Northern Europe?

[The Emperor]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum and a complete modding novice (I made the Swiss playable, that's all) but I'm definatly not new to MTW and VI. Anyway, I was kinda wonderin if anyone's working on/thinking about/heard of a purely Northern European campaign? Like the Teutonic Crusades and Scanian Wars?

[Deutschordensritter]

There was Fury of the Northmen, but I think it was about Viking raids on Normandy or something like that. Then 30 year Wars, which I think moved to RTW, but its still without campaign.

I'm too very interested about any campaign mod that would focus on Northern Europe, but my modding skills and dedication to such projects isn't just quite up there, so I just play games instead of try to create them ;)

It's also too bad that these otherwise brilliant modders doesn't seem to share their work much to each other. In other words: what's the point spend time to create the new faction shields, for example, to every MTW mod while they have already made by others. More cooperation between the modders could really create some great übermods...think of mixing BKB Supermod, XL and Medieval Mod together!

Yes, very offtopic, but I just had to say that :)

[The Emperor]

Thirty Years War sounds good, but I guess you can get all of that from Pike and Musket. What I was thinkin of was a medieval Scandinavia - Baltic campaign.

[edyzmedieval]

If you could include Lithuania and Novgorod and the Teutonic Knights especially, you got yourself a deal!

I'll help you.

[The Emperor]

I read somewhere that the Danish Kings supported the Knights of St. John, so you could be in for Danish Crusaders too . Maybe if I can get the software, modding knowledge and maybe some more experirence I could start. I've already done quite a bit of researching into this area and period, but I'm sure with some it could be a baltic bonanza

[edyzmedieval]

Done deal!

What material do you need?! And also, I know something about MTW modding(don't get me into modyfying AI or Unit Animations cuz I suck at that)....

[The Emperor]

I think I'll need something to make a map of the Baltic and Scandinavian regions. That should be it, I guess if any units are added the exisiting units icons can just be tweaked. But after the hordes of new units VI gave, I doubt that would be necessary.

On the other hand there are things like faction shields for the new factions (Swedes, Lithuanians, Tetonic Order, Norwegians, maybe Prussians, Samogitians, Finns and Sword Brethren).

[The Emperor]

If anyone knows of any information/links to sites about the troops used in the Baltic at this time (and by whom) it would be much appreciated if you post them, thanks.

[The Emperor]

Does anyone know what graphics programs I need to create maps, faction shields etc.? Where can I get them. (I tried LMM but I can't get it to work, maybe it's me )

[edyzmedieval]

Well,

For viewing and possibly editing maps, you need Irfan View www.irfanview.com
It's useful also for viewing graphics files like .tga

Another required tool is Paint Shop Pro or other program to modify the graphics of the game.

Use Ultimate Paint to view and also modify .lbm files used for unit graphics. I made many new units using this tools and it's a good source of fun also

LMM is a very difficult but very useful program and it takes some time to understand it. It's the basic tool for creating maps and editing them.

You can find all these tools at the Downloads section of the site.
For Paint Shop Pro, go to www.downloads.com

Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Eddy

[The Emperor]

What program can create/edit .BIFs? Secondly, whatexactly are .BIFs used for?

[edyzmedieval]

Also,

About Bif's, you can use the ReadBif22 to view bifs. In the Tools section also.

Bif's are used for small and low resolution images like the images for trade goods and resources.

[Aenlic]

I'm at the very beginning stages of making a 30 Years War campaign. It'll start slightly earlier than the standard 1618, perhaps sometime after the Peace of Augsburg in 1555.

The main map difficulty will be making a completely new map of Northern and Central Europe, which will also have to include areas for the Austrian Hapsburgs and their opponents, mainly the Danes, the Swedes, the Dutch, the Spanish and the French in their various small territories. Even the English King, James i, got involde at one point, allowing his rabidly Protestant subjects to form volunteer armies. These English volunteers even managed to control and hold a fortified town in the Palatinate against Spinola at one point.

The Dutch held most of the lowlands and were in open revolt against their Spanish overlords, but the Spanish still had terrorities in Belgium and Northern Italy at the beginning of the war. The Danes and the Swedes (mainly Magdeburg) had terroritory in Northern Germany as well, at this time. The Bohemians and Moravians were in conflict with their Hapsburg rulers in Austria. The actual 30 Years War period was begun in 1618 by the nearly simultaneous invasion of the Calvinist Lower Palatinate by Spain just as the Protestant Bohemians rose in open revolt against Matthias II, the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor in Austria, with Bohemia openly crowning the Calvinist Frederick V of that same Palatinate which Spain had just invaded as their king.

The most severe roadblock is the religions; since it will consist entirely of Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist. It might be pssible to get away with just Catholic and Calvinist, since they were the two main antagonists in the war; but the Lutherans are important later in the war, as the source of the Lutheran Swedish King Gustav's invasion and the Lutherans in Saxony under the Elector of Saxony. I'm not sure that Orthodox and Pagan can be modded sufficiently to turn them into the appropriate religions with the appropriate fervor. The Catholics with inquisitors will certainly work well enough. Perhaps grand inquisitors can be used as the Calvinist versions.

It's certainly a period perfect for MTW modding, with all of the various small political terroritories torn even smaller by religious divisions. Plenty of interesting heroes as well, such as Wallenstein, Hohenloe, Tilly and Count Thurn.

I also want to include Wes's homelands concept from his MedMod campaigns, as it would be essentially impossible for the Spanish, as an example, to recruit and train their Catholic forces in an entirely Calvinish conquered province like the Palatinate of the Rhine.

I'm experimenting right now with the religions to see if it's possible to remake the Orthodox and Pagans into Calvinists and Lutherans.

[cegorach]

It sounds so similar to Pike & Musket TW to me

[Aenlic]

Well P&M is a bit more expansive than I was wanting, including all of the same areas as the original M:TW map. For a strictly 30 Years War scenario, the Mediterranean and steppes provinces wouldn't be needed, allowing for smaller detail of provinces within the area of Germany itself. In addition, the M:TW version of P&M is in a .rar format which I can't seem to download. When it's in a zip format, I'd love to try it.

[cegorach]

It is sad you can't try it, because you will find a lot of data you need there.

BTW - I remade Orthodoxes to Protestants and it is pretty easy.