Anyone interested in Crusader States mod?

[Total War Merc]

sounds good

[Fader_it]

Hi boys, how's going?
I'm waiting for news about the strategic map.. did you decide anything about the map to use, the regions, etc.?
Send me all i need as soon as you can, so i can start working on the strat map for this mod!

F.

[CountMRVHS]

Hi Fader!

I think a couple weeks ago I sent a list of regions and cities to Minister of Fear. We'd split up the map so I was responsible for the northern half and he was working on the southern half. Haven't heard back from him yet on that, but perhaps he has been waiting for me to send him a map all along?

I'll try to get in touch with him and figure out where we need to go from here. What I may need to do is find a suitable map somewhere, then mark off the region borders and city locations with some sort of paint program...

I'm glad you're still interested in working on our mod! I'll be away this weekend but my summer vacation just began, so I'll have much free time.

I'm going to set an arbitrary deadline for next Friday. If I can't get hold of Minister of Fear before then, I'll go ahead and work out the map as well as I can myself and get it to you. If anyone else wants to get going on this, by all means, let me know. But probably Minister is just waiting for me to send him a map of my work so far. I'll get going on it by Monday.

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

Sorry guys. Just been a little busy then a little slack. I'll respond in kind this week to the Counts suggestions re map and then we'll be able to see where this is at.

I've been playing R:TW, having a break from M:TW, and I'm starting to see the attractions of the R:TW for this mod. I know; this sounds almost blasphamous, I feel like I need to take a cold shower and come to my senses but the diplomatic nuances available in R:TW are much better than in M:TW, we have a ready-made map that only needs the provinces to be tweaked, we can have more units than in M:TW, I prefer the manner in which armies can move around in the field, etc, etc. The only thing I much prefer in M:TW is the battlemap and that is mostly to do with familiarity.

I write this only as something to think about at this early stage.

Will update soon.

[CountMRVHS]

Woh, that's an interesting suggestion....

What do you mean when you say "we have a ready-made map"? I agree that the diplomatic options are greater, and do like the possibilities for army movement on the strategic map. However, it seems like an awful lot more work would be needed to turn it into a medieval game. And I have to say I'm generally not too impressed with the battles in RTW: the AI simply doesn't maneuvre, and the battles are over very quickly compared to MTW.

Maybe that's something to look at once BI comes out. I think, though, for now, if we could get a working campmap, then we can look at getting the rest of this mod completed for an MTW standpoint. Just selfishly, I'd like to get my own hands on a working campmap so I could start playing around with the factions, units, etc.

Anyway, do you want me to send you some sort of map, or is the list I sent you enough to go on? At some point there will need to be a map sent to Fader_It so he can commence getting everything put together.

No need to apologize about anything!

CountMRVHS

[King Baldwin IV]

Helo! this looks like a good mod. and its still in progress. i cant wait to see it. forgive me for interrupting in the discussion of the campaign map. i've read the posts on the first page, and it was suggested that the start date was around 1248. it would be cool if we get to see the start of the kingdom and build it up. maybe starting around 1100 with Godfrey's brother as the first king. here's a site for info on the Outremer.
good luck on the map!

[CountMRVHS]

Hi, King Baldwin IV; thanks for the interest!

Somewhere in this thread, probably page 2 or 3, we decided the starting date would be around 1130, to give the Crusader states an interesting position. Once the map gets off the ground of course we'll be able to firm up all of that, including factions, end date, etc etc.

Welcome to the forums!

CountMRVHS

[King Baldwin IV]

Sounds good! thank you.

[Fader_it]

Hi there.. the ideas of Minister of Fear are nice, but i have to say that the modding of R:TW to a medieval mod requires a really huge work. You need to create units model, reskin them, change about every graphic element of the game and this task would take months and months even for a group of many talented people. I don't really know if (and how much) the strat map in R:TW is moddable.. just drawing it would be quite more difficult than doing it for the M:TW one. So, i suggest to stick on working on the VI version, before moving to a large and more complex project. :)

I looked to the web site proposed by King Baldwin and i found it really interesting, with maps and many, many specific infos about Outremer and the holy land area in general.. what do you think, CountMRVHS?

[Pericles]

I would also suggest sticking with MTW:VI for this mod.

Get this mod done first.

Then after the BI expansion pack for RTW comes out, then you can see what fixes and new features have gone into RTW. Then do a mod for that game.

Cheers!

[CountMRVHS]

Yes; I agree.

I checked out the website King Baldwin linked and the maps do look good. My biggest question with the map right now is this: can we balance the kind of area we're talking about with the need to have many provinces in the Levant? In other words, our current scope for the map includes all of Turkey, Greece, and parts of Italy. All of that is great - but I'm interested to see how many provinces we can therefore fit into the middle east. Because obviously, I don't think we just want "Antioch, Tripoli, palestine, etc" like MTW has already -- we want to split up those provinces so the crusader states have some more room and more lands, and also to reflect the important cities at the time. That's why I'm looking forward to see what Minister of Fear has come up with for the southern half of the map, as that will address these issues.

[Pericles]

IMO I don't think it will be necessary to put in every historical province.

We may need to have some abstracton here for gameplay purposes: to place in enough provinces for all sides to balance things out...

"When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay".

Cheers!

[edyzmedieval]

The mod sounds good...

Ask the mods if they can give you a subforum.....

P.S.: Need any help?!

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the offer, edyzmedieval. What sorts of things could you help with? At this stage I'm waiting to hear back from Minister Of Fear to see what he's come up with in terms of southern provinces. I've taken care of the north, pretty much.

Since you've seen the scope of the mod, what areas do you know the most about? I'm fairly confident in my knowledge of the north/western areas of this map, but once you get east and south my knowledge fades out. I don't know much about factions, units, provinces, or important towns in the eastern part of Turkey or the middle east. With the Byzantine areas I'm ok.

Let me know what sorts of things you can offer!

@Pericles: my primary concern in that area is exactly gameplay: what I'm worried about is that there will only be room in our map for a single province of Jerusalem, and a single province for Edessa, and a single province for Antioch -- exactly like it is in the MTW map. If the map looked like that, each crusader faction would only have 1 province, which wouldn't be much fun and would probably tend to cripple them unduly from the start.

It will depend on what Minister of Fear has done, but one way I can think of fixing that potential problem is by limiting the size of our mod further. Instead of including all the areas of Byzantium, we could limit it to the middle east, more in the manner of metatron's suggested maps from the first page of this thread. That would give more room and focus to the crusader factions and their immediate neighbors. I don't know though. That's just kind of a back-up suggestion.

Anything yet, Minister Of Fear??

[edyzmedieval]

I'm very good at the historical part... I can give you info( I have many books about Medieval history, also because it's my hobby) about the Balkans especially because I live there.

I am now learning to make unit graphics and unit animations, based on the topics in the Repository. So, on the graphics part I am learning. I also know the basic stuff with MTW modding(modding the text files). But on the graphics part I have to learn much to complete my MTW modding skills.

Cheers!

[Minister of Fear]

The part of the map I'm dealing with is a little harder to develop then I thought since I have to use a variety of maps to develop the campaign map just for the cities/provinces south and east of Antioch.

There will definitely not be a singe province for the County of Tripoli or Edessa, etc. They will be made up of several provinces/cities/regions that are integral to the game. At the moment, I have roughly 60 of these. The next step is to make out a rough map with these in place that can help me in deciding which of the to cull so I end up with about 50. Then I'll send them to the Count and we will, i think with Fader's council, finalise the list.

Give me until the end of week, Count. You should have a list in your hands by then.

[CountMRVHS]

Sounds good.

[Fader_it]

Good.. i'll tell you then if the provinces shape, size, border fits well to the limits of the game. For example, the name "Constantinople" could be too long to be included in the province of the same name on the map, so this should be worked out in some manner; don't worry, this is just work of mine. Only a question: anyone decided what image to use as a background for the campmap? Did you imagined it as a modern satellite map, a paint, a monochromatic parchment-like, or something similar?

[CountMRVHS]

I always liked the parchment-type look of the MTW map. I think something simple would be best; probably monochromatic so it's easy to see province names, pieces, etc. when you're playing. Anyone else have any suggestions for this?

[Pericles]

I also like the parchment-type look of the MTW map.

[edyzmedieval]

I als like it... Gives it an intellectual game feeling

[King Baldwin IV]

i like the parchment type too, though anything clean and simple will do. Cheers.

[tutankamon]

Is there anything I can do to help?
I'm not an expert modder though...

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks for the offer Tutankamon!

As you can see right now we're getting the campaign map in order. This mod will use a totally different map and we're in the process of deciding what the provinces should look like. That will probably be finished by the end of the week, and then we'll send our results off to Fader_It, who has so kindly agreed to help us put it all together.

Once we have a working campaign map, things will really start to happen. We'll be doing research on unit types, deciding the unit types for different factions, seeing who has what province, how much each province should be built up; oh yeah, and designing the factions and all of that.

I don't know exactly how the mod is going to progress once the map is finished -- I mean what order we'll be doing things -- so I'm not sure exactly in what areas we'll need help. Do you have any particular areas of interest, or any specific skills you'd like to contribute? Let us know,

CountMRVHS

[Fader_it]

Good :).
So, the parchment-like type is the winner. Eheh, it's also the most easy to create from a pre-existing map, just some sepia and texture effects and the work is done. However, i didn't understand from the previous posts if you aim to create also new unit models or if you will use new combinations of the existing ones.. this could be a quite difficult part to complete.

Regards, F.

[Minister of Fear]

Ok. I've just completed the map list for area south and east of Antioch. It has been sent to CountMRVHS, and hopeful to Fader_it as well. So let the challenge of creating the campaign map can begin...

[Radier]

Good luck!

[edyzmedieval]

Great work Minister of Fear!!!

Hopefully Count will be kind enough to give me the map so I can examine it for the Byzantium Total War mod..... It's a lot of work to be done at both mods..... So I think a join of forces would be in the interest of both modding teams....

BTW, Count, if you need any more historical help, feel free to contact me....

[NormanPain]

Strangely I suggested a mod similar to this a while a go and got no response

Very glad to see that one is in the works though, I have been wanting this for some time. I havent checked this site in a while and was surprised to say the least.

I see a lot of people worrying about the muslim nations having to much land, don't forget that the muslims were fighting themselves just as much as the crusaders, it was one big mess, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries. I have been reading alot on the crusades lately and have thousands of pages worth of reference material if you need it.

Will the Armenians be a seperate playable nation in the mod or will they be considered part of the Byzantine Empire? Though superficially part of the Empire the Armenians did not often think of themselves in that way as they had different customs and religious practices.

BTW the Middle Earth Total war team had a foot soldier Unit for the Haradrim(Think he was Numenorian guard) that looks very much like a crusader with a conical helm and chain maille(in the style of VI without any clothes over top of the armour so it is very visible). Change the shield and it would be perfect, maybe you should check it out and see if you can use it?

I like the longer sieges idea, also siege weapons are far too strong, I say halve the damage they cause and increase ammo by 25-50% therefore creating longer sieges on the playing field as well where you actually have time to try things such as sallying forth during the assualt and attacking the Trebuchets and at least have a chance at stopping them from destroying the walls.

I like the second map option, but the first is fine too, as I would be playing as Christians or Byzantines most of the time it doesn't matter a whole lot to me.

If you need information on weapons and armour used in different period I would be more then happy to help. Im kind of a "Gear-Geek" so to speak.

Anyways take care all and I hope this goes as planned, I am looking forwards to this

[CountMRVHS]

Alright, I've got the list of the cities and provinces and am looking for a good map that I can use to draw in the borders with my paint program so I can send the whole thing to Fader_It. Can anyone recommend a good place to look for maps?

This part will take some work and I'll be somewhat busy over the next week, so I don't imagine I'll have anything ready to ship to Fader for about a week. If anyone can help with links to map sites that would help speed things up a little.

AFAIK the Armenians will be at least one separate faction, maybe two. In regards to units and unit graphics... I haven't even thought that far ahead yet! But I suppose this might be a good time for people to make suggestions for units and factions, so once the campaign map gets finished we can get right into that process.

CountMRVHS