Medmod IV v3.14 Update

[WesW]

The 3.14 Update of the Medieval Mod IV is now posted at my webpage, along with an updated Readme for those wishing to view the mod's contents before downloading.

I have added Chapter Houses to the campaign files for most Crusading factions. Some enable Crusades immediately, and some don't.

Peasants are now available in all eras, and both they and Muster Fields require the 60% Farmland improvement to build. This was done primarily to encourage the AI to build the 60% improvement in fertile provinces.

Mongol units now affect the faith of populations ala Priests. I also added Pagan Shrines or Sacraficial Altars to all Mongol-held provinces in the Late campaign. I hope that these changes reduce the prospect of rebellions and keep the Mongols from having to keep so many units for garrison duties.

I added the new Crusader Kingdoms faction, with the Burgundians standing in for them until the new factions are added in the next version of the mod. This will allow us to play-test the faction now, and I think this is going to become a very popular faction among players.
There is more than one unique feaure about this faction, so please read their entry at the bottom of the faction descriptions doc. Their Homeland had also been re-arranged and expanded, so please view the Homelands page of the Excel file if you decide to try them out.

Pike units are now over-sized ala Muslim units, since they have been so ineffective in my games. I hope this allows us to take better advantage of their row support feature.

I also changed the stats and/or names for some Spanish and French units, so check those out in the faction descriptions doc as well.
In addition, I re-named Viking Huscarles as Svea Axemen, and altered the description to match.
Ditto for Pavisier Pikemen, whom I changed to Italian Armoured Pikemen.

Below are some excerpts from my posts in the 3.13 thread. The first regards an additon to the Readme.

Uprisings and Re-appearances:
I have re-worked the priorities and settings for the various types of revolts to reflect the massive changes that the mod makes to the units in the game. Basically, I have designated Crusade and Jihad units, which are detailed below, as the base units for Catholic and Muslim revolts, while individual units have been selected for the Orthodox revolts. The Crusade and Jihad units were chosen to help standardize the strength and composition of the uprisings and make it easier to change them without having to go through dozens and dozens of units for individual factions. For peasant revolts and bandits I selected individual units on the basis of both their statistics and special qualities, such as being mercenaries or regional units.
Note that there is a bug in the game with regards to revolts. Apparently this bug was in the original, 1.0 version of the game, and somehow re-appeared in the 2.01 patch. The bug seems to involve peasant revolts and uprisings which involve multiple provinces, such as faction re-appearances and the appearance of the Horde. The bug results in the creation of all-artillery or all-Naptha Thrower armies in certain provinces.

I have been making some adjustments to provincial ownership involving the Italians and Aragonese.

I think maybe the Aragonese were too strong in the Late age, so I gave Provence to the Genoese Confederacy. I also swapped Milan and Naples between them and the Venetians. The result is that the Confederacy actually looks a little historically correct, if you consider the Confederacy to be composed of the Sicilians, Genoese and other city-states such as Pisa and Florence.

I am trying right now to keep the Italians together in the Early and High eras, so we won't have to create a new faction just for one era. To this end I made Sardinia Rebel in the High era, and I weakened Corsica's infrastructure.

Also, I decided to tie the game's two Peasant units to the 60% land improvement building, and give the Muslim unit bonuses in the fertile Muslim and Mongol provinces. I did the same for the Christian unit. I hope that the AI will put an emphasis on getting the 60% imp built in those provinces. This means that Peasants require the 60% improvement in addition to the Muster Field, but they are available in all eras now. I have not tested this out to see if the AI will make Muster Fields and start turning out hordes of Peasants again.

In other news, I decided to restrict the Szekely to the Hungarians, and to Moldavia, Kiev, Bulgaria and Wallachia. I restricted Lithuanian Cav to the Poles, and added Prussia as a fourth province where you can get them, as well as making them available in all eras. I hope they can suffice as the Polish mounted archer unit for the entire game.

I removed the Swiss option to use French units, and I removed all sword units from their potential lineup except Swabian Swordsmen. Just another twist I find interesting. I enabled them to use Popolo Cav, so they now have access to all the HRE and Italian missile units. This means they can build any variety, from Archers to Crossbows to Arbelests to the gunpowder units. I just think that they are now a very distinct and interesting faction to both play as and against.

I reduced the stats of the Highlanders some time ago, when the English didn't have any decent infantry. I agree that they were too weak with the current setup, so I raised both their attack and defense by a point, and morale by 2. I must not have lowered their price with the stats, since even with the increased stats they were still priced a little too high. They are now comparable to FMAA, though you will want to try and take advantage of their superb speed and charge abilities.

[BDC]

Yay, should make my games more interesting (again)...



Have a cookie.

[Donic]

Looking forward to trying it out.

Does anyone know if it's possible to change how the sea regions are rated as far as deep sea? Also is it possible to change what type of water a ship can enter? That might be a good way to cut off the Atlantic and North sea areas from the Mediterranean sea powers. You could set the Gibralter sea region to deep sea and changed the Galleys and Islamic ships to coastal waters only. Then only the nations building the 'christian' ships could pass through the stait.

[The Beef Baron]

i know the outremer's are jsut a test but i thought i'd point out that clicking the GA icon in-game causes a CTD. good work so far wes...everytime i think ive gotten tired of this game you release a new version
cheers,
TBB

[Basil Otis]

Hi Wes

Firstly, great mod. (I'm also a fan of your CTPII med mod & it's exciting looking at what might come out of the CTPII source code project.)

Anyway, I was thinking about what you've done with the rebels & uprisings & I took to thinking about the problem of reappearing factions having highly limited ability to expand (well I think it's a problem...). Ultimately, the way the economic model works & with the size of uprisings there's not much scope for a faction to expand or become a threat & merely sit around doing nothing.

What you have done may present an opportunity to give re-emerging factions a bit of a hand. If the support costs for the specific rebellion units were reduced to close to zero they would/might have a better opportunity to build infrastructure & even additional units with which to attack. This might require a few rebellion only units that cannot otherwise be built.

Is this possible? Has it been done, or something else to assist with re-emerging factions?

Cheers
B.Otis

PS great to be able to post directly to this forum now

[BDC]

Quote[/b] (The Beef Baron @ Nov. 25 2003,01:55)]i know the outremer's are jsut a test but i thought i'd point out that clicking the GA icon in-game causes a CTD. good work so far wes...everytime i think ive gotten tired of this game you release a new version
cheers,
TBB

I believe all the modded nations do this - the goals aren't set for them so it screws up.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

I thought I installed wrong, but apparently the main screen doesn't update to say 3.14 with the new version.

[Beelzebub]

The Outremere kingdom has a chapter house in Cyprus, but can't seem to build crusades there.

[The Beef Baron]

thanks for the reply bdc

tbb

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Basil Otis @ Nov. 24 2003,21:58)]Hi Wes

Firstly, great mod. (I'm also a fan of your CTPII med mod & it's exciting looking at what might come out of the CTPII source code project.)

Anyway, I was thinking about what you've done with the rebels & uprisings & I took to thinking about the problem of reappearing factions having highly limited ability to expand (well I think it's a problem...). Ultimately, the way the economic model works & with the size of uprisings there's not much scope for a faction to expand or become a threat & merely sit around doing nothing.

What you have done may present an opportunity to give re-emerging factions a bit of a hand. If the support costs for the specific rebellion units were reduced to close to zero they would/might have a better opportunity to build infrastructure & even additional units with which to attack. This might require a few rebellion only units that cannot otherwise be built.

Is this possible? Has it been done, or something else to assist with re-emerging factions?

Cheers
B.Otis

PS great to be able to post directly to this forum now.

I keep meaning to go check out Apolyton and see what's going on, but I just haven't thought of it when I felt like reading.

I guess I haven't witnessed enough about the re-emergence to make a decision. In theory, they should fight and expand until they have either lost enough men or conquered enough territory to become economically viable, ala the Horde. Is this not happening?
I know this model doesn't work for the Horde, but they are so huge at the start that the model never has a chance to work until they are permanently in the red.
BTW, some of you need to play some late campaigns and see how the Shrines I added and the Horde units' new faith effects work out. In my last game on High, it took 4 or 5 Chinese Inf to garrison each province, which just killed their momentum.

Adding rebellion-only units is doable, but you would have to make a pretty good selection to cover all three campaigns, and there always seem to be unforeseen problems when you get into a project like that.

I know about the Chapter House in Cyprus. I have played around in the past with making it a requirement for some of the Kingdoms units. Right now I just added the requirement of a Monastery for their knights. The Kingdoms can't build Crusades because the Burgundians can't build Crusades.
I don't plan on enabling them or the Teutonic Kns faction for Crusades in the future, either. Those two factions are the result of Crusades, so they should have to support themselves as regular, small factions.
I know this is a poor comparison, but it's all that's coming to mind right now, but to me allowing them to construct Crusades would be like allowing butterflies to build cocoons.

Jacques, I just forgot to update the mod number. I remember thinking about it, but I must have gotten distracted and overlooked it. If you see the Burgundians in High then you'll know it went ok.

In further developments...
I am currently playing as the Italians in high, and it has been a very interesting game. I have been able to expand pretty rapidly, but trade is everything and even a fairly weak faction can hurt you if they manage it clog up a couple of chokepoints for even a few turns.
If you get ex-comm'd, watch out, because everyone seems to feel free to attack you, and the Pope will always stab you in the back when he gets an opening. My ex-comm'd king died the same turn as the Pope invaded, and somehow this automatically ex-comm'd my new king. Anyway, it gave me an excuse to wipe him out and sieze Rome, which I have made a very fertile province. (It's developed really well, too.)
Playing largely without cavalry has been a neat experience. Having a fast X-bow unit in Italian Sailors has also lead to the need to develop slightly different strategies than normal. The new thing I love most about this mod is how both playing as and against each faction is a unique experience, especially with the almost limitless variation in battlefields.

I saw that the Italians had a little bit of an unfair advantage in being able to build the Crusader Kingdoms units, since you will almost always take over some of their Homelands, or start out with them, so I removed the Italians from the list. They should be able to support themselves in Outremer anyway through their trade network.
I also removed Rhodes from the Italian Homeland.

I have currently replaced Crete and Malta with Anatolia and Nicaea to the Kingdoms' Homeland, but I don't know if this is better, or not.

Finally, I don't think that having Bodyguard units with the missile ability is working out. The AI always brings these units into range and has a duel with you. Or, more often when attacking, he brings them up and targets your commander, which is normally a heavily-armoured unit.
Thus, the Hungarians always brought their Vlastela into range of my Sailors, and I ended up trading a handful of Carracio Guards for entire units of Vlastela, which is really devastating when you kill their commander. I had similar experiences with Kataphracts when playing as the Kingdoms.
What I think I will do is simply replace the bows with shields. I will armour the French Mtd. X-bow unit, make it available in High, and let the Russians use it as well.

[Vinsitor]

LOL this MOD looks to be very very funny

[Befor installing it] Can I still play MP with the original stats? (As with the Shogun mod)

Tnx

[Lazul]

Erhm, not trying to be anoying but you made a mistake with the svean axemen. The danes have them to, the sveans are the ppl i north sweden while the southern or middle sweden are the "Goth"... yes Goth, there is no good translation. Well its spelled Götar.

Also, are you planing to keep the whole viking stile over sweden and denmark?

/Me

[The Beef Baron]

just got finished playin a few test games...all early. it seems the french are consistently strong. it looks like they are the first to get a crusade on the road and it definitely helps in their quest for world domination. as a result it appears as if other factions (~4-6) get wiped out in the early going. i know its impossible to maintain some sort of balance, but it would be nice to play through the ages against more than a couple of superpowers. to that effect i think it might be beneficial if the consequences of ex-communication are upped. historically the pope/RCC was a large influence, but this does not translate that well in the game. i have seen the papacy conquered in almost every game by the sicilians, while other factions ignore excommunication. is it possible to up the dissent penalty for excomm? or other possibilities.
Cheers,

TBB

[Beelzebub]

That's more of a game problem. On the campaign map provinces are too big. It's just too easy to blitz nations, especially in the beggining, and they're finsihed after 1 battle. Cordoba and Mardrid share borders, so in the game the Moor/Spanish conflict is settled in about 5 years when historically it took hundreds. Likewise for the english/french war on the continent and the Byzantine/Turkish one. The game is kind of balanced after 50 or so turns, but then there's only 5-6 big nations. At that point the balance gets better because there are a lot of big stacks all over which means core territory won't fall easily in a few turns with only one battle, and also any nation that gets too big is prone to rebellions.

The only really effective way to fix this would be to have a new campaign map with over 5 times as many provinces.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Lazul @ Nov. 26 2003,13:15)]Erhm, not trying to be anoying but you made a mistake with the svean axemen. The danes have them to, the sveans are the ppl i north sweden while the southern or middle sweden are the "Goth"... yes Goth, there is no good translation. Well its spelled Götar.

Also, are you planing to keep the whole viking stile over sweden and denmark?

/Me

Well, a month or so ago when you Swedes kept asking for the Axemen, I said that I would be happy to put them in the game, but I would like for one of you to provide me some info and a description for them. None of you ever bothered to help with them, so I just finally went ahead and put in what I figured would be alright for them.
The Danes/Swedes now fulfill a role that enhances the game by providing a unique unit lineup, and I have no wish to change them just because of national pride.
My aim with the factions is to make each of them unique. I try to use historically correct units and such whenever possible, but gameplay always comes first. From everything I have read, the Danes and Swedes essentially mimicked the Germans and French, and I saw no point in making another knight-based faction.

TBB, I only gave the French the ability to build Crusades immediately in the Early campaign, because of historical accuracy in regards to the First Crusade. More factions can build them immediately in later eras. Most of the other factions get Houses to start with, but they only have a Keep as the castle structure. Hopefully the factions will gradually upgrade their House province and thus gain access to Crusades gradually as well.
For those of you wondering, I have tried giving everyone immediate access to Crusades in the past, and this always resulted in 2 or 3 factions beginning them immediately, which usually hamstrung their initial growth. Supporting the Crusades as they made their way across the continent one province at a time was particularly bad for small factions like the Sicilians.

Beelzebub hits upon one of the historical flaws in the game regarding the classic faction rivalries, but we have to step back and remember that this game is at heart a Real-time battle sim set in the Medieval age, and not an historically accurate political/economic sim. One of the things that I enjoy most about modding is adding as much historical flavor and accuracy as possible to the experience, but in the end it is just "flavor", and not the main course.

We don't have access to things like Ex-communication effects. The Papacy was orignally so weak that they were easily conquered, so I have significantly increased both the starting military and economic strength of the Papacy, with the unwanted result that they have become militarily aggressive in many situations. Their aggressiveness is again something that I can't affect. Ideally, imo, the Papacy would be forbidden to launch attacks outside of Rome and the Papal States, while being formiddable defenders.

In my experiences with so-called 4X games, you want your AI opponents to gradually grow in strength as you do, so that you consistently face opponents whose strength is comparable to your own. If most all of the factions survived through the centuries, you would face relatively weaker and weaker adversaries. The only time I see a problem is if the same factions become powers most every time.

I think that the best you can do in regards to faction balance is to give each faction a chance to become a power, and consistently give the player a unique, tough but winnable game for the first 50 turns or so. And "just" doing this is an immense problem when you are talking about a game with three campaigns, a couple dozen factions and the almost unlimited variables that MTW has.

LOL this MOD looks to be very very funny

[Befor installing it] Can I still play MP with the original stats? (As with the Shogun mod)

Well, "funny" is a new one. The mod replaces the projectile stats, so you would need to follow the un-install procedure before going online. It should only take a few seconds to swap the mod in and out, so I wouldn't let this keep me from trying the mod.

[L`zard]

Quote[/b] (Lazul @ Nov. 26 2003,12:15)]Erhm, not trying to be anoying but you made a mistake with the svean axemen. The danes have them to, the sveans are the ppl i north sweden while the southern or middle sweden are the "Goth"... yes Goth, there is no good translation. Well its spelled Götar.

Lazul: Methinx all of your comments are more aimed at a 'Baltic Sea' based game/mod than Wes' mod, not wishing to make you mad, eh?

Wes has 20 factions to enable as 'active players'. There are already concerns over what factions in what era will be 'IN' the game.

I agree that we should all get to have all the small nations we like 'IN THE GAME', but one must understand that CA's source-code is out of reach, eh? Double the provinces, and give all mod'ers open source, and we'll all get what we want.

'Till then, I suggest that all interested in this mod, well, read the 'readme' and 'faction descriptions' available from the 3.14 DL's (charts and readmes)---- remember, these change after every download of a txt update, eh?

Wes is one person, CA is many Your were expecting????

[marcino]

Hi there... I`ve found something...
I play Egiptians and now it`s 1205 AD - in Egipt I can train Germanic Knights - mercenary unit. looks realy strange so I won`t build them anymore.
is it correct or a mistake?

marcino

[Magraev]

Having recently read the txt's thoroughly I'm pretty sure this is deliberate. A way I guess to make western style cavalry available to the muslims.

[Lazul]

Ehr... WesW. I never tried to tell how to make the mod, i was only trying to help you out and give you idées.
I really do liek your mod and makes the game alot more fun to play, never meant to be anoying.

[L`zard]

Lazul;

Your doing the right thing, guy Don't feel like your doing something wrong, as your not

Your comments are MOST appreciated, so drive on

Any part of the mod that you may comment on is good comment for the 'test team', Wes is looking for all the 'play-testers' he can get, eh?

You too may be part of the making of the mod, eh? Find Wes's emale addy from his Wes/site and join on in, lol


Worx mit mir, Nicht Wahr?

[Lazul]

thanx L'zard

so... i just made up some idées for danish and swedish units.
and some got descriptions.

here goes... please comment ppl:

*Early*

*Swedish Hirdmen(mounted) - Strong Charge - Good Attack - Good Defence - Armoured - Good Morale - Swords, not lances

*Danish Hirdmen(mounted) -//-

The Scandinavians have allways been a bit isolated in the north and never developed the same tactics of war as the rest of europe. The Hirdmen are a good exampel. They care no lances and tend to be a bit to brave against spear equiped footmen.

*Svean Axemen - very good morale - Strong Charge - Good attack - Weak Defence - AP (all periods)

These wild men from middle and northen Sweden carry the tradition of the vikings in to the medieval era. Little care of their own lives they rush the enemy lines with mad songs of war and tend to get killed unless they are supported by Knights or Hirdmen or even more Sveans. This fanaticism is no confort to the enemy unless they have bows and are on horses.

*Scandinavian Peasants - very strong charge - weak attack - weak defence (all periods)

The Scandinavian Peasants have allways been very independent and never really been supressed as the ones in easterna and western europe. Therefor the Scandinavian peasants not only work for the nobles but act as support for the knights and hirdmen of the north.


*High*

Hirdmen as royal for sweden.

Danish Knights(mounted) - Very good attack - good defence - armoured - very strong charge

during the high period of the middle ages the Danes became more developed and now used heavy knights much like the germans to drive invaders of or to break defensive lines.

Swedish Longbows - weak attack - weak defence - strong charge - Long range - AP

The swedish longbow was the answer to the danish knights that invaded Sweden around 1210. The longbow proved usefull in the Battle of Lena but the longbowmen in sweden could never dream to match the english. (Semi-Historical).

Bondi - Good Attack - Good Defence - Defence bonus versus mounted...the same as WesW unit. (both danes and swedes).


*late*

Swedish Royal Knights - Very good attack - Very good defence - Irre.-Charge - Heavily Armoured - excellent morale

Danish Royal Knights - Very good attack - Very good defence - Irre.-Charge - Heavily Armoured - excellent morale

and one made up hero: Arn De Gothia....slayer of danes hahah... just kiddin

[BDC]

Hmm, in my 3.14 game emmisaries seem to have become Jihads...

[A_B]

OK, another of my periodical and radical suggestions;

Remove all siege and artillery weapons from the game. The AI doesn't know how to use them. The Mongols routinely have 4 to 6 morters in thier starting roster when they attack, making it quite easy to beat them piecemeal. Othere factions build too many of them, and it is easy enogh to manuever around the big ones in a battle. Also, the AI doesn't use them that well in sieges.

If they are removed, all open field battles are enhanced. Castles can still be assaulted, but it is very costly to attack the larger type. However, i think this is a good thing. Assaulting was always too easy for the human - line up 8 large cannon and 8 good melee units and in you go.

I've removed them in my current game and the challenge is better.

AB

[BDC]

Is there any way to make them useless against people but gd vs walls? In real life they would be all-but useless against small targets, but stationary castles are different. The really big ones would just be too good otherwise.

[Quokka]

Quote[/b] (marcino @ Nov. 28 2003,17:05)]Hi there... I`ve found something...
I play Egiptians and now it`s 1205 AD - in Egipt I can train Germanic Knights - mercenary unit. looks realy strange so I won`t build them anymore.
is it correct or a mistake?

marcino

This is correct. It is a buildable mercenary unit available to the Muslim factions.

[Ser Clegane]

A questions on the MedMod (probably has been asked before, but please do not slap me)

I usually prefer to play GA, and for some factions I get a CTD as soon as I click on the GA button.

This seems to happen with new factions, such as sweden or the Swiss - is this caused by the fact that GAs are hardcoded and it therefore does not make any sense that I try playing the added factions in a GA campaign?

Thanks in advance for clarification

[BDC]

Yeah pretty much. Bit annoying, I think it could be fixed but I am under the impression it would take Wes ages and wouldn't be worth the effort until the rest is done.

[Ser Clegane]

Thanks for the quick reply

I would agree - minor annoyance only, once you are aware of it you can just avoid playing certain factions in GA

[Jacque Schtrapp]

I believe that certain "minor factions" and all new factions were never programmed to have the GA screen accessed from the strat map, hence the CTD. Even if you are playing a faction that cannot access the GA screen, the game still functions in GA mode for the other factions. Since the entire GA theme (with the exception of points) is hard-coded, I don't believe this will ever be fixe. A shame really, because a well done set of GA's could revitalize the entire game.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]A shame really, because a well done set of GA's could revitalize the entire game.

I agree completelly. It's really something that CA should have thought about. Since they promissed to make MTW a "mod-frendly" game, it's quite an omition on their part.