WIP: Clash of Kingdoms for BGR V (submod for a submod) *Update, Ayyubid roster + revamped AOR units

[Kaidonni]

Thanks.

I haven't posted the most recent changes to the borders and rivers, but I'm pretty happy with what I have now. Region ownership will be sorted out later, but it looks like Poland will be in a similar position to the Eastern Roman Empire - fragmented, with either three or four of the five regions in 'rebel' hands.

I've found some maps on a Russian website, particular of Eastern Europe. The site is http://historyatlas.narod.ru/russia_eng/index.html. It seems to have quite a few maps that would be useful, *especially* where Eastern Europe is concerned. The maps all look very high quality.

[Kaidonni]

I don't wish to leave people in limbo, forever watching and waiting for this submod to be released, so I wish to announce that I'm abandoning this submod project, and modding for Medieval 2 on the whole. I have some deep personal reasons for doing this, and in short I need to move on from games and do other things with my life - I'm only 26, I've wasted years of my life, but I've still got plenty of youth left in me and lots of opportunities out there. I'm sorry for disappointing anyone with this news, but I need to do this.

[intel]

I just hope that whatever you are sacrificing this for, it will be more than worth it Real life comes ALWAYS first!

[Kaidonni]

I believe it is worth it. I want to build memories that I can look back on when I'm 86 and think," What the heck did I do?!" Not bad stuff, but weird and wonderful things. I did care about modding before, but I've had an experience that I need to believe happened for a reason, and time is ticking away.

[Kaidonni]

After a week and a half of it gnawing at me, I've decided I shall continue work with this submod, just it'll take longer than it would probably have (I really do need to be doing other things with my time also, but cutting out modding altogether might not work either).

[Kaidonni]

I've got a new faction list now (not final names).

Slave
Papacy
Scotland
England
France
Norway
Denmark
Aragon
Portugal
Spain
HRE
Pisa (instead of Genoa)
Venice
Sicily (under Hohenstaufen rule, gonna be tricky, but there was a treaty keeping it separate from the HRE)
Poland
Hungary
Teutonic order
Crusader State
Almohads
Ayyubids
Lithuania
Sultanate of Rum (replaces the Turks)
Volga-bulgaria (replaces Khwarezmians)
Abassid caliphate (replaces Timurids)
Mongols
Roman Empire (technically the Empire of Nicaea)
Armenia (new)
Bulgaria (new)
Novgorod
Vladimir-Suzdal (replaces Kievan Rus')
Georgia* (replaces Cumans)

*Georgia is tricky due to them having a Queen in 1225 (Rusudan I), and the next King (Davit VII) was imprisoned by Rum - their previous King died around 1223. I might need to fudge history and keep Giorgi IV alive a bit longer.

[Kaidonni]

Got to rant about this...the rivers in Russia bear very little resemblance to the rivers they are supposed to represent - some don't even have the same shape (nowhere near in some cases), and can't be any other rivers either.

Also, who thought the Rybinsk Lake actually existed back in the 11th Century...? Definitely killing that geographic feature!

[Kaidonni]

A new rant...why is the map stretched and squished out of proportion?! It's proving extremely frustrating since I *cannot* possibly model the region borders of the Russian principalities in this time frame without stretching them to ridiculous degrees. They will be out of proportion, squished, and that's that - there is *NO WAY* to fix the issue without completely remaking the map. It's grating on me because I want to pay attention to detail, to historical accuracy, and it won't look completely right no matter what I do...

EDIT: And now all my work this morning has been destroyed because something tripped the mains...

EDIT 2: And now I can't get back to where I was. This is one screwed-up map. Sorry, I have to get it off my chest. It is extremely out of proportion, and even angled. I hope no one minds the regions having to fit the map because I won't ever redo the entire map from scratch. If anyone minds, they can simply recreate the entire map because it won't be accurate any other way.

[Kaidonni]

An update, been working on the various Russian principalities. A cookie for anyone who can guess the Russian principalities and the other regions inside the red border on the minimap below.

Ignore outside, especially the Cuman blob - they'll be turned into Georgia soon enough, and those regions need to be fixed for Volga-Bulgaria.

*EDIT: Hmmm, a fair few rebel regions there, and it wouldn't be right to represent them under one of the playable Russian factions (Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal). I really want Georgia in over the Cumans (Georgia does last a lot longer), and also Volga-Bulgaria (over the Khwarezmians - the Abbasids can replace the Timurids for that part of the map).

[Kaidonni]

Due to the void in faction-controlled regions in the east, I'm possibly keeping the Cumans in. I still want Volga-Bulgaria and Georgia, so it's either kill the Khwarezmians for one of them, or not have the Abassids and use the Timurids instead, and then use Genoa for the other (likely I'll go with a Muslim to Muslim conversion, and have Genoa become Georgia - less work that way).

Any objections? Technically Volga-Bulgaria and the Cumans are killed by the Mongols, while the Khwarezmians are finished off by highwaymen (their leader was killed in 1231 *after* escaping the Mongols and attempting to re-establish his domains ), and they last longer anyway (1235-1240). Same with Abassids, they go on for a while. Genoa just own a slither of land at this time, and I have a rule of no less than two regions per faction at the start of the campaign (I will not give Genoa land they did not own until the second half of the 13th century - I am making an exception for Lithuania with Hrodna, but only because it comes into their possession very shortly anyway).

[RollingWave]

An update, been working on the various Russian principalities. A cookie for anyone who can guess the Russian principalities and the other regions inside the red border on the minimap below.

Ignore outside, especially the Cuman blob - they'll be turned into Georgia soon enough, and those regions need to be fixed for Volga-Bulgaria.

*EDIT: Hmmm, a fair few rebel regions there, and it wouldn't be right to represent them under one of the playable Russian factions (Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal). I really want Georgia in over the Cumans (Georgia does last a lot longer), and also Volga-Bulgaria (over the Khwarezmians - the Abbasids can replace the Timurids for that part of the map).

hmmm, you mean all those regions? I that red line covers like 15 regions.... but there are some usual suspects obviously, though we can't see where the city spots are so you can't be sure. but the usual suspect is probably

Kiev / Suzdal / Vladmir / Chernigov / Novohod-Siverski / Murmom / Ryazan / Bryansk / Rostov / Novgorod / Polotsk / Pereslav / Turov / Riga / Reval / Pskov / Halych / Mensk / Smolensk / Vilnus etc...

[Kaidonni]

Well, technically five of them are a dead give-away (they are the Polish regions I've posted about), and a few more are obvious. I'm still figuring out if having all those rebel regions is a good thing because I really wanted to have Genoa/Pisa, but that means if I also want both Georgia and Volga-Bulgaria, both the Cumans and Khwarezmians have to go (or I use Timurid slot and leave out Abassids, and I'd like them in...I think, anyway).

Hmmm...no Murom nor Bryansk (Murom was just too tiny to fit in due to the proportions of the SS map). The rest are spot on. Tver is in there as an individual region to give Vladimir-Suzdal a second province, as is Pskov (for Novgorod). The rest are based on borders prior to the Mongol invasion.

[Kaidonni]

Work has come a long way on the rivers in Russia. Lots of tributaries, although I'm planning to cut most of them (save for the larger, more significant ones) because there'll be too many rivers otherwise. I might put up a series of screenshots of these rivers (minus trees, etc, in the region to make them easier to spot on the WIP map). They are 'correct' as far as I can manage with the proportions of the SS map taken into account (and the fact that I need maps of the rivers that do not feature artifical reservoirs, an unsurprising number of which curve and make eyeballing the rivers tricky at best!).

[Byg]

Any more progress?

[Kaidonni]

Been having a little break from modding since adding in the rivers was getting to me, although I will be removing quite a number of tributaries probably (I need them as a point of reference in the Russian lands and for Volga Bulgaria - not many lakes or large seas to compare borders to otherwise). To be honest, the borders of most regions in that area are largely complete, it's just figuring out what other regions I can have; my best sources show next to no settlements outside of the Russian principalities and Volga Bulgaria, and I have found that later maps aren't very useful in this regard (the settlements that do appear in those areas were dating back to the 16th century and on, quite a jump from 1225). I may have to fudge it a little to show settlements that did exist in the 13th century onwards, but not necessarily in 1225 (Sarai Batu and Sarai Berke for instance).

I have repositioned the Khwarezmians for Volga-Bulgaria, Genoa for Pisa, and the Timurids for the Abbasids. If I continue to tweak the regions in the south-east corner, I might get a few extra for the east/north-east, as the Mongols will be the first stop rather than the Khwarezmians. I'm also considering sacrificing the Balearic Islands for another non-island region; currently the only island regions are Sardinia (teamed up with Corsica as one region), Sicily, Crete, and Cyprus. I removed Rhodes and Visby for Russian principalities.

[Kaidonni]

Some WIP screenies attached. Don't mind the armies and agents littered about (also the last pic still has Bilyar under the name of Moscow...forgot to change that before taking the pics). The rivers haven't been cleaned up yet, nor the forests.

I opted to replace Tver' with Suzdal, so the aptly named Vladimir-Suzdal have both their major cities.

It's really hard fitting something into the map between the Russian provinces and Volga-Bulgaria, all of my map sources simply do not show *anything* out there until much later in the 16th century and onwards. Some of the Russian settlements do appear close together, which looks a bit odd. As for the larger number of rebel regions, I think reworking the Mongol invasion is in order so that certain cities face the potential to be directly attacked by a spawning army within a set period of time (with some randomness about the exact date), mimicking the Mongol invasion's path across those areas.

As you can also see, I've moved the factions about a bit more, and changing them may be a good idea as my next step. Need a rest from messing with rivers and provinces...especially rivers! Soooo many rivers! Which ones to keep and which ones to cut? Since there's a whole lot more room out there than, say, England or France, more of the tributaries can be placed on the map.

[RollingWave]

At least from what I understand, there really wasn't that much between Rostov / Murmom to Volga Bulgaria, it was inhabited by various native tribes with very limited notable large settlements. however due to the easy navigability of the Volga river it wasn't hard to get from Rostov area to Bolghar.

[Kaidonni]

I added in a settlement named Murunza, supposedly existed on the site of Mokshan; but no citations on Wikipedia and the link is also red, so it was deleted. Better than absolutely nothing in that area, though. It balances it out a bit more. Unfortunately, the Mongols are proving rather...troublesome. Those massacres they went on after a long day at work wiped out Nishapur and Merv before my start date, and neither Herat nor Urgench will fit on the map due to being further east (in the case of Herat, much further).

EDIT: I might be able to fit Urgench on just about, but not Herat...

[RollingWave]

yeah, Afghanistan is actually off the map, though I pretended that it wasn't and stuck Herat on the edge anyway for HURB. from a geographic POV that's the most logical settlement to put there anyway. it was the clear economic / political center of the area.

that's the tough part with these maps, no matter how far east you stretch your going to be missing something (unless you manage to stretch it to Japan or something ) . Afghanistan was hugely relavent to the rise of the Seljuqs and also of the Khwarezmids. but once you stretch there then Pakistan / Western India / Xinjian / Uzbekesitan etc should also be in play and once you go there China should be in play etc.. there's no end.

[Kaidonni]

Minor update: good bloomin' riddance to Light Men at Arms!

They used exactly the same model as Light Swordsmen, and their stats were essentially the same; a clone unit if ever I saw one. I just nuked them, so there are only Light Swordsmen now. It doesn't affect recruitment for the factions that did have Light Men at Arms - they now have Light Swordsmen instead.