Fall of the Cross & Rise of the Crescent (FCRC) - General Discussion (until release FCRC 1.0)

[necroproject]

Hey, I'll be right back around the middle of June. What about this campaign developpement ? Anything more since more a month. Which kind of help is needed ?

[DaVinci]

Hey, I'll be right back around the middle of June. What about this campaign developpement ? Anything more since more a month. Which kind of help is needed ?

Good to see that you re-appear

The development of this campaign is dependent on your actions. Nothing happened since the last pm-exchange. The last point was, that a working map/campaign is available, nothing else.

My real life gives not enough free time, that i could realise the whole thing for this campaign, so a coder is needed to do the things.

Still, i would take time to implement a rough family tree based on a finished researchment.

And i could then also pack quite easily the then needed files to have a preliminary campaign-launch, to playtesting/developing further.

But the latter job must be done by other people.

After all, it is a submod (with active support by me, but not the option, that i can do the whole coding, due to my time constraints).

Nonetheless, i hope this campaign gets a realisation, in whatever shape - perhaps later people can refine the files/codes to make it a real good campaign as well.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

'nuff said.

(yes, that means I'm going to do this alone unless anyone wants to help...I don't necesarilly need it, though, now that I've got this working)

edit: wait, I actually do need someone who can tell me the exact starting position of every faction.

[DaVinci]

that someone still looks into that.

A few weeks ago i decided to implement this abandoned stuff into an official update (probably in the second half of the year), based on the files which i recently sent to all FCRC members (last year), but just then as a real complete FCRC campaign, a second additional campaign, when i have enough time and energy for it.

Are you able to provide the whole to do's? Then i would implement your modding, and you'll get the proper credits, of course.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Credits are nice, but not necesarry.

I can do pretty much everything yes. Family trees, positions, settlements. Heck, Yesterday I did the starting position and English family tree (and it's vassals)!

I just need to know 2 things: 1. Kingdoms weremore advanced those years, how much should I develop the tech tree of the important factions?

2. England dominates the French. They defenitly have 1/2 of the modern-day nation AND england itself. Should I give France more starting money and a little army of itself? I'm afraid it would get steamrolled.

[DaVinci]

Credits are nice, but not necesarry.

I can do pretty much everything yes. Family trees, positions, settlements. Heck, Yesterday I did the starting position and English family tree (and it's vassals)!

I just need to know 2 things: 1. Kingdoms weremore advanced those years, how much should I develop the tech tree of the important factions?

2. England dominates the French. They defenitly have 1/2 of the modern-day nation AND england itself. Should I give France more starting money and a little army of itself? I'm afraid it would get steamrolled.

Great.

The english domination of France is calling the Angevine Empire. There was unrest, so that shouldn't be realised very secure for England. However, England and France weren't at war at the time, and in principle we shouldn't extra provoke it (AI will do it anyway, but ie. faction-relations between them should be good from the start).

All a question of balancing. I would start with a historical correct setting, and then make the one or other gameplay-correction/manipulation.

With "tech-tree", you mean the settlements in the ds file, right?

I just would give the capitals and perhaps the one or other main city some more advanced facilities.
That needs to be done for all factions, or the balance goes out of order.

You should break it down from the CE campaign, just add equally some facilities and populations, but not too much (pop), as it is known that ie. some plagues etc. always reduced pop, and the development was anyway quite slow (one can't realise a gradual development between 1099 to 1185 AD, and it might make the campaign crappy, if too much is built already, and cities are too big).

And, please only edit the campaign files, not common data files, despite the names files, where you need to add new names, put them to the bottom of the files, please.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

I've done everything you mentioned before you actually mentioned it
I can read minds

seriously though, that's what I had in mind.
I know that England is the Angevin Empire. I've read some stuff about it.
I believe the unrest in England should actually be bigger than in the continental territories, since the Angevin kings weren't exactly...proud of their English territories. Richard, for example, seems to have only used it to collect money for his holy war
I've added the names, put the historical guys in their positions (Payn de Rochefort in Anjou, William Longchamp in England, etc etc)
Been doing France aswell, So these 2 kingdoms are virtually done. (They were the easiest, I just had to move Robert of Normandy 5 tiles to the left, rename him Richard Plantagenet, delete some family members and rename the whole familytree to their correct names and ages)
Now I think I'm going to do the other important faction(s): the Muslims.


edit: been playtesting with England for 10 turns, if I do nothing (no building, training etc) in the first 2 turns, York, Bordeaux, Fougeres will rebel and Wales will riot. Hurts the economy quite badly. Exactly what I had in mind

[DaVinci]

Sounds good.

As for unrest, i would make it so, that those settlements you mentioned are red from the start, but can be calmed by the player with setting down the tax-rate (unless settlements/regions actually rebelled in history, means, go over to the rebel faction), similar to the Roman start situation in the RK and CE campaigns.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

guess waht; that's exactly what happens. When you do nothing, those regions WILL rebel, but if you lower taxes, they won't.

Same happens with Salah ad Dins Empire (it's HUGE) and the seljuks of Rum, these two factions are quite big, and although a player is able to stop the riots, the AI never manages to control ALL of them. (1 or 2 provinces will riot, but it's rather inconsistent on which settlements will)

note 'bout the kipchaqs: In this timeframe (1991 till 1311) they'll eventually represent the incoming mongols, and If I may say so, their units fit that role quite well! Shall i modify their goals a bit so that they'll go into the middle-east as well? (and make them a bit more aggressive )

and a suggestion on the tech tree part: Let's say I'll give every european settlement at least tier 1 of the feudalistion tree, and occasional settlement tier 2 and the capital and another important city (if it's a weak faction) tier 3 with tier 1 metal-working? you'll have some pretty advanced armies from the start... Then there are still the 'barracks-factions'. same story here, most settlement tier 1, occasional settlement tier 2 plus some inns and the capital and other settlement tier 3 with more advanced inns/ports/anything the faction can train units from.

Needless to say, I'll also have the whole economic system a boost.

[DaVinci]

Yes to everything.
Good to see you are very talented to adapt the ChivTW balancing style
Honestly, i'm positively surprised

We'll later see how it plays out (ie. the economic boost ... an economical challenge shall stay ... maybe we have to subtract more money with the initial start-script, at least this can make a bit trouble in the first turns).

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Honestly, i'm positively surprised

thank you I know far too well what you mean.

We'll later see how it plays out (ie. the economic boost ... an economical challenge shall stay ... maybe we have to subtract more money with the initial start-script, at least this can make a bit trouble in the first turns).

Indeed. I have noticed England gets in dept in the first few turns, so I don't think I need to tweak anything there. The other factions...well, liuke you said, we'll see about that later

edit:

===================
progress report
===================

campaign map so far

==============
factions changed so far;
Byzantines
Seljuk of Rum
Grand Seljuks
Fatimids
Plantagenet England
Capet France
==============

notes:
Saladins' Empire (grand seljuks) didn't have all the territory east of Baghdad, but they DID have the city itself. Should they have baghdad like now or do you want me to make it rebel?
England is playing nicely agressive against Salah ad Din, but it always and in a stalemate (when controlled by the AI, ofcourse)
that means it's quite balanced. still need to spice up both armies so you'll get really epic huge battles
fatimids: I put them in the desert to rot for now. Which place did you have in mind for them?

Every faction you see here as changed, is completely done (family tree, balancing etc. Except for the whole feudalisation/barracks thing, which I'll do when I'm COMPLETELY done with the starting positions and family trees)

I know England had more or less control over Ireland, but they were largely independent (à la the lowlands, although I might give the HRE Friesland/Frisia.)

coming to Friesland/Frisia....Utrecht as the capital of FRIESLAND??? I get it, Friesland represents the very loose Duchies and Bisdoms of the modern-day Netherlands, yes. But it is kinda weird in my Dutch eyes


edit 2: looking at it it seems that the largest part of the starting positions is done (grand seljuks took me long enough, though...)
Just need to expand Sicily into Naples, the Reconquista a bit further south, preparations for the Baltic Crusades (Which are in the midst of this timescale....yay, It's a subject which hasn't been covered alot) in the HRE, Eastern Europe still a bloody mess.

I do that, And then the preparations for the campaign are complete.

[DaVinci]

Good progress.

I have a question:
Did you use the latest map changes and files which were created by the FCRC mapper, and then all the FCRC camp files i provided/collected for this mod?
I have the impression, that you have taken the CE camp files, and have added Acre only ... ? I'm just a bit confused now. Let me know if you need the files, however, i thought i have distributed them to all former FCRC members? Ie. also the Baghdad issue is considered in the said FCRC map ... we had 4 added regions in the whole, with all according basic map files.

EDIT

Just in case: I'm loading up the former FCRC 0.1 now. You may use some of the files: Especially map_regions.tga and all according camp folder files incl. the text folder files which are related to camp and map files -> map txt files must be edited/merged with your done files then).

Hint: The files are prepared in a way, so that you could add them to the Chiv folder, and they load actually the second Additional Campaign via menu. But, do not add them in your case, open the zip, and remove or ignore the single data txt files which are not related to camp files. Also there is a names.txt in text folder. Exchange/edit/merge the according map and camp files with yours, all other data files must be ignored.

[DaVinci]

I just looked more at the files. It adds 4 regions, changes (FCRC like) some faction names and camp descriptions and menu.

Under the above assumptions ...

Text folder files, which you should use/merge:
- campaign_descriptions
- fcrc_regions_and_settlement_names
- historic_events
- menu_english

Camp folder files:
- the fcrc camp folder. Here merge the included files with your files, means edit them accordingly.

I hope that thing confuses not too much, and that it helps to get a second Additional Campaign working in your Chiv mod folder setup.
Again, all that, because i got the idea from your preview map above, that you didn't use the FCRC 0.1 files from the start, i might be wrong in that assumption.
In the ladder case i feel sorry about my two posts here ... in all other cases too, because it surely will produce some confusion.

[DaVinci]

Bull, if all these FCRC 0.1 files make too much trouble with your progress-stage, then just ignore them, and go on with your files.
Just le me know, if and then which of the files will be merged with yours.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

wow, now you're confusing me
I never got the FCRC 0.1 files, I'll look into them, but when it's too much work changing everything again, you must understand that I shall just edit my own files so I get the Baghdad issue solved.


You see, I've already added names Like Salah ad Din and Payn de Rochefort (Knight from Anjou who governed Anjou while Richard was gone). I've spent quite some hours mapping, and if I have to change everything again, it can delay me quite a bit.


Besides, I got a headache yesterday because of all the settlement editing So I'm not really happy when i have to change it all again.

Will try, though!

edit: just merging the files will be too much, I'm afraid. The RGB values are different, and so are the coordinates and I'd have to do a lot of stuff again. BUT, I can ofcourse take the ideas from the files, and use them.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

/edit

Never mind, phew, saved my work from myself



clumsy me...

[DaVinci]

Alright to post # 75, just go on. (Last post, what does it mean?)

To have the fcrc camp separation, you can take over from 0.1 though:
- camp descriptions (text folder)
- menu_english (text folder)

- historic events (text folder) ... so we have a separate intro text (description needs later still the according text)

...then use the camp folder name "fcrc" and the file from 0.1:
- descr_events (fcrc folder)
...descr_strat needs then the following code at the start of the code lines

campaign fcrc
; options bi

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Yes, I figured that out; done.


last post? oow, the whole game ctd'ed as soon as I would end turn on any campaign
Solved it, though.


little progress update:

Finished the starting positions today. Some family trees still need to be done, but I'll do those later. First, I''ll continue what I've been doing; playtesting!

I finished the whole feudalisation/barracks thing, and now I see 3/4 full stacks with knights, foot knights, MAA and sergeants running around everywhere pretty big and balanced battles going on, including those in the levant. (starting position of Salah ad Din is on the road to Jerusalem in ambush, England AI does exactly what it's real life counterpart did at Arsuf as well; they walk right into it and both faction have +/- 50% chance of winning that battle. It's epic!)

Reconquista seems to end in some kind of stalemate, as it should be. the HRE goes crusading in Prussia after the early turns (~1200).

England constantly tries to conquer Scotland, and it will eventually, but the first few armies get beaten. On the mainland in France it's quite calm, France walks into Italy and starts a war with the HRE and Pisa there, which doesn't seem to end in favor of any faction.

Overall, I'm very glad that I don't have to change TOO much for it to be balanced. (I've already playtested with different factions, the whole campaign really is a whole different experience from the CE or the normal campaign) Only the Rum-Seljuks seem to get overrun by the Byzantines and Armenians occasionally. Gotta fix that.

I still need to change the populations, look into the Mongol/Cuman faction and balance stuff some more

[DaVinci]

Sounds very good, Bull.

Only the Rum-Seljuks seem to get overrun by the Byzantines and Armenians occasionally. Gotta fix that.

Here, necroproject's 0.1 map solved it due to the additional regions to some extend. If it remains, then please try to put the according regions into your map. And else, it needs then balance-coding.

EDIT
And please try to save your files, ie. on a stick ... too much modders loose their files somehow to diverse bad pc system events, nowadays.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Yeah, I'll add some more regions there.
About the Fatimids; where should they go?