Medieval Kingdoms Total War: Grand Principality of Serbia

[SerbianWOLF]

LEt's wait for some modder to answer on this.

[Ltd.]

Well, like I said, additional units will come, but probably not in this first build on may 5th.

[SerbianWOLF]

That's alright.

[Hrobatos]

Very nice work!

[Wallachian]

Very good work. But I think it would be nice if you guys gave credit to Tsardoms as the unit list and most of the unit names seem to be identical to the Serbians from our mod. Have nothing against that, but just a mention would have been nice.

[SerbianWOLF]

Yes. But Tsardoms mod did not invented those names. It were the Serbians from middle ages For example Vlastela, Krajisnici, Bashtiniks were all used. Hope you can understand what I wanted to say. Only thing MKTW used is inspiration from Tsardoms in terms of how units should look like

[Wallachian]

Well it's the look since most units look extremely similar, the unit list too (since again it is pretty much the same, while other mods have serbia there is always some variation) but even some names like Ragusan Cakoni. This was a unit specifically envisaged by phoenix. The unit was actually initially meant to be bulgarian handgunners but then changed to ragusan. Anyway, as I said I have nothing against it but as a matter of courtesy credits should be given. For example in some of the Tsardoms rosters I took inspiration from Machiavello Total War and we gave mention of that in our credits.

[SerbianWOLF]

Warman(mod leader) or I think it was him, told me that due to lack of serbian historians(before I showed up ) they had no good informations so they had to find some in Tsardoms mod. I am not sure if that counts

[warman222]

I thought about it a bit. At first I thought it is kinda silly to give credits for inspiration for units because they are all based on historical stuff anyway. And as stated, Tsardoms was the only visual reference I could find. I don't want to have it lumped with the same credits that we took assets from because credits like these are clearly not equal and I think if I treat it that way it could get needlessly messy real fast.... However I might make a separate credits category for inspiration for mods that we took reference from, which would have Tsardoms, Broken Crescent and Bellum Crucis at least. After all, while the Serbian roster is very similar by my own admission the two gunner units and the Bastiniks were directly inpsired and made similar to their counterparts from the Tsardoms mod. So, I'll see what I can do.

[warman222]

Okay, I made this comparison picture that I'm going to post on a couple of the other sites as a shout out to Tsardoms given your mods recent release and how it inspired the Serbian roster. (I also posted in the credits thread too as mentioned) I hope between all this we have settled any problems. I was thinking about doing a screen like this anyway believe it or not.

[SerbianWOLF]

I spoke about this with Ltd. but let's ask boss
Serbia is missing light cav. What I thought was to create light cavalry for early period. Serbian Hussars (light cav for latest period of time early 15th century), heavy infantry/foot knights(in western style plate armor for late 14th-15th century) and I thought it would be better to give a little bit better armor(western style) to serbian knights and it would be more historical if some shield textures on knights and generals could be changed.
What do you think(after 5th of may, not now, ofc ) ?

[Wallachian]

I thought about it a bit. At first I thought it is kinda silly to give credits for inspiration for units because they are all based on historical stuff anyway. And as stated, Tsardoms was the only visual reference I could find. I don't want to have it lumped with the same credits that we took assets from because credits like these are clearly not equal and I think if I treat it that way it could get needlessly messy real fast.... However I might make a separate credits category for inspiration for mods that we took reference from, which would have Tsardoms, Broken Crescent and Bellum Crucis at least. After all, while the Serbian roster is very similar by my own admission the two gunner units and the Bastiniks were directly inpsired and made similar to their counterparts from the Tsardoms mod. So, I'll see what I can do.

There is no issue to settle anyway, we are happy you used Tsardoms as reference as that is partly the point of the mod anyway. So there are literally no problems with that. Just a mention in the credits or thanks section is perfectly fine. You can use the unit descriptions too. And even if you need materials we can discuss.

This is a great mod and I love all the units but unfortunately the mechanics and umoddable campaign map make Rome 2 and Atilla unplayable for myself.

[FrozenmenSS]

My Feedback on Serbian Roster is this - Serbia oddly doesnt has early low cost infantry units like all European factions.

So my advice fixing this problem without making new custom units for Serbia and stay historical is give Serbia the already created units in the mod:

1)Brigands - from the Bulgarian unit roster
2)Spear Militia - from the Bulgarian unit roster
3)Peasant Archers
4)Vlach Spearmen
5)Vlach Warriors
6)Vlach Heavy Warriors


In 1),2) apart from the Bulgarian captain(who uses Greek armour,commonly seen in the balkans a lot back then) in the units everything else in the units is generic and can be used for the Serbian Roster.And also it will be Historically correct,because from the 1270s Serbia started culturaly assimilating the Belgrade,Branichevo,Nish and parts of Macedonia regions into the Serbian nation. only in the Belgrade,Branichevo Regions Serbia succeeded until the Ottomans overran the Balkans. So giving those 2 Bulgarian units it will be good way giving the serbs more units.

For 3)Peasant Archers - with a cost of 100 its easy to do.

For 4),5),6) the reason is there were Vlachs/Aromanians in Macedonia and along the Danube when the Serbian king Stefan Dušan(1346–1355), Emperor of Serbs,Bulgars and Greeks was controlling most of Macedonia and nothern Greece, he had as his subjects in his realm the Vlachs/Aromanians.So giving the 3 Vlach infantry units to Serbia is also Ok from historical stand point.

Im also Advocating giving the 3 Vlach infantry units to the Cumans and the Moldovian Warriors to Bulgaria as well.The Cumman unit roster is also weak as they have only 14 units as of right now. they can also get 3 units for free.They also held the bulk of the Vlach population under Control in Southern Romania and Moldova together with Bulgaria in the 13th and for a short time in the 14th centuries ,it wasnt only the Moldavian region that the Cummans had hands on.

[Ltd.]

I agree with most of your points regarding the vlach and moldavian units and giving them to Serbia and the cumans respectively. It was definitely intended for the campaign, and does make sense for the CB as well.

Concerning your point 3 however, the peasant archers, I think they would be redundant, as Serbia already have serbian peasants, who are archers, so I actually asked warman to remove them. No need for two peasant archers, one generic and one serbian.

But yeah, the rest is fine.

[FrozenmenSS]

I agree with most of your points regarding the vlach and moldavian units and giving them to Serbia and the cumans respectively. It was definitely intended for the campaign, and does make sense for the CB as well.

Concerning your point 3 however, the peasant archers, I think they would be redundant, as Serbia already have serbian peasants, who are archers, so I actually asked warman to remove them. No need for two peasant archers, one generic and one serbian.

But yeah, the rest is fine.

Well the logic is we have seen in Attila and Rome 2 numerous times when there are for example celtic/persian archers/bowmen 2 units one after another in their tier system in the faction's unit rosters.Its quite commmon to see such names for units in Attila and Rome 2. So I see no problem the cheaper version for the archers for the Serbians being added also.

[SerbianWOLF]

I also had this in mind. Thanks Frzenmen Serbia could use some early bulgarian units. At least to be mercaneries if nothing + some should react on post #51 There are also some infantry and light cav missing for late era and starting early era and I think texture on shield that serbian knights have should be changed. Because those are CoAs of Nobles and only Serbian Vlastela should have them

[Ltd.]

Well, let me react then to post #51 even though I´m not boss : regarding additional units we already agreed on adding them at a later point, right ?! So , Serbia will receive more units, but for now let´s just play around with the ones that already are in the mod.
I´m not sure what better armor the serbian knights ( I assume the serbian high era knight is meant here) are supposed to get. Brigandine is actually on of the better armour one can have in the 14th century. Coats of plates actually evolved into two directions: brigandine on the one hand and one- or more-piece breatplates on the other hand.

Regarding the COA on the knight´s shields ( I assume again we are talking about the high era knights) : the knights ARE nobles and afaik those were some of the noble families in the serbian realm.

[SerbianWOLF]

Not all of the knights in Serbia were from noble dynasties. It's impossible to have thousands of noble dynasties. But yes they were rich people and people today would consider them as nobles. Some were just elite soldiers armored in "knightly" style. Now let's go to shields. You see shield with 3 horse heads ? That is not from Serbian dynasties. It is mistaken. Also you are missing CoA of Nemanjic and Lazarevic dynasties you could add those 2 and delete one with 3 horse heads If you want I could send you here or PM you and send you images of what CoAs you should add.
And armor can stay. There was one knight there whose armor reminded me of byz style armor, but when I better see it it does not matter

[Ltd.]

Isn´t the 3 horse heads, the Obilic / Kobilic noble family, serbian ?
https://de.pinterest.com/pin/330099847667364303/ -- I guess most of these are Bosnian, not serbian, but go ahead, if you have good sources on what COA Serbia is supposed to use, post them here.
I did use the nemanjic COA on the serbian king already, but added them, as well as the nikolic one, now to the high era knights.

[Teutonic]

Can I ask those who know, in 14/15 century were the heavy Serbian cavalry, armed in heaviest European style, actually called knights? Elsewhere in Europe they were called Men-at-Arms and only some of them were knights.

Also, even if the word in Serbian used for these troops means "knight" in English, were these troops actually officially holding a title of knighthood? Or were they basically Men-at-Arms?

I am wondering because the Serbs fielded pretty significant numbers of these troops and always felt unlikely that such a small state could support so many "knights".

Just an illustration: for the 1415 campaign, ending in the battle of Agincourt, the English begun with 2 536 men at arms. Of these 45 were dukes, barons, earls, banerets. 140 were knights, and the vast majority were esquires. So less than 1 in 10 had a rank of knight or above.