National Revolutions 1821-1848

[Sotericus]

Hard is meant to be hard. I failed lamentably twice while testing. The AI keeps pouring wave after wave of stacks over Bucharest and if they are not Austrians, they are Russians (sometimes even a French or a British expedition landing from Black Sea to restore order !). It can become frustrating. On the other hand the idea is to reenact somehow the disparity between the small principality and the Great Powers. We should concentrate more on game mechanics for version 2.0.

@mircea Have you given a thought to the form of government? I have started to re-work the historical characters and I would love to have your insights (both yours and Wallachian's) on these issues.
@Wallachian I hope this is not a real spoiler, but a kind of strategy-tactics guide. In any ways, I'll treat it as a spoiler

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On normal you have a real chance in defeating the AI and winning the game. I didn't really have the time to do it, but I came close to it. Try following the mission lines for money and ponder well your expenses. Concentrate your attacks on Ottomans and use as much as possible Tudor's ambush ability. Do not worry to much about Bucharest. Some Dorobanti Militia (as they don't have upkeep costs) , a battery (in order to stop waves of intruders in the fort) and a General (to overcome routing) should suffice in supporting your Town Watch (remember that you have there some of the best units in the game - the Veteran Pandurs). You can take Constantinopole with one stack provided that 1. is leaded by Tudor (I would go for two generals in the stack in order to prevent routing) 2. You have at least one artillery unit and 3. You have some regular forces (like Line Inf and Rev. Guard given after completing the 'Defense' mission 4. You have an amount of luck. Remember, as the advisor says, that the goal is not to destroy your enemy, but to capture the town. Try bombing the town heavily, then repell any counter-attack. Wait a while, harrassing your fleeing enemies. Then start a full-front attack during the last 15min or so. Drive your forces to the city center and defend the flag from all counter-attacks. You should be good then.

I have finished the Wallachian roster, but it will take some time to upload the pics. I am now working on organizing the units according to techs and buildings as well as adding new characters and traits. If you have some ideas, please share them with me.

[Wallachian]

Well i failed on normal too. My armies took Cluj but then two Austrian stacks and an Ottoman stack besieged Bucharest which finally fell. I abandoned the game as I was left with Greece and Transilvania and about 4 Ottoman and 3 Austrian stacks in betweem.

I tried a Greek campagin for a bit. Just spotted a little bug. My Greek stack from Moldova got defeated by an Ottoman army and after the defeat what was left of the stack became Moldavian (it had a Moldavian flag).

I must say I have very little knowledge on the historical characters of the '21 period, know a bit more about '48ers.

Looking forward to see the new Wallachian roster!

[Sotericus]

Ha ! You shouldn't go west before settling the accounts with your Sovereign south . For the Filliki Eteria, did you have any crash, or just the flag changed? When I created it I created as a Moldavian army, which I then modified in order to become Greek. Either there may be some leftovers at work, or the game just acts this way. In any ways, it is a bit funny as in reality most of the Pandurs supporting the Sacred Battalion redrew after the Battle of Dragasani and effectively "changed their flags", though they changed it for a Wallachian one. Which make the game more interesting . This gives me the idea that maybe we could do some custom battle maps. I even found a map of the battle above. As for the new Wallachian roster I am working on it (did a lot of work yesterday evening only to arrange the info I am going to post, it takes awfully much time ).

[Sotericus]

A quick note to let you know that I upgradet the original post for version 2.0. It also contains a preview for Wallachian roster as well as a synopsis of the work developed until now and the directions we are heading. Take a close look at it as I hope it is worth. I will be back soon with some explanations and planning.

[Wallachian]

Sotericus, I must congratulate you on the great work on the second version of the Wallachian roster. Your skills have improved tenfold, those little details with the tricolour belts and the imprints of the wallachian eagle and the flags! Just stunning. Was going to ask what happened to the normal Dorobanti unit? I didn't noticed them in the roster. And the Wallachian government is amazing aswell.

Looking forward to see what's next! For the 1848 campaign shouldn't Croatia be a faction aswell? And also the revolutionary Italian factions like Venice and Piedmont. Or is that for later versions?

[Sotericus]

@Wallachian Your appreciation is much welcome fellow Wallachian.

Was going to ask what happened to the normal Dorobanti unit? I didn't noticed them in the roster.

The classic dorobanti with the 1860s uniform we all know and love, will wait for a while, as the Vanatori de munte will. I will do them when I'll advance the atlas work for more western factions.

For the 1848 campaign shouldn't Croatia be a faction aswell? And also the revolutionary Italian factions like Venice and Piedmont. Or is that for later versions?

For now I want to finish the roster for Hungary and Poland in order to make them playable for battles in the first campaign as well as once liberated. With minimal intervention in startpos I want to move to the 1830 campaign. We will think more of 1848 campaign afterwards.

Until then, check the New Ideology feature I am trying to implement in the campaign in the original post. It is still a work in progress, but until now it works very well. I have really missed the world of Victoria, and I think this could be a first step in this direction. Ideologies are available for all factions and are related to building chains. They are not only acting through spawning agents, but are constantly moving the beliefs of the population, thus causing "ideological unrest".

I have also changed the general and the colonel for Romania and Moldavia. For other factions, I will do them while advancing .

[mircea]

Once again you did a marvelous job Especially with the ideology and the new campaign enhancements parts. ++rep

At the same time I've now realized that we missed another 1820s' liberal revolution, more exactly the one in Spain

P.S. I've posted a few additional notes/information on the group

P.S. Seems that I'll have to wait until giving rep

[Sotericus]

hi guys, this a short report for this week. I have managed to introduce assassins for the campaign. they will be available only in balkans, for various reasons (unfortunately, no pics for now). I am still expanding the research on ideologies and trying to find a way in which ideological unrest will be more likely to create unhappiness among population. I am still continuing the work on faction rosters. Below you will find two units in Moldavian roster. Line Inf (note the ensign, which is actually the Moldavian CoA of the time; I still have to change the color of their blanket roll). The second one is Revolutionary guard based on the 1843 Moldavian Infantry (I have modified the helmet and added a new CoA, I still have to add new plumes).



@mircea Big thanks !

[Sir.Cojocarius]

Looks stunning!! Thanks again Sotericus and all involved!

[lordargento]

Your work is astonishing. I´m anxious to play with the 2.0 new release!
The units are looking even better now... go on with your hard work.
May i suggest something?. Perhaps you can edit the units icons, so they look like the vanilla ones, and leave the historical images for the unit´s description
You deserve a Rep for all this. Thank you very much!

[Wallachian]

Very nice units Sotericus +rep. Interesting about the Moldavian infantry from 1843, hadn't seen those helmets before except on firemen Very neat!

[Sotericus]

Hi guys. I am a bit caught up in the "real" life these days, so until today there's no much progress. I hope later on I'll further my work and keep you up to date tomorrow with some new screenshots.

@ Sir Cojocarius Many thanks, I really try to make things better.
@ lordargento Again, lots of thanks for your comments. With regards to the icons, they can be changed quite easily, but it requires a lot of repetitive work I am not willing to undertake for the time being as it can hinder the advancement on other fronts. As I work alone on units, any hour has its value. Should you be willing to help, I would be much obliged. Otherwise we could leave this tinkering work for later.
@ Wallachian Thank you. Actually the helmet they had was a sort of Pickelhaube doubled by a plume. I have been trying for ages to create one and just gave up as I was wasting precious time. The issue is that you need changing the mesh (model) in Milkshape 3d, work in which with my poor skills all I could do was to create a horrid helmet that you will better not see. I then chose to go for the lesser evil, that is modifying the texture and that's the closest I could get ( I took a cavalry helmet, made the plume invisible and added the CoA - I cannot make the crest invisible, as the helmet will be "cracked" ). It is more or less the sort of an Austrian/Bavarian early helmet, but it is the most I could do.

[Wallachian]

Do not worry my friend, I completely understand. I was just curious, it is great progress anyway!

[Sir.Cojocarius]

Sotericus I must say that you have made my favourite romanian mod for all total war games I've played. I'm still playing your mod, that and real life is the reasons why I'm not so acitve in the forum. But I am following the progress! So thumbs up domnule!

[Sotericus]

@Sir Cojocarius Mon cher (or as we have told it in 19th century monser) your comments are highly appreciated. I am really glad you enjoy the mod, as I am myself taking a great pleasure in working for it (though at times can get frustrating). As for the real life, we all get swallowed by it from time to time, but luckily we can still return here, so don't worry about it.

Speaking of which, for the next 2 weeks I'll be away so I won't really have the time to contribute to the mod. I will try to post the development to the day before embarking on my journey.
Until now I have : 1. reworked the textures for Wallachian Line Infantry and Wallachian Marines (I have added basically
a new ensign on the shakos).
2. added assassins (for the time being they don't have any pictures as they are a leftover from ETW, but I'm seeking a solution)
3. continued the Moldavian roster with new Balkan mercenaries (Lefegii), new Irregulars (plaiesi) and I hope to finish the other units this week.
4. worked towards developing the campaign (religion effects and region characteristics).
I know it is less than usual but, I am myself caught with various projects in the "real".

I was wandering whether someone had the idea of starting an AAR. I intend to start one once the Balkan factions will be done, and continue it during my testing trials.


Wishing you all a great week.

[Wallachian]

Actually I have never done an AAR so would definetly be interested in making a Moldavian or Wallachian one when you release the second version of the mod. Would be really cool to see how the diplomacy evolves. I would probably do it on easy difficulty though because of the resounding fail I had when i tried on normal. And my first goal would be to defeat the Ottomans ASAP, no more mucking around with the Greeks and Serbs or trying to invade Transilvania. Would be good if the Moldavians actually lasted a bit longer and didn't get attacked too soon by the Russians or Austrians.

Speaking of which, I've never figured out how to take screenshots in any total war game. Can you guide me on how to do it? I have the same problem in Medieval. I've heard of a program called Fraps but not sure if that's the appropriate one.

[Sotericus]

@Wallachian It can be fun working on an AAR. I would go for a small scale, POV one (focusing on two or three characters), as for a large scale one you would need a full campaign (and we have plenty, but plenty of work to do before that). You can take screenshots by pressing F12 ingame. Steam has its own screenshot option which I suppose is already activated (it was an update made a year or two ago). At the end of the session you will get a steam window to review your screenshots and eventually to uploade them to the steamcloud, and from there to post them with no effort almost everywhere (it's actually quite cool). The screens are also saved in a folder called userdata (which for the moment I don't know where it is exactly since I'm writing from my mac, but it should be in either ...ApplicationData/The Creative Assembly/ or in ...steam/common/NTW/ ).

[lordargento]

Hi Sotericus, hope you are right. It´s good to know that you are going on developing this marvelous mod.
Related to this: "@ lordargento Again, lots of thanks for your comments. With regards to the icons, they can be changed quite easily, but it requires a lot of repetitive work I am not willing to undertake for the time being as it can hinder the advancement on other fronts. As I work alone on units, any hour has its value. Should you be willing to help, I would be much obliged. Otherwise we could leave this tinkering work for later".
I´d love to help you, but right now i´m not capable of doing this, since i´m only a little modder. What i have achieved is the full ability to create regiments of a unique faction´s texture. Now i´m trying to create regiments with textures from two different factions, for which i´m receiving the immeasurable aid of Grand Maester Modder Steph. My next step is to create/modify the units icons. So if i finally master the art of creating units with parts of different factions textures (for this i need to "control" Gimp), i´ll gladly help you with the icons.
This mod is wonderful, i simply love it, since it gives the deserved attention to a european particular region and history which are not taken into account in game.
Thank you very much, you deserve another Rep (once the system allows me to do so again)
And good luck in your journey!.

[Sotericus]

@lordargento I'm pretty all right. The reason for leaving modding for a short period of time is that I'll be travelling, which is normal for me at this time of the year. I am really happy that you are willing to help. It will be pretty awesome to share the burden of modding with you. Should you need any help with your explorations in gimp and pfm feel free to PM me. I'm no genius, but I've spent a while doing the kind of work you mention.

[lordargento]

Thanks friend, i´m without time so as to start mastering Gimp (and i hate to start somethig and do not have enough time the to develop all i want). But once i begin taking care of it, of course i´ll ask you and Great Steph any doubts that surely will appear in the process.
Thanks, go on with your hard and marvelous work!