Preview: Dar al-Islam, revealing the Islamic world

[Giorgios]

Anatolia next??

Yes indeed. The two Anatolian previews (written by yours truly ) will be the next to be released, dealing with the political situation in the region in the early 1080s. Let me put it this way- every other mod I can think of is very, very wrong in their portrayal of Anatolia at the opening of the reign of Aleksios Komnenos. Landil and I have done a lot of research to make playing as the Byzantines and Rum Turks a very different experience from what you may have been expecting.

[Stark1]

Landil and I have done a lot of research to make playing as the Byzantines and Rum Turks a very different experience from what you may have been expecting.

I wonder what will be the difference. The only thing I can remember is that Romans usually start completely ousted out of Anatolia (except for Nikeia sometimes), and I think I read somewhere that they actually controlled large parts of it at the ascension of Alexios, and they lost it in the following years.

Now I wonder who will the starting emperor even be, if the game starts at 1080 Nikephoros Botaneiates should rule, but that would deprive us of Komnenids, and people love them. So, can we know please?

[Giorgios]

Now I wonder who will the starting emperor even be, if the game starts at 1080 Nikephoros Botaneiates should rule, but that would deprive us of Komnenids, and people love them. So, can we know please?

Yeah, you'll have the Komnenoi as your starting dynasty. There was no way we could accurately portray the family tree as it actually stood in 1080 within the way M2TW family trees work, so we decided to skip forward about nine months in terms of Byzantium. The Byzantine player will begin, if you like, on the day of Aleksios' accession.

[bereserker789087]

Really nice work guys.

[The Norseman]

I still can not understand how the mappers are able to create such amazing graphics. It looks so darn realistic! I can not wait! Good job on the PSFs as well! I am looking forward to capturing all those regions with Norway

[TLG]

I came on here wondering whether we could have some kind of update seeing as it's all been a bit quiet for a while. Realised there were 40something people viewing the forum and realised something must have been released.
Great preview, I love the campaign map screen shots. This game is gona be so much fun to play

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Really Nice preview of the Holy Land's and the Levant. Will Jerusalem be in control of the Crusaders ? I Guess not since the game begins at 1080.

I still can not understand how the mappers are able to create such amazing graphics. It looks so darn realistic! I can not wait! Good job on the PSFs as well! I am looking forward to capturing all those regions with Norway

That Makes Two of Us

[Landil]

The First Crusade started in 1096, the mod starts in 1080, you should be able to figure out the rest. Also, the answer to your question can literally be found in the preview, both in the screenshots and in the text.

[raven63]

As always, tremendous job on the preview. The level of detail is unprecedented. Interesting choice on your part to include Acre (Akkah) as a PSF, and Hims as a settlement.

[JoeCool_1952]

Wow! Congratulations to Resurection and Landil - the control point system here looks darn near perfect from every angle.
Armenia looks like it should be a fun little puzzle.

[smitty]

Things are looking great, but those faction colors are concerning.

Why so bright/neon? Any plans to tone them down a bit? SSMAP for SS made an effort to have faction colors not so harsh but rather pleasant while maintaining faction accuracy (colors reflect faction banners etc).

[Landil]

If I'm not mistaken the terrain textures are either pulled from satellite images or at least inspired by them. If you compare images from Google maps to the campaign map they look strikingly similar.

Correct, we have used satellite imagery as a basis for our textures.

Things are looking great, but those faction colors are concerning.

Why so bright/neon? Any plans to tone them down a bit? SSMAP for SS made an effort to have faction colors not so harsh but rather pleasant while maintaining faction accuracy (colors reflect faction banners etc).

Personally, I'm not bothered by the colors for the Syrian faction, but of course I can't speak for others. If we get many complaints about it, we might change it, but otherwise it is up to people to deal with it themselves.

[atheniandp]

Personally, I'm not bothered by the colors for the Syrian faction, but of course I can't speak for others. If we get many complaints about it, we might change it, but otherwise it is up to people to deal with it themselves.

I didn't notice it until he pointed it out, but I'd have to agree. The faction colours (at least that of the Syrians) do stand out a bit in terms of their brightness. However I don't think this is something that should be addressed in the first release.

[Copperknickers II]

It's awesome to see the Muslim world being given so much attention in a pan-Old World map, that was one of the main reasons I joined DotS back in the early days. Keep up the good work guys.

[Karaman Beyi]

It's good to get news from mod team!

Besides, after so much middle east city, i wanna lost on desserts. An ordinary campaign will take so much time to conquer even all the mediterranean.

+ rep for your efforts!

[ALFAJI]

nice work !

[Tureuki]

Great work

So you guys going to work on Anatolia next ? just a small notice, people generally mistaking the "yellowish" parts of central anatolia with desert, those are not desert, indeed not green but neither desert those are generally crop etc. fields and the parts with no plantation are rocky and has little flora, few scattered trees generally, but the surroundings of the rivers and lakes are of course greener, some places also naturally greener then other places
there is also a problem with color tones in google maps, check the aegean region to see that.

If you get any problem , you can pm me.

[Karaman Beyi]

Great work

So you guys going to work on Anatolia next ? just a small notice, people generally mistaking the "yellowish" parts of central anatolia with desert, those are not desert, indeed not green but neither desert those are generally crop etc. fields and the parts with no plantation are rocky and has little flora, few scattered trees generally, but the surroundings of the rivers and lakes are of course greener, some places also naturally greener then other places
there is also a problem with color tones in google maps, check the aegean region to see that.

If you get any problem , you can pm me.

As Tureki said, if you do have any question, you can always ask me about Anatolia!,
Because i'm Turk and know my country well.

[Slaytaninc]

I realize the cities were far larger than those seen in Europe, my question is how did the overall population balance out. I'm assuming a larger percentage of people in the Islamic world lived in cities than Europe.

[Landil]

Don't worry mate, we didn't make that mistake. Also, if we had, I would have spotted it, because I'm a historical geographer