North Atlantic Archipelago Mod/Scenario Underway

Gael has kindly allowed me to take over the development of the mod idea he started under this name. It will incorporate all of the leaderheads made by gael and converted by pdescobar - great work guys .

Some details:
The Civs are split over 4 culture groups as follows:
BRITISH: Pictavia; Strathclyde; Lothian; Gwynedd; Powys; Rheged; Dumnonia; Dyfed
GAELS: Dalriadans; Munster; Leinster; Connaught; Ulster; Mide
ENGLISH: Saxon States; Mercia; Northumbria; East Anglia;
Kent
EUROPEANS: Denmark; Norway; Francia; Jutland; Frisia

There's going to be heaps of new unique and flavour units (full credit will be given to the creators):
Frank; Hill Fighter; Raider; Rover; Painted Warrior; Fianna; Berserker; Horseman.
Peasant Militia; Fyrdman; Viking Bondi; Huscarl; Ulfhednar;
Royal Bodyguard; Clan Warrior; Mercenaries; Jomsviking; Wild Galwegians; Sherwood Archers.
Man at Arms; Galloglass; Mailed Knight; Chevalier; Armoured Horseman; Heavy Knight; Noble Horseman; Pike; Welsh Bowman; Longbowman; Crossbowman; Boiling Oil; Trebuchet; Viking Longboat.

I have lots of comments.
I don't like the name of the scenario. I understand the political reasons for it (i e not calling Ireland british), but a archipelago is thousands of small islands (as we have outside Stockholm), not two great blobs surrounded by some (in comparison) tiny islets. Feel free to ignore me in this though.

Why do you include greek fire? You're not gonna add the Byzantines to the scenario, are you? They where the only ones who knew how to make greek fire (the receipt is still lost).
The map of Norway have way too much grassland. You might want to keep it for scenario reasons, but realisticaly there should be about twenty grassland tiles in the whole of Norway, most at present-day Oslo.
Denmark has maybe too many hills, and too much iron, but if this is for scenario reasons I won't grumble too much. France looks very flat and boring.

I'd like to play this and maybe learn something about North Atlantic Archipelagian history, so I hope you include a nice, fat civilopedia. I have no idea what's the difference between Leinster and Connaught.

And I hope you won't forsake Magnamund for this.

Edit: And it's called Berserker, not Berseker.

I have lots of comments.
I don't like the name of the scenario... a archipelago is thousands of small islands (as we have outside Stockholm), not two great blobs surrounded by some (in comparison) tiny islets...

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Well the name stands, for now at least, besides North Atlantic blobs doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe someone can suggest a better name.

Why do you include greek fire?

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Ok, you have me on that one. I thought it was a nice addition for gameplay reasons albeit historically inaccurate. I may remove it based on the consensus of opinion - maybe boiling tar or oil would be more acceptable and work in the same way(?) What do others think?

The map of Norway have way too much grassland...
Denmark has maybe too many hills, and too much iron... France looks very flat and boring...

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Thanks, I may have a different, more accurate map soon. For Norway do I replace the grassland with mountains & hills? I'll reduce the amount of iron if that's more accurate.

..I hope you include a nice, fat civilopedia...

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of course

I hope you won't forsake Magnamund for this.

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Don't worry. I promsied to do the diplomacy for you and I will. How is your mod coming along anyway - I'm looking fwd to it.

I had a quick look at the map in the editor, it looks good, but Demark is an island, is it supposed to like that?
I would'nt get to particular about terrian accuracy, you want the Vikings to be strong and be a threat. Mountains and tundra everywere will kill them off.
I've got a deadly hang over at the moment, so I'll give you more ideas/comments later.
Heres some more leaderhead graphics, but you'll have to get someone to convert them for you.

Frank/Norman Kingdom:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Norman.zip

Welsh Kingdom A.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Gwynedd.zip

Welsh Kingdom B:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Deheubarth.zip

I was going to add Meath (Mide) as another Kingdom in Ireland, a sort of religious center with its capital at Tara. Not historically correct, but conquering Tara as an Irish leader would give you access to a stronger Unit over the other Irish civs. It was just an idea. Anyway, I never finished the graphics for it, but it was supposed to go from a druid to monk to preist.
The other one is a half finished Irish leader.

This is just a preview of what they look like.

As for leaderheads, this is what I have:
Finished are Dal-Riada, Pict, Powys, Strathclyde, and Wessex
Posted in the old thread were Connaught, Dumnonia, Leinster, and Ulster
Posted here are Norman, Gwynedd and Deheubarth

Did I miss any? Now that this is going again, I'll work on converting the rest.

Originally posted by gael
I had a quick look at the map in the editor, it looks good, but Demark is an island, is it supposed to like that?
I would'nt get to particular about terrian accuracy, you want the Vikings to be strong and be a threat. Mountains and tundra everywere will kill them off.
I've got a deadly hang over at the moment, so I'll give you more ideas/comments later.
Heres some more leaderhead graphics, but you'll have to get someone to convert them for you.

Frank/Norman Kingdom:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Norman.zip

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Those leaderheads are super. I'll need all of them so that will keep pdescobar busy.

About Denmark that was the only way I could fit it into the map
- everything needs shifted to the left so I can get more of Europe in but that requires redoing the whole map which is too huge and tedious a task for me right now.

I'll probably scale down the grassland in Norway a bit -they should still be a threat with those berserkers and they'll be able to travel the seas before anyone else in their longboats - I'll playtest to make sure the AI can play them as a real threat. Hope tha hangover clears up soon -you'll be glad to know pubs and beer will feature in this mod

Here's an update to the tech trees and unit abilities. Comments please.

Any suggestions for more dark age techs would be nice.

Also suggestions for some Frankish/Norwegian/Danish type wonders would be nice.

Originally posted by pdescobar
As for leaderheads, this is what I have:
Finished are Dal-Riada, Pict, Powys, Strathclyde, and Wessex
Posted in the old thread were Connaught, Dumnonia, Leinster, and Ulster
Posted here are Norman, Gwynedd and Deheubarth

Did I miss any? Now that this is going again, I'll work on converting the rest.

Click to expand...

I don't think you've missed any. Thanks again for converting these leaderheads it's very much appreciated.

Originally posted by gael
I was going to add Meath (Mide) as another Kingdom in Ireland, a sort of religious center with its capital at Tara. Not historically correct, but conquering Tara as an Irish leader would give you access to a stronger Unit over the other Irish civs. It was just an idea. Anyway, I never finished the graphics for it, but it was supposed to go from a druid to monk to preist.
The other one is a half finished Irish leader.
This is just a preview of what they look like.

Click to expand...

Mini goals like that will be included. I'm thinking of setting victory points at the locations of all of the modern day capitals (Cardiff, Dublin, London, Edinburgh)? Heck, I don't want this to get too uk centric so if anyone has ideas like those that apply to the other civs in the scenario please let me hear them.

I was thinking about putting in a small wonder available for all civs to build called 'Imperial ambition'. It would give barracks to all cities and allow armies to be created in the city its built. I'd have it pretty early on, maybe late darkage.

I'd have early boats carry at least 10 units, the viking long boat more. The AI never invades, it only drops in for a skirmish with one boat and a few units. Maxing the unit-per-boat might incourage proper invasions.

I'd try to incorperate mercinaries into the game. Having 'contract' resources that allow the building of certain units to civs would make mercinaries and allances important for civs that have weaker units.

I'd make the English civs stronger during the middle ages with knights but the frankish/norman civ have an even stronger knight.
Make all wheeled and horse units unable to cross mountians and some of the celtic units all terrian with maybe stronger movement stats, high attack/low defence to simulate hit and run tactics from the mountains.
I'd change terrian around scotland,wales and Ireland so that control of certain path ways become important stratigic objectives.
Ex. The 'gap of the North' was an important pass through mountains into Ulster from the south.
It would make sea invasions more important for certain areas aswell.

Are you going to bring the ages into modern? I think you should take it into the Industral age at least.
Maybe dark ages, early medieval, late medieval, Industral.

For the diplomacy tec I'd add militiary alliances to right of passage.
Alliances were constantly be made and broken from early history, I don't see why you should have to wait.

The map looks great, but I messed about with it and tucked Denmark in a bit to make it a little tidier.. Its pretty rough and needs resourse and all the rest added. See what you think.
I also added the corner of iceland on the far left. You could stick some Irish monks as barbarians on it and have some resources on it that would make ocean crossing worth while.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Demark.zip

gael, that's a lot of great suggestions.

1. I'm not too sure about the 'imperial ambition' as I want to keep the building of veterans till the middle ages with the tech military training. This way militaristic civs (most of the English and also the Vikings) have an added bonus as getting veteran (and elite)units will now be a matter of succesful battles.

2. Have you play tested with 10 units per boat? My first reaction was this would be a great idea - it would make it imperative to build a navy to sink the boats before they got near your land and provide a real threat of invasion. However, I think 10 might be too much - I think it might dispel the advantages given to civs with the 'build naval units often' tag- I think the AI would churn out more boats than it would ever need. Still it's a great idea and I'll test it out.

3. Mercenaries are a good idea too. I've given the Irish the galloglass unit already which is resource free but slightly more costly. I hadn't thought of contract resources but that's a good idea which I'll incorporate.

4. The English will be offensively stronger all round in both the dark and middle ages - the get the stronger Raider unit against the British equivalent infantry; in the middle ages they get a killer punch with heavy knights and longbowmen (with a bombard range of one- don't know if the AI will use this though). British all round will be the weakest but generally they will have faster, more defensive and more skirmishing type units than anyone else). Again it's something that will need to be playtested for balance. The Franks will get powerful Frankish Cavalry which is their UU coming with Chivalry. All horse units are already wheeled and mountains will be impassable. Scots and Welsh types have got a couple of guerilla type units in the claymore warrior (move 2 + ignore hills) and the Welsh Longbow (defensive bombard and Zone of Control). Everyone will have skirmishing type units (Archer, Axeman and Javelin) which is represented by the zone of control ability (these also get a defensive bombard).

5. Terrain for strategic objectives is a good idea which I can tweak with Mountains, Ocean or Sea squares. Vikings will have longboats which can travel in sea squares before anyone else.

6. Definitely I'm going to bring things up to the modern age as want to allow people to play out what if scenarios. I may just keep the industrial and modern ages as they are.

7. Diplomacy should already have military alliance - I'll need to check to makes sure but I agree with you it should come early.

8. I'm at work so I'll check out the map tonight, thanks. Have you or could you put the faroe islands in as well? Monks replace the scout unit in this game and they have a small attack and defence to 'convert' barbarian camps. I've done a bit of reading on those Irish monks and they did actually get around quite a bit.

I didn't put the faroe islands in, I hardly changed anything but Denmark, I'll leave that up to you.
Norway and france look great and the the original Britian and Ireland can't be made any better. (France needs some terrian extras, but I'm sure you'll get round to that when you need to).

My only other suggestion at moment would be to really pack up the middle ages tec tree to make it last longer and more interesting.

I wonder if you could incorperate the English civil war into it somehow. I never really gave this any thought so all I can think of is maybe giving the northern English civs royalist type units and the southern roundheads types. (Might give the English players more insentive to unite the country). Its a pretty weak idea though, just a thought.

Heres some terrian extras taken from yoda powers medieval europe mod. It replaces jungle with swamp/marsh, (good for more unit blocks and terrian strategy), thinner roads and better mines.
All you need to do is place this folder as it is in your main scenerio folder. I don't who made them but they look good, especially the swamp.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Terrain1.zip

thanks for redoing Denmark gael - it's now more realistic but it makes me want to redo the whole map so I can fit all of Denmark in - as it stands I can't place their capital on the map.

I might redo the map if I feel really motivated and have plenty of spare time (neither of which is true at the moment). The map and terrain were my last priority hence the featureless France.

First priority was civs, units, resources, starting locations and techs.

I've developed gael's idea for mercenaries. Here's what I propose

A tech in the dark ages called "Mercenaries" (comes after currency) makes a resource called "Mercenary Contracts" visible on the map. Each civ will have at least 1 of these resources (militaristic civs will have 2) under or around their starting location. The resource is specific to the civ at that starting location, for example, Paris has the resource "Frankish Mercenary contract" that allows building of the "Dark Age Frankish Mercenary". There's an upgrade path so later you will be able to build the "Mid Age Frankish Mercenary" etc, etc.

The mercenary units themselves will be a flavour unit for that civ.
They will be resource free, have good stats and + 1 HP bonus. On the downside they will be very expensive. A civ won't be able to build its own mercenary but they can trade to get another civs mercenary contract resource.

In the middle ages there will be a new tech called "Free Companies". This tech will allow any civ to build a selection of resource free mercenaries such as Flemish Crossbowman, Swiss Pikeman and some others once I've done some research. Contract mercenaries from other civs will still be available though and be slightly cheaper than the Free Company mercenaries.

The big flaw in this I guess is that if another civ takes over the
starting location of an enemy they will control the mercenary contract and be able to build the mercenaries from it automatically. I think this is acceptable and any benefit can be offset by the higher build cost.

I think you should just keep the mercinaries within the civs in the mod, ex, welsh bows in wales, english pikes in england, galloglasses in scotland, Frankish crossbows in france, Viking berserkers.. etc. Many of the wars in this Area had galloglass against galloglass, viking against viking etc mercinaries. There was a lot of 'conflicting interests'.
The "Free Companies" tec will open up other more expensive mercinaries to everyone.
I think a civ that takes control of land that has mercenaries for hire would automatically use the natives as army platoons. It seems more realistic than a flaw to me.

How will you differentiate unit contracts on the map? I was messing around with a contract resourse icon, it was just a small scroll, but maybe mini units would make is easier to understand whats on offer.

About the map, the biggist concentration of civs are on Britian and Ireland and you did a great job with Norway. Its seems like a waste to redo it all just to get Denmarks capital in the right place. If anything, I would just move Denmark out a little and maybe shrink its scale to accuracy if its that important.

I was going to go with scroll type icons too that would be civ coloured to differentiate them. Mini units would be better - I'll try using the images from the unit pcx. I may redo the map for our Danish friends if they'd like to see it.

Are you in the mood for doing anymore leaderheads? I need one for Harald Harfager. He made a vow to not clip or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of Norway. It took him 10 years after which he got his hair washed and dressed and earned the name "Fine Hair". You could having him looking rough and matted in the dark ages and fine-haired in the middle ages and thereafter. Go all out on braiding and silkiness ("the just stepped out of a salon look") for the fine haired look and maybe when he's angry the hair could frizz up a little or go curly