of France
Kingdom of Leon-Castile
Crown of Aragon
Holy Roman Empire
Kingdom of Bohemia
Republic of Venice
Republic of Genoa
Kingdom of Appulia-Calabria
Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Poland
Kingdom of Denmark
Kingdom of Cilician Armenia
Byzantine Empire
Kingdom of Georgia
Principality of Kiev
Novgorod
Moorish Amirate
Sultanate of Rum
Abbasid Caliphate
Fatimid Empire
Volga-Bulgarians
Khwarezmid Empire
Kipchaks
Principality of Lithuania
Golden Horde

Thank you, in advance, from the Medieval Auctoriso team.
Well, that is all for today. Have a good week and make sure to check again next Sunday for your fix...junkie.

--Irish Armenian

[Ultras DVSC]

Greetings warriors!

I want a word with you… so put down your arms and give me a hearing. I know that you have no time for the usual drivel – in the long run fierce war rocks the land -, but I also know that as valiant campaigners you are eager to hear the recent occurrences of the preparations… Indeed, I’m talking about the mighty joust known the world over, the fight of fights, the biggest tournament ever that is going to be a part of world history… you say you’d rather listen to heroic deeds than such tinkling declamations? Bah… Then I’ll merely tell you what happened in that secret upland monastery this week. Just bring me a pint of ale and I’ll start to continue the story of Mediæval Auctoriso…

Well, seemingly this week was not so busy than the others. However, this statement does not cover the reality perfectly. Although the forum did really not burn, heavy amount of work was (and still is) in progress at the backstage. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to speak about most of these innovations, but we’re not coming empty this weekend, either.

On the last weekend you met our community project already, the last faction vote. In the last few days the team was working heavily on the representation of the second candidate and discussion about the third possible faction has started as well. Mysteriously I still don’t give away what is the recent nominee, but if I mention that the research was lead by Conn it helps a lot. Otherwise by the time you’ll have been reading these lines, hopefully faction vote thread will also have been updated.

Another thing that has been going on in the week was map redesigning. In the last blog entry this issue was already spoken of, since then almost the whole of the European lands was portioned out in smaller pieces. I think it’s needless to emphasise how vast work it is in point of research as well-nigh 200 provinces must have authentic borders, names and capital towns, but we’re making a good progress here as well. Of course it eases the situation that for the majority of the different regions we do have specialists such as Solo (France) or the foregoing Conn (Gaelic areas) who know the political situation of these lands in 11th century by heart. Let me present a bit taste of this area:



The next item I’d like to talk about a bit is our general policy. We were chewing over the feedbacks of our fresh presentations (former blog entry, faction list, preparations for the faction vote), and drew the conclusion. We believe a brief evocation is needed about what our aims and emphasises are, and what factors do we count as our priorities. Now I have to cite Renown: ‘MA is being created with three emphasizes. The first is the most important to us, and that is game play. Second is the emphasis on a historical starting place of each faction to which it can be best represented with major concern to game play. That is the initial creation of our map is not historical in the sense that every faction that anyone could possible want is included. Third is our emphasis on alternative history. About that latter we are going to speak in more details further on. Rest assured we have a full team of knowledgeable persons, and in cases, experts. While we appreciate constructive criticism we must point out that we do not respond well to demands, accusations, rudeness, or stubborn biased arguments.’ I hope you see our point.

The last integral paragraph for today is associated to the minor issues discussed during the week. We were talking about a possible modification of our recent ideas of government types. Alpaca anatomized the opportunities of implementing smart styles of buildings. Possibilities of the faction specific trait system, ideas, suggestions. For instance we were wondering whether we can represent different historical houses and create dynamic loyalties. Solo has been working heavily on the game-technical part of the campaign map as well. There was a tiny but rather annoying bug in connection with water, but he managed to repair it. He was also pegging away at nice-looking campaign map banners, you can muster the harvest of his work on the following picture. The top left view represents Cyprus, then our diplomatic emblems fall into rank next to it (though I must point out that some of our emblems still are vanilla only), in the bottom left quarter take place some eye-appealing banners (from left to right: England, Castile, Hungary), while on the last screen you can see a part of the Atlas mountains and Gibraltar.



Another current source of discussion is in connection with names. We’re talking over our naming conventions with some juicy, detailed analysis. Development of Provincial Titles Project for the Vanilla version (PPTV) has not stopped, on this week Renown was dealing with the research of Orthodox and Muslim titles. You’ve already guessed, an update can be expected…

Well, in a nutshell that was, my majesctic warriors, what I wanted to share with you. In the vortex of the cruel warfare take pains over guarding the fire and prepare yourselves for the tempest… That’s Mediæval Auctoriso.

Kopfschuss