"The Last Kingdom: Wrath of the Norsemen" -Submod! (4.5 released as of 2022-04-20)

[Mr_Nygren]

Medieval 2

Favorite submod/minor mod
1st: Stainless Steel Historical Improvement Project (SSHIP)
2nd: Divide and Conquer
3rd: Last Kingdom: Wrath of the Norsemen (v4.0) & Steve´s Submod for Ferrum Aeternum
NEW version 3.9 release uploaded of this submod!

Article:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...expansion-v-39

Download-link:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...on-submod-v-39

- Three new factions - West-Frankish Empire, Gautland and the Ui Néill.

- Two new rosters for old factions - Kingdom of Gwynedd & the Kingdom of Munster.

- New units for most factions - Denmark, Alba, the four Saxon factions.

- Updated old rosters, with changed composition of rosters for East-Frankish Empire, Vestfold and Hordaland.

- New portraits for many of the new units.
- New starting alliances and win-conditions for the Irish factions and Hordaland, for Vestfold and Alba and for the Gautland and Denmark factions.
- A few new songs for the Kingdom of Gwynedd on the strat-map - taken from the Arthurian Total war mod for Rome Total war.
- Balance for all the rosters, new and old - and the new units.
- Regional recruitment between the three Irish factions, the Viking factions with Gautland added as well as Denmark's new units and of course between the four saxons and the two Frankish Empire-factions.
- Plus additional fixes, improvements and additions.

Credits:

Version 3.9:

- Danova - For the base-mod of TLK.

- Absinthia - For the creation of new Saxon, Ui Néill and Gwynedd models - plus three of the new Albian models and four/five of the new Munster unit models.

- The War of the West-team - for the creation of the bigger part of the new Munster roster, based on their "Kingdom of the Isles"-roster - and for some basic units in use by the Albians and Saxons.

- Myself (Mr_Nygren) - For all the work on this submod, as i used the assets created by others but did all the work on updating the old TLK 3.06 into this version myself. - Coding, portraits, implementation of new units and factions, gameplay and everything else basically - such as the music-mod.

- WarcraftHero - For the Gautlandi new symbols, and for fixing a gamebreaking issue with diplomacy regarding the Gautland faction after it had been implemented.

- Jurcek1987 - For fixing the Gwynedd General model i think, as it had some issues.

- Paleologos - For providing me with his backup of the Absinthia Romano-Britton roster, after i found an old thread at TWC where he had been sent those units by Absinthia himself.

- Gigantus - For providing support.



Everything below is old:

Version 1.08 released as an update to the old 1.079 version without bothering to create a new article or add a new upload for it:

Updated july the 23, i suggest everyone to download this version when you read this - it adds the custom settlements to the mod, as i figured now that WotN has them - this mod should too! People might want to play with them instead of with vanilla settlements. So, this is now 3.08, but it doesn't have new units or new rosters - that will be 3.09 or 4.0.

Version 3.08 final release of this old upload (23 july 2017)
- all custom settlements added to the mod, and includes a few more than in WotN: The Baltic - also has all the "Barbarian/Viking" buildable buildings implemented unlike WotN where i didn't bother to include more than the viking temples and longhouses.

Download link:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...#downloadsform

Article:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...xpansion-v-307

Changelog:

- New music for all factions/cultures - mainly taken from my WotN-music-mod, from the Unofficial 4.0 patch and from DBM. But i have edited all the songs and only taken what i wanted from DBM and the Unofficial Patch. Most of their songs aren't in use. The Kingdom of Gwynedd got some extra work made on their stuff. Nothing new but the music for Gwynedd, Munster/Connach and Alba - in this release at least.

- New units for the Francs, Denmark, Hordaland and Vestfold - Denmark has gotten a few new units, the Franks got their whole roster from WotN added to their roster, Hordaland got the Norse units of WotN with the Rygjalandi elites - Vestfold got the Norse units from WotN but with Vestfolds elites.

- New Swedish units as a separate rebel faction in Swedish territories - the rebel faction is controlling all the rebels on the map, but the difference with the Swedish units is that the rebel faction can actually recruit and train Swedish and Norse units from Swedish respectively Norse regions. Rebel faction made rich so it will be able to recruit units.

- New Regional Recruitment system for specific factions - Mercia/Eastanglia/Wessex can recruit Northumbrian basic troops in their specific regional building - while Northumbria can recruit all of their old Saxon-units if Northumbria has this building. Northumbria gets the Northumbrian units from the start of course. And the others can only recruit Northumbrian elites if they hold the Northumbrian homeland and build the right building for it. Yes, the Northumbrian faction have a completely unique roster made by Absinthia for WotN - i have also fixed the Burwaran-unit and given them a mounted unit.

- There is a similiar system for the Viking-factions - if any Viking faction holds the other two factions territories they can recruit all of that factions unique troops - the Norse also has the Unification script as an alternative option. When Hordaland and Vestfold are united they also get all standing armies - but i was not sure about if they could recruit those faction-specific troops. But now they can, and therefore you as a player will have a reason to conquer the other Viking factions before going to Britain. The Swedish rebels have like five unique Swedish Viking-troops - they can all be recruitable if you conquer skara and that other Swedish settlement - and after that build the correct building. But be warned: I gave them huge garrisons to represent them being a faction of their own - Svitjod/Svea and Gautland in a mix - Gautland was conquered by Svitjod soon after anyway. And unfortunately Svitjod wasn't on the map, but Gautland was.

- Balanced all the WotN-units so that they are very well balanced based on the system in TLK - with the Real Combat-mod active. You will not have factions that are overpowered or underpowered - they are as they should be historically. While the strongest units may be the Magyar Horsemen - they are a spawning faction with no territories unlike their enemies the Franks among others - they needed to have the best units as they otherwise would stand no chance against factions with developed economies and many settlements. But they are beatable so they´re not overpowered. Makes sense that mounted troops are superior to dismounted ones - and while the Francs and Normans do have mounted knights - they don't have horse archers.

- Fixed alot of minor bugs and errors, as well as implemented the whole Unofficial Patch 4.0 manually ontop of my mod by myself - using the tool Total Commander to compare my files with Wino's - as he recommended.

- Added troops to starting positions in the descr_strat, the scripts and the rebel_factions-file - you will have more varied armies from the start - and there are many different kinds of rebels not there previously.

- Added siege engines to the campaign, and ballistas, trebuchets and catapults were already in custom battles for the Normans and the Francs. Now they are in the campaign, and in custom battle - for all factions! But there is a little trick to getting them in the game.

All the factions can build Ballistas if they build a siege-building - but only the cities starting as highly developed cities are able to build Catapults - this means they are restricted to Saxon and Frank-territories - and the only possible way to get a catapult for barbarians and Vikings will be by conquering those highly developed cities. The same rule applies to Trebuchets and Mangonels - the last which i added to the Franks. But in these cases it is even more rare to get across these siege engines - you'll need to conquer one of the big frankish cities! Saxons doesn't have the skill to create Trebuchets and Mangonels in this early era - it's a Frankish Empire-only thing. But everyone who holds one of their key-cities, such as Aachen, Paris or that third one - can create these siege engines.

I am sure i did more but this is what i remember currently right off the tip of my head - i have been working on the mod for at least four and a half full weeks (including evenings) like 17h/7- i hope you guys will enjoy it. It feels pretty complete, were it not for a few unit portraits that needs to be fixed - they are currently using placeholders.

I played it for a few hours in hotseat and it worked great - i have played it with auto-resolve in an older version from last summer for over 500 turns. But this is a new version and i haven't played one single long campaign by autoresolving. But i think it should work fine! Remember that i use the CD-version - don't ask me for help with Steam - but it should be compatible with steam also. But i only help if you are using the CD-version.

Pictures and videos coming soon - as well as a release maybe? . I started this project in april last year and sat for one week i think, then i sat for two whole weeks in the summer and later two weeks ago now, i decided to finish things. As i have been lazy for like five days i guess we could say i have worked four weeks and a half on this, and not five weeks.

Cheers , and btw - the music and the WotN-units make things sooo much more awesome! Greatly enhances the already awesome TLK-mod.

Edit Ops, did i forgot to mention that the Magyars are now playable - and they do use half the Avar-roster from EoR: Danube Limes - just like they are used in the Wrath of the Norsemen: Grand Campaign - with permission from Darius. I only used half the roster in this submod though - and it's mostly horsemen.

Too bad my video-recording program started to not work as it should - it states i haven't registered and things.. That's annoying, as it means my videos can only be 10 min long - my battle was interrupted at the end therefore.

Video of Northumbria VS Wessex - while they may win easily here, i played a battle against Mercia and they lost big time. And Mercia has the same units with the same stats.. I'll guess it depends on the computer player.



I made this submod only by myself- but there are some people who deserves both credit and mentioning:

Danova & team - For the base TLK-MOD!

Absinthia - for the WotN-units such as the Franks, the Northumbrians and the new Vikings - also a thank you to Leif Ericsson for the Vigamenn - Absinthia and Horsa were fine with me using the units, as i am also a developer on WotN currenly - and they told me that Leif would probably be more upset than happy if i didn't include his unit (the Vigamenn) also. I guess i was fine with Absinthia giving thumbs up on that one. TLK and WotN were created by different teams around the same time period - and i know about Horsa and Danova having a sharing agreement which we are playing upon in WotN: Grand Campaign.

Thanks to Heathen Storm also if you have done anything on the units.

But mostly, this was all Absinthias work and he should have credit for the bigger part of the rosters.

Thanks to Darius - for allowing me to use parts of East of Rome: Danube Limes in Wrath of the Norsemen - as this is an "expansion" in the middle of the two WotN-releases - with a clear WotN-connection - i assume this was fine as well - because i got permission for the big one. And this is the same thing but set only in Britain and smaller parts of Europe. Thanks for allowing the use.

Then i wanna thank Wino - for his advice on using Total Commander to help me add his changes on-top of my own submod - thanks man! Would have been very hard without that program.

And finally to Rhaymo, the creator of DBM - for using some of the music of his mod. Not that he ownes the music but it was still in use in his mod.

Without all of you this submod wouldn't have been possible - or at least not releaseable! I'm grateful for that.

As for the submod itself i have done all the work myself, but using parts created by those guys above - still many weeks of work on this just using what they have already created. The new music was edited by me to suit my taste - and i am very detailed in my work.

I wanna thank Derek Fiechter, an artist - for letting me use his song "Celtic Music Instrumental - Avalon" in the mod - on condition of mentioning him.

Here is a link to his Youtube and the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ivc...6Nhaw&index=22

[Mr_Nygren]

The mod has been released, as stated a couple of hours ago when i edited my first post - feel free to post anything on your mind about this mod in this thread.

Problems, what you think, how it works for you, if there are any bugs - if you like it. I'd love to read it.

But i'd think it's pretty stable and without silver surfers etc. Enjoy!

[-wino-]

Great work

BTW - this submod works with 3.06 version or unofficial 4.0?

[Mr_Nygren]

Great work

BTW - this submod works with 3.06 version or unofficial 4.0?

It is stand-alone, but based on 3.06 with the real-combat submod added since before - then i added your changes to my submod manually. It doesn't work on your mod, if added ontop of it - but it works as stand-alone and has your mod incorporated by me adding all the same changes.

[breton_knight 31]

Is the map bigger in size ??

[Mr_Nygren]

Is the map bigger in size ??

Nope, it is not - this only makes TLK better and doesn't increase the size of the map..

[phylosopher stoned]

Awesome, I always thought that TLK was hugely underated mod and is one of my favorites, nice job giving it some love and breathing more some life into it, thanks.

[Mr_Nygren]

Awesome, I always thought that TLK was hugely underated mod and is one of my favorites, nice job giving it some love and breathing more some life into it, thanks.

Thanks for your support man , yes it was hugely underrated - no problem.

I want to add something to the Kingdom of Alba, Conacht/Munster and Gwynedd also in terms of new units or possibly unique rosters - but we'll see if that can be done or not. I have asked the creator of Thera if i can borrow some units there for Alba and the Irish - but he isn't active anymore.. Guess i need to find other suitable units and get permission to use them otherwise.

As for Gwynedd i may find some suitable units as well. In TLK i was not pleased with Denmark fighting a war with Francia instead of going to Britain - i want to solve that also as Ragnars sons should invade Britain.

[Mr_Nygren]

I know there are the following bugs concerning the rebels now:

1. Ballista. 2. strat-model for german-units. 3. Captain for Sami Spearmen. - I also think maybe the other siege engines will be silver surfers for the rebels.

I am gonna fix these things, as well as fix the bow-string animation - then i could also add in the Frankish Archers from WotN who didn't work well because of animations being bugged.

Then i am working on the gameplay which i didn't really test that much before the release. I have for one, replaced the Frankish units in the "German Rebels"-stacks with actual Flemish, Lombard, German etc units. No more cavalry nor other Frankish units for them.

Also, Ireland always is conquered by one of the Irish factions and then they won't do anything - they never build ships and move to other continents.. I am going to one, add another faction on mainland Ireland - and two, make sure they can actually build ships. In Britain the "Vikings"-faction that spawns at various turns doesn't survive for long - and Hordaland/Vestfold-United Norway and Denmark never goes there..

Hordaland and Vestfold fights against one another until one becomes the dominant faction and/or United Norway is born - then nothing happens. Kingdom of Denmark fights a war against Francia conquering the whole of Francia..

I am going to fix this up also. I have already made it so that the rebels in East Frankia are tribes etc - and Denmarks starting armies are now starting in Britain. Historical correctness aside, i want the game to be historically correct - but Medieval II doesn't work like it should if they don't have a settlement in their starting locations, for example if they start in Britain without a starting settlement they will just stand there and do nothing. If they spawn in their ships as in the current version they will most likely move those ships home - and help invading Frankia..

Therefore, i have given them one settlement in England and moved the Heathen army there. That way Denmark will fight to keep that one settlement as well as conquering surrounding settlements.

I am going to do the same for Hordaland in Ireland (Dublin was founded by Vikings and i think they should start with Dublin) and Vestfold in Scotland (Denmark and the Vikings-faction mostly uses the old Viking-roster - i want the WotN-armies to be present in Britain as well).

The coming patch will in other words greatly enhance the gameplay-experience as well as fix most of the bugs, if not all of them. Then in Iceland i am thinking of either replacing the rebels with the Vikings-faction - as there were no people there before the Vikings/Norse started settling there - the other option is to have Hordaland, Vikings and Vestfold fight it out. I'll see what i do - but i want Iceland to play a part too in the mod.

I am all for happy gaming over historical accuracy if that's needed for the gameplay-aspect of things. No point having Iceland ignored the entire campaign, having Ireland do nothing after it has been conquered and pretty much leaving Britain to Saxons, the Welsh and Alba - It's called the Last Kingdom because the Danes were a serious threat to the Kingdoms there. So they need to have a strong presence there - unfortunately Medieval II AI never moves there by itself though. This is going to change .

What's done today:

Siege-engine-silver surfers for rebels, strat-model silver surfers for german-units used by rebels, possibly the sami captain/general silver surfer (i have to check it in game of course), added all the animations of WotN to TLK, added the Frank Archers-unit which now uses a fully working bowstring-animation, moved the Danish starting forces as well as the scripted Heathen Army to Britain - only Ivar the Boneless and Guthrum are starting in Britain leading their two armies.

What i still need to finish up:

1. Check that all bug-fixes do work as intended.

2. Double check the map historically of what settlements the Danes coquered first in East Anglia etc and possibly re-adjust their starting positions.

3. Move the Hordaland starting forces to Ireland, as i want more action there - as well as make sure that everybody in the game can build ships. Irish factions never did move out of Ireland after it has been conquered - but i saw Connach build ships, not Munster though.

4. Possibly move Vestfolds starting forces to Scotland/Alba - as i also want their forces to play a part in the battle of Britain - the AI never moves there so they have to start at the location for them to be involved. The other alternative would be scripts but i am not that good with scripts and it is easier to just have them start there with one settlement. If they start without a settlement they won't do anything.

5. Figure out what to do with Iceland - at least the rebels will be replaced by Vikings - but i need to check the dates and such. Shouldn't be rebels there anyway.. Either it should be empty for the first Norse-faction who gets there - or it should have Viking tribes there - as the Norse who settled Iceland were expelled from mainland Norway. A possible thing would be to have Vikings, Hordaland, Vestfold and rebels spawn in each of the four settlements just for some fun gameplay - but it should play a part in the mod anyway.

[Mr_Nygren]

I am done with everything mentioned above - and i did just save my work as a backup! However, i have decided to do more - like replacing another roster and possibly try changing settlements again.

[Jolenko]

You really are a creativeguy Mr_Nygren, great work! I have played some few turns with your submod and I am pleased with your changes so far, except for the swedish accent that you gave the viking factions, didn't suite my tastes unfortunately, so I reverted them for my own taste.

But I must say that I am even more pleased with your upcoming changes that you have mentioned, it's like all of it should have been there from the start

And I also have a question, are there any plans for adding new factions into the campaign?

[Mr_Nygren]

You really are a creativeguy Mr_Nygren, great work! I have played some few turns with your submod and I am pleased with your changes so far, except for the swedish accent that you gave the viking factions, didn't suite my tastes unfortunately, so I reverted them for my own taste.

But I must say that I am even more pleased with your upcoming changes that you have mentioned, it's like all of it should have been there from the start

And I also have a question, are there any plans for adding new factions into the campaign?

Hello, thanks for your support and appreciation of the submod. Yes, i agree the Swedish voices are not very "Viking"-like on the strat-map- they also did a bad job sounding serious on the strat-map - i agree. I quite liked them in battle though, but of course Empire Total War-voices doesn't fit very well into the dark ages. It's not hard to change them back though- as it's only a matter of changing a line in the EDU now after they have been implemented in the sound-files - so you could always do as you please with those.

Yes, the changes should have been in from the start - but i wanted it released and didn't play it much before i released it. I have added a captain to Northumbria with the proper looks and am about to add the general - i will then change the textures on their shields as they are currently used as Slavic caps and geenrals with the wrong swastika-symbols on their shields - the Slavs in WotN uses swastikas and such. They will instead get the Northumbrian shield textures before a release.

Besides those guys the following has been done:

1. Frank Archers with working bowstring added to East Frankish Empire.

2. Denmark army now starts in Britain next to East Anglia.

3. Hordaland now has it's army in Ireland based in Dublin.

4. Vestfold now has two armies in Scotland in the territories which they had historically.

5. As for Iceland, i decided not to do anything - but i gave all factions but the Magyars ships - and so the Vikings will invade and settle Iceland around turn 30. The "Vikings"-faction will conquer Iceland from the rebel monks, and then the player can go there and take it from them if he/she wants to.

I am just going to fix the Northumbrian shield-textures and then it's done. I decided not to add new settlements, even though i managed to get them to show up in game - but the houses were black and i don't have the knowledge on how to make them look natural in the mod. The textures may be missing or something.

As for the new faction-roster i will add it in - but not in this update, as i need to remove units from the game-files in order to make room for those new units. Such things may or may not cause instabiliy and crashes. Therefore i do that after i have uploaded the fully working update with the other fixes and changes.

I will do the new roster for one of the Irish-factions (they are both exactly the same which i don't like) after i am done uploading the update with the other changes. Kursi/Prusi was originally meant as Muma/Munster according to Absinthia, the creator of those units. I will replace one of the rosters with those guys and balance them. They actually do look like Irish units and Gall'Ghaidheil Vikings.

[Mr_Nygren]

After like two days of work i have finally added custom settlements to the campaign. Unfortunately i couldn't test the higher levels out in the campaign - as there are only villages, towns, some large towns and like six cities around.

There will be no castles etc in the mod, but at least there will be cities up to huge city-level. Unfortunately i don't have much knowledge in building-structures and how to change a city to a large city etc. It's easy from village to something else - but i never can enter the campaign if i try to change like a town into a large town. Must be the building-tree - the only way to test the settlements is to play the game otherwise.

But i do have a trainer-cheat program so i may be able to get a big population faster using it.

I still need to decide on if i want custom settlements on the strat-map also - they are currently only in battle. It may mess up pathways and things and i haven't done it before.. I am going to try but save a backup if i mess up. In the worst case scenario i won't add any custom settlements on the strat-map - but they will still be unique in battles.

When done with that i also need to replace the Muma/Munster roster with the WotN Kursi/Prusi roster as mentioned before - then balance them and add them to the descr_strat, rebel_factions and the EDB-file. In the EDB i will need to add them as regional recruitment-units for Connach - and vice versa, if they conquer each other.

When all that is done i just need to playtest the mod and then fix possible mistakes - after that we'll have a new update!

Then i need to move my focus to the Game of Thrones MOD for awhile - as well as possibly finishing up my Warhammer submod.. I also do plan to release a proper version of Wrath of the Norsemen: The Baltic Release sometime after GoT:TW. Don't know if Warhammer or WotN will come first though.. I do know that WotN: Grand Campaign will come last - but possibly before i finish the EoR beta lol.

[Mr_Nygren]

I am still working on the custom settlements - adding the techtrees of the barbarian and Roman-settlements. Eastern Frankish Empire do use Roman settlements.

It looks awesome in battle but will take some time to finish up, as there were quite a few buildings that will need to be added for each culture - i also want to add some of the buildings to others as well. As long as i can avoid CTD-bugs the next update will be awesome.

I still need to do everything on the list above after i am done with the techtrees. Tectrees are buildings which can be built and destroyed on the campaign-map - but they do show up as unique settlements in battle when built. Unfortunately Medieval II didn't include the possibility of destroying them in battle as in Rome:TW - the only bad thing.

[Mr_Nygren]

I am done with the techtrees. I did choose to not include the techtree of the Romans, as the Francs didn't get the settlements in their full glory anyway - Barbarian techtree added to russia/Viking factions. The rest didn't get techtrees because they didn't show. I am happy as long as the Vikings got them - Gwynedd and Alba were christian at this point.

I had alot of problems with one of the temples because it started CTD:ing after i removed other parts of the techtree which i thought weren't in use. It was driving me crazy until i understood what particular building that was causing the crashes - and finally found the pathway to lead towards removed other parts. I re-inserted these parts from DBM and it finally worked again.

Now i just need to find a way to check the other settlement levels in-game to make sure they work, and i also need to check the other factions that they work after they have built all their buildings.

Then after that it's still more to be done regarding the Irish-roster.

I have also fixed a bug were the Celtic Hunters didn't hold their bow correctly.

Edit:

Preview pictures of a battle at Dublin (Large Town):

[Mr_Nygren]

Version 3.079 Pre-release (3 March 2017) - (Released now - because i want a proper stable version out with all the fixes and changes made before i started adding custom settlements, in case i mess up version 3.08 of my submod. At least then i won't have to re-do everything!):

Updated 03/03-2017, i suggest everyone to download this version when you read this - it fixes all the bugs like the silver surfers, adds a few new units, changes starting positions for a few factions and makes everything more epic and challenging. More on that in the further description down below.


- Silver surfer strat-general for german unit used by rebels fixed.


- Silver surfer crews for ballista, catapult, trebuchet and mangonel used by rebels fixed.


- WotN-animations merged with TLK-animations - which means all WotN animations are now included in TLK.


- Frank Archers with working bowstring-animation added to East Frankish Empire.


- Replaced the Frankish units in the "German Rebels"-stacks with actual Flemish, Lombard, German etc units. No more cavalry nor other Frankish units for them.


- Denmark army now starts in Britain next to East Anglia.


- Hordaland now has it's army in Ireland based in Dublin.


- Vestfold now has two armies in Scotland in the territories which they had historically.


- All factions but the Magyars start out with ships - this means the Vikings will settle Iceland at around turn 30.


- Northumbrian captain and general added from WotN.


- Shield-textures for Northumbrian general changed from slavic ones used in WotN to the proper Northumbrian emblems.


- Fixed a bug were the Celtic Hunters didn't hold their bow correctly.

Article updated at:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...xpansion-v-307

Download updated today at:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-last-k...on-submod-v307

This does not include any custom settlements nor the new roster.

[Saul Tyre]

@Mr_Nygren: I have just installed TKL-WotN, I have not started a campaign yet as I would like to familiarize myself with it first(what difficulty level do you recommend?) I have to say that so far I am impressed....MIGHTILY impressed. Would you be happy for me to do a Let's Play on youtube in the near future and if so should I wait until your 3.08 submod is released or will it be savegame compatible? Thanks for this great work...rept

[Mr_Nygren]

@Mr_Nygren: I have just installed TKL-WotN, I have not started a campaign yet as I would like to familiarize myself with it first(what difficulty level do you recommend?) I have to say that so far I am impressed....MIGHTILY impressed. Would you be happy for me to do a Let's Play on youtube in the near future and if so should I wait until your 3.08 submod is released or will it be savegame compatible? Thanks for this great work...rept

Hello Saul_Tyre, thanks for your support and appreciation of my submod . I would recommend you to play at very hard/very hard - that's what i always do unless the mod creators say it's made for medium-difficulty. I like a challenge, but then again i am a veteran player - it would be no fun if it were on easy or medium. In some mods medium works fine though.

Yes, i would love to watch a let's play and has ben wondering why nobody has made a new one recently. The only ones i can find are of the old 3.06 release. It would be better to wait for 1.08 as it won't be compatible with the on-going campaigns of the current version. The settlements are pretty much added and i am 99% sure they do work for all factions with all buildings built at all levels in real time-battle. I have yet to check that it works with all levels and buildings for Alba, Gwynedd and Munster/Connach though - i'll do that this evening. I managed to upgrade settlements in the descr_strat quite easily after figuring out one shouldn't change the buildings.

But the release will not come until i have also added the new Irish roster to custom battles, balanced them and added them to each important file in the campaign. I also plan to let the Normans of Normandy recruit Norse-troops if they go back to Norway- Hordaland/Vestfold and conquer them.

When that is done i do think the release will come. But i also want something new for Alba, Gwynedd and Connacht - a few new units or such.. The problem is i don't know where to get suitable rosters as Thera isn't available - they had perfect units for Connacht and Alba in the same style actually. But i am missing the permission as the creator hasn't been available. For Gwynedd i think there may be one or two units in EoR to re-use but i have yet to look that up.

You could start a let's play on the current version though =) - but i suggest starting a new one when 1.08 arrives - because the new settlements are good for the feeling of the game.

[Saul Tyre]

You could start a let's play on the current version though =) - but i suggest starting a new one when 1.08 arrives - because the new settlements are good for the feeling of the game.

Thanks for your reply. I have 4 Let's Plays on the go at the moment and I am also extensive testing with the RTR Project team on the new RTR 8 v4.0 beta due for release early summer, so I am quite busy timewise atm. I will keep an eye out for your release and by then hopefully have a slot to showcase your mod in my own small way via my Let's Play. I don't have a large following as I am not running my channel to make money just as a hobby, but at least it will get out there early.

[Mr_Nygren]

Thanks for your reply. I have 4 Let's Plays on the go at the moment and I am also extensive testing with the RTR Project team on the new RTR 8 v4.0 beta due for release early summer, so I am quite busy timewise atm. I will keep an eye out for your release and by then hopefully have a slot to showcase your mod in my own small way via my Let's Play. I don't have a large following as I am not running my channel to make money just as a hobby, but at least it will get out there early.

Hello, what does RTR stand for? A mod for medieval 2? It's fina by me.

As for my update i have decided to change a few things regarding custom settlements - originally i was going to let the player update cities from villages to huge cities, making them change into vanilla or higher tech-settlements when they go from city to large city etc.. But i started thinking it was bad for the feeling of the mod, and that if there are no viking custom settlements for city or large city then it's better to re-use the large_town-model for both of those - as for huge city they are de-activated by the mod and i have no plan of adding them if they aren't activated from the start.

This means that while the player will be able to upgrade settlements to large_city regardless of faction - the factions settlements won't look like a proper city or large_city if they are Viking or Barbarian. They won't change in battle after large town has been reached - no stone walls etc. They will still be able to have such settlements if they conquer them from other cultures though. The Francs and Saxons have other settlements which will change for each level. And Gwynedd will start with barbarian Alba-style settlements but will be able to restore it's cities to the style of the Romans - as they were before the middle of the 400's.

This is done because i think viking-settlements should remain just that no matter the upgrade level.

As for the new rosters i did find the perfect unit for foreign gael's in the slav roster from WotN - it's a unit named "Nemci" or "Foreigners" with gaelic styled helmets etc. I just need to find a better shield texture - but they are pretty much foreign Gael's. It is possible i could base a Gwynedd roster on another faction from WotN if i manage to replace capes and gear by just changing the textures. Instead of using finnish animall-textures for capes one could use the red slavic ones - and voila - they do look like Gwynedd captains. At least they remind me of the look of the soldiers of Pendragon in Merlin 1998 which i think fit great.