Renaissance Pike and Shot submod for SSHIP (0.9.2)

[Roma_Victrix]

This submod for SSHIP provides new textures, skins, and unit officers for late-period pike-and-shot era units of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Although the colors and military standards used are not entirely historically accurate, this can be enhanced with further submods and releases. The new material is taken entirely from The Italian Wars mod for M2TW (a permission link is given below).

Furthermore, although changes have been made to the export_descr_unit file, the mod should be entirely save-game compatible with your current SSHIP campaign! Let me know if there's any technical issues you may have with the mod.

PRE-INSTALLATION ADVICE:
If you haven't done this already, I would advise backing up your Stainless Steel mod somewhere on your computer or on an external hard drive. You never know what could go wrong! Perhaps you accidentally put it in the wrong place. Who knows? It's just a wise decision.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
1) Download the .rar file
2) Locate and open the .rar file on your computer with 7zip, WinRar, or any other software program allowing you to unzip files
3) Direct the file to the "SS6.3" folder (i.e. Stainless Steel), which should be placed within the "mods" folder of your main "Medieval II Total War" folder.
4) It should ask you to overwrite files. Simply click yes. If it did not ask you to overwrite files, that means you did something wrong!
5) Enjoy the newly-skinned units and officers!

DOWNLOAD FILE:
Click here for the upload page (located on ModDB)

CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS:
Credit goes to The Italian Wars team, including Aneirin, who gave me permission to use material from the Italian Wars mod here.

POST-INSTALLATION ADVICE
To get the full experience and to see all the different textures and models, I would advise players to not just recruit mercenaries like Swiss halberdiers and leave it at that. As I have seen in my own campaign, you can actually upgrade the armor of some mercenary units in cities with advanced blacksmiths, i.e. the armorer of the late 14th century that allows for full plate and armor factory building of the 15th century for late Gothic plate armor. It actually makes a big difference in their appearance, FYI!

UNIT PREVIEW:

[Ngugi]

Neat

[Mamlaz]

Pikeshot ftw


Will this offer a full on renaissance scenario start or just the units?

[Roma_Victrix]

Pikeshot ftw


Will this offer a full on renaissance scenario start or just the units?

The only changes here involve unit skins, textures, and models, plus some new officers. While it dramatically changes the look of your army on the battle map, the submod does not include any new campaign features. You still have to start a campaign in either the 12th or 13th centuries, unfortunately, which means hundreds of turns before you can even begin to recruit these units (starting around the year 1420 for some of them, but certainly not all of them, which comes after the year 1500). Perhaps in the future someone will make a worthy submod that starts in 1450 or thereabouts, but for now this is what we have! Besides, I'm not savvy enough to mod the game and create new campaigns.

[Roma_Victrix]

Huh. Kind of a lukewarm response here. Is the mod working for you guys? Does it need improvement? Feedback?

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Huh. Kind of a lukewarm response here. Is the mod working for you guys? Does it need improvement? Feedback?

All good for now, but I just recently installed it. Ill give feedback on a couple of days .

[Roma_Victrix]

Thanks for letting me know!

[isa0005]

Wonderful work! Its a shame though that we have to wait so long to use the units in game, if only we had a Playable Late Era!

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Thanks for letting me know!

Well I can say that everything looks good and fine . The units looks really good.

[j.a.luna]

In my opinion also i love this great improvement for sship mod, and of course i will play with spanish tercios for conquest the world hehehe

[kostic]

Excellent for the late period ! When on my side I work on the period of the 12th century ... What evolution !

[banskie100]

The best campaign submod starting date will be from 1450 to1600/1700.

[Lifthrasir]

Errrgh
That's not the medieval period anymore

[Roma_Victrix]

Thanks for the high praises and support, you guys! I'm glad to know it's working well.

Errrgh
That's not the medieval period anymore

Well, technically 1450 is still in the Late Middle Ages (even if that coincides with the Italian Renaissance), but it would be better for a submod to start in 1350 or 1400 at the latest, so that players can still see the gradual evolution of the late medieval units and styles into that of the Renaissance pike-and-shot era.

[isa0005]

Thanks for the high praises and support, you guys! I'm glad to know it's working well.



Well, technically 1450 is still in the Late Middle Ages (even if that coincides with the Italian Renaissance), but it would be better for a submod to start in 1350 or 1400 at the latest, so that players can still see the gradual evolution of the late medieval units and styles into that of the Renaissance pike-and-shot era.

Yes please. A submod starting in 1350 would be wonderful! Hell a historicaly accurate High Era campaign for SSHIP would be ideal as well, but we can't always get what we want haha

[Lifthrasir]

I honestly don't mind for a mod covering that period but not sure that it can be here. This is a subforum of Stainless Steel and we have to respect the original mod "spirit" somehow.

[Roma_Victrix]

I honestly don't mind for a mod covering that period but not sure that it can be here. This is a subforum of Stainless Steel and we have to respect the original mod "spirit" somehow.

To be honest, I played an SSHIP late campaign starting in the mid 13th century and I had a very great experience playing all the way into the 16th century with my new units.

So even a start date of like 1230 or so is fine in my opinion. That's just me, though.

[isa0005]

1300 is still part of the Medieval Period I don't see how that would be disrespecting the origional "spirit" of the mod. Atleast with a campgain starting in that era, we'd be able to experience your units in game right off the bat. Either way, this is an excellent little submod and I do hope you expand upon it Roma_Vitrix.

[Lifthrasir]

I was referring to the post from Banskie100 who proposed a submod from 1450 AD to 1600/1700 AD

[Roma_Victrix]

For your information, I just recently updated the OP with this bit about armor upgrades for mercenaries that I originally forgot to mention:

POST-INSTALLATION ADVICE
To get the full experience and to see all the different textures and models, I would advise players to not just recruit mercenaries like Swiss halberdiers and leave it at that. As I have seen in my own campaign, you can actually upgrade the armor of some mercenary units in cities with advanced blacksmiths, i.e. the armorer of the late 14th century that allows for full plate and armor factory building of the 15th century for late Gothic plate armor. It actually makes a big difference in their appearance, FYI!

I was referring to the post from Banskie100 who proposed a submod from 1450 AD to 1600/1700 AD

Yep. As I said above, a 1450 start date is a bit too late in the medieval period. I think something like 1250 is more reasonable.

1300 is still part of the Medieval Period I don't see how that would be disrespecting the origional "spirit" of the mod. Atleast with a campgain starting in that era, we'd be able to experience your units in game right off the bat. Either way, this is an excellent little submod and I do hope you expand upon it Roma_Vitrix.

If I had the wherewithal to do so, I would correct the skins of the new units and standards held by the flag-bearers to make them more historically accurate for each faction, but I don't have the graphic editing skills or the appropriate software to do that. Anyone who does have those skills is free to use the material in my submod in that regard!