[Preview] Throne and Altar: A Medieval Mod

[Mattastic]

I just wanted to say: I love the idea of global events and the like! I really like the idea of that.

 

[Ottoman79]

Hi AG,

First thank you for all your hard work and enthusiasim. I'm really lookin forward to this mod since Medieval Era is my favourite timeline in terms of warfare history.

I just want to say Mongols were Shamans that time period. Shamanism is the name of their religion. I'm turkish and I know that before converting to Islam turks were practicing shamanism just like mongols.

One more thing, since i mentioned turks I might add that during the time period after 1300s Ottomans were the major power on east and leading Muslim country. So most of the crusades after 1350 were organized against Ottaman Empire to wipe them out from Europe

Thanks again for your hard-work

 

[Optimizer]

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".

There were many technological breakthroughs during these ages, both in the Christian and the Muslim worlds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

Some tech suggestions:

* Textile Industry (Engineering) - allows Weaver, which gives happiness bonus to Silk, Sheep and Dye
* Stirrup - represents horse harnesses, horseshoes and plenty of other inventions. Needed for Knights and Mounted Workers.
* Crop Rotation - can build farms without Irrigation
* Algebra - allows map trading and research of Optics, Education and Banking.
* Surgery - allows construction of Infirmary, which is the equivalent of a Hospital.
* Holy Orders.

 

[Optimizer]

Have you thought of Civics? Here are some suggestions:

Government
Centralized Monarchy: +3 happiness in largest cities
Aristocracy: +2 happiness with Castle, no upkeep cost due to distance
Plutocracy: +1 trade route

Army
Peasant Army: can draft units
Mercenaries: +100% production rate, +2 gold per unit
Feudal Army: +2 experience with state religion

Religion
Theocracy: +2 happiness with state religion, no foreign religions spread
Religious Tolerance: +1 happiness per non-state religion, +1 trade route

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

One more thing, since i mentioned turks I might add that during the time period after 1300s Ottomans were the major power on east and leading Muslim country. So most of the crusades after 1350 were organized against Ottaman Empire to wipe them out from Europe

I'm thinking of dropping, say, the Papal States (replacing it with an event-based Papacy) or putting Denmark and Sweden together (in a sort of unstable Kingdom of Scandinavia) and adding in the Turks as a civ. But, maybe I won't... I'm still undecided, but I have plenty of time

@Optimizer
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm trying to keep the tech tree more abstract. As for civics, those were a lot of my ideas already. Keep in mind, this is just a rough sketch...

Dominant Law
Feudal Law
Free military units, extra happiness from Tournaments, extra unhappiness from Town Halls

Town Law
Some kind of commerce bonus, extra happiness from Trade Fairs, extra unhappiness from Tax Collectors

Cannon Law
State religion bonus for buildings, extra happiness from Monestaries, extra unhappiness from Moneylenders

Military
Barbarian Hordes (Baltic Tribes and Mongols only?) This one may not make it.
Bonus to military production?

Feudal Levies
Many free military units and something else...

Mercenary Armies
Experience bonus, extra money for support, mercenary offer events occur more frequently

Power Base
Aristocracy
? undecided

Clergy
great people bonus, infinite priests

Plutocracy
extra trade route, infinite merchants

Centralization
Powerful Monarch
Less war-weariness but higher mainenance. Higher tax bonus, slight military production handicap.

Balance of Power
? undecided

Decentralized Power
Less maintenance costs, but higher war weariness. Slight military production bonus, higher tax hanicap.

I'm undecided as far as the other catagories now.

I would like also to link the civics system to a dynamic event system, as well. It wouldn't be that hard. For example, here are some ideas I had:

- Revolutions will be much longer and bring "revolting armies" into your territories and may turn disapproving vassals into independent states.

- Build too many town halls with the "Feudal Law" civic, you may get an event that forces you to accept "Town Law" as your dominant law system. If you want to change it back, you'll have to have a bloody revolution (see above). Give those lesser-born burghers power and they'll take it

- If you go the decentralized route, prepare for the occasional rebellious vassal. If you go the centralization route, prepare for some other bad events too. The main point is, many events (good and bad) will be linked to civics choices.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Arbitrary Guy. If I can make a suggestion. You mention that you want to have revolutions possibly creating 'revolutionary armies'. May I suggest, then, that you have a look at the rebellion mod by Trip. It sounds like what he has developed is right up your alley.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

Arbitrary Guy. If I can make a suggestion. You mention that you want to have revolutions possibly creating 'revolutionary armies'. May I suggest, then, that you have a look at the rebellion mod by Trip. It sounds like what he has developed is right up your alley.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thanks. I've already look at it - actually I used it and some other mods to learn some Python. It was very handy, and it has influenced me a lot. I'll probably do something along those lines.

 

[Half Fast]

Hi,
This is just my kinda game, looks like it will be very emersing.
Should some civs (like Mongol) that had few cities but were very powerful get some free unit support and a production bonus, or do you plan to handle that with military civics? You might put in events that give the Mongols reinforcements, like the Brittish did the American Revolution mod, but how would they support huge armies?

 

[Lares]

Hey AG! This all sounds wonderful! Your Europe mod is already my favourite, but this new one seems to be even better! If you need some early beta-testers or some other help, just say a word ...

 

[majk-iii]

-OOOooohhh!

I can't wait.

 

[Good Sauce]

I'd hate to see the papal states leave, they're my favorite to play in EE3. I have a few ideas for making the papal states as well.
1)disallow settler builing for papal.
2)start with christian holy city. Or perhaps split christianity into "catholicsim" and "christianity" in order to keep jerusalem as a juicy prize worth crusading for.
3)papal gets HUGE diplomatic bonuses with christian civs and huge minuses with non christian civs (ie. +/-15 You are the Pope) this may be a problem in balancing for AI use versus Human use (A human as france who declares war on the pope can probally count on being at war with all of chistiandom, and it will be awesome to have all the christian nations eating out of your hand as pope, of course the arab nations will be gunning for you)
just some ideas

 

[Shqype]

Catholicism is a form of Christianity, it doesn't make sense to separate them.

Christianity was one branch before the Orthodox broke off, leaving the original Christians to be known as Catholics... then after that there were various other denominations.

I think you meant Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

Christianity was one branch before the Orthodox broke off, leaving the original Christians to be known as Catholics... then after that there were various other denominations.

Or... if you're Orthodox, Catholicism broke off from christianity, leaving the original Christians to be known as Orthodox

Here are the religions for those who are curious:
Catholic, Orthodox, Islam, Judaism, Pagan

Update on where I am now:
I am developing the beta right now, so that should be out in a couple of weeks for people to test for balance, etc. I think I won't go with so many events as I implied before, as in testing they can be very game tipping (i.e. AI can't test for event conditions to avoid bad events). But, don't worry, there will still be plenty of events (historical and random) to deal with.

I believe I've gone a route inbetween historicism and playability on the tech tree issue. The tech tree has been reduced an reshuffled a bit from what I origionally posted. Techs will be expensive, but worthwhile, and there will be random events to spread them too.

I know I change my mind alot, but Papal States is IN for good. The Turks may replace Sweden (Sweden's not very playable anyway).

 

[Shqype]

Or... if you're Orthodox, Catholicism broke off from christianity, leaving the original Christians to be known as Orthodox

The Pope and the Vatican were the symbols of Christianity ... the Patriarch of Constantinople challenged the power of these two entities and then the Great Schism occured. The Pope and Vatican came to be known as Catholics.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

1)disallow settler builing for papal.

Actually, i'd like to see as many as possible settler restrictions to increase historical realism. Not disabling all times, but, for example, making settlers spawn at certain conditions, etc. It's just that i hate, that sometimes AI makes historical empires very awkward with it's lame use of settlers

 

[ArbitraryGuy]

The Pope and the Vatican were the symbols of Christianity ... the Patriarch of Constantinople challenged the power of these two entities and then the Great Schism occured. The Pope and Vatican came to be known as Catholics.

And my point is: That's not true if you ask an Eastern Orthodox Christian. The Western view isn't the only way to view christian history... history is more complicated than that .

Actually, i'd like to see as many as possible settler restrictions to increase historical realism. Not disabling all times, but, for example, making settlers spawn at certain conditions, etc. It's just that i hate, that sometimes AI makes historical empires very awkward with it's lame use of settlers

Nothing bugs me more. Suggestions are welcome on how to control this, but I was planning to 1) make settlers very expensive and 2) coming later in the tech tree and 3) only buildable in the capital.

 

[Shqype]

I agree with you there...

Also, severely restricting the use of settlers will be great in my opinion.

Maybe you can give each faction a set amount of settlers (0 to 3 perhaps?) depending on how large and powerful they were...

 

[Gunner]

2)start with christian holy city. Or perhaps split christianity into "catholicsim" and "christianity" in order to keep jerusalem as a juicy prize worth crusading for.

This is a really good idea if you had taken the time to actually read it Shqype. It would be an artificial game device so that every city that was Christian in some way (as in would have sent pilgramages to Jerusalem) would have the "Christian" religion, who's holy city would be in Jerusalem. In addition to that there would be Catholic and Orthodox faiths who's holy cities would be Rome and Byzantium, respectively. So essentially every christian city would have two religions. That way conquering Jerusalem would really have a large economic bonus and Rome and Constantinople would keep their bonuses. The more I think about this idea, I would actually contend that it is much more realistic at least at simulating the ideas of motivation for the Crusades and the way Pilgrams and donations worked.

 

[Shqype]

I did read it and interpretted it by what was written.

 

[Good Sauce]

Gunner got what I was after, thanks for not automatically assuming I was an idiot.