1205 AD on GEM

FINAL VERSION:

Updated on April 5, 2011 with version 7.0 for BTS 3.19

CHANGES:

- Added the Archduchy of Austria civ in place of the County of Toulouse civ.

- Added 1 new LeaderHead for Lithuania .

- Crusaders forces in the Holy Land have better chances to conquer and hold a city. The army includes units from the following civs (Kingdom of France, Kingdom of England, House of Hohenstaufen, Teutonic Knights, Papal State, Archduchy of Austria, Republic of Venice, Kingdom of Hungary and some scouts and spies units for the Empire of Nicaea and the Latin Empire).

- Implemented tons of significant changes, like extra cities for Scotland, Norway, Rus, Cuman Khanates.

- Improved coastal city placement (Rus have one city that can access the Baltic Sea. Paris has access to the English Channel).

- Most importantly: improved units initial placement at the game start - so that all the civs have units in the areas where major historical events are taking place (i.e. Crusades, Mongol Invasions etc) and are immediately directly affected by such conflicts.

- Updated Difficulty Coefficient taking into account all the aforementioned modifications.

In conclusion, this update makes it soo much better than what it was before ;-)

Patterns I noticed playing at Monarch:

- Castile-Leon and Portugal are usually able to complete the Reconquista and then expand in the Canarie Isles and Capo Verde.
- The House of Hohenstaufen usually has the upper hand in its struggle for the throne against the House of Welf.
- The Balkans are pure chaos as Latin Empire, Hungary, Seljuks, Bulgarians, Byzantines and Serbs clash against each other. Greek Orthodox vs Islam vs Catholics.
- The Mongols usually manage to subdue one among Kara Khitai Khanates and Western XiXia and also seriously damage Cuman Khanates, Jin Dynasty and Kiev Rus (often sacking Kiev at game start).
- The game starts with a large army of crusaders landing close to Alexandria, in Egypt (5th crusade). The crusader civs (Hungary, Papal State, House of Hohenstaufen, Kingdom of France, County of Toulouse and Kingdom of England) wreak havoc in the lands of Saladin but rarely manage to keep permanent strongholds in the Holy Land.

These patterns arent overly reliable, as changing the difficulty level prompts the AI to change its strategy. I thought they are cool though, as there is some similarity with historical events.

Have fun!

Updated Difficulty Coefficient List with 48 CIVS:

Kingdom of Castile-Leon (2 cities). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Kingdom of Portugal (2 cities). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Papal State (1 city. Rome, of course). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Archduchy of Austria (1). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Kingdom of France (6). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Holy Roman Empire: Hohenstaufen Dynasty (5). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Holy Roman Empire: Welf Dynasty (4). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Kingdom of England (5). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Kingdom of Scotland (2). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Kingdom of Bohemia (1). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Kingdom of Poland (2). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Kingdom of Denmark (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Kingdom of Sweden (3). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Kingdom of Norway (5). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Principalities of Rus (6). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Kingdom of Hungary (4). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Kingdom of Serbia (1). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Republic of Venice (3). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Bulgarian Empire (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Byzantine Empire/Empire of Nicea (3). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Kingdom of Georgia (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Latin Empire (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Cuman Khanates (5). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Teutonic Order (0). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Novgorod Republic (4). Difficulty Coefficient 2.

Almohads Caliphate (8). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Ayubbid Sultanate (9). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
Seljuk Turks Caliphate (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Abbasid Caliphate (2). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Khwarezmian Empire (8). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Mali Empire (2 settlers). Difficulty Coefficient 4.
Kingdom of Ethiopia (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (2). Difficulty Coefficient 3.

The Mongols (3) [Soon to become 7-8]. Difficulty Coefficient 0.
Korea (2). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
China: Song Dynasty (6). Difficulty Coefficient 1.
China: Jin Dynasty (5). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Japanese Empire (4). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Kara-Khitai Khanate (4) Difficulty Coefficient 4.

Delhi Sultanate (4). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Hindu States (5). Difficulty Coefficient 2.
Chola Empire (3). Difficulty Coefficient 3.
Khmer Empire (3). Difficulty Coefficient 2.

Inca Empire (1). Difficulty Coefficient 4.
Maya (2). Difficulty Coefficient 4.
Aztec Empire (2 settlers). Difficulty Coefficient 4.

SCENARIO INFO & BASIC MODIFICATIONS

- This Mod runs with BTS Patch 3.19 and with GEM.

- It uses all the standard GEM modifications implemented by Genghis Kai with gem 5.0 (Naval units have 1 extra move as well as land unit that travel on roads, water tiles generate more food etc. See the sticky for detailed breakdown).

- Keshiks have strength 8.

- Cataphracts have strength 11.

- Taoist religion has been removed and the Christian Orthodox added.

STANDING ARMIES AT GAME START (does not include fleets, explorers-scouts, workers or settlers but only martial-offensive units):

- Castile-Leon: 18 Units
- Portugal: 14 Units
- Latin Empire: 23 Units
- Toulouse: 12 Units
- France: 20 Units
- England: 24 Units
- House of Welf: 19 Units
- House of Hohenstaufen: 30 Units
- Papal State: 17 units
- Venice: 20 Units
- Hungary: 23 Units
- Bohemia: 13 Units
- Poland: 16 Units
- Bulgaria: 18 units
- Byzantines: 31 Units
- Sweden: 24 Units
- Khmer: 14 Units
- Rus: 21 Units
- Seljuks: 25 Units
- Almohades: 17 Units
- Denmark: 17 units
- Georgia: 15 Units
- Armenia: 12 Units
- Abassid: 11 Units
- Kwarezmia: 21 Units
- Ayubidd (Saladin): 31 Units
- Ethiopia: 14 Units
- Delhi Sultanate: 14 Units
- Mongols: Over 50!
- Jin: 19 Units
- Song: 20 Units
- Hindu: 12 Units
- Cholas: 11 Units
- Korea: 12 Units
- Japan: 17 Units
- Scotland: 14 Units
- Norway: 19 Units
- Kitai: 14 Units
- Serbia: 13 Units
- Teutonic: 18 Units
- Lithuania: 17 Units
- Novgorod: 16 Units
- Mali: 14 Units
- Cuman: 21 Units
- Aztecs: 12 Units
- Maya: 10 Units
- Incas: 12 Units

Important: European civs tend to have more advanced units. Numbers are only partially indicative of the overall strength of a civ standing army. In fact the quality of the units varies a lot, for instance the Cumans have 21 units, but not very advanced, as they have several axemen and archers. The same goes for Sweden (24) - that are many - but not as good as the Papal or Hohenstaufen ones.

Just as an indication, civs that have the strongest navy at game start are: Portugal, Castile-Leon, Venice, Byzantines and England.
Right behind are Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Denmark and France.
For "strong" I intend 10 or more standing naval units.

UPDATES as of 11-30-09:

- Added the Gran Duchy of Lithuania with Yaroslav LH as Mindaugas. 11-30-09

- Reviewed Rus cities placement and implemented SOME of the GEM modifications regarding terrains/tiles/trade routes improvements. 11-30-09

- Added Holy City of Confucianism in the city of Jinan (Jin Dynasty). 11-22-09

- Strengthened Crusaders armies in the Holy Land (Papal State, Teutonic Knights and Hungary). 11-22-09

- Made Acre a city of the Minor Nations. Strengthened the Teutonic Knights's army and added units to the Crusaders in Egypt (5th Crusade). 11-24-09

Updated on February 12, 2009.

New Leader Heads:

1) Joan D'Arc LH as Joan D'Arc---> France

2) Sobieski LH as Raymond VI---> Toulouse

3) Stefan Dusan LH as Stefan Dusan---> Serbia

4) Alaric LH as Erik Knutsson---> Sweden

5) Askia LH as Mari Djata I---> Mali

6) Vlad Dracul LH as Bela IV---> Hungary

7) Casimir LH as Frederick II---> House of Hohenstaufen

8) Christian IV LH as Ottokar I---> Bohemia

9) Ivan IV Grozniy LH as Ivan the Terrible--> Rus

10) The Pope as Pope Innocent III---> Papal State

11) Sejong LH as Xiangzong---> Western Xi Xia Dynasty

12) Henry VIII LH as John of England---> England

13) Shakushain LH as Zhanzong ---> Jin Dynasty

14) Makeda LH as Thamar the Great---> Georgia

15) Basil LH as Ivan Asen II---> Bulgaria

16) Mindaugas as Boleslaw III---> Poland

Great job ! I started with Jeanne , Great !

Garret92 said:

Great job ! I started with Jeanne , Great !

Click to expand...

Many thanks.
Jeanne LH is indeed very cool, kudos to the creator

Let me know how your game goes if you ever get a chance to playtest it for a while (London shouldnt flip anymore to France mid 16th century).

In my game the Civs that usually lead are: Saladin, Holy Roman Empire, France, Venice, Almohades, Papal State but the Mongols are getting stronger the longer the game goes, as they usually have many cities.

A friend made me notice that Belgrade passed to Bulgaria only in 1230AD - and then to Hungary in 1232AD - therefore I made it a barbarian city (it passed back and forth from Byzantines, to Hungary, to Bulgaria to Serbia, quite often).

I also took the opportunity to move Sofia, Varna and Constantinople of one square, to give each city more room to grow in the packed Balkans area.

Now the Bulgarian Empire has 2 cities, but can still grow east (or conquer Belgrade).

Last but not least I gave an extra tech to Aragon (Compass) and Poland (Metal Casting), as especially the former was really underpowered.

I just uploaded the fix.

p.s. I'll upload screenshots soon.

I just uploaded what should be the final version - at last: version 2.2

In fact I realized I made a major mistake: the Normans control in southern Italy ended in 1196AD when the Kingdom of Sicily passed to the Holy Roman Emperor (the young Frederick II with Philip of Swabia as his protector)

I found myself with a big dilemma: allow a HRE with 9 cities?
It would have meant to badly unbalance the game.

Therefore - after a brief research - I went back to my original idea and split the HRE in two parts, reproducing the 13th century wars between the House of Hohenstaufen of Emperor Frederick II/Philip of Swabia and the Welf Dynasty of Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick.

As a matter of fact during the 13th century at least 30 years were spent with the Empire ravaged by wars that saw two emperors facing each other for absolute supremacy.
Often with the pope excommunicating one emperor, just to switch side and lift the ban in a second time.

In conclusion, Frederick II is a great choice as a HR Emperor, also because after winning the war and being crowned emperor he spent more time at his court in Palermo, than in Germany.
An unusual case indeed.

In game terms, the Hohenstaufen dynasty is slightly stronger than the Welf one (5 cities vs 4) and is allied with Bohemia against Otto IV.
It should come out on top.
It will also revitalize Europe, that in game terms was very quiet, now that the every civs share the same religion (ergo no wars).
Unfortunately add an orthodox religion is something that still elude my modder skills

In conclusion I believe I'm finally done with tweaking the mod.
If I manage I'll address the diplomacy initial greeting issue, but, beside that, this is the final version (2.2)

Of course I always have an ear ready to listen to suggestions and feedback.

Thanks for breaking the wall of the 100 downloads!

Traiano said:

I just uploaded what should be the final version - at last: version 2.2

In fact I realized I made a major mistake: the Normans control in southern Italy ended in 1196AD when the Kingdom of Sicily passed to the Holy Roman Emperor (the young Frederick II with Philip of Swabia as his protector)

I found myself with a big dilemma: allow a HRE with 9 cities?
It would have meant to badly unbalance the game.

Therefore - after a brief research - I went back to my original idea and split the HRE in two parts, reproducing the 13th century wars between the House of Hohenstaufen of Emperor Frederick II/Philip of Swabia and the Welf Dynasty of Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick.

As a matter of fact during the 13th century at least 30 years were spent with the Empire ravaged by wars that saw two emperors facing each other for absolute supremacy.
Often with the pope excommunicating one emperor, just to switch side and lift the ban in a second time.

In conclusion, Frederick II is a great choice as a HR Emperor, also because after winning the war and being crowned emperor he spent more time at his court in Palermo, than in Germany.
An unusual case indeed.

Click to expand...

Wow! You've been busy while I wasn't looking...

About HRE/Kingdom o/t Two Sicilies: I like your solution. The HRE was more of a fought over prize than a powerhouse. (And Central and Southern Italy were never incorporated into the HRE: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell to the Hohenstaufen dynasty, not the Empire. Such a thing happened frequently and made the HRE borders quite artificial.)

I'd be interested if you can solve the LH/1st contact issue - I have a similar problem with that in MOO2Civ (Patch4).

Anyway, downloading now.

EDIT: (Forgot to mention, but) You can also edit the Attitudes of civs to counteract their sharing a religion (though even a Furious attitude doesn't guarantee war).

JEELEN said:

Wow! You've been busy while I wasn't looking...

About HRE/Kingdom o/t Two Sicilies: I like your solution. The HRE was more of a fought over prize than a powerhouse. (And Central and Southern Italy were never incorporated into the HRE: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell to the Hohenstaufen dynasty, not the Empire. Such a thing happened frequently and made the HRE borders quite artificial.)

I'd be interested if you can solve the LH/1st contact issue - I have a similar problem with that in MOO2Civ (Patch4).

Anyway, downloading now.

EDIT: (Forgot to mention, but) You can also edit the Attitudes of civs to counteract their sharing a religion (though even a Furious attitude doesn't guarantee war).

Click to expand...

re: HRE
I agree.
The HRE was never that strong, considering how fragmented it was (7 Great Electors,7 Provinces), therefore I felt it was a good idea to split it.
If the Hohenstaufen win and Otto IV capitulate, even better, it is the closest possible solution to what happened in reality.
Because we know well that starting the game with 9 major cities in central europe, very likely means game hegemony.
This way we should get a good balance in between historical realism and game mechanics (5 cities to House of Hohenstaufen vs 4 to House of Welf).
Plus, Bohemia has more chances, now that isnt squeezed by the uber HRE.

With regards to the diplomatic relationship so that Christian civs still dont get along too well - I have already been playing with it.
Hopefully it works: in my game it did, as the Rus declared war on Poland

I forgot to mention that in this version the Bulgarian Empire starts at war with the Latin Empire.
So, in the balkans - Venice excluded - the diplomatic relationships are very hostile.

Other things I noticed:

1) Rhodes (barbarian) usually flips to the Byzantines, that is good for their comeback. Byzantines usually end up with 3 cities around 1250 AD (Smyrna, Constantinople and Rhodes).

2) Cyprus (barbarian) tend to flip to the Seljuks.

3) Belgrade (barb) flips or is conquered by Hungary (go Vlad Dracul LH!).


One of my concerns are the resources. I havent monitored it yet, so if anybody notices major issues for any civ, just let me know.
Chapeau!

p.s. I'm going to test a trick to reduce game loading.
I want to see if removing harbors (I gave out plenty of them) really lessens the loading time, as trade routes variants dont have to be taken into account...

EDIT: in version 2.2 I also fixed the Ayubbid as a Sultanate and the Abbasid as a Caliphate, because previously I got it wrong, upside down.

Question: in anybody's game the Papal State becomes the Head of the Apostolic Palace and still declares war on the infidels with his resolutions?

Or it just offers resolutions like "stop the war against" and "pass control of x city to y civ"?

I'm trying to figure if the traits of Richelieu are too passive (Spiritual and Charismatic) so that the AI never launches a crusade.

Let me know.

Traiano said:

Stubbornly I have been trying to fix something on my mod: find a way to display the initial greeting of the new LHs that I imported.
I'm stuck on that: new LHs interact fine but do not show their first contact diplomatic-text...

Click to expand...

Do you mean that when you first meet a civ, there is no text?
Does it happen with all the leaderheads? Did you get all the new leaderheads from the same source?

ijnavy said:

Do you mean that when you first meet a civ, there is no text?
Does it happen with all the leaderheads? Did you get all the new leaderheads from the same source?

Click to expand...

Exactly, no greeting text. After that the text - perhaps a default one - comes in and everything is smooth.
You just miss the first paragraph of intro.

I noticed it happens for all the new LHs except Joan of Arc

I did get the Lhs from different sources, but all of them had the initial contact text/paragraph to be put into the diplomacy and text folder.

I presume it has to be changed somewhere else, into another xml file, to be accepted...

JEELEN said:

Wow! You've been busy while I wasn't looking...

EDIT: (Forgot to mention, but) You can also edit the Attitudes of civs to counteract their sharing a religion (though even a Furious attitude doesn't guarantee war).

Click to expand...

Jeelen, in this regard I did edit the relationships bar and wbs but I'm also now playing a bit with the <iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit>7</iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit> xml.

This way I can address the issue at its root.

As a matter of fact - considering I wont be able to add an Orthodox Religion (it seems way too complicated and there is no good tutorial on the forum) - I'm going to lower the attitude change limit of the Christian Leaders (only).

Therefore they wont get more than +3 for sharing the same religion and inter-Christian civ wars would still be a possibility.

At the moment, at the beginning of the game, several leaders have the religionchangelimit set to +6-7, that usually means they start with a +3, add on top a +2/+3 for sharing war and same civic(additional+2) and voila': you have easily a +8 modifier= pleased or even friendly relationship that can quickly improve even further.

This doesnt help to portrait the fact that infighting among christian countries was very high.
It also completely disregard the fact the Byzantines, Rus, Bulgaria and Georgia should be Orthodox, therefore a somehow "different" religion for game mechanics.

I'm playing with it a little bit. I'll see what happens.
I'd like to exacerbate diplomatic relationship among the christians and provide more historical clashes.

I also edited Richelieu starting attitude: I want to see if making him a more bitter fellow is going to increase chances of launching a crusade, once he becomes leader of the apostolic palace

Traiano said:

(...)the Byzantines, Rus, Bulgaria and Georgia should be Orthodox, therefore a somehow "different" religion for game mechanics.

Click to expand...

(I'm just commenting on this little bit, as the rest sounds good: ) Someone used Taoism for Orthodox religion - but didn't change the icon, which kind of looked weird. Perhaps that could work (instead of adding a religion)?

JEELEN said:

(I'm just commenting on this little bit, as the rest sounds good Someone used Taoism for Orthodox religion - but didn't change the icon, which kind of looked weird. Perhaps that could work (instead of adding a religion)?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I contemplated that possibility but I dismissed it quickly.
I really dont like the idea of seeing Taoist temples in place of Orthodox ones, and the same for the icon.
It simply kills the spirit of the medieval game.

I rather play with the relationships bar and manually handle that.

Traiano said:

Question: in anybody's game the Papal State becomes the Head of the Apostolic Palace and still declares war on the infidels with his resolutions?

Or it just offers resolutions like "stop the war against" and "pass control of x city to y civ"?

Click to expand...

I'm in 1887 and the Papal State had never declared war on infidels, most of time he wants to "stop war against x", and suddenly in 1827 he attacked me !

I play with France with the first version (Pape is Innocent III)

Garret92 said:

I'm in 1887 and the Papal State had never declared war on infidels, most of time he wants to "stop war against x", and suddenly in 1827 he attacked me !

I play with France with the first version (Pape is Innocent III)

Click to expand...

Let me understand...the Papal State starts at war with Seljuks and Ayyubids however as Head of the Apostolic Palace he never declared war/crusade/resolution against any of these Islam civs?
Instead he attacked you in late 19th century.

Per se I like that: it means the christian civs can attack each other.
However I agree, we really need to have the leader of the Apostolic Palace declare war against the infidels.

I'll try to address that.
I have been playing with the relationship bars/divisor, trying to exacerbate the relationships among the christian civs (FYI the Richelieu LH now shares some attitude scores of Alexander, ergo is more aggressive: he cares less if you share the religion and also if you are at war on the same side).

Soon I'll upload a new version with different diplomatic relationships.

However, FYI, I made the Papal State more aggressive, worsening ALSO his relationship with House of Welf, England and France, due to the excommunications of early 13th centuries.

We must find a way to have the Pope to behave like an aggressive fanatic!

That said, The NavySeal might help me to fix the first contact diplomatic bug.
I look forward to hearing back from him.

And if I ever learn the basics of python maybe I'll be able to trigger pre-planned events for the game: like a Crusade or the Mongol Horde attack.
I do not think it is very easy, but I'm looking into it.
That would be a dream.