National Revolutions 1821-1848

[Sotericus]

The diplomatic situation was quite muddy, and is even harder to represent due to the limitations of the engine.
It will be quite hard to represent the complex relations between Tudor Vladimirescu's faction, the High Porte, Eteria, Russia, mainly because their relations were very fluid, from friendship to neutrality and further to hostility, and all that in less than 6 months.
Overall, Tudor Valdimirescu tried the card of neutrality, to play at more heads, attempting to gain time to organize his forces.

Tudor Valdimirescu's faction and Ottoman Empire
From start, Tudor claimed that his actions were solely against Phanariote hospodars and boyars and their wrongdoings and not against the suzerain power Turkey, and even negotiated with pashas of Vidin, Silistra and Braila. But it is highly doubtful that Tudor really believed that a favorable diplomatic solution with Ottomans was possible, at least not before a Wallachian victory on the field, and negotiation with the Porte were more of a ruse to win some time. I think that Tudor realized that his main enemy was the High Porte and two actions shed some light on his most probable plans. First, shortly before the onset of the revolution, Tudor meets with several leaders of Eteria and afterwards with will make a defensive pact with Eteria, secret organization that was in war with Ottomans. Secondly, years before the revolution, he fortifies several monasteries and prepares the defense of Oltenia, realizing that only a prolonged resistance will allow him to win back Wallachia's rights. As a matter of fact, the first clashes with Ottomans took place several days before Tudor's death(26/27 May), at Slatina on May 23, while at Zavideni, on May 26, Ioan Solomon's pandours manage to break encirclement and retreat toward Ramnicu Valcea. Hearing about the death of Tudor, Solomon will disband his unit and will run in Transylvania. As such, I think that Wallachia should be neutral toward the Ottomans, with poor relations, because as I see, the clash between Tudor and Ottomans was inevitable.

That's it. It is precisely the kind of historical insight we needed. You make a strong point here : "But it is highly doubtful that Tudor really believed that a favorable diplomatic solution with Ottomans was possible, at least not before a Wallachian victory on the field".

I'll try buying peace with the Ottomans and then hybrid the file. Then, again, make Wallachia a protectorate. In fact a protectorate with poor relationship with the Ottomans will describe best this situation.

However, from what I've seen until now (during the various tests), in the game the Ottomans are very unlikely to attack (except maybe if you play on VH/VH). Anyways, brilliant +rep.

For the Eteria I have given it a thought. The simplest answer would be a Greek army (though this would mean doing some work). The more complex answer would be "I don't know but there might be a way". The guys working for The Great War were saying something about having a solution about representing the US in the Great war on the nappy map without having a faction. We can try asking them how this can be done. Anyways, for the moment I can't really imagine how.

For Austria, in the game the relations are on "normal". The problem is that Austria will soon attack Wallachia - I think it is scripted to act this way. Again, I don't know how to prevent that.

[husserlTW]

Thank you, Husserl. I've already put a them in the 5th post on this page . However, it is worth mentioning the fact that this is site has a quite thorough and reliable collection of flags, though the quality of the pictures could be better. I'll try finding a better picture for the flag Wallachian suggested.

The naval ensign is very good but there are 2 (different the last 2 stripes) so you have to choose one.

I also wanted to ask you wether the game forces you to use the same flag for the faction on the campaign map and on the battle map.

I remember reading a while ago a thread about someone trying to have different flags for different units

.

I know that there where some tries but I do not know the results. If yu find something tell me.

[Sotericus]

In fact Husserl's last post with this link http://flagspot.net/flags/ro-wal34.html has good quality pictures (I had some of them already on my PC and I have forgotten about them).

So after giving it a thought I will post here the shortlist in order to chose one of them. Take a look on the site in order have an indication about the flags.

So here are the last canidates

Principality of Wallachia

1. The "Agie" Standard 1822


2. The 1834 Military Flag



3. The 1845 War Enisgn



For the navy there are only 2

1. The 1834 Naval Ensign



2. The 1845 Naval Ensign




Principality of Moldavia (here - http://flagspot.net/flags/ro-mold34.html#about)

1. The military flag of 1834



2. The 1834 Civil Ensign



Thanks again for the reminder, Husserl.

[mircea]

That's it. It is precisely the kind of historical insight we needed. You make a strong point here : "But it is highly doubtful that Tudor really believed that a favorable diplomatic solution with Ottomans was possible, at least not before a Wallachian victory on the field".

I'll try buying peace with the Ottomans and then hybrid the file. Then, again, make Wallachia a protectorate. In fact a protectorate with poor relationship with the Ottomans will describe best this situation.

However, from what I've seen until now (during the various tests), in the game the Ottomans are very unlikely to attack (except maybe if you play on VH/VH). Anyways, brilliant +rep.

Thanks for reputation
Ottoman's suzerainty over Valdimirescu's Wallachia was largely nominal, so maybe Wallachia should be free, which should increase the likelihood of a Walalchian-Ottoman war.

For the Eteria I have given it a thought. The simplest answer would be a Greek army (though this would mean doing some work). The more complex answer would be "I don't know but there might be a way". The guys working for The Great War were saying something about having a solution about representing the US in the Great war on the nappy map without having a faction. We can try asking them how this can be done. Anyways, for the moment I can't really imagine how.

For an early version , I think that a Greek army present in Wallachia and Moldova is sufficient. At the same time, Wallachia and Moldova should be allied with Greece and grant permanent passing rights to Greek armies.
For later version, the better alternative will be to make a new Eteria horde faction, allied to Greece, although I'm not sure is possible with the current engine.
But the simplest solution, although ahistorical would be to represent Eteria armies as armies of Wallachia and Moldova. Maybe we could design some events that will result in the disbandment or rebellion of Eteria forces against Tudor Valdimirescu's faction.

For Austria, in the game the relations are on "normal". The problem is that Austria will soon attack Wallachia - I think it is scripted to act this way. Again, I don't know how to prevent that.

We could relocate most of Austrian forces to Italy, maybe this will reduce their hostility. Alternatively, we could try to make Wallachia and Moldova allies of even protectorates of Austria, although this could prompt Austrians to declare war to Turkey
In the end, I'm clueless about how Ai works, and as such, these ideas maybe BS

In fact Husserl's last post with this link http://flagspot.net/flags/ro-wal34.html has good quality pictures (I had some of them already on my PC and I have forgotten about them).

So after giving it a thought I will post here the shortlist in order to chose one of them. Take a look on the site in order have an indication about the flags.

So here are the last canidates

Principality of Wallachia

1. The "Agie" Standard 1822

Although it isn't the most beautiful, I think it is more fitting for the first part of the mod.

Principality of Moldavia (here - http://flagspot.net/flags/ro-mold34.html#about)

1. The military flag of 1834

Unfortunately, the flags from the period before 1834 are all black& white, as such this is the most usable.

[Thiky83]

We help where we can!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Italian legion's flag

[Sotericus]

You just take care of the texts and the dates I'll do the rest. Also missions must be decided if you are going to use any. I think missions must be planned by faction. Have in mind that that they have a meaning for the player only. AI will not follow them except a faction join another.

I can make easily any flag you like, there is not need to do all these changes you say and it will not cause any CTD. Just upload (or link) to any image of the flag you like, and the faction you want to.

Hi, Husserl. Finally we reached an agreement concerning the flags. We would be very grateful to you if you could add to Romania, this flags (if it's possible to have 2)

For the faction



and for the army this one (if it's not possible to have 2, then this one which follows should be the only Wallachian flag)



for Moldavia, this one



That's it for the moment. I'll send you later these days the text for missions and the turns where they are supposed to be issued.

Cheers,

S.

[Sotericus]

We help where we can!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Italian legion's flag

Beautiful Flags. Once we're moving on to the other factions we'll add this one, too. Could you post a smaller jpg with one of the flags similar as we done for Wallachia and Moldavia? Thx.

[Sotericus]

Another idea: is it possible to start the game in the middle of a revolution?

So here are the results of the modifications I brought in startpos. Till now no CTD and I think there will be none. .

First the diplomacy

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I might change these days the Ottoman's attitude towards Wallachia and tryng to make it more likely to attack (though with the AI you never now...). However I prevented the annoying sudden Russian attack on Moldavia which would occur everytime during the 2nd turn.

Starting army

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note that the picture of Simion Mehedinteanu is in fact a portrait of Athanasios Diakos, a greek revolutionary of the time. I thought of not putting Tudor in charge of the army in order to avoid having him sniped by artillery, but still in charge of state affairs (as he is the Faction leader).

And a funny thing for concluding. The AI randomly generated an officer whose name is Alexandru Ghica, who actually was one of the Wallachian princes at the beginning of 19th century (1830s). So I wouldn't miss the chance of replacing his portrait.

Here it is

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Btw I forgot to say that I've added the last Wallachian units.

[Wallachian]

I just saw the last units, the roster is great +rep





So we have for infantry:

• Line Infantry
• Pandurs
• Tirailleurs
• Dorobanti
• Geandarmi Pedestri
• Potecasi
• Vanatori Domnesti
• Haiduci Predati

And for cavalry:

• Rosiori
• Calarasi
• Slujitori

The number of units is balanced and also varied. This should be a great gaming experience.

A few things to note on the diplomacy screen: how come Moldova and Wallachia are major powers? And also it Croatia and Hungary are factions from the start? Shouldn't they be emerging? Seeing as they were part of Austria. Serbia needs to be a faction too, it was the first balkan nation to break from the Ottomans.

Serbian uniform of 1809-1810 uprising

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Serbian private uniform 1845

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Serbian Kings Guard 1860

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[husserlTW]

I like the portrait of Athanasios Diakos you've used..

[Sotericus]

I just saw the last units, the roster is great +rep




A few things to note on the diplomacy screen: how come Moldova and Wallachia are major powers? And also it Croatia and Hungary are factions from the start? Shouldn't they be emerging? Seeing as they were part of Austria. Serbia needs to be a faction too, it was the first balkan nation to break from the Ottomans.

Thank you, Wallachian.

Well, when I started modding (that is at the very beginning) I used Husserl's startpos for the Balkan.mod and I left them as such. These explains why they are major powers. This can be changed without great trouble. Afterwords I thought having Croatia and Hungary as factions (which in the game are protectorates of the Austrian Empire) would be a nice way of individualizing them. In the game they act as proper vassals at least at the beginning so there isn't much of a change in the game dynamics. Later on we might think developing these factions, too.

The fact that Serbia isn't a faction is due to the limited region system you have in nappy and to the obscure AI which both make Ottoman Empire to be something of a wreck and not a real threat. I thought compensating this by giving them Serbia, which gained suzeranity (not sovereignty ) only after the Convention of Akerman, in 1826m though you are right, the Principality obtained some de facto autonomy before that, as a result of the second Serbia Uprising. See more about the Principality of Serbia here. However I considered that one of the first missions in the Wallachian campaign would be liberating Serbia.

I really hope to find a way in making the Ottomans a more challenging faction with only one region and put back Serbia in the game.

[Sotericus]

I like the portrait of Athanasios Diakos you've used..

Thanks, Husserl, I keep searching for pictures of generals and revolutionary leaders in the Balkans of that time. Would it be possible to create a 'pool' of pictures in the mod, and assign them to specific factions, like Serbia, Greece, Romania and Moldavia? Or this can only be done for all factions?

[Sotericus]

Sorry about multiposting, but this is on a different topic.

In relation with the Wallachian roster.

There will still be some "surprise" units that I wouldn't disclose for the time being. They consist of revolutionnary guard, national guard and an elite guard unit as well as mounted guards (Geandarmi Calari).

Line Infantry, Tirailleurs and Rosiori can be recruited only at 3rd level buildings (or even 4th level), as the Guards can be recruited starting with 4th and 5th level buildings (the national and the elite are available only in Wallachia), as the rev guard will be global.

There are still some left-over units from the vanilla (such as militia, line inf, hussars and jagers). How do I get rid of them?

Thanks a lot.

[husserlTW]

Thanks, Husserl, I keep searching for pictures of generals and revolutionary leaders in the Balkans of that time. Would it be possible to create a 'pool' of pictures in the mod, and assign them to specific factions, like Serbia, Greece, Romania and Moldavia? Or this can only be done for all factions?

I can make it to use a specific pool of portraits, but unfortunately it is culture and not faction specific, meaning that all european factions will use the same pool.

[Sotericus]

We could think about that. This would imply hours of searching pictures with Euro generals both western and eastern. And at some point we might stumble upon a "French" general in Eastern/Balkan outfit, which can be a bit awkward.

However, if the Ottomans are bound to disappear very soon in the game as I suggested before, couldn't we assign the balkan factions to 'eastern' or 'ottoman' culture, or does this mean that other stuff such as weapons, etc. should be assigned according to the same culture? In this case it would be quite painstaking to reorganize everything just to have nice pictures, though ...

Otherwise we could just add a number a pictures to the mod.pack and when a general is about to be spawned we can replace manually his picture editing only 2 lines with ESF (that's what I'm doing this evening for having fun).

Thanks fot your help.

[Wallachian]

Great to hear that there are still a few surprise units waiting! Will Moldova have any different troops or will they be the same?

About Serbia, well basically in 1817 it became a principality which was officially recognised in 1822. Basically it had a simillar status with the Ottomans as the Danubian principalities had. My oppinion is that it should be a faction as a protectorate of the Ottomans. And maybe give the Ottomans a few bonuses to offset the loss of the Serbian territory.

About Hungary and Croatia, i believe they were integral part of the Austrian empire, to show them just as protectorates would be a bit inaccurate historically. Is there any way to script a rebellion for them so that they emerge as factions in 1848?

And another interesting revolt i thought about is the Decembrist revolt in Russia in 1825, could be interesting to portray it somehow. It would also weaken Russia a bit so that it doesn't attack Moldova straight away. Also, I don't remember how the map of Napoleon was but is it possible to have Belgium as an emerging faction (Belgium revolution of 1830)?

[Sotericus]

Great to hear that there are still a few surprise units waiting! Will Moldova have any different troops or will they be the same?

About Serbia, well basically in 1817 it became a principality which was officially recognised in 1822. Basically it had a simillar status with the Ottomans as the Danubian principalities had. My oppinion is that it should be a faction as a protectorate of the Ottomans. And maybe give the Ottomans a few bonuses to offset the loss of the Serbian territory.

About Hungary and Croatia, i believe they were integral part of the Austrian empire, to show them just as protectorates would be a bit inaccurate historically. Is there any way to script a rebellion for them so that they emerge as factions in 1848?

And another interesting revolt i thought about is the Decembrist revolt in Russia in 1825, could be interesting to portray it somehow. It would also weaken Russia a bit so that it doesn't attack Moldova straight away. Also, I don't remember how the map of Napoleon was but is it possible to have Belgium as an emerging faction (Belgium revolution of 1830)?

Everything you said can, and - to some extent - should be done, though it may imply some setbacks. I would prefer keeping Hungary on the map anyways.

Serbia will be brought back, but I'm not sure how we'll be able to strengthen the Ottomans. An answer might be to rework the Ottoman's units' status and not only their treasury, since Greece beats the hell out of them everytime (that is when the AI takes a battle and doesn't retreat its troops from the capital before an iminent attack !).

Belgium is already an emergent faction in Vanilla. It gained independence in 1830. For a quite detailed map of Europe after Vienna, take a look at the second post here (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=399343&page=2) - I used it from the very beginnings of this mod. The diplomacy pictures aren't relevant anymore as I messed up startpos several times.

Moldavia and the other factions that we are going to develop will have different rosters. I would try this evening to change the pictures for the messages, too.

I'm not sure whether we can script a rebellion, but the Russians don't attack Moldavia anymore in the 2nd turn (nor in the 3rd or 4th)

Cheers,

PS In an ideal post-nappy the Balkans should have looked like this http://www.terra.es/personal7/jqvaraderey/185915BK.GIF. The region systems in nappy is so disappointing, but at least we have Wallachia as a region.

[Thiky83]

Austria–Hungary Monarchy (from 1915)



Here is some map from old (big) Hungary.
Original map with ethnic areas (German language) from 1880
http://conflicts.rem33.com/images/Un...nic_groups.jpg
Austria–Hungary Monarchy map
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/...20Hungary).jpg
topographic map
http://dzs-z.hu/images/tura/NagyMagyarorszag_tura.jpg
Austria–Hungary Monarchy in 1867 (all green area was Hungary from the Monarchy)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ia-hungary.png

[Sotericus]

Just a quick note. I finished some of the changes suggested by Wallachian.

1. Gave Croatia to Austria
2. Made Serbia playable and a protectorate of the Ottomans.
3. Turned all the Balkan and CE European nations as well as Spain to 'minor'
4. Changed Ottomans attitude towards Ro and Serbia to 'abysmal' i.e. hostile

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[mircea]

Sotericus you've made an excellent job +rep I look foward to beta test the mod with the new changes

However I prevented the annoying sudden Russian attack on Moldavia which would occur everytime during the 2nd turn.

I don't know how you did it, but you're the man

Note that the picture of Simion Mehedinteanu is in fact a portrait of Athanasios Diakos, a greek revolutionary of the time. I thought of not putting Tudor in charge of the army in order to avoid having him sniped by artillery, but still in charge of state affairs (as he is the Faction leader).

i would suggest to add Ioan Solomon, Tudor's loyal governor of Oltenia, instead or in addition to Simion Mehedinteanu. Maybe we could create a general separated from the faction leader, by slightly modifying his name

Thank you, Wallachian.
I really hope to find a way in making the Ottomans a more challenging faction with only one region and put back Serbia in the game.

I don't know if you are familiar with the excellent Magna Mundi mod for EUR 3. They had a similar problem with several factions that we steamrollered in just a few months. For start, they solved the issue by upgrading fortress' levels in pretty much every province of the game. I think that we could use this, by upping the fortress levels, which sohould enhance survivability of major and minor factions and would avoid the usual blob of color. Further Istanbul should be pretty much inexpugnable, with high fortress levels and a powerful static garrison, while their economy should be buffed up to allow to recruit and maintain a significant army. It is a cruel joke to see Greece or Wallachia manging to take Istanbul, while Russia was unable to do that in a few centuries, and we should try hard to avert the possibility of eliminating Ottomans.

Line Infantry, Tirailleurs and Rosiori can be recruited only at 3rd level buildings (or even 4th level), as the Guards can be recruited starting with 4th and 5th level buildings (the national and the elite are available only in Wallachia), as the rev guard will be global.

There are still some left-over units from the vanilla (such as militia, line inf, hussars and jagers). How do I get rid of them?

Thanks a lot.

The most appealing feature of this mod is the flavor and uniqueness of the period, and of the revolutionary armies involved, and I think that we should try to portrait as accurately as possible these "ragtag, irregular" forces that manged to defeat regular armies, sometimes even in set piece battles. We should try to portrait the problems encountered by the commanders of these forces, and even some of the solutions they found (ambushes, light infantry tactics).

I don't know if I'm right but I think that most players would love unique revolutionary irregular units like Panduri, Potecasi, Plaiesi, Arnauti, Calarasi, Eteria's Scared Battalion, Armatoloi over more common units such as line infantry, lancers, royal guards, recruited later by the former revolutionary countries etc.

And another interesting revolt i thought about is the Decembrist revolt in Russia in 1825, could be interesting to portray it somehow. It would also weaken Russia a bit so that it doesn't attack Moldova straight away. Also, I don't remember how the map of Napoleon was but is it possible to have Belgium as an emerging faction (Belgium revolution of 1830)?

Good ideas Wallachian Unfortunately the game is unsuitable to accurately portrait the changes that happened in this period, the different revolutionary waves, and would force us to have a large number of emergent revolutionary factions which are unplayable. Maybe a solution would be to divide the timeframe of the mod in several sub-campaigns:
E.g. I. 1821 (Greek and Wallachian revolution, Carbonari revolution, Spanish civil war) to 1832 (Polish rebellion, last Carbonari revolt)
II. The 1848 revolutionary wave in Europe
III. War in Balkans (1875-?)
and maybe a prequel with Horea, Closca and Crisan rebellion

Just a quick note. I finished some of the changes suggested by Wallachian.

1. Gave Croatia to Austria
2. Made Serbia playable and a protectorate of the Ottomans.
3. Turned all the Balkan and CE European nations as well as Spain to 'minor'
4. Changed Ottomans attitude towards Ro and Serbia to 'abysmal' i.e. hostile

I oder to ease the burden of Ottoman AI, I think that Serbia should be neutral for a significant period. In fact, as far as I know Serbia remained neutral toward ottomans until 1858-1862