Age of Warlords

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The first release of Age of Warlords is finally ready after two years in the making! This release is a BETA, and contains only the first period, Angevin Ascendancy.

You can get it here:

Age of Warlords Version 1.0 BETA

And the first patch, Version 1.2, can be found here:

Age of Warlords BETA Version 1.2 Patch

This patch is required to get the game working, and makes important changes to the campaign, particularly if you plan to play as the Indian factions. Please ensure you have 1.0 installed first.

However, you will also need the Version 1.3 patch to enjoy the game fully, and that can be obtained from here:

Age of Warlords Version 1.3 Patch

This version fixes custom and instant campaign crashes, and also includes many graphical improvements, largely thanks to Midnight and OmarPacha. Please install this over Version 1.2.

Now, the Age of Warlords first release features:

* A total new era, Angevin Ascendancy, beginning in 1154AD, when some of Europe's most powerful monarchs, including Henry II and Friedrich Barbarossa rule their respective thrones!

* A brand new map, featuring North-Western Europe, northern Iberia, northern Italy, Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, and, for the first time in Medieval mod, Greenland and parts of North America, all created lovingly in the style of the map of the original Medieval - Total War! Why concentrate on Continental Europe when the lucrative benefits of an overseas empire may be up for grabs?

* Almost 80 brand new units, with a further 70 more imported from the BKB Super Mod, making nearly 150 additional units in total! These include Cornish Spearmen, Gwent Longbowmen, Hermandades, Hirdmen, Konstaflers, Spadaccino, Teulu, Bidauts, Orkneyjar Infantry, Toulousain Communal Militia, Templar Sergeants, Greenland Settlers, and Flemish Knights!

* 22 playable factions! These include the returning English, French, Danes, Aragonese, Spanish and Holy Roman Empire, plus many brand new ones, such as the County of Hainaut, Pisa, Genoa, and the Norse!

* Recreate the events of the Albigensian Crusade with the presence of Catharism in the south of France, represented by another new faction, the County of Toulouse!

* Play as the 'Skraeling' Pagan indigenous hostiles of Greenland and North America! The Dorset Eskimo and Algonquin Tribes each feature exclusive units, while these two factions benefit from a brand new, totally unique tech tree, new map pieces, new portraits, and offer a completely different and exciting experience! Will you drive off the Western invaders or take the fight to them?

* Unprecedented focus on Medieval Norse-Celtic warfare around the Irish Sea, with the Kingdom of Galloway, the Kingdom of Argyll, the Kingdom of Man, the Scots, the Kingdom of Gwynedd, Deheubarth, the Ui Neill and the Kingdom of Connaught all vying for supremacy and contest to English dominance. Take control of famed leaders such as Somerled, Fergus of Galloway and Godred V of Man and lead your armies to glory!

* Numerous new agents, including a Cathar Priest, a Heretic Priest, Jewish Master Merchant and the dreaded Shaman!

* Numerous new ships, including Canoes, Nyvaigs and Nordic and Manx versions of the Knarr!

* Many new buildings and establishments, including a Cathar Church, Templar Headquarters, Whaling Station, Axesmith, the Leidang, the 'Rising Out', Cattle Farms, Scutage, and Law Courts!

* Proper Faction Shields in battle for the new factions!

* New factional titles, including ‘Royal Magistrates’, ‘Grand Masters of the Templars’, 'Lord Executioners', 'Champion of the Joust' and leaders of themed Heretical cults. Assign them at your peril!

* Adjustments to original unit stats and changes to original faction AI.

* Strong realism in terms of overseas expansion - the conquest of certain North Atlantic regions and all of North America made extra difficult by restrictions placed on building and recruitment - here horses and heavier units cannot be trained, while only a handful of buildings can be constructed, with a fort the maximum defensive structure available!

* Heightened 'Psychological' Warfare - Indian units fear horsemen and artillery while lesser French Catholic troops are scared by their 'Heretic' Cathar enemies, who in turn are wary of fanatical Knights Templar soldiers!

* Many new graphics, including new unit shields and flags for the new factions!

* New Trade goods - White furs, Exotic birds, Sulphur, Arms and Armour, Cattle and more!

* Hundreds of famous kings and new heroes added, all real!

* Brand new names for the new factions!

* New Loading Screen and Age of Warlords logo!

* New Music!

* Deadpage Coords!

* An Easy Auto-Install!

* Plus much, much more!

VERY IMPORTANT - A fresh install of MTW and VI is needed for this mod, it is not compatible with other mods and the normal campaigns.

THERE IS NO GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT MODE IN THIS MOD - IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO GIVEN THE THREE SEPARATE MAPS FOR EACH PERIOD.

Happy gaming

------------------------Edit by drone---------------------------
Age of Warlords v1.0 local link
Age of Warlords v1.2 patch local link
Age of Warlords v1.3 patch local link
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[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Now, some people I would like to thank:

* Barocca - cleaned up the palettes on many pieces for me plus provided an immeasurable amount of help when I needed it. A top bloke.

* The Hellenic Mod team - for creating the brilliant battering ram and Eskimo bifs, and the base of the new Indian bif, truly great work guys.

* Iustinus - for all his help on the Indians and making the fantastic new skin for their bif and the new weapons.

* Riadach - for help with Irish research.

* Cegorach - for coming up with the 'Change Battle Mode' idea and generally being a good guy.

* Duke John - for his excellent new skins and animations.

* The maker of the Russian expansion mod - for use of some of his brilliant shield designs and info_pics.

* Midnight -for agreeing to make some brilliant new Eskimo portraits.

* OmarPacha - for kindly volunteering to 'clean up' and revise most of my review panel bifs and battle icons.

* Anyone who has posted in the Age of Warlords thread and has followed the mod's progress, thanks for you constant support throughout these past two years.

* And a very special thanks to Angus McBride, who I dedicate this mod to after his tragic passing last month. His work inspired many of the units in this mod and without him it probably would not have come to pass.

If I've forgotten anyone, I'm terribly sorry, please let me know.

Now, onto problems. There is a reason why this is a BETA, and I'll list the main two below:

1) Some crashes are evident. I strongly recommend playing with matteosartori off. It seems that the Norse may be more problematic than others, and I'm hoping you guys can help me find out why that is with the aid of this release. Some, like the Galwegians and Isles for example, I have played with for over 150 years without problem, so don't fear, there is a lot of stability with many factions also.

2) Now here's the more serious and perplexing one for the time being. For some bizarre reason, the Indian factions cannot move their men across seas, despite having canoes and ports in the right places. I have tried giving them Carracks even, but to no avail. The strange thing is that Catholic factions have no problem invading America and moving their units between these waters. Of course, this greatly hampers play with the Indian factions, as you can't support men on other islands nor invade Europe.

Now while myself and some others look to remedy this I have come up with a temporary solution that the patch provides. I have added land bridges between certain areas of North America and Greenland, so that units can be supported and that the Eskimo and Indian can fight each other. Its not ideal, as I don't believe you can progress any further than Greenland, but it is the best I can offer at this moment in time.

Now any bugs aside from these two (and I still want to know as much detail as possible about crashes anyway, so I can fix them), please list here. You know the Indian one, so PLEASE do not state it again, I am MORE than aware of it.

Here are things that I hope to improve/fix/add in future releases:

1) Hopefully a new Eskimo bif for their units, I'm not that happy with the current one, I want proper Eskimos!
2) Possibly new Indian battle architecture?
3) Possibly new Indian battle voices? (Any volunteers on this front would be greatly appreciated)
4) The Trail by Fire and Battle period (?)
5) ?

Anyway, I THINK that's everything, if I've forgotten anything I'll add it here. I hope you enjoy the game and please remember before you post everything wrong with it I did slug two years on it, so some kind words wouldn't go amiss.

[danfda]

Yay...downloading now.

[scotty]

Came up with this when I tried to start it -

"Unkown faction label used to indicate unit advantage: column 12, row 176

FN_DORSET"

been following this for ages now sounds like its going to be great

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Did you have Viking Invasion installed mate? Has anyone else been experiencing such problems? Sorry about this if its a problem on my end.

[scotty]

yeah i got VI and the 2.01 patch, does it work with the patch?

[Obliqueattack]

Hello!
Has anybody with MTW Gold edition got Age of Warlords to work?
I've had the same problem as Great White Hunter wrote about recently on March 14 2008
"Unknown faction label used to indicate unit advantage: column 12, row 176
FN_DORSET"
I couldn't find a reply to Great White Hunter's post.
Any advice from Gold edition owners would be welcome.
Thanks

[Obliqueattack]

At last, I finally figured it out for myself.
Thanks for listening anyway!

[greatwhitehunter]

Oblique, How did you get the problem fixed? Is there anyone who can point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance.

[JR-]

is there any hope of a final v1.4 all-in-one installer?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

If you'd want that I could do it mate.

I still am very proud of this mod but I am all too aware of its instability in campaign. I have endeavoured to find a cause for the crashes but in the end gave up. It deeply upset me because I know its a grave flaw in an otherwise really good mod (even if I do say so myself). I don't know it if it was a problem with the map itself, the coding, or something else, but I tried virtually everything. Sometimes it can be very stable (Zathernon told me how he got to the 14th century once), but other times it isn't. Certain factions do better than others. It just seemed too random. This is why there was never a proper release, because the CTDs during campaign did not permit one. Having said that there is something I'd like to put in a 1.4 release - each faction had a special building/feature they started off with, which gave bonuses and a large financial income. The Isles had Iona, the Scots Scone Abbey, England the Great Port of Yarmouth, the French Notre Dame, and so forth. I loved them, but I thought they might be crashing the game and so I took them out. Turns out though clearly they weren't. I put a lot of effort into them so it would be nice to include them in a release. Maybe I'll have one last crack at trying to deciper the CTD bug now I've been away from it for a while.....

Otherwise I always felt this mod to be virtually complete (aside from proper Eskimo bifs, which were never done, and a few weapon placements for units), and a great technical achievement for Medieval. Perhaps it was overly ambitious, I don't know. But all the same I hope people can still enjoy it, if not at least for the custom battles and all the new units I created.