Conversions and Changes: What have you done to mod your own PDER games?

[Studpuffin]

You know what they say about great minds...

[Constantius]

Carnt you three (all of the above ) collaberate on an unofficial mini faction mod ,i personnally would love to see the Serbs ,Cumans ,Damascas , Antioch etc etc or is this not allowed .In truth i suppose i should have a crack myself

[VINC.XXIII]

yes Serbs are very important for the balance in the Balkans,I'm tired to see so strong Hungary,or continental axed Venice.

[billydilly]

I think I'll add the Serbs to my version. I'll have to do a bit of skinning.
The thing is that PDER is actually pretty easy to mod because of the AOR system. Alot of the units are standard AOR units availably too all factions.

My version so far:
The Cumans (done)
Vladimir-Suzdal (done)
Damascus (done)
Serbia (done)

[Studpuffin]

I used Portugal as the basis for my Serbia. I'm not very good at creating my own personal skins for units, and those were available since I removed Portugal from my games.

Now that I have some time again I will finally add the Zirids to my version. I will basically clone the Moors with a small selection of Egyptian units added in.

My version so far:
+Cumans/Kypchak Confederacy
+Syria/Damascus Sultanate
+Serbia
-Portugal

Will Add:
Tunisia/Zirid Emirate

I am also tempted to remove the Papal States from the game to allow unlimited expansion versus Catholic nations, but this will disable crusades and not Jihads. Don't know yet if it is possible to disable both. I'm still only a part-time modder

[billydilly]

@Studpuffin

Is your Serbia catholic or orthodox?
I have given them Greek Bodyguards and Byzantine culture, but I think it should rather be Eastern European culture and EE Bodyguard, right?

I currently have 31 faction (including rebels, Mongols and Timurids).

[VINC.XXIII]

Serbs and Bulgars are slavics,but very under the cultural byzantine influences.And looks like byzantines for the early period.After,in the 14century they looks more like the others europeans,Serbs have many armors from Italia or Augsbourg.

Studpuffin and Billy:Why not release your versions in submods?No units of other mods,just the new faction.

[Studpuffin]

@BillyDilly

I had a hard time deciding between a Greek culture-Orthodox religion Serbia versus an EE culture-Catholic religion Serbia. Ultimately, I rolled some dice and decided!

I ended up with a Greek Orthodox faction in which I incorporated many Eastern European units and several knights. They have a very unique feel as a result, sort of an Orthodox Hungary. This gives them some unique advantages and disadvantages, like no crusades but they begin play with some strong units. This also gives them access to Greek recruitment buildings right off the bat, so if they expand historically then they can recruit much faster.

Historically, however, at this time the faction of Dukjla should probably be considered Catholic, as they had gained some status by dealing with the pope. However, the Serbian church has always been rather independent and the Byzantines had toyed around in the politics of greater Serbia for a long time. The Great Schism was only a few decades old at this time, and really there wasn't much difference for the majority of people in the region. Eventually, the faction should become more Orthodox as it tries to assert itself regionally.

Since PDER begins just before the reign of Konstantin Bodin, I assumed he'd still have some want of capturing Bulgaria after his time as Peter III of Bulgaria. With Bulgaria heading toward Orthodoxy a little more strongly, and due to the proximity of easily conquerable Byzantine lands, I made the faction Orthodox really only for little historical reasons and mostly for playability reasons. I'm not very good at scripting faction changes either!

The more I play the game, the more I find Serbia invading Italy instead of Byzantine-Bulgaria, though. They seem to be a good deterent to the hordes of sicilian stacks that sometimes run rampant in southern Italy. Since they cannot be crusaded against nor excommunicated they often threaten the pope directly, and its fun to watch their wars erupt.

[Studpuffin]

@ BillyDilly again

With your Cuman faction, what religion and culture did you choose for them? I ended up making mine an Eastern European Orthodox faction (with the local AOR units and Mongol-Turkic names) starting allied to Georgia, but have since considered making them a middle-eastern faction.

[billydilly]

I made my Cumans islamic and with turkish names - might change them to mongol names I want them to fight Georgia and the Russian factions.

[Constantius]

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/medieval_serbia/index.htm this and this http://www.travelserbia.info/history/medieval.php should give a little background if your interested .They are far from in depth but i stumbled upon the thought you might want alook

[billydilly]

Thanks constantius.

I think I'll keep Serbia as orthodox for now, and with a byzantine culture.

@ Rus-Bey
I might just upload my version soon. I'll have to check it for bugs before I upload anything, because I don't mind sharing it but I really don't feel like updating it eveytime someone finds a small error or a missing info pic.

I'll also change Kerkyra into some other region - it's probably the most useless region in the mod.

It is based on Gigantus' version of PDER in this link:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=291324

[Gigantus]

Why don't you set up a new culture and new religion?

Steppe Culture and Animism Religion sounds cool to me. Are you up to the challenge?

[billydilly]

Interesting, but what about the buildings? Temples etc?

[Gigantus]

Create your own. Put them into the correct folders
Didn't say it would be easy.

The attached pic from RegProv folders might help.

Asian is the culture, shaman the religion.

[Studpuffin]

I have done that before with my vanilla game, created Cumans using Norman slot, but its much better to build your own faction from scratch. I only chose to keep Cumans as EE Orthodox faction so they could invade russia easily.

Well, if I am to keep up it sounds like I need to get working!

[Gigantus]

Your playground is ready.

[VINC.XXIII]

thanks Billy,but I have yet many more that this version,but I have incapacity to add new faction.
For Cumans the best is tengriist,like the Mongols,because the turks and mongols aren't all muslims.Volga Bulgaria is muslim.But no for the Kypchaqs,Mongols,Petchenegs.The hybrid Turk Kypchaqs/Mongols who form the Golden Hord became fully muslim with Berke.Since this conversion they are allied to the Mamelouks against the Ilkhaniyan,in the second half of the 13century.The conversion to the Islam might be under the form of an events?

[billydilly]

@ Rus-Bey
I'll upload my version to the PDER Sub-mod section as soon as it is ready.
It is playable now but some things are still missing.

My version:
- The Cumans (Muslim. Starts with Sarkel)
- Syria (Muslim. Starts with Damascus)
- Vladimir-Suzdal (Orthodox. Starts with Ryazan)
- Serbia (Orthodox. Starts with Ras Province)
- BBB 4.x and regional titles for all factions
- Royal titles for all factions
- A lot of new ancillary images
- A lot of new event images
- Changed Kerkyra/Corfu to Amman in Jordan

***
To-do list:
- Need new faction symbols for Cumans, Syria and Serbia.
- Need new General and Captains skins for Serbia and Suzdal.
- Need to add faction to the 'campaign_script' (AI assistance, money, king and princess events etc.).
- Family tree for the four factions.

[Constantius]

Double headed eagle and crown for SerbiaDuring the reign of the Emperor Dusan Stefan Nemanjic (1331-1345), the double-headed eagle can be seen on everyday objects and state related documents, such as vax stamps and proclamations. In 1339, the Catalan map maker, A. Dulcert, in his map of the known world, marks the capital of Serbia in Skopje with the (red) double-headed eagle flag (Alexander Solovyev, "The History of the Serbian coat of arms" (1958), pages 134-135). Evidence: