Suggestions for Age of Discovery

[Firestorm89]

Hello! First of all, congratulations for this great idea! The Age of Discovery is absolutely my favourite historical era, when finally people around the world got to know each other. There were so many cultural differences, different political organisations, different military organisations, all of that was so wonderful. Now globalism is destroying it bit by bit. I wanted to post a few suggestions, maybe is too late but posting ideas doesn't kill anyone .

Considering that there are limits on the number of factions (30 + rebels) and regions (199+ seas/oceans), I think it would be better to make a good distribution of them around the map, rather than choosing the most important factions/regions at the time and so filling Europe with a lot of them, while leaving quite a few for the rest of the world. I mean that the distribution of the factions and regions has to be done thinking primarly on gameplay rather than other factors. I don't know a lot about your map (except that Australia won't have any settlement which I find a very good decision) but I will suggest you a few changes about the factions .

Please allow me to tell you that I agree with most of your choices regarding factions. But a few changes would be good IMO.
First of all, there are too much European factions. I suggest to discard Hungary because it got utterly destroyed in 1526 by the Ottomans. Also this faction is surraounded by HRE, Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire and leaving this area to the rebels, would grant total war between the 3 bigger factions. And a free slot to make a new faction outside Europe. Second, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were under the Kalmar union in 1518. So I suggest to bring a single faction (the Kalmar union) instead of two (Denmark and Sweden) and free another slot. You could make a script which destroys the union and replace it with Sweden while leaving strong rebel garrisons on the settlements of Denmark and Norway. So, war would be ensured in Scandinavia . Also there are other factions around that could interfere. Third, I don't understand your decision to go for the Papal States rather than another Italian state. You could make the Pope an agent belonging to the most faithful Catholic faction initially (ex: to Spain) and the rest of the Popes will be the ones choosen on the Papal elections. Instead of the Papal States you could use the Republic of Venice, or a mixed Italian faction called Italian Republics compromised by Venice, Genoa and probably Florence as well. That would be stronger that a single italian state alone. That's all regarding Europe.

Now, having two free slots, you could fill them in other continents.
My first choice would be the Mapuche tribes n Araucania (middle Chile and western Argentina). Despite not being so important they kept at bay both Inca and Spanish. They adapted European crops, weapons and horses (amongst other animals). Their leader Lautaro defeated the Spanish at several battles and Spain recognised them as an independent nation. They would be a good opponent to the Inca early on, while waiting for the Europeans to arrive.

My second choice would be the Empire of Abissynia (Ethiopia) in eastern Africa. They were an ancient kingdom, christian, and a good gameplay choice to challenge the Ottoman presence around the Nile river. Also eastern africa is pretty much empty right now, so they do have ways to expand. They also got firearms from the Portuguese.

My last suggestion regards North America. The Mayans are pretty much on trouble with the more powerful Aztecs and Spanish around. A few rebel mayan settlements with large garrisons could do the job and you can use their slot for introducing the Apache and fill the empty area of the wild west. MTW 2 Americas already has a good Apache faction with firearms and cavalry units, so there's no need to design a new faction from zero.

Please forgive me for going so long, especially after you already made the final choices regarding the factions. But they say never say never, so I'm hopeful that you might consider my suggestions.

Again, congratulations about this mod!

[doomtrooper39]

Agreed

[KmanBEAST]

Suggestions (I played with the 1.0b version and I got the other patch you put so that campaign works):

I know you said no new features for 1.0c, but these are rather fixes in my eyes rather than features (for the most part):

I have a few concerns with the mod. It does crash a lot whenever I right or left click on the campaign map, but I mean that happens in large mods like these, I'm not sure if you can fix it. Also, I don't like the fact that some musketeer units have the "very long range missiles" trait, because it makes them have as much range as most artillery. That is pretty dumb. I understand certain factions' gunner units not having as long range as some other gunner units, but making the European ones have "very long range missiles" is just very unbalanced. This is a fix more than a feature that would be added in my eyes, and I have fixed this for my own installation of your mod, but I'm sure many of the other people who got this mod would also like this to be fixed.

Another thing I think could be good to balance out is how recruitment works. Make barracks and stables where you get your units, don't allow training of units from the city wall itself. That's a feature from vanilla I'm glad they removed in most mods for Medieval 2. Use the "Ranges" buildings for factions who still use crossbows or archers (and javelinmen maybe, idk). For example, most Western European factions shouldn't have the ability to build ranges because they don't use archers or crossbows (or maybe some do, I forgot). So therefore it's pointless for them to have that building. But for a faction like the Ming who have archer units, allow several "ranges" building tiers so that they can get them from there. Allow training of cavalry from stables. I don't know what you did with elephants, but I think it would be nice to only have the Indian factions be able to recruit elephants in certain regions in India (idk if you added recruitable african elephant units in Africa). If you want to have the mercenary elephant versions available to all factions from certain regions in India or Africa, that's fine as well. But for the two Indian factions, have their special elephant units only available to them and only be trained in certain regions. Allow the barracks buildings to allow training of gunner units (muskets, hand gunners, etc), swordsmen, pikemen, and other melee or gun infantry. As I said, if a certain faction uses archers or crossbows (and I think javelinmen possibly, but idk), allow them to build the ranges buildings for that faction. This wouldn't really be "adding new features," because you already have the stables, buildings, and ranges available as buildings for most factions. All it would take is putting certain units to be available for recruitment from certain buildings. Just making the units available from the walls is easier for the player, but it ruins the point of getting military-specific buildings. So I would see the buildings thing more of as a fix than a new feature.

Morocco as a faction has no new units, it's just the Moors units from vanilla. If some new units and/or reskins could be possible (borrow from other mods (borrow from other mods with permission or something). This is not a huge issue, but looking through the unit files I can see so many unused units from vanilla. But you said you don't want to work on new features, so this Morocco issue is something you should not stress about to be honest. It's just kind of annoying to fight them on the campaign map and see Moorish vanilla units. Morocco is what's left of the Moorish empire, that is true, but it would just be cool to have some different looks or units.

Also, I read why you wanted to have factions (I'm not sure if it was just European factions or you did it for all factions) be able to recruit units from a port. That is a COOL idea. Let me explain how I think that should be implemented though. Obviously, only have the "being able to recruit from a port" option for settlements that are outside of Europe. So for example for one of Portugal's settlements in South-east Asia, they can recruit from the port like you have implemented already. However, make them REALLY hard to replenish and only have it be a max pool of 1. These musket and pike units should be HARD to replenish and recruit in settlements outside of Europe, and for the most part they should rely more on local units. I don't know if you have implemented local units into your mod (like having native units available to train in an American settlement). So as I said, have the ability to recruit the European troops like muskets and pikes if you have a port, but don't let ports in Europe train any units other than the normal boats. So in the end for this ability it's important to remember that settlements in Europe should NOT have the ability to train land units, but rather only settlements outside of Europe should be able to. If it's an inland settlement that's not in Europe, then too bad. Don't allow the training of European units from there if its inland then. It makes coastal settlements more useful for Europeans to conquer in other continents since they can build the port and get the units. And as I said, have each unit that you can recruit from that port only have a max pool of 1, AND make sure the replenishment is very slow. As I said, these units should be used wisely since they are very valuable when you are outside of Europe.

I think it would be cool to unlock certain types of buildings for all factions. Like the "Naval Academy" or the "Military Academy" for European factions and powerful eastern ones as well. Obviously if a faction like the Inca do to have the technology to build large ships ships in the first place, then don't give THAT faction the ability too. Same with Iraqoius, Aztecs, etc. They just were not known for naval warfare. But again, you said you don't want to add new features as of now. That is fine, and this is something that the player could add themselves if they are willing to take the time.

I personally removed fire_by_rank from all gun units in the mod, it just seems more balance and fun to use guns. You have pointed out with adding gun and cavalry units to Native American factions like the Aztecs and Mayans that your mod is not 100% historical accuracy, so it's fine if you remove fire by rank from all gun units. It gives guns a fighting chance against archers and crossbowmen, unlike the vanilla game. Removing fire_by_rank is not really a feature, I see it more of as a fix. Most people agree fire_by_rank is broken and should not be used in Medieval 2, so it would be something I think people would appreciate in your already amazing mod.

For settlements, I love how you didn't make everything start out as like a large or huge city just because of the time period. It is good that even European factions still start with smaller settlements like in vanilla, because it makes planning out and growing your settlements a lot more fun since you're doing it from scratch. It's much more rewarding to earn higher tier buildings and the units that come with them, rather than starting out with everything turn 1. I also love how you increased the populations in all settlements and the population requirements for upgrading a settlement. However, this is the issue. You increasing the population and the population requirements to upgrade settlements means every single settlement from turn 1 and onwards will always be decreasing in population growth. I mean it takes like 100,000 people to upgrade to a large city or something in your mod, and while that is cool, it's just for some reason the squalor is always high and the population is always decreasing. You know how in vanilla Medieval 2 if your settlement population reached the required level to upgrade to the next level of walls it would SLOW DOWN the settlement growth because you are reaching the limits of the settlement? So it would start decreasing your growth until you upgraded to the next level. Once you reached a Citadel/Huge City in vanilla, it would eventaully slow down and stop growing at ALL. In your mod, you changed the starting populations to be MUCH higher in the thousands and changed the required population to upgrade, but there are still vanilla mechanics in there that limit it. For example, in your mod I was playing as the Kingdom of Mutapa in Southern Africa. Their capital starts out as a small town with a wooden palliside wall. However, the population starts out in the high thousands. In vanilla, it usually takes 2000 people in a settlement to go from the small town with the wooden palliside wall to the "large town" with the normal wooden walls. But since you made the starting population so high, the population of that settlement is always decreasing. Why is it always decreasing? Because as I said above, your mod still uses the vanilla mechanics for settlement populations. The game thinks that the population for this small town is TOO high, and so there's lots of squalor and it's actually decreasing the population. And what does this mean? It means every single settlement in your mod will never be able to upgrade because of the high population requirements to upgrade. Luckily for the Ming faction in your mod, Beijing starts out as a huge city already, so it can't degrade and get worse...yay for them I guess? This is a rather glaring issue in the mod, because upgrading settlements is kind of important. I hope I made it clear by what I meant with the population starting out very high in all settlements leading to every single settlement in the mod always having a decreasing population. So yeah, I hope this gets fixed. I know it is fixable, because other mods have changed starting populations and the population requirements for upgrading settlements and they don't have that problem at all. The settlements in those mods don't have squalor and decreasing population for all their settlements.

A few other things I could point out that I found in the mod:

-Certain settlements for certain factions start out with the "bodyguard unit" in a settlement, but it's JUST the unit. No actual general. I'm sure you intended to put actual general CHARACTERS instead of just putting the bodyguard unit. I have seen this for both factions like Portugal and the Ottoman Empire and such.

-Lots of factions still use vanilla units like "Arqubusiers." This is fine I guess, but it does kind of ruin the immersion of the mod sometimes when using them. Same with units like the standard "Longbowmen" and "Billmen for England or the standard "Pikemen" units for France and England. You also made new bodyguards for some factions but left vanilla bodyguards (like the Muslim ones) in. I think just giving them different unit models (from other mods, you don't have to make it from scratch) and maybe different unit names would fix this and still make them feel like new units rather than old vanilla ones. This is a very minor issue, and it could be argued this is a "feature" thing more than a fix, but it did ruin it for me seeing a vanilla unit amongst all these amazing rosters.

Overall, I love this mod. It is truly amazing what you have done with this "whole world map" and that you have managed to put it in such an interesting time period. What I mentioned could honestly all be fixed on my own if I took the time and effort, and I have done some of that already. But overall I think many others would like this mod to be balanced and fun to player. Major issues like some musket units having "very long range missiles" and recruitment being very odd (some factions can get stables or ranges and they don't give any units because the walls give all the units) are something I think people would like to see fixed. I would offer my help, but I have been very busy lately and haven't even been able to play the mod for a while.

So yeah, keep doing what you're doing. It's a great mod and concept, and I love it. My criticism may seem like a lot maybe (maybe it doesn't though), but it should be known that if you TRULY love something, you are not afraid of criticizing it. And I love this mod, and that's why I am giving my criticism. Good luck with future versions of the mod!

[Macrath]

I just want this mod with the Americas removed and the remaining map expanded to add more regions/settlements to places like Europe which seem very crowded and out of place

[Marc Byzantinum]

For me .. a music mod for this mod would be great.