The Caravel Mod

[RRMike]

Here is the thread. There are so many sub forums that I wasn't sure where to look to take our conversation into a thread Gollum. But now I have 10 pages to read so maybe my questions will be answered.

[gollum]

Hello RRMike, and welcome

There is a link in my signature that reads "Info and Discussion Thread" if you click it it links directly to this thread.

Its best you ask away any questions you have and if tehy are duplicates i will direct you to specific posts. Otherwise you may find it boring scrolling over a 10 page thread - and in any case some of the points made are now irrelevant as the mod evolved in versions.

The only thing that requires reading is the #1 post that presents the mod.

[RRMike]

Don't know if my install is bad or what but I have no CRVL default or CRVL huge options when starting a game. The 2nd militia building allows crossbows? rather than the bowyer workshop which enables nothing? How do I build militia sergeants, or their new equivalent? How do I build RKs? How do I get pavise x-bows, which I see across the border in Italy?

[RRMike]

To add; No CMAA? No arbs? Just made it to 1205 England. Getting kinda lost trying to figure out what buildings to build to train units or even what units are available.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi Gollum

Seems a while since you've been on the boards. Hope all's well with you.

Have downloaded v3.3: it's a long weekend here in Blighty, so hope to get a campaign up and running.

Can I make one suggestion: if you were to countenance deviating in one aspect from the 'vanilla MTW experience' within Caravel, please consider allowing rebels to build ships. I encountered this feature in Axalon's recent version of Redux and I am completely sold on it. It just makes life so much more 'interesting' for the human player, thereby to a degree counterbalancing the domination of the seas, vast strategic mobility, and huge trade income that the human player inevitably acquires in mid to late game.

I really do feel allowing rebels to build ships raises the challenge factor significantly.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[Pikenier]

the Loc folder that contains game text (for unit descriptions etc) has been modified for the english language only. If you are playing in another language edition you can re-install the game in English before you install the mod or if you are playing in an edition that uses another language only, you can try installing the mod save for the loc folder; although you will be missing all changed text - and there is lots of changed text that helps navigate the role of units - but if you can live with this ommission, that should work.

I have a german version of MTW. Will I be able to play this mod?
When installing MTW XL3.0 I had to copy the files from loc/english into loc/german. The XL game was in english then, but that is not a serious problem. Would the same simple copy/paste action work in this mod also?

[Cyprian2]

Hi Gollum

Seems a while since you've been on the boards. Hope all's well with you.

Maybe he's taking a well-deserved break! Anyway, I like your suggestion about allowing rebels to build ships. I'm sure it's easily done if one has some modding know-how, but I can't say for sure.

To Gollum: I've been playing a campaign as the Hungarians. Fantastic, so far. Some harrowing battles against the Turks (I now know the true meaning of the phrase "shield of Christianity"). Anyway, I've got some great material for an AAR. So, er, we'll see what happens. Just wanted to alert you, though, that the deadpage coords for Italian Sailors seems to be missing. Like Victor, I hope all is well with you, Gollum. And thanks again for the mod!

[drone]

I believe gollum has had some real life interference from his gaming recently. Here's to hoping he visits us again soon.

[Durango]

A version of my new map adapted to the Caravel mod has been uploaded. Check my sig

[gollum]

Thank you all for your interest. My work on the mod will not continue. You have been all great and i hope the mod has added to your enjoyment of the game :)

[Nagnar]

How come while you changed the first Byzantine Emperor's command stars to 1+2(defending) you kept the Spanish and Almohad initial rulers at 4+3(defending)? It seems like their's should have been reduced as well! ; In the interest of de-overpowering their rulers, just like the Byzantines for reasons discussed in this thread. (Also am hoping all the heirs for the Byzantines have a similar reduction, ?and Almohad/Spanish princes?)
From what I've seen and read so far, this seems to be the best vanilla style (or at least remotely vanilla) mod ever made and am looking forward to playing it!

[Nagnar]

Just played the first ~10 moves of an Almohad campaign and already the difference to vanilla or XL is noticeable, i anticipate this mod to be the most fun I've had since i started MTW.
Kudos to gollum for a phenomenal mod!

[caravel]

The Byzantine Emperor gets a hard-coded +2 influence and +1 command bonus. So it may be that his stats were nerfed the most to counter this - i.e. his heirs will still improve and gain stars. (disclaimer: just a guess as I've not played this mod)

[Nagnar]

Hi there Caravel!
Yeah i know about the nerf, I think the high degree of the nerf is more to do with the strong starting position - constantinople and the reasons discussed earlier in this thread etc than the influence bonus, i was wondering more why the Almohad and Spanish initial rulers weren't nerfed that much despite having very good command stars - The discussion in the thread last year about making battles more dependent on battle map strategy/tactics rather than being predetermined by the campaign map (excessive command stars).
No big deal though as it's just the first ruler and gollum obviously isn't working on the mod anymore.

You should try it out, its good stuff.

[caravel]

Hi there Caravel!
Yeah i know about the nerf, I think the high degree of the nerf is more to do with the strong starting position - constantinople and the reasons discussed earlier in this thread etc than the influence bonus, i was wondering more why the Almohad and Spanish initial rulers weren't nerfed that much despite having very good command stars - The discussion in the thread last year about making battles more dependent on battle map strategy/tactics rather than being predetermined by the campaign map (excessive command stars).
No big deal though as it's just the first ruler and gollum obviously isn't working on the mod anymore.

You should try it out, its good stuff.

Yes, constantinople and the aforementioned bonuses do turn the byz into somewhat of a juggernaut. In my home mod, I change the kats to 20 man units (as with other bodyguards) and this does help tremendously as far as balance is concerned. I reassign AHC to the byz and make alan mercs recruitable to compensate for this and it does help. They also have the byz lancers, byz cav and pr0n cav, so they do ok.

I'm not sure of gollum's specific reasoning behind not reducing the command stars for the Spanish and Almohad rulers, but here's my £0.02 for what it's worth:

Reducing the byz leaders command stars has to be quite drastic as the influence bonus and power of the kat bodyguard units will ensure that they thrive anyway and gain stars quickly.

The Spanish and especially the Almohad factions would be overcome by their neighbours/crusades quite quickly without half decent command stars for starting rulers/heirs/"hero generals". The Spanish in particular are in a strategically weak starting position surrounded by potential enemies. Muslim factions in general in MTW are underpowered.

In STW 0 star generals were quite viable early as almost all units were elite and it was common to build up generals from scratch. In MTW (single player) fielding a 0 star general is almost always suicidal due to the majority of units being non elites - they will simply rout off the field at the first sign of losses.

[huth]

Hi... so somehow I can play MTW on my gf8600, and I gonna try this mod first.
I just looked into crusader_unit file and find out that foot units(eg. gothic foot knigths) that can't be recruited in vanilla also can't be in this mod. I wonder if I modify those units, will that have big influence for gameplay and balance? Will AI behave differently?
Well, I am going to do this anyway, but I would appreciate your opinion :P

[Stazi]

I just looked into crusader_unit file and find out that foot units(eg. gothic foot knigths) that can't be recruited in vanilla also can't be in this mod. I wonder if I modify those units, will that have big influence for gameplay and balance? Will AI behave differently?

Hard to tell. It depends what you change. Gothic Knights is costly high-end unit and AI rarely builds them. Probably only you will build and use them.

[huth]

I left it as it was for now, because I started the campaign and saw that units are partially overhauled and I don't want to mess with it yet.

Edit:
I play campaign as English(this nation is totally overpowered in this game... well almost in any game...) at default unit size and of course CRVL-default and hard difficulty. I'm around 1150 and the changes in gameplay(strategy, military) are awesome, but economy seems to be too easy... I quickly destroyed France and then I stopped further expansion until 1140(with crusade on Cordoba), though I don't have any problems with money(after defeating France income was about 1k, now it's 3k+) and if I want I could easily blitz Castille, Aragon, Danes and HRE... and then further. Especialy with that great English heroes-generals and princes. I wonder what would it be on bigger unit size... Though probably huge size gives optimal balanse, but that two turns recruiting... I'll try it sometime.
I was surprised when Venice attacked me, fortunatelly HRE is defensive and they do nothing...
I looked into default_heroes.txt, well, it's a pity that there's no balance in heroes too. Again England totally overpowered- Tancred, Borleng, FitzGilbert, Marshall... all available very quickly. Ah and 5-7 stars princes...

Edit2:
I have some strange issue with Crusade, I made one on Egypt but I couldn't go further from Venice or Papal States(I can't remember). So after reload I made Crusade to Cordoba, get awesome 2 units of Templars and 1 OFS and Fanatics(love their high morale), add some feudal troops of mine, and after few times I started "reconquista". I was careful, because I Aragon and Spain are expansionist, and of course they attacked me(and I was smashed by those Jinetes and R. Knights led by 7 star King...). I would attack them first but without a 2-3 turns blitz, I'd be excommunicated, and I had other crusade on the move.. to Volhynia. Zealous German provinces gave me tons of Teutonic Sergeants, even Royal Knights, after succesful crusade I also bribed a besieged garrison, that consist 3 units of Lithuanian cavalry, and I feel like a Golden Horde khan, with all that cav. Because of trade and rich French and Moorish provinces I still make 2k per year...
Anyway, I found the game to be somehow tougher than what I remember... maybe it's lack of better unit tiers(spearmen)? Well, I could just blitz everything at the beginning(I wonder how it'd end..), but after 100 years it's not that easy. AI in battles is quite careful and attacks in group, though I didn't have a really big battle and I didn't try luring to split forces(because I don't have such units).
I'm not sure, but Custom battle settings wasn't fully updated(factions). I'll fix that.
And what is with that Man-at-arms unit, that uses Highland Clansmen skin and is at very beginning in Scotland? They are really good, pity that I can't recruit them... They weren't any challange, because I bribed that army anyway :P

[Vigo Doria]

I had some discussion here but my question was moved to the main page. Still i think it would be good if i would inform those who visit here that during my testing with the loyalty:130 command line, rebellions were common and it did not look like it is working. I tested the mod with the original loyalty:180 command line, and it looks like it worked better, i saw less rebellions.

[huth]

epic dig out with kataphraktageddon - coming back of Byzantium.

[Goalum]

thanks to all for your interest in the mod over the years..

[huth]

Hello, last weekend I started playing Humankind, this game can be played kinda as you want, it's audio and visual design is quite calm and very immersive, so it somehow brought me to reflect about countless hours spent in strategic games years ago... I've checked my disk do I still have totalwar folders, there were, one with MTW with Caravel mod, that I tried long ago.
I've gone wild with my thoughts, so let me put my hmm essay into spoiler, because it's pretty off-topic and just reminiscent...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was actually last mod(well far later I've checked some version of Redux) before I quit playing MTW for Rome, M2, and other grand strategies. But MTW has something so relaxing for me, I don't know what is it, it was the first big strategy game I've played after some old 2D RTS and RPG games. I remember in my youth just having it run, ambient music played while I've been reading books or doing homework(offtopic- is it a right english tense to use it in this sentence? Doind smth while smth else goes on but everything in the past?). And doing some moves or battles once in while. And then a crash haha... old times. Maybe only Rome with Europa Barbaroum or Europa Universalis with Magna Mundi and some cRPGs gave me that immersive but calm vibe, though they are much more challenging and require a lot of thinking(well not cRPGs...). I have lost plenty of time in other games, they gave me fun but I consider it as lost, wasted, forlorn time, especially Civ games(they are good only in exploration and early to mid kingdom phase then it's managing of managing of m... and probably Humankind would add to it...), newer paradox strategies(fun over hmm... history?), totalwars from M2(why graphics matter more than gameplay integrity?) and M&B Warband and the whole mod and MP world of this - truly this ugly but immersive game with so many layers of gameplay(is it a medieval sim? battle sim? rpg? action game? tactics? even big strategy? - mods just made this game into dozen other. And MP mods... one made this an MMO - my first and the last, this type of games should be sold with excize tax because how addictive they are.
Well, years gone, and sometimes I think if I be born in the world without computers I would have a great edu degree and fine job and all that other important life things that people use to strive for. Or... went pathologic because I couldn't hide in virtual world while quite bad things happened at home. Or alcoholic or dead because I could not fill the uncertainty and emptyness of the late youth/early adulthood only with books(so exciting) and just go partying all the time. So I am - confiding at forums of twenty years old game. And I'm sober, oh man, now I've got to drink for sure haha.

Anyway, I started playing again, I've got sucked in...
I forgot how great is AI managing in Caravel. And that there're no peasants and other rubbish. Army roosters are accurate to a nation. They might seem boring without some fancy local units, and universal scheme of unit kinds, but it feels historically accurate and balanced. Catholics get types of militia-spearmen-shooters and mainly light-medium cavalry and some nation-specific unit but nothing weird. It gets a bit messy(a bit) in Middle and Eastern Europe. And of course Muslim/steppe cultures have an emphasis on bow, but I was surprised that their shooting units actually get into fighting and not only run. Well those Futuwas and Turcomans are quite a challange with some valour from high-star general.
I play Spain(well, it's more like Castile-Leon, but who cares), because it was always easy as I remember(and I wanted a chillful weekend game) just need a very risky and skillful first turns gameplay.
And well, it was. I took Cordoba early, then bunkered and went into economy while fighting Almohads for ransom money(well, it's a nice exploit, probably not so historically accurate as they're not Christians, so I suppose they'd be treated in quite unhealthy way...), slowly made a fleet, bribed Valencia and Portugal, got Navarra and left Aragon as a nice buffer. As things weren't interrupted by English and other nations crusades(they went East somehow) so I've unleashed crusade hell on the heathen North Africa and stop at Sinai, because Turks luckily didn't conquer Egypt yet. It seems Almohads are much weaker than in vanilla(they have some crazy good early period infantry units). Then... well I post later with screenshots, just need to check what are nowadays free pics hostings.