New DLC: Age of Charlemagne

[Ciruelo]

sorry , but to fight the plagues which building I build ? eg ATW build fountains , but AoC are not there, then ?

Muslims have one building that can only be built in the province's capital but affect to the province and all the provinces around it. I don't know how it works with other factions.

[You_Guess_Who]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh man, I just completed the Cordoba minor victory and that end video is just so epic! Have to say, they nailed it

Ohohohoh, love dem TW derp horses - This is as great as the dying horse in Shogun 2's loading screen.

[Captain Arrrgh!]

Ohohohoh, love dem TW derp horses - This is as great as the dying horse in Shogun 2's loading screen.

Japanese period and cultural art styles.

What is it with some people here making comments on the artistic direction? CA has always been very close to the mark on art theme, balancing consumer base with historicity. The exception being FotS, where some the in-house art was terrible.

[You_Guess_Who]

What is it with some people here making comments on the artistic direction? CA has always been very close to the mark on art theme, balancing consumer base with historicity. The exception being FotS, where some the in-house art was terrible.

FYI, I Love the derp horses, unlike the other guy. That statement is genuine, not a sarcasm.

And by that, of course I'm referring to this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Agreed on all counts - It was how they made the art at the time - This is why I prefer manuscript cards over realistic cards for MKTW mod, for instance (even if the realistic cards are simply great, manuscript style sare more immersive. The FoTS painting art were terrible though.

[Captain Arrrgh!]

I see, thank you for the clarification. I knew which picture you were referencing and posted a similar one to show that horses with crazed expressions were commonplace. Agreed that manuscript is preferable.

[Arimahn]

It seems like they tweaked the area of effect for debuff arrows (fire, whistling) so you can use them without debuffing your entire army as well.

e: Oh CA...

[Renown]

They almost never fought on horse in melee, but used it to throw javelins (the Normans form France did that too). But Scandinavian raiders usually brought ponies with them and rode on horse to move quicker. They dismounted to fight though. Now in the game, this is not reflected and the 0 cavalry policy is a real issue here. Just think about hurlers/archers in skirmish mode from the AI, they will just run away and shoot you while you run with your heavy nordic infantry trying to catch them? This is not serious gameplay wide.

The Danes (and other associated viking tribes) never used horses en masse in combat. They NEVER did this. There was no such thing as a coordinated cavalry charge. While Javelins were used in isolated incidents, we never have any indication that they were used tactically, it was all happenstance.

The whole couched lance issue is a joke too, while there is evidence of the stirrup being used in the West as early as 600, there is little indication that it was ever used by western dynasties in mass combat until much after Charlemange (around 900). Charlemange even attempted to modernize troop equipment for knights, but ended up creating a very faulty system that nearly destroyed his military power (reduced the field armies he could maintain by trying to recruit more heavily armored knights, ended up bankrupting a large portion of his empire until reutilizing his ideas to form the basic tenants of feudalism.)

Horsepower was still something that was mainly a force used by eastern tribes, and realms. It doesn't become this 'westernized heavy knight' ideal until late in the 900's, and really early 1000's.

In England for example, horses weren't used in mass combat either at this point, and aren't used that way until 200 years AFTER the time period introduced here.

*Mass combat refers to the idea of large TRAINED cavalry units being used in conjunction with infantry tactics, this does not refer to small/individual units.

The introduction and development, and utilization of the stirrup is fascinating. It was clearly a huge improvement over "no stirrup", but it's utilization was limited by three factors. A) cost, b) development, c) tradition. The knowledge and technology of how to create stirrups was limited to Asia for nearly four hundred years, after it's initial introduction in the West it took nearly an additional 300 years before it was adopted in the West, though some lords recognized it's value dealing with the three above factors took a lot of time, specifically... Cost and Tradition. So you know how to make a stirrup do you? That's great, but it costs a lot to equip a stirrup mounted knight because stirrups fundamentally changed the nature of how you equipped your knight. What sort of armor they wore, what sort of equipment they set up their horse with, what sort of weapon they use and where it's positioned. Tradition would seem to be easy to overcome, but ... people aren't always rational.

It was really 500 years after the initial introduction of the stirrup in the west, until it became THE form of warfare. Adapting to stirrup-based warfare is one of the most important foundations of feudalism which developed and was optimized following the centuries AFTER the introduction of the stirrup.

So while Charlemange recognized the intrinsic value of the stirrup (and really, there were few 'educated' leaders during the time period that were unaware of it) he was unable to modernize his realm to the point where he could actually equip a large portion of his forces in the manner of stirruped knights because the economic foundation simply did not exist. There was no way for him to leverage all his 'monies' in any way that was sustainable. This does not discount individual accounts of stirrups in his army, but it certainly indicates that it was not feasible to maintain such a 'cavalry' yet.

This supports the lack of cavalry for some nations, and the virtual impotence of other cavalry. Really the most important point that horses give the West at this point is travel speed, and considering the 'time gap' of each turn, that's nearly impossible to replicate. In-battle dismounting is an option, but the maps are pretty small really.

This also explains the ineffectiveness of cavalry versus "formed units", cohesion/mass means all the difference versus non-stirrup based cavalry. So if you charge your cavalry into a shield wall, expect them to die. Sword or spear matters not, it's all about cohesion. (I.e. if you use a spear unit to rush a cavalry unit, they'll also take heavy losses, but if you let the spear unit sit still...)
I'd be happy if no faction in England had horse units at this time.

[soulmate]

Taking a stab to the back from your vassal while fighting on other front(Mercia) - juicy .
Watching how he plunders your land and conquer minor cities - hurtful .
Trying to catch him after defeating your enemies - impossible... no wait, srsly. It is impossible.
He just casualy outrun me even when I try to block him with my 2 armies. Then he proceeds to plunder my city AND RUN AWAY using forced march(now....why the are you able to plunder and use stances in the same turn ?) Mind you he plundered city on my back and run away and I was still unable to catch him up. Now where the fun begins : his army of ing sprinters are at full stacks and with no provisional problems after few turns of running around and my King's forces near the ing capital are starving because of all the plunder he made. And now he turns around with full force and hit my main starved force.

I am sorry to bring it up here, but watching this hip-hop running like a ing antelope made me cringe with , at first, surprise and then with disguist for such a retarded mechanic. I can understand hit-run tactics, I can understand AI trying to hit my deep cities. But why on earth does my army have to starve and be unable to catch enemy Husein Bolt's army on my own land using my own ing roads and plundering my cities meanwhile. And i was not fckng dragging behind I was trying to block him out and he still could aford to hit my bac and run away(how much more movepoints does he posses ? thats a start of campaign no ing logistics techs)

Okay I could immerse with this in attila, since you know.... Horse raiders. But an army of barbarian ing sprinters is beyond my understanding. They just took the same broken mechanic and put it in totaly different setting with different lands.

I am sorry for all this salt, just have to say it at least to someone. Haveing great times with a campaign (husein Bolt excluded)

[waveman]

But how bout Factions actually willing to make peace? Like, even if you have -500 relations with them but you're kicking the absolute shyte outta them, or even just being a nuisance that they don't have the resources for at the moment, they will actually make peace, which contrasts starkly against the Attila WRE "go hard or go home" attitude in which they will lose almost all territory, be at war with 15+ factions, not have fought me in the last 8 years, and still won't accept the offer of a peace treaty.

On another note I recommend A Dark, Dark, Uniform Re-Color Mod, available here or on the workshop to recolor the brilliant rainbow armies of the apparently-not-so-dark-Dark-Ages

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

IIRC these are pics of the Kingdom of Charlemagne


And AoC combat improvement mod, slows it down a bit

[EmperorBatman999]

What are those polearm weapons Frankish spearmen use alongside regular spearheads? Are those meant to be early glaives?

[waveman]

I don;t know, that's what I thought/was wondering

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

I think if you read the encyclopaedia description it has the name of this particular weapon in there, I forgot already though

(Yes I read every single bit of encyclopaedia for every new unit I recruit, every building and every tech , nerdgasm )

[Huberto]

But how bout Factions actually willing to make peace? Like, even if you have -500 relations with them but you're kicking the absolute shyte outta them, or even just being a nuisance that they don't have the resources for at the moment, they will actually make peace, which contrasts starkly against the Attila WRE "go hard or go home" attitude in which they will lose almost all territory, be at war with 15+ factions, not have fought me in the last 8 years, and still won't accept the offer of a peace treaty.

Yes I know what you mean. The lunacy seems gone now with the new war weariness feature and smoother diplomacy. Its not total war, at long last.

[googi]

is it possible to mod/edit the battle maps for AoC so they are more era specific?