[OLD DEV THREAD] FACTION: The Eastern Roman Empire

[Sinan]

I made a simple sig using Richard... I love that model.
Wow, it's going to be FANTASTIC to see all these heroes in game.
Hate the Tinman too, specially since it's so uniform.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Any ideas how I can use this sig for BC ?
Then drop me a post in the signatures thread.

[Manuel Komnenos]

But. I can hardly see Byzantium as a military force to be reconed with in the middle ages. In fact I see Byzantium as a second rate military power after Manzikert. Dependance on foreign mercenaries (almost lack of native troops complete lack of elite troops) and so on.

It's true that after Manzikert byzantine army wasn't same as before, now it was more mercenary forces and socalled pronoiai - byzantine nobles army, but Komnenian emperors tried to introduce again thematic system and ''home army''-stratiots, even recruited soldiers from conquered peoples like Serbs or Hungarians. The most succesful in this was Manuel I Komnenos , and this was one of the reasons of succesful campaign in Balkans, Asia Minor and even Italy. In the letter to english king after catastrophe at Myriokephalon, Manuel write that in his army were ''true'' greeks that came from their cities, villages, fields...to serve in name of their Emperor. I think that this is from Historiae of William of Tyre. This was last apogee of byzantine army, and after his death byzantine quickly disolved.

As formerly stated, I am no expert on the Byzantines, and this might all be misconceptions. But this does not explain how for example Frederick Barbarossa was able to sweep aside the Byzantine resistance almost effortless, when he passed through the hostile Byzantine lands on his way to the third crusade. How small groups of Normans were able to cause huge troubles for the Byzantines in the Balkans etc. these troubles are in fact to a large extent confirmed by at least the Alexiad aswell

.
You must know that Barbarossa really won two battles in Asia Minor, but against Suljuks, he even conquer Iconium(today Konya), that was Manuel achile heel(His army was destroyed on way to Iconium, at Myriokephalon. But to he Byzantines were enemies only formally, he didn't wage war with them.
And for the Normans, if you think of Norman expedition in time of Alexius, after initial byzantine defeats, at the end Normans were defeated; and later Byzantines even defeated Normans in south Italy, but after betrayal from local nobles they were greatly outnumbered and defeated.

And for that great Zeph idea:
Will be all faction leaders portrayed as Richard in the game. With crown our something similar?

[Zephrelial]

Hey Zeph, glad to see your input here. We're going to have new generals models based of the Norman King for all the Christian factions. I personally hated that tinpot dude and always though that Norman king from the prologue looked a lot nobler and more suited, especially for KoJ generals. Whether or not we'll have unique generals for Barbarossa is really a big if. Considering how big and extensive this project is getting we're kind of realizing that we have to keep things simple. So I'm not 100% sure if we'll have unique generals. But, you can bet Barabarossa and Richard the Lionheart will all make thier appearance in Broken Crescent.

That's really great to hear Mirage.I certainly understand the priorities issue,and also since people see your great progress,and the things that you've done so far naturally there is greater expectations,suggestions etc.

I believe you should stick to what you have in mind first,just wanted to say what I had in mind as soon as I saw Barborossa's name mentioned in this thread.

It's really nice to hear that Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart will be featured in the mod,I firmly believe that the attention and delicatiency paid to details always display the quality,and will show many people what ordinary unprofessional people like us (modders,gamers) can take one thing from a small point and take this to greater heights.I remember your first thread about the Broken Crescent project,to think of one thing is something and to be able to do it is another and usually harder.The point that the Broken Crescent stands today is like an expansion pack,as I called it before,therefore remarkable.So I will try to contribute if I may and if I could since although I fear to be sound too pompuous,I must say I have an eye for good,unusual(in a positive way) things.

These kinds of merits will kind of put pressure on the developers to make the upcoming series better and more authentic,so that the whole community will have better games,I suppose.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I actually suggested that you give most native infantry low morale (but otherwise good stats), but you also give more elite units the "eagle" trait (inspires nearby troops, ie. improves morale) so that if you keep the other soldiers close to these they will not flee so easily. Basically if done right this will mean that the Byzantines will be very powerful when the morale of their soldiers is kept "high" by either elite troops or superior numbers (though this does not always work as well), if neither of these is present then the soldiers will flee relatively easily.

Another thing that could be done, either instead of or in addition this, is to make morale penalties or bonuses from generals' stats much more pronounced for the Byzantines. You could make the soldiers have a pretty low morale by default (as I suggested), but good commanders will confer very large morale bonuses to their troops. The thing with the elite units who improves the morale of nearby troops should also be in if this is done, as this way they could be used effectively in MP as well.

I think this is a great idea. This will mean that under leaders like Manuel I the Byzantines will be a force to be reckoned with, but if you get sucky rulers, your empire could fall apart.

[Randarkmaan]

The above post made me realize that I intended to write "native soldiers" not "native infantry".

[Roman-Byzantium]

I don't think Byzantium Native Calvary would have a low moral however, Calvary was one of the Eastern Roman's hallmarks, heavy calvary anyway.

[CelticPagan]

It's really nice to hear that Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart will be featured in the mod

You should also see Phillip II Augustus of France in this Mod too (at least I will be poking Mirage till he adds him )

BTW, thank you for all your kind words as well, Zephrelial.

[Sinan]

Quick questions:

• Why don't we use DG's Byzantine textures ?
• Are the Byzantines also going to be reskinned in 1.0 ?

Not sure about those two, so thanks for any clarification.

[AlphaDelta]

Why don't we use DG's Byzantine textures ?

Because BC will be a product of the BC team, and also we dont want to become reliant on out sourced work that could be taken away from us at a critical point.

Are the Byzantines also going to be reskinned in 1.0 ?

Probably not. The user of course will be free to modify their copy of BC to include other mods such as faction re-skins.

Cheers

[Sinan]

Understood, thanks for the clarification.

[Manuel Komnenos]

But anybody can download DG mod and insert it alone.

[therussian]

But anybody can download DG mod and insert it alone.

That depends. I don't own M2TW, but I would think that you'd have to go into all the text files and manually change them to include the skins.


Which could take a while, and inexperienced coders could have problems with it.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Because BC will be a product of the BC team, and also we dont want to become reliant on out sourced work that could be taken away from us at a critical point.



Probably not. The user of course will be free to modify their copy of BC to include other mods such as faction re-skins.

Cheers

I though you guys were using WhiteWolf's reskin in the first release :hmmm:

Has this changed? Because I though his work would greatly improve the Byzantines until you get around to reskinning them.

[Sinan]

That's what it says somewhere in the first 2 pages IIRC, but apparently that's not the case.

[Miraj]

We were given permision to use them. But doesn't mean we will use them.

And as for now, the decision is clear: BC won't use any out-sourced skins.

We've come this far working by ourselves, I dont see the need to start relying on others when we clearly dont have to. The graphics are obviously handled by BC - Alpha Delta and Strelac - and the coding/scripting handled by myself. And of course historical research handled by our man Ahiga, and not to forget CelticPagan.

We've got all we need.

[Manuel Komnenos]

I don't know if this posted someone in forum but i'll ask. Will be in last FINAL version, byzantine units modified by AD?

[AlphaDelta]

I cant say for sure, but I do know that right now stumbling block number 1 in the building of a Byzantine faction roster is the lack of a properlly compiled, researched and resourced roster list in the style Ahiga and I have made for almost every faction made over the last 2 months.

Before photoshop can be opened a Byz faction roster list must be researched and heavily detailed with detailing to the point where nothing is left to guess work i.e Information/drawings/pictures for every aspect of the unit ( a picture and additional resources for: 5 different helmets, 5 different armour/clothing types, 5 + shields, the face types, the type of weapons, attachments etc etc for each and every mesh/unit).

Once this list is ready it can slimmed down to what is realistic and work can begin.

Cheers

[Ahiga]

I cant say for sure, but I do know that right now stumbling block number 1 in the building of a Byzantine faction roster is the lack of a properlly compiled, researched and resourced roster list in the style Ahiga and I have made for almost every faction made over the last 2 months.

Before photoshop can be opened a Byz faction roster list must be researched and heavily detailed with detailing to the point where nothing is left to guess work i.e Information/drawings/pictures for every aspect of the unit ( a picture and additional resources for: 5 different helmets, 5 different armour/clothing types, 5 + shields, the face types, the type of weapons, attachments etc etc for each and every mesh/unit).

Once this list is ready it can slimmed down to what is realistic and work can begin.

Cheers

As AD says, for a faction to really be considered it has to have a very tangible and realistic roster list. The averages for what other factions have had and Byzantium would be expected to be close to (It could deviate from it a little) would be 4-5 new meshes, 6-7 cavalry, 6 infantry, 3 ranged units. You can start out by giving a bloated list and letting us slim it down, but this is the median average you should expect them to get as everyone else has, more or less.

There needs to be a lot of concept art and more importantly ideas behind them, such as what you would omit from the art, what you would change, what mesh could be used, and so forth. Probably the biggest thing now is determining a set amount of meshes to use as a common mesh pool. For example, we determined the Kypchaks would have 5 common meshes - Turkoman, Slav, Nomad, Noble, Khan's guard. With the KoJ, we decided there would be 5 (Maybe 6) common meshes - Padded Sergeants, armored sergeants, Secular (Latin) knights, Surcoat Knights (Outremer Knights + Jerusalem Knights), and Turcopoles (By strelac). This is less work with more payoff, and we are considering the implementation of texture variations amongst units using the same mesh - like how turcoman Regular bow and Turcoman close bow had a different look to their dress.

I'll actually be attempting to do this for Byzantium following the end of the school year (The 21st of June). I do want to see them updated, but not to the extent that MTR was going to, and more to the extent of all our other factions.

[Manuel Komnenos]

I'll try to help you. Where I must post materials, to Ahiga or AD.

[Ahiga]

In this topic is good. It bears mentioning that Byzantium will get like our other factions a 'historically inspired, historically influenced, historically themed, but not historically imitated' approach. We will be accurate in the big picture with byzantium, but we will not attempt to emulate them to the same fine detail that a mod focusing on them may do.

All I mean to say by that is that we will use anglicized names (A greek term then an english term, the equivalent being Faris Lancers, or Junior Ghulams), and we may take artistic or creative liberties with them. They will remain firmly Byzantine, and appear like they walked out of history and very well could or would have stood in Byzantine ranks in the past, but they may not be your interpretation of them, and that's fine - we've all got our own.