HUGE Medieval Patch

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Some delay here, but I'll keep you posted.

There's a GREAT medieval festival going on right now in Odense, and I'm extremely exhausted these days... Mostly from the heat and the long summer nights, than from doing my job -which is to set up speakers and manage the sound system etc.

Ptolemy, you should definitely check it out this weekend! -Det foregår ude på Engen i Fruens Bøge og slutter på søndag! -And the best part is all those lovely, adorable, pretty, amazingly beautiful women out there, all dressed medieval style... OH! -I need more!

In short, all my Civ2 work is put on hold for the moment, so no new developments right now. But keep the ideas rolling! I need more input! Keep them coming!

 

[Arthedain]

I'm curios Morten..

how's it going with the patch? planning to release it soon or have you been busy doing something else?

See you!
//Arthedain

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Yes, this one has been put on hold for some time, but by no means dropped!

I got involved with making another scenario, "The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition" -which is a quite different events/quest based scenario on another of my favourite subjects : AFRICA (check out the other thread), and I expect this scen to be done in a few weeks, perhaps more, accounting for playability issues which may arise...

Meanwhile, I haven't been doing so much research on this one, because I've been reading so much about African expeditions and making African graphics. But I'll get into this again, as soon as I go back to medieval subjects in the autumn.

My african adventure gives me the opportunity to experiment with events, which I think will be useful when it comes to building this.

I'll be back!

 

[Mojo]

Hey Morten...

Is this still on hold...
or are you working on it again?

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Unfortunately I won't have any time to work on this monster project for the next two months, because I am writing a project for my bachelor degree. BTW, it's on the Emin Pasha relief expedition... which I am also making a scen about...

So it's all Africa for two months for me. And the occasional Civ3 thing... at least for the moment. But when all the fuzz wears off, I'll pick up on this project again. I'll still have this database of ideas to go back to. Whether it'll be for civ2 or civ3 depends on the editing tools Firaxis provides for civ3. As it looks now, Civ2 is most likely, since I'll need all the scripting tools I can get. Civ3 sure shows some interesting possibilities, but they need some heavily expanding, before applicable in a scenario.

Anyway, it seems "a couple of weeks" quite easily turns into "a couple of months" But civ2 is far from dead, especially if the patches for civ3 does not come shortly.

 

[Arthedain]

So Morten...

Are you ever gonna finnish this project? :crazyeyes

 

[Xeven the God]

By Morten: What about.........................., castles, etc. How did that develop over time?

I can answer this!

The first Europeon castles go back as far as the 9th century and were built on natural (sometimes artificial) mounds. Most had CURCULAR wooden walls and moats. These castles were small and only had the bare nessecities (A small keep, a ROUND wood or stone tower, and buildings for the castle retainers).

Starting in the 12th century the castles became influenced by crusaders, and became more SQUARE. The new types of castles were bigger, made of stone, and had more towers.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

So Morten...
Are you ever gonna finnish this project?

Erm, probably yes. I'm still getting ideas for this one and I do have the map and graphics [nearly] finished. I'm still not finished with my history project, and it gets 1st priority for the time being. But I have this great database of ideas to return to when I get spare time, so it's not actually dropped. I'm also pretty interested in seeing how the editor for Civ3 develops. It might be better to do it for Civ3. Still pondering...

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Yes I must be a crazy man. I have final exams in about a month and got two written assignments to finish before that. But there you go.

The rework I've been doing for "Hammer" has taken a turn for a bit more. I am nearing completion of an expanded tech tree that covers the whole span of the time period ca 500-1500 AD, from skinboats to galleons, from spears to cannonballs, from tribal kingdoms to protestantisms.

The good news is, that the tech tree, always the hardest part for me, is very well underway, and all but a few icons of the graphics work is done (yet not to be underestimated), and I am very satisfied with it. It has been some hard work but its coming to an end. Its a sort of single branch tech tree with some minor branches, that can be cut off or emphasized for specific scenario purposes.

As for the full-blown scenario part, I may do that at some point, but the most important (and most exciting) thing for me is finishing the "patch" part. It has taken a lot of careful consideration to plan and set up the tech tree alone, which needs to be historically accurate and precise, presenting the player with key historical problems of the middle ages, yet needs to be simplified and iconographically elegant enough to cover such a wide time span. On the other hand, its tremendously exciting work, as the tech tree can hold some pretty dramatic challenges and real rewards for players, when the time span is so wide.

On the important subject of governments, I've now come to the following conclusion (and this has taken some consideration and re-reading of the previous pages to get to this point), listed in the order they appear in the tech tree (which, apparently, does not differ so much from the standard game... seems Sid got something right when he did it the first time) :

Tribal Kingdom (despotism) -basically what civs start out with, you all know what its about.

Monarchy (monarchy) -a developed christian monarchy, with appropriate advantages like liberal unit support, but restrained economy.

Feudalism (republic) -a sort of contracted monarchy, with some very beneficial economical advantages, but where the king has to ask the nobles (senate) about a lot of things... and faces the occasional rebellion among the citizens, from the misfits of serfdom.

Empire (communism) -a larger empire with better infrastructure and intelligence/church network, where learned church officials see to that the prince has his way and noble protests are overheard -vet bishops/assassins.

Holy Empire (democracy) -basically the empire on a good footing with the catholic church, providing increased trade and science output, but threatened by frequent peasant revolts and heretic uprisings (unhappiness problems). -building the avignon papacy (UN) following the great schism will allow warfare under the guise of crusading missions...

Protestantism (fundamentalism) -history has proven the protestant monarchies superior in terms of technological and economical prosperity and progress, but this was not so sure when protestantism first challenged the catholic order of Europe... this government appears very late, and is restraining for science, but liberating for unhappiness and military defences against the catholic powers, giving the small nations in the north a chance to challenge the catholic empires in the south. -which is nicely quite historically appropriate.

Gonna post some screenshots in a couple of days.

Funny to think about that I started this project last summer, and expected to be done by august...

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by Xeven the God
The first Europeon castles go back as far as the 9th century and were built on natural (sometimes artificial) mounds. Most had CURCULAR wooden walls and moats. These castles were small and only had the bare nessecities (A small keep, a ROUND wood or stone tower, and buildings for the castle retainers).

Starting in the 12th century the castles became influenced by crusaders, and became more SQUARE. The new types of castles were bigger, made of stone, and had more towers.

By the way, Xeven, I think you've got it wrong. Its the other way around. Castles and towers became increasingly more circular in shape (inspired by middle eastern architecture), since circular walls and towers are more resilient to siege bombardments than square ones. -its true, that fortresses and fortifications were built along circular models etc earlier (including the viking ones) which probably implies an early influence from the middle east.

 

[Henrik]

The forts becomes less circular again later on (but that is around the time for the end of this scenario, a little after this scenario ends to be exact)


This might be in the thread somewhere but:
Is this patch going to be playable as a modpack?
IE will I be able to launch a game of it on that big european map that we both have with random civs (at preset starting locations of course).
In that case, which civs will be in the list?
Will the custom titles be used to their full extent? (that is: the german kingdoms (Im guessing there will be many in a modpack variant) has german titles, the french ones have french titles, etc, etc)

I'm very glad to see some progress here again

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Yes. I've struggled very hard to set up the tech tree in a reasonable way, that allows one to start up one branch, or from the very beginning, so you'll be able to play as a modpack essentially. I haven't completely decided on each and every available tribe, (there som pretty extensive lists earlier in the thread). For specific scenario purposes, some branches can be extended, cut off, or made dependant on events.

One thing, though, I have deliberately emphasized european developments in the tech tree, so arab technologies are incorporated as they influenced european developments, not as an independent arab/middle eastern branch. There are no such thing as civspecific branches, precisely because I want it to run smoothly as a modpack. I'm gonna leave some extensive documentation for the tech tree that will make it easier to change bits for scenarios (including my own)...

If you've got any ideas for custom titles, I'd like to hear. But even with the 21 slots, they'll be filled up pretty fast...

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Still working on the tech tree. I have been doing some pretty extensive research on different subjects, and still need a couple of ideas for the late middle ages and renaissance. But the basic framework and far most of the units are in place.

Anyway, here's the promised screenshots. (hope this works)

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Much sweat and tears later, here's the latest version of the tech tree. Although I believe this to be the absolute final version, reasonably thoroughly researched to make reasonable sense to me historically. Of course, you won't be able to deduce its effects etc. from just looking at this spaghetti, but it does it give you a clue as to what I'm implementing into this thing. Any ideas and suggestions welcome! -still need a couple of details, but in the structure, I feel done with it. I guess every scenmaker knows the pain of making some sense into parts of the tech tree, but I feel relatively satisfied now (afterall, this is the fifth version )

 

[Case]

That's looking really good. When are you planning on releasing it?

 

[insurgent]

Okay, this may sound a bit stupid, and I may not have been to alert, but what's the precise difference between a patch and a scenario. To me the screenshots of Norway and Southern England look like scenario screenshots. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Difference is, one can use this patch to make scenarios. Because I find it so ridiculously hard to design a scenario, I wanted to make a patch which I could use with minimal changes for my medieval scenarios. So basically its an exchange of the original files, rules, texts and graphics. Additionally I wanted it to be playable like a modpack, so a lot of thought went into the attempt that one can use the patch at all the levels of the tech tree, and with relative ease create medieval scenarios from it. Not everyone will likely use all of this together, but other scen creators can take the nitbits they like, graphics/mechanics wise, and use them how they see fit. The screenshots are just showoffs from some scenarios I've been testing the patch with.

When it'll be done? Comparatively soon... I believe the hardest part to be done now.

 

[insurgent]

Aahh...

 

[kobayashi]

how can the inquisition be represented by universal sufferage?

I think banking appeared much later

 

[techumseh]

I suggest "bellows" instead of "blast furnace", a 19th century invention.