Conquest: 1066 AD - Charlemagne Mod

[bubudede]

Very nice Linke! Any ideas on the release date?

[Three Eyed Crow]

Looks great!

A couple of suggestions if I may?

Brittain:
Given the amount of factions already in England it might be best to leave Wales as unplayable? But make them a powerful NP force/emergent rebels in Cornwall as well as Powys etc

France:
Perhaps trim the Duchy of Aquitains northern portion and give it to the counts of Anjou instead? (if possible) Anjevin/Norman relations were never great-hence the later marriage of Matilda to Geoffrey Plantagenet-and if this non player faction tries to recover Maine it could be a fun way to stop an Norman/English steam roll south.

italy:
Perhaps give the principality of Beneveto(or at least the 2/3 of its towns?)to the Lombards or as a vassal of the HRE giving southern Normans more to do given north or south west are their only routes for expansion? Norman's weren't appointed the feif until 1079.|

Edit



HRE:
looks good! vassal system is perfect for them.

[Linke]

release date, i'd like to see it after summers end

That Italian suggestion I'll incorporate or it will be to boring and easy of a campaign.
Can't really add Anjou though, no regions (except nantes). Actually that faction is Brittany (due to poor map design divided) but I'd honestly not regret giving Rennes (renaming it) to either Maine/Anjou for more interesting continental norman and french gameplay

So I have made a list of some 16 playable faction, wich is about the limit I intend. A lot of consideration has gone into the selection, the following factors being prominent.

1: Position, does the faction have a unique and fun starting position with many cultures as enemies or close to others?
2: Units, does the faction have a unique and interesting roster to some degree?
3: History/Politics, was the faction and/or it's leader important, or a middle power so to say?
4: Interest/popular appeal, is there something extra popular with this character/faction to attract players?
There's a bias the factions on the British Isles as the struggle for England and aftermath is the mod's main conflict.

(brief point on vassals)
- points are given for being a vassal of another faction wich is why no German duchies feature inspite of their power.
Even so the vassal system more accurately represents the middle ages, so even though it looks like the HRE controls half the map, in reality, it holds little sway over the vassals. Essentialy it can levy troops if passing through and the pact serves as a diplomatic agreement. But Vassals may and will war between themselves and with the king.

The thing with vassals is that conquering territory is costly and hard, as you need to get control by building costly castles and supress countless revolts (see conquest of England). That's why a vassal may be safer, easier and cheaper.

(Military) cultures
So there are 10 main rosters, each with a main accompanying faction
1 French - France
2 German - hre
3 Iberian christian - Leon
4 Norse - Denmark
5 English - England
6 Gaelo-Briton - Scotland
7 Wendish - Wends
8 Magyar(-Croatian) - Hungary
9 Italian(-urban) - Pisa
10 Muslim - Seville

then there are some notable subregions/subrosters or divided rosters, with most or many unique/different units:
1 Gaelo-Norse - Kingdom of the isles, Norway (Irish and Norse units)
2 Catalan - Barcelona (Iberian, Catalan and French units)
3 Norman - Hautevilles (Italian non militia, sicilian, and french-norman units)
4 Croatian - Croatia (some Shared slavic levies with Hungary, Croatian units)
5 "North French" - Normandy (3-4 French-Norman-Bretagne-Frisian units, and later English fyrd*

There are a few other regions/factions with some unique units but not as many, I excluded these
welsh (completely own roster), should wales be included or is that britain overkill?
Bohemian, german and slavic
Lorraine-Tuscany duchy, German, Frisian, Italian
Portugal, 2 portuguese-galician units
Alpine, 2 alpine levies
Saxon, 2 Saxon (German) units, recruitable by hre

(* all levies and militia are recruitable by any faction only in their region (a couple of exceptions), but Normandy can recruit even more English units than that, otherwise to recruit knight/Feudal units build expensive castles/knight fiefs anywhere, +1 knight unit for each castle level starting with 3

About recruitment: in more detail i wanna have a population mod like in dei but also the above system for knights with castles and the same with militias and town buildings.

also please continue with faction feedback or ask for factions

[GatorMarine1833]

Translating all those tiny factions into Latin took a while, but I really like the result!

Regarding Latin translations, it's generally much more common to refer to titles (in the early Medieval period) as "Duke of the Normans" as opposed to "Duke of Normandy". This would be the difference between "Dux Normannorum" vs "Dux Normanniae". Some of your Latin factions use the more common form, but others do not. Is there a reason you chose one over the other in these situations or did you go by what sounded best? In Medieval Latin there is some variance that seems to be associated mostly with whether the region has a particular people associated with it, or if it is just a region. I'm not sure if anything I've said is useful here; it may not be worth changing factions for what is a relatively minor detail.

I'd need to ask around to be sure about this, but "Ducatus Britanniae" would mean "Duchy of Britain", not "Duchy of Brittany". The region was referred to as "Britannia minor" by the Romans, but I'm not entirely sure what the Medieval Latin term was. I've seen references to it being referred to as Armorica, but I don't know the source on that. I can look into it and post my findings here, though.

Generally in medieval writing we don't see references to a Duchy or County as political entities, rather as property. Instead one see references to the title-holder as the embodiment of the political entity. To my eyes it feels a little odd to see factions referred to as "Comitatus ..." as opposed to "Comes ...", but I realize that I'm almost certainly in the minority on this matter, so feel free to ignore to ignore me here!


EDIT: I checked my copy of Gesta Normannorum Ducum. It almost always uses the term "Britannorum", which is "of the Bretons" (even when referring to geography! I found that odd), but I did find one instance in which it referred to the "Count of Brittany" and it used "Britannie".

[Clee23]

[QUOTE=Linke;15047735]Denmark wont have to face a powerful Frankish empire, anyways their southern defenced were week in 1066 wich is why Hedeby was sacked so easily by the Wend confederation.

Yes you are completley right. Was only thinking in terms of gameplay, so it is good to know there wont be a single big faction in germany. But how will this vassal thing work? take care you dont make a sassanid type of monster that would be a shame ;D
Will there be any missions? like the normans or norwegians being able to form "the kingdom of england" or Danes creating the north sea empire aka territory of canute the great?

The map looks great, cant wait to play this.

[LinusLinothorax]

Why you renamed the Abodrites to Wends? You also don't named the Danes and Norwegians "Scandinavians".

[Linke]

Thanks for the naming information!

There won't be a sassanid "monster", a vassalage in my mod is mostly an empty treaty, they declare wars, even amongst themselves without being able to demand their masters inclusion (and the other way around), the isle de france is really that, an island in france. You having the title king does little to make you more then another of many many regional minor rulers, you have to earn your kingdom.

The Abodrites and Gottashalk subdued the lutici, and the tribe of cruto and possibly many more, gottshalk wanting to make it a christian kingdom. But he was murdered and the faction represents those tribes after his murder, with cruto and whoever his predecesor was from different tribes, ruling over lutici AND ovodrites, if I got it right

[LinusLinothorax]

Problem is that Wends describes all German Slavs from Rügen to the Lausitz (Lusici). If one leaves out the golden Age under Heinrich in around 1100 the Abodrites barely covered the northern half of Wendish territory.

I am also wondering that you want to start the mod after Gottschalks death, since he not only don't died until June but also because the Abodrites fragmented again after his death. Until 1073 Gottschalks successor Kruto only controlled a small part of the realm, residing in Wagria (See north-west of the map above).

[Three Eyed Crow]

Sent you a novel Linke happy reading haha

[Linke]

Hey guys thanks for your research, opinions. And for pushing me to more historicity most of all. I can't respond right now in detail especially not to your (tec's) "novel", though i'll be reading "it" over and over again for sure. I'm on vaccation for another week or so, caring through Germany, Italy, Swizzia and Scandinavia, with little wifi , so please remind me next monday or so to answer, and keep the thread active so more see it if you may.

[Linke]

Problem is that Wends describes all German Slavs from Rügen to the Lausitz (Lusici). If one leaves out the golden Age under Heinrich in around 1100 the Abodrites barely covered the northern half of Wendish territory.

I am also wondering that you want to start the mod after Gottschalks death, since he not only don't died until June but also because the Abodrites fragmented again after his death. Until 1073 Gottschalks successor Kruto only controlled a small part of the realm, residing in Wagria (See north-west of the map above).

Thing is the Norwegians can't be stretched to be anywhere on the map before August, anyways, his "succesors", or usurpers, wares against Denmark right? (instead of hre), and sacked Hedeby. Waring and winning against a "middle power" "centralised" christian state, wich a few years later gathered upwards of 10 k men to harras Williams conquered England makes it seem as if cruto was still quite powerful. Anyways I can limit his faction and have all the tribes as individual faction, some perhaps as vassals.

Also, in the beginning (I believe) of 1066 the bishop of Hildesheim or Halberstadt (both are factions btw) led an expedition against the wends, do you know anything about hostilities in/after the summer of 1066, should there be peace?

[LinusLinothorax]

Thing is the Norwegians can't be stretched to be anywhere on the map before August, anyways, his "succesors", or usurpers, wares against Denmark right? (instead of hre), and sacked Hedeby. Waring and winning against a "middle power" "centralised" christian state, wich a few years later gathered upwards of 10 k men to harras Williams conquered England makes it seem as if cruto was still quite powerful. Anyways I can limit his faction and have all the tribes as individual faction, some perhaps as vassals.

Also, in the beginning (I believe) of 1066 the bishop of Hildesheim or Halberstadt (both are factions btw) led an expedition against the wends, do you know anything about hostilities in/after the summer of 1066, should there be peace?

I just read a bit about the situation after Gottschalks death. The direct successor of Gottschalk was Blusso, who was behind both the murder of Gottschalk aswell as the raid of Hamburg and the destruction of Hedeby, which btw was never to be rebuild again. Gottschlaks sons Budivoj and Heinreich fled outside of Abodrite territory: Heinrich went to Denmark and Budijov into Saxony. While Heinrich staid out of Abodrite politics for 2,5 decades Budivoj was on war with Blusso. He was then able to regain the Abodrite realm in after Blusso was murdered by Budivoj after he returned from his raids in Hedeby and Saxony. However, he was weak and only staid in power because of the Saxons to whom he paid tribute. In 1068 the Saxons lead a campaign against Kruto in Wagria who was independent, but they failed. In 1071 Budivoj was murdered and Kruto took power over the whole Abodrite realm. He then staid in power until Heinrich came.

[rhysthorburn]

Hey Linke any news or progress on the mod?

[Linke]

Endless hours of balancing units, creating and copying db tables, researching numbers to be realistic, redoing so that it all work together. It's boring and timeconsuming, yet what can be shown in a thread such as this? Well the building system wich I've began now, version 1 shouldn't take 1, and it will be small with perhaps 12-15 or so buildings, and with it an accompanied reduced tech tree for all (christian factions). In time you will see.

I suppose I can post more units aswell they're all done anyways, except garrison, navy, mercenary and the like. I've got unshown Italians and Normans, Croatians, Hungarians, Andalusians and Spanish and Catalunians on the Iberian peninsula.

[Linke]

Some pictures of the forces of the northern Italian Communi, Cities such as Pisa, Genova and Milano fields these troops, ranging from simple Contadini "peasants" recruited from the rural communal holdings, favoring the crosbow; to well equiped merchants and marines. Even Scutiferi and rich merchants and nobles in the cities, forming the "Milites Pro Commune", "knights" of the Commune







As it appears I forget all I do so let me add to the previous post with adding work on ui aswell

[Athos187]

Awesome models, everything looks very authentic

[Linke]

The battle maps of age of Charlemagne are boring: half the factions have the same anachronistic western Roman map with to many ruins amongst other problems, the other factions all have battle maps more fit for an ancient celtic tribe than a christian kingdom like England or Denmark. Most people would have England use the western Roman maps because they are "civilized christians", yet except also being to urbanised that would give the disadvanteges of too many of the same battle map across the campaign map. Problem is you can't edit battle maps in campaigns, but I've edited them anyways. Well, I've replaced buildings with other buildings but it does give interesting results.

These all work in campaign

First of "barbarian", or to me "northern" cities. These are used by the "semi/pre-feudal" factions or barbarian factions (wich also has significance in feudal buildings and techs and such). They consist mostly of wood-stone houses, with a few stone houses in more roman architecture as well as big stone churches. I've replaced pagan longhouses, "stonehenges" and towers and those ugly celtic huts with buildings more befit for the period (note it's 50% or so done in the pics with just the churches mostly)
Next the "Roman" cities of South Germany, Rhineland, Italy, Croatia, France and Iberian Peninsula, wich will receive a brighter look from the damp roman ruined cities they are with different textures and some replaced models as well as (hopefully) different more "medieval" looking towers (replacing the ugly roman age roofed towers with retextured round "sassanid" towers, 100% doable)

So far churches have been covered, these were the first buildings that were made in stone in roman fashion, now you must forget the idea of 11th century Englands urban landscape as being like that of say France or Germany.

Heres a "cathedral" in fairly newly christianized Denmark



Another church in a similar place, note that the most viking looking houses (the roofs being the sign of it) should be replaced



Another smaller church, blending local and southern architecture




A church in Saxon England, at the top of a hill by the final capture point instead of the normal chief's hall




Just streets in some town in Saxony for example: neither roman nor barbarian looking

[rhysthorburn]

Good friggin job! Didn't realise you could change anything for the settlements

[Jupiter93]

This is plain awesomeness, Linke! You are savagely good at this!

[Cpt. Cortes]

Very well done mate!