Rise of Kings v2.0 (Beta 3): Overview and Feedback

[Kushan]

I have fixed the bug that was holding up the release of v2.0. I'm going to spend the next few days cleaning up the files and making sure not major bugs remain. If all goes well Rise of Kings v2.0 Beta 1 will be released sometime next week.

I have also (as you may have noticed) changed the name of version 2.0. This is because v2.0 will cover the timer period between 1085 and 1300ish. To make up for the turns that will be lost, I will be adding a four turn per year script in future betas/final release. I also will be adding other starting dates. Future version of Rise of Kings, 4.0 and above will focus on specific regions/conflicts.

Rise of Kings Beta 1 Download
LINK

Rise of Kings v2.0 Beta 1 Features:
- Anno Domini Map
- BBB v2.0+
- Real Combat
- Ultimate AI and Ultimate Battle AI
- Burreks Knights and Knaves
- Ghost Helmets Fix
- Sky + Blood Mod

To Do:
- Overhaul recruitment and units
- Misc fixes/changes

Recruitment:
So I have been going back and forth on how to accurately simulate medieval recruitment. For awhile I was thinking of an EB type (goverment/MIC) system. But the more I thought about it I realized that A: A system like it would be to complex and B: More importantly, wouldn't accurately reflect medieval recruitment.

I have decided to use a system similar to RTRs original ZOR. Factions will only be able to recruit units from inside there homeland ZOR. Outside of this they wont be able to recruit anything. The reason for this is both gameplay and historical. For the most part, armies were raised inside of an Empires "home" territory. Exception to this would be the Byzantines, who set up the theme system, which I hope to represent in its own way. From a gameplay point of view, in RTRs ZOR the AI tended to recruit armies of useless units rather then the better units from inside its ZOR, so by not letting anyone recruit outside of its ZOR the AI will hopefully raise units then send them to the front.

I would like to thank everyone who has let me include their mods in Rise of Kings. As well as all the fans who have stuck around during the long awaited arrival of v2.0.

Thanks,

Kushan

[Kushan]

I've played about 20-30 turns as the English with no major problems. I'm going to compile the installer then upload it. Will have the links up sometime this evening.

Thanks,

Kushan

[GERMANICUS]

Hurrah for the second coming of RofK
I NOW have a reason to play MTWII again.
I had gone back to IBFD to satisfy my gaming needs.
I look forward to playing and giving you feedback.
Once more the middle sea will feel the menace of the Scilio-Normans.

Dankie Lord Kushan

[Kushan]

And so here it is. The link for beta 1.

LINK

ENJOY

Kushan

(Now time to start work on Beta 2)

[GERMANICUS]

Downloading and installing now

Cheers

[Kushan]

I've started working on Beta 2, actually have quite a bit of work done on it. The focus of Beta 2 is to add more immersion into the game. I've already added a 4tpy script, thanks to alpaca its much easier then in RTW. I'd like to script in some things, like Royal hunts, jousting tournaments for your nobles, etc. And a system like Bygs Supply and Command 2. No definite date on release., but hopefully in a few weeks, maybe a month.

Kushan

[nutranurse]

Well the feedback that I can provide, from the few turns I have played, is that the mod seems stable thus far. Only aspect(s) that irks me are the Faction Names (playing with DLV for so long has made me used to more immersion-like names) and is the building tree still vanilla?
Edit: Also the ZoR where you can only recruit from inside your provinces seems good. Challenging too!
Edit: Wait won't this ZoR render the castles captured outside of your homeland as useless?

[Kushan]

Well the feedback that I can provide, from the few turns I have played, is that the mod seems stable thus far. Only aspect(s) that irks me are the Faction Names (playing with DLV for so long has made me used to more immersion-like names) and is the building tree still vanilla?

I think I'm gonna go back to having faction represent families instead of kingdoms, like AD. The more I think about it the more I like the idea lol.

Yes, the building tree is currently still vanilla. It wont be overhauled until beta 3

Also the ZoR where you can only recruit from inside your provinces seems good. Challenging too!

Wait won't this ZoR render the castles captured outside of your homeland as useless?

Yea, it would make them "useless" I'm trying to think of ways to keep them usefull outside of your home territory. Want I want to represent is the transition from "private" armies to the more professional ones used in the later half of the middle ages. So late game castles will be useless in a sense anyway. I'm gonna give it some more thought, try to refine it some more, Thanks for bringing that up

Kushan

[GERMANICUS]

I think I'm gonna go back to having faction represent families instead of kingdoms, like AD. The more I think about it the more I like the idea lol.

I prefer the return of family names similar to what you started with in earlier versions of ROK.

[HistoryProf]

My suggestion: Death Zones.

Any Non-Arab army staying in the Sahara or Arabian desert outside a city for one turn loses 10-20% of it fighting force. Any Non-Slavic army staying in the Pripet Marshes or Crimea, same. Any Mediterranian army staying in Russia or Scandinavia over Winter, same.

Works best w/ 0.50 Time Scale.

Haven't seen it anywhere, but it might have already been done.

It's just there's nothing more ridiculous than seeing some peoples' Campaign Maps where Sicilians are just hanging outside the city walls of Mecca, like there's air-conditioned platemail.

[Kushan]

My suggestion: Death Zones.

Any Non-Arab army staying in the Sahara or Arabian desert outside a city for one turn loses 10-20% of it fighting force. Any Non-Slavic army staying in the Pripet Marshes or Crimea, same. Any Mediterranian army staying in Russia or Scandinavia over Winter, same.

Works best w/ 0.50 Time Scale.

Haven't seen it anywhere, but it might have already been done.

It's just there's nothing more ridiculous than seeing some peoples' Campaign Maps where Sicilians are just hanging outside the city walls of Mecca, like there's air-conditioned platemail.

I don't know if its possible or not, I dont think anyone has tried it. I'll look into it though. I know you can script movement penalties. I'll definitely look into it though.

Kushan

[GERMANICUS]

Kushan
One necessary addition that would reflect the reality of campaigning in the middle ages would be march and seige(was apart of MTW I) attrition.
The effects of disease and poor logistical support always made a long march and distant campaigning a costly affair DLV made a cost script which was good but your army was always intact no matter how far you ventured from your home base.
What do you think?

[Kushan]

One necessary addition that would reflect the reality of campaigning in the middle ages would be march and seige(was apart of MTW I) attrition.
The effects of disease and poor logistical support always made a long march and distant campaigning a costly affair DLV made a cost script which was good but your army was always intact no matter how far you ventured from your home base.

Beta 2 will include Bygs Supply and Command 2. Simply, traits are used to represent different levels of supply. It also represent foraging supplies, supplies received from ships, and capturing supplies from enemies. However it only applies to the player, which I think is fair. DLVs field script is already included in RoK.

I do agree desertion should be represented someway. Ideally, a certain number of troops would be removed from a unit in enemy lands. I just dont know how it could be done. Maybe through scripts. I'll ask around. If anyone had any ideas please let me know.

In other news Beta 2 is coming along very well. Looking like I should have it ready for release next week.

Kushan

[Stinkfloyd]

This is one of the best mods out there. Great job Kushan.

One suggestion I have would be to allow towns and cities to have buildings that only castles can have now, such as stables.

In actuality most medieval armies were comprised of three types of troops. Those that lords had to provide because of feudal responsibility, those that were troops in the lords personal retinues (retainers so to speak) and those less fortunate individuals who could afford to fight in order to earn money promised to them by the king. The average soldier would earn more than a farmer and less than a merchant or artisan.

Long story short it makes sense for the lords in towns and cities to be able to raise troops such as knights and heavier infantry in order to provide for their personal retinues and feudal responsibilities as well as represent those individuals whom wish to profiteer from war.

It also makes the castles play more of a strategic role. As their advantages are not in what troops they can provide but their actual fortifications. You can garrison a castle with less troops than you can a town or city and it would hold out for longer (waiting for a friendly army to fend of the besieging army).

This will also allow them to become increasingly obsolete when gunpowder arrives on the scene (i think that is what you wanted according to a previous post of yours). The player than has the option to change the castle to a city, which is what happened towards the end of the middle ages for many castles anyway once they outlived their purposes.

Sorry for the long winded post. Keep up the excellent work.

[Stinkfloyd]

P.S. Two more things: there has to be way to speed up the time in between turns, it seems longer in the beta 1 version than in the last ROK version and what about making the requirements for victory a little greater? Other than that this mod is excellent.

[SonOfCrusader76]

I agree, the victory conditions are currently far too easy. Also, Kushan, would you be so good as to post a version of the mod without Burrek's Textures, as I already have them and would like to save the usage?

Thanks and I look forwards to the finished product.

[Kushan]

I'll definitely be revising VCs for Beta 3. I am going to be away for about a week, house sitting for a friend while they are out of town. I'll still be checking the forums but I probably wont be able to get much work done on Beta 3.

I have beta 2 pretty much done, its missing a few things that I wanted to do, but is still fully playable. I cant seem to get my season trait script to work correctly, although the 4tpy script works fine, so I am just going to release Beta 2 tomorrow, and pus the new script to beta 3.

For those that have Beta 1, there will be a patch, as well as a full install, so you'll be able to save some bandwidth.

Thanks,

Kushan

Edit: It looks like BBB v2.1 is up, so I'll be adding that to Beta 2 before I upload it.

[Kushan]

I am compiling the installers for Beta 2. Will have the links up tomorrow. Sorry for the delay but I haven't had access to the files the last few days.

Thanks,

Kushan

[Kushan]

Sorry for not having beta 2 out, but I want to get BBB v2.1 added before I release it. Good news is I'm back from house sitting so I should be able to get it added and beta 2 out by the weekend.

Kushan

[LongPike]

Recruitment:
So I have been going back and forth on how to accurately simulate medieval recruitment. For awhile I was thinking of an EB type (goverment/MIC) system. But the more I thought about it I realized that A: A system like it would be to complex and B: More importantly, wouldn't accurately reflect medieval recruitment.

I have decided to use a system similar to RTRs original ZOR. Factions will only be able to recruit units from inside there homeland ZOR. Outside of this they wont be able to recruit anything. The reason for this is both gameplay and historical. For the most part, armies were raised inside of an Empires "home" territory. Exception to this would be the Byzantines, who set up the theme system, which I hope to represent in its own way. From a gameplay point of view, in RTRs ZOR the AI tended to recruit armies of useless units rather then the better units from inside its ZOR, so by not letting anyone recruit outside of its ZOR the AI will hopefully raise units then send them to the front.

I disagree that this is an adequate representation of the issue. The troops were controlled by the lords/town leaders who were in turn coopted/replaced when conquered. It's a matter of fact that the same area might very well be contributing troops to 2 or 3 different factions within a period of 2 or 3 decades. Why not go with an abbreviated/simplified MIC system? In an area outside of one's designated homeland one first has to build a building with a very long build time (20 turns?, 40 for 4pty script) to represent the gradual coopting/replacement/integration of the local ruling class. However after that is done all units can be built.