What Medieval's Colonization Model should have been

[oyh]

I was amazed when reading the introduction to this mod:
The Germanic (and other) tribes falling upon ("colonizing") the remains of the Roman empire.

Apart from being well routed in history (see wikipedia for the still largely autonomous Roman cities in late antiquity), this concept seemed so interesting because it promised to turn things around:
Now, the playable nations were the non-civilized ones that had to learn a lot (religion, engineering,...) from the well-versed citizens of the former Empire. Just think about this "I'll send a settler to Tolosa so that he learns how to become a Hardy Pioneer" or "I have these furs and will trade them into precious tools when sending that wagon train to Leutetia".

But, when finally playing the mod for the first time, I was so disappointed that Medieval wasn't conceived like that. Vanilla's Indians are replaced by some kind of barbarians although the player nations clearly qualify as being barbs. And there are no traces of the Empire apart from some ruins and ancient tombs (extremely inaccurate and no-fun).

So why am I writing this, knowing that the mod creators have put so much energy and devotion into this huge mod?
I think the colonization model could be changed almost entirely without having to change anything to the remainder of the creators' work. The only thing needed would be to replace the barb civs with some Roman provinces and to change the specializations and goods available in Roman cities (and perhaps revise how religion/science is to be obtained).
If done so, the mod would be so more interesting.

 

[Kailric]

Hello, oyh, welcome to M:C and thanks for the feedback. We have put much energy and devotion into this mod and it is far from complete so your input could very well play a part in changes in he future. You've got my attention as that concept does sound interesting. What of these surviving Roman provinces? How many were there and how big of an influence did they play? If you wouldn't mind posting some links that would be great.

I know the Byzantines carried on the roman ways for a time and so they could be adapted to be more advanced "natives". But, think of the "natives" in M:C, Vandals, Lombards, etc, as Minor Civs. We have plans to make them advance howbeit at a slower pace. Right now the vanilla code gimps them so much that it will need an over haul to get them to function differently.

M:C is still a work in progress so stay tuned. We have a new release planned soon, which adds some interesting features but does not as of yet make changes to the vanilla Civ relations. All in do time my friend. Thanks again for your feedback.

 

[oyh]

...What of these surviving Roman provinces? How many were there and how big of an influence did they play? If you wouldn't mind posting some links that would be great.

The setup could be as follows:

• The game begins when the Germanic tribes officially start to settle within the borders of the Roman Empire, being so-called "foederati" (Wikipedia). In history, this would be something about 378 when the Visigoths, by the use of force, got the permission to settle/cultivate land within the borders of the Roman Empire (Wikipedia).
• From then on, and well before 476, this "colonization" pattern got well established: A tribe entered the borders of the Roman Empire, carved out a part of it to settle / cultivate its lands. As a result, most of the lands of the Western Empire were already well partitioned on 476 (see Wikipedia).
• The graduality of this development can be shown for Iberia (Wikipedia): At first (409), the Suebi and Vandals passed the Pyrenees, the latter continuing to Southern Iberia (and later Northern Africa) and exercising a de-facto control of their regions. 416 the Visigoths entered from their core area (southern France) to take Eastern Spain in posession. In post-Roman times (585), the Visigoths unified Iberia under their rule.
• Northern France fared very differently: A spin-off of the Roman Empire (Wikipedia) outlived the fall of Western Rome (476) only to be defeated and "colonized" by the Franks in 486. So, contrarily to Iberia or Aquitania, northern France was Roman (at least culturally) until that point in time.
• From the aforementioned points, it becomes apparent that each part of the Roman Empire fared completely differently (for the provinces see here - probably too many, you could pick some of them).
• Transferring this to the mod, this could mean that what the Roman province governors (like Syagrius) would be the "Indians", their territory under threat of being "colonized" due to their weak military - but they are the ones that a culturally/scientifically advanced, having institutionalized religion (the bishoprics of the high middle ages often are relics of that).
• What would be really cool (and put this mod close to RFC) would be to place the "Indians" (and the player nations starting positions) accurately on a European/NorthAfrica map. But this wouldn't be a pre-requisite for having a lot of fun...

So far regarding the historical background. As a modder, you're free to do whatever you want, of course!

 

[Kailric]

That is some good info. I really haven't sudied that part of the history yet. That is a really good idea though, to introduce these surviving Roman provinces that the player can interact with. They would start with the ealier techs already researched and the player could learn from them, or conquer them and recieve techs that way as well. Perhaps if you conquer a settlement you gain the Professon that was taught there.

It's cool that you mention "Foederati" as I read about that resently and actually thought of this very idea. It would be set before the fall of Rome and play out just as you say. Rome would actually be on the map and perhaps "native tribes" being Roman provinces. The Barbarian players would start the game being accepted in as Foederati and would have to build up thier empire to eventually defeat the Romans and win independence. You would gain something special perhaps it you are first player to sack Rome

This could easily be adapted into M:C, perhaps if you choose earlier Leaders the game would start from this historical point.

Keep the ideas coming

 

[oyh]

I'm glad that you liked the concept. The details that derived (Rome on the map, learn profession upon conquest,...) are very fine.

Looking forward to these ideas being incorporated into the mod...

 

[Kailric]

I'm glad that you liked the concept. The details that derived (Rome on the map, learn profession upon conquest,...) are very fine.

Looking forward to these ideas being incorporated into the mod...

My idea is that the Leader you pick decides the time frame in which you start as well as enemies you face. We can do this pretty easy by adding a "ContemporaryOpponents" tag to LeaderHeads.xml. Then when the game builds the map it will be forced to included the Contemporary Opponents, with an option to make it random as well.

Researching a bit of the history by 477 their were only three surviving provinces of Western Rome, the Kingdom of Soissons, Dalmatia, and perhaps Mauretania, these along with the Byzantines could be the surviving Roman Civs that players can interact with. The three rump states can be added to the current M:C.

Now, we would need to go further back in time for the player to influence the Fall of Rome. We could create the Roman Provinces for this part and the leaders would have these provinces listed as Contemporary Opponents. XML would control how each Civilization plays, the techs they have, the Professions they offer, etc, so most of the code is already in place. We would just need to adjust it so that the more advanced AI None Player Civs do not up and leave all the competition behind.

I will add this as part of the Diplomacy update. The first thing on the list after this next release is to improve the economy aspect. After that I do think I will start to work on Diplomacy more as Character interaction really brings the game to life.

 

[Nightinggale]

Vanilla's Indians are replaced by some kind of barbarians although the player nations clearly qualify as being barbs. And there are no traces of the Empire apart from some ruins and ancient tombs (extremely inaccurate and no-fun).

I still don't like calling them barbarians. Also they behave way too much like vanilla natives. Regardless of feedback, I would say this is one of the places we need to make noteworthy changes to. However they aren't first in line to be modified.

So why am I writing this, knowing that the mod creators have put so much energy and devotion into this huge mod?

That's fine. I have made a bunch of code additions and none of them conflict with your proposed ideas. They do affect what Kailric made, but I replace Kailric's work whenever I feel like it anyway

Seriously though this is a work in progress and the same goes for the design goal. Whenever somebody comes up with a better idea than the previous one, we adapt it even if it mean kicking out an older implementation. We don't have a "it is a I first wrote it" mentality and while there sometimes are funny remarks when features are replaced (alt Equipment comes to mind), we generally agree that we have to do so whenever a piece of code ends up restricting new ideas or improvements.

I see some great ideas here and I can't see any conflicts regarding with what is already implemented in this mod. However I spot something else, which is equally interesting. I see a new person showing up, who has a vision for what M:C should be. Perhaps you would like to contribute to this mod as well. There are plenty of tasks for all skill levels and from what I have seen, I wouldn't mind having oyh filling out the historical descriptions in the pedia pages. It isn't a technical demanding task as it is just writing text in a text editor. There are other tasks like playtest (bug finding) and try to improve game balance by changing XML values (like unit combat strength). There are a whole lot more tasks of this technical difficulty.

Surprisingly we could actually use a non-programmer as we tend to focus the modding time on the code itself. An example of this is when I coded the ability to sell yields to your own citizens and ran some tests to make sure the DLL does it right. Next up was the non-technical task of figuring out which unit should demand what. I ended up moving on to some bug fixing and this new feature wasn't actually used for months because nobody took the time to fill out the XML files.

It goes without saying that we can always use programmers and graphics artists. However as I said, those skills aren't mandatory to be able to assist quite a lot.

 

[Kailric]

I still don't like calling them barbarians. Also they behave way too much like vanilla natives.

Ok, I did a bit of research. Essentially, the word in English wasn't even invented yet. It derived from a Greek word, which they used mostly to describe someone who wasn't Greek. But they also used it to describe people they were at war with. So, basically most of the playable Civs in M:C would be described as barbarians... if we were Romans. But, we are not, so what did the Barbarians call each other? Probably were they originated from, "You Dane!", "You, Frank!" Which is basically what is going on but we have the extra Barbarian adjective.

So, we just need to drop Barbarian and replace it perhaps with Tribesman, so it would read Berber Tribesman. Or if the Civ is more civilized he could be called a Villager or Townsman. Anyway, something along those lines.

That's fine. I have made a bunch of code additions and none of them conflict with your proposed ideas. They do affect what Kailric made, but I replace Kailric's work whenever I feel like it anyway

Kailric hasn't "made" anything just yet, other than progress. I either had to keep it to myself until I was "done" or reveal it so to get feedback and ideas on the progress I had made so for, and hopefully help M:C is far from what I have visioned. But thanks to so many suggestions and ideas on these forums and the team effort the mod is definitely moving in a grand direction.

And not to forget the brilliant mind that is Nightinggale who calls all my code barbaric and loves to replace it at his whim. I have learned one huge thing in order to remain happy in this life. Accept change, even when it slaps you in the face

Barbarbarbar, bar barbar, bar bar, bar

 

[drjest2000]

Not to gainsay you Kailric, but the Anglo Saxons did have a word they used very much like Barbarian: It was wylisc, which meant "foreigner, stranger, speaker of Celtic or Latin" and carried much of the same derision as "barbarian". The modern English version of wylisc is "Welsh"