**PRO DEO ET REGE v0.3A BETA FEEDBACK AND DISCUSSIOn**

[Socal_infidel]

Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that my game works perfectly. I'm having the thoughest campaign as Sicily EVER! I've been excommunicated, I'm at war with every Christian faction except England and my allies Hungary. I can only afford to retrain a couple of units per turn, but it is great.

But the good thing is I have taken most of Italy, just missing Venice, Bologna and Genoa. Yes I have Rome I killed the Pope

Minor problems:
Is there a problem with the mines in southern Italy? They have +0 income.
Also are cities suppoesd to produce Muslim Archers?

And I might have forgotten an ancillary for Napoli.

BD

Sounds like quite the campaign there! Pope's are like roaches though. Another'll pop-up somewhere and you'll have to kill him, too!

Hmm...I'm actually doing a lot of bug-fixing this weekend as I finally found some time to spend of modding (girlfriend's out-of-town). I'll look into the mines along with other wonky resources reported.

And yes, archers are now recruitable in cities. The castle/city distinction as far as troop recruitment never quite made sense.

However, I am working on a new building Feudal Estate building line that will be castle-only. Basically, how it works is you can only recruit Knights and Sergeants from castles from these buildings (example, Lord's Manor, Baron's Estate).

Also castles will have many more recruitment slots available to them and I'm looking into other ways to make it worth while to still have castles a viable option (e.g. Higher/Longer Conversion to City costs/construction times, troop bonuses from castles, etc).

Thanks again for the Heraldry Mod. The new princess and faction leader death pics are top-notch!

[Kornelis]

Socal_infidel, thanks ever so much for putting together this modification! While I already enjoyed the game previously, PDeR makes it far more entertaining than previously, and, like said elsewhere, makes it more like a Crusader Kings-type game. It works very well indeed.

I have a suggestion or two to make, however. I'm a history student specialising in the middle ages, particularly in the history of the Low Countries back then, and I have to say that the name "Friesland" for the province with Utrecht is a bit off for the period. Geographically, the province should be called Sticht or Holland. Personally I prefer Sticht, as that was the bishopric of which Utrecht was the capital, and Holland was in 1080 entirely insignificant.

Friesland, in any case, was located more to the north than your province of Utrecht, and it's heartland was along the north sea coast, not actually included in the current territory.

Also, if it's possible to add any further provinces, I'd like to suggest Liege (the name for both province and city). The Low Countries currently has quite a gap in the south-east, which seems somewhat peculiar considering it was the area with the highest population density north of the Alps, and Liege was a city with both a massive population and a politically important ruler (another bishop).

Here's a map of the medieval Low Countries (about 1450; Liege is called Luik):
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5...untriesbp1.jpg

[Mechstra]

I remembered one of my suggestions.

Scotland lacks any sergeant type units at all, so it's very hard for Scotland to benefit from free-upkeep units in castles. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to make the Highland units free upkeep for Scotland, seeing as the Gaels were the military elite still in 1080 and were very much in a noble-and-retainer mindset. Also, seeing as these units can only be recruited by the Scots in Scottish provinces, it certainly doesn't overpower them any! On a similar note, I would actually quite like for dismounted mailed knights to be available for the Scots - with only 3 provinces to recruit their unique early infantry in, they really do lack heavy infantry of any kind of almost all conquered provinces until dismounted feudal knights become available. That's not so necessary, though.

Also, if you're going to be editing unit textures, I would be eternally in your debt if you'd get rid of the bloody blue paint on the Highland troops' faces.

[Dogma75]

At the mom I am playing Portugal. I am in the year 1126 and I conquered Granada some years ago from the moors.

Granada is my biggest castle so far and I wondered why I couldn't produce anything there except ballistas. Cause the moors did build everthing in Granada.

So I started a little experiment. I saved the game and then I raised all buildings I could (all of them morrish).

I used the process_cq Cheat to rebuild them all as Portugese structure buildings After that I could build all units that I should have build before cause all buildings where there (only as morrish buildings). Strange...

[carricanta]

Hi Socal_Infidel!

In the early, the spaniards troops get the double axe from the carolingian-visigoth armies, called "francisca", these weapon was similar to the huscarl axe. Royal troops like the Spatarios (swordmen) had the sword called Spatha (75/90 cms.) The mazes were a popular weapon, like the slinger.
In the north of Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Leon, Cantabria, Pais Vasco, Navarra...), there are a lot of forest, and woodsmen were in the christian armies with sepherds (almogávares) and other wanderer men.
The towns in Spain have militias, armed with bills, halberds and crossbows (the more important crossbowers in Navarra)

I have any contributions about the spanish units in the Middle Ages:

I have any contributions about the spanish units in the Middle Ages:

Homicianos: is a variant word of "homicide", convicts who fought about 1400 with the spaniards in the most dangerous war zones (like the Forlorn Hope)
Irmandinhos: galician rebels who conquered parts of Galiza in the XV century, rebels from the country and the villages (variants of weaponry)
Algarada: Light cavalry like hobilars
Caballeros Villanos: Village "knights" around river Duero´s cities
Rotulari/Lanceri: light soldiers with a little shield
Guardias Viejas: Elite Troops armed with halberdies/spears in the armies of Isabel and Fernando (los Reyes Catolicos)
Hermandades: heavy soldiers armed with spears/swords
Mangas Verdes: the "police" with the armies of Isabel and Fernando (los Reyes Catolicos)
Huestes: billmen troops
Marineros españoles (sailors): the pre-marines, in the conquest of Sevilla fought with the spanish king Fernando III



I´ll send more information if you want



Cheers and thanks for your effort

[Davidus Pertinax]

social you are the man!!! just want to congratulate you, this mod its wonderful, im playing with sicily and i having a lot of fun, thanks for this and keep up the good working!!

[Battlehawk]

Also in Swabia, Swabian swordsmen arn't available, but they are in Tyrol/Innsbruck...

[xerxes]

but by now it seems that the developpers has given bonus to the ai controled armies to avoid that a human player could easily beat the ai controled armies. about the mod I think that it needs some teak, in my first game playing as Sicilians I was unable to build decent economy and military facilities as I was attacked very soon by two of my previous allies, france and holly roman empire. after playing for some hundred turns I stopped all the turns I was attacked 3 or 4 full stack of crack french troops and same thing by hRE part, all turns I had to fignt 4 or 6 battles, so I loaded some previous games and I saw that after 10 turns milano and venice were distroyed, france controlled all spain and portugal south of England, HRE contolling all central europe, so they are able to field large armies. so I think that building empires must be slow down, because reaching at 300 turns and finding only 4 or 5 empires contolling all the map is boring as your only target will to build large armies an auto resolve battles with 10 full stack armies.

[Socal_infidel]

Socal_infidel, thanks ever so much for putting together this modification! While I already enjoyed the game previously, PDeR makes it far more entertaining than previously, and, like said elsewhere, makes it more like a Crusader Kings-type game. It works very well indeed.

I have a suggestion or two to make, however. I'm a history student specialising in the middle ages, particularly in the history of the Low Countries back then, and I have to say that the name "Friesland" for the province with Utrecht is a bit off for the period. Geographically, the province should be called Sticht or Holland. Personally I prefer Sticht, as that was the bishopric of which Utrecht was the capital, and Holland was in 1080 entirely insignificant.

Friesland, in any case, was located more to the north than your province of Utrecht, and it's heartland was along the north sea coast, not actually included in the current territory.

Also, if it's possible to add any further provinces, I'd like to suggest Liege (the name for both province and city). The Low Countries currently has quite a gap in the south-east, which seems somewhat peculiar considering it was the area with the highest population density north of the Alps, and Liege was a city with both a massive population and a politically important ruler (another bishop).

Here's a map of the medieval Low Countries (about 1450; Liege is called Luik):
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5...untriesbp1.jpg

Done! Friesland will be nenamed Sticht in the next version! And I'll take a look at your suggestions, but at the moment, I'm a little tight on provinces and don't want to crowd the map.

Thanks!

I remembered one of my suggestions.

Scotland lacks any sergeant type units at all, so it's very hard for Scotland to benefit from free-upkeep units in castles. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to make the Highland units free upkeep for Scotland, seeing as the Gaels were the military elite still in 1080 and were very much in a noble-and-retainer mindset. Also, seeing as these units can only be recruited by the Scots in Scottish provinces, it certainly doesn't overpower them any! On a similar note, I would actually quite like for dismounted mailed knights to be available for the Scots - with only 3 provinces to recruit their unique early infantry in, they really do lack heavy infantry of any kind of almost all conquered provinces until dismounted feudal knights become available. That's not so necessary, though.

Also, if you're going to be editing unit textures, I would be eternally in your debt if you'd get rid of the bloody blue paint on the Highland troops' faces.

The Scots are lacking any sergeant-type units, aren't they? Since I've now consolidated castle-city barracks units in one barracks line and have moved nobles and knights and sergeants to a feudal estate line of buildings, I may have to look more closely into how to handle Scotland.

Any other suggestions regarding Scotland? Did they have sergeants or men-at-arms?

Thanks for playing my mod, mate!

At the mom I am playing Portugal. I am in the year 1126 and I conquered Granada some years ago from the moors.

Granada is my biggest castle so far and I wondered why I couldn't produce anything there except ballistas. Cause the moors did build everthing in Granada.

So I started a little experiment. I saved the game and then I raised all buildings I could (all of them morrish).

I used the process_cq Cheat to rebuild them all as Portugese structure buildings After that I could build all units that I should have build before cause all buildings where there (only as morrish buildings). Strange...

Dogma, that's actually intended to make the Reconquista tougher and more accurate. Basically, the idea is that Granada and the other Taifa provinces at the beginning were under Muslim rule, so naturally they would have developed their own infrastructure.

If an Iberian faction reclaims these lands, he's going to have to get rid of Moorish influence and rebuild his infrastructure.

As a hint, you can tear down another faction's infrastructure if you take it. The military buildings will be useless to you anyway. Not only do you get money for it, but if you lose the province back to them, they'll have to rebuild their infrastructure.

@carricanta

Thanks for the suggestions. My question is whether Spain or Portugal Knights ever had dismounted retainers, something equivalent to the Armored Sergeant or Sergeant Spearmen?

Thanks as always for helpful suggestions.

social you are the man!!! just want to congratulate you, this mod its wonderful, im playing with sicily and i having a lot of fun, thanks for this and keep up the good working!!

Glad you're enjoying it so far! I love Sicily, so nice choice of campaign!

Also in Swabia, Swabian swordsmen arn't available, but they are in Tyrol/Innsbruck...

Fixed for next version! Thanks for pointing it out! I missed that one!

but by now it seems that the developpers has given bonus to the ai controled armies to avoid that a human player could easily beat the ai controled armies. about the mod I think that it needs some teak, in my first game playing as Sicilians I was unable to build decent economy and military facilities as I was attacked very soon by two of my previous allies, france and holly roman empire. after playing for some hundred turns I stopped all the turns I was attacked 3 or 4 full stack of crack french troops and same thing by hRE part, all turns I had to fignt 4 or 6 battles, so I loaded some previous games and I saw that after 10 turns milano and venice were distroyed, france controlled all spain and portugal south of England, HRE contolling all central europe, so they are able to field large armies. so I think that building empires must be slow down, because reaching at 300 turns and finding only 4 or 5 empires contolling all the map is boring as your only target will to build large armies an auto resolve battles with 10 full stack armies.

Yeah, right now the AI receives some cash boosts to help it with the higher construction costs, new buildings, etc.

But I have noticed and am glad you pointed it out, that sometimes this leads to superpowers going nuts on the rest of Europe! I'd like to see the smaller factions survive long enough for the Human player to get around wiping them out themselves.

I may have to lower the bonuses, they receive. Thanks for freedback!

Alright, must get ready to go to work now, but before I do, I'd like to welcome two new contributors to Pro Deo et Rege.

Graphic Design and Art: Tanmos

Historical Researcher and Beta Tester: Pope_Fred_I

Tanmos came up with the nifty little banner you see in my signature and is working on some other projects for the team!

Pope_Fred_I has revised the descriptions for the Royal Titles you get as governor of a settlement to be more unique and historical. He's also working on new titles for Priests, Bishops and Cardinals [e.g. Archbishop of..., Latin Patriarch of...] and coming up with a lot of good historical suggestions.

Glad to have both helping out! Cheers!

[Mechstra]

The Scots are lacking any sergeant-type units, aren't they? Since I've now consolidated castle-city barracks units in one barracks line and have moved nobles and knights and sergeants to a feudal estate line of buildings, I may have to look more closely into how to handle Scotland.

Any other suggestions regarding Scotland? Did they have sergeants or men-at-arms?

Thanks for playing my mod, mate!

Scotland has no sergeants or men-at-arms at all, so it has no free-upkeep castle units. I don't think it really needs them, as such, but I do think that Scotland's own equivalent units (culturally), the Highland ones (barring the archers, possibly) should be made free-upkeep in castles. Highland Nobles are more restricted than men-at-arms would be, but they are superior and men-at-arms lose their usefulness once you get out of the early game in most cases, so I don't think there's any need to add them to Scotland.

I do have a sort of suggestion related to Scotland - specifically the Galloglaich. These Norse-Gael warriors did not start operating as mercenaries overseas until the 13th century or so, and certainly did not become established in Ireland until the 1300s. It might be an idea to enable them for training in Dun Phris and Inverness (for any faction) from the beginning of the game - Galloway took its name from the Norse-Gaels, and Inverness is near enough the Norse-Gael holdings in the islands - and only add to them to Ireland later on in the game.

Keep them as mercenaries, though. I think that's best.

I'm now playing as France, so the focus of my suggestions will no doubt change.

[Davidus Pertinax]

im playing a new campaing with the moors, its a nice campaing, they have a nice roster of units, and its a nice challenge, i like to kill the infidels

[Davidus Pertinax]

i have all the iberian peninsula except of two cities, and the spaniards dont want to accept my offer to become an vassal, anyone know how to do this???

[CelphTitled]

At the mom I am playing Portugal. I am in the year 1126 and I conquered Granada some years ago from the moors.

Granada is my biggest castle so far and I wondered why I couldn't produce anything there except ballistas. Cause the moors did build everthing in Granada.

So I started a little experiment. I saved the game and then I raised all buildings I could (all of them morrish).

I used the process_cq Cheat to rebuild them all as Portugese structure buildings After that I could build all units that I should have build before cause all buildings where there (only as morrish buildings). Strange...

i dont think its strange, but realistic
i think its actually one of the main features of dis mod
where you have to establish your own regional military influence on provinces you conquered.
otherwise it'd be too easy to just blitz any kingdom into annihilation

[Kornelis]

Done! Friesland will be nenamed Sticht in the next version! And I'll take a look at your suggestions, but at the moment, I'm a little tight on provinces and don't want to crowd the map.

Thanks, man! Another alternative, if you can't add a province, is changing the city of the Brabant province (currently Antwerpen). You can find some historical background on Antwerpen here, and the truth is that Antwerpen didn't become the important trading centre popular culture views it as until about 1500. Before then, within Brabant, 's Hertogenbosch, Leuven and Brussel were all superior. Brussel, of these, was the most populous and had the greatest political influence. It'd be better for historical accuracy if you replaced Antwerpen with Brussel which, also, would move the city to the east, thus partially solving the big gap that currently exists between the Low Countries cities and the Mainz and other Rhenish cities.
Also, Antwerpen, while being part of Brabant, was so in a much looser form; it was like a separate county which was also owned by the dukes of Brabant. The men of Antwerpen also didn't serve in Brabançon armies as much as men from the other cities.

Which takes me to my last post - could you rename the title Herzog von Brabant to Hertog van Brabant? Herzog von Brabant is German and that language was never spoken in the province. Middle Dutch, on the other hand, was used even by the dukes themselves from the 13th century onwards.

Again, thanks! You've made the game a lot more enjoyable already. Kaiser Werner the Mad salutes you!

[Davidus Pertinax]

i dont know if in vanilla version the game had timbuktu city and all of the gold mines if not i want to congratulate for this added, its really historical!!! and give good profit

[JethroKirby]

First I just wanted to say this looks like a promising mod and it is good to see that more people are trying to build a more historically accurate game.

One thing that has bothered me about the vanilla game and every mod I have seen is that each faction is missing certain types of units. For example, it doesn't make sense to me that the English don't gain access to pikemen, crossbowmen, or muskets. I was wondering if it was possible to add the "missing" units to factions that don't have them. I know there is a unit limit hard-coded into the game but would making a unit available to more factions count against that limit? I'm not saying I would like to see all units available to all factions, but it would be nice to see Spanish billmen, Scottish peasant crossbowmen, and Byzantine arquebus (did I spell that
right) units. I believe it would allow each faction to have a more varied military force and would still allow every faction to keep its niche (English longbowmen are the best archers, French have the best calvary in the west, and the Scotts have the best pikes, etc.).

That's just my 2 cents

And once again, great job on the mod so far! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Socal_infidel]

First I just wanted to say this looks like a promising mod and it is good to see that more people are trying to build a more historically accurate game.

One thing that has bothered me about the vanilla game and every mod I have seen is that each faction is missing certain types of units. For example, it doesn't make sense to me that the English don't gain access to pikemen, crossbowmen, or muskets. I was wondering if it was possible to add the "missing" units to factions that don't have them. I know there is a unit limit hard-coded into the game but would making a unit available to more factions count against that limit? I'm not saying I would like to see all units available to all factions, but it would be nice to see Spanish billmen, Scottish peasant crossbowmen, and Byzantine arquebus (did I spell that
right) units. I believe it would allow each faction to have a more varied military force and would still allow every faction to keep its niche (English longbowmen are the best archers, French have the best calvary in the west, and the Scotts have the best pikes, etc.).

That's just my 2 cents

And once again, great job on the mod so far! Looking forward to seeing more.

Hi Jethrokirby -

I tend to agree with you and that's what I'm trying to accomplish with my Regional Area of Recruitment System!

Basically, I feel that should a faction expand beyond its natural borders, it would be exposed to regional units that it would likely incorporate into its own army.

So say England finds itself in the Holy Land in my mod, then they'd be able to recruit Turkopoles. Or should they invade Spain and get a foothold in Burgos, then they'd be able to recruit Jinetes. Or if the Moors found themselves Germany, they'd be able to recruit Swabian Swordsmen. That's the kind of thing I'm going for and will expan upon in the future as I'm able to add even more regional units!

But I don't want ALL faction to have access to ALL units, then each faction would be the same as every other one. Rather my system utilizes the regional units found in the current roster along with a few additional ones I've come up with.

I'll be releasing my next update sometime this weekend! Be on the lookout for it!

Cheers! Thanks for the feedback! Look forward to hearing even more!

[izanagi11]

Hi Jethrokirby -

I'll be releasing my next update sometime this weekend! Be on the lookout for it!

Cheers! Thanks for the feedback! Look forward to hearing even more!

Great News, always looking forward to play your mod, one of the few mods I enjoy alot!

[qnzkid711]

I was wondering. Are there any plans of making Albanian mercenaries or regional recruits of any sort? They are useful for the western Balkans, Dyrrachium era. They acted in the revolt of Maniakes against the Byzantine state and also took a significant role in Guiscards campaign:

According to Anna Komnene :

as Robert was being worried on all sides by the so-called Albanians and by the natives of Dalmatia sent by Bodinus.

and earlier

And the Emperor rode along the windings of the surrounding mountains and the almost impassable tracks, and after two days and nights made his way out of them and reached Achrida. On this journey be crossed the river Charzanes and rested a little in the secluded valley called Babagora, and his spirit was not broken by his defeat nor by the other accidents of the battle nor would he give way to the pain of the wound in his forehead ; and though inwardly he was consumed with sorrow for those who had fallen in the battle, especially for the, heroes who had fought so bravely, yet, above all, his mind was wholly occupied with the thought of Dyrrachium. For he reflected with pain that this town was left without a governor, as Palaeologus had been unable to re-enter it after the battle was lost. So he secured the safety of the inhabitants as far as possible by entrusting the custody of the Acropolis to the chiefs of the Venetian colonists there, and the care of the rest of the city to Comiscortes of Albanian origin to whom he transmitted orders by letter.

On the Maniakes revolt:

Unfortunately, the people who had once been our allies and who possessed the same rights as citizens and the same religion, i.e. the Albanians and the Latins, who live in the Italian regions of our Empire beyond Western Rome, quite suddenly became enemies when Michael Dokenianos insanely directed his command against their leaders...

The aforementioned George with the surname Maniakes, thirsting for blood, began an uprising in the Italian part of the Empire with Byzantine and Albanian soldiers there, being offended because the emperor had shown him a lack of respect and fearing the emperor in view of previous hostilities. He caused great turmoil in the rest of the army opposing him and took it over. After having set up his camp at a two days' march from Thessalonika, he made his attack on the imperial camp in the evening...

The troops are described by other Byzantine sources as being lightly armed, very mountain oriented, and generally good as speermen and/or archers. Their nature is more along the line of rebels and mercenaries/regional recruits in the Dyrrachium area, along the south-middle Adriatic near Ragusa and Epirus. But they are units that were used along the Adriatic and southern Italy, so their abundance is not negligible.

By the 12th and 13th ce there is also the use of Albanian light cavalrymen. They would likely carry thin armor, at most padded, with a shield and spear.

All this IF you are not yet all done with troops...

[Mechstra]

I take it the forum was rolled back, hence the loss of the 0.4 feedback thread?