MTW: The glorious English empire!

[Alex the Great]

I will heed your advice. I'll leave the Germans as a vassal state to prevent a reappearence.

1231: Why is it that the Mongolians have European pictures? Upgrading, building, unit shifting.

1232: The English marry, then cancel the alliance in favor of the puny Germans. The Golden Horde has Khazar, we'll see how that develops. My bribe is accepted! Saxony is ours, once we defeat 99 loyal German spearmen. More building, peacekeeping, upgrading.

1233: The Turks reappear with Ghulamans and Janissarys, fortunately only in Anatolia. The Horde extends north into a Russian province and the Crimea, I think they are being restrained by a large Egyptian army in Georgia. The Germans have retreated from Saxony. Per Dell's advice I build up against the Papacy. More upgrading, consolidating, and building (too bad their isn't anything above "Magnificent Builder"). I look at the Danes and notice that they have about 10 units of old and new royal knights, only 5 vikings and 31 spearmen otherwise, and I don't think they have anything other than Denmark! Naturally I propose to them incase they get an itchy war finger.

1234: I have the largest military. The Danes accept marriage. The Horde takes Georgia moves into the Russian province (preyalslavl) and a small Egyptian loyalist revolt occurs in Crimea. Apparently we are sieging the Germans in Saxony. More upgrading and such.

1235: We top 100,000 florins! The Egyptians are being broken apart by a civil war and various invasions and insurrections. More building, upgrading, and units.

1236: We are the richest, the Mongols expand to Georgia and a russian province on the East. Saxony falls. I'll take a break.

 

[Dell19]

The Danish never seem to move from Denmark... They only ever attack a neighbouring empire, never the rebels. At least in my games...

 

[Alex the Great]

Well there is a massive rebel army in Sweden. Maybe that explains it

 

[Dell19]

I blame it on the fact that Sweden just insn't profitable so the computer will not take it as they cannot afford to upgrade it and keep it from rebelling.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

If they could get Norway too they might try expanding. Perhaps I will try to tinker with the texts and try giving them Norway. (I've already made the Golden Horde and the Papacy playable)

But if you look at it realistically, the Danes really never expanded past Denmark.

 

[Alex the Great]

But in Late they get Finland

1236: Our first CMAA's can be built in Sardinia, they, along with the Italian Infantry, should be the backbone of our armies.

1237: Craps! The Spanish successfully take Toulouse. Time for payback . I will slaughter every Spainard I capture, they will pay. Otherwise nothing much.

1238: Toulouse is easiest, both my mounted x bows gain a valour point for 8 and 5 casualties respectively, 13 for 91 (13 were captured, but you know what I did). Lose in Navarre, win in Aragon and Straits of Gibralter. 2431 florins raised from prisoners who I couldn't kill. I refuse their demands for prisoners (I can always get more). More force building and development. I have lost the governor of Venice, after an exhaustive search I find another man, with 9 total acumen. Pheww! The leader is at 58. He gets tired with all the war and heads to sleep.

I'm wondering whether it would be worth it to secure an alliance w/ the Almohads, they only have peasents and Murabitin, they are shielding us so its a battle for Spain's coast. Hmmm..

 

[Quokka]

Originally posted by Dell19
The Danish never seem to move from Denmark... They only ever attack a neighbouring empire, never the rebels. At least in my games...

Mine either. They stay put unless Saxony is unguarded or rebels, then they'll attack. Sweden is such a rich province as well, you'd think they would grab that. In my current game ,1160, they have their starting Vikings, Spear, King and 7 heirs, all in Denmark.
I wonder if there is some magical line in the sand there, as Germany never crosses into Denmark either.

Looking good Alex, Italian green sure looks pretty on the map.

 

[Dell19]

Sweden is a rich province but it needs to be built up and Denmark doesn't have enough provences to be profitable. Whenever I play as the Danish it is a real battle to stay profitable and usually only possible by building ships which is another thing the Danish AI never does. I think they probably attack Saxony because its likely to have some infrastructure and also if the empire who is holding Saxony, launches a counter attack then they may be excommunicated. I've seen it several times with other empires where they attack me where I am vulnerable and I can't counter attack for a period because I would get excommunicated.

 

[Alex the Great]

The final part:

1238: Reinforce some garrisons in Aragon. Maintenence otherwise.

1239: I win against the Spanish attack on Aragon. I flank them with another bridge and rout them. Over 300 prisoners and 543 killed for 314 casualties. 1208 Florins from prisoners. We finally defeat the Spanish fleet in Gibralter and our fleet then reaches the North Sea. I stay at home and play it safe, I do not attack Valencia. I do take Navarre, which has mysteriously been abandoned.

1240: Switzerland begins producing Italian Infantry, with double armor too! Although it cannot send them to Aragon as fast as Genoa. Navarre can build the Spearmaker's Guild! Sardinia is building the Armorer's workshop! More reinforcing Aragon. I think I will win here. But the Almohads could easily come into the Picture. I am considering taking one of the former Egyptian provinces for the savings on ship maintenence. I do send an emissary to bribe the army there for a mesealy (sp?) 2400 florins

1241: The Egypt bribe is accepted! Nothing much else, but I do notice the Spanish continually shifting their forces. Some of the Italian Infantry with 2 armor should depart from Venice soon. There's another Egyptian civil war, that should help me hold Egypt. More building and upgrading.

1242: We have the largest military. Egypt is ours, should pay for itself soon. My 62 year old Doge notices that the Golden Horde isn't spreading very fast, most likely due to the resurrecting Byzantines and the strong Huns and Poles.

1243: Ironic, the Horde takes Trebizond from the Byz. Venice can build Italian Infantry now! We are quickly building infrastructure overall. Great are the numbers of CMAA and II in our armies in Aragon, perhaps I will manufacture some Arbs and Xbows.

1244: Horde takes Armenia, famine in Portugal, and we are the richest (by far). More building and reinforcing, Duffman is a cautious cat. I produce more emissaries so as to see the worlds away from the coasts.

1245: The Spanish attack Aragon. Over 2000 to a garrison of 1000 well trained men. Killing 1056 and taking 386 "prisoners" for little over seven hundred casualties I gain the advantage in this war of attrition. The battle excites the 65 year old Doge and he passes away peacefully. He warned his heir that the Spanish needed to be finished off, also advising him to use the infrastructure built well.

We have around 170 thousand florins in the bank, can someone say bribe? Your reign should start fine, any financial trouble is taken care of and loyalties are all up.

Good Luck. And Godspeed: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/The_Italians_1245.zip

 

[Dell19]

I think its my turn now but I can't play for a little while. Say a couple of days.

 

[Alex the Great]

Heh, heh. The download link is shortened to "alians" at the end. The wait should be fine, especially when compared to mine

 

[Dell19]

I don't think I will acually be able to play it for say a week or something so someone else might want to play instead.

 

[Quokka]

I can play it now if you want, I have nothing pressing happening.

These games don't play as fast as Civ3 SG's do they?

For a much harder game you should try out Wes' MedMod. No more peasant stacks. Armies get huge fast and they are all decent troops. Lots of changes to the units as well.

 

[Dell19]

Yeah thats fine. The thing is that I've just started University and have barely played any games so far so I just don't have the time to play but eventually everything should settle down.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

If you download Wes's mod (which I've been eagerly awiating for quite a while) will it take up the place of the other periods? Like would you be able to play a Modded game and a normal game on only one copy? I don't see why not because if he was smart enough he would have created new era names like "WesW's Early" so as not to overwrite the early period file. Anyway I heard that you could only play one version but I'm making sure. For some reason I can't sign up at totalwar.org so that's why I didn't ask it there, and I'm sure it has been asked many times but I haven't found it.

 

[Greeny]

Bob: I THINK it is possible to change from WesMod back to the normal game but backing up and swapping 2 files to switch, then playing the Campain Versions that don't have WesMod infront of them.

(Originaly Posted by WesW on totalwar.org)

So, to sum up, the unit lineup continues to be improved, and I am in the final stages of shaping up the mod for release. One of the other things I did last night was go through the mod files and arrange everything so that not a single texture or pic of a previously existing unit is altered by the mod. This required placing some original units' pics in the mod in order to erase earlier changes which had altered some original files.
I also believe that I can place all the altered unit names and descriptions in the changes.txt once we get the final version of everything made.

All of this means that you should be able to go from the vanilla game to the mod, and back, by only changing out the projectile and changes texts, which is pretty damn incredible for a mod of this size, if I do say so.

However a later poster noted that some of the Viking Campain units were overwritten, so you can only really play the Main Campain. (from http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=5;t=10950;st=25 )

BTW: The Public Release Version is out! Wooo: http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=5;t=11502

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Yeah, I dowloaded it last night after I posted, figuring that I would just reinstall the game if things didn't work out. I have to say, he's done an excellent job, there are just so many new units. There's also two new factions, the Swedes and the Burgundians, and in the next version there will be even more factions.

 

[Quokka]

I only have MTW v1.1 so I have MedMod v1.85. Everything I read mentioned that they couldn't co-exist and I had the space so I did another install and placed it there. Works flawlessly and makes the game so much better. You can play as the Hungarians, Sicilians, Aragonese and Kievans. I'll get VI when they release the patch to fix of the 56 year bug and the reinforcement order.

I really like the way he reworked everything, especially the build times for buildings. Its so refreshing to fight proper AI armies, even if I lose more battles now, no more 1500 Peasants in a stack.

 

[Quokka]

I’m pretty happy with the state of the Empire. We are larger and our armies look pretty impressive.
Good work, Alex the Great.
One thing I do notice is the distinct lack of cavalry other than Mtd X-bows and a few Royal Knights. We can only field basic Royals and Mtd Sgts. It will still be 15-20 years before we can field Feudals and another 20 at least before Chivalric. Also 3 of our top 5 generals have the Good Runner vice, making them almost useless.

1245
Doge Enrico ascends to the throne, more than happy with all the hard work put in by his predecessor.
A large empire and a large bank account inspire the thought “It’s good to be the King!”
New buildings to celebrate the coronation are ordered in every province and an end to the Sicilians and a beach house in Normandy are ordered up. Taxes are set to Very High in all provinces to show that the people are all the same in this Doge’s eyes. Two Brigand governors are caught and dispatched.

Many province taxes had been on Very Low, switching them all to Very High and firing the two Brigands gives an extra 3000 Fl a year, we now make 10,000 Fl a year. Unfortunately this means that all our governors are likely to become thieves very soon. This is one of the worst features of the game in my book.

Battle of Normandy: 936 killed, 101 prisoners, 151 dead, 988 Fl ransom.
All our losses came in forging the bridgehead, after that the slaughter was magnificent as Archers tried to run from Mtd Sergeants and X-Bows.

The pope warns us to leave Spain alone until 1255.

1246
Battle of Sicily: 239 killed, 190 prisoners, 121 dead, 2000 Fl pillaged, no ransom
It was a Bloody battle as half the Sicilian force was Royal Knights. Luckily the Inn in Naples had several Halberdiers for hire or the toll would have been much higher. Only 2 Royals and 4 Urban Militia made it to the safety of the castle.

1247
The Horde has taken Constantinople

Assault on Sicily Castle: 5 killed, 1 prisoner, 15 dead, End of the Sicilians

Assault on Aragon Castle: 350 killed, 173 prisoners, 209 dead, 1481 Fl ransom.
I’m glad I shipped in a lot of extra CMAA, FMAA and Mangonels for this battle. The Spaniards had a couple of Halberdier units that made a mess of an otherwise straightforward assault. Aragon is ours and we now have to be friends with Spain until 1255.

1249
Our allies the Hungarians launch a surprise attack against Croatia led by their King.
As luck would have it I had just finished upgrading the border armies into my normal defensive stacks. Each border province has 400 Italian Infantry, 120 Melee (Mil Sgts, FMAA, CMAA), 240 Archers, 80 Mtd Sergeants, 80 Mtd X-Bows and 20 Royal Knights. These stacks are almost impossible to dislodge on defense. Attack stacks have more cavalry and melee units.


Battle of Croatia: 329 killed (including King), 0 prisoners, 99 dead.
I killed all their prisoners because they were all really good troops, Royals and Chiv Sgts and the King died on the field so no huge ransom.


1250
I launch counterattacks into Bohemia, Serbia and Hungary with roughly 2000, 1000 and 1000 men respectively. The Hungarians declined battle in Serbia and I called off the attack against 2400 in Bohemia after the debacle in Hungary, otherwise our borders would have had a huge gap in them.

Battle of Hungary: 220 killed, 0 prisoners, 635 dead.
Disastrous battle, nothing went right, the RNG Gods were angry. Our forces were the Croatian border stack with a 3 star Vs 500 Hungarians and their 2 star King. I used the Mtd X-Bows to get their King down to himself, who then decides to go on a rampage and kills ~120 Italian Infantry (Great Warrior). Their other 5 units of Royals manage to impale themselves in the correct manner, with the remnants running away, but not all the way. It all went pear shaped after I managed to get some Horse Archers in a sandwich with Mtd X-Bows and our Royals. They break and flee from the X-bows straight through our Royals killing 8 including the general. This causes the X-bows to rout as well as the right flank II and FMAA, which was the end as there is no way to get far enough away from HA to rally. I had broken their Halberdiers and Mil Sgts and was chasing them when the General died. Went from hero to zero.

1251
I was forced to abandon Serbia in front of a Hungarian relief force. They have plenty of Royal Knights and even worse, heavily upgraded Chivalric Knights. Inns are only throwing up missile troops, which are no help against Knights.

1253
The Almohads attack Navare, silly buggers.

Battle of Navare: 630 killed, 0 prisoners, 56 dead.
I manage to kill a lot of the Ghulams that came with this attack leaving them 120 Ghulam Bodyguards, 300 Muribatin Infantry and 1500 Peasants in Castile. There is a lovely big Citadel that is just begging to become ours. Some nice upgrade facilities there as well.

10th anniversary. State of the Union.
Our borders have only grown by 2 provinces, Sicily and Normandy along with the pacification of Aragon.
Our income fluctuates between 10,000 and 11,000 and we have 187,000 Fl in the kitty. I have been building very heavily or there would be a lot more. Our governors are starting to stray a little, 10 of 32 have developed a negative vice, but only one had to be removed for Family Favourites, and the Informal Merchant is in a province with no trade goods. We were up to 15,000 Fl a year but the loss of trade with Hungary costs about 5000 Fl a year. We have ships in every sea, except the Gulf of Valencia (damn Spanish).
The Pope’s warning expires this year so I’ll be attacking soon although the Almohads may have to be dealt with first. A new Chapter House in Champagne (Zeal 95%) is building a Crusade, for Sweden I think or Spain if they get excommunicated. Our lack of Knights is hampering my plans some as both Hungary and Spain have more and better cavalry than we do. Our closest Feudal Knights are in Aragon and they are 6 years away, the next closest are 13.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

They will be releasing a patch to fix the 56 king age? Great!