Scandinavia/Viking: Total War

[EvilNed]

Heyas. This is a new mod that I'm working on. So far, I've only got part of the campaign map done, but it's my intention to get the entire scandinavian area in there, as well as the baltics. Also, this will be a rather small mod. Don't expect fancy new models (because I'm not a modeler!) and don't expect any new, totally cool innovations. This will just be a small mod where you can play as one of 9 (or more) factions, and duke it out in the scandinavian countries.

Here's the list of factions so far:

The Danes
The Goths
The Sveas
The Norwiegans
The Rus
The Tasvetians
The Kvens
The Carelians
The Novgorodians/Republic of Novgorod

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...p_factions.jpg

As for the armies, this is how it's going to be done:

So far, there's three "groups" of units. The vikings, the finns and the christians.

The viking (Danes, Goths, Sveas, Norwiegans and Rus) unit rooster will consist off:

Thralls (Think "peasants")
Spearmen
Swordsmen
Axemen
Armoured Spearmen
Elite Swordsman/Axemen (depends on faction)
Huscarl (Best unit in the game)
Berserker
Archer
"Elite" Archer (Not the best archer in the game, but is better than regular archers and can fight in close combat)
Light Cavalry

The vikings have the best units in the game, and also the largest unit rooster. Their close combat units will be unmatched by any others. However, they lack heavy cavalry.

Here's the finnic rooster (Kvens, Tasvetians and Carelians):
Peasant
Spearmen
Axemen
Elite Axemen (Two handed)
Finnic Noble (Like huscarl. A kick ass infantry unit)
Archer
Elite Archer (Better than viking archers, but are poor in close combat)
Tracker (Kvens only. The best archer in the game. Can also hide anywhere)
Light Cavalry

Haven't figured out what the carelians or tasvetians will have for unique units yet.

The Christians (So far, only Novgorod):
Peasant
Spearmen
Carelian Mercenaries (axemen)
Armoured Swordsman
Light Cavalry
Nobles Heavy Cavalry (Only heavy cavalry unit in the game)
Archers
Slavic Skirmishers

There'll probably be one or two baltic factions as well. I'm not sure wether to give them finnic units, or something else. As you can see, however, there's only one single heavy cavalry unit in the game and only one faction has it. This means that it will be very infantry orientated.

Since I'm not a modeller, it means that I'm going to have to use the original, fantasyish barbarian models. I don't want too, but I can't see any other way out. This means there'll probably be a few barebreasted vikings running around, unfortunetly... I can do skins, tho.

What do you guys think? Any ideas? Anything that needs to be changed?

[Ianofsmeg16]

9 factions? with a map that small you could fit in less well known tribes...or you could extend the map to include britain, to add the effect of norse raids and then you could have saxons, scots, irish, manx, picts and britons...just a thought keep it up though, sounds like a good idea!

[Aldaceleb]

It's Tavastians, not tasvetians

[EvilNed]

Originally, I had the map extended to include britain and iceland, but the RTW engine functions so that a certain percent of the map HAS to be landmass, or else the campaign will CTD. The extension of the map made it so there was a huge amount of sea (as both iceland and england are pretty small, and "far away" from Scandinavia).

So I had to remake the map with only scandinavia, but instead I extended it slightly further south and east.

Aldaceleb, sorry about that. I don't know why I misspelt it, I have the correct name in my sources. :P

EDIT: Oh, forgot totally about the other factions. Well, I was thinking about adding the sami, but that would be kind ridiculous, really, considering they never fought anyone, and were nomads. :P

But yeah, I know I need more factions, because currently, there's alot of unowned land. Perhaps another viking faction that's in northern sweden/norway. Also, something in the baltics. The lithaunians, most likely.

That should bring the factions up to 11. Also, the Republic of Novgorod will instead be the Kievans, because at this time (793) Novgorod was part of the Kievan empire. Kievans is also easier to put in plural form...

[King Ragnar]

If your really struglling for a faction and are not goin for complete historical accuracy, you could have the Jomsvikings.

[Kagemusha]

What if you would include Northern Germany and Poland to it that would bring more diversity to troop types?About Finnish troop types.It will be wery hard to make those authentic because there is very little information about them in history.

[EvilNed]

I'd rather make a tribe playable, that just making one up. I'd like to stick as close to historical accuracy as possible. Note: "as possible". :p

As for Poland and germany, remember: It would take heavy modelling to create man-at-arms and knights, and I'm not equipped for that (Otherwise, the HRE would be in the game as Friesland and Saxony is).

I intend to release this when I'm ready, and later release an "expansion" once the expansion pack is released. This expansion will feature larger map, more units and possibly more factions. Hopefully, I could incorporate the expansions religion system into it as well!

[Aldaceleb]

Here's the finnic rooster (Kvens, Tasvetians and Carelians):
Peasant
Spearmen
Axemen
Elite Axemen (Two handed)
Finnic Noble (Like huscarl. A kick ass infantry unit)
Archer
Elite Archer (Better than viking archers, but are poor in close combat)
Tracker (Kvens only. The best archer in the game. Can also hide anywhere)
Light Cavalry
What do you guys think? Any ideas? Anything that needs to be changed?

There were no Finnic peasants that time, they were tribesmen. Finnic tribesmen used spear as a most common weapon and they used both throwing spears and thrusting spear.

You should replace axemen with swordsmen since that was more used weapon by the Finns.

Indeed there were no "nobles" in Finland at that time - there were just richer men. Finnic "Nobles" had silver decorated axes sometimes.

Finnic Light Cavalry should be very bad - finnic horses were small, very expensive and Finns didn't really fight mounted at that time.

[EvilNed]

Alda, I know about the horses, but that is to put some amount of mobility to them. Vikings rarely used horses either. So both the fins and the vikings get light cavalry.

The peasant unit will be a spear unit, just to make it clear. Doesn't really matter what we call it (I tribesmen is fine), but it'll have the same equippment as the rest of the peasant units: Spear and shield.

As for swordsmen and axemen, I'm not sure. I do think axemen would fit better, but if you can find a source that says finns mostly used swords, I'll change it to swordsmen!

There have been findings of rich, decorated graves in finland. I'm not saying that these were nobles, but they were obviously people who could afford better equipment. Noble sounds better than "Finnic Swordsman, who-is-slightly-richer-than-the-other-swordsman-unit!" :p . But if you could find a nice name for them, that'd be killer.

[Rodion Romanovich]

If you want to take part in making a viking related mod, you could always check out the mod I and several others are working on here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=106

Our mod will feature a larger map (covering all of Europe and some more) and is about 843 AD to 1099 AD, so it's a little different from yours but if you're interested in our idea and have any modding skills you could always send me a private message and perhaps join our mod. We've already gotten quite far (research tech trees and unit lists about 70%, skinning and modelling about 5-10%, campaign map around 10-20 percent) and have a fairly large team already but more mod team members are always desirable.

[Aldaceleb]

Umm...as a native finn I know MANY sources of finns using swords more than axes, but they are all in Finnish, so you would not understand. Finns didn't use metal armour or metal helmets, but many had leather armour. Yes, there were finnic horsemen(I was wrong earlier) armed with sword and two spears.
You could propably cut out the two-handed axemen and axemen. More historical units should be swordsmen, two-handed swordsmen and skirmisher.
Every warrior also carried throwing spear.
All finland belonged to finnic tribes also, there were no "Rus" in modern finland.

[EvilNed]

The rus are the "fantasy" part of the game, really. I know they shouldn't be there (and if they ever were there, it was later in time), but I desperatly need the factions :p If you really think so, I might delete them.

I'll be sure to add a skirmisher unit to the finns. And swordsmen instead of axemen! Thanks for the info. Also, you got a better name for the nobles? I'd like to use as authentic names as possible.

[King of Atlantis]

This sounds pretty fun, but it looks just like a miny version of age of viking and fanatics total war. But, hey if you want to make your own smaller scope mod then thats cool.

Good luck!

[Kagemusha]

Umm...as a native finn I know MANY sources of finns using swords more than axes, but they are all in Finnish, so you would not understand. Finns didn't use metal armour or metal helmets, but many had leather armour. Yes, there were finnic horsemen(I was wrong earlier) armed with sword and two spears.
You could propably cut out the two-handed axemen and axemen. More historical units should be swordsmen, two-handed swordsmen and skirmisher.
Every warrior also carried throwing spear.
All finland belonged to finnic tribes also, there were no "Rus" in modern finland.

Im also from Finland . And what i have read from history studies Finns used as primary weapons Spear,javelin,bow and axe only the more powerful or rich men could afford swords.And in that point of time There were three finnish main tribes:The Finns,The Tavastians,The Karelians.but while finnish troops looks almost like tribesmanlike we have to remember that they could really cope with the vikings.example at 1187 fins sacked Sigtuna the capital swea and killed Swedens arcbishob and jarl.

[Aldaceleb]

Im also from Finland . And what i have read from history studies Finns used as primary weapons Spear,javelin,bow and axe only the more powerful or rich men could afford swords.And in that point of time There were three finnish main tribes:The Finns,The Tavastians,The Karelians.but while finnish troops looks almost like tribesmanlike we have to remember that they could really cope with the vikings.example at 1187 fins sacked Sigtuna the capital swea and killed Swedens arcbishob and jarl.

Sword was quite common weapon that time. Richer men used swords and axes.

[Pewe]

EvilNed: Good Idea with a mod about this period of time and part of the word.
But why is not Åland (i dont know the name of it in English, but i guess you are from scandinavia, otherwise you schould not know so much about the history i guess).