Arab Conquest Mod

[kataphraktoi]

Anyone interested in an Arab Conquest campaign?

It starts from AD 635 where the Arabs have just captured Damascus, a Byzantine army is stationed in Antioch waiting to eject the Arab army out.

Anyway. I have completed the campaign map and it is playable, but somehow I feel that there a few little modification left to be made, but I don't know what they are.

Anyway I have already played as the Arabs, Romans, Lombards, Visigoths and the Avars, there are no errors so far.

There are no new units - that will be an add-on later.

ANyone interested?

Come on Galestrum u know u want to
Come on Heraclius avenge Yarmuk
Come on Faisal

[Shahed]

If you mean MP battles, then please count me in.
Where is the mod available ?

[kataphraktoi]

Unfortunately Seljuk, I meant a mod for the campaign map.

Although i would be interested in creating a set of custom Arab Conquest era units to play off in a MP.

[kataphraktoi]

I'm not releasing it officially yet.

I'm waiting for a few people to put their hand up to test it and give me recommendations to tweak the gameplay and balance.

You need VI for this.

And a unmodded installation of VI too.

I have a few oustanding issues like placement of troops in time period.

[Leet Eriksson]

COUNT ME IN

anything on Arab conquest,Imperial Arab and ummayad and abbasid units,startpositions and whatever you want,just drop me a word and i'll provide anything

[kataphraktoi]

Give me your e-mail Faisal and I'll send the files

Some things to note:
I have not been able to change the factions names yet. Before VI I was able too, but now I don't why

I have a few tweaks on unit lists for a few factions - I am hoping guys like you will be able to recommend changes to be implemented.

I have not touched the name lists of factions such as:
Sicilians
Turkish
Novgorod
Hungarians
etc...

the names may sound outlandish eg. Suleyman a Khazarian name???

I have no idea what to do with the Varangian Guard too early for early period.

Can;t use "Early Varangian Guard", I made that into leader units called retainers for certain Germanic factions

A few passing notes:
Factions
Arabs(I have not specified Ummayads since this is I presume the period of the 4 rightly-guided Caliphs)(Muslim)
East Roman Empire (Orthodox)
Avars (Pagan)
Lombards (Catholic - decided not to make them Arians)
Visigoths (Catholic)
Austrasian Franks (Catholic)
Neustrian Franks (Catholic)
Saxon-Danes (Pagan)
Vikings (Pagan)
Mercian (Catholic)
Theme of Sicily separatists (Catholic)
Khazars (Pagan)
Count of Aquitaine (Catholic)
Berbers (Pagans)

Arab units have increased attack, morale, charge bonuses, cost less and decreased defence.

Byzantine units - no changes except availablity in provinces and can't train peasants.

Urban Militia not trainable in early period

Increased trading items - as the period warrants of course

Will be good to get an Arab perspective.

[Leet Eriksson]

Ok here is my email

faisal2002ae@hotmail.com

faisal2002ae@yahoo.com

wichever you want to send at is your choice.

now on the arab units,on the arab conquest period,i would like to split them into 3 sections.

The Elites(cavalry):

Faris Cavalry:carried light lances,medium armour and medium sized sheilds.

Camels:same from the MTW period.

Al Jaish Al Munadham(infantry):Arab infantry:could be given the same stats as almohad urban militia,except they are not armoured,also they were organised but once battle commences they break formation.

Arab Spearmen:these had short spears,one layer of chainmail armour and a large sheild.

Archers:horrible in melee(unles meleeing it with other archers),but good shots and can navigate rough terrain.

Mujahidoon(various units,acquired only through jihads(or in this case futuh(Conquest):

Bedioun cavalry:much like saharan but they carried axes,no armour at all but pretty fast.

Mujahideen(Volunteers):much like Arab infantry,but unorganised,equipment is not provided by the army,they should get it on their own account.most of the time they took weapons from dead bodies(loot).

Horse archers appeared after the fall of persia,and swelled the arabs ranks,maces appeared after conquering syria.So if possible make these units available after conquering persia and syria:

Macemen:Anti-armour bonus,well armoured and organised.

Arab horse Archers:much like mamelukes,better attack but less defence.

and thats it for arab conquest units.

EDIT:bit of typos,also kat if you have any suggestions/questions please ask.

[kataphraktoi]

Faisal, instead of creating new units, i suggest we recycle units I left from production. Eg. I turned Byzantine Cavalry to Thematic Cavalry, changed the name, descriptions and if necessary the stats.

This is not only effective but we can use existing units instead of the fuss of creating new ones and installing them. For example, the Almohad Militia, Ottoman Sipahi are unused because they don't fit the early period obviously, perhaps we can utilise them???

I will send to your hotmail account.
By tomorrow u will get it the necessary files.

Al Jaish Al Munadham - I have an unused Almohad Urban Militia - convert it to Al-Jaish

[goldenarms]

this mod, is going to be sweeeeet

[el_slapper]

arrrrgh... VI still not available in France... won't be able to kick the barbarians(catholics) from Europe.

Bah...

[Lord Of Storms]

You say you have a totally new campmap operational in VI?
And what trouble are you having changing the faction names, I have done it in VI for the Napoleonic Mod, just a few edits in Names and either an era faction specific or default faction specific file. LOS

[kataphraktoi]

Being a nice fella, i'll post a few stories of my campaign as the Arabs. I'll try if I have time to post a few screenies for the common good tomorrow morning.

AD 662

Caliph Omar has planted the flag of Islam in the cities of Illya, Tripoli and Antioch. Each are governed under the benevolence of Islamic law concerning Dhimmis. The armies of Allah are poised on the frontier facing north, Edessa, Armenia and Cilicia are open for expanision. However, Omar, the daring, the wise, the fox has gone against his predecessor's fear of the water by building a small navy. The Romans unsuspecting found themselves surprised when a small Arab army lands in Cyprus sweeping the whole island's garrison aside. Constantina, the capital of Cyprus yields to the arms of the Muslims.

Meanwhile, in North Africa, the Moors/Berbers have broken from their desert mountain strongholds and invaded the Exarchate of Africa in force. The Exarch Gregory was defeated and killed in battle. The remaining forces retreat to Carthage and are put under siege. Fortunately the city is well prepared for a long siege. The desert warriors however can wait.

The Visigoths have reunited the Iberian peninsula and strike north conquering old territories once belonging to them, the Franks quake in their boots as the triumphant Goths trample through Gaul and beyond. Already they have crushed the County of Aquintaine.

The Balkans are in disarray thanks to the Avars, seizing Moesia and Illyricum, they carve out an impressive empire in central europe.

The Slavs are disorganised tribes in a confederation, they are loosely tied to each other, only a strong Slav leader can make them a force.

The Western Franks are disintegrating internally, the Merovingian Kings are nothing but mere figureheads to the Mayor of the palaces.

The Eastern Franks have crushed the Burgundians are annexed their territory, they cast their eye on Slavic territory further east.

The Roman Empire is facing dire straits, every frontier is under attack, in the East, the Arabs are swallowing their rich provinces. In the West, the rebellious theme of sicily has annexed southern Italy proclmaining itself a rival to the empire.

AD 669

Omar has died but his successor Husayn continued to drive the Arabs to greater victories. The Romans sent a fleet to recapture Cyprus during the death of Omar. However, in 667, Edessa fell to the Arabs. Cilicia too fell the next year, raids have carried out into Anatolia already.
Husayn eyes Egypt next.

The usurper of the theme of sicily Germanus marches north and captures Rome and Ravenna striking a blow to Roman holdings in Italy. Germanus controls the crucial sealanes between the East and the West and plans to seize the rest of the Western possessions of the Romans in the next few years.

The Romans are driven to Venice by the usurper, the Eastern Franks have seized Genoa. The eastern frontier is crumbling. The only sucess is Cyprus and the reconquest of the Hellas province.

Very soon Faisal will be writing his own saga of conquest and glory.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (kataphraktoi @ Aug. 08 2003,09:03)]Faisal, instead of creating new units, i suggest we recycle units I left from production. Eg. I turned Byzantine Cavalry to Thematic Cavalry, changed the name, descriptions and if necessary the stats.

This is not only effective but we can use existing units instead of the fuss of creating new ones and installing them. For example, the Almohad Militia, Ottoman Sipahi are unused because they don't fit the early period obviously, perhaps we can utilise them???

I will send to your hotmail account.
By tomorrow u will get it the necessary files.

Al Jaish Al Munadham - I have an unused Almohad Urban Militia - convert it to Al-Jaish

good ideathe Jaish is a category,not really a unit,i forgot to press enter to seperate the Arab infantry.Categories are seperated into 3 parts,Elites,Al Jaish and Al Mujahidoon.the 1st is cavalry,second infantry,and 3rd exclusive to jihad(ranging from crappy to mediocre to good units,no elites).

you could use the Ghulam and rename them to Faris,the Arab Infantry remain the same,but with stats like Almohad urban militia except the armour and defence(defence should be 2,armour 1).sipahi could be changed into Ghazi,since they are crap.

hmmm...any suggestions or questions?

[kataphraktoi]

WHen I send you the crusader_prod_11 files I'll leave you in charge of the Arab Conquest era troops - just don't make them starting troops in the startpos files yet.

I have as starting troops camels, desert archers and arab infantry at the moment, and also enough to strike quickly at Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Edessa, Armenia and Rum(Anatolia). What a great starting position Syria is

Hmmm, was there such thing as a Caliph's bodyguard in the early years of the Arab expansion??? Perhaps the Ghulam can be changed to somethnig faith-related to the Caliph??

Anyway you are deputed Emir of the Caliph's army.

NOTE: this is not a "new" campmap, this is a modded campmap, for anyone who is confused.

[kataphraktoi]

right click and save, the links don't work unless u use 'save target as'

pic 1

pic 2

[kataphraktoi]

right click and save, the links don't work unless u use 'save target as'

pic 1

pic 2

[Lord Of Storms]

Quote[/b] ]NOTE: this is not a "new" campmap, this is a modded campmap, for anyone who is confused.

No not confused just curious, but I am not anymore.

[Leet Eriksson]

Not bad,looks like a promising campaign.

the kaliphs usually did'nt fight,they were busy with internal issues,the kaliphs generals usually led battles and conquests(moussa ibn al nusayr and khalid bin al waleed for example).usually if he went to battle mohammeds companions accompany him as his bodyguard.

also kat i'm looking at the files now,i'll be changing the arab infantry,ghulam bodyguard and probably saharan cavalry.i'll list my changes in the next post.

EDIT:argh,when i click download file it opens it in another window,and does not download it :S.can i copy past it in the cursader prod file?(i have another totalwar in a different directory for mods)

[kataphraktoi]

With the Saharan cavalry one request. Keep it a non-muslim unit. please I made them an Almohad leader unit since the Berbers/Moors were lightly armoured or lightly armed military units.

[-Isapostolos-]

Could you sen dme this mod please, I'm really intrested seannemans@hotmail.com

[Leet Eriksson]

ok no problem,saharan cavalry is not modified,i'm working on the arab units and testing them to see if they are balanced.

[Leet Eriksson]

Kat,i'm having a problem running the game,there is an Unknown unit type thingy.i still have'nt touched the units yet so its probably the files.becuase they don't download as "files" they open up in a new page instead...i tried copying pasting but it does'nt work.

[kataphraktoi]

Thats strange about the unknown unit. Everything is accounted for on my system

Might upload the files onto a geocities server in a few days, might work then.

Any ideas Faisal?

Could it be changes to description and names text??

[kataphraktoi]

iso, i'll do it during the week.

[Leet Eriksson]

It could be related to other files,maybe...you should send all modified files(just incase).I'll work on the stats for the arabic units in the meantime while you upload them.

[Terrax]

A little OT, but I notice you patrons like the Arabs. Have you ever played a MTW game where you converted the entire world to Islam? That was a goal of mine in one game. It took a while to get the Pope's last province to convert, but in the end, every province in the MTW world was 100% Islam. Just wondering if anyone else had accomplished that.

[Leet Eriksson]

Pretty hard to acomplish that,unless your Almohads,becuase imo they are the easiest in the early era,and they share the arab infantry and faris cav withe egypt.Egypt is pretty hard to play too becuase by the time you conquered the turks,the byz will already have half of eastern europe and will start chugging those kats,varangians and byz infantry at you.

[Terrax]

Did it as the Egyptians. Got the saved game if you want to have a look.

[-Isapostolos-]

Quote[/b] (kataphraktoi @ Aug. 12 2003,08:11)]iso, i'll do it during the week.

Thanks

[kataphraktoi]

Hey Faisal, haven't accessed the net since Tuesday, I'll upload as much as I can remember.

I am thinking it might have to do with the small tweaks in the other non-Arab units.

Will be occupiued quite a while but will get the files to ya and Iso too.

By the way I am occuppied with my politics unit on Islam and World Politics, very interesting subject and enjoying it - especially about Foreign Policy and how Muslims relate to non-Muslim states.