The Great Conflicts main discussion thread. Please post here!

[Basileos Leandros I]

Gentlemen, fabulous work on the mod, looking forward to see more.

[AnthoniusII]

Playing thousands of hours the vanilla game and many thousands in mods I happened to be in ambush once or twice in 14 years of playing.
When i am tiered to make new models i play campaigns. Naxos island fell into Cretan hands after endless invasions. I sent a relief army with my emperor that arrived too late. When landed immidetle fell into ambush!!

...

[Beorn]

Are these palm trees in Naxos? I hope that the climates/vegetation maps are not final

[_Tartaros_]

right, those palm trees don´t look very good for naxos

[AnthoniusII]

Are these palm trees in Naxos? I hope that the climates/vegetation maps are not final

You are right but they look good in south Crete!

[AnthoniusII]

New quote added in TGC's quotes list.

.they advanced against you, iron*-covered - one would have said that they advanced on horses which seemed to have no legs'.

Muslim chronicle , describing Roman (Byzantine) cataphract charge.


From Mr R.D'Ammato's latest book "Roman heavy cavalry AD 500 - 1450" .

[juanplay]

I know it is not historically accurate but the Athanatoi really look good with that knightly charge animation, despite the fact that the romans only adopted such maneuver after being thouroughly thoroughly thrashed by the normans during the balkan camapaigns of the 1090´s.

[AnthoniusII]

I know it is not historically accurate but the Athanatoi really look good with that knightly charge animation, despite the fact that the romans only adopted such maneuver after being thouroughly thoroughly thrashed by the normans during the balkan camapaigns of the 1090´s.

In fact you are wrong. Normans used two heavy soears on their charges , launced one or both of them (see battle of Hastings) and then charged with swords.



The lance charge Normans copied from Romans (Byzantines),Arabs and Lombards after their second main invasion in Italy!
It was their Italian settlement that gave access to such tactics and later access to scale and lammelar armors.
Romans and Arabs used both one armed and two handed lance charge since the ancient times and espesialy against Parthians and later against Sassanids (when Avars brought to them the stirups).

[juanplay]

Sorry, I wasnt clear, by knightly charge I meant the couched lance position as opposed to a two handed charge or an overhand stance.

[AnthoniusII]

While adding new units in my data folder , when I am tiered i play an older data version (0.93 Apha++++). The only issue i had was a random rebel admiral that had no icon nore name that caused permanent CTDs. But in my latest campaign nothing similar happened and in 240 turns i had 12 random CTDs that is a issue of the game and i was able to continue my campaigns.
Stay tuned for more news.

[AnthoniusII]

Latest news. I added the characters of the Pope's army aka Officers, bannermen, Generals and Captains.
Now is teh phase to create the TGC style character portraits but this is a time consuming task espesialy when i have 1 C temperature in my room.
But i promise -if everything goes well- by the Christmass you will have a new data with the final rosters of Lombards, Pope,Venice and Armenian rebels.

[AnthoniusII]

Testing Armenian heavy cavalry as mercenaries .

In this picture you can see both sides of their models.
But in game if you can see these eyes it will be too late!

According to reference sources and pocures the differences with the already existing Armenian Cavalry that are actually Armenian Nobles is that:
They have less sophisticated helmets
Flaten shield
Less heavy armor.
Non luxury sword scabbards.
Credits:
Heads By Razor
Shield paterns by Avetis
Finall model consept by AnthoniusII

[Nelduin]

I love those shields!

[Fabarius]

Hello everyone! First, I want to say I have been playing the campaign as the ERE for the last weekend and I'm having a blast so far! (turn 95 atm)

That being said tho, I have a couple of questions:

- Why is it so hard to make allies on this campaign? Is this intended? I'm offering land and 50k+ nomisma to some factions in exchange for an alliance and I'm always getting rejected.
- Is there any way to see the campaign objectives? So far I have done the buffer regions and the islands, but I forgot if I got a new mission after that and there's nowhere to check.
- What's the point of the minorcities? Are they just some "permanent forsts" or do they serve another purpose? Why in the description of some of them it says "princess"?
- How do I incress Roman Culture besides making churches? In some cities I can't make upgraded church versions and I'm stuck with arab peasents for example..
- Can someone explain to me what's is the "early feudal grants" and how does it work? I don't uderstand that mechanic at all.
- What's the point of the resources on the map if i can't recruit merchants to "harvest" them? If I conquer a region with a rare resource, can I make use of it somehow?
- Why is the AI so passive? IE: Bulgarians never attacked me, and the only AI faction that seems to be expanding is East Francia. Is this intended?
- Why is there some much corruption is some of my cities? It doesn't matter if I make a ton of law-incressing buildings, in some cases I'm losing thousands of nomisma becouse of corruption. Is there any way to revert this?

Sorry for bombarding you with so many questions, I'm trying to play the campaigns the best I can. =)

Thank you in advance for your answers!

[AnthoniusII]

Hello everyone! First, I want to say I have been playing the campaign as the ERE for the last weekend and I'm having a blast so far! (turn 95 atm)

That being said tho, I have a couple of questions:

- Why is it so hard to make allies on this campaign? Is this intended? I'm offering land and 50k+ nomisma to some factions in exchange for an alliance and I'm always getting rejected.
- Is there any way to see the campaign objectives? So far I have done the buffer regions and the islands, but I forgot if I got a new mission after that and there's nowhere to check.
- What's the point of the minorcities? Are they just some "permanent forsts" or do they serve another purpose? Why in the description of some of them it says "princess"?
- How do I incress Roman Culture besides making churches? In some cities I can't make upgraded church versions and I'm stuck with arab peasents for example..
- Can someone explain to me what's is the "early feudal grants" and how does it work? I don't uderstand that mechanic at all.
- What's the point of the resources on the map if i can't recruit merchants to "harvest" them? If I conquer a region with a rare resource, can I make use of it somehow?
- Why is the AI so passive? IE: Bulgarians never attacked me, and the only AI faction that seems to be expanding is East Francia. Is this intended?
- Why is there some much corruption is some of my cities? It doesn't matter if I make a ton of law-incressing buildings, in some cases I'm losing thousands of nomisma becouse of corruption. Is there any way to revert this?

Sorry for bombarding you with so many questions, I'm trying to play the campaigns the best I can. =)

Thank you in advance for your answers!

Lets start one by one:
-Making alllies is easier in the start (first 10 turns). The best you can do is to make trade agreements to keep factions atleast neutral with you for a while. Serbia was my ally but after 100 turns it became a nightmare.
-Winning the mod has not been fully made (winning conditions) because its realy in early beta. What you have to remember is that aside the number of regions that you have to have in 1071 the main goal will be the ellimination of certain factions, half of them apearing near to the end. So the mod is a marathon not a sprint. In my campaigh Kalbids, Fatimids and Pechenegs apeared as factions but not the Normans and Turcomans yet. So in few words when the mod will be fully playable you will have to reach 1071 aka 6579 AM (799 turns) , to elliminate Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Turcomans , have a certain number of regions and survive as faction. Also some key regions must be conquered.
-Minorcities are now camps. In TGC mod's time frame there were not castles (remember that even wooden keeps apeared in western europe after 1060) but there were many urban centers , other as big as cities other smaller as big as large towns. In the next patch you will see such settlements thanks to _tartaros_. So when you defend or besiege such a minircity a real town or city will apear (they will have names too ). That way we tried to show the world as accurate as possible at that period.
- Eraly feudal grants WILL work as prelude to next evolution after the 1st Norman Invasion in Italy and/or the transformation of the East Frankia to Ottonoian German Empire. That will unlock certain units for a number of factions that will replace other older units. Croats will have knights and sergeants, Magyars will become Hungary and replace their steppe nobles with knights as examples.
- As mentioned above the mod is in early beta. In the end all regions will have max 2 resources . Each resource will unlock a building or a line of buildings that will provide extra income or even units as well. By having resource trading buildings we do not need merchants. An example: River ports will have fishmarkets. Wood will unlock carpenter and carpenter -for steppe factions only will unlock bowyar building providing better bows). Horse will unlock horse breeder that will provide extra expirience to horsemen.
- All CAI (Campaign AI) we tested gives player a max of 50-60 turns in quite. Like your faction Bulgaria has (under AI or under player's control similar misions), so its natural to try to conquer rebel regions and avoid a war with a huge faction. But don't let this make you passive. You will nottice that one or two regions for the buffer zone mision will be soon under Bulgarian control. Also very soon Abbasids will declare war on you trying to conquer Cyprus. I am in 304 turn and i am in war with:
East Frankia
Croatia
Serbia
Bulgaria
Pechenegs
Abbasids (that prefered to attack Tulunids first and after 100 turns they invaded Asia Minor with several armies up to Angyra)!
Kalbids
Achlabids
Kiev Rus
I sufered many defeats because the provincial armies are weak. So i have two of each tagmatic units with my Emperor and when they conquer a city they return to Constantinople to retrain. That way they gather battle expirience. AI becomes very hostile later. But all modrn AI makers sugest to play both Campaign and Battles in Very hard difficulty. Most of my battles last from half an hour to an hour because exept BAI of XAI 4.1 we added the latest RealyBadAI by Germanicu5 without having the TATW Rre-inforcements issues. You will see fleeing units to return to battle again and again.
- Coruption depends mostly on characters that "rule" the cities. Beware though keep them traveling in short distances because espesialy Roman ganarals tent to become rebels.
I hope you will find my answers helpfull. Soon a new data version will arive with more misions for all factions. Misions keep the player informed about history.

[_Tartaros_]

i will comment on that,

the Campaign AI depends on the difficultiy and the amount of region the human player controls. if you play on vh and have the top position, no faction will ally with you, instead they all join a TW against you at some point (because you are the biggest threat of winning the game). there are also auto-war scripts, for example when the ERE shadowfaction appears, you can make peace with them, but you are at war with them next turn, after all they want to replace you.

seeing the missions objectives are only partly implanted. The eastern frankish king for example has a trait, "how to build the holy roman empire ". this traits will remind you in later versions. in the furture builds, they will show up.

"Grant feudal right" is a method to improve loyality with money by the king. they have 3 tiers, which cost 5.000 nomisma and give the character a 1+ loyality each time it is granted. you can activate this by clicking on the general and use the icon "show unit details", then a popup shows up with yes/no - click yes and he earns the first tier.

it´s hard to improve culture, because the people didn´t change over night. there are other buildings like theatre a.s.o. which improve cultural conversation too.

to counter corruption, there are some buildings that help, but the bigger the empire, the harder the issues.

[AnthoniusII]

TGC surprised me many times despite i test every data version...There are many ambushes, many night battles and a lot of sieges. It will be a mod that for every faction you will need months to win.
Autoresolve is a nightmare...so i recoment to fight on the field. That way you will either win ir you will lose but you will learn alot about your armies and about your opponets.

[Fabarius]

Thank you AnthoniusII and _Tartaros_ for the replies! Very interesting answers.

I was asking about the passive AI becouse some factions like the Magyars haven't conquered any regions other than they 2 starting territories and are not at war with anyone. Historically they were pritty agressive and raided a lot of territories, but AI doesn't seem to be reflecting that.

About the culture. For example, I just sent an expedition to north africa and I'm reconquering former Carthage lands. How do I counter high culture unrest if I can't build higher chuch tiers becouse of the town's size? Also, does this mean that i'm stucked with bad arab peasent units until the town grows and I can make more roman culture buildings? Why does some buildings have in the description "incress roman culture from churches by 0%" or something like that?

Also, something to notice: like I said, I'm at turn 95 and my production skyrocketed and money is no longer an issue at all. Is this normal? Is something or some event in the future where I'll have to spend a lot of money?

Sorry if I ask too many questions, I'm just trying to understand most of the campaign mechanics so I can play it as intended and acurate as possible. =)

[Fabarius]

EDIT: the Magyars just got wiped out by the Pachenegs... RIP. Actually super sad becouse I really wanted to see them become Hungary in the future.

[_Tartaros_]

wait some turns and you will see a surprise in the danube bassin. magyars will make a journey there.

in short this is also the answer, why they are so passive at the first 90 turns. the need to leave there homelands after they raided bulgaria and got wiped out by the bulgarian allied pechenegs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzant...94%E2%80%93896