Fall of the Cross & Rise of the Crescent (FCRC) - General Discussion (until release FCRC 1.0)

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Don't worry. You will be fighting as/against the Mongols, since I made the Cuman family tree swap over to the Mongolian one once the first faction leader (a non-Mongolian) dies. Then Batu (look him up, grandson of good ol' Genghis) will become the new faction leader. If you then check the family tree, you'll see a dead Genghis, his sons (Jochi, Ogodai, Chagatai and Tolui) and all of his grandchildren. Since no son of Genghis participated in the invasion, they show up as dead -they weren't dead historically; but I can't have them running around Russia while they should be in Samarkand, which is not on the map ^^-. Some of Genghis' grandchildren and one of his generals is present, though.

Let me recount who you'll meet of family Khan:
Batu
Berke
Guyuk
Subutai <--- not a family member, but a kickass veteran general. This guy served under both Genghis and Ogodei
Khudan
Mongke


Genghis had quite some grandchildren, as you can see

[demagogos nicator]

nice to hear it

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Also, the Mongols at least expand with their new units. By 1220 They have taken all the settlements east of the Rus. Which is good, since the Rus were attacked by 1220-1240.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Since modding can sometimes become a little tedious I decided to do something else for an hour or so, but I still wanted it to be related to the mod

And so I created a wallpaper! More are in the works, too.

It's a picture of the Varangoi, and I have made 2 versions:
1. 1600x1200
2. 1200x900
Both are widescreen, but I guess it can be resized, even though that would look ridiculous.

Here an example of how it looks on my screen:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I've actually made the 1200x900 version because I found that a fullscreen image without black borders just looks silly, and since my monitors native resolution is 1600x1200...
EDIT:
Made another one!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

All in the attachement =D
And if anyone's got any request as to which unit you want a wallpaper of, please say so!

IMPORTANT: If anyone's got artistic skills, can he/she make a FCRC logo for me? Preferably on an Alpha background, so it's "paste-able" into wallpapers.
IMPORTANT2: (God, I'm way too productive this evening...) Scrap that, I've made one myself until something better comes along...:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You can see it on the Saracen background. It -especially the fall of the cross part- looks blurry on TWC, it's actually a lot sharper.
Included it in the zip for people who want to have a look

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

DV, is this logo good enough for the first post in the thread?
Preview

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For those who don't know; FCRC is an official Chivalry - Total War submod/expansion and will run from 1191 AD to 1315 AD.
Included are the Third Crusade, the sacking of Constantinople, the Mongol Invasion and all the wars and misery during this timeframe. Prerequistites are Rome - Total War (optional: Barbarian Invasion) and Chivalry - Total War version 1.07
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This time, it's what I call the "opening battles", of which Arsuf is the most known one.

Arsuf

The Saracen ambush at Arsuf

Next to Arsuf, there are some other battles/invasions that occurred around the starting date (1191).
These include:
1. Hungarian conquest of Croatia. Happened 5 years prior to the starting date, but I included it to give some importance to the Hungarian faction
2. Holy Roman invasion of Sicily. Was on it's way during the starting date, so you'll start with an army near Naples if you are the HRE. This adds lots of difficulty to the Normans-Sicilian kingdom, which ironically seized to exist because of the German invasion. HRE players will also find themselves stretched out across Europe if they manage to conquer Sicily, and will be attacked from all sides.
3. Retreat of the Holy Roman army from Anatolia after the death of Frederick "Barbarossa" von Hohenstaufen. This is a pretty big army, but you'll have to deal with Seljuk ambushes. You basically have 2 choices: continue to the Holy Land and build a crusader state, or move back to Europe so you can use the extra manpower to fortify your holdings.

I've been thinking about the 4th Crusade, which led to the sacking of Constantinople by Venice and the creation of a Latin Empire under Venetian control. Still thinking of how to simulate this. Perhaps having an AI Italian army -the Italian faction will more and more represent Venice rather than Pisa, which was on its decline during the 13th century- in Greece can do the trick.

So as you can see, the action is mainly going on in Central and Eastern Europe: The Teutonic order arises, Mongolians invade from the east, Byzantium basically ceased being an important power about 10 years into the campaign and the Angevins (Norman England) were driven out of France by the French king, which led to France becoming a more important power in Europe. A Polish civil war, some sort of "Hungarian Golden Age" and the still ongoing Reconquista make this campaign a lot "faster" than its earlier counterparts.

Next Preview is about...

The Mongols! I've done some balancing, and I'm very glad to say that they expand as they should. It takes some time for them to get rolling, but their expansion is something like a snowball effect: it keeps getting faster, and as soon as they reach the Crimea, they just get the money to get really strong, and around that time (by 1230/1240) they also invade the Middle East.
These guys aren't as bad as their Medieval 2 - Total War cousins:
they're worse.
More info about them in the next preview

[Freelancer Tex]

sounds like fun!
nice job

[demagogos nicator]

Congrat to new prewiev and logo (I like it ), and gud luck with the mod

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Thanks, guys! Stay tuned for the next preview, which will probably be the largest and final one. Next to info about the Mongols you'll see an explanation of certain historical incorrect choices I made to enhance gameplay. But because of them I can happily say: the AI will perfectly simulate all big events that happened during the timeframe.

As you can see, I've made a signature. You can right-click it, copy it's URL and paste it into you sig.

[DaVinci]

Very promising progress

DV, is this logo good enough for the first post in the thread?

It has some charme, and an interesting expression, also as for its size - while it has 3 different typographies, what i personally wouldn't apply, but that has been your intention of course, so why not?

Your campaign will surely put life into the old ChivTW mod, great work.

Edit:
Do you want me to make already the advertisement-thread within the public ChivTW forum? If you already like, You can provide the thread and i just put it into the stickies.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Very promising progress


It has some charme, and an interesting expression, also as for its size - while it has 3 different typographies, what i personally wouldn't apply, but that has been your intention of course, so why not?

Yup, my intention was to make it more unique; as you can see, "The fall of the Cross" is written in Arabic style, while "Rise of the Crescent" is written in decayed Romanesque letters

Your campaign will surely put life into the old ChivTW mod, great work

Thanks, this mod is so special, so unique; no other mod can rival its atmosphere, and you and other people have done too much work for it to just be forgotten

Do you want me to make already the advertisement-thread within the public ChivTW forum? If you already like, You can provide the thread and i just put it into the stickies.

So if I understand that correctly, I can provide the advertisement thread and you'll sticky it? Of course!

I'm also experimenting with skinning -especially buildings-.
You see, I might have found a way to make cities and castles appear in the game; the skins just aren't right.
Not of importance to the mod yet, and especially not for FCRC. If I get a breakthrough, I'll see if I can make a different submod.

Dont know why I am not allowed to upload images for signature

You have gone to your profile management? The easiest way to get there is just to click on Private Messages on the top-right corner in the forums. On the left you'll then see your profile management menu. If you then click "edit signature", you can paste the URL of my signature between [.IMG][./IMG] brackets (remove the dots).

[demagogos nicator]

You have gone to your profile management? The easiest way to get there is just to click on Private Messages on the top-right corner in the forums. On the left you'll then see your profile management menu. If you then click "edit signature", you can paste the URL of my signature between [.IMG][./IMG] brackets (remove the dots).

I did it but it shows only the link of the signature not the image. It is probably because in the signature permissions below is: Can Upload Images for Signature No

[DaVinci]

So if I understand that correctly, I can provide the advertisement thread and you'll sticky it?

Yep.

"The fall of the Cross" is written in Arabic style, while "Rise of the Crescent" is written in decayed Romanesque letters

Imo., vice versa, it would make sense as well.

[demagogos nicator]

Dont know why I am not allowed to upload images for signature

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Cool.

Expect the release within 1 or 2 weeks or so, depends on how final balancing goes.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Just a little updated next to the balancing:

I added a HDR (aka Bloom) effect to the optional folder. Credit goes to the ENBseries & the RSII team for bringing this into RTW modding.
Still tweaking the settings, since these are the default ones.
As you can see, it gives the environment and metal a very nice "shine".

[Joar]

Very nice! Looking forward to this one.

[demagogos nicator]

Just a little updated next to the balancing:
[IMG]Have removed the picture*/DV[/IMG]
I added a HDR (aka Bloom) effect to the optional folder. Credit goes to the ENBseries & the RSII team for bringing this into RTW modding.
Still tweaking the settings, since these are the default ones.
As you can see, it gives the environment and metal a very nice "shine".

Its really nice



*Hint: It makes less sense to quote screenshots, and takes forum space without a relevant purpose.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

Thanks

Now a question for DV; the factional "starting positions" maps -the ones you see in the faction select screen-; how do you make them? I know you made a new one for, for example, France when CE was released. Do you have something like a blank map from which you paint these things, since I can't really reproduce the colours used.

[DaVinci]

Thanks

Now a question for DV; the factional "starting positions" maps -the ones you see in the faction select screen-; how do you make them? I know you made a new one for, for example, France when CE was released. Do you have something like a blank map from which you paint these things, since I can't really reproduce the colours used.

A lot time ago, that we worked on those tga's - they are in the camp folders. You'll need ie. photoshop to reproduce the colours, and as for such a blank map file, i don't know if there is one or not.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

I tried with Photoshop, but it's difficult.

I'll see if I can perhaps make all new maps.