First of all, thanks for all the work you've done on your mod. I downloaded it for 1.1 and played it for several days prior to switching mods. Too many CTD's for my tastes and too many mods I want to try out.

Consequently, once the mod is more stable, after the next release, I plan to download it again.

However I think I did find the origin of one of the CTD's. Just to the north west of Madrid, there is this nasty single point depression in the map. The CTD took place when a battle was to be fought there. This CTD took place both in regular and auto modes of battle. You might want to check out the map again. Likewise, some of the mountains are a bit too high and pointy. When it comes down to it, land masses are not so radical. So some effort at smoothing out the map in terms of elevation and shoreline would no doubt help things out in that regard.

There were a couple of things I did want to comment about.

The things I like.

I love the option to spend money on other things like hunts and pressing claims and courts and all that. The impact on my generals was fantastic. It was nice seeing stats going up until you had more than a few generals running about paragons of chivilry and all that. Furthermore it added a real flavor to the game which is normally missing. In addition, you took Rome out of the victory conditions of many of the powers. No one in the Middle Ages took Rome save as a means of putting pressure on the Pope in order to get this or that concession. At the same time, the Pope seemed to be churning out armies by the hundreds -- which often rebelled in massive qualtities -- and finally, the Papacy went for Florence. When it came down to it. The Papacy insisted on independance as a means of being objective when judging between two rival christian powers. This is why Vatican City today is independant of Italy. It didn't always work that way of course, since you had other factions pulling on the Papacy, but as a general principle it worked somewhat like the UN without any of the police actions. Hence the Papacy tended to seek to defend it's own land integrity and nothing more.

Likewise, many of the provences I recognized. Finally, you had plenty of generals to start out with as governors.

The militia recruitment when a city is besiged also was a nice touch. It made perfect sense since that would be what would happen. When Sultan Mehemmet II besieged Constantinople in 1452, every single greek of military age (5,000) was put on the walls with spear and shield and armor.

Now my criticisms.

Dalmetia in Egypt was missing and that was the center of a serious confrontation during the Crusader period between King Louis of France and Egypt. You should put it in.

The thing that I found particularly troublesome was the cost for troops outside the castles and cities. Playing Sicily, as mentioned above, I couldn't help but wonder where all that money was coming from to support all those stacks of troops just hanging outside of Rome.

Now I know what you are trying to do and I whole heartedly approve of the effort. But I think you're doing it the wrong way. So I thought I would suggest an alternative.

First of all the scripts seem rather inconsistant. One general, or one stack with a general costs the same, 2,000 if I recall right. Of course that rises the further you get from your capital. But a single stack with 2 generals runs 4,000. It strikes me as a little inconsistant. You see, when I have a surplus of generals, there's no point in having knights running about so I simply put two to six generals into the stack and have them act as my calvary. This seldom produces that many fatalities (less than a dozen in the hundreds of battles I've fought) since I save my calvary for the chase down after the rout or quick stablization of the line after an opponent calvary charge.

Likewise a single ship or a fleet of ships would cost 500 or so, and the same with a single stack or a single unit. Three units out on the field would run 1500 but a single stack of three units would run 500.

Now, since keeping troops out on the field does cost money in real life, you're on to the right thing. But that cost is going to be consistant with the total troop strength outside, not just willy nilly based on some specific units or stacks.

What if you did it this way . . .

Jack up the maintenance costs back to at least 50% or even 75%. Then make all units capable of free upkeep in either city or castle. Then expand the number of free upkeep units per city or castle. Perhaps 20 for a citidel and 18 for a Huge City with 16 for a Fortress and 14 for a Large City and 12 for a castle and 10 for a minor city . . . you get the point I'm sure. You could also make it -- perhaps -- linked to the infrastructure of the town or city itself. Thus not all Huge City's could hold 18 units free of charge. This would more accurately recreate what you are trying to do in that costs would be far higher by keeping an army out on the field. Likewise your infrastructure determines just how large an army you can keep mustered and ready to fight. When it came to extended campaigns like crusades, the army pretty much fed itself on the local produce and so it didn't cost much more if the army was 500 miles away as opposed to 50. Everyone was bringing their own equipment to begin with. The difference being that the army further out had traveled much farther and as a consequence had been out on campaign longer.

This might also, I'm guessing, keep the other powers from having all those stacks of units running about like I saw in the Papacy while playing Sicily.

Rebellions. There were points in which I was dealing with stacks of rebels spawning every single turn and none of them could be handled by the local garrisons. At least they were close to the castles or cities (some showed up sieging the spot) so I could deal with them if I had an adequate garrison. But one does get tired of fighting the same composition army every single turn in southern italy or north western Spain especially when the autofight button usually wounds your general.

Now I like the idea you have posted of gradulally increasing rebel strength when they first spawn. But what I would suggest is that you follow a specific pattern which more accurately reflects your typical Medieval rebellion. It starts off with peasents who then start taking on a professional quality to the force with a rebel noble showing up once the revolt begins to take coherient shape. So perhaps one or two peasents turn one, with some light calvary and infantry turn two . . . and so on. Instead of waiting for a confrontation which the rebels win, rather just let them gain strength every turn they are allowed to stand.


Anyway, those are my comments and critiques. You've got a very good mod here, all I'm suggesting is a few tweeks to make it a bit more consistant.