How will Caravel mod the game when he starts playing again?

**caravel** · 10-06-2010, 09:06

Reading this thread makes me want to play MTW again. The question is this: Can I play the game without giving in to the modding urge?

**gollum** · 10-06-2010, 09:28

"To mod or not to mod?" :)

Just get the peasants out, mess abit with the AI personalities, make available any faction you want to play that is not, switch the terrain in provinces to match the map - and go for it. About 45 to an hour mod work.

It may be interesting using the -ian thing to play a faction for 3 consecutive rulers and then switch to another faction for another 3 rulers (for the benefit of all). It avoids the superfaction boredom and offers fresh challenges. When i tried that i played 3 different cultures/religions; islamic, orthodox, catholic - just to complement the variety.

**drone** · 10-06-2010, 14:59

Originally Posted by gollum

Just get the peasants out,

And the ballistas.

**gollum** · 10-06-2010, 15:06

Yes, and the ballistas :) or he could increase the number of men in artillery to 60 and make them have spears so the AI not being able to defend them is countered. Also the maintenance cost will increase and so the recruitment/maintenance cost and so the AI won't (hopefully) built as much, unless of course...all this is about modding and defeats the purpose ;) Just get the ballistas out.

**caravel** · 10-06-2010, 15:26

But that will inevitably lead to getting the ships out, modding Muwahid foot to Almohad only, changing bodyguard unit sizes and support costs...

Of course before do all of that I need a PC that runs the game...

**Vantek** · 10-06-2010, 21:26

the -ian thing

Sorry for sidetrack, but what does it do exactly? Switching factions midgame could actually be pretty cool. I could start with a random faction, send Priests to all muslim provinces and then just keep hitting End Turn until one muslim faction seems to be in a state where it would be challenging to survive. Alternatively, start with a small challenging faction and try to crush the muslims, then switch to muslims when it looks like you're about to succeed. This could be a pretty fun solution to the problem that two of the three muslim factions are ridiculously easy to win with. But I love muslim music so much.

Originally Posted by gollum

Yes, and the ballistas :) or he could increase the number of men in artillery to 60 and make them have spears so the AI not being able to defend them is countered. Also the maintenance cost will increase and so the recruitment/maintenance cost and so the AI won't (hopefully) built as much, unless of course...all this is about modding and defeats the purpose ;) Just get the ballistas out.

Won't the AI still keep running away with his artillery crews however?

**drone** · 10-06-2010, 22:26

Originally Posted by Vantek

Sorry for sidetrack, but what does it do exactly? Switching factions midgame could actually be pretty cool. I could start with a random faction, send Priests to all muslim provinces and then just keep hitting End Turn until one muslim faction seems to be in a state where it would be challenging to survive. Alternatively, start with a small challenging faction and try to crush the muslims, then switch to muslims when it looks like you're about to succeed. This could be a pretty fun solution to the problem that two of the three muslim factions are ridiculously easy to win with. But I love muslim music so much.

When you set the -ian switch, you can change factions in the campaign map by using the number keys. IIRC, the number for a faction depends on the faction's declaration order in the startpos file. 1 is the rebels, 2 the Almos, 3 the Byz, 4 the Danes, ... to 0 for the Poles. Shift + # covers the next 10, not sure after 20 factions. There are some other hotkeys to do stuff, I think "I" shuts down the campaign AI (no troop movements, no building), "G" shows everything, there might be a couple more.