A suggestion ... The Wars of the Roses

[My Lord of Gloucester]

Just a suggestion for a mod; I accept that it might be too specific and that the wider era is loosely covered by some others, or that it is too big a project. Apologies for the length - wanted to get the whole 'campaign' in in reasonable detail.

King Edward III of England dies in 1377 leaving a number of ambitious sons and their own offspring still alive, including the Duke of Lancaster and the Duke of York. The Crown passes to his grandson King Richard II (Richard’s father, Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) had predeceased Edward III).

Richard II turns out to be somewhat of a despot and soon has the country in turmoil. The touch-paper is lit when the Duke of Lancaster dies in 1399 and Richard appropriates his lands and exiles the Duke’s heir for life.

The new Duke of Lancaster returns to England, notionally to claim his birthright but in fact to claim the Crown. Richard is captured and forced to abdicate (he subsequently dies in somewhat mysterious circumstances. He was childless). The Duke is crowned as King Henry IV.

All remains quiet for some 30 years; King Henry performs reasonably well and is succeeded in 1413 by his son, King Henry V. Unfortunately Henry V dies of fever whilst on war duty in France (Kings of England in those days also considered themselves to be rightful Kings of France) in 1422. He was quite young and leaves his year old son Henry as King Henry VI.

Problems arise at this point. Due to Henry’s age, the affairs of the realm are managed by a Council, which is essentially packed with Lancastrian supporters. Other factions in the country felt excluded, notably the current Duke of York; he felt that his ancestor had a better claim to the throne in 1399 than had the Lancastrians.

The matter is not helped when it transpires that the King has a loose grasp on sanity. The differences between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians simmer until 1455 when it all explodes at the First Battle of St Albans, the first of a series of bloody confrontations which are now known as The Wars of the Roses – the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York.

Some sort of agreement is cobbled together whereby the Duke of York reluctantly settles for being named as Henry VI’s heir. However the Duke of York is killed in one such battle in 1460 and it becomes clear to the Yorkists that it is an ‘us or them’ situation. The Duke of York’s son Edward is crowned as King Edward IV and Henry VI is deposed.

King Edward had secured his throne with the help of the Earl of Warwick (Warwick the Kingmaker) (pronounced Worrick), however King Edward falls out with the Earl over foreign policy and the Earl goes over to the Lancastrians and helps to put Henry VI back on the throne in 1471. Edward is forced to flee, but returns with a fresh army. The Earl of Warwick is killed in one battle and at the next the majority of the Lancastrian war lords are annihilated, including Henry’s only child. Edward is back on the throne and King Henry VI is put out of his misery in the Tower of London.

Edward has proved to be a popular King and all is quiet (with the exception of a plot by one of his brothers, the Duke of Clarence, who is executed) until his premature death in 1483, from over indulgence in pretty much everything. He leaves his 13 year old son Edward as his successor – King Edward V, under the protectorship of the dead King’s brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester (pronounced Gloster).

The dead King’s widow is keen to keep control of her son, which, the Duke of Gloucester realises, will be his own undoing. Using the argument that King Edward V and his younger brother the Duke of York (‘the Princes in the Tower’) were in fact illegitimate, he usurps the Crown and is installed as King Richard III. The deposed King and his brother are incarcerated in the Tower of London and never seen again.

It was generally considered at the time that Richard had murdered his nephews and there is soon a ground swell of opinion against him. He meets the new leader of the Lancastrian faction, Henry Tudor Earl of Pembroke at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, and is killed.

Henry is crowned as King Henry VII and marries the Yorkist King Edward IV’s oldest daughter Elizabeth. Thus the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster are united.

[konny]

There is a German mod in development on this topic. Otherwise it shouldn't be to difficult to go the first steps in a War of Roses mod yourself: Pick Kingdoms:Britannia, it has everything you need.

In descr_strat:

• make the Barons Alliance playabale
• give both England and the Alliance the respective provinces
• remove the other factions that are not needed and give their provinces to the rebels
• remove all early periode units and replace them with late periode units
• set England and Alliance to At War and remove all diplomats and princesses
• change start- and end-date
• give them both accurate family trees
• if needed, change settlement populations and upgrade to reflect the later periode

In export_descr_buildings:

• remove all early periode units and all late periode units you don't want to have in the game.
• remove all requirements for recruitment of late periode units, and make sure these are already available from the lowest level of recruitment buildings
• remove the ability to recruit diplomats
• check export_descr_units whether there are some units missing in export_descr_buildings that you wish to have in game and add them to export_descr_buildings (make sure they are legit for both factions).

In expanded.txt

• Change the visible texts for England and the Alliance into "House of Lancester" and "House of York".

In campaign_script.txt

• delete everything insisde
• download the 12turns per year mod and place that into your script (don't forget to change the time-scale in descr_strat accordingly)

In descr_sm_factions.txt

• set "has princesses" to "no" for both faction (that way, and without the diplomats, they won't be able to make peace)

Now you have a full playable War of the Roses mod and can start fine tuning from that: New factionbanners, a fancy script with coronation events, new untis etcp.

[toluas]

Sound advice, konny!
+rep

[My Lord of Gloucester]

Thanks both -I'll see what I can do with that.