Main Readme for the Medieval Mod IV for Total War v1.1

V 1.85: For God and Country

By Wes Whitaker (email address, webpage)

 

My aim with this mod, as it has been with my other Medieval mods for Call-to-Power I and II and Civilization III (which I never released), is to correct any errors which may have slipped by the designers, even out those settings and stats which seem unbalanced, and to add the things which I believe will increase players’ enjoyment of the game.

These modifications are the results of playing the game, listening to player posts in the mod threads, and scanning the .com, .org and assembly forums to see what people were saying about the game, both good and bad. It is not hard to figure out why the criticisms should be noted, but I also note when people repeatedly rave about one particular feature of a unit, since this is often an indication of something that the designers missed when they were balancing the game before shipping. Thus you may find out that your favorite unit is not so powerful anymore.

Acknowledgements:                       

First of all, thanks go out to Lord Crazy, Barocca and the other guys who offered help on the .org forums. Even though I wasn’t registered at the time, you helped me understand how the text and graphics files were set up and why I kept getting those strange error messages. The text files aren’t so bad once you get used to them, but I had never seen ones built upon tab spaces before.

It was Gaelstrum and Red Harvest who suggested the alterations to Constantinople and the deletion of the two problem seas, so a big thank-you goes out to those two as well. Red also conducted the initial experiments to determine the file alterations necessary to remove the seas, and passed along his findings, which saved me time and effort, for which I am always grateful.

Also, I want to acknowledge Paladin, whose 1092Early was a valuable idea source, and to everyone who has contributed ideas in the mod threads.

 

Charts and Readmes:

This file, along with the spreadsheet and some other interesting files, is placed in your Charts and Readmes folder, which is located in your Medieval – Total War folder.

The Med mod spreadsheet is a heavily modified version of Yas’ file available from the .org site. I have color-coded it for easier viewing. I would recommend that you do as I have done and print out the first two pages of the sheet, as shown in the Excel Print Preview option.

Note: You will really want to take time to read the red-tabbed comments in the spreadsheet, especially the one near the top of the first column which explains the faction color scheme. They often go into detail explaining individual changes that I made. You can ignore any green tabs you may see, depending upon your Excel settings. PLEASE make use of this chart, or you will probably not understand some of the changes that have been made.

The building spreadsheet is by AFlorin, which I also obtained from the .org site, and is modified in a similar manner to the unit sheet.

 

Installation:

Simply follow the instructions and observe the warnings given in the self-installer, which will install the mod into your C:\Program Files\Total War folder, unless you use the Browse button to select another directory. That’s it. J

 

CAUTION: One of the warnings concerns the fact that, after installing the mod, you will have to re-install the game should you wish to play without using the mod.

 

Color Scheme:

General changes, file references and acknowledgements, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, buildings, ships, spearmen, infantry, cavalry, missiles, agents.

 

Starting positions:

Trade and provincial relationships:

The priority of ships has been increased, and I am happy to report that the AIs will now spread them out to form decent trade routes once they have protected their coastlines. This leads to a major change in troop priorities for the human as well, since war with a major power may now lead to epic sea conflict as well as land conflict.

It was common for the AIs to not place ships in certain secure seas along their coasts, which meant that their trade links would be disrupted at their origin. This was most apparent regarding the Italians and the Adriatic, and the Byzantines and the Sea of Marmara. Therefore I have deleted the Sea of Marmara and the Ionian Sea, and this appears to have done the trick in these two instances. The gameplay effect is that the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea have “expanded” to include the area of the two which were deleted. The port for Constantinople is now along the Aegean. Note that the map areas for the Ionian and Marmara seas are now a “void”, and that ships must be moved to the Adriatic from the Mirtoon Sea, for example.

I severed the link between Constantinople and Nicaea, to try and protect the Byzantines from the Turks. I also made the connection between Constantinople and Trebizond a coastal one containing a river. Hopefully this will mean the Byzantines will be defending a bridge from Asia Minor, which more closely approximates the real geography of the Bosporus. I have also given Khazar to the Kievans for the purpose of inhibiting Byzantine movement into rebel territories, since this always resulted in an inadequate defense of Constantinople.

I also severed the link between Flanders and Wessex, since invading England from mainland Europe has always hinged upon control of the English Channel.

Goldmines have been added to Switzerland and the Sinai, in order to make these poor provinces more valuable, and governorship of Arabia and Switzerland now confers a general’s star.

Some trade goods have been added to provinces in modern-day Germany, and the land value for many of the provinces in Germany and France has been raised, particularly for Franconia, which encompasses the Rhine River and the fertile valleys of central Germany. This should help compensate for the limited access to the seas for the HRE. Trade goods, ships and merchants have all been added to the province of Aragon for all three eras, in order to give this small faction a fighting chance. Flanders now contains better starting merchants, and is now a fairly rebellious province, both of which reflect its actual history of trade and the yearning for independence from foreign control.

Errors in the building lists have been corrected, and buildings have been added to most of the provinces in all eras, so that now each non-Rebel province starts out with at least a Fort, Watch Tower and Spearmaker or Bowyer. This should help keep the AI from building so many Peasants at the start of the game, and instead choose better units like Spearmen.

Ports: Most coastal provinces now start out with ports, even in the early period, and the time to build ports has been cut in half

Factions:

Units have been adjusted to account for the changes to unit availability and size, and to reduce the double-strength Muslim units to standard size.

I incorporated some of the changes to province ownership and troop placement made by Paladin, and I have also made additional changes of my own to all three campaigns. The best way to view the changes is through the game’s Campaign Selection screen.

I also followed Paladin’s lead in enabling all factions to be played by the human, except for the Papacy, the Swiss, and those factions that appear in the middle of a campaign. (You may play as the Mongols in the late campaign.) In addition, I changed the People of Novgorod to the Kievans, whom I feel possess both a greater historical significance and a closer relationship to the Russians. Also, I eliminated the Almohads from the late campaign, and restored the Sicilians. The Almohad Empire had disappeared by 1300, while the Sicilians still held Naples and Provence, so I felt that the change was warranted. In addition, I brought back the Burgundians in the late era, and gave them Flanders as well. This reflects the historical situation in the early part of the Hundred Years’ War, when France was weak and Burgundy had allied with England after failing to usurp the French throne. The Papacy has been strengthened both militarily and monetarily, and should now present at least a decent defense if attacked.

I have posted the maps I based my changes on at my webpage, which were obtained from the Euratlas.com website. I also studied maps from other sites, and found that oftentimes they did not agree when it came to issues such as independence versus a vassal state. Plus, the game does not, and really could not, show all of the historical provinces that existed at the various times covered by the game, so sometimes I had to decide what the most important part of the province seemed to be, and award ownership thusly. In addition, in some cases like Norway, I gave weak factions the benefit of the doubt in order to strengthen them and facilitate better gameplay.

 

Building and General changes:

I have increased the priority of buildings for many of the faction types. This was done because the AIs rarely seemed to improve their provinces, and were solely dedicated to ransacking their neighbors’ lands.

Happiness buildings: Watch Towers and Border Forts cost more, as do Churches and Monasteries.

Merchants now require a Port, Merchant Guilds now require a Shipwright, and Master Merchants require a Dockyard. This was done to keep the AIs from building higher-level merchants in provinces where they were probably not equitable.

Brothel: The Castle has been removed as the second requirement to build a Brothel. As far as gameplay, you need a lot of Spies for defense and loyalty, and it killed me to have to devote one of my always few Castles to making something like Spies.

The requirement of a Cannon Foundry for building a Shipbuilders Guild has been removed. I don’t know who stuck that in there at the last moment, but it sure caused plenty of confusion. Anyway, its deletion squares it with the building chart and gets rid of the War Galley incompatibility.

Palaces: The Marshals Palace requires a Fortress to build. I think the current setting is another error (Castle12 instead of Castle13). Also, since palaces more advanced than a Royal Palace are now unique, I have substituted the Royal Palace in place of the more advanced palaces in the requirements’ list. This way, you may have more than one city eligible to build these improvements.

The Military Academy has different requirements, since the Turks would seem to need more than one of them, and the previous requirements were unique. Therefore, the requirements have been changed to a Royal Palace and Citadel for the Christians, and a Royal Palace, Castle and Ribat for the Muslims. Academies now give the additional benefit of a valor increase for Christian factions and a weapon upgrade for Muslim factions.

Master-level buildings now give various bonuses rather than the standard valour increase. I tried to match the bonuses to the general deficiencies present in the troop classes produced by each structure. Please see the spreadsheet for specifics. I decided to make this change when I realized that many units would always get one, and sometimes more than one, valour increase due to their building requirements. This is perhaps why the defensive stats of the spear class, which would not automatically get such a bonus, rose at a faster rate than the offensive stats of the sword and mounted units.

Militia Barracks: Town Watches, Guards and Militias now require a higher-level castle than before, while County Militias require a Citadel, in addition to a Town Militia, instead of a Fortress.

The maximum garrison size of all castle structures has been approximately cut in half. This should help keep the AIs from losing so many of their best troops in short sieges, while not affecting the cases where storming the castle is a viable option.

Time and cost reductions: The time to build the troop producers, from Forts to Fortresses, has been reduced by 25%, and the costs and/or time of many other structures have been reduced as well. Please refer to the Building page of the Med mod spreadsheet for details.

Finally, the cost of improving Farmland by 80% has been reduced to 2,000. I use a 20 yr ROI (return on investment) as a guide, and it seems that the designers did too from the mine costs, and I never encountered a province while playing the game that met this criterion for the 80% improvement under normal circumstances.

As noted earlier, I have made dozens of changes to the settings for faction and region bonuses, in an effort to improve gameplay, boost weak factions and to give most units a special region.

The chances of mercenaries appearing has been cut in half, and in addition most all of the units more powerful than Feudal Men-at-Arms and Mamluk Horse Archers, except for Pikemen, have been eliminated, as have most of the one-faction units like Longbowmen and Italian Infantry (please see the spreadsheet for details). I did this because it was simply too easy to hire an overwhelming force early in the game by going on a merc “shopping spree”.

 

Unit availability:

The Poles, Hungarians and Sicilians can now launch Crusades! Since many players will want to play as one of the smaller factions, I thought we might as well give them some flavor. (The Aragonese could already crusade.) The Poles and Huns use the HRE units, while the Sicilians use the Italian units.

Knights Templar, along with Feudal and Chivalric Foot Knights, are now available as crusading units to all such factions in the early and/or high eras, before giving way to Hospitaller and Teutonic/Gothic units in the late era. This conforms much better to history, and allows me to adjust these units’ stats to better fit with their contemporaries. Order Foot Soldiers can still be a part of any faction’s crusade, but only in the late era, where they are now equal to Gothic Sergeants.

Gothic and Teutonic units can now be built by the Central European factions, i.e. the Danes, Poles and Hungarians in addition to the Germans, but no longer by the Italians. This last change was made so that it would be easier to keep things straight. These factions need help in the late game. From what I can tell, the Danes and Huns were the 12^th and 13^th factions, while the Poles certainly had the least amount of effort among the player-available factions put into their unit tree. Maybe this will help some.

Hospitaller units, along with Gendarmes, can be built by the Western European factions, i.e. the English, French, Spanish, Aragonese, Italians and Sicilians. In addition, Lancers have been taken away from the Spanish and Aragonese and given to the other four Western European factions, while Knights of Santiago are now a regular unit for the Spaniards and Catalans.

In this way, each section of Europe has its own late era swordsman, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, and crusading unit. This new arrangement, while taking a little time to get used to, is much easier to keep in your head, and is better for gameplay as well, which I think you will see after studying the units’ spreadsheet and playing the game.

Unique units:

Also, if a faction has a unit unique to it which has very similar stats to a regular unit, it cannot build the regular unit. There are five examples of this, all involving Catholic factions: 1) Vikings/Feudal MAA, 2) Billmen/Halberdiers, 3) Italian Infantry/Chivalric Sgts, 4) Spanish Jinetes/Mtd. Sgts. and 5) Polish Retainers/Feudal Knights.

 

I have listed below all of the major changes made to units, but dozens of additional small changes have been made that are not listed here. Almost any information needed on individual changes not covered here should be available in the spreadsheet, so please make use of it, especially the comments liberally sprinkled throughout the two main pages.

 

Ships:

I have increased the priority of ships, in order to get the AI to trade more, as well as reducing their costs by about 25%. Also, the time to build first and second-level ships has been reduced from 3 to 2 turns, while the time to build fourth-level ships has been reduced from 4 to 3 turns.

 

Strategic Agents:

I only corrected a few errors with faction bonuses in this section, other than the change to the building requirements for Spies, which was explained in the Building’s section. The Poles were given a bonus for producing Orthodox Priests and Bishops; I felt that the Russians could make better use of it. I also switched the bonus for Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors from the Aragonese to the Spanish. I am not sure if this was a bug, but it seemed to fit better.

 

Missile units:

Artillery can no longer be mercenary units. I just can’t see groups of guys hauling Catapults around from province to province, and you can usually hire enough merc arty so that you don’t need to build your own, which I am sure is not how the game was designed to be played.

I reduced the building requirements of Bulgarian Brigands some, and raised it some for Trebizond Archers and Longbowmen.

In addition, Longbowmen now have 36 arrows in their quiver, while Crossbowman and Arbalesters only have 24.

Pavise Crossbowmen and Pavise Arbalesters now require the same level of Bowyer as the plain versions, but with the additional requirement of a first and second level Armourer, respectively. They have also been moved to a later era than the plain versions, high and late, respectively.

In addition, the Turks can build all four bolt-firing units.

Below is a chart which contains the projectile stat categories which have been altered. Stats which have been modified, where present, are listed first, followed by the originals in parentheses. Mongol bows have the same armour penetration and power as longbows. I also increased the range of grenades, and lowered the minimum angle that missile units can fire at, in order to shoot downhill more easily.

 

 

Crusades:

I have totally re-worked almost everything about Crusades, based upon the opinions of myself and others on the forums, and using the knowledge given by Eat Cold Steel in the 1.6 thread.

Chapter Houses are now unique, and one has been given to each crusading faction in the starting position files for each era. Some of the Houses change location from era to era to reflect the historical movement of Order headquarters during the medieval era.

Crusades themselves now cost 4000 florins, which is compensated for by the fact that eligible units cost one-fifth as much as regular units to build, though they cost the same to support. This means that a dozen or more high-quality units should be created by the Crusade for the human, and who knows how many for the AI.

A Crusade now takes ten years to build, both to spread out the high cost, and to insure that they will be few and far between.

Seven special crusading versions of existing troops have been created, due to their reduced cost. These units have slightly better morale and discipline than regular units, but are otherwise the same. In previous versions of this mod, I enabled some crusading units to be built as regular units as well. Those units are still available, though there has been some shuffling around of a couple of units, and also some changes to faction availability. I think that the best way to show the new crusading units’ layout is through the chart below, which I hope is self-explanatory. One important thing to note, however, is that early units are not available in later eras, unless specified in the chart. I did not specify missile units, because I assumed that a crusade would be able to pick up plenty of them on the way to its destination.

Note that a crusade can have many more than sixteen units. If you notice an arrow on the left side of the review panel, then this is the case.

 

Unit type / Era	Early	High	Late
Spearmen	Feudal Sergeants	Chivalric Sergeants	Order Foot Soldiers
Swordsmen	Feudal Foot Knights	Chivalric Foot Knights	Hospitaller/Gothic Ft. Kn.
Light Cavalry	Mounted Sergeants	Gendarmes/Teutonic Sgts.	Gendarmes/Teutonic Sgts.
Heavy Cavalry	Knights Templar	Knights Templar	Kn. Hospitaller/Teutonic Kn.

 

Spearmen and Infantry:

Peasants are much cheaper to build and support, which helps put them in line statistically with other infantry units.

The spear unit-class has been adjusted to standardize their development up through the eras. Basically, their primary stats (charge, attack, defense and armour) all increased by one point per era, with Spearmen and Kerns being an initial, or era zero, unit.

Militia-class units have generally been strengthened in quality; although it is now harder to get their required buildings (see the buildings section above).

Most elite units, both infantry and cavalry, take two turns to build. This will keep someone from being able to flood the game with elite units from a single province, and will also make the construction of these units easier to finance, since their cost will be spread over two turns.

The 50% shield penalty given to higher-level infantry units has been eliminated (please see the spreadsheet for details). The penalty was for melee rather than ranged defense, which seemed to me the opposite of what it should have been. Eliminating it also helped in differentiating the units and in figuring up their costs.

Swiss units:

In general, Swiss units have higher attack, charge, morale and mobility than standard units, but a lower defense.

Swiss Pikemen, Armoured Pikemen and Halberdiers are only available to those factions who can build regular Pikemen and Halberdiers. In addition, Swiss Halberdiers can now be built in Rome, and Swiss Pikemen in the Papal States, where their respective valour bonuses are awarded.

Regional units:

Mongol Warriors have a higher defense, and shoot armour-piercing arrows, just like Longbowmen.

Vikings require a Swordsmith to build, while Woodsmen require a Spearmaker, and Gallowglasses are now restricted to the high and late eras.

Javelin units:

I have totally re-worked the three javelin-throwing units, to make them useful where they were not previously, imo. I am really excited about this first unit.

Almughavars now carry pikes in addition to their javelins, and are restricted to the late era with the other Pikemen. They require a Master Spearmaker and an Inn, and are still available to any faction in provinces all around the Mediterranean, which means that Muslims and the Golden Horde can hire them.

Kerns are now javelin-toting Spearmen, with 100 men per unit, but lower offensive stats than originally.

Murabitin Infantry are now the statistical equal to Saracen Infantry, while retaining their javelins, which gives the Almohads a needed boost in the high era, when their empire historically fell apart.

Catholic units:

Gothic and Hospitaller Foot Knights: These units are available as standard infantry units, with a Swordsmith replacing the HorseBreeder in the requirements’ list. This reflects how knights fought more and more on foot after the development of weapons like the crossbow, halberd and pike. This also adds some late-era infantry to the game where there was none before.

Gothic Sergeants: I made a lot of changes to these guys, most notably the increase from 60 to 100 men per unit, with an accompanying increase in cost, and the requirements of a Baronial Court and a Master Spearmaker to produce. I also made them disciplined and with decent honor, which fits in with their description.

Orthodox units:

Byzantines: I have generally reduced the cost and especially the upkeep of the Byzantine units. An exception is the Byzantine Infantry, whom I have reduced from 100 men to 60 per unit while keeping the costs about the same. I also increased the melee from 2 to 3, and gave this disciplined unit decent honor. These changes were made partially based upon the posts of players on the Assembly site, my own experiences, and the unit settings. I believe that this unit was raised from 60 to 100 men at the last moment, based upon the other unit settings which were apparently not adjusted to reflect the manpower change. I assume this was done to compensate for the fact that the Byzantines didn’t have a spear unit more powerful than common Spearmen.

Militia Sergeants, Feudal Sergeants and Pikemen are available to the Byzantines. Since Pikemen are not now available until the late era, I believe it is ok for the Byzantines to have access to them, and with their knowledge of Greek history and the Phalanx they would certainly have been able to develop this unit had they wanted to do so. The Byzantines were already able to build all of the Town Watch improvements, even though none gave them any units past Urban Militia, so I believe this was another one of those last-minute changes, perhaps due to the “era segregation” bug in the original release.

Russian/Kievan: Feudal Sergeants are available to the Russians and Kievans.

Muslim units:

Muwahid Foot: I increased the men in this unit from 60 to 100, which is what I believe it was always meant to be based upon the other unit costs and stats.

Nizari are now the equivalent of Chivalric Men-at-Arms, in order to give the Egyptians a heavy infantry unit equal to the Almohad Urban Militia and Chivalric Men-at-Arms, but they lose their bows.

Ghazi Infantry are a more balanced unit.

Futuwwa are available to the Almohads and Egyptians, not the Turks, and are also a more balanced unit offensively and defensively, in order to make it comparable with Ottoman Infantry.

Almohad Urban Militia and Ottoman Infantry now require more buildings, while Turcoman Footmen require less.

The Janissary units have been completely overhauled. The Heavy Infantry keep their role as assault troops, but their stats have been increased to match those of Foot Knights. The Bowmen have been changed to assume the role the Infantry had earlier- that of bow-wielding infantry, but are now comparable to Chivalric Men-at-Arms, while the Infantry are now heavy Spearmen equal to Gothic Sergeants. Before, I could not see why one would choose to build the Bowmen over Turcomen Foot; this new arrangement gives both of them a distinct role. I also feel that the Turks need a line of late-era infantry capable of standing toe-to-toe with contemporary Christian units if they are to begin their conquest of Europe.

 

Cavalry:

All mounted archer unit types can reload on the move.

Horse Archers are now available to the Golden Horde.

Mongol units have been strengthened, with Horse Archers given a bonus to walking speed, and hopefully stamina, which was one of the keys to their success. In addition, all Mongol units cost half as much as other units to produce and support, and have lower building requirements.

Several cavalry units now form different types of infantry than before when they dismount. Please see the spreadsheet for specifics.

Catholic units:

Polish Retainers can be produced in all Polish provinces.

Spanish Jinetes are restricted to the Spanish/Aragonese, and now have excellent speed.

Teutonic Sergeants have a higher charge value to allow them to fit their description as upgraded Mounted Sgts., and they are available as a standard cavalry unit in addition to a Crusader unit, while Knights of Santiago are now regular troops instead of Crusaders.

Lithuanian Cavalry are now mounted archers with the same primary stats as Mounted Sgts. They can be built with a Keep, plus add-ons, and are still available to Catholic factions. All of this should make them a much more viable unit, depending upon your style of play.

Muslim and Orthodox units:

Each Muslim faction, along with the Byzantines, now has one type of cavalry unit available for each castle structure, Fort through Citadel, in addition to the various royal units. I have spent considerable time making each unit unique in the first three categories, both from other units in its group and from other units in its faction. To do this, however, I had to shift some units among the factions, and also alter the general characteristics of a few units. I am very pleased with the overall results, whose effect, I believe, is to increase the playability of each faction, while allowing it to keep its distinct flavor. Please reference the spreadsheet as needed for details.

Armenian Heavy Cavalry can be found all over Asia Minor.

Ghulam Cavalry are now restricted to the Almohads.

Khwarazmian Cavalry are only available to the Almohads and Egyptians, and have had their attack raised and a shield added in order to make them a viable heavy unit for the late game, with an appropriate raise in building requirements.

Ottoman Sipahi have had their attack and defense raised in order to make them a viable heavy unit for the late game, with an appropriate raise in building requirements.

Kataphraktoi and Ottoman Sipahi now wield armour-piercing axes and shields as well as lances, and sport a new look.

The defense and building requirements of Boyars and Sipahi of the Porte have been reduced, so that they may now be built with a Castle instead of a Citadel. I also increased the number of men in the Porte unit from 20 to 40, which put it in line with its production and support costs, and matched the men in the Kataphraktoi and Boyar units.

Alan Mercenary Cavalry are now available as regular troops that require an Inn along with the standard structures, and are restricted to the Byzantines.

 

Graphics changes:

I have changed the look of some of the units to reflect the changes made to their stats and abilities. The Nizari now look like Chivalric Men-at-Arms, and have lost their bows. The Janissary Bowmen look like the Infantry, and the Infantry look like Gothic Sergeants. The Lancers, Gothic Knights and Khwarazmian Cavalry have gained shields, while Ottoman Sipahi and Kataphraktoi have had their looks completely overhauled. The crossbow can now be seen on Mounted Crossbowmen when they are standing, walking and running, while their sword is now visible when charging and dying, and the weapon and shield now appear in opposite hands for all cavalry units which have shields. Some of the mounted archers now draw their swords when charging, too.

A huge thank-you goes out to Lord Crazy and Barocca, whose mods and threads allowed me to figure out how the graphics system works.

Well, that’s it for now and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

 

Wes