Final Faction(s)?

[poit]

Hi just wondering if KK had decided which faction will fill the lucky final slot. SS 5.0 seems to have a very even strategic map balance and there are no obvious gaps that need to be filled. The last faction slot can probably just be a vanity option, something to add a little extra flair. Some of the options I was thinking of were Burgundy, Flanders, Wales, perhaps an italian city state, or maybe a Baron's Alliance variant for the HRE, what are people's thoughts about the final faction?

[Hrimfar]

I think that the HRE is too strong - might be a good idea to either add one more faction that get some of its lands. Flanders or Burgundy might be good choises.

[TempestKhan]

i think u should add kingdom of Georgia an make alot more settlements in the northeast as is now in late era kiev an lithuan dont have enough room to expand + more factions to the east is allways good

[Caesar Clivus]

I believe KK has decided on what it is, but I cannot be certain. Keep in mind that SS is already at the 500 unit limit

[poit]

I think that the HRE is too strong - might be a good idea to either add one more faction that get some of its lands. Flanders or Burgundy might be good choises.

The HRE is tricky because of its central location, it's either too dominating or it falls fairly early. I think making it more likely to have a weak king/civil war could provide a historically accurate balancing factor. It is nice to see the HRE sticking around until the late game in 5.0 and certainly there should be some recognition of its power at the time. Adding Flanders and tweaking the rebellion parameters might do the trick or alternately making a barons alliance faction for the HRE Electors or Dukes or what have you.

I'm sure a couple of unit slots could be freed up by deleting the town militia/spear militia duplicates or even some Aztecs units if KK hasn't already.

[hellfire15]

I think kk should just delete the aztecs but keep the Americas!
that would open up a new spot in europe

[TempestKhan]

Agree lets get rid of em once an for all an move east. who even cares bout the aztec u would never play em an once u get to em it almost dont matter i say delete em an use the extra room/units to make more regions east an make a new faction in the east or west

[firekiller]

berbers are a faction in the east and let there be something wenn you start early campain that teutonic order will pop up

[Americanus Supremus]

New to the mod, but am enjoying the Late era campaign emensly, (Sp?) If It were up to me I would remove america, and use those spots that are vacated, both in faction slots, unit slots, and region slots to make europe, the mideast, and the Russian expanse more eventful. As for Factions to add, it would be the Abbassad Caliphate or Syrian Caliphate, and either the Georgians, or a faction in the Netherlands area.

To be honest Im not a real big fan of wasting space on the American continent, for a game that focuses on Medieval warfare, since it cant be given proper justice. I'm thinking of modding my version of SS to make this a reality.

Just my two cents.

HC

[hellfire15]

New to the mod, but am enjoying the Late era campaign emensly, (Sp?) If It were up to me I would remove america, and use those spots that are vacated, both in faction slots, unit slots, and region slots to make europe, the mideast, and the Russian expanse more eventful. As for Factions to add, it would be the Abbassad Caliphate or Syrian Caliphate, and either the Georgians, or a faction in the Netherlands area.

To be honest Im not a real big fan of wasting space on the American continent, for a game that focuses on Medieval warfare, since it cant be given proper justice. I'm thinking of modding my version of SS to make this a reality.

Just my two cents.

HC

download my mod, in the next version i will include playable aztecz. of cource because it is Total War i also have moved them over to europe.
just a nice "What If" scenario. What if the Aztecz invaded Italy? Or even worse Invaded Rome itself killing the entire papacy?

[blueice]

its going to be a muslim faction, period. its been inted at ever since 4.0 in various posts by the beta testers on numerous accounts and when looking at the catholic/orthodox/muslim faction count it makes sense, i would love it if another muslim faction is going to be added simply for the variety it would bring.

[Asean]

download my mod, in the next version i will include playable aztecz. of cource because it is Total War i also have moved them over to europe.
just a nice "What If" scenario. What if the Aztecz invaded Italy? Or even worse Invaded Rome itself killing the entire papacy?

forget that... how about a "what if" sparta isolated itself from the world for 1000 years only reemerging from their cave with elite spartan hoplites... what if Sparta was in the middle ages, they would start out with 1 province, and 1 unit (Spartan Hoplite), who'll have uber stats by the way... i like my idea better.... im gonna mod a Sparta faction into my version of SS...

[Caesar Clivus]

forget that... how about a "what if" sparta isolated itself from the world for 1000 years only reemerging from their cave with elite spartan hoplites... what if Sparta was in the middle ages, they would start out with 1 province, and 1 unit (Spartan Hoplite), who'll have uber stats by the way... i like my idea better.... im gonna mod a Sparta faction into my version of SS...

10 bucks says you own a copy of 300 on DVD

[hellfire15]

forget that... how about a "what if" sparta isolated itself from the world for 1000 years only reemerging from their cave with elite spartan hoplites... what if Sparta was in the middle ages, they would start out with 1 province, and 1 unit (Spartan Hoplite), who'll have uber stats by the way... i like my idea better.... im gonna mod a Sparta faction into my version of SS...

could be a nice one. you only forget that ss is already at teh 500 unit limit!
you cannot add any new units. so that would be hard, however i hope to release the next version of my mod within a few days. I also wish to reskin the azttecs(if i can find a skinner) and to work on their building tree because that one is Lame

[numerosdecimus]

As a final faction I would prefer either:

A new muslim faction, an important caliphat for instace (give them faction a cool name like The Caliphat of " "), preferebly in the north of africa because it would then stop the crazy sicilian advance on the north of africa.

Serbia.

Bulgaria.

Cumans.

Flanders.

Bohemia.

Georgia.

Burgundy, I have doubt about this one because then France would be in a very difficult position to survive.


As for the units, a very good idea, this can improve the gameplay and uniqueness feeling of each faction tremendously.


I suggest:

Creating new unique religous orders for factions.

Trying to create some new unique units for each faction and in by cutting some units from some factions, if these units are a case of "uncessary generalization".

Have in mind King Kong that the next version will be the last with a new faction, this will force other future versions to have new features that can still be considered "important changes", unit revision and unit rooster alteration is one of these few things that could be done to improve greatly the gameplay.

All of these alteration must also have in mind gameplay.


Here are my suggestion for unit changes:


Make the Conquistadores and dismouted conquistadores a unique Castile unit and as well as the santiago order.

Remove the santiago order from aragon and give them only the Montesa Order, their intended order. With this, all faction will only have one order, and it's their unique order, that order which better represents the kingdom.

Remove the lusitanian javelinmen form the Castilian unit rooster, give them only the standard javelinmen, the difference is little and after all gives portugal a slightly better early age javelinmen, becoming one of their strong points, I fail to see why this unit should be generalized, both castile and portugal no longer have the almugavar, make both of these factions distinguish one another by giving them speciffic advantage point, and this doesn't change the gameplay.

Create a portuguese religious order.

With these changes you can already give a much greater feeling of faction uniqueness and gameplay uniqueness. None of these changes change the gameplay or deteriorate it.


I think a better and more original unit rooster for each faction is the next great step in Stainless Steel, however, these changes would only be to some units, 1 or 2, we wouldn't be doing things like removing the spear militia and creating unique units for each factions, that's not gameplay wise, I'm only suggesting thise to SOME of the units that matter.

It would definitely a more realistic aproach, but it would still be gameplay wise and still a balance between realism and gameplay, if you sk me, the vanilla version was not balanced in the terms of gameplay and realism, it almost just generalization for the sake of gameplay, completely unecessary in my opinion.

[Quark]

Well if you are going for any kind of historical accuracy then you need to move Kiev-Rus, add in the Cumans and reduce the Seljuk Turks, although I still like the idea of replacing the Aztecs with a Almohad horde
(sorry about the size, how do you shrink url links?)

[Stepjan from Serbia]

I'd love to see Serbia, Croatia or Bulgaria in - the Balkans are underrepresented a bit.

If you delete the Aztecs' units and the Americas, you'll have a lot more units and regions to play around with regardless of the final faction.

[Inhuman One]

So far I never got to the america discovered event, I do start up new games occasionly when I feel like playing a certain faction, I believe turn 120 is about the furthest I have been.

Burgundy has my vote, Seeing my own country the netherlands in the game would be good too but we werent independant yet at the time. Burgundy wouldnt require many new units, they could perhaps be a mixture of france and HRE. Burgundy was also involved in quite some conflicts I believe, and they would have a nice position between france and the HRE. This would make things more challenging for all three factions.

Considering Flanders, well.. I watched too many simpsons episodes, I can only picture those soldiers saying "okilidokili" when asked to move somewhere.

I believe Burgundy was bigger than flanders too at the time.

[Quark]

Just added three Christain factions, which is the total number of islamic factions in the game, so IMO the mod is desperate for a little balance in this direction. You could swap down to 1 turn / year, shorten the cut off point so as to make the americas events not occur and so free up the unit slots and another faction from this. This would also remove some of the later gun units. You could then add in from the Cumins, Georgia, Armenia, split the Moors (although you could have the Almohad's as a Horde) and Turks.

For those who want to play the late campaign, do it as such and include Amercia in that. Have a Italy to America map, it would make far more sense, as what does Hungry etc care about America.

[King Kong]

Hi all,

as Ceasar said, I have already made my decision...

Maybe you will see soon which faction it will be.


Edit:
Hi again Quark!

Just added three Christain factions, which is the total number of islamic factions in the game, so IMO the mod is desperate for a little balance in this direction.

I totally agree with you on this!