Medmod IV v3.12 Update

[WesW]

The next update of the mod is now posted at my webpage.

So, there I was Tuesday afternoon, making a very long post which answered all the questions, and explained everything else I had done. I must have spent over 90min making it. Well, the last thing I was working on was a description of my computer problems, and I checked my IE\tools\privacy and security settings, and they were indeed screwed up again. I tried hitting the default level button on the Privacy tab, and the setting seemed to get straightened out. So, I tried that on the Security setting, and I get the same ole message that IE had encountered a problem and had to shut down. I had saved my post to the clipboard, so I didn't think it was a big deal. Well, when IE shut down, it somehow erased the clipboard contents, and my post with it.

So, I don't remember what-all I said about everything, but I'll go over the main updates here.

I re-worked the rebel groups in the game to try and get a better quality and greater variety of troops produced.
I gave the Mediterranean ships the ability to be built on the northern part of continental Europe.
I changed the English bodyguard units to Norman Knights in both the Early and Late eras, and Kns of Gascon in the Late era.
I gave Tyrolia to the Swiss in the Late era, and shortened the HRE Homeland to only include those provinces that it starts each era with, meaning for example that Burgundy, Tyrolia and Switzerland are not part of the HRE Homeland in the Late era.
Mounted Crossbows are now unique to the HRE and the Swiss, I believe.
I made Gunsmiths, Foundries, and Siege Engineers unique, like Royal Palaces. This will severely restrict where you can build gunpowder units and artillery pieces. I did not make any new faction restrictions, except giving the Mongols access to Muslim Handgunners, along with the Muslim factions.
Ships no longer require Foundries, and each ship type requires a Shipyard to match the era- 1 for early, 2 for high, and 3 for late. None require a master-level shipyard.
The Serpentine no longer requires a gunsmith, and the Organ Gun only requires a master-level gunsmith.
Naptha Throwers are still available to the Muslims, Mongols and Byz, but not in early anymore, and they now require the unique gunsmith.
As for missile units, all are available by the high era.
The HRE and Russians get generic Archers.
The French and Danes/Swedes get Crossbows.
The Spanish/Ara and Russians get Pavise X-bows in High.
The HRE and Byz get Arbalesters in high.
The Hungarians and Poles get pavise Arbs in high.

I made what I think are the necessary changes to the distribution of ports and trade goods in the Med.
Made lots of other little fixes and tweaks on things brought up in the 3.11 thread, plus the things I happened to run across.

Toronaga, there is no way for us to affect how the AI picks its governors. It seems to give generals stars top priority, which is why I restricted generals stars to poor provinces. Then it ranks its generals by acumen, and gives titles accordingly. It never takes titles away from generals, so if they develop vices the AI is screwed. And I have seen just this occur. This also means that they don't get the benefit of high-acumen generals that come along later, especially if they had bad luck with the acumen of their starting generals.
If you want to restrict yourself, go ahead, but I wouldn't try to force the method on everyone else even if I could do so. And trying to limit the AI, since it never changes governors unless one dies, would be the most awful thing I can imagine to do to the game.

Rabid Monkey, if you are still getting textures errors, you need to copy the textures folder from the Setup\Data section of the CD, and paste it over what you have now. Then apply the Graphics and Texts portion of the mod, in that order, and see if that does the trick.

I'm still feeling awful, so it may be a while before I post again.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Thanks Wes, I'll give it a whirl this weekend

[[DnC]]

I'll try it soon

Hope you get better Wes

[ToranagaSama]

Do you mind answering a couple of questions:

Quote[/b] ]I made Gunsmiths, Foundries, and Siege Engineers unique, like Royal Palaces. This will severely restrict where you can build gunpowder units and artillery pieces.

Just wondering since I'm not really knowledgeable on the subjct, what's your thinking upon restricting Siege Engineers?

Quote[/b] ]Ships no longer require Foundries, and each ship type requires a Shipyard to match the era- 1 for early, 2 for high, and 3 for late. None require a master-level shipyard.

Please anyone, I've really a bit confused on Ship requirements.

The second level Shipyard upgrade, 3.11, didn't seem to give you anything. Was/Is it required to be build for anything? Or, is it just a waste to buiild it?

Anyway, with 3.12, playing Early Period/Sicily, I need the 1st level shipyard (probably have it at outset of game) to build ships. So, as the game progresses, at some point, I'll need to build a second level shipyard, correct?

But, I won't be able to build it, until "time" moves to the High Era, correct? Similarly, for 3rd level?

I don't know. If anyone could break this down for me, I'd mightily appreciate it. Thank you, in advance.

--

Quote[/b] ]Toronaga, there is no way for us to affect how the AI picks its governors. It seems to give generals stars top priority, which is why I restricted generals stars to poor provinces. Then it ranks its generals by acumen, and gives titles accordingly.

Ok, this is the way I restrict myself also, except I use only Knights.

Quote[/b] ]It never takes titles away from generals, so if they develop vices the AI is screwed. And I have seen just this occur. This also means that they don't get the benefit of high-acumen generals that come along later, especially if they had bad luck with the acumen of their starting generals.

Unfortunately, this is as expected. Next week, I think I'll start a thread in the Main Hall, agitating for CA to "adjust" the AI (for Rome) to act more intelligently in this regard. Doing so will help fortify the AI factions. Anyone concur?

Quote[/b] ]If you want to restrict yourself, go ahead, but I wouldn't try to force the method on everyone else even if I could do so.

*I* can't "force" anyone to do anything This is the way I think the game s/b played. Its sensical and logical, though, it may only be for advanced players, as I have always noted in my Main Hall posts re same. As is my nature I will continue to agitate.

I'd ask that YOU give it a go sometime, simply to note how a Campaign develops in light of the restriction of govenors to Knights, only, by the Player.

Quote[/b] ]And trying to limit the AI, since it never changes governors unless one dies, would be the most awful thing I can imagine to do to the game.

I believe I stated similarly.

Thank you for your response.

BTW, I may have missed it, but can you confirm that a fresh install of MTW/Vikings is needed to have the "Patch" work properly with the MedMod?

---

Re: your IE issues, have you posted to the Apothcary? Interesting, need more info, but off the top of my head, you may either have a virus or have you adusted any of the "Advanced" settings? What anti-virus program do you use? Unless, your confident its not a virus, I'd make sure to d/l the latest definition files and do a "system" scan. If you come up clean then great Next, I stop using IE, and start using Mozilla, its free and superior in every possible way. See threads, in the Apothcary regarding Mozilla. Its Open Source based on Netscape. I don't know how much of a programmer you may be, but you might also enjoy tinkering with it as well.

www.mozilla.org

If you need ANY help with your system, please feel free to email. I am fairly computer lit.

Thank you and feel better.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Toranaga, buildings are not restricted by era, units are. You can still build the 2nd level shipyard in the early era, but you won't get level 2 ships until high etc.

I've been playing as Italy in High on Expert. I really like the total unit restrictions. I am still seeing large stacks of units, however they have a much more realistic makeup of troops. The only factions to be eliminated by 1255 were the English (by the French) and the Aragonese (by the Almohad and Spanish). The Horde popped up with around 12,000 troops and pushed all the way to Silesia in the west and Rum in the South before being set upon by 9 factions They are now completely defensive. There are a huge number of ships from nearly every Med faction with the exception of the Hungarians, Turks, and Papists none of which have built any. I am curious if ship building for Med factions is enabled throughout the entire Med, because I can build ships in Cyprus but not in Constantinople. I will continue my game later today and post my observations probably on Monday. Thanks again Wes, I hope both you and your computer are feeling better soon

PS> For IE probs you can try upgrading to the newest version of IE if you don't have it, or you can do a Windows Repair or simply reinstall over your existing windows install (neither of which will hurt your file system). Both should over-write IE and probably fix the situation. Years ago when I tried to delete IE for some reason and my systen became unstable, I simply reinstalled 98 over the top and it worked fine thereafter. I personally prefer Opera and would even use Mozilla before going back to IE. I'm sure you have your reasons though.

[ToranagaSama]

P.S., quality free clipboard manager. Automatically, saves clipboard items.

Clipboard Magic

[A_B]

Quote[/b] (ToranagaSama @ Oct. 18 2003,09:44)]I'd ask that YOU give it a go sometime, simply to note how a Campaign develops in light of the restriction of govenors to Knights, only, by the Player.

Toranaga,

I've been playing with this hardcore rule (knight/royal units only as gov's) and think it helps the game tremendously. Otherwise, the games become entirely too easy too quickly. Using this rule, and the new MedMods (with some help from the damn Mongols), i've been loosing more campaigns than i've been winning.

[Beelzebub]

how come aragon and siciliy can't crusade?

great mod btw

[RabidMonkey]

Thanks a lot Wes Im going to fix it now.
Hope you feel better soon because your doing some amazing work in this mod. I remember playing your Call to Power Med Mod, I think that was you anyway

[Beelzebub]

If I wanted to make Aragon and Sicily capable of building crusades, would all I have to do is edit chapter houses to add their faction names to the list of ones that can produce them? or is it more complicated?

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Ok, here we go

Italians - High - Expert - MM3.12

Having become accustomed to playing on Expert, I always play in such a manner as to increase the longevity of opposing factions. I rarely if ever instigate wars and I try to never eliminate a faction in possible. I spent the first thirty years building up my defensive forces and watching war spread across the continent. As factions rose and were struck down inevitably civil war broke out. I used that strife to seize rebel provinces in Antioch, Egypt, and Tunisia. Around 1250 I broke a Mongol siege in Bulgaria to free my allies the Hungarians. Egypt attacked me followed by the French from Morocco. This led to Sicily attacking me and soon after the Germans also attacked. As if this wasn't enough the Polish then attacked as did the Pope and then the Hungarians. My provinces were developed enough economically that I was able to eek out enough money to show a small profit due to my dominance of the seas. So here I am at war with 8 factions. Yippee.

I am definitely getting better matchups in battles. I have actually lost two battles in this game. I can't remember the last time I lost a battle to the AI.

Is ship building supposed to be enabled throughout the entire Med? I can build ships in all of my home provinces as well as Crete, but not in Constantinople.

The Poles don't build any archers.

Half of the entire French military (15K+) is made up of crossbows. The other half is feudal foot. Even though I am in 1345 I have yet to see one advanced unit from the French even though they control the Atlantic seaboard from Denmark to Morocco including all of GB.

Inevitably the Byzantines start getting crushed and for some reason their King always moves to Rhodes, loses all of his mainland provinces, and has his navy sunk. He remains impotently trapped until someone (me usually) puts him out of his misery. Would it be a better idea, for the sake of gameplay, to take Rhodes away from the Byzantines since they are the only island controlling faction that always gets trapped there?

The Danes and the Swedes control everything from Poland east down to Trebizond. Then they started to fight, Sweden no controls all of those provinces but the Danes have used their incredible navy to wipe out the Swedes presence in the Atlantic. The Danes and the French each have around ten ships per Atlantic sea province. Both the Swedes and Danes now have ships in the Med

I like the mercenary options and also the Outremer availability in the ME. I think the requirements and costs are high enough to offset the advantage.

Before 1320 I built the first level foundry in Crete. I also captured a first level foundy in Tunisia. After 1320 I am not capable of building any more foundries of any type anywhere. Are the Italians supposed to not have artillery?

I thought the Italians lack of serious Heavy Cavalry would be a serious liability, however, I think their superior heavy foot is making up the difference.

The lack of buildable units in non-homeland provinces has led to a drastic increase in the number and usage of strategic units. Assassins and Inquisitors are very active.

German Saxon Huscarles are nearly unstoppable in High.

The Polish Vlastela run from inferior units instead of couter-charging and crushing them. I guess their status as lancer/horse archer is over-ridden in favor of the horse archer.

I am having a blast. Previously I would build up trade and eliminate enemies one by one. I am actually having to budget my resources and make true strategic decisions before each turn ends. For some reason none of the 8 factions I have been at war with for the past 100 years will accept a truce. This means I am mostly defensive although I find time to pinch the occasional wel developed province.

Thanks for all of your hardwork Your mod has given MTW a fresh face and renewed my waning interest in the game. Cheers

[Quokka]

EDIT: Answered my own questions by playing, should have done that first instead of reading the instructions

Something very strange did happen though.
In 1092 I invaded Aragon with 4 Knights of Hidalgo, 2 Spanish Jinetes, 2 Asturian Foot, 4 Spearmen, 1 Archer and 3 Galician Bowmen vs their 2 Knights of Hidalgo, 2 Asturian Foot and 2 Galician Bowmen. They abandoned the province, committing suicide. .matteosartori. showed no rebel provinces so they didn’t try and retreat anywhere, they just gave up.
Anyone ever had that happen before?

Only one slight cosmetic glitch. The info parchment for Woodsmen is covered in black dots. It looks like some outline in the background was not fully erased.

So far so good. The Almohads got huge FAST.

[Perec_Dojo]

Wes-

I have noticed that the shift key no longer shows the status of trade routes. I must confess that I installed the patch and then your mod immediately after, so perhaps it is the patch that is responsible and not your mod? Just curious...

[L`zard]

Perec_Dojo:

Shift? or did you mean 'V' for trade-routes?

Meself, the mod seems to work fine w/2.01 patch, eh?

Any other problems? Perhaps the details of same will evince more responses.

Quokka: All the time. Seems like they just fade into the brush sometimes. Cant offer a clue vis the graphic part of your question, Drivers?

[Jacque Schtrapp]

1357 - Pope respawned bringing with him 3600 Arqbusiers and Italian Sailors all with 3rd level armor and first level weapon upgrades. One hour and fifteen minute battle consisting of cavalry chasing missile troops to every corner of the map. I hate these kinds of battles, I hope they don't happen very often.

1359 - Pope respawned again bringing with him 3600 Arqbusiers and Italian Sailors all with 3rd level armor and first level weapon upgrades. An hour this time, cav vs. missiles, at least all of my cav units are +4 valor now. Boring.

1360 - Surprise Surprise Pope respawned yet again bringing with him 3600 Arqbusiers and Italian Sailors all with 3rd level armor and first level weapon upgrades. Got it down to fifty minutes of running all around the map. Cavalry starting to complain about the competition, general heartily agrees

I have never had the Pope respawn three times in a campaign after I have captured Rome, let alone three times in four years I can't let him have Rome because of a financial crisis and soft interior defenses.

[Beelzebub]

Playing a campaign as France, expert difficulty, on high. It's been very good so far.

I like to expand slowly and try to keep factions alive, not just rush aggressively at the beginning (when it's easiest) but let everyone build up some armies before joining the wars (it doesn't really make sense europe has no armies at all when the game starts, but in 10 years mobilizes 10 times the starting soldiers for no reason).

I consider myself a very good player, rarely ever make mistakes and am very good at the game, but this has been a challenging campaign where I've really been challenged.

Even though I have extensive trade routes: all of the western ports, 6 med provinces trading with Toulouse, 3 trading with the holy lands (my mediteranean navy took some heavy losses fighting the sicilian and almohed navy, My caravals and Barques are better ships than their galleys and moslom ones, and I had some good 4 star captains, but they had more shipyards and could crank them out faster). I still only have an income of 1000-2000 florins per year since I need to keep heavy garrisons in all my french provinces just to match the HRE, England and Aragon.

Also keeping my holy land provinces is another huge expense. They aren't nearly as rich as they were in vanilla, and It takes so damn long to build them up so they can produce outremer forces, I've had to hire a lot of mercs just to keep a garrison capable of beating off the egyptians. The sicialians attacked Tripoli with an almost all knight army and 4 star prince leading. They took the province. But my navy cut won and managed to keep them from establishing a link to the home (they tried hard though). They assaulted the keep and took heavy casualties (I upgraded the defences hehe).

Then when I counter attacked, won, and sieged Tripoli, the Egyptians (their allies) jumped in. I held them off at 3:1 odds in Antioch and then finally retook Tripoli after I slaughtered the egyptions 3 times. Now their army is weaker and I can go on the offensive soon. Although I still have no sealink home, and only cyprus can make outremere spearmen so I'll need more mercs (even less income).

The Egyptian forces are pretty well balanced, they are a bit heavy on berbers and desert archers. Definitly not enough Saracen Infantry (I only saw 2 units in their 4 stacks), and they could probably use more non-camel cavalry. They should also produce more Futawas (which are advanced archers that can fight) instead of desert archers. If you could tweak that it would be great.

In the rest of the world: The Italians went on a rampage and took over a large chunk of central and eastern europe, all the way to turkey. Then they got rocked by a civil war, and now they have the HRE, Sicily, Aragon and Hungary gunning for them. Denmark and Sweden took over most of the baltic and denmark took scotland and wales. But now they're at each other's throats. The Golden Horde is tearing up Russia and the remnants of the Byzantine empire (I don't think they even tried to take constantinople back, they just expanded into russia a bit). The Almoheds took Ppain (who now just have Naverre and Acquitane), but then England jumped in and took Castille. The Almos threw everything at it, but the English survived, I assume they'll be expanding there soon. At the beginning they went to war with the HRE instead of France. Took 2-3 provs in the NW HRE.

So far it's been a great campaign. The AI could still use a bit of tweaking with their troop building priorities (like the Egyptians I mentioned), but the game is a huge improvement over vanilla. Thanks a ton Wes

[Quokka]

The Woodsman is the only one so far, all the others have looked fine. I have seen about 30-40 units in my first game.

A few other things. The readme says Turcopoles get a +1 bonus in Tripoli but they don't Outremer infantry do. The unit_prod is blank for Turcopoles.

Hashishin are now 75 man units but still have a preferred rows value of 2 is that right? And finally about Syria, it only gives +1 to Assasins now, but the usefulness of Assassins is reduced because all of the provinces are built up. Not many years in and they all have Border Forts that don't respect an Assassins stars. How about something extra for Syria? All of the Muslim factions have at least 50% of their homelands giving bonuses to troops they can't use.

How exactly do ship bonuses work?

The game is much tougher now. My Spanish are barely beating the Almohads, their armies are so big and the Spanish don't have an Early Melee troop so its mass cavalry charges whenever I can get some massed. One battle in Portugal came down to 2 Knights of Hidalgo vs 5 Berber Camels. I won, one was El Cid

[Jacque Schtrapp]

I don't know if anyone else is experiencing this, but in my High games the French always defeat the English and them move south against the Almohad. Since this is around the 100 Years War time (better for Late I know) would it be better to actually have the Burgundians in the game and give them control of Burgundy and Flanders? This eliminates two rich French provinces and gives the Burgundians enough income to probably survive. Just a thought.

Quote[/b] ] The sicialians attacked Tripoli with an almost all knight army and 4 star prince leading.

Yeah, I noticed that Sicily is turning into the Denmark of the Med. They sit on Sicily and Malta with tons of former heirs.

[[DnC]]

Quote[/b] (Quokka @ Oct. 21 2003,06:10)]Something very strange did happen though.
In 1092 I invaded Aragon with 4 Knights of Hidalgo, 2 Spanish Jinetes, 2 Asturian Foot, 4 Spearmen, 1 Archer and 3 Galician Bowmen vs their 2 Knights of Hidalgo, 2 Asturian Foot and 2 Galician Bowmen. They abandoned the province, committing suicide. .matteosartori. showed no rebel provinces so they didn’t try and retreat anywhere, they just gave up.
Anyone ever had that happen before?

Just happend to me while eliminating the Almohads. Guess they didn't want to suffer another humiliating defeat

Quote[/b] ]The game is much tougher now. My Spanish are barely beating the Almohads, their armies are so big and the Spanish don't have an Early Melee troop so its mass cavalry charges whenever I can get some massed. One battle in Portugal came down to 2 Knights of Hidalgo vs 5 Berber Camels. I won, one was El Cid

In my current Spanish campaign Knights of Hidalgo are definitly keytroops for defeating the Almohads Man the Almohad Arab Infantry, whom are quite deadly against other infantry, were slaughtered like mad by the Knights of Hidalgo Knights of Hidalgo seem to be able to take on almost everything the Almohads can through at them. Just outflank a lot and use your mobility Ofcourse have some Spanish Jinetes aswell for pursueing the enemy/flanking/mowing down archers, seeing as the Knights of Hidalgo aren't that fast, just very tough

[Wizard of Evil]

Hello,

Maybe a little off the topic; how can i add berserkers to the regular campaign? I tried all the ways i could think of ,but as i am not a modder all the ways i can think of were just based on comparing the texts of berserkers to any other danish unit, and making the berserkers similar. I would appreciate a detailed help, hoping it to be simple for a real novice

I am a real fan of medmods ,but i wont write a long aprreciation of how great this mod is, as it is gonna be loss of your time reading the things you already know. Just loads of thanks to Wes, for spending his time for this great mod.

[Quokka]

The xls sheet says County Militia gives +2 Morale but the build_prod say +1 Discipline?
The xls sheet says Military Academy gives +1 Valour, +1 Discipline for Catholics and +1 Weapon, +1 Discipline for Muslims but the build_prod says +1 Valour, +1 Discipline for both?
The Master Shipbuilder is unused, why not remove it to stop the AI building it?

Sipahi of the Porte dismount into Galician Bowmen – Janissary Bows, should it be Janissary Archers - Janissary Infantry?

Imperial Menavlatoi can be built throughout the Byzantine Homeland in 1 turn but require an Inn, should it be everywhere or are they Mercenaries and should they take longer?

Germanic Knights – Dark Age Knights are listed as buildable by the Byzantines, Almohad, Egyptians and Turks but they can’t build the Royal Estate required.

Still going great, if you call losing a battle great. The French attacked with 200 Destriders, 600 FMAA and 120 Urban Militia in 1112. They had more but never needed reinforcements so I can't remember what. They ate straight through my Asturian Foot and Galician Bowmen. The new longer range of the Jinetes is amazing, they really kick ass now and the Hidalgos ruined the Destriders but not before the rest or my army routed. The French general was a 4* and my King a 7*, now he's a 6* Good Runner
I had to bring in an 8* El Cid to beat the upstarts. Good Stuff.

[Beelzebub]

The Turks in high period use too many archers. Their armies were almost all split between archers (Futawas, Turcople and Turkomen archers) and light + medium cavalry (here they had a better mix of armenian heavy, ottoman siphilis, ottomon horse archers and horse archers. Needless to say, as the Byzentines, my mix of light + heavy cavalry, medium + heavy spearmen, and high quality archers/armoured horse archers cut through them like butter, despite being heavily outnumbered. They could use a bit more encouragement to build some spear units, or any kind of fightining Infantry.

The Italians on the other hand, are the opposite. They build a crapload of medium - heavy Infantry. With their huge navy and rich territory they can afford it. They were a very challenging fight as the Byzentines in high (I went to war with them to get constinople back, which was sucessful, but then we fought for about 50 more years). Their navy had my much smaller one on it's heels. I had to dedicate Rhodes and Constinople to shipbuilding just so I could counter them in the black sea, agean sea, and around rhodes (even then, occasionally I'd be cut off from the east for years if I lost some battles). Then I only had 2 provinces that could build troops, Nicae and Greece, and I was forced to heavily recruit mercs which only further hurt the cash situation hehe (very realistic ). They took Serbia (from rebels) and made many attempts on Greece. But with their armies being 75% medium + heavy inf, I was able to use my cavalry advantage to swing around and hit their rear before my inferior infantry (a lot of crappy mercs) was routed in most battles. I also used horse archers a lot, I would send 4-5 into serbia and they would kill maybe 40-75 men a turn before being forced to withdraw (every little bit helps). They could also run wild in big battles. That was a very cool war.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Started a campaign in High as the French. I am now convinced that the available buidings in Antioch and Tripoli coupled with the high tech necessary to build even the lowliest Outremer unit adds up to being impossible to hold onto either province from the outset of the game. Within twelve turns the Egyptians had built a massive army of Bedouin Camel Warriors and swamped Antioch. The few survivors I had leftover from that battle retreated to Tripoli which I lost ten turns later. Even If I were to abandon one province and try to defend the other, I could beat the Egyptians five times and still lose from attrition as they replenish their forces and keep coming. Cyprus is the lowest tech level of all three French holding in the ME and is many years away from being able to generate troops. Building a shipping route capable of bringing reinforcements in via Toulouse is nigh impossible as inevitably Aragon quickly attacks Toulouse on land and the French navy in the western Med which effectively eliminates the reinforcement option. Perhaps this was designed to represent a struggle in which the French are supposed to lose both provinces and spend many years teching up to reinvade from Cyprus. If so please tell me and I'll retreat to Cyprus straight away with ALL of my troops in order to make invading easier at a later date.

[WesW]

Hi everyone. I'm back from another pretty bad week plus further computer problems, to which I lost another huge post that I had typed up last Saturday. I think I have finally isolated what was causing the IE problems, after re-installing Windows, the upgrade option, last weekend.
My nVidia GeForce4 video card has a TV-out option, which I have been playing around with a little the last couple of months. The last time I was online, last weekend, IE was performing correctly. Well, last night I hooked up the TV to the computer to see how some of my computer vids looked on the tele, and today when I went to go online the IE settings were screwed up. I had a lot of trouble trying to get the card adapted so that it wouldn't put my cursur on one screen and my dialog boxes on another, and stuff like that. I don't know who designs these things.... Anyway, I think this explains why IE always worked fine when I monitored it; it was the video card screwing things up.

I have been having a blast playing as the Poles in a Late game. It is close to 1400, and I have just joined in the war against the Italians, who are trying to take over the world. If I could just assassinate that damned mouse....
Anyway, I have been very pleased with what I have observed as far as unit distribution by the AI, all factions. The Italians in particular have an outstanding variety of troops, including cavalry and Heavy Infantry. They have a lot of artillery in Asia Minor where I currently face them, due to controlling Constan, Rum and Egypt, I suppose.
Btw, has anyone else noticed the advantages the AI seems to get with artillery? They are bleeping sharpshooters with those things. They were hitting my moving troops half the time, and I mean lone troops like flanking cavalry, and not just ones that happened to be in the neighborhood.
The Italians had ships all over the Med, of course, but very evenly distributed. The factions in the Atlantic distributed their ships in long trade lines as well.
The HRE was at war the whole time with all its neighbors, except me, but held its own for about 50 yrs, until I finally took over its last two provinces, in the British Isles. The French are about where they started. The Muslim nations went out a while ago, though the Turks were doing very well for a while until the Byz, Mongols and Italians ganged up on them. The Byz surprised me with how well they did, until the Italians turned on them as well. I took out the Mongols for the most part, having some incredible battles at the start of the game defending Poland, and then taking Kiev. The Danes and Swedes only did fairly well, which was a little surprising with their advantages in bg units. The English still have Aquitaine and half of the British Isles. The Russians got pushed out to Sweden and a couple of Baltic provinces by the Horde. I went in and strengthened their starting troops some to try and help them in the future. The Huns went to war with the HRE early, and ended up with the eastern half of their empire.

The most note-worthy part of the game, though, has been the integrity of my allies. Early on, I had treaties with both the HRE and Hungarians, and I ended up having to leave my western provinces almost undefended to fight the Horde. Well, neither one ever broke the treaty, even though they could have waltzed into Poland at any time. I mean, I only had a single spear unit posted in Silesia, Volhynia, Moldavia, and sometimes Poland. The only time any of the AIs broke a treaty was the Russians, who sent a weak force into Volhynia once, which I was able to beat because of the troops I had moving through at that time. I got the feeling that the AI didn't really want to invade, but happened to role one of the rare variables that told it to take advantage of a poorly defended province in spite of it being an ally. I feel pretty sure that, HRE notwithstanding, if you never break a treaty the AI will generally respect their end of the bargain, unless they have no where else to expand into.

I have found a few bugs in the files, and decided to change a few things.
I forgot to change the Danish bodyguard units when I downgraded the Huscarle unit type for the last release, in particular the Armoured Huscarles. I invaded Denmark, and hit a unit of those with a unit of Rycerz Swordsmen in front, and a unit of Militia (Billmen) on each flank, and the Huscarles beat all three units I went in and lowered its charge by 2 and its offense and defense by 1 each. That made a big difference when I replayed the battle. BTW, does anyone know what effect snow has on the battle? Other than tiring out units faster. Does falling snow or wind have any effect?

I found a bug in the game with falling snow. It treats snow as rain in that it won't let you aim gunpowder infantry units at anything, but if an enemy comes within range, their guns go off No animation or anything, you just hear the discharge and the enemies fall to the ground.

I forgot that Brigands weren't available until the High era when making out the Polish unit lineup, but I decided it was better to make Trans Archers available to them, in the same provinces as the Brigands. Got an email on this from one of the lurkers.
Also, after playing as the Poles, I think the Czeladz Bowmen are not a good unit for the Poles. I would prefer Szekely in normal situations, and have not built any Bowmen because of this. I am going to bring the Lancers back to their original settings of a Serbian Husar-type unit, and turn the Bowmen into a knight unit. Rycerz have such stiff building requirements that I have just gotten Poland able to build them, and it's close to 1400. I don't mind this in itself, but the Poles don't have another designated heavy cav unit to rely on.

I have also made some changes to the Russian cav units. I made the Dvors into a Gothic Kn-type, and turned the Cossacks into the lighter, faster unit that I think most of us envision them as being. I kept their cav-attack bonus, and described them as being designed to take on the Mongols.

I also got some help from a lurker with my intro vid, which was giving some people problems. He converted it the proper format, and even added a nice little title effect.
The game seems to crop off the back edge of the vid, however, so if you're reading, Ibn, please have the title effect end a half second sooner and send it in.
You have to have help like this on a big project, since it's just about impossible for one person to know everything required, or to catch everything that's amiss in the program.

For this last release, I went through the Early campaign and tried to make sure that all the factions had a good mix of starting buildings, so they would turn out a good mix of units. I think all of the postings have been about High and Late games, so I guess I was pretty successful with that effort. I'll try and go through those campaigns as well and see what I can do, but it gets really hard when you get into the more advanced units, since you want the factions to build an adequate mix of units right off the bat, but you don't want to tech up the provinces so that further province development is not needed to a great extent. This gets really hard if the AI is just not programmed to place an emphasis on infrastructure, as it was in the Call-to-Power games. You also get into economics and giving the AI the funds needed without giving so much money to everyone that budgeting is not a factor. I hope you see how the complexity grows exponentially as you add in all the game factors involved here. Too, we are just now getting the unit building requirements settled on, to know what the various factions require in each era.

For the Levant provinces, early play-testing revealed that whichever Muslim faction controlled them, the Turks or Egyptians, grew so strong that they would roll over the entire region, thus I lowered their land and trade values, much as I did Iberia.

Quokka, those are all little inconsistencies that developed from all the changing over the course of the mod's growth. I need people, like you, to study the mod thoroughly for just these types of things.
I can't remember why I changed the County Militia bonus, but go with the current setting. I have changed the xcel file to match. I thought I had deleted the xcel entry for the Military Academy months ago. It does nothing for any unit that doesn't require an Academy to build, meaning that Janissaries are the only units that receive any benefit from Academies. I put this in the building description, but obviously forgot to update the xcel as well. It's just so hard to remember all the little stuff like this when you are making changes. If I ever do this professionally, I'll make out a checklist for all this type of stuff.
I thought the same thing with the Master Shipbuilder after I released the last update. You don't want to make all the little changes like this, though, until the basic concept has been out a little while and you see how it is going to work, or else you set yourself up for bugs if you have to take things back out. What I decided to do was replace the Castle with a Muster Field, which the AI normally won't build, as the second requirement.
I also changed the Royal Court requirement of the Germanic Kns to a Spearmaker. This might explain why the Muslim capitals started out with Royal Courts in earlier releases, which caused some graphics glitches after I restricted them to Christian factions.

With 3.10, I believe, I changed the personality of the Spanish a little by giving them the light archer unit in place of the heavier MAA. This made them more like their Muslim foes. I also made the Almohads more like their Christian foes with the Arab Infantry to go with the Almohad Urban Militia. I thought it was a nice little twist, and gave you a couple more unique unit lineups. I also found more historical info online about the Spainiards than most factions, I guess due to the historical significance of their wars, and the increased emphasis on the heavy cav for offensive punch accurately reflects history, when most all infantry were regarded as unreliable auxillery troops.

WoE, to enable Berserkers, all you should need to do is replace the rebels with a regular faction, and add the required buildings.

The Woodsman pic, and a couple of others like the Vlastela, were made by YG, and the black dots are a known glitch that he was unable to fix when he had his computer problems hit. YG, I hope you are still able to follow the mod, and that you get back online soon. We miss ya.

The Hashishin rows were another overlooked setting when I made them a regular unit. I changed it from 2 to 4. Same thing with the Porte dismounts. They should be Jan Inf.
I just deleted the region bonus column in the unit stats xcel page for the 3.12 release because it was so out-dated. Whatever you see on the strategic map in the game is correct.
I thought the Assassin bonus in Syria was nice for the historical value, which was also the original CA setting, but if it's useless than there are certainly other units can use it. I'll try and see what's out there.
I'm not sure if ship bonuses do work or not, but the AI tries to build the requirements to get the bonus units in those regions, so I put them in for provinces where I wanted the AI to build ships, like Corsica, I believe.

I am stumped as to how the game decides on rebellion troop mixes. I put a LOT of work into this, and the results have not seemed to match the unit text settings at all. I had two peasant revolts recently, and both were nothing but artillery. I went through the text, and there were over a dozen regular troop types that should have been chosen before any artillery types.

I removed the Crusade ability from Sicily and Aragon because they didn't have a big enough economy to support them. And yes, just add their names to the faction list.

Jacque, when evaluating the unit makeup of a large faction, like the French in your High game, you need to differentiate between their garrison stacks, which are usually infantry and missile units, and their offensive stacks, which will contain their cavalry and attack infantry. If you enable god mode, you should find a couple of those where they are at war and on the offensive.

As far as the Byz, someone here has proposed making Rhodes accessible by land from Nicaea. What do you guys think of this?
I think the main reason for including it as a separate province was its Crusader history, which I wonder about with the exclusion of the Laungedoc territories in France, which you could argue had a greater historical significance. It's too bad it's such a pain to change the provincial borders and such.

Well, I've tried to cover everything here, but with a week's worth of posts, I probably missed some things that you still have questions about. Just paste them in again, and I'll try to catch them next time.

[Beelzebub]

Jacque: Hire mercs in Tripoli to keep your holy land provinces. I was able to buff up my numbers enough to keep the egyptions at bay until I could build spearmen in cyprus. The problem is it costs an arm and a leg, so you need to avoid getting invaded by both england and some mediterranean seapower at the same time, so you can get some trade routes going. If you're in a huge war in europe, it's probably better to just cut your losses and evacuate to cyprus untill you can afford to retake them.

[Gregoshi]

marcino posts the following from the Entrance Hall:

-----
Claymores (english unit) dont have their swords on battle screen - they`re running around with empty hands It`s not a bug but looks strange.

keep on modding Wes, everythig looks good I think - great job You`ve done so far

marcino

-----

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ Oct. 24 2003,22:08)]marcino posts the following from the Entrance Hall:

-----
Claymores (english unit) dont have their swords on battle screen - they`re running around with empty hands It`s not a bug but looks strange.

keep on modding Wes, everythig looks good I think - great job You`ve done so far

marcino

-----

This is one of those things about modding that you either laugh at or go crazy. The problem was that the unit is mercenarygallowglass, and for the items folder I had added the plural onto the end of gallowglass. The fix will be the next text update, or you can fix it in the items folder, weapon3, if you know where to look.

[Lazul]

Was playing as swede... ofcourse... but i noticed that swedes have viking units in all eras... untis called huscarles? now im not trying to be a smartass but the viking era kinda died out when the mediveal started. Nobody in sweden during that time called themselfs huscarls.
Here are som exampels of good untis.

Svean Axeman= A better version of woodsmen, better moral etc

Hirdmen= can be used instead of viking landsmenn or what ever is the royal unit now in early. So Hirdmen can be the royal unit in early and then in high and late you can have Swedish knights.

Swedish Royal Knights= Less armor then the frankish and maybe a bit faster due to the fact that the lack the same armor as franks

And i think the swedish used longbows, but not as good english tho but still a good version of normal archers, call them Swedish Archers or somethin.

The swedes should have untis that are good against infantry but weak against heavy knights like the destriders.

You shouldnt call untis vikings. that era was gone

[Quokka]

Woodsmen are not available in Denmark, but.they are available to All Non-Muslim Factions wether they have eligible homelands or not.

The Danish and French only have Crossbowmen until Late. The Danes and Swedes also only have one mercenary province in their homelands, Livonia, and no others close so even hiring mercenary archers will be difficult. How about making Sweden a Mercenary Province?

Pavisiers and Pavise Sailors only have a Large shield not a Pavise.
Pavisier Pikemen don’t have any shield.

Swiss Armoured Pikemen and Pavisier Pikemen have exactly the same combat stats, except Pavisier Pikemen cost 25 Fl less to build, 13 Fl less upkeep, require only Watch3 instead of Watch4 and supposedly come with a Pavise shield for extra protection making them the baddest infantry there is. The PP description says they lack the ferocity of Swiss units and their training is almost to Swiss standards, so maybe up the Attack and Armour of SAP by 1 and make them Disciplined. Watch 4 is a big step up from Watch3.

The Sicilians are still eligible for Knights Hospitaller but can’t crusade any more. Aragon has access to all Crusader units but can’t crusade, but they can build Outremer units.

Guild level buildings all have a description saying they improve the overall quality of troops and guarantee levels of workmanship and wages. How about making them give a +1 Morale and a small income of 10 Fl? The +1 Morale reflects the troops going into battle knowing they have excellent quality equipment and the small income reflects the wages earned and spent(materials etc) by the Guild in the region. For Master level buildings leave the bonuses as they are but double the income to 20 Fl. A Master craftsmen would surely be making at least this much in commissions from nobles for unique weapons etc. It’s a pity that you can't require combinations of buildings for bonuses, ie Master Swordsmith + Master Armourer = +1 Valour on top of their normal bonuses. Don’t you think if you had a sword that you could split hairs in 4 AND armour that was light but would make Ned Kelly drool you’d fight better in battle.
Having just one or the other isn’t a total package and +1 valour is a large advantage to give. A pity that Master Horse Breeder can't improve speed.

[[DnC]]

Quote[/b] (Lazul @ Oct. 25 2003,04:59)]Was playing as swede... ofcourse... but i noticed that swedes have viking units in all eras... untis called huscarles? now im not trying to be a smartass but the viking era kinda died out when the mediveal started. Nobody in sweden during that time called themselfs huscarls.
Here are som exampels of good untis.

Svean Axeman= A better version of woodsmen, better moral etc

Hirdmen= can be used instead of viking landsmenn or what ever is the royal unit now in early. So Hirdmen can be the royal unit in early and then in high and late you can have Swedish knights.

Swedish Royal Knights= Less armor then the frankish and maybe a bit faster due to the fact that the lack the same armor as franks

And i think the swedish used longbows, but not as good english tho but still a good version of normal archers, call them Swedish Archers or somethin.

The swedes should have untis that are good against infantry but weak against heavy knights like the destriders.

You shouldnt call untis vikings. that era was gone

Could you maybe give some more examples of swedish units?
Trying of few things out
EDIT: Nevermind, seems I've reached the unit limit, thus this will be futile. I guess.