Tsardoms Total War - General Discussion & Progress

[Wallachian]

We could include that too actually, like they did in Bellum Crucis where every character has a trait called biography and when you hover over it all the information is shown

Well I had no idea that was even a possibility! Damn, that is a bigger level of historical worm hole we could fall in.

[PekoBG]

Allright, as for second(family) names , all the character that have one - i gave it. The vast majority are given as just one name , usually just the first. As for age even fewer info exists. To calculate the age i need to know when the person was born, and the vast majority lack that information. Probably only for the tsar's family this info exists. Since this is a very comprehensive and relatively recent (2012) book, the sad conclusion is that that info simply does not exist for most names. I am glad that at least i found the city governors/generals , because at some point i thought i would be forced to ''invent'' some of them. I understood that you wanted a first name, second name and age, but sadly that info is simply not available. The best you can do is , use the pools of first names and second names (which i will give further down the post) , and combine them - be it on random basis , or the ones you like how they sound together. The ages will simply have to be ''invented'' , i see no other way sadly...
Now , i did sift trough the book again , this time looking for family names. Here's the list:
Slav , Aronovets (Aronov?) , Vladislavovets (Vladislavov?) , Asenev (Asen) , Belota (Belotovets), Boril (Borilovets), Boris (Borisovets) , Borug , Dragol , Vrana (Vranovets) , Valkan (Valkanovets) , Prodanik , Greshnik , Lesnovski , The Bulgarian (Bulgarina) , Voiteh , Litovoy , Prilojnik , Sursuvul , Terter , Hrab , Tsamblak , Gudeli , Zograf , Oltarnik , Polemarh (Voevoda) , Tikhon , Divniy , Dyak , The Young (Mladi) , Hriz , Fantsis , Vatil , Zagoryanin (Zagor) , Ivanovets , Chernoglav , Shishman , Ivankovets , Maglenski , Osogovski , Bdinski , Kardam (Kardamovets) , Bosota , Alusian , Desev , Skopchik , Soimirovich , Tarnovski , Dragovol , Hrabar (The Brave)
So my notes about that list: a lot of the names could be translated as ''son of (first name)'' , for example - Vladislavovets is a slavic term for ''son of Vladislav'' or ''Relative of Vladislav''. Some of the other are of the type ''from (City name)'' or ''from (Region name)'' , for example : saint Ivan Rilsky means Ivan of Rila, or from Rila. Therefore you can construct names by just using the cities and regions name you already have e.g. ''of Rhodopes'' or ''of Sredets''. The same goes for all the first names, for example ''Priyazd'' can be formed into ''Son of Priyazd'', or ''Priyazdov'' or ''Priyazdovets''. Also , all those family names are in masculine form, in slavic languages (Bulgarian in particular) there are separate feminine form for family names. Also , to get a larger list of family names i used all names from the Second Tsardom, excluding family names from the First Tsardom and the byzantine rule period. Still , a lot of dynasties exist for several centuries so i think most of the names are relevant and realistic. Another problem is that some names were used as both first and family name.
Here is some ( admittedly very brief ) backstory for the first four generals/governors:
Draksin - Bolyar from Bdin during the XIV century.
Yanko - Governor of Sredets during the XIV century.
Momchil - rose from a bandit leader to being the leader of an independent state in the Rhodopes. A self made man.
Ivan Rusin - Bulgarian general from the first half of the XIV century. Came to Bulgaria from Hungary, where he was in service of the magnate Teodor Chanad.Ivan Rusina was sent to Plovdiv with 2000 bulgarian infantry and 1000 alan cavalry to defend the city. He not only defended the city, but did raids on the neighboring byzantine territory.

[PekoBG]

I have to apologize if i sounded a bit harsh in the previous post. Here's some (again, very brief) info about the last 5 city governors/generals:

Aldimir Terter - Brother of tsar Georgi I Terter. Ruled a large region south of the Balkan from the fortress Kran in the early XIV century.
Ognyan - Sevast (sebast), Kefaliya of the Kievo region - today's Botevgrad, Etropole and Teteven. He was the noble closest to Lovets i could find from the XIV century.
Balin - Bulgarian noble from Nikopol from the XIV century. His name was found on golden and silver plates found in Nikopol, dated to the late XIV century.
Mladen - Bolyar from Turnovo from the mid XIV century. His name is known from a religious book he ordered translated from greek.
Ivan Sratsimir - Despot of Karvuna, ruler of Dobrudja, father of tsar Ivan Alexander. Early XIV century.

And with that i have to wish you good luck with completing the mod.

[Wallachian]

Thank you very much for your great help! Didn't sound harsh at all. All your work is absolutely appreciated and will help us make the mod more historically accurate.

In regards to Momchil, would it not be better if we made someone else as governor in Tsepina and actually made him a rebel with a rebel army threatening the Rodopes mountains? Maybe put him in a PSF or something like that?

[sullivanclan1]

When will the single player be released?

[kanteljic]

When will the single player be released?

As soon as we can, plus one day of postponement for every time this question is asked

[PekoBG]

You are most welcome Wallachian. I am glad to help. For many years i followed mods and played them, but since i'm no programmer or modeler i couldn't help even if i wanted to. When i saw your request i said to myself : '' Hey , this is something i can actually do! ''. Especially taking into account that Tsardoms and TGC are my most awaited mods. Plus i got to learn a lot of things and add a great book to my library.
As for Momchil - you are correct. He was a problematic choice for me. Not so much for the fact that he died exactly on the starting date of the mod , in a battle against a combined turco-byzantine army, but because even though he was bulgarian and indeed from the Rhodopes mountains, he was never, even formally, under the control of the Tsar in Tarnovo... I'll look if i could find another character for Tsepina. And indeed , Momchil is a perfect choice for a rebel leader. If there was one most famous rebel in the XIV century Bulgarian lands - it is him. His story is fascinating... Unlike the vast majority of generals, lords, and rulers he was a commoner. Only trough skill in leadership and charisma he obtained fame and lands. First he started as a bandit leader, and got a reputation as a skilled commander. After that he was hired by the byzantines as a stratiotis, but soon returned to his bandit ways, making him a wanted man for both Bulgaria and the Byzantines. So he fled to Serbia and offered his services to the serbian king Stefan Dushan. Soon he was leading a druzhina of 2000 men (serbians and bulgarians). Then he took part in the civil war in the Byzantine Empire, alternating support between both sides. Eventually he proclaimed he will not serve anyone anymore, and started building an independent principality for himself in the Rhodopes mountains and the surrounding lands. In 1345 he lost a battle against a combined turko-byzantine force. The turkish bey offered to spare him if he swore fealty, but Momchil refused and was killed.

[Wallachian]

Well this is how I actually joined Tsardoms 10 years ago. The team needed help with some research (for the swiss) so i joined and started helping out and eventually the whole team left and I was the only left of the original members

For anyone out there, were also looking for a volunteer to help out with sorting the Greek/Roman starting characters. Our problem is that we have too many to the point that they crash the mod. So we need to reduce the number of Roman characters and we need help in researching who are the more important ones. Any help would be appreciated.

Yes, I do think it is better to have Momchil as a rebel leader in the area, even if he died in 1345 in a battle. It will be the perfect starting scenario for the player to need to defeat Momchil.

Can you suggest a name for a spy and an assassin? Maybe someone that was known as a traitor or bad person etc. or just make up a couple of names? Perhaps, Ivanko of Bulgaria for the assassin name, according to wiki he assassinated Ivan Asen.

[Elendil 03]

Just take the ones there's a Wikipedia article about .

[PekoBG]

For Tsepina (just like for Lovets) i couldn't find any bolyars from the XIV century being mentioned. And just like for Lovets, i had to look for people mentioned as close to Tsepina as posible. I found a bolyar named Vladimir close to it (at least in southwestern Bulgaria). So i think it's a pretty safe bet to use Vladimir.

As for Ivanko - yeah, he will be perfect for an assassin. Trouble is he lived late XII early XIII century. But still , Ivanko is a common name, and while that assassin might not be the same Ivanko, he will bring the memory of the original, or allude to him.

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

State of the mod as of 3-14-19?

[SerbianInfantry]

I don't think I waited for anything in my entire life as long, as I have waited for this mod. It's proving that I'm actually insane...

[Wallachian]

Sorry for lack of news guys. There is progress happening but it is boring (but very very important) side of the work:

- placing garrisons on the map for every single settlement
- placing general characters on the map for every faction and every rebel settlement, yes every single settlement will have an actual historical character in it
- placing agents (diplomats, spy, assassin, merchant, priest) on map for every single faction (again finding real historical persons for each role for each faction)
- placing PSFs on the map (this is currently on hold)
- importing units from a couple of other mods to round up our rosters
- importing custom strat map general models
- fixing the size of custom settlements (they are too large and cause CTDs)

Things that we have recently finished would be:
- custom character pictures for generals for the Slavic culture group and Islamic culture group
- placing all characters, generals and agents for Milan, Wallachia, Hospitallers
- family tree for the Golden Horde
- setting all the faction strenghts and weaknesses in the starting menu customised for every faction
- setting the custom faction leader and faction heir titles for every faction (so now for example the ruler of Bulgaria is a Tsar, the ruler of the Golden Horde is a Khan, his heir is the Khazanda, the ruler of Wallachia is a voivode and his heir is an associate voivode and so on)
- importing custom strat map agent characters from another mod

We currently have a working version of the mod with no CTDs which is very important. But there is a lot of things that we still need to add to make it better and some of things are quite simple but time consuming. For example, we have custom character pictures for Italian culture group from another mod but someone needs to go through them and delete vanilla ones and sort them. This is very simple but takes hours to do. There are a lot of things like this.

As mentioned before we need help with figuring out the Greek generals (we have too many so we have to delete some and then place them on the map) for the two byzantine factions and any help would be appreciated.

Rest assured that progress is being made.

[sullivanclan1]

Keep up with the good progress will be looking forward to play this mod.

[Darios]

Best news of the year, Wallachian! Thank you for the update)

[Ajpav]

Sorry for lack of news guys. There is progress happening but it is boring (but very very important) side of the work...

Wallachian - I'd be happy to take some of those "Mundane" tasks off your hands, I'm pretty handy with anything that needs editing in notepad++.

Here is a list of things I can do:
-Editing any text docs
-Creating custom 2d art like ancs, portraits, unit cards, unit info & buildings (I did all but -2 of the Beginning of the End times custom building uis i.e. all their merc buildings)
-I can also edit the bmdb
-And even when I personally mod things, I keep a detailed log of what I did so that if a CTD happens I can fix it.

-Let me know!

[Wallachian]

Wallachian - I'd be happy to take some of those "Mundane" tasks off your hands, I'm pretty handy with anything that needs editing in notepad++.

Here is a list of things I can do:
-Editing any text docs
-Creating custom 2d art like ancs, portraits, unit cards, unit info & buildings (I did all but -2 of the Beginning of the End times custom building uis i.e. all their merc buildings)
-I can also edit the bmdb
-And even when I personally mod things, I keep a detailed log of what I did so that if a CTD happens I can fix it.

-Let me know!

Well what can I say. This is exactly what we are looking for. As long as you are happy to help us out with things that we need it would be fantastic and a great help.

And of course you would get to see the current mod folder and have some fun around the map and try out all our delicious new units.

Things which you could help out with would be: creating custom building pictures (we have a whole host of admin buildings needing cards and info cards), helping out with implementing custom character portraits, creating a croatian family tree, helping organise and implement the event pics (this is an old project of mine) and lots of little things

[PavleSubich]

this looks promising

[Antonius]

Any updates?
I really can't wait for this?

Any way we can help?

[Wallachian]

Sorry, but nothing much new other than my previous post. Waiting for ajpav to join and help us with some text editing and 2d art. dcdastro is continuing with placing garrisons and characters on the map. and I just finished the quotes for all the factions.

We definitely need lots of help but usually people offer to help and then we never hear from them again. We need help with text writing for building chains, helping organising event pics, organising character pics etc so any help is appreciated even with no modding skills.