7.0 suggestions

[Пётр Быков]

Remove the Oleshe-region that for some reason was added around version 6.3. Before it, Kiev could actually build a port which in turn much more realistically reflected the city's role as the main trade hub of North-Eastern Europe with its trade routes stretching all the way down to Constantinople. As I mainly play Kievan Rus' I'm always bugged by that moronic little region that is sitting there like a road block on the Dnepr preventing Kiev from trade with Bysantium

Furthermore, I would like to see a tweak of the resources in Rus' lands to more correctly reflect its historical trade. Also, in reality some of the Rus' lands are the most fertile in Europe, whereas in the game they are the least fertile

[the patriot!]

judeman relax dude. I just proposed my suggestions and asked if they are possible. Even though without these changes you definitely should create an armenian-cilician kingdom. Major historical buildings like Hagia Sophia and Dome of the Rock in every major city. More traits consodering the role play aspect of the game such as crown of iberia imperator of rome (when you conquer rome). Each time you defeat a kingdom your faction leader gains as a trait their crown in order to subdue them.
More region controlling traits. If for instance you play as the Byzantines and you manage to defeat the Turks and capture some regions in the east your faction leader and your prince will later get the trait ruler of Byzantium or unifier of the old roman empire. Some nations flags should be improved. The Byzantines especially after 1250 used as their emblem a DOUBLE-headed yellow eagle. Search it on google. KIngdom of aragon flag is a joke.
General models for orthodox and muslim factions. Muslims have still the boring vanilla guy and you made the orthodox look like a bunch of barbarian huns.

When you laid siege to a city and fought some buildings are missing at least in stainless steel 6.3. Orthodox churches and barracks are not visible. Also in cities with monuments such as jerusalem make these monuments visible on the battle map.
Do not i repeat do not add the irish faction again. 2 factions the scotts and the britts are allready enough for these territories.
Generals models inside battle should be enhanced as well. I mean your emperors shouldn't look the same with a common general. Make every general to have their special religions. A muslim general could also be heretic and a byzantine general could be muslim with some negative buffs such as -3 command when fighting against muslims +5 unrest in a christian settlement -1 loyalty but also -20 unrest when you have a muslim general in a muslim conquered town while your nations religion is different.
More orthodox christians in regions like eastern anatolia and north balkans. Up until 1070 these regions were under control of the byzantine emperor especially since they cannot participate in crusades.
Make diplomacy even more effective and maneuvering. I used to play at the hardest lvl and all my early allies would soon backstub me....

Don't get me wrong i love stainless steel mod it has seriously enhanced the gameplay a lot. Good job modding team for your past work. Sorry for my bad english...

[Judeman266]

@The patriot

There are already some monuments in SS, a few more couldn't hurt. However, the way settlements look on the battlemap is independent of the buildings in the settlement. In order to have custom settlements(on the battlemap), the settlement has to be created. It also has to be a huge settlement at the beginning of the campaign otherwise if that settlement is upgraded all the changes will be gone. If the settlement is not huge then every settlement that upgrades to huge in that culture will have that custom settlement. So the only custom settlements would be maybe Jerusalem, Constantinople, Baghdad.

There are already ancillaries for controlling entire regions like Spain, France, England, Russia, Scandinavia and HRE. There are also submods where you can become Frankish Emperor and the like.

There are 3 different Campaign AIs, that are in the SS Setup menu. Gracul AI is the backstabbing one, Savage AI is the middle one, and Lusted AI is the peaceful one with virtually no backstabbing. You probably changed the campaign AI.

[Babri]

Right now it is difficult to sign alliances with a faction of different religion. Won't it be sensible if some of the alliances like England & Scotland, England & France etc would be unlikely, this will make game more challenging as well as some historical flavour.

[Irishpsycho]

Patriot:

Actually in this era having poeple of an entirely different religion than your faction lead your armies and potentially gain control of your nation is a strict no. Even in countries that shared borders with factions of other religions such as the Byzantines and Turks, the Spanish states and the Moors, and the Teutons and the Lithuanians never took leaders with a new religion. They were afraid that these people would be more loyal to a ruler who shared a religion with, and defect, so only commoners and sometimes minor officers could have a different religion. In this era of holy wars and forced conversion religion was the law of the land, not a personal curiosity like it is now.

I think that in the late campaign custom cities could be done, we would just need to bump a couple of candidates up from large to huge cities. Venice, Genoa, Antioch, Paris, Alexandria, and Cordoba would all be perfect candidates, while Rome, Kiev, Novgorod, Milan, and London are all maybe possibilities. I'm sure there are others, but I just had a few off hand that seem to fit the bill.

[Ferdiad]

Right now it is difficult to sign alliances with a faction of different religion.

WAD

Won't it be sensible if some of the alliances like England & Scotland, England & France etc would be unlikely, this will make game more challenging as well as some historical flavour.

Those factions never ally.

[Taro_M]

Before I forget again, any chance of using Taro-M's Teutonic units, or at least giving TO some kind of visual upgrade?

Wait, I didnt make any teutonic units, at least I dont remember so. Maybe you confuse my Gondor units project with something else.

[Vespasian92]

Wait, I didnt make any teutonic units, at least I dont remember so. Maybe you confuse my Gondor units project with something else.

I know it was you with the awesome Gondor textures. I was incorrect in thinking that the TO textures were yours, it was actually Shoryn's and MadTao's work. Sorry for my brain freeze, and so back to my previous question of is there any chance for TO to get some love texture-wise?

[RollingWave]

Patriot:

Actually in this era having poeple of an entirely different religion than your faction lead your armies and potentially gain control of your nation is a strict no. Even in countries that shared borders with factions of other religions such as the Byzantines and Turks, the Spanish states and the Moors, and the Teutons and the Lithuanians never took leaders with a new religion. They were afraid that these people would be more loyal to a ruler who shared a religion with, and defect, so only commoners and sometimes minor officers could have a different religion. In this era of holy wars and forced conversion religion was the law of the land, not a personal curiosity like it is now.

I think that in the late campaign custom cities could be done, we would just need to bump a couple of candidates up from large to huge cities. Venice, Genoa, Antioch, Paris, Alexandria, and Cordoba would all be perfect candidates, while Rome, Kiev, Novgorod, Milan, and London are all maybe possibilities. I'm sure there are others, but I just had a few off hand that seem to fit the bill.

Ehhh, not really, David IV of Georgia invite a bunch of Cumans in and they were a large part of Georgia's ability to become a regional power, Antioch essentially became mostly Orthodox by the 13th C, (they were ambiguously Catholic at best). Moors had Catalan Captians leading their army at some points, and of course Shia Egypt used a boatload of Orthodox and Sunni Muslims.

Changing religion is a code issue though, you need a extra faction slot for something like the Lithuanian Script or the Kalmar Union script in Teutonic Camapign to work. and quite frankly that's just too much of a waste of a slot. Relgion is hard coded into descr_sm_faction, so you essentially need to destroy the old faction and give everything to a new one to work.

[Judeman266]

Add the late era armor upgrades for Ritterbruder from BftB as last upgrade if they are more accurate than the partial plate/coat of plates they wear now.

[Gnostiko]

Would it be possible to add in more varied battle map terrain? It would be neat fighting around swamps and in heavily forested areas.

[Ferdiad]

That requires swamps and heavily forested Campaign terrain.

[Ichon]

That requires swamps and heavily forested Campaign terrain.

Ravenant has swamp terrain but I'm not sure if he created it or found it in another mod. I've seen some other mods with swamp like terrain. Heavy forest is difficult as after RTW even heavy forest on the map is usually not as heavy as it used to be in RTW.

[Irishpsycho]

Ehhh, not really, David IV of Georgia invite a bunch of Cumans in and they were a large part of Georgia's ability to become a regional power, Antioch essentially became mostly Orthodox by the 13th C, (they were ambiguously Catholic at best). Moors had Catalan Captians leading their army at some points, and of course Shia Egypt used a boatload of Orthodox and Sunni Muslims.

Changing religion is a code issue though, you need a extra faction slot for something like the Lithuanian Script or the Kalmar Union script in Teutonic Camapign to work. and quite frankly that's just too much of a waste of a slot. Relgion is hard coded into descr_sm_faction, so you essentially need to destroy the old faction and give everything to a new one to work.

Well let's see, Georgia and Shia Egypt were hiring soldiers of another religion, but they certainly didn't give them any opportunity to rule over them. In the game context, these would be the soldiers in a unit of mercenarys, but certainly not the army's captain or general. The Moors were among the most religiously tolerant states in the world, but that said the Catalans were not given command of enough soldiers to make them politically relevant, and of course there was absolutely no chance of one of them becoming a sultan of the Moors. Antioch had a large native orthodox population, and besides that it was annexed by emperor Manuel I
Komnenos in the mid 12th century and continued to be nominally under Byzantine control the 4th Crusade.

No rulers of powerful or relevant states were ever of a completely different religion than both their populace and aristocracy, nor did the rulers of powerful states allow persons of other religions to become major political figures in their own realms. There was occasionally a blurring between the Catholics and Orthodox, but no Catholic ever ruled over the Byzantine empire except through outrite conquest, nor could an Orthodox Christian become king of Jerusalem.

[bradavies]

I'd love to see Iceland and Malta as regions on the next game, and Switzerland, Sweden or Georgia added as factions, but I don't know if there's enough spaces left for them all.

[Ferdiad]

Ravenant has swamp terrain but I'm not sure if he created it or found it in another mod. I've seen some other mods with swamp like terrain. Heavy forest is difficult as after RTW even heavy forest on the map is usually not as heavy as it used to be in RTW.

Heavy forest in RTW had giant trees though, I sure don't miss them.

[RollingWave]

Well let's see, Georgia and Shia Egypt were hiring soldiers of another religion, but they certainly didn't give them any opportunity to rule over them. In the game context, these would be the soldiers in a unit of mercenarys, but certainly not the army's captain or general. The Moors were among the most religiously tolerant states in the world, but that said the Catalans were not given command of enough soldiers to make them politically relevant, and of course there was absolutely no chance of one of them becoming a sultan of the Moors. Antioch had a large native orthodox population, and besides that it was annexed by emperor Manuel I
Komnenos in the mid 12th century and continued to be nominally under Byzantine control the 4th Crusade.

No rulers of powerful or relevant states were ever of a completely different religion than both their populace and aristocracy, nor did the rulers of powerful states allow persons of other religions to become major political figures in their own realms. There was occasionally a blurring between the Catholics and Orthodox, but no Catholic ever ruled over the Byzantine empire except through outrite conquest, nor could an Orthodox Christian become king of Jerusalem.

Ahem, never say never.

The Fatimid Caliph despite being a Shia Caliphate, had more than a few Sunni Vizers (who held the real power in the game period), and was eventually overthrown by a Sunni Vizier that the Caliph had personally installed (some Saladin dude).

The line between Shia and Sunni were even more blurred in other places, Persian dynasties kinda just changed around on whims .

[Ichon]

Heavy forest in RTW had giant trees though, I sure don't miss them.

I actually miss them a bit... it was quite fun ambushing the Roman legions or fighting Pontus in deep forested valleys.

As for other religions than the ruling dynasty assuming powers, that was fairly frequent actually. Less so with Christians in Europe and later unlikely with Muslims as well but Turks, Mongols, Cumans, Abbasid, Seljuks- all made use of different religions commanding fairly high in the ranks. There is even some Jewish viziers.

[Irishpsycho]

Ahem, never say never.

The Fatimid Caliph despite being a Shia Caliphate, had more than a few Sunni Vizers (who held the real power in the game period), and was eventually overthrown by a Sunni Vizier that the Caliph had personally installed (some Saladin dude).

The line between Shia and Sunni were even more blurred in other places, Persian dynasties kinda just changed around on whims .

I would say that my point still holds, because by the time that the visiers were more powerful than the Caliphs the Fatimid caliphate was in it's death throes, not a strong relevant nation. My knowledge of the Egyptian dynasties is somewhat limmited, but diddn't Saladin's ascent herald the end of Shia control over Egypt? If so that would make the whole situation more like a faction changing it's religion, since it was actually one religion replacing the other (granted there was a regime change too, but that's not really doable in game).

In Persia, the closest thing in game to a dynastic change is a conquest by a similar rival, so I don't think that counts as a faction with two religions. It is also important to note the theological similarity between Shia and Sunni, which allowed the change to be relatively unnoticed in places without many historical grievances between the two.

In any event, Patriot's original Idea about letting 10% of a faction's family members have different religions has no historical basis. Usually the only time that two religions existed side by side was when a ruler was trying to switch his state's religion without excessive bloodshed, and that often spelled the end for that ruler when the people got an idea of what was going on.

[Ichon]

I would say 'very limited historical basis' instead of "no historical basis." There was some Orthodox and Catholics in the same family of ruling dynasties as well as among the Mongols most notably but in general it more depends on what the ruling family represents- a single family or several competing dynasties under the faction? ERE or HRE at game start aren't ruled by a single family historically or in the game. Portugal or a small faction usually are so... probably would cause too many problems to try and include a feature like that is the easiest argument against it to me.