RR/RC for Broken Crescent - RELEASED

[k/t]

I'll try them and see. The Byzantines still start with -50000, so they can't recruit anything. Are there no units listed in the browser at all?

[brapollo]

No units cue up at all. There are no unit cards other than the agents. When one can't afford to recruit units, of course the unit cards are still visible. But they are not for me. At first I thought that maybe RC for BC required me building some stuff first or waiting a few turns but that is not the case.

[k/t]

I just tried both and the units are there. Either you didn't put in the new descr_regions, or you didn't put in the new EDB, or you didn't delete map.rwm.

[the man, the myth, the legend]

Yeah, I had that problem too. I couldn't recruit any units for any of the factions, only the Muttawwii's(sp?) for kwarezm. I was like, man, this new system he has sucks, but the next day I was lookin thru the merc file and decided to deleted the map.rwm just because. To my pleasant surprise when I reloaded the game, bam, units, recruitable even. Now that I've also figured out the building trees, I must say that the new system indeed does not suck, in fact, it is awesomeness and I like the city's too. man, I kept trying to play as armenia but trying to fight off the byzzies without being able to recruit, I made 4 attempts and lost all the campaigns in less than 12 turns each. btw, Is there a way to build forts along with the PSF?

[k/t]

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
[...]
IN THAT LAST FOLDER, DELETE map.rwm BEFORE STARTING YOUR FIRST CAMPAIGN. YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO THIS THE VERY FIRST TIME. THE GAME WILL TAKE A LITTLE LONGER TO START THAN USUAL BECAUSE IT IS GENERATING A NEW map.rwm WHICH INCLUDES ALL THE CHANGES FROM THE NEW FILES.

No, you can't have buildable forts and pre-placed ones.

[brapollo]

Thanks, got it to work.

[k/t]

Updated first post.

I'm currently working on switching animations to PB's ones, so there is more differentiation between unit attack speeds depending on the armour worn.

I also have to change the ground modifiers, and I'll tinker with the formations as well.

I also have to start a campaign with each faction just to see how fast it's losing or gaining money, so I can change the starting treasury and possibly the King's Purse accordingly.

[I3enjaIvIin]

I don't really like that all settlements are cities now. Forts are harded to conquer and provide some nice variation. What is the reasoning behind the change?

[k/t]

What was the reasoning behind the original division? Acre wasn't a castle. Nicaea wasn't a castle. Tbilisi wasn't a castle.

Yes, the variation was nice, but it was unrealistic. Also, the AI's castles could be targeted by the player and the AI would be left with junk troops. Now you can recruit an army from any settlement with the necessary infrastructure.

Perhaps I could make certain settlements like Constantinople castles. The ones that were heavily fortified could be castles.

With a good Battle AI and a good garrison script, a city is hard to conquer too. Castles should be represented by stone forts. I intend to add some more.

[Iskender]

Wow, I'm really pleased to see this mod - I've wanted to play Broken Crescent for ages but the unit stats put me off. RR/RC makes it so much more fun. Thanks for all the hard work!


I've been playing a game as ERE and things are good so far. I noticed a few things that may or may not be issues, so here they are if you're interested:


1/ Do you plan to do anything about siege weapons? Given how much effort it is to turn up at a siege with a trebuchet (build all the buildings, slow army movement), its usefulness is very limited due to very low damage.


2/ There's another weird thing with siege assaults - it seems really hard to stop the enemy towers from firing. I get shot up by towers that have never had an enemy near and are surrounded by my troops. Quite annoying.


3/ I'm a bit puzzled why units like Northern Axemen militia don't have free upkeep - according to the RR guide then militia should be free upkeep?


4/ I don't see rules for applying hardy and very_hardy - are there any? As ERE it feels like my superior late professional troops like Skutatoi should be hardy, otherwise they're a bit rubbish...

Also, I can't download Update12032013.rar - it goes to an empty page...

[brapollo]

Good job on the sub-mod. I have been playing as the Ayyubids and the Seljuks of Iraq and it has been pretty interesting.

Iskender, I think you need to download and install the latest patch files. That turns off the towers firing when no enemy troops are present. It also changes a bunch more units to "free upkeep" units. Though I would suggest a bunch more be added to that group. I believe some factions have no free upkeep units and that is quite a detriment. I personally like that siege weapons have been seriously reduced in effectiveness. That's much more realistic.

If I might make any suggestions, it seems almost every faction is rich about 50-100 turns out. I don't know why that is but in this sub-mod, other factions definitely have larger cash hordes than normal. And the ERE is way to powerful. Though I believe that is a more general problem of BC. Otherwise, this is lots of fun.

[k/t]

I think every faction has at least one free_upkeep_unit. Which faction doesn't?

I didn't change the stats of the siege weapons, except for the recruitment times. I somehow assumed the BC team wouldn't have changed their stats. I will have a look at them. I have never built any in BC, except for once, and they sucked (at least they did in a field battle), so I never built any again. I never use them in any mod anyway. They mainly give the player an advantage because he can now attack the AI by surprise and take its settlements before the AI can react.

I think the reason why factions have a lot of money is that Carl is at work. There is no money script in this submod (at least not one that gives the AI large amounts of money whenever it goes bankrupt), so if AI factions have a lot of money, they more or less earned it - it didn't fall from money script heaven. Carl prevents the AI from going into debt, but it also freezes its treasury at low levels for a while if that happens, so the AI can construct buildings (since they only cost 1 florin each for the AI) but it cannot recruit new units. Once it uses up its units and no longer needs to pay for their upkeep or it conquers new territories and its income rises, Carl turns off and the AI starts accumulating cash. However, as I said in my TLK thread, it doesn't matter if factions have a lot of money, because due to low unit replenishment rates and multi-turn recruitment times for Late Professionals, they won't be able to spam you with 3000 armies. Even in Large Cities, most units need about 8 or 9 turns to replenish (and longer in border areas), and the maximum pool for most units is 1. Once you destroy the AI's army, it will be a while before it can field another.

Perhaps I should remove the extra troops the Byzantines get if played by the AI. The Ayyubids should start out with less money, since due to the new unit prices they are actually making money every turn at the beginning. In the one campaign I had time to play (as Oman, but it's not over yet), they crushed Makuria rather easily and quickly.

The Northern Axemen Militia are classified as Local (check the EDU), so they didn't get free_upkeep. I will review the AOR units and see which ones could plausibly have free_upkeep.

I think I mostly kept the hardy and very_hardy attributes as they were in the original BC EDU. Maybe. But I might have removed them from quite a number of heavy cavalry units to prevent their abuse by the player.

There are no rules for stamina levels, no, so I had some decisions to make. The Skutatoi & Spathatoi are certainly not rubbish. I tested them in Custom Battles and they were very strong.

Crap, I forgot to move the Khevsur Heavy Swordsmen from the barracks to the City Hall as befitting their new stats as Early Professionals. I'll have to do that.

I am currently working on integrating PB's animations into this submod. Units will have attack animations with different speeds depending on the armour they wear. Also javelin units will throw much faster.

I have reuploaded the update. See if it works now.

Crap, it doesn't.

Maybe it has something to do with the forum crash. Here's a temporary link for it: http://www.gamefront.com/files/23117...te12032013.rar

[brapollo]

I do not believe the Abassid Caliphate has any free upkeep units. I have only played with a few factions though.

[Iskender]

Great, thanks for the patch files. I'll admit I was exaggerating a bit about the Skutatoi & Spathatoi - they're very good troops, they just need a lot of tea breaks. Maybe it's just me, but it makes me sad to see high-quality infantry with low stamina - I suppose I think they should be fitter than poorer-quality troops. I agree about reducing hardyness for heavy cav though, gives some limit to their power.

Playing as ERE I've got quite a lot of money (can afford to build buildings in about 2/3 of provinces), but I'm not that upset about it since I've established a nice Mediterranean trading empire so feel I deserve to be rich :-) The turks are quite easy to defeat though - they've got a good amount of troops but they're all low quality and easy to defeat.

I'm looking forward to the new animations - I like javelins.

[k/t]

Yeah, you are right. For now, the Abbassids will have to rely on Saracen Militia.

The Skutatoi are lugging around big shields and have a good amount of armour on.

Perhaps the Turks will have to be boosted, or the Byzantines reduced in power.

[Iskender]

After the latest update, I don't seem to be able to sail ships through the Dardanelles.

[k/t]

I wonder if that has anything to do with Gigantus changing all coastlines to a lower height.

I'll see if I have that problem too.

[Judeman266]

Would giving the Turks access to more /some higher tier ghulams even at low quantities help them fight the Byzantines?

[kostic]

Don't find export_units, map_heights, map_features, map_regions in you're BC RR-RC.rar ??? Can't upload you're Update12032013.rar it goes to an empty page... Don't work with game front too... What the matter ?

[k/t]

Those files are in the Update. I just clicked on the link, went to Gamefront, downloaded the file, extracted it, and all the files are in it. What do you mean by "Don't work with game front too"?

I don't know if more ghulams will make a difference. First the slave market has to be built, then the stables. By the time they build all that, it might be too late. Also, I don't know in how many places they can build the advanced slave markets.