Dear player - programmer,
The Arthurian Mod should have been brilliant, and in many respects, it is. However, the AI and economics have been tampered with by a child that only wants to fight battles.
So, for almost all factions, it is impossible to win.
I managed to get Victory condition for Letau after more than 120 moves, but that was it. I did not play any easy factions but did play some competing other factions later on myself, that use to score very high in my plays. But even then, it became impossible to win.
In short, to play a real strategy game in this Mod, I advise to play Letau or play a different mod.
Whatever you do, you tend to run into massive negative budgets, preventing you from doing anything else but fight battles. However, the battles count for nothing as the rule in this mod is that cities won, do not add to but (initially) subtract from your already negative budget. This makes for getting deeper and deeper in the red, even if you abandon all of your troops. If you do not kill your own troops, you run into negative budgets of over 200.000 gold very quickly. And when you finally, after countless boring moves, manage to get into profits, is goes with 2.000's meaning it would take another 100 moves before you get into the black again and could start building up your kingdom. But before that happens, you have been crushed or you have killed off everybody. And that is no fun.
Anyway, in this set-up of the AI and economics, it becomes impossible to develop cities or to recruit, and even your diplomacy is severely hampered as there is nothing you can bargain with. So all of the strategy has been taken out of the strategy game of RTW BI Arthurian.
(This is typical behaviour for a monomanic or teenager, which is why I think it must be a child that has tampered with this mod. A teenager is a child because he behaves and thinks like a monomanic child while, at the same time, he thinks he is sensible and smart, all the time trying to find an identity for himself because he thinks that is part of being a grown-up. Little does he know. Of course, his parents "don't understand and know nothing". Sounds familiar? I was like that, too, unfortunately. Most difficult period in life.)
The child that tampered with this wonderful Arthurian game has put in a compensation, a saving grace (in his eyes, that is) to wit, the occasional arrival of fresh troops from Scandinavia but they come at humonguous cost. Even deleting all of those troops will not prevent you from running into negative budgets from which you cannot redeem yourself. I managed to make profits with Englia. I dare you to do that, too. But even then it could not be won because one had to disband too many troops to do it.
So, here we have another wonderful mod spoiled by some maniacal teenager with programming skills who just wanted to fight battles.
People interested in playing games that bear some resemblance with original situations of the past, like this mod, are advised to play Europa Barbarorum, which is very difficult as well but far more fun if you play a Gallic or Germanic faction. One can manage that as a strategy & war game and so have a real war game that is winnable by being very smart and daring. It is far more fun to do than having to play battle after battle that have no bearing upon your position as a player, whatever which way you look at it and whatever the outcome. Win or lose any battle, the outcome remains the same, which is: more losses. Except for Letau, or so I found.
The battles, troops, generals, family members, have all been worked out well. Just the economics and diplomacy has been left severely wanting.
I ask an educated, creative, sensible and intelligent programmer to have look at this mod and repair it so that it becomes a real strategy game, like it was meant to, and where, of course, one can play battles, too, if one likes. I could make this mod into a really interesting game if I knew how to program this.
Success!
Lotharion
Frankfurt - Amsterdam