Medieval Total Realism: Age of Ambition

[OmarPacha]

Concept arts previews look fine and there is only to hope
that researchers and modders will do their job till it's finished.
Greets

[kataphraktoi]

FUTUWWA ADDED, check first post.

1062 - interesting start date. It will be fun to have a Saxon english faction. Very different from MTW's Anglo-Norman faction. Should mean a much greater role for anglo-saxon units.

So i guess you are having the English and the Normans as independent factions? Are you including the Norse so you can have a nice 1066 re-enactment? :)

I had to move it from 1054 to 1062 because:

a) Marrakesh was found in 1062 so i couldn't give the Moors Marrakesh as a capital before 1062.

b) Toghrul Beg was given the title of Sultan after 1054 and before 1062, hence I can call the Turkish faction the Turkish Sultanate.

c) Normans in Italy start with more than one province because by 1063, the Byzantines are left with a toehold and the Normans are beginning to fight in Sicily - two-pronged ASSAULT YEAH!!

d) Yep, the Normans and English are independent factions and the Danes will be in there two. Hopefully we can script it so that a stack of Danes will be on English territory, or least script so that the Danes try to invade England.

e) Add to that Scotland in the north. Its one big messy soup

What's your aims and strategy for this mod?

Is it purely concentrating on realism? On improving gameplay? On adding new features?

Will you be replacing skins? Adding new units? Adding/removing provinces? Changing names?

Is it going to be a series of releases or working towards 1 big launch?

Realism and gameplay, but we want to create a certain atmosphere that draws you into the game by creating and representing unique cultures and achievements of each faction. As for new add features, hard to say at the moment.

Everything will be replaced. We have one of the best skinners in the business, Caius Britannicus! Check out his Crusades mod for samples of his work down in www.twcenter.net

One big launch probably. I'm only a stand-in project leader.

It doesn't work for me either. Why didn't you upload it via imageshack.

Fixed link. Plus, geocities has no popup ads so far. Well not for me anyways. Its ready for viewing DukeofSerbia, and its a massive jpeg so u might want to shrink it....

Looks great to see a fellow Malaysian on board on such a great project. Good luck !!!

Don'y forget Wraithdt, he's Malaysia too..from Petaling Jaya, I'm from small humble Malacca, the former capital of the Malacca Sultanate, now just a tourist attraction for Chicken Rice Balls and the ruins of a once formidable Portugese fortification called A'famosa (The famous).

Seems like theres going to be daily updates for this week.

At Ignoramus:
Research data shouldn't be sent to me. Hold onto your data until I come up with a proper format for faction previews. Although for the fuedalism system, you have any idea how it should be implemented? Im interested to hear it.

And I have to add ur name to the team list now.

[polak966]

i dont mean to sound crazy but i think kakhaber would be excellent as a researcher for the georgians. theyre in arent they?

[kataphraktoi]

Im sure he'll get tons of info, but in terms of communicating it to the rest of us in English, I'm not too sure about that. And besides, I have't been able to contact him since he got banned (it seems for life) at twcenter.net. I'll leave Georgian recruitment to Beka. He's the head reseacher for Georgia so its his responsibility for that woot!

Just a notice to everyone, I have the following concepts to post this week and next week:

a)Janissary Heavy Infantry by Wraithdt (not finished, but once u see it u won't care! Its that brilliant!)

b) Men at Arms 14th century by Wraithdt

c) Klibanophori version 3

d) Imperial Tagmatic Cavalryman on horse

e) Khazar mercenary

f) Varangians

g) Other assorted Byzantine soldiers

h) Constantine Dragases

Personally, I'd get Wraithdt to do all concepts, but he's only human and can't do it all so I have to chip in

[Trajen the 1st]

Wow, this looks even more well researched then the original RTR! I have some questions though:

1.Are you planning on bringing the eras back? It could possibly work like TFT in RTW when they had different zipped campiagns. This way, you can use the same faction slots,(I.e In early campiagn you have Saxons, but in High you have Seljuks of Rum)units, and skins/models without worrying about the hardcoded limits.

2.How do you plan on tackling the Religion issue? I mean theres a mighty big chance they'll be hardcoded like MTW1 which means no Shia/Sunni split! In short, what are your backup plans?


Really looking forword to this guys I hope this makes the money I'll shell out for MTW2 worth it!

PS:Map pic is'int working for me either.

[kataphraktoi]

ok, guys, if the links don't work directly, its a matter of "right click and save".

In the future, I'll "imageshack" everything. Damn Geocities, good for nothing...razzle frazzle.

Hmmm, the tech guys will probably sort out the eras things. I'm not too familiar with that kind of stuff.

Since we can't have the Sunni/Shia split, either Sunni or SHia will have to be the heretics. 3 of 4 Muslim Factions are SUnnis, so I think the Shia will be the heretics. Not out of personal bias or anything cos I'm not Muslim, I'm following the "majority" mentality thats all.

[LestaT]

ok, guys, if the links don't work directly, its a matter of "right click and save".

In the future, I'll "imageshack" everything. Damn Geocities, good for nothing...razzle frazzle.

Hmmm, the tech guys will probably sort out the eras things. I'm not too familiar with that kind of stuff.

Since we can't have the Sunni/Shia split, either Sunni or SHia will have to be the heretics. 3 of 4 Muslim Factions are SUnnis, so I think the Shia will be the heretics. Not out of personal bias or anything cos I'm not Muslim, I'm following the "majority" mentality thats all.

There's not much theological differences anyway between the Shiah and the Sunni and the split was mainly political/tribal issue eventhough the split was big enough to bring continuos war even until today.

However, if M2TW uses the loyalty system as in BI that can be use/modded to represent the split and I'm sure that the next TW will have more than current 3 religion that have an actual effect (hardcoded stuff).

I'm pretty sure that M2TW wont be too much diffrence from BI as it'll basically uses the same engine (upgraded hopefully).

Just my 2cents.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Since we can't have the Sunni/Shia split, either Sunni or SHia will have to be the heretics. 3 of 4 Muslim Factions are SUnnis, so I think the Shia will be the heretics. Not out of personal bias or anything cos I'm not Muslim, I'm following the "majority" mentality thats all.

If you have to make one of them heretics the Shia is by far the best choice. They split off the mainstream muslims (which are now known as the Sunni) so in that way they are just as much heretics as all the other heretics, since the word in general applies to the way the Roman catholics saw the religious groups that split from the Church and other non catholics. But this raises another question: will you include the group from whose name the word assasin is derived? They're called Assassijnen in Dutch. They joined forces with the Shia to fight the Sunni and where famous for their suicide attacks on Sunni leaders.

[DukeofSerbia]

Fixed link. Plus, geocities has no popup ads so far. Well not for me anyways. Its ready for viewing DukeofSerbia, and its a massive jpeg so u might want to shrink it....

Yes, I see. It's pretty big file. How I will downlod that, that's the good question.

Did you receive e-mail from me in Sunday night (your time was Monday morning) or not? I ask because you didn't answer.

And now I saw that starting year is 1062. Kievan Rus desintegreted into numerous principalities. Which principality will be the major, question is now (Moscow didn't existed yet)?

[kataphraktoi]

oops i did see the email, but i didnt read it completely. TO download the map, "right click and save target as" on the link for the map.

The disintegration of the RUs wasn't immediate after 1054, so we have to script it in so that provinces around Kiev are rebellious, the player who controls the Rus will have to fight internecine wars.

Kipchaks were indeed one of the dominant components in the Golden Horde army, perhaps, Orda Khan can shed light on this.

I'll leave the naming of the Balkan provinces up to you except for Epirus, Thrace, Thessaly and Constantinople in which I'll get it translated into Greek by another guy.

Ok, then can ur friend show some animation samples?

The worse thing now are team members asking for more provinces when I've already hit the province limit.



JANISSARY ADDED, SEE FIRST POST

[Orda Khan]

It must be the file size of the map, the other geocite links work OK. The Janissary Heavy Inf is stunning, superb work Wraithdt!!

The Qipchaq question.....
When the Mongol princes left for Qaraqorum, the vast majority of 'Mongol' Tumens left the west. Batu was left with his own personal army and some other commanders/personnel who decided to remain. On the whole, the so called 'Mongol' armies of the Golden Horde were Qipchaq. Batu's new realm was referred to as the 'Khanate of Qipcha'ud'. The Golden, Blue, White horde names did not apply, the whole area was under the authority of Batu. Tatar was a name applied to conquered peoples, perhaps after the destruction of the Tatars proper by Chingis Khan. This could be one explanation why both Russian and European chronicles refer to them as 'Tatars', especially when Friar Giovanni DePlano Carpini wrote about the 'Mongols whom we call Tatars'

.......Orda

[DukeofSerbia]

There, the Byzantine master has said it. Plus I remembered reading that the Byzantines were never really keen on adopting the western style of heavily armoured infantry and has always stuck to using lamellar and scale armour up untill the fall of the empire in 1453. The only person I know who wore full plated armour was the emporer Constantine XI during the final fall of Costantinople.

Kataphraktoi, I found that on www.twcenter.net Forum (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...&postcount=88).

Year: 1150
Event: Battle
Location: Near (small) river Tara near modern Valjevo town in Western Serbia
Sides: Romans against join forces of Serbs and Hungarians
Military leaders of Romans: Emperor Manuel I Comneni, plus generals John Ducas and ? Cantacuzenus (all were personally fought, Cantacuzen and Manuel were almost killed by Hungarians)
Military leaders of Serbs and Hungarians: Rascian Grand župan Uroš II, Rascian župans Grdeša and Vučina and Hungarian archzupan Vakhin
Battle: Roman army defeated joint forces of Serbs and Hungarians in bloody battle. Reason was highly undisciplined Serbian and Hungarian soldiers. Rascian župans Grdeša and Vučina were captured, Grand župan Uroš II and his army routed. Manuel I captured personally Hungarian archzupan Vakhin who almost killed him according to John Kinam. Hungarian army also routed.
Outcame: Rascian Grand župan Uroš II became Manuel’s vassal (second time).

I read that emperor Manuel I Comneni has protected whole body with golden armor in that battle! And I think it was plate armor from describe. It is recorded by Greek John Kinam (or Cinam).

[Herkus]

I read that emperor Manuel I Comneni has protected whole body with golden armor in that battle! And I think it was plate armor from describe. It is recorded by Greek John Kinam (or Cinam).

It wasn't plate armour, cuz it wasn't invented back then. Instead it could be just cuirass for chest with golden decorations.

[King of Atlantis]

A few things.

Spain and north africa look far too barren. I think some moor islamic factions are really needed.

And secondly that very many provinces. Im not sure Ireland for example needs three provinces for itself.

[Zastrow]

Why the name Age of Ambition? How is this age any more Ambitious than any other age?

Regardless the campaign map setup looks good, and no Amurica, excellent.

[Mac Clan]

Hey, I'm an avid scholar of history, as well as an avid player of the TW series. I have played the realism mods and was impressed (very much so), so I decided I wanted to be a historical advisor to the M2TR team. I am Scottish and study medieval, ancient, and imperial forms of war, as well as weapons and armor, unique to time periods, eras, nations, and states.
I also study Scottish history and warfare, as well as Byzantine (my two medieval nations I put a lot of attention to), which are both elusive on information about their warfare, which leads to a lot of misconceptions in games (like M2TW making the Scots like Braveheart's bunch of morons).
So mainly, this is an application to work on the mod and be an advisor.

So yes, I did copy paste that, but I wanted to repost, exactly in those terms so there'd be no confusion.
In short, I mainly want to help advise on the Scottish and British/Irish civilizations, as well as the Byzantines. I do have a hoard of knowledge, but since other historians here might be more concentrated in that area, I'd like to help on the lesser known and explored civilizations.
My msn:beepersandbopers@hotmail.com
My email: beepersandbopers@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Mac

[Vuk]

I have a life, and so cannot join your team. But I do know quite a bit about Byzantine, so if you need research post it and I'll see if I can help. Also I would like to say that I really think you should recreate the city of Constantinople as well as reasonably possible. ( Have the great palace, true walls, the Hippodrome, etc.). There is an interesting site that has 3-D renders of a lot of Byzantine buildings from 1200. I researched some of them (the Hagia Sophia most heavily) and as far as I can see they are pretty accurate (and where things are unknown, they make good assumptions.) While it is not fully accurate, I think it is definately worth having a look at.

www.Byzantium1200.com

[M.Cornelius Marcellus]

Good luck to your guys with this!!

MCM

[nurizeko]

Yaaaaaaaaaay!!, this has got me excited now. :)

I remember playing Rome: Total Realism, it totaly made the game for me, vanilla was nothing compared to RTR.

I look forward to this.

[Haedarmkm]

Hi
First: I need to inform about release date and required version of the game.
Second: I'am wonderd why the modder didnt make Abbasid faction which historically were the head of all arabic and islamic nation at that time and all other were a part of that (Calphate)Abbasid. and I have meny information about the Abbasid. thanks