SCENARIO: High Middle Ages

[Jon Shafer]

I'm starting preliminary planning on a High Middle Ages scenario.

While I feel that the Middle Ages scenario in Conquests is probably the best one included, I feel that many things could be improved on or otherwise incorporated to make a medieval scenario much better. I personally believe the combat in the Medieval Era to be the best there is in Civ 3 (as far as balance, mainly) and there's a lot of fun to be had that hasn't really been tapped.

I'm thinking I want to start the scenario sometime in the early 12th century (just after the success of the First Crusade), and have it run through 1453 (fall of Constantinople).

Currently I'm working on my custom map, which includes all of Europe, Asia Minor, parts of North Africa and Arabia. I'm currently gathering graphics for units and otherwise (borders, terrain, etc.) to incorporate into the final product. Hopefully I'll be able to produce something more tangible once I get the map done. Until then, there's a lot of research to do though.

Projected civ list:

Holy Roman Empire (rather weak, controls Germany & Austria)
Possibly Bohemia
Burgundy
France
England
"Celts" (including Brittany, Ireland, Scotland - abstracting here )
Aragon
Castile
Portugal
Almohads (southern Iberia and northern Africa)
Kingdom of Italy (includes all of northern Italy + Rome except Genoa and Venice)
Genoa
Venice
Hungary
Poland
Lithuania
Russian Principalities (Muscovy, Novgorod, etc.)
Scandinavia/Sweden
Bulgaria
Possibly Serbia
"Turks" (includes the Seljukids, will "become" the Ottomans)
"Islamic Empire" (controls Islamic territory east of Anatolia, rather weak to start to represent disunity just after the Crusades)
Egypt (to represent the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks)
Byzantines
Crusader Kingdom

Any ideas, suggestions, comments, questions or assistance is certainly welcome.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Current Map I'm working with (180x130 Europe):

 

[zulu9812]

Hello Trip, great to see you back again Don't be a stranger now, ya hear?

btw, Bebro has made some really great medieval knights - there's even a specifically-15th century one hich would be ideal for your scenario.

 

[Xen]

abh, yet another scenario that is to late to include Byzantine cataphracts... (werent used by this time- Basil II was more or less the last emperor to make use of them...)

though that said, there is now a fair assortment of units that you could use for the byzantine empire out now

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by zulu9812
Hello Trip, great to see you back again Don't be a stranger now, ya hear?

I'm always around in one means or another.

btw, Bebro has made some really great medieval knights - there's even a specifically-15th century one hich would be ideal for your scenario.

Yep, saw them yesterday and downloaded them, very good stuff.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Xen
abh, yet another scenario that is to late to include Byzantine cataphracts... (werent used by this time- Basil II was more or less the last emperor to make use of them...)

Better than another scenario that is too late to include the Byzantines.

though that said, there is now a fair assortment of units that you could use for the byzantine empire out now

Any assistance from our local Byzantine enthusiast is appreciated.

 

[Ozymandias]

Let me know if you're having any particular difficulty with research -- the European Middle Ages is my specialty.

Best,

Oz

 

[Xen]

sure I'll help, though I'll get into it more once the ball starts rolling on the project some, as my online time is valuble to be, and need not be wasted on a thred whos scenario will go defunct in two weeks.. so once more or less interest has picked up or what not, I'l start helping abit more, for now, I can try to find a good map o fth ebyzantinem if not all of europe in the time you speak of

 

[gael]

Are you just going to tweek the standard medieval scenario or are you going to add other civs?

 

[Xen]

are you going to portray italy as it was during the first crusade, or rather during the latter middle ages, split into city-states?

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by ozymandias
Let me know if you're having any particular difficulty with research -- the European Middle Ages is my specialty.

Thanks, will do. I'll have a lot of stuff up for debate and discussion once I start placing things on the map, I'm sure you'll be able to help out there.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Xen
sure I'll help, though I'll get into it more once the ball starts rolling on the project some, as my online time is valuble to be, and need not be wasted on a thred whos scenario will go defunct in two weeks.. so once more or less interest has picked up or what not, I'l start helping abit more, for now, I can try to find a good map o fth ebyzantinem if not all of europe in the time you speak of

Sounds good.

I already have some good maps, but the more the merrier. The ones I like the most are the ones by Centennia. It's basically a program which tracks the political borders of Europe since the beginning of time. There's a demo of it for the Napoleonic Wars. I'd get it, but it's like 80 bucks.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by gael
Are you just going to tweek the standard medieval scenario or are you going to add other civs?

I'm going to be making a lot of changes compared with the Conquests scenario. New map, new civs, new resources, new units, new governments... Pretty much new everything. There's also a lot of non-traditional things that can be added to help spice things up. One thing I wanted to differentiate this scenario from the Conquests one is that expansion and building new cities is still a relatively important part of that scenario, whereas I want to cut some of that out.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Xen
are you going to portray italy as it was during the first crusade, or rather during the latter middle ages, split into city-states?

I'm wrestling with how to deal with the HRE. I know I want to have Venice and Genoa as seperate civs, because there will be a special "trade" segment of the scenario which will make these guys worthwhile, instead of just 1-city speed bumps.

I'm thinking I want to have the HRE be one unified civ, but there will be numerous problems to have it weakened. Very poor government (that they can't switch out of), less land development to represent the smaller level of control the HREs had over the territory.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Terrain on the map is completed.

I'm now adding resources and such.

I'm uploading the current map into this post. Any suggestions or corrections on the geography of the map are appreciated.

 

[Jon Shafer]

One idea I was thinking of implimenting:

I plan on using replacement jungle tiles for two purposes -

First to denote where cities are allowed. Cities will only be able to be built on 'jungle' tiles. This will make sure that the AI (or even the player) will not be allowed to build cities anywhere on the map except in specific historical locations. This means you won't end up with cities in the taiga of northern Russia or all across the Sahara and whatnot.

Second, 'jungle' tiles will also be the only tiles on the map allowed to contain "Trade" resources. These resources give a big boost in commerce and also allow certain city improvements to be built (Enhanced Harbor, doubles commerce, for example). Thus areas like Genoa, Venice, Antwerp, Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. can be important locations because of these resources. But the resources can respawn in another 'jungle' part of the map quite quickly (to represent the movement of trade) so the effects of trade can be temporary.

The effects of jungle will be entirely removed (low food, disease, etc.) and the graphics will be replaced with a "blank" tile (so it ends up showing grassland underneath), so there will be no remains of any "jungle-ness" left to effect other things.

 

[Xen]

instead of a blank tile for the "jungle", what if ypu got somone to make a sort of average type mideval town/village to found the city on as the tile graphic- represetning not land ready to settle, but more lie an already existing town who has coem into new prosperity, and importance in the world

 

[Jon Shafer]

Projected civ list:

Holy Roman Empire (rather weak, controls Germany & Austria)
Possibly Bohemia
Burgundy
France
England
"Celts" (including Brittany, Ireland, Scotland - abstracting here )
Aragon
Castile
Portugal
Almohads (southern Iberia and northern Africa)
Kingdom of Italy (includes all of northern Italy + Rome except Genoa and Venice)
Genoa
Venice
Hungary
Poland
Lithuania
Russian Principalities (Muscovy, Novgorod, etc.)
Scandinavia/Sweden
Bulgaria
Possibly Serbia
"Turks" (includes the Seljukids, will "become" the Ottomans)
"Islamic Empire" (controls Islamic territory east of Anatolia, rather weak to start to represent disunity just after the Crusades)
Egypt (to represent the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks)
Byzantines
Crusader Kingdom

Comments and suggestions for changes, et al. always welcome.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Xen
instead of a blank tile for the "jungle", what if ypu got somone to make a sort of average type mideval town/village to found the city on as the tile graphic- represetning not land ready to settle, but more lie an already existing town who has coem into new prosperity, and importance in the world

Good idea.

I was planning on replacing the standard mine graphic with a small village, but I'm sure I can find replacement graphics for both that will represent the "feel" of the era quite well.

 

[Xen]

Originally posted by Trip
Projected civ list:

Holy Roman Empire (rather weak, controls Germany & Austria)
Possibly Bohemia
Burgundy
France
England
"Celts" (including Brittany, Ireland, Scotland - abstracting here )
Aragon
Castile
Portugal
Almohads (southern Iberia and northern Africa)
Kingdom of Italy (includes all of northern Italy + Rome except Genoa and Venice)
Genoa
Venice
Hungary
Poland
Lithuania
Russian Principalities (Muscovy, Novgorod, etc.)
Scandinavia/Sweden
Bulgaria
Possibly Serbia
"Turks" (includes the Seljukids, will "become" the Ottomans)
"Islamic Empire" (controls Islamic territory east of Anatolia, rather weak to start to represent disunity just after the Crusades)
Egypt (to represent the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks)

Comments and suggestions for changes, et al. always welcome.

BYZANTIUM

oh, and perhaps souther italy could be turned into the Papal states, since th ekingdom of Italy was in the north of Italy-or better yet, make the papal states indipendent, and make south italy the kingdom of naples