Mediaeval Auctoriso: Update 1

[shifty157]

Ok guys. I managed to put together an update for you like i promised. Im sorry i cant tell you as much about our plans as i had hoped i would be able to because im very excited at how things are shaping up. Regardless i did manage to argue my way into telling you as much as i could. Have fun. We have alot more to tell you as the months go by.

For those of you who dont know Mediaeval Auctoriso (MA) is a historical accuracy mod being developed for MTW2 but it has a large twist. We realize that the TW series is all about making your own history and therefore things that happen in the game never happened in history. And so we've set out to create a more perfect historical mod based not only on what we know about history but also what COULD HAVE HAPPENED in history. What if the Irish had conquered the Turks? What if the Moors had pushed into France? How would their armies change and adapt? These are questions that simple history can not tell us and that a simple history mod does not deal with. We on the other hand prefer to tackle these questions of 'what if' and provide answers in game. This mod is made to put history in your hands so that you can create it on your own and not be confined by it.

This is obviously the first public update for MA. We've spent the last few weeks throwing around ideas and debating features to add and how to implement them and we're coming up with a pretty impressive lineup that we think youll rather enjoy.

Firstly and perhaps most importantly we have our campaign map which has been researched and designed by our mapper Anti_Strunt. For now this map adheres to the limitations of the RTW engine (most specifically in the number of provinces). This will very easily change once we learn more about the limitations of MTW2.


There are also plenty of core features that we have lined up and relatively fleshed out.

Government System
One of our major features is our government system. How will you choose to rule each individual province? Keep the province under your thumb and rule it personally or perhaps youd prefer to contract out the ruling to a noble or to the church or let it rule itself. All of these systems provide vastly varying pros and cons as well as differences in what buildings can be constructed and what units can be recruited and even how units are recruited.

Cultural Conversion
Every province you capture will need to be assimilated into your faction. This is without doubt a lengthy and expensive porcess that you can choose to undertake or not to undertake. The entire process could take you anywhere from a couple of turns up to many years depending on how similar your culture is with that of the captured province's culture. The degree of assimilation is entirely up to you. Allow the province to maintain its previous culture intact or attempt to crush their culture and replace it with your own or anywhere in between. The degree to which you travel down this process will have a huge impact in what buildings you can construct and what units you can recruit.

Regional Units
As your empire epands to the various edges of the map youll find your armies become more and more diverse as you recruit regionally specific units to fill out your ranks. So much so that you may find that your army on one side of the map is completely different from another of your armies on the other side both in the units it contains and the tactics it uses.

Adaptive Units
Not only will you find regional specific units to recruit as you march your armies across the map but youll also find that your units will adapt to their surroundings. As you bring new and different cultures into your empire you will find that your generals will take units from the new culture and blend them into your faction's military system. These new units are truly part of neither culture as they exist somewhere halfway between the two cultures and are wholely unique. Youll also find that your armies will adapt themselves to better survive in the new climates youll encounter in your conquests.

We hope you enjoyed this preview into the core features that will be included in MA and make our mod unique. Obviously there is still quite a bit more that we are planning and discussing. There are even some things that may astound you but for now we're keeping our hands covered until we learn more about MTW2 and its limitations. If you have any comments or questions you can post them on our official forum. You can find our official Org thread here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=61488&page=3

We are always looking for more people to join the team. Dont let the fact that MTW2 isnt out yet dispel you. There is still plenty to do and to plan and these intial phases are arguably the most important.


I hope this update gave you a better sense of what we're trying to do with MA. I know i found it difficult to restrain myself from describing everything we're currently thinking of. Everythign at once would probably be fatal though. Its an exciting time and MTW2 isnt even out yet.

Have fun.
- shifty

[Ianofsmeg16]

Great preview Shifty, so how do you plan on accomplishing the 'adaptive unit's idea you have?

[shifty157]

Great preview Shifty, so how do you plan on accomplishing the 'adaptive unit's idea you have?

Thanks.

There will be combination of different methods depending on the reason that the new unit comes into existence. Is it because of a new climate? Has the unit been absorbed by the new faction's military and been standardized? For now we're still debating on exactly how to implement these and although i could start telling you now i think itd be a better idea to go into more detail in a later update (probably our next update) when we have everything figured out for certain.

As far as adaptive units go, I can safely tell you that what ive mentioned does not even scratch the surface. This feature will go alot deeper and be alot more important to the mod once all is said and done (even to the point of changing the way in which you play TW games). But again thats a topic for another update (and believe me it will probably need its own update to describe everything).

For now we are thinking up our features based on the RTW engine since so little known about MTW2 and what it will allow. We know all of this will work in RTW and so its safe to assume that it will work in MTW2.

[beauchamp]

Awsome! Do you need any help with Islamic/African factions?

[shifty157]

Awsome! Do you need any help with Islamic/African factions?

Always. Just make a post on our forums with what you can help us out with.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

so which factions are going to be included so far? and what factions would you include if CA increases the hardcoded limit?
this is sounding interesting and i hope the adapting units thing works out... it has always been something i wanted to see work

GMM

[shifty157]

so which factions are going to be included so far? and what factions would you include if CA increases the hardcoded limit?

Well for now we're simply planning within the limits we know. No point in planning on soething that may not happen.

You can see the starting factions and their locations on the map. We're refraining from releasing an actual list of names for the time being although im sure you could easily guess most of them.

[Meneldil]

If you plan to give only 4 provinces to the French faction, you can aswell give only 1 to germany, 1 to Italy.
I perfectly understand this map is just a rough planning, given that we know almost nothing about MTW2 engine, but I'm kinda wondering why most people seem to think France was the only feudalized kingdom, in which the king had little power over is retainers, while the same was true almost everywhere.

Another French-centered whining : France (or what would become France) was probably the 3rd most populated area in the world. Given that MTW2 will most likely work with cities and population, having France with way less provinces than Germany or Russia is also weird. I know it's easiest to make RTW/MTW maps based on feudal/administrative divisions, but since population and growth rate will probably have an impact on the gameplay, I guess it would have to be taken into account on the map.

I know it's a bit early to rant, but it had to be said

[Ianofsmeg16]

Thanks.

There will be combination of different methods depending on the reason that the new unit comes into existence. Is it because of a new climate? Has the unit been absorbed by the new faction's military and been standardized? For now we're still debating on exactly how to implement these and although i could start telling you now i think itd be a better idea to go into more detail in a later update (probably our next update) when we have everything figured out for certain.

As far as adaptive units go, I can safely tell you that what ive mentioned does not even scratch the surface. This feature will go alot deeper and be alot more important to the mod once all is said and done (even to the point of changing the way in which you play TW games). But again thats a topic for another update (and believe me it will probably need its own update to describe everything).

For now we are thinking up our features based on the RTW engine since so little known about MTW2 and what it will allow. We know all of this will work in RTW and so its safe to assume that it will work in MTW2.

ooh I'm even more excited now, a couple more questions.

Looking at that map, are there any factions that will definatly be added once M2TW's map limitations come out? and...

Do I see the Isle of Man as a seperate province?

[shifty157]

If you plan to give only 4 provinces to the French faction, you can aswell give only 1 to germany, 1 to Italy.
I perfectly understand this map is just a rough planning, given that we know almost nothing about MTW2 engine, but I'm kinda wondering why most people seem to think France was the only feudalized kingdom, in which the king had little power over is retainers, while the same was true almost everywhere.

Another French-centered whining : France (or what would become France) was probably the 3rd most populated area in the world. Given that MTW2 will most likely work with cities and population, having France with way less provinces than Germany or Russia is also weird. I know it's easiest to make RTW/MTW maps based on feudal/administrative divisions, but since population and growth rate will probably have an impact on the gameplay, I guess it would have to be taken into account on the map.

I know it's a bit early to rant, but it had to be said

Its quite alright. We appreciate the feedback.

France is only four provinces because there was no cohesion between the king and the various other nobles at this time. France will have to be unified under a single rule as happened historically by conquest. But dont worry about france being overrun in the early game. The other factions will have plenty of other things to worry about.

We planned out the regions (most especially in the HRE) with emergent factions, civil wars, and rebellions in mind. This small thing made it a necessity to have such a large number of provinces. Thats said i do think the number of provinces will be lowered in this area.

Looking at that map, are there any factions that will definatly be added once M2TW's map limitations come out? and...

Do I see the Isle of Man as a seperate province?

Well there are a few factions that we have considered. But I dont want to give answers to this because it may not happen. Once we find out about everything then we will inform you but i dont want to start listing things off when theres a good chance it wont happen. People may get annoyed or complain and id like to avoid that.

Im not sure where the Isle of Man is.

[NagatsukaShumi]

I don't believe the Isle of Man will be a province no Ian .

France is less provinces after some discussion, HRE is all there due to certain plans we have to make it far harder than it would appear to be on the map.

I'm trying to reduce what I say as more will follow in subsequent updates for you guys.

[Sirron]

Hi, the map and all you mentioned looks great.

However, the inclusion of Bohemia into HRE seem a bit ahistorical to me, as you may be well aware.

Bohemia, even in early Middle Ages enjoyed the independence which was quite unique, despite being part of HRE. The emperors rarely had means by which to directly influence choice of dukes/later kings of Bohemia.

It seem s to me that if you consider Bohemia the part of HRE you may well add Hungary or even Poland to papacy, as they were both officially owing allegiance to Papacy (apostolic kings of Hungary, etc...).

There were some earlier talks on this matter especially by Czech MTW fans and if you are really keen on historical matters it would be only wise to either at least separate Bohemia and Moravia from HRE and give it either neutral status (so it can be contested by e.g. Polish as it was the cause under Boleslaw Chrobry in first quarter of 11 century) or to make it independent power (reflecting the strength of Premyslid, whose Boleslav I (ruled until 999) controlled vast empire reaching to upper Hungary, southern Poland deep into west Ukraine - territory of Upper Bug, or much later Luxembourg dynasty, whose Charles IV became the emperor and shifted the centre of power and interest from German territories to his beloved Prague, etc.

Uh, longer one this time.

[shifty157]

There was a good deal of debate about Bohemia (and a few other factions that are in a similar position). Due to the limit on the unmber of factions we decided not to include them as a starting faction. But they will be represented in the game. Not to worry.

[shifty157]

Thanks for the support. Its much appreciated.

Just as a mini-update to keep you guys updated as to our progress. Weve now more or less figured out how all of our core features (governments, adaptive units, etc) will work. With this groundwork laid we're transitioning into researching the various factions.

Ill try to put together a full update for you by the end of May. It will most likely include more details on our core features. I realize that the last update was sufficiently vague and i apologize but please realize that it is difficult to give concrete facts when we dont know a thing about the game we intend to mod. In addition the update will include a rundown of one of the factions.

Until then please post your comments/questions/suggestions/whatever. Ill be around to give answers along with other members of the team. You cna post here or for the quickest response you should register and post on our official forums. You can reach them at: http://s15.invisionfree.com/Byzantiu...p?showforum=13