Chivalry interview - Modding Roundup special

**Epistolary Richard** · 05-26-2006, 23:09

Chivalry Total War is a historical modification of the game Rome: Total War. Its aim is to recreate the historical period of medieval Europe from roughly 1072-1500. The original purpose of the mod was to make a small medieval multiplayer mod that tried to capture the gameplay of Medieval: Total War. Since then the mod has tuned into a Total Conversion, meaning that all aspects of the original game (campaign, custom battles, historical battles etc.) are now converted into Chivalry's medieval setting.

Find out more about Chivalry, including downloading the beta here. At the time of posting, the beta has had over 10,000 downloads - including this interviewer

militiaman and alpaca are co-leaders of the Chivalry team

That means we're the guys who have to organize all the stuff and are yelled at if something's messed up...

- and they were kind enough to take time out to talk to us.

Chivalry has been a forerunner amongst the non-Rome total conversion mods. It was one of the first to have released a custom battles pack and is now one of the first to release a single player campaign. What have been the greatest challenges in making a non-Rome total conversion?

The single huge problem with making a mod for another time period is that you have to change practically anything - a task that we haven't yet finished - to fit the new timeframe. You can't just use the existing trait system (although the one I'm currently working on isn't in the beta), you have to recreate all models and units, you have to work on the UI, change the battlemap buildings,...

It's a huge step to use a completely new campaign on your first beta with a campaign. Being of course medieval this map had to be made from scratch, so if there were any bugs whatsoever they would cause problems later on, and still do.

When someone plays the mod for the first time, what's the most immediate thing that will grab them?

When they first start it up, the background. Well, it is very different tongue.gif Some of the campaign graphics should blow them away, especially if they haven't seen the screens. In custom battles I think the new units look pretty impressive too.

If he installed the soundpack probably the music, otherwise it probably depends on the player. If he plays a battle the units will capture him, if he immediately heads to the campaign he'll first see our nice battlemap settlement models.

In terms of the 'feel' of the game, what other differences from vanilla RTW will a player see?

This was the most exciting thing when I got the dev beta, it feels completely changed. I think graphics are a large part of it and I don't think there are many RTW mods out there that you could compare it to.

We changed large parts of the UI, this is probably the most obvious thing. As I already mentioned, the units also make for a definitely medieval feeling.

How much of the mod is recreating MTW using the Rome engine and how much has it developed beyond the original MTW?

I think originally it was simply recreating the medieval feel of MTW, now we've probably gone past that point. How far can probably be judged by the community.

Well I haven't played MTW for a long time, but there is e.g. the division into early, high and late eras, as well as some units. There are also huge differences though, both in campaign and battles. It might be best if you found that out yourself by playing the beta.

Are the contents we saw in the custom battle pack pretty much the same as they are in the Open Beta - or have they been redone at all?

No, almost everything is changed from the old custom battle beta. There aren't many old units that haven't been reskinned, and we've added many, many more. The campaign of course has been redone. There are many new graphics that have been added that were never in the old one.

Most of the content has changed, there are a lot more units, the rest have undergone important changes. The balancing has also been changed a lot.

Amongst its other firsts, Chivalry was also the first mod to show us a full settlement from a completely different period with the famous Motte & Bailey and Castles & Sieges preview. Will these buildings be in the open beta? Are there more included?

No, unfortunately with the BI conversion the buildings were not the same, so we lost all of our castles and siege battles. It's a real shame too because great progress was being made, and I can honestly say that even though they were nowhere near finished, playing those sieges were some of the most fun experiences in RTW.

I hope I will be able to include Adherbal's great building models in the next patch, which I plan to release a month from now or so. There might also be some more buildings, namely eastern ones, that we will get from a cooperation with Crusader: TW and some Russian building models from one of our team members (though we don't have enough yet for a full settlement).

How did you come to determine which factions should be included and where did you find your most useful avenues of research?

All except Bohemia were decided during Adherbal's time, so that effected it majorly. Most important was how unique they would be in a custom/MP battle. That's not to say we threw out historical accuracy though, they were also required to be a major player during our 3 eras. I wasn't around when the bulk of them were decided, but I'm guessing we just took a look at MTW's list and then debated them with the community.

I think the mod was oriented a lot on M:TW first. The decisions were more or less based on the MP diversity the factions were going to add and in the case of the last faction that was added (Bohemia), it was helped by the initiative of some fans who offered to create some content for the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Where did you derive your faction symbols from? Were they from MTW or did you look at other sources?

Just about all were made a long while ago. I don't think you need MTW to find the European symbols, but it was slightly harder for Muslim factions.

What's your approach been to the slave faction? Does the way it work fit in well with your period or have you had to make adjustments?

Besides from becoming our rebels in the game they are also our "Independent Nations". These are our minor factions that couldn't be included with our official ones. I think this makes more sense than thinking of them as barbarian tribes.

It does not fit really well, but it didn't in R:TW either. While there are still bandits and pirates in the medieval ages, the rebel factions are quite passive, which is a shame.

What part of the mod are you most proud of?

Hard to say, but I think the new graphics are pretty impressive at first, and they deserve it.

That we made a release. No, honestly, I think the most important part of the mod is its units. The models and skins done by our team members are really some of the best.

The AI has always been one of the biggest 'unmoddable' areas - nevertheless modders have constantly experimented with how to make the game more of challenge by increasing AI stats, experience, funds, improving formations and adjusting the map. What's your perspective on supporting the AI to make the game more challenging and what measures, if any, have you included?

Right now we only included scripts that help small AI factions, but as I stated earlier, we will try to improve gameplay in the future. It will never be our primary concern though, because we are, after all, focusing on multiplayer battles where you simply have no AI.

We've basically been setting the foundations. Hopefully we can try and see any AI problems with the campaign map after the beta, and I wouldn't mind some new unit formations.

What one thing would you have most liked to include if everything was moddable and time and resources were limitless?

Almost certainly the sieges.

I always enjoyed playing campaigns, so I would go for the AI. Being a bit more realistic about it I'd have liked a more flexible scripting system to play around with.

Some expected that, once the custom battles pack was released, the single player campaign would be following hard on its heels. Why was there such a gap between the two?

There are a few reasons to that. Firstly, after the 027 beta was released Adherbal was really the only one working on it. Yes, there were skinners and an animator, but apart from that he was doing everything. Even when more people like myself and alpaca came along he was still mostly doing all the work. Secondly, we set our goals a bit too high. We've actually had a working campaign since August last year, even earlier, it's just that we thought we could do alot more than what we have now. And finally, I think there was (and still is) a general lack of team members, particularly coders. It's insanely hard to find someone who can do what would normally be an easy job.

Most of the time Adherbal and militiaman were working alone on the mod, and Adherbal couldn't devote all his time to the campaign map either. This situation hasn't much changed unfortunately, but I hope the beta will attract more developers so that we can get a larger team and speed the process of including the rest of the features. We also converted to using 1.5/1.6 for the mod and the -mod switch which did not exactly speed the process either.

With the customs pack, Chivalry developed an association with the multiplayer community. Will that still be the case after the open beta? Are the interests of multiplayer community different from the single player community? How did you go about reconciling them?

Firstly, yes, our interests still are with the multiplayer community. Even after Adherbal left we didn't want to give up an element of the mod that shined. The campaign probably isn't just something to attract MP players like it used to be, but we are still highly dedicated in that area as you will see by our sub-mod policy. The interests of the MP and SP communities really aren't that different when you see that they face similar problems. In RTW I think both would've liked things such as unit balancement, slower and longer battles and overall battle balancing. I can't really think of a situation where we've had to decide something that would effect the other in a bad way.

I hope that this will still be the case. We are mainly balancing our units for a great multiplayer experience. And I hope we will be able to attract enough good players who are tired of the Roman timeframe to get a thriving community going, and organise tournaments. The interests of the MP community differ insofar from those of the SP community, that they only have the units to play around with. Balancing plays a major role, as does compatibility (which means that we won't release a patch more often than maybe once a month, unless there's a major problem). Unit diversity is also important, although I hope to still improve Chivalry in that regard with the public beta. Another problem especially for us is the difference between the eras (I guess you know that our mod will be, like Medieval:TW, divided into three eras: early, high and late) - later units are usually better, which makes balancing even more difficult.

One outcome of that was that Chivalry took the unusual step of refusing to grant permission for sub-modifications. Is that still the case now - will it continue to be so with the release of the Open Beta?

No, it's not the case anymore. We have adopted a rather more open approach in regard to submods, while still keeping a rather restrictive license (you'll find that in our beta readme). Basically, we don't allow any release of changed Chivalry content, unless we approve of it beforehand. To improve this process, we plan (together with the Strategic Command Center) to open a submod section in our forums that will allow submods to "have a home", and puts us in a position where we are able to control submods to some extent, and of course to advise them if need be. We also plan to divise submods into non-MP-relevant submods and MP-relevant submods as we have discovered that the game actually only checks for the compatibility of the files that are actually needed for MP games (which unfortunately includes the campaign map, I still have to test which files exactly), which are pretty freely allowed but probably rare; and MP-relevant submods that we will handle rather more restrictively and that will have to prove that they either won't attract any MP gamers or will be able to sustain a large enough MP community of their own (which might be hard without huge changes).

Did you collaborate with any other mods in any way, such as sharing animations or other work?

With Adherbal working on Europa Barbarorum he was able to get some research and the 2-handed swordsmen animation. A couple of their historians also helped confirm a few things.

We have some other cooperations going, exchanging models with Caius Britannicus, buildings with Crusader: TW, and maybe some I forgot

One of the criticisms of RTW from experienced gamers has been the lack of ability of the AI at both strategic and tactical level. How have you tried to make that a more satisfying experience? Especially in the late game?

I think you will agree that there's not exactly much that we can do about it. In this beta, we don't have anything much done, but I'll try to get a formation modder to make some formations for us which will hopefully improve the tactical thing a bit, and I will try to create some scripts that make it harder for the player on a strategical level. I don't know how much time I'll be able to spend on that though.

After the release I think we'll take a look at how the AI performs on the campaign map and how we can improve that. I wouldn't mind getting some new formations for custom battles either.

How has the community reacted to the mod? Did you find it difficult to keep their interest during the long development period?

Well, the activity has gone down a fair bit this year, but I was very surprised to see our hits when we announced a release. I can't blame them, it would be very hard to stick to a mod for that long, so I just hope the new beta will spark some more discussion and growth in the community.

At first, there wasn't much of an interest, then there were some months where the community was quite active. In the last months, interest dropped to a depressing level because we didn't deliver, but I think the public beta will wake that again, and of course everybody will like to play some Chivalry because of the announcement of MTW2

How did the announcement of MTW2 affect the team? How and why did you come to the decision to keep going?

Well, the mod team was quite demotivated at the time, which culminated in Adherbal's stepping down as mod leader after the announcement of MTW2. This led to a short period of uncertainty, but then Militiaman and I decided to step in and continue. But we are still suffering from a severe lack of manpower because we only have a handful of people working on the mod right now. At the same time I think that MTW2 might be a chance for this mod, because the hype will draw attention to us

And maybe there will be some people afterwards who will convert this into a realism mod, although I'll probably not have part in that personally (at least not in an important position).

It didn't really change my own perspective, but Adherbal left as soon as it was officially announced. This was a very big blow, but we looked at where we were and decided we could still release something of great quality, so we set to work on that. The main factor I think was that we had this awesome mod and simply wanted to release it.

How did you guys come to the team?

After the custom battle release a year ago I was looking at the campaign included with it. I really wanted to at least get it working to some level, so I looked into descr_strat editing. I announced that I would release a little add-on for anyoe else wishing to play some sort of a SP campaign. Next thing I know I'm agreeing to make the brand new Chivalry campaign map, having never done anything like it before.

I joined the team not that long ago, maybe six months. I came on the team because I did some research on unit voice editing for Adherbal to include the MTW voices.

What's your own personal history of modding? Other games? Other mod teams?

Well I don't have much of it really, I only started modding maybe 7 or 8 months ago, and I didn't mod much on other games (lately I was doing a bit of Civ4 modding for my personal enjoyment). I worked together with the Imperium: Total War team for some time, but I hardly have time to do any work for them anymore. I'm also on the Mediaeval Auctoriso team, a planned mod for MTW2. And there's always some communication going on between me and people from other teams where we can exchange experiences and ideas, and help out a bit from time to time (for example ROP, NTW2, RNJ, RTR, Imperium, Byzantium, Crusader)

I'm only 14 now so I haven't had a lot of time to spend with games. I've been mostly focusing on RTW for the past 2 years, the other games I just play and download their mods.

Can you give a general idea of how much farther there is to go before a complete version?

I was about to make up a good anecdote for that but I went to the toilet and forgot it. Anyways, this mod is far from finished, and if we don't get a serious manpower upgrade, it probably will never be finished - at least not the campaign part. The battles part has better chances of being finished because a lot of work has already been done on high and late era units.

Thank you both and best of luck - we hope the resurgence of interest in Chivalry continues and we see a lot more

Keep up with the latest news on Chivalry in their info & updates thread in the Forge.

**Lord Adherbal** · 05-27-2006, 09:28

nice interview mates, and thanks for going through the trouble of taking all those screenshots ER !

**Dol Guldur** · 05-27-2006, 09:55

Compliments from the FA:TW Team on the progress and this release of C:TW. We very much empathise with Alpaca's closing comments (about the near-impossibility of finishing a total conversion) and wish all the best for the future of the Mod.

Dol Guldur
Fourth Age, Management.

ER - love the use of avatars there ;)