Anyone interested in Crusader States mod?

[Krusader]

What about Cross & Crescent?

[metatron]

Heh, the map I was dealing with predetermined the northern and western borders, but I figured it would be a good starting point.

I read somewhere we could put the Pope on a province that doesn't border any others.

I second the vote for "Outremer", just "Outremer". Let's not use "Outremer: Total War", because "Total War" is tacky and cliched.

[metatron]

This map shows how west and north (but not east or south!) I think we should go. (Maybe even the "heel" of Italy).

[Krusader]

What about this?

[metatron]

I was hoping we could use the Pagan religion to make "Oriental Orthodox" factions, but the Mongols might curtail that...

[metatron]

What about this?

Not bad, but if we're going to include Greece and Italy, we need more of Iraq and Saudi Arabia too.

[CountMRVHS]

Metatron, are you being serious? Krusader's map seems quite a bit larger than what you were willing to do ... however it's a perfect map if we were focusing on the Byzantines.

If you guys all want to go with one of these maps then pretty much whatever you choose will be fine with me. If necessary I could come up with a preference, but what I want - namely Constantinople and at least a good chunk of byzantium - looks like it's going to be in there in all of these maps.

Metatron, we could use Heresy for the pagan Mongols, and use Paganism for Oriental orthodox I suppose. There wasn't a whole lot of Inquisiting going on around here so Heresy wouldn't have much of a use as it is. I don't know if you can make a faction have "heresy" as a religion though.

[Malachus]

The factions in the game can only be set to orthodox, catholic, pagan, or muslim. Though Jewish and Heretic exist, factions are not allowed to have those religions. However, you can indeed change the name of either the orthodox, catholic, islamic, or pagan religions to make a certain faction a different religion like oriental orthodox or whatever.

[metatron]

Metatron, are you being serious? Krusader's map seems quite a bit larger than what you were willing to do ...

I'm not a stubborn man.

I would much rather have a smaller map, but I do appreciate and will accept the larger maps.

[Minister of Fear]

Krusader's map is great, except that I agree with Metatron, if your going to have the heel of Italy and Greece, we need to include atleast the west and south coast of the Caspian, as well as the north west of the Persian Gulf. So I'm sticking with Metatron's second map at the moment.

Re the Pope. His influence starts to wane Crusader-wise by the end of the 12th century. The authority to initiate Crusades became an instrument used by successive Popes in influencing European affairs rather than the Levant. For God's sake, he called for a Crusade against Byzantium in the early 12th century!
Do we really need a Pope? Game-wise, can crusades be initiated without the Pope or papal faction? And if we don't have a Pope what other faction could call them (not including those in the Levant)?

As far as the religions are concerned, we have: Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental (eastern) Christians, Shite, Shia, pagans. Its difficult to represent the available religious diversity. What does heretic actually represent or reflect in the game? Could we just admit the oriental Christians as orthodox but make them different/ difficult another way? And do the same for the Moslem?

Cross & Crescent is good, but we have three votes for Outremer at the moment. The polls are still open, however...

[Krusader]

Krusader's map is great, except that I agree with Metatron, if your going to have the heel of Italy and Greece, we need to include atleast the west and south coast of the Caspian, as well as the north west of the Persian Gulf. So I'm sticking with Metatron's second map at the moment.

Re the Pope. His influence starts to wane Crusader-wise by the end of the 12th century. The authority to initiate Crusades became an instrument used by successive Popes in influencing European affairs rather than the Levant. For God's sake, he called for a Crusade against Byzantium in the early 12th century!
Do we really need a Pope? Game-wise, can crusades be initiated without the Pope or papal faction? And if we don't have a Pope what other faction could call them (not including those in the Levant)?

As far as the religions are concerned, we have: Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental (eastern) Christians, Shite, Shia, pagans. Its difficult to represent the available religious diversity. What does heretic actually represent or reflect in the game? Could we just admit the oriental Christians as orthodox but make them different/ difficult another way? And do the same for the Moslem?

Cross & Crescent is good, but we have three votes for Outremer at the moment. The polls are still open, however...

I'll fix the map then!!
Btw, Pope Innocent III did not call the crusade against the Byzantines btw. He called it towards Egypt. It was Venetian mercantile interests, French overestimation of number of crusaders and Byzantine throne politics that got intervined/connected together and resulteted in the Fourth Crusade's accomplishments.

[Krusader]

Refixed the map:

[CountMRVHS]

Krusader's updated map looks good to me. But like I said I'll end up going with the majority on this one, just to get things settled quicker.

About the Pope. If we go with Krusader's new map, then I suppose we could give the papal faction a tiny bit of land at the northernmost part of Italy that is shown. However, the only Crusading faction that I can see accommodated on that map is Sicily and, arguably, the lands held by the various Italian merchant factions.

What I'm saying is that I'm not sure how Crusading should be modelled in this game. We may want to consider handling it differently. It seems like we've decided that our focus is on the levant rather than western europe -- therefore a crusade that begins in France would be beyond our scope at this point. So my first impulse is to say, let's not have any "Crusades" at all. We could give the Outremer factions the ability to build Chapter Houses, where they could possibly recruit certain Order knights (maybe in conjunction with other buildings to make them harder to get), but the ability to train a "Crusade" wouldn't be available. That seems to make sense because, say, the kingdom of Jerusalem didn't launch any actual crusades.

Of course the problem with this is that it doesn't allow for the various times in history when western europeans did send a crusade east with the intent of helping out the Christians already there. So if our map will not include western europe, how could those events be modelled? AFAIK the various "events" that pop up in MTW are hard-coded, so we couldn't therefore write our own event that coincided with a certain date and had some in-game effect. We wouldn't want to just make it cheaper for Outremer factions to train troops because that would be a sweeping game change and wouldn't reflect the reality of the situation at all.

I've got to say this one has me stumped. Right now I think we'd be better off forgetting about "Crusades" and focusing instead on the politics and history of the area itself. If we do that, we surely wouldn't need the Pope except as an excommunication dispenser, which I'm all for. But if anyone has any ideas on how to model Crusades in-game, let's hear it!

CountMRVHS

[Minister of Fear]

I like that new map, Krusader, very much. Let's see if we can convert it to the file type used by M:TW.

BTW, I meant the crusade lead by Bohemond that failed and lead to his return to Apulia.

[Blackguard_]

Sounds like a great mod. I didn't lke playing the Crusader States in BKB's mod becasue you just didn't get the feeling of being surrounded by huge powers and hanging on by a thread, as you could quickly conquer Egypt and the Turks but then there's nothing to do as its no fun to conquer Christendom as the Crusaders. Hopefully this mod will have the Muslim powers a credible threat to your existence.

Anyways, is there any way to fix allegiences? I do not want to have it end up with the Hospitallers and the Mamelukes allied against the Templars and the Turks.

As far as the last map posted by Krusader, are you sure it goes far south enough? Egypt does not seem represented enough.

We could give the Outremer factions the ability to build Chapter Houses, where they could possibly recruit certain Order knights (maybe in conjunction with other buildings to make them harder to get

I think only Order factions should have Order units unless you can make sure the Christian faction won't fight each other. It'd be too weird, not to mention inaccurate to see Orders fighting each other.

But if anyone has any ideas on how to model Crusades in-game, let's hear it!

Is it possible to have an event say "Crusade arrives in "such and such a place", X faction or factions gets a bunch of free units."?

[Blackguard_]

AFAIK the various "events" that pop up in MTW are hard-coded, so we couldn't therefore write our own event that coincided with a certain date and had some in-game effect.

Darn. Didn't see that part.


Maybe simply not have crusades?
I think the games recruiting system versus the historical manpower situation may make crusades too much of a boost for Outremer. I don't know about anyone else but I do not want to steamroll the muslims, at least not for a long way into the game. I like to play on the defensive mostly, as was historical and more fun then steamrolling.

[metatron]

Chapter Houses should only be buildable in Italy perhaps?

[bretwalda]

I am not sure whether it is doable, but what if Inns are modded (to lets say "Crusader Inns"), so only Christians can build them, and this way they could get "free" units (mercenary cost to be waaaaay reduced) but of course these units cannot be replenished (as mercenaries in the regular game)

[CountMRVHS]

That gives me the beginnings of an idea ....

OK, just thought it through and figured it won't work, but I'll mention it anyway in case it inspires someone else:

I was thinking we could change these "crusader inns" so that, instead of giving us the usual bunch of mercs, they would only give western european types. This might be a way to represent the appearance of other european forces in outremer. Rather than always being able to train certain units, these units would appear randomly and you couldn't always count no them. However, the problem is that the only way you could do this (I think) is to go into the unitprod txt and change what units are available as mercs. The problem with that is the Muslim factions would be faced with the same exact mercs as the outremer factions.... and I don't see a way around that.

[metatron]

^Disable their ablity to build an inn.

Anyway, we're still still left with their upkeep cost being rediculously high.

[Minister of Fear]

Well, we can always tweek their upkeep costs during the play-testing. But the solution to the appearance of Crusades could be solves using mercenaries. Hmmm, good thinking.

However, does anyone think its unfair that the other factions not have access to mercenaries? We could compensate this by designating another building that would enable other factions to build units they would normally have acquired as mercenaries.

[CountMRVHS]

Well, I just assumed it would be unfair for the Muslims to not have mercs, but now that I think about it ... *did* they really use mercs, historically, all that much? I think the Muslims will have their own "home field" advantages in this mod - they should probably be able to recruit a variety of cheap troops that would keep Outremer on its collective toes. So if I'm not wrong about seeing it this way, then I guess the lack of an Inn wouldn't be that bad for the Muslims.

The Byzantines however... they should definitely have mercs. I'm not sure how this can be achieved. Maybe we can make mercenary units that the Byz can just train at an inn ... like we create a unit called "Catalan mercenaries", and have it trained at an inn, with very high upkeep costs. I dunno. Or maybe just keep the old merc system intact for the Byz, if that's possible.

Of course that decision is a long way down the road, as I see it. How can we start getting our map into some sort of playable form? If we can just do that, the rest of this mod should be cake. I just don't want it all to fall down on this first step.

[metatron]

I think merc. upkeeps costs are hardcoded, but we could borrow from Wes and have "buildable" mercs.

Make their build times and cost high.

[Minister of Fear]

I agree with the Count, lets first get the campaign map in order . First, we need to convert it, etc so its in a MTW playable form. Secondly, we need to begin to think about aportioning it into provinces. I have a map that sets out the areas held by the various factions, but the provinces, will need more work and discussion.

The campaign map seems to me our first priority. Krusader's second map is the one we should go with. Any help, advice, particularly by those who have completed such a task would be greatly appreciated, the H:TW team readily come to mind.

I don't mean to head off conversation about other aspects of the mod but I don't want this mod to become no more than conversation. I, as I assume most of u do, want to actually play this mod sometime in the near future, because it really promises to be an interesting mod that would be a real challenge. I love playing when my backs to the wall, surrounded by enemies, with the faint, distant hope that with grit, determination and wit, my enemies will be slain and their women and children sold into slavery. Because it isn't going to happen anywhere else but here!

P.S. I'm going to request that this thread be moved to the Engineer's Guild sometime this week with the thread called Outremer mod.

[Pericles]

I agree:

Get the map done and divide up the provinces.

When I do any modding, the general rule I follow is:

When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay.

Once the map is done, I am sure we will find ways around any obstacle we find.

I really want to play this mod.

BTW, will this mod be for MTW:VI?

Cheers!

[metatron]

When history and gameplay clash, always opt for gameplay.

But what about people who find history to be gameplay?

[Minister of Fear]

Yes, Pericles, this mod will definitely be for M:TW/VI.

[Meneldil]

Good luck for the mod, I really like the new map :)

I think the French and British kingdoms should be in, acting like the vikings in VI, but I don't really know how you could achieve that.

[Pericles]

But what about people who find history to be gameplay?

I love history.

Unfortunately, some games which slavishly try to recreate history usually fall short, and can at times be boring.

MTW:VI is an excellent example of gameplay and history working together, but MTW does not slavishly follow every historical detail. This makes it fun and enjoyable.

[Minister of Fear]

I can't exactly imagine where the English would be in this mod, Meneldil . So far as as I can see, in 1100, you had the Franks in the south and the Normans to the north of the Levant, along with the various military orders and trading cities of Italy.

BTW, gameplay and history will both be respected in this mod.