LotR Successor games, Kingdoms or no?

[Zim]

Just a short poll to see whether people would prefer Kingdoms for the new game, as it could affect faction and mod choices. Obviously if we used Kingdoms we would be doing the Grand Campaign with a mod (say, the Kingdoms Grand Campaign mod for example) and not one of the mini campaigns.

[Zim]

Kind of what I expected so far. It's too bad, I think modwise Kingdoms has huge advantages over vanilla. However, if there are players that don't have Kingdoms there isn't much we can do.

This might be a good thread for mod discussion. As far as vanilla mods I'm a fan of BC but am guessing that would go against the requirement of more familiar faction choices for the upcoming game.

Vanilla mod is excellent and retains much of the feel of the original game.

Does anybody have some ideas for mod choice?

[mini]

if we go kingdoms: SS 6.1?

Kingdoms is available in stores here for like 3-5 euro.
So go get it! :p

[_Tristan_]

If you wish to go with BC, you could still play the Latin Kingdom, Armenia or Georgia those were almost carbon-copy of the setup in the Western kingdoms but with a different settings....

And some might be willing to RP the Leper King...

[ULC]

I'm okay with any setup, and have a prefernce for LTC or Vanilla Mod, mostly LTC (and LTC Gold in particular).

English or Danes for me though, although I will also play as French if thats the Faction choice.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Actually, change my vote to "willing to do both but would prefer Vanilla".

[Zim]

So, what mods do people think might be appropriate?

I don't know the mods for Vanilla very well, although I do know Lands to Conquer and Vanillamod are good.

Edit: My idea is that if we can decide on a mod fairly early on we'll have a good idea of factions in the region we want to play in, and can start thinking about that more as well.

[Cecil XIX]

Deus Lo Vult would be very good. It has additions to increase the difficulty of the player faction, as well as slow it's expansion. There's also a very nice career system for generals that would be very nice for RP purposes.

[Zim]

Sounds interesting. Does it have anything that could cause problems (for instance, someone had tried the Long Road and told me you lose loyalty as you move away from the capital. SS seemed to have something similar, with Ammonathas rebelling on one of my turns as Megas. I had to reload).

[Cecil XIX]

No that you mention it, I believe the Vanilla version did have the 'Civil War' system. I would gladly volunteer to edit and redistribute the necessary files, or we could delete the traits as the appear. I don't know if the earlier Vanilla version has it, but there is an option to imprison rebellious generals in the dungeon at the capital, which would be fun I think.

[Zim]

As long as that's the only issue we can fix or work around it as needed. Are the movement rates in it ok (that being one complaint in LotR, small movement rates and large provinces...)? One of the other issues was that SS wasn't quite complete in it's vanilla incarnation...

I can test out any mods we choose a bit but for the most part I'd prefer to defer to people who have played them longer.

It'd be great if we could find a good mod for the game.

I tried to push BC for the last game but people preferred a map with Europe. Funny we never really even went that far west of where the map ended.

I'll definitely put it as an option when we decide on mods. The longer move rates would solve some of our SS problems and as you say a few of the factions would work.

I figure we should iron out the mod (I'll put a poll in a day or so) and then pick a faction.

If you wish to go with BC, you could still play the Latin Kingdom, Armenia or Georgia those were almost carbon-copy of the setup in the Western kingdoms but with a different settings....

And some might be willing to RP the Leper King...

[woad&fangs]

When I looked at Deus on the TWC I remember it having a monetary penalty for having multiple generals in 1 stack. If that is indeed the case, then Deus is probably not a good choice.

[Rowan]

If we need to do customization of an existing mod my LotR-mod installer script is available for anyone bothering to use it. It's quite easy to customize for new mod(s).

[TinCow]

If you use SS (4.1 or 6.1), I very strongly suggest that you strip out the entire civil war trait system with a custom mod before the game starts.

[ULC]

OR,

We could use VanillaMod or LTC without actually having to mod the game before hand, just a thought.

Also, as to RPing, that should be something we players do, not something as part of the mod where we are forced into it, IMO.

[Zim]

It's been a while since I've dealt with the blindingly colored units of vanilla and mods close to it, or the arguably weaker gameplay, but it's certainly an option.

Roleplaying is something players do within the confines of the rules and limitations of whatever game they happen to be playing. If players believe that mod x or y offer them better options for roleplaying, or are even just more fun there's nothing wrong with that.

Last game we had people who hated the vanilla Byzantine color scheme so much that it would break all sense of verisimilitude for them. Whether SS changed that was a big part in whether anyone was willing to play that faction.

OR,

We could use VanillaMod or LTC without actually having to mod the game before hand, just a thought.

Also, as to RPing, that should be something we players do, not something as part of the mod where we are forced into it, IMO.

[ULC]

It's been a while since I've dealt with the blindingly colored units of vanilla and mods close to it, or the arguably weaker gameplay, but it's certainly an option.

Roleplaying is something players do within the confines of the rules and limitations of whatever game they happen to be playing. If players believe that mod x or y offer them better options for roleplaying, or are even just more fun there's nothing wrong with that.

Last game we had people who hated the vanilla Byzantine color scheme so much that it would break all sense of verisimilitude for them. Whether SS changed that was a big part in whether anyone was willing to play that faction.

True, but I believe we can acquire a mod to relieve some of that. If it's okay, allow me to look around for it.

Also, LTC's gameplay is some of the best available.

It was only an opinion, and mine at that . And I understand where your coming from, but say we pick another mod with loyalty draining traits or civil war traits. This, again IMHO, subtracts from the ability to roleplay.

[Zim]

I'll be avoiding mods with civil wars like the plague.

I don't like the ones with loyalty reducing traits for distance either (especially when it means reloading turns as Megas because somebody rebelled ) although TheFlax made an interesting point that of all the traits loyalty is generally the one we roleplay the least, preferring to decide for ourselves how loyal our characters our. I think this could be partly because it's the one trait that's very difficult to affect. You can work to get chivalry, dread, piety, etc but not so much loyalty. I wonder if anyone else had the same experience?

I admit not having played LTC much. I was thinking of it in terms of a "vanilla improved" like Vanilla mod. Would you say it's one of the better mods?

[Cecil XIX]

So am I the only one who like's Vanilla's colors and SS's Hellenized names?

[ULC]

I'll be avoiding mods with civil wars like the plague.

I don't like the ones with loyalty reducing traits for distance either (especially when it means reloading turns as Megas because somebody rebelled ) although TheFlax made an interesting point that of all the traits loyalty is generally the one we roleplay the least, preferring to decide for ourselves how loyal our characters our. I think this could be partly because it's the one trait that's very difficult to affect. You can work to get chivalry, dread, piety, etc but not so much loyalty. I wonder if anyone else had the same experience?

I admit not having played LTC much. I was thinking of it in terms of a "vanilla improved" like Vanilla mod. Would you say it's one of the better mods?

Yes, we seem to agree there . I find Loyalty gained ingame is actually more in relation to how close the avatar is to being like the King/Duke/Emperor, rather then anything a player does himself.

LTC uses Kingdoms gameplay balances with what is considered by many to be the best battlefield and campaign AI.

LTC Gold

There is also Grand Unit Add On which works well with Lusted's AI's (which can be obtained separately) and expands on unit availability as well (adding Kingdoms units and CA's unfinished units to the Grand Campaign) and has the same Kingdoms game balance.

So am I the only one who like's Vanilla's colors and SS's Hellenized names?

I don't mind SS hellenized names, nor do I mind the colors of Vanilla either

-Edit: Don't forget LTC 3.1 for M2TW Vanilla!

[Zim]

I didn't mind the vanilla colors for the Byzzies so much, although I can see why people disliked them (that was a lot of purple). I never did and still don't quite get the difficulty with names, but I've come to assume it was a problem for a lot of people, judging by posts on the subject.

So far it mods mentioned (last one by a player on msn) have been:

BC
vanilla mod
Lands to Conquer
Dues lo Vult
The Long Road

The last one has a loyalty lowers at distance thing we'd want to mod out, and second to last civil wars.

Any more? We could do a poll to pick the mod pretty soon and start thinking more about factions again...

[ULC]

*sniffs and points above* Don't forget the Grand Unit Add On...it is really good...

Also, we can edit movement rates for the game by about 25-50%, which should help with Civil Wars.

[Zim]

Well, we've got a decent chunk of players who can't play Kingdoms (I'm kind of assuming people who chose that option don't have it, since if they did they'd be less likely to care which we used. Should have done different poll options I think...).

If we were to use Kingdoms I'd have a few more suggested mods...

[ULC]

Most of the mods suggested are for Kingdoms as far as I am aware

LTC 3.1 is the only non-kingdoms one suggested so far, as far as I know.

[Cecil XIX]

I suggest Deus Lo Vult for either.

[ULC]

I suggest Deus Lo Vult for either.

Do you have a link for Dues Lo Vult for M2TW only? I'd like to look it over first before being an utter LTC fanboy.

[TheFlax]

YLC, The Long Road, BC and Vanilla mod are all for Vanilla and not for Kingdoms. I don't know for Deus Lo Vult, but I trust Cecil knows what he's talking about.

[Zim]

Deus lo Vult has versions for both, here's the vanilla one.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=114748

BC: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=140857

The Long Road: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=98729

[ULC]

YLC, The Long Road, BC and Vanilla mod are all for Vanilla and not for Kingdoms. I don't know for Deus Lo Vult, but I trust Cecil knows what he's talking about.

*Proceeds to commit Sepukku*

Me and my mouth...mmm...tasty foot...

[Cecil XIX]

Deus Lo Vult is very polished, adding many new features designed to slow down player growth by charging him boatloads of extra fees in order to expand, as well as forcing each character to focus on being a govenor or general. I've played a bit of one version of Vanilla, though I don't remember which one, and the recent 6.1 version for Kingdoms. The Kingdoms version may be a bit too restrictive for game meant to be shared among many, but on the other hand we can selectively choose which of it's 8 scripts to run. The Vanilla version is less restrictive, but only because it has less feature implemented. The Vanilla campaign I played also had me going broke from uncontrolled Family Tree expansion, but I'm not sure if that was a feature as I haven't heard it mentioned in the literature.

The main points of contention are that the extra fees may slow down growth too much, players may not like being forced to pick between general and govenor, and the civil wars. However, the first two may not turn out to be problems. They might even be plusses depending on the consensus. Also, the last two are implemented via traits and thus are easily correctly, either in the mod's files or on an ad hoc basis via the console.

It's pros are that it provides a superb roleplaying environment, mainly in the form of it's career path for generals. Each avatar who is not the FL or FH has one of five ranks, the progression being "Squire > Knight > Knight Banneret > Knight Commander > Knight Grand Cross" for Catholic factions. The surest way to climb up the path is to end your turn outside a settlement, but winning battles and Heroic Victories in particular can also help. Squires and Knights receive penalties to morale, with Knight Banneret and above gaining a bonus in the form of special Battle Standards. There is actually a limit to the number of standards for each rank, such that there can only be four Knights of the Grand Cross in any faction at a given time. Deus Lo Vult also has legendary swords as ancillaries.

There's a guide to many of the features here.

Many of the features in the guide are not in the vanilla version, such as the point system for cities and castles amongst others. The features not in vanilla are listed in this post under the lists of features added, including those for old releases at the bottom.