Download - War of the West Mod Overview
Ladies and gentlemen, fans of the Middle Ages, I present to you
the complete preview of our ambitious project, the War of the
West! Our team is proud to display many of our mods features to
you today! Take note of the fact that this is quite a long read prior
to starting!
Introduction to the Mod
War of the West is a mod centered on Western Europe, much like
Broken Crescent is centered on the Middle East and the Far East.
The events of this mod take place from the 13th to the 15th
Centuries, which will be encompassed in two distinct campaigns.
The first campaign, called War of the West: Britannia, starts in
1245 and ends in 1315, and the other campaign, War of the West:
The Golden Age, starts in 1245 and ends in 1454. The Britannia
Campaign features 4 Turns per Year and the Golden Age Grand
Campaign features 2 Turns per Year. Because of this, the
modification will give the player the opportunity to experience
the seasons, as well as develop an attachment to his or her
characters and technologies. This mod has three goals: historical
accuracy, challenging gameplay and innovation. Expect
difficulties and restrictions to the player since, as you know, the
initial version of Medieval 2: Total War was far too easy.
The Map
When we initially began this project, we already had a workable
map template. Unfortunately, some things have changed; as the
map files were, for some reason, corrupted. But now it doesn’t
matter, our mappers have created a new, more ambitious map
with even more regions.
The campaign map will contain 150 accurate settlements and
preplaced permanent stone forts (details on this are available in
the Permanent Stone Forts section).
The Factions
Please note that the factions featured in the War of the West will
be differentiated by campaign (certain factions won’t be featured
in both campaigns). The following factions will be featured in the
War of the West:
Kingdom of England - Kingdom of England
Kingdom of Scotland - Rìoghachd na h-Alba
House of O’Neill - Uí Néill
Principalty of Wales - Tywysogaeth Cymru
Kingdom of Norway - Kongeriket Norge
Kingdom of Denmark - Kongeriget Danmark
Kingdom of Sweden - Konungariket Sverige
Kingdom of France - Royaume de France
Duchy of Brittany - Duché de Bretagne
County of Flanders - Graafschap Vlaanderen
Duchy of Burgundy - Duché de Bourgogne
Swiss Confederacy - Eidgenossenschaft
Holy Roman Empire - Heiliges Römisches Reich
Duchy of Austria - Erzherzogtum Österreich
Kingdom of Bohemia - Königreich Böhmen
Crown of Castille - Corona de Castilla
Crown of Aragon - Corona d'Aragón
Kingdom of Navarre - Nafarroako Erresuma
Republic of Venice - Repubblica di Venezia
Republic of Pisa - Repubblica di Pisa
Republic of Florence - Repubblica Fiorentina
Commune of Genoa – Comune di Genova
The Main Features
The War of the West has several new features that will almost
entirely revamp the existing vanilla version.
Culture
The War of the West replaces religion with culture. The primary
reason is that all the featured factions were Catholic (until
Renaissance, when different religious movements occurred), but
they were culturally different. Culture will be linked with the
recruitment, public order, and a few optional building features.
Certain units will require a specific cultural percentage in order to
be recruitable, just like the recruitment system featured in the
Britannia campaign. There will be a total of ten cultures:
Germanic
Spanish
Italian
Scandinavian
Mediterranean
Gaelic
English
French
Baltic
Other
Each faction will possess a primary culture. Certain factions will
have a secondary culture, the propagation of which may up
special features, but restrict others. For example, the Duchy of
Brittany will have access to more longbowmen if they spread
more English culture in their regions, and if they spread more
French culture, they will have access to more cavalry.
One Settlement Type
This mod does not include castle settlement types. Here are some
reasons for that alteration:
More fluid customization of settlements (this will be
expounded upon further in the preview)
Ease of modding buildings.
Better AI functionality.
Better regional representation.
More historically accurate (many cities often featured
interior castles).
We will also create new strat models to represent the new
settlement types, along with new battlemaps that feature castles
within cities.
Recruitment
This mod is not easy; even hardcore gamers will be challenged.
No longer will you have a single settlement that can create army
after army. No longer will you have plenty of reserve units in
your settlements. There will be several restrictions in place that
will provide for more, balanced armies and less, over-
exaggerated, elite armies.
First, let’s look into unit recruitment and organization. I invite
you to take a look at my current unit guideline (MUG). This link
will provide more information:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=466086
Area of Recruitment System
Conquering factions will have the opportunity to recruit the units
of other factions in their native lands, as long the percentage of
that factions culture is sufficient to make them available. That
being said, the refill rate and unit pool size will be reduced for
conquering factions, as some natives would naturally be
unwilling to fight for their conquerors.
Let's use Ireland as an example. The Ceitheirne will be able to be
recruited in the largest abundance in Ireland by the Irish faction.
If Ireland captured London, the Irish faction would be unable to
recruit Ceitheirne until the Irish culture was at a high enough
level. Until the Irish are able to raise their culture to that point,
however, Ireland will be able to recruit levied Longbowmen, as
the English culture would be high enough to do so.
So basically, this is an Area of Recruitment system coupled with
cultural requirements. Lesser soldiers require lower levels of
culture, while higher quality soldiers require a higher cultural
percentage. As it is, the system works very well, and will provide
conquering factions with incentives to conquer certain factions
and to preserve their cultures.
Unit Categories
The following is an overview of unit categories:
Feudal Levies
Feudal Levies were conscripts who served as foot soldiers
summoned by a local lord or by the sovereign. These men were
usually required to arm themselves in accordance to their wealth,
either as light infantry with a bow or spear, or as medium
infantry with heavier equipment. The length of service in the field
carried out by these forces varied slightly from country to
country, but on average their length of service was limited to
forty days. This service could be extended by paying the troops,
although many were reluctant to stay away from their lands for
long periods of time and this made it exceedingly difficult to field
an army of these men for any length of time. Usually, the Feudal
Levies were used in emergency situations, such as the French
Arrière-Ban organization.
Warrior Levies
Compared to the Feudal Levies, who were generally used in
emergencies, the Warrior Levies were a conscripted and
organized soldiery found in cultures that were more military
inclined, and were used as the bulk of most of their armies. As
with the Feudal Levies, these men had to provide their own
equipment, but, since they are from a more militaristic culture,
they would often get equipment from loot and spoils of wars.
Due to their militaristic orientation, this type of levy would be
much more effective than their feudal counterparts.
For recruitment, the Levy categories have the best refill rate and
unit pool size in game. To recruit these units, a specific
percentage of your faction’s culture will be required. These units
will have their fullest availability in their native lands, and
outside of these lands their availability will slightly be diminished
and will require a larger percentage of your faction’s culture.
Regulars
Regulars are an all-encompassing unit type, which represent men
who made a living out of waging war. Regulars could be partially
or fully employed, and could be paid either by the crown or by a
local lord. Although they were regularly paid (and well paid),
loot and plunder were supplementary of their salary. However,
since military campaigns were temporary, their employer would
often dismiss these men, who would then use their equipment
and money to search for another employer who was ready to
purchase their services. As such, this class was mostly
encompassed by mercenaries. They were highly disciplined, as
disciplined as was needed to earn their wage. Their training and
equipment varied greatly from culture to culture. Their
equipment was also highly dependent on their personal wealth,
in stark contrast to Militia and Sergeants who are often equipped
by the crown.
Regulars will be an interesting choice when planning a military
campaign, as recruiting them provides easy access to professional
soldiers. No cultural percentage is required to recruit Regulars.
And, while they are cheap to recruit, they have an expensive
upkeep. In fact, their unit cost will be equal to their upkeep cost
because, when you sign a mercenary contract, you are already
paying them a trimester wage. Regulars are worthy units in the
short term, but should be disbanded when there's no war to be
fought, as they will constantly drain your royal coffers while
garrisoning – a job that militiamen can do on the cheap.
The Regulars are excluded from the Recruitment Limitation
feature (this will be further explained in the future), therefore you
can recruit these men and it will not count towards your army
size limit or affect your population! Certain Regulars are available
only in specific regions, such as the the Galloglaìgh, that can only
be recruited in the Hebridean isles. Conquering certain regions
will give you access certain mercenaries.
There’s another very special feature that certain Regular units
have; recruitment access via Alliances! This will enable Allied
factions to recruit a faction specific Regular unit. The unit will be
recruitable as long as the alliance is maintained.
There is also another option to gain access to that unit is when the
Regulars owner is eliminated. Upon such a case, that unit will be
accessible to any and all factions that hold region(s) native to that
unit.
Household Nobles
The knight in shining armour leading a cavalry charge against the
enemy is a good depiction of the Household Nobles. The
Household Nobles were major landowners who were vassals of
the sovereign. When the king ordered the "Call-to-Arms" or
similar order in which force-readied men to go at war, the nobles
would answer the call. On some occasions, they would prefer not
to answer it and instead paid a fine (or scuttage tax) so the
sovereign could hire mercenaries or other armed bodies in their
stead. When summoned, the noble would form what was called a
"retinue", which was compromised of the noble and his servants,
armed and ready for battle. As with the Sergeant-at-Arms, the
Household Nobles have access to high quality equipment, often
equipped with the latest armaments. Each culture has their own
method, but generally, the Household Nobles were the ones who
lead the heavy cavalry and/or heavy infantry.
These are the elite units of your kingdom, and every faction has a
unique set of Household Nobles that will lead your army into
battle. The mere presence of these men on the battlefield is a great
inspiration to lesser men, and therefore, nearby units will get a
morale bonus until the nobles die or flee. These units are usually
the strongest units available to a faction, having access to the
finest equipment and training available, and therefore have the
best stats. That being said, the Household Nobles are rare, quite
rare. A single unit of knights needs to be treasured, losing even
one unit can be disastrous for your army, as they are not only
rare, but their availability and refill rate is very low. You will
have to keep an eye on these units in battle if you want to have an
advantage over your enemy. As far as recruitment is concerned,
the nobles also require a certain amount of cultural percentage.
When a conquering faction establishes a hold over a region, it
needs a good establishment of authority and new public order to
grant lands to nobles. The Household Nobles are also quite
expensive, as these knights are summoned rather than trained,
and they will have an accordingly high upkeep cost. As was true
of the Regulars, keeping these men in pay when not at war is both
unnecessary and costly.
Sergeants-at-Arms
Sergeants-at-Arms are members of the royal bodyguard. Selected
for their battle prowess and loyalty to the kingdom, these men
perform several tasks, such as guarding an important figure,
carrying out orders on the battlefield, leading men, and forming
an elite body of trained soldiers. Equipped by the sovereign
himself, the Sergeants-at-Arms have the finest and latest
equipment available to the kingdom.
This unit type comprises your General’s bodyguards. This unit is
much smaller than in vanilla, but they are still very powerful
soldiers, disciplined and loyal till death. They have no upkeep
cost, and the player will be able to recruit generals from educative
buildings. Generals will also get either a military or
administrative education depending of their way of learning and
where they were educated.
The Sergeants are sub-tenants who hold less property than do
Household Nobles; squires, petty knights and rich Burghers are
legible to be part of this category. The Sergeants were the class of
professional soldiery raised by the king, not by local lords. Until
the emergence of standing armies, the Sergeants formed the
nucleus of professional armies. They were equipped in the same
manner as Household Nobles, but in slightly lesser quality.
Generally very disciplined and loyal, they were well trained and
equipped, at cost to the king, who would raise royal taxes to
maintain these armed bodies.
The Sergeants are, in other words, the royal standing army of a
kingdom. Very few factions will possess a great variety or
availability of this type of unit type to start. They will have a high
unit cost, but a fairly low upkeep. Sergeants will eventually be
more available and varied the further a player gets into the game,
as this unit type was slowly incorporated from a minimal role in
feudal armies to a more prominent role in national standing
armies. The Sergeants will also require more than one turn to
recruit; this is to simulate the required training needed to field the
unit. Infantry Sergeants will have lower recruiting time than do
Mounted Sergeants. Only settlements of the Military
Development type will have access to them (more on this later).
Recruitment Limitation
We will be adding an existing submod called Recruitment
Limitation, created by Tsarsies for Stainless Steel quite some time
ago. This brilliant modification will severely increase gameplay
challenge. Here’s the original thread,
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=165287, but
let’s break this down anyways, shall we?
This modification will prevent the player from creating an
endless number of large armies. A predetermined army size
limit will be in effect that will increase or decrease based on
the size of your kingdom. The bigger your kingdom is, the
more armed men you can produce and vice-versa.
Secondly, when you recruit and train a unit, the population
of your settlement will be reduced by the type of unit (a la
Rome Total War). Now you will have to think twice about
recruiting cannon fodder. Dead men can’t be retrained; if
you want to retrain your units, then your population will be
further reduced.
And lastly, there’s only one type of unit that will not affect
your population: mercenaries. This will incentivize the
recruitment of mercenaries, mercenaries who will provide
you with instantaneous, decent quality, extra soldiers – for a
price.
This feature will not restrict the AI whatsoever. They will be
able to recruit any number of units they wish and it won’t
affect their population. Unfair? No, not really. You already
have an unfair advantage over the AI: a brain.
Periodic Recruitment
All the units in War of the West are completely accurate; this
extends to the era in which they are recruitable. Certain units will
be unavailable until the proper historical event transpires. For
example, England will only gain access to Yeoman Archers after
The Archery Law Event (in 1272) transpires.
Replenishment and size of the Unit Pool
A unit’s replenishment rate and unit pool size is determined
by its unit category. There are 7 types of unit categories in
the War of the West; Sergeants-at-Arms, Household Nobles,
Sergeants, Regulars, Urban Militia, Warrior Levies and
Feudal Levies (explained above). (#4)
The size and replenishment rate have been greatly reduced;
the maximum unit size limit is 3 and the replenishment rate
can vary between 2 to as many as 30 turns (again depending
on the unit category). Surprising? This is to force the player
to use all his resources to build a large army, in effect
removing the “one settlement army factory”. The rarer units
are indeed the strongest and they must be used wisely,
otherwise, you will have to wait for some time before you
can raise a new one (particularly knights!)
Mercenaries
Mercenaries were an integral part of most Western armies.
The first thing we have changed about mercenaries is there
recruitment, and their unit upkeep costs. They will be
increase drastically from vanilla.
Most mercenaries are Regulars, but a few rare units can be
an exception to this rule.
Mercenaries will no longer be recruitable from the
Campaign Map; they can only be recruited from settlements.
The main reason for this is historical accuracy: most
mercenaries moved between large urban settlements to offer
their services to the highest bidder (rather than standing in
the middle of forests and mountains, as they seem to do in
vanilla). Still, under certain conditions (particularly sieges)
mercenaries will be recruitable during the siege for both
sides (the besiegers and the besieged).
And, as was mentioned above, they will not be affected by
the Recruitment limitation system, making mercenaries an
interesting option for extended military campaigns.
Desertion Script
This script will be devastating if you fail to pay attention to your
funds and income. If you go bankrupt, all Regulars (mercenaries)
will be disbanded right away from your armies and settlements.
Since you can no longer pay them, the mercenaries will simply
move on to be hired by a wealthier employer.
Permanent Stone Forts and their characteristics
Since the game’s engine has certain limitations, we have bypassed
the hardcoded regional limitations by adding Permanent Stone
Forts (PSFs). The PSFs will have distinct types that will affect the
game in their own way. There will be three types of PSFs;
Villages, Fortified Ports and Castles. Each region will be
represented with a capital, much like in Empire Total War. These
satellite settlements will provide various advantages to the capital
of the region.
Villages
Villages are a PSF that will provide food production to the capital
of their region. Each village will provide +2 Food Production to a
settlement. Each region may have up to 2 villages at one time. As
long the owner of the capital holds the village(s), that capital will
receive bonus food production from these settlements. If an
enemy captures a village, the conqueror will not have any
benefits until he captures the capital, but by doing so he strips the
owner of his regional capital’s bonus food production. Villages
will not be heavily defended, and will only have simple wooden
palisade wall for protection on the Battle Map. These PSFs are key
targets for a region’s development as well a tactical target for
invading armies. Certain buildings will be available to the capital
only if they hold at least one village. This represents a regions
need for an increase in agricultural technology, food production,
and food quality.
Fortified Ports
Fortified Ports are PSFs that are on ports and protect sea trade
from enemies. Controlling a Fortified Port will provide additional
health and sea trade bonuses for the regional capital. If an enemy
captures the port, the capital will not be able to build ships and
their sea trade will be blocked, just like when ships blockade
ports in vanilla.
Castles
Castles will provide additional defences to the region; castles
were usually built in strategic positions to disturb aggressive
enemy advances. The regional capital will also receive an
increased professional unit production rate as long as the owner
holds the castle. If an enemy captures the castle, the unit
production bonus will be no longer be available to the capital and
the original owner will lose an important military outpost.
Building and Development
The War of the West is more than a simple retexture of unit
rosters and factions. We have totally overhauled the way in
which your settlements develop, faction development, building
trees. We have completely redone the building browser, by
including new buildings and adjusting existing ones. When you
combine this with the new Development Path, each campaign
will be unique!
Over 60 new and redeveloped building trees, with more than 100
different buildings have been added. We have given each
building tree their own unique advantages and disadvantages;
some may be limited, but will grant additional advantages to the
settlement. It should be noted that we also took the time to
redesign building icons, as well.
The Settlement Paths
This is one of most important features of the War of the West. The
regional capital will be able to specialize in one of three
developmental paths. Each path will provide individual
advantages and disadvantages. Not only will this be more
historically accurate, but it will provide the player with a greater
sense of immersion (and will give the campaign role-playing
elements to boot). Each campaign will be unique; it will depend
on how you choose to develop your settlements.
Each settlement will have to choose between three developmental
paths; Militaristic, Cultural or Economic Development. It’s
important to note that once you choose a path, you will be unable
to change to another path (though there will be an exception for
faction capitals, but that will be discussed later).
Military Development
This path will make the settlement a military center, providing
bonuses to professional unit recruitment, along with increased
experience and morale to your units. This path will enable the
settlement to train Sergeants and Standing Armies (discussed
later in the Unit Category section). In the early period, this
settlement type can be beneficial to certain factions or completely
useless to others, as national standing armies were more
prevalent in the 14th century onwards. This settlement will also
have limited access to economical, educative, cultural, and
entertainment related buildings.
Economical Development
As the name implies, settlements of this type will become
economic powerhouses and trade hubs. It will provide semi-
professional, strong units, generally of a mercenary background.
This settlement path will be of obvious importance, for what is an
army without the money needed to pay its soldiers? Decadence
and corruption will be common problems for this settlement path.
Managing these settlements will provide quite a challenge, but if
you become masterful in controlling them, the advantage
provided by economic settlements will be incomparable!
Cultural Development
A center of knowledge, late technology and great advancement,
this path will give you access to the highest levels of education,
administrative, technology related buildings. In the early period,
this settlement will see little use save for educational purposes,
but in the late period, this settlement type will be key in faction
development.
Faction’s Capital
The capital of each faction will have several bonuses, and losing it
may prove disastrous for that faction. The features of the capital
apply only to a faction’s initial capital; if you decide to move your
capital, you will be unable to access these features from your new
capital.
Capitals will have unique development paths that remove the
restrictions that other development paths have; all buildings and
units will be accessible from your capital.
Capitals also have access to special buildings that provide large
bonuses for the settlement. They even have some extra features,
such as recruiting royal ladies, unique improved laws, unique
character traits, etc.
Management of your kingdom
The second major feature of the War of the West is a total revision
of kingdom management. Each faction will have their own
personal goal to reach their “Golden Age”. At the beginning of
the campaign, each faction will have an overview of the political
situation and goal targets. A player may or may not follow these
goals, but these missions will provide superior historical
advantages, such as military reformation, the birth of factions,
and the advancement of the faction’s conquest. Once you succeed
in fulfilling the “Golden Age” goal, you will have an even larger
goal; the Empire Goal.
The Empire Goal is the original “vanilla” goal of Medieval 2 Total
War: to control a fixed number of regions and to eliminate your
rivals in order to form your empire. The War of the West team
will also try to represent something that has been overlooked by
many other modifications; Imperial decadence. When managing a
small kingdom, most faction leaders will be adequate. When
managing an empire, the faction leader may have issues
maintaining the control of his people and nobles.
The player will have several interactive events that will affect the
faction leader’s authority. We want to provide further immersion
by encouraging the player to envision himself as the character
they are managing in game. Each major action you perform will
affect your authority. We intend to remove from the player the
feeling of God, by forcing him to make difficult decisions and
sacrifices. Every choice made in these interactive events will
provide a positive and negative consequence to the player. Let’s
view an example of the interactive script that will affect your
faction leader’s authority:
A rival faction declares war by attacking one of your villages. At
the beginning of the turn, you will receive a message that explains
to you that you are now in war with your rival and war costs
money. You will be given a choice to raise conscription taxes on
the nobles and the commoners alike in order to raise an army to
defend your kingdom. If you accept, your authority will decrease
and your dread will increase, due that your people and nobles
dislike additional taxes. If you decline the option to raise taxes,
your people will respect you more because you improvised and
found another way to finance your war, causing your authority
and chivalry to increase.
That was a basic example, but the general premise is explained by
it. There will be many more interactive events such as that. Not
only will your faction leader’s authority and stats be affected, but
the loyalty of your generals may also be affected.
Now let’s discuss the negative consequences of having paltry
authority.
A faction leader with low authority will not only upset your
people, but your nobles will be less willing to follow you and may
even conspire against you! This is the worst consequence of
having low authority; if you authority drops to a low enough
level, the chance of internal rebellions will increase. If such a
rebellion does occur, your kingdom will be shattered by rebels
and a initially hostile “shadow faction” will emerge from your
faction, which will attempt to eliminate your fragmented
kingdom.
The heir of your king may also have serious problems if your
king had low authority, as the nobles and commoners will
already despise the royal blood, so killing off a weak faction
leader will not resolve your problems. For these reasons, the
player will have to work even harder to increase his faction
leader’s authority, as authority may increase with successful
military victories.
Production Buildings
The building feature that has had the largest overhaul is the new
building type called Resource Production Buildings. These
buildings are only available if a region possesses the specific
resource needed to construct that building. For example, in order
to construct the Vineyard buildings, the region will need access to
the Wine resource. These buildings will provide great trade
income bonuses, and some of them will give you additional
bonuses.
We have also added some penalties and maintenance to buildings
as well. It’s only logical that buildings require certain
maintenance expenses to keep the building functional and to pay
the wages of the workers.
The penalties are logical disadvantages that certain buildings
would have. For example, markets are a cities main source of
income, but public order can get more difficult to maintain as
markets become larger, and corruption and blackmarket penalties
will rise in higher tier buildings as well.
Guilds
We have also redesigned guild buildings. Now, in order to build
a specific guild, you will not only need to accumulate guild points
but also take into consideration what development path your
settlement will take. You want your settlement to possess a
Merchant’s Guild? Specialize your settlement into the Economical
Path. Some vanilla guilds have been removed, particularly
Religious Orders as, usually, these orders didn’t fight against
other Christian factions. New guilds have been introduced along
with new bonuses and traits to replace the removed guilds.
Interactive Event and technology
As was mentioned previously, the gameplay will be affected by
your choices. This will include technological advancement, which
will affect which new units and buildings a player will receive.
Once a historical event occurs, the player will receive an
interactive event that enables him to invest in and adopt various
advances, such as gunpowder, or metallurgic advancements.
Technology is a large investment and the player will have only
one opportunity to gain access to that technology. If a player
accepts, investments will be taken from your coffers and you will
gain access to the new technology. If a player declines (if the
player seeks a challenge or is experiencing a lack of funds), he
will not be granted access to the new technology, and will instead
receive an income bonus to help him to continue to play the
game. Military technology will not comprise the entirety of these
interactive events; advances will be made that are cultural,
agricultural, medical, entertainment-based, etc in nature. Because
the AI is incapable of properly dealing with interactive events,
opposing factions will automatically gain the technology without
penalties.
Historical Events
While our modification was made primarily for player
enjoyment, we will be adding various, interesting historical
events as well.
Historical Battles
As was explained before, we intend to add some historical
information; because this is a Total War mod, this includes
military history. This special feature of our mod will allow
players to experience historical battles. We will try to include at
least one historical battle per faction in order to allow the player
to better familiarize himself with said faction.
At a specific historical date, the player’s faction will command an
automatic battle that involves his faction and his rival at the end
of the turn. Each side will feature a preordained army, along with
the historical figures that were involved, and if you win the
battle, you will receive a reward for that accomplishment. This
feature will be optional at the beginning of the campaign; while
we don’t want it to interfere with players whose primary interest
in our mod is gameplay and continuity, our intention for this
addition is to give the historically oriented players an interesting
feature.
Garrison Script
This script will provide additional challenge to the player by
spawning additional units for a besieged AI’s settlements. Once
the siege ends, these units will be disbanded. Since the AI has
issues with pathfinding and balancing armies, this will give the
AI a much needed boost.
Sieges
Sieges will increase in difficulty, and will be made more difficult.
In the Middle Ages, sieges were long, but the besiegers did
everything within their power to capture besieged settlements as
quickly as possible. We want the player to experience this.
Siege engine script
This script will enable a general to recruit trebuchets when they
are besieging a settlement. Because trebuchets were historically
built at the siege site, the most logical way to represent this is
enabling them to be recruited on site. Once the siege is over, the
trebuchet(s) will be disbanded. Some sieges may even have
mercenaries available for instant recruitment.
Siege Turmoil
This script will increase turmoil in the besieged settlements.
Historically, stress, risk of disease and starvation, and death
caused turmoil. The longer a siege lasts, more the turmoil will
increase.
Disease and ration Script
This script will make the besieger lose some of his soldiers over
time. Historically, disease, lack of hygiene, infected wounds,
death from besieged archers, etc, made life hard for the besiegers,
which is why they tried to take settlements as quickly as possible.
On the besieged end, settlements will have a Granary building
tree. It will reduce the casualties and increase the number of turns
that a settlement can hold off a besieging force. Destroying it will
severely lessen the length of the siege, and increase the rate at
which besieged soldiers die.
White Flag Script
This script will enable a besieged army to, allowing their army to
safely leave and forfeit the city. Accepting this offer will increase
a General’s chivalry, but it will reduce the amount of money
received by sacking the settlement. By declining it, a General will
gain increased levels of dread, and the siege will continue.
Improved Walls
The War of the West modification aims to do the first major
overhaul of settlement walls. We will create custom new
settlements, in order to better represent our singular settlement
type, to increase the challenge of capturing large settlements, and
defensive castles, to improve pathfinding, etc.
We also intend to increase the health of walls and the range of
towers. This will further increase the challenge of siege warfare,
forcing the player to do more than create a single ram.
We also intend to increase the thickness of large and huge
settlement walls in order to allow the player to place siege
weapons on the walls (such as catapult or cannons)! The AI will
have siege equipment that will appear through the garrison script
to help him to exploit this wall’s advantage. Large settlements
will have preplaced squares in their wall in order to enable the
positioning of siege weapons. Huge walls will have entirely wide
walls, which will enable to player to exploit the feature and place
siege engines wherever he desires.
Speaking of siege weapons, the number of engines per unit will
greatly increase, making a player’s army even larger; as well
giving some much needed functionality to siege weapons in the
open field. Siege engines will also have their unit cost,
availability, and upkeep improved in order to give them
increased functionality.
Agents
The agents will be greatly improved and altered. We will be
introducing two new agents; the Knight and the Royal Lady.
Knight Agent and Tournament resource
The merchant has been removed in the War of the West – a
drastic change to be sure. We felt that the merchant agent doesn’t
really provide enough income to warrant the near mini-game
status of fending off irritating enemy merchant seizures.
Instead, we will be converting the merchant agent into a new one;
the Knight. This agent, recruited from your Royal Court, will
represent your kingdom in jousting tournaments across Europe.
You will be able to control up to 2 knights at the same time.
The knight will participate in tournaments and earn money from
them. The tournaments will be represented as a new resource in
game. Tournament resources will have up to five levels, the
higher the level, the more quickly your knight will gain
experience. The resource will also generate income as long as the
knight is in the tournament, much like merchants do.
The difference is the in the new feature, the knight’s challenge!
Your knight will wander the map in searching for great prizes,
challenge, and a chance to better his skill. Your knight may even
be challenged by rival knights. If your knight defeats a rival’s
knight, you will receive a monetary reward (taken from the Rival
faction) and your knight will gain experience. If your knight is
defeated, then he may even be vanquished himself.
The knight will have different traits and models. Just as the priest
can become a bishop or a cardinal, the knight may become a
stronger challenger, the progression of which goes like this:
Knight --» Chivalric Knight --» Knight Champion.
The more experienced the opposing knight is, the more money
will be received by the faction of the victorious knight! Therefore,
the player’s aim will be to gain access to the best tournament
resources and defeating opposing knights!
Royal Lady
The royal lady acts similarly to the royal princess; the difference
is that the royal lady is recruitable from the Royal Court. The
royal lady will also be able to gain an education based on
courtesy, manners, and diplomacy at the settlement from which
they were recruited. She will be able to “bribe” rival generals by
marrying them, but, as with the princess, the marriage may
backfire.
Assassin
The assassin agent has been completely overhauled; they are now
even more useful and deadly! The assassin will be recruitable
from either the Prison or the Dungeon, where the worst criminals
may find redemption, if they help their sovereign do his dirty
work, that is.
The assassin will now have no upkeep; the payment will be based
on contracts. Each time the agent succeeds at assassinating a
target or destroying a building, the agent will receive a payment
from you. Doing a risky job will be quite expensive, but the result
may worth the price. The higher ranked the character is, the
higher the contract cost will be.
The assassin may evolve, just like the priest and the knight, and
they have new skills and models. This progression will be as
follows: Criminal --» Assassin --» Specialist.
The assassin also has the ability to spread disease and plague
after successfully destroying a building, at a small but increasable
chance.
Spy
Spies will also be changed. Their initial role will still be the same;
infiltrate a settlement and increase unrest in it. This agent will be
recruitable from the Tavern building tree and will have access to
an evolution system, just like the assassin. The progression will be
as follows: Thief --» Spy --» Infiltrator.
The spy will also have the ability to disturb characters. The spy
may attempt to infiltrate a characters security, and, if he succeeds,
he may impose penalties on that character. These penalties range
from a decrease in personal security (for easier assassination) or
the robbery of equipment (the removal of certain equipment
related ancillaries). Coupled with an assassin, these two agents
can cause enormous trouble to rival factions.
Diplomat
The diplomat will gain access to education. The settlement in
which the diplomat is recruited must possess a school and library,
which will increase the quality of the diplomat’s education. So far,
no new skills will be implemented for the diplomat, but we will
make the diplomat able to become an ambassador. The agent will
have receive an increase in diplomacy, along with an increasing
the chance to bribe a general and a new character model.
For now, these are the planned alterations and additions to
agents, but we may introduce new or improved agents later in
development.
Education
The mod will introduce an education system to your characters.
There will be new buildings that will specifically teach a your
characters in a certain manner, depending on how you want those
characters to progress. Generals will receive either a military or
administrative education. Dependably on the alignment of your
character, the level of education may reach a normal level or
beyond. For example, a militarily-minded general will be able to
get the 3rd (maximum) level of military education but will not be
able to exceed the 1st level of administrative education. The
development path will also come into play, as will interactive
events.
Certain agents will also gain an education, as well. The diplomat
and the princess/royal lady will be able to gain access to their
educational domain.
Diplomacy
At the beginning of any given campaign, you will have the choice
of setting the factions to their historical relations or setting all
factions to neutral. Players who prefer challenge will generally
opt for the first option.
Diplomatically, we have decided to remove the “gift” agreement.
Historically, when coming to diplomatic agreements, nothing was
free; tributes, marriage and trades arrangement were usually
expected after the conclusion of a treaty. Therefore, you will no
longer have free agreements. For example, if you wish to form an
alliance, then you will have to offer something in return in order
to conclude the treaty.
Relations will also improve greatly; betraying an ally will be fatal
to your reputation and making an alliance afterwards will be very
difficult. Remember that all your actions will affect your
reputation in Europe; a peaceful faction will be a better target for
an alliance than a faction that starts opportunistic wars.
Vassalage will also be improved, as the player will now actually
have the option to perform a vassalage (in vanilla, performing a
vassalage was nearly impossible to do, as AI factions would
generally fight to the death).
The AI will be very aggressive from now on. If they are at war
with you, it will really be Total War! They will sign a ceasefire
only if they can’t defeat you or their economy is suffering to
heavily. Expect to offer a large sum if you are the one proposing
the ceasefire.
Even though they are aggressive in war, they will still be loyal as
allies, to a certain extent. If a player has a poor relation with a
faction and an allied faction decides to ally with it, there may still
be a chance for the player to be backstabbed by this ally.
You will now have the chance to ask a faction to start a war with
another faction! Having a well established alliance with the
faction in question makes this easier, of course.
Conclusion
There are many other improvements that aren’t listed in the
preview, suffice it to say that we are reworking the whole vanilla
game; we intend to improve all of the game’s features and to
make this modification the best Total War experience possible. If
you have any questions, concerns, or comments that you want to
address to the War of the West or its team, feel free to express
them on our thread.
Thank you very much for reading this preview. We hope you
enjoyed it!
War of the West Official Members
St. Polycarpe (Team Leader, Coder, Scripter)
Kjertesvein (Right Arm, Researcher, Management)
Lord Hamilton (Unit Modeler, Texturer)
SonofPeverel (Researcher, Mapper, Coder, Scripter)
David93 (Coder, Scripter)
Warman222 (Animation, Cinematograph)
BLIP99 (Mapper)
Ancient Aliens (Researcher, Content Writer, Publicist)
Kevindrosario (Coder, Scripter)
Tsarsies (Coder, Scripter)
Ichon (Researcher)
Credit, Permission and Special Thanks
o Germanicus Custom Settlements
o Chivalry II: The Sicilian Vespers
o Raaka's Norse Roster.
o Narf of Picklestink ( M&B Open Source)
o Ferrum Aeternum
Complete Byzantine Unit Roster
Mr, Crow Weaponpack
Mr. Crow/Johnwhile War Wagons
Dejawolf Medieval Helmet Pack
Narf's Transitional Pack
Broken Crescent (Alpha Delta)
Rusichi Total War
Tsardoms Total War
Lord Calidor Weapon Pack
Point Blank RC/RR Compilation Set
Baltic Total War
Shredzorz Weaponpack
Wrath of the Norsemen
Swagger's Mod Pack "L'Outremer"
Germanicus5 BAI
King's Banner
Royal Lady of the Court
Eothese's Expanded America Mod
Crimson Tide 4.2
DLV Europa Mod
Blood, Broads and Bastards V.3.2
Davide.Cool Cog Warships
Davide.Cool Merchant Ships
Davide.Cool Better Water 2.0
High Quality Sky Texture 1.0
1066 Mod
Redesigned Strat-models Settlement
Xeryx AI (XAI)
Hunter Makoy's Ultimate Education Mod
Magyar Mod
XIIth Century Totalwar Version 2.5
RR_Raptor65 (M&B Open Source)
Thick_1988 ( M&B Open Source)
Tsardom Total War
Byg Grim Reality
The Last Kingdom
Agart and Overlord.U Improved Strat Models (Castle and
City)
Briarius Animation Pack
Deus Lo Veult Kaiser1993 Sound Mod 0.91
Louis Lux's Building UI from TATW.
All the fans that support us, the modders from the Mod
Workshop that always help us to continue our project; Gigantus,
Ishan, Moon, Taiji, Withwnar, Eothese, TNZ.