XVI -XVII mod

[Spurious]

I was starting a new campaign today, age of exploration saxons to be specific. The twist to this was I was going to use the -ian command line thingy so I can take advantage of the extra zoom on the battlefield camera (playing it in a top down view is rather nice I found) and also one other cunning thing. Changing between the factions in a turn so I can direct the AI ones to build better troops, upgrade alot of things and manage their economies better, so I wouldnt have something I had in my last game, which was an incredibly rich and large spanish empire seemingly only churning out endless militia units rather than anything which took more than a couple of musket shots and a small cavalry charge to beat.

Now I had a little problem with this. I cant change back to my own faction. I can seemingly only get the first 20 factions (1 to 0 on the keyboard then shift+1 to 0 ). So is there any way to either change the position number of a faction for myself, or access the remaining factions? (I tried ctrl+number, alt+number and ctrl+shift+number to no avail, they all just switched between the original 20 factions still).

[Eddy Longshanks]

Even with my new video card, I noticed the Egypian archers halqa have screwed up animatians. Anyone else notice this or no how to solve this if possible?

[cegorach]

I will check the Halquas.



-ian switch won't work well with PMTW - there are too many factions (30) and numerous of these are completely new, even replacing the old 'vanilla' ones in some cases ( Granada, Morocco, Kazan, Hessen etc.).

Regards Cegorach

[Arciel]

Just downloaded your mod yesterday and it's great! When are you planning to release 2.0 and approximately what size would it be(in mb)?

[cegorach]

150 % of the present size I believe. Auxiliary files (music, movies) will be used as before, in addition, of course.

THe next and the last release will appear before December - something to play with untill MTW2 edition will be ready.

[Arciel]

150 % of the present size I believe. Auxiliary files (music, movies) will be used as before, in addition, of course.

THe next and the last release will appear before December - something to play with untill MTW2 edition will be ready.

Can't wait for it! I've played through some factions but ended up not continuing any single one of them as I'm still quite uncomfortable about how things work in the bad, not that its bad thing. Just have to get used to it though.

Can anyone suggest a good and interesting faction to start with?

Oh and I found out that there's something wrong with my campaign map. Some of the provinces don't have names written on them.

[cegorach]

[QUOTE=Seedexodus]

I'm still quite uncomfortable about how things work in the bad, not that its bad thing.

???

Oh and I found out that there's something wrong with my campaign map. Some of the provinces don't have names written on them.

It is not wrong, it simply saved much space - the new map will be different anyway.

[Deus ret.]

Cegorach, after playing your mod for another couple of weeks I really have to admit it's the most challenging MTW variant I ever saw. Played another Polish campaign in High and was amazed at what speed the Ottomans whittled the Russians away and owned most of the steppes after 25 years. Of course, it didn't take long until war erupted between me and them, and to my shame I have to admit that it was only through the use of my priceless 6-star assassin that I could get rid of that neverending Turkish onslaught. It was simply amazing, after fending off one 6.000-strong invasion force after another they kept on shipping in more and more supplies and attacking little later, threatening to overwhelm me. In the meantime Jan Zamoyski had attained 9 stars and the "field defence specialist" as well as "expert last stand" virtues, but alas, the command rating stops at nine....so when I realised that I couldn't sustain this war much longer due to my comparably limited building capacities, I resolved that their royal line had to go . That's the first time I have been forced to do such a thing in MTW, and not because of some playful mood but out of sheer emergency. Now the campaign has assumed a much more leisurely pace, with the Georgians, Persians, Wallachians etc. reemerging and claiming their little part of the cake each, leaving me, now the sole superpower in the Northeast, relatively unchallenged....but at what cost (my gamer's honor)! Truly a supreme and hard-to-digest mod. Just those HA's are too strong since most musketeers don't stand a chance against their superior range and are easily whittled away because of their lack of armor. In terms of PMTW battles, adapting to firearms instead of bows is not a particularly wise decision but I guess missile stats are pretty much hardcoded, so why complain....

[cegorach]

Just those HA's are too strong since most musketeers don't stand a chance against their superior range and are easily whittled away because of their lack of armor. In terms of PMTW battles, adapting to firearms instead of bows is not a particularly wise decision but I guess missile stats are pretty much hardcoded, so why complain....

It was designed intentionally.

There are two types of bows - ordinary and slightly better ones used by more elite units of bowmen/longbowmen/HA.
Several types of firearms from pistols to flintlock muskets have the one superior advantage which is the fear they cause. There are other factors making them better choice - ammunition lasts for longer time, greater killing power, armour piercing, lower price of the musketeers and when it comes to more advanced muskets the range is similar as of the bowmens'.

I can advise using more western type musketeers since Haiduk-like infantry has shorter range (with much greater fire rate though - the result of their firestorm tactic) + using warwagons if possible (for Poles easily available by dismounting Piechota polska or cossack Dzhura). Some mercenary or native archers ( e.g. Redshanks or Tatarzy) are a good additional support.

Overall all the several types of firearms have their advantages - pistols have superb fire rate great to break enemy pikemen, Haiduks have medium range and great firepower making them excellent at causing panic and charging the enmy later and those guys with heavy muskets have the range to deal with most enemies, but slower firerate so might not be able to stop enemy cavalry - maybe veteran or Swedish musketeers and flintlock users are the only ones able to combine this all.

[Aurelian]

Hello Cegorach,

I can't wait to start playing your mod again! Is there any chance that you might be able to create lower resolution versions of the problem animations before 2.0 comes out? Might as well see if that solves the problem, or if there is some other issue at play.

Also, are you still looking for music? I've got a pretty decent collection of renaissance-era cds and the like. If you'd like, I can go through them and see if there is any music that might work.

By the way, have you considered some Janissary music for the Islamic factions? The Turks do have military bands that play recreations of Janissary marches. Might be good battle music for the Ottomans. Lots of drums.

[cegorach]

The low resolution animations will appear either in the basic install of PMTW 2.0 or as an additional one - I think it will be done this weekend - for now I have nothing planned for these two days anyway.

More music is always welcome - especially for the Orthodox factions, but anything useful - think about battles - is welcome too.

You can always select something you like, upload this somewhere and let me and other people decide i.e. I will decide, but others might like to hear it before.

Anyway the more, the better - I must admit I am suprising myself with the sheer amount of data I found in recent months, but music is not the area I made so much progress unfortuanatelly...

[Arciel]

???

What I meant was that this is certainly one of the most complex mods that I have ever seen and that CERTAINLY is a good thing.

It is not wrong, it simply saved much space - the new map will be different anyway.

All right then. I can't wait for 2.0!

[Antagonist]

Any news on the new version?

Antagonist

[cegorach]

Soon there will be

[Kavhan Isbul]

Cegorach, thank you very much for this mod. It is not my favourite period, but all the work and research you have put into it has made it something truly superb. I have one question - where can I find an excell sprreadsheet with units stats and building requirements?

[Inal_the_Great]

Hey!

Just so you guys know I am still around :) I am practicing my blender 3d skills so hopefully by December - January I can start making some good models.

Right now I am spending alot of time for university and soccer


Cya later

[Wladyslaw IV]

For Medieval I that is?

[cegorach]

OK guys.

I can say we have new castle maps - directly from NTW1 these star-sheped castles will fit the timeframe very well. Besides the AI needs some support in assaulting the walls and the one walled fortresses are all we need.

I am going to use a mixture of old MTW1 and new NTW1 maps for that + I am going to throw one or more province specific fortresses too.



I hope to show you more soon.

[Aurelian]

Hi Cegorach,

1) The new castle maps sound cool. When you say "one walled fortresses" do you mean that the new fortresses will only have a single ring of walls (instead of the concentric rings we have now)?

2) By the way, I have been going through my music collection looking for appropriate Renaissance-era music. I've found a few tracks that might work. I'm also going to get in touch with an early-music expert that heads up one of my favorite groups (Micha from Wolgemut) and see if he has any suggestions. Still a work in progress, but there has definitely been some progress.

3) Lastly, I was looking through the Pike & Shot bifs and trying to figure out what the problem might be with them that is causing crashes. You mentioned that some of the new bifs were done in higher resolutions and that that might be the issue. Exactly which bifs are the new ones? I looked at a good sampling of the bifs and didn't find any files that were particularly large.

I also noticed that some of the bifs had thick red lines and hand written notes going through particular figures. I assume that that was your way of noting to yourself that those figures were not going to be used? Could that be an issue in some way?

[cegorach]

1) In general yes - starshaped one 'layer' walls.

2) Good. Music will be useful also for the new edition for MTW2 so it is always welcome,
The main thing is to have the music which fits the mood - battle music especially.

3) The new animations from the patch - only here they do not have low res bifs and use high res all the time, slightly better graphic cards automatically re-scale them as required, worse apparently can't.

It works well on slightly better computers ( on 64 grapgic card it works marvellously), but in PMTW 2.0 I will give the option to choose weaker animations too.

The notes are of no consequence - they were used to mark places for new bow shooting animations, those however might not appear...

They do not appear in the game anyway in no way.

[streety]

Mainly for Deus Ret and Cegorach, and anyone else interested, regarding Bows versus Muskets:

I don't know how much people on this forum get into such historical issues, so forgive me if this is old news, or should be placed in the Monastery section of the forum, but having played the mod, I think Ceg probably has the bow-musket balance just about spot-on. There's actually been some research on longbows v muskets (but almost nothing good on-line, except once in New Scientist, for which you have to be a subscriber; and stay away from Wikepedia, whose inputs can be inaccurate or half-knowledge passed off as facts, when it comes to more esoteric points). Anyway, I did some studying on the demise of the English/Welsh longbow a few years ago. In terms of pure penetrative killing power, the longbow was not outperformed by the musket until the early 17th Century, and when combined with the issues of accuracy and reloading times, it remained superior until 18th Century breech-loading rifles, and probably still had more reliability too, until the handguns of the 19th Century.

What caused the demise of the longbow in Britain was not the advent of the musket but the availability of quality bowmen. A longbow required constant training and practice from early childhood, eventually requiring of a man an incredible 250-300lb (110-130kg) pull and steady aim through his two bow-fingers! I witnessed one televised demonstration of such a pull putting a longbow arrow (which, by the way, was a yard/metre long!) through a medieval castle's 6-inch (150cm) solid oak door at a range of 80yds (73m), such that its bodkin tip just emerged the other side. Also, a longbowman's shoulders and musculature became necessarily, purposefully deformed as he grew from childhood to achieve these powers. By comparison, a musketeer could be taught in a few weeks, and have no special strength. During the Hundred Years War the French would often simply cut off the two bow-fingers of any English and Welsh longbowmen they caught, then release them, subsequently useless, back to the English army. Hence the origin of the British V-sign, used by their bowmen as a to taunt the French soldiers, to demonstrate they still had their two bow-fingers. These powerful arm muscles also made the English & Welsh longbowmen quite deadly in melee (something not widely appreciated by military historians today), and they were not mere skirmishers like other bowmen, but true multi-purpose troops. The main reason for avoiding melee was not really because other melee-troops were better, but because longbowmen were too precious, but at Agincourt Henry V, with 5,000 bowmen and only 1,000 knights & men-at-arms, had no choice but to keep his bowmen in the melee, and the effect against 36000* French was devastating (*French figures vary, but don't believe anything less than 24000 - the figure that French historians of the day used).

England's king Henry VIII is at least partly, if not mostly, to blame for the demise of the English longbow during the 16th century. Access to muskets and gunpowder could be more readily controlled, but the bow could not, and he feared their power in the hands of the low-born, so kept banning their practice, then occasionally reallowing it in time of trouble with France. Certainly, there are a few French accounts from as late as the Enterprise of Boulogne in 1544, where French troops, no longer used to being on the receiving end, were shocked and panicked by English longbow fire. But Henry VIII's on-off banning orders meant that just within a generation or two, by late 16th century, the longbowman was a rarity long before muskets would otherwise have made them obsolete.

[Deus ret.]

Thanks for the informative reply, streety. In terms of the mod, I guess this would mean that bowmen should become much more expensive as time goes by, at least for the English. I know that the Russian mounted nobility refused to use guns until the end of the 17th century and later only did so because the backwardness of their weaponry led to some catastrophic military defeats; not to speak of the Turkish army which ignored military modernization until much later and was subsequently pushed out of the Balcans, not posing too much of a threat to the Hapsburgs after 1683. But that's the issue I spoke about: Mod-wise, Russian or Turkish HA's still rule supreme as late as 1680 - except the player has good fast cavalry to match them. That's why I always had the most success as Poland. Battling the Ottoman Empire with the Hapsburgs' (or other Middle/West Europeans') slowish army is not a nice task at all. I had similar experiences when fighting the Russians as the Swedish. I mean, it would be nice to have the historically quickly declining value (be it strategic or whatever) of non-gunfire missiles reflected in the mod, but as it is, a cav-heavy Ottoman army from 1550 can still wreck havoc upon, say, French troops from over a century later because of the musketeers' lack of armour and range. Hordes of HA's carry the game, something well-known from MTW, and I hoped that this would somehow change. After what you've written, maybe a general increase in cost would be appropriate to reflect their decreasing numbers.

PS Cegorach, are you still alive? I'm dying to see v2.0

[cegorach]

[QUOTE=Deus ret.]

I know that the Russian mounted nobility refused to use guns until the end of the 17th century and later only did so because the backwardness of their weaponry led to some catastrophic military defeats;

As below the declining quality factor cannot be recreated, but still you won't see any Zant feudal cavalry in later campaigns and Pomiestnaya cavalry is getting softer too. Of course there is the question of the huge nymbers of them, but this way I represent the large size of Russian armies and the very large population of the entire country (first or second in Europe).

not to speak of the Turkish army which ignored military modernization until much later and was subsequently pushed out of the Balcans, not posing too much of a threat to the Hapsburgs after 1683

I disagree. Military it was still very dangerous, the problem was the weak commanders and the declining quality fo the army - in the mod terms it would mean much more Muslim Levies and and weaker feudal cavalry. The problem is that I did recreate the weaker quality of their feudal horsemen in the last campaign, but I cannot do this in other - 256 unit limit means that I can't fit more units so it is impossible to add weaker and weaker feudal sipahi - their decline is impossible to recreate. I did what I could so for example Yenicheri Tufekci are weaker during 'Religious Turmoil', but stronger in early and late ( early - obviously, late - Kuprulu's reforms temporary made thir units more efficient). Perfectly accurate mod cannot be made. Not with this number of units and factions.

but as it is, a cav-heavy Ottoman army from 1550 can still wreck havoc upon, say, French troops from over a century later because of the musketeers' lack of armour and range.

Actually the Ottomans were dangerous to the westernised armies - the Austrians requested as much Polish cavalry as possible in 1683 because they realised their own is inferior.
Musketeers are still very good - you have lots of ammunition which the HA waste very quickly and the muskets are far more efficient - greater killing power and the fear factor is on their side too.
I found the westeneside armies extremely good to use against the eastern cavalry of the Ottomans or Tatars, but the problem lies in their SIZE - if led properly they are dangerous so use concentrated musket firepower supported by cannons.
Of course the AI isn't best at using gunpowder units, but I can't really correct that. At least I have seen enemy muskets shooting instead of running away several times which managed to rout my own cavalry so it is not so bad.

PS Cegorach, are you still alive? I'm dying to see v2.0

Alive, but barely... NO changes, though. The mod will be released, but it will happen in January.

[cegorach]

Even with PMTW2 in more active phase old, good MTW1 hasn't been abandoned yet.

PMTW 2.0 is coming

some screens from the 4th campaign Lion of the North

Bohemian musketeers



Courland cuirassiers attack Pomeranian militia



Palatinate cuirassiers fight militia of Munster Bishopric



militia of Ragusan republic



The final starting positions of the factions in the campaign

[Antagonist]

Looking good.

Looking foward to it. Will the ECW campaign be available?

Antagonist

[cegorach]

Of course - so there will be 5 campaigns in general.

ECW is actually almost a new mini-mod itself with over 80 units and completely new structures created only for the campaign.
Some of those such as 'Prince Rupert is recruiting !' have very special use and add a lot of new 'character' to the campaign.
Fighting in ECW will be very different from other 4 campaigns, believe me !

I will show some screens after the holiday break.

[SkyElf]

Great work Cegorach still waiting patiently for version 2 with ECW as you put it as new mini-mod itself with over 80 units and completely new structures created only for the campaign! Again the pic's are outstanding work.

[gugul]

Congratulations on the new campaign! Looks really good !
but if you are going to include the Ragusan republic than for God's sake why not the Romanian principalities?. When 1.5 came out i said "okay... let them go so more important factions can come", but when i saw Montenegro and Circassia were added and now these 2 i was shocked.
Each of the Wallachian principalities was at least 5 times larger and more populous and had much larger armies than all those others.
Anyway it's your mod and you may do as you like with it...

[Radier]

Lions of the North, awesome!!

[cegorach]

Just one lion.


Some new units will appear in the new campaign - some names require translation or have it somewhere, but not at this moment so I will use several english terms to explain those.

Transylvanian - Huszárok ( elite, heavy Court Hussars)
Zöld Puskások (elite musketers - not Haiduks)
Szekély lovaspuskások (dragoons)

Bohemian - Zemska Hotovost (cavalry)
Zemska Hotovost (infantry)
Moravští Jezdci (cavalry from Moravia)
Pikanýri (pikemen and bodyguards)

Pommern - Duke's Musketers

Sweden - German 'Coloured' Pikemen
German 'Coloured' Musketeers
Livland Cuirassiers
Finnish Infantry

France - Mounted Fuisilliers

Scotland - Light horsemen

England - Doublearmed Men

Ragusa - Ragusan Militia (bodyguards)
Capoletti (light cavalry)

German factions (all) - Veteran Pikemen
Veteran Musketeers
Ringerpferde (cavalry)
Half-cuirassiers
Mounted Pikemen

Balcan regional troops - Bulgarian Haiduks
Slavonian Militia
Morlachs

generic, unavailable directly (by changing the mode only)

- Mounted Musketeers

+++

some moved from the Sun King's Ambition mainly Cossacks and Poles, bu also Finns, Russians, Swiss, Scots and Turks + the famous Fortified Position.



IN ADDITION in MP install for this period you will see Hawaii and Siberian troops to give some taste of exotic warfare.





@gugul

Well, it is not about importance - at least not always.

The main idea is to give the taste, the grasp of the period in each campaign - that is why I can add minor faction here or there, but cannot keep something larger, but less useful to the general balance of a campaign.

For this reason I could throw Circassians, Montenegrins or Ragusans , but not any of Romanian states.
Simply during the Lion of the North we have Transylvania at the peak of its power and importance. It managed to controll the Romanian states to lesser or greater degree + moved towards Hapsburg domains besiging Vienna twice. That surely is something I couldn't miss.
Romanian states declined in importance after Michael the Brave and during the last two campaigns I didn't want to use them for the balance purpose. After all even a minor faction while reappearing may bring some real havoc.

So in the Lion it's Transylvanian power and for Sun King's that would be the Cossacks, Tatars, Poles , Transylvanians and Ottomans all marching through this territory and fighting each other.

I could place minor factions in remote corners here and there, but not anyone in the key place.

You have after all the Romanian countries in two first campaigns and in both they have some real power and importance.


Besides I wanted to have something as diverse as possible and only this way you can keep so many factions and so many players interested - nowhere else you have all croat Ragusa, romanian Moldavia and Wallachia, polish-lithuanian-belorussian-ukrainian-jewish-german-armenian-scottish etc Poland, circassian... Circassia, latvian Courland and many, many more.

And why not ?