Machiavello TW (mid XV Century Italy) - original thread

[achilles-91]

Are barded horses planed alongside armored ones? Im not 15th century excpert so i have to ask team. Btw, beta is very good plan.

[Mylae]

Hello Achilles,

Barded horses may be used; although uncommon, we see depictions of barded horses in pre-battle scenes, usually of condottieri with fancy bardings and their retinue. Examples may be found on the illustrations of basinio basini poem.

And anyway, sorry for the long silence. Both me and francesco have been busy; i changed home, work and so on.
I might have said earlier - i plan to release a very, very early alpha version between christmas and early january. Stay tuned: updates, event packs and patches will follow.

[Elendil 03]

Amazing! I really hope you'll get to continue the magnificent work on this!

[Daminios]

Hello Achilles,And anyway, sorry for the long silence. Both me and francesco have been busy; i changed home, work and so on.
I might have said earlier - i plan to release a very, very early alpha version between christmas and early january. Stay tuned: updates, event packs and patches will follow.

Great News Milae !!
...may you settle quickly & find the time required to release this fascinating mod !
cheers

[AQUILIFIER]

I hope that you release this Masterpiece!
It will return me to the golrious days of Medievall II!

[Mylae]

Thank you for your support - fixing few problems to release a playable alpha version with lesser units and lesser scripts.

In the meantime, please enjoy this teaser...
https://skfb.ly/6FVE9



Medieval 2 Total War - Machiavello mod | Model for an Italian “Uomo d’Arme” Elite Cavalry for the Lordship of Rimini. The armour ot the horse and the knight are typical mid-1450s italian style - you may note the asymmetric pauldron design - and follow the heraldic patterns of the Malatesta family, more specifically of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, as portrayed by contemporary sources like the Hesperis of Basinio Basini. “Uomini d’Arme”, or Man-at-Arms indicates professional soldiers that fought mounted and with heavy protections, usually in the livery of their lord, and with elaborate plumes to distinguish each other.
The model is mainly a combination of work made by the mod team and some OSP pack developed for Mount & Blade Warband.

[Elendil 03]

This one blows my mind. The face actually looks like one!
Anyway, I'm glad to see a sign of life here. There are too many promising WIP mods disappearing nowadays.

[stevietheconquer]

looks great!looks like all the italian colours are their,great textures!and who can beat a knight like like?

[Mylae]

thank you - the more interest this mod sparks, the more makes mw willing to work on it.
Another preview - new working pieces of artillery (they work ingame)



Medieval 2 Total War - Machiavello mod | Model for an Italian Bombard with three piece servants.
A bombard is a XV century artillery piece made mostly of iron, that could fire either stone or iron balls. Bombards could be used either in a siege, as fixed artillery pieces, or as a mobile gun, with wheels that could be placed on a carriage. During 1450s Italian armies led by Condottieri favoured a mobile warfare, for which artillery carriages with wheels were in widespread use.
The model is mainly a combination of work made by the mod team and some OSP pack developed for Mount & Blade Warband.

[Wallachian]

Fantastic work! Does the bombard replace the vanilla one?

[Mylae]

Yes, it replaces the ugly vanilla one - and the animation works pretty well too.
I will also create "destruction" and "destroyed" version of the model, too. Final model will also likely have artillery items placed close to it - a bucket of water, felt brushes, loading scoops, chests of powder and so on, that will add to the realism of a battle scene.

Also, I am studying how to replace the vanilla giant bombard with a model that may include a hinged timber shutter, using otherwise meaningless wheel animation. Is a bit tricky though - I will not like to have a flipping hinge.

[Hellvard]

Wow, what a quality Wish I could do something like this Keep up your great job

[achilles-91]

Thank you for your support - fixing few problems to release a playable alpha version with lesser units and lesser scripts.

In the meantime, please enjoy this teaser...
https://skfb.ly/6FVE9



Medieval 2 Total War - Machiavello mod | Model for an Italian “Uomo d’Arme” Elite Cavalry for the Lordship of Rimini. The armour ot the horse and the knight are typical mid-1450s italian style - you may note the asymmetric pauldron design - and follow the heraldic patterns of the Malatesta family, more specifically of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, as portrayed by contemporary sources like the Hesperis of Basinio Basini. “Uomini d’Arme”, or Man-at-Arms indicates professional soldiers that fought mounted and with heavy protections, usually in the livery of their lord, and with elaborate plumes to distinguish each other.
The model is mainly a combination of work made by the mod team and some OSP pack developed for Mount & Blade Warband.

Looking realy great, cant wait to unite italy with those guys.
Is that reworked version of mount?

[Wallachian]

Yes, it replaces the ugly vanilla one - and the animation works pretty well too.
I will also create "destruction" and "destroyed" version of the model, too. Final model will also likely have artillery items placed close to it - a bucket of water, felt brushes, loading scoops, chests of powder and so on, that will add to the realism of a battle scene.

Also, I am studying how to replace the vanilla giant bombard with a model that may include a hinged timber shutter, using otherwise meaningless wheel animation. Is a bit tricky though - I will not like to have a flipping hinge.

That is fantastic! This mod will really revolutionize and bring to life 15th century Italy.

In terms of artillery it would be interesting to see the Grand Bombard and also some other interesting unique contraptions like the ribault.

[Mylae]

thank you everybody!
Ongoing work also for mortar bombards - did I show any preview of them here?
As you may notice, the animations and the models are made to fit as close as possible: you can spot the ramrod being stuffed in the actual bore of the cannon.

[Dead*Man*Wilson]

Well done!

[Elendil 03]

Cool! It's very interesting to see you actually rework the artillery in this early stage of your mod - will it play an important role or stay a matter of taste like in Vanilla? Will it also be useful in pitch battles?

[Mylae]

Looking realy great, cant wait to unite italy with those guys.
Is that reworked version of mount?

slightly, yes.

[Mylae]

Cool! It's very interesting to see you actually rework the artillery in this early stage of your mod - will it play an important role or stay a matter of taste like in Vanilla? Will it also be useful in pitch battles?

XV century artillery in general played ain increasingly important role: about 1410s and 1420s we have documents of "master technicians" hired to construct artillery pieces and provide ammunitions, as well as firing them in the field of battle or directing their construction; but as the need for artillery increased, so did the experiments and the different ranges, calibers and materials of the guns. Hand-guns were increasingly popular, their noise had a clear psychological impact on the battlefield (1), and some units were reported to be particularly skilled in their use, but fire weapons were generally conceived as siege artillery, both for offensive and defensive purpose, as the need to fix them on the ground was something obvious for them.
Limbers and various gun carriages were an invention of the 1430s and 1440s, well spread in the 1460s and 1470s in Italy, France and Germany: we have representations of comples limbers in the anonymous Rüst- und Feuerwerksbuch of 1450 (see > https://i.pinimg.com/originals/aa/73...d8aeb6c963.jpg ) as well as red-painted limbers with light artillery pieces for the swiss-burgundian war of 1477 in the swiss chroniclers (see > https://i.pinimg.com/originals/44/f8...aa47ac4b60.jpg ), as well as complex limbers depicted with interesting particulars in the Zeugbuch Kaisers Maximilian I, that shows how modern-looking were the limbers and artillery pieces fabricated almost en masse in the early XVI century (see > https://c8.alamy.com/comp/PNJ0YM/eig...ria-PNJ0YM.jpg ).

(1) - Machiavelli recommends in his treatise of The art of War to have mounted gunners, that could fire their weapons and quickly disperse to create fear, chaos and confusion among the enemy lines, especially the untrained ones, and that even though he was skeptical on the usefulness of large artillery on the battlefield, not sieges obviously.

[Elendil 03]

Good, so you're going to try sticking to history. But can they really be made necessary with the Medieval 2 engine?