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[PershsNhpios]

A fine effort, Caravel!

How do you defeat so many horse archers.. how can you capture them?

I also have never managed to use reinforcements effectively in battle, they are always either unnecessary or the battle is carried to far away.. and my units are all routed before one can be replaced with another..

I would enjoy crushing Mr. Lionheart so heartily!

[gollum]

Mr Lionheart? Who do you mean Mr Glenn?

[PershsNhpios]

That red-haired old sod from the Thames who intends to march across Europa and claim the lands of the noble Turk!

Good job that the Austrian locked him up!

(Let's not be too far off-topic though!)

I will start a new Hellenic Campaign soon, and also continue with my Portuguese campaign.
However I am waiting for a spare hour or two before I play the next turn for that..

Thank you for your posts, Caravel!

[gollum]

Right the actual Lionheart, i see. Thought it was a manner of speech for someone else.

[PershsNhpios]

I played two turns of my Portuguese campaign.

I really do not want to play anymore!

Perhaps I should not spoil the events for my AAR, but nonetheless.. there simply remains little purpose for the next turn.
-----

Can anyone tell me what they have thought of Hellenic: Total War, or Ancient: Total War?
I have not tried the latter, but I am interested in the Hellenic campaigns there also.
These mods seem to have been greatly popular, yet none of the remaining players have ever mentioned them whilst I have been here.

I find Hellenic: Total War very charming - if frustrating when you are put on a mountainous map..

-----

No word from Crowley.. He must be locked up in the Tower of London!

[gollum]

Pitty it was a very nice campaign, that kept us in our toes tips.

Thank you and well done Mr Glenn.

HTW as well as ATW are both very nice and interesting mods...

[Durango]

I played two turns of my Portuguese campaign.

I really do not want to play anymore!

Perhaps I should not spoil the events for my AAR, but nonetheless.. there simply remains little purpose for the next turn.

In that case, why not do the unthinkable for a change and cheat like there is no tomorrow eh?

You could "receive" 1 million florins and workers who are not afraid to work sundays....

Just to see the surprised (but sadly not rendered) faces of the Byz as you smash their pitiful armies into dust and claim supremacy for Iberia!

[gollum]

Oh Noble Durango, what dark thoughts you lay upon a troubled brow. Do you not see that the weariness by the damnest Byzantines malcontent, their warmongering? Let him who has understanding leave those dark corridors for better times...

[PershsNhpios]

Indeed, you have not understood, Durango!

For the situation is such that, even if I did have 1,000,000 florins, I would no place to spend them, and no workers to be paid!
I may be able to pry two more updates out of this mess!

Then I can test your modification of the MedMod, Durango - I doubt if I should then last even to 1180..

(Unless I started in High - ha ha ha ha! Harumph..)

[caravel]

no fish - pay in cash please

Once a gollum, always a gollum.

*dangles fressssh fisssssh in the midst of thread*

Glenn, for what it's worth I think you should play an easier campaign until you get used to the mod. Once you're fully fluent in all of the ins and outs you should be able to take on a hard faction like Portugal. I haven't played the Medmod for years, but I'm sure that Señores gollum and Durango will be able to suggest a decent faction to start out as.

I've never played HTW. I remember downloading, installing, firing it up, looking, closing, uninstalling...

Unfortunately I've done this with a lot of mods and there are many more that I haven't tried at all. I probably haven't given them a chance and have been put off by minor details.

I suppose I judge many mods by the SW mod's standards and I also don't go in for the "more factions, more units, more graphics" type of thing. Also when playing many mods I always get put off by "personalisations". The SW mod doesn't really have these, it just looks and plays like it should. You get the feeling that no one went out of their way to concentrate on a particular area to add units, factions and provinces in regions that interest them. The same can't be said for most other mods.

[Durango]

Oh Noble Durango, what dark thoughts you lay upon a troubled brow. Do you not see that the weariness by the damnest Byzantines malcontent, their warmongering? Let him who has understanding leave those dark corridors for better times...

Ill news is an Ill guest!

Indeed, you have not understood, Durango!

For the situation is such that, even if I did have 1,000,000 florins, I would no place to spend them, and no workers to be paid!
I may be able to pry two more updates out of this mess!

Then I can test your modification of the MedMod, Durango - I doubt if I should then last even to 1180..

(Unless I started in High - ha ha ha ha! Harumph..)

Use the -ian trick, switch to the Byz and delete all their buildings.



There is unfortunately no high in MedMod. Unless you get high when you play it, that is...

Glenn, for what it's worth I think you should play an easier campaign until you get used to the mod. Once you're fully fluent in all of the ins and outs you should be able to take on a hard faction like Portugal. I haven't played the Medmod for years, but I'm sure that Señores gollum and Durango will be able to suggest a decent faction to start out as.

Good idea! For Glenn, I recommend playing as one of the Italian factions in either early or late (I prefer late, since they get some nice and rare handgunners right at the start). Also, a decent strategic position, spears you don't argue with, access to the sea and some lucrative trade.

Money, money, money....must be funny......in the rich man's world....

I suppose I judge many mods by the SW mod's standards and I also don't go in for the "more factions, more units, more graphics" type of thing. Also when playing many mods I always get put off by "personalisations". The SW mod doesn't really have these, it just looks and plays like it should. You get the feeling that no one went out of their way to concentrate on a particular area to add units, factions and provinces in regions that interest them. The same can't be said for most other mods.

Let him who judges be judged thyself! The PM mod has more than a few extra provinces in the middle east....

[gollum]

Originally posted by ID-Chameleon
Once a gollum, always a gollum.

Today Caravel, tomorrow who knows who?

*spits rotten fish back*

Originally posted by Durango
Money, money, money....must be funny......in the rich man's world....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkOmcIl79s
Hoorah for Sweden!

Originally posted by Caravel
I suppose I judge many mods by the SW mod's standards and I also don't go in for the "more factions, more units, more graphics" type of thing. Also when playing many mods I always get put off by "personalisations". The SW mod doesn't really have these, it just looks and plays like it should. You get the feeling that no one went out of their way to concentrate on a particular area to add units, factions and provinces in regions that interest them. The same can't be said for most other mods.

Thats an interesting point. In fact i think that vanilla MTW has good potential (unrealised without modding) to reach this status. Its a pitty that it wasnt tweaked better by the developer - but on the other hand thats what the main hall and modding are for.

[caravel]

Let him who judges be judged thyself! The PM mod has more than a few extra provinces in the middle east....

Indeed and I don't mind being included in that. This is why with my mod, I tried to get others involved as much as possible. The layout of the near east and north africa was the result of the inputs of many individuals (including Mr gollum here). More importantly I totally reworked Iberia and Greece, areas I know next to nothing about and this was mainly done of my own accord. The additional provinces were mainly added for gameplay reasons only, this was because those areas lacked provinces or were badly laid out.

No can we get this thread back on topic. I dion't see many people reporting as to how their campaigns are going, which I believe was Glenn's original intention for the thread?

[PershsNhpios]

A fine observation, Caravel! I was just wondering about that myself.

Gollum, Durango - have either of you a campaign which you would like to briefly illustrate?

I am waiting for the tweaked version of Durango's MedMod to be prepared, so I may begin a new 'Ellenos campaign meanwhile.
I have found the battles to be very difficult in HTW.
In my last campaign as the Phrugioi, I found that my men were armed with stones compared to the new age settlers of Thettalia and the land of Pelops.
This of course was a problem of imbalance - but I can be a very good roleplayer.
Nonetheless, wood-framed skin shields gave way to the 'Aspis and I found my beloved Pergamos becoming the capital of a new Athenian colony.

I do enjoy it!

I look forward to a new Wes Campaign however.. perhaps an islamic one.

[gollum]

I am undergoing a *detox* period from TW at the moment Glenn. Whenever i play again i ll post about it here, be sure.

[Durango]

Same as Gollum here, I'm not playing much MTW at the moment. And as for an account of the experience of playing some of the Italian factions, I can only say this from memory: Playing as the Venetians you have oppurtunities for lots of money if you develop your trade. This is helped by the strategic position, consisting of a bridge to your main island, Venice, that can only be assaulted from the province of Verona to the north (which you own at the start).

Further, there are rivers to the west and southwest, as well as the alpine mountains to the north and northeast. If you spend some trade money on a formidable defensive force in Verona, potential enemies will have a hard time assailing your position....

From then on, you can build a navy with which to land invasions onto other faction's soil. My personal approach playing in Late is to tech up to Italian Heavy Infantry/Italian Pikemen and use those together with handgunners in the classic 16th century pike and shot formation aka. Tercio. Only the Italian nations together with Mamluks and Russians get gunpowder infantry in MedMod, and they are quite good).

Another reason for playing a late game is that the Byz are weaker overall, and as Gollum pointed out they lose Jedi status from late and onwards. The Byz caused you grief in the Portuguese campaign, but with the Venetians you should have a good chance of breaking them

[gollum]

Noble Durango you reminded me those killing machines of Doom the Italian Heavy Infantry of MedMod!



Terror is their name - killing is their business and... business is good

They just wont go down - the fact that they are slow hardly matters.

Anyway thats my resentment with the Medmod - way too high morale for SP... flanking only - match ups do not matter much with 15+ morale units...

[Durango]

Noble Durango you reminded me those killing machines of Doom the Italian Heavy Infantry of MedMod!



Terror is their name - killing is their business and... business is good

They just wont go down - the fact that they are slow hardly matters.

Anyway thats my resentment with the Medmod - way too high morale for SP... flanking only - match ups do not matter much with 15+ morale units...

Smeagol kills them nasty spears while they sleep so sweet.... yesss they does...?

I agree, which is why I have taken out all morale upgrades from buildings, and nerfed general stars. I believe you have done much the same in your homemod?

There is however a problem with the usage of say spears for bodyguard units. In the MedMod, the Italians have their great spear units be their bodyguards, with full manpower. This causes the upkeep to rise significantly more than in vanilla since the cost is counted per man, and in vanilla the standard BG unit is cavalry around 20 man in size. I now understand why that is!

With the rich Venetians for ex. that is no problem, but for smaller nations it can kill the economy when they get full strength heirs... but I have not really found an easy way to change this in MedMod.

BTW, in the Samurai Warlords mod, is there a good "beginner" faction recommended? I have gotten the impression that many of the clans are somewhat equal (more so than original MTW) in starting positions.



(Also, Glenn, if you want to whip the Byz (and everyone else) you can give the Mongols a go in Late. Armour piercing HAs..... muhahahaha!)

[gollum]

Yes thats a very good approach Noble Durango, indeed.

However as a rule SP game has another source of bonuses that cannot be muted, the general command stars. Hence its best to drop the *intended* moral level and stats 2-4 points lower than the ones wants the game to operate to. In the Medmod IV the creators in their desire to make all units useful, have made them of decent base stats ie base stats are already to the level the unit is intended to operate. Now add the general stars bonuses and you end up with certain battles that match ups dont exactly matter.

The Uesugi are the easiest of the lot - as well as other clans that are based on the *eastern* end. Thats because the eastern end is far more rich while it has few provinces and approaches to it and so its very easy to expand from there.

[caravel]

Gah!

Though I have a cunning plan to rescue my faction from oblivion...

[gollum]

cunning plan? Does it involve metaphysics?

[caravel]

It involved reloading from a previous save game and it worked.

I had an heir that only needed three years to mature. The campaign is becoming dull however and I don't think the janissary units that I'm teching up to, will make it any more interesting.

[caravel]

Well here is the final overview:


The Byzantine are now gone and enemy is still sending crusades against me. The last attempt by the Spanish crusade on Epirus was a disaster. The English crusaders are sitting in Serbia doing nothing.

I have Constantinople teching up to Janissaries but to be honest the campaign has become predictable. I will start a new one tomorrow. I may even do an AAR or continue the SW Asai campaign.

[PershsNhpios]

Oh.. You spoil us, our blessed, goodly 'public servant'.

How can we deserve you, giving so many AARs and reports to us in this way..

I have yet to see any Turkish units attack and take the British Isles.
Today I am very busy, but I must try a hand at a new campaign too, which I will sketch here.. I will make a new AAR when I have MedMod v4 - The Durango Edition (revised).

Thank you Caravel.

[Durango]

Today I am very busy, but I must try a hand at a new campaign too, which I will sketch here.. I will make a new AAR when I have MedMod v4 - The Durango Edition (revised).

Hi Glenn. I too am very busy this week, and I can't do the changes you wanted as of right now. But I expect the oppurtunity to come before the weekend is over, however.

In the meantime, may I suggest starting a new campaign with the vanilla mod instead? It's challenging as it is, already...

[caravel]

Something that some of you may find interesting. I tried handing over control of my faction to the AI for one year only. The results were very odd. The AI Turks invaded Granada, Naples and Serbia, which was fairly predictable, but the very odd part was the stack composition of the army it sent to Granada. Prior to this I had single unit UM or Spearmen garrisons in most provinces. I also one or two glutton/good runner governors with some of these garrisons. In a single year the AI stripped out these garrisons and sent them overseas to the invasion of Granada with the glutton/good runner governors. When I took back control of the faction the mess was as I predicted, but this selection of all of my garrison units and sending them to that particular province was odd. I can only think that this is a bug or a result of poor programming. It might be that the AI first selects the units it has inside the castles, before it moves to the units outside, but one would think the AI would select it's best units.

[gollum]

I doesnt surprise me - i think that in STW too the AI would frequently stack good generals in one stack that was wasting their boosting of honour/valour big time. In addition they would often get killed in one battle including the heirs resulting in those easypeasy clan eliminations. The only thing that the MTW engine has to deal with this is the many general/heir/king hit points, that actually hurts the game as it skews the match ups irreperably.

These are the (unseen) areas that TW could focus to make the AI shine - but it wasnt to be - already since RTW this became established with the 2 hitpoints of BG units.

[gaijinalways]

Italy, early, expert, now about 1191. I have set up a good trading network, have some 174k in the bank, a large army, lead in GA points by a slim margin over the Alomonds 68 to 61 and have the following territories;

in the North:

Denmark (which I took from the pesky reemerging Danes after they tried to bribe their way into my Sweden), Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Novgorod (tried to bribe Livonia, but the eggies beat me to it)

starting central southern area:

Genoa, Tuscany, Milan, Venice, Tyrolia, Switzerland (hoping to get pikemen at some point from both of the last two), Naples (bribed this from rebels) Constaninople (took this during a crusade after the Sicilians delayed me and I waltzed in and left troops to hold it from the Eggies)

I wanted to take Provence and Toulouse when they rebelled, but the English moved in on both, actually outbribing me in Provence.

Middle East:
Antioch, Tripoli (took both in crusades, have a crusade nearing Edessa, and another on deck suited up for Egypt)

Some odd things;

Went to first some 40 years without attacking anyone, just building my trade network. Ther Sicilians attacked me first in the sea.

Three times when I've suited up crusades, the Sicilians attacked me, disrupting my route to the Middle east. They hold only Malta, which for some reason I can not land on right now.

The Alomonds have attacked me twice in the sea, both times seeking a cease fire shortly after.

The eggies have attacked my navy now and again, but generally I have the upper hand as they have almost no ships (one now) after I took some of their cash cows (Antioch and Tripoli).

Wondering where should I go next. I'd still like to get, for example Croatia, Serbia and Greece, which would connect Constaninople to my burgeoning empire in the South. Later grabbing Nicaea, Antolia, and Lesser Armenia would complete that chain. Up north, haven't bothered with the squabbling between the bleeding HRE, the French, and the English, though Flanders always looks fat and tempting. I'm hoping to bribe some more places later and slowly move in without disturbing the 'wa' (harmony) anywhere.

Whew, glad my CD drive was repaired, maybe my last chance before I get busy with teaching at uni again (and maybe return to writing the book I'm supposed to finish).

[gaijinalways]

Well, the years went by (and so did one post, lost that one), and I had a visit from the Horde. Yikes, I forgot about that! Some 13k plus barbarians on my Khazar (well, I had by that point taken most of the map, a little annoying incident with the English, and since the French were excommed at the time, and the pope? Well the new puppet pope didn't appear for some time, until after I had exiled the English to Ireland.

So, there I was suddenly rushing all manner of units back to cover my lapse. The Egyptians had returned earlier, but they weren't a major threat yet, just holed up in 4 provinces with a lot of peasants, 2 of them near Khazr. I managed to scrape and bleed some 5k troops into Khazar, and waited with bated breath. Seems the HRE couldn't wait to attack me (they got their butts kicked in Tyrolia), the French tried to break out of he stranglehold I left them in in Brandenburg by attacking Franconia again, and now the Horde.

Started off good, I had good kill rates, and the Horde were coming, but it seemed manageable. They'd attack, and I'd keep killing off mostly heavy cavs, and shooting their warriors and other troops. Later on it got dicey as my troops got tired, and at one point I had mostly xbowmen coming on at the same time (ouch) as replacements. At some points I actually used them as fighters, worked somewhat. Later on I was hiding in the woods quite bit as I was outnumbered and no longer had a number of arbs to pot them from a distance. I actually had a chain rout at one point in the woods! Fancy that, even as I was killing off chunks of heavy and medium cavs. Part of it was I surprised a few times, the cavs are quick, with the AI sometimes using even his horsearchers as attackers after doing quick feints back and forth!

Finally I got down to my last units, and I was concerned as there was still a good chunk of time on the clock. By that time the kill numbers were closer, perhaps 1.4 to 1 in my favor (the routers a few times didn't help, especially when my general routed half way though the battle, even though this was much after the Horde general had met an untilmely arb related death).

Finally we had a face off with his two horsearchers and a few units of my own, including 2 urban milita and a few other units that were fuller in number. I actually let one of my genovese sailor units come too close in for pot shots and they got routed before I could come to their aid. But those were the last 2 enemy units, as I shot the horsearchers to pieces and watched the clock run out with no more Mongol units to come.

I forgot to mention that this was all done with Italian infantrymen, arbs, xbows, some xbow cav, and some extras (they were livng in the province when the Horde 'visited'). I won't have silver armored halbs for a few years yet as I took both Tyrolia and Switzerland later.

The horde is dead, long live the Italian empire. With around 700k in the bank and more units coming online, even the Alomonds don't scare me much. Hell, they even sunk a few ships again. Might be time for total war again!

[gaijinalways]

I decided to push on after reaching 60%. Normally I stop at this point as there are no other big contenders, but I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I had plenty of spies already circulating, and I kept most of my provincesa at 200% loyalty, so only one recently conquered province rebelled, but I quickly put down the rebellion and built a tower. I had also put guard towers in all of my provinces a turn after reaching 60%. I was still building units and ships. Now I finally allowed just spies and a few units to be built, and watched my bank drop from 680k to 288k by game's end.

I had left islands of factions, who strangely all agreed to cease fires after I withdrew from their provinces. The only ones eliminated were the Eggies, who died too quickly in battle ( the Danes disappeared some years before). So I had these faction osaises and the few Mediterrain islands held by the BYZ and Malta by the Sicilians.

Did I mention earlier I couldn't go to Malta earlier? Finally got that sorted out as I was training assasins (I know, forgot earlier) and bribed the castle, even though a larger army stood outside. Once I took over the castle, suddenly I could land on Malta and quickly put the Sicilians boat sinking days behind me.

100%, didn't know it could be so easy in 1271. Never did see those pikemen.