Medieval Kingdoms Total War Suggestion Thread

[♔atthias♔]

sorry if this is the wrong tread but I could not find a FAO anywhere so I will ask it here
my question is have you removed sync animations also called 1vs1?
sorry if this has been asked before

[Slytacular]

I don't think 1 vs 1 animations have been removed.

[Pinarius]

Will there be any drawbridges?

[Kjertesvein]

15th century armoured bear hunting dogs

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here are illustrations of 15th century dogs with armour hunting dangerous prey like bear. It seems like some form of textile armour. Possibly gambeson.

Let me just make it clear that I have no deep knowledge on dogs in battle other than folk tales. You guys probably know far more than me, but since you already have dogs in your game, why not give them some armour for late game. It makes sense, it's historical and it's pretty damn cool to see armoured dogs.

Sappers

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This one is pretty simple. In almost all depictions of sieges in manuscipts, we see people with picks and hatchets battering down the gates and walls. Sometimes lightly armoured, other times well armoured. Sometimes with a shield, other times no shield. In the English Tower armouries, we see 100s of shovels and picks in the category of weapons remain in the wardrobe. In one document we have a description of their making and the costs associated with it:

Also required on the voyage (La Rochelle, 1372) were picks; Stephen Smith supplied 200 at 12d. each and five workmen were employed for 6d. a day for three days helving (fitting stocks to) 194 of them for 7s. 6d., with hafts of ash which cost 6s. 6d. (making the total cost about 13d. each).
[...]
Alongside the ordnance appear quantities of picks and shovels, essential for siege operations.

Monetary context:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

£ = pound
s. = Shilling
d. = penny
If I remember correct, 12 shillings to the pound. 20 pence to a shilling. This means 240 pence to the pound. Easy.

• The suggestion is therefor based on a siege unit that need special picks/hatchets, either 2 handed or 1 handed. They should have a bonus towards hacking down gates. It's possible to tweak how much damage a weapon type does to gates. For example in Vanilla axes do more dmg than knifes to gates, which means this unit has a special function unlike any other unit.
• We also know pavises were extensively used in sieges, so perhaps Sappers can be included pavises as well. Either on their back, in their left hand or none at all. It's up to you.
• Another alternative: You can also merge the function of Sappers (hacking down gates) with the normal siege engine crew. This means that the Catapult crew can first fire their shots at the walls, then begin to hack down the gates.
• The quality of these men would probably be either part of the army's baggage train of artisans, part of the levied soldiers who also had associated profession in their civilian life or standard soldiers. It depends on how complex their job was, but at least a captain who would be proficient in the science of siege warfare.

Illustrations:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4342/18770/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4342/18848/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3971/10535/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4163/8791/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4869/13214/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4372/7095/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4505/8399/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4879/13330/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4154/12091/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4154/12107/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4226/7731/
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5158/16035/

The word Sapper originate in 1620. It comes from the word sap (1585): 'Fortification. a deep, narrow trench constructed so as to form an approach to a besieged place or an enemy's position'. Other more moderns words for this unit may be Militiary Engineer. More contemporary latin words (seeing as the medieval generals would've all read De Re Mililtarii by Vegetius, and therefor perhaps applied the terms from the military book directly) would be Lapidarians (from latin lapidarii, masons) or carpenters (from the latin carpentarii, builder of wood). The best word may simply be Gate Sappers, so as to dispel all confusion of their designed usage is in battle. Those who read the name will instantly know where this unit needs to be placed.

Perhaps Sappers can deploy certain things, such as caltrops or Pavise shields in the future. Who knows. There are also other elements for future siege ideas in case that's wanted, such as incinerates, but I'm not sure of Attila engine can incorporate those elements jet. Perhaps short range slingers with naphtha grenades one day.

Overview of ranged weapons mentioned in the armoury

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm pretty sure these things are known to the team, but it's always good to collaborate thoughts on subjects where we lack hard evidence. Here are some illustrations. Here are the ranged weapons (except bows and gunpowder) that I've come across in the armoury can loosely be categorized into:

• Luxury crossbows for nobles/men-at-arms (few in numbers)
• Crossbow (1 foot long, most common.)
• Large crossbow (2 foot long)
• Great Crossbow (or Ballista in M2TW, 6 foot on wheels)
• Springald (rectangular constructed missile engine, usually for siege defense)
• Catapult (these are already in the game)
• Trebuchet (we all have an idea what these are, no need to provide images unless that's wanted)

I say 'loosely' because categorizing weapons in this manner is largely a modern concept. Contemporary sources often use the same term of when referring to different war engines interchangeably, visa versa.

Warman or those who made the gunpowder units are probably aware of this, but I'll just mention it in case: The game mechanism behind the Great Crossbow/Springald are almost identical to the Vanilla Scorpion, although they look a bit different.

---

There is a lot of information on the use of incendiaries used in sieges and navel combat, such as tar, coal&sulfur, peat or animal fat as one of the more potent medieval weaponry, even for allies. After skimming the sources I think it's possible to include some of these weapons which would be really cool because it opens up a whole new paradigm of medieval warfare that is very... chemical and flammable. It's such an untapped source that has to be exploited in my opinion.

Chemical and incendiary weapons

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quicklime is an early thermal weapon used since ancient times. It's highly dangerous, causing both blindness and burn. I would really like to see Quicklime (calcium oxide) used as catapult ammo. The visual smoke currently used by Handgunners is perfect, perhaps a bit more "white" colour, would create a whole new visual effect on the battelfield as it hits the troops. The projectile itself might look like a pot or keg).

Quicklime was advocated by Vegetius, de Pizan, Taccola and Kyeser, while depicted by authors such as Hume in the Battle of Dover 1217 and vividly noted by Giles of Rome in the 13th century “there used to be a large number of pots filled with ground quicklime, which are to be thrown from aloft into the enemies’ ships. When the pots are thrown with force and shatter on impact, the powder rises in the air (as has been noted above in reference to land war) and enters the enemies’ eyes and irritates them so greatly that, nearly blinded, they cannot see. This situation is very dangerous in naval warfare because fighting men in such war see themselves threatened with death from every quarter. Wherefore, if the eyes of the fighting men in such a battle are so irritated by powdered lime that they cannot see, they can easily either be slain by their enemies or submerged in the water.”

I would like to see pots of oil or Quicklime used by slingers, hand or catapult ammo (as has already been mentioned). Bodley 264 Alexander and Dindimus, England, 1400 and De la Pirotechnica, Italy, 1540.



Fire lime pots 17 th century
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...th_Century.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ste-Coburg.jpg

I also think a couple of Empire players will recognize this munition from the good ol' howitzer 24lber. http://www.honga.net/totalwar/empire..._lber_howitzer

Greek Fire

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A contemporary account of the Byzantines in action:

[The Byzantine Emperor Alexios] had fixed to the bows of each of his galleys a tube ending in the head of a lion or other beast wrought in brass or iron, 'so that the animals might seem to vomit flames'. The fleet came up with the Pisans between Rhodes and Patara, but as its vessels were pursuing them with too great zeal it could not attack as a single body. The first to reach the enemy was the Byzantine admiral Landulph, who shot off his fire too hastily, missed his mark and accomplished nothing. But Count Eleemon, who was the next to close, had better fortune; he rammed the stern of a Pisan vessel, so that the bows of his ship got stuck in its steering-oar tackle. Then, shooting forth the fire, he set it ablaze, after which he pushed off and successfully discharged his tube into three other vessels, all of which were soon in flames. The Pisans then fled in disorder, 'having had no previous knowledge of the device, and wondering that fire, which usually burns upwards, could be directed downwards or to either hand, at the will of the engineer who discharged it'. That the Greek fire was a liquid, and not merely an inflammable substance attached to ordinary missiles, after the manner of fire-arrows, is quite clear from the fact that Leo [VI the Wise] proposes to cast it on the enemy in fragile earthen vessels which may break and allow the material to run about—as also from the name pyr enygron or 'liquid fire' which Anna uses for it.

C.W.C. Oman paraphrasing an account by Alexios's daughter Anna Comnena (1083–1153) about a sea battle between the Pisans and Byzantines near Rhodes in the year 1103.


The French were besieged on land and attacked by Egyptian forces using Greek fire:

It happened one night, whilst we were keeping night-watch over the tortoise-towers, that they brought up against us an engine called a perronel, (which they had not done before) and filled the sling of the engine with Greek fire. When that good knight, Lord Walter of Cureil, who was with me, saw this, he spoke to us as follows : " Sirs, we are in the greatest peril that we have ever yet been in. For, if they set fire to our turrets and shelters, we are lost and burnt ; and if, again, we desert our defences which have been entrusted to us, we are disgraced ; so none can deliver us from this peril save God alone. My opinion and advice therefor is : that every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger."

He describes the fire as well:

This was the fashion of the Greek fire : it came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear ; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.

It was very effective:

The King's brothers used to keep guard up in the turrets of the tortoises, so that they might shoot quarrels from the cross-bows right into the Saracen camp. Now the King had arranged, that when the King of Sicily watched the tortoise-towers in the day-time, we were to watch them by night. When the day came that the King had day watch and it was to be our turn at night, we were very uneasy, for our tortoise - towers had been quite shattered by the Saracens. On that day they brought up their perronel in broad daylight, which so far they had only done at night, and flung the Greek fire into our tortoise-towers; and their engines had got the range so accurately onto the finished part of the causeway that no one durst go to the tortoise-towers because of the huge stones that the engines threw, which were falling all over the road. So it came to pass that our two turrets were burnt, whereat the King of Sicily was so beside himself, that he wanted to rush into the flames to put them out. But if he was furious, I and my knights praised God, for had we kept watch that night, we should all have been burnt up.

The Life of St. Louis, his memoirs of the Seventh Crusade (Written by Joinville between 1305-1309, but the event is dated 1248 - 1254, of which he partook).

~Wille

[Uparty Zubr]

This mod is AMAZING! Really well refined in my opinion

I was wondering if you will still be adding more units into the mod. For example I know a lot of people would like to see Poland given more melee infantry (swordsmen/castellans/men-at-arms/knights(dismounted)...etc.)
Keep up the stunning work

[BrafianBlackFyre]

I was playing around with the kingdom of Nicaea in multiplayer, and I love them, the armour, but two things, the Kingdom of Nicaea had lost Constantinople at this point, which is why I am guessing you called it Nicaea and not the byzantine empire.... but they re took Constantinople in 1262 (maybe/probably), and continued to rule at the byzantine empire, though people never stopped calling them that anyway so I thought it would be cool to have them as the byzantine empire in the mod. Also the faction hasn't got that great infantry, compared to western men at arms and such, so it gets hurt in high funds, so would it be a good idea to maybe max vang guard at 2 or 3?, or make Rus mercenaries a full unit, or just give them a semi expensive heavy armour unit?.
Graphics
In this mod the graphics are AMAZING, but In some of the byzantine units , it was there most expensive sword unit don't know name sowwy, but not all there capes are purple, some are white, but DAMB THOSE PURPLE CAPES ARE TO SEXY, so make all soldiers have them, or make some also have gold/yellow capes. Last thing. Some byzantine cav have maces, which is fine, but I hate seeing people stab each other with them


You can say I am an idiot, its your right ING AMZING MODDERS with beautiful mods but these are just some things that buged me,,,, Love uuuuuuu DDD

[BrafianBlackFyre]

PLZ Give Nicaea armour, or something that can get through armour, like a lot of armour piercing axes or,, bows with weird arrows that cant get through it plz. I was just testing the fac out, and there infantry loose to all western armoured units of a cheaper price. also there heavy cav gets destroyed by other western cav as well. (Hungary France England) Don't know how it hold up against the Turks and Islamic factions though.

[Slytacular]

That's probably becuase you're putting tier one units against tier three. In this case, 13th century guys against 15th century bros.

[Påsan]

PLZ Give Nicaea armour, or something that can get through armour, like a lot of armour piercing axes or,, bows with weird arrows that cant get through it plz. I was just testing the fac out, and there infantry loose to all western armoured units of a cheaper price. also there heavy cav gets destroyed by other western cav as well. (Hungary France England) Don't know how it hold up against the Turks and Islamic factions though.

Well the Western Man-At-Arms, the overall most powerful infantry unit in the game loose to Varangian guard due to their armor-piercing axes and high unit-number but themselves fall easily to arrows or cav charges. So there's a counter. Still you're restricted to one though. I agree that the Niceans needs some adjustment, mainly in the price department as most of their units seems a tad overpriced given their stats. Their expensive archers are completely useless at range but decent in melee (Had 200 kills on one, and 75% of those were melee kills despite spending most of the battle shooting into the backs of a blob of medium infantry, lol)

Not as bad as the Islamic factions though, they are pretty outmatched by the likes of Poland and France with their knights and men-at-arms of doom. But the mod aren't done yet so all of this can change.

[You_Guess_Who]

Warman or those who made the gunpowder units are probably aware of this, but I'll just mention it in case: The game mechanism behind the Great Crossbow/Springald are almost identical to the Vanilla Scorpion, although they look a bit different.

But Springalds' arms swings inwards tho? I don't know if Slytacular can make an inward-swinging torsion arms that can work with Rome 2's scorpion animation.

---

There is a lot of information on the use of incendiaries used in sieges and navel combat, such as tar, coal&sulfur, peat or animal fat as one of the more potent medieval weaponry, even for allies. After skimming the sources I think it's possible to include some of these weapons which would be really cool because it opens up a whole new paradigm of medieval warfare that is very... chemical and flammable. It's such an untapped source that has to be exploited in my opinion.

Chemical and incendiary weapons

[SPOILER]Quicklime is an early thermal weapon used since ancient times. It's highly dangerous, causing both blindness and burn. I would really like to see Quicklime (calcium oxide) used as catapult ammo. The visual smoke currently used by Handgunners is perfect, perhaps a bit more "white" colour, would create a whole new visual effect on the battelfield as it hits the troops. The projectile itself might look like a pot or keg).

Quicklime was advocated by Vegetius, de Pizan, Taccola and Kyeser, while depicted by authors such as Hume in the Battle of Dover 1217 and vividly noted by Giles of Rome in the 13th century “there used to be a large number of pots filled with ground quicklime, which are to be thrown from aloft into the enemies’ ships. When the pots are thrown with force and shatter on impact, the powder rises in the air (as has been noted above in reference to land war) and enters the enemies’ eyes and irritates them so greatly that, nearly blinded, they cannot see. This situation is very dangerous in naval warfare because fighting men in such war see themselves threatened with death from every quarter. Wherefore, if the eyes of the fighting men in such a battle are so irritated by powdered lime that they cannot see, they can easily either be slain by their enemies or submerged in the water.”

I would like to see pots of oil or Quicklime used by slingers, hand or catapult ammo (as has already been mentioned). Bodley 264 Alexander and Dindimus, England, 1400 and De la Pirotechnica, Italy, 1540.

~Wille

Incendiaries are already in-game, can be easily adapted to the mod.

Interestingly, some modder already modded in custom particle effects: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil.../?id=354090460
If that's the case, MKTW should make its own particle effects, especially for powder-based weaponry, and also like you said, quicklime.

What's too bad is Attila have no fustibalus animations, even though they are used in Attila TW timeframe.

[BrafianBlackFyre]

Thanks for answering. do dat , also I know this isn't an suggestion but was there an update to the mod today or yesterday?

[Ltd.]

Yes, there was an update yesterday, on the 9th, that has most bugs, that have been mentioned beforehand, ironed out plus other stats fixed.

[BrafianBlackFyre]

Do I have to download that separately, if so where?

[Ltd.]

yes, you do, here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2...jVHZUNDRzlYX28

[BrafianBlackFyre]

I've never modded before, so how do I install that?

[Ltd.]

All you need to do is just follow the instructions of the thread (Updated Build 5/9/16) Medieval Kingdoms Total War: First Build Release .

Here they are again:

Install Instructions:
1. Download the mod to the following directory: Steam/steammaps/common/Total War Atilla/data
2. Extract the .rar to the same folder. The medieval kingdoms.pack should be in the same folder with the other pack files there.
3. Upon launching the game, make sure you enable out of date mods and select medieval kingdoms.

[BrafianBlackFyre]

Ltd, sorry for me being an utter noob. But how do I check if the patch has worked.

[BrafianBlackFyre]

Also I did that, but it said the same files were already in the data file, so I deleted them and put in the file I downloaded from you. was this right?

[Ltd.]

Well, if you are able to load the mod then that is a good indication already, provided you did download the mod again and replaced the old one in the data folder with this one.

So just replace the old one with this current one and you should be good !

[BrafianBlackFyre]

Ok its working now thank you Ltd