Anyone interested in Crusader States mod?

[AggonyDuck]

The idea of the mod is good, except I'd actually suggest starting it in the 12th century in the time between the first and the second crusade.
This pretty much allows the game to have several factions that actually played a role at that time. See perhaps the best thing about starting somewhere after the 1st Crusade is that both the muslims and the crusaders are splintered in several factions.

[CountMRVHS]

Hmm.... some interesting ideas. A few thoughts:

1. I wonder how the "politics" of the era could be enacted in this mod. In other words, if you're thinking about factions like, say, the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as France, what happens when the king of france wants to go on crusade? MTW diplomacy being MTW diplomacy, I imagine there could be a lot of situations where the French end up allying with the Saracens to beat up on the Crusaders -- which is fine I guess, but it might not be the kind of game some people want.

2. What kind of new map are we talking about? First let me say that I have NO experience making new campaign maps, so I would be no help there. But what did you have in mind for the area of the map? Personally, I think it would be great to have Constantinople east to the Caucasus (basically it could end where the MTW map ends on the eastern side). That way you'd have Constantinople itself as the seat of the Byzantine Empire, and you'd have at least a chopped-up Byzantine Empire, its land holdings depending on the start date, which would make things interesting. Also it sounds like you want to include some of the eastern Mediterranean islands, which sounds good.

4. Any ideas on factions/units?

3. Is this mod really feasible? I don't want to sound like a pessimist but the more I think about it the more interesting this seems, and I'm just wondering how willing people would be to work with this. I could offer some research time to help out myself, and I know a bit about basic modding (I've done some campaigns for myself in the past), but you'd need someone who can work with the campaign map and maybe make brand new unit graphics and shield graphics -- all of that stuff is beyond me.

Well it sounds interesting -- keep us posted.
CountMRVHS

[Krusader]

Sounds good.

I would suggest perhaps set a starting year to 1144-45 which was when Edessa fell, and just before Second Crusade. After the Second Crusade, things got more interesting, and the wars quickly flared up.

[Pericles]

I like the idea.

Most of the units are already available.

I think it is worth doing.

I, too, saw KoH and I am in the mood to play crusader type games.

[edyzmedieval]

The idea sounds great!!

I think you should start with the 1st crusade and end with the last crusade...

You should add many new units and stuff to make the game interesting...

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, Krusader's start date sounds good. The way I see it, you want to start the game while there are already a bunch of Crusader states established, right? So you wouldn't really want to start with the First Crusade. About the 1248 date, I confess I don't know too much about the later crusades. After 1204 things get hazy for me in that area, and my historical knowledge is more focused on Byzantium.

One other thing I was wondering about: would there be different starting eras in the campaign? In other words, would the High era still begin in 1204? I'm just curious about if this would have any impact on when units become available, as crossbows only become available in High, etc etc.

At the very least, the various Crusader knight types should be trainable by the appropriate factions, not just recruited randomly in a Crusade; but you were probably planning that anyway.

The big question for me, though, remains: can you mod the campaign map or do you know somebody who can?

CountMRVHS

[Krusader]

If you're going different eras, then might I suggest some possible start dates:

1095 - First Crusade preached. Launched some years later

1144 - Edessa falls. Second Crusade preached. Second Crusade achieves nothing in Asia Minor, while crusader states besiege Damascus unsuccesfully. After this the Muslim lords become more united and more hostile towards the crusader states

1204/1205 - Fourth Crusade ends. Byzantine empire falls and succesor states established. Dunno if this affects Holy Land.

1229 - Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II gets Jerusalem and other cities through diplomacy.

1260 - Baybars becomes Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. Defeats the Mongols at Ain Jalut, and wages a succesful war on the Christians. Defeats them in several battles, and in 1268 he conquers Antioch.
Armenians in Cilica or lesser Armenia also defeated some years before. Also warred with Seljuk Turks who were vassals of the Mongols at the time.