ZX Mod Beta 2 Released

[Zarax]

Hmm, quite interesting game so far...

It's interesting to see how the game seems to have a mind of its own, i've never see the eggys going expansionists as usually they struggle against the jedi katanks in the holy lands...

The Italians are more or less what expected, they are masters in sneaky attacks from the sea and can be a major pain if they manage to develop and keep the pope in check (there's nothing worse than have a stack of heavy troops landing in your coasts while your armies are busy elsewhere) even though AUM is a good counter to most of their units.

About the french i'd like to get more feedback before touching them as it's more a matter of luck than anything else right now... If they enjoy a few extra peaceful turns at the start you will see them owning the english as usual despite the money downgrade.

P.S. how are the Danish right now?

[BAD]

Well an update (still as Almohad's Hard GA mode):-

1250


1300


So after the Mongols appeared they beat up the eggies a bit and the russians but got caught up in too many wars and finally got annihilated from all sides. The Italians and have gone crazy on expansion in central Europe and along with the English are expanding, via crusades, to the middle east. The steppes are in a perpetual shate of shift from Novgorod to English and the HRE is surviving by the skin of it's teeth. The Swiss emerged which didn't help that matter. The French have reappeared twice but been beaten into Oblivion by the English both times. The Danes, Poles and Aragonese are just sitting and minding there own business. I killed off the pope in hope that he would dent the Italians on his re-emergence, he didn't survive a single turn. . .

Also some questions:-

You made Hashishin a 20 man unit? While this makes them a really battleworty unit and no longer a pure fluff unit, you should increase their cost a little maybe 25% and support likewise. On a sidenote the muslim influence has reached so far I have caused Muslim revolts in Wessex, with Hashishin appearing there. Mwahahaha!!!

Sherwood Foresters are buildable for The English? And have you increased there numbers in the unit also? I have just seen a few too many for them to be bribed rebels. . . managed to pick up a mercenary unit of them. ;)

Also when the poles re-emerged in Prussia they appeared with about 4 units of Teutonic Seargeants amongst other units. This is to do with the region specific crusading orders, correct? Also it's nice to actually see the Saxon Huscarles for once, I guess they are region specific cusaders too?

Oh and a side note, I have clicked the GA mission sheild for Novgorods and both times I have had a CTD. Luckily I quick save often so it wasn't a problem. Just something I thought you could look at.

[Zarax]

Good, you're starting to see some of the changes here and there...

But let's answer in order...

1) Now the Hashishin are upped to 20 men (they aren't the only unit with such a bonus, watch out the Danish!), i might consider upping the price a bit though support is less likely as it influences AI.... Oh, and nice rebellion farming ;-)

2) Sherwood foresters aren't buildable but the English gets them as a crusading bonus to offset their lack of order lands nearby (Toulouse is nearby but the french aren't too keen of leaving that in anyone's hands) and yes, they are now a full archer unit which makes them a powerful ally or opponent alone.

3) About the Teutonic Sergeants, they were in one of the order lands (after some reasearch there are quite a bit more places from where you can recruit the orders, it should also give a chance to passing crusades) so it's correct,though maybe i'll have to fix it as it's not realistic to get them as rebels...

4) Saxon Huscarles are a buildable English unit, so watch out for them as their requisites are a bit lower than their viking counterpart... It's likely I'll fix that too, hough i'm tempted to use them as Early royal unit... That might fix some problems with the French allowing me to give them their starting money back to the vanilla levels.

Are the English overpowered? (I'd say yes but that's why this is still a beta)

5) About Novgorod GA I'm aware of the bug but I'll have to tinker a lot before touching the homeland file as it's a pain to edit...

Finally, your game gives some surprises as the AI is behaving in a different fashion than in my tests... Not a bad thing as it is one of the reasons why MTW is evergreen.
Especially the Italians, they usually loves to do coastal invasions rather than continental conquest but it's nice to see them hacking their way for once...
My advice here is to avoid letting them grow too much as they are capable to mincemeat your cavalry with ILI and Halbs plus now they gets a bonus to crossbows in Genoa (like the Genoese Sailors weren't painful) so your AUM might have some problems too (but nothing really serious on that front... yet).

It looks like you're having a good game so far, I'll wait for more feedback as usual ;-)

P.S. Sicily got a nice bonus... Did you spot it?

[edyzmedieval]

The Novgorod bug is not from your mod Zarax... It's a CA bug....

[Zarax]

I'm not sure if Novgorod appears on Vanilla GA, if it doesn't then it's a bug created by me...

[edyzmedieval]

It appears...ALso with the Pope.... Don't select them or it will CTD....

[Zarax]

Hmm, maybe i'll ask VH how he changed the homelands...

[BAD]

. . .

3) About the Teutonic Sergeants, they were in one of the order lands (after some reasearch there are quite a bit more places from where you can recruit the orders, it should also give a chance to passing crusades) so it's correct,though maybe i'll have to fix it as it's not realistic to get them as rebels...

4) Saxon Huscarles are a buildable English unit, so watch out for them as their requisites are a bit lower than their viking counterpart... It's likely I'll fix that too, hough i'm tempted to use them as Early royal unit... That might fix some problems with the French allowing me to give them their starting money back to the vanilla levels.

Are the English overpowered? (I'd say yes but that's why this is still a beta)

. . .

P.S. Sicily got a nice bonus... Did you spot it?

Nah I'd say leave it the Rebelling crusading orders. . . "We will fight for the honour of our country, as long as you let us go kick some heathen a$$!"

I would say definately do not downgrade anything for Saxon Huscarles. In fact I would make it so that the requirements were the same as the Danish ones maybe even adding a Royal palace/court into it too (if it isn't allready one). Because while the English aren't pwerful in early when they get to High and start whipping out the Billmen and Longbows they go expansionist and quickly.

And yeah bonus for spies.

PS - I can't build Gallowglasses or Kerns in Ireland? That correct? Or were they always early only?

[Zarax]

Nah I'd say leave it the Rebelling crusading orders. . . "We will fight for the honour of our country, as long as you let us go kick some heathen a$$!"

I would say definately do not downgrade anything for Saxon Huscarles. In fact I would make it so that the requirements were the same as the Danish ones maybe even adding a Royal palace/court into it too (if it isn't allready one). Because while the English aren't pwerful in early when they get to High and start whipping out the Billmen and Longbows they go expansionist and quickly.

And yeah bonus for spies.

PS - I can't build Gallowglasses or Kerns in Ireland? That correct? Or were they always early only?

What i have in mind about Saxon Huscarles is to put their requirements in line with the Viking counterpart and *maybe* use them as early royal english unit, replacing RK.
It is almost certain that I will do the first thing, the second one requires serious testing (but i might balance that making the saxon huscarles a early-only unit) and some cautious thinking about realism (the sicilians are now half fantasy as I confused normans with saxons).

About Kerns and Gallowglasses, they disappear in late along with all the "barbarian" units (by that time all factions have some serious flanker), which is more accurate from an historical point of view (armies were getting somewhat homogeneous with gunpodwer, the competition was moving on quality rather than roster advantages).

[Zarax]

Ok, I'm working on a fix on the homelands problem (the crash is gone now, thanks to VikingHorde) but it won't be ready until I'll find a way to fix an issue related to changing the number of homelands per faction (that hopefully should lead to some AI improvements)...

[Mithrandir]

Unstickied.

[BAD]

Well game is in it's late stages now, probably easlily goona win the GA way. After taking out the English navy out they got a civil war and alot fo factions took advantage of it. Namely the Swiss and Egyptians. All in all nicely done.

Just I can't build Archers/Desert Archers in Late? If that's correct I would reccomend you putting them back. As far as I know armies used them well on into the 15thCentury and well they are damned useful. I always have a few units even when I've got access to crosbows and arbalests. Their rate of fire is so much higher that the Constant morale penalty they cause far outweighs their disadvantages. Also does this apply to the various bow armed cavalry? (That they are obsolete)

Same thing for catapults etc. I think they were still used up to and past the 15th Century. Plus it's nice to have a backup if you need to build artillery, fast. Or just a cheaper alternative.

Also the Vikings Royal Unit is Varangian Guards? Doesn't seem right, in Historical context or in gameplay. I would suggest make it either the Joms Viking Unit from VI (Maybe rename it 'Viking RoyalGuards' [imaginative eh] or leave as is). Or even better make it just plain Huscarles. Then at least you can replenish them. Instead of them having about 25 units of 1 guy by then end of the game. :(

Also (it may have just been me, was playing a tad late ), but I think i saw a few crusades going around from the same faction. Didn't it used to be limited to one at a time. Otherwise they become like an overpowered Jihad. Being able to go to any non-catholic province. Unlike Jihads which can only go to a previously old one.

But yeah. Good Job. I'll get on with playing either, Russians/Novgorod or English next. Just to see if the Player playing in a different place has a major effect on the outcome.

[Zarax]

Well game is in it's late stages now, probably easlily goona win the GA way. After taking out the English navy out they got a civil war and alot fo factions took advantage of it. Namely the Swiss and Egyptians. All in all nicely done.

Thanks, please note that the muslim factions aren't really tested especially in GA as I tend to be a cath/byz GD player

Just I can't build Archers/Desert Archers in Late? If that's correct I would reccomend you putting them back. As far as I know armies used them well on into the 15thCentury and well they are damned useful. I always have a few units even when I've got access to crosbows and arbalests. Their rate of fire is so much higher that the Constant morale penalty they cause far outweighs their disadvantages. Also does this apply to the various bow armed cavalry? (That they are obsolete)

I disabled vanilla archers/horse archers as their usefulness is minimal in late and it doesn't really help the AI to tech up when you have easily buildable units...
That said, you should be able to keep using most specialistic archers as they got composite bow which makes them even better (composite bow is halfway between vanilla and longbow with a very slight bonus to ROF).

I'll look and eventually fix the desert archers...

Same thing for catapults etc. I think they were still used up to and past the 15th Century. Plus it's nice to have a backup if you need to build artillery, fast. Or just a cheaper alternative.

Well, citadels outclasses most older artillery, i might leave trebs and mangonels if you think it's better,,,

Also the Vikings Royal Unit is Varangian Guards? Doesn't seem right, in Historical context or in gameplay. I would suggest make it either the Joms Viking Unit from VI (Maybe rename it 'Viking RoyalGuards' [imaginative eh] or leave as is). Or even better make it just plain Huscarles. Then at least you can replenish them. Instead of them having about 25 units of 1 guy by then end of the game. :(

Well, the Danish royal units are: Huscarles (early), EarlyVG (high) and VG (late).
It is a small gameplay compromise i made, not totally unrealistic as historically many ex BG soldiers came back home to finish their carreer, often serving in the same roles.

The issue you're encountering is due to the fact huscarles and VG are set as quite high tech level (like knights, just replace the horse breeder with swordsmith) and so the AI still got some problems with building them (optimization in progress)...

Also (it may have just been me, was playing a tad late ), but I think i saw a few crusades going around from the same faction. Didn't it used to be limited to one at a time. Otherwise they become like an overpowered Jihad. Being able to go to any non-catholic province. Unlike Jihads which can only go to a previously old one.

Crusades are hardcoded to be one per faction IIRC, however the AI is famous to cheat there... I thought it was solved as crusades and jihads got their prices doubled... Unfortunately I can't do much more on that side...

But yeah. Good Job. I'll get on with playing either, Russians/Novgorod or English next. Just to see if the Player playing in a different place has a major effect on the outcome.

Thanks again Beware that Novgorod GA doesn't work (fixed in next version but i'm having issues with the homelands file) and the Russians might be unbalanced as they received little testing.

The English are a good (though a bit overpowered as player) choice, especially if you like crusading...

[Patron]

it crashes...

it just shuts down and goes back to windows with no error message

I hope it doesn't do the same when i put the unmodded files back

[Patron]

actually don't worry, i know what i did wrong


i replaced the entire camp map file with the camp map for your mod, which doesn't have a load of other files in it, so i just took out the start position file and replaced it with the start pos folder in your camp map folder

o_O'

[Zarax]

Err... didn't the installer work?

It just replaces the needed files without touching anything else, or at least it worked that way until today...

[Zarax]

A new update is in progress, it should be available in a few hours...
If you got any quick fix/feature request this would be the best moment

[Zarax]

Update!

- Fixed some balancing issues

- Novgorod GA should work now

- Brought a "new" unit from VI

temp address: http://microsoftuse.temp.powweb.com/hosted/ZxMod.exe

[edyzmedieval]

Have you unlocked the following:

Early Varangian Guard
Dismounted Faris
Noble Footmen

BKB and VH have unlocked them in their mods....

[Zarax]

Have you unlocked the following:

Early Varangian Guard
Dismounted Faris
Noble Footmen

BKB and VH have unlocked them in their mods....

EVG - Yes, you can play with them as the Danish or the Byz (Katanks get those as dismounted units)

Dismounted Faris - You'll get them by dismounting the Faris (no need to get them as separate unit imho), they should be available in any battle

Dismounted Nobles - Tey aren't a separate unit (again, I've got my own policy on dismounted versions) but a number of cavalry can dismount into them, some in open battle too.

Dismounted Knights: You get them either the usual way (in sieges), as mercs or by using RK (who can dismount in open battle)

[edyzmedieval]

Zarax, how do I unlock them?!

Ealry Varangian Guard
Noble Footmen
.......

[Zarax]

Zarax, how do I unlock them?!

Ealry Varangian Guard
Noble Footmen
.......

EVG: You need the danish and swordsmith2 + royal court or byz and dismount kataphracts

Dismounted nobles: most heavy cav can dismount into them + lithuanian cav and polish retainers

foot knights: you can get them as mercs

If you want to build the units in different conditions just grab the gnome editor and play with the unit_prod settings.

[edyzmedieval]

I just wanna make them available for training!!!!

But the problem is, the animation and graphics are setted up?!

[Zarax]

You just have to mod the requisites then, it's 2 minutes work with Gnome editor...

[Zarax]

Admins, sorry for doing a bit of thread necromancy but it's for a good reason...

Beta 2.5 will be ready in a couple of days, I've been working on game balancing and AI with very promising results so far.
The game balance is now good enough to allow every faction to get a chance to expand under AI control, even the Turkish manages to survive the Early era...

But, surprise of surprises I finally managed to see the reason of why I started working on this mod:



It may not be realistic but isn't it great that the Danish AI managed to develop enough to do such a thing?

[BAD]

hehe. Good one. But I once sorted the danes problem by just giving them Huscarles as their Royal Unit. 50% of the time the would rampage all ofwestern Europe, the other 50% they would just act like normal. AI. . .

I was gonna start a russian game with it but I'll wait until you add the next version. Busy tweaking the XL mod myself atm.

[Zarax]

In my games the Danish never made serious moves until i gave them a few bonuses and a navy...
Now they acts like the Vikings in VI, also sharing a similar roster.

If you try the Russians watch out as they are quite harder to play as they loses the "free" FFK with Druzhina (now they gets FMAA) and halbs too.
To compensate this they gets the Rus Spearmen (that are like ILI) and a "new" heavy-ish cavalry unit (Mounted Nobles), making mercenaries a necessity more than a choice against the Horde...

[VikingHorde]

But, surprise of surprises I finally managed to see the reason of why I started working on this mod:

It may not be realistic but isn't it great that the Danish AI managed to develop enough to do such a thing?

Do you mean that danish crusades are not realistic? The Danes made one to Pomerania and one to estonia (I think). I remember seing a picture in a book with the danish king and archbishop Absalon overseing the destruction of pagan sculptures . I did not include crusades for the danes in my mod because I wanted to limit the amount of crusades going to the middle east .

[Zarax]

No, I meant Danish crusading to Egypt being unrealistic, I enabled all catholics to crusade and doubled the cost to balance it.

This way only the nations with a strong economy are able to launch such a costly enterprise, meaning that it is very rare that more than 2 factions are able to.

This however makes things more interesting as the player when turtling, as the Byzantines I've been hit by two crusades at once, one from HRE and one from the Huns...
Facing the Eggys on the other side they actually managed to break my defensive perimeter and required several fights to put them down... Unfortunately for them i always keep a stack of "royal guard" in my capital, meaning that as the Byz they faced 16 units of fully upgraded Katanks led by an 8 start prince.

Needless to say, 1500 crusaders met a sound defeat at the hands of 800 of my best troops while in Bulgaria my king regrouped and slaughtered the light armed Hungarians

[edyzmedieval]

No, I meant Danish crusading to Egypt being unrealistic, I enabled all catholics to crusade and doubled the cost to balance it.

This way only the nations with a strong economy are able to launch such a costly enterprise, meaning that it is very rare that more than 2 factions are able to.

This however makes things more interesting as the player when turtling, as the Byzantines I've been hit by two crusades at once, one from HRE and one from the Huns...

Good job making the Crusades a bit expensive.... Now we won't see 5-6 crusades going to Palestina or Tripoli.....

BTW, Huns=Hungarians?!

And also, why has Mithraandir unstickied the post?!