Questions, Questions, Questions
On another forum a thread got started that was all about asking questions about the mod. It never stuck me that there wasn't a good thread here where people could come and ask any question they wanted to and I would see it right away. So you can post any question you like here and I'll do my best to answer it. Below you will find a bunch of questions and answers already posted over at the other forum.
hey caius what typeof soundtrack will there be in the mod?
will u rip some soundtracks from kingdom of heaven? hehehehehehehe
There is some music from Kingdom of Heaven and then music from other sources.
Will u add the 4TPY mod to this mod
We have our own multiple turns per year script in the mod. The number of which is being kept under wraps for now. Just know that there is a script and it IS MORE than 4 tpy.
The map is huge and there is obviously a lot of space in between settlements. As you've said already, there's going to be greater emphasis on strategic movement on the battle map. That said, how many armies can the player expect to field? How high is the upkeep relative to the number of settlements? In RTR you can field about one full stack for every four cities before your economy starts going into the red, whereas in TFT it's possible to have a full stack of troops for almost every city.
Basically, will the Crusades be more about having massive amounts of armies or carefully manevuring only a handful of armies around?
I'm hoping to be somewhere in the middle. I can't say for sure until we start playtesting ofcourse. I'd like there to be more armies in the field compared to RTR but I am trying to make sure that each army actually MEANS something. In both campaigns the AI starts out with pretty much the whole map under their control minus some rebel settlements and your own. So I have to make sure there are enough armies available for the player to withstand the AI onslaught but also not bankrupt the player. It will be a fine balance that will have to be worked out during playtesting.
Will it be harder to have larger armies if you're playing the Crusaders? The crusaders were ussualy outnumbered when fighting against the muslims, the only reason I could see is that reinforcements were low and that the muslims were backed up by religious fanatics that fought for peanuts and died for Allah. Kingdom of Heaven greatly exagerated this and gave Saladin a 200 000 strong army, I hope we won't be seing freakishly huge muslim armies running around when playing the mod.
recruitment costs, upkeeps and building times are pretty much even across the board. Knights are slightly more costly than saracen equivalent cavalry but they will be better stats wise. They will also take slightly longer to build. All in all the player will have equal difficulty fielding armies if he plays the saracens or crusaders in the campaign. The AI will be able to field more armies for cheaper and much quicker than the player. So if you are playing the saracens you'll be outnumbered by crusaders (the saracen campaign starts when the Latin Kingdom is at its height) and if you are playing the crusaders you will be out numbered by the saracens (once again the crusader campaign starts when the Latin Kingdom is nearly extinct.)
Will each Order have one city dedicated to it? Or will they have multiple settlements? And will you also "script" some armies?
Also, there are French, English, German units ... How do those come to the holy land? Script only? Or can you recruit them in a port? Maybe mercenaries?
Each order has a stronghold. A single settlement on the map that the player will control. The settlement contains barracks, blacksmith, horse paddocks and a keep. You can't upgrade these settlements but you CAN recruit order armies there. Ofcourse you won't be able to recruit inner circle knights. Those will be handled differently.
The french, english and germans come via scripting. You can't recruit them. The only units you can recruit are kingdom of jerusalem units. The saracens have it the same way. They can't recruit the arabs or turks only the ayyubids and syrians.
Currently the mercenaries are from places like tripoli, edessa and atinoch only.
Will muslim units arrive at ports as well?
And if not where will they arrive. Also what is the progress for this mod.
Muslims wont arrive at ports seeing as they are all coming from nearby (Arabia, Anatolia and from the east) So they will arrive by land in cities near the places they are coming from.
I know that historical accuracy is not your focus but will the arriving Crusader contingents be lead by historically accurate leaders? I´m of course especially interested in Barbarossa... (If the answer is yes, please remember to provide intact bridges on his path)
There will be historical leaders on the map at the start of the game (we can't control them after the start). Richard the Lionheart will be on a ship headed to the holy land and Barbarossa will be in anatolia with an army (don't worry the only way he will die is if you lose him in battle). There are also several others out there such as Phillip II and Saladin.
Will there be a new "trait and ancillary" system? Or will it be revised?
here are new traits going in and they are pretty darn cool. It will be one of the things left unpreviewed so there is a bit of a surprise left.
I just watched the map preview (which was GORGEOUS) and I have some questions:
Can you attack the smaller villages? Or is better to assemble an army and head for the big Capital? Also, if you capture a Capital, you said villages would be emptied and be given to owner of the Capital. What is stopping the other faction from immediatly reconquering those small villages?
Order Strongholds are like "villages" without population? How did you trick the engine into thinking that? I was thinking of scripting and if it is, ... Damn, scripting is some powerful stuff. Also, those Strongholds are fully upgraded, yes? And are they any use to the Saracens?
The smaller villages, can they grow and upgrade? Or do they stay "small"? Also, can the main troops be trained in small villages? Or in the Capitals only? Main troops are Knights of Latium for example.
Mercenaries, are those abundant? In RTR, mercenaries were a pain because A) they would be rebels if not recruited fast enough B) the computer would just create an instant army when they lost their main army. I know, the AI isn't the greatest, but I hate fighting merc-only armies. I'm a RP-gamer and Merc's aren't exactly good RP-material. smile.gif Well, they can be, but they were kinda rare in the time-period, no?
Do the "Orders" get a family member who is the Grand master? Or is it a trainable unit? In the Hospitaller preview, I noticed the grandmaster had a seperate unit, so ...
How important is money? There are mini-games which give money, so I figure money can be pretty rare.
Also, those caravans ... Do you move them yourself? Or are they AI-controlled? Can you train them?
How many cities are there?
Will Generals be recruitable? I loved that feature in BI. And are there "military academies" which help you groom a general?
A lot of questions, I know. If you would answer them all, I would be very grateful.
Yes you can attack the smaller villages. The choice is yours to either head straight for the captial or conquer the terriotry around it. Captials will be hard to seige their garrisons will be massive, they will have stone walls. Meaning that there will be a prolonged seige. Now you as a player will have to decide if you want to take the risk of leaving enemy settlements to your rear or if you would prefer to have it secure.
Nothing, thats why we are toying with what exactly to do with this. Expelling the garrisons is ofcourse the first thing we are doing the second would be to put a militia force into the city. Towns, large towns and cities won't have large garrisons (at least at the start of the game hard to say what the AI will do later on). And have the other faction attempt to retake cities is all part of the game. Its a risk you take that the cities and towns can muster a militia capable of withstanding the old garrisons attempts to retake the city.
Order Strongholds have population. They occupy the lowest level of the settlement building tree but have been given stone walls and the required barracks. We simply deny it the ability to change into a town but making the requirements for the settlement increase impossible to accomplish. Such as a building that is unbuidable. Yes the saracens will be able to use these settlements, they won't be able to build much (militia and light infantry only) but they do act as strong points on the map.
Villages are subdivided into 3 levels. Towns, Large Towns and Cities. Towns can grow into Large Towns and Large Towns can grow into cities and thats it. Towns can only train your very basic troops such as militia and light infantry. Large Towns bring the addition of light and medium cavalry and basic archer units. The city level adds heavy infantry such as Latin Heavy Spearmen and crossbowmen. Finally at the Captial level you see the full compliment of your troops (including Knights both mounted and foot) and the inclusion of seige works.
Mercenaries are a not a major part of the mod. there will be far less than those available in RTR and will mostly be men-at-arms and knights from places such as Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli as well as a few units from the Syrian unit list. But much much less than RTR.
The orders are tricky, family members will be part of the orders via traits etc. However, the position of Grandmaster does not go to a family member. The unit previewed as "Knights of the Inner Circle" who act as the bodyguards of the Grandmaster will be given to a family member via traits/ancillaries. Therefore a general gets a unit as well as some stats bonuses. With our scripting abilites we will make sure that only one grandmaster from each order is in the field at any given time.
I am hoping that money will be something that takes a back seat to the rest of the game. That being said we hope to balance it so that you never have so much money that you don't know what to do with it. Added to that the fact that recruitment cost for the ultimate units in the game will be rather high I think people won't be deep in the red but more just barely in the black.
The caravans are another tricky subject. It works via scripting. Not all the bugs have been worked out of the idea and we haven't even had a chance to test it. I can however tell you how it works "in theory." In a saracen city an army will be generated with a general, the camels and a random escort. if you are the saracens you will be told to get that army to another city and you receive a cash reward if you do so. If you are the crusaders you have to find the caravan before it makes it to the other city. It is our hope that when the AI controls the army we will tell it where to send the army (which we can do sorta like the invasion scripts RTR will be using). So essentially the caravan follows a pre-determined path set by us.
How many cities. Jeez I can't remember off the top of my head. Last time I checked it was in the neighborhood of 75-80. Maybe more. There is ALOT of space on the map for you to duke it out on.
No generals will not be recruitable. Not all the buildings have been finalized so there may be a chance we make a military academy. If we do include one we will put them in the capitals.
What are the standard unit sizes(for light infantry, heavy infantry, spearmen, heavy cavalry, light cavalry etc) for the crusaders and the saracens? Are the different factions' unit sizes any different from each other?
Unit sizes are currently not set as we are still testing all our stats and part of that is balancing the the unit sizes so you don't have units that are too powerful simply because they have too many men or you have strong units but they are too small to be effective.our general plan tho is to use 120 (on large 240 on huge) as the base for militia and spear units and then decrease from there depending on the unit.
Will there be any Holy Relics in the game? Many of these could simply be ported over from BI.... (e.g. fragment of the true cross). Items such as the Holy Lance (used to pierce the side of Christ on the Cross) that was supposedly uncovered during this period springs to mind.
there are both Christian and Islamic relics in the game.
Here are the christian relics so far:
https://img274.imageshack.us/img274/481/relics2ch.jpg
Here are the islamic relics:
https://img372.imageshack.us/img372/7468/evpanel1xv.jpg
These are from a while ago and so are subject to change.
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Originally Posted by caius britannicus
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