Expanded Teutonic Mini-Mod

[SigniferOne]

I've decided to make a small, tiny mod, to make a little bit of balancing in the teutonics campaign (so far my favorite).

The problem is that while teutonics struggle in the beginning, once they get their economy rolling they can steamroll over the whole campaign. Stacks of Order spearmen are all you need to take over, without any ritterbruders or other units. Also, religion plays less of a role than it should, since you don't really notice it unless you want to build ritterbuders. Thus, you can spam order spearmen, and win the campaign without any thinking and without much fun.

So, one change:

All teutonic proper units require at least 60% of catholic religion to be recruited.

A drastic change I know, but this should not affect the beginning game, when you're just with your native provinces anyway. This is only to affect the mid-to-late game, when you want to steamroll but shouldn't be able to. If you cannot claim that more than half of people in your province are catholics, you've done a poor job as a teuton. To balance, all of the core starting provinces will be given at least 80% catholic religion.

Only militia units (not even Burgher pikemen, only units that literally say 'militia' in their title) can be recruited anywhere. But they are recruited from a hostile population, and will thus make reluctant fighters.

second change:

All teutonic churches cost half as much.

This is to expedite the effect of conversion in the new provinces, so that you can get to your units at some point in the near future. Role-playing, this indicates that artisans from all-over Western europe are streaming to your provinces, helping you build the churches and expedite the conversion process for the pagans, thus coming at a much reduced price to you.

---

Therefore, the gameplay for the teutonics should be something like this: you cannot steamroll over all provinces, exploit their high-level buildings to produce your high level no-religion-requirement troops, and use them to steamroll further. You now have to conquer a province and immediately start Christianizing it. You absolutely must have all of your new provinces at high levels of catholicism, or you won't get very far. To be able to conquer a new province, you first must look to your earlier provinces, which by now should've been converted to catholicism, and will thus provide you with highly motivated teutonic catholic soldiers to recruit.

If I have time from our Paeninsula Italica mod, I may add a fourth crusading general, from Holy Roman Empire. Possibly other tweaks too.

[Dagda]

Sounds great. Also, have you considered nerfing order spearmen at all?

Anyways, I'm eagerly awaiting a download.

[Ataegina]

excelent idea +rep

[SigniferOne]

Thanks guys. There's a slight hitch with the fact that using modified game files produces graphical artifacts in the game, so I'm waiting for a workaround. The actual files for the mod are really easy to do, and already done. Would people be interested in a fourth crusader, from HRE, who'd arrive within 5 turns of starting the game (prior to the Brit)?

Also, I'm a fan of Alexander Nevsky, but I'm not sure how to make him more prominent in the game. Also, Chudskoye Lake, where he won his famous victory, is but a tiny blip on the map, hardly anyone would choose to fight there. Any ideas regarding Nevsky/Novgorod? Maybe make the Lake bigger. Maybe make it somehow that Nevsky can get kicked out by his nation, and if they start losing really bad, call him back in.

[SigniferOne]

Working on something new. Does anything in this picture seem surprising to anyone?

[SigniferOne]

New feature coming up, that I've briefly alluded to in the screenshot above: Teutons will automatically rename settlements when they capture them! A whole slew of Lithuanian settlements will be renamed into German names, as they really did in history. For instance, Kaunas, a vital center of Lithuanian power, was actually once historically captured and renamed into Kaunasburg. Well guess what, you can do that in the game. As soon as you capture it with your Teutonic armies, you'll automatically rename it to your Germanic name. Once you start building churches and churning out higher and higher Teutonic knights (according to christianity's level in the province), the conversion will be complete.

Of course, Lithuanians will not be happy when their precious city is so violently Germanized, and so if they manage to capture it, they'll instantly rename it back to Kaunas!

==

Lithuanians aren't the only ones! Polish settlements will get the renaming treatment too! Alexander Nevski is going to be exiled by the jealous Novgorodian merchants. But if the Teutons capture (and rename) Pskov, the very angry Nevski will appear with a gigantic army!

Welcome to a whole new Teutonic campaign.

[Ninefingers]

Sounds very cool SigniferOne! The Teutonic campaign is my favorite, and I'm looking forward to this. One question though: how does the lowered Catholicism requirement for the Teutonic Order affect campaign balance? Cause I have to say, fighting against them as the Danes is proving...challenging. Those Ritterbruders absolutely destroy my armies!

[SigniferOne]

Not sure what you mean. The religion requirement is raised, for Teutons! I did not mean all of the units require 60%, I mean that even the base units such as Order Spearmen must have 60% religion now, and you cannot spam them and win the game. Ritterbruders still require a massive 90% faith in catholicism before a province can recruit them. That's why teutonic churches cost half as much, so that you can commence converting the pagans much easier. And it's not like Teutons are awash in cash, and they cannot spam units from newly conquered provinces, so their campaign is very imposing now. But at least they will have very strong religion in their provinces.

And, if you manage to take Marienburg, a very special city for Teutons as you know, you shall await a nasty surprise, as a vengeful German prince will set out from HRE to help his Teutonic brothers out, decked out with ritterbruders, hordes of churchmen, and knights of christ, a pious massive army all gathered together and itching to avenge. But that's a secret feature, I hadn't announced it yet...

[Ninefingers]

Ohh! My mistake, sorry!

It definitely sounds like a great mod, I'll definitely be giving it a go when you release it. I also love the scripting ideas you have!

[pajomife]

You gonna made any rebalancing of units,or adding any extra like banners ,shields,titles,ancillaries etc.?

[SigniferOne]

You gonna made any rebalancing of units,or adding any extra like banners ,shields,titles,ancillaries etc.?

This mini-mod is not intended as merely a graphical facelift, or instead a profound revision of all aspects of the game. I want to strike a balance by aiming at neither, but instead to provide a groundwork for others who may want to continue working on the campaign further. Thus I make some emphasis on plentiful scripts to keep making the game interesting.

Then others can build on that, and change icons or graphics or anything else they like.

Given that, it's a possibility that I might tone down order spearmen, a little bit, since 20 armor is just too excessive. Or raise their relgious requirements from 60% to 70 or higher. But in general I am inclined to change as little as possible, because in my view the original already works the best. My task is only to tinker with it, and make it even better. So I don't plan (or want) to make a vast revision of everything, I only want to remedy the Teutonic steamroll effect, and also make religion play a very strong role, which will in its turn give a very flavorful sense to the campaign. In addition to this, I want to add more scripts, that do fun things, merely because I love scripts, and because others can do the graphical aspects, which many people can already do themselves.

[bobfish]

These sound like nice changes to the campaign, could've done with Nevski returning in my campaign with a huge army as I just lost Pskov to the Teutons.

Not sure if this will help keep the campaign interesting in the long run though if you aren't playing as Teutons. Could probably use some boost to the Pagans as in every campaign I've run so far they've been flattened by the Teutons and Polish within the first 30 turns, it's kinda disappointing that the big threat to the church is wiped out so quickly.