The Hyborian Age - Total War

[Gurkhal]

Once again magnificent. I can't wait to start playing this mod.

[Bwian]

No reason why you shouldn't take a bit of licence with the source material. In actual fact, a significant amount of the published material was either edited or finished off by others after Howard left it undone. The actual true, genuine work is fairly small.

As long as it fits the mood, and doesn't jar with the existing Mythos, then go for it!

[Taranaich]

Cheers lads, I'm glad to have people excited about it. I'm thinking I could ask for a subforum for the mod since I think I have enough stuff to get working on, and it would offer better organisation: I could have a thread for each faction and different aspects of the game, though since it's only really me working on it I don't know if I'm worthy Couldn't harm to ask though.

So we come on to the next faction = Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west!


Knights of Aquilonia
The Knights of Aquilonia are as proud and impetuous as any knight of the Hyborian Kingdoms, with the very best arms and armour available to them. They are reckless and unreliable, but extremely effective at breaking enemy lines, though they cannot be trusted to wait for their general to give the command.


Knights of Poitain
The Knights of Poitain are unique among the Hyborians in their discipline: whereas most knights are wont to charge recklessly regardless of their general's orders, Poitain's knights have the strength of mind to contain their incredible ferocity until the General commands. Once the command is given, however, all bets are off: these knights will ride down any enemy still standing until either they are victorious or they fall in glorious death.


Dismounted Knights of Poitain
The knights of Poitain rarely leave their mounts on the battlefield except where cavalry is least effective, such as the defense of settlements or in the forested mountains of their homeland. When such tactics are necessary, the knights wield terrible two-handed swords comparable to those wielded by the Nemedian Adventurers, although with the added protection of black, gold-chased armour. Being elite horsemen themselves, these warriors are surprisingly effective against heavy cavalry as well as pike infantry.


Gunderland Pikemen
The wild Gundermen are the mightiest and most unbreakable pike infantry in the world, born and bred to battle and with unshakable will. Unlike the other Hyborian Kingdoms, Aquilonia long learned the value of strong infantry, and put great stock in their strong pikemen from Gunderland. Whereas most Hyborian pikemen were a mere wall of spears to be sacrificed for the glory of knights and men-at-arms, the Gundermen have a pride and resilience which makes them virtually unroutable. They fight with a unique pike and shield combination (I'll probably have to finally delve into modding the models for this since the Gundermen are so awesome. I found a tutorial that explains how to give arquebuses to Highland Nobles, perhaps I can use it as a guide)


Bossonian Archers
Raised in the unforgiving westermarck in the shadows of Picts and Cimmerians, the Bossonians are raised with the constant threat of annihilation: however, their success in fighting back roving hordes of Picts with their mighty longbows have given rise to the proudest and most formidable archers among the Hyborian Kingdoms. Armed in brigandine or mail (or sometimes both) and chanting their boisterous songs, they are a strong and vital presence on any battlefield. They have such great discipline and synergy that they loose as one man with deep, short shouts with volleys that don't so much shower their foes as pummel them like fists. The Bossonians are arguably the greatest protection the Aquilonians had from the Picts: once the Aquilonians stupidly massacred them in response to desertion the empire soon fell to the Picts in a tide of blood.


Mounted Bossonian Archers
This is another dynamic unit, this time assuming that the Aquilonians didn't foolishly massacre the Bossonians in the late Hyborian Age, and formed a special division of archers on ponies to counter the Hyrkanian and Hyperborean mounted archers, as well as a rapid response unit along the borders of Cimmeria and the Pictish Wilderness.

Here's a brief explanation of these dynamic units: Basically, since Total War is all about changing history, I think it's unreasonable to impose restrictions on the player to conform to history to an unreasonable degree. To paraphrase another poster, Gaul never invaded Egypt, but how come they couldn't recruit Egyptian units? Therefore to spice things up, I plan on making unit recruitments in the Hyborian age dynamic and interesting to reflect Howard's dynamic world, where tribes and cultures migrate across the world.

Let's take the Aquilonians as an example. If I was being boring, then I'd just let the Aquilonians have their base units and that's it, and maybe some local levies. However, I plan on making each faction be able to recruit a unit according to the region that represents the faction's armies adapting to their new environment. Therefore, Aquilonians invading Koth will eventually give rise to a Desert Longbowmen unit, in the Black Kingdoms Jungle Longbowmen, in Nordheim Mountain Longbowmen and so forth, each better adapted to their environment than the faction's core unit. Hopefully this won't be too much of a pain to implement, but I think it's doable seeing the work of the Fourth Age and Europa Barbarorum.

[Gurkhal]

I like it a much as the previous, keep going.

I'm thinking I could ask for a subforum for the mod since I think I have enough stuff to get working on, and it would offer better organisation: I could have a thread for each faction and different aspects of the game, though since it's only really me working on it I don't know if I'm worthy Couldn't harm to ask though.

They should without doubt give this mod a subforum. If they don't, you just give a call and me and my boys will have a chat with them. I'm sure we can make them change their minds... (intended as a joke and in no way as a threat or intimdation of the site's admins or mods in anyway)