Scandza: Total War

[Dansk viking]

Cheers! As you can see, your suggestions helped me quite a bit.

You can't play RTW with Windows 10? I didn't know, but that's quite annoying...

[CountMRVHS]

Wow, lots of work has been done here! Great stuff Dansk!

[Dansk viking]

Thank you!

There's no knowing when my next burst of inspiration arrives, possibly next time I have a huge assignment to write...

[Dansk viking]

True to my word, I found inspiration approaching my exam period.

I added resources to the map to the best of my best ability. It's pretty daunting having to research the geology, etc. of the entirety of Scandinavia and vicinity for this kind of thing, but I hope I made a plausible distribution of resources.

My next project will be adding a base of units to all the factions - mostly a matter of retexturing Germanic ATW units. So I've set about learning how to do that, and I think I'll be able to make some high quality stuff, higher resolution, at least, than some of the old textures.

[Dansk viking]

So, I've started to retexture units, mostly creating varied shield patterns and colours. After a while I realised I wanted to change more, so I also started learning how to work with the 3D models; this I did mostly because I wanted to experiment with overhand spears for some units. I won't go all in with the overhand spears though, picking a side in that heated debate, but I've chosen to have spear units that are able to form shield wall formation use the overhand animation (ideally you could have them switch between the underhand and overhand stance, but that's a bit more complicated).

Here's a small preview of my work so far:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Obviously very much work in progress, and it'll probably improve along with my increasing experience texturing and modelling; some of the basic units will have to be overhauled to more reflect the equipment that we have from this period (especially thinking about the bog deposits spread around Denmark and southern Scandinavia).

[Joar]

Looks great!

Keep up the good work, I'm following this mod with great interest!

[CountMRVHS]

Amazing, Dansk! I've never seen overhand spear animations in RTW, and this looks great. Sounds like a good idea to keep it for the shield-wall-capable units, and use underhand animations for the rest - nice compromise there, I think.

[Dansk viking]

Thank you for your kind words!

It's been a bit quiet in here, so I thought I'd just show a little something I made a while ago: new strat models for settlements.



From the left: Town (w/wo. wall), Large Town (w/wo. wall), City (w. wall/large wall).


I also changed the port models to be more "barbarian", and removed the clutter in the water next to them.

Other work includes scripting for population management (including modelling of the Anglo-Saxon migration), playtesting for balance, as well as some rework of Norwegian starting positions and characters (had to reconsider the timeline, moving everything back in time).


Now closing in on ten years of development, hopefully I'll come close to something that I can let you guys try!

Most important things that I need to do before that includes: a fair selection of units for all factions, rebel factions and their starting strength, general faction balance.

[Joar]

Nice work!

Looking forward to seeing more!

[CountMRVHS]

Looking good, Dansk! 10 years of development ... sounds about right Hope you get some time to keep it going this year

[r2vven]

Oh, it's not dead.

[Dansk viking]

Things are shaping up... I put in some effort to make more skins for the North Germanic factions - most of them of decent quality but not all at the standard of ATW's own skins or better (though some are, I think, especially those I did after I got some practise in).

Even though quite a few things are unpolished and despite the amount of placeholder texts and UI elements, there's really not too much to be done in order to release a decent beta version.


If anyone would want to take a look at the current state of things and provide me with feedback, suggestions, etc. please send me a PM.

[demagogos nicator]

Sounds really good. Keep it up!

[Dansk viking]

Work continues sporadically...




I was lucky enough to spend a few days of vacation in Norway, Sognefjorden mostly, and after that I decided to have another look at improving the fjords and settlements.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now, the settlements act as choke points, simulating that you'd have to use boats to be able to move about in these areas (and thus have at least some control over the area). You can see how it works here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The crossings and mountain passes, etc. have been looked into in quite some detail, and I even made an effort to make the areas around the settlements look nearly like in reality.

Some of the areas may not look pretty on the campaign map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

... but the battle map looks quite similar to the real world picture:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Solon de Atenas]

Good to see RTW mods and such a beautiful map and interesting timeframe. Keep on working!!

[demagogos nicator]

Great work!

[CountMRVHS]

Looks great!

I imagine the narrow mountain passes will also help channel the AI in intelligent ways.

[Dansk viking]

So, I recently posted an update on the ModDB page with some new stuff and some real progress suddenly:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/scandza-total-war/news/more-work-on-the-map-and-other-areas-of-the-mod

Once again I've spent time on fine tuning the map, looking into very detailed geographical features especially around the fjords of Norway (again), but also ended up completely re-modelling the rivers in northern Sweden and tweaking some other areas - including the addition of some more important sites for settlements than before.

Then I started tweaking some unit balance as well, and continued on to buildings and economy, so everything has moved several steps closer to a release suddenly.

The AI will no longer use the shieldwall formation, since extensive testing has shown that the ability tends to do more harm than good (the regular defend ability being far superior for the purpose of holding a line and reserving stamina).

Recruitment buildings now tend to lower the tax income (archery ranges and stables also reintroduced) while several other buildings (traders, smiths, etc.) will have positive effects; the building tree has seen a little overhaul as well, with new requirements for some etc.

Now I went further than that.

Taxes

Firstly, the tax system always perplexed me since at times when your buildings should be lowering the tax base, it did the opposite, and vice versa. Now that I went into the economy modding, I had to investigate that, and if possible squash the perceived bug. It turns out this was reported all the way back in the olden days, and the reason for it was proven (see here). For some reason there's a weird gap when you reach a tax income of 1000; if you go beyond that it'll take you down to 875, from whence you can start climbing again (it goes back to 1000 if you "lower" your tax income below those 875 again).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This prompted me to simply set the base tax income just above those 875, making it impossible to go lower than that (avoiding the jump up to 1000) [EDIT: The split is at 875, not 850 as previously stated, and this is at normal settlement tax level; you can still go lower, to about 700, by going to low tax level as this doesn't change the actual base, only modifies it]. It makes smaller settlements slightly better off relative to before since there's always a pretty decent tax base to take from. This was achieved by giving the core buildings a set percentage increase that will prevent the possibility of a base tax income lower than 875 (the higher core buildings will need lower/no increase since the base is already pretty high/above the gap). Many buildings will now either provide a tax penalty or a tax bonus, e.g. recruitment buildings will lower your tax income (reflecting the time taken from other work to train, and privileges granted to warriors/vassals) while blacksmiths, farms, and other infrastructure improvements will provide a tax bonus.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Migration mechanics

This leads me to the next big change I've made; namely a re-purposing of the religion system. Religions have now been replaced by a stance towards migration: either a settlement will have a strong pull towards migratory tendencies, or it will be in favour of a more settled "sedentary" stance. The migratory tendency will create unrest in your provinces (just like having the wrong religion). Settlements will always officially be "sedentary", but it can be almost 100% migratory (a lot of unrest).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The core migration building (present in all provinces, and indestructible) will prevent the conversion towards sedentary belief. The negative value will not in itself do anything except prevent family members, neighbouring provinces, or buildings from having an effect before they reach positive values. The migratory belief is only spread if there are foreign agents (spies or assassins) present in the province.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The agents will automatically receive the trait that spreads migratory belief when they end their turn in foreign territory. This makes it very important to hunt down foreign agents, and in turn you can use your own agents both for counter espionage, killing other faction agents, or spreading unrest in other faction provinces. When agents enter friendly settlements they will receive a counter trait that removes the spreading of migratory belief (this makes it possible to use agents defensively).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The only effective way to counter the spread of migration, and turn it towards sedentary belief, is to mass family members in provinces or to improve farm levels.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That's all for this preview; though as a side note I can say that I've also made a real effort in other, less flashy areas, such as mercenaries, rebel armies, balance fine tuning, additional units, and religious buildings.


Cheers!

[Joar]

Great news! These features looks very interesting.

[Gaius Baltar]

Great news! Looks like I might have to try this mod.