ideas
Medival 2 Total War Mod Idea:
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With this post I am not announcing that I'm developing a mod, nor am I recruiting or looking to put together a team;
What I am doing is simply throwing some ideas and musings around and welcoming any feedback, discussion or proposals from interested parties.
Basically I've been collecting this big idea in my head and felt like sharing. (FYI I am one of those people that likes spending days
planning, researching and making lists for creative projects, and in extreme detail too.)
I really liked the idea behind Anno Domini of having dynasties vying for power, to me this seemed to really tie in with the whole
'alternate history - as you make it' feel behind Total War games. I've followed this mod for a little while and several factors have tempted
me to develop ideas for my own take on it; firstly it inspired me to do some research based on this concept and there were several choices made for the
factions of Anno Domini that I did not agree with, furthermore there were some gameplay elements being implemented I did not feel were necessary, and
lastly, though perhaps an unfounded minor point, Anno Domini seems to have slowed down in development somewhat, particularly since the merger with
Mediaeval Auctoriso.
So I have been developing an idea for 'how I would do things', and while I have modded games before, and have tweaked M2 slightly, I am under no illusions
that I alone could do a mod like this for M2 - I can research and come up with ideas - I can code a bit (not much) and I can skin/texture, but I dont think
I could make this idea reality (with just my skills at any rate) but anyway;
the concept:
I have come up with a list of what I believe are appropriate dynasties for the default start date of 1080AD (which I see no reason to change);
1.)Doukas Dynasty (Byzantine Empire)
2.)Dunkeld Dynasty (Scotland)
3.)Capetian Dynasty (France)
4.)Normandy-Angevin Dynasty (Norman England)
5.)Trpimirovic Dynasty (Croatia)
6.)Papal States of the Catholic Church
7.)Dal Cais Dynasty (High Kings of Ireland)
8.)Hauteville la Guichard Dynasty (Norman Sicily - Palermo under King Roger AND Apulia & Calabria under Robert + Naples & Capua)
9.)Jimenez Dynasty (Aragon & Navarre under Sancho AND Castile & Leon under Alfonso VI + Barcelona & Gascony)
10.)Bagrationi Dynasty (Georgia)
11.)Rus Dynasty (Kievan Rus)
12.)Comitopuli-Vojislavljevic Dynasty (Serbia, Bulgaria & Dukedom of Duklja (Slavic,Serbian,Bulgarian & Czech))
13.)Arpad Dynasty (Hungary)
14.)Munso Dynasty (Denmark)
15.)Fairhair Dynasty (Norway)
16.)Stenkil Dynasty (Sweden)
17.)Canossa Dynasty (Marquisate of Tuscany; Lombardy,Geneva,Milan,Genoa,Florence,Lucca,Pisa)
18.)Welf Dynasty (Bavaria)
19.)Rubenid Dynasty (Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia)
20.)Almoravid Dynasty (Almorovid Emirate (Moors))
21.)Zirid Dynasty (Zirid Emirate (Tunisia))
22.)Fatamid Dynasty (Fatamid Caliphate(Egypt))
23.)Hammadid Dynasty (Hammadid Emirate (Algeria))
24.)Seljuk Dynasty (Seljuk Sultanate(Turks))
25.)Elected Doges of the Republic of Venice (Venice)
26.)Abbasid Dynasty (Abbasid Caliphate)
27.)Salian-Hohenstaufen Dynasty (Germany)
28.)Borjigin Dynasty (Mongol Nation) EMERGENT
29.)Afonsine Dynasty (Burgundy)
30.)Piast Dynasty (Poland)
31.)Rebels & Petty States
Unfortunately that hits the hard-coded faction limit and there are several others I wish to include;
Seljuk-Roum Dynasty (Sultanate of Roum)
Ayyubid Dynasty (Ayyubid Caliphate)
Zengid-Mosul Dynasty (Zengid Emirate)
Khwarezmian Dynasty (Khwarezmian Caliphate)
Pomerania (unkown name of Dynasty but ruler is Swietobor I)
I know the faction limit is 31 which is a shame cos the 5 above factions would be great to squeeze in somehow - does anyone know if the Kingdoms expansion
is going to increase the limit somehow?
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Would also like to do (but would likely be instead represented by rebels):
Lithuanian Kingdoms: Samoitians,Aukstaitians,Yotvingians(Sudovians),Selonians,Semigallians,Latgalians,Livonians,Curonians
Welsh Kingdoms: Gwynedd,Gwent,Deheubarth,Powys,Brycheiniog,Morgannwg
Cuman/Tatar/Kipchak tribes
Sub-states of Moorish Iberia and Southern Sicily (Syracuse)
Sub-states of Sardinia and Corsica
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Wouldn't mind having (but probably can't):
Emergent Factions:
City States of Italy and Dalmatia; Pisa,Genoa,Milan,Florence,Lucca,Bologna,Arezzo,Brescia,
Cremona,Lodi,Perugia,Piacenza,Siena,Viterbo,Trani,Gaeta,Molfetta,Ragusa,Zara
City States of Flanders; Ypres,Ghent,Bruges,Antwerp
Republic of Novgorod
Switzerland
Austria?
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The thought did occur to me of creating various sub-campaigns to fit the factions in but then one particular faction would never see another particular
faction because they're in seperate campaign settings - you couldn't have the Dunkeld Scots marching upon Seljuk-held Cairo or even vice-versa and that
would be a shame.
Anyway, I would not include the Americas nor would I expand the map further East, probably extending it slightly further north to include the full
extent of Scandinavia, instead concentrating on making the part of the game where players spend most of the campaign more detailed with extra regions
throughout. Furthermore a revamp of all the names and descriptions of things where appropriate; Dublin should be Dhub Linn for example, while arquebuse
being the French term for that type of handgun should be hakenbusche for the German factions and arcebuse or harcebus for the English. In the same vein
Marrakesh as it is in Vanilla is better than Morroco (then if a western faction captures Marrakesh they could rename it Morroco if they like
I like the idea of generals and family members gaining lordship over a region and gaining the title for it. I also thought that each of the factions
should have a base set of units which they can recruit anywhere, which are essentially representative of them recruiting local populations
in their own style of military service.
(For example if the Capetian dynasty of France ruled over Russia they would still be able to recruit 'French Spear Militia' because they are
recruting local townspeople, giving them a tunic with Capetian heraldry on it and equipping them with a spear and shield, likewise 'French Knights' would
still be French Knights if they were recruited in Constantinople or Cairo because they are recruited by granting fiefdoms from that region to an individual
(probably still a Frenchman) in exchange for his service equipped as a knight)
-but furthemore there should be types of unit - both specific to that faction and otherwise, which can only be recruited and retrained in particular regions
or areas (though not as mercenaries, they would be seperate and use the vanilla system)
so for example Normandy-Angevin could only expect to recruit Sherwood Archers within the British Isles (and only from a Woodsmen's guild) while the Capetians
could only recruit Scots Guard from the British Isles, Mainland France and anywhere else that seems a sensible distance (perhaps Germany or parts of
Scandinavia),
these systems would be handled through the same method as training Camel or Elephant units in the sense that a resource has to be present in the region for
them to be present in the recruitment window though it would be an 'invisible resource'
(BI did this for the Sassanid mace-wielding heavy infantry - there were only certain regions they could be recruited even though it was done through a
regular barracks, because they had a resource requirement coded in, though not represented on the map).
Bearing in mind that this mod would essentially aim to put in place key dynasties and let history alter itself there are several important medieval factions
or states (such as the sub-set of emergent city-states etc. listed above) which have been left out, on the grounds that at the games start they are regions
or cities under the control of an existing dynasty and may well have not emerged as they did in history under the different type of rule excercised by both
player and ai as the game plays out. Further to this, and this is where I fear I may recieve the most criticism, part of the design I have come up with
does not strictly adhere to history, for example the lack of the Holy Roman Empire under Henry IV - this particular decision is based on the intrigue
of allowing key german and italian houses (who were in actuality under HRE rule though still active in terms of personal attainment) to compete for
overall dominance of the area encompassed by the real HRE, so instead of having the HRE unified under Henry IV we have the German houses of Welf and
Salian-Hohenstaufen (Henry IV is the Salian leader so they are technically HRE), the north Italian house of Canossa and the Burgundian house of Afonse
(who later controlled Portugal as an independant kingdom from both the Spanish Kingdoms and from Burgundy itself which came under HRE rule) - so which
dynasty (even an outside dynasty such as the Dunkelds of Scotland for example) ends up controlling the various regions of Germany,Burgundy,Northern
Italy, perhaps Sardinia & Corsica and perhaps a few bits of Eastern Europe - gets the title of Holy Roman Emperor.
In a similar vein, many people represent Aragon, Castille, Leon and Navarre as either entirely seperate entities or as two groups (Castille-Leon
and Aragon-Navarre) in my proposal they are all under Jimanez rule because Sancho and Alfonso were related (brothers iirc?), similarly with the
Hauteville la Guichard dynasty; Roger was ruler of Sicily and Robert was ruler of Apulia and Calabria so seperate Duchies, but were brothers so with the
same blood and hence under the same dynastic title.
Finally, I think a revamp of the unit roster, skins, models, stats and all would be necessary, firstly to better represent the historic armies, secondly
to help with the 'army type' rosters I mentioned above with faction units and region-sepcific units, and lastly to represent that, as these factions will be
playing out an 'alternate' history it would be necessary to provide them with a late tech-tree to survive the later period even if perhaps in reality they
never did so, so there could be Pikemen, Gunners and Cannon for the Doukas Dynasty (Byzantines) at the very latest part of their tech-tree, for example.
Thanks to everyone who read this far, a bit of a ramble I know and ultimately a strange post considering that I'm not sure I'm even going to do anything with this idea but hey...
-I have modded a few games but I have very little confidence in being able to do much other than reskins for M2 - but I'd like to get peoples opinions on
the concept anyway.
I'd like to point out that I don't in any way mean any disrespect to the people behind Anno Domini or Mediaeval Auctoriso. Imitation in this case being
sincere flattery - its very much a case of 'why didn't i think of that?' on my part.
cheers,
-Spong
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