GRAND PREVIEW

[Hengest]

Well, keeping in mind that it is early days, as you say...

I think I can say that yes, we are looking at a settlement and region in different terms than before. So, the agricultural levels in the tech tree that you choose will actually change the face of the region on the camp map- which is nothing new, but we are also going to introduce villages into the tech tree in the same way. So that as your settlement becomes a city you can choose to develop villages and towns in the region which are represented as a construction in the tech tree giving you bonuses. The 'villages' wont exist like settlements of course, but will be mere representations and these may be able to feature both on the camp map within the region and also should be able to be seen in the battle map if you fight in the neighbourhood of these 'village' tiles.

Control Points in reality is something we wanted to keep quiet until we knew more, we now know a little more... Basically we are using permanent forts to represent the other important places within a region. We are planning aspects such as garrison scripts for even the forts, as well as a means of penalising the player when his enemies occupy these forts or siege them, via lack of income etc. We have also found a way to not let this scripting slow the turns down, which is a real victory but one which most of you won't know why! :hmmm:

We are aware that the player does not want settlements and forts all over the map so that Siege becomes the only way to fight, we are just trying to be more realistic in how we make our map. We are still working on the map, it will be very big, so the fact that we have 199 settlements plus perhaps 80 or so forts will not make it a siege-fest. You will just feel that each region is in fact a region and not just a pocket around a settlement.

One drawback of the permanent forts is that we are representing some places that were historically settlements, but since we cannot prioritise them in the top 199 we are forced to make them a military base. We are trying to keep the permanent forts to represent what were only military towns but it is not so easy, some people are bound to complain that 'Kalmar in Sweden was not a castle or fort but a town' and indeed these forts which are motte-and-bailey in the 1100s will look okay but in 1490 they will seem out of date, so we still have a lot of loose-ends and detailed research to do. Apart from all these compromises in historical realism and hard calls, we feel that we are still doing our best to represent a supermod.

[Emperor E]

i got to say this mod no wait SUPERMOD looks good i hope it doesnt die
il watching closely

[alpaca]

Hey,
I was wondering who's doing the scripting for you? If you want I can get on board to give you some tips and ideas, although I would stop short at doing actual implementation (as you maybe know I have my own project to work on)

[SpaceUnion]

Yes, I support having alpaca (he's probably the best scripter on TWC) and could help us a lot since a lot of our features will be script-oriented.

[Hengest]

Sounds Like Killing and Mersk are heading our campaign scripting department. I think they are pretty keen to champion the work themselves, and since you are unable to help with implementation (which as you know is pretty important to getting anything done) we probably will keep things as they are. Thank you for your offer of advice though, you are well-known as an expert on these things so I'm sure that if the lads have any specific questions or need of tips then we will ask you direct. If it's okay, we will PM or email you with any details or outlines of specific plans that could use your keen mind!

Cheers, and good luck with your mod. I really liked Anno Domini, I'm very eager to see how it will develop now since it merged.

[alpaca]

Sounds Like Killing and Mersk are heading our campaign scripting department. I think they are pretty keen to champion the work themselves, and since you are unable to help with implementation (which as you know is pretty important to getting anything done) we probably will keep things as they are. Thank you for your offer of advice though, you are well-known as an expert on these things so I'm sure that if the lads have any specific questions or need of tips then we will ask you direct. If it's okay, we will PM or email you with any details or outlines of specific plans that could use your keen mind!

Cheers, and good luck with your mod. I really liked Anno Domini, I'm very eager to see how it will develop now since it merged.

Yes, PM is ok. Anno Domini is currently on hold as Re Berengario stopped modding and I am working on Italia Invicta. I hope to return to it after finishing that but obviously that's at a point in the not very near future.

[Hengest]

That's a shame, I really liked his work, he had some great ideas.

[alpaca]

That's a shame, I really liked his work, he had some great ideas.

Yeah he was put off by the heavy restraints the game imposes on us unfortunately.
He's modding paradox games now

Edit: Sorry for the totally off-topic stuff.

[Mikel]

That is A LOT to have for Italy. Maybe one can be dropped (Pisa) and the Kingdom of Navarra could be put in instead. It wans't conquered until 1512 by Aragon anyways..

[Ali_the_English]

I'm glad Burgundy have been included. I look forwards to playing this mod. Will culture (from Britannia campaign) be in it?

[Hengest]

So Mikel, you want us to drop Pisa (one of four Italian factions) to make a Spanish faction, which will give us ...four Spanish factions? :-P Italy was the most populated, and most densely populated area of the known world in the Middle Ages.

It's always a difficult call with factions, and we are still discussing it but I think if we do swapa faction it will be in the Balkan or Middle East regions.

[Ali_the_English]

I'm surprised Ireland haven't been included as the British Isles are one of your main areas of conflict. I would have thought that Ireland was a lot more important in the early middle ages than Sweden.

[Hengest]

Well let me explain by bringing up Norway, which is definitely one of the most ignored and underestimated factions in any medieval mod, and this is generally due to poor historians, which is ironic since everyone who has ever played a Total War game sees themselves as historians!

Also, as you know Denmark was pretty important to several european factions and in fact in 1080 actually controlled Flanders, it was a key power in the north and yet without Sweden this would be unbalanced. Although Sweden was not a recognisable medieval kingdom until some 100 years after the mod start it does not relegate it to being obsolete. There are several factions in the mod that start out as insignificant duchies or provincial powers but can grow into kingdoms, Portugal being one of them. Sweden was actually very important in the twelfth century throughout the Baltic because it had stablised itself internally and could concentrate it's energies eastwards which put enormous pressure on Novgorod and Lithuania, it also curbed the growing power of Poland.

What we want to deliver in the Dominion of the Sword is this kind of dynamic balance by presenting the actual complexities of relationships between the different powers. Which is why several small factions such as Bohemia and Burgundy have been included.

The reason why we did not go with Ireland was pretty much because of the fact that whilst it was important in effecting a dynamic balance to England and the British Isles, as a faction they never even dominated their island. This compounded with the fact that they never left their island AND that they were utterly marginalised if not in fact 'crushed' within the first two centuries of the mod seems to relegate it as a possibility.

Ireland would only effect Scotland and England anyway whereas Sweden would come into contact with Denmark, Norway, Novgorod, Poland, HRE, Lithuania and it is likely with our navigable rivers system that they even penetrate Russia and rub shoulders with Kiev.

[Emperor E]

still the planning looking good with ideas

[boki]

Will you be redoing the factions rosters?

[beavis]

sounds like a great idea.
i would change some of the factions in the list.
there are 5 italian factions, and three iberian factions.
i would drop sicily and pisa.
norman sicily was independent for only around 100 years and was contested by the HRE, Anjou and Aragon for most of the period. I would make sicily instead a possesion of France at the beginning of the game and a victory condition for the HRE, France, the Byzantines and Aragon, this should make for interesting gameplay and reflect history.

i would consider these factions

the Ordenstaat of the Teutonic knights, thorn in the side of all baltic states and lasted until renaming itself Prussia.

the Ilkhans...the Mongols divided after the death of Genghis khan and the Ilkhans and GoldenHorde fought against each other.

Bohemia

Khwarezm/Persia (you have only 3 muslim factions)...even after the defeat by genghis khan, khwarezmians fought as a free company in the crusades, perhaps because of a lack of slots make the Persian faction a fusion of the khwarezm/ilkhans/timurids, starting off as a islamic style faction with more mongol units later in the game or after certain triggers.

my two cents..

willing to help

[Drtad]

norman sicily was independent for only around 100 years and was contested by the HRE, Anjou and Aragon for most of the period. I would make sicily instead a possesion of France at the beginning of the game and a victory condition for the HRE, France, the Byzantines and Aragon, this should make for interesting gameplay and reflect history.

That would most certainly not reflect history. France did not have control of Sicily, and Sicily was an independent force that was to be reckoned with, defeating the Byzantines, Zirids, and Siqilli until the Sicilian Vesper wars caused Sicily to be split.

[beavis]

Sicily passed from a Norman/French dynasty ( yes independant from the french crown i agree )to the Hohenstaufen/HRE control in 1194. Sicily was Conquered by the French of Anjou in 1266.



Agree that the Hauteville dynasty was important in the Crusades and Sicily was an important state, but I think given the limited faction slots there may be more interesting and unique factions to play. 5 italian factions are too much imo. given the fact that independant sicily only lasted 100 years i thought this one may be cut, perhaps merging it with the crusader states since the rules of Antioch were of the same dynasty as the rulers of sicily. Maybe combining them(sicily and crusader states) into a 'Norman' faction

[SaberHRE]

Well, the the conquest of Sicily by Anjous brought back an independent Sicily, because the Anjous were not vassals to the Kings of France.

[Hengest]

*Bohemia are in the mod, they have a faction slot.
*Ordenstaat of the Teutonic knights was planned but we removed it for Burgundy, since they were never a faction beyond that short era of history unlike Kingdom of Jersulam and Crusader States. Besides, we have a lot of action in the Baltic already.
*Khwarezm/Persia has lands that cover mostly territory beyond our map, we may still give them a faction lsot though. We have not ended discussions.

*Italy gains so many factions because Italy was perhaps the most densely populated, factionally divided, technically and culturally complex and developed area in the world- surely a hot bed for Total War!