Medieval: Total War XL

[Wladyslaw IV]

I took about 4 or 5 hours and did my own variation of the XL Early Period. Fine toothed comb and everything.

Less starting buildings/lower grade castles in some provinces, upped castles and buildings in almost all others. And minor AI switches and territory changes.

VH... Do you mind having a look, maybe incorporating that into a very unlikely but possible 3.5 final final version of XL? I love your mod, just wanted to give my two cents!


I'm having a smashingly fun campaign as the Lithuanians in the Early Period. And remember this is just the early period startpos file. I did the changes because I found it annoying and less than fun building almost any type of unit in the capital province and almost nothing else in any other given province.

But now it rawks. Plus it is for XL

VH - you can have a look at it here if you wish: (Pulled. Got something much better )


PS: Sorry about the reposting!

[Vladimir]

Freekin sweet! I'll have to find my old CD.

[Hound of Ulster]

I personnally think this is the best of all the mods for MTW 1 (besides PMTW, but it is its own little level of cool. Go Wouterguzen!), but I would like to see some more units and a modding of the Viking Era campaign with it.

[Kaidonni]

Just a little curious about Armenia in XL 3.0, in the Early Era...it seems easyish compared to what I'd heard about Armenia in previous versions, but maybe it's just me. So VH, did you have any plans about making Armenia easier for this version or is it really just me?

[seireikhaan]

Well, for one, it is now possible to grab Antioch from the Byzantines, and then end up with automatic peace nearly immediately, due to the fact that you have no borders with the Byzantines, and they don't start with a navy. In the previous version, you would have to take Antioch from the Egyptians, who can summon far more numbers of men than you in the beginning. Plus, you would be leaving Lesser Armenia open to attack from the Turks more often than not, so if Egypt and the Turks end up allied, you could be facing quite a difficult game indeed. This change, in my opinion, makes the Armenians a bit more playable for many people, as their previous start was borderline brutal.

[VikingHorde]

@Digital
The Kwarazmiam Cavalry can only be build in Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Edessa, Antioch, Georgia, Palestine, Tripoli, and Arabia. It should work okay, but let me know if it doesn't.

@Wladyslaw IV
I will try out the save file, early era could properly use some tweeking

@Hound of Ulster
Glad you like the mod

@Kaidonni
I have not tryed playing them yet, but Antioch could make the campaign easyer for them, as kamikhaan say.

[Wladyslaw IV]

Thank you VH, I take that as an honor

[Digital]

Hi, Viking Horde, I have tested it out for Antoich. It didn't work although I have the necessary buildings there, namely Master Spearmaker and Master Horsebreeder. I cannot build Kwarazmiam Cavalry. Is it because I installed the new version of the XL mod over the old version of the XL mod?

[gregori99]

Hi, Viking Horde, I have tested it out for Antoich. It didn't work although I have the necessary buildings there, namely Master Spearmaker and Master Horsebreeder. I cannot build Kwarazmiam Cavalry. Is it because I installed the new version of the XL mod over the old version of the XL mod?

Hi Digital,

The buildings you need are Horse Breeder's Guild, Spearmaker's Guild and Armourer's Workshop. You don't mention if you have the latter. I also installed v3 over the previous version with no problems (other than the one already mentioned to do with GA points) so far. I've also built Khwarazmian cavalry, though as the Turkish not the Egyptians, but the same file entry governs both.

[Kaidonni]

Hmmmm...recently, when starting campaigns in Early with GA on XL 3.0, I've had some CTD issues. Namely, Castile-Leon and Aragon. Now, these could just be random CTDs and the computer is just playing up (I have solutions in place for the other CTD issues, so I'm fine there *touch wood*). But, starting with Domination, it didn't CTD for said factions (although it seems to have stopped with GA - at least the last time I tried it out on Castile-Leon).

Thing is, yesterday I played a Quick Battle...and although Venice's flag was used, my side was labelled as the Italians...could this be to do with it, or is it possibly the way GA goals are affected by the 1080 start date?

[Digital]

Hi Digital,

The buildings you need are Horse Breeder's Guild, Spearmaker's Guild and Armourer's Workshop. You don't mention if you have the latter. I also installed v3 over the previous version with no problems (other than the one already mentioned to do with GA points) so far. I've also built Khwarazmian cavalry, though as the Turkish not the Egyptians, but the same file entry governs both.

Oh. The requirement for Khwarazmian cavalry in the guide is as mentioned by me in the guide. I didn't know that the requirements for v3 is changed. I do not have armourer's workshop in Antioch.

[gregori99]

I don't know if it changed in v3. I confess I haven't seen a detailed unit guide for XL, if one exists. I just looked in the unit_prod files, which would have been over-written when v3 was installed.

[Calypze]

Nice with a new version! I remember playing MTW XL 2.1 a quite long while ago. Great that there are still people modding for good old MTW.

I wonder if the map is enlarged in some way in 3.0. It's quite annoying that some factions are unnatural corner factions (natural corner factions would be factions that were naturally closed off by the sea, like the Scandinavian factions and the Brittish factions).

[Zathernon]

Thank you VikingHorde for 3.0.
I am having a great time with the Fatimids,( Eggies). Early GA, Expert, no border forts or spies and at Normal taxes. The Mosque is built in 1183.
Holding the neutral super power Castilians at Morrocco with six baggala's in the Straits of Gibraltar. The other super power, the Seljuks, are my ally.

Haven't had to deal with any Crusades. The HRE is in Rome.
Waiting for the Papal return and the Golden Horde before I make any move.
Diplomacy RULES !
Danke again VH. I also like what you did with the English and the French in Early.

It is now 1249 and my empire is Crete and Rhodes. I have not been this overrun since the MTW 1.0 days. Great mod !
I had no idea that baggalas could perform so poorly against barques in a all out naval war.

[dancho]

This is the BEST mod for ANY Totalwar game IMHO.

I want to make a suggestion that somebody might want to try...

I edited the file and changed the time required to build each unit from one turn (year) to FOUR.

What does this do?

It allows the AI to manage it's money. It really improves the game. Try it if you want to see some really cool stuff happening in MTW. Seriously, don't give yourself a brain hernia trying to figure out why it takes four years to build a "whatever" just try it. It makes the AI into an Nexus 6.

[gregori99]

It's a fairly big modification for someone to make on the grounds of 'try it and see'.

Can you explain in more detail the effect of slowing down unit production for everyone? Are there more small-scale battles with fewer units, or less aggressive play by the AI? What do you mean by 'allows the AI to manage its money'? More information would be useful.

[dancho]

Well, I'll be happy to explain.

This information is for people who are familiar/comfortable with editing the CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT file and just want to play around with it (like me).

When I first discovered this XL mod (thanks to VH for this masterpiece) I had been fooling around with modifying MTW--with the goal being to create something like XL, but of course XL is so much better than what I was doing that I just abandoned my effort.

But, the one thing my mod had that XL didn't was the "four turns to build a unit" rule (I think that has been done in other mods but I don't recall which). I also increase the cost of a unit to TWO times the original cost. This is important, since otherwise the AI would just be rolling in cash all the time (and so would you!). (edit: I originally remembered that the cost was FOUR times, but I checked the file and it works best at TWO times.)

So, it's a trick based on the idea of "scaling." You spend the same amount, but it takes longer and you get 1/4 of the strength. The result is not that the AI gets smarter, really, but that the human player can't exploit the AI's stupidity as easily. The AI can't "think fast" and adjust building units to the strategic situation. If your unit production is slowed down, it gives the AI time to react. It also forces the AI NOT to spend, spend, spend. This gives the AI a "war chest" that it can invest when the need arises. It's a forced savings plan for the AI!

Anyway, I think it produces a very good effect. Battles with heavy casualties really hurt. The loser can lose the war in an afternoon, which is more "realistic," and the AI just seems to manage it's game much better. It also avoids the horrible "mega-horde" that you can get on HARD using the original build rate.

[Peasant Phill]

Can the papacy crusade in the new XL version?

Some time ago I played the papacy which had some crusades as a GA goal but couldn't build a chapter house. I tried to mod it myself but apparently I really stink at it and couldn't set it right.

[sharpshooter]

I've downloaded the mod:

VH_MTW_XL3_Full.exe

but not yet installed it.

Is if there a way to have both the Mod and the Original on the same machine? I do have a partition.

Is there a unit guide for XL? I read of one somewhere, but searching hasn't allowed me to find this.

Thanks

[Peasant Phill]

I've downloaded the mod:

VH_MTW_XL3_Full.exe

but not yet installed it.

Is if there a way to have both the Mod and the Original on the same machine? I do have a partition.

Is there a unit guide for XL? I read of one somewhere, but searching hasn't allowed me to find this.

Thanks

You can play both the XL and MTW VI if you want. The original campaing settings can still be selected when starting a campaign.

There isn't a unit guide in the sense of one document like the Frostbeastegg unit guide but there are faction guides for XL in the MTW section. Also there are 2 excel files in the game files that tell you the unit stats.

[OmarPacha]

I've completed battle unit icons with MTW palette; now units added with XL3 will suit faction colours.

http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mt...units_pack.rar

Cheers

[axel]

wot exacly is it mate?

[axel]

and where do i instal it? i really like to see it a specialy after the first building changes you made they are really good, you should put up somme screens mate so more modders cane see them, you are good

[gregori99]

I'll let someone else explain exactly what all these changes are for. Presumably some of the battle icons for these units could not adopt faction colours properly? Not sure about that but also there are new icons for some units.

Anyway, I think to install them, just unzip the rar file somewhere, then move (overwrite where necessary), as follows:

The contents of the Battle folder to Medieval - Total War->Battle->UnitIcons

The contents of campmap->Info_Pics to Medieval - Total War->campmap->Info_Pics->Units

The contents of campmap->review_panel to Medieval - Total War->campmap->review_panel->Units

I've done this myself and started a game with one of the updated units without a problem.

[Geezer57]

Is there a unit guide for XL? I read of one somewhere, but searching hasn't allowed me to find this.

Download the Gnome Editor v2.0 ( http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Tools.shtml ) and use it to open the appropriate xxx_UNIT_PRODxx.TXT file. With a little practice, you can sort out all the info you need from there.

Is if there a way to have both the Mod and the Original on the same machine? I do have a partition.

You don't really need to put alternate installations on another partition, just a different folder. If you have a working MTW-VI installation, just copy all the files and subfolders from it to another folder with a distinctive name (i.e.: MTW-XL Mod v3.0). Create a shortcut for the Medieval.exe file, and rename it to reflect the mod name. Then delete all the savegames from that copy, apply the mod to it, and drive on! Launch the game with your new shortcut. I've got five or six different variations of MTW on my computer (plain MTW, MTW+VI, BKB mod, Med mod, XL mod v2.0, XL mod v3.0, etc.), all in subfolders under the D:\Games\Total War\ folder, all coexisting peacefully!

[axel]

So you meen go in to programs- MTW folder -Medieval Total War folder, there are 2 MTW folders the main one and one in the main one i guess the second one to pick?

[MJF]

is there any way you can make gallowglasses and kerns buildable by all catholic factions in Ireland in XL 3.0??

Otherwise, I find Ireland is a completely useless province. Ireland as a faction never does anything and there is no point in conquering it as it has no funky units.

[Wladyslaw IV]

VH: This mod is certainly wonderful, the beauty of it is the many different possibilities. But I think it would be best, to start out with smaller buildings in all three periods, so the player can build basically from scratch and work his way up to better improvements and units.


Ok, it seems I did that for you I just want to do some basic testing, but IMO it will be more fun. Starting off with the weaker units and then only then after building have been upgraded will you get a fuller unit roster.

Question: Does every province have at least one building, or do I need to add some to a previously vacant province?

[Wladyslaw IV]

is there any way you can make gallowglasses and kerns buildable by all catholic factions in Ireland in XL 3.0??

Otherwise, I find Ireland is a completely useless province. Ireland as a faction never does anything and there is no point in conquering it as it has no funky units.

Yeah, I mean they're cool having in there, but don't have any real avenues to expand. I personally would like to see a Welsh faction, if there is room for just one more country.

[gregori99]

is there any way you can make gallowglasses and kerns buildable by all catholic factions in Ireland in XL 3.0??

Otherwise, I find Ireland is a completely useless province. Ireland as a faction never does anything and there is no point in conquering it as it has no funky units.

Go into your Medieval - Total War folder and open the file MTW_XL_EARLY_UNIT_PROD11.TXT. You can use an ordinary text editor but you might find it easier to use one of the MTW editors, Gnome or Dragon. I use the Dragon editor.

Find the entry for Gallowglass, then column 29, which has FN_IRISH in it (which means only the Irish can build Gallowglasses), and change it to ALL_FACTION. Column 33 already has an entry of CATHOLIC, so restricting them to Catholic factions. (If you just want the English to be able to build them as well as the Irish, add a comma followed by FN_ENGLISH in column 29 so it reads FN_IRISH,FN_ENGLISH). However, there is currently no region limitation on Gallowglasses so making them ALL_FACTION will allow all Catholic factions to build them anywhere. If you want to restrict this you will need to add a region(s) specification in column 30, e.g. ID_IRELAND or ID_IRELAND,ID_SCOTLAND. You'll hurt the Irish doing this but as you say they never expand anyway.

Treat the Kerns in exactly the same way.

Now open the file MTW_XL_HIGH_UNIT_PROD11.TXT, if you want to change Gallowglasses for a high period game. Currently Gallowglasses have a faction specification of FN_SCOTS in column 29, so you need to change this entry. But the Scots can build Gallowglasses anywhere, so again if you want to restrict this you will need to add a region(s) specification in column 30. Doing this would weaken the Scots though. Kerns are already ALL_FACTION but can only be built in Ireland.

For a late game, change the MTW_XL_LATE_UNIT_PROD11.TXT file in the same way as for high.

Don't forget to back up the files so you can go back the original XL settings if you want.

Hope this makes sense. It's much easier to see what needs to go where using the Dragon editor.