Altered battlemaps in vanilla M:TW, anyone?

[Adrian II]

Has anyone here played with one or more altered battlemaps in their vanilla M:TW?

I think I am going to try and change some of them for myself. The Friesland battlemap for instance does not exactly match the flat, swampy landscape as it used to be. A large part of Eastern Anatolia was (and is) much flatter (interspersed with mountain ranges) than the Anatolia battlemap makes us believe. Etcetera.

This question is not just for modders, hence its place in this forum.

Maybe we can exchange ideas, or even battlemap files?

[Martok]

To be honest, the possiblity of using altered maps in the campaign hadn't really occurred to me before. Do you refer to actually editing them, or simply replacing them wholesale?

[Adrian II]

To be honest, the possiblity of using altered maps in the campaign hadn't really occurred to me before. Do you refer to actually editing them, or simply replacing them wholesale?

Editing them.

I see no need in import new types of buildings, textures or trees. I just want to rearrrange the furniture.

Maybe I will create an example for Frisia one of these days. I think it would provide players with a totally different 'battle experience', more long-drawn and spread across the map with various defendable enclaves, ditches, swamps and of course 'patches of resistance' around isolated farms.

I can then put up a screeny or two of that Frisia map, and also send the relevant file by mail to anyone who is interested.

Alternatively, an Anatolia map with just a wide, flat lush plain rimmed by a range of high mountains on the east side would be a new experience, too. Kinda like that flat map in Shogun of whatsitsname province due west of the Kanto. No hills, no woods, nothing to hide behind but your own competence...

But I'll do Frisia first.

[Kaidonni]

Heh, I've thought about this for my mod...I doubt we'd find fort, motte and bailey castles circa 295BC in the middle of the Roman Empire...

But, is it possible to create entirely new fortifications?

[caravel]

Removing the dual bridge scenarios by removing the second bridge from the maps would be a good idea. The AI is alot better defending bridges in MTW than it was in Shogun, unfortunately the second bridge is an easy exploit as the AI tends to only focus on one.

[naut]

But, is it possible to create entirely new fortifications?

Yes, I suggest asking one of the guys from Samurai Warlords, as they implemented fortifications from Shogun into Medieval

[macsen rufus]

@Kaidonni especially, Hellenic TW has some excellent maps, including some very nice castles, that are a real pain to assault

[Adrian II]

But, is it possible to create entirely new fortifications?

It is, I have seen them. But only up to a certain point. There are all sorts of 'issues' with selfmade battlemaps. If you study the modding literature carefully you will be able to work around most of those. However, the most difficult issues concern not the looks, but the functional aspect of modded structures. The big question is: can the AI deal with them, both offensively and defensively?

I have been experimenting with a modded vanilla MTW/VI battlemap for a few days now, and I have run into countless little issues myself. I made a real beauty of a Frisia test-map (a beachmap) and did a test battle on it. Instead of coming for me, the AI attacker ran straight into the sea and stayed there... I had placed some inland watery ditches in the way of the usual AI tactics, thereby unlodging its logic, so to speak. After removing them, things went smoothly.

Now I am experimenting with a 'stins' (Friesian word): an elaborate forticifation that is not quite a castle, but a reinforced Cistercian monastic settlement along a river, close to the sea and surrounded by ditches, moats, a windmill and some wheatfields. I want to make it work like a 'castle' as defined in the MTW hardcode, but without the looks.

[Adrian II]

Well, I promised to post some screenies of my experimental battlemaps, and here they are.

I hope Mods will overlook this bump post/double post for the occasion, I promise not to make a habit of it.

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 show an Early Frisian landscape with a typical reinforced monastery or well-to-do farm built on a motte. A flat, grassy countryside bordered by low sand dunes and in the distance, of course, the eternal waves of the sea.



Number 2 shows the coastline as it would have been at the time, Number 3 is a close-up of the fortification.


Finally, screenie number 4 is of an experimental bridge battlemap in Anatolia. It is not finished, like the Frisian ones, but I think you can spot the outlines of an interesting battle with excellent missile and gunnery positions on both sides.