[Preview] Throne and Altar: A Medieval Mod

[Rey]

It seems amazing

Looking forward for playing with Aragon

I hope you won't eliminate Portugal, in the end...

 

[Gunner]

I'd be in favor of removing Portugal in favor of a Lithuania civ. The Iberian penisula alreadly seems pretty crowded.

 

[Frederick_]

....they would be replaced with "minor" nations represented by barbarian cities that can only build defensive units. They will also get events giving them offensive units to attack their neighbors at the times of real wars and uprisings, so they'll be contained.

Not bad, not bad at all. Minor civs tend to be very easy to deal with however, specialy for builders/peacefull major civs (no sneakattacks etc). But if they could pose a real challenge with triggered events, then this would be more than sufficient to keep major civs in the area busy.

And while I might be swedish and would love to play sweden in a mod like this, the nation (if you can call it that) had but a small impact on europe during this period. Personaly, Id go for balance and replace them.

Here's my current thought: replacing Sweden with Pagan Baltic Peoples to give challenge to the Northen Crusades. Replace Scotland with the Mongols, so when they spawn they'll be a major power, rather than just barbs. Lemme know what you all think.

Sounds like a good plan. As I understand, crusades will be a big part of the mod. Id rather fight actual civs than barbs/minors, its a lot more challenging!
That said, Sweden did play a role in the baltics. They "conquered" and "converted" parts of the land south of Estonia. However, these people were allready christians, a crusading order of knights had allready done that work, so you might argue the effort was rather redundant. Swedens influence on Finland is a lot more important.

About the Mongols. Perhaps they could be represented by triggered events that spawn massive barbarian uprisings instead? Massive ammounts of horse archers appearing at your border, rampaging your lands. As far as I am aware, the Mongols where nomadic, so for them to have a massive amount of cities would perhaps not be accurate. Just a thought.

Yes, certain upgrades will only be available with certain techs along the the lines of what you mentioned. E.g., arrow Barrange for Archers with Ballistics, Frontal Charge for Knights with Tactics, etc.

/drool


One more question. Religion? Will there be a "pagan" religion avaliable? I belive that would be much more efficient in order to build religious tention between the crusading states and the ready-to-be-christianized-baltics. It would also emphazise the need to build missionaries once you conquer these pagan states since news religions tend to be harder to spread in cities that allready have them.

Perhaps tie in some objectives that give you some sort of bonus based on the amount of pagan cities you have christianized. No idea how that would be coded, but it would be very cool.
A simple way could be something like a pointsystem.

Population : Points Awarded
1-3 : 1
3-5 : 3
5-7 : 5
7+ : 10

Points Collected : Bonus
5 : +1 happines in your cities with only state religion.
10 : +1 commerce from all squares with 1 commerce in cities with state religion.
15: Unlocks "Templar Castle", new building, allows recruitment of crusader special troops.
20 : Additional free crusader troops given by the Pope.


Sorry to throw ideas at you like this mate might be a bit pushy I know

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

@Frederick_
Thanks for the comments. I'll let you know what I decide about the civs. I'm pretty sure the Mongols will be a spawned civ, and the Pagan Baltic Peoples will be in. I can't tell you who they'll replace, though. Most likey Portugal and Scotland... I'm looking less to replace Sweden... with the Baltic Pagans, there will now me something for them to do. Plus, I can give some neat Scotland uprising events against England.

Yes. There will be a pagan religion. Religions are as follows: Pagan, Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic, and Mongol. I know, Mongol religion sounds weird, but they did have a unique religion before adopting Islam (they worshiped the sky). Plus, their own religion will build the hatered of Christians against them.

As of right now, religion will not be spread naturally... only by missionaries. Also, on the capture of a city, it looses its relgion. This must be the case, else Castile and Aragon will convert to Islam when the capture Moorish cities... that makes little since and I can't figure out how to disable religion switching.

I like your idea of a point system for captured non-Christian cities. I was thinking about some sort of religious victory along these sort of lines. There will probably be a "crusader victory" involving the capture of non-Christian cities, and thus awarding points or something.

Thanks for the input all!

 

[Gunner]

I really like that idea of keeping some religion point value for each civ. Could you do it by keeping a variable in python for each civ which would increase when you conquered pagans and stuff? New victory conditions are always good

I don't really like the idea of conquering a city like Paris or something and being forced to send a missionary there to re-convert it. Is there some way you could tell the game to check for certain cities at the beggining of the turn and make sure that they are of a certain religion? That way most of the European Christian cities would reconvert back but you could still have the Iberian cities and such require missionaries. I don't really know python quite well enough to know if my ideas are feasible.

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

Could you do it by keeping a variable in python for each civ which would increase when you conquered pagans and stuff?

Is there some way you could tell the game to check for certain cities at the beggining of the turn and make sure that they are of a certain religion?

Influenced by Crusader Kings, I'm thinking of adding some kind of "Prestige" and "Piety" ratings, which will pertain to new victory conditions. You'd build these through military success and crusading. It'd be easy to display these as well... on both the main screen, diplo screens, and score screens. However, I'm not sure how to save/load such a variable to/from a saved game file. I'll have to look into this.

As for cities dropping religions, the system will have more finess than what has been suggested. Perhaps only certain cities will flip religion when captured (i.e. Iberian)? I still have to think about this more, but with python almost everything is possible in this situation.

Thanks for your feedback, Gunner. Here's some more food for thought, lemme know what you think.

I'm also thinking of new tech-spread ideas. Should there be some sort of "random" tech spread (based on improvements, # of people with the tech) or "historical" tech spawing? Examples: 1) after you win a battle, you'd have a 1% chance of developing a "Tactics Tech" 2) after you take a city you have a small chance of gaining a "Siege Warfare" tech 3) Build a lot of Cathedrals and get a "Theology tech". I think this idea is interesting and worth considering, but a major part of Civ is tech research, so I think people may not like this idea very much.

Well, many things are still not set in stone... this mod will take another month or so to develop fully (I'm really busy with non-mod stuff right now), but I still work on it every day.

"Final" Civ List:
Kingdom of Aragon
Kingdom of Castile-Leon
Kingdom of Denmark
Kingdom of England
Kingdom of France
Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Jerusalem
Kingdom of Poland
Kingdom of Sweden
The Almoravids
The Baltic Pagans
The Byzantine Empire
The Holy Roman Empire
The Kievan Rus
The Mongols
The Papal States
The Saracens
The Teutonic Order
Minor Christian States represented by Barbarians.

Wow, I've rambled on alot... I wonder if anyone will even read this.

 

[vbraun]

So... I'm also thinking of new tech-spread ideas. Should there be some sort of "random" tech spread (based on improvements, # of people with the tech) or "historical" tech spawing? Examples: 1) after you win a battle, you'd have a 1% chance of developing a "Tactics Tech" 2) after you take a city you have a small chance of gaining a "Siege Warfare" tech 3) Build a lot of Cathedrals and get a "Theology tech". I think this idea interesting and worth considering, but a major part of Civ is tech research, so I think people may not like this idea very much.

Give them some beakers instead of the entire tech.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, here is a thought. If I am not mistaken, you can mod trade routes to yield Science Commerce (or, at least you can in CivicsInfo.xml). So, have you considered a civics option (religious, governmental or economic say) which grants a bonus to beakers if you are in a trade relationship with that nation?
Just a thought.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

The Baltic Pagans

YESS!!! *jumps around in joy*

If u need ANY info about Baltic pagans, i'll be happy to help u, AG

And, when mod will be finished, i'll post linky to it's topic in few .lv forums, because i know many, who'll love to play this civ

Btw, what's teh release date ?

*edit*
Btw, using word "pagans" is bit offending to those, who still worship the old pre-christian gods here. Maybe u could use "Baltic tribes" instead. Though, i understand, that "Baltic pagans" sounds better, but still, it's a very christian-worldview-like name and may offend some.

 

[Kidinnu]

Influenced by Crusader Kings, I'm thinking of adding some kind of "Prestige" and "Piety" ratings, which will pertain to new victory conditions. You'd build these through military success and crusading. It'd be easy to display these as well... on both the main screen, diplo screens, and score screens. However, I'm not sure how to save/load such a variable to/from a saved game file. I'll have to look into this.

The standard way to do this is using "Pickle". The American Revolution mod uses it a fair bit; go there for examples. You probably instead want to look at SDTools, is toolkit mod that wraps pickle with some more-usable and more-documented interfaces.

 

[Tabris]

UHUUUUUUUUUUUUU A REALISTIC MOD
*Dances the macarena*

Finally something like this, i was really looking for a historical mod, i'll probably learn python my self for this.

And Prestige and Piety are good options.

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

YESS!!! *jumps around in joy*

If u need ANY info about Baltic pagans, i'll be happy to help u, AG

And, when mod will be finished, i'll post linky to it's topic in few .lv forums, because i know many, who'll love to play this civ

Btw, what's teh release date ?

*edit*
Btw, using word "pagans" is bit offending to those, who still worship the old pre-christian gods here. Maybe u could use "Baltic tribes" instead. Though, i understand, that "Baltic pagans" sounds better, but still, it's a very christian-worldview-like name and may offend some.

Wow... I'm glad your excited. Beta should be ready in a few weeks, but I'm making steady progress (there's just so much I want to edit...).

The mod is focusing more and more on the crusades as it develops, so I think "Baltic Pagans" gives it a more historical feel... that's what the christian crusaders would have refered to them as. In a similar vein, I also use the term "Saracens", for the Islamic forces in the east.

The standard way to do this is using "Pickle". The American Revolution mod uses it a fair bit; go there for examples. You probably instead want to look at SDTools, is toolkit mod that wraps pickle with some more-usable and more-documented interfaces.

Cool... thanks for the head up!

 

[Silica_Pathways]

The mod is focusing more and more on the crusades as it develops, so I think "Baltic Pagans" gives it a more historical feel... that's what the christian crusaders would have refered to them as. In a similar vein, I also use the term "Saracens", for the Islamic forces in the east.

If u want to create historicaly correct medieval christian worldview then it's ok, of course Though, imho, then it should be mentioned at least in mod's intro or description texts, for example "TA:MM focuses on medieval Europe as it was seen by crusaders.." or like that Because i dunno any 'pagan' who'd call himself 'pagan'

 

[Gunner]

Influenced by Crusader Kings, I'm thinking of adding some kind of "Prestige" and "Piety" ratings, which will pertain to new victory conditions. You'd build these through military success and crusading. It'd be easy to display these as well... on both the main screen, diplo screens, and score screens. However, I'm not sure how to save/load such a variable to/from a saved game file. I'll have to look into this.

I'm also thinking of new tech-spread ideas. Should there be some sort of "random" tech spread (based on improvements, # of people with the tech) or "historical" tech spawing? Examples: 1) after you win a battle, you'd have a 1% chance of developing a "Tactics Tech" 2) after you take a city you have a small chance of gaining a "Siege Warfare" tech 3) Build a lot of Cathedrals and get a "Theology tech". I think this idea is interesting and worth considering, but a major part of Civ is tech research, so I think people may not like this idea very much.

I really like having Prestige and Piety rating stuff. Gives the game a little bit more structure and some clear objectives other than just "conquer everyone."

About the tech spreading thing though, I don't really like it. For one I think it would require a huge amount of work since the entire civ financial model is based on governments spending huge sums on research. I also just don't like the idea of not being able to control your reseach. I think its more fun to be able to choose even if its not completely accurate.

Keep up the good work AG

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

About the tech spreading thing though, I don't really like it. For one I think it would require a huge amount of work since the entire civ financial model is based on governments spending huge sums on research. I also just don't like the idea of not being able to control your reseach. I think its more fun to be able to choose even if its not completely accurate.

Yeah, that's why I won't go with the idea... Civ wouldn't be Civ without tech research. I was just throwing out an idea for people to munch on.

 

[IamSid]

Good Job with the Python Anouncements!

 

[Nemesis Zero]

Hi AG, your concept looks really, really solid. I'm looking forward to the final product.

A word on science since you seem interested in novel approaches there:
No age is as notorious for being hostile to scientific progress as the one you portray here. Just think of the controversy around the liquidity of blood, the superstitions surrounding water, or the old standby, the struggle between geocentric and heliocentric worldview.
It might be interesting to put a bit of this superstitius, deeply conservative mindset in your mod. One solution would be to include certain events that are required for top tier techs (as an example, Stargazing to get Astronomy), but will raise unrest in the cities that triggered them. Another one would be to create quasi-religious friction between nations that have adopted modern techs, and others not yet so far.

 

[Dux_]

Looks awesome, but the tech tree is very small, it would be nice if it was bigger, cause otherwise the game will seem pretty short.

Some unique techs per civs would be very nice.

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

Looks awesome, but the tech tree is very small, it would be nice if it was bigger, cause otherwise the game will seem pretty short.

Some unique techs per civs would be very nice.

The tech tree is small because not too many techs were developed between 1099 AD and 1400 AD... it's not a period known for tech advancement. The techs that are on the tree will take a long time to research anyway. As it's looking now, the game will probably be 300 turns normal speed. There may be a few "unique techs," but... there was little tech advancement in the era, so this won't be a "killer feature".

However, there will be many, many unique units in an effort to make different armies have different strengths and weaknesses (e.g. the English will have supurb bowmen, France will be able to field more knights than most, and the Teutonic Order will have an emphasis on heavy knights and infantry). I'm holding off progress towards these ends a bit for hopes that someone will be able to make new unit models for this era after SDK comes out. I'm sick of just using new-skins. Also, I'm developing a mercenary system... you may hire Geonese crossbowmen, Swiss pikemen, etc.

Altogether, a major focus is on war and siege.

 

[Gunner]

That sounds good for the units AG. I really like hiring mercenaries espcially since they were so important in this era.