Total Vanilla Beyond 2.9 Release - Once more into the fray

[Cokjan]

Some thoughts on 2.9 version. . .

1) Non vanilla factions such as the apacheans, emirate of damascus, etc... has very bad agent stats. For example, egypt has a starting imam with 4 piety, whereas emirate of damascus starts with 0 piety. It can be a game changer because egypt can instantly call for a jihad at turn 1.

2) Apacheans are awfully quiet, perhaps some sounds could be taken from the americas kingdom expansion? Although it's not a big deal.

3) Troop recruitment, although I understand that upgrading barracks will allow for the AI and player to progress with late game units. Some of the reason why I personally disagree with your choice is because of the cooldown and the max unit available for recruitment. For example, when playing as Norway, I would still use Viking Raiders well up to mid game because they are plentiful and I can equip them with upgraded gold armor, because Dismounted Huscarls are limited and Norse Swordsmen are plain expensive and not useful.

[4zumi]

@cokjan

Thanks for you feedback.

1. You are right. I did not give the agents of the new factions any traits. Hence they are on the lower end. I will look into that.

2. The Apacheans share the same fate as the Mongols and Aztecs (all have the mongol voicelines, whiche are not plenty) I will see, if I meddle with this, but sound design is not my strongpoint, I am glad I got the accents more or less corrected.

3. I knew it would be a controverse decision and I was not quiet sure myself. But after some test campaigns, I have to say, I like the change and will not revert it. There will be some adjustments here and there and I will look at the norse situation, when I get to make a test campaign a them.
The Viking Raiders should have the same limit (6 Units max) and mostly the same cooldown as Huscarls (approx 2 turns per unit).

[Cokjan]

@4zumi

On point number two, you really don't have to meddle with the sounds if it irritates you. There are still better work to be done

On point number three, I didn't mean that dismounted huscarls have longer cooldown or more limited recruits. It's just that I can muster more units if the Viking Raiders are still available when I wait for the dismounted huscarls to arrive... MWAHAHA

What my suggestions are like this...

MUSTERING HALL (T1 BARRACK)
Peasant Militia

GARRISON QUARTERS (T2 BARRACK)
Peasant Militia
Viking Raiders

DRILL SQUARE (T3 BARRACK)
Viking Raiders
Dismounted Huscarl

With that progression, I could muster a quick mediocre large force to counter attack the enemy. But also, the enemy could muster more too. But it's not necessary though! I just tested and discovered that after upgrading a barracks, you can instantly recruit two of the new units. So apologizes for not testing first

Also, a small request. Could you possibly add an option for Denmark and Norway to change religion to Pagan? Because the pope, going excommunicated makes the populace unhappy. But I wanted to RAID!

And, I think you should switch the upkeep of Norse Swordsmen and Dismounted Huscarls. DH are just better at every way, it scares off the enemy and pierce armor, and do you know what... IT'S CHEAPER.

[4zumi]

No Problem
And I switched the upkeep cost of Huscarls and Swordsmen, like you suggested, made way more sense..

I have thought about the pagan thing for Norway before, but did not come to a conclusion, but I think by the starting time most of the Norse folks where already christianized, as far as I remember.
But I will give it a second thought, maybe as a player only event, just for the giggles

[sgz]

Great Mod. Thanks for all the work

[Theramines]

It's a lot of fun to play. I thought I'd have a look to see what's changed...29 turns later I had to force myself to exit.

[4zumi]

Thank you both Enjoy your campaigns.
And thanks for the rep Theramines.

[paleologos]

Well done 4zumi, do keep this updated!

[KasierStahl]

@4zumi

Le Royal Trumpets sound off a triumphal tune over a royal red silk rug as I walk in clad in Emperor garb.

I have returned from my exile in Le Mount and Blade Warband Anno Domini 1257 and have become Emperor of the Neo-Roman Empire ruling over a vast swath of land from Iberia to the Ukraine fighting off the Mongol Hordes and last bits of Muslim factions and Christians in North Africa, the Levant, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Scotland. Bow before me for I have establishing Lithuanian Paganism as the dominate faith in all of Europe for the Neo-Roma Lithu Empire over throwning the pope and the college of cardinals and instigating witch hunts for the Christian Outsiders that bring false faiths to our natives land. Yes indeed I Emperor Svenar Shieldbreaker avatar of our lord Holy Immaculate Perkūnas had doth spiced things up with the new Pagan traditions and dict-----

Sees new 2.9 version of the Vanila Beyond le Downloads like a crack addict gone off cold turkey and plays it in a self imposed isolation until further notice.

@4zumi

Well what can I say about this mod? It is what I feel is perfected, you've done so much and made a master piece of a mod that I feel you should get a Mod of the Year Award for this or have it show cased in a major gaming channel that caters to Total War fans. I am playing again as the HRE Gott mitt Uns and all that, on very hard and I love the new permanent fort structures now that I can build them in choke points and river crossings and if I lose a siege battle and the victor takes it and leaves it, it's there for me to reclaim, plus I can build more forts on my ever expanding border frontier, and have like a second layer as well as watch towers in between, I love that, kinda like a Proto Great Wall of Evropa in a way.

I honestly don't have much to say, I love the mod and will keep playing until 3.0 drops and download that too as a faithful fan. You've done an awesome job 4zumi and I hope you continue to make great mods for games we all love in the future and perhaps make a career out of videogaming and modding. And always remember this my friend, your mods where the first for me to play with and I'll always cherish that memory of stumbling upon your work looking for a Total War mod that encompassed Europe, Middle East, North Africa, North America and South America, and the Far East and I thank you sincerely for this.

Swan~

[4zumi]

@paleologos
Thanks and I will do that
and thanks for the rep

@kasier
Welcome back, emperor
Thanks for your kind words.

Just recently nopinkcreations has started a let's play on youtube with Total Vanilla, a small but neat channel. And I am very impressed by the speed he stomps through the map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLXE5JJUjWE

I doubt, that a major channel will pick this up, this game is over 10 years old, but who knows.
And I don't know, if I could make a career out of it, but I think modding will be a huge passion for me. So, lets see what comes after 2.5 years of Total Vanilla

So, have fun on your new campaign. I will start test run no. 3 (after an english and french campaign) on the way to 3.0

[thttht]

Thank 4 the mod, azumi, it look awesome but i prefer the old campaign map than the new one, it look darker. And i feel the metal armor is more shining too much

[4zumi]

@thttht
You are welcome.

You can simply remove the new campaign map textures, if you don't like them by deleting the "terrain" folder in the data folder of the mod and deleting the description_aerial_ground_types.txt in the data folder.
Now it should be the old vanilla textured campaign map.

And I didn't do anything to the shining, maybe jack did, but jack is a dull boy...
Seriously, the armor shader or whatever it is, is like in the original game.

[Shogun]

After playing several factions so far i can say mod works perfect, smooth no problems at all, only two stuff i would change:

1. I think u added wrongly titles of regions with quite unusual choice of traits and buffs to leader of specific region. I have entire list but right now its too late in my country to put it all i will try to do tommorrow. example: granduke of florence is given +1 piety +1 loyalty which is in my knowlegde quite wrong to give that to tuscany ruler and marca de romagna (bologna region) u gave +10% trade incoming this should be vice versa bologna is more known as papal domain and more closer tied to papacy than florence Duomo was not build for piety of medicci family its more built for showcase of renesaince era. Piety was not business for florentines. Also several other like Vienna +1 command +2 loyalty never happend my friend they (hapsburgs) were power ambitious family and thru trade they arise to power and thru diplomacy. So these and many others region have quite unusual traits. Serbia title is called prince of serbia -very wrong serbian never had princ as title in its medieval era. Use was Mladi Kralj which could be interepeted as prince but very hard literal translation would be young king. It should be stand King of Serbia not Prince of Serbia, u could also put Despot of Serbia. Depends how u want to clasified titles. Some titles from americas and several european and asian regions doesnt have coat of arms designeted to specific region i can give those if u want cuz i do have large heraldic db. Too much strong title traits for crusader lands i think its too much.
I will try tomorrow to put corrections proposal for 3.0.

2. As i said previously i would remove either Milan or Novgorod or both and add Serbia and Aragon or Croatia or Wales from game but as u said u wont move factions and i will probably now sound as spammer but history says in 1080 Milan never existed as independent stat it was under HRE rule and much of Italy.
Only recnogized realm in italy by HRE was Duchy of Pisa (which was added corsica and sardinia) and Spoleto with Duchy of Aquialea. And Milan was considered as primal place of HR emperor in Italy (seat).
Novgorod as i mentioned earlier never existed at that time. Will emerge as Independet briefly in 1223 but by 1231/35 will be Mongol vassal.
So far biggest gameplay strat from east europe makes extremly strong Byzantine empire and hungary which as i said before makes rly hard to attack and wipe out cuz balkans without Serbia (which existed in that time ) would counter weight to gameplay.
With Byzantines u cant lose the game simply u cant. I have two games VH/VH simply BE is too powerfull. Hungarians with alliance with Poland and HRE simply unstoppable only to some extnet Venice is kinda balance but overhelmed easily by Hungary.

Again sry for this 2nd remark just telling IMHO what would be great for gameplay and strat cuz some factions are simply too OP and they are quite hard to push off from map.

[4zumi]

@shogun
thanks, and here are my answers.

1.
Keep in mind that I added every title from scratch, and tried to do as much research as I could, before I added them and the Coat of Arms. For some regions it was really hard to find anything appropriate. Some titles took me over an hour, some ten minutes. And I did not want to make a scientific work out of it. So,yes, you might see some oddities.
The boni I added are not really region based. I tried to keep a good variety and when possible a fitting bonus. So give me your proposal and I will see, if I change the boni accordingly. You Florence/ Bologna example makes sense, so I might swap it.
And to come to Serbia. I based my decision on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_...lity_of_Serbia
So there was a Grand Prince of Serbia. And it fits the beginning of the game quiet well.

I might be incorrect, but as I said above. I will not research every title days long.

The Americas do not have Coat of Arms, because they have a Governor for several regions combined. There is a Governor and a Vice Governor of North America, South America, Brazil, Carribean and West Africa.
Nothing more.
Finding symbols for the muslim areas was hard, because as far as I am aware, there was no real heraldry in those areas, as it was more or less a specific western european thing.
But if you have proposals for the regions you are welcome to share those.

The Crusader States Titles are strong, you are correct, but they are intended to be. I might habe a look at them for rebalancing.

2.
You are right, I will not remove or change any faction at this point.

Novgorod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic
First reason: I will just say, I like Novgorod, as far as I understood it, it was part of the Kievan Rus.
Second reason: more orthodox factions

Milan:
First Reason: Everybody likes a backstabber
Second reason: I like Italian City States, and Milan was powerful in this time (as were so many other city states in italy)
Third reason: If I gave everything to the HRE the HRE had at the time, the game would be over very quick.
Fourth Reason: Tradition, because they where there from the start.

Spain:
Given the Mess of Kingdoms Spain was at the time, I prefer keeping the name Spain.

Unstoppable factions:
I admit I play the game on N/N as an after work armchair general as an relaxing experience. So the game is balanced around this.
I have no idea what happens on VH/VH, but yes I have witnessed some factions becoming very powerful and quiet challanging, but I have also seen HRE, Byzantium getting wiped of the map.
It depends from game to game and is in my experience never the same.

The factions are not in perfect balance and never will be. This is not my goal and in my opinion can never be achieved. There will always be the heavy hitters like the HRE or Byzantium that are very strong. Or take egypt, it will mostly become a blob, if left unchecked, because they are more or less uncontested in africa.
But I have seen Baghdad take them on and grow very powerful.
Some factions have more, some factions have less units, thats the way it is.
There simply is no perfect balance to be had. I can simply throw rocks at a faction and hope they will have a effect, like I now successfully contained the irish green goblin tide.

As much as I strife for perfecting this mod, I simply know I will never achieve this goal. It is simply impossible. So I have settled with the "feels most complete" goal.
I dedicated so much time in the last years to this project, that now is the time to make something new, after this is finished. I am a little worn out by the work and will concentrate after that on maybe something completely different like picking up my photography hobby again, cutting films, writing, or lose the 20 pounds I gained over the course of the last two years..

Maybe I plan for a different Medieval 2 mod, maybe I go on and start making bigger mods for newer Total War games or a completely different game or get my ass up an try to learn unity programming to create a game of my own.
But maybe I will just open up a Tiki Bar and wear a banana leaf skirt all day...

So long
zumi

[Shogun]

So give me your proposal and I will see, if I change the boni accordingly.

Actually im making entire proposal post/thread for your mod and i have collected almost all titles. I will put it as separate thread in your mod forum.

And to come to Serbia. I based my decision on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_...lity_of_Serbia
So there was a Grand Prince of Serbia. And it fits the beginning of the game quiet well.

Serbia under the name of Serbia will unified all terriotries in late 12 century. Time frame when this mod starts Serbs have state called Kingdom of Duklja. Duklja or Dioclea was small city of Byzantines that was abandon by them and conquered by Serbs it was seat of power of Vojisavljevic dynasty that ruled prior Nemanjic dynasty in12 century. King Mihailo I was first King of Serbs which was title of Serbian crown. so in period that we talk 1080 Serbs had kingdom of Duklja which was very powerfull kingdom in late 11 century specific ruler in 1080 was king Bodin son of Mihailo.
So tile for Serbia region should be King of the Serbs or King of Serbia. Mostly historical accurate was King of the Serbs because we had several territories in period of prior to creating of kingdom of duklja.

The Americas do not have Coat of Arms, because they have a Governor for several regions combined. There is a Governor and a Vice Governor of North America, South America, Brazil, Carribean and West Africa.
Nothing more.

Im aware of that but nevertheless i do have several heraldry armorials and governors were represent by either royal banners or dynasty banners. In case of Spain they actually had entire new banner/flag/heraldry development fro so called New Spain i have those i will put it in my proposal thread. Due to factions better look i will create as i said earlier couple new banners /titles for region and city for every factions as proposal.

You are right, I will not remove or change any faction at this point.

muhahahaha
I will try to perceive u differentely just because your mod is rly rly good mod and could be IMHO best medieval based mod cuz u incoporated very interesting approach. Ok it could be some stuff altered lets say strategy city looks if u can find someone who can change city looks in strategy map that would be perfect like Tsardoms toatal war tem is doing.Maybe even try to recruit someone with IWTE skills to create specific tactical battle settlements on mapnot many IMO it should be included: Rome, Venice, LOndon, Paris, Vienna, Constaninople, Jerusalem and Baghdad (maybe Cairo or Granada)

Novgorod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic
First reason: I will just say, I like Novgorod, as far as I understood it, it was part of the Kievan Rus.
Second reason: more orthodox factions

Serbia or Duklja in case of my proposal is Orthodox nation.

Milan:
First Reason: Everybody likes a backstabber
Second reason: I like Italian City States, and Milan was powerful in this time (as were so many other city states in italy)
Third reason: If I gave everything to the HRE the HRE had at the time, the game would be over very quick.
Fourth Reason: Tradition, because they where there from the start.

First reason: Milan was not backstabber of HRE in this time quite opposite Milan was always faithfull servant of HRE or germans in nay periodSecond reason: Milan was conquered by HRE and played major role to subdue other parts of Italy in that time which will become Duchy of Lomardia in HRE.Only free territories in that time of italian people were Sicily, Papal States, Venice and Campania (Naples) should be rebel territory btw.Third reason: No it will not. U could give more script or rebellion and enlarge France so Hre would be contained in specific region. Remmember u still have Venice and Papal States can excommunicate them so it will give others chance to invade HRE easily which is happening a lot btw Denamrk and England are using this OP stuff to become OP in 3 saves that i have.

Spain:
Given the Mess of Kingdoms Spain was at the time, I prefer keeping the name Spain.

Well Castille and Leon would be better and u could make event/script Unification of Spain as one script for Spain. For other factions most fastest OP faction are Byzantines, Hungary, Damascus and Baghdad. I can surely say that Turks are quite below expectations for their gameplay. they cant establsished themself i tried two time vh/vh as major player in ME for quite many turns. Egypt is quite strong once it uses alliance with crusader faction it will wreck baghdad and take quite of Arabia (i have 2 saves of that).
Maybe I plan for a different Medieval 2 mod,

I have TS of gaming community i can give u section if u need and i can help u on any mod although im not experienced m2tw moder so if u want i will sent u TS info address so i can explain u my proposal or idea that have from modding from civilization forums few years ago that i did.

[Shogun]

Turkish javelinman when u click with Mongols i got that uniform soldier from rome total war. Maybe glitch or what i will try to get those units in army roster and chk is it problme for mongols to have them?

[4zumi]

@shogun

you get your king of the serbs as title (after I read a bit further, I am fine with that), but Serbia as a Faction is not going to happen.

No heraldry for the americas is exactly my point. If I take New Spain heraldry it will not match, if the mongols take over the new world. For that reason the symbols have been kept more or less neutral (if you call a conquistador helmet neutral).

I am not looking for a modding team, because I like the "my mod my rules - i make a mistake, i clean it up" approach. I do not have to wait for somebody else. I am thankful to people who contribute things, like Hellvard made the dismounted polish nobles or balsifien researched the historic region names. But I will not get other people permantently on board for this. The city stratmap models are a nice idea, I will look into that. The special settlement battle maps are also a nice idea and i will look into it.

See above, Serbia is not going to happen. Novgorod stays where it is (that position is another reason)

Milan as a backstabber is more a running joke, because everybody that played that game has gotten betrayed by milan on some point.
And yes it will make the HRE more powerful. Your idea with the script (I dislike scripting, but I can do it) is contrary to what I want to do, or better said, what I feel this game is about. Heavy scripting takes away the sandbox and i like my sandbox.

A unification for spain is an intersting idea, but I don't know, if I want to mess with that, just because of a simple name change later on. Instead keeping the name, saving the script work, and reducing the amount of possible bugs, seems more sensible, but I will look into that.

Turkish Javelinmen: You should not been able to recruit turkish javelinmen as the mongols, and I do not remember putting them in as mercenaries. So where did you get them? As far as I could see, they are not recruitable for the mongols.

[4zumi]

@cokjan
You get your pagan norwegians
There is now an event at the start of the game (2turn) that lets you convert.
I am still testing, but it seems to work fine.
You get your own religious buildings (but you are still able to built churches (could not take that out without messing something up) but you have no effects from the churches.
So you as a pagan norwegian you will have to roleplay a bit.

This is a player only option. The AI stays christian.

[4zumi]

@shogun

ok, and here we go. I made a quick stroll trough twc and some threads.

1. Faction name change per script is not possible - so, Spain is Spain
2. New City strat map models - not going to happen, as I wont buy and learn Milkshape or something like this
3. Custom Battlemaps for settlements - not going to happen for the same reason as above.

I want to finish this mod, and I am not going to open up a can of a million worms before that. So I am not going to become a 3D Model Artist and IWTE expert right now.

[Bruno_Magno]

First of All, congratulations on the excelent MOD you have made here, i am enjoying it a lot.

But i would like to know if you fixed that old vanilla problem with diplomacy, when people dislike you after you pacefully ocupy a city, when they should like you for your chivalry act.

Thanks