O'hea's Rookie Mod

[O'Hea]

I'm new to modding, but rather than pace myself I intend to dive straight into making a total conversion mod. This mod is purely for my enjoyment and will reflect my particular mindset, but if any interest develops I'll be happy to share whatever I get done. I also plan on asking for lots of help, so I figured I'd best formally announce myself.

The Concept
The heart of this mod will be two alternative history campaigns featuring fictional factions, all based on and representative of different military and political cultures. The point of reference is the period roughly between the Italian Wars and the War of the League of Augsburg, when armies were starting to develop a modern organization but still had those badass swords and spears I've grown so attached to. However, anachronism is the name of the game. At 1500, the Holy Roman Empire has disintegrated, Spain's Moorish overlords are battling a Christian insurgency, and confederation of Italian states are attempting unification 300 years before the time of Garibaldi. Fun stuff like that.

The Factions
At this point, I intend to use the original MTW map with some minor modifications, mostly reshaping/splitting regions and adding land bridges. Factions come in four flavors: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Muslim.

These factions are set in stone (in one form or another):
Kingdom of England
Kingdom of France
Al-Andalus (The Moors)
Barbary States (The Berbers)
Egypto-Syriac Caliphate (Egypt)
Hiberno-Scottish Kingdom (The Gaels)
The Netherlands
The Spanish
Brandenburg
Austria
Roman Empire (The Byzantines)
Tatar Khaganate
Muscovy
Poland-Lithuania
Rumania
Italian Confederation
Kalmar Union



Possible factions (depends mostly on balance):
Confederation of the Rhine
Great Britain

The Tech Tree
*Note: Everything in this section is subject to change*
I intend to organize the tech tree based on the notion that each faction will have certain 'regular' units, and regardless of where they're recruiting men from they will normally organize them into those units- however, local and regional varieties of troops were widely used to support these regulars.

Regular troops represent the professional or semi-professional soldiers of a faction and will tend to be good quality but expensive. Regional troops, recruitable across many provinces, will be more cost-effective, and will represent troops that are, say, Eastern European in general rather than specifically Russian. Local troops will include groups like Scots or Swiss, who are found in only one or two provinces but have distinctive military skills. At low tech levels local troops tend to be roughly the same as regional troops in cost and quality, but at higher tech levels produce elite units that are among the best in their class. Provinces with local units will be scarce, but very advantageous to own.

The Armies
For the sake of convenience and balance, I'm organizing troops into 6 categories (7 counting Artillery): Infantry in Light, Heavy, and Pike varieties, and Cavalry in Light, Heavy, and Lance varieties. Every faction will have access to a Regular unit in each category at any given tech level (we're going by Fort level here), with their particular traits and overall effectiveness varying from faction to faction. Regional armies will be more lopsided- don't expect to find much good Light Cavalry in western Europe, for example, or many good Pikemen in north Africa. Local units even more so, with Switzerland yielding almost exclusively pikes and heavy infantry and the Crimea yielding mostly light cavalry and lances.

*More to come as work progresses*
EDIT: Edited to reflect current Factions, and that there will be two, not one, campaigns